Vice President Kamala Harris has lost no time blaming former President Donald Trump for the death of a single mother in Georgia after hospital doctors, working under the constraints of an abortion ban, delayed treating her catastrophic infection.

The story of Amber Nicole Thurman’s death in August 2022—and its connection to the six-week abortion ban enacted in Georgia the month before she died—was first reported by ProPublica’s Kavitha Surana. While doctors, patients, and reproductive justice advocates have long warned that abortion bans were causing profound disruptions and delays in healthcare for pregnant women, Thurman’s is the first death to come to public attention.

“This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” Harris said in a statement reported by the Associated Press. “Women are bleeding out in parking lots, turned away from emergency rooms, losing their ability to ever have children again. Survivors of rape and incest are being told they cannot make decisions about what happens next to their bodies. And now women are dying.”

“This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school.”

“These are the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions,” Harris added.

Later on Tuesday, during a interview moderated by the National Association of Black Journalists and WHYY public radio station in Philadelphia, Harris once again drew a link between Thurman’s death and Trump. “Over 20 states have passed what I call ‘Trump abortion bans,’ because I understand how we got here,” Harris told an audience of journalism students from historically Black colleges and universities. “The former president handpicked three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade. They did as he intended, and in state after state, laws have been passed criminalizing health care providers.”

The doctors who delayed Thurman’s care were operating under these laws, Harris pointed out. “It appears the people who should have given her health care were afraid they’d be criminalized after the Dobbs decision came down,” she said.

According to ProPublica, Georgia’s ban on abortions after six weeks affected Thurman in multiple ways. When Thurman discovered she was pregnant with twins in July 2022, she was just over the gestational limit. Because the 28-year-old medical assistant could not get an abortion near where she lived, she had to drive four hours with a friend to North Carolina. Then, stuck in traffic, she missed her appointment for a surgical abortion using a technique called dilation and curettage (D&C), so the clinic instead gave her medication to end her pregnancy and sent her home. The distance meant that days later, when Thurman began experiencing a rare complication from the medication abortion—her body hadn’t expelled all the fetal tissue, putting her at risk of a dangerous infection—she couldn’t go back to the provider for a free D&C. Only when her condition deteriorated did she end up going to a hospital outside Atlanta.

There, her blood pressure falling and organs failing, Thurman was diagnosed with “acute severe sepsis.” But physicians waited 20 hours to operate. The hospital and doctors did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment. But the delays mirror many other stories about abortion bans leading to dangerous disruptions in pregnancy care since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. Physicians afraid of being prosecuted have raised alarms about the laws’ hard-to-interpret exceptions: How close to death does a pregnant patient have to be in order for them to perform emergency abortion?

Thurman ultimately died in the operating room. A Georgia state committee tasked with reviewing maternal deaths found that the delay in providing the D&C had a “large” impact on her death, and they deemed it “preventable,” according to ProPublica.

Harris’ attention to Thurman’s story is no surprise given her reputation as a forceful defender of abortion rights on the campaign trail and in her debate against Trump. But her attention to pregnancy-related deaths—which are far more common in the United States than in other high-income countries—dates back years. In the Senate, Harris focused on reducing maternal mortality for Black women like Thurman, who are 2.6 times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than white women, according to 2022 CDC data. In 2018, she sponsored a resolution recognizing “Black Maternal Health Week” and introduced the Maternal CARE Act to create a grant program to address racial bias in obstetrics and gynecology. As vice president, she pushed efforts to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months.

“For years, I have worked to make sure our country treats maternal mortality as the national crisis it is,” Harris wrote in 2022, prefacing a 50-point plan to use government agencies to lower maternal deaths. “I am proud to lead our Administration’s efforts to address this issue.”

Reproductive justice advocates have been warning for more than two years that the end of Roe v. Wade would lead to surge in maternal mortality among patients denied abortion care—and that the increase was likely to be greatest among low-income women of color. Now, a new report by ProPublica has uncovered the first such verified death. A 28-year-old medical assistant and Black single mother in Georgia died from a severe infection after a hospital delayed a routine medical procedure that had been outlawed under that state’s six-week abortion ban.

Amber Nicole Thurman’s death, in August 2022, was officially deemed “preventable” by a state committee tasked with reviewing pregnancy-related deaths. Thurman’s case is the first time a preventable abortion-related death has come to public attention since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, ProPublica‘s Kavitha Surana reported.

Now, “we actually have the substantiated proof of something we already knew—that abortion bans kill people.”

Now, “we actually have the substantiated proof of something we already knew—that abortion bans kill people,” said Mini Timmaraju, president of the abortion-rights group Reproductive Freedom for All, during a call with media. “It cannot go on.”

Thurman is almost certainly not the only person to have died as a consequence of an abortion ban, even if her case is the first to be officially confirmed. As ProPublica noted, that’s because investigations of maternal deaths often don’t happen until years later:

Committees like the one in Georgia, set up in each state, often operate with a two-year lag behind the cases they examine, meaning that experts are only now beginning to delve into deaths that took place after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion.

Earlier this year, the New Yorker reported on the story of Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick, a 29-year-old woman in Texas who died in July 2022 from complications of a high-risk pregnancy. In that case, medical records did “not suggest any discussion of the fact that an abortion could have alleviated the additional strain that the pregnancy placed on her heart,” the New Yorker reported.

According to ProPublica, Thurman had decided to get an abortion after learning she was pregnant with twins. But the very day she passed the six-week mark of her pregnancy, Georgia implemented a ban forbidding abortion after six weeks’ gestation—as the Supreme Court allowed states to do when it overturned Roe earlier that summer. So Thurman traveled four hours to an abortion clinic in North Carolina, where abortions were then allowed past 20 weeks. There she was given mifepristone and misoprostol, a two-drug regimen used to end pregnancies.

A few days after she took the pills, Thurman’s pain became excruciating, and she was bleeding through a pad every hour. Complications from abortion pills are rare, but sometimes patients require a procedure called dilation and curettage, or D&C, to remove remaining fetal tissue from the uterus that could lead to life-threatening sepsis. The North Carolina clinic would have performed the D&C for free if Thurman lived closer, ProPublica said. Instead, after vomiting blood and passing out at home, Thurman was brought to the hospital in the Atlanta suburbs, where doctors noted signs of an infection. According to ProPublica,

The standard treatment of sepsis is to start antibiotics and immediately seek and remove the source of the infection. For a septic abortion, that would include removing any remaining tissue from the uterus. One of the hospital network’s own practices describes a D&C as a “fairly common, minor surgical procedure” to be used after a miscarriage to remove fetal tissue.

But because D&Cs can be used to perform abortions, physicians operating under an abortion ban can be slow to provide them even for miscarriages and other emergency situations, as illustrated in a recent report on post-Roe disruptions to pregnancy care in Louisiana. Not until 2 p.m. the day after Thruman entered the hospital was she brought for surgery. She died in the operating room. The Georgia maternal mortality review committee found that if a D&C had been performed earlier, there was a “good chance” her death could have been prevented, ProPublica reports.

“These devastating bans did not only block Amber, and many others, from accessing abortion care in her state, they also delayed the routine life-saving care she later needed, leaving her to suffer and die,” Timmaraju said during the press call on Monday.

While every state abortion ban contains exceptions to save the life of the pregnant person, uncertainty among medical providers over exactly when doctors can step in without fear of being prosecuted has led to delays in medical care for pregnant woman across the country, with devastating consequences.

On the call with reporters, leaders of reproductive justice organizations pointed to the way bans and delays in emergency medical care for pregnant people disproportionately impact Black women. Black women are about 2.6 times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Reproductive justice is not just about abortion access, but also about the broader right to quality, comprehensive, full-range, culturally humble care, life saving health care for all of us,” said KR Redman, executive director of SPARK, a reproductive justice group in Georgia. “Amber’s case is just an example of the ongoing systemic negligence that continues to claim the lives of Black folks.”

In 2015, as Sen. Ted Cruz mounted a competitive presidential campaign and courted the religious right ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the Texas Republican touted the support of a controversial anti-abortion crusader.

“I am grateful to receive the endorsement of Troy Newman,” Cruz said. “He has served as a voice for the unborn for over 25 years, and works tirelessly every day for the pro-life cause. We need leaders like Troy Newman in this country who will stand up for those who do not have a voice.”

