Tricking Voters, Surveilling Patients, Defunding Care

6.27.25

Click to skip ahead: Anti-Abortion Strategy looks at conservatives’ efforts to find abortion storytellers of their own. In the States has news from Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Virginia, Michigan, and more. Care Crisis shares a letter from a coalition of pro-choice attorney generals. In the Nation with good-ish news on the Trump budget bill. And Abortion Surveillance has an update on cops using license plate data to find abortion patients.

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Anti-Abortion Strategy

I want to talk some more about U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack, the Florida Republican who is blaming pro-choicers for the fact that she was denied emergency treatment for her ectopic pregnancy. Cammack claims abortion rights groups “fear-mongered” and scared doctors out of providing legal medical care. As I pointed out earlier this week, that’s a classic anti-abortion talking point—one they rolled out immediately after the end of Roe.

And that’s exactly why I think we’re going to see a lot more of Cammack—and other women hand-picked by the anti-abortion movement. They’re desperate for storytellers.

I flagged this tactic early last year: Anti-abortion groups know that the women harmed by abortion bans are the pro-choice movement’s most powerful political weapon. Storytellers like Amanda Zurawski and Samantha Casiano moved voters, and made clear just how cruel and misogynist these laws really are.

Conservatives have been scrambling to find their storytellers ever since. First they trotted out men recounting their wives’ miscarriages—as if Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy using their spouses’ bodies as shields was going to win over voters.

When that flopped, they pushed stories from women who claim they were harmed by abortion pills. Then it was people conceived as a result of rape—under the charming campaign name of “Almost Aborted.”

But none of those narratives have resonated with voters the way abortion rights groups’ stories have. A woman who regrets her abortion years later, for example, doesn’t evoke the same urgency as someone just denied life-saving care.

That’s why anti-abortion groups seized on Cammack’s story immediately: She was denied life- and health-saving care!

So let’s keep an eye out for this tactic—blaming pro-choicers for the crisis anti-abortion laws created—and for more women like Cammack willing to use their personal stories to strip other women of their rights.

If you want to learn more about abortion storytelling, check out We Testify and Abortion in America, the group co-founded by the late Cecile Richards. You can also watch my conversation with Abortion in America co-founder Kaitlyn Joshua, who was herself denied miscarriage care in Louisiana.

Understanding the Real Power of Abortion Storytelling

There’s another reason I think we’re about to see a lot more of the bullshit talking point that pro-choicers are scaring doctors out of providing care. In addition to the conservative media blitz around Cammack, this Dobbs anniversary op-ed from Christina Francis, president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), offers similar hints.

In the column, Francis attacks abortion rights activists for “continu[ing] to sow fear and misinformation to advance their abortion agenda.”

“Indeed, the only thing preventing women from receiving the care they need is the very narrative promoted by these activists,” she writes.

Which is fucking rich, coming from a woman who doesn’t believe in life-saving abortions and thinks that people with life-threatening pregnancies should get c-sections instead of abortions—even when the fetus can’t survive.

In the States

Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott just signed SB31—legislation that Republicans insisted would ‘clarify’ abortion ban exceptions. But as I told you earlier this week, the law is actually a Med Ed mandate in disguise. It requires doctors to take a continuing education class about Texas’ ban—curricula you can be sure will be provided by AAPLOG or one of their friends. (After all, that’s what happened in South Dakota!)

If you had any lingering doubt, consider that Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America put out a press release this week congratulating Abbott for signing “the Texas Med Ed bill to protect pregnant women’s lives from abortion misinformation.”

In other words, the country’s most powerful anti-abortion organization admits this legislation was never about protecting women—but ‘reeducating’ doctors.

Since we’re talking about Republican-led states empowering anti-abortion extremists, it’s the perfect time to bring up Florida: the state is set to spend a whopping $29.5 million on crisis pregnancy centers, the misinformation and surveillance arm of the anti-abortion movement.

The move comes at the same time as Republican-led states across the country are increasing funding to the fake clinics, positioning them as ‘comprehensive care’ clinics that can replace the real doctors they’re running out of town.

