31 minute read
POST-ROE ARKANSAS
IN THIS UNPRECEDENTED ASSAULT ON WOMEN, ARKANSAS REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS ADVOCATES FIGHT BACK.
The my-body-my-choice mantra co-opted by anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers in recent years does not apply below the belt. At least not for women in Arkansas, whose equal rights under the law ended on June 24, 2022. No bodily autonomy for you, you dirty Whores of Babylon!
Watching Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge blubber with happiness as she signed the draconian measure into law was stomach-churning. With no allowances made even for victims of rape or incest, Arkansas’s cruel and shortsighted law might save a few gooey globs of cells but is guaranteed to kill women. Probably lots of them.
But reproductive rights activists in Arkansas and the rest of the country aren’t about to give up. The Arkansas Abortion Support Network pledges to help women access abortion care out of state, offering resources financial and logistic to get them to Illinois, North Carolina and other places where abortion is still allowable under state law. Doctors and public health experts are directing patients to online resources to help them procure abortion pills by mail. Planned Parenthood is amping up education and outreach to help women get hold of contraceptives, even as the constitutional right to birth control comes back under fire by right-wing commanders at the U.S. Capitol.
In this month’s issue we hear from law professors, nurses, activists and midwives who stand ready to help women navigate the bleak future until the revolution is at hand.
Recent battles for equal rights and bodily autonomy for Arkansas women are lost, but the guerilla war to regain them is well underway. When reproductive rights advocates say they won’t go back, believe them.
A New Mission Field
KAREN MUSICK ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A MISSIONARY. SHE’S BEEN DOING JUST THAT — AS AN ABORTION CLINIC ESCORT.
BY STEPHANIE SMITTLE
MUSICK ON A MISSION:
Karen Musick of the Arkansas Abortion Support Network.
BRIAN CHILSON Afifth-generation Seventh Day Adventist, Karen Musick was “raised looking for a missionary challenge.” Her high school was an Adventist academy. She went to an Adventist college. She grew up hearing stories of how far people would travel to visit her grandfather, a respected missionary doctor working in Africa. Musick’s first exposure to life
“outside of the Seventh Day Adventist world at all,” she told me, was when she graduated from college and went to New York City for a finance job in the World Trade Center.
But these days, that spiritual call has taken a very specific direction. As one of three volunteers who helm the Arkansas Abortion
Support Network, Musick spent the last eight years donning a rainbow vest with the word
“ESCORT” on it, accompanying patients from an often-vitriol-charged parking lot to the doors of the Little Rock Family Planning Clinic, the only spot in Arkansas that was dedicated to performing surgical abortions. None of the escorts, nor any of the organization’s three leaders — Musick, Ali Taylor and Roz Creed — take a paycheck for their work. And yet, when we talked with Musick a week after Arkansas’s
“trigger law” took effect and made abortions illegal immediately even in cases of rape and incest, every single person who had reached out for help from the organization had received assistance to get their transportation and procedure costs covered, “if that’s what they needed,” Musick said. “But how that’s going to work in another month, in another several months, is going to be different. There are a lot of barriers. The effort to try to make what we’re doing illegal is frightening.”
On the Friday morning the news came down that the U.S. Supreme Court, newly stacked with three Trump-nominated justices, would upend the 50-year precedent set by the Roe v.
Wade decision, Musick first heard the news on the concrete parking lot of the abortion clinic — from the mouth of an anti-abortion protestor. She and another escort were there at 7:15 a.m., mirroring the clinic’s appointment schedule. The three protestors (all of them men) who showed up that morning to harangue and photograph patients as they entered the clinic began “cheering and yelling,” Musick recalled, “and neither of us had gotten the notice yet on our phone.” Musick was left to console patients whose appointments had been
abruptly canceled. One patient had driven with her mother from Oklahoma for an appointment that day; the clinic hadn’t been able to reach her on the phone to give her the news, and she arrived to discover that she’d have to start the process all over again — in yet another state. “It was enough to scar me for life,” Musick said. “I can’t imagine the pain of the clinic staff. I’ll never get over some of the pain I had to witness.” Protesters turned up “out of the woodwork” that day after news of the decision spread, Musick said, “but so did half a dozen clinic escorts! They just didn’t know where else to go, so they just put their vests on and came on over and helped us through the day.”
