Fact Check: Do mainstream anti-choice groups oppose punishing women?

Both “abortion abolitionists” and mainstream anti-reproductive-rights groups support punishing women.

Jun 30, 2025

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Note: In the context of pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, anti-rights attitudes regarding punishment are deeply gendered, influenced by underlying sexism and intertwined with traditionalist gender role beliefs: all persons who have the potential for pregnancy are viewed as woman, regardless of their gender, and as such are to be punished as woman. Because these gendered ideas about woman* are central to the subject of anti-rights attitudes toward punishment in regards to pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, I use the words women/woman in the discussion below to refer to all pregnant and potentially pregnant people for emphasis and continuity.

Do mainstream anti-reproductive-rights groups truly oppose punishing women? According to much of the mainstream press, the anti-reproductive-rights movement is splintering or divided between those who wish to punish women (the so-called “abortion abolitionists”) and those who do not (the so-called “mainstream”).

This is incorrect.

Both “abortion abolitionists” and mainstream anti-reproductive-rights groups support punishing women.

The main disagreements between these two camps are about (1) strategy and (2) theology. While there is plenty to be said about the theological differences, that is a subject for another day. The shared goals of both groups are to completely abolish of abortion (in all circumstances) and to enshrine the anti-reproductive-rights movement’s peculiar Fetal Personhood ideology into law, both of which require the punishment of women.

In a February 2025 episode of her podcast, anti-reproductive-rights activist and leader Kristan Hawkins explained that there are “three schools of thought” within the anti-reproductive-rights movement on punishing women specifically for abortion.1

The first school of thought says that both women and abortion providers should be criminally prosecuted for abortion “now, right now.”2
(This is the school of thought to which so-called “abortion abolitionists” adhere.)
The second school of thought says that only abortion providers should be prosecuted right now, and then eventually, “after culture and laws are changed,” women should also be prosecuted for having abortions.3
(*What is crucial to note here is that, according to this school of thought, anti-rights groups’ outward opposition to prosecuting women is only momentary. It is utilized as a temporary strategy to safeguard against arousing too great a political backlash to the anti-rights movement, backlash that could hinder the movement’s goal of banning all abortions, in all circumstances, nationwide.4)
The third school of thought says, “never prosecute women, but you can prosecute abortionists now.”5
(*It’s critical to note here that, even within the camp that adheres to this school of thought, the words “never prosecute women” do not always apply to all women. It often applies only to women who adequately perform redeemability through feminine displays of vulnerability, contrition, and regret.6)

Hawkins emphasized, “The vast majority of us, including myself, in the pro-life movement are in that middle category (#2 above) because that makes the most logical sense. It allows us to move the ball forward in good faith to save as many lives as we can right now, while working to change culture” toward becoming more accepting of prosecuting women for having abortions.7

Hawkins's remarks align with an observable stratagem of duplicity on the part of mainstream opponents of reproductive rights: issuing statements of opposition to criminalizing women (statements which are directed at an American audience that is largely opposed to punishing women),89101112 while simultaneously both supporting and funding the criminalization of women abroad.1314151617181920212223242526

Consider, for example, many mainstream anti-rights organizations and activists’ vehement (and often hysterical) opposition27282930313233343536 to a recently approved amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that is currently being debated by lawmakers in England and Wales. A response to the sharp uptick in unjust investigations and prosecutions of women under Victorian-era law, the amendment is designed to decriminalize women who self-manage abortions.37

Social media post on ‘X’ by Lila Rose, head of the powerful American anti-rights organization Live Action

Compared side-by-side, the following two social media posts by American anti-rights activist Charlie Camosy capture the mainstream anti-reproductive-rights movement’s duplicitous stratagem (described above). (*You will need to click on the first image to enlarge it.)

Two screenshots of 'X' social media posts by American anti-rights activist Charlie Camosy show the duplicity of the mainstream anti-rights movement

Importantly, in the context of pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, specifically making abortion a criminal offense for women is not the only means of punishing them, nor is the death penalty or a lifetime prison sentence the only possible form and degree of punishment possible. For example, regarding form and degree, a 2023 study examining people's preferred methods of punishing women (and others) for abortion listed the following possibilities: therapy/education; fines (of differing amounts); jail or prison sentences (of varying length); life is prison; and the death penalty.

Since the 1980s, the anti-reproductive-rights movement has hitched the idea of equality to punishment.3839 Mainstream anti-rights groups both support the use of - and in some cases even initiated the enactment of - various laws to punish women for their behavior during and after pregnancy,4041424344 as previously discussed in Stealth Fetal Personhood and State-created Maternal-Fetal Harm. In 2023, major anti-reproductive-rights groups signed a document called The New North Star (pictured below) vowing to continue to do so.

As law professor Mary Ziegler (an expert on the law, history, and politics of reproduction, health care, and conservatism in the United States) recently explained in regards to the anti-reproductive-rights movement and the punishment of women, “Everybody [in the anti-reproductive-rights movement] is pro criminalizing stuff, it’s just exactly what and how much.”45 (Check out the footnotes for great resources on this topic.)

Page 2 of the 2023 *New North Star* document signed by major anti-rights groups

A final note on inaccurate press coverage

Though there has been laudable improvement in the past few years, uncritical, naïve, and biased press coverage of issues relating to sexual and reproductive health and human rights (SRHR) remains a significant problem in America. As rePro-Truth noted in “Five ways mainstream press is failing us on repro health,” members of the press often uncritically accept anti-reproductive-rights groups’ statements at face value by failing to weigh the accuracy of groups’ statements against their prior non-press-directed statements, as well as against their actions taken and the policies they support which may prove contradictory to what a member of the press is being told during a particular interview. Furthermore, as rePro-Truth noted in the same piece, members of the press sometimes fail to consider the full scope of a particular subject, leading to omissions of relevant information due to a narrow-minded conceptualization of an important topic. Failure to do basic Google searches into anti-reproductive-rights groups’ history and actions is also clearly an issue. On the subject of punishing women, these press failings have resulted in especially problematic coverage.

Some members of the press also appear unaware of the fact that, in the context of pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, punishment is deeply gendered: All who have the potential for pregnancy are viewed as woman, regardless of their gender, and woman is defined both as ultra-sacrificial servant and by the presupposed communal availability of her body for others’ use.

Since all pregnant people are viewed woman, they must be punished as woman; therefore, punishing woman doesn’t always take the same shape or form as punishing man. Failure to recognize this has led to a propensity in the press for tunnel vision on the subject of punishing women. In the context of pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, punishment is conceptualized so narrowly that all but a single-mindedly conceptualized method and application of punishment are wholly excised from the meaning of the word, and are afforded no public recognition or discussion as punishment and entirely hidden from view.

Hence, press coverage of punishment in regards to pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes:

primarily conveys reporters and journalists’ own tunnel vision as opposed to accurately capturing the positions of major anti-reproductive-rights groups themselves; and
overlooks the multifaceted, gendered ways in which women are already being punished (with the support of major anti-reproductive-rights groups), focusing instead on the possible future enactment of a single form and degree of punitive, carceral punishment specifically for abortion as advocated by “abortion abolitionists.”

Therefore, to better understand the full scope of punishment in the context of pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, and to recognize anti-rights efforts to punishment women in real time, I’ve put together a two-part, in-depth serious on punishment and social control which will be published this week.

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Fact Check: Do mainstream anti-choice groups oppose punishing women?

Both “abortion abolitionists” and mainstream anti-reproductive-rights groups support punishing women.

A final note on inaccurate press coverage

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