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SPECIAL ISSUE THE NEW POLITICS OF

THE SUPREMEABORTION COURT WON’T PROTECT ABORTION ACCESS ANYMORE. BUT THOUSANDS OF ACTIVISTS WILL.

AMY LITTLEFIELD DANI McCLAIN ILYSE HOGUE MOIRA DONEGAN ZOË CARPENTER JOAN WALSH CYNTHIA GREENLEE KATHA POLLITT

THENATION.COM BASEBALL’S LABOR CRISIS KELLY CANDAELE AND PETER DREIER TAYLOR SWIFT, INC. 2 The Nation. OLIVIA HORN

OCTOBER 21, 2019 IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE, Letters IT’S…CORY @thenation.com BOOKER? He’s been running hard his whole life. What’s holding him back now?

GENE SEYMOUR

THENATION.COM Diversity comes in all flavors! We’ve got Off Base the pockets of the owners or it goes to Peppermint, Caramelized, the players on the field whom the fans or Divine Dark Chocolate. Come on, folks—you can do much better than this. I’m referring to the pay to see. The average ballplayer article “Moneyball Bites Back,” by spends only four years in the major Nutty Steph’s wants to Kelly Candaele and Peter Dreier leagues, and the median annual salary raise $100,000 for Planned [October 21]. I made it to the sec- is $1.5 million, as we pointed out. Parenthood of Northern tion that reveals that the players (the While it might be hard for “regular” people to sympathize with them, the oppressed) were averaging a salary New England with 100,000 attitude of Mr. Garavel is exactly the of $4.5 million in 2018, after which I vulvas, naturally made one that team owners would like the struggled to keep reading about their fans to have. with the best chocolate “plight.” I had to pinch myself again Professional baseball is a game, but available to humankind. You and again to remind myself that I was it is also a business. The players de- reading not Forbes but The Nation, the support reproductive serve every penny they can make over historical vanguard of the nonelite healthcare and sexuality the course of their short careers, and underclasses. fans should support them when the education with every one There is a shocking, widening owners attempt to keep their salaries you buy. Complete with income gap in this country fueled by artificially low. Kelly Candaele an educational collectors the corporate sector, and the sporting los angeles card inside, these beautiful industry is no exception. Come on, Peter Dreier Nation! I am thoroughly disappointed. los angeles confections are great for Robert Garavel the office, for your friends, brookfield, conn. “Can’t” vs. “Won’t” at baby showers, for women, Kelly Candaele and I need to comment on Calvin Trillin’s men, girls, and all people. Peter Dreier Reply “Deadline Poet” in the Novem- ber 11/18 issue. I disagree with his use We agree with Mr. Garavel that “the Help Nutty Steph’s reach of the word “can’t” in the final sen- sporting industry is no exception” tence. The sentence—“He can’t dis- its goal of selling 100,000 when it comes to corporate owners tinguish right from wrong”—implies delicious vulvas for $100,000 using all of their power to skew the an inability, something larger than the to Planned Parenthood of economics of professional sports—in person, rendering him unable, as if he this case, baseball—to their advan- Northern New England. were a mere victim of circumstances. tage. Our article did not argue that Donald Trump is not a victim baseball players were “oppressed”; of circumstances, someone simply we did not use that word. But we did unable to decide. He possesses the want to help readers of The Nation same ability to use his free will as become more sophisticated observers most humans, whereas “will” means of the game. an exercise of consciousness. So the Many fans—perhaps Mr. Garavel last sentence should read, “He won’t is one of them—become confused or distinguish right from wrong.” angry when professional athletes go Sandra Kruize on strike to defend their interests, and tukwila, wash. those fans respond with a knee-jerk “plague o’ both your houses” attitude. Correction We wanted to show why, in the con- In Seyla Benhabib’s “High Liberal- text of baseball, these work stoppages ism” [November 11/18], John Rawls or lockouts have taken place and why is described as having attended a another one might be forthcoming. parochial school in Baltimore. In RabbleRouser.net The baseball industry is no different fact, the school he attended was from any other when it comes to who in Connecticut. gets what. Either the money goes into [email protected] UPFRONT

4 By the Numbers: Access to abortion; 8 Comix The Nation. Nation: Peter Kuper since 1865 3 A New Politics of Abortion Emily Douglas 4 The Hong Kong Bill Isn’t Radical Enough Tobita Chow and Jake Werner A New Politics of Abortion 5 The Score Bryce Covert COLUMNS merica is a country that telegraphs profoundly conflicting 6 Subject to Debate Personhood Is ideas of what life as a woman should be. There are five Punishment female candidates for president. Women are fully inte- Katha Pollitt 8 Deadline Poet grated into the paid labor force: Almost half of workers are Where Billionaires women. Seventy percent of mothers with children work outside the home; Stand on the A Presidency the vast majority working full-time. Across income Calvin Trillin groups, but especially among low-income families, bald-faced lies. They won because they were un- the wages women earn increasingly represent half— afraid—they didn’t avoid the issue—and because Features or more—of what their families live on. America of local on-the-ground organizing that had their The Fight for depends on women’s labor, paid and unpaid, and backs. That organizing isn’t only in Virginia, and Reproductive Freedom expects women to dream big, just as men do. it isn’t only about elections. A mass, mobilized With Roe v. Wade in And yet in 2019 alone, state after state has passed movement for abortion access has taken root across conservatives’ crosshairs, abortion rights activists, laws that, if enforced, would completely undermine the country, inspiring a new willingness among prosecutors, and politicians the United States’ notion of itself as a country that Democrats in office to stand up for abortion rights. are gathering force embraces gender equality. These laws ban abortion, As Amy Little­field notes in this issue, in 2018 more in the courts, states, and now they’re banning it as early as six weeks, measures—80 in total—were enacted to expand and streets. before many women even know they’re reproductive health access than to re- 10 The Movement for Abortion Access Is Here pregnant. Alabama has banned abortion strict it. That number has been steadily Amy Littlefield • 14 How EDITORIAL altogether, with only the narrowest ex- increasing since 2012. This year, more to Undo Trump’s Damage ceptions. So far all these laws have been abortion protections were passed than Ilyse Hogue • 16 The Bill blocked by federal judges, but they will ever before. These include measures that Pusher Zoë Carpenter • work their way up to the Supreme Court, substantially expand access to abortion, 21 Meet the Prosecutors Resisting New Abortion where an anti-choice majority now holds as in Maine and Illinois, where it’s now Bans Cynthia Greenlee • sway. Building on decades of attacks on covered by Medicaid, and in New York, 24 When the Clinics Close access to legal abortion—which, after Roe which finally decriminalized abortion Dani McClain • 28 The New v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide in and expanded access to it throughout Culture of Abortion Moira Donegan • 30 Stand and 1973, became an organizing principle pregnancy. These measures are of crucial Fight Joan Walsh of the newly politicized evangelical right—these importance not just for what they do but also for efforts have already made it impossible for many what they symbolize: The movement demanding Books & providers to practice, for clinics to stay open, and them is breaking through. the Arts for women to afford to pay for the procedure, In this issue we take a measure of this split reality: 35 The Unfinished even in states that haven’t imposed outright bans. the mortal threat to Roe unfolding in states like Ala- Revolution Conservatives continue to fight tirelessly to shame bama, Georgia, and Ohio, and the furious backlash Michael Kazin those who seek abortions and to block access to on the left, which has given rise to hundreds of local 40 From Diary (poem) contraception, medically accurate sexuality educa- and regional efforts to support those who need abor- Marisa Crawford tion, and sexually transmitted infection testing and tion care and has thrust the demand for abortion 41 The Rest of Us treatment. In that sense, on the right, there is no access to the center of progressive politics. Namwali Serpell new politics of abortion. Instead, Republicans have Women and men organize their lives around the 44 Holy Terrain simply run out of ways to fire up their base without belief that they are able to make choices—choices Julyssa Lopez banning abortion completely, and we’re getting as varied and unique as those making them—about close to the endgame. the profound and, often, life-altering matters of VOLUME 309, NUMBER 15, But that’s not the whole story. As Joan Walsh whether and when to be pregnant and whether DECEMBER 16/23, 2019 writes in this issue, when she reported on the and when to have children. The world we live in is The digital version of this issue is available to all subscribers December 3 Virginia legislative races this fall, she discovered firmly pro-choice. More Americans than ever are at TheNation.com. that Democrats found ways to win while champi- realizing this—and voting accordingly. Cover photo by Blue Lens, LLC / oning abortion rights and despite the Republicans’ EMILY DOUGLAS FOR THE NATION Mark Dixon 4 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019

This anti-China narrative pushes us toward a Cold War mentality, prioritizing geopolitical struggles over efforts The Hong Kong Bill to fight economic inequality, structural racism, and cli- mate change—and dooming the international cooperation Isn’t Radical Enough needed to address those problems. The national security establishment sees great-power competition with China as BY THE Its China-versus-the-West framing only helps elites. NUMBERS the top reason to expand the already bloated military bud- or nearly six months, protesters in Hong get. Many Democratic leaders are now hoping to outbid 8 Kong have struggled for democratic rights the GOP on anti-China measures, moving onto terrain States that and against the increasing influence of the that is tilted in favor of the GOP’s white nationalist base. have passed Chinese government. In response, the US The narrative of China versus the West is also central laws to make Congress passed the Hong Kong Human to the Chinese government’s efforts to isolate democracy abortion illegal FRights and Democracy Act (HKHRDA) by unanimous advocates in Hong Kong from protesters on the mainland. after six weeks consent. The act, championed by Republican Senators As the Communist Party organ the People’s Daily insists, of pregnancy Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, commits the United States “US anti-China forces and those forces in Hong Kong… to supporting the protests. It also requires sanctions and are colluding as the principal promoters of the continuing 1 other diplomatic actions if Hong Kong—which has its own riots.” The fear of unrest on the mainland is ever present Number of states legal system—is judged to be insufficiently autonomous. for China’s leaders, and the government regularly directs that have passed (Trump has threatened to veto the bill, claiming it would accusations of foreign influence against all forms of activ- laws to make abortion illegal affect trade talks with China, but it received enough votes ism, seeking to isolate and discredit political dissidents, upon concep- in Congress to override that.) labor activists, feminists, and religious minorities. tion, with no At first glance, the HKHRDA seems laudable. Hong Mainland Chinese share many of the grievances that exceptions for Kong is a haven for free expression and assembly in an drive the Hong Kong protesters (and their American rape or incest increasingly authoritarian China, as well as counterparts): inequality, a lack of stable jobs, a crucial hub linking progressive activists on Mainland unaffordable housing, corruption, and un­ 452 the mainland to organizers in the rest of the accountable­ elites. The inability to recognize Number of clinics world. And most Hong Kongers want to keep Chinese share this common ground undermines the cause that provided it that way: In district council contests on many of the of democracy in Hong Kong. Alone, Hong abortions in the November 24, the territory’s voters elected an Kongers may not be able to force Beijing to United States grievances in 1996 overwhelming majority of pro-democracy can- answer their demands, and increased pressure didates. The HKHRDA seeks to raise the costs that drive the from the United States is likely to merely for Beijing if it stamps out those freedoms. Hong Kong harden Chinese leaders’ attitudes. More than 272 Yet a closer look reveals the bill as the latest anything else, it is solidarity between Hong Clinics that pro- expression of a binary that pits China against protesters. Kongers and mainlanders that would radically vided abortions the West. Political elites on both sides have shift the balance of power. in 2014, the last year for which embraced this narrative, in part for its usefulness in under- We share the goal of supporting the Hong Kong pro- data is available mining the domestic demands for radical change that each testers. But the HKHRDA not only threatens progress in faces. A truly progressive alternative would transform the Hong Kong by fortifying divisions between protesters and structure of the conflict, but this bill threatens to further mainlanders. It also includes measures aimed at turning 6 entrench a nationalist framing. Hong Kong into a tool of US foreign policy, such as com- Number of states with only one The China-versus-the-West narrative casts the pelling it to help enforce US sanctions against Iran. It is no abortion clinic two sides as diametrically opposed. In the Western coincidence that Rubio, the bill’s main sponsor, is one of version, China is defined by its hostility to political the most outspoken opponents of China’s economic devel- freedom, while the West stands for democracy and opment. And ironically, figures like Rubio and the leaders 20% human rights. The Chinese version presents a mir- of the Chinese Communist Party have a lot in common: Percentage of

COMMENT ror image: China is defending the principle of na- Both hope to turn the demands for internal reform into an- women who would need to tional self-determination and the right to economic imosity against foreigners, preserving domestic inequalities travel more than development against the West’s incessant plots to preserve and creating support for aggressive foreign policy. 40 miles to reach global inequality. And in both, Hong Kong’s democrats The challenge for progressives is to construct an al- the nearest clinic are aligned with the West, rendering them either heroes ternative that escapes the binary and redraws the lines of that provides abortions or traitors. Neither version is entirely false, and both are political confrontation. There are abundant grounds for fundamentally hostile to progressive change. solidarity among the people of mainland China, Hong On the US side, members of the political establish- Kong, and the United States in the form of shared aspi- 3 ment have seized on anti-China politics with the hope of rations for a more equal, sustainable society. Our enemies Number of states co-opting the rising demands for change to aid efforts that are not other countries; they are the unaccountable elites that passed laws will reinforce US global hegemony. As The Washington and nationalist ideologues of all countries. in 2019 affirming the right to an Post’s David Ignatius put it, “Americans may be mistrustful TOBITA CHOW and JAKE WERNER abortion of elites, but they also want to believe in something larger —Alice Markham- than themselves…. [The China challenge] can unite the Tobita Chow is the director of Justice Is Global, a special project of Cantor country and summon disaffected Americans to a test on People’s Action. Jake Werner is a historian of modern China who

which their future livelihoods depend, quite literally.” teaches at the University of Chicago. REUTERS / KEVIN LAMARQUE December 16/23, 2019 The Nation. 5

THE SCORE/BRYCE COVERT + MIKE KONCZAL Striking Facts

merican workers are fed up. So conducted the first national strike over sexual times. Lots of workers felt they had no choice fed up that they’re taking one harassment in the country’s history. but to swallow those edicts, keep their heads of the most radical steps avail- Until the 1980s, American workers regular- down, and hope for the best. able to them: refusing to work. ly staged hundreds of major strikes each year But a decade of healthy economic growth This year kicked off with to try and compel employers to treat and pay hasn’t loosened the purse strings. Workers Apublic school teachers in California going on them better. But in the decades since, that keep fueling the economic expansion without strike to demand higher pay, more support tradition was all but snuffed out, particularly reaping the rewards. Refusing to work is the services, and smaller class sizes. In October, fading during the Great Recession, when peo- sharpest tool they have to carve out a fair Chicago’s teachers followed suit, staging ple feared losing their jobs. The nadir was in share of the economic pie. They’ve finally their longest strike in decades. Then teachers 2009, with just five strikes involving a mere been pushed to wield it. Bryce Covert in Little Rock, Arkansas, struck for just the 12,500 people. second time in the city’s history. In between If last year and this year have shown any- the teachers’ strikes, 46,000 General Motors thing, it’s that American workers have decided TheThe Return Return workers walked off the job for 40 days, the they can’t afford to be afraid anymore. On the longest strike by autoworkers in half a cen- surface, they seem to be doing well. The econ- ofof the StrikeStrike tury, to call for higher pay, better benefits, omy has been expanding for a decade now, Fed-up workers are investment in American plants, and a path to with healthy job growth and falling unemploy- heading back to 485,200 full-time status for temporary workers—all ment. Work appears to be plentiful. the picket lines. 2018 So why would Americans put 394,000 down their chalk, wrenches, and 2000 More workers went on strike spatulas or close their laptops to Annual number take to the picket lines? For one of striking last year—485,200—than at workers thing, wages have barely budged, any time since 1986. increasing just 3 percent this year— far less than would be expected meant to reverse the belt-tightening imple- with so many people back at work. More than 12,500 mented during the Great Recession. A number 40 percent of workers are stuck in low-wage 2009 of other workers, from nurses to Uber drivers jobs, making less than $18,000 a year at the to grocery store employees, have also walked median. No wonder, then, that four in 10 off the job to make demands of their bosses. Americans would struggle to cover an unex- We won’t have the official numbers for how pected expense of $400 and 17 percent can’t Why? Because $1.856 trillion many Americans went on strike this year until pay all their current bills. the economic 2018 2020. But workers have clearly continued last The healthy employment numbers also recovery... year’s trend of insisting that they deserve a mask the insecurity many feel. Nearly a fifth $1.225 trillion share of the spoils from the longest US eco- of workers have schedules that vary based US corporate 2008 profits, after tax: nomic expansion on record. on their employers’ demands, not their More workers went on strike last year— own needs. While the number of uninsured $0.513 trillion 485,200 of them—than at any time since 1986, Americans has dropped in recent years, even 2000 the year The Oprah Winfrey Show debuted and those with insurance aren’t always saved from ...has not benefited Microsoft went public. There were 20 major financial hardship, given that last year nearly workers. strikes in 2018, the most since before the a quarter of all adults went without medical recession. Teachers walked off the job in care because they couldn’t pay for it. Over Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and 30 percent of private-sector workers don’t West Virginia to demand better pay and better have access to retirement benefits through resources for their students. Fifty thousand their jobs. If they need time off, they’re 44% of Americans ages 18–64 hospitality workers voted to strike in Las unlikely to get paid for it: About 40 percent are low-wage workers Vegas, and hotel workers walked picket lines don’t have paid sick leave, about 25 percent with a median income of in Chicago. Fast food workers continued their don’t have paid vacations, and a mere less than $18,000 a year. fight for a $15 minimum hourly wage and the 12 percent have paid family leave. 32% have no retirement benefits. right to unionize and had a new demand: that During the last recession, many employers Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; Metropolitan Policy Program–Brookings, “Low-Wage Workforce,” their employers address the sexual harassment argued that they had to cut back on jobs, pay, November 2019. they experience at work. McDonald’s workers and benefits to make it through dire financial 2019 infographic: Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz 6 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019

SIGNAL:NOISE Faking Katha Pollitt Enemies n A Warning, the new book by an anonymous Personhood Is Punishment I senior official in the Trump administration, the author When we value fetal life over living people, women are the ones who pay. writes that as the number of undocumented men, women, e often talk about abortion As Lynn Paltrow, the director of National Ad- and children entering the United as if it’s a thing unto itself. If vocates for Pregnant Women, told me by phone, States via the Mexican border we connect it to anything, it’s “The Dray case makes clear that all you need is increased, President Trump pro- usually to sex education, con- a doctor who asserts that the fetus is at risk, and posed declaring them enemy traception, and other con- suddenly you don’t have any rights.” Around the combatants and sending them Wtested ways of preventing unwanted births. country, other pregnant women have been threat- to Guantánamo Bay. What gets much less attention is the removal ened with C-sections or had to undergo them On one level, this is just more of everyday rights from willingly pregnant wom- against their will. gibbering from a man who rou- en. For opponents of abortion, who grant person­ This is in spite of the fact that the cesare- tinely proposes hood to fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses, it’s an rate in the United States is 32 percent—far nonsensical—and clearly illegal— not a stretch to go from saying “You have to have higher than the World Health Organization’s SIGNAL : strategies. But on that baby” to “You have to produce a healthy baby, recommended rate of 10 to 15 percent. It’s also another level, it’s therefore your wishes, needs, and constitutional in spite of court rulings that under no circum- hugely important. rights are of no account.” Moreover, stances can one person be forced to It signals that if anything goes wrong, they’re going have a medical procedure, such as a Trump is willing to turn his vast to assume it’s your fault alone. bone marrow transplant, to benefit propaganda tools toward con- Consider forced surgery. You another. What this amounts to is that vincing his base that immigrants might have thought the issue was pregnant women have fewer rights are enemy combatants, as bad settled in women’s favor in 1987, than other people and the fetuses they and fearsome as the terrorists when a court ordered Angela Card- carry have more. who attacked the World Trade er, a terminally ill cancer patient at The criminalization of women’s Center, and that they should be George Washington University Hos- behavior during pregnancy is anoth- treated the way we treat terrorism pital in Washington, DC, to under- er gift from the anti-abortion move- suspects, many of whom were go a C-section intended to give her ment. According to Al Jazeera, more waterboarded at black sites or continue to be held in indefinite 26-and-a-half-week-old fetus a better chance at than 1,200 women have been arrested or de- detention at Guantánamo. survival. The doctors performed the surgery de- tained for their conduct during pregnancy since As Trump’s legal woes mount spite the likelihood that it would shorten Carder’s Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Personhood, a and the impeachment inquiry life; both she and her baby died. In the wake of new documentary by Jo Ardinger, delves into further shreds his credibility, we that horrific event, an appeals court vacated the the case of Wisconsin’s have to assume that he and his original order, with more than 100 organizations Tamara Loertscher, who Fox News cheerleaders will push weighing in for Carder, including the American told a doctor in 2014 ever harsher policies on immigra- Medical Association and the American College of that before she knew Pregnant tion and other issues dear to his Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (On the other she was pregnant, she women have base. How better to distract than side were attorneys for Americans United for Life used meth several times to throw more red meat to those and the United States Catholic Conference.) a week to self-medicate fewer rights already primed to view nonwhite Flash-forward to 2011, when Rinat Dray, who for depression since she than other immigrants as invaders? previously had two cesareans that left her debili- had no health insur- Read the semiweekly people, and column “Signal:Noise” at tated and in pain for months, decided to try for a ance. Loertscher swiftly thenation.com/signal-noise. vaginal birth at Staten Island University Hospital found herself in a hos- the fetuses —Sasha Abramsky in New York. Her doctor made the decision, with- pital against her will and they carry out even a court order, to cut the baby out against then in jail. The state her will, slicing into her bladder in the process. even provided her fetus, have more. Dray has been suing the hospital for years, so far at that point 14 weeks without success. Despite New York State’s new pro- old, with a lawyer but refused Loertscher’s­ own choice Reproductive Health Act, the Kings County requests for legal representation. Supreme Court held in October that the state has Released after 18 days, she now had a record “an interest in the protection of viable fetal life after as a child abuser, which made her virtually un­ the first 24 weeks of pregnancy” that overrides a employ­able in her profession as a nursing aide— mother’s objection to medical treatment, “at least even though her son was born in perfect health. where the intervention itself presented no serious And Loertscher was one of the lucky ones; other risk to the mother’s well being.” women have been jailed, charged with murder for

This is New York, not Alabama. having stillbirths, or had their babies taken away. SOLIS AP / ROGELIO V. ANDY FRIEDMAN; LEFT: TOP RIGHT:  Literary Awards and Fellowships

Lannan Foundation honors established and emerging writers of distinctive literary merit.