Newman wasn’t just any anti-abortion activist: He was, and is, the leader of Operation Rescue—a group that in 1991 held weeks-long protests at the abortion clinic of George Tiller, who was later assassinated by an anti-abortion extremist. Moreover, Newman has claimed that extreme weather was God’s punishment for America’s tolerance for abortion and gay rights; he also co-wrote a book that endorsed the execution of abortion providers.

“The United States government has abrogated its responsibility to properly deal with the blood-guilty. This responsibility rightly involves executing convicted murderers, including abortionists.”

Nearly a decade after the failed presidential bid, Cruz is locked in a tough reelection fight with Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, a former NFL player. The rollback of abortion rights has become a major issue in the Texas contest, as it has nationally, and the two-term senator has been notably quiet on the subject of late. It is a marked contrast from the 2016 presidential election, when Cruz sought to distinguish himself in the presidential contest as an uncompromising defender of the “pro-life” movement.

While other GOP candidates shared similar beliefs in 2016, Cruz argued he was better at proving his devotion to the cause. Ahead of the Iowa caucuses that year, he announced a “Pro-Lifers for Cruz” coalition of 17,000-plus members. “The question we ought to ask is, don’t tell me that you’re pro-life. Show me. When have you stood up and fought to defend the right to life?” Cruz said before the critical first-in-the-nation nominating contest.

It was at that point, in January 2016, that Cruz named Newman as one of 10 co-chairs leading the anti-abortion coalition. The Cruz campaign press release announcing Newman’s appointment mentioned Newman’s book, Their Blood Cries Out, in his bio. Now out of print, the anti-abortion manifesto, first published in 2000, contains eye-popping passages, including one section arguing that the US government should execute “abortionists”:

In addition to our personal guilt in abortion, the United States government has abrogated its responsibility to properly deal with the blood-guilty. This responsibility rightly involves executing convicted murderers, including abortionists, for their crimes in order to expunge bloodguilt from the land and people. Instead, the act of abortion has been elevated to a ‘God-given right’ and the abortionists canonized as saints. Consequently, the entire nation has the blood-red stain of the lives of the innocent upon its head.

Newman co-authored the book with Cheryl Sullenger, who was earlier convicted and imprisoned for her involvement in an attempt to bomb an abortion clinic in California in 1987.

In addition to suggesting the US government kill abortion providers, Newman and Sullenger wrote that the tendency to blame abortion providers and liberal lawmakers for abortions—rather than the women who obtain them—is a mistake:

Those responsible for innocent bloodshed should not be excused or comforted in their sin, yet, as a society, women who have abortions are treated as victims and those who support them in the decision to kill are considered heroes who were willing to stand by their friends or family members during a time of crisis. In reality, the woman is the same as a contract killer, hiring out the murder of her defenseless child, and the supporter is a co-conspirator, aiding and abetting the crime.

The full extent of Newman’s relationship to Cruz is unclear; neither Newman nor Cruz’s congressional office responded to inquiries from Mother Jones. But in addition to Cruz’s presidential campaign materials that mention Newman, there are pictures of Newman posing with Cruz, and with Cruz’s then-chief-of-staff, Paul Teller, on Newman’s Facebook profile alongside a caption: “Ted Cruz may have come in number two in the [presidential] primary, but he is number one to me!”

While the inflammatory contents of Their Blood Cries Out have previously been cited, including by Mother Jones eight years ago, the passages and Cruz’s connection to their author take on new relevance as abortion has become a defining issue of the national election and Cruz’s Texas reelection.

A Democrat hasn’t won a statewide election in Texas in three decades, but Cruz’s apparent lead against Allred is now squarely within the margin of error. Texas voters have reported abortion as one of their top issues this cycle. In recent weeks, Cruz has hesitated to address his views on the topic, as they may prove to alienate critical swing voters in November.

Vice President Kamala Harris just showed why she is a better candidate on abortion than President Biden ever was.

In a blistering response to former President Donald Trump’s rambling about his ever-shifting stance on abortion—which included appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe v. Wade—Harris put the ex-president on blast for what she has been calling the “Trump abortion bans” now present in over a dozen states.

“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body,” Harris said.

Kamala Harris’ full response on abortion pic.twitter.com/QEVkM5WjkR

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 11, 2024

And when Trump repeated his false claim that “every legal scholar” wanted Roe overruled, Harris promptly laid out the devastating consequences of the Dobbs decision.

“Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she is bleeding out in a car in the parking lot—she didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that,” Harris said.

“A 12 or 13 year old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term—they don’t want that,” she continued. Harris pledged to sign legislation restoring Roe into law if Congress passed it during her presidency—and noted that Trump could very well sign a national abortion ban if reelected, as Project 2025 recommends.

“Understand, in his Project 2025, there would be a national abortion monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages,” she said. “I think the American people believe that certain freedoms—in particular, the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body—should not be made by the government.”

Tonight, Harris showed exactly why abortion rights advocates see her as their ideal messenger: In clear and forceful language, she described the health care apocalypse Trump helped create, and the first-hand experiences of pregnant people bearing the brunt of it. When Biden talked about abortion during the first debate, on the other hand, it was a garbled, confusing mess that ended with him talking about immigration.

But in fairness, Trump was also clear about his stance on abortion: When asked two different times, he refused to answer whether he would veto a federal abortion ban if Congress passed one.

The Florida government seems to be doing everything it can—including potentially breaking the law—to prevent voters from approving an abortion rights ballot measure in November.

On Thursday, the state’s health department debuted a webpage spreading misinformation about Amendment 4, a ballot measure appearing in November seeking to override the state’s six-week abortion ban that the Florida Supreme Court approved in April. If it receives the required 60 percent of votes to pass, the amendment would guarantee the right to abortion before the point of so-called fetal viability, which is generally understood to be around 24 weeks gestation. But the state’s new webpage—which DeSantis has since defended as a “public service announcement”—attacks the initiative with a litany of false claims, including that it “threatens women’s safety,” would “eliminate parental consent” for minors seeking abortions, and could “lead to unregulated and unsafe abortions” by allowing people without healthcare expertise to perform the procedure.

Those claims, though, are easily debunked by taking a look at the actual text of the amendment, which explicitly states that a patient’s healthcare provider is responsible for determining when an abortion after viability is necessary to protect a patient’s health. It also says that passage of the amendment would not override the authority of the legislature to require that a minor’s parent or guardian is notified before they obtain an abortion.

But the state’s campaign against the amendment doesn’t stop there. On the same day of the site’s launch, the Tampa Bay Times reported that the Florida Department of State was looking for evidence of fraud in the more than 30,000 citizen signatures used to get the amendment on the November ballot. Two election supervisors told the paper that the move was “highly unusual” given that the signatures had already been approved by local supervisors. The Tampa Bay Times also reported Friday that police had visited the homes of at least two voters who had signed the petition supporting Amendment 4 seeking to verify their signatures.

The anti-abortion efforts are the latest in Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ ongoing fight to defeat Amendment 4 after launching a political spending committee aimed at doing just that in May. (It has raised $3.7 million to date.) Now abortion rights advocates say DeSantis’ government is hoping to scare voters into voting against the amendment. “To our knowledge, it is unprecedented for the State to expressly advocate against a citizen-led initiative,” Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said Thursday. “This kind of propaganda issued by the state, using taxpayer money and operating outside of the political process sets a dangerous precedent.”

On Friday, the Florida Democratic Party said in a statement that it had submitted a public records request seeking information on when the agency started working on the webpage and who was involved. “Ron [DeSantis] and his buddies know they’re losing, and they’re willing to do anything—including breaking the law—to rig the results in their favor,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a statement, adding that the party is also pursuing legal action to try to have the page taken down. State Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book also said her office was investigating legal action in response to the webpage.

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration did not respond to questions from Mother Jones about how much the web page cost to establish and maintain, who demanded its creation, why it includes false and misleading information, and how officials respond to criticism about the site. Instead, the agency provided the following statement: “Part of the Agency’s mission is to provide information and transparency to Floridians on the quality of care they receive. Our new transparency page serves to educate Floridians on the state’s current abortion laws and provide information on a proposed policy change that would impact care across the state.”

Now some have warned that the DeSantis administration’s use of government resources for political purposes could be illegal. Meanwhile, polling suggests the majority of Florida voters support the amendment.

