Republicans Want to Change the Definition of Abortion

3.4.26

Click to skip ahead: Tennessee GOP Using AI Bill to Codify Fetal Personhood; Republicans Want to Change the Definition of Abortion; Two New Studies Show Docs Are Avoiding States with Bans; In the States: Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee & More; Keep An Eye On: Anti-Abortion “Education”; Ballot Box: All Eyes on Texas

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Tennessee GOP Using AI Bill to Codify Fetal Personhood

This is wild: Rachel Wells at TN Repro News flags that Tennessee Republicans have introduced a bill (HB 0849) that would redefine personhood as beginning at fertilization—and they’re doing it through an AI regulation bill.

Fetal personhood is already written into Tennessee abortion regulations and criminal code, but as Wells points out, this legislation would establish personhood in the state’s Title 1 definitions. “That means, if passed, this phrase could be used as a legal framework throughout the Tennessee code,” she writes.

They really are coming up with some new nonsense every day.

Republicans Want to Change the Definition of Abortion

While we’re on the topic of Republicans futzing with language, let’s talk about the latest legislative trend: anti-abortion lawmakers in multiple states are trying to change the definition of ‘abortion’.

Longtime readers know that I’ve spent years tracking this tactic: in 2023, I warned in The New York Times that anti-abortion legislators and activists were increasingly claiming that women didn’t need life-saving abortions because they could have “maternal fetal separations” instead (aka c-sections and forced delivery). And in 2024, I laid out the goal: to divorce abortion from healthcare entirely and eliminate exceptions for women’s lives.

Conservatives Want to End 'Exceptions' for Women’s Lives

Now, Republicans are ramping up those efforts.

Utah lawmakers, for example, want medical records to distinguish between “elective” and “medically indicated” abortions. Under HB 480, patients who miscarry, face ectopic pregnancies or fatal fetal abnormalities, need life- or health-saving abortions—or are pregnant after rape—could have their medical records formally changed to note they had a good abortion. Not like those other bad women who wanted their pregnancy to end.

A sign that the bill is part of a coordinated national strategy? Utah isn’t alone. A pre-filed Louisiana bill would do much the same thing: HB 288 mandates that when doctors code pregnancy loss as “spontaneous abortion”—which is standard medical language—that they add a parenthetical that says “miscarriage.”

Meanwhile, the South Dakota Senate just passed HB 1257, which would change the definition of abortion to exclude treatment for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and “any medical procedure performed for the purpose of saving the life or preserving the health of the unborn child.” (aka, c-sections.)

South Dakota lawmakers say they’re just trying to “clarify” the state’s abortion ban because pro-choicers have scared doctors out of providing legal care. That, of course, is the same excuse anti-abortion legislators and activists have used across the country to pass other so-called “clarifications”—bills that actually further restrict women’s rights. (See: Kentucky)

The ACLU of South Dakota points out, for example, that HB 1257 defines an “unborn child” from fertilization, which “could create a legal domino effect that triggers broader restrictions on hormonal contraception, emergency contraception and in vitro fertilization.”

All of which is to say, these bills are not being introduced to help women! The goal is to eliminate all abortion—even to save women’s lives—and to attack any bit of freedom we have.

Two New Studies Show Docs Are Avoiding States with Bans

In news that should shock no one, a new study shows that states with abortion bans are getting less residency applications—and not just from OBGYNs.

“This is true for all medical specialties, so it’s not just women’s health that’s under threat,” said lead author Anisha Ganguly, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

What I love about this study is that Ganguly decided to take it on after noticing that her internal medicine residency class in Texas had a sudden decrease in female residents after Roe was overturned.

Published in JAMA Network Open, her study found that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was linked to a “significant decrease” in residency applications in states with abortion restrictions—a drop seen among both male and female residents.

