Death Threats Against Abortion Providers Doubled Last Year
5.20.26
Click to skip ahead: Report: Clinic Violence Surged in 2025; Pink Pill Pipeline: The Women Who Want to Repeal the 19th; In the States: New York, Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana; Study: Abortion Bans Are Hurting Miscarriage Patients; Ballot Box: Getting Heated in Iowa & an Upset in Louisiana
Report: Clinic Violence Surged in 2025
In a new survey of abortion providers, the National Abortion Federation reports rising anti-abortion violence and threats. The report comes just weeks after the Trump administration released a 900-page report downplaying anti-abortion violence, painting extremists as peaceful protesters targeted for their religious views.
Of the 300 clinics that responded to NAF’s survey, 200 reported violence or harassment—including death threats, break-ins or attempted break-ins, and stalking. Terrifyingly enough, we know that anti-abortion death threats are far from toothless: since the 1990s, there have been 11 murders and over two dozen attempted murders of abortion providers. Just this year, a Montana provider was the target of a planned assassination attempt.
NAF found between 2024 and 2025, death threats, threats of physical harm, and stalking more than doubled, and clinic blockades surged by 500%. And while there were zero reported arsons in 2024, clinics suffered four in 2025.
Also keep in mind that all of these numbers are incidents that were reported. NAF also notes that substantially more providers responded to their 2025 survey than their 2024 survey, meaning it’s possible that 2024 incidents, specifically, were underreported.
You should read the full report—provider stories, especially—to get a sense of just how much risk clinics are taking on in order to bring us care. At one Kansas clinic, anti-abortion activists inundated the phone line with thousands of automated, harassing messages. And after viral far-right influencer Libs of TikTok posted about them, a Colorado clinic received tens of thousands of harassing calls, emails, and social media messages—making it more difficult to parse people seeking help.
We know why anti-abortion extremists are feeling so fearless these days. Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the NAF, says the Trump administration “has genuinely emboldened” anti-abortion violence. It doesn’t help that the defunding of reproductive care has contributed to the shuttering of clinics across the country, allowing anti-abortion activists to focus and escalate their harassment of remaining clinics.
Remember: in January 2025, Donald Trump pardoned two dozen anti-abortion activists who broke federal laws in their at times violent harassment of abortion clinics. Later that same year, at least three people pardoned by Trump were arrested for criminal harassment of clinics again. Two of these activists made appointments at a Pennsylvania clinic, then stormed the clinic, spread “an unknown liquid and salt-like substance” around the premises, and refused to leave.
And why wouldn’t these activists repeat their past, criminal behaviors? Not only did Trump pardon them, but his Justice Department declared it would no longer enforce the FACE Act, a law that protects clinics from threats and harassment. One staffer at the Pennsylvania clinic told MS Now, “We live daily with the discomfort that they will return.”
Pink Pill Pipeline: The Women Who Want to Repeal the 19th
From June 5 to 7, the far-right, youth indoctrination group Turning Point USA will host its annual Women’s Leadership Summit. Among the speakers this year? 20-year-old tradwife influencer Savanna Stone—one of the right’s most vocal, prolific anti-19th amendment voices, who, conveniently for Republicans, happens to be a young woman. “I think since the 19th Amendment, society has really decayed,” Stone has repeatedly said.
Stone supports a so-called “one family voting system,” where the husband votes for the entire household. It’s a not-so-sneaky call for women to lose the right to vote. Stone explained that she doesn’t “want these radical feminists to be able to vote, frankly.” Journalist Madeline Peltz has written at length on Stone’s appalling past statements, which have focused largely on rescinding women’s voting rights, and even supporting marital rape.
It’s getting harder for conservatives to write off activists like Stone as “fringe”: TPUSA is one of the country’s most powerful GOP institutions, and Stone isn’t alone in her beliefs. Candace Owens, a speaker at previous TPUSA conferences for women, has said of the 19th amendment: “Can you name one objective thing that has gotten better in American society since women were given the right to vote?” Elon Musk has called for “childless adults” to lose their voting rights—another implicit attack on single women, who are among the most powerful (and liberal) voting blocs in the US.
‘War Secretary’ (eyeroll) Pete Hegseth tweeted out a video last year opposing women’s right to vote. Hegseth’s pastor is, in fact, one of the leading figures in the movement to repeal the 19th.
