In her seminal 1995 essay, philosopher Martha Nussbaum identified seven ways (or features) of treating others as things instead of as humans. Philosopher Rae Langton later added three more features to Nussbaum’s list, bringing the total to ten.

Because objectification is a cluster concept, any one of the ten core features is a sufficient condition, on its own, for the objectification of persons to have occurred; more often, though, a plurality of features is present.

Ten features of objectification

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As scholars Meghan M. Boone and Benjamin J. McMichael note, “Such objectification results in almost certain abuse, sometimes of the most horrifying variety.”13

“The objectification of individuals or groups has, historically and cross-culturally, resulted in increased rates of violence and abuse towards those individuals or groups, sometimes of the most horrifying variety. When people are no longer thought of as fully human, they are no longer treated with the respect that such humanity warrants within shared cultural values. This results in an increase in the physical violence they experience.”14

Scholars have “linked objectification to the capacity to bear children, menstruate, and lactate, suggesting that women’s reproductive functions may serve as a basis for objectification.”1516 Concomitantly, fetal personhood ideology, along with essentialist views of gender and biology that center antiquated views of women’s “purpose” as that of childbearing, strip women and pregnant people of their personhood and human attributes. All this increases the risk of gender-based violence.

And because, in the United States, the treatment of women and those asigned female at birth as things—especially when pregnant—is so prevalent, it mostly goes unnoticed, unquestioned, and unchallenged. It’s time for us to change that.

It’s time to make sure objectification gets noticed, gets questioned, and gets challenged. — That’s why rePro-Truth will publishing a series of posts addressing each of the core features of objectification utilizing real-world examples, from anti-choice rhetoric and policies to fetal personhood propaganda materials, to male supremacists court opinions. And, as the saying goes, ‘once you see it, you can't not see it.’

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SBA Pro-Life America is circulating a “Declaration of Independence for the Unborn.” Yes, really.

BREAKING: The Unborn recently came together, at a session shrouded in secrecy, to lay out their grievances in a document. The session voted unanimously to declare independence. SBA Faux-Life America has obtained a copy.

The “Declaration” is a written masterpiece, exuding the liberal ideals of individual rights, justice, and liberty. With a unified voice, the Unborn declare their independence from the biological tyranny of windowless confinement. — Just kidding. I made that up. Exactly what or who the Unborn are declaring independence from remains a mystery; the “Declaration” doesn't say. It seems the Unborn are few on words.

In fact, when you open the link, you discover that, despite the title at the top of the page, there's no declaration of independence to be found. Weird, I know.

Instead, what you find is a different declaration: “The Unanimous Declaration of the Unborn.”

It declates, “Where our people live does not determine whether or not they have the right to live.”

I have my doubts about the unanimous part. In fact, I would like to— no, I demand! to see the roll call vote record! In the name transparency and accountability!

Audit the vote!

Is there a P.O. Box to which I should submit my request? Or do I just politely ask the next pregnant gal I see at Kroger if I should insert my request into, umm, her box?

And to what Unborn agency should I address my request?

Furthermore, why wasn't anyone informed of the Unborn Continental Congress? Was this the First Unborn Continental Congress? The Second? Where did they meet?

I'd also like to know who paid for this. It's time for the Unborn to release their tax returns.

And how were the delegates chosen? What are their credentials? Did the delegates include Unborn Democrats and Unborn Independents, or were only Unborn Republican delegates permitted to participate? Release their names!

Why the secrecy? What are the Unborn trying to hide? The Born Public has a right to know!

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“to remove a dead fetus” — This phrase (or a derivative thereof) appears, as an exclusion, within high-control states’ definitions of abortion. For example, Tennessee law states: “‘Abortion’ means the use of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance or device with intent to terminate the pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with intent other than to increase the probability of a live birth, to preserve the life or health of the child after live birth, to terminate an ectopic or molar pregnancy, or to remove a dead fetus” (TENN. CODE ANN. § 39-15-213).

It sounds straight forward. A pregnant patient arrives at the hospital. The embryo/fetus is “dead” but the patient's body hasn't yet expelled that tissue (incomplete early pregnancy loss). Surely it is perfectly legal for the doctor to perform a quick aspiration to clear the patient's uterus of any remaining tissue, preserving the patient's health.

Unfortunately, it's not so simple to determine if/when an embryo or early fetus is “dead.” Not only is '“dead” not medical terminology in this context, but it also doesn't reflect the ways early pregnancy loss is determined and diagnosed.

“In some instances, making a diagnosis of early pregnancy loss is fairly straightforward and requires limited testing or imaging. For example, early pregnancy loss can be diagnosed with certainty in a woman with an ultrasound-documented intrauterine pregnancy who subsequently presents with reported significant vaginal bleeding and an empty uterus on ultrasound examination. In other instances, the diagnosis of early pregnancy loss is not as clear. Depending on the specific clinical circumstances and how much diagnostic certainty the patient desires, a single serum b-hCG test or ultrasound examination may not be sufficient to confirm the diagnosis of early pregnancy loss.”1

Additionally, 2013 guidelines issued by the Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound Multispecialty Panel on Early First Trimester Diagnosis of Miscarriage and Exclusion of a Viable Intrauterine Pregnancy, which have been criticized by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, are unnecessarily conservative in their approach to diagnosing embryonic demise, “setting[] standards that went beyond cutoffs associated with 100% [certaintly in determining embryonic/fetal demise] in prior studies.”2 Now navigating a post-Roe environment with steep criminal penalties, doctors are being extra cautious about diagnosing fetal/embryonic demise by delaying care while they gather enough evidence to defend themselves against possible criminal charges prior to terminating a pregnancy—even when it is firmly believed that the embryo/fetus has already expired (you can read more about this here).

In early pregnancy loss (EPL), physicians have reported that abortion bans have “compelled additional, sometimes unnecessary, confirmatory testing to demonstrate that a pregnancy was nonviable. This often required multiple ultrasonograms or serial measurements of β–human chorionic gonadotropin levels, even when clinical assessment was consistent with EPL. Physicians described delaying intervention despite clinical findings highly suggestive of EPL.”3

The ways in which abortion bans alter medical care have heightened Americans’ need to decipher the difference between what is legal on paper from what is likely in practice when criminal penalties are introduced into a risk-averse field such as Healthcare, Professor Penelope Deutscher explains (Duke University Press).4

Abortion bans “operate[] through environmental deterrence or the management of behavior’s likelihood. In antirisk environments, providers avoid possible ambiguity by overimposing the law: the eight-week cutoff might be informally implemented as a seven-week cutoff. Medical practitioners might interpret conservatively the degree of life endangerment that would legalize their intervention unambiguously… A hospital’s legal advisers might assess the possibility of a malpractice suit before determining that denying care to a patient is preferable to the risk of prosecution for illegal abortion provision.”5 As the legal counsel of an Arkansas hospital stated, “We cannot rule out the possibility of an overzealous prosecutor.”

This is exactly what we see at play in the case of the determining embryonic demise in order “to remove a dead fetus” without fearing criminal prosecution.

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Lastly, it's important to note that while removing a “dead” fetus (which is not medical terminology) is excluded from high-control states’s definitions of abortion, it is not excluded for the benefit the pregnant patient. Rather, it’s excluded for the benefit the embryo. — Specifically, this exclusion is designed to function as a restriction on when a patient may receive medical and procedural management for pregnancy loss.

The sole purpose of the exclusion is to benefit the embyo by delaying the delivery of miscarriage care until after embryonic demise has been so redundantly documtented that doctors, hospitals, and hospitals’ attorneys feel they are sufficiently protected from the ever-present risk of criminal prosecution.

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Recognized as the nation’s second independence day, Juneteenth National Independence Day commemorates the day— June 19, 1865 —on which Union Army soldiers, many of whom were Black, made their way into Galveston, Texas, with the Emancipation Proclamation in hand, and “announced to the people of Texas that all enslaved African Americans were free.” Because the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to Confederate states, slavery would not be abolished throughout the whole United States until later that year, on December 6, 1865, with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.1 Texas was the last of the Confederate states to receive the proclamation, a monumental moment. From henceforth, Juneteenth has been a celebration of freedom and self-ownership.

“Juneteenth places Black people at the center of the conversation about freedom, it's meaning and manifestation in this nation.”2

Unfortunately, today I bring you upsetting news: One of the nation’s most powerful anti-human rights groups has seized upon the occasion to hijack Juneteenth for its own repressive aims, going so far as to appropriate the words of a formerly-enslaved civil rights activist and suffragist—brazenly purloining her words, her name, her image, and her legacy. Even as someone who reports on anti-human rights groups’ lies, this shocked me.

Ida B. Wells (later Wells-Barnett)—born into slavery in Mississippi in 1862—was a tireless suffragist and a foundational civil rights leader. She was also an investigative journalist, a sociologist, an educator, and one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Like other suffragist of her time, Wells advocated for voluntary motherhood, the radical notion that every woman should have autonomy of body, be able to reject unwanted sexual advances from her husband, and choose if and when she has children. In other words, the right of every woman to be “the owner of her own body.”3 Unfortunately, even today, this is still considered radical to some people.

Wells “often encountered racism within the suffrage movement itself.”4 During Reconstruction, “there were sometimes ‘calls for unity’ between Northern and Southern suffragists”;5 this lead to compromises being made “by Northern activists with Southern racism.”6 This, in turn, lead to a dispute between Wells and another suffragist, Frances Willard, after Willard made racist remarks in 1890. Willard responded by claiming that her words weren’t meant to be taken literally.

“Wells was unequivocal in her expectations that the white women in the suffrage movement must embrace Black women and stand by them in their fight against racial discrimination and violence.”7 She never hesitated to call out racism—even among friends and allies.

In 1895, Wells published A Red Record, an investigative and statistical report documenting the horror of lynching in the United States. Wells dedicated an entire chapter of the book to condemning Frances Willard for using racist rhetoric that promoted violence against Black people. The chapter is titled, “Miss Willard's Attitude.” Wells concluded this chapter with the following words. [*Note the portions which I have emboldened for emphasis, because we'll revisit it below.]

“… [M]y love for the truth is greater than my regard for an alleged friend who, through ignorance or design misrepresents in the most harmful way the cause of a long suffering race, and then unable to maintain the truth of her attack excuses herself as it were by the wave of the hand, declaring that ‘she did not intend a literal interpretation to be given to the language used.’ When the lives of men, women and children are at stake, when the inhuman butchers of innocents attempt to justify their barbarism by fastening upon a whole race the obloquy of the most infamous of crimes, it is little less than criminal to apologize for the butchers today and tomorrow to repudiate the apology by declaring it a figure of speech.”

“Wells was relentless in fighting for anti-lynching laws, but she was equally unrelenting in her fight for universal suffrage. Wells organized Black women around voting as a way of increasing civic engagement and as a tactic to promote anti-lynching laws.”8 In “How Enfranchisement Stops Lynchings,” a 1910 pamphlet, “Wells said states that denied the right to vote were emboldened in denying Black people the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”9 She wrote, “With no sacredness of the ballot, there can be no sacredness of human life itself.”

