On June 2, Brazil’s legislature approved an initiative that would roll back the liberalized abortion laws for minor survivors of sexual assault, The Straits Times reported. The vote took under two minutes.

Key Takeaways:

• Though a measure revoking a resolution liberalizing the killing of preborn children conceived in the rape of minors has been approved in Brazil, it still has hurdles to overcome.

• According to the resolution, minors who were at odds with their parents or legal guardians regarding their pregnancy could receive free legal support to obtain abortions.

The Backstory:

Draft legislation would suspend the provisions of a resolution from the National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents (Conanda) from December 2024, which allowed minors to obtain abortions after sexual assault, regardless of parental consent.

The original regulation read:

The absence of parents or legal guardians does not prevent the full exercise of the right to information for children and adolescents, and it is mandatory that all information and clarifications regarding the interruption of pregnancy be provided in a clear and accessible manner...

It is the duty of the State, the family and society to respect the autonomy of children and adolescents in relation to the exercise of their rights, refraining from any act that constrains, threatens or causes fear, shame or guilt as a result of the decision to interrupt pregnancy.

According to the resolution, minors who were at odds with their parents or legal guardians regarding their pregnancy could receive free legal support to get abortions, the Straits Times noted. 

In addition, g1.globo.com stated, "If the presence of those responsible may cause 'physical, mental or social damage to the child or adolescent, and if they have decision-making capacity', the professional must ensure that the procedure is carried out even without the parents' consent."

In other words, the idea of parental rights or protections was presumed suspect, while the state claimed that abortion was best for the minor regardless of the situation with the minor's parents. No thought was given to the fact that abortion itself may be damaging to the child or adolescent, not to mention deadly to the preborn child.

The Details:

Supporting the new initiative, Senator Damares Alves stated that the previous measure overlooked and undermined the authority of parents and guardians in making decisions about the care of girls and adolescents who have endured sexual violence.

Under Brazil’s penal code, abortion is punishable by up to four years of jail time, except in cases involving rape, risks to the mother’s life, or grave fetal brain abnormalities.

Though both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies have passed the measure, it must still overcome a final legislative step: obtaining support from allies of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

The debate on abortion in Brazil has been particularly intense because the country’s present law enables abortion in limited cases, including cases of rape. However, pro-lifers have contended that even those exceptions have been stretched into a de facto abortion right that ignores the preborn child’s humanity.

Cases involving minors can be emotionally charged and politically misused. One widely publicized Brazilian case involving a 10-year-old rape victim showcased how abortion advocates often use tragic situations as reason to widen abortion laws, instead of showing life-affirming alternatives to safeguard vulnerable children, without killing innocent preborn lives.

Brazil’s move to limit abortion in cases involving child rape victims is not a reduction in compassion but a refusal to solve one violence by committing another, against another innocent human being. Two wrongs do not constitute a right. Additionally, abortion can also worsen psychological harm by adding grief, guilt, or regret to the original trauma of the victim, particularly when the victim subsequently learns that the procedure did not address her unresolved pain of being raped. 

The Bottom Line:

The rape of a child is a grave injustice, but aborting a preborn child in the womb does not heal the violence; it merely adds to another casualty. The child in the womb is not the criminal and should not be made to suffer and die for the sin of the rapist. As the true culprit is the perpetrator, he should be pursued, prosecuted, and punished to the fullest extent of the law. 

The most life-affirming response is immediate protection, trauma-informed care, prosecution of the rapist, and practical support for the mother and preborn child, instead of abortion. 

Key Takeaways:

• Nationwide controversy erupted after a registered sex offender in Pennsylvania was able to gain access to a child through surrogacy.

• Pennsylvania law bars sex offenders from adopting children, but there are no such regulations regarding the fertility industry.

• A new bill has been introduced which would give significant penalties to surrogacy agencies which allow sex offenders to obtain children.

The Backstory:

Last year, it was discovered that Brandon Keith Riley-Mitchell had, along with his partner Logan Riley, been able to obtain a child through surrogacy, despite being a Tier 1 registered sex offender. The two men launched a GoFundMe page in 2023 to raise money for a surrogate to carry a child for them; once they had gained enough money, they used a donor egg and a separate surrogate mother, meaning the surrogate was not biologically related to the child.

They eventually created four embryos, and at least one of the embryos was implanted into the surrogate's womb. She later gave birth to a little boy, which the same-sex couple then claimed as their own.

A video the men shared of their first year with the boy went viral, and Riley-Mitchell's background as a sex offender was discovered. It immediately caused widespread outrage.

While he was a teacher, Riley-Mitchell sexually propositioned an underage student; the Megan’s Law site for the state of Pennsylvania confirmed Mitchell’s status as a Tier 1 sex offender. He had been convicted for child sexual abuse and possession of child sexual abuse materials.

Prosecutors found over 12,000 text messages between Riley-Mitchell and his victim:

The messages – sent on a non-school-issued cellphone and personal laptop – began in May 2013 when the boy was just 16 years old. The conversations turned sexual in the summer of 2013 and, according to the criminal complaint, included messages from Mitchell that read, “you can give me a bj after you graduate” and “Do you have naked pictures [of] yourself on your phone?”

… Besides sexual messages, Mitchell and the boy also exchanged nude photographs, including more than a dozen of Mitchell’s penis, according to investigators. The boy sent a sexually explicit video to Mitchell, who allegedly told the boy he wanted to see him masturbate, said police.

The conversations ended in December 2014, police said.

The surrogacy agency did not perform a background check on Riley-Mitchell, nor did he disclose his criminal history. A new state bill is looking to keep something like that from happening ever again.

The Details:

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) introduced two bills with the goal of regulating surrogacy. HR 9131, or the "Protecting Kids From Creeps Act," would impose heavy penalties on surrogacy agencies for failing to perform background checks on their clients; HR 9132, or the “Preventing International Surrogacy Exploitation Act,” would bar foreign nationals from obtaining children through U.S.-based surrogacy arrangements, essentially ending birth tourism.

Perry, who represents the state of Pennsylvania, said most states have no regulation protecting children born through surrogacy; even if there is a state with a law in place, the would-be parent could just go to the next state over to obtain a child.

"These bills put children first (which should always be the case, and some seem to be forgetting that), and help prevent predators/foreign actors from obtaining children in our Nation for personal gain, profit, or other nefarious reasons," Perry wrote on X.

The bills are co-sponsored by Representatives Randy Fine and Tim Burchett.

In a statement, the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network (CBCN) applauded the bills:

The idea that the legal system must explicitly prohibit sex offenders from accessing children through surrogacy highlights a deeper structural failure: assumptions about safety and eligibility in assisted reproduction have not been adequately codified into law.

The fact that Congress is now advancing legislation to explicitly bar sex offenders from accessing children through surrogacy underscores a fundamental truth: reproductive technology has advanced far faster than the legal frameworks meant to govern it.

Under the legislation, surrogacy agencies which fail to perform background checks could lose federal funding, while employees responsible could face up to 20 years in prison.

Why It Matters:

There is virtually no regulation on the fertility industry, which allows a considerable of abuse to happen. Riley-Mitchell is not the first person to obtain access to children despite sex-related criminal offenses. But this is not the only issue.

Sperm donation has no limits in the United States, meaning men can donate as often as they want to, sometimes leading to children with hundreds — if not thousands — of siblings. There are no efforts in the United States to curb serial sperm donors, or to ensure that children born through assisted reproductive technology (ART) can know where they came from, who their biological parents are, their medical histories, or their heritage.

There is also little attention given to how assisted reproductive technologies affect the children born as a result. The priority is on the adults who want children, rather than on the children themselves, and as such, any attempt to regulate the fertility industry is quickly shouted down as heartless, insensitive, and cruel. The reaction from adults born through the fertility industry does not seem to matter.

One Harvard Medical School study, for example, found that 62% of children conceived through donor technologies believe it to be unethical and immoral — but their concerns are rarely acknowledged, let alone acted upon.

“I am a human being, yet I was conceived with a technique that had its origins in animal husbandry,” one donor-conceived person wrote in a book for Anonymous Us. “Worst of all, farmers kept better records of their cattle’s genealogy than assisted reproductive clinics … how could the doctors, sworn to ‘first do no harm’ create a system where I now face the pain and loss of my own identity and heritage.”

And yet these practices persist, with adults' desires prioritized over children's needs.

The Bottom Line:

Legislation like this is sorely needed, but it should only be the beginning of regulating and reigning in the profitable and haphazard fertility industry.

Key Takeaways:

• Caissie Levy won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Mother in the revival of "Ragtime."

• Shoshana Bean won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for her role as Lucy in "The Lost Boys."

• Both women gave emotional acceptance speeches in which they honored motherhood.

The Details:

Caissie Levy, 45, is a wife and the mother of two young children. Her career, beginning in 2006, has included starring roles in major musicals like "Wicked," "Hairspray," and "Les Miserables." She most notably originated the role of Elsa in the Broadway production of "Frozen," but was nominated for her first Tony award this year.

Last year, Levy starred as Mother in the Broadway revival of "Ragtime," which earned her first Tony nomination. At this year's 79th Annual Tony Awards, she won the award for Best Actress in a Musical.

In her emotional acceptance speech, she thanked numerous people in her life, with one specific remark garnering widespread applause, both in person and on social media.

"[Thank you to] every babysitter who's made it possible for me to be both a Broadway actor and a mother," she said, adding, "Playing Mother has been one of the greatest gifts of my artistic life, and being mother to my kids has been the greatest joy of my life. Izaiah and Talulah, I love you, and although I'm not there to tuck you in each night, you have to know that a part of my heart stays home with you."

Shoshana Bean, 48, is also a Broadway veteran who has appeared in shows like "Wicked" and "Hell's Kitchen" before garnering a Tony Award for her performance in "The Lost Boys." While Bean is not a mother herself, she honored motherhood in her acceptance speech, specifically mentioning her own mother as her role model.

"This is for the mamas," she began. "This is for the single mamas. This is for my single mama. You are the wild heroes." 

Why It Matters:

Numerous celebrities have publicly spoken about how they believe abortion was necessary for their career success. Others have said they were pressured to have abortions, even if they didn't necessarily want them. Singer Victoria Monét said she was pressured to have an abortion, but refused, and won several Grammy awards in 2024, three years after giving birth.

Cheryl “Salt” James, one half of the iconic “Salt-N-Pepa” hip hop duo, said she was pressured to have an abortion:

I was actually asked to have an abortion — I won’t say by who — but to your point, yeah, you just have to know that it’s something that you’re capable of handling if you want a kid and you want to have a career. And it’s definitely harder.

Having my daughter, besides finding Jesus, is the best thing that I’ve ever experienced, my kids. Like, I needed that lil’ baby in my life, you know? She kept me company on the road.

Yet numerous other superstars have spoken about motherhood, and how they were able to continue excelling at their jobs, both in the arts and in sports.

The problem is not the children, but the lack of support; as Levy pointed out, she was able to succeed in her Broadway career because she had the support and resources to do so. Her example shows how much of a difference the ability to have that kind of support can make.

Zoom In:

In 2016, “Hamilton” star Renee Elise Goldsberry won a Tony award for her role as Angelica Schuyler, and in her emotional acceptance speech, she said the best part of her life was going home to her husband and children. While openly sobbing, she said:

I would just love to say that, if you know anything about me, I have spent the last 10 years of my life, what some would consider the life blood of a woman’s career, just trying to have children.

And I get to testify in front of all of you that the Lord gave me Benjamin and Brielle, and he still gave me this.

Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones won an Oscar for her role as Velma Kelly in “Chicago,” which she filmed while pregnant. Gal Gadot gave a powerful portrayal of Wonder Woman and, like Zeta-Jones, was pregnant during filming.

Three-time Olympic Gold Medalist Kristin Armstrong said being a mom was her “secret weapon,” and tennis superstar Venus Williams won a Grand Slam tournament while two months pregnant. Olympian Kerri Walsh-Jennings won a gold medal while pregnant, and said, “I feel like I was born to have babies and play volleyball.”

The Bottom Line:

Motherhood is one of the most sacred callings a woman can have, and it affects everyone in every community. Women can have successful careers without sacrificing their children, and might even create future 'superstars' (on or off the stage) in the process.

Key Takeaways:

• Annelise Camp drowned in a hotel pool while visiting relatives on Memorial Day.