Where other TPUSA conferences and events tend to focus on voter mobilization, TPUSA’s women’s summit noticeably focuses on drilling women on giving up their political power. At the 2023 conference, conservative anti-birth control influencer Alex Clark told attendees, “The feminist movement gave way to the notion that a woman could have her cake and eat it too,” adding that it’s “a lie to tell women that we can have it all.” The organization has even hosted so-called ‘abolitionists’ who want abortion patients to be punished with life in prison or the death penalty.
It’s hardly subtle what message TPUSA means to send with a speaker like Stone on their roster this year.
Read Jessica’s column about how misogynists are using the guise of “spirited dialogue” to make women’s voting rights up for debate:
In the States: New York, Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana
As a reminder, obstetric violence is endemic across the country—including pro-choice states. In New York last week, one woman was forced to give birth in a Brooklyn courtroom—with her hands handcuffed behind her back, as she awaited arraignment on low-level charges. Without adequate medical care or privacy. A coalition of public defender groups say:
“She deserved care, compassion, safety, and dignity. Instead, she was subjected to trauma and humiliation in full public view.”
Tina Luongo, the chief attorney of the Legal Aid Society’s criminal defense practice, told the New York Times, “This is a horrific example of many, many system failures… we should be thinking about services and treatment, and not incarceration and arrest.”
Yet, stories like this sadly aren’t rare: almost a dozen states still don’t ban the shackling of pregnant, incarcerated women in labor. In Alabama, Tennessee, and other states, there have been several cases of women forced to give birth in jail just in the last few years. All of this presents a glaring reminder: reproductive justice and criminal justice are inseparable from each other.
Speaking of Alabama: the state just lost another labor and delivery ward. USA Health Providence, which has been open since 1953, announced on May 13 that it would close its doors within weeks. The hospital is the primary provider in the city, and it says the demand on the hospital has rendered it impossible to keep its labor and delivery ward open.
While the whole country suffers from a crisis of declining access to maternal care, anti-abortion states are being hit the hardest. As it turns out, threatening to criminalize health providers makes it hard to recruit and retain talent. In Idaho, for instance, not only have a third of OBGYNs fled the state since Dobbs, but at least one rural county lost its last labor and delivery ward in 2023—specifically because the hospital couldn’t recruit doctors willing to risk criminalization.
Over in Ohio, Republicans still won’t drop their war on the state’s successful abortion rights ballot measure, three years later. A new lawsuit challenging the constitutional amendment desperately claims that changes to the Constitution require a “constitutional convention.” All of this is redundant: several court rulings have already established the amendment as law. These antics are a reminder that the anti-abortion movement is fundamentally at odds with democracy—as Jessica has written about at length.
In Louisiana, the legislature is weighing yet another bill that would add a rape exception to the state’s sweeping ban. Predictably, anti-abortion groups like Concerned Women for America vocally oppose the bill, because they’re not ashamed to state point-blank that they want child rape victims to be forced to give birth.
Exceptions are complicated: often enough, they function as window-dressing and allow Republicans to make their laws seem more moderate, all while being inaccessible in practice. At the same time, it’s disturbing that Republicans can’t even pretend to care whether pregnant people live or die, or whether rape victims deserve basic rights.
Study: Abortion Bans Are Hurting Miscarriage Patients
Abortion bans are hurting miscarriage patients in banned states, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In particular, banned states are less likely to provide medications for miscarriage management, and more likely to wield “expectant management care”—waiting for patients’ bodies to naturally pass miscarried pregnancy tissue without intervening, sometimes endangering patients’ lives.
Researchers from the Center for Reproductive Health Equity at Oregon Health & Science University analyzed data from 124,000 individuals who had first trimester miscarriages, comparing patients in banned and pro-choice states, and data from before and after the end of Roe.
Their findings? States with bans are 2.8% more likely to use expectant management and 2.2% less likely to use medication management. Something especially interesting given the current attacks on mifepristone, in particular: In cases when physicians did use medication management in banned states, they were 13.8% more likely to use misoprostol-only protocols instead of mifepristone and misoprostol, which is the most effective approach.
These numbers may seem small, but 2.8% of 124,000 people accounts for nearly 3,700 patients who are less likely to receive the highest standard of care for their miscarriages. This data provides a glimpse into how abortion bans are exacerbating maternal morbidities and mortality.