Evie Shockley Literary Award for Poetry

Wayétu Moore Caitriona Lally Nick Estes Literary Fellowship Literary Fellowship Literary Fellowship for Fiction for Fiction for Nonfi ction

Lannan IS A FOUNDATION DEDICATED to cultural freedom, diversity, and creativity through projects that support exceptional artists, writers, and inspired Native American, social justice, and environmental activists. The Foundation recognizes the profound and often unquantifiable value of the creative process and is willing to take risks and make substantial investments in ambitious and experimental thinking. Understanding that globalization threatens all cultures and ecosystems, the Foundation is particularly interested in projects that encourage freedom of inquiry, imagination, and expression.

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Photos: Evie Shockley © Stéphane Robolin; Wayétu Moore © Ashleigh Staton; Caitriona Lally © Eoin Rafferty; Nick Estes © Don Usner TOP RIGHT: ANDY FRIEDMAN; LEFT: AP / ROGELIO V. SOLIS AP / ROGELIO V. ANDY FRIEDMAN; LEFT: TOP RIGHT: 8 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019

Cases like this attract only sporadic attention, partly from the arrest in Alabama of Marshae Jones, whose because the pro-choice movement has been (under- fetus died after Jones was shot in a fight, to arresting standably) focused on abortion rights. But it’s also pregnant women for their own abuse at the hands of because they tend to involve women who are poor or their partners, and the United States is on it. It’s not working class, black or brown, users of drugs or alco- Meanwhile, we live comfortably with skyrocketing a stretch hol, smokers, members of minority religions, or other miscarriage rates among detained immigrants and with to go from women who can’t or won’t follow the intensive prenatal the occasional birth by a detained woman alone in her saying “You health regimen of educated professional-class women, cell—Diana Sanchez in Denver, for example. have to have who won’t allow a drop of wine to pass their lips once Perhaps it’s unnecessary to add that our society does the pregnancy test comes up positive. little to help pregnant women have healthy babies, all that baby” to In 1991 the Supreme Court ruled that employers while purporting to value them. If you’re homeless “You have could not bar women from jobs deemed dangerous to and giving birth, tough luck. If you have an addiction, to produce a fetuses, such as factory work involving certain chem- chances are there won’t be room in a rehab program. healthy baby.” icals. How long will that ruling stand if other legal If you live in a rural area, there may not even be a ma- behaviors while pregnant—drinking, smoking, house- ternity ward nearby. Increasingly, fetal personhood is cleaning, lifting your other children—wind up being maternal punishment—and the pro-choice movement criminalized as well? There’s a clear path that leads shouldn’t forget it. ■

PETER KUPER

COMIX NATION

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SAVE 30% www.ucpress.edu with promo code 19V8712 THE Movement FOR Abortion Access AMY LITTLEFIELD IsHow abortion Here funds showed America that Roe is not enough. New Abortion The ThePolitics Nation.of ilofar ganjaie often has to ask people what belongings they can sell to help pay for their abortions. her orga- nization, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund (NWAAF), helps people in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska who are struggling to afford the hundreds or, later in pregnancy, thousands of dollars that an abortion costs. Each week, the fund sets aside a portion of its budget to help those with upcoming appointments. And each week, generally by Wednesday, the money is gone. So volunteers like Ganjaie walk callers through a set of calculations: Are there friends or relatives they can ask for money? Expenses they can delay? Callers have sold their clothing or children’s toys. She offers patients the op- tion of delaying their appointments, but even then, the fund can’t guarantee help. “Those are just the most heartbreaking conversations, to walk people through options that include staying pregnant longer than they want to be,” she said. So when her counterparts in New York City made history in June by pushing it to become the first city in the United States to directly fund abortions, Ganjaie was thrilled. The city allocated $250,000 to the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF), doubling its capacity Nto fund abortions. She knew an amount like that would be a game changer for her own fund, which has granted roughly $300,000 this year. Before she could tell her fellow board members the news, they were already messaging on Signal. “Let’s do this,” one wrote. A few weeks later, Ganjaie attended an event at a women’s coworking space where her congresswoman, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), spoke to the crowd about her abortion. When Jayapal took questions, Ganjaie raised an issue that has been the third rail of abortion politics for decades: How could activists secure public funding for abortions? Jayapal, part of a newly elected wave of progressive women of color in Congress, was fresh off a failed attempt to repeal the Hyde Amendment, a ban on most federal funding for abortion that Congress has re- newed every year since 1976. A group of progressive women, including Jayapal and Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), had attached an amendment repealing Hyde to a budget bill, but fellow Democrats in the House Rules Committee had scuttled it. Sensing defeat, Jayapal had conceded to Roll Call that Hyde was still a “politically difficult issue.” But she seemed to think Ganjaie might everyone. “It is time for people to listen to funds, because have better luck locally, encouraging her to take the issue funds have been doing this work for decades,” she said. to the Seattle City Council. “We’ve been ready for this moment. We’re ready to lead.” Ganjaie and her colleagues plan to do just that—and they’re not alone. In September abortion fund activists bortion funds have been quietly making in Austin, Texas, pushed the city to give $150,000 to help abortion accessible despite the nearly 1,300 le- residents with the travel, housing, and child care costs gal restrictions enacted on the procedure since associated with abortion. The California abortion fund “It’s a per- 1973. Each week, fund volunteers and staff drive Access Women’s Health Justice told The Nation that it’s fect time to people to appointments, host out-of-state pa- contemplating similar initiatives in Los Angeles and San push bold, tients on their couches, buy bus tickets, provide emotional Francisco. At the federal level, the All Above All campaign support, help patients enroll in Medicaid in the minority has inspired members of Congress and a number of the progressive Aof states where it covers abortion, and contribute to paying 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to challenge the legislation, for the procedure. While abortion remains legal, a vast ob- once-sacred Hyde Amendment. stacle course of waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, Ganjaie, 26, gravitated toward abortion funding after to be able to targeted regulations, and bans on second-trimester pro- working at Planned Parenthood, where she advocated really fight cedures has rendered it nearly inaccessible in many states. for legislation to protect abortion rights. Volunteering at for what we Unable to ban abortion outright, anti-choice lawmakers the NWAAF, she felt closer to its mission of reproductive have relied instead on the power of logistical hurdles to justice, a framework developed by black women that sup- want rather choke off access, patient by patient. ports the human right to all pregnancy options, including than just These efforts have taken their toll. Last year the abortion and parenting, and recognizes how inequality fight against roughly 70 groups that make up NNAF received 150,000 and racism shape access to health care—even in a state requests and, on average, could help in only one-fifth of like Washington, with relatively progressive laws. “Passing what we the cases, Hernandez said. Those who received help gen- laws that improve access to abortion is great, but if you’re don’t.” erally had to raise as much as they could on their own and working three minimum-wage jobs and don’t have access — Nilofar Ganjaie, then scrape together the rest from multiple cash-strapped to reliable transportation, then it’s still not accessible to Northwest Abortion funds. “It usually takes more than one abortion fund to you,” Ganjaie said. Access Fund cover one abortion,” she added. The shortfall comes de- Abortion funds have long operated in that gap. In 2016, spite a dramatic increase in fundraising; NNAF’s annual the year Donald Trump was elected, the National Network bowlathon fundraiser went from raising $940,000 in 2016, of Abortion Funds (NNAF) launched an effort to build before the election, to over $2.4 million in 2019. The net- the funds into what it called an “organizing powerhouse.” work gave away $6.2 million in the 2018 fiscal year—an Now, as states make headlines by passing increasingly ex- increase of about $2 million from the year before but a treme laws to restrict or ban abortion, these groups have fraction of what it would take to fund every caller. “And channeled the growing public awareness of their work into that’s in a world with Roe,” Hernandez said. ambitious efforts to expand access. Bolstered by a surge In May, donations to abortion funds surged after Ala- in funding, they have found within the wider abortion Amy Littlefield is bama passed a total ban and other states passed near-total rights movement a “greater recognition of the power and a freelance jour- bans, almost all of which have been blocked by courts. In nalist who focuses possibility of abortion funds to lead,” NNAF’s executive di- on reproductive May and June alone, NNAF raised nearly $2 million from rector, Yamani Hernandez, told The Nation. Megan Jeyifo, health care and individuals—more than twice what it normally receives in the executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund, said the intersection a year. In Alabama, the Yellowhammer Fund alone raised there has been a dawning realization among the wider pro- of religion and $3 million. “It really backfired on [anti-choice lawmakers],” choice public that Roe v. Wade didn’t guarantee access for medicine. said Amanda Reyes, the fund’s executive director. “They ILLUSTRATION BY HANNA BARCZYK December 16/23, 2019 | 11 New Abortion The Politics of have actually given us the ability to undo some of the damage to abortion access, in 1993. The following year, 12 black women, including because now we have the funding to get around their laws.” Toni Bond, gathered in Chicago and coined the term “re- Ganjaie and her colleagues started referring to this as the moment “when productive justice” to describe a set of concerns that over- abortion funds went mainstream.” In addition to a modest uptick in dona- lapped with abortion funds’ but were focused on the health tions, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund saw an increase in callers who care needs of black women. “We realized that abortion was were learning about abortion funds from the news. Meanwhile, the funds are not the only issue that was confronting black women,” she preparing for the possibility that the Supreme Court, with Brett Kavanaugh told The Nation. “We also knew that...abortion may have on the bench, might allow further restrictions. Its first opportunity will come been legal, but it was out of reach for most low-income this term when it considers a Louisiana law intended to close clinics by re- women, owing to the Hyde Amendment.” quiring providers to have hospital admitting privileges. Advocates warn that The activism against Hyde ramped up again in 2010, the law would shutter two of the state’s three remaining clinics and could after Barack Obama signed a landmark health care law that prompt a wave of closures across other states. Galvanized by this threat, activ- excluded public funding for abortion. All Above All, led ists have gone on the offensive with successful campaigns to expand state and by a coalition that included NNAF, was launched in 2013 municipal funding for abortion. “It’s a perfect time to push bold, progressive to draw attention to how Hyde and related bans have all legislation,” Ganjaie said, “to be able to really fight for what we want rather but blocked abortion access for Native Americans, federal than just fight against what we don’t.” employees, prisoners, detained immigrants, and Medicaid recipients in most states. Two years later, Representative ublic funding has long been a priority for In 2017, Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced the Each Woman Act to the abortion funds, even when it was sidelined end Hyde. In 2016 the Democratic Party’s platform called at various times by the wider pro-choice move- 35 percent for the amendment’s repeal for the first time. This year, ment. Although funds have existed in some form of people the leading Democratic presidential candidates, including since before Roe v. Wade, the Hyde Amendment Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have done likewise, spurred activists to form more of these groups, according who received and Joe Biden was forced to reverse his long-standing sup- to Marlene Gerber Fried, a scholar, longtime activist, and support from port for Hyde after intense criticism. The Each Woman Pcofounder of NNAF. In 1978, Faye Wattleton became Act has collected 171 House cosponsors, although it has New York’s the first woman since Margaret Sanger to lead Planned yet to be voted on in the House or Senate. Parenthood and its first black president. At a news confer- abortion fund All of this points to a shift in public opinion driven by ence, she named Medicaid funding of abortion as one of traveled from grassroots activists who have long known they could never her top priorities, sparking a firestorm among the group’s out of state; fill the gap created by Hyde. “There are some people who affiliates. “The concerns were that we were going to lose mistakenly think that for abortion funds, our goal is to be our federal funding if somebody didn’t get me under last year out here funding every abortion,” said Laurie Bertram control,” Wattleton told The Nation. “My view was: We’re that num- Roberts, the executive director of the Mississippi Repro- an organization of principles, and we had to stand by and ber rose to ductive Freedom Fund. “That would be great if we could, exercise those principles.” but guess what? That’s the government’s job.” In 1993, with Hyde still in force and Bill Clinton in 39 percent. the White House, momentum was growing for a national fter the 2016 election, as the threat of an health care law. That year, about 20 groups formed NNAF anti-choice majority on the Supreme Court to amplify the call to include public funding for abortion. loomed, members of NNAF gathered in Oak- “It was an intervention in abortion politics,” said Fried. A big win: In August land, California, to prepare. “We literally took “We were so involved in the tremendous gap between the Austin City out a map and looked at where clinics are, legality and accessibility.” From its beginning, NNAF has Council considered what their gestational limits are, where we saw travel a measure, ultimately been a driving force behind efforts to repeal Hyde. The successful, to fund patterns being, where we have funds,” Hernandez said. group joined a successful campaign, led by black activists, AThe groups decided to focus on improving regional abortion-related to restore the amendment’s exceptions for rape and incest expenses. networks for patients, who were increasingly compelled to travel across state lines for abortions. From 2012 to 2017, 276,000 women terminated their pregnancies out- side their home state, according to an Associated Press analysis. In New York, NYAAF began to track an increase in out-of-state visits. In fiscal year 2017, the group told The Nation, 35 percent of the people who received funds from the group traveled to New York from out of state; the following year, that number rose to 39 percent. That increase and the prospect of an even steeper rise if Roe v. Wade is overturned have prompted NYAAF to ramp up its advocacy, supporting legislation to protect abortion access and launching its historic campaign to get the city to directly fund abortions. In Texas, abortion funds faced a much darker political landscape. State lawmakers introduced bills to ban most

abortions and even to impose the death penalty on those LILITH FUND / MARI HERNANDEZ; BANNER PHOTO: BLUE LENS, LLC MARK DIXON MINTA ESPOSITO; RESEARCH: ALICE MARKHAM-CANTOR AND MOLLY MAP: MARY 12 | December 16/23, 2019 LILITH FUND / MARI HERNANDEZ; BANNER PHOTO: BLUE LENS, LLC / MARK DIXON Cascades Abortion

MAP: MARY ESPOSITO; RESEARCH: ALICE MARKHAM-CANTOR AND MOLLY MINTA Support Collective during NNAF’s annualbowlathonfundraiser thisyear. she continued,DSA chaptersraisedmorethan $137,000 nity support,not justmonetarysupport.”Nationwide, there for each other with emotional support and commu for theDSA’s feminist workinggroup.“They’re socialist said LauraColaneri,amember of thesteeringcommittee “They reallydofitinwithour ideaofasocialistvision,” supporting abortion funds, which they see as natural allies. where havechanneledtheirgrowing politicalpowerinto Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY),DSAchaptersinAustinandelse the campaignsofSandersandRepresentativeAlexandria ists ofAmerica.With agrowingmembershipspurredby members oftheAustinchapterDemocraticSocial really good,”shesaid.Amongthoseinattendancewere their victory. “We don’t gettoomanyvictories...soitfeels the Austin CityCouncil’s resolution gathered tocelebrate ment’s passage,Parkeranddozensofotherswhosupported only vehicleavailableisthe…Medicaidbill.” middle-class woman,orapoorwoman.Unfortunately, the legally, anybodyhavinganabortion,arichwoman, lamented, “Iwouldcertainlyliketoprevent,ifIcould late Republican congressman Henry Hyde, once famously strike” againsttheHydeAmendment,whosecreator, the providers directly. Parkersaidtheresolutionwasa“direct at a new state law thatbars the city from funding abortion and childcarecostsassociatedwithabortion,hittingback $150,000 to help Austin residents with the travel, housing, the groupaskedforfunding.TheCityCouncilallocated said CristinaParker, Lilith’s communicationsdirector. So gives peopleconcreteaccessisgoingtobeourpriority,” could help.“Asanabortionfund,anythingthatreally members approachedtheLilithFundtoaskhowthey who havethem.InmoreliberalAustin,CityCouncil reproductive justiceacrossthecountry. Northwest Abortion and organizingeffortsfightingfor The Abortion-Access On September30,the43rdanniversaryofamend abortion funds,doulanetworks, Access Fund A samplingofabortionclinics, ACCESS Women’s Health Justice Spectrum Doulas Grass Roots Full CA OR Justice Reproductive Surge NV WA Abortion Fundof Utah Abortion Arizona Fund ID AZ

All Families Healthcare UT

Bold Futures Chelsea’s Fund Susan Wicklund MT NM Women Rising WY Fund Indigenous Freedom Fund CO Women’s COLOR - - - - Collective there were there were Last year to restrict it. it. to restrict access than tive health reproduc to expand nationwide enacted measures more abortion-access-map for Reproductive with more information with moreinformation For aninteractivemap NE The LilithFund on each group, visit on eachgroup,visit Cicada Planned Parenthood Sioux thenation.com/ Arkansas Coalition for Red River Women’s Reproductive Justice SD LEARN LEARN ND Emma GoldmanClinic Equity MORE TX KS Access Fund Dr. Carhart’s

Abortion Falls Clinic Clinic The Afiya Center OK -

Women’s Health MN Organization T IA What All-Options envisioned was a truly comprehensive What All-Options envisionedwasatrulycomprehensive information to dissuade patientsfromseeking abortions. the anti-choice crisis pregnancycenters,which usemis opened astorefrontinBloomington asacounterpointto private insurancecoverageofabortion. Maine becamethelateststatetorequireMedicaidand tive healthaccessthantorestrictit,andthispastJune, more measuresenactednationwidetoexpandreproduc to expandaccesshavecaughton.Lastyeartherewere “but therearealsomanystillfallingthroughthecracks.” many morepeopletocare,”Jeyifowroteinane-mail, lieved someofthepressure.“We areabletoconnectso doesn’t coverabortion.ButMedicaidcoveragehasre insurance deductibles,orhaveprivatethat in timefortheprocedure,havetravelneedsorhigh are undocumentedimmigrants,can’t enrollinMedicaid funds inthosestatesstillscrambletohelppatientswho California, Washington, Oregon,andAlaska.Abortion fund abortions through Medicaid, including New York, Illinois or in the15 other states that use state money to But coveragefortheprocedurehasn’t beenacure-allin law “changedeverything,”saidtheCAF’s MeganJeyifo. approving suchcoverageunderMedicaid.TheMedicaid pressed RepublicanGovernorBruceRaunertosignabill two yearsaftertheChicagoAbortionFundsuccessfully a statelawrequiringprivateinsurancetocoverabortion, Justice Action Reproductive Jackson MO Collective LA As the federal outlook darkens, such state-level efforts As thefederaloutlookdarkens,suchstate-levelefforts In Chicago,theDSAchapterhelpedrallysupportfor St. Louis Region Planned Parenthood AR Freedom Fund Reproaction Reproductive Hope Clinicfor Mississippi WI

