Editorial Illustration for Apple News / Vox
"The anti-abortion movement is about to win. Even it isn’t ready for what comes next."
Reported by Anna North and edited by Lavanya Ramanathan.
pub. May 19, 2021
Read the article here.
"Historically, anti-abortion advocates have called for restrictions and punishments targeted at abortion providers, not patients. “When we’re looking at law-breaking, we need to go to the person who is causing the danger,” Katie Glenn, government affairs counsel for the anti-abortion advocacy group Americans United for Life, told Vox. In the past, that has meant doctors.
Yet the rise of medication abortion means that people can perform their own abortions in the privacy of their homes, becoming, effectively, both provider and patient. This method, also known as self-managed abortion, is expected to become more common as laws like SB 8 and the likely fall of Roe make in-clinic procedures ever harder to obtain.”
“Abortion rights advocates fear that SB 8 and laws like it will essentially create an army of civilian bounty hunters who have a financial incentive to spy on their neighbors and report them to police if they even suspect any involvement in an abortion. “When you create these types of restrictions, it opens up these doors for people to be very overzealous in how they approach somebody who’s had an abortion,” said Zaena Zamora, the director of Frontera Fund, an abortion fund that raised money for Herrera’s defense. The restrictions can also sow confusion, potentially leading to erroneous reports or arrests. “Unless you’re in this work and know this law, it’s really difficult to have a full understanding of the implications of the legality around abortion in Texas,” Zamora said.”