Three Years After Dobbs, They’re Coming for Patients

What one arrest in Texas tells us about Republicans' plan to punish women

In the first case of its kind, a Texas man accused of slipping his girlfriend abortion medication has been charged with capital murder. Police say Justin Banta’s then-girlfriend lost her pregnancy at 6 weeks, just days after the 38-year-old gave her a spiked drink. Banta, who is also accused of tampering with evidence, faces no charges for harming his girlfriend—only for what he did to her embryo.

In Texas, this woman wasn’t the victim of a crime—her pregnancy was.

By charging Banta with capital murder, Republicans are setting a precedent that says embryos, fetuses—even fertilized eggs—deserve equal protection under the law. Sound familiar? That’s because when fetuses have personhood and ‘equal protection’, abortion patients can be charged with murder.

And that’s what this case is actually about: Conservatives want to make broad abortion-related arrests—targeting providers, activists, patients, and their support systems. But they can’t do that without sparking massive legal and cultural backlash.

Banta’s case gives them the unsympathetic villain they need to convince Americans that fetal personhood and ‘equal protection’ laws are good things—laying the groundwork for the sweeping arrests they’re so desperate for.

How do I know? Well, some anti-abortion leaders love to hear themselves talk more than they do keeping strategy close to the vest.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, admitted on a recent podcast that she and other movement leaders are “working to change culture” so that states can start prosecuting women. She said the “vast majority” of anti-abortion groups believe patients should face criminal charges—as soon as they can ensure the public is ready for it.

Once you start to look anti-abortion political moves through that framework—understanding that they’re trying to get Americans on board with arresting patients—everything they do becomes a lot clearer.

That’s why I see Banta’s arrest as just the latest move in a much bigger anti-abortion plan. Over the last few months, I’ve tracked a notable uptick in criminalization efforts: an increase in pregnancy-related arrests, bills and ‘studies’ designed to make more of those arrests possible, and a constant stream of messaging trial balloons to test just how outraged—or apathetic—Americans will be.

The hard truth? I believe we’re on the verge of a major criminalization push.

Conservatives are furious that bans haven’t reduced the number of abortions. (In fact, since the end of Roe, abortions have increased.) In spite of the legal restrictions and threats, many, many people are still getting the care they need.

And while the anti-abortion movement always intended to expand criminalization beyond providers, they knew they’d need to soften up the public first. The plan was to work on American culture, seeding a years-long shift that would make it easier for them to arrest patients without serious backlash.

Now, with abortion numbers rising—and anti-abortion organizations and legislators desperate to stop what they see as mass disobedience—I believe they’re fast-tracking that plan.

Here’s the good news: even an accelerated culture war takes time. None of what I lay out below is going to happen tomorrow. That means we’ve still got a window to intervene—and to fuck their shit up.

So sit back, and settle in with a cup of coffee, a glass of wine—or in my case, a cold Diet Coke. Let’s connect some dots.

Skip ahead to read through criminalization trends: The Rise of ‘Equal Protection’, Arrests of Miscarriage Patients, Disposal Laws, ‘Coercion’, What’s Next

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The Rise of ‘Equal Protection’

Let’s start with the most obvious sign that the anti-abortion movement is pushing towards broad criminalization: the rise of so-called abortion ‘abolitionists’. These mostly-male extremists are behind ‘equal protection’ bills—they draft and lobby for legislation that would punish abortion patients as murderers.

The mainstream anti-abortion movement likes to pretend these folks are fringe outliers, but the truth is that they’re gaining political power by the day. They’ve built strong ground games in conservative areas, infiltrated state legislatures, and in the states where they haven’t won seats, they’ve cozied up to Republican lawmakers.

That’s how we ended up with over a dozen states introducing ‘equal protection’ bills this year alone—bills that would treat abortion as murder and, in some states, punish patients with the death penalty.

Though none of this legislation has passed yet, it would be a mistake to believe that they never will. Every year, these bills gain more support and co-sponsors.

In Idaho, for example, every Republican on the Senate State Affairs Committee voted to introduce an ‘equal protection’ bill. The Senate GOP caucus released a statement saying the legislation would “inspire healthy dialogue on this subject.” (Healthy for who? Certainly not women!) And in Texas, Republicans adopted ‘equal protection’ as part of their official party platform.

Let that sink in: We are watching sitting lawmakers, entire committees, and major political parties endorse legislation that would see abortion patients put to death.

