1). “Texas Bill Targets Teenagers”, Apr 02, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
2). “Her Fetus Has No Heartbeat—They Still Won't Give Her An Abortion: South Carolina's ban is torturing a 31-year-old mom *right now*”, Apr 02, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
3). “Here's How They Ban Birth Control', Apr 01, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
4). “BREAKING: The Trump Administration Freezes $35 Million in Title X Funding: The attack will leave eight states without ANY federal family planning dollars”, Mar 31, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
5). “Abortion Bans—and Shaming—Aren’t Boosting Fertility Rates. What Does? Not only are abortion bans actively harmful to women and their families—they also don’t work to recreate the past as conservatives want them to”, Oct 1, 2024, Elizabeth Gregory, The Nation, at < https://www.thenation.com/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: Trump announces the latest round of tariffs (incidentally the only way he can do this by executive order is by declaring a state of emergency, for instance tariffs on Candadian goods use the excuse that phentanyl coming in from Canada constitutes an emergency), he issues an Executive Order to strip federal workers of collective bargaining rights, and he issues an Executive Order that includes the Project 2025 wish list on Voter Suppression and Voter Purges. Millions of women will be stripped of the right to vote if he pulls that one off.
A special issue and method of social control of women are the activities of the Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth movement. The indefatigable Jessica Valenti keeps up the developments unfavorable and favorable in this are and Items 1 – 4 are are recent posts from her newletter that discuss various aspects of these issues. Item 1)., “Texas Bill Targets Teenagers”, points out that the Texas State Legislature, now a major institution in World Fascism, wants to sow ever greater distrust in the populace over which they rule (See “Abortion & Snitch Culture: The plan for abortion ban enforcement? People ratting each other out”, Feb 10, 2023, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
“Texas Republicans have introduced a last-minute bill targeting anyone who helps a teenager get an out-of-state abortion. While they’re framing the legislation as an effort to ‘protect’ minors, it’s really all about punishment and isolation.
“SB 2352 wouldn’t just criminalize 'transporting' a teenager out of Texas for abortion care—it would also be a felony to fund the transportation of a teen. In other words, giving your 17 year-old niece a few dollars for gas could land you in prison. (Emphasis in original)
“A few important things to know:
“This bill robs teenagers of community support. Republicans want to isolate young people, stripping them of any support from friends, family, trusted adults, and local organizations. The idea is to create a chilling effect that makes people too afraid to help each other. (Emphasis in original)
“The bill is an attack on abortion funds. While SB 2352 would allow for the prosecution of any kind of ‘helper,’ the ultimate goal is targeting Texas funds helping people get abortion medication or out-of-state care. Republicans in the state have introduced multiple bills that would criminalize the work of abortion funds, and they’re really hoping at least one will stick. (Emphasis in original) ….
“This will never stop at teenagers. (Emphasis in original) …. What happens to teens today comes for the rest of us tomorrow. Always.” (Emphasis added)
Item 2)., “Her Fetus Has ...”, looks at the plight of a young mother of 3 who is forced to carry a dead fetus because of the savage laws in that most backward of places, South Carolina. There is a difficult to watch embedded video in which the woman talks about her situation in a tik-tok video at < https://www.tiktok.com/@
“Let’s be clear: The Trump administration is following the Project 2025 playbook. This isn’t just about freezing or cutting funding from reproductive health clinics, but redirecting that money to ‘marriage promotion’ programs and religious groups like crisis pregnancy centers. (Emphasis added)
“This is how you ban birth control without ever passing a law: You run legitimate clinics out of town and replace them with religious centers that tell women birth control is a sin, or that it causes cancer (or whatever nonsense they’re pushing now). You don’t need to outlaw contraception if you can just make it impossible to access. (Emphasis in original)
“Something else noteworthy: Most coverage of the funding freeze has focused exclusively on Planned Parenthood. Clearly, this is a targeted attack on the reproductive health care organization—which conservatives have turned into a punching bag/bogeyman. But other groups were impacted too!
“Plus, Republicans want this story to be framed as the defunding of Planned Parenthood because—as awful as it is—voters are used to hearing about it. It’s not a new message. What is new is the idea that nonprofit groups are losing funding simply because they opposed racism.” (Emphases in original)
Item 4)., “BREAKING: The Trump Administration ….”, reports that the Trump regime is cutting funding to Planned Parenthood in a move that will strip millions of poor and working-class women of access to reproductive health-care, that is for totally non-abortion health issues. Valenti notes that:
“The scale of this funding freeze is staggering. Starting April 1, California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, and Utah will receive zero Title X dollars. Most of Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Alaska will lose access as well. Other states impacted include Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.” (Emphasis in original)
This will further push the health and health statistics of the U.S. Women down into Third World status. Already the U.S. ranked around 55th in the world for Maternal Mortality, and with the witch hunts and attempts to control women's decisions with harsh coercion women's reproductive health outcomes in the U.S. will continue to decline. 13 states have bills introduced to allow for the execution of women who go obtain legal abortions in Blue State, but who live in the Dark Ages Red States with Trump Abortion Bans. Similar attacks on women's ability to obtain Mifepristone and Misoprostol are ongoing. (See, “Crosswhite Hader Bill to Penalize Trafficking of Abortion-Inducing Drugs Moves to Senate”, Mar 28, 2025, Anon, House of Representatives: State of Oklahoma, at < https://www.okhouse.gov/posts/
It is worth noting that the Vicious far-right element of Capital, that is in control of so much of the U.S., is actually unaware of the fact that huge numbers of young people don't want to have children; because conditions and the outlook for the future are so grim. Voluntary sterilizations have hit unprecedented levels for young people (with men at about half the rate as women). And of course the dramatic fall in female fertility has taken place in all the developed countries and increasingly in developing countries as well. Item 5)., “Abortion Bans—and Shaming ….”, discusses why this is the case. The right-wing wants to create some sort of nostalgic society where women stay home and bake cookies and are always sexually available to men, but without birth control or other protections. But in a world with over 8 billion people, depleted resources, ugly monsters like Elong Musk pontificating about the fall-off in the birth rate, they are trying to bring back a world that never really existed. Musk has repeatedly stated that the fall in the birthrate in much of the world is a big threat to civilization. Of course he is fabulously rich and has 14 childen by 4 different women. Average people, particularly the young, face difficult decisions and many clearly do not have the income to support children. Musk and his ilk are either blissfully unaware or viciously aloof about the problems most people actually face.