Musick didn’t get home until around midnight that night. After her shift at the clinic, she went to the state Capitol for the reproductive rights rally that materialized in the immediate wake of the decision, where state Rep. Jamie Scott (D-North Little Rock), state Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock) and state Sen. Clarke Tucker (D-Little Rock) stood with Arkansans in the summer heat and spoke out against the abortion ban. “It was a very long day,” Musick said. “But the community is an amazing community. The support is incredible.”
Musick and the league of volunteers at
the Abortion Support Network had been anticipating the criminalization of abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a Texas abortion ban to take effect last fall, and especially since May 2, when a leaked Supreme Court opinion threatened future removal of federal protections for abortion access. Up until June 24, the text on the Arkansas Abortion Support Network’s website under the “Need help?” tab read: “ABORTION IS STILL LEGAL IN ARKANSAS.” Now, the website reads: “WE ARE STILL HERE. We can help you go out of state to access abortion in states where it is still legal.” Musick’s work has changed in expected and unexpected ways. She’s still helping pregnant people navigate access to safe abortions, albeit over the phone instead of in the clinic parking lot. She’s trying to remember to take care of herself — to “sleep well and eat appropriately, accurately, carefully, to keep myself fueled.” She’s fielding calls from reporters at national media outlets who want her to put them in touch with Arkansans seeking abortion access, and turning them down. “I’m not going to put people through that,” she said. “I’m not going to call people up and say, ‘Remember last month? A reporter wants to talk to you!’ … I’m delighted that people can share their stories,” she said. “It takes a lot of strength to be able to do that. If reporters are asking the right questions, it’s such an important thing to do — to connect the stories to the general population. But I’ve decided I’m leaving myself out of it. I can’t.”
There’s an exception to that rule, though: Musick’s own abortion story. “I had an abortion when I was in college,” Musick told me. The pregnancy, she said, “was not God-intended. It was not any-intended.” At her devoutly religious college, continuing the pregnancy
would have meant the end of her education, or worse. “I know for a fact my life would have taken turns that I can’t even begin to fathom if I had continued the pregnancy,” she said. “Although I can’t envision that. I seriously would have killed myself before having a baby at that point.” Having committed what her religious upbringing deemed a sin — sex before marriage — she “used that moment to reclaim my life for God. I wasn’t raised in a world where people thought it was a sin to have an abortion. The sin that I did was having sex before I got married. I knew that. But pregnancy is just an outcome of that. I had already sinned.” With that experience in the rearview mirror, along with a subsequent ectopic pregnancy, multiple miscarriages and, eventually, the birth of her daughter — her “pride and joy” — Musick considers herself an “abortion rights missionary” of sorts. “I see myself doing this the rest of my life, making sure that people have access to safe, legal abortions.” Though she doesn’t consider herself a practicing Adventist, she doesn’t bristle at another spiritual label — being called “an angel” by some of those whose lives she’s dropped into at pivotal moments. “I’m going to try and live up to that,” she said.
Musick’s husband of over 40 years, with whom she moved to Arkansas in 2001, rubs her feet at the end of a hard day. “He’s so proud of me,” she said. “My daughter will post pictures of me doing things and her friends will say, ‘Your mom’s such a badass.’ They give me the strength I need. Both of them do.” She’d love to be a grandmother, she says, “but not one second before my daughter is ready to be a mother.”