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (henceforth referred to as SBA Pro-Life) is an anti-human rights group that “sees[] trimming the electorate as essential to achieve their goals.”10 SBA Pro-Life opposes the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act11 and the For the People Act,12 and works with other anti-voting rights groups “to drive the state-by-state GOP efforts to limit voting.”13 *Of significance, some of those voting restrictions specifically target the Black community.

SBA Pro-Life also opposes granting full equality to women under the law14 —which, even in 2026, American women still do *not* have.

The organization was founded by a “pro-life feminist.” It's leaders claimed—and continue to claim—that Susan B. Anthony, the famous suffragist, was an anti-abortion advocate. The trouble is, that's a lie.

This lie began when “pro-life feminists” misattributed another person's words to Anthony, and then intentionally continued to misattribute those words even after being made aware of their error. In fact is, “Anthony spent no time on the politics of abortion. It was of no interest to her, despite living in a society (and a family) where women aborted unwanted pregnancies.”15 Like Ida B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony was an advocate for voluntary motherhood.

This week, SBA Pro-Life took its devilishly calculated misappropriation—and fabrication—of women’s history to a whole new, jaw-dropping level. On Monday, the anti-human rights, anti-voting rights group tweeted:

“Kicking off #Juneteenth week by honoring the profound legacy of Black women who paved the way as fearless pro-life advocates: civil rights icon Ida B. Wells and Dr. Mildred Fay Jefferson, the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School. Let's carry their courage forward.”

The tweet included the following image. (Featured in the image is SBA Pro-Life America’s logo—a small, circular silhouette of Susan B. Anthony.)

The image features portraits of Ida B. Wells (left) and Mildred Jefferson (right). In large, neon green lettering are the words, “The Legacy of Black Women Who Were Pro-Life Advocates.” Both the image and the text of SBA Pro-Life's tweet tell readers that both of these women were anti-choice activists. The trouble is, that's a lie.

While Mildred Jefferson was an anti-choice activist, Ida B. Wells was not. In fact, there is no historical evidence that Ida B. Wells opposed abortion nor that she supported the abortion bans that were passed in the wake of the Civil War. Like the claim that Susan B. Anthony was an anti-choice activist, the claim that Ida B. Wells was an anti-choice activist has been invented out of this air.

SBA Pro-Life's tweet contains a second image of Wells. At the top of the image, above her portrait, Wells’ words are quoted—again in large, neon green lettering: “When the lives of men, women and children are at stake… it is little less than criminal to apologize for the butchers today.”

Do those words sound familiar to you? They should! — Those very words are emboldened in the above passage from Ida B. Wells's book, A Red Record, that documents the lynching of Black Americans. The words come from the chapter entitled, “Miss Willard’s Attitude,” in which Wells condemned White suffragist Frances Willard for using racist rhetoric that promoted violence against Black people.

Missing in the quote, after the ellipsis, in the image above are the words, “when the inhuman butchers of innocents attempt to justify their barbarism by fastening upon a whole race the obloquy of the most infamous of crimes.” — This is a remarkable omission for the Juneteenth occasion. First, SBA Pro-Life America ripped Wells's words out of the context of racist lynch mobs and of Wells's repudiation of Willard's racist rhetoric. Then it omitted her words about race.

The full sentence repudiating Willard is as follows:

“When the lives of men, women and children are at stake, when the inhuman butchers of innocents attempt to justify their barbarism by fastening upon a whole race the obloquy of the most infamous of crimes, it is little less than criminal to apologize for the butchers today and tomorrow to repudiate the apology by declaring it a figure of speech.”

One of the main rules for using an ellipsis to omit words from a quotation is that doing so must never change the meaning of the original quote. And as you now well see, SBA Pro-Life’s use of an ellipsis, in combination with its false claims about Ida B. Wells, did indeed change the meaning of her original words.

When I saw these images and when I read SBA Pro-Life’s claim that Wells was an anti-choice advocate along with the shortened, decontextualized quotation, my jaw hit the floor. I felt sick. Like I needed to shower away the filth of SBA Pro-Life America’s sleazy lies, dirty politics, and opportunistic exploitation of a Black woman’s name, image, and legacy for unearned legitimacy.

TO BE CEAR: To “celebrate” Juneteenth, a majority White organization—which stands in opposition to much of Ida B. Wells's life's work—falsely labeled her a “pro-life advocate” and then chopped up her words, making it appear that the “butchers” she's referring to in her quote are OB-GYNs—not White lynch mobs.

To hide its White Supremacist policy goals behind the name and face of a Black historical figure.

To control Black women’s bodies and reproduction, a legacy of hereditary chattel slavery.

To snatch the focus of Juneteenth away from liberation to domination.

To center the archetypal (usually White) fetus, instead of the Black community and their continued struggle for full emancipation from systems of oppression and violence.

To legitimize its authoritarian policy agenda that causes out-sized harm to Black people.

Even as someone who reports on anti-human rights groups’ lies, this shocked me. I honestly can’t find the words to adequately describe such shameless depravity. So, I’ll close with the words of Ida B. Wells, from the same passage of A Red Record:

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This week, rePro-Truth revealed that Students for Life of America (SFLA)—through its dark money arm SFLAction—has become the first major, mainstream “pro-life” group since the fall of Roe v. Wade to publicly endorse a bill explicitly criminalizing pregnant people for abortion.

Thanks to rePro-Truth's coverage, SFLA has publicly reversed its support for the portions of the bill that criminalize women.

Yesterday evening, Lane Koch, Vice President of SFLAaction, announced that the organization would withdraw its support of the South Carolina bill (S.1095) if the Senate committe fails to strip criminal penalties for pregnant people from the bill.

SFLAction also urged its supporters to contact Medical Affairs Chair, Sen. Danny Verdin, to tell him to “remove[] prosecution language against women immediately.”

This is a small, but significant win.

It shows that—despite being far outmatched by the money and influence of Goliathan groups who seek to control every aspect of our most intimate lives—we are not without power.

Although Koch and SFLAction both sidestepped the organization's true support for prosecuting people for their private healthcare decisions, they backtracked in the aftermath of accurate reporting exposing this support.

They blinked.

This is why independent reporting is so important.

This is why you and the pressure you are able to exert in the public and political arena, when armed with knowledge and truth, are so important.

Together, we make change.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that the bill won't pass. In fact, it's already moving forward. 👀 Be on the lookout for rePro-Truth’s upcoming breakdown on what else is in this horrible bill.

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❗️UPDATE: Following rePro-Truth's coverage, anti-abortion group backtracks endorsement of prosecuting women

This article is free to the public. Truthful information and insightful analysis should never be pay-walled, as freely accessible misinformation runs rampant. With every small gift, you ensure that the independent journalism at rePro-Truth remains freely available to all.

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For the first time since the Republican-dominated Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, a “mainstream” anti-choice group has officially endorsed an abortion ban that explicitly criminalizes pregnant and previously pregnant individuals for abortion and abortion-related activities.

Students for Life of America (SFLA) has endorsed a bill introduced in the South Carolina Senate and is lobbying for its passage. The endorsement was announced through SFLA's dark money arm Students for Life Action (SFLAction).

The bill, S.1095, is entitled the “Unborn Child Protection Act.”

SFLAction's announcement notes it's contribution to the bill:

Students for Life Action (SFLAction) President Kristan Hawkins celebrated the introduction of the SFLAction-modeled “Unborn Child Protection Act” (S.1095). The bill, sponsored by Sen. Richard Cash (R), is modeled after SFLAction’s own language in the “Life Begins at Conception Act” (H.3457) and SFLAction’s model “Anti-Chemical Abortion Pill Trafficking Act” legislation.

South Carolina currently bans abortions at six weeks LMP (which is ~3 weeks after the start of pregnancy). — S.1095 would change this by banning abortion prior to 6 weeks LMP, resulting in a full ban.

South Carolina’s current abortion ban also includes several exceptions, including fatal fetal diagnosis and rape or incest. — S.1095 would change this by eliminating the statutory exceptions for fatal fetal diagnosis and rape or incest.

S.1095 also bans the possession of “any drug or chemical, or any combination of drugs or chemicals, or any other substance when used with the intent to cause an abortion of a clinically diagnosable pregnancy including, but not limited to, RU-486, the Mifeprex regimen, misoprostol, or methotrexate.”

Criminalizing pregnant and formerly pregnant individuals

S.1095 explicitly criminalizes people who are or were pregnant by adding several new sections to South Carolina code of law: §44‑41‑611, §44‑41‑612, and § 44‑41‑614. Below is the relevant text for each of the sections.

*Note: The bill uses the word woman, but does not define that term to exclude minors. It is therefore possible that minors would be subject to adult criminal penalties.

§ 44‑41‑611 (Unlawful Procurement of Abortion)

“It is unlawful to knowingly and intentionally use or employ any instrument, device, means, or procedure upon a pregnant woman with the specific intent of causing an abortion… A woman upon whom an unlawful abortion was performed pursuant to this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be imprisoned for up to two years or fined up to one thousand dollars, or both.”

§ 44‑41‑612 (Unlawful Consumption of Abortion-inducing Drugs)

“It is unlawful for any person to knowingly and intentionally administer to, prescribe for, deliver to, provide to, or sell to an abortion‑inducing drug to a pregnant woman, with the intent to cause an unlawful abortion… A woman who ingests an abortion‑inducing drug with the intent of inducing an unlawful abortion is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be imprisoned for up to two years or fined up to one thousand dollars, or both.”

§ 44‑41‑614 (Unlawful Possession of Abortion-inducing Drugs)

“It is unlawful to possess, manufacture, mail, distribute, transport, deliver, or provide an abortion‑inducing drug; or aid or abet the performance, induction, or attempted abortion, or the manufacture, mailing, distribution, transportation, delivery, or provision of an abortion‑inducing drug… A pregnant woman who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be imprisoned for not more than two years or fined one thousand dollars; or both.”

*Note: There are other portions of the bill that may subject pregnant people to additional criminalization and the possibility of even harsher punishment, but do not explicitly do so. I'll be discussing this in the next post.

Moving the Overton Window

The Overton Window represents the range of policies that are acceptable to the mainstream population at any given time. Policies that fall outside the Overton Window, like prosecuting currently and formerly pregnant people for abortion and abortion-related activities, are not likely to gain broad support.

But the Overton Window also moves over time, and anti-SRHR groups have long employed a strategy of moving the Overton Window to get their unpopular policies enacted. SFLA’s support for S.1095 is this strategy in action.

Mainstream “pro-life” groups benefit from the introduction of extremist legislation, such as homicide bills put forth by so-called “abortion abolitionists.” Mainstream groups depend on such legislation to create the illusion that mainstream legislation is mild.

The tactic of adopting a more moderate position in order to seem reasonable by comparison is at the heart of S.1095.

The bill prescribes two-year prison sentences, fines, or both, for people who obtain or seek abortion. It is unquestionably extreme to take away a woman’s freedom for two long years—knowing the negative long-term effects of doing so will befall her or her existing children—because she made the decision not to go forward with the grueling and risky labor of producing a new human within her own body in consideration of her health and her lived circumstances.

