The War on Pro-Choice Speech

1.20.25

Click to skip ahead: Attacks on Pro-Choice Speech Ramp Up; State News: Wyoming, Missouri, Wisconsin, Idaho & More; One Year of the Trump Administration; Anti-Abortion Glossary; National News: Trump v. the Anti-Abortion Movement

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Attacks on Pro-Choice Speech Ramp Up

Let’s start the week with some good news: a federal judge ruled this weekend that South Dakota must stop attacking Mayday Health’s pro-choice ad campaign. For now, at least.

A refresher: South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley has been trying to force Mayday to pull its ads from gas stations across the state. He claims the ads violate the state’s deceptive trade practices law simply because they direct people to the group’s website—where people can learn how to access abortion pills. In Jackley’s view, the ads are deceptive because he insists abortion pills are “dangerous.”

In response, Mayday fought back—suing Jackley for violating their free speech rights. This weekend’s ruling prohibits Jackley from taking “any coercive action, formal or informal” against Mayday, pending the outcome of that case.

That’s great news, however temporary. Unfortunately, attacks on pro-choice speech aren’t limited to South Dakota. Just last week, North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley issued a cease-and-desist order against Prairie Abortion Fund (PAF), accusing the group of “promoting and facilitating the unlawful sale of abortion pills.” Why? Because their website links to other websites that link to abortion pill providers.

Since the end of Roe, Republicans have been trying to find ways to attack abortion rights organizations and their websites. Republicans in Texas and Iowa, for example, introduced legislation that would ban pro-choice websites and allow citizens to sue internet service providers who host the sites. That’s because conservative lawmakers know that women circumventing state bans are often using the internet to do it.

Other kinds of pro-choice speech have also been under fire: so-called ‘abortion trafficking’ laws passed in Tennessee and Idaho would have criminalized anything from lending a teenager money for an abortion to texting them the url to a clinic. (Those portions of the laws have since been blocked on First Amendment grounds.) And right now in South Carolina, Republicans are pushing a bill that would make it a crime to lend someone money for an abortion—or to work, volunteer, or even donate to an abortion fund.

All of this is happening at the same time that conservative legal groups like Alliance Defending Freedom are bringing their own ‘free speech’ lawsuits on behalf of crisis pregnancy centers and clinic protesters—claiming that these extremists have the First Amendment right to harass and lie to women. 🙃

State News: Wyoming, Missouri, Wisconsin, Idaho & More

Earlier this month, the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled that abortion is healthcare—striking down the state’s two abortion bans. Republicans were not happy, and immediately started brainstorming how they could undo the decision. (Namely, by shrinking the bench.)

Now, the Wyoming Attorney General is petitioning the Court to take another look at the case—arguing that their ruling contained “a number of legal errors” and that it “thwarts the will of the people.”

That ‘will of the people’ bullshit is particularly irritating: we know that voters do not want these bans. But in GOP-led states, Republicans insist their legislative control is proof that voters support bans—in spite of every poll and pro-choice ballot measure win to the contrary.

We’ll keep you updated on what happens next in Wyoming, but this seems like a desperate last-ditch effort.

Speaking of Republicans refusing to abide by voters’ wishes, let’s move on to Missouri. The state’s abortion trial has entered its second week, with GOP leaders arguing that onerous restrictions on providers don’t violate Amendment 3, passed in 2024.

Republicans continue to insist their anti-abortion TRAP laws are necessary to protect women’s health and safety. They claim abortion—and abortion pills, in particular—are dangerous. Obviously, that’s a lie. And the fact that the state’s first witness was none other than anti-choice OBGYN Ingrid Skop is just more proof that they’re grasping at straws.

Skop, a disgraced ‘researcher’ whose studies have been retracted from scientific journals, believes abortion is never medically necessary—even to save a patient’s life. She’s also one of a small handful of OBGYNs willing to testify in favor of abortion bans. That’s why Republicans trot her out anytime they need to pretend to be medically credible (while trying to ignore the fact that she’s a professional embarrassment).