“When we started this as clinic escorts,” Musick said, “we never envisioned that the
ability for someone to access an abortion might depend on our abilities to raise enough money to help them get out of state. This is so much bigger than we envisioned it being. And it’s a little bit frightening because we’re all still volunteers.” Still, she said, she’s hopeful. “I believe in the good in people,” she said. “I believe that we’re put here to be of service to others. I believe that if we do have a purpose in this life, it has to include being kind, or why are we here?”
Danger grows for pregnant Black women
BY MARY HENNIGAN
The end of guaranteed abortion rights will affect people who can get pregnant nationwide, in some places more than others. In Arkansas, with abortions now banned almost completely with no exception for rape or incest, the law stipulates abortion is legal only to save the life of the mother. In the state that reliably languishes among the worst for maternal mortality in the nation, health experts predict a grim picture for pregnant
Black people in Arkansas.
Arkansas’s abortion ban will likely have a greater impact on Black women, said Gloria
Richard-Davis, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist for the University of
Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
“When we look at Black women and pregnancy, period, we’re at a higher risk,”
Richard-Davis said. “So, if you take away an option, and women who didn’t plan a pregnancy, or they have complications … all of those things will contribute to our increase in morbidity and mortality.”
Black women are three to four times more likely to die a pregnancy-related death, according to a 2022 report from the Arkansas
Advocates for Children and Families. And Black infants are twice as likely to die within their first year of life, compared to white infants.
“If we’re not addressing some of the underlying factors that are impacting Black women’s health, then they’re just going to persist,” said CaSandra Glover, author of the report. “If more women are going to be in a predicament where they’re going to have to give birth, this will just exacerbate those outcomes that are already trending negatively for Black women and other women of color.”
At Ujima Maternity Network, a Conwaybased nonprofit founded in 2018, sustaining Black women and their babies through healthy pregnancies and births is the goal.
“We specialize in women who are currently pregnant and fearful that their life might end because they’re pregnant,” Ujima Board President Nicolle Fletcher said. “I’m a Black mother, and I want to live.”
The group is relatively new, but growing. “I know we are the only organization founded and dominated by Black women, Black birth workers and professionals, as well as Black mothers,” Fletcher said.
Stances on abortion access vary among the board members, doulas, apprentice midwives and other providers who make up Ujima’s network of caregivers and advocates. Fletcher places herself on the right-hand side of the spectrum. Regardless, the trigger law banning abortion in Arkansas means more women will be having babies, and facing the health risks that pregnancy and childbirth entail.
A MULTILAYERED PROBLEM
Lack of money or insurance and a shortage of health care providers in rural areas are some of the numerous barriers keeping Black women from getting adequate pregnancy-related care. These factors are called social determinants of health. Compounded with the limited options available for unplanned pregnancies, they will likely contribute to an increased mortality rate among minority women in Arkansas, RichardDavis said.
“In Arkansas, Black women’s health and maternal mortality was already an emergency that we should have been addressing long ago,” said Laura Kellams, Northwest Arkansas director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. “[The abortion ban] will just make it more dangerous because people without the resources will be giving birth who may not have otherwise.”
Without the protection of Roe v. Wade, many Arkansas residents will likely choose to travel out of state for care. With bans in most of the Southern states, the nearest operational clinics are hundreds of miles away. Factor in travel, hotels, missed work shifts and child care costs, and it’s easy to understand why seeking an abortion outside the state is unrealistic for lowincome and underserved communities.
As more people carry children, Richard-Davis said, one of the most important things to do is to seek care as soon as possible. Because Black women are at a higher risk for pre-existing health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, they face a higher risk for pregnancy complications. The risks do not end after delivery, Richard-Davis said.
“If we are able to optimize women’s health, pre-conception, then we can improve on the outcomes for the mother and the baby,” she said. “Preventive care is critical. But in order to do that, there needs to be access and culturally competent care.”