• After an hour, emergency medical professionals were able to get her heart beating again.

• Doctors wanted to declare her brain dead two days after her arrival, but her parents refused, and fought to obtain a restraining order.

• Texas Children's Hospital now claims to have "exhausted all medically viable options" and is seeking Camp's transfer to another hospital.

The Backstory:

According to reports, Annelise Camp and her family were visiting relatives on Memorial Day when she went back into the hotel pool after removing her life jacket. Her cousin found her unresponsive and pulled her from the pool, and the family then began CPR as they waited for paramedics to arrive.

"She had water coming out of her mouth," Johnston Camp, who performed CPR on his daughter, told ABC station KTRK.

Annelise is estimated to have been without a heartbeat for an hour.

Two days after she was brought to the hospital, doctors declared her brain dead. However, the family wants to give her more time.

"If there's that 1% chance or that 5% chance of results, we're going to take it," said her father, Johnston Camp. He added, "If you give her the best opportunity, and she makes it, and she survives, and she keeps progressing, she's going to have a lifelong of testimonies."

After receiving a temporary restraining order, brain death testing moved forward along with supportive care, pending a June 11 hearing. Brain death testing was to begin on June 5.

Paperwork of an agreement between the family and the hospital shows that the hospital agreed to try to transfer her to another facility that was willing to accept her.

The Details:

Following media reports about Annelise, Texas Children's is now claiming that it has "exhausted all medically viable options" for the girl and has reached out to 24 other hospitals to request transfer.

"Our hearts, thoughts and prayers are with the family and their loved ones during this difficult time," Texas Children's Hospital said in a statement. "Our expert and dedicated clinical team have exhausted all medically viable options and we continue to work tirelessly to honor the family’s wishes while following legal guidelines. As such, per the family’s request, we have already delayed testing for a week and have formally requested transfer to an unprecedented 24 hospitals. This is a tragic and heartbreaking situation and we will continue to do what is in the best interest of the patient from a clinical and ethical standpoint. Out of respect for the family’s privacy, we are unable to comment further."

The hospital must give Annelise supportive care until a court hearing takes place on Thursday, June 11. Her family is hoping to move her to a facility that offers hyperbaric and stem cell treatments.

"This is a girl who never gave up when I asked her to do something," her father said. "I'm never going to give up on her."

A fundraiser has been launched to help the family with medical expenses.

Commentary:

Author and retired anesthesiologist Heidi Klessing has been speaking out on X about the case of Annelise Camp.

She wrote, in part, on June 8:

Brain death is not death, but a utilitarian social construct designed to free up ICU beds and facilitate organ donation. People declared brain dead are not biologically dead: their hearts beat, they absorb oxygen, they metabolize food and excrete waste, heal their wounds and fight infections....

And people declared brain dead under the American Academy of Neurology’s brain death guideline are not even legally dead, because the Guideline explicitly allows people with ongoing brain function to be declared dead.

This is in defiance of the legal definition of death under the Uniform Determination of Death Act which requires the irreversible cessation of ALL functions of the entire brain including the brain stem.

... Brain death is not death but an ethical choice, a way of removing human rights from vulnerable, neurologically disabled people.

The Bottom Line:

In Texas, a declaration of brain death is considered death, and the hospital is not required to have the consent of the family to remove life-sustaining support. This means that the state's 25-day rule does not apply in this situation or in other declarations of brain death.

When expectant parents receive an unexpected prenatal diagnosis, the moment often feels overwhelming.

The dreams they carried for their child may suddenly collide with fear, uncertainty, and a future they never anticipated. Questions come quickly. Will my child be healthy? Will I be able to meet their needs? What will our family's life look like?

In the midst of those fears, parents are often presented with only two paths: parent the child or end the pregnancy.

But there is a third option that is discussed far too rarely: Adoption.

For many families, adoption represents an act of profound love and sacrifice. It acknowledges a difficult reality: sometimes a parent may not feel equipped to raise a child with special needs. Financial challenges, medical concerns, lack of support, or personal circumstances can leave someone feeling overwhelmed and unprepared.

Those feelings are real. They deserve compassion, not condemnation. But so does the life of the child.

Deeply-wanted children

Over the past decade, through my work with Open Hearts for Orphans, we have had the privilege of helping approximately 175 families adopt babies and children with special needs, and about 1/3 of those children have Down syndrome. These families come from different backgrounds, different states, and different walks of life. Yet they all share one thing in common: they prayed, hoped, and waited for the opportunity to welcome a child with special needs into their family.

Many people are surprised to learn that families are actively seeking to adopt children with special needs. They imagine that a diagnosis automatically means a child will struggle to find a home.

The opposite is often true.

I have watched families cross oceans, navigate years of paperwork, and sacrifice significant financial resources because they felt called to provide a loving home for a child with special needs. I have seen waiting families celebrate referral calls with tears of joy. I have watched siblings prepare bedrooms, grandparents count down the days, and communities rally around these children before they even arrive home.

These children are not unwanted. They are deeply wanted.

A major misconception

One of the greatest misconceptions surrounding Down syndrome, in particular, is that it somehow diminishes a person's capacity to live a meaningful and fulfilling life.

Anyone who knows someone with Down syndrome knows otherwise. Children with Down syndrome attend school, build friendships, participate in sports, pursue careers, contribute to their communities, and enrich the lives of everyone around them. They bring joy, compassion, resilience, and a unique perspective that often transforms the people fortunate enough to know them.

Their value does not depend on their chromosomes. Their lives matter because they are human beings.

Years ago, my husband and I adopted a little boy from China named Daniel [pictured above]. He had significant medical needs, including a serious heart condition. Though our time with him was heartbreakingly brief, his life changed ours forever. Daniel taught us that every child deserves to be loved, cherished, and given every opportunity to thrive. His legacy ultimately inspired the work we do today at Open Hearts for Orphans helping vulnerable children around the world.

That experience also taught me something important: a child's diagnosis does not define their value. Every life carries purpose, and every child deserves a chance.

When fear gives way to hope

Today, when I hear stories of expectant parents facing a Down syndrome (or any) diagnosis, my heart breaks for the fear they may be experiencing. But it also fills me with hope because I know something they may not yet know.

There are families waiting, should they feel they cannot parent their baby.

There are mothers and fathers who would gladly welcome that baby into their home. There are siblings who would proudly call that child brother or sister. There are communities ready to surround that family with support. And there are advocates, adoption professionals, and organizations like Open Hearts for Orphans committed to helping make connections possible.

Adoption is not an easy decision. It involves courage, grief, and selfless love. But it can also be a beautiful pathway that honors both the needs of the parent and the life of the child.

If parenting feels impossible, there are families who would consider it the greatest privilege of their lives to provide your child with a loving home.

The conversation surrounding Down syndrome and other special needs should not begin with limitations. It should begin with possibilities. And one of those possibilities is adoption, which is a loving option that gives children the opportunity to live, thrive, and be embraced by families who have been waiting for them all along.

Key Takeaways:

• A new Tennessee law adds ambulance stations to the list of approved safe haven surrender sites.

• Parents can also surrender an infant within 45 days of birth at any hospital, fire department, law enforcement agency, emergency communications center, clinic, or some nursing homes with around-the-clock staffing.

• Safe haven surrender laws are designed to help parents in crisis and curtail infant abandonment.

The Details:

The state's current safe haven law allows parents who feel unable to care for their infant to surrender the infant within 45 days of birth at any hospital, fire department, law enforcement agency, emergency communications center, clinic, or even some nursing homes with around-the-clock staffing. Now, ambulance stations with 24-hour staffing will be added to that list.

State Rep. Ed Butler, the bill's sponsor, explained that its purpose is to provide more options for parents in crisis, saying:

“Tennessee’s Safe Haven Law exists to protect vulnerable newborns and provide mothers facing unimaginable circumstances with a safe, compassionate option. By expanding approved surrender locations and strengthening safeguards, this legislation helps ensure no family is left uncertain about where to turn in a moment of crisis.”

Zoom In:

Each state has a safe haven law designed to curtail infant abandonment. As long as the infant is surrendered in an approved location within the state-mandated timeframe and does not show signs of abuse or neglect, the parents will face no charges.

Some states, including Tennessee, also allow anonymous surrender through the use of an infant safety device like those provided by the Safe Haven Baby Box organization. These boxes are typically equipped with a silent alarm; when an infant is placed inside, emergency personnel respond to care for the infant within minutes.

The Bottom Line:

Parents in crisis benefit from a variety of options to help them choose life for their newborn — even if they are unsure of their ability to parent themselves. Safe haven surrender laws are a life-affirming way to help parents choose life rather than resort to abortion or abandonment.

Key Takeaways:

• The abortion industry sends mixed messages, claiming that women are capable of properly dating the gestational age of their preborn children (and therefore taking the abortion pill within allowed FDA limits), as well as claiming they often don't know they are pregnant which leads them to "need" late abortions.

• Despite this, even ACOG (which is pro-abortion) admits that approximately half of women do not know the date of their last menstrual periods.

The Details:

Abortion pill and pregnancy dating

The abortion pill mifepristone (200mg)/Mifeprex has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for chemical abortion up to 70 days gestation (10 weeks of pregnancy) in a regimen with a second drug called misoprostol.

The drug has been placed under strict safety requirements called REMS, requiring certified prescribers to complete a Prescriber Agreement Form and agree that they fulfill the following qualifications:

• Ability to assess the duration of pregnancy accurately

• Ability to diagnose ectopic pregnancies

• Ability to provide surgical intervention in cases of incomplete abortion or severe bleeding, or to have made plans to provide such care through others, and ability to assure patient access to medical facilities equipped to provide blood transfusions and resuscitation, if necessary

Yet, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the abortion industry began utilizing what it referred to as a “no-test” protocol when prescribing the abortion pill to women, which necessitates that a woman can properly estimate the date of her pregnancy. 

The protocol specifically outlined that the pregnancy would be "confirmed by patient."

In a panel discussion about the "no-test" protocol, Ushma Upadhyay, who was in the process of designing a telehealth study which omitted "any clinic visits or clinic tests that are usually required," stated:

To access whether perspective patients are within the ten week gestational limit for medication abortion, we’re going to do something very revolutionary. We’re going to actually believe people when they say that they’re certain of when their last menstrual period is and calculate that date based on that.

Upadhyay is a University of California San Francisco (UCSF) professor. The UC system, which trains in abortion, is heavily funded by abortion pill investors Warren Buffett, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Gates Foundation. UC has sponsored multiple abortion pill clinical trials.

During this time, details of the no-test protocol were discussed at length among high-ranking abortion industry insiders in a webinar. There, Elizabeth G. Raymond, MD, a former Planned Parenthood abortionist and then Senior Medical Associate at Gynuity Health Projects, said the goal was “to develop a protocol to enable safe and effective provision of medical abortion without facility-based tests, that is ultrasounds, blood tests, or pelvic exams.”

She added, “Basically, this means that the entire medical abortion procedure can be done simply by talking with the patient. No physical contact needed. And, indeed, it can all be done remotely without any in-person visit to a clinic except for perhaps pill pick-up.”

The webinar of pro-abortion panelists speaking about the “protocol” was conducted and sponsored by the Society of Family Planning (SFP). Raymond, co-author of the "no-test" abortion pill protocol, admitted that "LMP [last menstrual period] dating is not always accurate, and this protocol will result in treatment of some patients with gestational ages above 77 days” (emphasis added).

Raymond advised:

Each patient should understand that the no-test approach does have its own risks. As I mention, the gestational age could be underestimated, which means that the treatment would have lower efficacy than expected and bleeding and cramping could be heavier. And, in addition the patient may see fetal tissue when the pregnancy is expelled. Also, the patient may have an undetected ectopic pregnancy.

Important note: the "no-test" protocol acknowledges that "each patient should be explicitly informed that LMP-based dating may underestimate [gestational age], in which case efficacy may be lower than expected, bleeding and cramping may be heavier, and, rarely, fetal tissue may be visible."

In addition to prescribing the drug without an in-person visit or ultrasound pregnancy confirmation, the industry is openly prescribing the drug "just in case," in "advance" of a confirmed pregnancy, and as a "period pill" — among other REMS violations.

