Bans Are Driving Up Later Abortions

7.7.2025

Click to skip ahead: On Texas, just a few words about the tragedy unfolding the past few days. In Anti-Abortion Glossary, we’re talking about ‘cartel.’ In the States has news from Missouri, Idaho, Maine, Georgia, Wisconsin, and more. In the Nation, Planned Parenthood is suing the Trump administration, more on the BBB, and an anti-abortion leader lets some strategy hints slip. Stats & Studies looks at new data on how later abortion is increasing in states with bans. Ending Abortion Stigma rants about the backlash against singer Lily Allen. And AED Events flags a book event with Kylie in San Francisco.

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On Texas

I’ve felt sick the last few days thinking about all of those little girls in Texas, and what their families are going through. It’s a nightmare. Watching Republican leaders in the state deliver ‘thoughts and prayers’ also makes my stomach turn—and not just because they supported the massive federal cuts that gutted the National Weather Service.

The politicians talking about how heartbroken they are over the dozens of dead and missing little girls are the same ones who happily force children the same age to give birth after they’ve been victimized. Do you know what childbirth does to the body of a little girl? I do. That’s why I can’t listen to another minute of these people pretending that they care about children.

If folks have resources or groups to share that are collecting funds for the families, please leave them in the comments—I’d love to boost.

Anti-Abortion Glossary

Another day, another anti-abortion talking point. Term of the day? ‘Cartel’—as in conservatives say abortion providers who help patients no matter where they live are part of an interstate drug cartel. Wish I was kidding.

This is just the latest in a long line of Republican messages focused on abortion pills—all pushed out with varying degrees of success. They’ve claimed the medication is dangerous to women’s health, for example, despite all evidence to the contrary. Anti-abortion groups and legislators also insist that the pills are a tool of domestic abusers, co-opting feminist language in order to soften their misogynist image.

‘Cartel’, however, is the new favorite: it’s a rhetorical escalation from ‘drug trafficking’, a term Republicans frequently use in legislation or lawsuits to restrict abortion medication.

Take this op-ed from Gavin Oxley of Americans United for Life. Oxley uses ‘cartel’ nearly a dozen times in his 800-word piece, urging Donald Trump to “abolish cartels” and writing that “women deserve to live without the paranoia that they might be the next victim of this dangerous cartel.”

In part, this is about likening abortion pills to dangerous addictive drugs: that’s why states like Louisiana have reclassified abortion medication as a controlled substance. But more than that, it’s about labeling abortion providers and activists as part of a vast, seedy, criminal conspiracy.

Let’s also not overlook the racial implications of ‘cartel’, especially given who currently resides in the White House. When Texas prosecutors arrested midwife Maria Margarita Rojas, it wasn’t a coincidence that they targeted someone who served a predominantly low-income, non-English-speaking community. Nor was it an accident that conservative media headlines declared Rojas’ colleagues were “illegal” immigrants. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America even called Rojas an “illegal abortionist”—a term they’ve never used before. (When a white provider was indicted, the group simply called her an “abortionist.”)

All of which is to say: they think about these terms carefully! So should we.

In the States

Missouri voters codified abortion protections in the state constitution this past November, but anti-abortion leaders and legislators refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer: they launched a successful coup, and are putting the issue back on the ballot in 2026.

And while their measure would unambiguously restore a total ban in the state, its language conveniently excludes that fact. Taking a page from federal Republicans and their calls for “minimum national standards” and “reasonable restrictions,” the Missouri GOP is trying to make their measure sound as pro-choice as possible. For example, it would “guarantee access to care for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages,” and “ensure women’s safety during abortions.”

Anti-abortion lobbyist Sam Lee told the Kansas City Star that this misleading language is just fine, insisting that the measure is not a ban because it supposedly permits abortions in rare cases of medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, and rape or incest. Using another favorite anti-abortion talking point, Lee says the measure is “a good compromise for the voters.”

This is effectively the end-game of the anti-abortion movement’s war on language itself: one in which abortion bans aren’t bans so long as, hypothetically, one or two “good” abortions might be permitted. Abortion, Every Day has been warning about this attempt to redefine ‘ban’ for a good two years now:

The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Language War

It’s no surprise Missouri is leading the way on this, given all the wildly underhanded tactics Republicans there deployed to try to stop the ultimately successful abortion rights ballot measure last year.