The Florida government seems to be doing everything it can—including potentially breaking the law—to prevent voters from approving an abortion rights ballot measure in November.

On Thursday, the state’s health department debuted a webpage spreading misinformation about Amendment 4, a ballot measure appearing in November seeking to override the state’s six-week abortion ban that the Florida Supreme Court approved in April. If it receives the required 60 percent of votes to pass, the amendment would guarantee the right to abortion before the point of so-called fetal viability, which is generally understood to be around 24 weeks gestation. But the state’s new webpage—which DeSantis has since defended as a “public service announcement”—attacks the initiative with a litany of false claims, including that it “threatens women’s safety,” would “eliminate parental consent” for minors seeking abortions, and could “lead to unregulated and unsafe abortions” by allowing people without healthcare expertise to perform the procedure.

Those claims, though, are easily debunked by taking a look at the actual text of the amendment, which explicitly states that a patient’s healthcare provider is responsible for determining when an abortion after viability is necessary to protect a patient’s health. It also says that passage of the amendment would not override the authority of the legislature to require that a minor’s parent or guardian is notified before they obtain an abortion.

But the state’s campaign against the amendment doesn’t stop there. On the same day of the site’s launch, the Tampa Bay Times reported that the Florida Department of State was looking for evidence of fraud in the more than 30,000 citizen signatures used to get the amendment on the November ballot. Two election supervisors told the paper that the move was “highly unusual” given that the signatures had already been approved by local supervisors. The Tampa Bay Times also reported Friday that police had visited the homes of at least two voters who had signed the petition supporting Amendment 4 seeking to verify their signatures.

The anti-abortion efforts are the latest in Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ ongoing fight to defeat Amendment 4 after launching a political spending committee aimed at doing just that in May. (It has raised $3.7 million to date.) Now abortion rights advocates say DeSantis’ government is hoping to scare voters into voting against the amendment. “To our knowledge, it is unprecedented for the State to expressly advocate against a citizen-led initiative,” Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said Thursday. “This kind of propaganda issued by the state, using taxpayer money and operating outside of the political process sets a dangerous precedent.”

On Friday, the Florida Democratic Party said in a statement that it had submitted a public records request seeking information on when the agency started working on the webpage and who was involved. “Ron [DeSantis] and his buddies know they’re losing, and they’re willing to do anything—including breaking the law—to rig the results in their favor,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a statement, adding that the party is also pursuing legal action to try to have the page taken down. State Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book also said her office was investigating legal action in response to the webpage.

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration did not respond to questions from Mother Jones about how much the web page cost to establish and maintain, who demanded its creation, why it includes false and misleading information, and how officials respond to criticism about the site. Instead, the agency provided the following statement: “Part of the Agency’s mission is to provide information and transparency to Floridians on the quality of care they receive. Our new transparency page serves to educate Floridians on the state’s current abortion laws and provide information on a proposed policy change that would impact care across the state.”

Now some have warned that the DeSantis administration’s use of government resources for political purposes could be illegal. Meanwhile, polling suggests the majority of Florida voters support the amendment.

On Friday night, a Missouri judge handed down a ruling that could threaten voters’ abilities to enshrine reproductive rights in the state’s constitution this November. It is a massive setback for one of most consequential abortion ballot measures this year.

After the Supreme Court overruled Roe in its June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Missouri began enforcing its near-total abortion ban that had been dormant until Dobbs. Soon after, activists began pushing for a ballot measure, Amendment 3, to bring back abortion to the state. In May, organizers in Missouri turned in more than 380,000 signatures in their bid to get the proposed amendment on the ballot, compared to the 172,000 required.

The proposed amendment stipulates that the government cannot “deny or infringe upon a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom” and that abortion cannot be restricted in the state before fetal viability. It also says that life and health exceptions must be respected and that people cannot be prosecuted for helping someone obtain an abortion or for their own pregnancy outcomes.

On Friday, Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled that the proposed Amendment 3 should be removed from the November ballot because it does not specify which specific anti-abortion laws it would repeal. (Advocates say that exact laws for repeal would be determined by future lawsuits.)

In his ruling, Limbaugh wrote that he “recognizes the gravity of the unique issues involved in this case” and would stay his ruling until Tuesday, “so that further guidance or rulings can be provided by a reviewing court.”

In a statement, Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the group behind the ballot measure initiative, called the judge’s decision a “profound injustice,” adding that the group plans to appeal. “Our fight to ensure that voters—not politicians—have the final say is far from over,” Sweet said.

Limbaugh’s ruling represents just the latest roadblock that Missouri reproductive rights advocates have encountered. As my colleague Madison Pauly reported, anti-abortion officials in the state stymied advocates’ attempts to bring a ballot measure to voters in 2019. As Madison chronicled, advocates also fought amongst themselves about whether the proposed ballot measure should seek to restore Roe or go beyond it:

In the months following the 2022 election, the group—a mix of advocates including the state ACLU and Planned Parenthood affiliates and the local activist group Abortion Action Missouri—splintered. Some members, including [Executive Director of Medical Students for Choice Pamela] Merritt, wanted to go with language that would enshrine a broad right to abortion. Others wanted to consider an amendment with baked-in compromises in the hopes of winning over more voters. They proposed letting the state impose or preserve restrictions that the larger abortion-rights movement often condemns, including a ban on procedures after so-called fetal viability—the hard-to-pin-down point in pregnancy at which a fetus has a decent chance of surviving outside the uterus. (Viability limits often include an exception for abortions needed to protect a pregnant patient’s life or health.)

Now, based on Limbaugh’s order, it seems they may not get anything they were hoping for.

On Friday night, a Missouri judge handed down a ruling that could threaten voters’ abilities to enshrine reproductive rights in the state’s constitution this November. It is a massive setback for one of most consequential abortion ballot measures this year.

After the Supreme Court overruled Roe in its June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Missouri began enforcing its near-total abortion ban that had been dormant until Dobbs. Soon after, activists began pushing for a ballot measure, Amendment 3, to bring back abortion to the state. In May, organizers in Missouri turned in more than 380,000 signatures in their bid to get the proposed amendment on the ballot, compared to the 172,000 required.

The proposed amendment stipulates that the government cannot “deny or infringe upon a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom” and that abortion cannot be restricted in the state before fetal viability. It also says that life and health exceptions must be respected and that people cannot be prosecuted for helping someone obtain an abortion or for their own pregnancy outcomes.

On Friday, Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh ruled that the proposed Amendment 3 should be removed from the November ballot because it does not specify which specific anti-abortion laws it would repeal. (Advocates say that exact laws for repeal would be determined by future lawsuits.)

In his ruling, Limbaugh wrote that he “recognizes the gravity of the unique issues involved in this case” and would stay his ruling until Tuesday, “so that further guidance or rulings can be provided by a reviewing court.”

In a statement, Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the group behind the ballot measure initiative, called the judge’s decision a “profound injustice,” adding that the group plans to appeal. “Our fight to ensure that voters—not politicians—have the final say is far from over,” Sweet said.

Limbaugh’s ruling represents just the latest roadblock that Missouri reproductive rights advocates have encountered. As my colleague Madison Pauly reported, anti-abortion officials in the state stymied advocates’ attempts to bring a ballot measure to voters in 2019. As Madison chronicled, advocates also fought amongst themselves about whether the proposed ballot measure should seek to restore Roe or go beyond it:

In the months following the 2022 election, the group—a mix of advocates including the state ACLU and Planned Parenthood affiliates and the local activist group Abortion Action Missouri—splintered. Some members, including [Executive Director of Medical Students for Choice Pamela] Merritt, wanted to go with language that would enshrine a broad right to abortion. Others wanted to consider an amendment with baked-in compromises in the hopes of winning over more voters. They proposed letting the state impose or preserve restrictions that the larger abortion-rights movement often condemns, including a ban on procedures after so-called fetal viability—the hard-to-pin-down point in pregnancy at which a fetus has a decent chance of surviving outside the uterus. (Viability limits often include an exception for abortions needed to protect a pregnant patient’s life or health.)

Now, based on Limbaugh’s order, it seems they may not get anything they were hoping for.

Abortion is coming to the Democratic National Convention this week…and conservatives are not okay.

