The Quickie: Less Money, Mo Problems: More Attacks on Abortion in House Spending Bills

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.

In today’s Quickie: more attacks on abortion in House spending bills, anti-abortion politician Kelly Ayotte is wrong for New Hampshire, and new polling shows rising opposition to abortion limits.

LESS MONEY, MO PROBLEMS: MORE ATTACKS ON ABORTION IN HOUSE SPENDING BILLS: This week, anti-abortion politicians in the House will continue their crusade to take away our right to abortion and access to care by any means necessary–including the 2024 appropriations process. This week, they are expected to vote on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies bill, which includes measures to (1) ban funding for abortions through the VA and (2) would overturn a rule allowing veterans and their dependents to access abortion care through the VA under certain circumstances.

The House will also vote on the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies bill, where they’ve snuck in a measure to reinstate burdensome, medically unnecessary restrictions on mifepristone (a.k.a. medication abortion) that the FDA lifted earlier this year after an extensive, evidence-based review.

Anti-abortion rights politicians keep pushing their unpopular and extreme agenda at every turn – despite the clear and unequivocal support for abortion rights nationwide. When will they learn?

KELLY AYOTTE CAN’T HIDE FROM HER ANTI-ABORTION RECORD: Yesterday, former U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte announced her candidacy for New Hampshire governor. Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund wasted no time reminding voters why Ayotte is the wrong choice for New Hampshire. Throughout her career, Ayotte has built a record attacking sexual and reproductive health care access:

Voting to defund Planned Parenthood four times while in the U.S. Senate;
Voting for a national 20-week abortion ban;
Supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade;
Attacking birth control access; and
Defending an unconstitutional parental notification law while New Hampshire’ attorney general.

Ayotte is out of step with the supermajority of New Hampshire voters who support reproductive rights and want greater protections for abortion.

“Kelly Ayotte may try to paint herself as pro-woman, but her record tells a very different story,” Kayla Montgomery, Vice President of Public Affairs for Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund, said. “In her last campaign, Ayotte promised to overturn Roe v. Wade; now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decimated federal protections for abortion rights, her extreme anti-abortion agenda is even more dangerous… The future of abortion rights in our state depends on every election; Granite Staters can’t count on Kelly Ayotte to protect our reproductive rights.”

Read more at TheMessenger.

NEW POLLING SHOWS RISING OPPOSITION TO ABORTION LIMITS: Over the past several years, American voters have gotten more supportive of abortion access. Now, new polling from PerryUndem suggests that growing numbers of abortion supporters are opposed to any government interference, including limits, like viability, that were seen as non-controversial five or ten years ago. The polling aligns with other surveys that show increasing comfort with abortion later in pregnancy, especially post-Dobbs.

Pollster Tresa Undem told FiveThirtyEight that her polling challenges conventional wisdom about what people might vote for. “It’s natural to think, ‘We need a viability requirement if we’re going to win people over,’” she said. “But we’re in a shifting environment and everyone needs to check their assumptions, because they might not be true.”

FiveThirtyEight notes that while this shift is significant, the majority of voters still support some limitations on abortion: “Sarah Standiford, national campaign director of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which is working on the campaign for Florida’s ballot measure, said that advocates have to consider the ‘feasibility’ of passing measures in specific states. In Florida, for instance, the measure would have to get the support of at least 60 percent of the state’s voters for it to pass.”