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Texas Bill Targets Teenagers
Click to skip ahead: Attacks on Teens has news on a new bill in Texas. In the States, news from Nevada, West Virginia, California, Idaho, and more. In the Courts, what you need to know about the oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court today. You Love to See It has great news about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. In the Nation, some quick hits. Finally, in Talking Points Alert, a warning about a new anti-abortion strategy.
Attacks on Teens
Texas Republicans have introduced a last-minute bill targeting anyone who helps a teenager get an out-of-state abortion. While they’re framing the legislation as an effort to ‘protect’ minors, it’s really all about punishment and isolation.
SB 2352 wouldn’t just criminalize “transporting” a teenager out of Texas for abortion care—it would also be a felony to fund the transportation of a teen. In other words, giving your 17 year-old niece a few dollars for gas could land you in prison.
A few important things to know:
This bill robs teenagers of community support. Republicans want to isolate young people, stripping them of any support from friends, family, trusted adults, and local organizations. The idea is to create a chilling effect that makes people too afraid to help each other.
The bill is an attack on abortion funds. While SB 2352 would allow for the prosecution of any kind of ‘helper,’ the ultimate goal is targeting Texas funds helping people get abortion medication or out-of-state care. Republicans in the state have introduced multiple bills that would criminalize the work of abortion funds, and they’re really hoping at least one will stick. As is the case with SB 31—the Trojan Horse bill that Republicans claim will save women’s lives—this bill uses the protection of teenagers to shroud lawmakers’ real intent.
This will never stop at teenagers. I have a whole chapter in my book about this: Teenagers are the canaries in the coal mines. Republicans are using their rights as a testing ground for their most extreme legislation. Remember, after two years of introducing and passing ‘trafficking’ laws that sought to restrict teens’ ability to leave their states, Montana Republicans introduced legislation that would prosecute women of all ages for ‘trafficking’ their own fetuses across state lines. What happens to teens today comes for the rest of us tomorrow. Always.
I’ll have more on this bill as it advances, but one more fun fact in the meantime (okay, not so ‘fun’): Under SB 2352, you wouldn’t be criminalized for helping a teen get an out-of-state abortion if that teen were married. I said this in a TikTok I made earlier today, but it’s just such a gross reminder that Republicans don’t care whether girls get abused—so long as they get married.
In the States
While we’re talking about attacks on teenagers, a related story out of Nevada: A judge has lifted a 40-year pause on the state’s parental notification law. So we’re going back literal decades. Again.
This court ruling means starting at the end of the month, minors seeking abortions will need to tell their parents or get a judicial bypass to forgo the requirement. (Unless—here we go again—they’re married.)
Parental notification or consent laws always make my head spin because they just make zero sense. Take this quote from anti-abortion attorney James Bopp over at KUNR, which gave me an immediate migraine:
“We thought it was really important that this law protecting minors, who are too immature to make their own decision regarding abortion, would obtain parental involvement in that decision.”
How the fuck can someone be too immature to have an abortion, but mature enough to parent? Here’s another unhinged quote—this time from the executive director of Nevada Right to Life, who claimed that “girls as young as 10 years old can get an abortion without a parent knowing, making a life-changing medical decision.”
First of all, the idea that 10-year-olds are secretly getting abortions without their parents knowing is absurd fearmongering. Secondly, what’s more “life-changing”—a safe, 10-minute medical procedure, or nine months of pregnancy and potentially a lifetime of parenting? And finally: Are they seriously admitting they think 10-year-olds should be forced to give birth?
Meanwhile, the West Virginia Senate has passed a bill targeting out-of-state abortion providers. SB 85 would make shipping abortion medication into the state a felony, and allow pregnant people who end their pregnancies to sue the person who shipped them the medication. Telehealth abortion is already illegal in the state.
Sponsor Sen. Patricia Rucker has tried to play down the bill’s extremism, saying that it doesn’t create any new restrictions, but simply enforces existing law. But make no mistake—this is another shot fired in a rapidly growing interstate battle over abortion rights and criminalization.
The legislation comes at the same time that New York abortion provider Dr. Maggie Carpenter has been indicted in Louisiana, and just a few days after a New York county clerk refused to process a summons from Texas or enforce a court order against Dr. Carpenter.
Remember the California woman who was denied miscarriage treatment by a Catholic hospital? I sure do: Anna Nusslock was only 15 weeks pregnant when her water broke. There was no chance her twin fetuses would survive, but Providence St. Joseph Hospital refused to give her care because there were still audible fetal heart tones.
The detail I remember most? As she was leaving—about to drive to a hospital that might help—staff gave her a bucket and towels "in case something happens in the car.”
I’m glad to report that Nusslock is now suing the hospital for denying her life-saving treatment, saying she hopes the move will force hospitals to do the right thing in the future. "We need to be putting pressure on these hospitals,” she says.
Her suit comes a few months after California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued Providence St. Joseph himself over Nusslock’s treatment (or lack thereof). He pointed out at the time that they violated state law requiring hospitals to not only provide life-saving care, but also prevent serious injury or illness.
“We need hospitals to follow the law, at the bare minimum,” Bonta said at the time. “That is not too much to ask…If you are a human being, you can see how cruel this was."
After Nusslock came forward, another patient revealed that she was also denied miscarriage care when she was 17 weeks pregnant. For more on how Catholic hospitals endanger women’s lives, read Abortion, Every Day’s investigation below:
Idaho has been steadily losing doctors since Roe was overturned—OBGYNs and maternal fetal medicine specialists, especially. Now, the Idaho Statesman reports, lawmakers are trying to figure out how to bring them back. And while Republicans have proposed all sorts of different bills they thought might help, they haven’t tried the one they really need. From Rep. Ilana Rubel:
“The elephant in the room—the thing that absolutely has to be solved if we are ever going to put any kind of a dent in this deficit—is that we have got to pull back on Idaho’s frankly insane total abortion ban that has no health exception.”