Doula Circle Women ple with unintended pregnancies. In 2015 it ple withunintendedpregnancies. In2015it started asan emotional-​ Mike Pence’s Indiana.The group,All-Options, of pregnancycenteropenedin then-Governor he year before the 2016 election, a new kind Chicago MS IL Yellowhammer Fund Chicago Abortion Fund IN AL TN MI SisterLove KY Fund Abortion Clinic Abortion GA OH Holler Health Justice SisterSong December 16/23,2019 North FloridaJustice WV support hotline for peo FL SC PA Women’s Network Abortion Doula and Advocacy Organizing NC Medical Fund VA NY Fund MD Project Doula The VT NJ DE DC Doulas for Choice Collective CT MA NH Wadsworth Access Fund Abortion New York | ME Center 13 Mabel RI - - - - New Abortion The Politics of pregnancy center, a one-stop shop for free diapers and day care referrals where patients could get funding and ILYSE HOGUE support for abortion. “Our movement is so on the defen- HOW TO sive, and today more so than when we opened the cen- ter,” said Parker Dockray, the group’s executive director. “We don’t offer as many visions of what we would like to see, what we think is possible, something that’s inspiring UNDO TRUMP’SWhat the next president and gives people a direction to think about: ‘This is what it could look like.’” could do to expand At the national level, Hernandez has sought to move DAMAGE reproductive rights. the funds into closer alignment with reproductive jus- tice values by fostering leadership from people of color n Los Angeles in early May, I woke up at 5:30 am to a barrage of texts and phone and those who have received funding from the groups. calls. The day before, the Alabama Legislature had passed a law banning abortion About a third of the funds have paid staff, which she said completely. This move came on the heels of the Georgia General Assembly crimi- is a priority as NNAF broadens its work and prepares nalizing abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. I was in LA with former Geor- for a future of even more restricted access. gia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to talk to film industry leaders about Among the groups to embrace the reproductive how they could challenge that law, given their extensive investments in her state. The justice framework is Alabama’s Yellowhammer Fund. Alabama ban was a tipping point, and women across the country were rising in anger, This year it plans to open a reproductive-justice re- Ifrustration, and disgust over the attacks on our reproductive freedoms. source center in Birmingham, offering formula, diapers, Among the calls were several from presidential contenders who wanted to put to- and car seats, as well as sex education and condoms. gether plans to address the erosion of reproductive rights by the Trump administration Recently, Yellowhammer received a call from a doula and the state-level attacks that started years ago in the form of 20-week bans, manda- whose patient was at risk of losing custody of her baby tory waiting periods, forced ultrasounds, and much more. In all, 20 presidential candi- because she didn’t have a crib. The fund bought her dates spoke out that day. one. “That’s reproductive justice, and those are the It hadn’t always been so. In 2016, when reproductive freedom and justice groups kinds of things we want to do,” said the fund’s Amanda pushed debate moderators to ask then–presidential primary candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders about the threats to reproductive rights as a part of the Reyes. Thanks to the recent surge in donations, Yellow- #AskAboutAbortion campaign, we were mostly dismissed by the media and the political hammer can afford to meet these aspirations. It used to elite. Despite the attacks on reproductive freedom that were well have a weekly abortion funding budget of $650, about underway, many in the Democratic Party and the progressive what a first-trimester abortion costs. Since June, it has movement didn’t understand the toll of these escalating assaults increased that to $9,000, she told The Nation in October. on the ability of women to access abortion, birth control, and (The group’s approach isn’t always popular within the President prenatal care—not coincidentally, assaults that are primarily felt movement; Yellowhammer and the Mississippi Repro- Donald by poor women, rural women, immigrant women, and women of ductive Freedom Fund have faced criticism that they color. Given the complacency of many at the top, including in the should be spending more directly on abortions.) Trump has media, only one question was asked about abortion rights during Perhaps no abortion fund has embodied the sweep- thrust the the primary debates—the very last one. ing vision of reproductive justice more than the Mis- Clinton and Sanders were both pro-choice, so people scoffed, sissippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, which provides question of “Why should we waste our time on that?” Having our concerns diapers, other baby supplies, and groceries and helps access to minimized came as no surprise to those of us who do the work. We explained again and again that pro-choice values are great, more people than just those seeking abortions. When abortion— but we expect plans. reached the MRFF’s Laurie Bertram Rob- The Nation and all it rep- To their credit, Clinton and Sanders didn’t shy away from the erts in early October, she said the fund’s van—normally issue. When asked, they were aggressive in response, and as the used to drive patients to abortion clinics across the resents about nominee, Clinton led the charge to insert in the Democratic Party South—was also being used to drive people arrested in control and platform a call to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits a series of recent Immigration and Customs Enforce- federal funding for abortion services. Still, the conversation ment raids to their court appearances. “I don’t think freedom—to existed on the margins for most pundits and observers. there’s anything more RJ [reproductive justice] than the center That brings us to today. Through fiat in the federal agencies making sure parents are with their kids, right?” she of the 2020 and an unapologetic takeover of the judicial system, President said. “That’s just as RJ as making sure someone who Donald Trump has thrust the question of access to abortion—and doesn’t want to parent doesn’t have to be a parent.” election. all it represents about control and freedom—to the center of the She has been encouraged by the victories in New York 2020 presidential election. City and Austin, she said, but in conservative Missis- So far, the Democratic field has risen to the occasion. Candi- dates have advanced explicit positions on abortion rights, and all sippi, a public funding campaign would have to start the major ones support the repeal of the Hyde Amendment and with expanding Medicaid coverage in the state, where the decades-long discrimination it embodies. That commitment about 12 percent of the population is uninsured. “We was tested this year when Joe Biden reversed his stance on the should have full access to free health care—period, issue—vowing to lift the ban on abortion funding for low-income full stop,” she said. “Abortion funding is like a stopgap Ilyse Hogue is women after quick and severe public criticism. until we get there. the president of This progress is due to the painstaking work of those raising “The goal,” she added, “is for us to not have to do NARAL Pro- the alarm year after year, even when too few listened. In 2014, All this anymore at all.” ■ Choice America. Above All, a leader in the reproductive justice movement, began AP PHOTO / ALEX BRANDON 14 | December 16/23, 2019 AP PHOTO / ALEX BRANDON leader whocanconvey with moral clarity andconviction what’s rights, andperhaps more thananything, we needanational Congress willbeinstrumental insafeguarding ourreproductive confront this moment, we have to elect pro-choice champions. start. Still, allofthat shouldbetheminimum.To adequately rights, even whenthey weren’t asked aboutthem—are agood vowed duringtheDemocratic debates to restore reproductive reproductive healthcare providers. Title Xfundingfor PlannedParenthood andotherfull-service provides abortionoreven discusses itasanoption;andreinstate bars givingfederal fundsto any foreign healthorganization that Amendment permanently; remove theglobalgagrule, which president must pushto codify as proposed inElizabeth Warren’s plan.Andofcourse, thenext the increased threats to andviolence against abortionclinics, posed by Andthecrisisrequires BernieSanders. usto address coverage ofcomprehensive reproductive care, like theonepro takes effect. The crisisrequires ahealthcare planthat includes mission from theJustice Department before anew abortionlaw Rights Act, stipulating that themost regressive states get per whose planmodelsthepreclearance process intheVoting government, like theproposal putforward by Kamala Harris, vative thinkingabouttherelationship between state and federal gieg andJuliánCastro, amongothers. The crisisrequires inno Gillibrand andBeto O’Rourke andcurrent contenders Pete Butti­ productive freedom, aspromised by former candidates Kirsten judiciary, includingtheSupreme Court, whowould protect re The crisisrequires nominating judgesto alllevels ofthefederal Booker’s callfor aWhite HouseOffice ofReproductive Freedom. dedicated resources andattention, whichwould bepartofCory the Democratic nomination have someideas.The crisisrequires the holewe findourselves in.Fortunately, thecontenders for ident willhave massive challengesindiggingournation outof as thefloorofwhat we needandnottheceiling. The next pres equity are marching andresisting inrecord numbers. to access abortionisinextricably partofourfight for gender are to becompetitive. People whounderstand that thefreedom and liberal candidates must take theseissues seriouslyifthey tive oppression enabledby misogyny. It’s undeniablethat left among Democratic voters, whohave haditwiththereproduc tion, anincrease even from last year. Supportisoverwhelming NPR/ of Americanadults—77 percent, according to a2019 does anawareness ofwhat’s at stake. The vast majority approach. Butasstate-level banssweep thenation, so attached to amotorcycle safety bill. a billto imposerestrictions onabortionclinicswas even hijacking unrelated legislative efforts. InNorthCarolina, through, convening speciallegislative sessions and lawmakers usedevery trickavailable to jamthesebills of choosingtheprocedure, andshutdown clinics.These to outlaw certain kindsofabortions,shamewomen out moved quicklyandquietly to introduce billsdesigned lar andthat they were livingonborrowed time. Sothey anti-choice movement knew their agendawas unpopu of resistance against today’s bans. Legislators inthe against that law was enormous,anditplanted seeds against Texas’s 20-week abortion ban.The backlash then astate legislator, mounted herfamous filibuster and callingfor itsrepeal. Sixyears agoWendy Davis, educating peopleontheevils oftheHyde Amendment These plans—and thefact that several presidential candidates This isaninflection point, andit’s crucialto treat Trump’s victory heralded theendofthisstealth PBS NewsHour /Marist poll—support legalaccess to abor Roe into statute; repeal theHyde Roe v. Wade ------personal agency assomething to gleefullyextinguish. anti-choice movement that puthimover thetop in2016 seeour no ability to feel safe inourown bodies.This president andthe predator himselfsent aclearmessage: We willhave norights to, highest court by apresident whoisanallegedserialsexual who hasbeenaccused ofmultiplesexual assaults, to thenation’s and criminalizingabortion.The nomination ofBrett Kavanaugh, to install justices ontheSupreme Court dedicated to gutting that lieabouteverything from abortionto contraception. and othercomprehensive healthcare providers to fake clinics This administration moved fundsaway from PlannedParenthood and have pursued astrict abstinence-only, sex-shaming agenda. family planningprograms whodonotbelieve in contraception in detention. This White Househasputpeopleincharge ofour sexual violence experienced by thesewomen ontheirtravels and from having abortions—a move that implicitlyacknowledges the Immigration andCustoms Enforcement centers to prevent them the periodsandpregnancies ofmigrant women beingheldin cans. We needtheexact opposite inournext president. science agendaandforce theirnarrow moral code onallAmeri in theWhite Househave usedthisopportunity to move ananti- anti-choice movement’s deepmisogyny andracism. Extremists at stake. The Trump administration isamanifestation ofaradical without whichwomen willnever befree. are: thenucleusofgender equity andafundamental guarantee to move policy that recognizes reproductive rights for what they with. The leader we needwillrealize that heorshehasamandate movement asabenignforce that we have amilddisagreement victimizing somany. It’s certainly notintreating theanti-choice in seekingareturn to apre-Trump status quothat was already the present for theless powerful voices amongthem. place. Left unchecked, thisisthefuture for allwomen, just asitis reproduce canandwillbewieldedasaweapon to keep usinour the charges were dropped, themessage was clear:Ourability to being shotinthestomach andlosingherpregnancy. Although Alabama, Marshae Joneswas charged withmanslaughter after rights ofafertilized eggover those oftheperson carrying it.In states, women are fodder for test casesto establish thestatutory alty onwomen whoterminate theirpregnancies. Andinmany on alaw that would allow prosecutors to imposethedeath pen should bepunishedfor seekingabortion,Texas heldahearing So therein liesthechallenge. The mantle ofleadership isnot This spring,emboldenedby apresident whosaidwomen Of course, thecrowning achievement ofthisadministration is In adystopian move, theTrump administration hastracked December 16/23,2019 Roe - ​ - ■

fists outside the fists outsidethe Protesters raisetheir Supremely unjust: women. women. all for future the this is unchecked, place. in our us keep to on weap as a be wielded will can and to reproduce Our ability sexual assault. who wasaccusedof of BrettKavanaugh, vote the confirmation after Supreme Court Left Left | 15 -

New Abortion The Politics of

Janet Folger Porter is an anti-abortion evangelist once considered too extreme for many conservatives. Now she’s a leading force behind a wave of “heartbeat” bills. ZOË CARPENTER THE BILL PUSHER

16 | December 16/23, 2019 ...... New Abortion...... The Politics ...... of ...... n the spring of 2011, two fetuses testified before the ohio house of representatives’ health committee. at least that’s how the spectacle was described by the anti-abortion-rights activists who had recruited two pregnant women to receive ultrasounds, live, while the representatives watched. Small dots flashing on a projection screen were described as beating hearts, and their sound was broadcast to the room—one coming through clearly, a reporter noted, the other “only faintly audible and hard to distinguish.” A month earlier, a Republican state representative had introduced legislation to make abortion illegal as soon as fetal cardiac activity (colloquially but disingenuously described as a heartbeat) could be detected—usually around the sixth to eighth week of pregnancy, sometimes before a woman even knows she’s pregnant. The bill captured an ascendant mood: After sweeping electoral victories in 2010, Republican state lawmakers across the country put forward a sheaf of abortion-related restrictions, targeting clinics with unnecessary regulations, erecting procedural hurdles for women seeking care, and attempting to tighten the time frame in which abortion was legal. Many of these new bills were subtle, even sneaky, attempts to make abortion inaccessible, if still legal. Ohio’s legislation, on the Iother hand, was entirely transparent. Amounting to a near-total ban, the bill was blatantly unconstitutional, so unlikely to survive legal challenge that many establishment anti-abortion groups refused to support it. Stephanie Craddock Sherwood, who was an organizer for Planned Parenthood at the time, remembers that the hearing struck her as a grotesque kind of joke. “It was such a complete dog and pony show,” she said recently. “I was like, ‘There’s no way this will ever pass, because it’s so ridiculous.’” Sherwood, who now directs an abortion fund in Ohio called Women Have Options, laughed at the recollec- tion. Then she sighed gloomily. One reason it was hard to take the bill seriously was the woman behind it, Janet Folger Porter, who takes credit for the idea for the leg- islation and has a long history on the Christian right’s conspiratorial fringe. Her career is littered with dubious positions and projects, from engineering a prominent antigay “conversion therapy” ad campaign in the 1990s to promoting Obama birtherism to At the signing ceremony, DeWine surrounded himself flirting with dominionism, the idea that Christians should with a number of anti-abortion advocates. Standing a govern the nation according to biblical law. Her endeavors few feet from him was Michael Gonidakis, the president have ranged from hateful to laughable, including Reagan- of Ohio Right to Life, the largest and most powerful Book, a short-lived social networking site she created as a anti-abortion group in the state. Gonidakis recently de- conservative alternative to Facebook. In 2017 she acted as scribed the “heartbeat” bill as “the culmination of eight a spokesperson for Roy Moore, the Senate candidate from years of work,” though for most of that time his organiza- Alabama accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. Her career is tion fought it, believing it was a strategic misstep. The ultrasound hearing exemplified her performative Porter was not invited to the signing—a snub that did approach to lobbying. In her attempts to push her abortion littered with not go unnoticed by advocates on both sides. Many in the ban—which she and other supporters call a “heartbeat” dubious proj- reproductive rights community saw her disinvitation as a bill—she sent legislators heart-shaped balloons, then teddy ects, from way to gloss over the extreme origins of the bill. When I bears with mechanical hearts that thumped when they were asked Gonidakis about her absence, he said merely, “I think squeezed. On Valentine’s Day in 2012, she sent 2,000 roses engineering the right people were in the room.” to state senators along with a note reading, “Bring this bill a prominent to a vote before the roses and babies die.” antigay orter hosted her own victory party several For several years, the bill failed to get enough Repub- weeks later, where she was lauded by other advo- lican support to pass the Ohio Senate, and Porter’s tactics “conversion cates and allies, including Iowa’s Representative became increasingly aggressive. In 2015 activists working therapy” Steve King, who gave the keynote speech. “Be- with her organization Faith2Action picketed lawmakers’ ing disinvited to the bill signing by the governor, homes. The following year, she ran unsuccessfully as a ad campaign it stung,” she told the Associated Press. (Porter declined primary challenger against a Republican state senator to promot- to make herself available for an interview and did not she saw as an obstruction. She made plenty of enemies, Panswer e-mailed questions.) “But I’m keeping my eye on ing Obama but the bill eventually passed both chambers of the the big picture.” She predicts her signature idea will be Ohio legislature as its members became increasingly birtherism. the “arrow” that takes down Roe. It would be a remarkable conservative—only to be vetoed twice by John Kasich, achievement for a woman once considered by many of her the Republican governor, who was wary of the legal bat- fellow conservatives as tactically naive—and a disaster for tle such a law would provoke. the millions of women who would lose rights as a result. Then Donald Trump was elected. Within two years, Porter is a natural orator, prone to infusing her rapid, he appointed two conservative justices to the Supreme clipped speech with references to Scripture. Now 57, she Court. As GOP lawmakers across the country rushed to dates her commitment against abortion to a presentation pass abortion restrictions under the assumption that the in high school. By college, she had become an activist, court might now be willing to upend Roe v. Wade, Porter’s serving as president of Students for Life at Cleveland idea rapidly went from fringe to mainstream. More than State and eventually landing a job as legislative director half a dozen states—including Georgia, Mississippi, and of Ohio Right to Life. There she shepherded the first Louisiana—passed a version of a “heartbeat” bill in 2019. state ban on a procedure that abortion opponents have The Ohio legislature approved the bill again in April, misleadingly labeled “partial-birth abortion,” as well as and the state’s new Republican governor, Mike DeWine, a measure requiring minors to obtain parental consent. promptly signed it. The law, which has been challenged in Zoë Carpenter She was such an aggressive lobbyist that several legislators court and hasn’t taken effect, would make it a felony for is a contribut- reportedly barred her from their offices. doctors to perform an abortion after detecting fetal cardi- ing writer for Porter built a national reputation after moving to Flor- ac activity, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The Nation. ida, where she became the national director of the Center ILLUSTRATION BY LOUISA BERTMAN December 16/23, 2019 | 17 New Abortion The Politics of for Reclaiming America, a political offshoot of Coral Ridge Ministries, a media turned to a friend and pitched the idea for the “heartbeat” production company founded by televangelist D. James Kennedy. There she bill “right there at the wake.” shifted her focus to anti-LGBTQ activism. In 1998, according to The New York Porter said she came up with the idea of using fetal car- Times, she crafted an ad campaign that ran in major newspapers and highlighted diac activity as a threshold for an abortion ban in the 1980s, “‘former homosexuals’ who ‘overcame’ their sexual orientation with prayer and only to be told the timing wasn’t right. “The original idea the help of ‘ex-gay ministries.’” In that article, evangelical power broker Ralph was…heartbeat, brainwaves, how far back can we get with Reed described her as “an ideological entrepreneur, someone who tries to pick an incremental bill to protect these babies?” she explained the hot new issues.” in Charisma News. The funeral brought the idea to mind By the mid-2000s, Porter was well-known in the Christian right. She had a again, and she quickly settled on her approach. “Friends of radio talk show under the umbrella of Faith2Action and appeared at events with mine said, ‘Yeah, I like heartbeat.’ I said, ‘I do too, let’s draft figures like Focus on the Family’s James Dobson. In 2007 she hosted the Values a heartbeat bill.’” Voter Debate for GOP presidential hopefuls and declared former Arkansas gov- All along, Porter has explicitly stated that the bill was ernor Mike Huckabee to be God’s chosen candidate. In his memoirs, Huckabee meant to overturn Roe. “This is the bill that was crafted cited her as one of the “prophetic voices” that helped create the “Huckaboom” exactly for the Supreme Court. It was meant from its that allowed him to capture Iowa and a handful of other primary states. birth, from its conception, to be before the court,” she “There aren’t extravagances enough to praise Janet for the role she’s played said in 2018. What will distinguish it in court from other in taking back America and rebuilding the conservative movement,” Phyllis anti-abortion legislation, she’s said, is its purported basis Schlafly said of Porter in 2009. Schlafly was one of Porter’s most significant in science. She claims that the detection of a heartbeat influences, from whom she took notes about lobbying. is a more precise indicator of life than viability (a fetus’s But during the Obama administration, Porter’s star ability to survive outside the uterus), which she has called dimmed, thanks to her increasingly unhinged claims and “This is a “lousy” and “arbitrary” standard. A “fetal heartbeat,” her the fringe company she kept. In 2010 she organized a May the bill that model legislation asserts, is “a key medical predictor that an Day rally, A Cry to God for a Nation in Distress, which was unborn human individual will reach live birth.” a bust. Only a few hundred people showed up, though she was crafted Many doctors argue that this language is misleading. later insisted that thousands attended. More disturbing, the exactly for While obstetricians consider fetal cardiac activity one event included speakers associated with the dominionist the Supreme early marker of a healthy pregnancy, that’s not the same movement, whose call for a Christian theocratic state was as indicating life, whose beginning does not have a set- deemed too extreme even by other members of the reli- Court. It was tled scientific marker. “When life begins and whether gious right. Two distributors of her radio show dropped meant… or not a pregnancy is likely to continue into a live birth it in the aftermath—and while she later tried to back- from its are two completely separate questions that are being pedal, the damage was done. Without its radio influence, conflated,” said Dr. Jen Villavicencio, a Michigan-based Faith2Action “all but closed down,” wrote Kyle Mantyla of conception ob-gyn and fellow with the American College of Obste- Right Wing Watch. Porter moved back to Ohio, where she to be before tricians and Gynecologists. launched the campaign that would resuscitate her career. Furthermore, despite Porter’s invocation of science, the court.” the term “heartbeat” is not accurate in early pregnancy. — Janet Folger Porter he origin story that porter tells about her “The flicker that we see on an ultrasound that we collo- signature idea begins in 2010, at a funeral. “I quially call the heartbeat is really just electric activities just realized, ‘You know what? Life is short.’ that are firing from the cells that will eventually become a And God put it in my heart that we need to do The gadfly: Janet part of the heart,” Villavicencio said. it and we need to do it now,” she said at a rally Folger Porter turns If the term “heartbeat” is not scientifically accurate, lobbying into spectacle in Michigan this year, describing the revelation she had at as she pushes her it nonetheless has an emotional effect. “When you say a service for a former mentor. In a recent interview for the “heartbeat” bill in Ohio, the word ‘heartbeat,’ people envision a fully formed, tiny Treligious publication Charisma News, she recalled that she February 14, 2012. mini-baby that has everything it needs to live, which is not true,” said Ohio Representative Beth Liston, a Democrat and practicing physician. “The term is designed to create an image that is inaccurate, and I think that’s harmful.”

s soon as ohio’s “heartbeat” bill was intro- duced in 2011, it exposed fractures in the anti-abortion movement. The divide general- ly fell between evangelical and more militant groups on one side and Catholic groups and institutional organizations like Right to Life on the other. For the militants, the bill was a chance to shake off the

Amovement’s incremental strategy; for the more establish- VIA AP / BROOKE LAVALLEY ment players, it was too big a risk, the kind of frontal assault on precedent that could provoke the Supreme Court to affirm rather than eviscerate Roe. “There simply wasn’t a majority” on the court, Gonidakis said.

The split was also one of image. Porter was “mo- THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH 18 | December 16/23, 2019 AN OPEN LETTER TO READERS OF THE NATION

RightRight now now reproductive reproductive freedom freedom is isunder under constant constant Maine,Maine, Democratic Democratic lawmakers lawmakers passed passed bills bills that that require require all all assault.assault. Through Through a coordinateda coordinated effort effort to totrigger trigger a a insuranceinsurance and and Medicaid Medicaid plans plans to tocover cover abortion abortion and and allow allow SupremeSupreme Court Court challenge challenge to toRoe Roe v. Wade v. Wade, in, 2019,in 2019, moremore medical medical practitioners, practitioners, like like nurses nurses and and advanced advanced moremore than than 300 300 dangerous dangerous and and unconstitutional unconstitutional bills bills clinicians,clinicians, to provideto provide abortion abortion care. care. State State legislatures legislatures in in to gutto gutabortion abortion access access have have been been introduced introduced in states in states placesplaces like likeNew New Jersey Jersey are workingare working to provide to provide funding funding throughoutthroughout the country—includingthe country—including Alabama, Alabama, Georgia, Georgia, for reproductivefor reproductive health health services services at Planned at Planned Parenthood Parenthood Ohio,Ohio, and Tennessee—andand Tennessee—and some some have havealready already become become and otherand other providers providers that werethat were forced forced to withdraw to withdraw from from law. Onlaw. top On of top that, of that,the Trump the Trump administration administration Title X.Title In X.Illinois, In Illinois, legislation legislation was passed was passed this summer this summer that that imposedimposed its unethical its unethical Title XTitle ‘gag X rule’ ‘gag andrule’ forced and forced repealedrepealed a 1975 a state1975 lawstate that law required that required spousal spousal consent consent PlannedPlanned Parenthood—the Parenthood—the largest largest Title X Title provider X provider and waitingand waiting periods, periods, placed placedrestrictions restrictions on abortion on abortion since itssince creation—to its creation—to withdraw withdraw and forego and foregomillions millions facilities,facilities, and outlined and outlined procedures procedures for pursuing for pursuing criminal criminal of dollarsof dollarsin critical in criticalfunding. funding. However, However, the rush the to rush to chargescharges against abortionagainst abortion providers. providers. And, in And,North in North spread cruelspread lies cruel and liesstrip and away strip women’s away women’s reproductive reproductive Carolina Carolina when Republicans when Republicans attempted attempted to override to override the the freedomfreedom is drastically is drastically out of touch out of with touch the with seven the in seven inGovernor’s Governor’s veto of theirveto disastrousof their disastrous “born-alive” “born-alive” bill, it bill, it 10 Americans10 Americans that believe that Roe believe v. Wade Roe shouldv. Wade stand. should stand.was pro-choicewas pro-choice Democratic Democratic women whowomen held who the lineheld the line The majorityThe ofmajority Americans of Americans believe these believe are these rights are rights and sustainedand sustainedthe veto. the veto. worth protecting,worth protecting, and for over and 30 for years, over EMILY’s30 years, ListEMILY’s List has electedhas pro-choice elected pro-choice Democratic Democratic women to women stop to stopThe far right’sThe farcruel right’s and crueldangerous and dangerous attempts toattempts to Republicans’Republicans’ attacks on attacksreproductive on reproductive health care. health Now, care. criminalizeNow, criminalizeabortion and abortion punish andwomen punish are women relentless are relentless after a decadeafter of a gerrymandereddecade of gerrymandered maps and illegitimate maps and illegitimateand it’s vitaland that it’s we vital sound that thewe alarmsound and the comealarm and come Republican majorities,Republican we’remajorities, taking we’re the battle taking to the the battle to armedthe with armedmore thanwith justmore words. than Headingjust words. into Heading 2020, into 2020, front lines tofront flip linesstatehouses to flip statehousesblue. Without blue. question, Without question,EMILY’s ListEMILY’s is supporting List is the supporting thousands the of thousands pro-choice of pro-choice protecting reproductiveprotecting reproductive choice is still choice a winning is still issue. a winning Democraticissue. Democraticwomen who women are fighting who areto standfighting up to stand up for women’s forhealth women’s by helping health to byrecruit, helping advise, to recruit, advise, Just look at VirginiaJust look where at Virginia Democrats where again Democrats elected againa electedtrain, anda electtrain, them and in electrecord them numbers in record across numbers the across the wave of pro-choicewave ofDemocratic pro-choice women Democratic and flipped women and flippedcountry. Whilecountry. much of While the media’s much of focus the media’sis on the focus is on the both chambersboth of the chambers General of Assembly. the General Republicans Assembly. Republicanspresidential racepresidential and federal race offices, and federal so muchoffices, of the so much of the attempted to useattempted every trick to usein the every book trick to inspread the book to spreadwork on this issue—bothwork on this good issue—both and bad—is good done and onbad—is done on dangerous lies aboutdangerous women’s lies aboutaccess women’s to reproductive access to reproductivethe state level. That’sthe state why level. EMILY’s That’s List why has EMILY’s announced List has announced care, but Democrats—ledcare, but Democrats—led by women—ran byon women—ran the facts onan the unprecedented facts an $20unprecedented million investment $20 million in state investment and in state and and they won. Virginiansand they knowwon. Virginiansthat women know deserve that women localdeserve races. It’s whylocal we races. have It’sexpanded why we our have staff expanded and our staff and to make their ownto healthmake theircare decisionsown health and care now decisions the andour now focus the on theseour vital focus state on legislativethese vital races—and state legislative races—and Democratic majorityDemocratic can work majority to ensure can that’s work the to ensure that’swe could the use yourwe help. could We use urge your you help. to joinWe usurge in you to join us in reality. From Virginiareality. to statesFrom acrossVirginia the to country,states across the workingcountry, to elect pro-choiceworking to majorities elect pro-choice at all levels majorities of at all levels of pro-choice Democraticpro-choice women Democratic lawmakers women have been lawmakers government. have been Go togovernment. www.emilyslist.org Go to www.emilyslist.org to learn more. to learn more. instrumental in stoppinginstrumental the Republican in stopping anti-choice the Republican anti-choice agenda, and even expandingagenda, and access even in expanding some states. access in some states.

