Bad Mothers: October roundup

Abortion bounty hunters, and Americans in the UK doing the work

I’ll be honest: the Strict Scrutiny podcast is way above my level, but I listen anyway because I’m sure it is making me smarter. The hosts — Leah Litman, Kate Shaw and Melissa Murray — know their stuff and provide detailed updates on the Supreme Court and other district cases. The October 14th episode included an important note on a decision in Texas, which (in my layman’s terms) is the one where a woman’s ex-husband sued her three friends for helping her obtain abortion medication. The case didn’t go forward because the judge wouldn’t force the women to say where they got the medicine (also the ex-husband was apparently blackmailing her into having sex with him; seems like a great guy). The Strict Scrutiny hosts explain why this is scary:

“So the court refused to compel production of the evidence in part because it suggested doing so might cause the parties to incriminate themselves by indicating they violated, wait for it, the Comstock Act by distributing medication abortion through the mail. So that's scary, right? This is a court suggesting that there is a chance the Comstock Act, the 1873 Victorian Anti-Vice Law does in fact prohibit the distribution of medication abortion through the mails and functions as, again, an abortion ban that is already on the books that a Republican administration could begin enforcing without Congress having to pass a new law or at least try to do so.”

So, the Comstock Act is already rearing it’s ugly head. I have no doubt things would only get much worse under a Trump administration, particularly if he gets to appoint new justices to SCOTUS.

Still with abortion news, The Cut explained why Trump and Vance’s denial of “abortion bans” is just a trick. (Something Jessica Valenti has been saying for months).

Abortion opponents use the word ban to describe legislation with no exceptions for abortion care whatsoever, while they use minimum standard to describe bills that do include what Trump called “the three exceptions.” To the rest of us, they would do the exact same thing: effectively outlaw abortion nationwide.

And if it isn’t clear by now, I’ll say it again: Trump and his minions can keep their “exceptions” because they don’t work. On this point, there was a devastating interview on The Opinions with a doctor who explained how she was forced to further traumatize her 13-year-old rape victim patient due to abortion restrictions in her state. It’s pretty horrific, but suffice it to say she had to ask this child if she wanted to keep pictures from the sonogram.