Imposing fines upon someone is no less extreme. It's still amounts to arbitrarily punishing women for exercising moral agency in matters directly affecting their health and lives. It's still based upon the grotesque, sexist belief that anyone with a uterus is primarily a reproductive object that exists for other people's use and benefit.

But for a public now-used to hearing about of the “abortion abolitionist” homicide bills that punish abortion with life imprisonment or the death penalty, the contrast of homicide bills with S.1095's callous, arbitrary, and dehumanizing cruelty creates the illusion that S.1095 is mild in comparison—when, in reality, any form of punishment of whatever degree is extreme.

This is all part of a calculated effort to manifest a shift in the Overton Window—to shift what the public considers normal.

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Duplicitous Knaves and Media Dupes

Like nearly all other anti-choice groups and activists, SFLA and its leaders are duplicitous schemers.

Take SFLA's queen bee, Kristan Hawkins, who has repeatedly told members of the press that the prolife movement, herself and her organization included, “opposes throwing mothers in jail.” She even co-authored an article with Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA-PLA), titled, “We’re Two Pro-Life Women Who Say ‘No’ to Prosecuting Women for Abortions.”

She was lying.

To emphasize Hawkins's duplicity, let's look back to February 2025. In a post on social media that month, Hawkins again insisted that she opposes “jailing women.” — Meanwhile, that same month, Hawkins admitted, in the middle of her hour-long podcast, that she and other major, mainstream anti-rights leaders are actually pro-prosecuting women. They just want to keep that little tidbit a secret until criminalizing people for making decisions about their health becomes more popular (I discussed this strategy here).

Her organization, Students for Life of America is equally duplicitous.

In a January 2023 post on social media, SFLAction said, “YOU 🙅‍♂️ WILL 🙅‍♀️ NOT see @StudentsforLife or SFLAction looking to prosecute mothers.” — Yet, three years later, that's exactly what SFLA and SFLAction are doing.

As discussed in “Five ways mainstream press is failing us on repro health,” far too many reporters have a contemptible habit of playing the role of stenographer rather than reporter, mindlessly repeating the anti-choice groups’ bogus assertions that they do not support criminalizing pregnant people.

As rePro-Truth has repeatedly pointed out (see here, here, here, and here), that mainstream groups opposed to sexual and reproductive health and human rights (SRHR) support punishing abortion patients and criminalizing pregnancy—despite what they tell media dupes who print anti-choice lies like good little stenographers.

But unlike court stenographers, who perform an important and noble public duty, reporters acting as stenographers for the duplicitous knaves and schemers of a radically anti-rights movement do a serious disservice to the public.

Just think about it: How might things today be different had there been accurate reporting in the mainstream press of the pro-prosecution stance of so-called “pro-life” groups throughout the nearly four years that have passed since the Republican-dominated Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, instead of the uncritical regurgitation of anti-SRHR bullsh*t?

We will never get that time back. And how much more time will be lost before legacy media picks up this report and/or begins to cover this issue with the critical accuracy that such an impactful matter demands? How long will the broad American public be deprived of important information—information that is material to their literal freedom?

Wait, There's More…

S.1095 is a behemoth of a bill, and there's a lot more in it than just further banning abortion and prosecuting pregnant and formerly pregnant adults and minors.

Effecting more than just abortion, S.1095 is a smorgasbord of terrible policy ideas that would that demands further discussion and examination. rePro-Truth will break it all down for you in the next post.

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I've been working on an in-depth piece for yall that I won't be finished with until next week, but I just had to stop and remark on breaking news out of Texas…

In 2022, as you may recall, Texas officials arrested, jailed, and charged a young woman with murder for self-managing an abortion—which is not a crime in Texas! A grand jury indicted her. After her name and mugshot were splashed all over the news around the world, the prosecutor begrudgingly dropped the charge and was reprimanded.

An investigation by the State Bar of Texas found that the prosecutor “sought to pursue criminal homicide charges against an individual for acts clearly not criminal.”

Not only did the prosecutor know that the young woman's actions were completely legal, but he allegedly paid for his side piece to get get an abortion.

Despite the charge being dropped, for the young woman the damage to to her had already been done. So, she sued the officials for violating her constitutional rights, false arrest, and malicious prosecution.

Her hopes of holding the county officials accountable ended today, when Republican U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton—a Trump appointee—ruled that the Texas officials are immune from being held accountable for violatinf the yound woman's constitutional rights by arresting, jailing, charging, and getting an indictment against her for perfectly legal behavior.

Pretending like the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. ​Constitution don’t exist—which, by all appearances, is the Republican Party’s official anti-America stance now—U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton said that county officials are immune from accountability because they didn’t violate a clearly established law.

Republican U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton based his decision on a so-called doctrine that is found no where in the U.S. Constitution: this legal, practical, and moral failure is known as qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity is a totally made up thing that was imposed upon the country by the whims of the Supreme Court in 1967 (Pierson v. Ray). The “doctrine” was brazenly expanded beyond all justification via the judicial fiat of a Republican-dominated Supreme Court in 1982 (Harlow v. Fitzgerald).

There's no longer any qualified about qualified immunity. It's just immunity.

(As for the prosecutor mentioned above, the judge ruled that he is protected by absolute immunity.)

So here we are.

Forced-birth officials are free to bring bogus murder charges against people who have abortions or who miscarry much-wanted pregnancies, or who suffer stillbirth while Black. Meanwhilr, the misogynistic jerks who maliciously bring such bogus charges are protected—by judicial fiat—can just keep on doing it without fear of accountability. In a post-Dobbs words, that's a very dangerous thing.

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Anti-rights groups are morally bankrupt. They indulge in all manner of deception and trickery. Every time a woman's life is snuffed out or maimed psychologically traumatized by their policies of control, they immediately refuse to take any responsibility, lie, deflect blame, and engage in elaborate cover-ups. Every time an abusive man wants to maintain control over a woman he has victimized, they eagerly come to his aid in an unholy alliance, filing lawsuits on the man's behalf to bring the abuser’s dream of control into a reality.

And, importantly, anti-rights groups nimbly and subversively appropriate the language used by human rights activists and victims’ advocates in order to devilishly conceal the chief goal of their initiatives—to restrict and control women's autonomy—behind language that is more appealing to the modern public. Their language changes but their goal and their mechanism - coercion - are set in stone.

And because the majority of anti-choice leaders are opportunistic, self-serving, and morally bankrupt, they are currently engaged in the contemptuously disingenuous exploitation of reproductive coercion. Just this week, the National Right to Life Committee published an article hailing the political expediency of using the concept of reproductive coercion as an advantageous vehicle for persuading those who aren’t yet pro-life to get on board with advancing anti-choice groups’ own goal of restricting and controlling women's autonomy through State coercion.

But they aren't merely co-opting language of human rights activists and victims’ advocates.

And they are merely subversively exploiting a the very real problem of reproductive coercion.

They're watering down the characteristics of this specific type of abuse to such an extent that it could harm the people experiencing reproductive coercion and hamper the fight for justice.

But anti-rights groups don't care if they hurt people or perpetrate injustice. They're bulldozing ahead without caution, without any sense of responsibility, and without any awareness of their own deprativy.

Demonstrably, anti-rights groups and activists don't give a damn about reproductive coercion. In fact, their entire immoral agenda is to perpetrate it—to be the abusers they so eagerly support.

That's why I'm reposting the below article, “Abortion Bans are Reproductive Coercion.” 👇

Abortion Bans are Reproductive Coercion

(Part II of How to Talk About Abortion Bans and Restrictions)

The movement against reproductive health, rights, and justice has long worked to obscure the fact that its “so-called ‘pro-life’ view on abortion is both coercive and grounded in an illiberal political philosophy.”1 But the “pro-life” view invariably holds that “a just society would use the coercive authority of the State to force pregnant people to conform to [the ‘pro-life’] moral and metaphysical worldview and… enforce this conformation through punishment. The State is therefore permitted, indeed required, to coercively prohibit abortion on this illiberal view” (emphasis added).2 “This is the aim of the pro-life movement: to control all reproductive decisions… so that they are made in accord with the movement’s substantive” worldview.3

Movement leaders and activists, of course, employed woman-protective anti-abortion arguments (WPAA) to obscure the coerciveness at the heart of their ideology. It's out job to bring it back out into the light.

How we talk about abortion bans matters.

For years, I was a part of the so-called “Pro-life” movement. I was a true believer in the movement’s promises that it cared about the wellbeing of the pregnant person as much as the “unborn.” When movement leaders said they wanted to “protect women from coercion,” that resonated with me deeply. But it never occurred to me that the “Pro-life” solution to coercion was really just more coercion.

I didn't realize that I was part of an abusive movement built on coercion and force, because I never heard anyone talk about abortion restrictions for what they truly are: reproductive coercion. That's why it is so important for supporters of reproductive justice to speak to the realities of abortion bans. Our words really do have power. Your words have the power to make change.

Reproductive Coercion

The United States “has long operated under interlocking, constructed systems of power and oppression.”4 Two of these systems are patriarchy and White supremacy.5

• Patriarchy is “a social system wherein male-bodied people dominate, exploit, and oppress female-bodied people.”6

• White supremacy is “a social system in which White people overwhelmingly control power and resources, and ideas of White superiority are widespread and continually reenacted.”7

In the reproductive sphere, these two systems of power and oppression manifest as reproductive coercion.8

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Reproductive Coercion (RC) is a pernicious form of abuse and violence “characterized by interference in a person’s reproductive health and autonomy as a means of asserting power and control” over the coerced person.9

Reproductive coercion(RC)—also called Reproductive Coercion and Abuse (RCA)—can take many forms, including interference with contraception; forced sterilization or limiting contraceptive options; using pressure, deception, or violence to force someone to become pregnant; forced birth or forced abortions; withholding information about health and healthcare; obstructing access to health services or healthcare providers; attempting to ban services, treatments, or procedures outright; and empowering third parties to impose their views upon others.101112 Because RC involves the “deliberate restriction of options”13 in order to maintain power and control, it necessarily “undermines reproductive health.”14

While people often connect RC with intimate partner violence (IPV), reproductive coercion “within the United States [is] an integrated system of reproductive control” that operates at four ecological levels.12

1. Societal

2. Institutional

3. Interpersonal

4. Internalized

Policies, such as abortion-restrictive regulations, “that interfere with an individual’s reproductive autonomy are [] manifestations of coercive intimate partner violence”;15 and “under abortion bans, the lines between policymakers and abusive partners are increasingly blurred.”16 In fact, under abortion restrictions, the State is the abuser.17

Abortion Restrictions are Reproductive Coercion

As noted in Part 1 of this series, abortion restrictions are the exercise of raw, coercive, hegemonic power through governmental force that both *prohibits private actions and *compels individuals to perform private labor *unwillingly, without regard for their wellbeing.

Abortion restrictions are also reproductive coercion at the societal level.

