Vermont is Tracking the Pregnancies of 'Unfit' Parents

1.21.25

The Quickie - read the short version or click to skip ahead!

In the interest of starting off on a positive note, I share some of my favorite images from the People’s March in You Love to See It.

In Trump Abortion Attacks, the administration took down a gov’t run repro rights website and snuck fetal personhood language into an anti-trans executive order.

In the States, Texas Republicans are pretending to soften on abortion rights (but AED brought the receipts), and Virginia voters are one step closer to having a say on abortion.

In the Courts, Vermont’s Dept of Children and Family services is keeping a secret calendar tracking the pregnancies of supposed ‘unfit’ parents.

Stats & Studies looks at research showing a massive spike in permanent contraception post-Dobbs and how geography impacts the need for telehealth abortion.

Finally, Legislation Watch looks at the ‘born alive’ bill headed to a Senate vote.

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You Love to See It

There’s no getting around that it’s been a shitty few days, but the images from the People’s March this weekend brought me a lot of hope and joy. So before we dig into the nightmare of the Trump administration, here’s a few of my favorites:

Trump Abortion Attacks

Conservatives didn’t waste a single second. On the first day Donald Trump was in office, his administration launched two telling attacks on abortion rights. The first was the speedy removal of abortion information off of government websites. NPR reported today, for example, that information about abortion has been scrubbed off of the website for the Department of Health and Human Services.

In fact, a search for the term ‘abortion’ on HHS brings back few results; the pages that do remain largely have to do with ‘conscience’ protections for those who oppose abortion on religious grounds.

But that’s not all: Just hours after Trump was inaugurated, his office took down reproductiverights.gov. The HHS website, launched after Roe was overturned, shared vital information about reproductive rights and where Americans could get care. The website wasn’t all about abortion, however—reproductiverights.gov also carried information about birth control coverage. But we know that the Project 2025 maniacs behind Trump’s administration are coming after contraception, too. So that’s no surprise.

Here’s the good news: It’s not like this site going dark means that women won’t be able to find resources. Most of the information once housed on those websites can be found elsewhere. Jezebel has a helpful round-up of information, and Abortion, Every Day’s resource section can help, too. One of the best abortion rights clearinghouses, though, is “You Always Have Options.”

And while these attacks on information shouldn’t have a meaningful impact on women’s ability to find care, the move is a symbolic one. Trump’s administration is letting us know what their priorities are. It’s not a coincidence, after all, that the other websites to come down yesterday were LGBTQ resources and the Spanish version of the White House.

The other anti-abortion move from the Trump administration yesterday was a bit sneakier: They carefully placed fetal personhood language in their anti-trans executive order. Remember, Trump signed an executive order declaring that there are only two sexes—a move to gut federal diversity programs and LGBTQ protections. But check out the language here:

That’s not an accident! Conservatives are going to try to codify fetal personhood any way they can—especially if they can do it without drawing too much attention. That’s why it’s so important that we’re watching every single thing they’re doing, and that we treat the attacks on trans people as inextricable from attacks on reproductive rights.

In the States

Let’s talk about what’s happening in Texas, which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. The law has already killed several women that we know of, and over a hundred Texas OBGYNs called on legislators to take action this November in response.

Republicans seem to be catching on to the fact that voters don’t like watching women go septic and die, so I wasn’t surprised to see several headlines today claiming that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has called for “clarity” in the state’s abortion ban to “protect mothers at risk.”

The Texas Tribune, for example, reports that Patrick is “the first major state elected official to offer support for changing the state’s abortion law in this legislative session.” But is he really? Because watching the interview that these outlets are talking about, it appears to me that Patrick set himself up for a nice little PR moment.

Here’s what Patrick said when asked by Inside Texas Politics if Republicans were considering any abortion legislation:

“I do think we need to clarify any language so that doctors are not in fear of being penalized if they think the life of the mother is at risk.”

If you’re a regular reader, you know I’ve written about the word ‘clarify’ quite a lot; it’s a term Republicans love to use because it makes it sound as if they’re somehow softening or taking action to ‘fix’ their draconian abortion bans.

What ‘clarifying’ a ban actually means, however, is adding language that allows the GOP to pretend as if they’ve made a law safer, while further entrenching fake and dangerous definitions of abortion. (Read my piece on ‘Med Ed’ bills for details on this strategy.)

And then there’s this: When reporter Jason Whitely asked Patrick about whether Republicans would punish women for abortion, the lieutenant governor quickly rejected the idea, claiming that these were just “a few people somewhere” who had suggested as much. “They don’t speak for Republicans…You’re not going to punish women, that’s ridiculous,” he said.

