One in Four Georgia Lawmakers Support "Equal Protection"
2.25.26
Click to skip ahead: Abortion Pills Back in Court; Georgia Republicans Back ‘Equal Protection’ Bill; ‘Abolitionists’ Exposed; In the States: Kentucky; South Dakota, New Hampshire, Massachusetts; Texas Is Going After Two More Abortion Providers; Legislation Watch: ‘Born Alive’ Bills
Abortion Pills Back in Court
Republicans’ attack on mifepristone was in a federal court yesterday, where Louisiana pushed for an end to telehealth abortion medication—arguing that pills by mail enable abuse and are unsafe. (They don’t and they’re not.)
As you know, what happens in this case won’t just impact Louisiana, but the whole country. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is using this suit and multiple criminal cases to go after shield laws—and, she hopes, get them in front of the Supreme Court. Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called it a “craven attempt by anti-abortion officials to limit access to abortion care.” You can read background on the suit here and here.
The Louisiana Illuminator has a good breakdown of what happened in the courtroom yesterday, but here’s the short version: Louisiana and the FDA argued in front of Trump appointee U.S. District Judge David Joseph. The judge also heard from Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro Inc, companies that make mifepristone—and granted their motions to intervene.
What’s important to remember is that while the Trump administration absolutely wants to ban abortion, the FDA is asking the court to pause Louisiana’s suit until the agency can conduct its own ‘safety review’ of the medication. That’s purely political: they don’t want abortion pills in the news before the midterms.
We probably won’t know more for a few weeks, so in the meantime consider reading this good backgrounder from Mother Jones, or—if you want a refresher on all the wacko arguments conservatives are making against mifepristone—check out our explainer on another mifepristone suit.
Georgia Republicans Back ‘Equal Protection’ Bill
Well this is troubling: Two abortion ‘abolitionist’ leaders say that their latest ‘equal protection’ bill in Georgia is cosponsored by one in four Republican lawmakers.
I’m going to repeat that: One in four Republicans in the Georgia House of Representatives has signed onto a bill that would have abortion patients punished with the death penalty or life in prison.
The clip below is from a Turning Points USA event at the University of Alabama, featuring Bradley Pierce of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion and Jeff Durbin from End Abortion Now:
It’s unclear if the pair are discussing a new bill we haven’t seen introduced yet, or if last year’s “equal protection” legislation (HB 441) will be rolled over into the new session. If it’s the latter, the six primary sponsors are: Reps. Emory Dunahoo, Mike Cameron, Charlice Byrd, Danny Mathis, Trey Kelley, and Martin Momtahan. You can find their contact info here.
‘Abolitionists’ Exposed
Unfortunately, the two extremists above didn’t just talk about Georgia. They made clear that ‘abolitionists’ have made a tremendous amount of progress across the country over the past decade. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: these maniacs are not fringe anymore.
A few other highlights from the video:
When asked whether they’re concerned that banning abortion will push women to end their pregnancies unsafely, Pierce says “we’re not trying to make murder safe,” and Durbin replied that “murder belongs in back alleys.”
Durbin said if you have an abortion, you “forfeit your right to live.”
When a woman in the audience asked how ‘equal protection’ laws would deal with women who miscarry, Pierce claimed that people die every day and most aren’t investigated so women shouldn’t worry. (Tell that to the over 400 women who’ve been arrested since the end of Roe!!)
Their language was especially notable: instead of saying that women “have” or “obtain” abortions, they say women “commit” abortions.
Keep an eye on your inboxes: AED is working on an ‘abolitionist’ and ‘equal protection’ explainer.
In the States: Kentucky; South Dakota, New Hampshire, Massachusetts
While we’re talking about ‘equal protection’ bills: Kentucky Republicans have just introduced legislation that would, you guessed it, punish abortion patients as murderers. HB 714 was likely drafted by the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, which put out a statement lauding the bill today.
From sponsors Reps. Richard White and Josh Calloway:
“Under this legislation, murdering anyone would be made illegal for everyone, ensuring that all humans made in the image of God are equally protected in accordance with the Kentucky Constitution, the United States Constitution, and the Law of God.”
Under his eye!
The South Dakota bill we reported on earlier this week (HB 1274) passed the House yesterday, putting the state one step closed to banning not just abortion pills—but advertising on abortion pills. Remember, this is part of a broader attack on pro-choice speech that we’re seeing across country.
