LOUISVILLE COURIER-JOURNAL

The 2025 legislative session is over, and Republicans missed another opportunity to end abortion legally. If you’re thinking, “Wait, isn’t abortion already banned?” — you’re likely not alone. After Roe v. Wade was overturned and Kentucky’s trigger law took effect, news reported abortion was “banned” in the commonwealth. That’s misleading.

Abortion clinics closed in August 2022, and thank God. But that doesn’t mean abortions have stopped. The Foundation to Abolish Abortion estimates Kentucky may have seen 2,095 self-managed abortions in a 12-month period despite its “abortion ban.”

MISSOURINET

HB 1072 and HB 1417 are both entitled the “Missouri Prenatal Equal Protection Act.” It would allow prosecutors to charge both the mother and the doctor who performed the abortion with first-degree murder. Exceptions would be allowed for medical emergencies. State Rep. Burt Whaley, R-Stone County, is sponsoring HB 1417.

“We are the defenders of life. We hold in our hands the preservation and the sanctity of life,” Whaley said before the Mo. House Committee on Children and Families. “This bill announces that we will preserve life from conception.”

NOTUS

Though legislation that would punish women for having abortions has not passed any state legislatures, after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, these bills aren’t just supported by the far fringes of the anti-abortion movement, which prior to 2022, they decidedly were.

“We have seen substantial gains for our legislation over the last few years,” said Bradley Pierce, president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, which writes model legislation for lawmakers to make abortion illegal with no exceptions. “Our efforts and the work of abolitionists across the country to reach both the culture and the public square are bearing fruit. We saw over a dozen bills and counting filed this year.”

RED STATE

In February, Georgia’s heartbeat law, which restricts abortion after a discernable heartbeat is detected (around six weeks) except in the cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother, was once again upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court in a 6-1 decision.

But for a faction of life advocates known as “abortion abolitionists,” so-called heartbeat bills do not stop abortions from happening. Their aim is to change this, making it illegal to have one. In March, State Rep. Emory Dunahoo (R-31) introduced House Bill 441 (HB 441), the “Georgia Prenatal Equal Protection Act,” which would make abortion a criminal act. If made law, it would remove the six-week timeframe of the heartbeat law and the exceptions that go along with it.

MS. MAGAZINE

If you thought that antiabortion Republican lawmakers in red states like Texas, Idaho, South Carolina and Georgia would be satisfied now that they have passed extreme abortion bans in their states, think again—just doling out legal threats to the citizens in their states who they believe are aiding and abetting abortions was not enough. Now, they want to punish women themselves for getting abortions.

BLAZE MEDIA

Bradley Pierce, president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion — a national pro-life nonprofit that has championed the legislation from the start — stated that “House Bill 441, the bill that Georgia Life Alliance is opposing in Georgia, would simply protect the lives of innocent preborn children with the same homicide and assault laws that protect the rest of us as born people. This is what God commands and the U.S. Constitution requires.”

“Georgia Life Alliance claims that House Bill 441 criminalizes only women and exempts abortionists, pimps, and sex traffickers. This is totally false,” continued Pierce, whose organization drew significant attention to the letter this week. “The truth is that current pro-life laws in Georgia protect a woman’s ‘right’ to knowingly and willingly murder her preborn child by abortion. House Bill 441, on the other hand, is the only bill that is impartial and would treat everyone equally under the law.”

ALABAMA POLITICAL REPORTER

“Abortion is murder, and justice demands that our laws treat it as such,” Yarbrough told APR when he first filed the bill. “If you look at Alabama law, you will see there is an exemption that says that abortion is not murder in our state. It’s time we change that. This bill is simply an attempt to align our law with our rhetoric. Alabamians agree: life begins at conception, and abortion is murder. The Abolish Abortion in Alabama Act reflects that sentiment.”

There has been some sway in whether Alabama is willing to prosecute the women involved in terminating their pregnancies since the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Although the law has effectively stopped surgical abortions at clinics in Alabama, women are still able to use abortion pills due to federal laws. Attorney General Steve Marshall previously said those women could be prosecuted for chemical endangerment, but later walked back those statements.

THE 19TH

None of the bills are likely to become law. But they illustrate a growing divide in the anti-abortion movement and could punish pregnant people. Lawmakers in at least eight states are weighing bills that would treat abortion as a homicide, imposing criminal penalties on both providers and patients, once a Rubicon for the movement.