Studies indicate that women seeking use of the abortion pill frequently underestimate the gestational age of their babies; even the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has stated that “It has been reported that approximately one half of women accurately recall their [last menstrual period] LMP.”

Age of baby aborted by pill "substantially underestimated"

In 2022, Raymond and Upadhyay published the results of a study which sought to "evaluate the outcomes and safety of a history-based screening, no-test approach to medication abortion care."

The retrospective cohort study "included patients obtaining a medication abortion without preabortion ultrasonography or pelvic examination between February 1, 2020, and January 31, 2021, at 14 independent, Planned Parenthood, academic-affiliated, and online-only clinics throughout the US."

Authors wrote:

During follow-up, 9 (0.40%; 95% CI, 0.00%-0.84%) patients were found to have had pregnancy durations greater than 70 days at mifepristone dispensing although not identified at screening (Table 4). Of these patients, 6 had procedures to complete the abortion at 88 to 101 days of gestation, 2 had complete abortions without additional intervention at 16 and 33 weeks, and 1, who received mifepristone at 87 days, had a continuing viable pregnancy at last follow-up contact 3 days after screening. The patient who was estimated to be at 33 weeks of gestation delivered a stillborn fetus at home, brought the fetus to the clinic, and required no further medical care.

Authors admitted that not conducting pelvic and ultrasounds was a concern, noting the exact number of later gestations was unknown:

The risk of inadvertently treating a patient with a pregnancy duration greater than the accepted limit for medication abortion (70 or 77 days) is another concern. In this study, 9 patients were found at follow-up to have been treated at a gestation of greater than 70 days. The true number may be larger, as some advanced gestations may not have been recognized among patients who had successful abortions.

We observed 1 case for which pregnancy duration was substantially underestimated; this patient passed the pregnancy and had a complete abortion at 33 weeks of gestation without additional intervention, medical complications, or sequelae.

"Clinicians offering the no-test approach should counsel patients about the possibility of an unidentified advanced gestation and discuss options for further evaluation and care if the patient were to encounter this situation," the authors wrote.

Industry statistics show that the failure rates for the abortion pill regimen increase as the gestational age of the preborn baby increases. Yet, the "trust the patient" protocol, which is not in line with FDA's REMS, reveals that the abortion pill is being used well into the second and even third trimesters of pregnancy.

The problem is so concerning that even late-term abortionist Warren Hern criticized this trend, questioning the lack of follow-up exams to ensure the uterus is empty and asking who will care for women with complications.

Late-term abortions due to women unsure of pregnancy

While Big Abortion claims women can properly date their pregnancies, they also claim that when it comes to later abortions, women are often unaware "about the pregnancy."

Dr. Eleanor Drey, the medical director of the Women’s Options Center of San Francisco General Hospital (which commits abortions into the second trimester), admitted in an abortion training module published by Innovating Education, ” […] there was a study that showed women’s reasons for presenting at 16 weeks or beyond after their last menstrual period. And what they saw was that women often didn’t realize that they were pregnant.” 

In fact, "Woman did not realize she was pregnant" was at the top of the list.

In her training module, Biftu Mengesha, MD, MAS of the pro-abortion University of California San Francisco echoes this by acknowledging that abortion patients "report late recognition of their pregnancy due to not experiencing typical symptoms of early pregnancy or being unsure of the date of their last menstrual period."

The online abortion dispensary Hey Jane writes:

In some cases, ending a pregnancy in the second or third trimester is done because of health concerns, a lack of access to abortion care, or being unaware of the pregnancy until later on.

A "mixed-methods study of expanding later abortion care at two U.S. facilities" published June 2026 at ScienceDirect.com, noted the survey response of one licensed clinic staff member:

  “This is well documented in all the research, but people later in pregnancy typically have higher levels of need than folks earlier in pregnancy, whether that is medically, whether that's psychosocially, people are more likely to be in worse situations. They're more likely to have had active barriers to getting care or to have barriers to even identifying that they were pregnant."  

Ironically, even Upadhyay has published research that shows a large percent of women included "not recognizing the pregnancy" as a reason for later abortions.

The Bottom Line:

Abortion is not healthcare, and abortion providers will likely never exercise proper medical evaluations a pregnant women could expect to find elsewhere. The industry's double speak for political purposes is not only pervasive and needs to be called out, but is harmful to women and their preborn children.

Key Takeaways:

• Victoria Snyder was a patient of gynecologist William McKenzie in the 1990s, and requested to use an anonymous Filipino sperm donor. She gave birth to twin boys in 1994.

• At 23, her sons underwent genetic testing, and learned McKenzie was their biological father.

• Snyder filed a lawsuit in 2019, and it was settled in 2020; however, the suit resurfaced on social media and went viral, with some commenters identifying themselves as McKenzie's children.

• Two other families told the Honolulu Civil Beat that they also were victims of fertility fraud.

The Details:

The Honolulu Civil Beat reported that Snyder became McKenzie's patient in 1993. She requested to be inseminated with sperm from an anonymous Filipino donor, and gave birth to twin boys in 1994. When they were 23, her sons underwent genetic testing, and realized they had been fathered by McKenzie.

Snyder filed a civil lawsuit in 2019, and McKenzie denied using his own sperm without her consent. Still, the lawsuit was settled in 2020, and that was the end of it for six years. Yet according to the Civil Beat, the fertility fraud claims resurfaced when an Instagram user posted a video about them. The user claimed to be a former patient of McKenzie's, and accused him of “artificially inseminating dozens of women with his semen."

Hundreds of people commented, including some who said they were McKenzie's biological children.

This appears to be the video being referenced:

The Civil Beat was able to corroborate the woman's claims, writing:

But Snyder was not the only former patient with children fathered by McKenzie, according to members of two families who spoke to Civil Beat on the condition of anonymity, fearing public attention could harm their families. That means the twins have multiple half-siblings.

McKenzie retired in 2021, though he still holds an active medical license.

The Big Picture:

With the rise of online genetic testing, there have been numerous cases of fertility doctors found to have secretly impregnated their patients. Known as fertility fraud, it is disturbingly common, especially among patients who sought help conceiving in the 1970s and 1980s.

These are just a handful of known fertility fraud cases; there are many more:

• A Detroit doctor fathered hundreds of children.

• A pair of doctors has fathered 75 children between them.

• An Idaho woman sued after a DNA test revealed that her daughter is her doctor's biological child.

• Jos Beek, a Dutch doctor, fathered at least 21 children.

• A woman who took an at-home DNA test learned that her biological father was her parents’ fertility doctor.

• A federal court jury in Vermont awarded a woman damages after her fertility doctor impregnated her.

As Live Action News previously reported, the very act of artificial insemination was born out of fertility fraud:

The earliest recorded insemination procedure at a medical facility was carried out in 1884 by Dr. William Pancoast at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

After finding that a woman's husband had a low sperm count, Pancoast chloroformed the woman and injected her with semen from a medical student without the woman's knowledge. When she became pregnant, she believed the child to be her husband's.

Pancoast ultimately told the husband, who agreed to keep it quiet, but in 1909, the medical student, Dr. Addison Davis Hard, told the now-grown child the truth and then published a letter in the journal Medical World, unleashing all of the details.

It is unknown if the child's mother ever learned the truth.

Yet the fertility industry remains largely unregulated, and the majority of states do not have any specific laws addressing fertility fraud.

The Bottom Line:

OB/GYNs are treating women at their most vulnerable, with these would-be parents trusting their doctors with the conception of their children. Fertility fraud violates that trust, and robs children of their inherent right to know who their parents are and where they come from.

Key Takeaways:

• Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin, who were candidates for the Georgia Supreme Court and made public comments promising to restore access to abortion in the pro-life state, also publicly endorsed each other.

• The Judicial Qualifications Commission said this violates judicial ethics rules.

• Both women failed to unseat current Georgia Supreme Court justices in the state's election on June 4.

The Details:

The Judicial Qualifications Commission, which oversees allegations of judicial misconduct, issued two statements about Jordan and Rankin, who were both running for seats on the Georgia Supreme Court. The commission said it "reasonably believes" the women violated Georgia’s Code of Judicial Conduct by publicly endorsing each other, and by publicly promising to promote abortion if elected.

The statements noted that both women appeared at pro-abortion events and promised to "restore abortion rights" if elected, with that promise likewise appearing on promotional campaign material. Jordan specifically was criticized for promoting an endorsement from Reproductive Freedom for All and using it in campaign material, boasting that she had been named “a champion for reproductive freedom!”

The committee said the complaints can be referred to a full investigative panel, and they could face sanctions or other disciplinary action. Given that both women's campaigns failed, as voters did not elect them to the Supreme Court, it's not clear if the commission will want to continue the investigation into these violations.

While abortion activists, including Rankin and Jordan themselves, have claimed this violates their free speech, the commission pointed out that their pro-abortion promises violate a rule which “prohibits judicial candidates from making statements or promises that commit candidates with respect to issues."

The candidates failed to unseat the incumbents on June 4.

Zoom Out:

This is not the first time ethical questions have been raised about abortion industry activists infiltrating state Supreme Courts. The most notable example is in Wisconsin, where not one, but two former Planned Parenthood attorneys were elected to the state Supreme Court.

Last year, Susan Crawford was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. As Live Action News previously reported:

She had served as a Dane County Circuit Court judge since 2018, and was an assistant attorney general in both Wisconsin and Iowa. But for the pro-life movement, she is most notable for her work with Planned Parenthood and the ACLU Reproductive Rights Project, in which she helped to block a 2011 Wisconsin law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. She told voters she would not recuse herself from any abortion-related cases, as “[t]he law does not require judges to automatically recuse just because they have done some kind of legal work in the past as a lawyer.”

One year later, the second Planned Parenthood attorney was elected. Chris Taylor had likewise worked as an attorney and public policy director for Planned Parenthood, and said she would not recuse herself from abortion-related cases.

“I worked for Planned Parenthood 15 years ago. You usually do not see judges recuse themselves because they worked for a law firm that had an attorney appear before them,” Taylor said. “But it’s on a case-by-case basis. I take it seriously.”

The Bottom Line:

At issue in all of these cases is that of judicial fairness. The job of a justice is to interpret the law, not change it or create new legislation. People with an open pro-abortion bias have no business making rulings related to abortion.

Key Takeaways:

• A 24-year-old Israeli man was traveling through an airport in Cyprus while traveling to Mexico through Istanbul when authorities found four human embryos in test tubes in his luggage.

• He did not have proper authority or approval to transport the embryos, and the way he was attempting to travel would have helped him to evade international security.

• The embryos are believed to have come from an IVF facility in Cyprus, where a director and a doctor were also arrested.

• An investigation into the origin and intended purpose of transporting the embryos is ongoing.

The Details:

The 24-year-old man was arrested shortly before he planned to board his flight after officers who were examining his luggage found four human embryos in separate test tubes inside a specialized transport container that was labeled "Life Parcel." The man was headed to Mexico through Istanbul, but no approval had been given from the Health Ministry to internationally transport the fragile human lives.

In addition, authorities raided a local IVF facility in Lefkosa, also called Nicosia, the historic capital of Cyprus and the de facto capital of northern Cyprus, where the embryos are believed to have come from. They arrested the facility's director and a doctor.

According to The Morning Voice, the three men were brought before a court where their detention was extended to two days as investigators reviewed security camera footage and gathered statements. The outlet reported:

A significant new development adds legal complexity to the case. Officials in northern Cyprus stated that a company linked to the IVF centre had attempted to transfer the embryos before the required licensing process had been formally completed, implicitly acknowledging that a permit process had been initiated. Investigators are now examining whether the embryos were moved prematurely before approval was granted, rather than without any application at all, a distinction that could significantly affect the prosecution.

The Morning Voice explained that the decision to fly through Ercan Airport may have been deliberate. Ercan Airport is not recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO); all direct flights to the airport originate in Turkey, and any international flights must touch down in Turkey first.

In this case, the man was flying from northern Cyprus to Istanbul before going to Mexico, which would have theoretically helped him evade international security.

"The central legal question," said attorney Nir Yaslovitzh, "is not only what was done, but how the procedure was arranged with authorities and what regulatory framework applied." He said that cases involving IVF, genetic material and international transfers have increased significantly.

What's Happening Now:

The embryos were confiscated, and it is not clear what has happened to them. It is also unclear why the four embryos were going to Mexico and who had created them or purchased them.

