U.S. Repro Watch, July 24

U.S. Repro Watch provides periodic updates on news of interest on U.S. reproductive rights. Here are a few recent items you won’t want to miss.

Battles heat up over ballot measures to protect abortion rights. . .

1. Florida’s deceptive language about its abortion rights ballot measure causes outcry.  

• In what Florida abortion rights supporters decried as a politically motivated “dirty trick,” a state panel approved biased language that will accompany the state’s November ballot initiative to protect abortion rights.
• The biased language asserts that the amendment would result in “fewer live births per year,” and that it “may negatively affect the growth of state and local revenues over time.” The language will appear in all state materials about the ballot measure seeking to enshrine the right to abortion into the state constitution.
• While the panel is supposedly nonpartisan, Gov. Ron DeSantis and another state lawmaker appointed several conservative members to serve on the panel.

2. Arkansas was sued for rejecting petitions submitted for an abortion-rights ballot measure. 

• Arkansans for Limited Government, the group supporting the proposed constitutional amendment, on July 16 asked the state supreme court to reverse the state’s decision rejecting the ballot measure.
• Abortion rights advocates had submitted over 100,000 signatures to place the proposal on the November ballot, but the state rejected thousands of them.
• Abortion is currently completely banned in Arkansas, and the proposed amendment would prohibit laws banning abortion in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

3. Arizona lawmakers were sued over biased language on a pamphlet about a November abortion rights ballot measure.

• In the election pamphlet to be sent to voters, lawmakers summarized the ballot measure using phrases like “unborn human being” to describe fetuses.
• Arizona for Abortion Access asked Maricopa County Superior Court on July 10 to order those overseeing the pamphlet to adopt accurate and impartial language. The group says the pamphlet summary should simply use the word “fetus,” and argues that “unborn human being” is a politically charged phrase aimed at provoking opposition to the measure.
• The citizen-led ballot measure seeks to enshrine the right to abortion in the Arizona constitution. Abortion is currently banned in Arizona after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

4. Montana judge allows signatures for abortion rights amendment.

• After the Montana Secretary of State’s office attempted to throw out some of the signatures submitted supporting a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights, District Judge Mike Menahan ruled they should be counted.
• Claiming Montana’s constitution offers a robust provision for citizens to pass initiatives and constitutional amendments, Judge Menahan said, “When you’re talking about the rights of people to participate in government, that’s a fundamental right that I think, as a judge, my duty is to uphold that right and give life to it and preserve it.”

Texas leads the nation in funding for anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers”—but the program is riddled with waste and lacks oversight.

• A new investigation from ProPublica and CBS News found that Texas officials have no oversight for the millions of taxpayer dollars provided to deceptive anti-abortion centers, known as “crisis pregnancy centers.” Texas allocates about $140 million in taxpayer dollars every year to the centers, yet some of them provide people with little more than pamphlets designed to deter them from having abortions. Funding for the centers has increased from $5 million in 2005, under the guise of supporting pregnant people and their families—but maternal and infant mortality rates have only grown in the state since abortion was banned.

July 29: Iowa six-week abortion ban to take effect.

• The state’s ban will prevent most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. According to Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, over 95% of abortions currently performed in Iowa will be illegal under the ban. With the ban, Iowa will join the 17 other U.S. states that either ban abortion entirely or after six weeks of pregnancy.