Tennessee Woman Refused Prenatal Care...Because She's "Unwed"

7.21.25

Click to skip ahead: Extremism Rising covers the story of a Tennessee woman denied prenatal care—because she’s unmarried. Attacks on Birth Control reports on the Trump administration’s ‘infertility training center’ and their plan to incinerate $10 million worth of contraceptives. In Better News brings some welcome wins for free speech out of Idaho and Tennessee. Care Denied tells the story of a Wisconsin woman forced to leave the state after a devastating diagnosis. In the States has updates from Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, and more. And finally, AED in the News celebrates Kylie’s book launch!

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Extremism Rising

Feminists and abortion rights activists warned that this would happen, and now here we are: A Tennessee woman has been denied prenatal care because she’s unmarried.

The woman—who hasn’t shared her name—spoke about her experience at a town hall last week. You can watch her remarks below, or read her interview with Rachel Wells at TN Repro News.

Here’s the short version: A few months ago, Tennessee passed the Medical Ethics Defense Act, which allows doctors, hospitals, insurers, and others to deny care based on their personal religious or moral beliefs. The 35-year-old’s doctor cited that law when refusing to provide her with prenatal care.

“Instantly, I felt my stomach drop and I knew this wasn't right,” she told Wells.

At the town hall, she shared that she had been with her partner for 15 years, that they have a 13-year-old child together, and that this pregnancy was very wanted. And while I understand why she felt the need to share information about her committed relationship—especially given how some on social media responded to her story—none of that should matter! This is about discrimination, plain and simple.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that the organization behind the Tennessee law was none other than Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)—the conservative legal powerhouse responsible for the end of Roe v. Wade.

ADF has been pushing so-called ‘conscience laws’ across the country, either via model legislation or lawsuits. (They’re representing a Minnesota pharmacist, for example, who refused to give a woman emergency contraception.)

And while the group claims it’s protecting healthcare workers from being forced to provide care that violates their religious beliefs—like abortion—the real goal is much broader. These laws aim to codify the right to discriminate: under them, a bigoted oncologist could deny a trans patient cancer treatment, a nurse might refuse to draw blood from a Jewish patient, or—as we’re seeing now—a doctor could withhold vital prenatal care from an unmarried woman.

As Tennessee Rep. Gloria Johnson told me today, “They want to control you, and have full and total control over the citizens.”

Attacks on Birth Control

While we’re talking about misogynist extremism: Did you all catch this absolutely batshit piece from The New York Times?

Reporters Caroline Kitchener and Sheryl Gay Stolberg found that the White House plans to funnel federal Title X dollars—money meant to fund contraception access—into creating an “infertility training center.” (I usually hate Handmaid’s Tale comparisons, but they are really not making it easy.)

The center would get a $1.5 million grant to encourage “fertility awareness” and “holistic infertility treatments”—part of the Trump administration’s chilling plan to ‘persuade’ women to have more babies. And again, that’s money that’s supposed to go toward birth control for low-income Americans.

None of this should come as a surprise. Conservatives laid out this exact plan for Title X in Project 2025. Here’s what Abortion, Every Day reported a year ago this month:

“The document seeks to ‘reframe’ the program to focus on ‘fertility awareness and holistic family planning,’ and to ‘provide educational information on healthy marriage and relationships.’

So yeah, we knew this was coming; and the Title X funding freeze was always just the beginning. Still, it’s stomach-churning to see just how quickly the White House has adopted pseudo-feminist language to shroud their agenda.

Just a few months ago, Kitchener reported in the Times about the White House’s plan to up the birthrate—policies that included things like ‘menstrual cycle classes’ for adults and children. (Republicans won’t teach kids about birth control—but they’ll teach them how to get pregnant? Okay.)

Since then, we’ve seen a huge rise in MAHA-style rhetoric from anti-abortion activists and the Trump team. Instead of saying they’re anti-contraception or anti-IVF, they talk about “restorative reproductive medicine”—the idea that women don’t really need IVF, we just need to fix the “root causes” of infertility. You know: nutrition, hormone imbalances, or maybe the 'toxins in the water.'

And while I hate to go full rabbit hole on you, I’d be remiss not to point out the overlap between the MAHA crowd, the menstrual-class promoters, and the folks who think women are becoming infertile because we’re all “drinking abortions.” (Sorry, but if I have to know that, you have to know that.)

