Taking our pills away

News from the States continues to scare

This morning I woke up to the news that the Texan Judge Kacsmaryk has invalidated the FDA approval of the abortion pill mifepristone in a devastating judgement that has far-reaching consequences beyond abortion care.

I first became aware of Kacsmaryk in December, when I reported on a judgement he had made regarding access to contraception and reproductive/sexual health information to minors. The conservative judge, appointed to his role under Trump’s Presidency, is closely connected to anti-abortion organisations, including the Federalist Society. The case was filed by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine which includes five anti-abortion organisations as members.

A quick note: medical abortion generally involves taking two pills, mifepristone and misoprostol, to induce miscarriage. Medical abortions work most effectively when the two pills are taken as part of the treatment, .

The ruling is significant because it could restrict access to reproductive healthcare in states even where abortion remains legal. Healthcare providers will be able to prescribe misoprostol, a second abortion drug that is approved for other medical uses. But misoprostol is less effective on its own than when it is taken after mifepristone. Unsurprisingly, the plaintiffs in the Texas suit also sought to ban misoprostol, but the request for a preliminary injunction focused on mifepristone.

President Biden has said that he will fight the ruling, and in a statement reasserted the Democrat’s commitment to safe and legal abortion. Legal advice suggests the FDA can ignore the ruling.

So that’s the news. Here is my snap analysis.

The first point I want to make is that this is proof of how anti-abortion movement in America was never going to stop at Dobbs. I feel furious at some of the head-patting I received from liberal men who calmly assured me that women would still be able to access pills by post, even in states where abortion has been banned. As I wrote at the time, that was hardly the point: when women have their human rights stripped away from us, that sends a message about women’s roles and who society values.

But also, it was (wilfully?) naive not to think that this was around the corner. The anti-abortion movement will not stop until all means for women to control their reproductive health have been removed.

That’s why judges like Kacsmaryk have also taken aim, for example, at contraception – it’s why organisations such as Agenda Europe are anti-contraception; it’s why the Hobby Lobby ruling succeeded in creating a cultural shift that positioned access to contraception as a moral, not a health issue.

We even see it in the UK – realising that a ban on abortion will be supremely unpopular, anti-abortion MPs instead try to salami slice women’s rights, proposing a ban on sex-selective abortion, reducing the upper-time limit, or reducing the number of conditions that count as foetal anomaly. We even saw an attempt, not that it was described as such, to imbue the foetus with personhood over the row on abortion and Downs Syndrome.

Women were not being hysterical when we warned that the anti-abortion movement will come next for abortion pills… we were being realistic. As ever, it would really help if liberal men who claim to be on our side would STFU, listen, and believe us.

My second observation is about organisations: this ruling once again shows there is an effective anti-abortion network operating in the US that is using the courts to undermine women’s reproductive rights. You know this already but it bears repeating. Whenever I see a news story like this I hold my breath until Alliance Defending Freedom turns up in the report and it’s like: there you are! Even Kacsmaryk’s appointment points to the co-ordinated nature of how the anti-abortion movement has used legal apparatus to get its way. The Federalist Society has helped to train and promote a generation of conservative, anti-rights judges, who were then promoted under Trump in order to create a conservative judiciary, right the way up to the Supreme Court. Groups like the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine bring cases. Legal charities such as ADF offer legal arguments and amicus briefs. Women’s rights are lost.

My third observation is about tactics and language. In the New York Times write up, Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel and lawyer for the anti-abortion groups that filed the case, Erik Baptist, spoke of the decisions against the FDA as about the “health and safety of women and girls”.

This is a perfect example of the Agenda Europe tactic of using the language of the opposition (in their case, the pro-abortion movement) against them. Notably, Agenda Europe and ADF are connected.

Increasingly we have seen the anti-abortion movement talk about denying women reproductive healthcare as being about our safety, even an expression of women’s rights. This week, while researching an article, I even heard an anti-abortion activist talk about how her organisation supports a woman’s right to choose (to have a baby). While reproductive justice means women should have the choice to have the children they want to have when they want to have them, it is chilling how the anti-abortionists are using the language of choose and human rights in order to deny women both.

