The anti-abortion movement is about to win. Even it isn’t ready for what comes next.
“For now, mainstream anti-abortion groups say they remain committed to punishing providers, not patients. “We firmly believe that women should not be prosecuted for abortion, whether self-managed or through an abortion provider,” said Amy O’Donnell, director of communications for the group Texas Alliance for Life.
But Republican state lawmakers, some backed by more radical abortion opponents, are beginning to break with this ideology. Earlier this year, for example, Louisiana state Rep. Danny McCormick (R) introduced a bill that would allow people who get abortions to be charged with homicide, an offense punishable by life in prison without parole.
“Abortion is murder,” McCormick, who has not responded to a request for comment from Vox, said at a May hearing. “As lawmakers, we have a responsibility to end it.”
Louisiana Right to Life and other mainstream anti-abortion groups have spoken out against the bill, and the provision was later removed amid an uproar. Such legislation is “so contrary to what we believe as an organization,” Zagorski, the group’s communications director, told Vox. “We instead want to work to protect women and protect the baby.”
At least one newer anti-abortion group did support the provision, though: the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, a nonprofit espousing a vision of America in which abortion is completely banned, and people who break the law “by hiring someone to murder their child or doing it themselves risk arrest, along with those who assist them.””