The Daily Signal - 2 Years After Dobbs, ADF's Erin Hawley Breaks Down the State of Abortion

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Erin Hawley discusses the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning Roe v. Wade. The court's landmark ruling, Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, was a major pro-life victory. Hawley tells The Daily Signal about other court cases to watch and attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and the unborn.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, June 24th. I'm Mary Margaret O'Lahan, and I sat down with Senior Council and Vice President of the Center for Life and Regulatory Practice at Alliance Defending Freedom, Aaron Hawley. We'll discuss the Supreme Court's decision in the FDA versus Alliance for Hippocratic medicine, the future of the pro-life movement, and more. Stay tuned for my conversation with Aaron Hawley. It was 10 years ago that the Daily Signal officially launched as an alternative. to the establishment press.

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to be your signal that cuts through the noise to transmit the news quickly and simply. More importantly, we will always tell you the truth. That is our promise. We believe that by focusing on quality journalism, the unbatched knowledge of our contributors, and insider intel, thanks to our access to policymakers, the Daily Signal's future is bright. But we can't do it without your help. You can support our our work by visiting dailysignal.com slash donate. For those who have made a financial contribution in the past or are considering making a gift today, thanks for making the Daily Signal your trusted source of news. Erin, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me. It's really great to be back to talk about the jobs anniversary. Yes, so as we come up on this second anniversary of the historic Supreme Court ruling overturning Roeby Wade, can you fill us in? what's the status on the pro-life movement right now? Are pro-life advocates in a good position? You know, I think they are, Mary Margaret, and I know we've had some discouraging things happen with referendums and such across the country. But I think the reality is that as the Dobbs opinion says, that that decision does return to the people, the ability to protect life. And that means that it's a legislative process.

that means it's messy, but that means that for the first time in 50 years, we are able to convince people of the inherent dignity and value of every life. And that's such a privilege. So I think we're in a good position. We definitely want to continue to fight on so many fronts for the protection of life. But it's an avenue that we have not been able to do under Roe. Right. Now, we just saw the Supreme Court issue a decision. in FDA versus Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. I know you argued this case before the justices, so you have firsthand experience here to share with us what's going on.

Tell us, what did the court rule and what are the implications here? You know, that's a great question. And so the court said that the pro-life doctors that Alliance for Defending Freedom represent did not have standing. And so that's sort of a legal technicality before you can come into federal court. you have to show that you were directly injured. But the way the Supreme Court got there was really interesting. All nine of the justices agreed that pro-life doctors would have a constitutional conscience injury if they were forced to participate in an abortion.

And that means not only, you know, taking the life of an unborn child in an emergency abortion, but also participating in that process. And the court went on to say that, you know, given that that's a constitutional injury, there still wasn't injury to our particular plaintiffs because of the federal conscience protections. And there's a couple of really interesting things about that ruling. It's probably the broadest ruling on protecting federal conscious protections from the Supreme Court, certainly the broadest one that is unanimous. And what the court said is that there are a variety of federal conscious protections. they focused on the church amendment.

And they said that the church amendment means that doctors cannot be forced to participate, even in, you know, regardless of the size of their hospital, regardless of where they live, regardless of the government's interest, and also regardless of the particular procedure, that it was based on the doctor's own religious beliefs. Again, that's extremely broad. It's a very robust protection for conscience rights. And I think the infuriating thing, as a little bit, litigants in the case is that the federal conscious protections don't apply in emergency situations.

And so it was only when they got to the Supreme Court, when they were staring down the prospect of the FDA actually being held accountable for its decisions to remove safeguards protecting women, that it said, wait a minute, we agree that the federal conscious laws apply. Okay. So that's really interesting because I think a lot of establishment legacy media outlets reporting on this decision might have made it appear that this decision was a huge loss for pro-lifers that, you know, it was a big win for those pushing abortion pills, but it sounds like it's a lot more nuanced than that. I think that's exactly right.

And the key thing, I think the Roberts Court has been really solid on is that there are religious protections. They're encompassed, of course, in the First Amendment, but also in a number of statutes. statutory protections. And again, the only way that the FDA was able to evade review here of its unlawful actions. Again, actions that took away even a single doctor's visit for women taking what FDA acknowledges is a high-risk drug. About one in 25 women go to the emergency room when they take them for press dome. And the government took away even that first visit to check for things like a topic pregnancy. And in doing so, again, the only way the FDA could evade

review is to admit that conscience protections apply and that they are very, very robust. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And on this topic of abortion drugs, as a reporter, you know, I've been to the Supreme Court for some of these protests. I've talked to the activist act of court about the abortion drugs and what they tell us and what media tell us are that these abortion drugs are incredibly safe and anyone can take them. Is that accurate? Absolutely not. In fact, if you look at look at FDA's briefing before the lower courts, they actually told them that Mithoprestone is as safe as ibuprofen. That is ludicrous.