Access to reproductive health care—which both Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), have strongly supported—is sure to be front and center in some of the convention’s biggest speeches. Especially given its importance for voters and the fact that former President Donald Trump is responsible for appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, unleashing an avalanche of restrictions in over a dozen states.

But this week, the issue will not just be rhetorical, but literal as well. Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, which is based in neighboring Missouri, where abortion is banned, announced in a post on X earlier this week that it will be providing free medication abortions and vasectomies from a “mobile health clinic” in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago on Monday and Tuesday. That’s just under a mile northwest of the United Center, where many of the main DNC events will take place. By Saturday, Planned Parenthood announced that all the appointments had been filled—and, as you may expect, the right promptly began freaking out.

“I thought this was fake but it’s not,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted on X. “It’s hard to even comprehend and it’s truly heartbreaking.” Kristan Hawkins, head of the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, argued that this action demonstrates the Democrats are “the party of death.” The right-wing Libs of TikTok account called it “demonic.” And a writer for the right-wing Daily Caller described the health clinic as “Kamala’s abortion bus”—though it was not requested by the Harris campaign, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Great Rivers said. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to questions.

All free vasectomy and medication abortions are filled for our mobile health clinic in Chicago. Check back soon — we will share the interest form link again if we have cancellations. pic.twitter.com/o1biAPezZh

— Planned Parenthood Great Rivers (@ppgreatrivers) August 18, 2024

Despite these full-throated condemnations, there was surprisingly little discussion of abortion at the Republican National Convention, even though the party and Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) boast strong anti-abortion records. That’s likely because the right is aware of the political unpopularity of abortion bans, and Trump himself has said it’s important for Republicans to support exceptions in order to win in November.

New data released Wednesday by KFF shows that nearly three-quarters of US women who are of reproductive age think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, with 70 percent supporting a nationwide right to abortion. And as I have written, Republicans are trying to trick voters—and mainstream media—into thinking they are “softening” on the issue.

But the free mobile reproductive healthcare offered in Chicago only further underscores the differences between Democrats and Republicans—who have also threatened access to contraception and IVF. Abortion restrictions have led to maternity care deserts in red states, and experts have warned abortion bans will worsen maternal mortality, as my colleague Abby Vesoulis reported. In Texas, that appears to have already happened. As my colleague Nina Martin reported, a recent study found that there was a massive spike in infant mortality in Texas following the implementation of its six-week abortion ban, SB8, in 2022.

“There are going to be people traveling to Chicago from all over the country,” Dr. Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, told the New York Times, “and I think we should be doing what we can as health care providers to show what the impact of good policy and bad policy is.”

Update, Aug. 18: This post was updated with new information about the location of the mobile health clinic and its distance to the United Center.

Abortion is coming to the Democratic National Convention this week…and conservatives are not okay.

Access to reproductive health care—which both Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), have strongly supported—is sure to be front and center in some of the convention’s biggest speeches. Especially given its importance for voters and the fact that former President Donald Trump is responsible for appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, unleashing an avalanche of restrictions in over a dozen states.

But this week, the issue will not just be rhetorical, but literal as well. Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, which is based in neighboring Missouri, where abortion is banned, announced in a post on X earlier this week that it will be providing free medication abortions and vasectomies from a “mobile health clinic” in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago on Monday and Tuesday. That’s just under a mile northwest of the United Center, where many of the main DNC events will take place. By Saturday, Planned Parenthood announced that all the appointments had been filled—and, as you may expect, the right promptly began freaking out.

“I thought this was fake but it’s not,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted on X. “It’s hard to even comprehend and it’s truly heartbreaking.” Kristan Hawkins, head of the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, argued that this action demonstrates the Democrats are “the party of death.” The right-wing Libs of TikTok account called it “demonic.” And a writer for the right-wing Daily Caller described the health clinic as “Kamala’s abortion bus”—though it was not requested by the Harris campaign, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Great Rivers said. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to questions.

All free vasectomy and medication abortions are filled for our mobile health clinic in Chicago. Check back soon — we will share the interest form link again if we have cancellations. pic.twitter.com/o1biAPezZh

— Planned Parenthood Great Rivers (@ppgreatrivers) August 18, 2024

Despite these full-throated condemnations, there was surprisingly little discussion of abortion at the Republican National Convention, even though the party and Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) boast strong anti-abortion records. That’s likely because the right is aware of the political unpopularity of abortion bans, and Trump himself has said it’s important for Republicans to support exceptions in order to win in November.

New data released Wednesday by KFF shows that nearly three-quarters of US women who are of reproductive age think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, with 70 percent supporting a nationwide right to abortion. And as I have written, Republicans are trying to trick voters—and mainstream media—into thinking they are “softening” on the issue.

But the free mobile reproductive healthcare offered in Chicago only further underscores the differences between Democrats and Republicans—who have also threatened access to contraception and IVF. Abortion restrictions have led to maternity care deserts in red states, and experts have warned abortion bans will worsen maternal mortality, as my colleague Abby Vesoulis reported. In Texas, that appears to have already happened. As my colleague Nina Martin reported, a recent study found that there was a massive spike in infant mortality in Texas following the implementation of its six-week abortion ban, SB8, in 2022.

“There are going to be people traveling to Chicago from all over the country,” Dr. Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, told the New York Times, “and I think we should be doing what we can as health care providers to show what the impact of good policy and bad policy is.”

Update, Aug. 18: This post was updated with new information about the location of the mobile health clinic and its distance to the United Center.

By now, many Americans know what Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), has said about women without kids—or, as he calls them, “childless cat ladies”: He has alleged they are miserable; that they generally do not support families; and that they deserve less voting power than people with kids.

Now, new data surveying the demographic targeted by Vance—women without kids, including women who own cats—makes it abundantly clear just how wrong Trump’s VP pick was about their political priorities. The gender justice advocacy organization National Women’s Law Center Action Fund and the polling firm Morning Consult surveyed more than 1,700 registered voters nationwide on August 1 and 2 and found that women without kids—including those with cats—support policies supporting children and families as much as, if not more than, parents and voters overall.

The study, shared first with Mother Jones, also found that 62 percent of women without kids who have cats and 51 percent of women without kids overall strongly agree that “supporting families and children should be a top priority for the federal government,” compared with 49 percent of parents and 47 percent of voters overall. And as for Vance’s claim that “childless cat ladies” are “miserable?” Yeah…they’re not. The survey found 32 percent of these so-called “childless cat ladies” said they are “very happy,” compared to 27 percent of voters overall.

The findings also highlight a particular irony: Most women without kids support specific pro-family policies that Vance does not. Fifty-three percent of women without kids, for example, said they believe “guaranteeing access to child care for everyone who needs it” should be a very important government priority, compared to 52 percent of parents and 51 percent of voters overall. Vance, on the other hand, has called universal daycare “class war against normal people” and suggested women’s rightful place is in the home. “If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had,” Vance posted on X after the Dobbs decision in June 2022. The same dissonance appeared in support for paid family and medical leave, with the survey respondents expressing strong support for such policies, while Vance has never appeared to support them.

And more than 50 percent of both childless cat women and parents said they believe “re-expanding the Child Tax Credit to help low- and middle-income families make ends meet and to help reduce child poverty” should be a very important priority for the government, compared to 47 percent of childless women overall and 48 percent of voters overall. Vance has recently claimed he would support increasing the child tax credit to $5,000, but experts say that would be hard to enact—and Vance did not even show up for a Senate vote earlier this month on a bill that would expand the child tax credit to $2,000 per child. (Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, blasted Vance as a “phony.”)

Spokespeople for Vance—who has since tried walking back his “cat ladies” comment amid the ire it sparked, particularly among Americans who don’t have kids—did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

To experts, the findings are not surprising. “It makes sense that women without children would support policies like affordable childcare and paid family leave because they recognize that care links all of our fates,” said Jessica Calarco, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the book Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net.

Peggy Heffington, a historian based at the University of Chicago and the author of Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother, said she sees a cause for hope in the findings: “People who don’t have kids are having empathy and wanting to support people whose lives don’t look like theirs.” That’s a lesson that Vance could stand to learn.

One way to sum up Gov. Tim Walz’s (D-Minn.) stance on reproductive rights? It’s pretty much the opposite of Sen. JD Vance’s (R-Ohio) extreme views.

Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’s newly-named running mate for the Democratic ticket, has been a strong supporter of reproductive rights, especially as Republicans have continued to chip away at them post-Dobbs. A sampling of that record: In January 2023, Walz signed a bill enshrining the right to an abortion—as well as contraception and fertility treatments—in Minnesota. A few months later, Walz signed into law another significant reproductive rights bill that protects people who seek or help others access abortion within Minnesota from legal threats from out of state.

But he’s been particularly vocal—in deeply personal terms—about one issue: IVF access.

After Alabama’s state Supreme Court’s ruling imperiled IVF access by stipulating that frozen embryos could be considered children, Walz publicly condemned the decision and posted to Facebook about his family’s experience using IVF: “Gwen and I have two beautiful children because of reproductive health care like IVF,” Walz wrote in February. “This issue is deeply personal to our family and so many others. Don’t let these guys get away with this by telling you they support IVF when their handpicked judges oppose it.” He later told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he and his wife spent seven years going through unsuccessful IVF treatments before they finally got pregnant. They named their daughter Hope, he said, as a tribute to their fertility journey.

Following the selection of Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate, Walz has zeroed in on Vance’s previous opposition to a Senate bill that sought to protect access to IVF after the Alabama ruling. “Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children. [Vance] thinks he needs to dictate that,” Walz said during an appearance on MSNBC last month. Walz then attacked Vance’s anti-IVF vote directly, adding: “I don’t need him to tell me about my family. I don’t need him to tell me about my wife’s healthcare and her reproductive rights.”

My daughter, Hope, tricked me into doing the most extreme ride at the Minnesota State Fair. pic.twitter.com/YeMEocwJRv

— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) September 4, 2023

William Martin, a spokesperson for Vance, said in a statement, “JD supports access to IVF and has repeatedly made that clear,” adding that he and other Senate Republicans believe the Senate bill was unnecessary given the availability of IVF and support continued access. But even if that’s true, the rest of the Veep contenders’ records on reproductive rights are a study in contrasts.

As I have covered, Vance has said he would support a national abortion ban; argued against rape and incest exceptions; compared abortion to slavery; and said the Department of Justice should use the 19th-century Comstock Act to criminalize “mail-order abortions,” as Project 2025 recommends. (More recently, he has sought to walk back some of his most extreme viewpoints, alleging he supports access to mifepristone and leaving the question of abortion rights to the states.)

Walz, meanwhile, has been full-throated in his support for reproductive rights. “I think old white men need to learn how to talk about this a little more,” Walz told CNN in March after he accompanied Harris to a Minnesota Planned Parenthood, making her the first VP known to have ever visited an abortion clinic while in office.

When Kamala Harris toured a MN abortion clinic to highlight fallout from the Dobbs decision, Tim Walz was on hand– she thanked him for his leadership, "both for this beautiful state, but nationally, you’ve been a great friend to the president and me, and thank you for all that." pic.twitter.com/sp8NYJthiF

— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) August 6, 2024

It makes sense, then, that abortion rights advocates praised Walz’s track record after Harris announced him as her running mate on Tuesday. Jessica Mackler, president of EMILYs List, the PAC that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion, called the Harris-Walz ticket “the most pro-choice” ever. Reproductive Freedom for All, formerly known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, said that Walz “has championed reproductive freedom throughout his career.” Planned Parenthood Action called Walz an “abortion rights champion,” adding, “We could not think of a better duo headed to the White House.”

If you listen to leading anti-abortion activists, you will notice they keep speaking a bit too honestly.

In drafting their platform, the GOP claimed the party does not plan to ban abortion nationwide (maybe because they know it is extremely politically unpopular). But the latest person to say that position is not, exactly, true is Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, an influential anti-abortion advocacy group.

In an interview published Monday, Hawkins told the New York Times that, contrary to some mainstream headlines, the latest GOP platform does not represent a “softening” on abortion.

Instead, Hawkins said what leading reproductive rights scholars Mary Ziegler and Rachel Rebouché told me weeks ago: The invoking of the Fourteenth Amendment in the newest GOP platform could grant full citizenship and rights to fetuses—thus offering an avenue to potentially banning abortion nationwide.

Hawkins is not the only anti-abortion advocate spelling out these contradictions. As I reported earlier this month, Ed Martin—president of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, a conservative group, and one of three people the RNC and the Trump campaign appointed to run the committee that wrote the platform—also defended the new, shortened platform from charges it had weakened in its opposition to abortion because it did not explicitly call for a national ban or a “human life amendment” to the Constitution. “There’s not as many words describing it,” Martin said on his radio show, “but there’s protection under the Constitution, that life is protected.”

Later in the interview with the Times, Hawkins added that anti-abortion advocates’ long-term goal is to secure a Supreme Court opinion that would grant fetuses rights through the 14th Amendment, adding, “I don’t think that has been a hidden agenda at all within the pro-life movement.” She’s right about that: The Republican platform has, for decades, cited the Fourteenth Amendment as the key to enshrining fetal personhood in the law and banning abortion nationwide.

Trump has been nothing if not inconsistent on abortion, refusing to clarify his stance on fetal personhood or whether he would support using the Comstock Act to criminalize the mailing of abortion pills nationwide. As Hawkins told the Times: “I don’t ever think anyone has thought of President Trump as a pro-life activist, and we’ve always known that he is a politician doing what politicians do.” In a statement responding to Hawkins’ comments, Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said: “President Trump has long been consistent in supporting the rights of states to make decisions on abortion.”

It’s worth remembering, though, that despite what the Trump campaign may say, it’s groups like Hawkins’ that got us to the post-Roe reality—and that are plotting further abortion restrictions to come. “We have made strides,” she told the Times. “We continue to move forward.”

Lots of people seem to dislike the views of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) these days: Jennifer Aniston, Congressional Republicans, and…maybe even Donald Trump?

Now hundreds of medical professionals from Vance’s home state of Ohio have also joined that list. On Tuesday, more than 260 doctors from the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights—a nonpartisan group whose members initiated and helped draft the state’s ballot measure securing the constitutional right to abortion in Ohio last year—condemned Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate, citing Vance’s lengthy anti-abortion record. A letter from the group—signed by physicians who practice a variety of specialties, not just OB/GYNs who perform abortions, including pediatrics, family and internal medicine, and child and adolescent psychology—outlined the dangers of what it calls “the Trump-Vance anti-reproductive freedom agenda.”

“Ohio proved to America last year that voters will not stand by as politicians such as J.D. Vance threaten our rights and freedoms,” says the letter, which Mother Jones is the first to report. “This coming November, millions of Americans across the country are going to join us in firmly declaring that we will not give JD Vance any further opportunities to strip away our rights.”

The letter comes as Trump’s campaign has dodged calls to define his stance on abortion, an evasion tactic that has seen him land all over the map on the issue, from his pledge to leave abortion rights “to the states”—after appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe—to Vance trying to walk back his prior calls for a national abortion ban. But despite Trump’s efforts to avoid clarifying questions about his position on threats to abortion access via the Comstock Act and fetal personhood, there are a lot of reasons to believe the GOP would, indeed, try to ban abortion nationwide if Trump is re-elected. Tuesday’s letter cited some of these indicators and Vance’s support for them, including:

• Vance’s support for Project 2025, an initiative led by dozens of conservative groups and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, that outlines plans for a second Trump term—including recommending the Department of Justice use the Comstock Act to prosecute providers who mail abortion pills to patients (Vance also went on record last year stating his support for this proposal) and recommending the Department of Health and Human Services be replaced with a “Department of Life” in order to reject “the notion that abortion is health care.”
• Vance’s prior comments against rape and incest exceptions for abortion bans, in which he dismissed those traumatic assaults as “inconveniences,” adding, “I think two wrongs don’t make a right.” (Trump, for his part, claims to support exceptions for “rape, incest and life of the mother”—despite appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe, allowing states to ban abortion without exceptions if they so choose.)

Dr. Lauren Beene, a pediatrician who signed the letter and is a co-founder and executive director of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, told me that she sees Vance as a bigger threat to abortion rights than Trump because he has been consistent in his opposition to them: “Of all people to have second in command to Donald Trump, who is trying his best to pretend that he is more supportive of reproductive freedom than he is, to choose JD Vance is very telling as far as the true goals of their presidential mission.”

“Both Trump and JD Vance are huge risks [to abortion rights],” she added, “but the combination of the two is just terrible.”