The bills, filed in Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas, stem from the Prenatal Equal Protection Act, model legislation crafted by the Texas-based advocacy group the Foundation to Abolish Abortion. Three similar bills were introduced in Indiana, North Dakota and Oklahoma but failed to pass in committee or on the floor of the legislature.

BREITBART

The outlet said, “Georgia Democratic State Rep. Dar’shun Kendrick decided to mock God and ridicule Virgil Walker, the vice president of G3 Ministries, as he testified in favor of House Bill 441.” The Foundation to Abolish Abortion shared the images in a social media post on Wednesday, showing Walker delivering his remarks while Kendrick held up the signs.

In a post on Wednesday morning, Walker said, “HB441 doesn’t criminalize women. It criminalizes murder. If we won’t apply the same law to the preborn as we do the born, we don’t believe in justice — we believe in convenience. Georgia: Do the righteous thing. Give the bill the hearing it deserves.”

ATHENS BANNER-HERALD

Georgia lawmakers are advancing a bill, HB 441, that would significantly restrict abortion access and could charge pregnant mothers for murder. The bill, introduced in February, 2025, has passed its second reading and is currently pending in the House Judiciary - Non-Civil Committee. A hearing is scheduled for Friday, March 26, at noon.

“If we truly believe that a fetus is a person made in the image of God, then to be consistent with the Constitution and God’s word, the laws which protect human beings who are born must equally protect those who are not yet born,” wrote the Foundation to Abolish Abortion.

MISSOURI INDEPENDENT

Last week, state Sen. Mike Moon, a Republican from Ash Grove, said he opposed any legislation that would leave the door open for abortions not medically necessary during an emergency. Specifically, he pointed to the rape and incest exceptions as unacceptable. 

“Republicans, and some Democrats, profess to be ‘protectors’ of life. I claim to be one of them,” he continued. “Because of this, I cannot support an effort which does not recognize all life as precious and worth saving and protecting.”

LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER

At the Wednesday rally, proponents of White’s bill handed out signs and print-outs explaining “why Kentucky needs HB 523.”

“In Kentucky, when a mother kills her born child, she is rightly charged with murder. But if she kills that same child just weeks earlier in the womb, the law shields her from prosecution. HB 523 seeks to end this double standard by ensuring that all human life — inside and outside the womb — is equally protected under the law,” their fliers said.

OKLAHOMA VOICE

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in a bipartisan vote killed Senate Bill 456 by Sen. Dusty Deevers. The measure would have subjected women who receive an abortion to homicide charges and penalties including life in prison and death sentences. 

The bill would have also outlawed abortion-inducing drugs. It would not apply to cases where an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother or to miscarriages. “Children are being murdered in our state,” said Deevers, while seeking to advance the bill.

KOSU

Sen. Dusty Deevers’ (R-Elgin) second attempt at legislation that would adjust the state’s definition of homicide to include abortion failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday with a vote of six to two. The bill would have allowed women to be prosecuted.

Through Senate Bill 456, also known as the “Abolition of Abortion Act,” Deevers said he was seeking to extend equal protection to “preborn children” under the law. The bill would have removed two pieces of statute.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Oklahoma’s Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted 6-2 against advancing a proposal to allow murder charges against women who obtain abortions, with possible punishments including the death penalty and life in prison.

A week earlier, North Dakota’s House rejected a measure with similar features 77-16. Groups including the National Right to Life Committee and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America have for years been urging lawmakers not to consider those measures, arguing that women are often coerced into abortion and should not be punished.

WKYC

House Bill 1334 makes changes to Indiana's criminal code, allowing an "unborn child" to be named the victim of a murder. The bill also removes language that exempts certain abortions from being considered murder. A juvenile who got an abortion or otherwise caused the termination of a pregnancy could be waived to adult court for the crime of murder. 

An unborn child would include any fertilized egg, also effectively banning many fertility and IVF procedures. The bill does make exceptions if the fetus dies during a lifesaving treatment for a mother if medical staff tried to save the fetus as well. The bill also says spontaneous miscarriages do not count as murder.

11 ALIVE

Dunahoo filed HB 441, which extends freedoms to a fertilized egg like any other person. It is also known as the Georgia Prenatal Equal Protection Act. The bill would also impose stiffer penalties on those who have abortions and on those who carry them out. 

“This bill is all pro-life. It states that we’re basically taking conception as when life starts,” Dunahoo said. “We have turned Roe v. Wade around. Let’s go ahead and just bring back life to the unborn and give them hope that they can grow up to be president, to invent something or cure cancer.”