On top of systemic obstacles, Black women often feel unheard and disrespected in medical settings, Richard-Davis said. These disconnects
‘CULTURALLY COMPETENT CARE’: A range of experts discussed the barriers for adequate health care for Arkansas Black women. From left to right; CaSandra Glover, Deneshia Simpson, Laura Kellams, Gloria Richard-Davis, Joi McGowan.
can fuel dangerous outcomes, she said.
“It really underscores the issue that women who are even within the health care system feel like their voices aren’t heard,” RichardDavis said. “They may bring up a problem and it gets dismissed. They know their bodies better than anyone else.”
Increasing diversity among medical professionals is a key component to providing a safer environment for people of color, she said.
‘YOU DON’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE STRONG, YOU CAN SET BOUNDARIES’
For now, mental health experts are unsure if the abortion ban will affect the need for mental health services among Black women in Arkansas. The same barriers to other types of care exist for mental health services, and a cultural stigma adds to that.
“There is that stereotype of, ‘We don’t share things outside of the home, or we rely on our faith,’ because dating back to slavery, that’s what we had,” said Deneshia Simpson, counselor and co-founder of Resilient Black Women, a nonprofit that prioritizes mental health resources for minority women in Northwest Arkansas.
A lack of diversity in existing psychiatric settings can also bring feelings of loneliness and dismissal, she said. Ultimately, having a therapist who will go to lengths to understand their client is best, regardless of any demographic. Still, Black women may question what level of understanding they can receive when they communicate racespecific issues with a white therapist.
“A lot of people in our field have said things like, ‘It’s like death by 1,000 papercuts,’ ” counselor and Resilient Black Women cofounder Joi McGowan said. “There is never really a moment to heal and recover. I don’t actually get an opportunity to stop being Black. I’m always a Black woman, no matter what room I go into. Either I’m the only Black woman, or I’m one of few. That’s a lot. That’s difficult.”
These experiences also lead women to question if they’re being too dramatic, or if they should follow the trope of a “strong Black woman,” McGowan said. “We want to tell women, ‘You don’t always have to be strong, you can set boundaries.’ ”
REMEMBERING HER PRE-ROE ABORTION IN A POST-ROE WORLD
"Iremember the day that Roe passed. I was a sophomore in college, and I remember saying to myself, ‘If they ever try to take this away, I’m going to go chain myself to the steps of the Supreme
Court.’”
Sarah Thompson hasn’t done that yet, but she has spent several years advocating for safe and accessible abortions by protesting, contibuting to groups that support women’s right to choose and monthly donations. The advocacy Thompson does today as a 68-yearold woman is because of the decision she made during the summer of 1971, before Roe v. Wade was made law.
Before the landmark case protected women for half a century, many were forced to travel hundreds of miles — or to perform dangerous methods of selfinduction — when they could not obtain local legal abortions. Now, with the law overturned, and abortions banned in Arkansas, many women and people who can become pregnant could find themselves in similar situations.
“I have always been so adamant that no little girl in Little
Rock should have to go through what I did,” she said.
Although it happened 51 years ago, the details remain ingrained in Thompson’s mind.
Thompson got pregnant shortly after her 1971 high school graduation. She was 17, lived in Little Rock with her parents and was preparing to move to Fayetteville for school at the University of Arkansas. Her period was
“clock-work regular,” and after missing one,
Thompson saw an OB-GYN in the city who confirmed she was about eight weeks pregnant.
After her doctor’s visit, Thompson told her mother she was pregnant while they watched afternoon soap operas. She told her father when he got home from work. Abortion was illegal in Arkansas at the time and together, they decided to travel to New York — 1,200 miles away from home — for the procedure.
She wore a white, blue floral patterned dress on the plane with her mother from Little Rock to New York. It was sleeveless and stopped above-the-knee. Thompson and her mother walked on the tarmac into the plane because the enclosed walkways were not yet regular.
She was wearing nail polish, which she was later asked to remove for the procedure. She only had enough remover to clean three fingers on her right hand, she said.
