Abortion Bans are Another Weapon for Abusers

Anti-choice laws are endangering victims and empowering abusers

Two years before Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Luba Reife remembers a question she received from one of her clients, whose abusive partner didn’t know she was pregnant yet: What difference would it make if she had an abortion, versus if she chose to move forward with her pregnancy?

“That obviously wasn’t a choice I could make for her, but the answer is, it could make all the difference in the world,” Reife said. A senior staff attorney at the New York-based victim advocacy organization Sanctuary for Families, Reife is also co-founder of the organization’s new Reproductive Abuse Initiative.

Sharing a child with your abuser can link you to them for the rest of your life—and that’s exactly why impregnating their victims, with or without their consent, is such a common line of attack from abusers. In some states, including several that have banned abortion, a divorce can’t be finalized while someone is pregnant, without exceptions for abuse.

Earlier this month, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a new study showing abortion bans have increased intimate partner violence across the U.S. since Dobbs, linking these laws to 9,000 additional incidents of intimate partner violence in states that limit abortion rights.

That shouldn’t be a surprise. In the first year after Roe was overturned, calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline about reproductive coercion doubled. And, of course, the landmark Turnaway Study shows that people who are denied abortions face significantly increased risk of long-term domestic violence.

The Reproductive Abuse Initiative is one of few programs in the nation that offer cost-free, legal representation to victims experiencing reproductive coercion, which occurs when an abuser exerts control over someone’s pregnancy-related decisions. Reife’s clients have included one victim whose abuser “would trap her with him” by repeatedly impregnating her, “coercing her to have unprotected sex,” and ensuring she was “more and more deeply entrenched in the relationship” with each of their three kids.

Another client was assaulted by her partner, who ejaculated inside her without her consent—a form of sexual assault. He then physically trapped her in their home for days to prevent her from accessing emergency contraception in time. She became pregnant.

Yet another woman’s abusive ex-partner didn’t approve of her abortion—so he harassed and slandered her online, sharing her abortion story far and wide without her consent. That abuser lived in Texas, which adds another chilling layer in today’s political landscape: The Texas attorney general’s office is actively recruiting men to pursue litigation abuse against intimate partners who have had abortions.

Speaking of Texas: In 2023, Texas resident Harold Thompson shot and killed his girlfriend, Gabriela Gonzalez, to punish her for having an abortion.

The leading cause of death for pregnant people in the U.S. is homicide, abusive situations escalate when someone becomes pregnant, and all data indicates that anti-abortion laws are exacerbating abuse. That’s precisely what makes anti-abortion messaging lately so galling: They increasingly justify their attacks on life-saving reproductive care by ironically (and baselessly!) equating access to abortion pills with abuse and “coercion.”

Co-opting ‘Coercion’

Louisiana is the perfect example of how Republicans have co-opted “coercion” to further strip away reproductive rights: The state became the first in the nation to criminalize abortion pills in 2024—weaponizing the story of a woman whose husband put abortion pills in her drink without her consent. And on Monday, Gov. Jeff Landry signed an absurd bill to “protect” so-called “victims of abortion drug dealers”—aka, people who take abortion pills, sweepingly framing them as abuse victims.

These developments come as the state is still trying to extradite New York’s Dr. Margaret Carpenter for mailing abortion pills into Louisiana, where a mother allegedly gave the pills to her teenage daughter. Without citing any evidence, Louisiana officials have run away with the narrative that Carpenter and the teen’s mother “coerced” her to have the abortion, even though the state hasn’t brought any “coercion” charges against either. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill even called Carpenter a “drug dealer who victimized a child.”

The language they’re using isn’t a coincidence. Abortion, Every Day reported in 2023 that anti-abortion leaders identified “coercion” as their most salient talking point to stigmatize and attack abortion rights. And it’s working: Just last month, the anti-abortion extremist U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas ruled that the Biden administration overstepped by expanding HIPAA to protect abortion patients’ medical records, particularly if they traveled out-of-state for care. Anti-abortion activists and legislators say they need this data…to protect victims of abuse and “coercion.”