Across the VIA AP / BROOKE LAVALLEY country, lawmakersAcross the are country, passing lawmakers much-needed are passing much-needed laws that protect and lawsexpand that access protect to and reproductive expand access to reproductive Stephanie SchriockStephanie Schriock care while foiling the GOP’scare while anti-woman foiling the agenda. GOP’s In anti-woman agenda. In President, EMILY’s ListPresident, EMILY’s List THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Paid for by EMILY’s List, www.emilyslist.org,Paid for by EMILY’s and List, not www.emilyslist.org, authorized by any candidateand not authorized or candidate’s by any committee. candidate or candidate’s committee. New Abortion The Politics of bilizing all of the other fringe folks,” said Craddock was,” Harrington said—others pointed out that her cam- Sherwood. “She was mobilizing the people that scream paign benefited from rightward political shifts and from in front of clinics, which oftentimes the mainstream the incrementalism that she found so inadequate. “Many anti-abortion movement doesn’t necessarily encourage.” of the states adopting near-total abortion bans [in 2019] While the drama over those explicit abortion bans are states that have been adopting restrictions for years or played out publicly, Right to Life made Ohio a laboratory decades,” said Elizabeth Nash, a senior state policy ana- for its indirect assault on legal abortion, busily ticking off lyst at the Guttmacher Institute. “So in many ways, what its legislative agenda with the help of Kasich and other was left…was an abortion ban.” lawmakers. The state enacted a slew of restrictions that Many Democratic lawmakers and advocates also see not only made abortion more difficult to access but also the sudden popularity of “heartbeat” bills as the result of stigmatized the women seeking care. Doctors were forced a rigged system—specifically of gerrymandering, which to offer patients a view of an ultrasound; women had to over the past decade has skewed many state legislative contend with a new mandatory waiting period and coun- maps in the GOP’s favor. In 2018, Ohio Republicans won seling. New limits were placed on roughly 50 percent of the vote the use of medication to induce in statehouse races yet captured abortion. In 2016, at the same time 63 percent of the seats. Similarly, that Kasich vetoed the “heartbeat” several other states that passed bill, he signed another one banning “heartbeat” bills this year have abortion after 20 weeks. More than been affected by manipulative re­ half the state’s clinics closed. districting.­ Georgia, for instance, Porter continued to push her has some of the least competitive legislation in Ohio and in other legislative districts in the country, states. “She doesn’t take no for an thanks to maps that were redrawn answer. She’s the most persistent by Republicans after the 2010 pro-life activist/lobbyist I’ve ever census to concentrate black voters known,” said Mark Harrington, in certain districts. a longtime friend of hers and the Gerrymandering encourages founder of an Ohio anti-abortion extreme policy-making by shifting group. “Some people might con- the emphasis to primary elections, sider some of her tactics controversial, but I don’t at all,” Pushing back: where candidates are more beholden to activist base he continued. “She held people to account.” Abortion rights voters. It also insulates elected officials from public back- State Senator Nickie Antonio, a Democrat first elected activists protest at the lash. According to one poll, Georgians opposed the new Ohio Statehouse after to the Ohio House of Representatives in 2010, described the House passed the anti-abortion law 49 to 44 percent, yet the measure passed. Porter and her supporters as “a small group of very loud, “heartbeat” bill on Anti-abortion voices in particular have been amplified determined people.” Antonio, who served on the health April 10, 2019. in the race to the right. “Conservative legislators have committee that deliberated numerous anti-abortion bills, been using abortion for years to prove their conservative recalled all the heart-shaped balloons and teddy bears that bona fides, and other issues haven’t had that staying pow- Faith2Action delivered to her office over the years. “They er,” said Nash. She cited anti-LGBTQ campaigns of the were definitely relentless. I’ll give them that.” sort that Porter once devoted considerable attention to. According to Antonio, the political winds shifted Many “Some of the issues [the right has] used as their bread and decisively with Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the butter to gin up their base aren’t as salient, so they keep Supreme Court. Late in 2018, Right to Life announced Democratic coming back to abortion.” that it supported “a pathway forward” for the “heartbeat” lawmakers bill, calling it the “next incremental approach to end see the o date, the main practical effect of “heart- abortion.” The statement continued, “With the additions beat” bills has been widespread confusion. “We of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme popularity get a lot of calls about whether or not abortion Court we believe this is the most pro-life court we have of “heart- is still legal in Ohio,” said Chrisse France, the seen in generations.” beat” bills director of the Cleveland clinic Preterm, which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit that has temporarily blocked o many reproductive rights advocates, the as the result the law. “All they hear is ‘Governor DeWine signed a divisions between Porter and Right to Life Tsix-week abortion ban,’ and most people who don’t follow of a rigged were superficial and self-serving. “I honestly this don’t realize…that the ban was challenged and that just think she was a tool,” Craddock Sherwood system— it’s not in effect.” said of Porter, echoing other sources. Despite specifically Recently, France said, Preterm received a call from the animosity between Porter and the establishment of gerry­ a woman who had waited until later in her pregnancy VIA AP / BROOKE LAVALLEY anti-abortion groups, she was useful as a foil, casting to contact the clinic because she didn’t think she would Tburdensome, piecemeal restrictions in a moderate light. mandering. be able to get an abortion legally. “It shortened her time While Porter’s supporters credited her with the pas- line for care,” France said, “and it limited her options,” sage of “heartbeat” bills in Ohio and elsewhere—“It because by then, the woman could no longer have a med-

wouldn’t have happened without her. That’s how vital she ication abortion. THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH 20 | December 16/23, 2019 ...... New Abortion...... The Politics ...... of ......

“We get callers all the time who are frantically ask- ing if it’s legal for them to leave the state to get an abor- CYNTHIA GREENLEE tion,” said Craddock Sherwood, whose abortion fund connects women with clinics and helps finance their MEET THE procedures. While the law hasn’t led to a decline in the number of people seeking help from her organization, PROSECUTORS “people are more stressed about it, more frantic.” Many people voiced frustrations with the attention captured by Porter. “She’s just a caricature, when all is RESISTING NEW said and done, of someone who has used all of this to great professional gain,” said Antonio. What advocates ABORTION BANS and health providers care about are not Porter’s theatrics They’re refusing to enforce the unconstitutional laws. but her impact on the people they serve. If the “heart- beat” bills are upheld by the courts and go into effect, it will mean a near-total ban on abortion in those states. new wave of abortion bans has swept statehouses In preparation for that day, advocates are contem- in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, plating the need to transport people out of Ohio and are Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Utah. Many of these discussing safe, self-managed abortion and other sys- states have banned abortions at such an early stage tems of care used by communities that historically hav- of pregnancy—six to eight weeks—that many women en’t had access to legal abortion. “I think it’s important won’t even know they’re pregnant yet. Because these laws are to remember that abortion has already become inacces- now being challenged in court, none of them have taken effect. ASome of the nation’s prosecutors are considering deliberate sible” for many communities, said Craddock Sherwood. Alabama’s “Appalachian Ohio has never had an abortion clinic.” inaction. In mid-April, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel new ban made a public pledge: Should Roe v. Wade be overturned and his fall, porter worked the phones. during would her state’s pre-1973 ban on abortion come back into effect, she would not prosecute a woman for having one or her doctor for one week in September, she said in a recent punish those providing one. Soon after, Salt Lake County District Attorney speech, she discussed her model bill with performing Sim Gill said he would refuse to enforce Utah’s new 18-week legislators in Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, ban. After Georgia passed a ban on terminating a pregnancy South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. She an abortion as early as six weeks, four Atlanta-area DAs told the media that also promoted her forthcoming book, whose working with up to they too would refrain from enforcing the law. And in June, title is A Heartbeat Away. Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP) released a joint statement TShe has been particularly engaged in Michigan, 99 years from 42 prosecutors—including Gill, Nessel, and 12 attorneys where a contentious intraparty squabble over abortion in prison. general—asserting that the bans are unconstitutional. bans is ongoing. While Republicans control the state Under Ohio’s “Not all of us agree on a personal or moral level on the issue of legislature—with help, again, from gerrymandering— abortion,” the statement reads. “What brings us together is our Michigan’s Democratic governor has threatened to veto ban, a doctor view that as prosecutors we should not and will not criminalize any abortion restrictions sent her way. Now a group could be healthcare decisions such as these—and we believe it is our obliga- working with Porter called the Michigan Heartbeat tion as elected prosecutors charged with protecting the health and Coalition is attempting to circumvent the governor via a imprisoned safety of all members of our community to make our views clear.” Many of the attorneys who signed the letter make up a growing law that allows petitioners who gather a certain number for up to cadre of progressive prosecutors who have instructed their offices of voter signatures to take their bill directly to the legis- a year. not to pursue certain actions, from seeking charges for marijuana lature, which can then approve it with a simple majority possession (in Baltimore) to fighting death row appeals (in Phil- vote. The coalition launched its signature collection ef- adelphia). Of those prosecutors who signed on, only six are from fort earlier this year—to the displeasure of Right to Life states with new abortion bans. The existence of the bans, however, of Michigan, which is trying to use the same maneuver makes the message crucially important to send. In Durham, North to enact a ban on a medical procedure commonly used Carolina, District Attorney Satana Deberry said she was making a in second-trimester abortions. public commitment because she considered resisting these bans The Republican Party’s rightward lurch has given a matter of constitutionality and conscience. It was also personal Porter some vindication: Once too extreme for right- for her. “I have three black teenager daughters,” she said, “and wing talk radio, she is now reportedly able to secure they are moving into the phase of their lives in which their ability to meetings with the vice president. But a real victory choose will impact everything that will happen to them.” for her depends on whether the courts have been so The prosecutors coming out against abortion bans nonethe- less account for a minute proportion of the nation’s 2,300-odd thoroughly radicalized that they are ready to toss out a prosecutor’s offices. But some attorneys and advocates say the half century of legal precedent. If this seems unthink- Cynthia Greenlee, PhD, is a journal- value in their stand lies not just in the cases that don’t get to VIA AP / BROOKE LAVALLEY able, consider what happened with the “partial-birth ist and historian court but also in what the statements signal to constituents, leg- abortion” ban that she worked on early in her career. based in North islators, and other attorneys. Many women in states with abor- As Porter has pointed out, it was struck down by the Carolina. Her tion bans are under the misperception that the bans are in effect. Supreme Court in 2000. Then the justices’ ideological work is available “We hear from people in Kentucky, and I’ve talked to people balance shifted; seven years later, the court approved a at cynthia from as far away as Alabama and Arkansas. They think abortion

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH ban on the procedure nationwide. ngreenlee.com. is banned and it is over,” said Meg Sasse Stern of the Kentucky December 16/23, 2019 | 21 New Abortion The Politics of

Health Justice Network. That kind of mis­understanding­ has led Susan Frietsche, a senior ment, “The question is—who will be held criminally responsible? staff attorney at the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia, to argue that prosecutors’ The law, as written, is either silent, or ambiguous, at best, on this avowals can be a public good. When challenging Pennsylvania’s abortion restrictions in question…. Virtually anyone who either performs or assists in per- the early 1990s, she fielded numerous calls asking if and how the abortion law changed. forming or arranging what is currently a legal medical procedure “Managing public perception about what the law was, I learned that it’s really hard to could potentially be charged under this statute.” communicate the status of abortion laws. By prosecutors speaking out and saying that if Diaz-Tello argued that this interpretation gives prosecutors the laws take effect, they won’t touch it, they may be doing a public health service.” power they don’t actually have. “There’s nothing in the Georgia law Women have long sought abortions when they were illegal. But throughout US that authorizes [charging women for ending their pregnancies],” history, the laws banning abortion tended not to be enforced against women who had she said. She doubts that prosecutors—who have always had the them. Doctors also frequently went unpunished unless a person died from the proce- power to decide whether to charge and tend to wield that discre- dure, notes historian Leslie Reagan in her book When Abortion Was a Crime, and when tion in favor of finding crime—are the right people to lead the way. providers landed in court, community members often balked at prosecuting them. Amanda Reyes directs Alabama’s Yellowhammer Fund, which With this new generation of abortion bans, those norms may not hold. Today abor- gives financial and logistical support to individuals seeking tion has become politicized in a way that it wasn’t in earlier eras, and the rise of mass abortions in the state. She’s skeptical that prosecutorial vows not incarceration means that punishing people who have or perform abortions is increas- to enforce these bans will make a difference there. Only one of ingly on the table. Alabama’s new ban, for instance, would punish those performing the 42 FJP signatories hails from Alabama: Jefferson County DA an abortion with up to 99 years in prison—far longer than recommended in the state’s Danny Carr. Too often, she has seen prosecutors exercise their 1852 statute, in which a conviction came with a discretion by criminalizing health care experiences $500 fine (a sizable amount at that time) or three and behaviors, including drug use during pregnan- to 12 months in jail. Under Ohio’s ban, a doctor cy. “If we have learned something from the case of could be imprisoned for up to a year, and under Marshae Jones last summer, it is that Alabamans Mississippi’s ban, physicians could have their cannot rely on a prosecutor’s or district attorney’s licenses revoked. (Like the bans in Ohio and Mis- promise not to press charges against a pregnant sissippi, Alabama’s 21st century ban doesn’t make person or any person who offers assistance,” said exceptions for rape or incest.) Reyes, referring to Jones’s indictment for losing The FJP statement lists a wide variety of indi- her pregnancy after being shot in the stomach. (It viduals who could be charged for helping people took intense national pressure before a DA publicly get abortions, including doctors, nurses, anesthe- announced that she would not be prosecuted.) tists, and office workers. And that doesn’t take “Lawyers throughout Alabama have made it their into account abortion fund workers, underground goal to find new and untried avenues to test out community networks that refer women to or who can be held legally responsible for a bad provide medication abortion, and perhaps even pregnancy outcome,” Reyes added. friends or loved ones who offer support. Similarly, Stern and her colleagues aren’t wait- So a promise to use prosecutorial discretion ing for any Kentucky prosecutors to join the short in a way that advances abortion rights is no sub- list of those who won’t charge people for exer- stitute for making sure the law protects everyone. Jonathan Charged: After cising their right to an abortion. They immediately kicked into Rapping, the founder of a nonprofit that trains public defend- Alabama’s abortion gear to make sure women could get transportation to an Illinois ers, sees some value in nonenforcement—fewer people in the ban was passed, facility. And if people have legal questions, they’re referred to Marshae Jones was system—but doubts that it will benefit everyone equally. “You indicted for losing her an If/When/How hotline. can have prosecutors who say, ‘I am not going to prosecute a pregnancy after being Stern has seen the real-time effects of a ban, albeit briefly. doctor,’” he said, “but will absolutely spend [their] days throw- shot in the stomach Kentucky’s Republican Governor Matt Bevin signed into law a ing away the lives of poor people of color who make mistakes.” this summer. ban on abortions after six weeks into pregnancy and another ACLU senior staff attorney Alexa Kolbi-Molinas also worries on abortions due to fetal race, gender, or disability. The second about selective prosecution. “Some [prosecutors] haven’t ban went into effect immediately, but it was blocked by a federal said they wouldn’t actually prosecute physicians that provide “People district court judge a day later. In those 24 hours, Stern estimated, abortions—in which case, that is effectively enforcing a ban on 15 to 25 people with abortion appointments had to reschedule at abortion,” she said. “People know that, politically, it doesn’t know that a clinic four hours away and across the state line. look good to say you’re going to prosecute the people seeking it doesn’t It’s unclear whether there will be any political fallout from abortions. So that’s an easy political statement to make. Then you these nonenforcement pledges in the next elections. Many actually retain the right to enforce the ban against providers.” look good of the FJP statement’s attorneys work in reliably liberal dis- Law professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin of the University to say tricts. Though some advocates suspect that these prosecutors of California at Irvine pointed out that prosecutorial discretion may be positioning themselves for upcoming races, Clarise has historically swung in many directions, not all of them arcing you’re McCants, the criminal-justice campaign director with Color of toward justice. She noted that the power not to charge has often going to Change, insisted the very fact that most of them are elected is protected powerful interests and led to white impunity. For ex- an opportunity. Her organization runs a number of prosecutor ample, it helped known lynchers evade consequences, and many prosecute accountability campaigns and has advocated for women in prosecutors opted to turn a blind eye to domestic violence cases, the people pregnancy-related criminal cases through public petitions, labeling them a private matter, until the 1960s and ’70s. seeking negotiations with district attorneys, and the power of its PAC. Farah Diaz-Tello, a senior counsel for the nonprofit reproduc- If women face prosecution under these new restrictions, tive justice lawyering network If/When/How, is concerned that abortions.” advocates will have to figure out how to fight back in court. “It some interpretations of specific bans could reinforce or expand — Alexa Kolbi- may be beyond the training of some public defenders and other prosecutors’ power. Take Georgia’s law: As Stone Mountain DA Molinas, senior staff criminal defense lawyers to think to raise constitutional claims Sherry Boston (who pledged not to pursue abortion charges and attorney, ACLU related to abortion,” said Frietsche of the Women’s Law Project.

who signed the prosecutors’ letter) described it in a May state- “We [may] need a whole new [legal] specialty.” n REUTERS; BANNER PHOTO: BLUE LENS, LLC / MARK DIXON 22 | December 16/23, 2019 æ NATIVE AMERICAN VOICES The Dakotas, Colorado, and New Mexico MAY 10–18, 2020

Join us as we travel to the Dakotas, Colorado, and New Mexico, where we will gain insight into important aspects of the Hidatsa, Mandan, Lakota, Ute, Navajo, Apache, and Kiowa nations. Our goal for this program is to listen and to learn: to hear directly from Native Americans without the questionable filters of history books, mainstream media representations, even well- intentioned progressive journalism. We reached out to tribal leaders and learned that many in their communities are eager to be heard, to challenge misconceptions, and to share their good work and promising programs.

We’ll travel through dramatic Western landscapes peppered with rich historical sites as we meet with community and tribal leaders, storytellers, artists, musicians, and activists—with a focus on listening to what they want to tell us, understanding their hopes for the future, and facing the shameful legacy of a brutal US history of eradication and oppression. We hope to have the privilege of hearing singular voices that have been silenced for too long.

Accompanying us throughout the journey is Linda Baker, director of the Southern Ute Cultural Center.

100% of the proceeds from our travel programs supportsThe Nation’s journalism.

For more information, visit TheNation.com/NATIVE-VOICES, e-mail [email protected], or call 212-209-5401.

The Nation purchases carbon offsets for all emissions generated by our tours. REUTERS; BANNER PHOTO: BLUE LENS, LLC / MARK DIXON

NativeAmerican_May_2020.indd 1 11/25/19 1:27 PM when the CLINICS CLOSE

Planned Parenthood centers are being shuttered in Ohio, but reproductive justice groups are fighting back.

