Out-of-State Anti-Abortion Group Pours Resources into Montana to Prop Up Tim Sheehy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
CONTACT
rehm@mtdems.org
SBA Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, backs Sheehy because of his support for a national abortion ban
Helena, MT – New reporting from the Helena Independent Record highlighted how Tim Sheehy’s extreme anti-abortion endorser Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) is doing everything they can to strip away Montanans’ reproductive freedoms and prop up Sheehy.
SBA only endorses candidates, like Sheehy, who back a national abortion ban.SBA says this election is “the most pivotal election on the issue of abortion to date" and is spending big across Montana to “deploy over 50 field teams.”
As the reporting pointed out, Sheehy and SBA continue to peddle lies about Senator Jon Tester’s record on abortion. Their claims were “discredited by Politifact, an independent and non-partisan fact-checking organization.”The organization found that “the laws Tester has supported allow for the role of medical judgment, not ‘abortion on demand later in pregnancy,’” exposing Sheehy and SBA’s lies.
Read more below:
Helena Independent Record: Abortion opposition in Montana marches on
July 16, 2024
Carly Graf
Only a few weeks after Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights (MSRR), the coalition working to advance Constitutional Initiative 128, marked filing the requisite signatures on June 21, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an organization that seeks to end abortion, sent out an email blast in the Flathead County Republicans' newsletter looking to hire “pro-lifers” for door-to-door canvassing.
According to the job description, hired field representatives will conduct voter surveys. They can work flexible schedules and earn anywhere from $15 to $20 per hour, plus partial gas reimbursement, so long as they abide by “strict reporting requirements” and hold beliefs “in harmony with a pro-life mission.”
“Thank you for your interest in walking to protect the sanctity of human life and the most vulnerable among us — *babies*,” the application, a Google form, says.
Abortion is legal in Montana before fetal viability. The state Constitution has a rigid right to privacy. Under the 1999 Armstrong ruling from the Montana Supreme Court, that provision has been found to encompass abortion. CI-128 would delineate that right constitutionally.
Two years after the overturning of Roe at the federal level and the dissolution of abortion access in states all over the nation, SBA calls this election “the most pivotal election on the issue of abortion to date." An April press release announced the group planned to deploy over 50 field teams across Montana to reach the homes of 150,000 voters in Helena, Bozeman, Missoula and Billings.
Its efforts in Montana specifically target not only the ballot measure to enshrine abortion access but also the re-election campaigns of President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen Jon Tester, both Democrats.
The assertion that Montana Democrats such as Tester support abortion up to the moment of birth has been repeated widely by Republicans, including his opponent in the Senate race Tim Sheehy, who is endorsed by SBA’s political action committee called the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life Candidate Fund.
That claim has since been discredited by Politifact, an independent and non-partisan fact-checking organization owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The laws Tester has supported allow for the role of medical judgment, not “abortion on demand later in pregnancy,” it found.
Abortions after 21 weeks gestation are only 1% of all those performed in the U.S., according to KFF. The health policy organization notes that abortions "moments before birth" or "after birth" are false and those scenarios are not legal. "Reasons individuals seek abortions later in pregnancy include medical concerns such as fetal anomalies or maternal life endangerment, as well as barriers to care that cause delays in obtaining an abortion," the organization notes.
The state Legislature, led by majority Republicans, passed three bills in 2021 that would have banned abortion at 20 weeks, barred doctors from prescribing medication abortions via telehealth, and required a 24-hour waiting period for medication abortions as well as an ultrasound.
All three bills were struck down as unconstitutional by the state’s Supreme Court.
During the 2023 session, lawmakers passed a 15-week abortion ban that’s now held up in legal challenges. And in 2022, Montana voters faced a ballot measure that would have implemented a so-called "born-alive" provision, but it was struck down in a move abortion-rights supporters heralded as a sign of support for access to the procedure in the state.
SBA and the Montana Family Foundation are part of a coalition, including a spate of national and state organizations, mounting staunch opposition to the measure.
For the better part of 20 years, the Montana Family Foundation has worked to stifle abortion access in the state, and it’s the nexus of the on-the-ground movement once again this year. Laszloffy, its leader, is a frequent face at the Capitol during the legislative session testifying against bills to ensure access to abortion and in support of those to curtail the availability of the practice.
SBA has multiple arms — a political action committee that endorses candidates like Sheehy, its nonprofit and an education and advocacy group. Between Jan. 1, 2023, and May 31, 2024, the SBA Candidate Fund raised nearly $470,000, according to the Federal Elections Commission. Over that same period, it spent roughly $265,000 nationally.
On its website, SBA lists Super PAC Women Speak Out as part of its “SBA Pro-Life America Family.” As a Super PAC, Women Speak Out, can raise unlimited sums of money from corporations or individuals but is not permitted to contribute to or coordinate directly with parties or coordinates.
FEC filings show that in the 18 months between January 2023 and May 2024, Women Speak Out raised $2.6 million and spent over $3.4 million.
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