Americans Are Outraged Over Adriana Smith

5.19.25

Click to skip ahead: In The Cruelty is the Point, anti-abortion groups are running from Adriana Smith’s story. Weird Science has videos of the supposedly ‘objective’ author of the junk science report on mifepristone. In the States, news from Colorado, Maine, Florida, and more. In the Nation, more news on the awful bombing at a California fertility clinic, a new morning after pill, and conservative media’s crash out over pro-choice billboards. Keep An Eye On ‘free speech’ lawsuits aiming to let crisis pregnancy centers lie to women.

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The Cruelty is the Point

Want proof that outrage matters? Look at the way anti-abortion groups are running from Adriana Smith’s story this week, pretending as if Georgia’s abortion ban has nothing to do with what’s happening.

It’s been five days since we first heard about Adriana: Declared brain dead at 9 weeks pregnant, Adriana’s body is being forcibly kept alive against her family’s wishes because of the state’s abortion ban.

In those five days, we haven’t heard a single word from the nation’s largest and most powerful anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

It’s almost as if they know that their laws are sickening the nation. Georgia Right to Life has also remained silent—not a press release, tweet, or quote.

Since these groups don’t want to say anything, I’ll do it for them: What is happening to Adriana and her family is not some anomaly. It’s not a case of the hospital misunderstanding the law, or an issue of Georgia lawmakers not fully thinking through what the state ban would mean for women like Adriana. (In fact, state Sen. Ed Setzler, who sponsored the state’s abortion ban, says the hospital is “acting appropriately.”)

They planned for this. Anti-abortion legislators and activists knew this would happen—they knew their laws would devastate families and lives—and they passed them anyway.

Now, faced with the incredible suffering their policies are inflicting on Americans, the anti-abortion movement is either looking away or shirking blame.

That’s right: the anti-abortion groups and activists that aren’t staying silent want to pretend that what’s happening to Adriana is someone else’s fault. Live Action, for example, put out a release claiming that it’s not the state’s abortion ban forcing the hospital to keep Adriana’s body alive—but other state laws about the withdrawal of life-support. It’s an assertion I’ve seen repeated by close to a dozen other anti-abortion activists and organizations.

Even Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr released this statement:

“There is nothing in the LIFE Act that requires medical professionals to keep a woman on life support after brain death. Removing life support is not an action ‘with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy.’”

Republicans are running from the expected and planned consequences of their own law because they know that voters are furious. They’re cowards. It’s that simple.

None of this should come as a surprise: When news broke that abortion bans were killing women, the anti-abortion movement insisted that it wasn’t their laws that hurt patients—but the doctors who were confused, the hospitals who needed ‘clarification’, or the pro-choice movement that scared providers out of giving proper care.

Like I said, cowards.

As far as I can tell, Students for Life is the only anti-abortion group that admits this is exactly what they wanted. President Kristan Hawkins tweeted that the hospital is “doing what any mother would want—saving the life of her baby.” (Apparently Kristan thinks she knows better about what Adriana would want than her own mother.)

I hate that Adriana’s life and death has become a political talking point. Her suffering is not a thought experiment about when it’s legally or morally okay to desecrate someone’s body. The only voices that should matter here are those of Adriana’s family—and that’s precisely who is having their voice stripped away.

Right now, Adriana’s family is being financially devastated with medical bills—so if you can afford to help, consider donating to her GoFundMe.

For more analysis on Adriana’s case and the Georgia law, listen to this Ms. magazine’s emergency podcast episode with Dr. Michele Goodwin, scholar and author of Policing the Womb:

Weird Science

Republicans are still banking on the junk study from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) to help them restrict mifepristone. (If you need background on the so-called research, click here, here, and here.)

Anti-abortion legislators and activists think no one will notice that they’re trying to do away with a safe medication using bullshit data—so it’s up to us to remind people. Not only was this study not peer-reviewed, it’s methodologically flawed to the point of ridiculousness: Nearly half of the women they counted as having “serious adverse reactions” merely visited the hospital—not treated, visited.

And as I laid out last week, the organization and ‘researchers’ behind the data are anti-abortion extremists. Both Jamie Bryan Hall and Ryan T. Anderson were long-time employees of the Heritage Foundation, the group responsible for Project 2025. So naturally, the study’s recommendations mirror those of the conservative roadmap. Anderson even wrote an anti-abortion book where he accuses feminists of wanting the ”freedom to walk away from unwanted pregnancy—by killing the child.”

Don’t forget that the EPPC was also an advisory board member of Project 2025, and that the group is coordinating an activist coalition opposing abortion medication—literally. They launched a website urging readers to write letters to the FDA, HHS, and Congress to restrict mifepristone. Not exactly the moves of objective researchers!

If you still have any doubts that the study’s authors are anything other than anti-abortion wackos, just listen to Anderson in his own words. Here he is admitting that the goal of his supposedly objective study is “the elimination of” abortion medication.

And here’s Anderson blaming feminism for teaching women that equality is “sterilizing” themselves (aka birth control) and “killing” their children (aka abortion). Again: does that sound like an objective researcher??

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: steal these videos. Take whatever you want from the newsletter or AED’s social media to share and spread the word. Seriously—I don’t even care if you credit me, tbh. I just want people to understand how absolutely absurd this ‘study’ is.

Speaking of getting the word out: big thanks to NBC News for this article telling readers that “shoddy science” is fueling the latest attacks against mifepristone.