Meanwhile, another study from a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University found a marked decline in OBGYNs willing to live and practice in states with abortion restrictions. Quan Qi, who published her study in Health Economics, says TRAP laws “may make it harder to recruit and retain OBGYNs in certain states.”

Looking at data between 2010 and 2021, Qi found that states lost OBGYNs each time a state enacted a restriction. “Supply declined in both rural and urban counties, in both higher- and lower-poverty areas, and in counties with both higher and lower uninsured rates,” Dr. Qi said.

In the States: Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee & More

Let’s start with Indiana, because I think we could all use some good news. Great news, even! The horrific bill we’ve been warning about for weeks is dead in the water: SB 236 passed the Senate, but didn’t advance in the House before the end of the legislative session.

This was a monster bill. It would have criminalized telemedicine abortion, placed a Texas-style bounty on anyone who possesses or distributes abortion pills, turned abortion reports into public records, and even tried to redefine abortion itself.

Haley Bougher, Indiana State Director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates-Indiana, called it “pregnancy policing at its most extreme.” So yeah, we’re glad it’s not going anywhere! At least for now.

Meanwhile, the same Missouri Republican who once said 12 year olds aren’t too young to get married is back on his usual, terrifying bullshit: state Sen. Mike Moon is sponsoring a constitutional amendment that would codify fetal personhood “from the moment of conception” and charge abortion patients with murder.

“God demands equal justice,” Moon said. This isn’t the first time Moon has proposed an “equal protection” bill—in fact, AED has been covering his efforts to punish women for years.

Also important to remember: Missouri voters overturned the state’s ban and codified abortion rights, but Republicans are putting the issue back on the ballot. Just as bad, they’re trying to trick voters by calling the abortion ban ballot measure “Amendment 3”—that’s the same name as the pro-choice measure passed in 2024.

Missouri is just one of multiple states considering legislation that would punish abortion patients. In 2026 alone, Kentucky, South Carolina, Illinois, Tennessee, and South Dakota have all introduced equal protection legislation.

As we pointed out earlier this week, some Republicans are using the bills as an opportunity to make themselves sound moderate by comparison. Others—like Tennessee bill sponsor Rep. Jody Barrett—are doubling and tripling down:

“One hundred percent of the kids that are babies that are terminated through abortion are victims… but I cannot say 100% of women who kill their babies through abortion are victims.”

And while Tennessee Republican lawmakers have mixed feelings on executing abortion patients, they’re all aligned on refusing to protect women’s lives. This headline from the Tennessee Lookout says it all: “Tennessee lawmakers defeat abortion bill protecting mother’s life.”

That’s right, legislators rejected a bill (HB179) that would have ensured doctors could save women’s lives without facing criminal charges. Sponsored by Democratic Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, the bill would have also prevented doctors from being charged for performing abortions to protect women’s health, or ending pregnancies that were the result of rape.

Quick hits:

• West Virginia’s Senate has passed a bill that will state crisis pregnancy center funding to also go to abortion pill “reversal”;

• The Oregon House approved HB 4127, which will help fund Planned Parenthood clinics that have lost their federal Medicaid dollars;

• And while Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio launches statewide telehealth medication abortion services, new data shows that over 20% of abortions performed in 2025 were provided to out-of-state patients.

Kentucky Bill Would Prohibit Pregnancy Criminalization

We love to see it: two Kentucky Democrats have introduced a pregnancy decriminalization bill. Reps. Sarah Stalker and Lindsey Burke filed HB 817 this week, which you can read nearly in full below:

“A person shall not be penalized, prosecuted, or otherwise subjected to adverse action based on that person's actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes, including but not limited to miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion.”

If it sounds simple, it’s because it is! It’s also extremely, extremely necessary. Over 400 people (that we know about) have faced pregnancy-related charges since the end of Roe, and in recent months Kentucky has been leading the charge in those arrests.

Rep. Stalker tells AED, “We have gone from attacking women to criminalizing them, seemingly with the sole purpose of controlling them.”

