North Carolina Bill Would Legalize Killing Abortion Providers and Advocates—Seriously

5.26.26

Quick hits: HB 1232 Would Legalize Killing Abortion Providers & Advocates; In the States: Alabama, Ohio, Alaska, Maryland & More; Attacks on Democracy in Virginia, Missouri & Ohio; This Absolutely Made My Day; When Will the GOP Call the Anti-Abortion Movement’s Bluff?; Listen Up: Abortion Medication Under Fire

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A note on the 🚩 emoji: it’s to alert you that the link goes to a conservative or religious outlet and to proceed with caution. I’d skip giving them the clicks if I could, but covering anti-abortion strategy sometimes means going straight to the source!

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HB 1232 Would Legalize Killing Abortion Providers & Advocates

I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend, because we’re starting today off with a doozy! Two North Carolina Republicans have introduced legislation that would codify fetal personhood from fertilization, punish abortion patients as murderers, and outlaw IVF and some forms of birth control. But that’s not all: HB 1232 would legalize “deadly force” in defense of a fertilized egg:

“Any person has the right to defend his or her own life or the life of another person, even by the use of deadly force if necessary, from willful destruction by another person.”

Let’s be clear—this means it would be perfectly fine to kill an abortion provider, an activist, or even someone who drives a friend to the clinic. Anyone who helps a woman get an abortion could be murdered, and their killer could claim it was justifiable.

Reps. Keith Kidwell and Ben Moss, Jr. introduced the legislation as a constitutional amendment; if the General Assembly passed the bill, it would then be sent to voters for approval. The good news, of course, is that there’s pretty much no chance of that happening. But you know what I’m going to say: that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be taking this bill very, very seriously.

After all, in the four years since the end of Roe, ‘equal protection’ bills—legislation that would punish abortion patients as murderers, which in some states means the death penalty—have become largely normalized. Over a dozen states considered the bills last year, and the number of co-sponsors grows every session. The abortion ‘abolitionists‘ behind this push are no longer on the fringes of the movement, either. They’re writing op-eds in mainstream newspapers, partnering with major organizations like Heartbeat International, speaking at Turning Point USA events, running for office and winning. They even got ‘equal protection’ added to the official Texas Republican Party platform.

When I first started writing about these bills, I got called an alarmist. But here’s the thing: we should be alarmed! Punishing women has always been the goal for these maniacs, and they’re getting more explicit about that by the day.

Whether or not a bill has a chance of passing right now is beside the point. In fact, one of our weaknesses as a movement is that we’re stuck on reacting to current threats, rather than looking decades forward. That’s certainly what the anti-abortion movement is doing: they’re laying the groundwork now for laws they want to pass in ten or twenty years. With bills like this, Republicans are giving us a roadmap—why in the world would we ignore it?

I also think it’s important to remember that this North Carolina bill isn’t just a legislative danger, but a cultural one. Death threats against clinics and providers doubled last year; this bill sends the message that violence against providers isn’t just fine—but brave.

One last very important thing: We don’t want anyone in North Carolina to be scared off from seeking out abortion or birth control. So if you share anything about this legislation, please stress that it is a bill and not a law. (That kind of confusion happens more than you might think.)

Finally, if you’d like to contact the sponsors of HB 1232, you can find their information here and here.

In the States: Alabama, Ohio, Alaska, Maryland & More

Let’s start with some fun news: Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has lost his bid for U.S. Senate. Cue the world’s tiniest violin. 🎻

Marshall has been an anti-abortion scourge on Alabama, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to see him go. As attorney general, Marshall targeted abortion funds and argued that advocates who even told women how to get an out-of-state abortion could be prosecuted. (He likened it to a “mobster…asking a hitman to kill a rival.”) He also argued in a legal filing that the state could restrict women from leaving Alabama to get abortions the same way it restricts the travel of sex offenders.

In other words, he’s truly terrible—though I do have him to thank for one of Abortion, Every Day’s proudest moments. In 2023, I discovered that Marshall planned to get around the prohibition on prosecuting abortion patients by instead charging women who took abortion pills with “chemical endangerment of a child”—a law meant to prevent adults from bringing their kids to drug dealers’ houses. Thanks to AED’s coverage, the story made state and national news, and Marshall was forced to reverse course.

All of which is to say: good riddance!