DANI McCLAIN USA TODAY NETWORK USA TODAY 24 | December 16/23, 2019 ...... New Abortion...... The Politics ...... of ......

n a muggy evening in mid-september, i drove from my home in cincinnati to a rally 15 minutes west at a planned Parenthood health center that was slated to close. Earlier that week, news broke that because of a reduction in funding, Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio would shut down two of its nine clinics in the state. In August the organization was forced to withdraw from the federal Title X family planning program after an unprecedented Trump administration rule prohibited those funds from going to facilities that provide abortions or refer patients to abortions elsewhere. Title X subsidizes birth control, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and other medical care for 4 million low-income patients. The soon-to-be-shuttered clinics, both of them in Cincinnati, served over 6,000 patients a year, with services including pregnancy testing and birth control. Neither location provided abortions. But staffers there acknowledged that abortion is a legal, legitimate form of health care that clients could pursue elsewhere. For that, these clinics and others like them across the country lost their access to federal funds. OI parked my car on a residential street called Prosperity Place and walked the few blocks to the health center, a squat, cream-colored building near a gas station. The center’s manager addressed a crowd of about 200 and listed the types of people who regularly came through the doors: LGBTQ patients who appreciated staffers using their preferred gender pronouns, a 17-year-old facing a positive HIV test, stu- dents from nearby Western Hills High School stopping in for free condoms. The testimony was moving, but the ith planned parenthood clinics clos- outlook was grim. A couple of days earlier, I asked Kersha ing, more women in Ohio will find their Deibel, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest way to CPCs, establishments that provide Ohio, where the people served by these clinics might turn pregnancy tests, pressure women not to after they’re closed. Those with transportation could go have abortions, and offer medically inac- to other Planned Parenthood locations, Deibel said, but curate information, such as telling women seeking abor- “they shouldn’t have to go anywhere else.” tions that they’re past the gestational limit. “For people In the national narrative about the places where abor- Wwho don’t necessarily have phone access, they go to tion rights are under greatest threat, media attention has Kersha Deibel is CEO whatever’s closest to them, and it’s probably a CPC,” said focused on the South, particularly on the abortion bans of Planned Parenthood Stephanie Sherwood, the executive director of Women passed in Georgia and Alabama. But this year Ohio passed of Southwest Ohio. Have Options, the state’s abortion fund. a ban after the sixth week of pregnancy, which was signed Sherwood said that at CPCs, people are often shamed into law in April. (In July a federal judge blocked it.) A ban for being honest about the services they want. One on abortion after 20 weeks has been in effect since 2017. woman seeking an abortion was told that the procedure This year’s Title X rule change was a blow, but something is dangerous. The woman’s reaction, according to Sher- similar had already happened on the state level. In 2016 wood: “‘I can’t die, because I have kids to take care of.’ then–Republican Governor John Kasich signed a bill Then later [she] realized they were lying to her.” barring the state from funding health programs that cover “For people The misinformation that people receive at CPCs can sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, can- sow confusion and delay their access to abortion. “We cer screenings, and infant mortality and sexual violence who don’t will have people show us printed-out ultrasounds that prevention if those programs are provided by clinics that have phone definitely aren’t theirs,” Sherwood said. also provide abortions. That law was tied up in court until access, CPCs are ubiquitous in the state. In 2013, Republican March, when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld state legislators created the Ohio Parenting and Pregnan- it. In his eight years in office, Kasich enacted 21 restric- they go to cy Program, a funding mechanism that pours millions of tions on abortion. During his tenure, half the clinics what­ever’s dollars from the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy providing abortions in Ohio closed. “It’s one thing after closest to Families block grant—which is intended for poverty another after another after another,” said Jaime Miracle, alleviation—into these deceptive centers. (Programs that the deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio. “When them, and provide evidence-based information on abortion are all this stuff happens in the South, it’s ‘Bam! It’s happen- it’s proba- ineligible for funds except in a medical emergency.) As ing.’ Here it’s been death by a thousand cuts.” bly a crisis of 2016, Ohio was one of seven states that funded CPCs In 2014 one of Toledo’s two clinics closed. That using welfare dollars. The Trump administration recently year the number of abortions in Lucas County, which pregnancy awarded a Title X grant to a pregnancy center network. includes the city, declined. But Miracle said people center.” Responding to the news, Dr. Krishna Upadhya, a mem- crossed state lines to go to clinics in Detroit, which — Stephanie Sherwood, ber of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine is closer to Toledo than Columbus or Cleveland. The executive director, and a senior medical adviser at the Planned Parenthood flood of restrictions has also pushed more Ohioans past Women Have Options Federation of America, wrote in a statement, “It is par- the 20-week mark, at which point they have to leave the ticularly harmful that the Trump administration is giving state to terminate their pregnancies. A 24-hour waiting funding from the nation’s family planning program to period for abortion that requires patients to visit clinics CPCs that refuse to provide evidence-based sexual and twice to have the procedure, parental consent laws, and reproductive health care, such as condoms and the full the prevalence of crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) can range of birth control methods, but instead offer mislead- slow down the process, pushing women later into preg- ing or inaccurate health information.”

USA TODAY NETWORK USA TODAY nancy before they can get the procedure. Walking from my parked car to the September rally, ILLUSTRATION BY FRANZISKA BARCZYK December 16/23, 2019 | 25 New Abortion The Politics of

I stopped to talk with the people I encountered. Teresa Brown, 36, sat on her Her work is just one example of the new approaches porch as her two toddlers played nearby and her 6-week-old son slept inside. to organizing taking hold in the state. Like Ramsey, She told me she’d read on social media about the clinic closing and had mixed Cleveland-based reproductive justice advocate Jasmine feelings about it, saying that she went there twice for tests when she needed Burnett recently moved back to the Midwest after years proof of pregnancy to apply for Medicaid and that her sister got a referral on the East Coast. The Indiana native lived in Brooklyn there for an abortion, which she later regretted. “I wish I could talk to some and then in Philadelphia, where she worked with the or- of those girls before they go and get abortions,” said Brown, who was raised ganization New Voices for Reproductive Justice. In 2015 Catholic. “There’s so many families out there that want a child.” she established the group’s office in Cleveland. At the The three children with her now are her youngest. She had five other chil- time, she said, there weren’t many groups doing policy, dren while in a violent relationship with someone who abused drugs, and those advocacy, and organizing work using the reproductive kids were now with adoptive families in Florida and Wisconsin, she said. Brown justice framework, which emphasizes the relationship said she got pregnant three times despite being on the pill or Depo-Provera, and between the right not to have a child and the right to have there’s a chance she’ll need a pregnancy test again. If so, now that the Planned a child and to parent in safe and healthy communities. Parenthood is closed, her nearest option will be Pregnancy Center West, a nearby When Ohio Right to Life put up inflammatory, mislead- CPC, which is where she goes to get car seats and other things for her kids. She ing billboards in Cleveland’s majority-black neighborhoods watches videos, some of which are Christian, answers questions about them, and that summer, New Voices wrote an open letter calling for then gets Baby Bucks (what many them to be taken down. It was un- CPCs call the cash substitutes they successful, but the work attracted provide in exchange for participa- new allies. The group joined forces tion in their programs), which she with NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, can use to buy what she needs. Preterm (a local abortion clinic), Brown said she is happy for the and Planned Parenthood Advocates support but recognizes Pregnancy of Ohio to form a united front in Center West’s limitations, namely the run-up to that fall’s gubernato- that it doesn’t offer contraception. rial election. With Kasich reelected “I hope they put something there and Republicans in control of the to help,” she said of the Planned legislature, the groups put out a Parenthood clinic, which has since joint statement declaring, “[This] been closed. “Because people need coalition will remain vigilant during birth control.” the lame duck legislative session and will combine efforts for in- n ohio, the catholic creased advocacy and awareness in Church is a political force. the new legislative year.” The Catholic Conference of Ohio has been active New Voices joined a The new coalition had to learn how to work to- at abortion bill hearings in Columbus, the state coalition of reproduc- gether. New Voices was the only black-led, black capital, and has submitted written testimony in tive rights groups and community-based organization in the network, Burnett was the only black support of restrictive policies. In Dayton and Toledo, community-based said, and she wanted to highlight the existing power the church has mobilized to keep hospitals from signing group in the network. dynamics, introduce New Voices’ work as being rooted Itransfer agreements that would allow clinics to move in human rights and racial justice, and establish lines patients if they need to be admitted for emergency care. of communication with the other reproductive rights But many deeply religious Ohioans support abortion organizations. She described this as “leading with the re- rights. Progressive faith leaders organized by the Ohio lationship over the work” and emphasized the importance Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice speak at “It’s not of the organizers getting to know and trust one another. the statehouse, conduct clinic blessings, and show up about it be- The groups paid a lot of attention to understanding at rallies. The organization also works to meet people’s ing an ‘abor- one another’s values and getting clear on the differences more immediate needs. It offers counseling to pregnant between reproductive health, reproductive rights, and women considering their options and in December tion clinic.’ reproductive justice. “It birthed a lot of really beautiful began working with congregations around the state to It’s a health organizing and collaboration that didn’t come without assemble care packages for people before, during, and care facility its share of challenges,” Burnett said. “We talked about after their abortions. “I don’t think there’s a way forward how we would address these challenges, [which] makes in Ohio without engaging faith communities when it that provides our relationships stronger to this day.” comes to abortion,” said Elaina Ramsey, the organiza- abortions. Reproductive justice organizing is part of the effort tion’s executive director. People go opposing abortion restrictions, but the messaging is dif- Growing up in Chillicothe, Ramsey was a conser- ferent from what you hear from groups more narrowly vative fundamentalist Christian. Her politics shifted there for STD focused on the right not to have a child. A key focus for after she was introduced to community organizing while treatment.” reproductive justice groups is the state’s mortality rate for working as a youth minister in the South Bronx in New —Jessica Roach, infants born to black women, which is one of the worst York City. She lived on the East Coast for more than a cofounder, ROOTT in the country. Black babies in Ohio die before their first decade before returning to Ohio two years ago to lead birthday at two to three times the rate of white babies.

the coalition of progressive faith leaders. “We don’t consider anything that’s along the repro- NEW VOICES FOR REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE 26 | December 16/23, 2019 December 16/23, 2019 The Nation. 27

ductive health care spectrum in a silo,” said Jessica Roach, the CEO and cofounder of the Columbus-based reproductive jus- tice organization Restoring Our Own Through Transformation (ROOTT), which provides perinatal-support doula services as a way to strengthen birthing families and improve black maternal and infant health outcomes. A nurse with a master’s degree in pub- lic health, Roach testified against the six-week abortion ban be- fore the Ohio Senate Health Committee last spring. She said the efforts to restrict abortion make deaths among black infants more likely. “It’s not about it being an ‘abortion clinic,’” she explained. “It’s a health care facility that provides abortions. People go there for [sexually transmitted disease] treatment. They go there for pelvic exams. They find out that they’re pregnant, and they get their initial prenatal care there while they’re being referred to a practitioner.” But the state “keeps shutting down clinics because of one service that doesn’t morally feel good to them.” In September, the pharmaceutical giant Merck announced that ROOTT would be one of the nine projects it will fund as part of its Safer Childbirth Cities Initiative. To some, it might not be imme- diately obvious how doula care for black families is part of the fight for abortion access, but to Roach, the connection is clear. “Our voices need to be dictating the care we wish to receive,” she said. “It is inappropriate for a white-male-dominated political system to tell any black woman or family what they’re going to do with their reproductive health care decisions.” Burnett is no longer with New Voices Cleveland, but its work is still going strong. The organization encourages conversations around the ways bodily autonomy can be compromised and how to fight back. It is mobilizing its members around the issues of

Singular Journeys for Progressives

CUBA: HAVANA TO VIÑALES COLOMBIA: LOOKING FORWARD/ February 22–29, 2020 LOOKING BACK August 13–24, 2020 INDIA: THE WORLD’S LARGEST DEMOCRACY THE CHANGING FACES OF RUSSIA March 14–28, 2020 September 5–16, 2020

CONTEMPORARY AND IRAN: CROSSROADS AND IMPERIAL MOROCCO COMPLEXITIES April 24–May 5, 2020 September 9–21, 2020

NATIVE AMERICAN VOICES: THE DAKOTAS, US CIVIL RIGHTS: ON THE ROAD COLORADO, AND NEW MEXICO TO FREEDOM May 10–18, 2020 October 18–25, 2020

For more information on these and other destinations, go to TheNation.com/TRAVELS, e-mail [email protected], or call 212-209-5401. NEW VOICES FOR REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

HalfPage_Multi_for_11_25_19_issue.indd 1 11/25/19 4:45 PM New Abortion The Politics of black maternal health, abortion access, and mass incar- ceration. In October it partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio to host a discussion on Cuyahoga County’s bail system and the experiences of THE NEW black girls in the juvenile justice system. Educational events like this are typically followed by a smaller gath- ering with a focus on healing, said New Voices com- munity organizer Alana Garrett-Ferguson. It’s in these CULTURE OF conversation-based groups that the real work happens, she continued. During one gathering, a participant who’d had an abortion was unable to unpack the expe- rience of being forced to wait for the procedure under ABORTIONAbortion storytelling is going mainstream. the state’s mandatory 24-hour waiting period. In this more intimate format, other participants were able to MOIRA DONEGAN show compassion and validate her experience. Organiz- ers can explain how abortion doulas support a woman going through the procedure. In addition to its advo- own a tote bag that says “I had an abortion” in blue cacy and public-facing events, the organization is com- block letters. I also have a T-shirt that says “Everyone mitted to “giving black women and femmes a chance to loves someone who had an abortion.” You can get a be vulnerable,” Garrett-Ferguson said. “Educating the pro-abortion holographic fanny pack as part of a fund­ community is also listening to their concerns.” raiser for the National Network of Abortion Funds. In Access to more health care may be the obvious goal Shout Your Abortion’s online store, there’s a gold necklace for some in the abortion rights movement, but repro- that reads “Abortion” in the script font of a nameplate and Isweatshirts that read “El aborto es normal” in gothic letters ductive justice activists say that’s often not enough. Several times, Garrett-Ferguson made the point that reminiscent of the New York Times logo. There are simple statements, like the T-shirts that implore “Ask me about my “it’s not just about access but accountability.” Asked abortion” in plain sans serif white letters on a black field. Some what she meant, she reiterated that abortion is another items are snazzier, like the gold notebook and the pair of shiny form of health care. Many of the people she works Perhaps no purple earrings from the NNAF, both of which proclaim “Fund with distrust health care institutions for reasons both abortion, build power.” historical and rooted in their own experiences, so abor- other area of These items are supposed to be bold, even provocative, tion clinics—like any doctor’s office—can feel alien- political con- attracting stares and prompting questions. This is the whole ating and discriminatory. Because of these nuances, point: to interrupt the silence around abortion, to get people to Garrett-Ferguson has found that safe spaces, healing troversy is talk about it more frankly. They’re supposed to make viewers work, and opportunities to acknowledge stigma and spoken about a tad uncomfortable, taken aback—and are also supposed to traumatic experiences, including with abortion, have with such make them wonder why they feel that way. been just as important as rallies and lobbying. These An estimated one in four women will have an abortion be- types of engagement are sometimes linked. Once a strange fore the age of 45—along with a number of trans and nonbinary someone has worked through the stigma and shame distance people, as activists are quick to point out—but the experience alongside people she trusts, she’s more likely to want of abortion is wildly more common than the opportunity to safely speak about it. Perhaps no other hot-button cultural to testify about her experience in front of legislators. from the issue or area of political controversy and certainly no other Across the state, reproductive justice formations experiences health care procedure is spoken about with such a strange dis- are fighting to preserve access to abortion on their of those who tance from the experiences of those who have gone through it. terms. Last summer, New Voices Cleveland created the have gone This is doubly strange because these people are all around us, hashtag #ThisBlackBody to educate its members about in our homes and in our families, working beside us in the office the six-week ban. But these advocates are also focused through it. and playing games on their phones in the subway. on the slow work of supporting black families to have The expertise of abortion patients is everywhere, but it’s healthy pregnancies and births. Meanwhile, CPCs, largely unsolicited, largely concealed, and mostly absent flush with state dollars, are able to provide Ohioans from our public conversations about reproductive freedom, with postpartum services in a way that abortion rights which are rarely conducted in the first person. Everyone knows advocates—who are locked in a constant fight just women who have had an abortion, but many of us don’t know to keep the clinics open—cannot. “I’m hoping that who in our lives—or who besides ourselves—is among them. at some point, our movement can provide parenting If you ask the women in your life, probably only some of them will tell you the truth. resources, because our values are there. Organizations The recent wave of pro-choice merchandising is part of a like ROOTT and New Voices are helping us focus on growing effort to change this, an effort that has a long history. the right to parent in safe conditions when you want Moira Donegan is For years, feminists have embarked on public projects meant to,” said Sherwood of Women Have Options. Anti- a feminist writer to change hearts and minds about abortions and the people choice activists and legislators are “going to continue to living in New who have them. Many of these have focused on the confession- try to shut down clinics, and we’re going to continue to York and an opin- al, with women speaking about their abortions in an effort to fight that. But we’ve got to make sure that we’re there” ion columnist at humanize and contextualize the issue. to meet people’s other reproductive needs. ■ The Guardian. The most visible effort to move first-person abortion story­ SHOUT YOUR ABORTION 28 | December 16/23, 2019 New Abortion The Politics of

telling into the public eye began during feminism’s second system, and how people strug- wave era. In March of 1969, the New York City socialist feminist gle to come up with the cost of group Redstockings arranged for women to tell their abortion an abortion,” Herold points out. stories not in whispers or behind closed doors but in public, “You often don’t see those sys- on the steps of Greenwich Village’s Washington Square United temic issues related to abortion Methodist Church. Twelve women spoke about their ex­peri­ access addressed on TV.” ences as abortion patients in front of about 300 people, four Positive cultural representa- years before the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. tions of abortion seek to trans- That year, the attorney Emily Jane Goodman wrote a brief mit sympathy and compassion for a case before a New York federal court, Abramowicz v. as well as accurate information, Lefkowitz, that challenged abortion restrictions on the basis of transferring these elements not doctors’ rights but women’s. The case was built around the from TV shows and movies into depositions of women who had had abortions, who testified the minds of viewers through about their experiences and asserted that access to abortion a kind of political osmosis. But was crucial to their civil rights. like the tote bags and T-shirts These group efforts flatly rejected stigma. They brought soliciting people to “ask me women’s accounts of abortion into the public square and into about my abortion,” they’re the legal system. Their abortions, they said, did not stand in also intended to provoke contrast to their dignity and virtues; instead, abortion enabled real-world conversations, to them. In 2016, Goodman joined more than 100 other lawyers in encourage people to tap into signing an amicus brief that was filed with the Supreme Court. the expertise of former abor- “To the world, I am an attorney who had an abortion,” the tion patients, or to speak about brief opened, “and to myself, I am an attorney because I had their experiences without an abortion.” secrecy or shame. That’s the thing about stig- n recent years, feminist efforts to combat abortion’s stig- ma: It’s a self-perpetuating phenomenon. The more stigmati- Embrace it: ma have become more organized and sustained, moving zation compels patients to remain silent about their abortions, Reproductive rights from group demonstrations in the activist sphere to on- the more others feel isolated in their abortion experience, more advocates are going projects conducted in the mainstream. Pro-choice threatened by the same stigma and more likely to hide. Silence getting creative with destigmatization organizations like Planned Parenthood have branched begets silence. Feminist destigmatization efforts attempt to strategies, like this out into the entertainment industry, offering consulting ser- interrupt the cycle, to signal to people who have had abor- necklace from Shout vices to Hollywood studios and producers. Other activists, too, tions that they are not alone—and to people who haven’t that Your Abortion. Ihave become involved in TV and film productions in an attempt abortion is common, respectable, and decidedly not tragic. to ensure that pop culture depictions of abortion are more ac- Yet I wonder about these efforts and what they ask people curate and more compassionate toward patients. It’s a gradual to do. Efforts to destigmatize abortion that rely on women to process, changing minds about abortion, but these days it’s disclose their experiences ask them to perform a public service; arguably faster and more reliable than trying to change policy they’re deputized to overcome shame, ease the nerves of judg- through legislation or the courts. As hope fades for abortion mental outsiders, combat disinformation. Women end up being rights activists in the legal sphere, the cultural realm has tasked to fix the very conditions that victimized them. become an increasingly important battleground. And after all, there are still good reasons to keep your As hope Just a few years ago, depictions of abortion on TV were on abortion (or abortions) under wraps. Anti-choice forces are fades for the whole less realistic and less progressive than they are now. passionate and galvanized, emboldened by the ascent of According to Steph Herold, a data analyst at Advancing New Donald Trump and the appointment of conservative judges to abortion Standards in Reproductive Health, a program at the University the federal courts, and they do not shy away from the idea of rights of California, San Francisco, these efforts are working. She cites enacting their opinions through force. “People can threaten episodes of House and Grey’s Anatomy with flat-out inaccura- you and dox you, people can try to get you fired, people activists in cies. “Many shows,” she writes in an e-mail, “depict abortion as can come after your family members” if you speak publicly the legal a serious surgery that requires multiple clinicians that is always about your abortion in an activist context, says Renee Bracey sphere, the performed in a hospital, and that’s just not the case in reality.” Sherman, a reproductive justice advocate and the founder More recent television shows have been more accurate and of the abortion storytelling group We Testify. “All of that has cultural more honest about the realities of abortion—and the ways that happened to me.” realm has unnecessary restrictions hurt patients. Jane the Virgin ran an But for combating so pervasive and persistent a stigma, the episode in 2016 that Herold considers particularly effective, options are few. How else do you convey that your abortion become an in which Jane’s mother, Xiomara, has a medication abortion. does not make you immoral or stupid or frivolous, other than increasingly “I love it because Xiomara’s daughter and partner support her. by asserting that it is part and parcel of your whole self, a self There’s no hand-wringing about her decision. There’s nothing that displays its own virtues—your moral commitments, your important emotionally fraught about it,” Herold says. A 2016 episode of responsibility, your intellect? How else, other than extending battleground. BoJack Horseman “managed to make many hilarious abortion these gestures of solidarity to one another, do we provide jokes at the expense of abortion restrictions while highlighting what Bracey Sherman calls “love and support” to those who the importance of providing compassionate support to people feel ashamed and alone? Abortion storytelling isn’t new, she through their abortions.” In addition to depicting the proce- reminds me; women have always told one another about their dure itself, a 2018 episode of Claws managed to highlight in- abortions. In fact, these kinds of conversations are a big part of equities in abortion access. “I really appreciated that this show how women learn about ways to end pregnancies. What’s new

SHOUT YOUR ABORTION had characters talk about racism inherent in the foster care now is that they’re mainstream. n December 16/23, 2019 | 29 STANDand

FIGHTIn Virginia, Democrats showed that Republican attacks on abortion don’t send them running scared anymore.