Something notable: with the exception of this bill and legislation from Wisconsin Sen. Kelda Roys, we haven’t really seen Democrats introducing pregnancy decriminalization bills. That’s a missed opportunity. Because even though proposals like Stalker’s face an uphill battle in a legislature like Kentucky’s, forcing a vote matters. It puts Republicans on the record admitting that they want to punish women.

Decrim bills are necessary in pro-choice states too—where women are also being arrested. Abortion rights alone are simply not enough.

Keep An Eye On: Anti-Abortion “Education”

The last people you’d want teaching your kids and training your doctors are advancing legislation to do both. Buckle up.

As we noted earlier this week, several states have introduced ‘Baby Olivia’ bills that would force an anti-abortion propaganda video into public school classrooms. Now that people have caught on to the fact that the video—produced by Live Action—is ideological and non-scientific, Republicans are simply removing the name “Baby Olivia” from their bills and rewriting the requirements so specifically that only Live Action’s video would qualify.

That’s what South Dakota Republicans did with HB 1313, and what Utah legislators are pulling in HB 315. Utah Rep. Karianne Lisonbee insists, “the bill doesn’t require a specific video,” but as The Salt Lake Tribune reports, no other videos meet Republicans’ criteria.¹ (Not to mention, Live Action’s vice president of communications showed up to help the GOP present the legislation!)

Before the state House passed the bill, anti-abortion legislators gave some very telling quotes. Lisonbee, for example, called critiques of the bill “silly,” because “there is no fifth or sixth grader that is thinking about, ‘Oh my gosh, this is not medically accurate.’” Right—because children don’t know any better, and it’s our job to teach them!

And you know how I’ve been warning that conservatives’ plan is to encourage teen pregnancy? Check out this creepy-ass quote from bill sponsor Rep. Nicholeen Peck:

“In the state, we’ve been talking a lot this year about our fertility crisis that we’re facing in our state. And I think that this type of training would help people understand a little bit more about babies and the beauty of babies and why we need to care about those babies and their development.”

Remember, she’s talking about a video that will be shown to grade-school children.

That’s not the only anti-abortion ‘education’ we need to worry about. Over in North Dakota, doctors can now take an online training Republicans say with “clarify” the state’s abortion ban. Again, this is the language legislators use to pretend they’re softening their bans—or doing something about the women being harmed and killed by them.

But there’s no online class that can fix what’s broken with North Dakota’s abortion ban. And in some states, the “education” being offered is biased: in South Dakota, the state health department released a video for healthcare providers that was made in consultation with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists—an organization that says abortion is never necessary to save a patient’s life.

I decided to take North Dakota’s online training—and while all of it was infuriating, one thing, in particular, stood out: the fact that minors need to get parental consent for an abortion unless they’re married. Just a few weeks ago, I wrote a column about conservatives’ plan to push young girls into early marriage and motherhood:

They're Coming for Our Daughters

Ballot Box: All Eyes on Texas

Last night, Texas voters made their voices heard in the state’s primary: state Rep. James Talarico won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, and state Rep. Gina Hinojosa won the Democratic nomination for governor.

Talarico will either face off against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn or Attorney General Ken Paxton—the far right Turning Point-backed candidate who’s dedicated his career to an especially vile crusade against abortion providers, funds, and patients. After finishing within about a point of each other in last night’s primary, the pair’s highly contentious race will now head to run-off on May 26.

Internal memos show Republicans fretting that if Cornyn loses his primary, Paxton’s extremism and deep unpopularity within the state could cost the GOP their first statewide election in Texas in decades. So, let’s keep an eye on all the drama with that!

Talarico, meanwhile, won while impressively making the religious case for abortion rights on the campaign trail.

What races are you keeping an eye on? Let us know in comments!

1. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: pro-choice groups should release an accurate three-minute video on fetal development to propose to school boards in these states. Even if the video is refused, the hypocrisy will be out in the open.