Ohio Voters Deliver Major Pro-Abortion Win (for Democracy!)

Plus: The State of Texas argues fetuses are not people if they are an inconvenience to the State of Texas

August 13, 2023

Here’s another edition of Hard to Believe It’s Only Tuesday, a weekly roundup of the top headlines, tweets (for now!), toks, takes, and more in abortion news. You can always email me ([email protected]) or DM me on instagram with action items, takes, and news clips. This post is probably too long for email, so click on the links up there ^ above the headline to open in your browser or the Substack app. You don’t want to miss this week’s Good Night and Good Dunk!

NOTE: Here’s a short, five-question, multiple-choice-answer survey for HTBIOT readers about content and frequency! I’d love for y’all to let me know how you feel about these roundups and how I can make them better and more useful for you. Literally this will take like 90 seconds, max.

In the meantime, I’ve reworked and refreshed the resources selection below, so give it a gander if it’s been a while. I’m also sending this edition out on Sunday instead of my usual Friday drop, because I ADDED A KITTEN TO MY HOUSEHOLD THIS WEEK!!! and was very busy getting her acclimated to her new home instead of drowning myself in sad fucking abortion news. I’m thinking of making the switch from Fridays to Sundays a permanent change for this abortion news roundup, but I’d love to know what you think about it. So please take the survey! Ok, on to the news.

The big takeaway: Excellent, excellent news out of Ohio, where voters roundly rejected “issue 1,” a Republican-backed attempt to make it harder to amend the state’s constitution. Issue 1 was specifically intended as a democracy-dampening measure that anti-abortion politicians and lobbyists hoped would thwart what is likely to be strong support for a pro-abortion-rights amendment coming up for a vote there in November. I’ve rounded up some of the most interesting coverage below.

The Top Headlines

The Takes

Now the operations director for the West Alabama Women’s Center, Robin Marty was one of my earliest colleagues when I started covering abortion rights years and years ago at Rewire News. Her updated book, the New Handbook, looks at “abortion legality, access, and practical support” in today’s landscape. Check out Marty in conversation with Rewire’s Jessica Mason Pieklo here, plus her recent appearance on MSNBC talking about her clinic’s lawsuit against the state of Alabama.

I’ll draw a winner’s name from my subscriber list at random next week. Stay tuned!

The Tweets/Toks/Grams

  • Media critic Allison Hantschel has the right of it here. Part of what makes Nikki Haley’s attempts to carve out a (laughably) ~ compassionate ~ stance around not executing people for having abortions so interesting/terrifying/weird/sad is that she’s trying to pull the emergency brake on a train that is actually in fact an anti-abortion rocket ship that’s already been shot halfway into orbit.

  • Repro scholar Hayley McMahon with the crystal ball take:

The Fuck Are We Supposed to Do About It?

Goodnight and good dunk — welp!

That’s all for this week. I’m sure I’ve missed something you’d like to see featured in this roundup, for I am but one woman with a computer and an abortion-news-induced drinking problem. Holler at me — [email protected], or DM me on Instagram, and I’ll try to add follow-ups as I’m able.