Extending Oregon’s lead in the battle over abortion rights: Steve Duin

Extending our lead in the battle

U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane, enjoining the Trump administration on its Title X gag rule

As nine states, many in the deeply curious South, have moved to outlaw or dramatically restrict abortion this spring, an anti-abortion lobbyist in Missouri offered the most challenging quote:

“Events have overtaken us,” Samuel Lee told The New York Times. “The advice of lawyers is of less concern than it ever has been in the pro-life movement right now. Sometimes people just want something. Social movements can take on a life of their own.”

What’s the lesson and inspiration there for Oregonians who want something altogether different for women and reproductive rights?

I have a simple opinion on abortion: My opinion doesn’t count. Women have the unique ability to become pregnant and the unique responsibility to decide where to go from there.

In Oregon, a woman’s reproductive rights are still enshrined in law. In 2018, voters gutted Ballot Measure 106, an especially cynical attempt to deny abortions to low-income families.

Twelve anti-abortion bills were introduced at the Legislature in 2019, notes Grayson Dempsey, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon: “They never get out of committee because we’ve elected leaders who make sure they never do.”

Yet events are overtaking us, the daily refrain with Donald Trump in the White House.

Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have jury-rigged the nomination process at the U. S. Supreme Court to encourage another direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.

Conservative legislators in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio and Utah have happily complied.

While Dempsey says Oregon is the only state that has never placed any restriction on abortion, six of those nine states have either criminalized the procedure this year, as in Alabama, or outlawed it at six weeks.

It’s no coincidence that Trump carried each of those states in the 2016 election. That Republicans control each of the nine assemblies. Or that men dominate the legislative seating charts: 86 percent in Mississippi, 84 percent in Alabama and Louisiana.

“This is a moment we can’t ignore,” says Emily McLain, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon. “The attacks in recent months have escalated. Planned Parenthood sees this as state of emergency for women’s health.”

How should Oregonians respond?

Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane have done their part. Rosenblum sued the Trump administration for its new Title X family-planning restrictions, barring referrals to abortion providers.

At an April hearing in Portland, McShane issued a preliminary injunction to the administration’s “ham-fisted approach to public health policy.”

But the rest of us? What’s our response when there’s only a single abortion provider in six states and, McLain notes, “19 million women in the United States live in reproductive health deserts."

Is a Freedom Summer moment, at hand?

In the summer of 1964, more than a dozen Oregon lawyers – most notably Cliff Carlsen, William Martin, Don Marmaduke and Jake Tanzer – headed to Mississippi to enlist in the epic civil-rights battle.

I can’t picture a corresponding reaction to the assault on reproductive rights, but I may be painfully out of touch with the social movements, and social media, that allow Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Elizabeth Warren to soar so dramatically above political impasse and their detractors.

When I put the question to Dempsey and McLain, they reminded me that the struggle for reproductive rights in Oregon continues. Most of the state’s abortion providers are clustered along the I-5 corridor, making access difficult for women who live in Burns and La Grande.

They also directed me to several abortion funds. The Yellowhammer Fund, a favorite of Trail Blazer fans, helps women in Alabama plan and pay for abortions. The Northwest Abortion Access Fund does the same for women in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska.

That’s a start. Is it enough when conservative evangelicals, their faith whittled down to this single issue, kneel at Trump’s feet and urge him on?

Can we extend the sanctuary Oregon provides for women faced with this decision? Can we impact the power structure in states where women lose the right to choose before they know they’re pregnant? Do we believe Roe v. Wade survives, or that the anti-choice forces, impassioned and emboldened, will ever back down?

McLain nails it: “It’s going to be impossible for people to sit on the sidelines.”

-- Steve Duin

stephen.b.duin@gmail.com

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.