When Rubel proposed legislation to repeal the state’s ban, it didn’t receive a hearing; nor did a bill proposed by a Republican senator that would have allowed for an exception to protect a patient’s health.
Something tells me doctors won’t be coming back any time soon.
Quick hits:
Montana Republicans are trying to get fetal personhood on the ballot;
Providers in Maine say the Title X funding freeze will be devastating in the state;
Texas has suspended the license of the midwife arrested for providing abortions;
Finally, two new bills in North Carolina seek to curb some of the damage done by anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.
In the Courts
There was a major abortion case in front of the Supreme Court today: Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic—a case that could impact low-income patients across the country.
Here’s the short version: Medicaid patients have the right to choose their own healthcare provider, so long as that provider is qualified and participates in the program. Planned Parenthood checks both boxes. But in 2018, Republican leaders in South Carolina blocked Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program—effectively stopping low-income patients from being able to pick their own provider.
In response, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a Medicaid-eligible patient sued—which kicked off the legal fight that brought us to today’s oral arguments. During those arguments, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)—the far-right legal group that helped overturn Roe—claimed that neither patients nor providers have the right to enforce that Medicaid guarantee. Let that sink in: South Carolina is arguing that low-income patients shouldn’t be allowed to hold them accountable in court.
And while ADF tried to frame the case around technicalities and legal jargon, Planned Parenthood’s attorney got to the heart of the matter: “They just don’t like Planned Parenthood.”
I’ll have more on Medina in the coming days, but what’s most important to know is that this case goes way beyond one state. If SCOTUS sides with South Carolina, states could discriminate against providers for political reasons, leaving almost no recourse for patients.
As Justice Kagan put it during oral arguments: “There’s an obligation, there’s a right. And the right is the right to choose their doctor.”
You Love to See It
We had some terrific news in Wisconsin last night, where pro-choice judge Susan Crawford won a seat on the state Supreme Court! What makes this win all the sweeter is that Elon Musk spent $25 million trying to get loser Brad Schimel on the bench. From The New York Times:
”Mr. Musk not only poured money into the race but also campaigned personally in the state, even donning a cheesehead. But his starring role seemed to inflame Democratic anger against him even more than it helped Judge Schimel.”
That’s just delightful!
I’m sure you all know by now why this particular election—which ended up being the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history—is so important. But if you need a refresher, just check out yesterday’s newsletter. The short version is that the Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide abortion rights in the state, along with influencing national elections.
Given what a misogynist dirtbag Schimel is, this also feels like a feminist win. (Remember, he said women were too ‘emotional’ to rule.) Not to mention what the election results mean for democracy more broadly—especially given Musk’s involvement.
On Monday, Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, called the election a “test” that the whole world was watching: “This is a chance for us to show that in a moment that is so terrifying nationally that we still believe in democracy.”
In the Nation
The Washington Post says SCOTUS seemed to be backing Planned Parenthood in court today;
States Newsroom on the conservative attacks against HIPAA and what it means for abortion privacy;
The New York Times reports that the Trump administration cuts for international family programs will strip 50 million women of contraception access;
And HuffPost delves into Donald Trump’s claims that he’s making IVF free.
Talking Point Alert
We all know conservatives are desperate to kill off access to abortion pills. Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., and 20% are done via telehealth. The pills have also become a lifeline for people in states with bans—patients can now get medication shipped from pro-choice states. Republicans hate this.
That’s why we’re seeing so many different kinds of attacks: lawsuits claiming the medication is dangerous, bills trying to reclassify it as a controlled substance, and—my personal favorite—campaigns warning that abortion pills poison the groundwater when patients flush the toilet. (Yes, really.)
But these attacks aren’t just about control—they’re also about optics. Republicans are trying to restrict abortion under the guise of ‘protecting’ women—a desperate attempt to deflect accusations of misogyny. That’s why their messaging leans so heavily on words like “coercion” and “trafficking,” or fake stats about mental health risks and physical danger.
Which brings me to this press release from Oklahoma Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader, who just introduced a bill to ban the so-called ‘trafficking’ of abortion medication. (Translation: she wants to criminalize anyone who gives abortion pills to someone else.)
Check out this language:
“The drugs are often taken in isolation. This leaves the woman to go through cramping and bleeding and the shedding of her pregnancy with no medical expert on hand to help her through not only the physical pain and after-effects of the drugs, but also the mental anguish that can result from seeing her pre-term pregnancy in a non-viable state.”"
She goes on to say:
"I'm concerned that a woman given these drugs to take in isolation could die by herself, and they could keep her from being able to carry to term a pregnancy at a later date should that be desired.”
There’s a lot to unpack there. I’m going to ignore Hader’s claim that women will suddenly change their mind about wanting a pregnancy if they’re forced into it—because ew. What really stands out is her fixation on the idea of “isolation.” She mentions it twice.
Chances are she didn’t come up with that framing on her own—it almost certainly came from anti-abortion groups testing out new language. Which means we’ll probably start seeing a lot more of it.
What’s wild is that the reason some women take abortion pills alone—without telling anyone—is because of abortion bans. Look at Texas: laws there encourage people to turn in their friends and family for helping with abortions. Or consider the multiple bills and laws aimed at criminalizing helping teens to get out-of-state abortions. The whole fucking point is to isolate women and girls!
Why is it always projection with these people?
That’s what makes this talking point especially easy to debunk: If women are ‘isolated’ while self-managing an abortion, it’s because Republican laws have terrified them out of seeking support.
Unfortunately, conservatives don’t care about reality—so we’re likely to see this message take off anyway, no matter how flimsy or false it is.
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Her Fetus Has No Heartbeat—They Still Won't Give Her An Abortion
It’s been over a week since Elisabeth Weber found out she was miscarrying. The South Carolina mother has been told by multiple doctors—across multiple emergency room visits—that her fetus has no heartbeat. That the pregnancy is doomed.
Why then, can’t she have an abortion? Why is this devastated 31-year-old being forced—right now, today—to carry a dead fetus?
“My baby is dead, they know it, and I’m still being forced to wait,” Weber tells me.