The investigation is ongoing.

Why It Matters:

Human embryos are being mass-produced in a billion-dollar industry that has seemingly gone global. Any adult can send their genetic material off or buy the genetic material of other adults — strangers — to create children. They also pay women, typically underprivileged women, in other locations to carry their children.

Children are being treated as commodities to be labeled, bought, sold, and destroyed at the will of adults, all of whom are creating children to fulfill their own desires and some of whom don't have good intentions for the children. It's not surprising that situations like this have arisen, in which human beings are being trafficked across borders.

A new online transparency website of the UN humanitarian agency shows that several of the organizations receiving U.S. funds are leading international organizations invested in promoting the woke agenda abroad, including UN agencies, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Plan International, Care International, the International Rescue Committee, and others.

One of the programs funded in Nigeria, the SAHAEI Gender Development Initiative, received two grants totaling $410,000 over the last year and is currently being implemented. While details of the work in the country are not available publicly, the program was designed and launched by a progressive U.S. global aid organization called FreeFrom.

The organization describes itself as “a proudly feminist national organization led by queer, trans, im/migrant, and BIPOC survivors.” The organization lists the pronouns for each of the organization’s staff and leadership. The organization says its mission is to “end gender-based violence by building economic freedom and safety with survivors.”

That first tranche of funds was released prior to the administration’s announcement of the new rules that block funding for groups that promote abortion, gender ideology, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) abroad. It was also released despite obstruction from the European Union to U.S. attempts to stop the UN system from promoting abortion as an international right through UN humanitarian work.

When an additional $1.8 billion was released to OCHA last month, even more questions were raised, including concerns about a possible waiver on the new rules for OCHA.

Read the rest at C-Fam...

Key Takeaways:

• A study published at ScienceDirect.com revealed that abortionists who commit abortions late into pregnancy call it a "labor of love."

• The study detailed which drugs are used in the process of a later abortion, including which works the fastest.

• Abortionists committing abortions as late as 28 weeks say it takes a toll, but they also think abortion is "great."

• Of the patients who had abortions at 24 weeks or later, 10% were under age 18.

• Some nurses complained about having to come to the facility in the middle of the night to manage excessive bleeding and quicker-than-expected dilation.

• Authors decided to stop using mifepristone for cervical preparation, and after that, patients stopped laboring in the middle of the night.

The Details:

The "mixed-methods study of expanding later abortion care at two U.S. facilities" published at ScienceDirect.com was based on anonymous online staff survey responses at two Illinois abortion facilities located near the state line. These facilities had expanded abortion to between 26 and 27 weeks during the study period.

Study Aim and Design

The study, funded by a research grant from the Society of Family Planning (SFP), examined "how two Illinois facilities expanded abortion services from the commonly accepted 24-week threshold to 28 weeks," authors Tracy A. Weitz, Adrian Davis, Malcolm Wilson Schwartz, and Julia E. Koh wrote.

They added:

"We employed a mixed methods design including an anonymous online staff survey, qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of clinical and non-clinical staff, and analysis of administrative patient data. We aimed to identify factors that enabled or constrained service expansion and to document staff experiences."

Participants in the study gave verbal consent to participate and to record interviews, and interviewees received a $75 gift card, or they could "donate their incentive to a regional abortion fund."

Authors identified "young people, people of color, and people from outside Illinois" as those who "benefited from the expansion" to later abortions. Of those who had abortions at 24 weeks or later, 10% of the patients were under age 18.

Later Abortion Described

"Regardless of the gestational duration of a pregnancy, clinicians may use medications to expel and/or instruments to remove the pregnancy via the cervix. In the U.S., this care is routinely provided in outpatient facilities that offer mostly abortion care or in combination with family planning services," the authors wrote.

"In this care model, after about 14 weeks (this differs by patients and clinicians), the cervix is gradually dilated before the abortion. Osmotic dilators and medications such as mifepristone and misoprostol are used either alone or in combination... With more advanced pregnancies, dilation may take more than one day," the authors added.

Authors Weitz, Davis, Wilson Schwartz, and Koh then described later abortion procedures:

"After 23 weeks and 6 days more dilation is required and may involve multiple facility visits to remove and insert new dilators, administer additional medications, and assess progress.

To ensure that the fetus is removed/delivered without signs of life, abortion providers inject the fetus with medication to stop the heart (“asystole”)... The medications used as feticide include digoxin, potassium chloride, and lidocaine...

Digoxin is typically easier to administer but takes longer to take effect, while potassium chloride and lidocaine require more training to administer but act immediately. After fetal asystole [cardiac arrest] and the cervical preparation, the patient may experience uterine contractions while adequate cervical dilation is being achieved, during which time additional medications may facilitate the process.

At this time, the physician uses instruments to remove the fetus (induction-evacuation) or lets the uterus expel the fetus and placenta (induction)."

Later abortion: a 'labor of love'

The study authors also explained that based on prior research, abortion workers who participate in killing preborn babies "at a more advanced gestational [...age] experience both internal and external pressure to remain silent about their work."

They cited multiple studies about later abortion ambivalence:

"Crookston’s (2021) aptly titled article, 'This is my calling,' reflects the sentiment of many people working in abortion provision.

However, when studies specifically address abortion care later in pregnancy, people's feelings about participation sometimes differ based on the gestational duration of the abortion care provided.

Several studies with physicians, nurse midwives, and nurses find that support for participation in abortion care declines as the pregnancy gestation advances (Armour, Gilkison, and Hunter, 2021; Cignacco, 2002; Gallagher, Porock, and Edgley, 2010; Garel et al. 2007; Marek, 2004).

The result is that even when care could be provided, it is not."

Yet, while previous surveys have noted a high rate of staff ambivalence to participating in later abortions, this study found "minimal discussion among our interviewees about challenges with learning the new techniques to perform either the feticidal injection or the more complicated abortion procedure."

"Over 80 % of those who completed the full survey were positive or very positive about the gestational age limit of their facility," claimed the authors. These are facilities that kill babies at ages at which the baby can survive with medical care. This could indicate a more hardened view of abortion by facility workers post Dobbs, and possibly the influence of abortion training programs like the Ryan Residency.

According to the study:

"Many interviewees described it as a 'labor of love', citing that the patients are the reason they can overcome stress, burnout, and fatigue of everyday life.

One administrative staff member (318) summed it up: 'Well, it does [take a toll] because I am human, […] but at the same time, I have a lot of gratitude that I am able to assist them in this difficult time.'

The feeling was reiterated by other non-licensed clinical staff: 'that's what kept me going, helping these people'... and 'being able to offer that to someone, regardless of what state she was from, or what the laws are in her state, that's just. It’s great.'

Later abortion 'more complicated'

"[L]ater abortion care is more complicated, including how to schedule patients, manage clinic flow, and ensure 24-hour support," wrote the authors, adding:

"Many interviewees commented on how the care for people later in pregnancy was so different that it felt like an entirely separate service.

As one physician (921) explained: '[To me] that was the biggest learning curve is that, like, it takes a lot more physician time, it takes a lot more nursing time that, like, [all] while you're trying to also see other patients…it's almost like this whole other service.'"

An administrative staff member (734) explained how scheduling for later gestation patients was different from scheduling other abortion patients:

“They are more complex, and they require, I think, a little more care and attention in terms of medical history and complications. … So you have to be very careful when you're extracting all that information. And then the instructions are a little bit more complex. So the appointments, on average, do take longer. They can take anywhere from maybe 30 to 45 minutes to schedule.”

Costs over Safety

"Monitoring cervical dilation, checking for contractions, managing patient pain, and monitoring patient recovery after their procedures all required more time, heightened focus from staff, and separate spaces where later gestation patients could labor if needed," the authors wrote.

1). Deep Sedation which Reduces Risk, Costs More

According to the study, one abortionist explained that using deep sedation "greatly reduced the risk of certain complications." That doctor said, “I think the risks for, you know, cervical laceration, uterine perforation, bleeding from uterine atony, all of those things go way up without having deep sedation."

Yet, the cost of anesthesia, not safety, seemed to be a concern, the study said that one administrative staff member said, "We as a group have to recognize that's a barrier because CRNAs [certified registered nurse anesthetists] and anesthesiologists can get paid a lot more money in other facilities.” (emphasis added)

Yet, it continued, "So even given a preference for offering deep sedation, one physician ... summed up the sentiment: 'I certainly would never fault people for providing abortion care when they cannot provide anesthesia.'" (emphasis added)

2). Monitoring Multiple Day Procedure adds Costs

"In addition to the on-call nurse, the clinics have a physician and a clinical assistant who can come in during the night if needed, typically to manage excessive bleeding and quicker-than-expected dilation," claimed the authors. They added:

"Despite the staff commitment to the cause, the idea of around-the-clock care was initially resisted as one administrative staff member ... recalled: 'Some of the nurses still grumbled about the possibility of having to come in overnight because of the three-day procedure.'"

To address staff concerns, "facilities made some adaptations to clinical protocols to help reduce the need for overnight care." The study noted, "One physician ... explained: 'One of the changes we made was to stop using mifepristone [for cervical preparation]. And as soon as we did that, we stopped having patients go into labor overnight.' However, as an administrative staffer ... clarified, '[There are] things to try to, like, prevent, but you can't prevent [expelling the pregnancy early], like, 100 %.'"

Why it Matters:

There is never a reason to intentionally end the life of a preborn child by abortion. Yet, the abortion industry kills babies for any reason, even late into pregnancy, and even while knowingly putting women at risk — especially when violating the “standard of care” in late-term abortions.

Industry insiders, so-called 'experts" and insurance companies have all acknowledged these risks. Yet, committing later and later abortions seems to be something the industry is salivating to do.

Medical malpractice attorney Mike Seibel, who operates the AbortionInjury.com website with his co-counsel Justin Hall, was clear that late-term abortion "should be done in a hospital or hospital-like setting," that can properly monitor women for risks.

Seibel emphasized, "If they are going to commit these procedures outside the hospital setting, I will be suing more and more of them."

Key Takeaways:

• Ireland's fertility rate has fallen to 1.5 children per woman.

• As the fertility rate has declined, the annual number of deaths has risen.

• The number of marriages fell by more than 2,000 in one year.

• The number of abortions has also risen.

The Details:

Commenting on the most recent report, Seán O’Connor, statistician in the CSO’s Life Events and Demography Division, explained that the findings offer “a snapshot of the life events (births, deaths and marriages) which were registered in the year 2025.” That snapshot reveals a nation where fewer children are being born, mothers are older, and the population is steadily shifting toward old age.

The average age of first-time mothers in Ireland reached 31.6 years in 2023, up from 28.2 in 2003. By 2025, first-time mothers averaged 31.8 years. While women have more opportunities than ever before, the cultural message that motherhood can always wait has real consequences. Fertility naturally declines with age, and many couples discover too late that the window for welcoming children is smaller than they were led to believe.

Meanwhile, deaths continue to rise. Ireland recorded 35,459 deaths in 2023 and 35,587 in 2025, with more than four-fifths occurring among those aged 65 and older. According to the Irish Times, “Covid-19 was identified as the underlying cause of death in 2.2 per cent of the 35,459 registered deaths in 2023, half the number attributed to the disease the previous year.” Cancer and circulatory diseases remain the leading causes of death, while accidents, suicide, and other external causes accounted for nearly four percent (4%) of deaths. Infant mortality, though improved, still accounted for 161 deaths in 2025. 

Marriage rates have also declined. Ireland registered 21,159 marriages in 2023, down from 23,173 the year before and far below the levels seen a decade ago. Fewer marriages, fewer births, and an aging population form a pattern that cannot be ignored.

The Bottom Line:

Ireland’s demographic decline is not merely a statistical trend; it reflects a deeper cultural shift in how the nation views children and family, and how it values life itself. In recent years, Ireland has embraced policies and attitudes that treat preborn life as optional, and abortions have increased significantly. When a society signals that the smallest lives are disposable, it should not be surprised when fewer children are welcomed at all.

Ireland’s future depends on the children it welcomes today. The falling fertility rate is not just a demographic warning; it is a call to rediscover the beauty and dignity of life.

Key Takeaways:

• In the latest Human Matters episode, host Sami Parker talks about the importance of having a village to help raise children.

• In many cases, that village can look like grandparents, nannies, or daycare workers who love and care for your children.

