Forced parenthood meets failing safety nets in post-Roe America

The MoJo Daily newsletter, Monday through Friday. [View in browser]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter](     August 29, 2022 Hi! I'm Abby Vesoulis, a national politics reporter here at Mother Jones. I'm also a born-and-raised Ohioan, where abortion has been banned beyond six weeks gestation, and a single woman in my mid-20’s who isn’t ready to have kids. In the days following the Supreme Court’s [Roe v. Wade]( reversal in June, I was upset and terrified about the state of, well, everything. Accordingly, I engaged in hours and hours’ worth of social media doom-scrolling—otherwise known as very important journalism research, if my editor is asking—to see how friends in my timeline were reacting to the news. They were also feeling horrible, mostly. (A few random people that used to bully me in high school posted celebratory statuses about the Dobbs decision, citing their devout faith.) But amid all my scrolling, I repeatedly came across a Venn diagram making the rounds via Instagram stories. On one side, it listed the states that had immediately moved to ban or heavily restrict abortion, and on the other side, it listed the states that have enacted laws to provide parents with paid family leave upon childbirth. There was no overlap on this diagram. Not a single state that banned abortion or restricted it after six weeks gestation provides guaranteed paid family leave. That didn't necessarily surprise me: The 15 states with the strictest abortion laws all have majority-Republican legislative bodies, and most have Republican governors too. Republican politicians are less likely, as a whole, than their Democratic counterparts to support social programs like paid leave. And while I wasn't shocked, I was motivated. The visual inspired me to research just how bad all the benefits are in abortion-restricted banned states. Paid leave was just the start. States that heavily regulated or outlawed abortion in the wake of the Dobbs decision are less likely to have expanded Medicaid access and more likely to provide less money to low-income families through the nation’s largest direct cash assistance program. For my latest feature, which I sincerely hope you read (if only to make all my doom-scrolling and post-Dobbs anxiety worth it), I dig into the nitty gritty details of the these policy programs and others in abortion-restricted states. In an interview I conducted for the piece, a struggling single mom in Georgia brilliantly summed up what the restrictions on both social safety net programs and abortion mean for her. “It’s like they want us to have them,” says 38-year-old Melissa Kearse, “but they are not giving us anything to raise them.” And if things seem bad now, just wait six to nine months. That's when swaths more low-income women will have babies they didn't want, nor can afford, in states that restricted abortion without building adequate social safety nets first. —Abby Vesoulis Advertisement [House Subscriptions Ad]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [Forced Parenthood and Failing Safety Nets: This Is Life in Post-Roe America]( The states with the strictest abortion laws are doing the least to help poor families. What could possibly go wrong? BY ABBY VESOULIS [Trending] [Trump's Truth Social is in trouble.]( BY DAN FRIEDMAN   [National anger over the removal of abortion rights is catching up to the GOP]( BY SAMANTHA MICHAELS   [Breonna Taylor's boyfriend reflects on the cost of her death at the hands of police]( BY SAMANTHA MICHAELS   [Europe’s plan to wean itself off Russian gas just might work]( BY MATT REYNOLDS Advertisement [House Donations Ad]( [Special Feature] [Special Feature]( [The Curry Trap: How a Continent’s Worth of Food Got Mashed Into One Word]( American ignorance about the cuisine is flattening and hurtful. BY ANMOL IRFAN [Fiercely Independent] Support from readers allows Mother Jones to do journalism that doesn't just follow the pack. [Donate]( Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by [forwarding]( it to a friend or sharing it on [Facebook]( and [Twitter](. [Mother Jones]( [Donate]( [Subscribe]( This message was sent to {EMAIL}. To change the messages you receive from us, you can [edit your email preferences]( or [unsubscribe from all mailings.]( For advertising opportunities see our online [media kit.]( Were you forwarded this email? [Sign up for Mother Jones' newsletters today.]( [www.MotherJones.com]( PO Box 8539, Big Sandy, TX 75755