By Jen Girdish
Alongside Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, National Domestic Violence Hotline, and National Network to End Domestic Violence, we filed an amicus brief in Northland Family Planning v. Nessel.
This law singles out abortion providers, requiring them, and no other health care providers, to screen for “coercion to have an abortion,” but no other form of intimate partner violence. It also only requires abortion providers—and no one else—to post signs in their clinics describing criminal sanctions for abusive partners.
While this mandate appears on its face to address reproductive coercion, it doesn’t match the reality survivors live every day. We know from research and the thousands of callers to the Repro Legal Helpline and National Domestic Violence Hotline that abusers most often coerce their partners into pregnancy to gain more control over them, rather than coerce them to have abortions.
After the overturn of Roe, both the National Domestic Violence Hotline and If/When/How saw an uptick in victims who experience even more threats, isolation, and fear in trying to access abortion, especially in hostile states. In a recent survey, the National Domestic Violence Hotline found that 23% of callers said their partner pressured them into becoming pregnant.
To interrupt reproductive coercion, we need solutions grounded in survivors’ lived experience. Not doubling down on unnecessary regulation of abortion which reinforces how abusers wield control over survivors’ lives and decisions.
That means getting rid of state-imposed barriers that restrict access and only add to the difficulty of trying to safely stay or exit an abusive relationship.