Over in Ohio, Republicans have been trying to undo democracy ever since voters passed abortion protections in 2023. One of the worst offenders has been Attorney General Dave Yost, so I’ve been watching with interest as Yost runs for governor—and now toys with the idea of dropping out. (BYE!)

Whatever happens, I had to share this word-salad answer he gave when the Ohio Capital Journal asked if his goal was to limit abortion despite what voters want:

“It is to preserve those matters that are adjacent to abortion that were passed by our duly elected general assembly, whether they fall within the rubric of the amendment of being directly or indirectly impacting or limiting the right to abortion.”

HUH? This makes my head hurt.

While Ohio Republicans ignore what voters want, Virginia Republicans are trying to trick them. Pro-choice legislators and organizations are pushing to protect abortion rights in a constitutional amendment they hope will go in front of voters in 2026—if Virginia Democrats maintain their majority in the House.

The short version is that the amendment needs to pass the state legislature twice, and it’s already passed once. But without that majority, voters will never get a say. That’s why Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is sending out over 100 people tasked with knocking on 150,000 doors in the state. (Voters won’t know the anti-abortion group is behind that effort though—they’re calling the campaign “Women Speak Out Virginia.”)

Caitlin Connors, SBA’s Regional Political Director, says the election is “a clear-cut opportunity to stop radical pro-abortion Democrats from enshrining abortion-on-demand into Virginia’s constitution.”

The group is pulling out all the usual talking points: They claim that the amendment would codify abortion at any point (in truth it allows for state interference in the third trimester). SBA also claims that the amendment jeopardizes parental consent laws (if only!) and would force taxpayers to pay for abortions. Again, if only.

Now, you may remember that SBA royally fucked up their Virginia election plan in 2024. They spent millions of dollars and months on the ground after persuading state Republicans to go all in on anti-abortion messaging and failed miserably. So I’m curious to see how they’re going to change things up this time around.

In better news…

Let’s catch up with Illinois, where the state is about to pass a law that would require colleges to make abortion medication available on campus—much to the chagrin of right-wing news outlets. Right on cue, anti-abortion groups claim the law will make it easier for abusers to surreptitiously give women abortion pills against their will. (The only time they even pretend to care about abuse victims.)

What’s particularly good about this Illinois legislation is that it also requires schools to put information on their website about where students can get abortion pills. When a similar law was passed in California, an investigation by LAist found that lots of students had no idea they could get the medication on campus—which led to many traveling and spending money unnecessarily.

That’s not the only good abortion rights bill in Illinois right now: the state legislature has also passed a bill that would make abortion pills available regardless of whether the FDA decides to roll back access to the medication.

The legislation on Gov. JB Pritzker's desk would allow abortion providers to prescribe the medication so long as it’s approved for use by the World Health Organization. It’s a clever and proactive way to shield the state from Trump’s FDA and their inevitable attacks on mifepristone.

Finally, the Michigan Senate passed two bills today—SB 154 and SB 155—that would protect clinics from anti-abortion extremists. Think of them as state-level FACE Acts; because remember, the Trump administration has made clear that they have no intention of enforcing the federal law that protects abortion providers and patients.

Quick hits:

• The Daily Montanan on how the abortion access landscape has changed in Montana;

• Texas leads the nation in out-of-state abortion travel;

• Wyoming abortion rights advocates are trying to stop a law that singles out healthcare providers who prescribe abortion medication off-label (more on this next week);

• And the Georgia Recorder has a detailed, necessary reminder of everything that’s happened since Georgia’s so-called, insidiously named “heartbeat” bill was first introduced in 2019.

Care Crisis

A coalition of 22 attorneys general has sent a letter to the American Hospital Association (AHA) this week, reminding them about hospitals’ EMTALA obligation. The move comes a few weeks after the White House rescinded federal guidance that required hospitals to provide patients with life-saving and stabilizing abortions, regardless of state abortion law.

The letter reminds the AHA that the Trump administration’s rescission “does not change federal law or the obligations EMTALA imposes,” and that hospitals “must continue to follow EMTALA, including with respect to the provision of emergency abortion care.”