Amendment 3’s passage hasn’t stopped Missouri patients from being jerked around about the legal status of abortion in the state, however. In May, the state Supreme Court effectively reinstated a total abortion ban by ruling that Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang had to lift and reevaluate a block on clinic restrictions—restrictions meant to make it impossible for clinics to provide abortions. Last week, Zhang temporarily blocked the restrictions again until a final ruling is issued.

That means providers can resume care for now—but all of this is beyond frustrating. Patients are being purposefully confused, and more and more money is sinking into an ongoing legal battle rather than supporting abortion access and funds.

Speaking of abortion rights ballot measures: Idaho organizers have officially started collecting signatures to place a measure on the 2026 ballot. Remember, Idaho citizen initiatives can’t change the state constitution—but they can create laws.

Per the Idaho Capital Sun, Idahoans United collected 1,200 of the 71,000 necessary signatures over the weekend alone, and it’s not hard to guess why: Idaho has been in the news for how its abortion ban has driven doctors to leave the state in droves and required women to be airlifted to other states for emergency care.

Take, for instance, new reporting from States Newsroom showing the ripple effects of Idaho’s ban, which has so thoroughly damaged the state health system that minors and senior citizens are struggling to access non-abortion-related care. Despite this momentum, organizers still have their work cut out for them: in the last 10 years, only three proposed initiatives collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Meanwhile, even states that protect abortion rights are raising the alarm about how Trump’s utterly grotesque budget bill will affect access. Take Maine Family Planning, which runs 18 clinics: Nearly half of their patients are Medicaid-eligible, and 70% rely on their visit there as their only health care appointment all year. In other words, these closures will be catastrophic for public health—everywhere.

Let’s check in with the architect of Georgia’s ban, which has killed at least two known women and tortured or almost killed who knows how many more. Speaking to 11Alive over the weekend, state Sen. Ed Setzler justified his law’s arbitrary, six-week cut-off for abortions by spewing incoherent bullshit about how “life begins at conception” and when miscarriages are more or less likely to happen in a pregnancy. (Again, all incoherent.)

But the most galling part of the conversation is Setzler’s comparison of abortion to slavery and Roe to the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision—comparing embryos with enslaved people. A reminder: Candi Miller and Amber Nicole Thurman, two women who died because of Georgia’s abortion ban, and Adriana Smith, who was kept alive by a Georgia hospital as an incubator under state law, were all Black women.

Finally, in Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers celebrated the formal repeal of the state’s 1849 abortion ban at the end of last week, calling the ruling “a win for basic freedoms in Wisconsin.”

“[O]ur work is not over. I will continue to fight any effort that takes away Wisconsinites’ reproductive freedom or makes reproductive healthcare, whether birth control, abortion, IVF, or fertility treatments, any less accessible in Wisconsin than it is today.”

Quick hits:

• A new California bill would protect the identities of doctors who mail abortion pills out-of-state;

• Wendy Davis spoke to MSNBC about how the Texas ban is making miscarriages more dangerous;

• And almost no one is getting abortion care in South Carolina thanks to the state’s ban, according to new data from the state health department.

In the Nation

Republicans’ massive budget bill threatens to shutter one in four abortion providers, but Planned Parenthood is hoping to nip it in the bud: On Monday, the organization sued the Trump administration. In a complaint filed in federal court, Planned Parenthood argues the feature barring abortion providers from accessing Medicaid funding is unconstitutional because it singles out reproductive health providers who offer abortion.

All of this comes on the heels of the Supreme Court ruling last month that allowed South Carolina to strip Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds, and after the administration froze over $65 million in Title X funding for reproductive health providers across the country earlier this year. Say it with us: Backdoor. National. Abortion. Ban.

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Missed our explainer on the BBB? Read it below:

Senate Republicans’ ‘Big, Beautiful’ Backdoor Ban

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Meanwhile, of course “pro-life” leaders are celebrating the passage of a bill that, quite frankly, will kill or at least inflict unthinkable suffering on families across the country. Recall that this bill will slash $930 billion from Medicaid, kick at least 17 million people off their health insurance, and pour a staggering $100 billion into ICE and border enforcement. Still, John Mize, CEO of Americans United for Life (AUL), celebrated the bill’s passage, because “now, more states can move forward with their plans to defund Planned Parenthood.”