30 million people take ibuprofen. I think it's daily, whereas a great many women do take Mithoprestone, but the risks are not anywhere comparable. Again, FDA's own label says that roughly one in 25 women end up in the emergency room, two to seven percent of women who take the abortion drug will need emergency surgery, either to stop bleeding or to complete the abortion. So these are things that aren't typical when you're thinking about taking something like time or all or ad, but they're not even in the same. Right. So why are we told that it's so safe? And why are we told that this is such a,

you know, a casual thing to do when it's not? I think it's a, really all about normalizing abortion and making this seem like it's just any other medication. Of course, the abortion industry refers to abortion as health care. It's not health care. There's nothing wrong with being pregnant. It is not an illness as the FDA claimed in approving Mifresteone. But instead, it's a normal condition that many women rejoice in. Many women, of course, are also surprised and have unexpected pregnancies in circumstances that are less than ideal, that are scary. And I think what's really telling about the abortion industry and what they're doing presently is that a number of blue state attorney generals and progressive organizations are going after pregnancy care centers for something known as abortion pill reversal. All this is is progesterone treatments.

which is completely safe, has been used for some 50 years. And if a woman takes Mithoprestone and changes her mind, or maybe she's forced to take Mitha Prestone, but wants to keep her child, then if she takes progesterone, a big dose of progesterone within 24 to 48 hours, there's a 64 to 68% chance that her child can live a completely healthy life. So it's not foolproof, but it is a second chance. at life. But what the Blue State Attorney Generals and the abortion industry are saying are that women can't change their minds. There's no reason a woman would ever want to not have an abortion,

which is manifestly false. We know from the data that about three quarters of women say that they would have chosen to parent if their circumstances were different. And these pregnancy care centers that are being targeted are trying to make the circumstances different for women in a good situation would like to parent. So to go after them, I think, really shows what's an issue for the abortion industry. And that's making abortion as accessible as possible for any reason and not providing real choice to women. Yeah, I think it's really interesting. You know, you bring up abortion pill reversal, which is something that, first of all, most media won't cover or talk about. And second of all, when they do report on it,

They always say that, you know, it is false or misleading that you can reverse an abortion drug or, you know, that these things are safe. So I find it very interesting that we have this case, you know, at the Supreme Court, where all of our media and activists are telling us that these abortion drugs are so safe and so effective. But then when we talk about abortion pill reversal, we're told this is false and misleading and we see such aggressive measures against these types of procedures. Why do you think we have that little conundrum right there? I really think it's simply because abortion pill reversal shows that lots of women are uncomfortable with abortion, that they may change their mind, that they may be forced into it. And to take away that second chance at saving their baby's life from women is really diabolical.

And the fact of the matter is progesterone is much safer than Mifoprestone. Again, it's been prescribed for decades to, help stave off miscarriages to keep a pregnancy viable. And how the drug operates, or excuse me, it's a hormone, how it's a naturally occurring hormone. And what it does is mithoprestone is what's known as a progesterone antagonist. So it attaches to the progesterone receptors in a woman's uterus and sort of prevents the progesterone from attaching, which starbs the child. Well, it makes sense and it's been scientifically shown that if you flood a woman's system with progesterone, that progesterone competes with the mitaphrosstone to attach to those receptors. Some of those

progesterone do attach the receptors, which allows the child to survive in many instances. And again, I think it's just this false narrative that women always want an abortion, that it is a good thing for women. And that abortion pill reversal really strikes to the heart of. We've had such encouraging testimonies from women who explain how they change their mind at our so faithful to have been given a second chance at having their child. Yeah, it seems like that would be very empowering to women. You know, if you decide to abort your unborn baby and then you realize that you want to keep that baby, it would seem that that would be a very empowering choice to have an option

to do so. Absolutely. And to take even that choice away to, as the New York Attorney General has said, even the term abortion pill reversal, she says, is false and misleading. under consumer protection statutes, and she's filed to it against 11 pregnancy care centers in the state of New York for offering the service. Again, this is a free service.