Already in states like Louisiana, which criminalized possession of mifepristone and misoprostol, this has created dangerous barriers for hospitals to access the medications that treat hemorrhaging—which is a leading cause of death for pregnant people. Last month, a different study showed a 9.2% increase in pregnancy-related deaths in states with abortion bans since Dobbs.
“We can’t restrict one area of reproductive health care without there being far-reaching impacts,” says professor and study author Maria Rodriguez. “These are very real and dangerous clinical implications for the hundreds of thousands of women experiencing miscarriages annually.”
Ballot Box
Some pretty shocking news: two-term, GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana lost his primary over the weekend, coming in third place. It’s hard to think of anyone more deserving of this unique humiliation.
If Cassidy’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he makes frequent appearances here at AED. In addition to accusing reproductive rights advocates of “fearmongering” over the consequences of abortion bans, Cassidy has consistently led the charge against abortion pills at the Senate. He presided over last year’s HELP committee hearing, “Exposing the Dangers of Chemical Abortion Drugs,” he pushed the FDA to ban mifepristone, and even called on the FDA to shut down abortion pill and pro-choice websites.
Cassidy often touts his record as a physician—only to back anti-vaxx, anti-science RFK Jr. for Health and Human Services Secretary. Despite that effort to toe the line with the Trump administration, Trump still endorsed Cassidy’s opponent and celebrated Cassidy’s defeat, calling him “a terrible guy” this weekend. (Cassidy voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021.)
Who knows? Maybe if Cassidy had spent less time pushing disinformation about abortion pills and more time listening to his constituents, he could have saved his political future.
In Iowa, a key Democratic primary for U.S. Senate is coming down to abortion. Last week, state Sen. Zach Wahls and state Rep. Josh Turek primarily clashed on abortion when they squared off for their second debate. Wahls questioned why Turek missed three crucial votes on abortion: Iowa’s six-week ban, a fetal personhood bill, and legislation pushing Baby Olivia propaganda in classrooms. Turek responded that he missed these votes over a medical emergency and scheduling conflicts.
Wahls also pressed Turek on his committee vote to advance a bill that quadrupled taxpayer funding for Iowa CPCs; Turek defended himself by insisting he voted against the final version of the bill.
With Iowa’s June 2 primary fast-approaching, we’re watching abortion become a focal point of the race. Which only makes sense: it’s been two years since the state enacted a six-week ban, a law that nearly 60% of Iowa voters oppose.
Consider the GOP gubernatorial primary. One candidate, businessman Zach Lahn, bragged that he’s banned from a fertility clinic for trying to “save” embryos’ lives. Rep. Randy Feenstra, seen as the frontrunner, has voted against a bipartisan bill to protect access to the over-the-counter contraceptives in the Iowa Senate, and supported the Life at Conception Act in Congress. Then there’s Adam Steen, former director of the state’s Department of Administrative Services. Earlier this year, he advanced anti-abortion ‘abortion in the water’ conspiracy theories, blaming the state’s ongoing water supply issues on “chemical abortions.”
What’s abundantly clear is that both Iowa Democrats and Republicans are using abortion to distinguish themselves from each other.
And, ICYMI, AED had the chance to chat with Georgia Supreme Court justice candidate Jen Jordan, who ran in no small part on restoring reproductive freedom. That election happened yesterday, and conservative Justices Sarah Warren and Charles Bethel—both of whom have repeatedly upheld the state’s abortion ban—won reelection. Warren defeated Jordan 59% to 41%, and Bethel narrowly beat her pro-choice opponent, Miracle Rankin, 51% to 49%.
This outcome comes after, on the eve of the election, the state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission claimed Jordan and Rankin broke judicial ethics rules—by merely talking about abortion on the campaign trail. Yet, how could they not? Abortion is a defining issue of the race. At least two Georgia women have been killed by the state’s ban.
As Jessica wrote this week, we know what this was really about. State Supreme Court races have increasingly boiled down to abortion. This was a Hail Mary attempt to sabotage Jordan and Rankin’s chances as they ran against two anti-abortion extremists who have repeatedly upheld Georgia’s ban.
The 19th Amendment is the only place in the Constitution that explicitly grants rights to women.
I would think 100 million women will vote out every gop for the next 40 years. But then I thought that in 2024 too.