Kentucky Considers Charging Abortion Patients As Murderers
2.25.25
Click to skip ahead: You Love to See It has good news about buffer zones! In the States, news from North Dakota, Tennessee, Wyoming and Illinois. Equal Protection Strikes Again reports that Kentucky is the seventh state this year to consider a bill that would punish abortion patients as murderers. In Criminalizing Care, a closer look at the doctor being targeted by Texas and Louisiana. In the Nation, some quick hits.
You Love to See It
Anti-abortion groups are pissed, which means I’m having a great day. The Supreme Court has declined to hear two cases aimed at eradicating buffer zones outside of abortion clinics. I’ll be honest, I was nervous about this one. After tracking the attacks on buffer zones for two years, I was bracing for bad news. So this feels like a huge relief.
For those who need a refresher: Buffer zones keep anti-abortion protesters a set distance from clinic property to protect patients and staff from harassment and violence. (The Supreme Court upheld these laws in Hill v. Colorado.)
Conservatives, desperate to harass women without consequence, argue that buffer zones violate their free speech rights—and they’ve filed lawsuits across multiple states trying to overturn Hill.
The two cases that conservatives brought to SCOTUS challenged clinic buffer zones in New Jersey and Illinois. In both cases, antis argued that they weren’t able to fully exercise their free speech rights because they couldn’t get up in patients’ faces—seriously.
In Carbondale, Illinois, for example, anti-abortion activists claimed they need to get close enough to “make eye contact” with women in order to effectively change their minds about abortion. What they call ‘sidewalk counseling,’ however, is really just harassment and intimidation: these same activists were known to get aggressive with patients and staff, even trying to peek into a clinic over a security fence by using a ladder.
If the Supreme Court took up these cases, clinic protections could have been totally decimated. Anti-abortion violence has already been on the rise since Roe was overturned, and Donald Trump just gave extremists the green light to attack clinics without fear of consequence—imagine what would happen without buffer zones!
To no one’s surprise, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented with their colleagues on the Court. Thomas, especially, was irate—writing that Hill is “defunct” and should be overturned.
“Hill manipulated this court’s First Amendment jurisprudence precisely to disfavor ‘opponents of abortion’ and their ‘right to persuade women contemplating abortion that what they are doing is wrong.’”
Thomas even accused his fellow conservative justices of “abdicating” their “judicial duty.”
While the Court’s decision to reject these cases is a win, it doesn’t mean the fight is over.
Law professor Mary Ziegler told The Washington Post that while the news is important, “there’s plenty of reason to think the court could still find bubble or buffer laws it doesn’t like.”
We also know that this isn’t conservatives’ only tactic—attacks on clinic protections are part of a broader strategy outlined in Project 2025. In addition to doing away with buffer zones, conservatives want to repeal the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which makes the obstruction of abortion clinics and violence against them a federal crime.
Why put so much effort into endangering clinics, patients, and staff? Because they want to punish women. And with more people self-managing their abortions at home with medication, conservatives are losing access to their favorite pastime: harassing women.
“No patient should have to encounter threats, intimidation and attacks while seeking healthcare—and no medical provider or health center staff should be threatened because of their work to deliver abortion care to patients in need.”
-Alexis McGill-Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America:
In the States
North Dakota is advancing a ‘med ed’ bill that would force doctors to watch an hour-long video about the state’s abortion law before they can provide care. If House Bill 1511 passes, it would allocate funds to create the so-called instructional video—which, let’s be real, would almost certainly be produced by a rabid anti-abortion group.
How do I know? Because they’ve pulled this shit before. Remember what happened in South Dakota?
The short version is that Republicans know they have a PR problem with women going septic and dying. But instead of changing their policies, they’re doubling down—pushing ‘med ed’ bills that require state health departments to create ‘clarifying’ materials for doctors about abortion bans.
The goal is to make voters think Republicans are helping doctors provide legal care. The reality? These bills let anti-abortion activists and lawmakers—not medical professionals—dictate what counts as ‘life-saving’ or necessary abortion care. In South Dakota, the health department worked with an anti-abortion group that believes abortion is never medically necessary to save a woman’s life.
Now, North Dakota is taking a page from the same playbook. The state’s ban is currently blocked, so this bill is about two things: throwing up more roadblocks for doctors willing to provide care now and laying the groundwork for Republicans to reimpose the ban the moment they get the chance.
Read more on ‘Med Ed’ bills below:
Two Tennessee Republicans have introduced a bill allowing abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities—a move that’s sure to spark debate among their conservative colleagues. It’s a grim sign of the times when not forcing women to carry doomed pregnancies to term is considered controversial.
But don’t get too excited—this bill is hardly a win. If anything, it looks like a calculated attempt by these lawmakers to feign moderation. House Bill 1241 would allow abortion in cases of fatal fetal conditions, but only before 24 weeks. And even then, the diagnosis must guarantee the fetus will die at birth or imminently thereafter. That means if a newborn could survive for a few painful days or weeks, the pregnancy wouldn’t qualify.