State Reproductive Coercion

Societal Level Reproductive Coercion — which some refer to as State Reproductive Coercion — a long-studied occurance in the anthropology of reproduction.18 State Reproductive Coercion is state control over reproduction19 through policies that deploy the police powers of the State to “constrain and destroy reproductive autonomy”20 as a means of “achieving broader objectives of social control.”21

Societal-level Reproductive Coercion can take many forms, including, but not limited to “withholding information, obstructing access to health services or providers, attempting to ban services outright and empowering third parties to impose their views on others.”22

“Individuals who experience [interpersonal] reproductive coercion at the interpersonal level,” which is linked to higher rates of unplanned/unwanted pregnancies, “are often additionally burdened by” societal-level policies of reproductive coercion, “further compromising their ability to control their own reproductive health and future.”23 While “reproductive health care centers are primary sites of intervention for victims of reproductive coercion,”24 societal-level efforts at reproductive coercion often directly target these vital points of access to help. Through TRAP laws and attacks on funding, countless reproductive health care centers have closed or have otherwise been made inaccessible, especially to the underprivileged, the disempowered, and the vulnerable.252627 “Overall, this system of public policy functions to maintain a stratified reproduction system that pressures for or against pregnancy to the same effect as” interpersonal reproductive coercion and control.28

As “policies that interfere with an individual’s reproductive autonomy,” abortion restrictions are societal-level “manifestations of coercive intimate partner violence.”29

Under abortion bans, not only is intimate partner violence and interpersonal reproductive coercion far more prevalent;3031 the State both enables abusers and itself becomes the abuser.32 The result of this societal reproductive coercion is a “legal climate and political reality… in which abusers and the U.S. government present a conjoined threat to pregnant people and survivors’ bodies and lives.”33

Importantly, societal-level reproductive coercion carried out through abortion bans is an assault on one's very identity and sense of self. When forced to continue a pregnancy against one's will, “a woman loses the ‘authority to construct pregnancy and motherhood for’ herself; she is simultaneously separated her from, and reduced to, her reproductive capabilities. As Professor Julia Hanigsberg has written, ‘taking away women’s ability to control their decision not to become mothers can be severely damaging to their very sense of self, for this denial of decisionmaking divides women from their wombs and uses their wombs for purpose unrelated to women’s own aspirations.’”34

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Additionally, in the United States, “gendered and/or racialized power dynamics permeate many efforts to control a person’s bodily autonomy and reproductive health.”35 Recent research indicates that societal reproductive coercion through abortion bans is employed as a means of “using the state to enforce a particular ethnocultural social order.”36 Hence, this societal-level system of reproductive coercion “frequently functions to privilege White [male] control over reproduction and compromise the reproductive control of communities of color.”37

Reproductive coercion through abortion-restrictive legislation is also a means of enforcing patriarchal gender roles and prescriptive behavioral expectations.3839 For example, research links support for abortion restrictions to a desire “to suppress others’ casual sexual behavior.”40

*Furthermore, as research shows—and current events in America prove—a governments’ decisions to institute abortion restrictions foretell broader human rights violations,41 especially Physical Integrity Rights (PIR) abuses.42 —Abortion bans “directly serve as a testing ground for authoritarian governments,” and for governments with authoritarian aspirations, “to gauge public response and expand their control over citizens’ rights more broadly.”43 Abortion restrictions also “create greater inequality and societal divisions, weakening support for diversity and tolerance, and undermining collective efforts to resist further human rights abuses.”44 This research underscores how abortion rights are deeply interconnected with broader human rights frameworks and how these rights can significantly impact overall societal well-being and democratic integrity.45 [And as scholars have warned, the curtailment of women’s reproductive autonomy and rights are an early indication that a democracy is in danger.]

“Denial of bodily autonomy is the essence of violence against human beings. Reproductive coercion by the government— is a form of violence against women. Women have a right to control what happens to their bodies at all times. Forcing a person to continue a pregnancy is first an assault and then servitude.”46

As the above information makes clear:

Abortion bans are societal-level reproductive coercion wherein the police powers of the State are employed to constrain or destroy reproductive autonomy to achieve broader objectives of social control, undermining reproductive health, bodily integrity, and human dignity.

To maintain power and control over people's bodies, lives, and futures, abortion bans use the police powers of the State to enforce coerced pregnancy and birth, working in tandum with abusive partners and family members, exacerbating intimate partner violence and coercion without regard for pregnant individuals’ safety or wellbeing, with the goal of achieving broader objectives of social control.

If your solution to reproductive coercion is more reproductive coercion via abortion-restrictive policies, you're not concerned about coercion at all - or about women.

Your only concern is keeping women pregnant.

Against their wills.

Without concern for their wellbeing.

As I pointed out in Part I of this series, there are non-coercive ways to decrease the number of abortions and help those who wish to parent do so. It matters that opponents of reproductive rights and justice have chosen instead to exercise raw, coercive, hegemonic power through governmental force to both *prohibit private actions and *compel individuals to perform private labor *unwillingly, without regard for their wellbeing.

Abortion bans are reproductive coercion and we need to be shouting that from the rooftops.■

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A 20-year-old man—whom I am not naming because he doesn't deserve the name recognition—has confessed to plotting to assassinate a Montana physician because the physician provides abortion care. He also confessed to firing bullets through the front door of an abortion clinic in 2023, when he was 17 years old, and he admitted to plotting to bomb a second abortion clinic in 2024. In addition, he said that he was planning to assassinate the head of Planned Parenthood.

As rePro-Truth recently reported, acts of anti-abortion terrorism is on the rise.

On March 8, 2026, the man drove to an abortion provider's home. Peering through the window, the man said he watched the physician and his wife eat dinner.

As the man climbed onto the back porch with a .327 revolver, he said that he suddenly changed his mind. Instead of shooting the doctor, he threw the gun through a sliding glass window and into the home.

He told police that he doesn't know why he changed his mind.

The man was reportedly radicalized when he was in high school. That's when he started idolizing anti-abortion terrorists who assassinated doctors and bombed health care centers.

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As rePro-Truth has previously discussed, frustration with the persistence of abortion and a belief that anti-choice groups and/or anti-choice officials are not doing enough to stop it, has led abortion foes to commit acts of terror and violence. When anti-choice leaders’ actions are out of sinc with their moralizing and outrageous language and claims, that incongruity can be a source of radicalization. According to the police report, the man who confessed to plotting to kill the Montana abortion provider “felt the modern pro-life movement was 'just pathetic and was not accomplishing anything.’” So he took direct action.

He has been charged with two counts of assault with a weapon (felony), one count of intimidation (felony), and criminal trespass (misdemeanor).

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❗️UPDATE: According to Camden County Sheriff's Office Inmate Inquiry, the woman has been charged with attempt to murder.

In Georgia, murder charges are divided into two categories: commit and attempt. Georgia statute states: “A person commits the offense of criminal attempt when, with intent to commit a specific crime, he performs any act which constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of that crime.”

This is important to note, because the elements of an attempt charge make it easier for the State to prosecute. (In this case, the attempted murder charge doesn't require the State to prove cause of death.)

A Georgia outlet is reporting that a woman has been charged with murder for allegedly consuming misoprostol to end her pregnancy. Georgia's abortion ban enshrined Fetal Personhood ideology, beginning ~6 weeks LMP.

Georgia's abortion ban focuses on punishing providers. The ban does not explicitly criminalize pregnant people for terminating their own pregnancies, however it also does not include an explicit exemption from prosecution for pregnant people who self-induce abortions.

The details are few and murky (and may change as more information comes out).

Misoprostol is an ulcer drug that “is used off-label for a variety of indications in the practice of obstetrics and gynecology, including medication abortion, medical management of miscarriage, induction of labor, cervical ripening before surgical procedures, and the treatment of postpartum hemorrhage. Misoprostol’s effects are dose dependent.”1

The standard dose of misoprostol for the purposes of both medication abortion and miscarriage management is 800 mcg (micrograms). However, the local outlet states that the woman consumed 200 mg (milligrams) of misoprostol—a dose that is 250 times higher than the 800 mcg standard. A second article from the same outlet states the woman consuming 20 mg of misoprostol—a dose that is 25 times higher than the standard 800 mcg dose.

Abortion bans create a black market of abortion drugs that may not always be safe or the correct dosage. (To access safe medications, click here.)

Depending on the dose, misoprostol can trigger contractions, inducing labor. This is why the drug is used to treat miscarriages and for early abortions (though abortion bans have resulted in delayed provision). Hence, the woman is effectively being charged with murder for merely inducing labor before the fetus was viable.

According to the local outlet, after consuming the misoprostol, the woman delivered a non-viable fetus at the hospital, who expired after birth. Abortion bans delay access to safe abortions, forcing people to stay pregnant longer than they otherwise would.

This occurred in December, but she was arrested last week and charged with murder. She is being held behind bars without bond.

On March 13, 1999, a bomb exploded at the Femcare clinic in Asheville, North Carolina. “The bomb was placed into a knapsack and exploded at around 7:30a.m., 1/2 hour before the clinic was scheduled to open.”1 “Officials found what they believe was either a secondary incendiary device or a portion of the original device that did not explode,” meaning the bomb only partially detonated.2

The President of the United States released the following statement:

“I was deeply disturbed to learn of the attempted bombing of a family planning clinic in Asheville, North Carolina. We can all be grateful that no one was harmed and that the clinic suffered only minor damage. But whether or not a terrorist's bomb achieves its deadly purpose, such cowardly and criminal acts strike at the heart of the constitutional freedoms and individual liberties all Americans hold dear. I strongly condemn this act of senseless violence. Federal agents are already in Asheville to assist local law enforcement officials. I am confident that the perpetrators of this terrible act will be brought to justice.”

The bomb had been placed against the wall of the Femcare clinic near the waiting room, but detonated shortly before the clinic opened.3 No patients were inside.

“It appeared to be a very large device,” said Police Chief Will Annarino, adding “[I]t appears it could have caused a lot of damage.”4

The case remains open and no arrests have been made.

Today marks the anniversary of the first assassination of an obstetrics and gynaecology doctor by an anti-abortion terrorist in America. Today, anti-abortion terror attacks are on the rise.

OB-GYN Dr. David Lomond Gunn was passionate about women’s reproductive health and dedicated to providing his patients with the care they needed, including safe abortion care.

When abortion clinics in both urban and rural areas of the South couldn't find any skilled obstetrician gynecologists to provide abortions, Dr. Gunn decided that he was not going leave those patients behind. At the time, anti-abortion terror attacks were rampant across the U.S. and had scared away many OBGYNs from providing care who otherwise would have. So, multiple times a week, the 47-year-old father of two left his Alabama home and drove to locations across the region to provide patients with safe abortions.

On March 10, 1993, in Pensecola, Florida, Dr. Gunn had just arrived at Women's Medical Services and was walking toward the rear entrance when he was fatally shot three times in the back by 31-year-old Michael Frederick Griffin. He had been lying in wait for the obstetrician gynecologist to arrive.

The terrorist shouted, “Don’t kill any more babies!” and then shot the doctor point blank.

He said he was acting “for God.”

It was the first assassination of an abortion provider in the U.S.

The assassin was involved with Rescue America, a militant group led by Jon Treshman. Rescue America was holding an anti-abortion protest at the clinic that day. It was organized by John Burt, a former Ku Klux Klan member turned fundamentalist preacher who, in 2004, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for child sexual abuse. Burt told the New York Times that “moments after demonstrators heard a series of shots, Mr. Griffin came out from the rear of the building, approached a police officer and said, ‘I've just shot Dr. Gunn.’"