JOAN WALSH ...... New Abortion...... The Politics ...... of ......

n virginia, 2019 dawned as the year the democrats could take back the general assembly for the first time in a genera- tion. In 2015, a beaten-down party fielded only 56 candidates for the state’s 100-seat House of Delegates, letting the GOP win 66. Two years later, a fiery surge of activism in response to Donald Trump’s presidency led to 88 Democrats running. That November, they almost took the House, electing 15 pro-choice delegates, including 11 women. But in January, party leaders botched their mes- saging about an abortion-rights bill, and suddenly the state’s anti-Trump political momentum was in grave danger of being reversed. Virginia, you’ll recall, is the state where Republicans tried to force women to undergo an invasive transvaginal ultrasound in order to get an abortion (even though involuntary sexual penetration constitutes rape under federal law); that effort failed in 2012. The state has Irestrictive abortion laws, especially for later abortions, requiring three doctors to certify that the pregnancy would “likely” kill the woman or “substantially and irremediably” impair her physical or mental health. Virginia law forces women seeking a later abortion to leave the state, advocates say. There have been only two such procedures since 2000. In January, first-term Democrat Kathy Tran introduced legislation that would, among other things, reduce the number of doctors required from three to one and remove the words “substantially and irremediably” from the law. The bill had broad support from pro-choice groups. But in a committee hearing where opponents aggressively misrepresented the bill, Tran slipped up and seemed to say the legislation might allow abortion up to the moment of birth. She quickly corrected herself, saying, “I should have said [that] infanticide is not allowed in Virginia.” Her bill failed to get out of committee. Days later, discussing the bill on a radio show, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam at- tempted to explain what would happen to a baby born with a fatal condition, saying, “The infant would be resuscitated to move to the state Senate to a female former Navy pilot if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then and nurse practitioner who falsely attacked her for sup- a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the porting “infanticide.” In the race’s closing weeks, Turpin, mother.” Like Tran, Northam immediately clarified his “You have along with Delegates Debra Rodman (also running for a point. The “discussion” of care that he referred to would state Senate seat) and Elizabeth Guzman (running for re­ in no way include the option of killing the terminally ill to respond election), were targeted by ads recycling the “infanticide” newborn—which is and will remain illegal. to the lie. Guzman prevailed, but Rodman, like Turpin, lost. But it didn’t matter. Virginia Republicans, who lost attack and In a race as close as Turpin’s, one reproductive-rights ground in 2017 and had little hope for a better showing advocate conceded that “it’s possible” the attacks played a in 2019, now had a brand-new issue: “infanticide.” At debunk the role. On the other hand, in the race for a House of Del- the end of January, the Susan B. Anthony List, a national false claim. egates seat for part of Turpin’s Senate district, incumbent anti-abortion group, announced “a six-figure campaign” You can’t Kelly Fowler survived the “infanticide” attacks and ads in Virginia to beat “abortion extremists” in the fall races. calling her “bad for women,” winning by 9 points. The story quickly went national. Trump famously claimed just duck Despite the overall good news from Virginia, Repub- that Tran’s bill would mean doctors could “allow a new- and cover.” licans are “going to keep at it” in 2020, warns Hogue. born baby to come out into the world and wrap the baby — Kristin Ford, GOP candidates have already used the “infanticide” attack and make the baby comfortable and then talk to the moth- NARAL Pro-Choice on Democrats even in states that weren’t debating later er and talk to the father and then execute the baby. Execute America abortion laws, and advocates expect them to continue. the baby.” The weekend before the election, at a rally in So it’s worth looking more closely at the lessons from Tupelo, Mississippi, the delusional president went further, the reassur­ ing­ ly­ large number of pro-choice candidates claiming, “The governor of Virginia executed a baby... in Virginia who survived these attacks—as well as those after birth!” Amazingly, barely any major news outlets who lost. The tale of two Virginia Beach races tells us a covered Trump’s insane lie about Northam. lot about how candidates can navigate the issue, even in a Virginia Democrats and abortion rights supporters region that was until recently as red as a MAGA hat. scrambled, afraid that the issue would hurt them come November. “What was worrisome was our electeds had ith at least nine military installations not been educated to talk about this,” says Ilyse Hogue in its metropolitan area, Virginia Beach has of NARAL Pro-Choice America. But then came Election been a GOP stronghold for decades. But the Day, when the Democrats won six more seats to flip the same demographic forces threatening the House of Delegates—a 21-seat gain over two cycles—and Republican Party elsewhere in the state—a an additional two to take the Senate, giving them full rising number of people of color and the alienation of ed- control of the state government. (They already held the ucated suburban women—are turning the region purple, governor’s, lieutenant governor’s, and attorney general’s Wif not blue. Still, Democrats were concerned about how offices.) All nine of the female delegates elected in 2017 the abortion issue would play in the area. For example, Pat who ran for re-election won easily, including Tran, who Robertson’s conservative Regent University sits squarely in survived the backlash against her bill by a 20-point margin. Turpin’s district. “The Virginia elections showed that reproductive freedom After the initial shock in January, Virginia Democrats is a powerful electoral force working in Democrats’ favor,” and pro-choice groups went into overdrive to combat the says Kristin Ford of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which “infanticide” lie. This was the first lesson: “You have to endorsed 56 candidates in the Virginia races. “When respond to the attack and debunk the false claim,” says candidates run on abortion access, they win,” said Alexis Joan Walsh is a Ford. According to multiple sources, the best messaging McGill Johnson of Planned Parenthood after the election. national affairs asserted that infanticide is illegal and that abortions after Unfortunately, not all of the Democratic candidates correspondent for 21 weeks—the later-pregnancy procedure that the right won. Virginia Beach Delegate Cheryl Turpin lost her race The Nation. would have you think is the norm—account for roughly ILLUSTRATION BY ELLEN WEINSTEIN December 16/23, 2019 | 31 New Abortion The Politics of

1 percent of pregnancy terminations, almost always because of severe fetal two women who said this year that Lieutenant Governor anomaly or a serious threat to the health of the pregnant woman. The bottom Justin Fairfax had sexually assaulted them. A survivor of line, Ford says, is that “you can’t just duck and cover.” sexual abuse herself, Fowler struck back at the ad in mul- Turpin did not duck and cover, nor did Fowler. Turpin was running in a tiple ways, including by publicly telling her personal story state Senate district that Trump carried in 2016 (though it has been trending for the first time, exclusively toThe Nation. She also aired more Democratic in the two elections since). But Turpin, a high school science a spot that put her abortion rights stance front and center. teacher, says she was comfortable explaining why she supported the Tran bill’s “Shannon Kane even opposes access to an abortion when a provisions, especially reducing the number of doctors required to sign off on a doctor determines the patient’s life is at risk,” the narrator later abortion from three to one. “In Southwest Virginia, you might only have intoned. “As a mother of two girls with a third on the way, one or two obstetricians in a county,” Turpin said in late October. “Where do [Fowler] knows personal decisions should be made by you get that third doctor? Ohio? West Virginia? Does he or she Skype in?” women and their doctors,” the ad continued. Then came Tran’s and Northam’s awkward remarks and the resulting GOP By the closing weeks of the campaign, when she went frenzy. “It was scary to be up there at the time, to be honest,” Turpin admitted. to canvass for Turpin and other Virginia Beach Democrats, “All that national stuff trickled down to us. Practicality lost to rhetoric.” the intensity of the reaction to Tran’s bill had subsided, Still, she maintained her stance, going on television with an ad widely Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy said. “These issues are just praised for its candor on the issue. She called her opponent, Jen Kiggans, “an not coming up when I knock doors,” said Foy, who easily extreme Republican politician who opposes abortion” and won her Northern Virginia race. Then in the last weeks highlighted Kiggans’s ties to a so-called crisis pregnancy of the campaign, Kiggans went up with an ad reviving the center, a facility intended to trick women into thinking it’s “infanticide” claim, spending more money on advertising an abortion clinic in order to coerce them into continuing “I think than she did earlier in the race. Turpin replied with an their pregnancies. “We made sure that every voter knew Republicans ad of her own (the one that called Kiggans “extreme”). that Cheryl was for choice,” says Daniel McNamara, NARAL Pro-Choice America backed up Turpin with an Turpin’s campaign manager. And while Kiggans ran as a overreached ad rebutting the infanticide charge, versions of which the staunch foe of abortion in her Republican primary this on abortion group also ran to support Guzman and Rodman against past spring—telling a right-wing talk radio host that the same last-minute attack. The ad calmly explained “In Virginia...we are fighting a group of Democrats and in Virginia, that “only 1 percent of abortions occur after 21 weeks of leftist-liberals who want to promote infanticide”—she and I just pregnancy” and “if a woman’s health or life is at risk or it’s moderated her stance during the general election, pitch- don’t think clear a fetus won’t survive, parents have no good choices” ing herself as a nurse practitioner who would help women and that the “murder of any person, including newborns, find alternatives to abortion. She even removed a refer- people is already illegal.” ence to “infanticide” on her website. believed On election night, Turpin fell short by about 500 votes. Compared with the state Senate district that Turpin them.” Fowler won by 9 percentage points. sought to represent, Fowler’s corner of Virginia Beach, — Geri Prado, where the population is 42 percent nonwhite, is more Emily’s List aking sense of these different results liberal, and it went for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Visibly is tough, but for most Democrats, it comes pregnant with her third child, Fowler seemed undaunted down to demographics. Turpin’s state Sen- by the GOP’s attacks as we sat in her kitchen talking about ate district, which is two-thirds white, still the race 10 days before the election. “Infanticide? Sure. I Punching back: trends red, while Fowler’s state House dis- really welcome that charge, being pregnant out to here,” Democrat Kelly trict is strongly trending blue, thanks in part to its large she said. “How am I anti-woman? I have two daughters Fowler won reelection and rising nonwhite population. In Turpin’s old House in 2019. “How am I and a third on the way. Try it!” Mdistrict, her former student and campaign buddy Dem- anti-woman? Try it!” The week before the election, Fowler’s opponent hit she said during the ocrat Alex Askew won. The rest of her Senate territory her with a nasty TV ad accusing her of trying to silence campaign. was tougher. But no one on Turpin’s team says the abortion issue cost her the election. “Even though we lost, I don’t think it was because we ran proudly on a woman’s right to choose,” McNamara says. “In fact, I think our TV ads and mailers on the choice issue are what kept the race essentially tied.” Turpin agrees, saying, “This is still a Trump district, and to come that close… I’m really proud of what we did. And I do think we reached those moderate, educated women who still believe women need and deserve to make their own life choices.” Indeed, early polls showed that voters in her district favored reproductive rights almost two to one. “I think Republicans overreached on abortion in Vir-

ginia, and I just don’t think people believed them,” says B. HOLLINGSWORTH VIA AP / DAVID Geri Prado of Emily’s List. Had the infanticide ads worked, “the outcome would have looked very different on election night.” Carolyn Fiddler, who used to work for

the Virginia Democratic Party and is now the communi- THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 32 | December 16/23, 2019 December 16/23, 2019 The Nation. 33

cations director for Daily Kos, points to Tran’s overwhelming win as them out on their lies.” She points to a Kaiser Family Foundation evidence that the abortion issue didn’t hurt the Democrats and in poll indicating that a majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning some districts might have helped. “In an election where Dems were independents would like to hear more—not less—about reproductive really motivating their voters, abortion was another issue getting health issues in political campaigns. “Republicans are fearmongering them to the polls,” Fiddler says. Virginia Democratic Party chair dangerous myths to gin up their base, but our base is ginned up on Susan Swecker says that outside deep-red southwestern Virginia, this, and independents are standing with us, too,” says Stephanie “the Republican attacks on abortion fell completely flat,” especially Schriock of Emily’s List. There are still exceptions—Louisiana Gov- with “suburban women in Virginia Beach.” ernor John Bel Edwards, a prominent anti-abortion Democrat, won Fowler says she firmly believes that running as an advocate of reelection in mid-November after signing a six-week abortion ban. reproductive choice helped her win. “My opponent used women as But the days of consultants cautioning Democrats not to speak out political pawns. My campaign team and I felt strongly that we need- about abortion rights are mostly over. ed to set the record straight that I was the only candidate that would Advocates are counting on Virginia’s new Democratic majorities stand up for Virginia women,” she said a week after her victory. to take action on abortion rights, at a minimum by rolling back the “Voters sent a clear message that they supported abortion rights and restrictions passed by the far-right legislature over the previous eight rejected my opponent’s political tricks.” years. That would include the requirement that most Virginia abor- As someone who has lived through decades of Democrats tion seekers receive state-mandated “counseling” and a medically running away from abortion—whether by supporting the Hyde unnecessary ultrasound and then wait an additional 24 hours before Amendment, which bans the public funding of most abortions for getting the procedure. Many would also like to see a new version of poor women, or by piously insisting that abortion should be safe, le- the Tran bill, supported by improved messaging. “Our vision is to gal and rare—I found it bracing to see so many women now running make Virginia a safe haven for abortion care and access,” says Tarina on the issue. Turpin and Fowler, among others, used the term “abor- Keene, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia. tion” in their advertising rather than relying exclusively on euphe- Fiddler says she’s excited about the January session. “To be fair, misms like “choice” and “reproductive health.” The state that tried now that [the Democrats] are finally in the majority, there’s a long to pass a transvaginal ultrasound law just seven years ago now has a list of bills they want to take up right out of the gate,” she says. “But General Assembly and governor supportive of reproductive rights. there are so many newcomers, I think they will have a dramatic im- National advocates hope the Virginia results embolden other pact on policy, including on abortion,” she adds. “The question is, candidates to stand up against false claims and proudly tout their how bold do they want to be in spending down their political capital? reproductive rights credentials. “They expected their lies to go I hope they’re very bold. Parties don’t stay in power by tiptoeing unanswered,” Hogue says. “Their strategy doesn’t work if we call around the issues that got them there.” ■

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B. HOLLINGSWORTH VIA AP / DAVID s e v e n sevenstories.com s t o r i e s Available wherever print books, AUDIOBOOKAVAILABLEFROMRECORDEDBOOKS ebooks, and audiobooks are sold p r e s s E-BOOKAVAILABLEFROMROSETTABOOKS THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT December 16/23, 2019 | 33 34 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019 The Nation. EDITORIAL DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER: Katrina vanden Heuvel EDITOR: D.D. ­Guttenplan PRESIDENT: Erin O’Mara EXECUTIVE DIGITAL EDITOR: Anna Hiatt THE ROAD TO LITERARY EDITOR: David Marcus SENIOR EDITORS: Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, Roane Carey, Madeline Leung Coleman (acting), Emily Douglas, Lizzy Ratner, Christopher Shay MANAGING EDITOR: Rose D’Amora RECONCILIATION CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Robert Best COPY DIRECTOR: Jose Fidelino RESEARCH DIRECTOR: Miguel Salazar From the daughter of one of America’s COPY EDITOR: Rick Szykowny MULTIMEDIA EDITOR: Francis Reynolds most virulent segregationists, ENGAGEMENT EDITOR: Annie Shields George Wallace, comes a memoir that ASSOCIATE LITERARY EDITOR: Kevin Lozano ASSISTANT COPY EDITORS: Lisa Vandepaer, Haesun Kim reckons with her father’s legacy of WEB COPY EDITOR/ PRODUCER: Sandy McCroskey ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR: Ricky D’Ambrose hate—and illuminates her journey INTERNS: Mary Akdemir, Spencer Green, Alice Markham-Cantor, Molly Minta, Shirley toward redemption. 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THE RESULTS OF THE 15TH AMENDMENT (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS) E on a history oftheDemocratic Party.on ahistory sity andisacoeditor of Michael Kazinteaches atGeorgetownUniver history withoutunderstanding thepiv Berlin madeitimpossibleto write US Du Bois,JohnHopeFranklin, andIra and publicconfrontations. W.E.B. rule witheverydayactsofresistance plained howwomendefiedpatriarchal economic history. GerdaLernerex men witharichtapestryofsocialand the politicalgamesplayed by powerful world that focused relentlessly on about themakingofmodern Hobsbawm replacednarratives tory inhisorherownway. Eric very greathistorianreviseshis THE UNFINISHEDREVOLUTION Dissent Books & the Arts & Books . Heisatwork Eric Foner’sstoryofAmericanfreedom - - - - promise had only been able to silence been avoided if sagevoicesofcom the “warbetween thestates”couldhave economic plenty. They claimed that progress toward political liberty and ture from America’s grand march of conceived oftheeraasasad depar til the1960s,mostinfluential scholars Civil War andReconstruction. Yet un American societyandpoliticsthanthe more importanttothedevelopmentof riod inUShistory. Nothinghasbeen the moststudiedandcontentiouspe the benightedassertionsmadeabout has been challenging and overturning and free. otal roleofAfricanAmericans,enslaved For nearly half a century, EricFoner by MICHAEL KAZIN - - - - emancipation was tothepoliticalcon historian ofhis generation,howcentral strated, perhaps morethananyother 1960s anditssuccessors,hehas demon by theblackfreedommovement ofthe victors shapedwhatcameafter. Inspired the CivilWar happenedandhowthe molishing theseassumptionsabout how D.W. Griffith’s ing thepro–KuKluxKlannarrativeof to stirupracialantagonisms,echo by vengefulYankees whoheadedsouth biracial democracyasaneradominated wrongheaded, renderingadecadeof Reconstruction tendedtobeevenmore secessionist counterparts.Theirviewof the hotheadedabolitionistsandtheir Foner hasdedicatedhiscareer tode The BirthofaNation . - - - - 36 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019 flicts that eventually exploded into civil war. The Second Founding action. It provided the moral consensus In his most influential work,Reconstruction: How the Civil War and Reconstruction which allowed the North, for the first time America’s Unfinished Revolution, published Remade the Constitution in history, to mobilize an entire society in in 1988, he showed that the struggle for By Eric Foner modern warfare.” But it did not eliminate equality and freedom continued long after W.W. Norton & Company. 256 pp. $26.95 the differences between those Republicans the Confederacy died, even if its victories who continued to work for racial equality were frustratingly incomplete. kinds of grievances and hopes, fears about and those who cared mostly about break- The Second Founding, his new book the present and visions of the future.” He ing the grip of Southern planters on the about the trio of landmark constitutional expresses these judgments in what anoth- nation’s economic and political life. At a amendments all ratified less than five years er eminent historian, Christopher Lasch, time when the data-driven social history after Lee’s surrender, demonstrates his tal- called “plain style”: direct and vivid prose of families and communities was all the ent at unearthing insights about the Civil without a trace of specialized language, rage among other young scholars, Foner War and Reconstruction eras, in particular which anyone with a passing interest in persuasively insisted that big ideas and how Americans defined and acted on the the subject can read, learn from, and enjoy. national politics still mattered. ideals of freedom and democracy. It’s a slim Foner next turned his attention to an- volume that synthesizes the vast library orn in 1943, Foner began his career other subject with a familial resonance, of works devoted to Reconstruction. But as a historian by answering a critical the history of American radicalism. He he uses that rich scholarship to highlight question that hardly any American began with the American Revolution and the radicalism of the 13th, 14th, and 15th historian had thought to ask before: intended to conclude with the New Left. Amendments and how, over the past 150 How were the leaders of the new par- However, he got so immersed in the life years, clever and powerful conservatives Bty that nominated Abraham Lincoln and of Thomas Paine, one of the nation’s ear- have diligently sought to undermine their governed the nation through the bloodiest liest and most prominent radicals, that he egalitarian promise. As Foner reminds us, conflict in US history able to unite? In the wound up devoting an entire book to him the “key elements of the second founding, run-up to the Civil War, there were three and never did get around to unraveling, at including birthright citizenship, equal pro- distinct camps of Republicans, each with length, the rest of the left’s often tortured, tection of the laws, and the right to vote, its own constituency and distinct reasons occasionally triumphant past. The work remain highly contested…. Rights can be for opposing the expansion of slavery. On he produced, Tom Paine and Revolutionary gained, and rights can be taken away.” the left were the abolitionists, who initially America, returned to a theme found in his Charting the ironies of freedom won refused to participate in a political system first book: the dialectic between moral pur- and lost during and after Reconstruction, they considered evil to its core and who pose and political exigency. The English Foner’s new book is also a guide to nearly insisted on immediate emancipation by stay-maker turned pamphleteer pioneered all of his scholarship, which examines not any means necessary. To their right were notions about work, political freedom, and only the rights and better living conditions the former Democratic and Whig politi- self-governance that future leftists would gained through extended contests for pow- cians who had abandoned their parties in champion, but he was also a supporter of er but also the ambiguous consequences search of an organization that could stop the new Constitution, written largely by of what were, as a rule, only partial victo- the growth of slavery but who favored a less men who sought to limit the power of the ries. The sensibility that drives his work immediate plan to eradicate the “peculiar plebeian masses. was likely born out of his experiences on institution,” which they believed would Despite these ambiguities in Paine’s the left and the frustrations of a period die out in the states where it had long politics, Foner persuasively argued that he of American radicalism that helped do existed. Many abolitionists had lambasted was a radical forerunner: “Modern in his away with legal apartheid and spearheaded the same politicians for whom they now commitment to republicanism, democracy movements for gender equality and the campaigned—and the antagonism had of- and revolution....modern in his secularism, protection of the environment but also ten been mutual. modern in his belief in human perfectibil- failed to mount a serious challenge to the Foner’s answer to that complex ques- ity…modern in his peculiar combination conservative tilt of both major parties. tion, delivered in a dissertation written at of internationalism…with his defense...of This sensibility was also a family in- Columbia University and published as his a strong central government for Ameri- heritance rooted in the experiences of his 1970 book Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, ca.” As in his book on the making of the father, Jack Foner, and his uncle Philip was that the moral activists and veteran Republican Party, Foner placed ideology Foner. Both men wrote important works office seekers who created the Republican at the core of his analysis. People start on African American and labor history but, Party built their coalition around a shared revolutions, he suggested, only when they as sympathizers with communism, suffered ideology that transcended their differ­ ­ences. acquire the ability to express their desires from an early rehearsal of McCarthy­ism Each group could agree that the expansion for fundamental change in fresh and en- during World War II, when the New York of slavery posed a serious threat to the thralling ways. State Legislature led an investigation that interests of ordinary white craftsmen and resulted in the loss of their jobs as pro- farmers in the North—who, after all, com- ver the next decade, Foner returned fessors at City College. Given this legacy, posed the majority of citizens and voters in to the Civil War, but his next ma- Eric Foner has always recognized that that region. What all three groups wanted jor book focused on its aftermath. while most Americans viewed their nation was free soil, free labor, and free men. Adding to his fascination with ide- as the “embodiment of freedom,” the con- This new ideology, Foner argued, “gave ology, Reconstruction is also a work of test to define and act on that idea “has been northerners of divergent social and po- Osweeping social and political history that used to convey and claim legitimacy for all litical backgrounds a basis for collective helped revise how most historians—as well Essential Context and Contemporary Debate Policing the Womb

Policing the Womb tells a frankly disquieting and frightening story ‘about the status of reproductive health and rights in the United States. It captures what has become the modern day horrors of reproductive health across the country, from the escalating attacks on abortion rights, to the civil and criminal penalization of pregnant women for falling down steps, refusing c-sections, and attempting suicide. Michele Goodwin brilliantly captures what is at stake in the war on women's reproductive health and rights. I could not put the book down.’ Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union February 2020 | Hardback | 9781107030176 | $29.99

Abortion and the Law in America

Mary Ziegler's Abortion and the Law in America offers a fascinating analysis ‘of the often shattering divisions in our nation over a woman’s right to choose. Ziegler shows that national debates over this issue have focused not only on what the Constitution means, but also on often bitter policy disagreements over the rights of the poor, the right to health care, the rights of teenagers, the right to religious liberty, and the rights of women. In a world in which Roe may soon be overturned, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand where we are headed. Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Sex and the’ Constitution March 2020 | Paperback | 9781108735599 | $29.99