Anne Glatz, co-director at the Reproductive Abuse Initiative, says anti-abortion leaders’ constant invocations of “abuse” and “coercion” to justify anti-abortion laws are “bad faith and completely contrived.” The strategy reminds her of so-called anti-abortion “trafficking” laws, which claim to protect minors from being “trafficked” across state lines to have abortions, but instead target the constitutionally protected right to abortion-related travel broadly.

Bans As Abuse

Glatz calls abortion bans “a form of state sponsored gender-based violence in itself.”

And they are, indeed, just another tool in the toolbox of abusers: The Hotline’s 2024 survey found 5% (about 200) of respondents said their partners threatened to report them to law enforcement if they had abortions. Another 5% said their partners threatened to sue them if they did. No state currently enforces a ban that explicitly punishes the abortion patient—but nevertheless, as one attorney at the organization If/When/How has raised, “There’s this deeply ingrained idea that if abortion is illegal, therefore someone who seeks it or has one is engaging in criminal activity.”

Litigation abuse is also arising as an increasingly common, alarming phenomenon: Several men in Texas have pursued varying degrees of legal action over intimate partners’ alleged abortions, terrorizing and economically draining them. Glatz and Reife also work with undocumented clients who are at even greater risk of threats and weaponized disinformation from their abusers.

“Abusers will threaten to have victims arrested if they have an abortion, or if [the victim is] undocumented, they’ll threaten to have you deported. And right now, the risk of that is too real,” Glatz said.

These laws are fundamentally confusing, even to legal experts and doctors. So of course some victims are led to believe their abusers really can get them thrown in jail should they seek abortion.

Even the elimination of reproductive health clinics enables abuse: In the Hotline’s aforementioned survey, respondents said access to a nearby reproductive health clinic can be a lifeline. But since Dobbs, one third say they said they now lack access to a medical professional focused on reproductive health. The Hotline’s survey also showed distance from a reproductive health clinic prevented 7% of victims from accessing care.

A quarter of victims said their abuser pressured them into becoming pregnant; 13% said their abuser used or threatened violence while they were pregnant; and almost 10% said their abuser used or threatened violence if they expressed that they wanted an abortion.

Another study revealed a direct link between laws that shut down abortion clinics (aka “TRAP” laws) and risk of intimate partner violence-related homicide. In 2024, researchers estimated that in the span of just over a year, tens of thousands of rape-induced pregnancies occurred in abortion-banned states—potentially tying victims to their abusers for a lifetime.

What’s Next

While Sanctuary for Families’ Reproductive Abuse Initiative’s direct representation services are new, Reife says the organization is already being stretched thin under the current presidential administration—which is incoherently threatening the federal funding of organizations that practice so-called “DEI” or serve immigrant communities.

Already, the administration has paused or canceled funding for research into racial disparities in maternal mortality, the impacts of abortion bans, intimate partner violence prevention programs, and Planned Parenthood affiliates that affirmed that Black Lives Matter in 2020.

According to Reife, just 10% of Sanctuary for Families’ funding comes from federal grants—but the administration’s threats against numerous big law firms that offer pro-bono services or donations to the organization have also placed them in a precarious position.

“A year ago, we would have been trying to expand [the Reproductive Abuse Initiative]. Now, that’s just not possible,” Reife said.

The surging need for their services since Dobbs should tell us everything we know about the real crisis of reproductive abuse and “coercion,” and how abortion bans—not abortion access—place victims in exponentially greater danger.

The Reproductive Abuse Initiative operates in New York, serving New York-based clients who remain susceptible to abuse even without a state abortion ban, but consults with and supports advocates in other states. The National Domestic Violence Hotline and If/When/How operate hotlines that support victims navigating reproductive abuse living anywhere in the U.S.