A shocked witness of Dr. Gunn's assassination told the Washington Post that the anti-abortion protesters had acted strangely right after the shooting. "It looked like they were just happy," he said.

As I noted in the in-depth report Fetal Personhood Violence, in the year before Dr. Gunn’s assassination, anti-choice terrorists launched a campaign of terror against him.

Intimidation.

Harassment.

Stalking.

The terrorists hung “WANTED” posters across the region— even at his daughter's school. These “WANTED” posters featured Dr. Gunn’s photograph, home address, phone number, his work schedule, a description of his vehicle and his license plate number, and other personal and identifying details.

After Dr. Gunn was assassinated, anti-abortion terrorists released a statement in support of his assassin.

The statement said that assassinating abortion providers is “a godly action.”

There is an inherent danger in providing compregensive reproductive health care, as the bodies of disempowered and marginalized groups are a site of political, social, and cultural contestation of power and control. It takes courage, love, and a burning for justice to step into that space and provide vital, patient-centered abortion care.

Thirty years ago today, to honor of Dr. David Lomond Gunn's bravery, compassion, and courage, and all those who have continued in his footsteps, March 10th was designated Abortion Provider Appreciation Day.

Today, as anti-abortion terrorist attacks are again on the rise, rePro-Truth honors the memory and work of Dr. David Lomond Gunn, and gives thanks for all those dedicated to providing safe abortion care.

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Earlier this month, after what has felt like an eternity of tracking down records and trying to navigate the military bureaucracy, I recieved the news I've been waiting for: The United States government had officially approved my dad's headstone listing a high valor award he'd received. We did it, Daddy! We got it!

A pilot in the U.S. Air Force, my dad served as a Forward Air Controller (FAC) during the Vietnam War — a dangerous job that involved regularly getting shot at. For his aerial skill and courage during an operation that took place on the night of March 17, 1971, the United States bestowed upon him the highest award for aerial achievement in the armed forces, the Distinguished Flying Cross. It is awarded only to those who've distinguished themselves by single acts of heroism or extraordinary aerial achievement.

Of my dad, as well as the other FAC serving alongside him that night in 1971, USAF Lt. Colonel K. C. Culp wrote at the time, “The professional competence, aerial skill, and devotion to duty displayed by Captain [] and Captain [] reflect great credit upon themselves and the United States Air Force.”

Just above the words that so epitomize my father, “I did it my way,” his headstone lists his award. “Distinguished Flying Cross.” It was a bittersweet moment as I gazed upon my dad's headstone.

It's a strange feeling to miss someone so intensely — to wish that you could pick up the phone and talk to him, and that you could run to him for a comforting embrace — while simultaneously being glad he isn't here to witness what's become of the country he served. Many of you are experiencing the same feelings in regards to your loved ones who've passed on. Missing them dearly but thankful they don't have see what's happening. Longing to talk with them in the midst of such trying times, but relieved they're shielded from enduring the new, dark reality in which we're living.

Shortly after my dad's headstone arrived, I received a certificate in the mail. It says, “The United States of America honors the memory of” my dad. “This certificate is awarded by a grateful nation in recognition of devoted and selfless consecration to the service of our country in the Armed Forces of the United States.” It's signed by President Trump.

I thought to myself, “America honors my dad's memory? HONORS???!!! A grateful nation????!!!!!! You've got to be kidding me!”

Republicans - the creeps who want to send single adults to compounds and marry them off, the creeps whose party is in absolute control of all branches of the federal government - are prosecuting women in their Jane Crow States for miscarriages and killing us by criminalizing our reproductive healthcare. In my state, Tennessee, the creeps are proposing legislation that could send me to the death chamber if I end a pregnancy that could leave alive but permanently impaired. Meanwhile, they're also defunding birth control and allowing religious hospitals and doctors to refuse to sterilize me or even provide me with prenatal care. My dad is rolling over in his grave!!!!!!!

It's difficult to describe the peculiar, conflicted duality of emotions that arise when celebrating the arrival of my dad's headstone listing his high valor award for his service to our country occurring alonside wrenching in anguished horror as agents of the very same country now carry out extrajudicial killings, terrorize neighbors, spy on citizens, and place regular folks on the Terrorist Watchlist for exercising rights once secured by a Constitution that is now a mere relic of a Republic that some once referred to as the Land of the Free.

A dark, new reality is violently colliding against everything that once was, as millions of Americans — given license to indulge their worst selves — drool and cheer like gargoyles perched upon a Gothic cathedral.

And the President-King who, along with the Grotesque Ol’ Party of authoritarian coconspirators and enablers, unleashed all this savagery claims the United States is “honoring” my dad's memory? What sort of cheap, hollow, counterfeit “honor” is this? You honor people with your actions, not some piece of paper.

And “a grateful” nation? No! My dad fought against authoritarianism. Millions of Americans have eagerly sold the country and its veterans for authoritarianism because, right now, that authoritarianism is punishing all the people they hate: women, feminists, LGBT people, immigrants and their children, Black and Brown people, Native American Indians, and everyone who isn't a reich-wing Christen.

Undeniably, the celebration of my father feels tainted. Cheapened. The satin-finished bronze of the Distinguished Flying Cross now tarnished, dimmed. His service and sacrifices in vain. And I know many of you are confronting this same desecration of your loved ones’ memory and sacrifices. We lament together as one.

I see you. We are in this together.

As much as you may feel alone and no matter how scary things become, remember that we are going to walk through the fire together as one. Being here alonside you and fighting the good fight is how I am choosing to truly honor my dad—and all your loved ones who dared to dream of freedom. We march together as one.

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The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the nation's largest Protestant denomination, was founded in 1845 to support and protect a great evil: hereditary chattel slavery. That same year, Rev. Richard Fuller of South Carolina, one of the denomination's founders, published a letter defending slavery in the Christian Reflector. (This letter, and others by Fuller, can be found in the 1856 book, Domestic Slavery Considered As a Scriptural Institution Fuller's letter begins on page 1).

In the letter, Fuller insisted that hereditary chattel slavery — built upon and sustained by the forced reproductive labor of Black women and girls objectified as instruments for others’ use — was not a moral evil. He decried “abolitionist doctrine.”

One hundred and eighty-one years later, the head of that same denomination, is espousing a counterfeit abolitionist doctrine of White Supremacy and State murder built upon a great evil: the forced reproductive labor of women and girls objectified as instruments for others’ use.

Slavery is back in vogue.

In a denomination plagued by sexual abuse that it steadfastly refuses to seriously address.

Today, Clint Presley, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), came out in support of an “abortion abolitionist” bill being introduced in Tennessee. The bill would subject women and girls (at risk of being tried as adults) to the death penalty for ending their pregnancies.

Make no mistake: This is gender-based policy violence and the fruit of reproductive objectification.

Human beings are not instruments for objectifiers’ use. When people make their own decisions “about pregnancy, whatever that decision,” it is an assertion of their full humanity and “an enactment of subjectivity and autonomy.”1

And when those objectified as instruments assert their full humanity, it can trigger the wrath of the objectifiers. As researchers have noted:

“Following the humanization that results from the decision to have an abortion, backlash is probable—sexism and objectification will likely manifest in ways meant to put people who have had abortions back in their places.”2

Today, that violent backlash to women and girls asserting their full humanity comes with the threat of execution — a demand for state violence blessed by the leader of a denomination founded in 1845 to support and protect the great evil.

As it turns out, the SBC has remained pro-slavery at its very core, with a theology built upon and sustained by the forced reproductive labor of Black women and girls objectified as instruments for others’ use.

“Give birth or we'll kill you!”

As Ja'han Jones points out, “What is slavery if not claiming dominion over a body that isn’t yours? And in this case, right-wing lawmakers are claiming ownership over the bodies of pregnant people because they claim to have a vested interest in the babies those bodies can produce. It is literally forced labor.”3

Women are not some piece of collectively owned community machinery. Forced reproductive labor at the threat of death isn't equal protection. — It's slavery. It's a f***ing hostage situation.

Yes, slavery is back in vogue in the SBC, but Jesus has left the building. ■

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In 2025, the Ethics in Public Policy Center (“EPPC”), a conservative think tank with a record of hostility to medication abortion, released an analysis of insurance data purporting to show that serious adverse events occur more frequently than reported by the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) and, based on the results, that the FDA should reinstate prior restrictions on mifepristone prescriptions.

Since its release, the analysis has come under heavy criticism for fundamental problems with its design and methodology that seriously undermine EPPC’s claim that medication abortion has more risk in real world settings than previously disclosed.1 The analysis does not reliably identify patients who have taken medication abortion and misclassifies serious adverse events. At best, the analysis demonstrates that if you count more outcomes as serious adverse events, you will get a higher rate of serious adverse outcomes. Furthermore, EPPC does not identify the data that it uses and is not sufficiently specific about how it identifies serious adverse events for their results to be validated. EPPC’s analysis is not a methodologically rigorous, evidence-based analysis. It’s more like an anti-abortion press release with a chart to make it seem credible.

The safety and efficacy of medication abortion is supported by evidence from hundreds of clinical trials and decades of safety data based on real world use.2 That has not been called into question by a shady analysis from an anti-abortion think tank that won’t even show its work.

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For pregnant patients, medication abortion is far safer than staying pregnant and giving birth.

Even if the complication rates reported by EPPC were valid, medication abortion is still far safer than the alternative: staying pregnant and giving birth. EPPC presents the risks of medication abortion in isolation, without stating the obvious: without access to medication abortion, many people who would otherwise end their pregnancies will continue pregnancy. The anti-abortion movement is counting on it.

Like any other treatment regimen, any assessment of the risks of medication abortion must account for the alternatives to treatment.3 For pregnant patients, continuing pregnancy is not a neutral background: the same physiological processes that sustain fetal life and development also expose pregnant patients to pain, injury and escalating medical risk. Because these risks arise from continuation of pregnancy, many of these risks can be mitigated or avoided by ending pregnancy promptly when a pregnant patient has decided that they do not want to continue pregnancy. Moral objections to abortion do not alter medical risks. The safety of medication abortion must be evaluated against the risk of continuing pregnancy.

Even assuming EPPC’s results did not wildly overstate the risks of medication abortion (they do), EPPC’s results would still demonstrate that medication abortion is far safer for pregnant patients than continuing pregnancy and giving birth.

The below graph compares the EPPC's numbers with the risks associated with continuing pregnancy and giving birth (see footnotes456).

Click here for the document version of the graph.

The risks associated with continuing pregnancy and birth that are presented in the graph above are reported conservatively, by design. Results have been pulled from studies that focus on risks related to deliveries and live birth to ensure that no abortion-related risks were attributed to risks related to pregnancy and birth. As a result, the risks listed above generally exclude risks related to miscarriage, stillbirth, and complications earlier in pregnancy and cannot account for the full spectrum of risks associated with continuing pregnancy.

