Republicans Want An *Increase* In Teen Pregnancy
4.14.26
Click to skip ahead: The Pink Pill Pipeline; Trump’s DOJ is “Investigating” FACE Act Arrests; In the States: South Carolina, Illinois, Maine, Kansas; In the Nation; Suit Against Massachusetts Crisis Pregnancy Center Moves Forward
The Pink Pill Pipeline
Let’s check in with the latest in pink pill propaganda, starting with Republicans’ obsession with teen pregnancy. The Trump administration wants to eliminate the nation’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention program—again. Last year, the administration called the program “radical indoctrination.”
Somehow it gets worse: the same week Trump proposed a budget sans Teen Pregnancy Prevention, conservatives lost their collective minds over the fact that the teen birth rate is going down. Seriously.
On Friday, Fox News analyst Dr. Marc Siegel called it a “problem” that teens are having less babies:
“The problem is teens and young adults from ages 15 to 19, the fertility rate is down 7 percent, and it’s down 70 percent over the last two decades, meaning we’re telling people that are young not to have babies, to wait until they’re in a more stable life situation, until they’re more financially secure. Maybe they haven’t found the right partner.”
Just a reminder that most teens are impregnated by adult men.
Then there’s Katie Miller, wannabe podcast host and wife of nightmare racist Stephen Miller. She also complained about the declining teen birth rate in a tweet last week, writing that hormonal birth control is “poison” that’s “killing population growth.” And then she wrote this:
“Our biological destiny is to have babies—not slave behind desks chasing careers while our civilization dies.”
If that sounds familiar it’s because it’s a literal Serena Joy quote. (Seriously, Season 2, Episode 6.) They’re not even bothering to hide it anymore.
You’d think that given everything going on with the Epstein files, Republicans might want to steer clear of being such obvious creepsters—but no such luck.
Abortion, Every Day has been warning about the growing focus on teen girls and their bodies. In fact, one of Kylie’s predictions for 2026 was that the administration would glorify teen pregnancy! And Jessica wrote this column just a few months ago, pointing out the Heritage Foundation’s latest Project 2025-type roadmap does the same:
All of this comes at the same time that the Trump administration is echoing anti-contraception propaganda—and attacking common forms of contraception as “abortifacient birth control.”
Last week, we reported that the administration’s new guidelines for Title X—the nation’s family planning program—instead tell grantees to focus on “natural family planning” and “preconception health services.” The terms “birth control” and “IUD” aren’t mentioned in the 67-page document at all.
This is exactly the outcome that right-wing, female lifestyle influencers have been priming young women to accept. The National Memo has a new report on just that—the way that tradwife influencers, in particular, are weaponizing the understandable mistrust women have in the health system to push lies about birth control. Clinicians told the National Memo that online disinformation is fundamentally reshaping their conversations with patients in exam rooms.
A recent study also found that young women sometimes create self-fulfilling prophecies: consuming so much anti-birth control propaganda that they eventually self-report worsened experiences with birth control, and are more likely to change or consider changing their contraceptive method “based on something they saw or heard on social media.”
Trump’s DOJ is “Investigating” FACE Act Arrests
In their never-ending pursuit of satisfying the anti-abortion movement, Trump’s Department of Justice has fired four prosecutors who charged anti-abortion activists with violating the FACE Act.
A refresher: one of Trump’s first moves as president was to pardon two dozen anti-abortion activists last year convicted of violating the FACE Act. Last week, we learned his Department of Justice is ‘investigating’ the Biden administration’s prosecutions of those activists. These firings are part of that so-called investigation.
In a report obtained by MS Now, the DOJ claims the federal clinic protection law was “weaponized” to “advance a pro-abortion agenda” and target activists “with traditional Christian views.”
In essence, the Trump administration is equating anti-abortion violence with protected religious expression.
The reality? These were extremists who attacked and assaulted clinic staff and patients. Former DOJ prosecutor Laura-Kate Bernstein called the Trump administration’s claims about her work “outrageous.” She recounted one case where activists physically blocked a woman who was in the midst of a miscarriage from entering a clinic:
“She’s bleeding and crying in the back of her car. People who blockaded doors and prevented this woman from getting access to the health care she needed were prosecuted and found guilty by a jury of their peers.”