Marshall isn’t the only anti-abortion attorney general on his way out: over in Ohio, AG Dave Yost is leaving office after losing the Republican gubernatorial primary to tech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. If Yost’s name sounds familiar, it may be because I’ve written about him often over the years: he tried to obstruct the implementation of an abortion rights amendment approved by voters in 2023, for example, claiming Ohioans didn’t understand what they voted for.

Really, though, Yost will go down in history as the man who called the story of a 10-year-old rape victim fake news—and then refused to apologize. “I don’t understand what you think I need to apologize for,” he said at the time.

It’s that trademark soullessness that makes him such a good fit for his next gig: Yost is joining Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)—the group that overturned Roe—as their new “vice president of Strategic Research and Innovation.” Bullshit title for a bullshit guy!

The Alaska legislature just passed a bill that allows pharmacists to write prescriptions for certain basic medications—part of a broader effort to increase healthcare access across the state, especially in rural communities. And while lawmakers made clear HB 195 doesn’t make it easier to get abortion medication (sadly), antis spent a lot of time and money claiming otherwise.

The Anchorage Daily News has a really good rundown of the anti-abortion response to the bill, including this absolutely bonkers mailer that Alaska Right to Life used to attack sponsor Sen. Cathy Giessel. But it was something else entirely that really caught my eye: reporter Mari Kanagy points out that even after lawmakers amended the bill to state that pharmacists couldn’t prescribe mifepristone, Republican Rep. Jamie Allard said it didn’t go far enough:

“She presented an amendment on the House floor last week restricting pharmacists from not only prescribing but dispensing any abortion-inducing drug or other selective progesterone receptor modulators.”

Why that particular classification? I’m betting it’s because “selective progesterone receptor modulators” don’t just include abortion pills—but the emergency contraceptive, ella. This is why I pay such close attention to language.

Finally, big thanks to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who just signed legislation that requires hospitals to provide emergency abortions. The bill is akin to a state-level EMTALA—making clear that hospital ERs have a legal responsibility to give stabilizing and life-saving abortion care to patients.

I know, you’d hope that goes without saying! But thanks to the proliferation of religious hospitals, we’ve seen women denied emergency abortions even in pro-choice states.

Quick hits:

• A federal appeals court ruled today that the anti-abortion group suing to repeal Michigan’s constitutional abortion protections lack the standing to do so;

• The Sacramento Bee reports that maternal deaths have dropped in California, but Black women are still dying at four times the overall rate;

• The Kansas Reflector explains the fight over the Kansas Supreme Court and what it means for abortion rights;

• And Indiana conservatives (🚩) are using Trump’s push on “anti-Christian bias” to revive their own religious freedom arguments.

Attacks on Democracy in Virginia, Missouri & Ohio

Republicans know that voters overwhelmingly want abortion to be legal. That's why they're attacking democracy in every state where a pro-choice ballot measure is on the table or has already passed. Let’s start with Virginia, where voters are set to weigh in on an abortion rights amendment this November. But not if Republicans have anything to do with it!

Conservative activists have already filed two different lawsuits to stop voters from having a say. Liberty Counsel sued in March, arguing the amendment wasn’t properly circulated and posted for public inspection. (In other words, they want to stop the vote on a technicality.) A second suit, filed last month by several conservative groups, claims the ballot question misleads voters about what the amendment would actually do.

“I have a right to participate in the constitutional referendum that’s free from fraud,” says plaintiff and Bluefield Councilwoman Meagan Kade.

“You know, I’m not personally fooled by the deceptive ballot question for the amendment. But, I know that so many others inevitably will be and that harms me and that harms my vote.”

Insisting that people are too stupid to understand what they voted for is a playbook move—and for good reason. If conservatives can convince people that no one really wants to protect abortion rights, they don’t have to admit they’re trying to subvert democracy.

We’re seeing the same thing in Missouri, where Republicans have been throwing everything at the wall trying to repeal the abortion rights amendment voters passed in 2024. Their latest move: putting abortion back on the ballot this November, claiming—you guessed it—that voters didn’t really understand what they were approving two years ago. Their measure would repeal existing protections and reinstate a near-total ban.

But if Missouri Republicans were so confident their state is ‘pro-life,’ they probably wouldn’t have named their anti-abortion measure ‘Amendment 3’ — the exact same name as the pro-choice amendment voters passed in 2024. It’s almost like they’re trying to trick people into voting for an abortion ban!