Even by EPPC's inflated figures of mifepristone “complications,” medication abortion is still far safer than continuing pregnancy and giving birth.7 —The only way for anti-choicers to argue that medication abortion is “unsafe” is to pretend that continuing pregnancy and giving birth has no risk. But pretending pregnancy and birth are risk free is not a valid way to assess the safety of medication abortion for pregnant patients.

While pregnancy is not a disease, it is a condition that exposes patients to serious health risks. As the above graph demonstrates, limiting access to medication abortion necessarily puts pregnant patients at greater risk.

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None of the ‘safety’ restrictions on medication abortion that EPPC proposes provide any safety benefit. In fact, restrictions on medication abortion in general have always reflected a pattern of over-regulation stemming from the controversial nature of abortion (“abortion exceptionalism”), rather than reflecting the inherent safety of the drug.8

Requiring an in-clinic visit does not reduce any pharmacological risk related to mifepristone, and the delay that would result from such a requirement would only increase risk to pregnant patients. While both medication abortion and procedural abortion are safe for pregnant patients at all stages of gestation, with low risks of complications, risks increase as gestation progresses.9 Delays can mean the difference between accessing medication abortion or needing a procedural abortion, which can significantly increase the cost of care, especially for patients in regions where access to abortion is restricted, and push patients even further in gestation. A requirement for in-person visit access to abortion offers no benefit to pregnant patients and by creating barriers to abortion access only increases medical risk to pregnant patients.

EPPC’s analysis does not provide a valid basis for its conclusions or its policy recommendations. But since its release, the anti-abortion movement has tried to use EPPC’s analysis to call for restrictions on abortion. The anti-abortion movement is calling for policies that would put patients at greater risk and saying that it’s for their safety. Moral objections to abortion do not excuse dishonesty about medical risk.

Restrictions on medication abortion access put pregnant patients at greater risk. Every lie, every evasion, every distortion, every context-free assertion made by the anti-abortion movement or its political collaborators about the safety of medication abortion should be seen for what it is: a direct reflection of how little the safety of pregnant patients matters to them.

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UPDATE: The hearing has changed to Wednesday, January 14.

I used to genuinely believe that mifepristone was killing hundreds, if not thousands, of people, and that “The Abortion Industry” simply didn't care. In contrast, “pro-life” people truly cared about patients’ health, safety, and well-being.

It made sense to me at the time because only the “pro-life” media was reporting that women and girls were dropping like flies. And surely people who claimed to love Jesus wouldn't be telling lies.

I was very naïve.

Faux-life activists love to pay lip service to “protecting” the health and safety of people who are pregnant. Their every push to commandeer people's bodies and curtail individual liberty is dolled up as a saccharine devotion to “protecting women.” But their cloying professions of concern for pregnant people are just second-rate impersonations of those who actually have a heart for the wellbeing of others.

Look beneath faux-lifers’ dime-store knockoff of authentic altruism and concern for patient safety and you'll find a brutally painful truth: They don't give a damn about pregnant people.

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ON TUESDAY, another round of performative “pro-woman” gobbledygook, cooked-up by the faux-life, altruist impersonators, will be foisted onto the American public via a Senate hearing shamelessly titled, “Protecting Women: Exposing the Dangers of Chemical Abortion Drugs.”

The hearing will be led by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a gastroenterologist. “As a doctor and a strong pro-life conservative, I am committed to protecting mothers and the unborn. The medical evidence is clear: chemical abortion drugs not only kill innocent babies, but also put women in serious danger,” Cassidy said, unabashedly exploiting his status as a doctor for political expediency while blatantly lying about the data on the safety of mifepristone. “As Chairman of the [Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions] Committee, I look forward to discussing how to uphold a culture of life and prioritize women‘s safety over political ideology,” he said, shamelessly prioritizing political ideology over women's safety.

In 2022, Cassidy told politico that his state's abysmal maternal mortality rate wouldn't be as bad if you didn’t count Black women.

At Tuesday's hearing, fear-mongering faux-lifers will be masquerading as truth-seekers concerned for patients’ health and safety, and a parade of fetus fetishists will be cosplaying as impartial experts on drug safety. What we won’t see from Sen. Cassidy and other faux-lifers is the truth.

The truth is that the mifepristone/misoprostol medication abortion regimen is far safer than pregnancy and birth.

The truth is that restrictions on access always put people who want to end their pregnancies at greater risk.

The truth is that faux-lifers’ performative concern for “women's safety” is just another effort to commandeer people's bodies and curtail individual liberty dolled up as a saccharine devotion to “protecting women.”

The faux-life, pro-control movement is not trying to make patients safer. They’re deliberately manufacturing risk. ■

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The following post, originally published January 4, 2024, is a sobering reminder of how little the so-called “pro-life” movement values pregnant human beings’ lives and dignity. Keep this in mind, in 2026, every time the anti-rights movement claims “women’s safety” and “women’s health” as a cover for dangerous policy.

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It’s hard to imagine a more discouraging start to the new year for pregnant Americans and those who can/will become pregnant, as well as those who love them, than Tuesday’s ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The court ruled “that federal emergency room protections do not include abortions — even if an abortion is determined to be the medical care necessary to stabilize the patient.” “In other words,” explained Law Dork, “according to the Fifth Circuit, a provider does not have to stabilize the patient if the state outlaws stabilizing the patient.”

The ruling  does not only apply to the State of Texas. It also applies to all members, nationwide, belonging to the two anti-abortion medical associations who joined Texas in the suit: the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. They’re so pro-life they’ll stand there and watch you die.

The 5th Circuit’s ruling even goes so far as to declare that the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA), which was passed in 1986 to ensure that patients in emergencies receive treatment, “does not provide an unqualified right” for the pregnant patient experiencing an obstetric emergency to receive a medically-necessary abortion. Stephen I. Vladeck, the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law and a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts and constitutional law, expounded upon the significance of the 5th Circuit’s ruling. He wrote:

“Imagine a state abortion ban with no medical exception. Under the Fifth Circuit’s analysis, EMTALA arguably still would not require (or even allow) a doctor to perform an abortion that is necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman” (emphasis his).

In other words, pregnant Americans have no right to life. You lost your right to life-saving medical care as soon as your pee stick turned positive. “Pro-life” my ass.

Every single American citizen who goes to an emergency room has a right to emergency medical care under federal law - except the pregnant ones. They don’t count. They aren’t full citizens, they’re sub-citizens. 

The utter disregard for the lives of pregnant Americans evident in this case is nothing less than depraved indifference. Anti-abortion judges, states, and groups do not care if you are permanently harmed. They do not care if you die. They won’t stop until their depraved indifference is codified in law, through the courts if necessary. And as you languish in an emergency room, losing more and more blood, they’ll celebrate and pat themselves on the back for being oh so “pro-life.” 

This is the “culture of life” they want.

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This article is part of an ongoing series in partnership with TN Repro News.

Last week, we reported on the revival of an extremist anti-abortion operation led by Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry. That reporting focused on the group’s renewed visibility—but clinic harassment is only part of what’s unfolding.

Audio from inside the Open House offers a clear picture of this moment. We must listen to their words, plainly, to understand the threat they pose to reproductive rights organizations, clinic staffers, patients, and the safety of helpers and journalists.

Listen below to several statements made by Randall Terry, and pay close attention to the audience reactions. What’s being built here is a content farm and an extremist training space. They say their goals quite literally, and we should listen. Groups like these are so dangerous that even mainstream pro-life organizations do not want them.

1. “A Weapon of War”

What Terry believes this moment allows

In recorded remarks, Terry refers to the new Memphis training complex as a “weapon of war.” The language is deliberate. It reflects how he has long framed abortion: not as a moral debate, but as a battlefield. Their “peaceful” marketing is a ruse; know that.

Operation Rescue’s clinic blockades in the 1980s and 1990s escalated into violence. They led to the passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act in 1994, which shut down mass blockades as a viable tactic. This is who they are: violent.

The Memphis complex is not framed as a protest site or a temporary training space. It is framed as infrastructure meant to be replicated, exported, and deployed elsewhere. The marketing is shameless: listen above while he directs an audience during a shoot.

The strategy is clear: produce content and political campaigns, get media attention from activists willing to go to jail, show shocking images, recruit and repeat.

2. Running for Office as Media Strategy

How campaigns become advertising vehicles

This part isn’t a new strategy, but it will burn like wildfire now thanks to the Internet. Terry encourages participants to run for office—not to win, but to generate coverage.

He views political campaigns as advertising platforms. They’ve never wanted political control; they just want massive media buys. Running for office allows candidates to place anti-abortion messaging in paid media and to target Democratic officials under the legal protections afforded to campaigns. The campaign itself becomes the product.

This approach lowers the barrier to entry. Candidates do not need party backing or a viable path to office. They need attention, and paid ads provide it. The result is a total distortion of the civic process; it also weakens democracy and adds a new, dangerous layer onto media outlets trying to scrape by on what’s left of the First Amendment.

3. Religious Extremism vs. Anti-Abortion Lobby

How national policy efforts collide with extremist recruitment

Terry has acknowledged that much of the mainstream anti-abortion movement does not want him or his followers. He knows his approach is extremist and unpopular.

Terry’s training center operates in direct opposition to the work of Right to Life, Students for Life, and SBA. Regardless, he is committed to teaching the next generation of extremists, to go for “the bridge too far,” which will only deepen fractures, something the anti-abortion movement is desperately trying to avoid.

Anti-abortion organizations have spent decades distancing themselves from clinic harassment to pursue policy goals. In election years, like in 2026, this will heighten that caution, with antis pushing out controversy out to avoid voter backlash.

Listen to Will Brewer, a lobbyist with Tennessee Right to Life, explain the importance of unity in the movement in this now-deleted recording from earlier this year.

TN Repro News

Deleted Audio Reveals Plot to Repeal Tennessee IVF and Contraception Protections

The morning after Gov. Bill Lee signed the Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act into law, a group of anti-abortion leaders convened on an X Space to plan its undoing. The recording was public when it aired. It has since been deleted…

Read more

a year ago · 15 likes · 1 comment · Rachel Wells

4. ‘Fishing’ for the next wave

When Terry talks about “fishing,” he is describing a recruitment strategy, not a metaphor. Paid political ads are used to push extremist content into the public sphere, not to win elections, but to locate people who respond to it. The ads serve as bait, drawing in isolated viewers already receptive to escalation and confrontation.

The Memphis center then acts as a content studio and training ground. Activists are taught how to record, re-record, and refine messages for maximum reach, learning how to produce viral content that can be amplified through paid ads and social platforms. Audience reaction will be part of the process: virality and engagement will signal which messages land, where to pivot, and who is ready to go on the road.

It functions as a collegiate campus for “students” looking for a place. Young people who are disillusioned or anti-feminist will feel dangerously accepted. And when he eventually franchises centers across the country, we need to look at the threat clearly.

Become a paid subscriber to stay up to date on this story throughout 2026. It will be essential to track their national goals and how anti-abortion groups will respond.

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An extremist anti-abortion movement, ‘Rescue Resurrection,’ has found a new home in a former church complex in Memphis, but its goals far extend beyond the state’s borders. Randall Terry, the Founder of ‘Operation Rescue,’—a movement in the 80s and 90s that blocked clinics and targeted patients and providers—is leading its revival.