Skop was even appointed to Texas’ maternal mortality committee; she argues that maternal death data is often wrong and that abortion bans never harm women, so you can see why they love her.

When on the stand for Missouri, Skop/Slop testified that abortion complications are more common than data shows—which has become an increasingly popular claim among the anti-choice sect. That’s important beyond Missouri: Abortion, Every Day has warned for years that Republicans are trying to sow distrust in credible data while fabricating fake abortion ‘complications’ to counter the evidence showing abortion is safe:

Texas is Fabricating Abortion Data

All of which is to say: the arguments that Missouri Republicans make about abortion’s safety are the arguments we can expect to see everywhere. So we’d do well to pay attention to what happens in court this week.

Let’s move on to Wisconsin, where a candidate for state Supreme Court is trying to do some abortion-related damage control. Earlier this month, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel got ahold of audio from a college Republican event where State Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar seemed to call for a near-total abortion ban.

Lazar, the conservative candidate for the state’s highest court, said the legislature and governor should compromise. “If they’re going to say heartbeat, I think maybe people can live with that,” she said, referring to a 6-week ‘heartbeat’ ban. Lazar continued:

“You’re always going to get the people on one side who say, ‘No, it has to be at conception,’ and the other people on the other side who say, ‘up to the date of birth.’ And I think most of the people in Wisconsin are in the middle.”

The idea that ‘the middle’ is a 6-week ban is absolutely wild. It’s also not at all what Wisconsin voters—or any Americans—want.

At the event, Lazar also praised the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and said “it’s a really hard question” when people ask her about children who’ve been raped or women who would die without abortions. I actually think most people would say those are pretty fucking easy questions, but what do I know!

Abortion rights have become a huge issue in state Supreme Court elections—especially in Wisconsin, where the race has national implications. Here’s the thing: Wisconsin voters have made themselves very clear. In 2023, they elected pro-choice judge Janet Protasiewicz; and last year, they elected Susan Crawford. The lead-up to both races was all about abortion.

It’s no surprise, then, that Lazar is feeling the heat of that Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel piece. This week, the judge wrote an op-ed promising “not to legislate from the bench,” and writing that “this issue belongs in the hands of the people.” Gee, where have we heard this before?

Something tells me that Wisconsin voters will be able to see through the BS.

Finally, Idaho’s Women’s March last week drew some anti-abortion counter-protesters who remind us what their movement is really about. One demonstrator, Charles Stevenson, told a reporter, “I just don’t know that there’s so many medical emergencies” that warrant abortion, and that “women should have the freedom to stay at home and raise children.”

How kind of Charles to bestow that freedom on us! Seriously—how many different ways can these people remind us that this was never about saving ‘babies’, but trapping women?

Idaho has been particularly hard hit by the end of Roe: the state’s abortion ban has driven out a huge number of OBGYNs, shuttered maternity wards, and widened maternal health deserts. On top of all that, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador argued all the way up to the Supreme Court that the state should have the right to deny women life-saving abortions.

From Melanie Folwell, executive director of Idahoans United for Women and Families:

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful our mountains are, how good the camping and the skiing is, how big and beautiful our big sky, sunsets and sunrises are. If you can’t see a doctor when you need a doctor, that is no quality of life at all.”

Folwell’s group is seeking to repeal the state’s abortion ban by putting the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act in front of voters. Idaho law doesn’t allow citizen-led ballot initiatives to pass constitutional amendments, but they can pass laws—so that’s what abortion rights advocates in the state are pushing for.

Quick hits:

• There’s a legal fight brewing in Kansas over which kinds of abortion groups get to protest inside the statehouse;

• Arkansas just held their annual ‘March for Life’;

• A former Oregon Republican lawmaker is now running as an Independent after being ousted for supporting abortion rights;

• Planned Parenthood clinics in Michigan now offer vasectomies;

• And SCOTUS says that Tennessee is still eligible for federal family planning funding despite their abortion restrictions (more on this soon).

