In the days leading up toThe overturning Roe v. Wade The National Right to Life Committee the nation’s largest anti-abortion organization, released model legislation that would ban abortion and criminalize “aiding or abetting an illegal abortion.” The model legislation would impact anyone in the state who runs a website “that encourages or facilitates efforts to obtain an illegal abortion” or provides “referrals to an illegal abortion provider.” The legislation also includes a RICO–style provision for the use of proceeds from “a pattern of illegal abortion activity.” The penalties for this post-Roe The NRLC would like states to adopt model legislation. This would include civil and criminal penalties for anyone who reports to law enforcement. Prism Ashton Lattimore, Editor-in Chief detailed in a recent op-edThis legislation would directly target journalists, making it a criminal offense to freedom of speech about abortion.
Some abortion journalists are worried about the future and how it will impact their careers. Many are also concerned about the availability of accurate information on reproductive health for all. Although this is just a model legislation, it has not yet been adopted in any state. South Carolina have already been considering Moving in this direction
Jessica Mason Pieklo, Rewire News Group’s senior vice president and executive editor, said the legislation is targeting anyone in a reproductive health and access space. Rewire News Group is an independent newsroom, nonprofit, that covers reproductive and sexual healthcare from a pro-reproductive rights viewpoint.
“ThIs is tremendously concerning for us,” Pieklo said. “It is a target for folks who tell the stories of patients who need to access care, explain how care is access, and the stories of providers and advocates who are helping make sure that happens.”
Caitlin Cruz, a senior Jezebel reporter who covers abortion, expressed concern at the legislation’s inexactness and extreme punitivity. Reporting on clinic closures and current abortion laws in each state is a part of her job. However as the legislation stands, reporting on basic facts about the state or abortion in hostile states could be illegal.
“I have been worried,” Cruz said. “I really don’t know what that will look like, but I have to keep doing this work.”
While Cruz is worried about the legal implications a law like this could have on her work going forward, she is supported by Jezebel’s editorial team, legal team, and upper management, which she said are very supportive of their First Amendment rights. Freelancers who move from one job to another are particularly vulnerable to legal attacks because they work without income security or other protections.
“There’s only so much protection someone without an institution can have,” Cruz said. “Reporting on abortion honestly and medically accurately is something that every reporter should be entitled to, and more importantly, patients and providers should be entitled to that kind of coverage.”
Cruz believes that all people have the moral right to access accurate, accessible abortion coverage. Reports show that abortion policies have a profound impact on the lives of people. already being seen Underage rape victims may have to travel across state lines in order to legally obtain abortion care. Cruz believes that everyone should have access to accurate information about how to access it, including bodily autonomy.
“If we think that conservatives will stop at speech that targets abortion providers, people who write about abortion, people who offer scientific and medical information around abortion, we’re mistaken,” Pieklo said. “We know that this will bleed into other areas that evangelical and social conservatives deem inappropriate and deviant.”
Pieklo’s areas of concern outside of abortion include gender-affirming care and accessing health care for LGBTQ+ communities, considering the call to action Justice Clarence Thomas included in his concurring opinion that would bring more cases of sexual privacy into question. It’s a slippery slope, which could lead to laws similar to Comstock Laws of the late 1800s, which made it illegal to send “obscene” information through the mail and a misdemeanor to sell, give away, or even just possess something considered “obscene.”
“There’s no limiting principle,” Pieklo said. “What we are seeing is that the conservative movement is increasingly openly fascist in this country. These efforts go hand in hand, and it’s good to zero in and focus on something like abortion or focus on something like the Don’t Say Gay bill, but it’s really important to stitch them together to the larger narrative of fascism and authoritarianism that’s sweeping through conservative spaces and in this country.”
Pieklo is concerned about future laws such as these, but she insists there is no need for journalists to change how they report.
“What we know about conservative movements is that they use facts like this as an attempt to chill speech in general,” Pieklo said. “If the media immediately sees this and turns tail and stops doing evidence-based reporting on abortion, particularly in the wake of the Dobbs conservatives, this is an important victory. And quite frankly, we may be in a position where journalists across the board have to take these risks because what’s the alternative?”
Pieklo is optimistic that the movement will be led by local reproductive rights activists. She urges readers to search their communities for those who have been organizing for many years.
PrismThis newsroom is independent and non-profit, and is run by journalists of color. We report from the ground and at the intersections with injustice.