What I especially appreciate about the letter is that it directly addresses the White House’s nod at fetal personhood: When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) repealed the guidance, they put out a statement saying hospitals must a pregnant woman and her pregnancy as two separate, equal patients.

The AGs make clear in this letter that this is simply not the case:

“And while that letter needlessly attempts to sow confusion by focusing on protections for a pregnant patient’s ‘unborn child,’ nothing about the rescission of the guidance changes the fact that EMTALA’s requirement to provide stabilizing care is based on the medical condition of the pregnant patient, not the fetus.”

It’s truly insane that this needs to be said explicitly, but I’m glad that they did.

In the Nation

We had another awful day at the Supreme Court today, with justices handing the White House a win in its longstanding war on immigrants. The New York Times has a good explainer, but the short version is that SCOTUS sided with the Trump administration in a fight over birthright citizenship.

Abortion, Every Day will have more on the ruling next week, but it goes without saying that there are tremendous reproductive health and justice implications here.

Next week, we’ll also dig into another Supreme Court ruling: Kennedy v. Braidwood Management Inc., Here, the Court came down with a decision that should protect the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) requirement to cover preventative care like contraception.

But as Jezebel points out, the court also ruled that the head of the HHS—RFK Jr.!—gets to control the task force that decides which kinds of care must be fully covered. Which is…a problem.

You all know that Republicans and the anti-abortion movement have their sights utterly set on defunding Planned Parenthood and reproductive health clinics. Just yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that South Carolina can block Planned Parenthood from participating in its Medicaid program—opening the door for other conservative states to do the same.

Democracy Now spoke to journalist and author Rebecca Grant about the ruling and what it means:

Defunding Planned Parenthood is also a major feature of the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill.”

But in what The Hill is calls the “biggest blow” to the budget bill yet, the Senate parliamentarian has struck out a provision that would have blocked federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act from being allocated to qualified health plans that cover abortion services. I know, that’s a mouthful.

This provision—essentially defunding health insurance plans that cover or subsidize abortion—would have disproportionately impacted pro-choice states, some of which require insurance plans to cover abortion. Sen. Patty Murray called this “part of Republicans’ plan to institute a backdoor nationwide abortion ban by making abortion care inaccessible for everyone, everywhere.”

The Senate parliamentarian is obviously doing the right thing here—but we know that Republicans’ crusade on stripping funding for reproductive healthcare goes beyond a single budget provision. The parliamentarian is still weighing language in the bill that attempts to defund Planned Parenthood by blocking Medicaid coverage, and we’ll have more on that—and all the ways this bill attacks abortion access—next week.

Quick hits:

• Vox explains yesterday’s Supreme Court decision;

• The Washington Post says that Democrats are shifting their focus away from abortion (which would be a mistake!);

• A new NPR podcast episode unpacks changing views of self-managed abortion with pills over the years;

• And in international news, anti-abortion groups are melting down because the UN Human Rights Committee condemned Guatemala for denying a 14-year-old rape victim an abortion, saying their law amounts to forced pregnancy. (Which…is true, by every objective measure!)

Abortion Surveillance

Last month, we learned that Texas law enforcement used data from an automatic license plate reader (ALPR)—accessing over 83,000 cameras across the country—to search for an abortion patient. But since 404 Media’s bombshell report, the outlet has learned that ALPR company Flock has stopped law enforcement agencies across the country from searching cameras inside Illinois, California, and Virginia.

Other jurisdictions, like the city of Austin, Texas, are revisiting or terminating contracts with Flock due to privacy concerns involving not just abortion-related travel, but also ICE and immigration.

Even before 404 Media’s reporting, civil liberties groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) were sounding the alarms over ALPR data being used in abortion investigations. And we know that anti-abortion states are, indeed, trying to crack down on traveling abortion patients: attorneys general from 19 Republican-led states have been trying to gain access to out-of-state medical records since 2023. And just last week, a federal judge struck down a Biden-era privacy policy that protected traveling abortion patients’ private medical data.

It’s all part of a broader effort by the anti-abortion movement to trap people under abortion bans and expand their surveillance apparatus to do just that.