Reproductive rights leaders in the South lose funding as major organizations prioritize swing states

With a presidential election looming, some leaders in places like Louisiana have reported that the financial support dwindles

Following the Dobbs decision, Republican operatives and state legislators sought to move away from abortion as the central focus issue that was supposed to win them the culture wars. In Louisiana, social conservatives emphasized gender-affirming care along with exploiting many people’s irritation at having their speech corrected online. 

All of this was designed to cultivate political support for their elected officials while casting liberals as uptight, anti-free speech, and out of step with most Americans. 

I spoke to Morgan Moone, strategic data and advocacy manager at Reproductive Justice Action Collective in Louisiana. We talked about how the antiabortion movement has expanded its scope to encompass other issues now that Roe has been overturned. 

“It's not just abortion, and it's not going to stop at abortion,” Moone said. “it's going to go to medical care. It's going to go to contraception. It's going to go to this conflation of emergency contraception with the abortion pill. It's going to go to gender-affirming care.” 

In an additionally troubling turn, many national organizations have pulled funding for campaigns like hers. If I had to give a reason for that, I would suspect that it’s a presidential year and that feminist leaders feel that the money should be allocated toward winning states where Democrats have a more viable chance than in places like Louisiana and Alabama. 

Even though there are far greater threats to reproductive care and maternal well-being in southern states, if the goal were to elect Joe Biden to another term, then it would make more sense to spend money emphasizing reproductive freedom in safer swing states. That’s the reasoning, anyway. 

With Trump potentially calling for a federal ban, it may make sense to implement that strategy. But one of the negative consequences is they either won’t gain or could potentially lose ground in places where they need to make or keep it. 

For instance, Missouri has a ballot initiative process underway. So does Arkansas. But virtually every political operative would tell you that it would be unlikely, if not impossible, for a Democrat to win that state unless you have a time machine to return to when Bill Clinton was governor there. Yet, as has been shown in Ohio, abortion rights can garner support in otherwise Republican states. 

So it’s a question of priorities. 

“The reasoning that we've received and that our partners have received is that it's, ‘Oh, well, abortion isn't legal anymore in the south. And so we're not going to fund any work to support abortion in the south,’ which is terrible for so many different reasons,” Moone said.