Inside the antiabortion war room for 2023
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2022
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
Months after their Supreme Court victory, conservatives fear that new abortion bans aren’t being sufficiently enforced. Now, from mobilizing citizen investigators to blocking abortion pill websites, they’re pursuing unorthodox ideas to further crack down.
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Nearly six months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, triggering abortion bans in more than a dozen states, many antiabortion advocates fear that the growing availability of illegal abortion pills has undercut their landmark victory. Complaining that strict new abortion bans aren’t being sufficiently enforced and worried about lackluster support from more moderate members of the Republican party, they are grasping for new ways to crack down on access. From mobilizing citizen investigators to blocking abortion pill websites, these advocates are pursuing some pretty unorthodox ideas.
On today’s episode of Post Reports, national political reporter Caroline Kitchener takes us inside the antiabortion movement’s war room for 2023, and explains why enforcement is its next big battleground.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So I really thought that the second half of this year on my beat was going to be defined |
| 0:10.2 | by people starting to go to jail for violating abortion bans. |
| 0:16.8 | And now we are almost six months out from the decision that overturned Roe v Wade. |
| 0:24.5 | And we really haven't seen that. |
| 0:27.6 | Caroline Kitchener covers abortion for the post. |
| 0:30.4 | And a lot has happened since that Supreme Court decision. |
| 0:34.2 | More than a dozen states have banned or limited abortion. |
| 0:37.6 | But as Caroline has reported, people are still finding ways to get abortions. |
| 0:43.0 | Instead, people have turned to abortion pills. |
| 0:46.7 | Pills that they can get online, pills that they can get from, you know, just people in |
| 0:52.3 | their community that are trying to get these medications into the hands of women who |
| 0:56.9 | need them. |
| 0:58.7 | And so we know that people are continuing to have abortions, distributors of these pills |
| 1:06.2 | are violating the laws. |
| 1:08.0 | But we haven't actually seen people going to jail. |
| 1:13.9 | That's not happening right now. |
| 1:15.4 | But what I found in my reporting is that it could happen. |
| 1:20.3 | And it could happen soon. |
| 1:23.4 | People are trying really hard to figure out a way to enforce these laws. |
| 1:29.7 | Targeted efforts at enforcement are coming probably in early 2023. |
| 1:36.8 | And the big question is, will they be able to do it? |
| 1:42.8 | To figure that out, I knew I needed to talk to the people who would be responsible for |
... |
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