The group was so disruptive and dangerous that, in 1994, Bill Clinton signed the FACE Act into law to ensure that patients and providers could safely enter clinics to receive healthcare. Earlier this year, two dozen anti-abortion protestors federally charged with violating the FACE Act were pardoned by President Trump. (One of whom is plotting to take down Tennessee’s contraception and IVF protections.)

Now, Randall and his cohorts see this moment as a unique window of opportunity: if President Trump won’t enforce the FACE Act, it’s time to ramp up harassment at clinics, but this time, they’ve also set up a novel anti-abortion training center.

The new suburb complex will recruit and train anti-abortion activists from across the country on how to physically disrupt access, create viral content, run for office, and then send them back to their cities and states to carry out what they’ve learned. It’s an incredibly advanced and frankly, brilliant system that the pro-abortion movement can learn a lot from. The center is extreme in its mission—even encouraging folks to come with a sleeping bag and pillow and sleep right on the carpet. Scarier yet, people are.

We can not accept the new movement’s iteration, especially now.

Expanded Targets Endanger Patients

Since Dobbs, the rate of abortion in America has increased. You’ve probably heard this before: it’s due to easy access to abortion telehealth. It’s legal to receive abortion pills through the mail in every single state, despite some states’ laws trying to confuse people about this. Yes, some states have made “telemedicine abortion” illegal, but those laws apply to the physicians sending the pills, not the person receiving them.

Now that many states have made in-person abortion illegal, those who need surgical abortions are fleeing to haven states, and fewer abortions are actually happening inside clinics. A big question I had when I saw ‘Rescue Resurrection’ launching in person, in Tennessee, was ‘Why here?’ Abortion is illegal in Tennessee. They are not doing abortions at the Memphis Planned Parenthood, nor anywhere else in the state.

So, what’s the deal? It’s a bold point: you can and should harass patients everywhere. Blue state, red state? It doesn’t matter. You can make a difference wherever you are.

Horrifying.

They’re creating a malleable and replicable blueprint by teaching both red-state and blue-state anti-abortion folks not just to disrupt clinic entrances, but pharmacy entrances, opposing politicians’ homes, and any organizations they interpret as ‘trafficking’, aka helping people get out of restrictive states to get the healthcare.

Here is their three-point approach to disrupting abortion access in 2026.

1. Disrupt Neighborhood Retail Pharmacies

According to a source who was present, Randall specifically encouraged civil disobedience at places like CVS. As a decades-long devotee to the anti-abortion movement, I’m sure he knows they aren’t doing surgical abortions at retail pharmacies, so what he’s saying is: go to anyplace you think is abortion-adjacent.

Is the CVS in your state allowed to prescribe abortion pills? No? Disrupt anyway.

Is the CVS in your state allowed to disseminate abortion pills? No? Disrupt anyway.

Are the stocked OTC morning-after pills an abortifacient? No? Disrupt anyway.

To Randall, it doesn’t matter what the facts, laws, or reality are; he says disrupt, disrupt, disrupt. The implications are something no state is ready for—let alone a nation divided. Can you imagine folks not able to pick up their medications for high cholesterol, blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, seizures, or kids and babies unable to get the antibiotics they need for an extremely high and dangerous fever because a group of anti-abortion extremists has closed down the entrance to the local CVS?

The ramnications of sending out trained extremists in this way are absolutely mind-boggling. As my reporting partner witnessed, the ferocity with which these activists are training is biblical in its mission-like intensity. These disruptions are holy work.

They claim they want to save babies from being aborted, but what happens when the GOP fully convinces them that Plan B and birth control are also abortion? Pharmacy safety and entrances are going to be as difficult to enter as abortion clinics in the 80s.

Will providers of sexual health education become targets? Will parents in “liberal” neighborhoods? We’re seeing private enforcement mechanisms in Texas. How far will Texas and other red states go to extend those loopholes to other repro healthcare? Will the enforcement enter the areas that MAHA and Robert F. Kennedy, JR. are after?

There’s no end. It’s why we need to be honest now about what the decades to come will look like. We can’t say it’s too extreme; it’s an established playbook. It’s occurring.

2. Radically Position at Politicians’ Residences

‘Rescue Resurrection’ activists also plan to target the homes of opposition politicians, for example, the Governor’s Mansions, but what else might fit into the category? In the 80s, sites of political debates were targets, but we’re in a different place in 2025.

Political violence is peaking, and there have been multiple assassinations and attempts on politicians in the last year. This year, Minnesota Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed in their homes, someone set Josh Shapiro’s home on fire, and someone assassinated Charlie Kirk in public. The divisions have only deepened since, and what’s in the ravines are not rivers of peace.

In 2025, the term “civil disobedience” has come to mean cover for resulting violence. The moral imperative of these activists unquestionably condones extreme behavior. They can preach that their peaceful approach is rooted in the civil rights movement, but looking back, was the fight for civil rights peaceful despite its best efforts?

It’s not the time to assume this movement will resurrect itself in a less radical way than it had in the 80s and 90s, especially since the President has given them carte blanche to break federal law with no consequences. Even if Democrats do well in the midterms, nothing will stop the radicalization of every person who joins this training.

3. Target Non-Abortion Providing Health Clinics

These activists see any support, as minuscule as giving a phone number to an out-of-state clinic or transportation coordination, as a criminal act to be stopped at all costs.

It’s not illegal, of course, to leave a restricted state for an abortion. Still, both Randall and his crew are promoting it as such, and that itself will have dire consequences for clinics all across the country, regardless of their direct involvement on the ground at their physical clinic locations. Most coordination is via the Internet and teleconsults. Patients are not walking into clinics to ask a singular question, much like you wouldn’t walk into your primary healthcare provider’s office to ask about a fever.

“Rescue Resurrection,” as they’re temporarily calling themselves until they find a catchier name, is using an old playbook but is primarily learning on the job. What might come of it could look like patient tracking, schedule stalking, or provider monitoring. We have to anticipate an evolution of the movement we once knew.

The surveillance systems are already in place. License plate readers are already being used to track patients; warrants are out for blue state providers; private enforcement mechanisms are encouraging citizens to watch and report on neighbors for cash. And regionally, PPSE and other Midwest Planned Parenthoods have been taken over by anti-abortion folks from the inside out. All repro orgs need to increase their funding and staffing for expanded security measures right now, not tomorrow or next month.

We have to get ahead of the years to come. We can’t play catch-up anymore. We won’t win back our rights without blue-and-red state coordination. We won’t win our rights back without collaboration between national and indie clinics. And we certainly won’t win back our rights if we’re busy infighting over basic things like safety and security.

Bring out the sleeping bags.

It’s time to radicalize.

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This article is part of a series in partnership with TN Repro News.

UPDATE: This post has been updated to include responses from Ford Fischer, a primary source documentarian who was also present at the event on December 3, 2025.

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I arrived at the property on the corner of N. Highland St. and Faxon Ave. at 4 p.m., expecting a standard, institutional open house experience. Perhaps there would be designated greeters at the door welcoming and guiding small groups of visitors through the facility. Or perhaps visitors would freely peruse the facility on their own while snacking on complimentary morsels from a refreshments table. There'd likely be promotional pamphlets handed out to visitors in hopes of attracting recruits or financial supporters, along with envelopes for donations. But what happened was like nothing I'd experienced before…

I was perusing online anti-choice outlets on a warm, cloudy day in November, when I came across a LifeSiteNews article that caught my attention: Randall Terry was starting a training academy for anti-choice radicals in my hometown - Memphis, Tennessee - as part of a new “Rescue Resurrection” movement that Terry hopes will revive (‘resurrect’) the radical rescue movement of the 1980s and 1990s.

Randall Terry is the infamous founder of Operation Rescue, a radical anti-abortion group that gained notoriety for aggressively obstructing and harassing abortion patients, providers, and clinics in the 1980s and 1990s. Terry and other “direct-action” anti-abortion activists refer to their movement's activities, “in which protesters block access to clinics and hospitals and insist on being jailed,” as rescues.1

Terry's public statements over the decades have generated opprobrium. For example, in an appearance on MTV in 2013, Terry said of the anti-abortion movement, “Do we want to make the pill illegal? Yes. Do we want to make the IUD illegal? Yes. The morning after pill? Yes. The patch? Yes… [T]hey all have to be made illegal. A woman has to go to jail if she kills her baby.”

Randall Terry's most infamous statements came in the wake of a horrific act of violence. When abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was assassinated inside his church, at the start of Sunday service, by an anti-abortion radical, Terry responded by calling Tiller a mass murderer who was “every bit as evil as Nazi war criminals,” and that Tiller “reaped what he sowed.” Terry also said that Tiller's assassination “has the potential to propel [the anti-abortion movement] more quickly to our goal.”

Randall Terry’s partner in the Rescue Resurrection endeavor is a Terresa Bukovinac and her “progressive” anti-abortion group, Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU). PAAU’s website states a commitment to “progressive feminist values.” This makes Terry and Bukovinac a seemingly odd match, given that Terry has stated that he “hates” feminists.2

And why here? Why Memphis? Why set up shop in a state where abortion is banned?

In a later press release, a spokesperson for Rescue Resurrection said that “Memphis was chosen because it is where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and is the home of the National Civil Rights Museum, which highlights the connection between civil disobedience and changing the law.”

Terry has long sought to associate his radical anti-abortion tactics with the Civil Rights movement. A 1989 Washington Post article observed:

Terry's followers liken him to the civil rights leaders of the 1960s, saying he uses nonviolent means to challenge a morally repugnant law. Terry does not discourage the comparison, describing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as "one of my mentors." "The blacks were demonstrating for their own rights, and we are rescuing other people and standing up for babies' rights," he said.3

Civil Rights leaders, however, have denounced Terry's appropriation of their movement. For example, the 1989 Washington Post article reported:

Ten civil rights leaders, led by former Georgia lawmaker Julian Bond, recently joined in a statement denouncing Operation Rescue, likening the group "to the segregationists who fought desperately to block black Americans from access to their rights.”4

The three-day launch of the Rescue Resurrection training camp included a tour of the National Civil Rights Museum.

‘Curious, I decided to attend.’

Advertised on Rescue Resurrection’s website was a pre-launch, public open house and tour of the training camp’s facilities, which consist of a church, two residential homes, and a small school building. “Oh, neat,” I thought to myself. “It's not every day that a radical anti-abortion group invites the public to tour their facilities. This could be a cool opportunity just to see what's up.” Curious, I decided to attend.

Having participated in institutional open houses during my time as an educator at private school, I thought I knew what to expect.

I arrived at the property on the corner of N. Highland St. and Faxon Ave. at 4 p.m., expecting a standard, institutional open house experience. Perhaps there would be designated greeters at the door welcoming and guiding small groups of visitors through the facility. Or perhaps visitors would freely peruse the facility on their own while snacking on complimentary morsels from a refreshments table. There'd likely be promotional pamphlets handed out to visitors in hopes of attracting recruits or financial supporters, along with envelopes for donations. But what happened was like nothing I'd experienced before…

I walked into the church sanctuary to find a group of around 20 people being led in prayer by a short, stout, Catholic priest in a long, black cassock, Rev. Msgr. Victor Ciaramitaro. I glanced around at the cream, brick walls and beautiful, open timber roof. Large silhouettes of fetuses hung on both sides of a wooden platform at the altar area. “Msgr. Victor,” as he was called, blessed the building and grounds, and prayed for the success of Rescue Resurrection's radical mission.