And in Ohio, conservatives are hoping two new lawsuits will undo the abortion protections voters approved in 2023. Faith2Action is arguing that a majority vote isn’t actually enough to pass a constitutional amendment—and that Ohio should have called a full constitutional convention instead. Meanwhile, a juvenile court judge named David Engler has challenged the amendment by claiming it eliminates parental consent laws and judicial bypass rules. (If only.)

All of which is to say: they are desperate to keep this issue from voters. We should be hammering that fact constantly. This isn’t just an attack on our bodies and rights, but democracy.

This Absolutely Made My Day

Let’s take a brief break for a palate cleanser, because this story from The Guardian had me dying laughing this afternoon. I'll let you read it yourself—in this case, a picture really does say a thousand words.

When Will the GOP Call the Anti-Abortion Movement’s Bluff?

Another day, another empty threat from the anti-abortion movement. Alice Miranda Ollstein at POLITICO reports that in the wake of their telemedicine abortion loss, anti-choice groups are demanding that Trump and his federal agencies “take immediate action or risk depressing conservative turnout in the upcoming midterm elections.”

“Our patience has run out,” Kristi Hamrick at Students for Life told Ollstein. Patrick Brown from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC)—the group behind the widely debunked mifepristone 'study'—was even more pointed, accusing the White House of letting conservative lawsuits do their dirty work for them:

“It is such an example of them wanting to take the coward’s way out, rather than put any political capital behind the issue. They’re hoping the court will take care of that for them, and they will just say, ‘We didn’t have any choice.’”

Here’s the thing: despite all their huffing and puffing, anti-abortion groups aren’t going anywhere. Organizations like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) provide serious door-knocking firepower in key races, and their donors gave them a lot of money to do that GOTV work. They wouldn’t take kindly to the group sitting out elections.

Anti-abortion leaders also have a leverage problem: abortion doesn’t drive Republican voters the way it drives Democrats. And since the end of Roe, groups like SBA have lost too many high-profile races to keep strutting around like kingmakers. Remember what happened in Virginia? I do!

The White House clearly remembers, too. Outside of some perfunctory glad-handing, the Trump administration has been repeatedly calling the anti-abortion movement’s bluff: not enforcing the Comstock Act, slow-walking the FDA’s mifepristone review, and distancing itself from the movement at every turn—whether it’s the EPA, the FDA, or Trump himself. Anti-abortion advice loses Republicans elections, and they know it.

Don’t get it twisted, though. None of that means this administration isn’t a threat. In some ways it makes them more dangerous—because their attacks on abortion access don’t always come with the kind of headline-grabbing moves that are easy to organize around. Instead, it’s the quiet stuff: regulatory rollbacks, FDA bureaucracy weaponized against medication abortion, and judicial nominations that will shape access for decades.

We need to make all of it just as politically toxic as an outright abortion ban.

Ballot Box: Democrats Need to Ramp Up Their Abortion Messaging

You’d think that Republicans running scared from abortion would inspire Democrats to lean into the issue—but no such luck. According to NPR, while reproductive rights dominated the 2022 and 2024 elections, 2026 candidates have spent four times less on campaign ads about abortion.

NPR chalks this up to an attention shift in the party “as voters consistently rank cost-of-living concerns as their top issue.” But, of course, abortion is a cost-of-living issue. Mini Timmaraju, president of Reproductive Freedom for All, says making that connection clear resonates with Americans:

“Most voters who care about reproductive freedom also understand the interconnection between the rising cost of healthcare, the rising costs of childcare, the lack of maternal healthcare in their communities. And they need to hear about these issues together.”

One Democrat making the connection explicit? Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey. Here’s what she told the Boston Globe:

“Make no mistake about it, abortion is economic, and the ability to access abortion care or not has real consequences for women across this country. It has consequences in terms of their health—sometimes consequences are life or death—and it does have economic consequences.”

As I’ve said before, this message only gets stronger with time—because the longer abortion bans are in effect, the more people are impacted physically, emotionally, and financially. Healey is right to stress that, and other Democrats should take note.

Listen Up: Abortion Medication Under Fire

“You Call” at KALW hosted an epic line-up of guests last week to talk about attacks on abortion medication. Host Rose Aguilar was joined by Nation correspondent and author Amy Littlefield; Elisa Wells, co-founder of Plan C; and Dr. Angel Foster, co-founder of The Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project. My plan is to cuddle up on the couch tonight and listen to all this brilliance—let me know if you do the same!