• Ultimately, she said parents should try to spend as much time as possible with their children, but there is no "one-size fits all" answer when it comes to parenting.

The Details:

Parker opens her video by sharing a viral clip showing children run into the arms of their nanny, rather than their mom. Though many commenters had harsh things to say about the mother "outsourcing motherhood," Parker has a different take.

"The modern isolated nuclear family trying to do everything by themselves is actually the historical exception; it’s not the norm," she pointed out, adding:

"We don’t have a village. But raising a child still takes a village, so parents do what we need to do to continue providing for our families. If you have no village but you still need the support a village offers, you have to pay for the support. Daycare and nannies have become the new village."

She doesn't believe this is necessarily a bad thing, pointing out that ultimately, kids benefit from being around people who love them.

"Yes, mom and dad love their child most; the grandma or the live-in nanny or the daycare worker can also really love your kid," she said.

She also focuses on the idea that grandparents can play a very important role in childcare. "When my mother-in-law comes over to watch the kids, I don’t see that as some unideal situation I’m forcing my kids into by being employed," she said. "I’m seeing her loving involvement in their lives as something that’s really beautiful and contributing to their flourishing."

Zoom In:

Parker acknowledges that not everyone has family close by to help with children, and she also points to the reality that in many cases, moms need to work in order to help support the family.

"Yes, I think parents should sacrifice and try to be with their kids as much as they can. If you can avoid putting your tiny baby into full-time daycare you should," she said, adding,

But at the same time, children were never meant to be raised by one exhausted mother trying to do it all on her own. They were meant to be raised by a village. And until we can find a way to return to the old village’s dedication to each other, parents are going to keep relying on nannies and daycares.

The Bottom Line:

Ultimately, Parker said there is no "one-size fits all" approach to childcare and raising children.

"I do think parents should approach their own family's decision on childcare by centering it around their child’s wellbeing," she said. "And the goal should always be to spend as much time with your kids as you reasonably can." 

Key Takeaways:

• This fall, the Indiana Supreme Court will hear a case arguing that the state's law protecting preborn children from abortion violates religious freedom.

• Thomas More Society has filed a brief on behalf of Voices for Life, arguing that abortion can never be considered an "exercise of religion."

• The brief says that abortion violates natural law, and was never considered a form of religious exercise.

The Backstory:

This fall, the Indiana Supreme Court will take up a case regarding whether or not abortion qualifies as an “exercise of religion” under state law. That argument is being championed by the ACLU of Indiana on behalf of a group called Hoosier Jews for Choice.

Indiana law, SB 1, protects most preborn children from abortion, with exceptions for babies conceived in rape, babies who receive a life-threatening prenatal diagnosis, and babies whose mothers receive a health diagnosis. After the law's passage in 2022, five women and Hoosier Jews for Choice sued to block it, claiming it violated their religious freedom.

As Live Action News previously explained:

In December of 2022, Marion County Superior Court Judge Heather Welch ruled in favor of the ACLU and placed a temporary injunction on the law. The state of Indiana appealed, but in 2024, the appeals court agreed with Welch. However, the appeals court also ruled the injunction needed to be narrower.

In March [2026], Marion County Superior Court Judge Christina R. Klineman issued a permanent injunction against SB1, though she did narrow the injunction to only impact those who claim the law violates their religious beliefs. Now, the Indiana Supreme Court will be weighing in.

The Details:

In its brief, Thomas More Society contends that abortion can never be considered an "exercise of religion" under state law. The brief notes that abortion has always been condemned as contrary to natural law, and historically was never considered a form of religious exercise. It also posits that the lower courts have ignored the Indiana legislature, which has enacted a state law requiring women to be informed that life begins at fertilization, and has noted a "compelling state interest" in protecting the preborn.

“This case is a Trojan Horse. The ACLU and its clients want to call this religious liberty, but it isn’t—not under any historically honest understanding of the term,” said Thomas Olp, Executive Vice President at Thomas More Society. He continued:

“From Cicero to John Locke to the framers of Indiana’s Constitution, the natural law tradition that gave us religious freedom has never treated the taking of innocent life as an exercise of religion. The ACLU is using a law designed to protect people of faith to smuggle in an unrestricted right to abortion. If this theory prevails, it won’t just gut Indiana’s pro-life protections, it will distort the meaning and purpose of religious liberty itself.”

The Bottom Line:

Regardless of what any court or law says, there is never a right — religious or otherwise — to take the life of an innocent human.

Key Takeaways:

• Data has revealed Canada experienced a drop in its population in 2025, the first time a population decline has been recorded since statistics were first kept in 1867.

• The drop has been attributed to a decline in births, as well as a reduction in "non-permanent residents."

• Meanwhile, the country is one of the world's leaders in euthanasia deaths, and abortion is also widespread.

The Details:

Data from Statistics Canada placed the estimated number of Canadian residents at 41,472,081 on Jan. 1, 2026 — a drop of 0.2 percent (just over 102,000) from Jan. 1, 2025. A spokesperson from Statistics Canada told CBC News that it was the first time since 1867, when the population was first recorded, that the nation had experienced a population drop.

Like elsewhere, the population decline is partly attributed to a decrease in births. Though the necessary birth replacement rate is 2.1 births per woman, Canada's rate currently stands at just 1.25. A decline in "non-permanent residents" accounts for the rest of the population drop.

Experts warn that the population decrease will have long-term ramifications on the economy and the country's ability to thrive.

"Since the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s, the birth rate in Canada has not been high enough to maintain, let alone increase, our population," explained Canadian economist Dr. Roslyn Kunin. "As a result, Canada cannot rely on natural population growth to support future economic expansion."

Zoom Out:

Conversations surrounding demographic decline very rarely touch on the effects of abortion and euthanasia, even though they both negatively impact population growth. In Canada, assisted dying is the fourth leading cause of death. In 2025, reports pegged Quebec as the world leader in euthanasia rates, with 'assisted dying' accounting for 7.9% of all deaths. Notably, euthanasia in Canada is not limited to those who are terminally ill. People have accessed assisted death for homelessness, mental illness, and non-life-threatening disability.

Abortion is also widespread in Canada, yet in 2025, the Canadian government pledged millions in funding to researchers with the goal of expanding abortion access. Both euthanasia and abortion are a result of a pervasive culture of death — when someone is discriminated against as unwanted, ill, burdensome, or unproductive, all too often the answer has become to kill that person.

The Bottom Line:

Any society that legalizes the killing of a certain portion of its members should be unsurprised to find that it is failing to thrive.

Key Takeaways:

• The average cost of private adoption in the United States ranges from $40,000 to $80,000.

• Independent adoption, in which a couple seeks adoption without using an adoption agency, is significantly cheaper, and adopting through foster care is often free.

• Birth mothers have said they were pressured into adoption with threats of having to reimburse costs accrued by would-be parents and adoption agencies if they decided to raise their child.

• The high cost of adoption could push couples towards assisted reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization (IVF) as a cheaper alternative.

The Details:

When it comes to the cost of adoption, the situation becomes incredibly complex. There are, broadly, three different kinds of adoption:

• Domestic adoption, in which a child is adopted from within the United States;

• International adoption, in which a child is adopted from overseas;

• Foster-to-adopt, in which a child is adopted through the foster care system.

Within the realm of domestic adoption, there are more options for parents to parse; they can choose to pursue adoption more traditionally, working with an adoption agency, or they can choose to try what is now being called "independent adoption," in which the parents forgo an adoption agency and use just a lawyer they hire.

Depending on what path a would-be parent takes, the costs can vary greatly. The highest costs seem to come from working with an adoption agency, while pursuing an independent adoption, an international adoption, or an adoption through foster care costs significantly less. Foster care adoption can have no fees at all, and newborn or infant adoption using just an attorney costs an average of $10,000 to $15,000. For a traditional adoption through an adoption agency, the cost is typically between $40,000 and $80,000.

Yet this drastic difference in cost raises questions. The paperwork does not change between forms of adoption, so there are not increased legal issues to handle with a traditional domestic adoption. Some might point to the need to cover the birth mother's medical care, which is true and good, but Medicaid covers the cost of prenatal care in every single state, so those costs should be negligible.

So why does it cost so much and where is the money going?

Zoom In:

A 2018 article from the National Council for Adoption offers some insight into what the money involved in traditional adoption goes towards, and, to put it plainly, it funds the adoption industry. The bulk of the money is not spent on caring for the birth mother or helping the would-be parents navigate the adoption process, but on the agency's own administrative and bureaucratic costs.

While the article explained that the agencies are often not making a large profit, the money is not being spent in ways many might think it is. The National Council for Adoption explained:

Only 4% of the revenue is spent on fundraising. Charity-tracking experts generally give an A+ to non-profits who spend less than 15% on fundraising.

Management and general expenses make up 11% of the expenditures for adoption agencies. These expenses include compensation, benefits, office expenses, and travel for officers or directors.

Program expenses account for 82% of the expenditures of these adoption agencies. These expenses include compensation, benefits, rent, and travel for employees who provide direct adoption services, as well as pass-through costs paid by agencies to other providers. Personnel costs account for 52% of the total revenue of adoption agencies.

American Adoptions likewise claimed the costs include "[l]egal oversight and coordination across states and jurisdictions; Medical care and counseling; Licensed professional services; Marketing and outreach to create adoption opportunities."

In essence, hopeful parents are paying agencies to remain open and potentially do some marketing for them to make it more likely that they find a baby to adopt. It's estimated there are 36 would-be parents for every one child placed for adoption, so parents may feel its worth the additional costs to have the extra help in making their profile stand out.

The base fees to adopt a child — legal representation, court fees, social workers, etc. — are significantly less, and these fees are typically waived altogether if adoption occurs through foster care.

The Big Picture:

Part of the problem comes with the lack of regulation surrounding the adoption industry, with birth mothers and hopeful adoptive parents alike harmed in the process. Adoption is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it seems some have a vested interest in making sure the money keeps flowing... no matter what.

One of the most notorious examples is that of Tara Lee, who ran the Always Hope adoption agency and was caught scamming multiple parents. She was able to do so thanks to a lack of regulations and little-to-no government oversight. As the New Yorker explained:

The private-sector and nonprofit adoption and child-welfare-services industries in America generate an estimated nineteen billion dollars a year in revenue. Each state has its own rules about who is qualified to arrange an adoption, which families are eligible to adopt, the rights of birth mothers to change their minds, and the rights of birth fathers to be involved in the decision. This has left enormous gaps in the system. “The whole thing is so fraught with vulnerability, inequality of power, and you still have the apparatus of the old secrecy-and-shame system,” Smolin said. “Big money and a veil of secrecy attracts bad actors.”

Lee carefully controlled all communication between expectant mothers and adoptive families, and tried to prevent the two sides from contacting each other directly; she arranged most in-person meetings and usually came along. This gave her tremendous influence over two sets of emotionally vulnerable people.

Lee would find vulnerable women, such as those struggling with homelessness and addiction, and persuade them to place their child for adoption.

“You love this baby so much, and you say to yourself, ‘Can I really do it?’” one mother who placed her child for adoption through Lee said. “Even if it breaks your heart, you say, ‘I’m going to put you with someone wonderful who can really take care of you.’  Something put [Lee] on this earth to be the best manipulator and liar you have ever seen."

Lee would dangle hope in front of prospective adoptive parents, insisting she had a pregnant mother ready and convincing them to sign contracts with her. The adoptive parents would send her payments of tens of thousands of dollars over and over again, only for Lee to abruptly say the pregnant mother backed out of the transaction.

After an investigation, Lee pled guilty to wire fraud and was ordered to pay $1 million in restitution to the 160 prospective adoptive families and birth mothers. According to the New Yorker:

"The investigation had found a hundred and sixty families and seventy birth mothers whom Lee allegedly defrauded. Some of them, including Teresa and Mike Matheny, had successfully adopted babies, but most had not. Dozens of members of adoptive families travelled from across the country to a federal courtroom in downtown Detroit to attend the sentencing, which took place about two weeks before the COVID-19 shutdown. Melanie Peterson, one of the adoptive mothers, told me that the hearing was one of the most powerful experiences of her life. 'There was something about being present with those other families—we walked into that courtroom literally hand in hand,' she said. Watching Lee enter the room in a prison jumpsuit, hearing the sound of her ankle chains clinking, was deeply cathartic. 'I just needed to see her face, to know that she was a real person, that I wasn’t making this all up in my heart and head,' Peterson said."