Here’s what Whitely should have asked in response: If the people who want to punish women for abortions don’t speak for Republicans, why, then, did Republicans adopt their language into the Texas GOP platform? That’s right: After a lobbying campaign by so-called abortion ‘abolitionists,’ Republicans added language to their platform that supported charging abortion patients as murderers. In Texas, that could mean the death penalty.

But Whitely didn’t ask that question. Instead, he shook Patrick’s hand and the interview ended there.

Meanwhile, the Virginia Senate just passed a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights, putting voters one step closer to having a say on the issue. Proposed amendments in Virginia have to pass the General Assembly two years in a row; that means if the House and Senate pass the pro-choice amendment next year, voters could weigh in on the issue at the end of 2026.

As expected, Republicans are pushing back on the pro-choice measure by reviving all of the talking points we saw used against other abortion rights amendments in the lead-up to November. The most popular claim? That protecting abortion rights in the state constitution would eradicate ‘parental rights.’ (The proposed amendment doesn’t mention parental consent at all, this is just the message Republicans think they can win with.)

Quick hits:

• Michigan has more than 300 locations giving out free contraceptives through the state’s “Take Control of Your Birth Control” program.

• North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein issued an executive order protecting abortion providers and patients.

• A piece raising the alarm about crisis pregnancy centers in Maine.

• And it’s not just New Jersey’s governor who is stockpiling abortion medication; the state’s Planned Parenthood also says they’ve been building up a supply of the drug.

In the Courts

Don’t ever be lulled into thinking that ‘pro-choice’ states are immune from doing scary shit. And boy oh boy is this story scary: A new lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Vermont and Pregnancy Justice alleges that Vermont’s Department for Children and Families keeps a secret calendar tracking the pregnancies of women they deem “high risk” and “unfit parents” in order to take custody of their newborns.

In fact, the suit lays out how DCF took steps to obtain custody of one Vermont women’s baby by declaring her mentally unfit before she even gave birth and without a formal mental health evaluation. The woman, identified in the suit as A.V., wasn’t evaluated until after they took her newborn away. What’s more, DCF—without her knowledge—even tried to get a court order to force A.V. into a c-section while she was in labor.

From the Associated Press:

“She had no idea that while she was in labor, hospital officials were relaying updates to the state—including details of her cervix dilation—and had won temporary custody of the fetus.”

A.V. had her baby taken from her upon birth, before she was allowed to hold or even touch her child.

ACLU senior staff attorney Harrison Stark says, “This case is so egregious in so many ways that it should really shock the conscience of any Vermonter who cares about personal autonomy or reproductive liberty.”

If this happened in Vermont, what do you think is going down in other states? And what do we think will happen if fetal personhood is codified? I’ll keep you updated on this suit, but jfc this one will stay with me for a while.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports today on Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling allowing three Republican Attorneys General to continue with their anti-mifepristone suit. This case will impact abortion medication access for the whole country—not just states with abortion bans. So if you need a refresher, read my explainer on the suit here.

Stats & Studies

A new study published this month in the American Journal of Public Health reports that the further a woman lives from an abortion clinic, the more likely it is that she’ll depend on telehealth to obtain access to abortion medication.

Researcher Dr. Emily Godfrey says, "Basically, the farther the patients resided from an abortion facility, the more they were depending on the pills being mailed to them.” In fact, each 100-mile increase in distance from a provider increase telehealth requests by 61%.

In other research news, a study published in Health Affairs found that permanent contraception spiked after Roe was overturned—with a 95% increase in vasectomies and 70% more tubal sterilizations in Americans between 19 and 26 years old. That is huge, especially considering the age of the patients.

Legislation Watch

The Senate is set to vote tomorrow on the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” a cruel bill that denies parents the chance to spend their final, precious moments with a fatally ill newborn.

I’ve written about this type of legislation before: Republicans concocted a grotesque myth that babies are ‘born alive’ after abortions and need to be protected from the evil providers eager to kill them. These ‘Born Alive’ bills were created to prop up that lie.

While the scenario Republicans describe is entirely fictional, the consequences of their policies are devastatingly real. This legislation forces doctors to perform futile and painful medical procedures on fatally ill newborns—like very premature babies or those with severe, life-ending conditions. Instead of allowing families to peacefully say goodbye and hold their children in their final moments, these laws turn an already-heartbreaking tragedy into a full nightmare.

You all know that this is personal for me: My daughter, Layla, was born at 28 weeks. She underwent months of painful procedures; from being intubated and having a central line IV threaded up to her heart, to treatment for a collapsed lung and living with a feeding tube. It was unbearable and traumatizing—and that was despite knowing that she would survive. To force parents to put their newborn through that in vain is vile.

Senator Patty Murray spoke out against this horrifying legislation today, calling it “an absolute disgrace” that Republicans are focusing their energy on “attacking women, criminalizing doctors, and lying about abortion.”