Incredibly, even that narrow exception is too much for many Tennessee Republicans or the anti-abortion groups in the state. They’d rather see women and babies suffer than give an inch on their politics.
In Wyoming, Republicans are trying to restrict abortion any which way they can—from bills mandating unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds to restrictions on the state’s sole clinic. And anti-abortion activists are trying to intervene (again) in the case that will decide reproductive rights access in Wyoming.
In better news…
You can always count on Illinois: The state budget for 2026 includes $24 million for reproductive health services, including abortion. Illinois has seen a massive post-Roe increase in abortion patients, straining providers and hospitals across the state. Illinois Rep. Amy “Murri” Briel says, “so many states around us are what they call ‘blacked out,’ meaning there’s no access to any sorts of care.”
Related: I had to flag this noxious quote from Devin Jones, a Republican committeeman of Chicago’s 18th Ward, responding to the news about the budget:
“Less than 1% of abortions are because of rape or incest, right, so the vast majority are financial and convenience issues. The fact that we’ve built up a society where men, by and large, have made women feel like they cannot afford to do what their body naturally does, which is to give birth to children.”
If you’re still reading this, it means you haven’t thrown your laptop across the room. Kudos!
Quick hits:
The abortion rate is increasing in Colorado, largely due to out-of-state patients;
Robin Chappelle Golston, president of Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts talks about the state of abortion rights in New York;
And more on Texas’ increasing sepsis rate among pregnant women in Spectrum News and The New Republic.
‘Equal Protection’ Strikes Again
Kentucky is now the seventh state this year to consider punishing abortion patients as murderers. House Bill 523 would require prosecutors to charge women who end their pregnancies in the same way they would in a homicide case. While Kentucky does have the death penalty, it’s on hold and no one has been executed since 2008—though that’s hardly reassuring.
This legislative session alone, we’ve seen ‘equal protection’ bills in Idaho, Indiana, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Texas. (The bills in Oklahoma and North Dakota recently failed.) This legislation is drafted and pushed by an extremist faction of the anti-abortion movement that calls itself abortion ‘abolitionists.’
And while Republicans continue to claim that these men are outliers, we sure are seeing a lot of their legislation lately!
And remember—this was one of my 2025 predictions. I warned that these so-called ‘abolitionists’ would go mainstream. I don’t usually hate being right, but I definitely do right now.
If you missed Abortion, Every Day’s breaking news about Republicans’ first attempt to criminalize women’s travel, make sure to read and share it now:
Criminalizing Care
I really loved this CNN profile of Dr Maggie Carpenter, the New York abortion provider being targeted by Republicans in Texas and Louisiana. In a moment when we’re mostly hearing about Dr. Carpenter’s work because of how she’s being criminalized, it’s really lovely and important to remember what a fantastic person and provider she is.
One Texas woman who sought out Dr. Carpenter said, “I was terrified. I didn’t know who to go to. I didn’t know who to tell.” Now, the young woman says, “I feel proud of her, I’m just very grateful that there are women like her.”
Another patient, Maya Gottfried, credits Dr. Carpenter—then her primary care physician—with saving her life. Gottfried says Dr. Carpenter “actually listened” to her complaints about abdominal pain and sent her to a specialist who diagnosed her with colorectal cancer. “Dr. Maggie is an example of what I would hope every doctor would aspire to be,” she said.
And Dr. Ingrid Frengle-Burke, Carpenter’s best friend and former colleague, calls her “an inspiration, a hero, a fierce advocate for her patients.” She continues, “If doing that makes a person a criminal, then I think we should all be criminals.”
To support Dr. Carpenter, consider donating to her organization, the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, here.
In the Nation
The National Women’s Law Center outlines the actions Trump has taken so far in 2025 to limit abortion and reproductive rights;
US News on how RFK could restrict abortion rights from his new post at the HHS;
Salon lays out a step-by-step timeline of what happens when you ban abortion and restrict women’s ability to get reproductive healthcare;
And The New York Times reports that a manufacturer of abortion medication is entering the legal fight over the FDA rules on the drug. (More from me on this tomorrow.)
GOP Jones: "Less than 1% of abortions are because of rape or incest, right, so the vast majority are financial and convenience issues."
Okay, a-hole for sure. But square this with the cuts to Medicaid that are all but sure to happen now that the House vote passed its first hurdle tonight. I did not know that half of births in the US are funded by Medicaid? So let's force women to "do what their body naturally does, which is to give birth to children," as Jones said, while simultaneously pulling the financial rug out from under them.
The GOP sucks at governing.
The other thing that strikes me when I read this newsletter is : Don't these myopic red-state legislators have anything better to do with their time than scheme over how to oppress women? It's like they relish it -- every little which way they can control us. It is so grotesque!
Tell us how you really feel Thomas. There no one more Id like to see leave the court during the first year of a democratic presidential term than this raging asshole.