I spoke to Weber after watching the wrenching TikTok she recorded from an emergency room parking lot. According to the doctors there, she says, South Carolina’s abortion ban has tied their hands. They want to wait another week before giving her a fourth ultrasound—just to be sure her pregnancy has really ended.
Weber doesn’t blame her doctors. She knows they’re scared—of felony charges, prison time, losing their licenses.
“I could see it was breaking her heart just to say it,” Weber says of the last ER doctor she saw. The physician apologized: “I wish it was different. I wish we could help you.” When Weber told her it was okay, the doctor responded, “It’s not okay.”
And it’s not. Weber tells me she’ll be at home, and suddenly remember: “Oh my god, I have my dead baby inside me.”
She considered going to nearby North Carolina for care, but she has three daughters at home who need child care and a job she’d have to take time off from. And besides—why should she have to cross state lines when there’s a hospital just ten minutes from her house?
But it’s not just the emotional anguish that’s torturing her. Weber has Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), a serious condition that causes persistent, extreme nausea during pregnancy. What terrifies her isn’t just the toll it’s taking—but the fact that its symptoms can mimic those of infection and sepsis.
How will she know if she’s really sick from the retained tissue, she asks, if she’s already feeling awful every day?
Weber also has asthma. She’s afraid she won’t be able to tell the difference between her usual shortness of breath and the signs of something much worse.
Republicans would have us believe that their laws protect women’s health, but what would they call what’s happening this South Carolina mom right now? She’ll have to live like this for at least another week: terrified that she’s dying and doesn’t know, emotionally brutalized by the knowledge she’s carrying a dead fetus.
Weber tells me she hopes that sharing her story will help people understand what abortion bans really do. Raised in what she calls a conservative cult, she was forced to spend parts of her childhood protesting outside of abortion clinics—with red tape over her mouth and the word ‘LIFE’ scrawled across it. So she knows what some people think about abortion, and who they believe abortion bans impact.
“I’m hoping that they can see it’s not black and white, and that this will open up people’s eyes.”
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Her Fetus Has No Heartbeat—They Still Won't Give Her An Abortion
It’s been over a week since Elisabeth Weber found out she was miscarrying. The South Carolina mother has been told by multiple doctors—across multiple emergency room visits—that her fetus has no heartbeat. That the pregnancy is doomed.
Why then, can’t she have an abortion? Why is this devastated 31-year-old being forced—right now, today—to carry a dead fetus?
“My baby is dead, they know it, and I’m still being forced to wait,” Weber tells me.
I spoke to Weber after watching the wrenching TikTok she recorded from an emergency room parking lot. According to the doctors there, she says, South Carolina’s abortion ban has tied their hands. They want to wait another week before giving her a fourth ultrasound—just to be sure her pregnancy has really ended.
Weber doesn’t blame her doctors. She knows they’re scared—of felony charges, prison time, losing their licenses.
“I could see it was breaking her heart just to say it,” Weber says of the last ER doctor she saw. The physician apologized: “I wish it was different. I wish we could help you.” When Weber told her it was okay, the doctor responded, “It’s not okay.”
And it’s not. Weber tells me she’ll be at home, and suddenly remember: “Oh my god, I have my dead baby inside me.”
She considered going to nearby North Carolina for care, but she has three daughters at home who need child care and a job she’d have to take time off from. And besides—why should she have to cross state lines when there’s a hospital just ten minutes from her house?
But it’s not just the emotional anguish that’s torturing her. Weber has Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), a serious condition that causes persistent, extreme nausea during pregnancy. What terrifies her isn’t just the toll it’s taking—but the fact that its symptoms can mimic those of infection and sepsis.
How will she know if she’s really sick from the retained tissue, she asks, if she’s already feeling awful every day?
Weber also has asthma. She’s afraid she won’t be able to tell the difference between her usual shortness of breath and the signs of something much worse.
Republicans would have us believe that their laws protect women’s health, but what would they call what’s happening this South Carolina mom right now? She’ll have to live like this for at least another week: terrified that she’s dying and doesn’t know, emotionally brutalized by the knowledge she’s carrying a dead fetus.
Weber tells me she hopes that sharing her story will help people understand what abortion bans really do. Raised in what she calls a conservative cult, she was forced to spend parts of her childhood protesting outside of abortion clinics—with red tape over her mouth and the word ‘LIFE’ scrawled across it. So she knows what some people think about abortion, and who they believe abortion bans impact.
“I’m hoping that they can see it’s not black and white, and that this will open up people’s eyes.”
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Here's How They Ban Birth Control
Click to skip ahead: Alabama Win! Let’s start with some rare great news on efforts to target abortion funds and women’s right to travel. Criminalizing Care has the latest on the Georgia woman arrested for her miscarriage. All Eyes on Wisconsin looks at the state Supreme Court race with national implications. Attacks on Birth Control has more on the Trump administration’s Title X funding attacks. In the Nation, updates on the abortion case in front of the Supreme Court tomorrow, Elon Musk’s pro-natalist creepiness, and more. Legislation Watch highlights the voices of abortion storytellers and the women impacted by Texas’ abortion ban. Keep An Eye On warns that we’re taking young people’s support for granted. Finally, AED Near You has an event announcement for Portland, Oregon.
Alabama Win!
It’s not often we get good news—especially out of Alabama—so let’s take a moment to celebrate this one. A federal judge ruled yesterday that Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall can’t prosecute people who help patients get out-of-state abortions.
Here’s a quick refresher: After Roe fell, Marshall went on a radio show and warned that anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion could face conspiracy or accessory charges. For abortion funds and providers, that meant even sharing a pro-choice website could put them at risk of prosecution. With help from the ACLU, the Yellowhammer Fund and West Alabama Women’s Center (WAWC) sued, arguing that Marshall’s threats violated their First Amendment rights. They asked the court to rule that the AG couldn’t go after people for helping patients access out-of-state abortion care or abortion pills.