The atmosphere was not warm and fuzzy. Her mother paid with a traveler’s check, but Thompson does not know how much it cost. She was sedated for the surgery and kept overnight.
Afterward, three other women were in the room with her; one was from Florida and wore fake eyelashes. The hospital window was open; she could see the East River.
Thompson and her mother stayed a few nights before returning home to Arkansas. Once back, her mother helped her get on birth control. Thompson told her dad to sell the new car that had been a graduation gift. “I remember my mother saying, ‘We will never speak of this again.’ We never did,” Thompson said. When she went to college, she told lies to cover for her procedure — kidney infections, the car using up too much oil. Until a few years ago, most of Thompson’s family didn’t know about her abortion. “I have always felt extremely fortunate that I was able to get on with my life — get my degree, and my master’s degree,” she said. “I’ve been married 42 years. I have a 38-year-old son. It did not ruin my life. If anything, it made me more determined to be responsible.”
Thompson said she is “terrified” for the young women in Arkansas who will live in a post-Roe v. Wade world. She said she is concerned with a lack of sexual health education in public schools, and how access to resources will be limited.
“I’m ready to drive somebody,” she said. “I’m ready to donate. I’m ready to assist in any way that I can. Legally, it’s a minefield. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen.”
Thompson said she donates monthly to several groups, including the Arkansas Abortion Support Network, Progressive Arkansas Women’s PAC and Emerge Arkansas. She has been on the board for the Arkansas Coalition for Reproductive Justice and various Planned Parenthood boards.
When she looks toward the future of women’s reproductive rights in Arkansas, Thompson said her “heart breaks for them.” —Mary Hennigan
BRIAN CHILSON
BUSTING MYTHS AND SURVIVAL TIPS WHEN ABORTION IS OFF THE TABLE
The dreaded and dramatic end to all abortions in the state except to save a pregnant woman’s life has implications beyond locked clinic gates. The new law plunked Arkansans into a stew of confusion and unintended consequences.
Health and legal experts can help with some of it. Questions like, “What’s the difference between a morning-after pill and an abortion pill?” and “Is Plan B still legal?” are pretty straightforward.
But other questions have no solid answers yet. Will doctors need to wait until a woman’s condition has deteriorated to near death before they can swoop in with a life-saving abortion, or can they intervene earlier and remain on solid legal ground? Are we standing at the top of a slippery slope that will lead to Arkansans being criminalized if they seek abortion care across state lines?
We tapped the expertise of pharmacist Gwendolyn Herzig, Planned Parenthood physician Dr. Janet Cathey and American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas Executive Director Holly Dickson to clear some things up.
Are Plan B, the morning-after pill and the abortion pill the same thing? Are they all still legal? Abortion pills are not emergency contraception and emergency contraception is not abortion pills. In the foggy confusion of the Dobbs decision’s aftermath, reproductive health advocates are pushing to put this message in lights.
Plan B, often called the morning-after pill, is one brand of emergency contraception available without a prescription. It remains legal and available in Arkansas. Other brand names of this same drug include Take Action, My Choice, New Day, Next Choice One Dose, My Way, Fall Back Solo and Aftera. Ella, another medical emergency contraceptive pill made up of a different drug, requires a prescription.
These medications work by disrupting or preventing ovulation, meaning there’s no egg to be fertilized. They may also prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine lining, which is a requirement for a viable pregnancy. But the Food and Drug Administration said evidence suggests Plan B does not prevent implantation. And it’s only effective within five days of unprotected sex, although it works best the sooner you take it.
“Plan B is a contraceptive. It does not work if you’re already pregnant,” Dr. Cathey explained.
The abortion pill is not the same thing at all. The abortion pill, actually a set of two drugs, induces miscarriage. It’s no longer legal for health care providers to prescribe abortion pills in Arkansas.
Can you order abortion pills through the mail? You probably can, but it might be trouble. The Biden administration is fighting states’ attempts to ban them, likely setting up the next legal showdown over abortion rights. The pills are not allowed under Arkansas’s abortion ban.
