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Lisa Margulies is vice president of public affairs at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund.
Anti-abortion opponents are out of step with public opinion, yet they haven’t stopped their attacks on our health care. And they’ve expanded their playbook to include a wide range of attacks on reproductive rights beyond outright abortion bans.
The vast majority of Americans and Mainers support abortion rights, and these numbers have only increased since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision. Yet this legislative session in Maine, like every legislative session, we’ve seen bills seeking to restrict access to abortion and related care.
These bills are part of a systematic, years-long effort by anti-abortion opponents to push a slate of policies across the country designed to attack our rights. These cookie-cutter policies are developed by politicians and anti-abortion organizations not informed by science but instead their own agendas.
Take LD 1716. This bill seeks to force schools in Maine to show fetal development videos created by anti-abortion actors under the guise of sexual education, with strikingly similar language as legislation in Arkansas, Florida and Oklahoma.
Another bill, LD 887, stokes a baseless anti-abortion conspiracy theory based on faulty science about purported environmental effects of medication abortion. This dangerous policy is being pursued at the behest of a national anti-abortion group in at least four other states this year.
Yet another bill seeks a constitutional amendment to strip young people of their ability to participate in decision making in all aspects of their lives, including reproductive health care, under the guise of protecting “parents’ rights.” This tactic has been pursued with success in states including Florida, Texas and West Virginia.
I could go on, but you get the picture. These bills are part of a broader strategy to quietly and covertly chip away at our reproductive rights and freedoms and achieve the ultimate goal of controlling our bodies.
Attacks are not slowing down at the national level, either. Like the state-level attacks, they are often more opaque than an outright abortion ban because these politicians know that the public supports abortion and related care. Abortion opponents know that shutting down reproductive health care providers is just as effective as outlawing care altogether.
The latest: draft portions of the federal budget reconciliation package seek to “defund” Planned Parenthood. What they’ve proposed is blocking millions of patients who depend on public health care funds, like Medicaid, from receiving care from Planned Parenthood and other similar health care providers. This is the latest attempt to eliminate abortion in the U.S., and it shows they’re willing to hurt millions of patients and the health care system to do it.
In Washington, D.C. and Augusta, some politicians aren’t interested in what the majority of their constituents want. They’re interested in forcing their own political agendas. Here in Maine, politicians peddling these policies ignore that Maine voters have twice elected a majority of reproductive rights champions to represent us in the statehouse since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal protections for abortion. Thankfully, the majority of our lawmakers continue to work to protect Maine values and represent the will of Maine voters.
State-level leadership has never been more critical. In the face of these attacks, leaders have an opportunity to protect access to reproductive health care. LD 143 would adequately fund our state’s family planning care network, which serves tens of thousands of Mainers every year, regardless of ability to pay. This funding would not cover abortion care, yet anti-abortion lawmakers in Augusta refuse to support it. They refuse to help ensure their constituents can access birth control, cancer screenings, behavioral health care, well person care, gender-affirming care and more. But, there is hope.
That hope lies in the majority of lawmakers in Augusta — elected by a majority of Maine voters. LD 143 has advanced through the initial stages of the legislative process and is now before the Appropriations Committee. Now, these lawmakers have an opportunity to show their constituents — and all Mainers — their ongoing commitment to essential health care in our state.