And yesterday, they won. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that the prosecutions Marshall threatened would violate both free speech and the constitutional right to travel. He compared it to Alabama trying to punish residents for gambling in Las Vegas:
“It is one thing for Alabama to outlaw by statute what happens in its own backyard. It is another thing for the state to enforce its values and laws, as chosen by the attorney general, outside its boundaries by punishing its citizens and others who help individuals travel to another state to engage in conduct that is lawful there but the attorney general finds to be contrary to Alabama’s values and laws.”
It’s also important to remember that Marshall didn’t just threaten abortion funds—he threatened abortion patients, too. In one legal brief, he argued that Alabama could restrict pregnant people’s travel in the same way it restricts the movement of sex offenders. He claimed the state has a “strong, legitimate interest” in protecting fetuses—comparing it (seriously) to protecting the public from sexual violence.
So this ruling is a win on multiple fronts. You can read more on the legal details over at Law Dork. And if you can, please consider donating to the West Alabama Women’s Center and the Yellowhammer Fund—who can now finally fund abortions again.
Criminalizing Care
I know you all have been thinking about Selena Chandler-Scott—the young Georgia woman arrested after a miscarriage. I’ve been thinking about her too. First and foremost, you can donate to her legal defense here.
Because for whatever fucking reason, this 24-year-old—who was found bleeding and unconscious outside her apartment complex—is still facing charges of “concealing a death” and “abandoning a dead body” for placing her fetal remains in the trash. Just as baffling? There’s been virtually no major national coverage of her case.
"The reality is pregnancy loss is incredibly common, and no laws govern how to handle those remains in the privacy of one's home,” says Dana Sussman, senior vice president of Pregnancy Justice.
Still, Tift County District Attorney Patrick Warren continues to defend the charges, claiming that once a fetus is “separate from its mother,” whatever happens next is fair game for criminal prosecution.
That said, it’s clear Warren is feeling the heat as this story gains national attention (thanks in large part to the readers here). Over the past few days, he’s tried to distance himself from the case, insisting he wasn’t involved in issuing the warrants. He also said this:
“I want to make sure we take this off of the stage of national attention or what other people want us to do, and we slow down. We treat her as a human being. We look at the facts and circumstances of the case, we look at the valid Georgia Law, and if those two things don’t match, then we’re obligated not to go forward. But I will say if those two things do match, then we will go forward.”
I don’t know, Mr. Warren—arresting someone for losing a pregnancy doesn’t really scream “treating her like a human being.”
As Sussman asks, “What is gained by arresting Ms. Scott and stripping her of her humanity?”
“If the goal is to terrify women and further drive them away from seeking needed medical care, mission accomplished,” she says.
To learn more about criminalization, check out If/When/How and Pregnancy Justice. If you’re self-managing an abortion and need medical advice, contact the Miscarriage & Abortion Hotline: 833-246-2632. For free legal help as a patient or health practitioner, call this free Repro Legal Helpline: 844-868-2812.
All Eyes on Wisconsin
Today is the Wisconsin Supreme Court election—the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. And it’s no wonder considering what’s at stake: Abortion rights in the state, and political power across the country. (Remember, Wisconsin is a key swing state, and the state Supreme Court can influence national elections through redistricting and voting rules.)
Conservative asshole and former Attorney General Brad Schimel is running against pro-choice judge Susan Crawford—which I’m sure absolutely kills him, considering he thinks women are too ‘emotional’ to rule. That’s not an exaggeration: Earlier this month, Schimel told a conservative radio host that the female justices were “being driven by their emotions” in the abortion case—and that “you could hear it in the tone of their voice.”
In response, all four female justices released a statement slamming Schimel for his “antiquated and distorted view of women.”
And let’s not forget: This is the same guy who was caught on tape admitting he’d already made up his mind about abortion in Wisconsin, saying there’s “not a constitutional right to abortion in our State Constitution” and that it would be a “sham” if the justices ruled otherwise.
It’s that kind of extremism Wisconsin Democrats are counting on to drive voters to the polls today. Ben Wikler, chair of the state Democratic Party, told the Guardian: “Abortion is the single issue that most motivates Democratic voters and persuades independent, moderate voters to cast a ballot for Susan Crawford and against Brad Schimel.”
Abortion was central last time, too. You probably remember that in 2023, the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped to a liberal majority after Janet Protasiewicz won an election dominated by abortion rights. If Schimel wins today, conservatives will take back control of the Court. That’s why Elon Musk has dumped so much money into his campaign.
Then there’s what happens to abortion itself. For a quick refresher: After Dobbs, Republicans enforced an 1849 law they claimed banned abortion. But in 2023, a judge ruled that the law—written before women even had the right to vote—isn’t actually an abortion ban. She said it’s “a feticide statute only,” meant to criminalize assaults on pregnant people that end a pregnancy, not abortion care.
That ruling allowed clinics to reopen, even as anti-abortion groups continued to claim the law is still in effect. In addition to that case, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is also likely to hear a separate case filed by Planned Parenthood over whether the state constitution protects abortion rights.
All of which is to say: This election is incredibly important, for all of us.
Attacks on Birth Control
If you missed my breaking news story yesterday about the Title X funding freeze, make sure to catch yourself up. This is the Trump administration’s first major move against contraception—and while Republicans will be desperate to frame it as anything but an attack on birth control, that’s exactly what it is.
Let’s be clear: The Trump administration is following the Project 2025 playbook. This isn’t just about freezing or cutting funding from reproductive health clinics, but redirecting that money to ‘marriage promotion’ programs and religious groups like crisis pregnancy centers.
This is how you ban birth control without ever passing a law: You run legitimate clinics out of town and replace them with religious centers that tell women birth control is a sin, or that it causes cancer (or whatever nonsense they’re pushing now). You don’t need to outlaw contraception if you can just make it impossible to access.
Something else noteworthy: Most coverage of the funding freeze has focused exclusively on Planned Parenthood. Clearly, this is a targeted attack on the reproductive health care organization—which conservatives have turned into a punching bag/bogeyman. But other groups were impacted too!
Plus, Republicans want this story to be framed as the defunding of Planned Parenthood because—as awful as it is—voters are used to hearing about it. It’s not a new message. What is new is the idea that nonprofit groups are losing funding simply because they opposed racism.