Lee is just one example. The problem is that there are no laws in place to prevent other people like Lee from exploiting the desperation of others within the adoption realm. While adoptions through foster care are highly monitored by individual states, private adoptions are not. And with as much money that flows through the adoption industry, it can easily create unethical scenarios.

The Other Side:

For the birth mothers, one issue is the effect the money can have on their decision to place their child for adoption. In every state, birth mothers have the right to change their mind, typically for several days after giving birth. Adoption agencies have been caught financially pressuring these women to relinquish their children, even if they don't want to.

Shyanne Klupp told Time she had reluctantly considered adoption, and when she found adoptive parents for her child, she hadn't looked to get a ton of money from them — but her adoption agency disagreed.

"Klupp and her husband entered in the essentials: gas money, food, blankets and the like. She remembers thinking, 'I’m not trying to sell my baby.' But ANLC, she says, pointed out that the prospective adoptive parents were rich. 'That’s not enough,' Klupp recalls her counselor telling her. 'You can ask for more.' So the couple added maternity clothes, a new set of tires, and money for her husband’s prison commissary account, Klupp says. Then, in January 2010, she signed the initial legal paperwork for adoption, with the option to revoke."

Klupp said she had recurring doubts about adoption throughout her pregnancy, but whenever she voiced those doubts, the money that had been spent was brought up.

“I will never forget the way my heart sank,” she said. “You have to buy your own baby back almost.”

She was also never told that part of the expenses the adoptive parents were paying for was an attorney to represent her. Ultimately, scared of being sued, she relinquished her son, a decision she said she regrets.

Another woman, Madeline Grimm, had the same experience. That was something that I would think of if I was having any kind of doubt,” she said. “Like, well, sh-t, I’d have to pay all this back.”

Still another birth mother told PBS how she considered adoption when she was pregnant and facing eviction. Her Utah-based adoption agency promised cash after she relinquished her child. Still, despite being on the brink of homelessness, she was resisting, only for her adoption agency to pressure her to continue with the adoption.

"I text Sandi and told her, like, I'm kind of starting to change my mind a little bit. This might not be something I want to do," she said. "It all was just happening so fast. It's not something I wanted to do. Why are they still wanting me to sign? Then I'm like, if I don't do this, where am I going to end up?"

After she delivered her baby, she was given $4,000, and then her baby was taken away almost immediately.

"I didn't really hold her. I didn't really tell her goodbye. I didn't kiss her. They didn't [give] me a chance to talk to her. So they just came, just came and got her," she recalled. "A lot of people say it's like you sold your baby. I did not sell my baby. I think I took -- that people took advantage of me for my baby."

Reality Check:

Per the New York Times, in the 1980s, adoption cost between $5,000 and $12,000. The costs have since skyrocketed, all while there are fewer and fewer babies available to adopt. And most would-be parents are not interested in adopting older children; they almost universally want infants, all while older children seeking adoption from foster care go their entire lives without finding a forever family, even though the cost is practically zero.

That the adoption industry has become so expensive has almost certainly led more and more couples to pursue IVF instead, as adoption has become prohibitively expensive. IVF, particularly if the couple does not go through multiple rounds, is significantly less expensive than adoption.

And while IVF does create life, it is not a pro-life tool; only about seven percent of the babies created through IVF survive to birth. IVF promotes a eugenicist mindset and turns children into products to be bought and sold.

The Bottom Line:

Adoption, while born in trauma, is a way of mending a tragedy, and can be a beautiful thing, particularly with the rise in open adoptions. Yet the unchecked adoption industry arguably is taking advantage of vulnerable women and desperate would-be parents. Politicians should take action to protect both parties from those who look at babies and see nothing but dollar signs.

Study authors noted that "[e]conomic research has documented that increases in self-pay prices reduce abortion utilization."

Key Takeaways:

• A study is calling for more Medicaid-funded late-term abortion, as the cost of second-trimester abortion typically exceeds the Medicaid reimbursement rate.

• Study authors call for the expansion of more late-term abortion, with the removal of viability "restrictions."

• Abortion is tethered to eugenics; when taxpayers fund abortion, abortions increase.

The Details:

Authors looked at self-pay and Medicaid-funded late-term abortion, utilizing mystery callers between November 2024 and April 2025 who contacted facilities identified at the websites: laterabortion.org, abortionfinder.org, and ineedana.com in August of 2024 for their results. They wrote:

"Callers identified themselves as a woman looking for an abortion who just found out she was pregnant at her private doctor’s office. The pregnancy was dated on ultrasound. She had gone in because she was not feeling well. She described herself as shocked she was pregnant and wanting to get an abortion as soon as possible."

They found that "130 facilities in 20 states and the District of Columbia" (52 clinics, 78 hospitals) advertised a willingness to commit abortions at or after 23 weeks of pregnancy.

In August of 2024, abortions at "23 weeks’ pregnancy duration was broadly legal in 28 states and DC," the study claimed. Babies born as young as 21 weeks have survived when given medical care.

Later abortion costs

Regarding costs of later abortions, the authors found that:

"Median self-pay prices increased from $3000 at 23 weeks to $17 250 at 33 weeks, with a statistically significant increase of $2541 from 23 to 25 weeks.

The number of facilities providing care declined from 130 at 23 weeks to 31 at 25 weeks and 3 at 33 weeks.

Among facilities in states with Medicaid coverage, 73 of 105 (69.5%) consistently reported accepting Medicaid; acceptance declined at later pregnancy durations and varied by state."

"The number of facilities advertising care at 25 weeks decreased to 31 across 9 states and DC," they also wrote.

Prices increased with advancing pregnancy duration.

• 23 weeks: $3,000 ($2,197-$4,136)

• 25 weeks: $6,090 ($4,250-$7,044)

• 27 weeks: $7,975 ($7,750-$10,195)

• 29 weeks: $11,500 ($10,325-$12,900)

• 31 weeks: $19,000 ($16,750-$19,400)

• 33 weeks: $17,250 ($16,375-$18,125)

"Prices did not differ significantly between hospitals and clinics at 23 and 25 weeks, although hospitals were less likely to provide prices...although hospitals provided fewer quoted prices," they alleged.

Medicaid reimbursements for later abortion

Authors found that the cost of a "second trimester abortion was substantially higher than the reported median Medicaid reimbursement rate...[of] $570.30," pointing out that "some facilities advertising later abortion care did not always accept their state Medicaid" and that "some abortion-providing facilities do not conduct third-party billing for care."

The authors wrote, "One contributing factor may be that Medicaid programs impose unique restrictions on abortion coverage that make accepting coverage more difficult," adding:

"In 4 states, some facilities advertising abortion care at 23 weeks reported not accepting Medicaid during at least 1 call, including California (14 of 28 [50%]), Maryland (1 of 2 [50%]), and Oregon (2 of 3 [67%]).

Among 27 facilities providing care at 25 weeks in states with Medicaid coverage, 18 (66.7%) reported accepting Medicaid; corresponding proportions were 75.0% at 27 weeks and 33.3% at 29, 31, and 33 weeks."

Despite pro-abortion groups calling for increased tax dollars to fund abortion, this suggests that it is profit, not "access," that is more important to abortion providers.

According to the pro-abortion KFF.org:

• "Although clinical care is more complicated after the first trimester, reimbursement rates do not increase significantly to reflect the increased complexity and higher costs associated with abortion care later in pregnancy ..."

• "In recent years, some states, such as Illinois, New York, New Mexico, and Maryland have significantly boosted their Medicaid reimbursement rates to support abortion access...For example, six states have more than doubled their reimbursement rates for D&C procedures and five states for D&E procedures since 2017."

Calls to expand later abortion 'access'

Instead of assisting women in delivering their babies alive, study authors called to expand "the availability of later abortion care, especially in states with Medicaid coverage" and sought the removal of "viability restrictions" as well as the "expansion of services" and "development of new facilities in states where care is legally permissible but not currently available."

By "care," authors mean the execution of precious preborn children in a dismemberment or induction abortion at a stage when babies can survive outside the womb.

Abortion advocates know that later abortions are rarely committed for "health" reasons, and they will point to multiple reasons why women seek later abortions, including simply not knowing they were pregnant until later in pregnancy.

Medical malpractice attorney Mike Seibel told Live Action News:

"The vast majority of women that I see in my practice choose late-term abortion because of relationship breakdown, drug abuse, sudden job loss, or fetal anomaly. Late-term abortion is rarely done for medical reasons, as there are other safer procedures available."

Seibel, who operates the AbortionInjury.com website with his co-counsel Justin Hall, previously told Live Action News that the abortion industry knows committing later abortions in outpatient facilities is more dangerous for women, emphasizing that the "Standard of Care is that they should be done in a hospital or hospital-like setting” due to the risks involved.

He added:

"Late-term abortions for medical reasons would be contraindicated for clinics like the Valley Abortion Group, Southwestern Women’s Options, Partners in Abortion, and the Rise Clinic in Colorado. These are outpatient facilities, and that would pose an extreme risk to the woman that no rational abortion provider would take."

If abortions committed in the third trimester are extremely dangerous to commit outside a hospital setting and abortion ‘experts’ and insurers acknowledge that these abortions are too unsafe for freestanding clinics, why would Medicaid fund them?

Why it Matters

Abortion is tethered to eugenics. The industry knows that when taxpayers fund abortion, abortions increase.

Medicaid can be used to fund late-term abortions, despite federal Hyde Amendment prohibitions, which “ban[] state use of federal Medicaid dollars to pay for abortions unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or the abortion is ‘necessary to save the life of the woman.'” States, however, decide whether or not to use their portion of those dollars to pay for the killing of preborn babies — at any stage of development, for any reason.

According to an April 2026 report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, “9 states and the District of Columbia do not restrict abortion on the basis of gestational duration.” In May 2026, the former Planned Parenthood "special affiliate" wrote that "Currently, 20 states without total abortion bans allow state Medicaid funds to be used to cover abortion care beyond the limitations of the Hyde Amendment."

Despite the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits taxpayer dollars from funding most abortions, some states still fund some abortions for any reason at the state level, according to expenditure reports at Medicaid.gov.

As Live Action News has already shown, abortionists are aware that, at a certain point in the second trimester, abortion becomes far more risky to women than carrying to term. In addition, the industry knows that in doing late-term abortions outside hospital or hospital-like settings, it is violating the ‘standard of care’ and putting women at significantly greater risk. But knowing and doing are two different things, and an industry that intentionally and electively kills human beings clearly cannot be trusted to care about the safety of women or their children.

Zoom Out:

Authors Tracy A. Weitz, PhD and Malcolm Wilson Schwartz sought to "estimate quoted self-pay prices and assess state Medicaid acceptance for later abortion care from 23 to 33 weeks of pregnancy duration."

• Tracey Weitz is a professor of sociology at American University, Washington, DC, the former U.S. Programs Director for the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation; and co-founder and director of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) at the University of California, San Francisco, according to her bio. Her LinkedIn page reveals past associations with ACLU and Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, which was later disaffiliated from PPFA for serious problems

• Malcolm Wilson Schwartz is in the undergrad program at the University of California, Irvine, and Weitz's research assistant.

The cross-sectional study entitled "Later Abortion Care Availability, Quoted Self-Pay Prices, and State Medicaid Acceptance" was funded by the Society of Family Planning (SFP), which was founded in 2005 thanks to a generous contribution from the Packard Foundation. In 2016, the Buffett Foundation (Warren Buffett, known as the sugar daddy of the pro-abortion movement) gave SFP over $8 million and granted SFP an additional nearly $18M between 2023 and 2024.

Both the Buffett Foundation and Packard Foundation invested in the abortion pill in the early days, and pump millions into the University of California (UC), the Ryan Residency Abortion Training Program, and other pro-abortion endeavors.

SFP has funded multiple Universities, including American University and UC, among other pro-abortion organizations.

The Bottom Line:

Abortion at any stage kills a preborn baby in the womb and can harm or kill the pregnant mother. This push to not only expand later abortions but force the taxpayers to fund these barbaric procedures is not new. The abortion industry has always advocated for unrestricted abortion on demand at any stage of gestation, for any reason, for profit.