Like the broader anti-abortion movement, ‘abolitionists’ know they have an uphill battle with voters. So while they do political work in state legislatures, they’re also doing cultural work in churches, communities, and local media. In April, for example, a Kentucky ‘abolitionist’ published an op-ed in The Courier Journal. We’re talking about someone calling for the execution of women in Kentucky’s largest and most circulated newspaper.

That’s how normalization works! An idea that was once unthinkable—the death penalty for abortion patients—is now literally up for debate in newspapers and state houses.

But nothing illustrates this creeping normalization—and the conservative playbook for testing public outrage—more clearly than what’s happening to miscarriage patients.

Arrests of Miscarriage Patients

At this point, we’ve all heard the stories: Brittany Watts, arrested for flushing her miscarriage in Ohio. Selena Maria Chandler-Scott, charged with ‘concealing a death’ and ‘abandoning a dead body’ in Georgia after placing fetal remains in the trash. Most recently, Mallori Patrice Strait, jailed for five months in Texas after miscarrying in a public restroom.

And those are just the cases we know about: According to Pregnancy Justice, there were over 200 pregnancy-related arrests in just the first year after Dobbs. If that’s not a flashing red light that the anti-abortion movement is leaning into pregnancy prosecutions, I don’t know what is.

But this isn’t just about the arrests themselves.

The anti-abortion movement is using these prosecutions—and women’s public stories—as test cases. They’re paying close attention to how Americans react, how media covers the stories, and which messages resonate most to quell backlash.

It’s the same tactic we saw right after Roe fell. Republicans preemptively tested out messaging in anticipation of the first post-Dobbs death. Here’s what I wrote in October 2022:

“To protect themselves for when that first inevitable death happens (or, more accurately, when the first reported death happens), conservative politicians, activists and pundits have all started to float the idea that abortion bans don’t stop doctors from providing care. Instead, they say, any harm that comes to women is the fault of pro-choicers who have frightened medical professionals and their lawyers into misreading the state laws.”

Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

We’re seeing the same playbook now. These miscarriage arrests are being used to workshop messaging and strategy, and desensitize the public. That way, when abortion patients are arrested down the line, it will feel less shocking.

And here’s the scary part: They’re starting with the harder case. If they can convince Americans that it’s acceptable to jail women for miscarriages, how much easier will it be to justify arresting people who chose to end their pregnancies?

Here’s how they’re doing it: To start, they’re letting others do the dirty work.

When women are arrested for miscarriages, it’s often local media that slams them as ‘murderers’. We’ve all seen the headlines claiming women “threw their babies in the trash.” That allows anti-abortion activists and lawmakers to keep their hands clean of bashing women. And when public backlash erupts over an arrest, it’s county prosecutors and law enforcement that take those PR hits—not antis.

Pretty impressive, given that it’s anti-abortion organizations and legislators responsible for these laws and their consequences.

Still, there is a symbiotic relationship happening there: When you listen to the language that local prosecutors use around these arrests, for example, you can hear the anti-abortion messaging very clearly.

That influence is a two-way street: After watching local prosecutors charge miscarriage patients with crimes like ‘abuse of a corpse’ or ‘abandoning a dead body’, anti-abortion groups have adjusted their work accordingly.

That leads to the next new tactic I’ve been tracking: mandated burial or cremation of fetuses.

Disposal Laws

As I followed anti-abortion threads this year, it really was this tactic that tied it all together for me. (Do I feel like this sometimes? Absolutely!) Essentially, I watched in real time as anti-abortion activists drummed up this issue of fetal burial and ‘bereavement rights’—specifically to go after patients.

First things first: there are no laws about how someone should dispose of a miscarriage, nor should there be. Still, patients are being arrested anyway—charged with crimes like ‘abuse of a corpse,’ ‘abandoning a dead body,’ or ‘concealing a death.’ Thanks to public backlash, lack of evidence—and again, no actual laws on the books—many of these cases have fallen apart.

The anti-abortion movement wants to change that: they’re working to create state and federal laws that require the burial or cremation of miscarriages and abortions.

Take Nebraska. Republicans there have advanced a bill that would force providers to bury or cremate fetal and embryonic remains—but only after so-called elective abortions. The message couldn’t be clearer: this isn’t about fetal “dignity,” as lawmakers claim. It’s about punishment.

State Sen. Ben Hansen, who introduced the bill, said he wanted to stop fetal remains from being “thrown in a dumpster.” Sound familiar? That’s the exact language being used to smear women arrested after miscarriages—weaponized now to target providers and patients alike.

And this isn’t limited to state legislatures. Right now, Students for Life is pushing Republicans to propose a national “Bereaved Parents’ Rights Act”—a bill that, as you’ve probably guessed, doesn’t actually support grieving parents. It just mandates burial or cremation for miscarriage remains.

