The Awful Consequences of Abortion Bans Make Republicans Feel Powerful, Not Ashamed

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Last week, a Massachusetts woman filed a class-action lawsuit against a local anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy center” that misdiagnosed her ectopic pregnancy, causing her to later require emergency surgery that involved the removal of one of her fallopian tubes.

We don’t know whether the Clearway Clinic made the misdiagnosis out of ignorance, incompetence, or malice. The most likely answer is some combination of the three. These fake clinics, which masquerade as legitimate health care providers, exist almost solely1 to dissuade pregnant people from seeking or accessing abortion care by any means necessary. They are widely supported by anti-abortion politicians and Christian organizations, and their practices and tactics are rooted in Christian religiosity2. According to the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute, there are more than 3,000 CPCs across the country. (I couldn’t find great numbers about the current number of clinical abortion providers in the United States, but there were a little over 1600 stand-alone clinical providers in 2020, and we know that many dozens have closed in the years since, especially post-Dobbs.)

What is clear is that the anti-abortion movement is deeply invested in cornering and coercing pregnant people into conversations about why they should not have, or be permitted to have, abortions. Even and especially if it means lying to them about their pregnancies, shilling mis- and disinformation about abortion, and shaming them about sex and sexuality. Along with the new wave of “maternity homes” that have sprung up and/or expanded their highly evangelical, strings-attached model of so-called “care” in the wake of last summer’s Dobbs ruling ending federal protections for abortion rights, crisis pregnancy centers were expressly designed for the purpose of confronting pregnant people with anti-abortion political and religious arguments and beliefs.

Which brings me to what is emerging as my biggest concern about the mainstream, post-Roe conversation about how to correct course on abortion rights and access: people (smart people! experienced people! pro-abortion people!) are suggesting that the best next step is demonstrating to anti-abortion crusaders—politicians and judges, especially—that abortion bans cause harm, as if what these heartless skinbags lack is evidence that forcing people to stay pregnant against their will results in increased maternal mortality as well as economic distress and suffering for parents and children alike.

As if the one thing nobody’s ever tried before is putting people who need abortions in contact with people who believe the government should force them to stay pregnant. As if the phrase “domestic supply of infants” had never been weaponized in the service of repealing federal abortion protections. As if confrontation of this type is not the dearest wish of the movement that invented the “40 Days for Life” harassment campaign. As if they’re shy about erecting monuments to their beliefs. As if Ginni Thomas had nothing more than a casual interest in overturning Roe.

Whether it’s mainstream repro rights organizations fixating on arguing for the safety of medication abortion on social media, or Pulitzer Prize-winner Linda Greenhouse wondering whether Clarence Thomas feels guilty about repealing Roe in light of post-Dobbs pregnancy horror stories, or feminist icon Jessica Valenti fantasizing about sitting people who need abortions down in front of the politicians who hate them3, I wonder if folks need a more thorough understanding of what motivates the anti-abortion movement, and the lengths they are prepared to go to to force people who need abortions to go to jail, give birth, or die trying.

Because the Clearwater Clinic got their face time with a woman who needed an abortion—indeed they got more than face time, they got ultrasound time poking around her reproductive organs. And they nearly fucking killed her. If they aren’t stopped by this lawsuit, the Clearwater Clinic and thousands of others just like it will do the same to the next person, and the next person, and the next person. That is what they are expressly built to do. If people suffer or die in the service of staying pregnant, then that is part of God’s mysterious plan.

Anti-abortion politicians and judges are not afraid of this eventuality; they relish and seek it. Anyone who has spent time in community with anti-abortion folks could tell you this, either because they believe it themselves or because they used to, once upon a time.

I am a “once upon a time” person. I have a firsthand, personal understanding of what people who want to ban abortion believe, because I used to be one of them. And much the same way I used to feel compelled to write tortured songs about the cold-hearted sluts who wouldn’t die for their babies, I now feel compelled to tell you this: anti-abortion crusaders—from Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito right down to your lowliest state lawmaker and scammy CPC executive—cannot be, and will not let themselves be, guilted or shamed by appeals to empathy or compassion for people who have abortions or who experience reproductive trauma.

They do not feel embarrassed, discomfited, or humiliated by their role(s) in the codification of forced pregnancy. They feel empowered.

If it were otherwise, we would have seen a rash of legislation across the country in the year post-Dobbs expanding to access to resources like contraception, Medicaid funding for birth and pregnancy, and social safety net aid to children and families. Very notably: we have not. In fact, states with abortion bans grow more dangerous by the day for pregnant people and their families.

Abortion bans are about coercion, control, and punishment for non-compliance with white, cisgender, hetero-patriarchal norms. I know that pro-abortion (and pro-choice people, if they’re not ready to claim the “pro-abortion” moniker) understand this. But this fixation on somehow ~ proving ~ once and for all and to the worst people and most powerful anti-abortion actors that abortion bans do harm says to me that there’s a political synapse connection either missing or misfiring somewhere between “abortion bans are fucked up” and “we just need to prove that abortion bans are fucked up.”

I am not arguing that we need some new version of Trumpy Midwestern Diner reporting to show how anti-abortion folks think — that we need to send coastal reporters out for a day or two’s sojourn talking to Real Americans. It’s already crystal clear that anti-abortion politicians have identified abortion bans as a third-rail subject about which they are fully prepared to disguise their intentions in order to retain or secure their positions. They cannot be trusted to answer questions honestly, though they should be forced to articulate their policy positions, particularly around pregnancy criminalization, on the off chance they're in a position to be held accountable someday.

But we do need conversations about abortion bans that are rooted in real understanding of the way anti-abortion politicians and judges think. We need for the folks driving pro-abortion policy and messaging to be acquainted in a real way with the reality and praxis of everyday anti-abortion politics and reasoning.

Because there is reasoning behind the anti-abortion politic. It is not “crazy” or “unhinged.” It is rooted in the logical preservation of white supremacy and patriarchy, for the benefit of people who seek an exclusively white, exclusively Christian America, or who believe that their service thereto will enrich and protect them from harm.

On the first anniversary of the Dobbs ruling days ago, former Vice President Mike Pence said that the anti-abortion movement must refuse to “rest or relent” and pass a nationwide abortion ban. He said this knowing anything anyone could ever know about the effects of the abortion bans now proliferating in fourteen states and counting—knowing as much as every anti-abortion lawmaker who has ever shut down testimony, as much as every anti-abortion judge who has ever eschewed arguments of science and fact, as much as any anti-abortion CPC counselor has ever heard from people who need abortions. He has all the information he needs about what happens when the government forces people to stay pregnant.

And he wants to escalate the charge to ban abortion not despite what he knows, but because of it.