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42648.indd 1 21/11/2019 10:14 38 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019 as much of the reading public—understood Foner wrote, “believed that in a free labor constitutional amendment that would have this crucial period. Most history textbooks South…black and white would find their stopped the federal government from in- rehashed it as a sorry tale of vengeful white own level.” Giving freed people what one terfering with slavery where it existed. Less Northern radicals who bestowed the vote lawmaker called “a perfectly fair chance” than two years later, however, he issued on ignorant freedmen to punish white should not mean challenging the unwritten the Emancipation Proclamation. Then, in Southerners, leading to a period of polit- rules of the capitalist economy. The defeat 1863, he oversaw the recruitment of close ical corruption and disorder. Beginning of Stevens’s plan doomed the potential for to 200,000 black soldiers, most of whom in the 1960s, scholars started to chip away building a democratic order in the South had recently been freed or escaped from at this bigoted and historically inaccurate and unintentionally sowed the seeds of a bondage. portrait, pointing out that the fledgling century of American apartheid. As with his first book, Foner explains a biracial state governments in Dixie taxed More than 30 years after its publication, feat of ideological conversion. His incisive big planters to pay for roads, schools, Foner’s book remains a thrilling piece of tracking of Lincoln’s speeches and writings and hospitals that benefited everyone. But historical imagination as well as a vital about slavery, combined with a matchless the idea, dripping with racist condescen- work of pathbreaking research. It trans- grasp of the political exigencies of war, sion, that Reconstruction was a “tragic formed Reconstruction from an epilogue results in a narrative simultaneously inti- era” had largely survived the legal demise to the drama of civil war into the pivot on mate and of major historical consequence. of Jim Crow. which the future of African Americans, the It is probably as close a study of Lincoln’s Foner destroyed that notion so com- South, and the nation turned. Unfortu- mind on this critical matter as can ever be pletely that no serious historians—even nately, in the late 1870s, the arc of history written, and Foner’s judgment balances those on the right—have attempted to turned back to injustice as white politicians a biographer’s praise with the contextual revive it. Drawing on a wealth of docu- in the North abandoned the experiment in sobriety of a historian: “If Lincoln achieved ments written by and about freedmen and biracial democracy and let former Confed- greatness, he grew into it.” -women, he thrust to the center of the erates take back control in Dixie. drama the determination of black people In his next major work on the Civil War he Second Founding draws on a theme to exercise political power in the South and era, Foner examines our greatest president’s that has animated all of Foner’s to assert their right to a share of the wealth struggle throughout his political career work, the gap between the nation’s and property their labor had created. Ex- with the question of how to bring about lofty ideals and the way those in panding on a thesis Du Bois developed in black freedom. The Fiery Trial: Abraham power, abetted by the prejudices and his 1935 book Black Reconstruction in Amer- Lincoln and American Slavery, published in fearsT of ordinary people, fail to act on ica, Foner showed that the struggle 2010, applied the historian’s fasci- or deliberately sabotage efforts to em- for true emancipation required nation with ideology to a ques- body them in durable laws and institutions. economic as well as political tion that countless authors Here, he dwells more than ever before on equality. With the incon- inside and outside the acad- the complex yet profound consequences stant aid of federal agen- emy had argued about for of additions to the Constitution that, on cies like the Freedmen’s more than a century: how paper, may appear rather straightforward Bureau, some African the self-made man from attempts to secure the gains of Reconstruc- Americans went on strike Illinois evolved from a tion into perpetuity. for higher wages, while local politician who as- The import of the 13th Amendment, others squatted on fallow sumed the inferiority of for example, seems simple enough. It land, demanding that the black people and merely abolished slavery and any other form of government fulfill its prom- hoped to stop the “peculiar “involuntary servitude,” save for those ise to grant them homesteads institution” from spreading west- convicted of a crime. Recently, critics of so they could be truly independent of ward into the president who led what mass incarceration, such as Ava DuVernay their former owners. became a war to abolish slavery. To erad- with her documentary 13th, have made the Throughout this grand narrative, Foner icate the sin of human bondage, Lincoln amendment an emblem of the country’s reveals how the actions of powerful men in declared at his second inaugural in 1865, long history of legal racism. Yet Foner also both the North and the South closed down about a month before his murder, might points out how fundamental a departure the possibilities for a social and econom- require that “every drop of blood drawn the amendment was at the time from the ic transformation that black Americans with the lash shall be paid by another constitutional norms that had existed since helped open up in the South. In 1867, drawn with the sword.” the ratification of the founding document Thaddeus Stevens, the veteran abolitionist Although Foner clearly admires Lin- nearly 80 years before. The 13th Amend- who was an influential Radical Republican coln, the book, which won the Pulitzer ment did not just end slavery; it “created leader in Congress, introduced a measure Prize for history, bore out the logic of his a new fundamental right to personal free- that would have confiscated Confederate subject’s modest statement in 1864 that “I dom, applicable to all persons in the Unit- lands and doled them out in 40-acre lots to claim not to have controlled events, but ed States regardless of race, gender, class, freedmen and their families. But many of confess plainly that events have controlled or citizenship status.” In Congress, most the same Republican colleagues who had me.” As a young politician, Lincoln was Democrats, marrying foul racism with a rallied to pass the 13th and 14th Amend- content to leave the decision of whether defense of states’ rights, warned that if ments balked at the idea of redistributing to abolish slavery up to each state. During valuable possessions in the form of human the wealth of traitors now that the war his first months in the White House, he beings could be wrested from their own- was over. Even most Radical Republicans, made no protest when Congress passed a ers without compensation, nothing would December 16/23, 2019 The Nation. 39 prevent power-hungry Republicans from requirements to interpret arcane parts of seizing other forms of property. state constitutions, and old felony con- Foner then turns to the even greater victions to disenfranchise most African BEYOND CONTEMPT consequences of the 14th Amendment. He American men in the South. As the mem- HOW LIBERALS CAN COMMUNICATE ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE recounts how the Republicans who con- ory of Reconstruction faded, neither the trolled Congress enacted it over the irate Supreme Court nor federal lawmakers felt ERICA ETELSON protests of President Andrew Johnson, any pressure to reverse the actions of these $18.99 a dedicated white supremacist who pas- saboteurs. Digging into Congress’s debates sionately opposed giving black people any about the amendment in 1869, Foner finds rights besides the right not to be owned. that even its Republican sponsors under- Johnson’s partisan adversaries passed a se- stood how weak its provisions might prove ries of acts that compelled any former Con- to be. One senator grumbled that “it left federate state that wanted to elect people to untouched…‘all the existing irregularities Congress again to ratify the amendment, and incongruities in suffrage’, other than which included giving black men who lived those explicitly directed at blacks.” within their borders the right to vote. The An ironclad statement that guaranteed Republican majority added the guarantee suffrage to all adult men would have been of citizenship to any child born in the much harder to subvert. But the amend- United States—an entitlement only a few ment’s sponsors feared that three-quarters countries bestow today. of the state legislatures would never ratify But Foner pushes further in making clear language that so clearly took away their Whether you’re debating a talk show host, co-worker, how the expansive language of the amend- power, enshrined in Article I of the Con- or “Fox addicted” Uncle Ralph, this book will teach ment also allowed champions of the rising stitution, to decide which of their resi- you how to reach people’s minds and hearts without producing the opposite result you wanted. Brilliant!! corporate order to institute “freedom” of dents had the right to vote and which did —Thom Hartmann, America’s #1 progressive a quite different kind. The first section of not. When it came to interpreting the law, talk show host. the amendment famously bars states from to quote Humpty Dumpty in Through the depriving “any person” of “life, liberty, or Looking-Glass, “it means just what I choose it property” without “due process of law” and to mean—neither more nor less. The ques- prohibits states from denying “the equal tion is which is to be master—that’s all.” www.newsociety.com protection of the laws” to their residents. Because the drafters did not define “per- or a historian so instrumental in mov- son,” Supreme Court majorities regularly ing the mainstream of American his- used it to strike down laws enacted by torical writing leftward, Foner can be Congress and state legislatures to regulate warmly empathetic toward the work big business. In 2011, when Mitt Romney of earlier scholars whose personal Pregnancy and Power snapped at a heckler, “Corporations are Fpolitics differ rather markedly from his. A HISTORY OF REPRODUCTIVE POLITICS IN THE people, my friend,” he was evoking that This is, in particular, the case with Richard UNITED STATES pro-capitalist doctrine of “personhood.” Hofstadter, his graduate school mentor at Foner shrewdly points out that hardly Columbia, whose approach to history he Rickie Solinger any of the Republican-appointed justices praised in a 1992 essay. who used the 14th Amendment as a cudgel In the postwar years, there was no more against working- and middle-class interests admired or popular author of American his- had been among the corps of antislavery tory in the country. Yet two decades after his activists and politicians who conceived of death in 1970, at the age of 54, Hofstadter’s the amendment and advocated its passage. scorn for what he viewed as the nostalgia But in the final decades of the 19th cen- and xenophobia of Gilded Age populism; his tury, the GOP moved closer in spirit to neglect of the histories of women, the work- the tycoon-loving body that nominated ing class, and black people; and his increas- " is succinct, highly Mr. Bain Capital than the party led by the ingly defensive liberal opinions alienated readable political and president who vowed that the Civil War many young historians. It didn’t help that would usher in a “new birth of freedom.” Adlai Stevenson was the contemporary pol- cultural history of a wide When Foner moves on to the 15th itician this cautious liberal admired most. range of reproductive Amendment, he tells a similar story of Hofstadter’s reputation among left-wing issues is a near-perfect splendid intentions written into law before scholars has, in fact, only declined further primer on the topic." being undermined. The clear statement since then. A few years ago, at a scholarly that the right to vote cannot be “denied conference, someone in the audience shout- or abridged…on account of race, color, ed that Hofstadter was a terrible historian. —Publishers Weekly or previous condition of servitude” failed No one told him to shut up. to prohibit other sorts of restrictions on In his 1992 essay, Foner does not men- the franchise. By 1900, canny racist pol- tion such rising disdain, but he does explain iticians employed devices like poll taxes, Hofstadter’s influence on his own intellec- 40 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019

tual and scholarly career. Hofstadter, he insists, crafted works imbued with graceful From Diary prose and provocative arguments about everything from the emergence of mass parties to the influence of social Darwinism I hate this sweater but I’m too cold not to the “paranoid style” of the right, and to wear it as a metaphor for my career. he did so while demonstrating an ability “to range over the length and breadth of My therapist says yes corporations take advantage American history.” of human beings’ ambitious nature. Having broken with the economi- cally determinist Marxism of his youth, Hofstadter put at the center of his work My insurance says they will cover what the Italian Marxist Antonio Gram- zero dollars for our visits. sci called “common sense,” including an appreciation of how difficult it could be What a thrill. I cut my finger while washing the blender for radicals to break through this ideolog- at the exact second that I think of you. ical consensus. In The American Political Tradition, published in 1948, Hofstadter argued that, in a variety of ways, nearly all We went to the protest, I bought those powder of the nation’s leaders, from the founding blue shoes with the green alligator on them. fathers to Franklin Roosevelt, promoted the hegemony of market society and made Handmaid’s Tale jokes at the VMAs. Clean versions of songs. radical alternatives to it seem downright unpatriotic. With such ironic chapter ti- Picking out baby names for babies that will never be born. tles as “Thomas Jefferson: The Aristo- crat as Democrat” and “Woodrow Wilson: You bought the diamond necklace for mom at the mall, The Conservative as Liberal,” Hofstadter’s you have great taste. You bought it at a store called Accessory Place. book challenged the sanctimonious regard for America’s leading men—and sold over Recurring nightmare that I missed the whole summer. 1 million copies. “It is indeed ironic,” Foner reflects, “that one of the most dev- Walks I took on my lunch break with Ali. astating indictments of American political culture ever written should have become Grunge deaths. Being in the dark. Nail art. the introduction to American history for Chris Brown playing on Rihanna Spotify station. two generations of students.” (Indeed, on the epic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, Student Non­ I go into the bathroom, I say “great tits” to myself in the mirror. violent Coordinating Committee leader How can you expect your nail polish to look glossy John Lewis, now a longtime US congress- when you don’t even put on a top coat you stupid bitch. man from Georgia, brought The American Political Tradition along in his knapsack.) I was in the infant/toddler room. In paying tribute to Hofstadter, Fon- I was eating peanut butter & banana. er inadvertently offers some insight into what makes his own work so critical to understanding the political ambiguities at Fuming with rage at the galleria. the heart of America’s past and present. D was like, maybe it will be our Vietnam. Both he and Hofstadter came out of the Marxist left, but both placed ideas about I’m so sad. No one cares. how the United States was governed at the center of their work. Both regretted the Tampons with applicators. gap between the promise and practice of Tampons without applicators. mass democracy in the past, yet both wrote out of what Hofstadter called “a concern A maxi pad called Always. with some present reality.” As writers, both Blasting the car radio. scrupulously avoided dumbing down their

The guy at the McDonald’s drive-thru who told you narratives or resorting to even a smidgen of OF NETFLIX) (COURTESY jargon. Foner’s essay about his late adviser your hair was the exact same color as your eyes. concludes, “His writings stand as a model ATLANTICS MARISA CRAWFORD of what historical scholarship at its finest can aspire to achieve.” The author might

well have been describing himself. ■ A STILL FROM December 16/23, 2019 The Nation. 41

Who gets to make them? Who gets to watch them? Who gets the recognition? Who gets the money? During the production of Roma, a group claiming to be city workers allegedly tried to shut down the filming and assaulted the crew, stealing cellphones, wal- lets, and jewelry. The noise surrounding the films becomes an ironic echo of their clamor over inequality. After a special screening of Parasite in New York City last month, a homeless guy asked me and my friend for a cigarette. As my friend gave him one, the guy asked us what the movie was about. “World War III?” he joked. “Kind of!” I said, laughing. “Would I like it?” he asked. We couldn’t say “yes” in good con- science. Later I read an interview with Bong about Parasite in Rolling Stone in which he was asked if he believes “the class gap can be bridged—that chasm that currently separates the haves and have nots?” He replied, “I think my answer to that question is the last scene of the movie,” in which class tensions erupt into violence. “I wanted to be honest with the fear we all feel right now.” Again, contortions of translation aside: Who is “we”? THE REST OF US Because of its title, American viewers Mati Diop’s profound study of class and power will likely assume that Atlantics, the new film from the French Senegalese director Mati by NAMWALI SERPELL Diop, is about either slavery or refugees. Even after seeing it, they may assume it is he great class war is coming. So the last their doubles, the “tethered,” who inhabit about love or ghosts or exoticized life on the decade’s films seem to be promising— an underground warren. But the film also west coast of Africa. But Atlantics is funda- or warning—us. Class conflict has played with an intriguing mix of class signi- mentally about class. Despite the familiar long been an undercurrent in inde- fiers. Its spooky doppelgängers walk around trappings of esteem—like Parasite, it won pendent films, but now it’s rising in in fashionable prison jumpsuits, wielding a prestigious award at Cannes, and Diop’s theT mainstream, even in Hollywood block- scissors made of gold, wearing hairstyles family background suggests that she is the busters like Christopher Nolan’s 2012 The more hipster than busted. With Bernie epitome of an Afropolitan elite—the way it Dark Knight Rises and Taika Waititi’s 2017 Sanders’s slogan “Not me. Us.” flitting over reckons with capital and labor is far more Thor: Ragnorak. social media, I find myself thinking back to interesting than this recent spate of class We can perhaps trace the trend back the film’s central question: Who is “us”? warfare films. Atlantics cannot overthrow to the recession. Sorry to Bother You, Boots Class warfare is a popular theme in recent film as an institution, but it does overthrow Riley’s brilliant satire of gentrification in international films as well. Alfonso Cuarón’s many of film’s formal conventions. In so Oakland, California, came out in 2018, but Roma, which won three Academy Awards, is doing, it wreaks havoc with the interlocking he wrote the script in 2012. Hustlers came an incisive examination of Mexico’s class di- hierarchy of class, race, and gender that most out this year, but it’s based on real events visions in the 1970s, not just between mem- of these other films assume, leaving in its after the 2008 market collapse; Jennifer bers of a middle-class family and the women wake a startling study of power in the raw. Lopez and Constance Wu play strippers who work for them but also in Mexico City who drug their Wall Street clients in order at large. A key scene in the film stages El tlantics begins on a dusty construction to steal their money and buy each other fur Halconazo, the 1971 Corpus Christi mas- site on the outskirts of Dakar. A great coats—robbin’ for the hood, so to speak. sacre in which paramilitary forces gunned glass tower is being built. The work- Because these films are set in America, race down more than 100 protesters. Korean ers have not been paid in months. and gender sometimes conceal the class director Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer, based There’s a chaos of figures and sounds, tensions. Most audi­ences assumed Jordan on a French graphic novel, parodied class Ahuman and mechanical, on the screen as the Peele’s Us was about race because it follows conflict by setting it on a train divided into men demand their due from their boss or,

(COURTESY OF NETFLIX) (COURTESY a bourgeois black family being pursued by literal first- and second-class cars, and his rather, their boss’s underlings, one of whom latest film,Parasite , has been hailed as a class says, “In this office, we’re working, just like warfare hit—notwithstanding all the awards you.” An irate worker named Souleiman ATLANTICS Namwali Serpell is a Zambian writer and an associate professor of English at the University of buzz from the most elite of film institutions. (Ibrahima Traoré)—the camera’s focus sug- California, Berkeley. Her first novel is The Old Isn’t there always this class tension gests he’s our hero—expands the circle of

A STILL FROM Drift (Hogarth, 2019). around these films about class tensions? consequence, saying, “Remember that we Version 04-11-2019 42 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019