This was followed by 20 minutes of doing absolutely nothing.

The people there were generally friendly, some having hailed from as far away as California and New York. I introduced myself using my real name and answered questions honestly. This was just an open house, after all. Not some sort of secret sting operation at a closed event. I might even run into someone I knew, I thought, and we could hug, and chat, and catch up. No one asked my stance on abortion.

Some people sat down in the rows of chairs or stood off to themselves. Others gathered in small clusters and engaged in friendly conversation.

A cheerful, white-haired man in a plaid flannel shirt, named Gary, shared the news of his daughter's upcoming wedding. His daughter, said Gary, had made him promise that he would not be in jail on her wedding day.

Terrisa Bukovinac, the founder of PAAU who has relocated to Memphis to dedicate her time to Rescue Resurrection, excitedly shared her intention to run for President of the United States in 2028. Wearing a long, red coat and red lipstick, with her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, Bukovinac discussed registering to run for President in New Jersey. This, she explained, would enable her to place anti-abortion ads on TV that will air in the New York City area — ads specifically criticizing U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“AOC”).

Of AOC, Bukovinac said, “I just want to mess up her life. I don’t need votes. I just need to run the ads.”

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It was during this 20 minutes of do-nothingness that I noticed that there were two professional videographers there filming. The videographers appeared to be working with Randall Terry, coordinating and staging certain shots. Because of this, I assumed the videographers were hired to do this work.

When I saw footage of the Rescue Resurrection group online, I discovered that one of the videographers who were present is Ford Fischer, a primary source documentarian. The footage, filmed by Fischer and posted on YouTube, showed the “soft launch” of the academy which had taken place later in the evening, after the conclusion of the open house.

I reached out to Ford Fischer to find out if he was being paid by or was working with Randall Terry. Fischer responded, “No, unequivocally, absolutely not.”

Fischer had also not been invited by Terry. Rather, like me, he had learned about the event online. Fischer covers political activism of all types across the country, he explained.

‘How many of you are ready to be arrested?’

About 30 minutes after I had arrived at the Rescue Resurrection open house on N. Highland St, and once the videographers had positioned their cameras in just the right spots, fixed firmly on Randall Terry standing tall in the center aisle of the church sanctuary, Terry began a brief welcome speech.

“Welcome to the official nickel tour of our new campus,” Terry began. (A “nickel tour” is a brief, informal tour.) Dressed in black, slim fit pants, a black leather jacket, and a western bolo tie, Terry discussed the cost of the property, his plans for making the property financially solvent, and more.

What really tipped me off that this wasn't going to be a run-of-the-mill open house was when Randall Terry asked the group a series of questions.

“How many people here were arrested in Operation Rescue, the original?” Multiple people raised their hands.

“How many people here have been arrested recently for any number of activities?” Several people raised their hands.

“How many people here are ready to be arrested?” Nearly everyone enthusiastically raised their hands. (Obviously, I did not raise my hand, along with a couple of other people.)

Throughout my time at the open house, I was struck by the fervency of those in attendance. Arrests were treated as a badge of honor, notches on a belt. The more, the better. Two days later, many of those I’d met at the open house were arrested for blockading the Planned Parenthood building in Memphis. (Abortion is banned in Tennessee.)

‘So this is what it’s like to be on reality TV.’

Terry, who is disarmingly affable, led the group on a tour of the grounds, beginning with the basement level of the church building. We walked single-files down a narrow stairway and into a large, open room. That's when things got a little weird.

As Terry led us through, videographers circled us, filming our every move. At one point, a videographer instructed us to leave one room and then return so that he could film us entering it. A young man in front of me chuckled and remarked, “So this is what it’s like to be on reality TV.”

While I was a bit unnerved, not having expected to be videoed, the enthusiasm and excitement of the others in the group were palpable. Exuberant expressions. “Ooos” and “Ahhhs.” We were led through the several rooms as cameramen circled ‘round.

Next, Terry led us outside and instructed to stand around a large sign at the corner of N. Highland and Faxon. The sign said, “Rescue Resurrection.” Through the noise of the afternoon traffic, we were told to pose for a photograph.

Now, at this point I had surmised that I was likely the only member of the public who'd come to the open house. That I was the sole supporter of reproductive rights among a crowd of anti-abortion devotees, radically dedicated to the “rescue” cause. So, being asked to pose for a photograph sent my mind racing.

“Do I follow the directions and pose for their group picture, or do I not? I thought this was just an open house. What is even happening?!!”

Nervous, feeling totally out of my element, somewhat overwhelmed by the oddities of the event thus far, and not knowing what to do, I joined the group for the picture. I tried to position myself in the back of the group, partially hidden. That worked for a minute. And then Randall Terry repositioned himself directly beside me. There was no way to hide.

So, I just went with it.

I smiled for some of the pictures. For others, I made a goofy face — amused to find myself the random pro-choicer photo-boming a group picture of radical anti-choicers.

“Rescue Resurrection!” everyone cheered.

‘A history hall of rescue’

The video cameras kept rolling as we walked past the academy's two residential homes and a playground.

In the future, the residences will provide a place for recruits, along with any children they may have, to stay during their training at the academy. I was impressed by Terry's enthusiasm for accommodating families in this way.

We slowly made our way to a small, rectangular building that used to be a school, and huddled around Randall Terry just outside the door to the building, shivering in the cold. He began to speak.

Those in attendance at the open house that day included people who had participated in the obstruction and harassment of abortion patients, providers, and clinics in the 1980s and 1990s; current anti-abortion activists and leaders; a few wide-eyed and idealistic new recruits; and, of course, me. While I don't know the names of everyone who was there, several of the major players in attendance are listed below.

• Joan Andrews Bell: The “matriarch of rescue,” Bell has been arrested over 200 times in the course of her anti-abortion activities.

• Dr. Monica Miller: Miller is the director of Citizens for a Pro-life Society and co-founder of Red Rose Rescue. She has been arrested multiple times in the course of her anti-abortion activities.

• Father “Fidelis” Moscinski: Fidelis is a member of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal who has been arrested multiple times in the course of his anti-abortion activities.

• Constance Becker: Becker was the former executive coordinator at PAAU.

• Melanie Salazar: Salazar is the executive director of Pro-Life San Francisco.

• Nathan Berning: Berning is the co-founder, executive chairman, and former CEO of Let Them Live.

• Stephen Broden: When Randall Terry ran for president in 2024, as the far-right Constitution Party's nominee, Broden was his vice presidential running mate.

It was unusually cold that day. We stood shivering outside the doors of the former school building as cars sped down N. Highland. Against the sounds of car horns and engines, Terry instructed the videographers to make sure to be inside the building first, so that they could film us entering.

“This is a history hall of rescue,” Terry said. “The mission here is to have what happened in the past inspire us for the present and the future.”

After a short pause to allow the videographers to get into position, we walked into a long hallway located at the center of the building. The floor is brightly colored with blocks of red, blue, green, and yellow, and the walls are painted white — typical of a former school building.

As I walked inside, my eyes were drawn to large, impressive, historical photographs of anti-abortion blockades from the twentieth century. The photographs, arranged chronologically down the white walls of the hallway and transitioned through time from black and white into color, had a seductive effect, giving the impression that you were a part of something special— a monumental struggle, something for the history books. I imagined how intoxicating this must have felt to the new recruits.

As I moved down the hallway, the presence of the videographers momentarily faded from my mind.

The events captured in the photographs included the Siege of Atlanta, among other large blockades across the country. One photograph showed three anti-abortion “rescuers” standing behind the bars of a jail cell. Others depicted activists being arrested. Another was a 1989 mugshot of Randall Terry.

Some members of the group, including Joan Andrews Bell and Dr. Monica Migliorino Miller, pointed to photographs of themselves or blockades they had attended and reminisced.

When Stephen Broden arrived, Randall Terry instructed us to “please give him a hero's welcome.” When Broden walked inside, the crowd clapped and cheered, and Terry spoke of Broden's televised comments regarding abortion.

During Terry's 2024 presidential bid, Broden was featured in campaign ads accusing Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Democratic Party of “killing for the KKK.”5 “Lynching black babies by abortion in their mother’s womb, they’ve convinced black women that the answer to unintended pregnancy is to murder their babies,” Broden said in the ad.6

Broden's comments in that campaign ad align with the myth of abortion as Black genocide. As Shyrissa Dobbins-Harris notes in the National Black Law Journal, “The underlying assumption of this myth is that Blackwomen lack the critical thinking skills to avoid falling into the pitfall of ‘murdering their babies.’”7

As the videographers continued recording, Terry called our attention to a large photograph mounted midway down the hallway. The photograph, taken in Philadelphia in July 1988, shows Randall Terry standing in front of a large crowd of anti-abortion “rescuers” seated on the ground. In the background is a large, white banner with the words “OPERATION RESCUE” featured in bold, red lettering.

In Randall Terry's hands is a box containing a small, deceased fetus. “That's the original ‘Baby Choice,’” He told us. I was, however, able to find an earlier instance of a deceased fetus being displayed and referred to as “Baby Choice” at an anti-abortion event in 1987. Whether Terry acquired and re-used that same fetus at the 1988 event in Philadelphia, I do not know.

“You can find that photo online, by the way, and a lot of the media outlets blur the baby of course. They want to hide the truth,” Terry told us. “They always want to hide the truth,” one man commented in response. Those who blur the image of the fetus, Terry said, were collaborators — they were collaborating with evil.

“They have a right to be seen,” Dr. Monica Miller said with a passionate assertiveness. “The aborted unborn have a right to be seen.”

‘I just wanted to come to the open house.’

I had come for an open house and tour, ended up in some sort of video shoot, and posed for a group photograph that hopefully doesn't land me on an FBI watch list. I had stood shoulder to shoulder with some of the most radical figures in the anti-abortion movement, met enthusiastic and idealistic new recruits, and taken a photographic tour through the history of the “rescue” movement.

I'd been asked if I was ready to go to jail, where I was from, and if it was usually so cold in Memphis this time of year (this was a recurring question, and the answer is no).

There was one question that I didn't answer honestly. — When a kind, older gentleman in a blue windbreaker thought that I was 10 years younger than I actually am, I did not disabuse him of that mistaken belief. A girl's gotta have her vanity.

The oddities and periodic anti-abortion vitriol aside, it turned out to be an enjoyable experience. (An institutional open house is, after all, an exercise in public relations: An institution welcomes members of the public hoping to establish relationships and support. It is intentionally designed to be enjoyable.)

Shortly before heading home, I was casually talking with Terrisa Bukovinac. Assuming I was a new recruit, she then asked, “Who recruited you?”

“Nobody,” I responded. “I just wanted to come to the open house.” ■

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