How Republicans Manufacture Anti-Abortion Panic

10.17.25

Click to skip ahead: Meet the Creeps looks at the ‘young’ Republicans in an exposed group chat. In the States, news from South Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and more. Ballot Box reports that Virginia Republicans’ anti-abortion strategy is falling apart. Stats & Studies show the far-reaching harms of abortion bans. AED in the News shares a livestream with Jessica and Katie Couric. And In the Nation, what Amy Coney Barrett really thinks about birth control, and how abortion bans impact domestic violence.

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Meet the Creeps

I know precisely zero of us were shocked when POLITICO revealed this week that a group chat of Young Republican leaders was a cesspool of racism and misogyny. It was a classic ‘water is wet’ kind of moment.

We were similarly unsurprised today, when we found out that one of those ‘young’ Republicans is an anti-abortion activist: 24-year-old Luke Mosiman worked with the Center for Arizona Policy, an anti-abortion lobbying group.

The organization has since parted ways with Mosiman, but let’s be real: anti-abortion extremism is a far-right, fascist ideology—and wildly racist, sexist men are exactly the kinds of people who make up their movement.

That said, there are few things more telling than JD Vance’s response to the POLITICO story. Our couch-fucker vice president said, “The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys—they tell edgy, offensive jokes.”

“And at some point we’re all going to have to say enough of this BS, we’re not going to allow the worst moment in a 21-year-old’s group chat to ruin a kid’s life for the rest of time. That’s just not OK.”

Just to be clear: Vance thinks that pro-Nazi adults in their 20s and 30s are just kids who shouldn’t have their lives ruined, but 12-year-old rape victims are grown enough to be forced into pregnancy?

Got it.

In the States

All eyes on South Carolina, where we just got the next hearing date for SB 323—a monster abortion ban that threatens patients with the death penalty and could outlaw certain forms of birth control. The all-male subcommittee will meet to discuss the bill on Tuesday, November 18 at 2:00 p.m. EST.

There’s no overstating how extreme this legislation is. Earlier this week, bill architect state Sen. Richard Cash proudly declared that he believes certain forms of birth control are “an early abortion,” and compared sharing a clinic website URL to “sharing a website to find a killer to rub your wife out.”

At SB 323’s first hearing, protesters showed out in force—you can watch some of their moving testimony here. Unfortunately, the notice for this next hearing says “no further public testimony will be taken.” (But I’m betting we’ll see some advocates show up regardless.)

So mark your calendars, and consider donating to the incredible folks at the Palmetto State Abortion Fund and Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. If you’re in South Carolina, you can also sign this petition.

Ohio voters passed a pro-choice ballot measure in 2023, but that hasn’t stopped Republicans from trying to pass restrictions anyway—most recently, a 24-hour waiting period. We flagged this bill a few weeks ago: House Bill 347, which Republicans are calling the “She Wins Act” would not only mandate the waiting period, but would also require doctors to provide biased and inaccurate information about abortion.

Today, Kellie Copeland, executive director of Abortion Forward, tells WCMH “Courts have already blocked Ohio’s current 24-hour waiting period because it is unconstitutional.”

“These politicians want to ignore the will of Ohioans, reinstate this burdensome requirement, and force doctors to give potentially harmful information to patients seeking abortion care.”

Republicans are pulling similar moves in every state with pro-choice protections—from legal battles to local ordinances: Just this week, we reported that Kansas advocates are in court fighting burdensome restrictions that lawmakers claim ‘protect’ women, and in Virginia, the Lynchburg city council is trying to pass a backdoor ban by weaponizing zoning laws.

Let’s move on to Florida, where new data shows abortions have decreased by about a third. These latest numbers only include abortions reported to the state—so patients who ordered abortion pills in spite of Florida’s ban, for example, haven’t been counted.

Up until recently, Florida was a key abortion access point for the entire region. In fact, after Roe was overturned, Florida saw the second-largest abortion surge in the country. That all changed when Republicans enacted their six-week ban. Since then, other pro-choice states (like Illinois) have seen huge jumps as they care for the patients who would have otherwise been in Florida.