ABORTION LAWS BY STATE
BANNED
Ban in effect Expected soon Ban Blocked
GESTATIONAL BANS
Six Weeks 15 or 18 Weeks
So how will this play out? “Possessing abortion pills is not illegal,” Dickson said. “The definition of abortion in the trigger ban includes ‘administering, procuring or selling’ abortion drugs ‘with the purpose to terminate the pregnancy of a woman’ [unless it’s your own pregnancy that’s being terminated]. It remains to be seen in what circumstances that would apply.”
Say someone in Arkansas takes the abortion pill but then finds herself in medical trouble. Will she be arrested if she goes to the hospital? There is no way for anyone to know whether you have taken an abortion pill or if you have miscarried naturally, a reproductive health nurse said. Her advice: “Tell them, ‘I just woke up like this.’ There’s no way for them to prove otherwise.”
Will long-term birth control methods become illegal in Arkansas? There’s definitely a lot of concern out there on this one. IUDs and implants that go under the skin (Nexplanon) are among the types of contraception that theoretically might prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine lining. Because so many Arkansas politicians whoop and holler about life beginning at conception, some worry contraception that has even the smallest chance of preventing a fertilized egg from implanting could be criminalized.
Herzig fields lots of questions about this at her pharmacy. “Are IUDs and tubal ligations still legal? People are fearing they won’t be on the table in the future, and a lot of people are rushing to try to get stuff done,” she said.
Cathey hears similar questions from patients at Planned Parenthood. And while she thinks it’s possible that access to emergency contraception, IUDs and implants is threatened, she cautions patients not to make rushed decisions. Women considering having their IUDs replaced early in fear that they won’t have the option in a few years when their current IUDs expire should take some time and be thoughtful, Cathey said.
“People are thinking, mine is OK for two more years but I need to change it now. I would not recommend that,” she said. “I don’t think anybody should make those decisions just because they’re worried and afraid. It needs to be a thoughtful decision.”
Will contraception become harder to get? Will my private medical information be safe? Contraception is pretty easy to get a hold of, and that’s a message Cathey wants to push. Pelvic exams are not required to get birth control pill prescriptions, and those appointments can often be done as telehealth visits for people who can’t get to the Planned Parenthood clinics in Rogers or Little Rock. No parental permission is required for people over age 14, and some types of birth control pills cost less than $10 a month, even without insurance. Your medical information is safe, she said.
— Austin Bailey
LEGAL FOR NOW
Lawmakers or courts could decide
LEGAL
Legal or protected
The Future of Arkansas Abortion Laws
PUNISHING PREGNANT ARKANSANS
BY JILL WIEBER LENS
Roe v. Wade is over. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, overturning almost 50 years of precedent.
Abortion is illegal in Arkansas with limited exceptions, yet it’s still possible and even likely that the Arkansas legislature will do more.
The law Arkansas adopted in June will do little to deter pregnant women from obtaining medication abortion and traveling out of state for an abortion. This means the likely next step for the Arkansas legislature is to target pregnant women directly.
Arkansas law bans doctors from performing abortions, with two statutory exceptions. The first is allowing treatment for ectopic pregnancy, when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus. Ectopic pregnancy can be fatal for the woman if untreated and the embryo/ fetus will not survive because of its inability to develop. Treatment involves ending the
pregnancy, but the Arkansas statute specifically defines this treatment as not an abortion. The second exception is when abortion is necessary to “save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency.” The statute defines medical emergency as “a condition in which a pregnant woman’s life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.” But how endangered does her life need to be? The dissent in Dobbs asked: “Suppose a patient with pulmonary hypertension has a 30-to-50 percent risk of dying with ongoing pregnancy; is that enough?” The Arkansas statute doesn’t answer this hypothetical.