In a recent telling interview, Mize works hard to disguise his group’s extremism—claiming, for example, that he has no interest in punishing abortion patients. But here are some not-so-fun facts about AUL:

They’re the group behind abortion ‘complication’ reporting that straight up fabricates data; they want to legally mandate detailed abortion reports, destroying patient privacy; they’re pushing for a national abortion ban under the guise of prohibiting a certain type of abortion procedure; and they want to eradicate exceptions for women’s lives. Really.

So yeah, they may not want to arrest you—but they’re more than willing to kill you!

Like all anti-abortion leaders, Mize refuses to blame all the post-Dobbs confusion and chaos on abortion bans, instead calling for more “clarification” of the laws:

“If it’s an area where there is still ambiguity, I would think the medical societies would be the best place to go to help clear up that ambiguity.”

What “medical societies” do you think he’s talking about here? We have a guess: Just last week, AED warned that conservatives were increasingly looking to the radical American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) to ‘clarify’ bans and ‘teach’ doctors about when they’re legally allowed to provide life-saving abortion care. (In short? Never.)

Yes, Mize name-checks the credible American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG)—but I promise you, these guys are always saying one thing while laying the groundwork for something else.

Finally, as if things weren’t ominous enough, ProPublica has a new report about how wide-ranging FDA layoffs will compromise the safety and quality of medications from factories around the world. The article doesn’t mention birth control specifically, but I’m reminded of a report from CBS last week on how FDA cuts could soon create safety risks to forms of birth control that have long been safe.

There’s really nothing this administration isn’t hellbent on making infinitely worse!

Stats & Studies

A new study in American Journal of Public Health found that people in states with bans are more than twice as likely to have abortions later in pregnancy. So not only have abortion bans not reduced the number of abortions—they’ve increased the number of later abortions.

Led by MacArthur ‘genius grant’ recipient and Turnaway Study researcher Diana Greene Foster, the study reports that before Roe was overturned, about 8% of abortions in states that now have bans occurred at 13 weeks or later. Since Dobbs, that figure has climbed to 17%.

Foster says, “Banning abortion doesn’t eliminate the need, it just forces people to travel farther and wait longer.”

Let’s be clear: People should be able to access abortion any time, for any reason. But given the anti-abortion movement is so obsessed with demonizing later abortion—not to mention, framing all abortions as later abortions—it’s worth discussing that their laws are creating the very conditions that force people to get care later than they’d like!

Some more telling figures from the study:

• Before bans, on average, people traveled 2.8 hours to seek abortion care, compared to 11.3 hours after bans;

• Before bans, just 5% of traveling abortion patients needed to stay somewhere overnight; now that figure has climbed to 58%;

• Both mean travel cost and mean pregnancy duration increased pre- and post-Dobbs, from $179 and 7.7 weeks to $372 and 8.8 weeks.

This data is backed up by what we’re hearing on the ground, too: Last year, a DC-based provider shared that after Texas’ six-week ban took effect in 2021, his clinic “saw a surge in later abortions.” This worsened after Dobbs, the doctor said, because abortion bans and “logistical nightmares” were “delaying when so many people who otherwise could have gotten care much earlier” were able to have it.

And when abortion is delayed, the costs of everything increase—the procedure itself, travel fees, everything.

For more on the importance of supporting later abortion patients, read this 2023 guest column from Erika Christensen of Patient Forward.

Ending Abortion Stigma

I’ve been so disappointed watching the backlash against English singer Lily Allen, who spoke recently on her podcast about having multiple abortions. Headlines from places like Fox News are to be expected—they love shit like this—but what’s been especially frustrating is the response from people claiming to be pro-choice.

I can’t tell you how many comments and videos I’ve seen from folks who say they support abortion rights, yet take issue with Allen having had multiple abortions—and her talking about them in a matter-of-fact way.

I made a video about this earlier today (TikTok, Insta), but here’s the short version: We’re all raised with abortion stigma, but it’s our job to interrogate and dismantle it. Because when people say things like, “I’m pro-choice, but…”, they’re making it a whole lot easier for the people passing abortion bans and restrictions!

After all, anti-abortion activists and legislators are working hard to advance the idea that there are good abortion patients and bad abortion patients, acceptable abortions and unacceptable abortions. It’s a huge part of their agenda. The least we can do is not help them.

AED Events

In San Francisco? Abortion, Every Day reporter Kylie Cheung will be at Medicine for Nightmares tomorrow talking about her new book, Coercion: Surviving and Resisting Abortion Bans. Go say hi!