The Quickie: Abortion Access Restored in Indiana

Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie" online here.

ABORTION ACCESS RESTORED IN INDIANA: Today, an Indiana circuit court granted a request to temporarily block the state’s abortion ban, Senate Bill 1 (S.B. 1), which had gone into effect a week ago. The court’s preliminary injunction immediately restores abortion access in Indiana. The plaintiffs, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, argued that S.B. 1 violates Hoosiers’ state constitutional right to privacy and equal privileges protections. As a result of the ruling, abortion providers will be able to continue to provide vital, life-saving care to Hoosiers while litigation continues. 

Joint statement from leaders from Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, ACLU of Indiana, Whole Woman’s Health, All-Options, the Lawyering Project, and Women’s Med: 

“We knew this ban would cause irreparable harm to Hoosiers, and in just a single week, it has done just that. We are grateful that the court granted much needed relief for patients, clients, and providers but this fight is far from over. Indiana lawmakers have made it abundantly clear that this harm, this cruelty, is exactly the reality they had in mind when they passed S.B. 1. There are 1.5 million people of reproductive age in the state of Indiana, and every single one of them deserve the right to make their own decisions about their bodies, families, and futures.”

Read more at PPFA.

THE FUTURE OF REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: Yesterday, Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, joined award-winning journalist Jemele Hill at The Atlantic Festival to discuss the abortion landscape following Roe’s overturn, the new national abortion ban proposed by Sen. Graham, and the growing support for abortion access across demographics and generations. Alexis also highlighted the great value in having open and frank conversations about abortion in our homes and communities: 

“We’ve seen, largely with young people, people of color, Black people, the increasing support for abortion without any restrictions has actually been on the rise significantly over the last decade,” said Alexis. “In large part because it is the opening salvo to ending democracy. They actually see the authoritarianism coming in behind these abortion bans.”

Alexis stressed that, for anti-abortion elected officials, the end game has always been to ban abortion nationwide: 

“The same day of the [Supreme Court] leak — that morning — the opposition had actually said that they were much more interested in a nationwide six-week ban. So they have been forecasting this for a while, and there is a very extremist side of the anti-abortion movement that is also looking to complete abolition, including criminalization of the mother. And so, we’ve known that this is the end game, right?.”  

Watch the full conversation here.

NEW POLLING SHOWS THAT AMERICANS IN FAVOR OF ABORTION RIGHTS ARE JUST AS MOTIVATED TO VOTE AS THEY WERE RIGHT WHEN ROE WAS OVERTURNED: New data from the latest Navigator survey reveals that Americans that identify as pro-choice continue to be significantly more motivated to vote due to Roe v. Wade being overturned than anti-abortion Americans. Overall, a majority of Americans (57 percent) report feeling more motivated to vote in November following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe, but motivation is highest among pro-choice Americans (71 percent) compared to only two in five anti-abortion Americans (39 percent) who say they are more motivated. Most Americans disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe (54 percent), including independents (54 percent) and Democrats (77 percent).