National abortion data does not break down abortions at or after 23 weeks of pregnancy. In 2025, while the majority of abortions (over one million) occurred in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, over 90K abortions are estimated to have taken place after 14 weeks, with over 11,000 of those committed at 21 weeks or greater.

A recent decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic will allow states to redirect taxpayer dollars away from abortion facilities; perhaps more states should enact these measures.

Key Takeaways:

• Hassan-James Abbas was indicted on six felonies after he ordered abortion drugs and forced the pills into his girlfriend's mouth, causing her to lose her preborn baby.

• He pled no contest to four of the six felony charges against him.

• Originally remaining anonymous, Affholder is now speaking out in the hopes that what happened to her will not happen to anyone else.

The Backstory:

Last month, Abbas pled no contest to four of the six felony charges he was facing. Abbas, a doctor in Ohio, began a relationship with Affholder in 2024, despite still being married. At the time, he was a surgical resident at the University of Toledo Medical Center, and told Affholder he and his wife were separated.

When Affholder found out she was pregnant, she wanted to keep the baby, but Abbas insisted she have an abortion. When she refused, he was initially angry, but then became calm, and offered her repeated drinks. He then physically forced the abortion pills into her mouth. In a previous, anonymous interview, Affholder said she feared for her own life. Once she was able to escape, she went to the emergency room, but her baby did not survive.

Abbas was charged with abduction, unlawful distribution of an abortion-inducing drug, disrupting public services, deception to obtain a dangerous drug, identity fraud, and tampering with evidence. He allegedly ordered the pills online using his wife's name.

Under the plea deal he agreed to, the third-degree felony charges of abduction and tampering with evidence were both dropped. He faces up to five years in prison and a $15,000 fine.

The Details:

In an op-ed for the Daily Wire, Affholder told her story publicly for the first time.

Affholder said she and Abbas originally bonded over their careers in health care, and that their relationship went well until she got pregnant. "The moment I told him, everything changed. His calm demeanor disappeared," she said. "That was when his secrets spilled. He revealed he was still legally married. Then he commanded I abort our child. He spoke obsessively about appearances, his family, and his future career. He repeatedly pushed for an abortion."

When she refused, Affholder said he got angry, even as she reassured him that he did not have to be involved, saying she was financially stable and could raise a child on her own. To her surprise, he stopped being angry after several days.

"I was shocked; he had completely changed," she recalled. "He was saying he would be the man I needed him to be, and he wouldn’t fight against our baby. He offered acts of kindness. He even started getting me hot chocolates daily. Little did I know that he was slowly poisoning our baby and me with the abortion drugs he’d bought online using his ex-wife’s information."

But it would get worse very quickly. Affholder recalled that she woke up at about four in the morning feeling as though she was being watched. He was "hovering over" her, pinned her down, and forced crushed pills in her mouth. She explained:

I fought him off and ran to call 911. He took my cell and my keys, blocking me from leaving. I rushed to the kitchen, trying to rinse the powder from my mouth. But he continued to restrain me, buying each minute for the drugs to do their intended purpose of killing our kid.

He kept yelling the same things at me: 'My father will cut me off. My family will be ashamed. My career will be ruined.'

At no point did he show concern for our child or for me.

When he decided enough time had passed to kill the baby, he left, and Affholde went to the hospital. While there, she began hemorrhaging. She said:

"Blood was everywhere. The ER staff had to clean me and change the sheets because it was so severe. And the trauma didn’t end there. The medical staff had to support me through the tragedy of miscarrying my child in front of them.

Then the police came. Detectives found crushed drugs and recovered evidence that corroborated my account."

Though Abbas has since lost his medical license and will be held accountable for his crimes, Affholder said she still feels like she needs to speak out. "I had no idea that these abortion drugs could be obtained online with no oversight, no in-person exam, no safeguards, no follow-ups," she said. "Just a man on a computer in the comfort of his home using his ex-wife’s information to order these drugs and have them arrive at his doorstep two days later." She added:

"People can argue endlessly about abortion, but no woman should fear being drugged against her will. No woman should wake up to someone forcing abortion drugs down her throat. What happened to me violated every principle of health care."

READ: <a href="/news/boyfriend-abortion-pill-online-forced-not-alone">Her boyfriend got the abortion pill online and made her take it. She's not alone.</a>

The Bottom Line:

Affholder said the FDA should reinstate safeguards surrounding the abortion pill, and return to requiring in-person visits.

"Our leaders need to take women’s safety seriously, not just for me, but for anyone who could end up in this situation," she said. "I hope Rosalie’s [Markezich] lawsuit will be resolved to restore important safeguards so abusers can’t get abortion drugs in the mail. No one should suffer. If the drugs are powerful enough to end human life and cause massive hemorrhaging, then they shouldn’t be treated casually."

Key Takeaways:

• The FDA has been promising to conduct a study on the safety of mifepristone for months, and has been accused by some of intentionally delaying the review.

• A senior FDA official confirmed that the review is now taking place.

• The state of Louisiana sued the FDA over weakened safety standards regarding mifepristone, and the FDA was ordered to submit a status report on its safety review by October 7th.

The Details:

A senior FDA official has confirmed that the promised safety review of mifepristone will be moving forward, and will likely take six months to complete. The review was announced last year, but it appears no action had yet been taken to begin the process, and the FDA and its former commissioner, Marty Makary, had been accused of intentionally delaying the study. A Bloomberg report claimed (emphasis added):

Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have told lawmakers and state attorneys general for months that they are actively conducting a review of mifepristone. But behind the scenes, Makary has told agency officials to delay the safety review, people familiar with the discussions said...

... Pushing the closely watched abortion pill study beyond next year’s midterms has the potential to help minimize the role of abortion in the upcoming elections, in which some Republicans are facing tough battles to hold onto their seats. Abortion restrictions popular with the right-wing base don’t necessarily poll well with all voters. A 2024 Pew survey found majorities of moderate or liberal Republicans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

The FDA announced the review after a large insurance claims analysis from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) found that nearly 11% of women (10.93%) experience complications, like sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or other serious or life-threatening adverse events, meaning one in 10 women likely experience at least one serious complication after taking mifepristone. This rate was 22 times higher than the “less than 0.5 percent” serious adverse events rate reported by the FDA on the mifepristone label.

Despite this, the FDA approved a second generic abortion pill from Evita Solutions LLC in September.

The Backstory:

In 2023, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) weakened its safety regulations (REMS) on the abortion drug mifepristone (200mg)/Mifeprex, allowing it to be dispensed by mail and through retail pharmacies. In October of 2025, the State of Louisiana filed a lawsuit seeking to reinstate the previous safeguards.

The FDA responded by asking the courts to pause the lawsuit as it reviewed the safety regulations of mifepristone, which was approved on April 6, pending the FDA's safety review results. Louisiana then appealed that decision on April 17.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Louisiana's favor, pausing mail-order dispensing of the abortion pill and ruling that the "FDA's justifications for remotely dispensing mifepristone were based on flawed or nonexistent data," and that the change in safety protocols "resulted in numerous illegal abortions in Louisiana and in Louisiana paying thousands in Medicaid bills for women harmed by mifepristone."

That decision was overturned by the Supreme Court, however, allowing mail-order abortions to continue as the lawsuit makes its way through the courts.

The Bottom Line:

There are serious risks associated with taking mifepristone, and ultimately, it is being used to end the lives of innocent children in the womb. Removing safety regulations and allowing the drug to be shipped in the mail increases the risks to women and allows more children to die.

Key Takeaways:

• Mandy Moore married Taylor Goldsmith in 2018; together, they have three children.

• After the birth of her sons, she decided to try in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the hopes of freezing embryos for the future, but that effort was unsuccessful.

• She and her husband were thrilled and surprised when she got pregnant with her daughter naturally afterwards.

The Details:

Moore welcomed two boys in 2021 and 2022, and in a recent appearance on the "Not Skinny But Not Fat" podcast, she detailed her plans for a third child, which originally began with IVF.

"Very candidly, I had done a round of IVF," she said. "I was like, 'Okay, if we want to I had the extreme privilege of being able to get pregnant and carry both of my boys, and I thought, I'm getting older, and I would love to maybe have a tiny bit more space potentially between if we are going to have a third.' So, I did a round of IVF and it was unsuccessful. We didn't get any viable eggs, no embryos."

At first, she assumed that meant a third child was not meant to be.

"I was like, okay, well, this just settles that," she recalled. "If this is something that's meant to be, it will happen naturally. Otherwise, I am so grateful and so happy with these two guys, and our family will be complete if that's the way it's supposed to unfold."

Then, in 2024, Moore announced the birth of her daughter, Louisa, who was conceived naturally in a surprise pregnancy.

"Lou just had to show up, and she showed up very, very surprisingly," Moore said. "We were not trying, but obviously we were open to it because of the IVF of it all."

Zoom In:

Moore clarified that she had never struggled with infertility, but had pursued IVF as an insurance policy for the future.

"I was like, okay, so perhaps we can get an embryo," she explained. "Because when people say freezing eggs, that includes going through IVF, basically. So we did one round of IVF, of freezing eggs, and it just didn't work. And so I was like, okay, I am totally satisfied, I tried that, and really grateful again that I have my boys, and if this is meant to be it, it'll happen."

Previously, Moore had said she had been told she might not ever be able to get pregnant.

"There was a time when I thought I might not be able to have kids. I remember when the doctor told me there was a slim chance of getting pregnant… and then lo and behold to our surprise, I became pregnant with Gus," she wrote in 2024. "Motherhood is a beautiful, messy, sleepless gift and to have two kiddos under two… whew!!!"

The Bottom Line:

Women are increasingly encouraged to pursue assisted reproductive technologies, either as a safeguard or when struggling with infertility. Yet things like IVF are not pro-life. Creating embryos — actual human beings — just to leave them frozen in case they might end up wanted one day is unethical, and turns children into products to be ordered, created, and thrown away on demand.

Key Takeaways:

• Dutch Health Minister Sophie Hermans announced that the country will not use EU funds to finance abortions for women traveling from other countries where abortion is restricted.

• The announcement comes after the EU revealed it would subsidize cross-border abortions.

• The Dutch government will continue to subsidize abortions for the country's residents.

The Details:

According to DutchNews, health minister Sophie Hermans proclaimed that the Netherlands has no plan to redistribute European Social Fund money to finance abortions for women traveling from countries with pro-life laws such as Poland. Abortion is legal in the Netherlands through about 24 weeks for any reason.

The announcement came after the EU revealed in February that it would subsidize cross-border abortions through the European Social Fund after the “My Voice, My Choice” initiative, which garnered over a million signatures. In principle, a woman who travels from an EU country with pro-life laws to an EU member state with pro-abortion laws to undergo an abortion could have expenses such as transportation, lodging, medical imaging, and related costs covered by the country via the existing fund. A similar arrangement could apply to women in rural areas who must journey to another region within their own country to seek abortions.

Strikingly, the DutchNews report indicated that the Netherlands obtains about €400 million from that fund, which is aimed at anti-poverty programs. Hermans’ stance is that women from outside the Netherlands can pay for abortions themselves or get aid from volunteer organizations that raise money through donations. 

Women living and paying insurance in the Netherlands still have abortions covered under the basic insurance package. The reported cost for a surgical abortion for non-residents is about €400 to €900, Dutch News disclosed. 

The Big Picture:

Although abortion is allowed across most of the EU, countries like Malta and Poland protect most preborn children from abortion. While abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978, availability varies considerably by region. As a result, many women eventually end up traveling either within their own country or across borders to abort their children. 

While the Dutch government’s refusal to use EU funds for abortions is not a total triumph for preborn lives that could otherwise have been lost to abortion, it is a significant indicator that abortion expansion can still be denied at the policy level. Yet this matter is not merely about the budget decision of the Dutch government, but rather a wider tussle over whether taxpayers should be made to support abortion access across national borders, even when many citizens and member states oppose abortion on moral grounds.  

A considerable portion of public funding in the EU has been used to regularize abortion and widen abortion tourism, particularly for women from countries with more robust legal safeguards for preborn children. If this precedent continues, abortion supporters will likely continue to lobby for other governments to deem abortion as a “health service” deserving taxpayer support.