The goal is to open the door for prosecutions. After all, it’s not a coincidence that Students for Life says they want to stop miscarriage remains from being treated “like trash” in a moment when women are being arrested for doing exactly that.

If the law says there’s a right and wrong way to dispose of fetal remains, then police have cover to investigate and prosecute pregnancy outcomes—miscarriages, stillbirths, and abortions alike.

For abortions, in particular, disposal laws are a legal workaround: State bans prohibit prosecuting women who end their pregnancies, but if a patient ‘improperly’ disposes of the tissue? Suddenly, that could be fair game.

This strategy also gives anti-abortion lawmakers political cover. It lets them pretend they’re not focused on punishing women, but the ‘dignity’ of fetuses. If women happened to get arrested in the process? Well, they can just claim that was never their intention.¹

But let’s be real: they’re spreading a cultural message that people who “flush” or “trash” a miscarriage or abortion are monsters. They’re building on the stigma already weaponized against miscarriage patients who’ve been arrested—hoping they can grow public disgust, and turn it into legal justification.

They’d never say that out loud, of course: They need to pretend that all of this horror is meant to protect women. And that’s where ‘coercion’ comes in.

‘Coercion’

The anti-abortion movement has long insisted that women don’t really want abortions, but are being pressured into them. That said, the full-blown obsession with ‘coerced’ abortions didn’t kick off until a few years ago. I trace the shift back to 2023, when anti-abortion activists identified ‘coercion’ as the GOP’s most promising talking point—because, as one strategist put it, “no one is openly in favor of coerced abortions.”

What makes the term so useful to Republicans is that it allows them to pretend as if their bans and restrictions aren’t about misogyny or punishment—but protection.

‘Coercion’ is their escape hatch from voter backlash. It sounds compassionate, it polls well, and it provides convenient cover for some of the most punitive laws in the country.

Louisiana Republicans arrest a mom for helping her teen daughter get an abortion? That’s just stopping coercion! Michigan lawmakers fighting for mandatory waiting periods? Just making sure no one was coerced.

Montana lawmakers used the term to justify a bill that would charge women who get out-of-state abortions with “trafficking” their own fetus. FDA chief Marty Makary invoked ‘coercion’ while floating restrictions on mifepristone. Anti-abortion groups have even claimed that requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions amounts to coercing doctors.

And these are just examples from this year!

At the heart of ‘coercion’, though, is the idea that women almost never willingly choose to end a pregnancy. It’s a framing that opens the door to prosecuting the people who support a patient: the provider who gave them pills, the boyfriend who drove them to the clinic, the mother who lent her daughter money.

In a world where all abortion is ‘coerced’, every helper becomes an abuser. It’s absurd, and deeply upsetting.

It’s also an unfortunately smart move. Instead of jailing patients outright, they’re starting with their support systems—slowly working their way inward, one arrest at a time.

But they’ll get to patients eventually.

‘Coercion’ isn’t just about shielding Republicans from accusations of sexism and cruelty—it’s also a way to revive one of their favorite narratives: good women vs. bad women.

In this version of reality, the good women are the ones who were pressured into abortion. The bad ones? The few who chose it freely. That distinction is tailor-made for criminalization—and for getting Americans on board—because it justifies arrests by casting some women as victims, and others as villains.

And that’s the cultural shift we should be most worried about: a world where women who end pregnancies without pressure, tragedy, hesitation, or regret are seen as heartless outliers.

The truth is, abortion stigma was already doing a lot of that work. Even Democrats and pro-choice allies sometimes reinforce the idea that certain abortions are more acceptable than others—by centering only the most painful, heartbreaking stories.

What’s Next

I’ve hit you with a lot—so I’ll pause here. But keep an eye out for tomorrow’s newsletter, because I’m digging into a new anti-abortion ‘study’ that reveals conservatives’ next strategy for targeting patients and providers.

The short version? They’re claiming that abortions are being miscoded as miscarriages in hospital emergency rooms—setting the stage for new legal crackdowns in the process.

Also keep an eye out for more pieces like this one—on criminalization, other anti-abortion trends, and a bird’s-eye view of the last three years. We have a lot to talk about—and a lot to prepare for.

I know things are hard—but I have so much confidence in our ability to get shit done, and reveal these assholes for who they really are. So please stick with me, open your inbox tomorrow, and let’s do this thing.

1. If you want to know how desperately these groups want to punish women, look no further than the move to get medication abortion patients to bag up their blood and bring it back to the doctor as medical waste.