SSince the devastating defeat of Roe v Wade, the abortion rights movement has seen historic levels of support for its cause, especially with major victories on state ballot initiatives, with more expected in November. But as advocates seek to re-enshrine the right to abortion at the state level, a battle has emerged over whether to adopt Roe’s legal framework — or go beyond it.
Roe v Wade, decided 51 years ago Monday, protected the right to abortion until fetal viability — the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb — which is generally thought to be about 24 weeks. A number of voting campaigns planned for November are trying to bring back that standard — but a group of advocates are uniting to declare that the broader movement is making harmful compromises when it could instead be using the momentum to push for “clean” policies that don’t place strict limits on abortion access.
“There is a tremendous amount of pressure on leaders in various states to hold ballot measures, whether they are good or bad,” said Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, vice president of communications at the National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH), an advocacy group. leading to an effort to push the abortion rights movement to move beyond the Roe framework.
The group has joined forces with several other organizations to create an entity called the Learning and Accountability Project (LAP), which fights for what they call “clean” measures. The coalition plans to conduct polls and research to fight for expansionary policy, such as ensuring insurance coverage for abortions, and allowing minors to have abortions without their parents’ consent. They also plan to launch information campaigns on the viability issue.
Pamela Merritt, Executive Director of Medical students for choice, said this was an opportunity to avoid past mistakes. “We don’t need to recreate (Roe),” she said. “We don’t have to do this.”
The Supreme Court has established viability as a legal compromise in Roe to balance the rights of pregnant women against the state’s interest in a possible life. But the viability line, proponents say, abandoned people who subsequent abortions required and set the stage for Roe’s downfall: anti-abortion activists argued it was an arbitrary standard in the case that overturned the landmark decision.
The as-yet-unnamed project also includes the Society for Family Planning, Medical Students for Choice, Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (Color), the advocacy group Patient Forward; DuPont Clinic; and abortion provider Dr. Colleen McNicholas.
Restrictions on reproductive health care have never been based on evidence, says Dr. Jenni Villavicencio, interim director of public affairs and advocate for the Family Planning Association and an abortion provider for all trimesters. “It is inappropriate and does not work when government and politicians who are not scientific experts come in and tell us how to provide essential health care.”
Local chapters of Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are championing ballot measures with feasibility restrictions in states like Arizona, Florida and Nevada, while groups like the Fairness Project and other consultants are involved behind the scenes on polling places and voting language. Proponents of such measures often argue that there are limits to viability necessary to win, and these campaigns have become more and more integrated into the Democratic election strategy. But members of the NIRH coalition are concerned about the potential harm if Roe’s compromise is written into state constitutions.
People need an abortion later in pregnancy for a variety of reasons, including new medical diagnoses, delays in care due to abortion restrictions and clinic closures, financial barriers such as a lack of paid leave or childcare, and simply discovering their pregnancy.
Sarah Standiford, national campaigns director for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said ballot measures are just one tool they plan to use to restore access in the coming years. Decisions around such measures are state-specific, she said, and groups must balance the competing needs of written language that protects access to abortion and can also withstand legal challenges and win over a majority of voters. “That may end up necessarily promoting policies that are far from the ideal,” she said.
Aurea Bolaños Perea, director of strategic communications for Coloursaid the reproductive rights movement had only made progress because groups like hers had pressured decision-makers to challenge the status quo.
As a Black woman in the movement, Merritt said she could not support proposals that trade away access from vulnerable people and impact the training of future providers. “Some rather than none have always screwed people who look like me,” she said, citing the 19th Amendment, which formally granted American women the right to vote but in practice kept it out of reach for black women. “It’s the classic second-wave feminist analysis that has historically done harm to people who have been marginalized,” she said of viability voting campaigns.
For abortion providers, the issue is not theoretical. “When I think about who will be harmed, I see specific patients. I see faces. I see the teddy bear and the 10-year-old and her mother’s tears,” said McNicholas, a trimester provider.
Framing restrictions as a political necessity reflected the movement’s internalized stigma around late-term abortion, said Erika Christensen, co-founder of Patient ahead, which ensures access during pregnancy. Christensen, who had to leave the state in 2016 for a abortion in the third trimester After discovering a fatal fetal anomaly, she said pushing for viability was a particularly flawed strategy in red and purple states like Arizona, where she lives, because it leaves the door open for hostile lawmakers to pass bans that would delay abortion criminalize pregnancy. “The stakes are higher in the so-called ‘red’ states. It is where so many people are already suffering,” she said. “Why are you codifying the conditions of suffering in our Constitution?”
LAP also believes that current ballot campaigns are doubling down on harmful anti-abortion stigma by conceding that banning later abortions is “reasonable,” rather than treating abortion as a fundamental right, Merritt said. And they argue that permanently enshrining boundaries in state constitutions could deny people abortions and increase their risk criminalization for abortions and miscarriages later in pregnancy.
As a tax-exempt nonprofit, the coalition cannot oppose or approve ballot measures, but they do hope voters can make informed choices. “We must be transparent and honest with abortion advocates in these campaigns. So if it’s not perfect, we have to acknowledge that,” Lee-Gilmore said.
“Every right I have in this country as a black woman — every right — I have because people didn’t accept ‘this is as good as it gets,’” Merritt said. “I simply cannot accept that reproductive rights activists are acting as if we need to throw in the towel.”