The letter also pointed to Vance’s opposition to Ohio’s abortion rights ballot measure. After it passed in November, he called it a “gut punch…politically dumb and morally repugnant.” (As my colleagues Madison Pauly and Ari Berman chronicled last year, anti-abortion Republicans went to great lengths to prevent the measure from passing last year—and from even coming up for a vote.) And while the measure’s passage was a major win for Ohioans, allowing access to abortion up until the point of fetal viability and allowing abortions later in pregnancy when necessary to protect the patient’s life or health, the letter notes that barriers to abortion access remain: “Threats abound from Ohio’s gerrymandered State Legislature, State and National Supreme Courts, and now, with J.D. Vance joining the presidential race alongside Donald Trump, our patients’ access to necessary and lifesaving reproductive healthcare is at grave risk.” Plus, Beene added, “obstructionist laws” remain on the books in the state—including a 24-hour waiting period mandated before obtaining an abortion, which is currently being challenged in court.

In response to a request for comment on the letter, William Martin, a spokesperson for Vance, told Mother Jones that Vance “agrees with President Trump’s view that abortion policy should be decided by the states,” adding that Vance also “supports reasonable exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”

Martin added: “These desperate smear tactics won’t change the fact that Kamala Harris has no record to run on except for the failure and destruction of the current Administration and been flip-flopping on every single issue possible since she became the de facto nominee. The American people, and particularly the great State of Ohio, are going to soundly reject her weak, failed and dangerously liberal agenda come November.”

A public condemnation from hundreds of doctors over Vance’s anti-abortion views comes as poll after poll shows most Americans disapprove of the Dobbs decision and support abortion access in all or most cases.

As the letter states: “Vance’s extremist views are objectively out of touch with his own Ohio voters, and with the American people.”

On Sunday, abortion rights advocates got some rare good news. After President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection this November, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.

Harris has been the administration’s strongest defender of abortion rights post-Dobbs—direct and consistent in her support. She has taken Trump to task for the fallout of overruling Roe; she has warned of Republicans’ ability to enact a nationwide abortion ban if Trump is re-elected; and she has traveled the country on what the White House called a “reproductive freedoms tour” to highlight the harms of abortion bans—which included a stop at a Minnesota Planned Parenthood, making her the first VP known to have ever visited an abortion clinic while in office.

Harris has also spoken out about the connections between abortion restrictions and the maternal mortality crisis in America. With abortion rights now a winning issue for Democrats, reproductive rights experts say a potential Harris-led ticket could energize Democratic voters and protect the further erosion of abortion rights if Harris is elected.

While it remains to be seen whether Harris officially clinches the Democratic nomination, having a nominee who shows strong support for abortion rights could benefit the ticket. Polls show the majority of Americans support abortion access and disapprove of the Dobbs decision, and about one in eight voters say abortion is the most important issue in their vote.

“She understands that reproductive rights and justice is not simply about securing access to abortion,” Melissa Murray, NYU Law professor and leading reproductive rights scholar, told me, adding that Harris also “recognizes the way in which the assault on democracy and the assault on reproductive freedom go hand-in-hand.”

The same so-called leaders passing Trump Abortion Bans across the country have been silent on the issue of Black maternal mortality—the hypocrisy abounds. pic.twitter.com/Z7Z8Sv4h1L

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 16, 2024

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the organization’s advocacy arm, said in a statement on Sunday, “we know that she will continue to fight like hell to rebuild a fundamental right that was stripped away.” Jessica Mackler, president of the group EMILYs List, the PAC that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion, said in a post on X, “This election will be fought and won on the issue of reproductive freedom, and [Harris] has been a pro-choice champion her entire career. She is well-positioned to turn out the voters we’ll need to win this election, especially women, voters of color, and young voters.” (EMILYs List also endorsed Harris on Sunday.) The advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for all said: “There is nobody who has fought as hard for abortion rights, and she is the candidate who can defeat Trump.”

Christian Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women, added that she thinks voters will also see Harris as a more effective messenger on abortion rights than Biden: “Being a woman, I think she understands and can empathize with having her bodily autonomy and those rights taken from her.”

But gender is not the only difference between Harris and Biden on abortion rights. A devout Catholic, Biden always seemed less comfortable articulating a full-throated endorsement for abortion rights, often avoiding even saying the word and instead professing to support “a woman’s right to choose.”

“I think for a lot of reasons—generational, religion—Joe Biden was a more reluctant standard-bearer for the cause of reproductive rights and justice,” Murray said, “and I don’t think Kamala Harris is reluctant at all—I think she has embraced these issues wholeheartedly and steadfastly.”

Harris has called out the threats posed by Project 2025, the initiative led by dozens of conservative groups and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, which recommends the Department of Justice in the next conservative administration prosecute “providers and distributors of [abortion] pills.” In her first statement after Biden endorsed her as the nominee, Harris said, “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”

Still, some say Harris could help the Democrats go even further in her support of abortion rights if she winds up as the nominee. Rachel Rebouché, Dean of Temple Law School and a leading reproductive rights scholar, said her campaign “could address Comstock head on” and highlight the right’s threats to enshrining fetal personhood in the law and rolling back medication abortion access.

But regardless, Harris is already a stronger candidate for abortion rights advocates than Biden ever was. “She actually talks about reproductive rights,” Rebouché said, “and she’s unafraid to talk about abortion.”

When former President Trump announced Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate earlier this week, anti-abortion firebrands mostly celebrated the pick, given the senator’s staunch anti-abortion record. But as I reported, there was one aspect of that record they didn’t love: his recent comments to NBC’s Meet the Press claiming he believes mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medication abortion, should remain accessible.

Those critics may be excited to learn that, just last year, Vance signed onto a letter with more than 40 other Republican lawmakers demanding that the Department of Justice apply the more than 150-year-old Comstock Act—a 19th-century anti-obscenity law that bars the mailing of “every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use”—to “shut down all mail-order abortion operations” nationwide. That’s precisely what Project 2025, an initiative led by dozens of conservative groups and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, has said the DOJ should do in the next conservative administration.

The news, which appears to have first been reported by the Washington Post on Wednesday, offers even more evidence of Vance’s strong opposition to abortion. As I reported earlier this week, Vance has also, in the past, said he would support a national abortion ban; argued against rape and incest exceptions; and asserted that “there’s something comparable between abortion and slavery,” alleging that both have a “morally distorting effect on the entire society.” (On CBS’ Face the Nation in May, Vance seemed to try walking back his most extreme views—but only by endorsing Trump’s take on leaving most abortion policy to the states, and with a qualifier: “I wanna save as many babies as possible.”) It also appears to provide more evidence of the threats the Comstock Act could pose to abortion rights under a Republican administration.

The letter Vance signed onto—along with hardline right-wingers including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), among others—came soon after the DOJ issued a memo saying the Comstock Act could not be marshaled to prosecute the mailing of abortion pills “because there are manifold ways in which recipients in every state may lawfully use such drugs.” (Mifepristone can also be used for miscarriage management, the DOJ notes, and medication abortion remains legal in the majority of states.)

In their letter, the Republican lawmakers alleged the DOJ had “twisted the plain meaning of the law in an effort to promote the taking of unborn life,” adding that because Congress didn’t repeal Comstock or clarify its application to abortion pills, it should be seen as “the supreme law of the land.” The lawmakers also falsely claimed that abortion pills are dangerous, when in actuality, more than 100 scientific studies have confirmed their safety and efficacy—including a recent study I wrote about showing that they are just as safe and effective when prescribed virtually and mailed to patients.

But it’s worth noting that, in demanding the DOJ use Comstock to “shut down all mail-order abortion operations,” it’s unclear if the Republican lawmakers were referring only to barring the mailing of abortion pills, or also the mailing of equipment used in procedural abortions—which could result in a nationwide total abortion ban, as legal scholar Mary Ziegler pointed out to me when we spoke about the Comstock Act a few months ago. (Spokespeople for Vance and Trump did not immediately respond to questions from Mother Jones on Thursday afternoon seeking clarity.)

