First mainstream 'Pro-life' Group Comes Out in Support of Criminalizing Women
Mainstream anti-choice groups' support for jailing women was strategically long-hidden from the public. Post-Dobbs, that's changing.
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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.”
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 three 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.”
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.
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.