“This threatens to roll back enormous progress we’ve made in increasing access to care for—and will have a profound impact on—women across the South, many of whom rely on Title X as their only source of care. We cannot overstate the urgency here. Any delay forces providers to scramble and leaves patients in the dark without access to STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings and birth control.”
-Audrey Sandusky, Converge, Title X Grantee in Mississippi & Tennessee
In the Nation
Speaking of Republican attacks on reproductive health clinics and low-income patients—pay close attention to the case in front of the Supreme Court tomorrow. Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is about South Carolina’s efforts to prevent Medicaid patients from visiting Planned Parenthood, but is a case with national implications.
For a breakdown on the case, check out AED’s coverage here, or explainers from Vox and KFF. I’ll have more on the oral arguments tomorrow, which you can watch live here.
Meanwhile, I think I might need to start a new section of the newsletter called ‘Meet the Creeps’—because WOW there are a lot of them these days. Take the country’s most-hated creep, King Incel Elon Musk. Please tell me why when asked about the thing that keeps him up at night, Musk answered the declining birth rate? You know what keeps me up at night? The rise of pro-natalist maniacs.
Let’s be clear: Men like Musk want to hide their white nationalist racism and misogyny behind these supposedly lofty concerns about humanity and population. But we all know who he really is.
Quick hits:
Dr. Oz wrote a letter to Republican senators declaring his opposition to abortion and gender-affirming care in a move to rally their support for his nomination to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services;
Axios has more on a study about who gets advance provision abortion medication;
And if you’re looking for a useful state-by-state tool on reproductive rights and health policies, I really like this 50-state Report Card.
Legislation Watch
By now, you’ve probably heard about SB 31—the bill Texas Republicans are touting as a fix to the state’s abortion ban. They claim it adds “exceptions” and gives doctors more leeway to provide life-saving care. But as I’ve been saying for over a week, that’s not what conservative legislators are really interested in.
In reality, SB 31 would revive a 1925 abortion ban and expand prosecutors’ power to go after abortion funds, helpers, and potentially even patients themselves.
I’m not the only one sounding the alarm. Abortion funds, pro-choice activists in Texas, and some of the nation’s top reproductive rights attorneys are all saying the same thing. But despite these warnings, some Democrats and doctors are backing the bill—unwilling to admit they’ve been duped by the very Republicans and anti-abortion extremists who wrote it. (And yes, the bill was literally written by Texas Right to Life.)
If they won’t listen to us, maybe they’ll listen to the people who know this law best: the women it nearly killed:
Keep An Eye On
Rewire has a must-read piece about the rise of anti-abortion activism on college campuses—something I hope will light a fire under some pro-choice asses. Anika Asthana reports that student anti-abortion groups are quickly growing their membership and increasing their activism, using the end of Roe as a motivating force.
Now, to be clear: Young people are still the most pro-choice demographic in the country. But that doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way.
I’m deeply concerned that we take young people’s support for granted—assuming that they’ll continue to be pro-choice, even as the anti-abortion movement aggressively woos and cultivates their support. Right now, conservatives are passing legislation across the country mandating anti-abortion lessons and videos be shown in public school classrooms; they’re doing outreach to middle and high schools via crisis pregnancy centers; and they’re spending millions on insidious social media and cultural campaigns that specifically target a young audience.
What’s more, they’re incredibly and centrally organized: Asthana reports that Students for Life of America (SFLA), a well-funded extremist group, works with more than 1,500 campus groups. Meanwhile, many pro-choice college groups are operating independently, without the same kind of institutional support. (Seriously, if you Google “pro-choice college groups,” the first result is Students for Life.)
Of course, we do have incredible orgs working with young people—URGE comes to mind, as does Planned Parenthood’s Generation Action. There are also terrific organizations like Medical Students for Choice and If/When/How that work with med and law students. But let’s be real: the investment in these groups doesn’t come close to the kind of money and strategy the right is pouring into Gen Z.
Asthana’s piece also highlights how much cultural groundwork the anti-abortion movement is doing—funding alt-right online spaces, shaping narratives, and training young people with tight, ready-to-go messaging. As Reproaction’s Laila Salaam put it, these groups have “a canned response to every single pro-choice/pro-repro talking point.” Olivia Barnes from Bobcats for Life—the Students for Life chapter at Ohio University—calls them their “pro-life apologetics.”
As far as I know—and please correct me if I’m wrong!—there’s no pro-choice equivalent working on messaging for young people at that scale. And that’s exactly what they’re asking for: how to talk about abortion rights, how to back up their arguments, how to push back online. (That’s part of the reason I wrote my book.)
Bottom line: Just because most young people are pro-choice now doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way—not with well-funded conservative extremists targeting them across schools, social media, and culture. If we don’t intervene now—if we don’t meet their energy with real support, strategy, and resources—we risk losing an entire generation.
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BREAKING: The Trump Administration Freezes $35 Million in Title X Funding
Abortion, Every Day has learned that the Trump administration is freezing close to $35 million in Title X funding that was set to be distributed Tuesday. This unprecedented move won’t just hit Planned Parenthood affiliates—it will impact multiple nonprofit organizations, including at least one that may have been targeted in retaliation for a lawsuit against the first Trump administration. Another group had millions in funding paused over a statement affirming their “commitment to addressing systemic racism.”
The scale of this funding freeze is staggering. Starting April 1, California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Tennessee, and Utah will receive zero Title X dollars. Most of Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Alaska will lose access as well. Other states impacted include Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.
Remember, Title X is the nation’s only federal family planning program. It provides affordable reproductive health care—birth control, STI testing, cancer screenings—primarily to low-income and uninsured patients.
There’s no overstating the impact here: Title X is a safety net. Six in 10 women who visit a publicly funded clinic consider it their usual source of medical care; for four in 10, it’s their only source.
This is an attack on poor people and an attempt to dismantle public health.
Now, we knew something was coming. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration planned to strip Planned Parenthood of Title X funds under the guise of targeting “DEI” initiatives. What no one expected was the sheer number of non-Planned Parenthood groups targeted—and how blatantly cherry-picked the cuts appear to be.
