Olivia Rodrigo’s team reportedly told abortion funds partnered with her GUTS tour that they can no longer distribute emergency contraception at her shows following backlash from conservatives.
The decision follows a photo of emergency contraception and educational information handed out at her St. Louis concert that went viral and received national media coverage.
In February with the launch of her world tour, Rodrigo promised to donate a percentage of her ticket sales to abortion funds across the country, calling the initiative “Fund 4 Good.” At her concert Tuesday night at Enterprise Center she partnered with the Missouri Abortion Fund and Right By You to pass out the morning-after pill to fans who wanted it.
Rodrigo’s advocacy sent Republican lawmakers in Missouri — including state Senator Bill Eigel (R-Weldon Springs) — into a frenzy and left them fuming on social media.
On Thursday, three abortion fund workers told Jezebel that the National Network of Abortion Funds told its members they were no longer allowed to distribute Plan B at the singer’s shows.
“The reason given was that the items would be too accessible to young girls in attendance,” according to Jezebel.
Some of the backlash towards Rodrigo has leveled extreme accusations of the singer “facilitating genocide,” and handing out free abortions — despite the fact that Plan B is not abortion medication.
According to Media Matters, which has posted a timeline of the backlash, anti-abortion group 40 Days for Life said (falsely) Rodrigo’s concerts “now double as abortion dispensaries for young girls.” Newsmax correspondent Addison Smith wrote, “Olivia Rodrigo is facilitating genocide.” And, Mary Morgan, co-host of Pop Culture Crisis, called the singer a “satanic plant.”
Even Rolling Stone seemed to fuel the outrage, with a tweet suggesting Rodrigo was handing out the pills “despite” Missouri’s ban on abortion — suggesting the handouts might be in defiance of state law.
But Marcia McCormick, an attorney and professor at Saint Louis University with expertise in gender and the law, notes that the distribution of these materials is 100 percent legal, even in Missouri.
“There is a lot of misinformation and a lot of confusion,” McCormick says. “Missouri has a ban on abortion, but that ban does not apply to emergency contraception, which prevents pregnancy.”
There is some confusion and moral outrage over how exactly Plan B — also known as the morning after pill — works, McCormick says. Part of this moral outrage and misinformation stems from a debate about when pregnancy truly begins.
Some say life begins at fertilization, others say not until the embryo is planted and actually begins to develop, and still others say that anything that interferes with implantation should be considered abortion.
“Clinical research has demonstrated that actually Plan B prevents ovulation, so it prevents fertilization in the first place. And so even under that broad and unusual definition of abortion, Plan B doesn’t satisfy that definition,” McCormick says.
Not only does Plan B not run afoul of any state or federal statutes, but there is no age requirement to purchase it and it is sold over the counter.
But though the medication is legal to distribute, that doesn’t mean organizers don’t have other worries, McCormick says.
“Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean that a person might not sue, or bad publicity, or lobbying or pressure from people like our attorney general,” McCormick says. “Potentially, by a creative prosecutor, they might be charged or concerned about civil liability for giving away something like this, especially if adolescents are involved, just because some parents get really worried about things like that.”
There are also more serious safety concerns to consider because reproduction is such a high- profile topic, McCormick says.
“Anybody runs the risk of a lot of negative online, terrible stuff and physical terrible stuff, abortion doctors get killed, abortion clinics get firebombed,” McCormick says. “There are physical risks for high-profile people to do something like this.”
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