This obfuscation, though, is nothing new: Trump has both tried to distance himself from Project 2025 and dodged questions about his stance on the Comstock Act, as I’ve pointed out. He has also tried to both take credit for appointing three of the five conservative Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe v. Wade, and tried to distance himself from the consequences, insisting he would leave questions about abortion rights “to the states” if re-elected. And more recently, the GOP did not explicitly call for a national abortion ban in their newly-adopted platform—but instead hinted at it by invoking the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which they have long argued could be interpreted so as to grant embryos the rights of human beings, thus making abortion illegal nationwide.

Democrats have recently tried to tackle Comstock head-on, by introducing legislation in the House and Senate to repeal the sections of the law they say most directly threaten abortion, as I reported last month. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who introduced the legislation in the upper chamber, said in a statement in response to the reporting on Vance’s previously articulated support for Comstock: “The threat that a future Trump-Vance administration will misuse Comstock to ban abortion nationwide is now a five-alarm fire.”

The Biden campaign also sounded the alarm in response to the news about Vance’s previous support for marshaling Comstock to limit abortion rights: “Trump’s choice of a running mate is even further proof that he will ban abortion nationwide the minute he gets the chance if he wins this November—and he and his allies don’t think they need Congress to get it done,” Sarafina Chitika, senior spokesperson for the Biden campaign, said in a statement. “In Trump’s eyes, Vance’s deep commitment to carrying out their Project 2025 agenda is what qualifies him for the ticket.”

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-chair of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, told me by phone on Thursday: “Nobody should be fooled by what J.D. Vance or Donald Trump are saying now about abortion. They will say anything to get elected, and then they’ll just ban these things.” She added that House Republicans have blocked legislation introduced by Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), aimed at repealing parts of Comstock, from coming up for a vote.

All in all, it looks like Kristan Hawkins, president of the anti-abortion group Students for Life, was right when she claimed earlier this week that Vance “either recently changed his mind or his public talking points” about abortion pills. But actions speak louder than words—and the GOP keeps showing us they have no plans to protect abortion rights if Trump gets a second term in the White House.

When former President Trump announced Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate earlier this week, anti-abortion firebrands mostly celebrated the pick, given the senator’s staunch anti-abortion record. But as I reported, there was one aspect of that record they didn’t love: his recent comments to NBC’s Meet the Press claiming he believes mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medication abortion, should remain accessible.

Those critics may be excited to learn that, just last year, Vance signed onto a letter with more than 40 other Republican lawmakers demanding that the Department of Justice apply the more than 150-year-old Comstock Act—a 19th-century anti-obscenity law that bars the mailing of “every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use”—to “shut down all mail-order abortion operations” nationwide. That’s precisely what Project 2025, an initiative led by dozens of conservative groups and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, has said the DOJ should do in the next conservative administration.

The news, which appears to have first been reported by the Washington Post on Wednesday, offers even more evidence of Vance’s strong opposition to abortion. As I reported earlier this week, Vance has also, in the past, said he would support a national abortion ban; argued against rape and incest exceptions; and asserted that “there’s something comparable between abortion and slavery,” alleging that both have a “morally distorting effect on the entire society.” (On CBS’ Face the Nation in May, Vance seemed to try walking back his most extreme views—but only by endorsing Trump’s take on leaving most abortion policy to the states, and with a qualifier: “I wanna save as many babies as possible.”) It also appears to provide more evidence of the threats the Comstock Act could pose to abortion rights under a Republican administration.

The letter Vance signed onto—along with hardline right-wingers including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), among others—came soon after the DOJ issued a memo saying the Comstock Act could not be marshaled to prosecute the mailing of abortion pills “because there are manifold ways in which recipients in every state may lawfully use such drugs.” (Mifepristone can also be used for miscarriage management, the DOJ notes, and medication abortion remains legal in the majority of states.)

In their letter, the Republican lawmakers alleged the DOJ had “twisted the plain meaning of the law in an effort to promote the taking of unborn life,” adding that because Congress didn’t repeal Comstock or clarify its application to abortion pills, it should be seen as “the supreme law of the land.” The lawmakers also falsely claimed that abortion pills are dangerous, when in actuality, more than 100 scientific studies have confirmed their safety and efficacy—including a recent study I wrote about showing that they are just as safe and effective when prescribed virtually and mailed to patients.

But it’s worth noting that, in demanding the DOJ use Comstock to “shut down all mail-order abortion operations,” it’s unclear if the Republican lawmakers were referring only to barring the mailing of abortion pills, or also the mailing of equipment used in procedural abortions—which could result in a nationwide total abortion ban, as legal scholar Mary Ziegler pointed out to me when we spoke about the Comstock Act a few months ago. (Spokespeople for Vance and Trump did not immediately respond to questions from Mother Jones on Thursday afternoon seeking clarity.)

This obfuscation, though, is nothing new: Trump has both tried to distance himself from Project 2025 and dodged questions about his stance on the Comstock Act, as I’ve pointed out. He has also tried to both take credit for appointing three of the five conservative Supreme Court justices who overruled Roe v. Wade, and tried to distance himself from the consequences, insisting he would leave questions about abortion rights “to the states” if re-elected. And more recently, the GOP did not explicitly call for a national abortion ban in their newly-adopted platform—but instead hinted at it by invoking the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which they have long argued could be interpreted so as to grant embryos the rights of human beings, thus making abortion illegal nationwide.

Democrats have recently tried to tackle Comstock head-on, by introducing legislation in the House and Senate to repeal the sections of the law they say most directly threaten abortion, as I reported last month. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who introduced the legislation in the upper chamber, said in a statement in response to the reporting on Vance’s previously articulated support for Comstock: “The threat that a future Trump-Vance administration will misuse Comstock to ban abortion nationwide is now a five-alarm fire.”

The Biden campaign also sounded the alarm in response to the news about Vance’s previous support for marshaling Comstock to limit abortion rights: “Trump’s choice of a running mate is even further proof that he will ban abortion nationwide the minute he gets the chance if he wins this November—and he and his allies don’t think they need Congress to get it done,” Sarafina Chitika, senior spokesperson for the Biden campaign, said in a statement. “In Trump’s eyes, Vance’s deep commitment to carrying out their Project 2025 agenda is what qualifies him for the ticket.”

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-chair of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, told me by phone on Thursday: “Nobody should be fooled by what J.D. Vance or Donald Trump are saying now about abortion. They will say anything to get elected, and then they’ll just ban these things.” She added that House Republicans have blocked legislation introduced by Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), aimed at repealing parts of Comstock, from coming up for a vote.

All in all, it looks like Kristan Hawkins, president of the anti-abortion group Students for Life, was right when she claimed earlier this week that Vance “either recently changed his mind or his public talking points” about abortion pills. But actions speak louder than words—and the GOP keeps showing us they have no plans to protect abortion rights if Trump gets a second term in the White House.

After former President Trump announced on Monday that he had picked Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate, anti-abortion advocates appear to be celebrating—and they have good reason to.

Vance has a staunchly anti-abortion record. He said he would support a nationwide 15-week abortion ban back when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced a bill seeking to do just that in 2022. He has also argued against rape and incest exceptions, saying, “I think two wrongs don’t make a right,” before dismissing pregnancies that result from those traumas as “inconveniences.”

“It’s not whether a woman should be forced to carry a child to term,” he said in outlining that view while campaigning for the Senate in Sept. 2021, “it’s whether a child should be allowed to live even though the circumstance of a child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.”

In that same interview, Vance also appeared to signal support for fetal personhood—a long-running goal for the right that seeks to bestow embryos with the constitutional rights of children and that would thus entail a national abortion ban: “There is a view, common among leaders of the Democratic party, that babies deserve no legal protections in the womb—that is a common view in the Democratic party; all I’m saying is that view’s wrong,” Vance said. Spokespeople for Vance, the Trump campaign, and the RNC did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Monday night about Vance’s stance on fetal personhood and a national ban, but as I’ve reported, a top Republican official involved in crafting the latest GOP platform itself has argued that it supports fetal personhood.

Vance has also—as my former colleague Katie Herchenroeder noted—argued against no-fault divorce and for married people to have more kids. In that 2021 interview with the local reporter, the then-candidate said, “I think part of the problem of American decline is people who believe that not having kids is, like, a lifestyle brand,” before proceeding to deride people on the left for raising concerns about how having kids could exacerbate climate change.

That same year, Vance made headlines when he said “there’s something comparable between abortion and slavery,” alleging that both have a “morally distorting effect on the entire society.” And after the Supreme Court yanked the constitutional right to abortion from Americans in the Dobbs decision in June 2022, Vance posted on X: “If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had,” appearing to try to quell criticism that the overruling of Roe would stymie women’s professional advancement, among other effects.