One Year of the Trump Administration

Longest year ever—especially for abortion rights. Today, Planned Parenthood and Reproductive Freedom for All have some of the highlights (lowlights, really) of the last year under the Trump administration. Both memos are worth a full read, but here are some of the past year’s top attacks:

• Stacked the courts with 13 lifetime, anti-abortion judges chosen for loyalty to Trump.

• Killed a federal case protecting emergency care for pregnant patients in Idaho.

• Gutted the CDC’s reproductive health division, including teams tracking maternal deaths and contraception.

• Pardoned clinic attackers convicted under the FACE Act for harassing patients and providers.

• Slashed $377 million for global reproductive health care by defunding UNFPA.

• Cut Medicaid more than any president in history, risking coverage for nearly 8 million people.

• Tried to dismantle federally funded sex ed, including the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program.

That’s to say nothing of the administration being stacked with racists, wife-beaters, and rapists—but we’ll leave that horror for another day.

Anti-Abortion Glossary

In better news, our “Anti-Abortion Glossary” video series is back. Once again, we’ve collaborated with the amazing folks at The Meteor to bring you the truth about some of the most commonly-used anti-abortion terms.

We’ll release a new video every Tuesday, so keep an eye on AED’s and The Meteor’s social channels. First up, ‘coerced abortions’:

National News: Trump v. the Anti-Abortion Movement

The anti-abortion movement’s beef with the Trump administration continues, especially now that the HHS has released millions in Title X funding back to Planned Parenthood and other reproductive healthcare groups.

Please note that this is different than the fight over Medicaid reimbursements; that ‘defunding’ continues on. In this case, the administration released family planning dollars that they froze last year under the guise of targeting ‘DEI’ initiatives.

Unfortunately, that money being returned doesn’t change all the harm done. Here’s what Brigitte Amiri, deputy director at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, told POLITICO:

“More than 800 service sites were unable to provide Title X services. Hundreds of thousands of patients were unable to get Title X services. So the impact was tremendous. So damage certainly was done as a result of their unlawful withholding of the funds.”

Still, I’m thrilled that groups will have this vital funding restored—money that provides birth control, STI testing, cancer screenings, and more, primarily to low-income and uninsured patients.

You can be sure that some anti-abortion organizations and leaders are furious—especially given Trump’s recent remarks about the ACA fight, and especially as they near their annual March for Life. Others, however, don’t want to risk pissing off the White House. I’ve seen quite a few pundits claim the administration did the right thing, because the suit against them over the funding freeze was impossible to win.

Here’s what none of them want to admit: Trump truly does not give a shit. Not about them, not about abortion. This release of Title X funding doesn’t even appear to have been on the president’s radar. In fact, when asked about the decision, both Trump and HHS secretary RFK Jr. pleaded ignorance.

Don’t get it twisted: just because Trump himself doesn’t much care about the issue doesn’t mean that everyone else in his administration isn’t working overtime to restrict access. We know they are—we saw it in everything they did over this past year.

Speaking of: KFF Health News’s latest podcast episode turns its attention to the ACA fight and abortion rights:

Reuters has a helpful roundup reminding us of the numerous lawsuits from state AGs challenging telehealth access to abortion, challenges to shield laws, and challenges to protect and expand telehealth abortion. And the State Court Report has a breakdown of the abortion-related ballot measures we’re watching in 2026. I’ll be bookmarking both to refer back to.

Finally, a little bit of shameless self-promotion: big thanks to actress Amanda Seyfried for the very nice Abortion, Every Day shoutout in her interview with The New Yorker. 😊

Quick hits:

• Axios looks at the increase in pregnancy-related prosecutions;

• Ms. magazine points out that “there’s nothing patriotic about denying veterans abortion care”;

• The Independent reports that the Trump administration is destroying global abortion access;

• And the FDA has approved the hormonal birth control implant Nexplanon for 5 years of use, up from 3 years.