One of the organizations impacted, for example, is Converge, Inc.—the Title X grantee for Mississippi and parts of Tennessee. Abortion, Every Day obtained the letter sent to Converge by the Department of Health and Human Services through a source outside the grantee network. In it, HHS notifies the group that their funding is being withheld based on “possible violations” of federal civil rights law.
The supposed violation? A 2020 statement opposing racism in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.
I want to be crystal clear here: Converge is the Mississippi’s only Title X grantee, and without federal funding—funding that runs out today—they will shutter. The 90 Mississippi clinics under their purview will be in jeopardy of closing, and the tens of thousands of women who rely on them for care will have nowhere to go. All because they opposed racism.
And while the HHS is telling grantees that their funding is only “temporarily” withheld, the administration is asking the groups to hand over an impossible amount of documentation in just ten days in order to comply with their investigation. Things like copies of lists of patients and their races, lists of undocumented patients, and copies of any grievances brought against their many health care centers.
The goal appears to be asking already-overtaxed organizations for so much, it will be impossible to comply.
What struck most of my sources was how many of the grantees targeted appear random. Did some HHS intern search their websites for mentions of racism or gender-affirming care? That said, one grantee may have been attacked in retaliation—which is certainly a Trump administration hobby. Essential Access, which serves California and Hawaii, just so happens to have sued the first Trump administration in 2019 over their Title X rules.
But again, it’s unclear. Some of the defunded groups provide abortions, others don’t. Some are Planned Parenthood affiliates, others aren’t. Folks seem to believe that chaos is part of the point.
The targets of the freeze may seem random, but the attack on reproductive health care has been in the works for years. Conservatives haven’t just been chipping away at funding—they’ve been plotting a total overhaul.
Last year, Republicans pushed to slash nearly $300 million from Title X. And then there’s Project 2025, which lays out how the Trump administration should “reframe” the family planning program to focus on “fertility awareness and holistic family planning,” and “education on healthy marriage and relationships.” They also want to end what they call “religious discrimination” in Title X grant funding—code for giving federal dollars to crisis pregnancy centers.
In plain English: They want to take money meant for real reproductive health care and hand it to religious extremists who oppose birth control. All while the country isin the midst of a full-blown reproductive health care crisis.
“President Trump and Elon Musk are pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping health care access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause,” Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement today. (Devastation really is the right word.)
Like the other nonprofits, the Planned Parenthood affiliates targeted were told by HHS that their funding was being withheld over “violations” of Trump’s executive orders—like promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We know what this is. Like every other Republican policy around reproductive health, it’s about punishment and power. The Trump administration is putting millions of women’s lives at risk in the interest of punishing providers who dare to care for the marginalized, who believe racism is real, and who think health care should be a human right. And they’re empowering the people who’ve been foaming at the mouth for years to destroy Planned Parenthood and replace the nation’s family planning program with a network of religious groups that tell women birth control is a sin.
And that’s the thing: Ending Title X funding in eight states is just the beginning—and gutting America’s family planning program is a means to an end.
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Abortion Bans—and Shaming—Aren’t Boosting Fertility Rates. What Does?
Not only are abortion bans actively harmful to women and their families—they also don’t work to recreate the past as conservatives want them to.
In his 2021 remarks about “childless cat ladies” who “don’t really have a direct stake” in our country, Senator JD Vance invoked three examples of irresponsibly childless Americans: Vice President Kamala Harris; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Unsurprisingly, there’s been a strong backlash to his comments, largely focused on affirming the value of the many child-free Americans (including Taylor Swift). But Vance’s examples had a specifically political focus. It wasn’t just that he didn’t approve of people without kids; he didn’t want the particular groups those three individuals represent running the country: women, people of color, and LGBT people. Not coincidentally, that coalition and their allies are on the brink of achieving a critical mass in our politics that could enact a family-support infrastructure that would positively impact all families. The conservative economic model, by contrast, depends on keeping many families poor, desperate to feed their kids, and willing to take any job for low wages. So conservatives are working hard to convince us to turn on one another, and to prevent that coalition from growing its political power.
The conservative pronatalist effort to increase the number of babies—through abortion bans, threats to contraception, and blather about how women are happiest when they’re at home with babies—aims to push women of all backgrounds out of civic life before they can build that infrastructure, which would definitively alter the current American business model for the better. US fertility rates have been trending downward since 2007, with an overall decline of 21.3 percent as of 2023, including a 68.5 percent decline among teens. While we might have expected rates to increase in abortion-ban states in 2023, an analysis by the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality at the University of Houston of Centers for Disease Control birth data shows that the fertility rate fell in all 50 states in that year, though they fell slightly less rapidly on average in ban states than in states without bans.
Multiple factors are in play in the declining rates in ban states: Some people in those states are still able to obtain abortions (the overall rate of legal abortion in the United States increased in 2023, as some in ban states travel for care, and self-managed abortions with medication or other means are also known to be rising). Many people are being more vigilant around their contraception, with increasing numbers of young women choosing sterilization, suggesting that there will be fewer unplanned pregnancies in the near term—and fewer planned pregnancies later. More young people are coming out into LGBT relationships that are naturally contracepted, also lowering the rate of unplanned pregnancies overall. And more people may be refraining from sex, fearing lack of access to abortion post-Dobbs or for other reasons.
There are bleaker causes for this shift as well. Many couples who don’t want to take on the health risks of pregnancy in ban states where doctors hesitate to render aid are choosing not to start the families they’d hoped for. And some pregnant women are dying before they give birth in ban states, because of lack of aid. All of these factors contribute to the 2023 fertility fall. Much more data in these realms is to come—but the signs are that if the bans were in some measure an effort to expand births to reassert patriarchal power and a status quo economy, it’s not working out that way. Trying to force women into families they don’t feel ready for while pushing them out of civic life only makes them even less likely to start families than they were already.
On the other hand, building a family-support infrastructure would make it easier for young couples today to combine career and family earlier, if they so choose. Such an infrastructure could encompass a universal sliding-scale childcare system, paid family leave, and public after-school and summer care programs, among other possible components. That’s the approach that has the greatest chance of increasing the declining fertility rate (though not a cure-all globally)—if we as a society decide that a higher fertility rate is indeed the goal (a topic for more discussion going forward). It’s women who’ve delayed childbearing in order to move up into policymaking roles and their allies who’ve brought us to a point where that’s possible.
