They're Not Even Hiding It Anymore

7.22.26

The Quick & Dirty

In the States: Massachusetts Dems want to make abortion more accessible after 24 weeks, South Dakota’s ban on abortion ads may be in court for years, and Michigan Republicans are attacking teens’ privacy

Ballot Box: Tennessee’s ‘abolitionist’ gubernatorial candidate, Pennsylvania’s new campaign to elect Dems & more

Anti-Abortion Strategy: why attacks on pro-choice speech are ramping up

WTF is “Direct Abortion”: antis latest favorite term is as exhausting as it sounds

In the Nation: Trump’s overhaul of federal repro health programs, anti-abortion pressure on Todd Blanche & more

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: Live Action admits it thinks contraception is ‘abortion’

When you see a 🚩, click with caution—it means the link leads to a conservative or religious site

In the States: Massachusetts, South Dakota, Michigan & More

Let’s go, Massachusetts! Democrats have introduced legislation that would make it easier for patients to access abortion care later in pregnancy. Right now, abortion is only permitted after 24 weeks if your life or health is at risk, or if your fetus has a fatal or grave anomaly. H.2370 would amend the law’s language to state that “an abortion may be performed by a physician based upon the professional judgment of the physician.”

State Rep. Christine Barber says she was moved to introduce the legislation after hearing the stories of women forced to leave Massachusetts for abortions later in their pregnancies. Kate Dineen, for example, needed to drive 500 miles to a Maryland clinic when she discovered her fetus had a catastrophic stroke and only had a 50% chance of survival.

“You should be able to get care that your doctors are recommending here in Massachusetts,” Barber told the Boston Globe.

The bill cleared the House today—and I’ll keep you updated as it moves forward.

Meanwhile, the Republican who introduced South Dakota’s ban on abortion advertising has responded to a legal challenge with little more than a shrug.

A refresher: Republicans passed an advertising ban so vague it could criminalize free speech about abortion. Which, of course, is the point. Mayday Health sued over the law, which is now blocked as it’s being heard in court.

“I think any restrictions on abortion are bound to have pushback,” Rep. John Hughes told KELOLAND News. Hughes says he expects the legal battle will last years:

“I think the way things stand now, South Dakota has simply exercised its sovereign right as a state to determine that abortions are illegal.”

But the suit isn’t about whether abortion is illegal—it’s about whether abortion speech is illegal. (It’s not.)

As we all know, this South Dakota law is just one piece of a much bigger attack on pro-choice speech. Just this week, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley asked the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation into Plan C Pills—simply because the site shares information about abortion medication. (More on this in Anti-Abortion Strategy)

Finally, Michigan Republicans are pushing a bill that would end teen’s medical privacy around sexual and reproductive health. Right now, Michigan law lets minors keep certain information private—like STI treatment. But GOP legislators say that’s an infringement of ‘parental rights’.

Quick hits:

• West Virginia women will suffer as a result of the Trump administration’s Title X overhaul, Ellen Allen writes;

• Over at the Tennessee Lookout, Casey Pestona blasts the state’s new “monument to the unborn” and asks, “Where is the monument to the mothers you failed?”

• And WHYY in Pennsylvania provides an explainer of the (now unenforceable) ban on public funding for abortion—and looks at what comes next.

Ballot Box: Tennessee, Pennsylvania & More

I can’t believe the women of Tennessee still need to deal with this asshole: The Tennessean has profiled Republican gubernatorial candidate Monty Fritts—better known as the guy who wants to execute women for having abortions.

Fritts, who has doubled (and tripled) down on his call to criminalize abortion patients, has also called for denying emergency contraception to rape victims and banning certain kinds of contraception outright. Unlucky for Tennessee, he happens to be a state lawmaker.

It is truly wild how quickly this kind of extremism has become normalized: the fact that Tennessean’s headline calls Fritts “a constitutional hardliner”—rather than leading with the fact that he wants to kill women—says it all. In fact, it takes 23 paragraphs before the piece mentions his abortion stance at all.

