On reducing abortions, the Hyde Amendment, and later abortions
Last week, we shared why we were voting for Joe Biden under the hashtag #ThisIsWhy2020. The hashtag was part of a collective effort on the part of us and our friends in the podcasting space to make room for those of you thinking about your vote and your faith in new ways, especially around abortion.
Not surprisingly, many disagreed with us. Conservative commentator Allie B. Stuckey posted "Do Democrat Presidents Decrease Abortions?" Lots of you have asked us to respond so let's do this. Buckle up, it's a long one.
First, Ms. Stuckey argues that correlation does not equal causation when it comes to the presence of a Democratic president and the reduction in abortions. Ms. Stuckey is 100% correct. The reasons women get abortions (especially later abortions) are incredibly complex and saying that abortions decrease for one reason - the presence of Democrats in the Oval Office - is a little fraught. (For what it's worth I don't think a single person was arguing that was the sole cause but whatever.)
She argues that what caused the decrease were Republican restrictions at the state level and that since Republicans have traditionally increased their control of legislatures during Democratic presidencies that explains the decrease. She quotes the Guttmacher Institute (and points out it's a pro-choice research institute) in saying restrictions did increase and that some of those restrictions closed down clinics and then leaves you to imply the Guttmacher Institute (a PRO-CHOICE institution) reached the conclusion that was the reason there was a decrease.
Unfortunately, the Guttmacher Institute reaches the exact opposite conclusion, as evidenced by the headline which I'm assuming she read since it was in her list of citations.
For example, here's a pretty helpful statistic she chose to ignore.
"While 32 states enacted 394 restrictions between 2011 and 2017, nearly every state had a lower abortion rate in 2017 than in 2011, regardless of whether it had restricted abortion access. Several states with new restrictions actually had abortion rate increases."
The Guttmacher Institute states many possible causes (because correlation is not causation!) including falling birth rates due to the accessibility of contraception and insurance under the ACA, decline in sexual activity, and increase in infertility. Ms. Stuckey does not address the falling birth rate or decreased sexual activity.
She then pivots and argues that "Democrats have no interest in decreasing abortion" and that the new motto is "through nine months, taxpayer funded, without apology" If we look to the major candidates for the Democratic nomination, there is an undercurrent of truth in her argument. The Democratic party has moved to the left on abortion.
For example, the New York Times: "Every candidate The Times surveyed supports codifying Roe v. Wade in federal law, allowing Medicaid coverage of abortion by repealing the Hyde Amendment, and removing funding restrictions for organizations that provide abortion referrals...Very few support restrictions on abortions late in pregnancy."
Let's break a few of these down that Ms. Stuckey is particularly concerned with and that come up a lot in these conversations.
The Hyde Amendment bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, except to save the life of the woman or in the case of rape or incest. This amendment applies to people receiving federal funds for their medical care aka Medicaid recipients. As of 2016, Medicaid currently serves approximately 15.6 million women in the United States, including 1 in 5 women of reproductive age (women aged 15–44). Ms. Stuckey seems to imply that if the Hyde Amendment was repealed the federal tax payer would be on the hook for ALL abortions which is untrue. (She also uses a quote to imply that abortions declined after the Hyde Amendments passage but of course correlation isn't causation!) Repealing the Hyde Amendment would just stop penalizing women who depend on Medicaid and force them to pay for a legal medical procedure themselves.
The argument for the Hyde Amendment is certain taxpayers should not be forced to pay for things they are morally opposed to. Of course, the American tax base is full of pacifists and opponents of the death penalty and prison abolitionists and I don't hear any arguments that taxpayer money shouldn't be spent on capital punishment or war or prisons so that seems inconsistent to me.
Abortions in the second and third trimester are of particular concern to Ms. Stuckey. She call Kamala Harris an "abortion radical" and cites her cosponsorship of the Women's Health Protection Act. She also cites Democratic opposition to the Born Alive Infant Survivors' Protection Act. She throws in a passing reference to Doe v. Bolton for good measure, claims that 10,000 later abortions occur every year, AND claims "These kind of abortions are never medically necessary."
Whew, ok.
First of all, she cites Planned Parenthood as the source of the 10,000 number but I can't tell in her list of citations where she got that number. The CDC puts the number at closer to 5,000 for 2016. For added context, Doe v. Bolton is a 1973 Supreme Court case that found a woman may obtain an abortion after viability, if necessary to protect her health. So, abortions after viability are rare but legal, according to the Supreme Court.
Ms. Stuckey has a degree in Communications Studies so I'm not sure where her medical expertise comes from but her assertion that abortions in the second and third trimester are never medically necessary is to me the most offensive claim she makes in the entire piece. It is also patently false.