Vance was factually wrong, of course, in claiming that Harris was “childless”—she’s actively helped raise her two stepchildren for 10 years. But the remarks are also out of touch with contemporary realities of birth timing and family formation: Buttigieg (then 39) and his partner adopted twins in 2022, and AOC (then 31) might yet choose to have children (or not, up to her)—the average age when women have their first child is now 27, and it’s 31 for college grads.
Later parenthood is common now, and it’s been key to the mass movement of women into civic life—including all aspects of employment and government, over roughly the last 35 years—as reliable birth control enabled increasing numbers to move up through the ranks. The more than 100 women I interviewed for my book Ready, a study on later motherhood, reported that delaying childbirth allowed them to complete their educations, climb the ladders at work, find a partner for the long term, and see something of the world before settling down. As a Supreme Court majority acknowledged in their 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey opinion, “the ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives” —through access to both contraception and abortion. That transformation has both expanded the workforce, as more women have stepped into it, and catapulted us much closer to a full democracy, as those women with more money of their own and more civic presence could begin to directly represent their views. The hard-won expansion of social acceptance and access has similarly increased the representation in office of people of color and the LGBT community. More women moving into the workforce can also address concerns around future workforce declines (an efficiency that also lessens the climate burdens of expanded population).
For women who want children, a key part of the delay story has been the unaffordability of childcare. In a vicious cycle, in a time when few women were in office, they couldn’t create the childcare infrastructure that would let women with kids climb into the policymaking roles to create the infrastructure. As a result, use of birth control to delay first birth has served as a shadow benefits system for many women, allowing them the time needed to rise into positions in which they could earn enough to pay for care themselves and begin to build the family-support infrastructure for the generations following. Progress has been made in great part because women with birth-timing stories similar to those I spoke with for Ready, as well as women who didn’t have children, now comprise a large portion of the women in policymaking roles around our nation. That’s who Vance wants to force out.
Blocking from policymaking roles people who’ve delayed or refrained from biological procreation, as Vance advised, would effectively exclude most women who currently have the education, experience, and time to allow them to serve in those roles—specifically because they put having kids on hold. Rather than building a care infrastructure, Vance recommends that children should all be tended by their grandparents if their mother isn’t available.
That’s a possible solution for parents who have grandparents able, available, willing, and close by, though even they are not always able to do full-time care. And many parents don’t have family nearby. It’s also not always the best option—either for the many children who would be better served by trained, energetic early childhood educators, or for their grandparents, who may like to spend time with grandkids but don’t need a full-time job in retirement. Vance’s “solution” is another way of saying he doesn’t want to fund a universal sliding-scale childcare system, like the one that almost passed in 2021 as part of Biden’s Build Back Better bill. It lost by one vote, when business owner and Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin voted nay, arguing that he couldn’t support the “entitlement mentality” that would result. But the vote was closer than ever before.
For decades, the default business response has been that a nationalized family support infrastructure like universal childcare was just too expensive. But that has included no real analysis of the economic big picture: Though additional services could raise taxes on businesses and the wealthy, the taxes paid to fund childcare wages would then circulate, as those workers (largely women initially) and the women they enable to work consistently in other jobs pay their taxes and spend their wages in the businesses in their neighborhoods, returning to those businesses the taxes they paid in the form of an expanded customer base, and growing still more businesses by helping the community thrive. Since such taxes would accrue to all businesses equally, they wouldn’t affect competition, as is currently the case when some employers try to expand benefits on their own. Requiring participation of all employers would make life easier for them (ending the constant turnover as workers can’t find care) as well as for employees across the board. That’s a care economy.
That’s opposite to the world advocated by Vance or by Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for firming up a teetering patriarchy. That 6,000-year-old socioeconomic system counts on uncontrolled fertility and compulsory heterosexuality to keep women of all backgrounds in service roles providing sex, babies, and household labor, with little or no income of their own to enable them to leave or civic voice to protest their situation. In its plan to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children,” Project 2025 aims to “delete” the terms “gender equity,” “diversity”, “sexual orientation,” reproductive rights“ (and others) from every piece of federal legislation, and, in deleting all protections for the groups who’ve been struggling to access civic voice, to return us to a hierarchical labor system where racial bias reigned, dads kept their noses to the grindstone at work and had little interaction with their kids, moms of all classes pumped out lots of workers in training but had limited access to the workforce themselves, and business owners grew fat on the surplus value generated by all. Senator Vance wrote the Introduction to an earlier Heritage Project report, and his calls to eject from government representatives of groups only now coming into civic voice and influence echo those of Project 2025.
In the absence of a family-support infrastructure, if young women are pushed into early births going forward, either through blocked access to abortion and contraception or because they take Vance’s advice and have kids earlier, many fewer would complete their studies and access the career-building jobs that would give them equitable civic voice and make them eligible for policymaking roles in the future. Pushing out young women as well as those currently in office who’ve delayed or refrained from having kids would also end movement toward building that care economy aimed at supporting all Americans to succeed, as Harris, Buttigieg, AOC, and their allies, including Joe Biden, have all advocated in various forms.
Such an infrastructure, along with equitable sharing of care work across genders at home, would address many of the concerns of young women and men who currently want kids but also want to keep their jobs and can’t afford care on their current salaries. Changing the status of care work by demonstrating that it’s valuable (through increasing the care available and paying care workers a decent wage) will be an important step toward equity in caregiving at home. Real progress on fixing climate change (another form of care work) so that people can feel it’s not unfair to bring kids into the world would also help.
Not only are abortion bans actively harmful to women and their families; they also don’t work to recreate the past as the forces of yesteryear indicate they want them to. If you actually want more Americans to expand their families, it’ll be up to the leaders who build a society that supports those families—of all backgrounds, and the people in them of all genders. Leaders who are not afraid of equity—oh right, that’s democracy. Those will include quite a few who delayed or refrained from starting a family themselves in order to rise to positions where they can help all families thrive.