Speaking of post-Dobbs patient surges in pro-choice states: New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Abortion Surveillance Reports—an incredibly dystopian name—report that New York, New Jersey, and Illinois lead the nation in teen abortions.

Again, not really surprising given how many people leave banned states for care. But what’s sort of incredible is watching conservatives use this data to stoke panic—as if they’re not the same ones attacking federal teen pregnancy prevention programs, sex education, and teens’ access to birth control!

Frankly, we’re just happy to hear that young people are getting the care they need.

Quick hits:

• A federal appeals court ruled that Maine’s largest reproductive health provider is still barred from getting Medicaid reimbursements;

• Missouri’s new attorney general Catherine Hanaway has it out for abortion rights;

• Eleven reproductive rights bills were signed into California law this week;

• And KUER has more on the new Utah Supreme Court justice nominee.

“Public health and medical leaders, policymakers and elected officials to urge the FDA should follow the science. Any future regulatory decisions must be evidence-based. For mifepristone, that means affirming the clear scientific consensus on the drug’s safety.”

- Dan Grossman, M.D., director of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, The Hill

Ballot Box

With just weeks before the election, Virginia Republicans’ anti-abortion strategy has fallen apart: After months of stoking fear and harassing Fairfax County Schools over unsubstantiated claims that a high school counselor helped two 17-year-olds access abortion, an external investigation has determined the claims are “likely untrue.”

Last month, the Virginia Mercury reported that the manufactured controversy was poised to be a hot-button topic in the 2025 gubernatorial race, and the slate of other competitive legislative races. With Democrats pushing to get a pro-choice ballot measure on the 2026 ballot, the story also perfectly fit Republicans’ ‘parental rights’ narrative. Gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears called it the “gift that keeps on giving.”

The allegations originated from a conservative blogger, Walter Curt Jr., who—get this—has family ties to GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Curt’s father is a bigtime donor to Youngkin, who he’s given nearly a quarter million dollars, as well as Earle-Sears. In 2022, Youngkin even appointed Curt’s father to the State Council of Higher Education. I’m sure that’s entirely unrelated to Curt’s reporting on this matter!

Just as telling, new documents reveal that state AG Jason Miyares and Youngkin may have been aware of the allegations for over a year, only bringing attention to them this summer ahead of the crucial statewide elections.

Still, without evidence beyond right-wing tabloid fodder from the son of one of his donors, Youngkin and Virginia Republicans ran with the story. Youngkin sicced the Virginia State Police on the Fairfax County school; even the Trump administration got involved, drawing national attention to the controversy by ordering the school system to investigate the claims.

All of this over utterly unsubstantiated and likely baseless allegations.

In a letter summarizing the investigation’s findings, Superintendent Dr. Michelle C. Reid reported that the accused staffer, school social worker, and Centreville High School’s former principal all followed “proper protocol” involving two pregnant students who were referred by the school nurse. In fact, there is no evidence any school officials helped pay for students’ abortions or concealed anything from the students’ parents.

In addition to Virginia Republicans’ attempts to use the manufactured controversy for electoral gains, anti-abortion activists also latched onto the allegations—using them to advance their ‘parental rights’ agenda and strengthen national scare tactics and messaging around children and abortion. Students for Life and Concerned Women for America even barged into Fairfax School Board meetings!

Again: All of this is as predictable as it gets. But it’s absolutely gutting that a public high school and its underpaid and overworked staff had to endure this kind of scrutiny and harassment.

In other Ballot Box news…

• Former president Barack Obama has endorsed Democratic gubernatorial nominees Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey;

• And WNYC’s Brian Lehrer digs into abortion in New Jersey as we close in on the election.

Stats & Studies

Unbelievably enough, abortion bans have drastically transformed the medical system for the worse. I know, try to contain your surprise!

A new research brief from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) reports dangerous delays in emergency pregnancy-related care, and growing barriers to abortion medication—even for non-abortion uses. And, of course, physicians are leaving banned states in droves.