Further, the ruling claimed that the FDA had not considered the “psychological effects” of mifepristone. This is a barefaced attempt to link abortion to mental illness, trauma or so-called post-abortion syndrome. It is to argue that abortion has a negative impact on a woman’s mental health and emotional wellbeing, a form of disinformation spread by the anti-abortion movement in order to manipulate women out of accessing abortion, in order to shift the narrative on abortion as something that is harmful, even dangerous, for women, and to undermine the legal basis for abortion.

(Some women will have negative emotions around abortion, the NHS has debunked the myth that it causes mental illness.)

While this accusation was levelled in the US, it is one of the most obvious tactics of the UK anti-abortion movement, which shares disinformation about the mental health impact of abortion in order to undermine the legal basis for terminations in Britain. The 1967 Act states that abortions can only be permitted if continuing the pregnancy will harm a woman’s emotional or physical health – but by arguing that abortion is worse for a woman’s health than pregnancy, the antis try to claim most abortions in Britain are illegal. They are wrong, but it is why we absolutely must fight this kind of disinformation.

Last note on language, and concerningly the judgement goes further than Dobbs in seeming to give the foetus personhood. This has worrying implications, as it puts the foetal right to life on a par with the pregnant woman’s or pregnant person’s. The judgement also repeatedly refers to the ‘unborn child’ or ‘unborn human’ – another common tactic promoted by groups such as Agenda Europe to change the narrative around abortion.

So lots to be concerned about here.

Obligatory book plug

Err, hello my first book review! Published in the Kirkus, in the US, I was told by a friend that it was “unequivocally good”. So that’s nice isn’t it?

The cover endorsements are now published on the pre-order page and they are so so lovely.

“Norris … is a fighter for a better world and her work might just help us win one” writes Jack Shenker. “Necessary reading” argues Katharine Angel. “An incisive account” from Helen Hester. “A groundbreaking and definitive study of far-right misogyny and how to fight it” says Paul Mason.

And if you had told me in 2014, when I saw Lynne Segal give a keynote at a feminist conference, that she would one day write of MY WORK that it is “a splendid call to arms”, I probably would have believed you because I have always been very ambitious, but my goodness, what a wonderful thing to say.

You can pre-order both the hard back and the eBook now.

What I’m loving

The most important investigation I read/watched this week was the Ria Chatterjee report into stop and search actions against women and girls, which often led to them being stripped and even assaulted… officers once again acting with impunity.

What I’m writing

So one of the weirder things about no longer working at the place I used to work is that I am not writing 4-6 articles a week. This means I have nothing to share with you on the writing front!

But… I did file a feature to Inside Housing and to The Lead, and have a lot of commissions on the go, it’s definitely not the case that I haven’t been writing.

My article about going undercover in the anti-abortion movement made the front page of the i paper so that was exciting.

On the writing front, I have been living opposite major construction works for a year now and still have another year to go. In general I prefer to write in total silence, I absolutely cannot work to songs with lyrics, but the hammering and drilling and cement mixers have forced me to turn to some form of music to block out the noise. My friend Terra recommended the BBC’s Focus Beats and I have to say, they are great. I was getting a bit bored of just listening to ballet music all the time.

What I’m reading

Last Saturday I finally got round to reading August Blue by Deborah Levy and it was remarkable. She is always remarkable of course. Reading it was like living in a beautiful piece of music that you never wanted to end.

I am still reading Do Not Disturb by Michela Wrong re Rwanda.

Golden age detective fiction this week has been The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side.

And this morning I started The Biography Of X by Catherine Lacey which is extraordinary. Along with the Levy, it’s a contender already for book of the year. Whatever you are doing this bank hols, stop it and just read it. I cannot put it down.

What I’m watching

Last week I really enjoyed watching the ballet of Don Quixote by Birmingham Royal Ballet on iPlayer. It was Carlos Acosta’s version.

That’s it! Hope you are having a lovely lovely bank hols and getting out in the sunshine. I’ve spent a big chunk of mine researching far-right networks. Don’t ever let it be said I don’t know how to relax.

Until next time…