More recently, he opposed Ohio’s abortion rights ballot measure and lamented its success after it passed last November, calling it “a gut punch…politically dumb and morally repugnant.” In the same post on X, he said he’d support “abortion restrictions very early in pregnancy with exceptions” because it polls better than restrictions that lack exceptions. (Fact-check: True!)

All of which is to say: it’s not surprising the anti-abortion side is cheering his place on the Trump 2024 ticket.

In a statement Monday night, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called Vance “an exceptional selection” for the Trump ticket, and pointed out that her group has given him an “A-plus” rating on what they call their “national pro-life scorecard” tracking his support for anti-abortion legislation. “With Vance on the ticket, we are more committed than ever in our efforts to deliver the winning pro-life message,” she said.

Carol Tobias, the president of National Right to Life, called Vance “an excellent choice,” adding, “he is committed to promoting the right to life.” The National Right to Life statement also touts Vance’s support for prohibiting public funding of abortion; nominating anti-abortion judges; and supporting funding for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers that seek to dissuade people from having abortions, often via misinformation delivered by volunteers, not licensed medical professionals.

Others, though, were more tepid in their support, given that Vance said just last week on NBC’s Meet the Press that he supports access to mifepristone, the first of two pills typically used in medication abortion. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, touted Vance’s “unapologetically pro-life” record in a post on X but said that “he either recently changed his mind or his public talking points” about abortion pills, adding, “they shouldn’t be available in any state.”

“What I don’t know about Senator Vance as VP Vance is how much of a champion he will be for the preborn babies,” she continued, calling for “a new deal with President Trump with firm promises with what he will do to limit or end” abortion.

Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action, said it’s “heartbreakingly wrong” that Vance and Trump support making abortion pills accessible, urging them to change their positions. (It’s worth noting, though, that there are major conservative forces at play seeking to roll back access to mifepristone: Project 2025, an initiative led by dozens of conservative groups and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, has said “the Department of Justice in the next conservative administration should therefore announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of [abortion] pills.”)

The Biden-Harris campaign seized on Vance’s history in their reaction to the news, with campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon alleging Vance would “make it his mission to enact Trump’s Project 2025 agenda at the expense of American families,” including by supporting “banning abortion nationwide while criticizing exceptions for rape and incest survivors.”

For abortion rights supporters, Vance’s record is, indeed, frightening. “Donald Trump selecting J. D. Vance as his pick for vice president provides even more evidence that a Trump administration will stop at nothing to ban all abortion,” Reproductive Freedom For All said in a statement. But it’s also worth remembering Vance also has a strong track record of changing with the political winds—remember, this is the man who once called Trump “cultural heroin,” “reprehensible,” and “a cynical asshole…or America’s Hitler.”

“His views seem to evolve pretty quickly as the politics requires them to,” Mary Ziegler, a leading abortion historian and law professor at the University of California, Davis, told me today. And with most Americans supporting abortion rights and opposing the Dobbs decision, and Trump trying to distance himself from Dobbs’ consequences, don’t be surprised if he and his new running mate try to promote a “softened” stance on abortion—just don’t believe them.

Correction, July 16: An earlier version of this story misstated the year when Vance made comments comparing abortion to slavery.

After former President Trump announced on Monday that he had picked Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate, anti-abortion advocates appear to be celebrating—and they have good reason to.

Vance has a staunchly anti-abortion record. He said he would support a nationwide 15-week abortion ban back when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced a bill seeking to do just that in 2022. He has also argued against rape and incest exceptions, saying, “I think two wrongs don’t make a right,” before dismissing pregnancies that result from those traumas as “inconveniences.”

“It’s not whether a woman should be forced to carry a child to term,” he said in outlining that view while campaigning for the Senate in Sept. 2021, “it’s whether a child should be allowed to live even though the circumstance of a child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.”

In that same interview, Vance also appeared to signal support for fetal personhood—a long-running goal for the right that seeks to bestow embryos with the constitutional rights of children and that would thus entail a national abortion ban: “There is a view, common among leaders of the Democratic party, that babies deserve no legal protections in the womb—that is a common view in the Democratic party; all I’m saying is that view’s wrong,” Vance said. Spokespeople for Vance, the Trump campaign, and the RNC did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Monday night about Vance’s stance on fetal personhood and a national ban, but as I’ve reported, a top Republican official involved in crafting the latest GOP platform itself has argued that it supports fetal personhood.

Vance has also—as my former colleague Katie Herchenroeder noted—argued against no-fault divorce and for married people to have more kids. In that 2021 interview with the local reporter, the then-candidate said, “I think part of the problem of American decline is people who believe that not having kids is, like, a lifestyle brand,” before proceeding to deride people on the left for raising concerns about how having kids could exacerbate climate change.

After the Supreme Court yanked the constitutional right to abortion from Americans in the Dobbs decision in June 2022, Vance posted on X: “If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had,” appearing to try to quell criticism that the overruling of Roe would stymie women’s professional advancement, among other effects. About a month later, Vance made headlines when he said “there’s something comparable between abortion and slavery,” alleging that both have a “morally distorting effect on the entire society.”

More recently, he opposed Ohio’s abortion rights ballot measure and lamented its success after it passed last November, calling it “a gut punch…politically dumb and morally repugnant.” In the same post on X, he said he’d support “abortion restrictions very early in pregnancy with exceptions” because it polls better than restrictions that lack exceptions. (Fact-check: True!)

All of which is to say: it’s not surprising the anti-abortion side is cheering his place on the Trump 2024 ticket.

In a statement Monday night, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called Vance “an exceptional selection” for the Trump ticket, and pointed out that her group has given him an “A-plus” rating on what they call their “national pro-life scorecard” tracking his support for anti-abortion legislation. “With Vance on the ticket, we are more committed than ever in our efforts to deliver the winning pro-life message,” she said.

Carol Tobias, the president of National Right to Life, called Vance “an excellent choice,” adding, “he is committed to promoting the right to life.” The National Right to Life statement also touts Vance’s support for prohibiting public funding of abortion; nominating anti-abortion judges; and supporting funding for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers that seek to dissuade people from having abortions, often via misinformation delivered by volunteers, not licensed medical professionals.

Others, though, were more tepid in their support, given that Vance said just last week on NBC’s Meet the Press that he supports access to mifepristone, the first of two pills typically used in medication abortion. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, touted Vance’s “unapologetically pro-life” record in a post on X but said that “he either recently changed his mind or his public talking points” about abortion pills, adding, “they shouldn’t be available in any state.”

“What I don’t know about Senator Vance as VP Vance is how much of a champion he will be for the preborn babies,” she continued, calling for “a new deal with President Trump with firm promises with what he will do to limit or end” abortion.

Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action, said it’s “heartbreakingly wrong” that Vance and Trump support making abortion pills accessible, urging them to change their positions. (It’s worth noting, though, that there are major conservative forces at play seeking to roll back access to mifepristone: Project 2025, an initiative led by dozens of conservative groups and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, has said “the Department of Justice in the next conservative administration should therefore announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of [abortion] pills.”)

The Biden-Harris campaign seized on Vance’s history in their reaction to the news, with campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon alleging Vance would “make it his mission to enact Trump’s Project 2025 agenda at the expense of American families,” including by supporting “banning abortion nationwide while criticizing exceptions for rape and incest survivors.”

For abortion rights supporters, Vance’s record is, indeed, frightening. “Donald Trump selecting J. D. Vance as his pick for vice president provides even more evidence that a Trump administration will stop at nothing to ban all abortion,” Reproductive Freedom For All said in a statement. But it’s also worth remembering Vance also has a strong track record of changing with the political winds—remember, this is the man who once called Trump “cultural heroin,” “reprehensible,” and “a cynical asshole…or America’s Hitler.”

“His views seem to evolve pretty quickly as the politics requires them to,” Mary Ziegler, a leading abortion historian and law professor at the University of California, Davis, told me today. And with most Americans supporting abortion rights and opposing the Dobbs decision, and Trump trying to distance himself from Dobbs’ consequences, don’t be surprised if he and his new running mate try to promote a “softened” stance on abortion—just don’t believe them.