As crazy as it all gets, one thing stays consistent: Republicans will say anything rather than admit what they really want for American women.

For more on the White House’s plan to make us all tradwives, check out some of Abortion, Every Day’s past coverage below:

Bro-Natalists Are Ruining America

I wish that was the only ‘attacks on birth control’ news today, but alas. The Guardian reports that the Trump administration is set to destroy nearly $10 million worth of birth control meant to go to women abroad. That’s right, they’d rather destroy millions of dollars in life-saving contraception than allow women in other countries to protect themselves.

Sarah Shaw of the global family planning organization MSI Reproductive Choices calls the decision “disgusting.” She says, “I’ve worked in this sector for over 20 years and I’ve never seen anything on this scale.”

And here’s the kicker—Republicans can’t even say this is about saving money. The contraception has been bought, the money spent. In fact, it’s actually going to cost taxpayers $167,000 to destroy the birth control.

Shaw even tells The Guardian she expects the massive stockpile of birth control to be incinerated: “The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there’s so much need–it’s just egregious.”

That’s how much they hate us. They’re burning birth control.

In Better News

At least we have some good news for free speech out of Idaho and Tennessee.

In Idaho, state Attorney General Raúl Labrador just signed a legally binding settlement promising not to prosecute doctors who refer patients out-of-state for abortions, bringing a years-long lawsuit to a quiet end.

You may remember that in 2023, Labrador argued that because the law criminalized doctors who “assist” in performing an abortion, the language would apply to those who referred patients out of state. He had to rescind that claim after abortion providers brought a lawsuit in response, but this agreement puts everything to an official end.

File this development under objectively good news—though it’s frankly depressing and terrifying that any of this needed to be clarified at all. (No wonder so many health care workers have fled Idaho in droves.)

Then there’s Tennessee, where a court has blocked part of the state’s so-called ‘anti-trafficking’ law: language that criminalized even sharing information about abortion with a minor. Republicans claimed the law would only target those who took teens out-of-state for abortions without parental consent, but the ban on “recruiting” a minor for an abortion—without defining what this entails—meant that people who so much as texted the URL to a clinic could be arrested.

“Tennessee cannot criminalize ‘disseminating information about an activity that is legal in another state,’” Senior Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Julia Gibbons wrote last week. Idaho’s “anti-trafficking” law had similar language that was also blocked on free speech grounds.

While the ruling is an important victory, the anti-abortion movement’s “trafficking” efforts aren’t going anywhere. Just look at Texas, where a handful of counties have enacted ordinances that make it illegal for adult women to leave the state for abortions, or Montana, where lawmakers introduced a bill that would criminalize women who get out-of-state abortions for “trafficking” their own fetuses.

Again, most of these laws single out minors—who already face some of the greatest barriers to access abortion: A report by Guttmacher showed one in five adolescents didn’t know where to get an arbortion, and probably couldn’t access it without help from a trusted adult. But more broadly, the laws are a sign of what Republicans want most: criminalizing anyone who helps patients get abortions.

After all, anti-abortion leaders have watched as community members across the country have rallied to support each other since Dobbs; that’s why they’re so bent on targeting the helpers.

Care Denied

The Wisconsin Supreme Court may have struck down an 1849 ban this month, but that doesn’t mean abortion is actually accessible. Just ask Megan Kling.

In 2023, Kling was forced to travel to Minnesota after receiving a devastating diagnosis: her pregnancy had a fatal fetal anomaly. At the time, abortion was completely banned in Wisconsin. But here’s the thing—even now, she still wouldn’t be able to get the care she needed. That’s because of a 2015 law that bans abortion after 20 weeks—and Kling got her diagnosis at her 20-week ultrasound.

So despite the state Supreme Court’s ruling, nothing has really changed for patients like her in Wisconsin. This has become par for the course in too many states: abortion later in pregnancy is restricted or banned, compounding the trauma of the nation’s most vulnerable patients.