This kind of insanity cannot become business as usual.

Extra credit: for folks who want to follow reproductive rights news in Tennessee specifically, make sure you’re subscribed to TN Repro News.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro just announced a multimillion dollar campaign effort to elect Democrats in the state. The “Rise Up Pennsylvania” initiative will have candidates sharing voter registration, field organizing, and turnout efforts ahead of the midterms. Best of all, Shapiro says if Dems win the state legislature, one of their first things they’ll do is “codify abortion rights into law.”

Quick hits:

• Democratic candidates for Alabama’s Sixth Congressional District weighed in on abortion this week;

• Reproductive Freedom for All has endorsed Amy Acton for Ohio governor;

• And Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America has endorsed South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden for re-election—specifically calling out his support for legislation that bans abortion pill advertising.

Anti-Abortion Strategy: Attacking Pro-Choice Speech

Law professor Mary Ziegler has a must-read column in Slate about Josh Hawley’s attacks on Plan C Pills and what “an updated anti-abortion strategy could look like.”

Essentially, Ziegler points out that the anti-abortion movement has been disappointed by the administration’s relative lack of action on abortion pills—and that by targeting speech, anti-abortion activists hope “they can finally break through.” She also makes the same point I did earlier this week: that Hawley is attacking Plan C Pills because they’re a hub for speech.

“His letter lays out a number of ways that the Trump DOJ could crack down on abortion-related speech. He argues that the department could use federal conspiracy and aiding-and-abetting laws because Plan C works with drug manufacturers and providers to provide information about how patients can buy pills. Because some providers are based overseas, Hawley invites the DOJ to apply criminal prohibitions on the shipment of ‘unregulated foreign pills’ to Plan C and providers alike.”

And while Ziegler notes that targeting speech may be more attractive to the Trump DOJ than other anti-abortion strategies, we don’t really know! On one hand, Trump hasn’t wanted to make major public moves against abortion; but he also could be less worried about voters as he nears the end of his second term.

I’ll be keeping an eye on it all either way. In the meantime, the maniacs over at the conservative Washington Stand (🚩) have launched an all out hit-piece on Plan C Pills—calling the website “demonic” because they sell baby onesies. (Almost as if most women who have abortions are already mothers!)

For your socials: If you’re looking for something easy to share about anti-abortion attacks on speech, check out the video I put up earlier today.

WTF is…Direct Abortion

I saw a TikTok last week of a woman from Students for Life (SFL) arguing with a college student about ectopic pregnancy. The group loves to court controversy on college campuses for social media clips, so I almost swiped past it. I’m glad I didn’t.

The young SFL staffer—Lydia Taylor Davis, I believe (sorry, I have conservative woman face blindness)—claimed that treating an ectopic pregnancy is not a “direct abortion.”

Apparently, the term isn’t new; it’s used often by Catholic ‘pro-lifers’. The idea is that treatment for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies—and certain other medical conditions—aren’t really abortions, but “indirect abortions.” As is the case with so many anti-choice terms, the goal is to divorce abortion from healthcare. (I’ve heard them use everything from maternal fetal separation to removing an unborn baby.)

But what makes an abortion direct or indirect seems pretty arbitrary—and, as always, cruel. While an abortion to save a woman’s life is indirect, an abortion to save her health is direct. Abortion on a raped 10-year old? Sorry, direct. Bleeding out? Well, it depends how much you’re bleeding.

Consider this yet another reminder that pregnancy is too complicated to legislate, and abortion is always abortion—no matter how many different ways conservatives try to redefine it.

Messaging Watch: Going All in On CPCs

Concerned Women for America wants Republican candidates to know they can “win the abortion conversation.” Legislative strategist Hannah Lape writes at the Daily Signal (🚩) that the GOP shouldn’t be afraid to talk about abortion because they have an easily-accessible winning message: crisis pregnancy centers.

