Apart from violating people's basic rights to health and decision making, these abortion bans have dire consequences for women's health and families' economic stability.”ĭonor-advised fund (DAF) sponsors-charities that manage individual accounts for donors and pass along their clients' donations anonymously to other charities-are by far the biggest donors to organizations involved in the abortion bans this year. “What's happening here is part of a decades-long strategy by anti-abortion politicians, lobbyists, and national organizations that have left increasingly vast areas of our country with few or no abortion providers. Heather Gatnarek, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, told Sludge that what’s happening in her state is part of a larger effort. A federal judge temporarily blocked the law the following day. On March 16, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signed his state's abortion ban, which makes it a felony to perform an abortion once the so-called “fetal heartbeat” can be detected. (The bills' proponents claim that a fetus has a detectable heartbeat at around six weeks after conception, but this contradicts established science at six weeks, a pea-sized embryo, not yet a fetus, begins to emit electrical impulses from a cluster of cells where, eventually, a heart will grow.) Some of the biggest funders also combined to give tens of millions of dollars to national groups such as Alliance Defending Freedom and Americans United for Life that may not yet be directly linked to individual state abortion bans but have been on the front lines of abortion opposition in recent years and praised this year's “fetal heartbeat” bills. The funders include giant donor-advised fund the National Christian Foundation, the family foundation of Republican Representative Greg Gianforte, and the corporate foundations of General Electric and Pfizer. From 2013 to 2017, major donor-advised funds, family foundations, and corporate charities poured over $9.1 million into these groups. Sludge identified 182 funders behind 20 organizations directly involved-through advocacy, bill writing, lobbying, and legislative testimony-in 2019 abortion bans in the nine states that passed them, and in South Carolina’s six-week ban, which passed the state House. But where did the money come from to make this all possible?
Wade an “important precedent,” the nation’s biggest anti-abortion groups think that Kavanaugh’s replacement of former Justice Anthony Kennedy may be what they need to overturn the decision and outlaw abortion once and for all.Ī web of state and national groups spent millions of dollars on organizing and lobbying in the states to pass this year's abortion bans. Despite his claim that he considers the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Reports show that these extreme efforts to ban abortion were inspired by the confirmation of conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who opposes abortion. Governors of these states signed the laws, but none are in effect, either because of legal challenges or future enactment dates. Missouri approved an eight-week abortion ban, Arkansas and Utah passed 18-week bans, and Alabama enacted the harshest law so far this year, a near-total ban on abortions. In the first five months of 2019, legislatures in Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Ohio passed bans on abortions after six weeks, a point at which many women don't know they're pregnant. The American Prospect is re-publishing this article.Ĭonservative lawmakers in a number of states recently passed some of the most restrictive anti-abortion legislation in history.
Sludge produces investigative journalism on lobbying and money in politics. Pro-choice supporters gather at the Supreme Court to protest the current move in some states to ban legal abortion.
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