"The policies are very cruel,” Kling says. "I believe that women deserve better.” Watch the full segment on her story below:

In the States

Do you remember David Jolly, the newly-minted Democrat running for governor in Florida, despite his unexplained history of supporting fetal personhood as a one-term Republican Congressman? This weekend, a small group of pro-choice advocates in the state published an op-ed rallying to support Jolly, including a statement from him:

“I voted for Amendment 4. As governor, I would work to enact Amendment 4 into law. I support Roe. I am pro-choice. And as your governor I would veto any legislation that would restrict reproductive healthcare in the state of Florida.”

It’s clear that Jolly has felt the pro-choice pressure since outlets like Abortion, Every Day brought attention to his extreme past—and that’s exactly why coverage like this matters!

And listen, no one’s saying a politician can’t change their mind. But in a state that bans abortion, we need leaders who don’t just oppose restrictions—but who can articulate steps they’d take to restore, protect, and expand our reproductive rights. Leaders who are willing to say the word ‘abortion’ would also be nice.

AED will have more for you on Jolly in the coming days, after we speak to a few of our Florida sources.

Speaking of extreme records and gubernatorial candidates, let’s talk about Republican Vicki Schmidt in Kansas. The state insurance commissioner just voiced her full-throated support for the end of Roe—dropping quite a few anti-abortion glossary words in the process:

“The Supreme Court did the right thing, in my opinion, of bringing that back to the states and letting the states decide...Like most Kansans, I don’t believe in abortion on demand, like some of the far left do…But I do believe in reasonable exceptions, and I believe that that is where most Kansans are.”

From ‘reasonable exceptions’ to ‘abortion on demand,’ it’s clear that she has her talking points straight! But no matter how Schmidt spins it, Kansas voters have already made themselves clear: In 2022, they decisively voted down a measure that would have removed abortion protections from the state constitution.

That said, the unpopularity of abortion bans has never stopped Republicans before—they just get craftier at the lies they tell and the underhanded tactics they wield. Missouri is a perfect example.

Right now, Republicans there are ramming through a manipulative ballot measure that touts itself as pro-choice even though it would literally ban abortion. They’re even calling the anti-abortion ballot measure “Amendment 3”—the name of the abortion rights amendment voters passed last year!

This week, the state’s GOP secretary of state, Denny Hoskins, wrote an op-ed claiming that despite voters passing the pro-choice measure, they don’t really want to protect abortion rights.

Hoskins called (last year’s) Amendment 3, “one of the most extreme and ambiguous abortion policies in the nation,” recycling tired talking points about how the measure would allow “late-term abortions” and minors to access abortion care.

The truth? The amendment only restored abortion rights until ‘viability’, and Missourians have struggled to get consistent care even since its passage. (It’s a reminder that pro-choice advocates shouldn’t concede an inch to anti-abortion extremists, who will distort and manipulate everything we say and do, anyway.)

Hoskins also insists the new anti-abortion measure can course-correct the will of Missouri voters—framing it as moderate, generous, and totally not an abortion ban, because it allows narrow, theoretical exceptions. It’s all the same recycled bullshit, and it’s exhausting.

Finally, an important ICYMI: An abortion provider in Colorado filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that Colorado’s parental notification law illegally discriminates against young people and violates their rights under Colorado’s Equal Rights Amendment.

“The law undermines the sacred doctor-patient relationship and can push young people further away from safe, timely medical care. I am proud to support young people in this legal challenge,” Dr. Rebecca Cohen said in a statement last week.

She’s 100% correct, which is why, naturally, anti-abortion activists are pissed—and are claiming that parental consent and notification laws stop young girls from being “coerced into abortion and… being abused.”

For a refresher on the anti-abortion movement’s ‘coercion’ lies—and the devastating impact bans have on abuse victims, which conservatives are all too happy to ignore—read more here.

Quick hits:

• NC Health News reports that the state’s abortion ban has deterred some North Carolina families from having more children;

• Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch’s Debra Rosen writes in the Idaho Capital Sun how abortion bans have devastated the Idaho health system writ large;

• And even Joe Rogan is right every once in a while—he says that Texas’ abortion ban is “very creepy.”

AED in the News

Congratulations to Kylie on Coercion’s pub day this weekend! You can read an excerpt of her book here at Abortion, Every Day or another one over at Teen Vogue.

And one more thing: If you’ve gotten your Abortion, Every Day merch, we’d love to see a picture! Email us or tag us on socials showing us your shirt, tote, or whatever. We’re going to be sharing a few images with other readers.