We knew all of this was happening, but PRH’s testimony from physicians is harrowing. One OBGYN said of pregnant cancer patients:

“There are definitely situations that I’ve seen on more than one occasion where a patient [who came here for abortion care] was told in her home state that her pregnancy did not pose enough of a threat to her life, regardless of her cancer diagnosis and regardless of needing to delay the appropriate treatment for cancer.”

It’s bad enough that women across the country can’t get abortions—that they have to travel, or surreptitiously order pills while worrying that someone is going to turn them in. But we’re talking about an America where cancer patients can’t get care.

Is this what Republicans mean by ‘pro-life’?

In other news, a new study highlights the need for more training for providers treating patients who’ve self-managed abortions. Researchers from Boston University note that despite the “excellent safety record of a medication abortion,” sometimes patients will need or want to visit an emergency room or primary care clinic.

And while 96% of physicians say they’d want to treat a patient who has self-managed an abortion, there’s a knowledge gap there—with study participants reporting less confidence caring for patients who self-managed vs. those who had spontaneous miscarriages. Not-so-shockingly, physicians at Catholic health systems also reported feeling unsupported or curtailed by their employers’ policies.

In a moment when one in four American abortions are provided via telehealth, it makes sense that we’d need more healthcare providers to be better trained. And as study author Xanthia Tucker, MD put it:

“Training emergency and primary care physicians in abortion and post-abortion care may help address not only abortion-related patient concerns but also a variety of pregnancy-related issues. Competence in abortion care means better care for all patients capable of pregnancy.”

AED in the News

Last week, I had the chance to chat with Katie Couric about some of the top stories we’ve been tracking at Abortion, Every Day. It was a great talk (even if it’s about a shitty topic), and I feel like we covered quite a lot. If you have friends or family members who don’t necessarily follow attacks on abortion but want an overview—this might be the video to send them. Watch our full conversation below:

In the Nation

If you have the stomach for it, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat spoke with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett about why abortion “isn’t a right protected by the Constitution nor is it deeply rooted in the country’s history.”

Excuse me one minute. *throws phone across the living room* Ok, I’m back.

I usually wouldn’t put myself through watching this, but I’m keeping a close eye on Barrett these days—and what she says about birth control, in particular. For example, she tells Douthat that “the right to use contraception” is protected by the Constitution. But just last month, Barrett indicated she thinks contraception should be left to the states.

The disconnect? How she defines birth control.

Remember, when CBS News reporter Norah O’Donnell asked Barrett last month about emergency contraception, IUDs, and IVF, and abortions for miscarriage management, the ultra-conservative Supreme Court justice said, “the states are working those out.”

My guess is that it has something to do with how the anti-abortion movement is moving to redefine certain kinds of birth control—like IUDs and emergency contraception—as ‘abortifacients’. It wasn’t so long ago that the Trump administration falsely claimed the same!

So excuse me if I don’t take Barrett at her very dubious word.

Speaking of the timeless constant of ‘pro-life’ hypocrisy: PBS NewsHour has a devastating segment on how abortion bans fuel domestic violence. Pregnancy is already dangerous for women: your risk of being killed surges by 20% during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth. That risk doubles for young women and girls under 25 years old.

Being trapped with an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy compounds that danger.

As health and policy professor Liz Tobin-Tyler aptly points out, abortion bans give abusive partners a green light:

“That really signals to abusive partners that they also can control their partner’s decision-making around reproduction and around bodily autonomy. So I think the sort of state control actually empowers abusive partners in a way to see themselves as even in more control of their partner.”

PBS NewsHour spoke with one woman who relied on abortion care to escape an abusive boyfriend after he’d tampered with her birth control, and another who experienced escalated domestic violence after giving birth.

This is what’s so frustrating about the anti-abortion movement’s insistence on co-opting rhetoric around coercion and abuse: it’s their policies that are putting more women in danger! And they know it.

Quick hits:

• Ms. magazine has a vital feature on Black feminist critiques of the increasingly powerful, right-wing pronatalist movement;

• Rebecca Solnit writes in The Nation that “The Right is Lying About Left Wing Violence”;

• And in The Conversation, professor Seda Saluk writes about abortion bans as a historical and contemporary tool of fascist regimes.