Women don't have to take it. But it does empower them to make a different decision, to change their mind and to try to keep their child. So we're seeing not only in New York, but also in California, government officials filing lawsuits or targeting these pregnancy centers, as you mentioned, for offering or advertising

abortion pill reversal. I know in California, the Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against Heartbeat International and Real Options, Obria, medical clinics over Heartbeat International's abortion pill reversal work. Can you fill us in a little more on this case and on these other cases and how the pregnancy centers might be at risk here? Absolutely. So the California case, as well as in your case, are really aggressive uses of state concerns. protection laws. So typically those laws apply only to commercial services. And the reason for that, of course, is the First Amendment. The First Amendment has robust protections for people to speak. You are allowed to speak about abortion pill reversal, just as you are allowed to speak for or against abortion. But what the attorney generals in these lawsuits are saying is that this

information is false and misleading. There's a number of problems with that. First of all, typically consumer protection statutes only apply to for-profit businesses. And that makes some sense when you're protecting consumers from products and being sort of swindled into believing something about a product. But here, these products are completely safe. So it really, they're excuse me, completely free. So it really stretches consumer protection law to go after these centers. In addition to that, the statements about abortion pill reversal, the scientific, shows that it is effective. It's not always effective as no drug is always effective, but it does increase the chance that the unborn child will live. The science shows that. Observational studies

show that. Studies on rats, which is typical when you cannot do controlled human studies, show that progesterone does increase the chance of survival. And so it really is just targeting this idea that a woman might want to change her mind. And against this sort of data that shows progesterone is safe, that there's nothing that shows that just the administration of progesterone, again, which has taken place for over five decades, would cause a woman or her unborn child any harm. So it really is just an effort to squelch the free speech of these pregnancy care centers.

And these pregnancy care centers, you know, they're facing attacks in this realm, something that we also don't talk about that much is the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy care centers and churches since the leak of the draft opinion showing that Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned. So, you know, we've seen hundreds of attacks on these centers and on churches that are pro-abortion attacks, you know, with pro-abortion rhetoric. But we haven't seen a very strong response from government officials or, you know, the DOJ, which has the ability to charge these vandals with the FAS.

What do you make of this and the rhetoric that we hear from politicians like Elizabeth Warren, who say that pregnancy centers are doing dangerous work? So with respect to the latter, that's absolutely ridiculous. Pregnancy care centers are coming alongside women facing an unexpected pregnancy, which can be a very frightening situation. Women don't know what they're going to do. And these pregnancy care centers come alongside and provide free medical care, free resources, as well as things like counseling, parenting classes, and all sorts of things to provide these women with a real choice.

And again, as mentioned earlier, the data shows that most women would choose to say they would choose to parent if their circumstances were different. These pregnancy care centers are doing their best to make those circumstances different so that women can have a real choice. That is empowering and that's something we should all support. In addition, when you think about the Department of Justice, the Biden administration's unequal enforcement of the FACE Act, it's really just baffling that pregnancy care centers, as you mentioned, have been targeted since the draft opinion was released. They've been firebombed. They've been vandalized.

And yet there's maybe a handful of prosecutions for violations of the FACE Act against pregnancy care centers. On the flip side, if you look at the prosecutions against peaceful pro-life demonstrators who stand and pray in front of abortion centers, that's what the FACE Act has been used for by the Biden administration to go after people who stand and pray rather than folks who vandalize pregnancy care centers. That's unbelievable. Before you go, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about another upcoming case,

Idaho's big Supreme Court abortion case. Can you break this down for our listeners who might not be aware of it? Absolutely. Well, this is another attempt by the Biden administration to provide for abortion on demand for any reason. The Emergency Medical Treatment Act was enacted by a bipartisan Congress and signed by President Reagan. And this act has a really laudable purpose. It prevents hospitals who accept Medicare from engaging in what's known as patient dumping. This means if someone comes with an emergency situation, but they can't pay their indigent, then the law requires the hospital to provide stabilizing care. The hospital can't just turn them away. Well, what the Biden administration did was convert that requirement for stabilizing care into an abortion

mandate and to require abortions, even when those abortions violates state law. But of course, Imtala has never been interpreted that way. It's never been interpreted to require a provision of treatment that violates state law. And I would expect the Supreme Court to hold that within the next week or so. Well, Erin, we're so grateful for your commentary here and your breakdown of what's going on. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks so much for having me. And that'll do it for today's episode. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed where we bring you the top news of the day. Also, make sure you subscribe to The Daily Signal, wherever you get your podcast, and help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star

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