I also don't have a medical degree so let's listen to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who was forced to issue a statement when the rhetoric around the state laws Ms. Stuckey also cites got so loud. "The neonatal risks of late-preterm and early-term births are well established, and the potential neonatal complications associated with elective delivery at less than 39 0/7 weeks of gestation are well described. However, there are a number of maternal, fetal, and placental complications in which either a late-preterm or early-term delivery is warranted."
Notice they use the term delivery because "partial birth abortion" is a political phrase not a medical term. The Washington Post did a great breakdown including this from Jennifer Gunter, an obstetrician and gynecologist practicing in California: “A good example is a woman at 26 weeks who needs to be delivered for her blood pressure — that is the cure, delivery. However, because of her high-blood pressure fetal development has been affected and her fetus is estimated to weigh 300 g, which means it can not live after delivery. She will be offered an abortion if there is a skilled provider. This is safer for her and her uterus than a delivery.”
If you would like to read a heartbreaking personal story of a woman who had to have a medically necessary delivery, which her state classified as an abortion, click here.
Now, I don't want to imply that all abortions that occur in the second or third trimesters are medically necessary. They are not. One of the best studies (which Ms. Stuckey links to) states that women who received later term abortions "were raising children alone, were depressed or using illicit substances, were in conflict with a male partner or experiencing domestic violence, had trouble deciding and then had access problems, or were young and [experiencing their first pregnancy].” Now, I would argue the best way to reduce later term abortions would be to remove obstacles to first trimester abortions just like I argue the best way to prevent abortions is easy access to birth control.
Last but not least, let's tackle the Born Alive Infant Survivors' Protection Act, which institutes criminal penalties for medical professionals who don't provide medical care when a child is born alive after abortion or attempted abortion. Here's a really great and detailed explanation of the legislation from Fact Check. This legislation was redundant because infanticide is already illegal (under the 2002 Born-Alive Infants Protection Act which passed unanimously) and limits doctors choices in the most difficult circumstances when, as we discussed above, something legally defined as an abortion is actually an induced birth due to risk to the mother or of genetic abnormalities.
(Aa an aside, Senator McConnell determines what gets a vote in the Senate. They had 428 roll call votes in 2019, a huge majority of them judicial confirmations because that is Senator McConnell's top priority. He made room for this redundant legislation to create attack ads so that people like Ms. Stuckey could claim Kamala Harris supports infanticide but didn't make room for legislation of health care costs, immigration reform, climate change. I encourage you to scroll through the list and see if the legislative priorities of your family or community are present. Mine are not.)
Now, Ms. Stuckey doesn't bring up Kathy Tran but I know many of you have had her words on the floor of the Virginia Assembly thrown at you so I want to address that quickly. Delegate Tran has been on our show and I like her a great deal. In 2019, under questioning, she stated a doctor could provide an abortion while a woman was already in labor. The explanation for her answer is quite simple. She misspoke and I think her words on that moment might seem familiar to all of you.
“I wish that I was quicker on my feet and I wish that I was able to be more agile in that moment,” Tran, 41, a first-term Democrat from Fairfax County, said in an interview. “And I misspoke, and I really regret that.” I encourage you to read her full interview here: Del. Kathy Tran was known for nursing her baby on the House floor. Now she’s getting death threats over abortion.
I've now spent several hours writing this rebuttal to Ms. Stuckey's argument. Just like every other time I get in the mire on abortion I feel like the time would have been better spent on the issues affecting Americans we can all (mostly) agree on - health care, immigration, climate change, racial justice. I think the argument is more worthwhile for Ms. Stuckey for a reason really revealed for me in this episode of Rough Translation recommended by Nicole. Actually, I think Nicole nails it so I'm going to quote her, "It was not possible to differ openly in any way that threatened the solidarity of the church, not as disciples, but as voters." The women who posted #thisiswhy2020 threatened the solidarity of evangelical politics and so if the argument can no longer be everyone who is like you votes this way then people like Ms. Stuckey have to move to "policy". I put policy in quotation marks because as I hope I've shown here the policy arguments aren't as straight forward as implied and are often deliberately misleading. They want to simplify something complex and because that's the best way to protect that solidarity.
That doesn't feel like faith to me. It feels like dogma. It doesn't feel like grace to me. It feels like shame. It doesn't feel like connection. It feels like control.
I'm so proud of each and every one of you choosing faith and grace and connection right now. Despite my frustration with Ms. Stuckey and her ilk, I actually feel like what we are experiencing right now is a historical shift in how we think and talk and vote around abortion. That gives me profound hope and I'm so grateful for each and every one of you for participating in that history. I truly believe it will not only matter in November but that it will change our country for decades to come.