Notice that I said the Arkansas laws prohibit doctors from performing abortions — criminally punishing doctors. Currently, pregnant women cannot be criminally punished for having an abortion. Arkansas’s abortion ban is clear that women cannot be charged or convicted “with any criminal offense in the death of her own unborn child.” Arkansas’s statutory prohibition on the use of telemedicine for medication abortion is clear that no penalty can be assessed on the pregnant woman. Similarly, Arkansas’s murder statute is clear that it does not apply to the pregnant woman in cases of fetal death. Under these statutes, the only person who can face consequences is the doctor. (Still, the laws are the same in other states, and eager prosecutors have still pursued even murder charges against pregnant women after pregnancy loss.)
We should all be prepared for this focus on doctors to change, however. This is due first to
the wide availability of the abortion pill drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, and second to the ability to travel out of state and obtain an abortion in a state where it is legal. Arkansans can still have abortions by either obtaining these drugs or traveling to another state — and not be subject to criminal or civil consequence. Mifepristone and misoprostol are the drugs used for medication abortion, and are also used to treat impending miscarriage. In 2020, over half of abortions in the U.S. were medication abortions. These drugs are extremely safe and FDA-approved for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy. It is illegal in Arkansas for a doctor to prescribe these medications for an abortion (or an impending miscarriage if the fetal heart is still beating). But these drugs are also easily accessible over the internet via international pharmacies. An organization called AidAccess has been offering abortion services to Americans since 2017, pairing patients with a doctor in another country who can prescribe medication abortion if appropriate.
A pregnant person could obtain these drugs, take them, and have an abortion. And Arkansas’s laws provide no consequences. Arkansas leaders are very clear that they want to end abortion in this state. If they want to stop pregnant women from obtaining and taking mifepristone and misoprostol, the most obvious way to do so is to punish pregnant women.
Even after Dobbs, abortion is still legal in about half of the states. If they have the means, pregnant women can still travel to another state
if they desire an abortion. This will not be an easy feat. The geographically nearest states where abortion remains legal are Kansas (for now — a ballot measure in August will determine if abortion remains legal in Kansas), Colorado and Illinois. Between the burden of getting time off work, and the costs of traveling and possibly of child care, it will not be easy for Arkansans to travel out of state and obtain a legal abortion.
But some will. And it’s likely that the Arkansas legislature will look to prevent this. Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) has already mentioned this
possibility. He is likely considering a law specifically targeting abortions that occur outside of Arkansas. The possibilities include laws that prohibit any doctor from performing an abortion on an Arkansan, making it illegal for Arkansans to get an abortion anywhere in the U.S., or prohibiting pregnant Arkansans from traveling out of state to obtain an abortion. The dissenting opinion in Dobbs brought up the possibility of these state laws, pointing out this future unknown.
Can a state legislature really do that? In his concurring opinion, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh dismissed this possibility, stating that in his view, states could not do so because of the constitutional right to travel. A recent prophetic law review article, however, answers more honestly: We don’t know. Some precedent says no, but it’s older and wasn’t about abortion. Plus, any rules of the game tend to change when abortion is involved (even overruling 50 years of precedent to take away a previously recognized right). And eventual legal resolution may not even matter. Even the possibility of legal ramifications has caused Montana Planned Parenthood clinics to stop providing medication abortion to outof-state residents.
Again, the most obvious way to stop Arkansans from traveling out of state to obtain abortions is to (attempt) to punish women. It would be much easier to do than trying to punish out-of-state doctors, especially since many states where abortion is legal have or are in the process of passing legal measures to protect their doctors.
Roe is gone, but the campaign to end abortion for Arkansans is not at all over. Punishing pregnant women was previously a bridge too far for most anti-abortion advocates. Governor Hutchinson has reassured that Arkansas laws will not punish pregnant women. But the current circumstances — the availability of medication abortion and legal access to abortion still in about half of the states — mean that abortions will continue. If the Arkansas legislature is as anti-abortion as it claims to be, punishing pregnant women is likely the next step.
