Influential Right-Wing Group Is Fighting To Make It Illegal for Us To Write About Abortion

When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning the abortion protections laid out in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, about a dozen states already had “trigger laws” on the books that would immediately, or very quickly, make abortion illegal or heavily restricted in those states. But Republicans weren’t even close to done. They’ve introduced a slew of new anti-abortion laws since the fall of Roe. Some are straightforward bans. Some are modeled after Texas’ unique brand of cruelty that deputizes regular citizens to enforce the bans under the promise of lucrative civil suits.

One new potential bill hits particularly close to home for those of us whose job it is to write about abortion and the larger landscape of reproductive justice. The proposal would make it a crime to give “instructions” on how to obtain an abortion over the internet (or the telephone or other means of communication). Other crimes include “hosting or maintaining a website, or providing internet service, that encourages or facilitates efforts to obtain an illegal abortion.”

Under this proposed bill, these acts would all constitute “aiding or abetting an illegal abortion.” The proposed punishment is the same as it would be for anyone actually performing the abortion, which can be, depending on the laws in your state, a second-degree felony that carries a penalty of usually up to about 10 to 25 years in prison.

To be clear, this is not a bill yet proposed by any state legislature. Rather, it’s been written by the general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), a powerful anti-abortion group that, among their other means of trying to deprive us of our bodily autonomy, has their attorneys craft what’s known as “model legislation” and then lobbies it to state legislators to pick up and introduce into the actual legislative system. It’s not like those Republicans are doing their own research into these things—this is how many bills get started, by groups like the NRLC, who have been doing this for decades, in states across the country.

What’s at risk?

The obvious question here is one of what exactly this bill, as proposed, would outlaw. Well, I probably couldn’t write that abortion funds exist to help people find and access abortion services in their areas and beyond. I also probably couldn’t write the recent story that the Texas-based reproductive healthcare clinic system Whole Women’s Health (which was at the center of the Supreme Court case that effectively banned abortion in the state last year) is packing up and moving to New Mexico, because that could technically be information that would help Texas women seek abortion care across state lines. (Oh, and I probably shouldn’t direct you to their GoFundMe to help with the costs of such a massive and essential move.)

I definitely couldn’t write that INeedAnA.com is a great resource for anyone looking for information and help regarding abortion care at any stage (and doesn’t store data), and that Plan C is dedicated to making sure everyone in every state has access to abortion pills. (And obviously, those sites would be at extreme risk themselves.)

So what could happen if I did write those things? Well, it’s hard to say, which is bascially the point. These sorts of bills have some hard-fact language in them, but they also heavily rely on vagueness, confusion, and fear. If a person or institution doesn’t know if something is legal, they are likely to avoid it and only do things they’re sure they won’t be prosecuted for, leaving a big gray area of things they might, legally, be allowed to do but that they’d rather not find out the hard way. Right now, abortion funds in a lot of states are on pause until they can know how to move forward. (Which is not a reason not to consider donating to them!) This is why a lot of pharmacists are refusing to fill certain prescriptions, including but not limited to Plan B—not because they’ll definitely be in legal trouble for it, but because they’re not willing to take the chance, which is exactly the chilling effect anti-abortion forces want, in order to extend their reach even beyond the letter of the law.

What’s the worst that could happen?

In the case of this bill, it’s definitely a direct threat to myself, as I live in Missouri, and some of my colleagues who live in Texas, both states that have governors and attorneys general just itching to prosecute anti-abortion offenses. But beyond that, what about my colleagues who live in “safer” states like New York or California, but whose work is read in states where abortion is banned? Are they at risk if this law gets passed in a reader’s state?

Meanwhile, The Mary Sue was recently acquired by a parent company based in Australia, but in addition to having mostly state-side writers, I believe our hosting platform is an American company. Even if they’re operating in Australia, they could be subjected to American bans—or they at least might fear they could be. And what about platforms like Substack or MailChimp, or even Facebook or Twitter? Could they be liable for “hosting” content that “encourages” abortion in states where that’s illegal? Remember, the proposed text even includes “providing internet service” in a way that supports abortion as a crime. Could Google Fiber shut down my home’s wifi for fear of a lawsuit or prosecution? I don’t know, but again, the question—and the confusion and fear it elicits in the face of no real answer—is the entire point.

You would think that this proposed bill would be a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment. But if, hypothetically, it were to make its way to the Supreme Court (which one could assume is the entire goal), we’ve already seen that this current court is happy to trample those protections when it suits conservative causes, and these cases that come before the court involve real people putting themselves at risk, and through a lot of difficult legal proceedings over a long span of time, to find out what the answer will be—not to mention what happens to them in the event of a bad outcome.

Hopefully the NRLC’s terrible model bill doesn’t get picked up. But realistically, it sounds like the exact kind of atrocity that any red-state Republican looking to make a name for themselves would be itching to get their name on. And beyond that, it’s good to know that this is the kind of thing influential anti-abortion advocates have their eye on. Know thy enemy, right? Because my enemy wants to put me and maybe a lot of other people in prison for up to 20 years for writing this.

(via Prism, image: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)