Ohio GOP Wants Every Pregnancy Reported to the State

3.16.26

Click to skip ahead: Ohio Republicans Move to Register All Pregnancies; In the States: Arizona, Idaho, Mississippi & More; The Plan to Make Crisis Pregnancy Centers Untouchable; Pro-Abortion, No Exceptions; Anti-Abortion Groups Are Scared of AED 💅

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Ohio Republicans Move to Register All Pregnancies

Just when you think they can’t get any crazier: Ohio Republicans have introduced a bill that would allow the government to track every pregnancy, beginning to end.

HB 754 would create a state-run registry of pregnancies, requiring healthcare providers to file a “certificate of life” with the Ohio Department of Health within ten days of examining a pregnant patient and detecting a fetal heartbeat. The bill also mandates that “fetal deaths” be registered with the state, and that providers specify whether a pregnancy ended in miscarriage, abortion, or stillbirth.

We’re not done yet! The bill requires a “cause of death” to be certified within 48 hours—and if a fetus is deemed to have died in a “violent, suspicious, unusual, or sudden” manner, a coroner or medical examiner would be brought in.

But who decides what’s “suspicious”? And aren’t all pregnancy losses “sudden”?

Let’s be clear about what this really is: an attempt to build an infrastructure for pregnancy surveillance. Not just tracking who’s pregnant, but documenting how every pregnancy ends—and creating a pathway for scrutiny if the state decides something looks 'off.’

And while this legislation would be batshit no matter where it was introduced, the fact that it’s been filed in a state with constitutional protections for abortion is extraordinary.

After all, it was just last month that an Ohio judge blocked a law requiring the burial or cremation of abortion remains—pointing directly to the pro-choice ballot measure voters passed in 2023.

That’s the good news: even if this bill passes, it’s highly unlikely to withstand a legal challenge. But you know what I’m going to say: legislation like this matters whether it passes or not. These bills give us a clear roadmap of exactly what Republicans want—and in some cases, a glimpse into future legislative trends. (As you’ll see in the next section.)

I’m also curious whether HB 754 was crafted with help from a specific anti-abortion group. Until I sort that out, feel free to reach out to sponsor Rep. Jean Schmidt, whose contact information you can find here.

The Plan to Make Crisis Pregnancy Centers Untouchable

Late last year, I warned that the nation’s anti-abortion power players were testing out their next major strategy in Wyoming—pointing to a bill that would effectively outlaw the regulation of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. This is one of those rare times I hate to be right: the CARE Act has now been passed in two states (Wyoming and Montana) and introduced in at least four others—South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, and New Hampshire.

What’s more, this legislation—which was crafted by the conservative powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)—isn’t just meant to give CPCs unchecked power. These bills would help to ban birth control.

Here’s the short version: The CARE Act would make it illegal to “discriminate” against crisis pregnancy centers for refusing to provide, refer for, or even talk about birth control. At the same time, Republicans are shutting down real reproductive healthcare clinics and claiming CPCs can “replace” them.

In other words, they’re closing down the places where women actually get contraception and filling communities with fake clinics that won’t even talk about birth control.

That’s not all. These laws also help lay the groundwork for redirecting Title X funding—federal dollars meant to provide contraception to low-income Americans—to the very clinics that refuse to offer it. (Because remember, under the CARE Act it’s illegal to “discriminate” against CPCs for not offering contraception!)

Dig into the nitty gritty details below:

The Bill That Could Make Crisis Pregnancy Centers Untouchable

It’s not all cloak-and-dagger attacks on contraception—the explicitly stated goals are bad enough. These CARE Acts would outlaw pretty much any state regulation of CPCs, and even allow the groups to sue state leaders who try. That means CPCs could openly lie to women about their pregnancies and birth control, and would have free rein to collect women’s private data. (CPCs will often tell women their information is HIPAA-protected when it is most definitely not.)

Let’s also keep in mind that these groups are getting a tremendous amount of state dollars with little to no oversight, enabling Republicans to funnel money to religiously-affiliated organizations. It’s sketchy! In North Carolina, Democrats found that $20 million in funding was being sent to people’s private homes and empty lots.

So here’s the latest: the bills in New Hampshire and Oklahoma have passed the state Houses, and the Kansas Reflector reports that HB 2635 is now headed to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. It’s vital that leaders in all of those states know exactly what these bills would really do—and how they’re part of a much bigger (and scarier) plan for American women.

“This isn’t just a legal battle. It has become a war on the vulnerable, and we know who gets targeted first. It’s the poor, it’s the people of color and those without the social safety net. Our health is not a crime, our autonomy is not up for debate and our reproductive lives are none of the government’s damn business.”

- Kentucky Rep. Sarah Stalker, who recently introduced a bill to stop pregnancy criminalization, speaking at a Planned Parenthood rally

In the States: Arizona, Idaho, Mississippi & More

I told you last week that Arizona Republicans were trying to codify fetal personhood by introducing a bill that would allow women to seek child support from the first positive pregnancy test. But that’s not the only bill they’re using to try to ban abortion: the Arizona Mirror reports that the state GOP has been relentlessly advancing all sorts of legislation that could enshrine fetal personhood (even though voters passed a pro-choice ballot measure in 2024).