have families.” Another worker chimes in, sleeps—that Souleiman has drowned and Join the conversation, “Our fathers, mothers, and brothers depend been caught in a fisherman’s net. She waits on us. They’re the reason we work.” This and waits for him to call. every Thursday, line about interdependence­ will become an At a luxurious resort by the sea within on the Start Making uncanny foreshadowing. view of that great glass tower, we meet Omar, The workers head home, crowded in the who gives Ada an iPhone as a wedding gift. Sense podcast. back of a pickup truck that zips along the sea. She thanks him, curls on her side, covers Crouched over, they comfort one another— her face with a towel, and sleeps. Her head or so it seems; they could be stoking their is covered when their wedding night comes anger—by singing and rocking rhythmically. too, in a black veil fringed with embroi- We’re more used to seeing this kind of scene dery. After a stilted, quasi-formal ceremony feature mourning women in a film like this. at Omar’s house, Ada shows her envious Souleiman makes his way alone to some rail- friends her marriage bed, a white satin affair road tracks. Through the gaps in a passing made garish by fluorescent light. She sulks train, we see on the other side a tall young as they take selfies. She argues with them woman (Mame Bineta Sane) with a messy about whether she can stomach her marriage bun. Her friend, who has her hair covered, is of convenience. Without warning, the shiny haranguing her, asking, “Ada, you’re still see- white bed is on fire. The police arrive. Who Subscribe wherever you ing that guy?” Ada and Souleiman exchange did it? Ada? Her heat, her fury? Souleiman, get your podcasts or go to an exquisitely knowing glance. She smiles, whom a guest claims to have seen? Or did it laughs; he tilts his head, waits. The acting is spontaneously combust? TheNation.com/ subtle, believable, the substrate of the film’s The last explanation is the one given StartMakingSense touch of the real. The scene is deft—we to Inspector Issa Diop (Amadou Mbow), to listen today. immediately sense they’re in love—and dis- whom we are now unexpectedly following. STACEY ABRAMS MARGARET arming: Midshot, the rushing train switches Is he our hero now? How will his story con- direction on screen, and that’s how we know nect with the lovers’? We are again caught ATWOOD CHARLES M. BLOW we’re now with Ada, watching Souleiman. off guard as the film abruptly becomes a NOAM CHOMSKY DAVID COLE This abrupt change in point of view is the police procedural and then, when a mys- MIKE DAVIS ELIZABETH DREW first in a series of disconcerting shifts. After terious fever strikes the inspector and all BARBARA EHRENREICH FRANCES an interrupted scene of tender love by the the abandoned women except Ada, trans- sea, we follow Ada, our new hero. It seems forms once more into a work of surrealism. FITZGERALD ERIC FONER we are in a star-crossed romance. We learn By the time the women are stalking the THOMAS FRANK ALEX GIBNEY that Ada loves Souleiman but is set to marry night—barefoot, in nighties and pajamas, MICHELLE GOLDBERG a rich man named Omar in 10 days. She slips eyes like white pebbles—demanding the AMY GOODMAN CHRIS HAYES out that night with her more adventurous money owed their dead men, we realize that SEYMOUR HERSH MARGO girlfriends—their perfect names are Fanta Atlantics is all of these genres and none of and Dior—to a seaside bar to meet Soulei- these genres. It is in a class of its own. JEFFERSON DAVID CAY man and his friends. But when the women Labor drama, love story, surrealist film, JOHNSTON NAOMI KLEIN get there, they learn that the men have gone. crime thriller, zombie flick—these shifts are RACHEL KUSHNER VIET THANH “Out to sea. They went in a pirogue.” The both smooth and unsettling, just like that NGUYEN NORMAN LEAR women stand around in their tight nightclub train in sudden reverse. They keep us on clothes, clutching their cell phones. They are edge but never just for the sake of it. And GREIL MARCUS JANE MAYER like so many modern Penelopes, except that they continually bring us back to the central BILL MCKIBBEN WALTER MOSLEY their men are economic migrants, not sailors. question of class, even as they keep us from JOHN NICHOLS LAWRENCE One woman’s little brother can’t even swim. mapping it onto a single hero or plot or O’DONNELL RICK PERLSTEIN You might imagine that this is where the genre. In a recent interview with Vulture, LAURA POITRAS KATHA POLLITT titular Atlantic would become the route to a Diop explains, “The violence of a certain global tragedy, that we would now shift back capitalist economy makes a lot of life frag- ROBERT REICH JOY REID to Souleiman’s point of view to experience ile, vulnerable, and empty of meaning. The FRANK RICH BERNIE SANDERS the horrors of the refugee at sea. But as film is about the beauty and innocence of ANNA DEAVERE SMITH EDWARD Diop said in an interview with The New York love between two 20-year-olds, which is SNOWDEN REBECCA SOLNIT Times, she did not want to reproduce that ruined and cut down by economic issues.” familiar “attraction of destruction.” Instead, She cast those roles with first-time actors; MARGARET TALBOT CALVIN she makes the remarkable move of staying Traoré was a real construction worker. “I TRILLIN KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL with the women, with Ada, who, in another was looking for people who have a social YANIS VAROUFAKIS JOAN WALSH unanticipated turn, is simply allowed to be background that makes them connected AMY WILENTZ GARY YOUNGE brokenhearted. We do not pity the “poor with the reality of the characters.” No African woman”; we relate to her. She stays heavy-handed symbols like stairs, tunnels, DAVE ZIRIN in bed for days. She weeps. She has a vision or train cars here, no sense that class strat- —Hosted by Jon Wiener or perhaps a dream—it is narrated in voice- ification is just a horror or a farce. Instead, over as a kind of surreal folktale while she Atlantics holds onto social reality even as December 16/23, 2019 The Nation. 43 it darts among genres freely, wildly, faster and take selfies. They wear T-shirts, pos- and faster, building to a double climax that sibly second­hand, that say “Froot Loops” unites all of their vibrant formal energies: a or “Chicago.” Everyone is black. Everyone scene of vengeance, a scene of lovemaking, has a cell phone. Ada casually sells hers on both set in a kind of grave. the side of a dirt road where a man in flashy sports gear goes for a run past horse-drawn tlantics speaks the tongue of beau- carts. Her parents take her to a modern ty. Moonrise, sunset. Reflective glass, clinic for a doctor to test if she is a virgin. shards of mirror. Fluttering curtains, There’s obviously little gender equality gauzy ones. Rosy light, constellat- here, but Atlantics interestingly levels male ed lights. Filigree waves, the vast and female labor. Zombified women sit on Aimplacable sea. This is less conscientious the edge of a tombstone and count thousands adornment—the use of beauty to elevate or of bills. The debt is finally paid, but before solemnify people—and more a kind of art- the boss can go, they demand one more film language game. The film’s beauty feels thing: “Dig our graves first.” As he pickaxes casual and quotidian. The dawn color of sul- the earth—a sight that, again, we’re more fur streetlamps, the spangle of embroidery on used to seeing in a pastoral farming scene a boubou, a trail of cash littering an interior in an African film—the women mock him. like trash. You can trace delicate patterns like “Look, he doesn’t even know how to dig. this across the film: spotlight, moon, light- That’s real work! Dig till your hands burn.” house, cell phone, dead eyes, signet ring. Or Though the words belong to the manual hijab, curtain, towel, veil, blanket, mask, the laborers who lie “unburied…at the bottom sea. But none of these patterns add up to a of the ocean” for having sought to survive message. Rather, they weave a material form elsewhere, the mouths speaking those words within which Diop twists plot and genre. belong to women of the night. That kind of That is, the film’s imagery is on the same global labor, too, is never paid in full. plane as its story. So the moon isn’t just In its origins in Arabian thought, a djinn beautiful; it tells time, flashing from sliver can be good or bad. In its origins in the to full in order to signal that the 10 days black diaspora, a zombie is a slave forced until the wedding have passed. The sunset to do the bidding of others. Diop mixes the isn’t just sublime; it marks the onset of the two phenomena to the same counterintuitive fever that may be turning people into djinns. end: The dispossessed—male and female, True Grit And mirrors become the way we understand management and labor—rise up not as the how demonic possession, if that’s what it is, enemy but as the communal hero. Atlantics American Prints works in the film. We see reflected in the doesn’t care to translate these cultural ref- glass the dead men, the drowned laborers, erences. It assumes them and proceeds to from 1900 to 1950 whose souls have taken over the bodies of tell its resonant story about power, a story Stephanie Schrader, the living. Science fiction has lately given us that does not pander to our preconceptions scenes—in Her, in Blade Runner 2049—of a about how class, race, and gender map onto James Glisson, and man having sex with a woman who is inside it. This is refreshing and clarifying. This film Alexander Nemerov a woman, be it a sex worker lip-synching made me realize that class in the 21st century to an OS or one enveloped by a holograph. is really not about who gets to own luxury This engaging work Atlantics uses a simple mirror to give us the fur coats, as Hustlers would have it, or about examines a rich selection converse. We watch a man kiss Ada; her re- the smell of subway riders, as Parasite would of early twentieth-century flection makes love to another, the one who have it. It’s not about the Global North and American prints, which possesses him. And this eerie scene takes Global South. It’s not even about the rich and place in the nightclub by the sea, again not the poor. It’s about the very rich and us—the frequently focused on the for beauty’s sake but because Ada has run rest of us, everywhere. crowded, chaotic, and gritty away from her family and now works there. We are the Atlantics. The sea is the sweat modern city. This attention to material reality is an- of the great majority trying to live, love, and other way that Atlantics thwarts our ex- work. “I’ll always taste the salt of your body J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM pectations about class. Many of the recent in the sweat of mine,” Ada tells her doubled Hardcover $35.00 international films tend to make it legible lover, whom (blessedly) she does not wed. and palatable to audiences in the West. The He leaves her sleeping. Dawn suffuses the working classes are maids, nannies, drivers, screen. Ada awakens. As she rises and turns tutors; in Parasite, the Korean upper-class toward us, her final voiceover tells us that family is easily replaced with a German one. the whole film has been preface to some Getty Publications I’d love to interview Americans leaving the raging fire to come: “Last night will stay www.getty.edu/publications theater after watching Atlantics. Are these with me to remind me who I am and show Senegalese characters rich or poor? What me who I will become. Ada, to whom the © 2019 J. Paul Getty Trust class are they? The women have hair weaves future belongs. I am Ada.” ■

The Nation 2019-12 True Grit.indd 1 11/20/19 2:20 PM 44 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019

tiny goddesses—and then she transformed four songs from her third EP, M3LL155X, into a short 2015 film that captured her baroque, haunting aesthetic. There were seemingly no bounds to her creativity, but fans would have to wait another four years for her to pour all of her imagination into a second album. Magdalene arrived in early November. It isn’t exactly an easy album to listen to. The orchestration is purposefully intense and discordant; the vocals fluctuate between celestial and unsettling. A lot of it is painful. FKA Twigs has folded trauma deep into the music, mourning a recent period of heart- break amid a health scare that forced her to slow down after six fibroid tumors were removed from her uterus. For an artist as ambitious and athletic as Twigs is, physical inactivity was impossible. After an intense surgery, she interrupted her recovery period to dance in a 2018 Apple commercial direct- ed by Spike Jonze. “When I was on set with Spike, the stitches in my bellybutton were splitting open,” she told the British maga- zine i-D. “I told him: ‘Just so you know, if I start bleeding through this white shirt…’” Twigs pushes her limits repeatedly on this record, grinding through agony while connecting with something raw and carnal rippling through her. She’s achingly vulner- able at times, then resilient and merciless as she finds healing in her serpentine melodies. In several songs, she evokes the biblical Mary Magdalene, who throughout history has been reduced to simple tropes of being either a sinner or a saint. Twigs refuses to HOLY TERRAIN have her identity flattened in any way; she FKA Twigs’s haunting sound has created a sonic universe that is purpose- fully complex, losing some straightforward by JULYSSA LOPEZ accessibility and burning the easy bridges into pop and R&B stardom that she had agdalene, the latest album from the ally trained ballerina, she entered the music constructed on past releases. But Magdalene English artist FKA Twigs, sounds industry as a backup dancer for pop singers is worth the sacrifice. Here we find Twigs’s unnatural as it seeps out of a simple like Jessie J and Ed Sheeran. Quietly, she most opulent offering and the project that set of speakers: It’s too weighty, too began testing her voice with producers in most wrenchingly expresses the depths of ornate for just a casual listen. That London and eventually teamed up with her brazen artistry. Mmuch is clear during the opener, “thousand Young Turks, the imprint behind creative eyes,” in which her piercing choral arrange- progressives like the electronic artist Jamie wigs is present on each element of ments ring out beatifically amid crashes of xx and the jazz futurist Kamasi Washington. Magdalene. That’s likely because she what could be a golden opera gong. It’s eas- Twigs fit perfectly into that roster by not steered the production more direct- ier to imagine songs like these unraveling in quite fitting in. Her plainly titled projects ly than ever before. She previously a lavish, ruby-encrusted theater somewhere, EP1 and EP2, as well as her debut album, collaborated with people who repre- one fit for the excess, the nakedness, and the LP1, were full of strange, wispy electronic sentT the cutting edge of experimentalism, fury of Twigs’s high drama. and R&B abstractions, powered by her among them Arca (the beloved Venezuelan Twigs’s real name is Tahliah Barnett, breathy vocals. But it was the visuals that artist who has worked with Björk, Kele- and she has made a career of contorting established her as a high priestess of the la, and Frank Ocean). Arca is a producer herself into different shapes. A profession- avant-garde. She dropped stunning videos on Magdalene alongside Jack Antonoff and like “Two Weeks”—in which she assumes Skrillex, who tinkered on the song “holy Julyssa Lopez writes frequently on culture and the role of a giant gilded deity surround- terrain.” The Chilean electronic producer music for The Nation. ed by a Hieronymus Bosch–style sea of Nicolas Jaar appears on seven tracks. Twigs OF XL RECORDINGS) FKA TWIGS (COURTESY December 16/23, 2019 The Nation. 45

initially called on him to handle the bulk of of her equation. “If I’m unhappy, I’ll just the production. Then her genius took over, disappear,” she once told The Guardian. “I and soon she had exercised so much control will shave off my hair and live in the south of INCREASE AFFECTION that he began having qualms about taking France, and I’ll be learning a new language credit for it. “He felt that his name on stuff where no one gives a shit about who I am.” Created by Winnifred Cutler, wouldn’t highlight how much I’ve done, Ph.D. in biology from especially as a female producer,” Twigs he irony is that although Twigs has U. of Penn, post-doc told Pitchfork. “When he said that to me, rejected celebrity, she’s someone peo- Stanford. Co- I cried.” ple want to watch. She landed on the discovered human She is stranger and freer here, all while cover of i-D before any of her music pheromones in 1986 Author of 8 testing the intensity of her voice and sound- had come out, after photographer books on wellness scapes. Twigs has always leaned toward MatthewT Stone spotted her at a club in and 50+ eerie, atmospheric textures, and she does so London. But the private parts of her life scientific papers. again on songs like “home with you,” which have drawn attention, too; her relationships starts with spooky, warped vocals that clump with famed actors have resulted in tabloid PROVEN EFFECTIVE IN 3 together as if by static cling. Eventually, her interest, as well as racist vitriol and Inter- DOUBLE-BLIND STUDIES clear soprano glides in and underscores the net abuse. After one breakup, Twigs said, ATHENA PHEROMONES tm lines pregnant with emotion. “I didn’t know she isolated herself and began working on increase your attractiveness. that you were lonely / If you’d have just told Magdalene. “I went to a vintage fair and Athena 10X tm For Men $99.50 10:13 tm For Women $98.50 me, I’d be running down the hills to be with found this one dress, it was a white medieval Unscented you,” she sings, conjuring Kate Bush, both dress,” she told Double J. “I just lived in it…. 6 month supply. Cosmetics in the sound and in the lyrics. So much of I wasn’t talking to my friends or my family, ♥ Dr. Ella (WI) 26 orders “I have had so many men interested in me since I began using 10:13! Magdalene is about contrasts: Twigs speeds really. I was just wandering around in these And I love your books. I am getting married again up the beat for “fallen alien,” the most dis- medieval dresses.” This image of Twigs and the 10:13 and studying your work has helped.” orienting track on the album, which doubles encapsulates the beautiful eeriness and des- ♥ Jacques (LA) “I am a physician, read about your as a warning. “When you fall asleep, I’ll olation of the record, as she floats through study in the Medical Tribune, and have been buying kick you down,” she snarls. But then her the music at her own pace. ever since. 10X is a really fine product.” wrath melts away on “mirrored heart,” a It’s often the imagery that brings her Not in stores tm 610-827-2200 stark lament that exposes her sadness and messages home. She has constantly empha- Athenainstitute.com loneliness as she observes the happy couples sized how conceptual an artist she is through Athena Institute, Braefield Rd, Chester Spgs, PA 19425 NTN around her. her physicality and her eye for visuals, which On “holy terrain,” she enlists the rapper add unexpected layers to her work. One of Future to juxtapose female strength and the most poignant songs on Magdalene is male vulnerability. The song is the only “cellophane,” a tender piano ballad that re- one on the album with a featured artist, and fers to the unwanted attention she received in the i-D interview Twigs referred to it as during a high-profile relationship. The mu- Advertising “the most fun track” on Magdalene. Indeed, sic compelled her to take up pole dancing. it’s the song that most resembles something “To complete my vision for the ‘cellophane’ Opportunities that could garner big radio play, but its video I had to learn to pole-dance, I knew it

sheer weirdness says a lot about her true from the moment I finished the song in the THEFRANCE YEMENSPRESSURE WAR! THE BATTLE OVER DROP NAFTA 2.0 ON TRUMP END ’ YELLOW VEST REVOLTLORI WALLACH EVAN HILL COLE STANGLER A NEW LEFT INTERNATIONAL? How House Democrats ATOSSA ARAXIA ABRAHAMIAN ambitions for mainstream attention. Instead studio,” she explained on Twitter. In April KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL Can / ROBE Win the Battle of Ideas of recruiting a splashy name, she has chosen she dropped a video directed by Andrew RT L. BOROSAGE J A N U A R Y 7, 2 0 1 9 S P E C I A L R E P O RT a rapper who’s known for his specific brand Thomas Huang in which she soars on a pole D E C E M B E R 3 1 , 2 0 1 8

EXPOSING Most Valuable Mayor Most Valuable of trap noir. The song features no catchy toward a sky that opens up before her. Senator DAVE Michael Tubbs Bernie SandersTHE LINDORFF hook, no trend toward a recognizable style. Eventually, she falls. But in those first PENTAGON’S Most Valuable Most Valuable Multimedia House Member Maker Twigs keeps the accompanying video be- glorious moments, her performance is one Ro KhannaMASSIVE Laura Flanders

By ACCOUNTING JOHN NICHOLS Most Valuable guiling, slithering toward the camera wear- of formidable strength, even as she sings Most Valuable Champion of Policy-Makers Checks and Balances Pramila Jayapal & the Amy ProgressiveFRAUD Klobuchar Caucus ing spooky red and blue contacts. fragilely, “And didn’t I do it for you? Why Spending keeps rising while the Most Valuable Defense Department cooks the books. Progressives Ilhan Omar Ayanna Pressley THENATION.COM Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez In the end, she isn’t that interested in don’t I do it for you?” In a behind-the- Rashida Tlaib ...and more.

JANUARY 14/21, 2019 THENATION.COM being palatable to the masses. Preserv- scenes segment for the video, Twigs says she OCTOBER 16, 2017 THENATION.COMTHENATION.COM ing her creative integrity might not be as found the contrast between the visuals and challenging at a time when stars—Solange the lyrics humorous. It’s an elaborate trick, Special packages available for and Rosalía come to mind—have deliv- set up to show that even when she sounds as small businesses, authors, and ered commercially viable pop music that though her heart has been pulverized, she nonprofit organizations. Options for retains a deep sense of idiosyncrasy. Still, knows she’s a force that can hardly be con- regional and national campaigns while someone like Rosalía has sauntered tained, something she demonstrates as she with modest budgets. into genres like reggaeton and dembow rips through the air. “To me, it’s sick, and to boost her profile, Twigs’s proposition is it’s funny, and it feels powerful,” Twigs says. completely uncompromising. She stands as “‘Didn’t I do it for you? Am I not enough?’ More information at an unwavering auteur, and fame, popular Like, I’m more than enough. You can’t even TheNation.com/advertise

FKA TWIGS (COURTESY OF XL RECORDINGS) FKA TWIGS (COURTESY metrics, and broad appeal aren’t a huge part handle it.” ■ 46 The Nation. December 16/23, 2019 Puzzle No. 3517 JOSHUA KOSMAN AND HENRI PICCIOTTO

1`2`~~3`4`5`6`7 28 Act or move rhythmically when eating at home (9) `~`~~~`~`~`~`~` 29 Down, as suggested by 10 such diagram entries (4) 8```9````~0```` DOWN `~`~`~`~`~`~`~` 1 On TV, she was Edith B. in pants (5) -`````~=``````` 2 Notable rebel on the loose in New York or Los Angeles (9) ~~`~`~q~`~`~~~` 3 Express displeasure at termination of bank reserve (4) w````````~~er`` 4 Rate us in crisis over diatribe in café (10) `~`~`~`~`~t~`~` 5 Apprehend or call lunatic (6) y```~~u```````` 6 Pot rejected in senseless argument (5) 7 Nation’s misdeed: covering imbalance with source of `~~~i~`~`~`~`~~ valuable metal (9) o`p`````~[````] 9 Skater frolicking with band (6) `~`~`~`~\~`~`~` 13 Aptly selected name for our proprietary firm, possibly: a````~s```````` Socks Newton (4-6) `~`~`~`~`~~~`~` 14 Nut with facial hair replacing one letter from Greece d````````~~f``` with another (9) 16 “Messy pastime lead everything outside” is not ACROSS nonstandard (9) 1 Athlete’s company getting back inside (just kidding!) (4) 17 For instance, Swiss revolutionary busted, see? (6) 3 Flip game console recording and support accommodations 20 Wrought iron containing pellet—you might have this in for pets? (9) your hair (6) 8 Tormented soul, slain by some innuendos (9) 22 Look! It’s in one’s anatomy! (5) 10 Master list includes reading, for one (5) 24 For example, direction to mount a crest (5) 11 Car overturned a coach with endless regret (6) 25 Playing tone! (4) 12 Mom puts down “Iowa” as a country (8) SOLUTION TO PUZZLE NO. 3516 14 Pirate at sea gaining victory with little hesitation! (9)

15 Before awkward pout (2,2) ACROSS 1 “fair” 3 anag. 10 [l]UMBER FARE~BLASPHEMER 11 “die a critic” 12 PAN + CA + K + E A~U~G~A~E~E~A~A 18 Pronounces 16 in French, we hear (4) 13 H(OTW)IRE (two anag.) UMBER~DIACRITIC 14 SPI(DERMA)N (dream anag.) X~I~E~L~C~E~R~K 19 12, more or less, hunt stealthily, catching creature’s head 17 CAR(N)Y 18 anag. 20 C(HEAPS)HOT PANCAKE~HOTWIRE in tree (9) 23 P + RE + PPED (rev.) 24 anag. A~~~S~~~A~I~A~T 26 F(RAG)RANCE 27 CU + RIO 28 anag. 29 rev. SPIDERMAN~CARNY 21 Priestly vestment, suitable for former diplomat (8) ~~N~~~A~G~~~C~~ 23 Fool someone at first into a jump-and-run (6) DOWN 1 “foe Pa” 2 RUB IN THESE~CHEAPSHOT 4 LAD + L[ittl]E 5 S(EACH)ANG + E I~L~M~E~~~I~~~H 26 Channel a certain amount of data into something that 6 HERE + TIC 7 MA(TRIA[l])RCH 8 pun 9 “Greece” 15 anag. 16 MACE + PREPPED~UNREADY should be banned (1-4) D(ON)IA (aid rev.) 18 TIP(OFF)S (spit rev.) O~G~E~O~T~A~O~R 19 EM(PER)OR (rev., &lit.) 21 PI + RACY FRAGRANCE~CURIO 27 Return abbreviated documents about marathoner, 22 THY + ROID (rev.) 24 hidden F~N~O~I~R~Y~T~I perhaps, as a way to track progress (9) 25 [d]AOR + TA (rev.) SATURNALIA~BARD

The Nation (ISSN 0027-8378) is published 34 times a year (four issues in March, April, and October; three issues in January, February, July, and November; and two issues in May, June, August, September, and December) by The Nation Company, LLC © 2019 in the USA by The Nation Company, LLC, 520 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018; (212) 209- 5400. Washington Bureau: Suite 308, 110 Maryland Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002; (202) 546-2239. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Subscription orders, changes of address, and all subscription inquiries: The Nation, PO Box 8505 Big Sandy, TX 75755-8505; or call 1-800-333-8536. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to Bleuchip International, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. Canada Post: Publications Mail Agreement No. 40612608. When ordering a subscription, please allow four to six weeks for receipt of first issue and for all subscription transactions. Basic annual subscription price: $69 for one year. Back issues, $6 prepaid ($8 foreign) from: The Nation, 520 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10018. If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. The Nation is available on microfilm from: University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Member, Alliance for Audited Media. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Nation, PO Box 8505 Big Sandy, TX 75755-8505. Printed in the USA. PleaseThe honor ourBill secular Bill ofof Rights, Rights adopted on December is 15, 1791.Born The First Amendment principle of separation between religion and government has never been in greater jeopardy. Individual rights are being imperiled by the increasing influence of religion upon our government, courts and social policy. If you share our concern over growing threats to true religious liberty, won’t you help? Join the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation’s largest association of freethinkers, in our work to defend and restore our secular principles. Freedom Depends upon Freethinkers HELP ACHIEVE TRUE “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All” JOIN FFRF TODAY! 1.800.335.4021|ffrf.us/nation Or request a trial membership & complimentary issue of Freethought Today

The-Nation_FFRF_Bill-of-Rights_v2.indd 1 11/14/19 2:20 PM Forests are Invaluable

Forests provide food, wood, and clean water.1 Also, many important medicinal compounds are found in the forest.2

Forests provide livelihoods for over a billion people and are the basis of many industries.3

Forest are home to 300 million people, including 60 million indigenous inhabitants.4 They also host much of world’s biodiversity - unknown multitudes of plants, insects, amphibians, and mammals like orangutans and rhinos.5

Forests cycle water and nutrients. They provide rainfall, oxygen, and healthy soil, and cool their local climate.6

Forests are part of the climate solution. They sequester carbon in their vegetation and soil. Reforestation could provide significant carbon sinks.7

Visit www.domini.com/Forests to learn about the Domini Impact Equity Fund and how your investments affect forests. Before investing, consider the Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Contact us for a prospectus containing this and other information. Read it carefully. The Domini Funds are not insured and are subject to market, market sector and style risks. You may lose money. DSIL Investment Services LLC, Distributor. 11/19 1 Constanza et al., (2017) Twenty years of ecosystem services, Journal of Ecosystem Services. 5 https://www.worldwildlife.org/habitats/forest-habitat 2 https://www.iucn.org/content/facts-and-figures-forests 6 https://www.iucn.org/content/facts-and-figures-forests 3 http://www.fao.org/3/W4345E/w4345e05.htm 7 http://assets.wwf.org.uk/ 4 https://www.iucn.org/content/facts-and-figures-forests