“The pro-life message is holistically pro-woman, offers genuine choices to mothers and fathers in all walks of life, and promotes real, quality care for mothers and babies alike. Sitting silent on the sidelines of the Left’s hottest campaign issue will not help conservatives win support.”

Lape’s advice isn’t coming from nowhere: anti-abortion activists have spent the last few years positioning CPCs as “reasonable alternatives” to real reproductive healthcare clinics. And Republicans—desperate to improve their standing with female voters—increasingly point to CPC funding as “proof” they support women and families.

So I won’t be surprised if this becomes a central GOP talking point through the midterms and into 2028. After all, lots of Republicans aren’t willing to stand ten-toes-down on unpopular abortion bans anymore. CPCs, however, let them pretend they care about women.

That’s why Democrats should get ahead of the messaging now, and make sure no one mistakes CPCs for anything remotely pro-woman.

It’s not enough to call them “fake clinics”—that makes the groups sound like a handful of random zealots. The truth is that CPCs are powerful: nearly all are affiliated with groups like Heartbeat International or CareNet, which wield enormous influence and even more money. These organizations collect (and share) women’s private information using massive databases—databases the White House now promotes on a government-run website.

Democrats should lean into that. Point out these groups aren’t run by community do-gooders, but are tied to billionaire extremists trying to ban birth control and hoard women’s data. Highlight their connection to ‘abolitionists’ who want to execute women for having abortions, the way they prey on schoolchildren, and how they collude with police on pregnancy criminalization cases. Remind voters that the same organization that overturned Roe is now drafting and lobbying for laws to make CPCs immune to state regulation.

Does any of that sound like the kind of groups Americans want populating their communities?

Politicians assume voters won’t connect the dots. But in the era of Project 2025, Americans want to know who’s pulling the strings. CPCs are the perfect opportunity to show them.

In the Nation

Stateline has a good piece today about the Trump administration’s overhaul of Title X and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP)—something we’ve been covering closely here at AED. As you know, the White House has quietly changed guidelines for pretty much any federal program that deals with reproductive health, shifting their focus away from contraception and towards “fertility awareness.”

For the TPPP, that means teaching girls period classes instead of lessons on birth control, and for Title X—normally meant to help low-income Americans access contraception—the administration has directed programs to push “natural family planning” methods. As I laid out last week, all of this is part of a broader attack on contraception:

Abortion Is a Losing Issue for Republicans. Birth Control Might Not Be.

The other big concern? That all of these moves are part of a broader plan to direct federal family planning dollars to crisis pregnancy centers. 🫠

Related: the Trump administration is trying to reframe (🚩) their attacks on teen pregnancy prevention programs as efforts to weed out “sexually explicit” material from classrooms. Of course.

Meanwhile, Republicans are still trying to pressure acting AG Todd Blanche into making anti-abortion promises ahead of his nomination vote. Already, Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Thom Tillis, and John Cornyn have pushed Blanche to enforce the Comstock Act and “resolve” the federal mifepristone lawsuit. Now, more than 50 Republicans, led by U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, are asking Blanche (🚩) to investigate “infant deaths” in DC and whether fetuses found by an anti-abortion activist “were victims of the crimes of infanticide or partial-birth abortion.”

If you don’t remember this story, I’m jealous: anti-abortion maniac Lauren Handy was found with five fetuses in her home—which she claims to have taken from an abortion clinic. I can’t believe we live in a world where the potential attorney general of the United States is being asked to investigate pregnancy remains.

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud

The radical anti-abortion organization Live Action is best known for their Baby Olivia video and brutal attacks on women facing doomed pregnancies. But apparently that’s not enough: now the group is saying the quiet part out loud, claiming that certain kinds of contraception are actually abortions.

In fact, Live Action published an entire explainer telling readers which forms of birth control it considers “abortifacients.”

I know, none of this is a surprise. Of course they think contraception is ‘abortion’. But for anyone fighting their local school district over the Baby Olivia video, consider this another weapon in your arsenal.