We’ll have more on this DOJ report tomorrow, but conservative media is already having a field day over the Trump administration accusation that Biden prosecutors had a “cozy relationship” with pro-choice groups—and that those groups helped alert prosecutors to violent clinic attackers.
It’s pretty ridiculous. After all, who is supposed to report clinic violence if not clinics and the groups that represent them?!
Violent anti-abortion extremism has been on the rise for years now—with the explicit encouragement of Donald Trump and his administration. The same week Trump pardoned these extremists, JD Vance told tens of thousands of Christian nationalists at the March for Life that they would “never have the government go after them ever again.” Trump’s DOJ also announced they’d no longer enforce the FACE Act. (Though they’ve since invoked it to target pro-Palestinian protesters and anti-ICE journalists.)
In the last few months, a 20-year-old Montana man was arrested for planning to assassinate an abortion provider, and an anti-abortion activist shot someone in a South Carolina Planned Parenthood.
For more on Republicans greenlighting clinic violence, read our past coverage below:
In the States: South Carolina, Illinois, Maine, Kansas
Speaking of clinic violence: the man videotaped shooting someone outside a South Carolina Planned Parenthood last year was supposed to be in a court yesterday, but Mark Baumgartner’s hearing was unceremoniously canceled at the last minute.
This is at least the second time this has happened, and no new date has been set. Authorities have been consistently slow-moving in this case; it took police two weeks to arrest Baumgartner, for example, even though there was video evidence of the shooting.
Baumgartner, a ‘sidewalk counselor’ who aggressively stalked and harassed patients and staff for years before the incident, is charged with assault and battery and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. The anti-abortion extremist—who also lobbied for abortion patients to be punished with the death penalty—claims he shot his victim in ‘self-defense’ and that he’s protected by stand-your-ground laws.
Palmetto State Abortion Fund in South Carolina called for Baumgartner to be “prosecuted to the furthest extent of the law.” Given everything happening with the Trump administration and the FACE Act, we’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.
As Republicans continue defunding reproductive health care and funnel millions into anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, here’s something we need more of: two states are on track to make major investments in reproductive care.
The Illinois House just decisively passed HB 5408—the bill we told you about last week which establishes an Abortion Access Fund Grant Program using funds collected from a surcharge on insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act. (You may remember that Maryland did something similar.)
Illinois has seen a surge in out-of-state abortion patients since 2022—in fact, providers there treat the largest number of out-of-state patients. Addressing barriers to care, like cost, is just another way for the state to help meet that need.
Over in Maine, the legislature is considering LD 335, which would invest $5 million into family planning services. Maine is among the states hit hardest by Republicans’ “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which saw organizations like Maine Family Planning and Planned Parenthood denied crucial funding to serve low-income patients.
George Hill, CEO of Maine Family Planning, told Maine Morning Star last week:
“A more robust state partnership in funding essential health care has been sorely needed, and the ongoing barrage of attacks from the federal level intensifies the urgency.”
Gov. Janet Mills has said she would approve the bill.
In less terrific state news, the Kansas Republicans supermajority has overturned two more of Gov. Laura Kelly’s vetoes of extreme anti-abortion bills. That means legislation to force doctors to push disinformation on patients and a bill to render providers more vulnerable to lawsuits will take effect.
In the Nation
Donald Trump just nominated an anti-abortion extremist for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Missouri attorney Justin Smith worked with the far-right James Otis Law Group, where he defended Arizona’s draconian abortion restrictions—even after voters passed a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights in 2024. And while working at the Missouri attorney general’s office, Smith tried to block a 17-year-old from accessing abortion in 2018, and defended an eight-week abortion ban in 2019.
Alliance for Justice has more on Smith’s disturbing legal career. Consider this yet another reminder to keep an eye on Trump’s judicial nominees. Call your senators and tell them to reject Smith’s nomination.