One bill, for example, would require clinics to tell patients that their pregnancy remains—which the bill calls “unborn children”—can be sent to a funeral home. And as reporter Gloria Gomez points out, that phrase unborn child is written into more than 100 state statutes. The whole piece is worth a read, and is a good reminder that Republicans are playing the long game.

Let’s move on to Idaho, which has one of the nation’s most extreme abortion bans—a law that’s driven out nearly a quarter of the state’s OBGYNs. Idaho’s Republican leadership also fought all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to deny women life-saving abortions. All of which is to say: it’s no surprise that abortion rights advocates there are eager to put the issue on a ballot measure.

Because the state doesn’t allow a citizen-led ballot initiative process for constitutional amendments, Idahoans United for Women and Families is pushing to get a pro-choice statute in front of voters instead. And while the group has collected 4,000 more signatures than the 71,000 requirement—that doesn’t mean the campaign is a sure thing.

Not only do those signatures need to be verified, but they also need to come from 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts. That hurdle is deliberate: it’s meant to give small, rural, conservative areas of the state outsized power over abortion rights. As Idahoans United executive director Melanie Folwell tells Inlander, “all those signatures can’t come from Boise.”

We’ve seen this before in other states—the idea is to create a system where even if the vast majority of voters support abortion, a tiny barely-populated county can stop a measure from getting to voters.

If voters do have a say, pro-choice activists are confident it will pass: polling shows that the majority of Idahoans support abortion rights. Even in the reddest states, people don’t want abortion bans:

The Most Unpopular Laws in America

Our last bit of state news comes from Mississippi, where legislators are close to approving a bill that would make it illegal for healthcare providers to prescribe or dispense abortion pills—adding the medication to a list of illegal substances under the state’s drug trafficking statutes. HB 1613 would send those who violate the law to prison for up to 10 years.

The bill started off as legislation about the trafficking of drugs like marijuana, but Republican Rep. Celeste Hurst threw on an amendment to add “abortion-inducing drugs” to that list of illegal substances.

Hurst claimed she just wants to require an in-person visit with a doctor before the medication can be prescribed; after all, most abortion may be illegal in Mississippi, but the medication is used to treat miscarriages and rape victims are (supposedly) still able to obtain abortions. But as the Clarion Ledger points out, there is nothing in the bill about in-person visits or making the medication available to those who can legally get care.

Also worth noting from that Clarion Ledger piece: domestic violence counselor Grace Bailey says that the state’s abortion ban has made life very difficult for those in abusive relationships:

“We see women whose husbands or boyfriends have forced them to stop birth control or take their IUD out, and they end up pregnant, which makes them stay in the relationship way longer than they should. Women come to us at the shelter trying to get away from a man who hurt them, who took all their money, who made them feel completely out of control of their own life. The last thing they can handle as they’re trying to make a clean break is a baby that will connect them to their abuser for the rest of their life.”

That’s why it comes as no surprise that Mississippi Today reports that the state leads the nation in gun deaths among pregnant women. Here’s what Renata Flot-Patterson, who lost her pregnant daughter to a domestic violence murder, told the publication:

“We really did not want her to have that baby. We’re a Christian family and we don’t really believe in abortion, but we really tried to encourage her to have an abortion. We worried until the day she died.”

Quick hits:

• Washington has passed the legislation necessary to distribute its expiring stockpile of abortion medication, which is great news and a real credit to state leaders and advocates;

• The Press Democrat covered the attacks from Texas and Louisiana on California abortion provider Remy Coeytaux;

• And over in Colorado, a new abortion doula network is recruiting volunteers. Check out the Colorado Doula Project here.

Pro-Abortion, No Exceptions

Just a quick thanks to Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who offered clear and straightforward support for abortion rights in a video message to Planned Parenthood last week. The Kentucky Lantern reports that the Democratic governor said women in the state deserve access to healthcare with “no exceptions, no asterisks.”

“Whether you’re a woman, a person of color or a member of our LGBTQ+ community, you deserve quality health care, and even more important, you deserve the freedom and the right to make your own choices about the health care you receive.”

We are in desperate need of Democrats who offer full-throated support for abortion rights without equivocation or apologetics. And while I realize Beshear’s message will likely be different at a Planned Parenthood event than to a broader mainstream audience—I’m grateful nonetheless.

Anti-Abortion Groups Are Scared of AED 💅

I got a nice ego boost this weekend: the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) published a hit piece on me—with ‘researcher’ Michael J. New writing that I lied about the rise of maternal and infant mortality since the end of Roe.

Now, I don’t think any of us expects CLI to tell the truth about anything. This is a group whose sloppy ‘research’ has been retracted from publications—and that insists women never need abortions to save their lives. They’ve even recommended c-sections for patients with life-threatening pregnancies, including in cases where the pregnancy is too early to survive.

CLI has also published ‘studies’ claiming women don’t really need Planned Parenthood clinics because crisis pregnancy centers can fill the gap (lol), along with policy papers urging people not to trust maternal mortality data.

And that’s what makes them so dangerous. This organization has spent years preemptively sowing distrust in maternal and infant mortality data—because they know those numbers would show that their laws kill people.

Despite their utter ridiculousness, CLI’s junk science continues to shape legislation, lawsuits, and culture. That’s why I’m actually thrilled that they attacked me—it means one of the most powerful anti-abortion groups is afraid of Abortion, Every Day.

And guess what? They should be.

Watch my video below for more:

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