Republicans know that women are able to sidestep state bans by using abortion pills, so they’re trying to make impossible for potential patients to find out about the medication at all.
New Hampshire lawmakers are considering a bill that would change the state’s 24 week abortion restriction to 20 weeks. Republicans claim HB 1590 would clear up a discrepancy in the law—pointing to the fact that New Hampshire’s criminal code someone to be charged if they cause a woman to lose her pregnancy after 20 weeks.
Co-sponsor Rep. Kelley Potenza says, “This is going to get twisted and turned into an abortion conversation and it really shouldn’t.” We’d argue it’s pretty straightforward, but sure! As Kayla Montgomery of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England says, “this is an abortion ban.”
Fox News is having a grand time mocking the gender-inclusive language used by a Massachusetts Planned Parenthood. Last week, the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) announced the expansion of its vasectomy services. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Luu Ireland noted that “birth control is for and is used by people of all genders.”
“By offering vasectomy, we are providing men and people who carry sperm an option for long-term contraception while also eroding the idea that pregnancy prevention falls just on people who can get pregnant. It’s for all of us.”
Which is all correct and important! But the conservative news outlet decided that one line was worth an entire headline and article. Imagine if they dedicated that kind of energy to the women dying from sepsis because of abortion bans.
Quick hits:
A Kentucky Republican is trying to ban commercial surrogacy;
A new bill in Maine would allocate $5 million in state funding for reproductive health centers;
And, thank goodness, Tennessee Republicans admit they don’t have enough support to push their ‘equal protection’ bill forward.
Texas Is Going After Two More Abortion Providers
Just a month after Texas filed a lawsuit against a Delaware abortion provider for allegedly mailing abortion pills into the state, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office announced new legal action against two other abortion providers: California’s Dr. Remy Coeytaux, and Aid Access‘s founder and Dutch physician Dr. Rebecca Gomperts. (This is on top of Paxton’s prosecution of midwife Maria Rojas and her colleagues.)
Paxton said in a release, “Radicals sending abortion-inducing drugs into our state will be held accountable for ending innocent life.”
The AG’s office isn’t suing on behalf of a patient, but instead points to the Aid Access website—which says pills can be sent to Texas—as evidence. Paxton did something similar in his suit against Delaware’s Debra Lynch: there’s no patient or specific pills he’s suing over; instead he provided quotes that Lynch gave to the media about mailing abortion medication.
In other words, Texas is targeting abortion providers over public speech; it seems like the state is having a hard time finding women who want to sue over their abortions.
It’s worth remembering that Gomperts and Coeytaux are also being sued by anti-abortion attorney Jonathan Mitchell, who alleges both mailed pills into Texas that were later used to ‘coerce’ abortions. As AED reported yesterday, the man suing Coeytaux is a convicted domestic abuser—and Mitchell is openly wielding the suit to ban abortion nationally:
Legislation Watch: ‘Born Alive’ Bills
Since the start of this legislative session, multiple states—Oregon, Missouri, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia—and Congress have introduced so-called ‘Born Alive’ bills.
It should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: ‘born alive’ abortion is not a thing, and Republicans know it. The point of these bills is to drum up public outrage, and to make abortion seem extreme and dangerous.
The truth is that ‘born alive’ legislation forces doctors to perform futile and painful medical procedures on fatally ill newborns. Instead of allowing families to peacefully say goodbye and hold their children in their final moments, this legislation steals that choice from parents—while threatening doctors with criminal charges.
Missouri’s ‘Born Alive’ bill, for example, could open the door to punish doctors who offer compassionate, emergency abortion care for extreme, fetal conditions with the death penalty. And this is happening in a state that, in 2024, passed a constitutional amendment to enshrine a right to abortion.
We’ll be keeping an eye on this legislative trend, and will update you as the bills move forward. (Or, hopefully, don’t.)
Women should be aware that Catholic hospitals have done this for years. It's not new. Before Planned Parenthood and other organizations that help women with their healthcare, those organizations would refer you to a surgery center that did sterilizations and was not associated with the local Catholic hospital. It was the workaround. With the closing of so many PP's in red states, women are learning about the world they really live in. I grew up in that world, pre-Roe.
Anybody else sick and tired of white males telling us what we can and can’t do with our bodies? Anybody else enraged by the fact that our government wants to have complete say so over reproductive health care as if we are chattel, aka, their personal property?