Next up, Stateline has an important piece deconstructing a trend that AED has been following since the end of Roe: anti-abortion activists and legislators trying to re-define abortion. They claim they’re “clarifying” when abortion care is legal by excluding miscarriage treatment, for example, from the definition of abortion. The truth? They’re laying the groundwork to argue abortions are never medically necessary—and to do away with exceptions for women’s lives.
Elias Schmidt, state legislative counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, says:
“If you’re trying to define what is and is not an abortion, and you’re creating really specific, narrow guidelines, it could unintentionally classify some pregnancy-related procedures as abortion care, and therefore within the law not medically necessary.”
Jessica has written about this at length:
Stateline maps out which states so far have introduced or enacted legislation to redefine abortion, like South Dakota—the first state where a law like this took effect last month. It’s worth remembering that South Dakota has been a testing ground for this strategy: they worked with extremist anti-abortion groups to create this bizarre “educational” video for doctors.
As abortion bans devastate the health system—and both kill and push women to the brink of death—anti-abortion politicians have been trying to shift blame to doctors and hospitals, claiming exceptions are simple to interpret.
That shirking of responsibility isn’t just coming from lawmakers, though. Anti-abortion organizations are desperate to make voters believe that their laws are perfectly fine as is and are definitely not killing women. Over at the National Right to Life, for example, a new blog post (which we won’t link to) writes off women’s deaths in Texas and Georgia as the errors of doctors, and disregarding all maternal health data we’ve seen since the end of Roe.
And by the way: anti-abortion groups planned to do this before the first post-Dobbs death went public.
Suit Against Massachusetts Crisis Pregnancy Center Moves Forward
Some good news, because lord knows we need it: U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick has allowed a lawsuit brought by a Massachusetts reproductive health clinic to move forward against the crisis pregnancy center next door.
Four Women Health Services is suing Abundant Hope Pregnancy Resource Center for false advertising, accusing the CPC of falsely presenting as an abortion provider, diverting abortion seekers and other patients away from the real reproductive healthcare clinics.
This is what CPCs do by design: lie to and prey on abortion seekers by misrepresenting their services.
Abundant Hope filed for Four Women’s lawsuit to be dismissed, but Kobick denied this motion, determining that Four Women “plausibly alleges a false advertising claim,” and also plausibly accuses Abundant Hope of misleading statements.
This is especially good news at a time when crisis pregnancy centers have been winning a few too many suits for our liking, and as the Supreme Court is set to rule on a case involving CPCs this summer.
In that case, a New Jersey-based CPC chain sued the state for merely requesting materials from the group as part of an investigation. The case has massive implications for the extent to which warped invocations of ‘free speech’ protect CPCs from state regulation—at a time when CPCs are not only receiving more state funds than ever, but in several documented cases, jeopardizing women’s lives.
As a former teen mom, I am weary of anti-teen pregnancy campaigns when they treat it like an epidemic (like it's a fucking disease. It's NOT!). The more shame, judgment, non-supportive world there is toward teen parents, the worse outcomes they'll have. If we offer support, community, non-judgment, education, childcare at schools, so on - we go really fucking far! I found community through an online forum over 20 years ago and it changed my life. I went to college and grad school, have two Master's degrees, work as a mental health counselor. My daughter is now 24, working, back in school, and doing well. We both are. However, I have a shit debt of student loan debt and am finally getting through the impacts of poverty.
With that, yes - we should decrease unwanted pregnancies at any age. Yes, we should offer all the support I listed above for ALL parents. We should also get rid of stigma toward the "right" parent, the ideas of parenting only at the "right" times in one's life. What is that anyway?
These are all systems problems. There always has been, always will be teen parents. We can work on sex education, normalizing birth control and abortion, and support the teen parents who are bound to happen. And obviously, support ALL parents regardless of family constellation, sexuality, gender, race, class, age, nationality, so on.
Is this what these Republicans want? Fuck no. They want these teen moms uneducated, relying on their husbands (because of course, they want these teens to get married), and keep pumping out babies.
Fucking awful. My daughter has less rights than I did. Literally, wtf.
I was in high school during the height of the teen pregnancy crisis. The shame and stigma these girls suffered was reprehensible. Of course these ghouls want that again.