In the States

My mind is still on parental consent mandates: Last week, a Florida appeals court struck down a law that said minors could get abortions without parental consent using a judicial bypass. The system was pretty awful already—teens were regularly humiliated and shamed by judges who got to decide whether or not they were ‘mature’ enough to have an abortion. But now even that small bit of access is endangered.

The opinion, written by Judge Jordan Pratt, even cited a “rich common-law tradition of empowering parents to order their children’s affairs, even over their children’s objections.”

You can find that same attitude of control and ownership in a new Maine bill seeking to codify parental consent into law. Rep. Elizabeth Caruso’s “common sense and natural order” bill isn’t just meant to target abortion, but gender-affirming care and more.

The legislation, which states that “neither parent has any rights paramount to the rights of the other with reference to any matter affecting their children,” seeks to make it impossible for one parent to help a teen get healthcare that the other parent may disagree with.

“These rights, while seemingly self-evident, merit explicit legislative protection in our evolving social landscape to re-establish parental authority,” Caruso said.

‘Parental rights’ has become a growing conservative strategy—with Republicans drumming up fear and using the protection of children as a guise for the most noxious kinds of racism, sexism, and transphobia. Unfortunately, I don’t see the tactic going anywhere anytime soon.

Let’s end with some good news out of Colorado: Clinic staff from the recently-shuttered Boulder Abortion Clinic are working to open a new facility providing later abortion care.

You may remember that Dr. Warren Hern announced BAC’s closure a few weeks ago—citing the funding crisis and increased harassment and threats. It was a rough blow to access, because the clinic—which operated for 50 years—was one of the few places in the country providing later abortion care.

That’s why I was thrilled to see that BAC’s former chief operating officer Alicia Moreno told the Boulder Reporting Lab, “We’re working as hard as possible to figure out something in the next 60 to 90 days.” In a moment when access is so fraught—especially for later care—we need all the providers we can get.

As always: for more information and resources on abortion care later in pregnancy, check out Patient Forward.

Quick hits:

• Tubal sterilizations rose in Arizona after Roe was overturned;

• There are a few Missouri Republicans speaking out against their party’s efforts to repeal Amendment 3;

• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on the growth of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers in Georgia;

• Finally, I appreciated this piece from Axios reporter Lucille Sherman about what it was like to cover North Carolina’s abortion ban while having a miscarriage.

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In the Nation

Over the weekend, a 25-year old man bombed a California fertility clinic, just months after the Trump administration announced they wouldn’t be enforcing the FACE ACT—the federal law protecting reproductive healthcare clinics.

In fact, defanging the federal law was one of the White House’s first actions. (Right after pardoning two dozen violent extremists who attacked clinics, of course.) Soon after Trump’s inauguration, his Department of Justice announced that they wouldn’t enforce the FACE Act unless there were “extraordinary circumstances...such as death.”

And a few weeks ago, a DOJ attorney said they’d only be using the FACE Act to prosecute pro-choicers. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the department would be “aggressively going after” anyone who interferes with the anti-abortion activists outside of clinics.

Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, says this weekend’s tragedy is “a critical reminder of what’s at stake if the Trump Administration fails to enforce [the FACE Act] and if Members of Congress continue to work to repeal it.”

For more about how the Trump administration is removing clinic safeguards, read Abortion, Every Day’s past reporting below:

"God Demands Justice": The GOP's Chilling Plan to Attack Clinics

In better news, a new emergency contraceptive has hit the convenience store shelves. NBC News reports that Cadence now has their contraceptive—cleverly named “The Morning After Pill”—at 11,000 locations in 48 states.

With about a third of American women living under an abortion ban, emergency contraception is more important than ever. That’s also why Republicans are so eager to ban it.

Finally, you can always count on conservatives to play the victim: the Daily Caller warns today that activists are “targeting” college students and “pro-life centers.” How are they being targeted? Well, with billboards, of course!

The ultra-conservative publication complains—using the word ‘target’ five times—that the Brigid Alliance has put up “abortion tourism” ads in Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana letting people know the group will help them get out-of-state care.

As part of their new campaign, the abortion access group is also running radio and internet ads, and driving billboard trucks around the states. But because the billboard trucks are driving around college campuses and outside of fake clinics, conservatives are having a panic attack.

I find it pretty rich that the same people who have no problem forcing a 10-year-old into childbirth are suddenly worried about scandalizing college students with ads about where they can get healthcare.

Quick hits:

• Rewire has an interview with Dr. Payal Chakraborty, the primary author of a study showing that LGBTQ people are nearly twice as likely to terminate a pregnancy;

• Reuters digs into the evolving laws around emergency abortion laws throughout the country;

• And I’ll be writing more about this soon, but I didn’t want to wait before sharing: Don’t miss Amy Littlefield’s must-read in The Nation about later-abortion care.

Keep An Eye On

Make sure you’re watching out for ‘free speech’ lawsuits related to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. I’ve been tracking these for a while, because the stories—which aren’t as flashy as other abortion rights news items—tend to fly under the radar. But that doesn’t make them any less important.

Take what’s happening in California: Alliance Defending Freedom—the group that overturned Roe—is in a legal battle with the state over their restrictions on what crisis pregnancy centers can say about so-called ‘abortion reversal’. Essentially the state doesn’t want these religious maniacs lying to women about their health, which the ADF claims is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

This week, the ADF filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to keep the case going—and it’s not the only one they have in their rotation. In the same way the ADF wants to get ‘buffer zones’ all the way to the Supreme Court, they’re hoping to push the idea that conservatives should be able to lie to women to the nation’s highest court, as well.

If you missed my Friday column (and need a good dose of righteous fury), read it below:

Wake the Hell Up