Jill Wieber Lens is an instructor and associate dean at the Robert A. Leflar Law Center at the University of Arkansas. Her research focuses on reproductive health and justice.
Navigating an unwanted pregnancy can be scary. Here are a few places to start.
Anyone navigating an unwanted pregnancy doesn’t need extra obstacles thrown in the way. But attempts to find abortion resources can turn up a churn of misinformation and diversion tactics from anti-abortion organizations — or worse, attempts to collect the personal data of those seeking an abortion in order to incriminate them. Here, in alphabetical order, are a few resources the experts recommend for getting an abortion or finding the right birth control — and taking care of your mental health along the way.
ARKANSAS ABORTION SUPPORT NETWORK
arabortionsupport.org Founded in 2016, the Arkansas Abortion Support Network has been best known for its abortion clinic escort volunteers, who shielded patients showing up for their abortion procedures from harassment and intimidation by anti-abortion activists. In the post-Roe world, they’re acting as logistical escorts, helping connect pregnant people with abortion options outside of Arkansas, “regardless of a pregnant person’s economic or social status, or ZIP code.”
I NEED AN ABORTION
ineedana.com In 2013, disillusioned by the fake clinics they found while googling abortion clinics near them, a designer and engineer built this website “to make it as easy as possible for people to find the information and resources that apply to them, without having to sift through a lot of noise or, worse, misinformation and stigma from anti-abortion organizations.” Ineedana.com collects three pieces of nonidentifiable information (age, ZIP code and weeks since last period) to link abortion seekers up with vetted, localized options.
PLAN C
plancpills.org If you’re looking to manage a medication abortion at home, you can find reliable information at plancpills.org. The information campaign and platform was launched by veteran public health advocates, researchers, social justice activists and digital strategists. Their goal is to transform access to abortion by normalizing the self-directed option of abortion pills by mail.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD GREAT PLAINS
plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthoodgreat-plains Since 1935, Planned Parenthood has been advocating for sexual health, and they’re still around, providing a broad collection of reproductive health services and fighting the good fight in the nation’s courts. Most helpful right now might be the organization’s Post-Roe FAQ, which breaks down in detail what the overturning of Roe does for people who can become pregnant and live in Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri or Oklahoma. You’ll find it at plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthoodgreat-plains/post-roe-faq.
REPROACTION
reproaction.org This “left-flank culture change organization” does tons of advocacy and community organizing, but is also a helpful resource on SMA (self-managed abortion) — abortions that happen outside of a provider’s care, often with a pill called misoprostol. Head to reproaction. org/campaign/self-managed-abortion for some detailed mythbusting on the differences between Plan B, misoprostol and mifepristone.
THERAPY FOR BLACK GIRLS
therapyforblackgirls.com Not everyone who gets an abortion will need to talk with a therapist, but some will, and we know that the people most likely to bear the biggest burden from restrictions to abortion access are Black women. Founded by psychologist Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, this website helps connect Black women with online mental wellness resources and with local therapists.
WOMEN HELP WOMEN
abortionpillinfo.org Under the mantra of “connecting the personal experience of swallowing a pill to global political activism,” this organization’s SASS arm (self-managed abortion; safe and supported) exists to “support people in the United States who choose to have an abortion with pills outside of the health care system. The goal of SASS is to ensure that people in the U.S. can get accurate, up-to-date information about how to self-manage an abortion with pills safely, with dignity, and with minimal legal risk.”
WOMEN ON WEB
womenonweb.org Based in Canada and founded in 2005, this international telemedicine service connects people (including “trans, non-binary, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming people,” though their name doesn’t reflect that) with medical doctors, researchers, activists and help desk members. You can schedule an online consultation and, after a review from a medical doctor, get access to medical abortion pills or contraceptives through the mail. There’s also a helpful FAQ about abortion pills and a place to share your own abortion story if you’re ready.
