The Quickie: This A Reminder - Abortion Rights Stay Winning
For Immediate Release: Aug. 10, 2023
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: Abortion rights stay winning (Queen Bey’s version), the summer of abortion ballot initiatives continues, and Idaho professors challenge an anti-abortion, anti-free speech law.
ABORTION KEEPS WINNING: BEYONCE EDITION: THIS A REMINDER – Voters continue to make it clear, every chance they get, that they support abortion rights. From Ohio, to Montana, to California, to Kentucky, to Kansas, to Vermont. Abortion remains undefeated at the ballot box, and here’s how we think Beyoncé would celebrate…Renaissance style:
America Has A (abortion) Problem and people are responding with big Energy. The Supreme Court took away our rights, but last night Ohioans, embracing their summer renaissance, proudly said “you won’t Break My Soul.” Anti-abortion politicians in Ohio were feeling smug and Cozy. But now we’re All Up In Their Mind and they’re Heated. Off to November, where Ohioans will tell anti-abortion politicians once again to Move out the way, abortion rights are here to stay.
You think everyone is on Mute? Nah. Check out more hot takes here. And even more coverage on the fallout below:
Kevin Mazur / WireImage for Parkwood
BALLOT INITIATIVE SUMMER CONTINUES: Following this week’s massive defeat of Issue 1 in Ohio, abortion rights advocates are now seven for seven in winning ballot initiative fights post-Dobbs. As Bloomberg reports, efforts to expand abortion rights through constitutional amendments in the 2023-2024 election cycle are underway in a number of states including Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Ohio, and South Dakota. While voters are looking to protect their reproductive rights through these measures, they are also looking to elect candidates who will do the same. PPAF’s Olivia Cappello tells Bloomberg, these ballot initiative fights “force candidates to confront the issue head on.” There’s no doubt that abortion will remain front of mind for voters in races across the country. According to new polling from The Economist/ YouGov, 77 percent of respondents consider abortion to be very to somewhat important to them.
Read more from Bloomberg and the Hill.
IDAHO COLLEGE PROFESSORS CHALLENGE ANTI-ABORTION LAW OVER FREE SPEECH VIOLATION: On Wednesday, several Idaho college professors, the Idaho Federation of Teachers, and the University of Idaho Faculty Federation filed a lawsuit against the state’s 2021 No Public Funds for Abortion Act, calling its constitutionality into question. The law states that public funds cannot be used to “to promote or counsel in favor of abortion”, and the plaintiffs allege that this law effectively bans academic speech. The plaintiffs are also arguing the law is “viewpoint discriminatory” because it makes no mention of consequences for professors who share anti-abortion sentiments.
“Students are not infrequently assigned to argue a position they don’t agree with, it helps us think critically and communicate more effectively,” Martin Orr, president of the Idaho Federation of Teachers and a sociology professor at Boise State University, told The Idaho Capital Sun. “Can we suggest, even as devil’s advocate, that students argue in favor of reproductive rights? There are all sorts of fundamental teaching tools that start to look very dangerous in this context.”
Just last week, 19 attorneys general also sued the state of Idaho over its law criminalizing anyone who helps minors get abortions out of state.
Read more in Bloomberg Law and The Idaho Capital Sun.