However, even when officials allege that abortion is merely an issue of access or mobility, the underlying reality remains the same — a human life is purposefully terminated. Public money should be earmarked towards life-affirming programs that support mothers, families, healthcare, and poverty relief, rather than abortion travel networks. 

The Bottom Line:

Pro-life advocates should keep pressuring lawmakers to defend public funds from abortion-linked misuse, especially in international or cross-border programs where accountability can be eroded. A government’s refusal to fund abortion, even partially, can slow abortion down and pave the way for greater moral opposition to abortion.

Furthermore, pro-life advocacy should consistently blend opposition to abortion funding with tangible solutions for mothers facing crisis pregnancies, such as housing, maternity aid, counseling, childcare support, and financial assistance. 

Key Takeaways:

• McAfee and his wife Samantha were married in 2020 and welcomed their first child, a little girl, in 2023.

• In 2025, the couple announced they were expecting their second child.

• Samantha was diagnosed with severe pre-eclampsia and underwent an emergency C-section to safely deliver their son.

The Backstory:

Pat and Samantha McAfee married in 2020, and three years later, welcomed their daughter Mackenzie, with Pat calling it the day they both had been dreaming of. "Momma and I are floating with joy," he wrote. "This is amazing."

In 2025, they announced they were expecting their second baby after struggling with infertility, with a touching message to others who have faced pregnancy loss. "To every woman and couple still in the thick of this journey: you are not alone," Samantha wrote. "I hope our news doesn’t cause you pain, but instead offers a spark of hope. Hope that your story isn’t over. Hope that the impossible can become possible. One day, this storm will pass — and when it does, may your rainbow find you."

The Details:

On Instagram, Pat announced the birth of his son Midas after a difficult, high-risk pregnancy for Samantha. After being diagnosed with "severe pre-eclampsia," she had an emergency C-section, with Midas born safely at 6 lbs, 6 oz.

The couple was able to get some time with their new baby before he had to be taken to the NICU, as he was four weeks premature. "They put a CPAP on our guy, a feeding tube, and put him in a heated pod with a heating lamp to help him develop a bit more," Pat said. "There wasn't much I could do other than bring positive vibes as I bounced back and forth between the 2."

Pat praised his wife for being so strong during recovery, and acknowledged that the NICU time was difficult, though he said he was still full of hope for his son's future:

And every time I went and saw boy, I couldn't help but fantasize about what his life could become.. So many dreams and opportunities waiting for this young stud. We had a sneaky suspicion that he was a dawg and a fighter but, it is a bit scary to see your baby hooked up to so many 'very serious' things.. He ended up staying roughly 36 hours in the NICU before being released back to our room.

Samantha likewise had loving things to say about her husband and his support:

What a wild few days it has been! Couldn’t have done it without such a supportive partner and dedicated father. You sir were not only my “let’s goo squad” but you were an advocate for my wants and health during it all. Thank you for allowing my frustrations, self doubt and hormone changes with grace and acceptance… and continuing to as my body recalculates. I’m so excited to see all that you teach to Midas. He is very lucky to have you as a father to look up too. I love doing life with you, even when it gets bumpy at times! You are my person, I love you Patrick.

The Bottom Line:

Sometimes, there can be emergencies during pregnancy, but the answer, as with the McAfees, is to provide the best possible health care for both mother and baby.

Key Takeaways:

• Katy Faust spoke to attendees at Live Action's Young Leaders Summit about the dark side of IVF and the fertility industry.

• Faust said the industry violates a child's right to life, right to a mother and father, and the right to be born free.

• She said few people realize the scale of embryo destruction, describing it as eugenic.

• At the same time, she emphasized that every person has inherent worth and dignity, regardless of the manner of their conception.

The Details:

Faust began by pointing out that the IVF industry violates three principles: that children have a right to life from conception, a right to be known and loved by their mother and father, and a right not to be bought and sold as commodities.

“That is why all of us need to take a very skeptical disposition towards big fertility,” she said. “It violates their right to life. It violates their right to their mother and father. And it violates their right to be born free, not bought and sold.”

She told the audience that few people realize the scale at which IVF takes human lives through embryo destruction, as she explained that many common embryo practices, such as creating multiple embryos, preimplantation genetic screening, embryo grading, and embryo selection, are eugenic in nature. “If you believe that life begins at fertilization, then we have a two-front war on our hands,” she said.

At the same time, Faust emphasized that children conceived through IVF possess equal dignity and worth. “Every single one of them are precious,” she said. “Every one of them, made in the image of God and with human dignity.”

Zoom In:

Faust also focused on the use of sperm and egg donation, arguing that donor conception intentionally separates children from their biological parents. She said many donor-conceived individuals struggle with questions of identity and belonging.

“It’s very hard to answer the question ‘Who am I?’ if they can’t answer the question ‘Whose am I?’” she said.

Additionally, she touched on the commercial aspects of the industry, such as the buying and selling of sperm, eggs, and surrogacy services — all of which can cost an incredible amount of money. She contrasted this with adoption, where laws prohibit direct payments to biological parents in exchange for relinquishing parental rights.

“If that happened, it would no longer be adoption,” she said. “They would call it trafficking. It would be baby buying.

"But paying genetic parents for children is the engine of big fertility."

The Bottom Line:

Faust called on Christians to advocate for vulnerable children. “We as Christians are the people who exist to defend the fatherless and the orphan. We cannot stand by while we manufacture those very orphans in the name of progress."

Key Takeaways:

• Talarico is running for the United States Senate, representing Texas.

• He recently claimed that the Bible is not against abortion, and that abortion should remain legal.

• Pro-life leaders have refuted those claims.

The Details:

In a recent interview, Talarico argued that the Bible does not address the issue of abortion, and therefore, it is not antithetical to Christianity to support its legalization. Talarico, a Presbyterian, pointed to Popes Francis and Leo as "spiritual heroes," but still rebutted their pro-life stance.

He claimed:

I trust Texas women to make decisions about their own bodies, to shape their own destinies in consultation with their family members, their doctors, their faith leaders. I don't believe that's a place for government. I don't believe it's a place for politicians. I don't believe it's a place for the state. And that's a belief I hold not despite my faith, but because of my faith.

Jesus never talks about abortion. The Bible is silent on abortion. And when that happens with a social issue as important as abortion, we Christians have to take Scripture as a whole. And we've got to try to make some kind of ethical determination.

Commentary:

Numerous pro-life leaders rejected Talarico's claim on the Bible and abortion.

Live Action founder and president Lila Rose responded on X, writing:

It is sick and shameful to use Jesus Christ as an excuse for politically supporting the killing of unborn children."

Governor of Arkansas Sarah Huckabee Sanders likewise dismantled his argument with one Bible verse:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…” - Jeremiah 1:5

The God of the universe undeniably values life at all stages, and it’s absolutely disgusting for Talarico to imply otherwise.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, also strongly disagreed with Talarico's take:

Yeah, that’s not how this works. The Bible is explicit. God didn’t stutter when He commanded us not to kill innocent humans. Scripture makes it completely clear how He feels about preborn babies, explicitly stating that He knit us together in the womb and knew us before we were even born. The spiritual gaslighting here is unreal. You can twist the words all you want, but the Bible isn’t silent about killing innocent humans who are all created in the image of God. And, you will be held responsible for this perversion of the Gospel.

Jesus said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones, those who believe in me, to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck…” Your lies are causing a lot of young women to stumble and choose abortion. Please confess your sin and sin no more.

The Bible isn't silent on abortion, and neither am I.

Writing for the Catholic America Magazine, J.D. Long García also debated Talarico on the notion of the Bible remaining silent on abortion. "The Bible is pretty clear about the dignity of the unborn," he said, adding, "Mr. Talarico has certainly figured out that his approach to talking about religion as a political candidate attracts a lot of attention, helping him grow from a previously obscure state legislator to a national figure. Unfortunately, when it comes to abortion, he is using his facility in discussing religion to defend his party’s pre-existing position rather than to help Americans with sincere religious disagreements about abortion policy have better conversations with each other."

In a lengthy response, Robert Gagnon, Visiting Scholar at Wesley Biblical Seminary, dismissed Talarico's claims as a fallacy and called it blasphemous:

Scripture is clear that humans are made in God's image and that already in the womb God is at work shaping the young child. The Bible affirms that God cares for babies in the womb whom he meticulously forms (Psalms 139:13-16; 22:10; Job 31:15), including even calling prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah) and apostles (Paul) from their existence in the womb (Isaiah 49:1, 5; Jeremiah 1:5; Galatians 1:15)​.

The Bible doesn't mention every issue in society. The absence of mention of abortion is no more significant than its absence of mention of the cruelty of infant exposure. The evidence that we do have from both Testaments of Scripture and from the unified witness of early Christian texts in the period from the second century A.D. ... leave little doubt about the church's consistent stance against abortion as a grave wrong. ...

Talarico's assertion that God gave Mary the option in Luke 2 of aborting the Son of God conceived in her womb is laughable. In Talarico's warped theological thinking, he pictures in his head God saying through his angel: "Hey Mary, if you want to go ahead and kill the Son of God in your womb, that's fine with me. I respect your choice in the matter. I'm 'pro-choice' all the way!"

Evangelist Franklin Graham denounced Talarico's claims as "wicked" on Facebook, writing, "The Bible is not silent on abortion as he claims — that's an absolute lie. God commands us, 'You shall not murder' (Exodus 20:13). Abortion is taking a life — it is murder. The Word of God tells us we are created in the image of God and consistently underscores the value of human life. Jeremiah 1:5 says, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart...'"

The Bottom Line:

Christianity is not silent on abortion, and taking an innocent life can never be justified.

Key Takeaways:

• Jesse Tyler Ridgway is a longtime content creator and YouTuber who has allegedly amassed over 1.5 billion views and has more than 3.7 million subscribers.

• He and his wife, Ashley, announced they were pregnant two months ago.

• In a series of videos, they revealed their son had Down syndrome; first, in a gender reveal video, and then confirming the diagnosis after an amniocentesis.

• Ridgway then posted that they had an abortion, solely due to the Down syndrome diagnosis.

The Backstory:

In a March 2026 Instagram post, Ridgway posed for pictures with his wife, proudly holding ultrasound photos to announce they were expecting their first child in the fall. Then Ridgway filmed as his family arranged the gender reveal for him. He explained on Instagram that the genetic testing came back with a high risk that their baby would be born with Down syndrome, or Trisomy 21. Oddly, he kept the details a secret from his wife, so as not to ruin their gender reveal video for their followers.

"Genders, everything's fine," he told her. "It's just, there's one of those like health-related things. It's better if we probably film and then talk about it afterwards or else it'll [censored] up. I don't want to ruin the moment. There's nothing — it's one of those early testing things, so we don't know."

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned that Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) is a screening tool only, and an amniocentesis needs to be performed to confirm a diagnosis, which is exactly what Ridgway and his wife did.

In a second video, they revealed the results of that amniocentesis, which confirmed that their preborn son had Down syndrome.

As Ashley cried, Ridgway talked to the camera.

"Just kind of in shock, like... truly," he said. "We talked before this, guys, about 'what would we do if we confronted this scenario?' Because this was the more likely scenario. We talked about terminating the pregnancy. Obviously things could change because this is traumatic."

He then said they would need to discuss it with genetic counselors, and that Ashley was "almost halfway through this thing," placing her at around 18 to 20 weeks pregnant.

The Details:

Ridgway announced this week that he and his wife did go through with an abortion, and made it clear that it was solely due to the Down syndrome diagnosis.

"This week, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy due to Trisomy 21," he began. "The choice was not made lightly. We really appreciate all of the personal stories that you guys shared with us, especially the unconditional support we received from fans with no matter what we decided. I know some of you may be very disappointed to hear this news. We are devastated. This has been extremely traumatic for both of us, especially Ashley. She underwent the procedure earlier this week and is on the mend. Thankfully, everything went smoothly, but emotionally we are drained."

Interestingly, he also said (emphasis added):

"When I first confronted this news, I was shocked but optimistic. If they’re a little slow intellectually, then we’ll make it work. I signed on to be a parent, come what may… but I just didn’t fully understand what Down Syndrome entailed."

He then began to paint an extremely negative, inaccurate picture of what Down syndrome is like, potentially regurgitating outdated information from the genetic counselor or doctor:

Once we made it public, it became clear that MOST people don’t know what Down Syndrome entails (and no, it’s not the same as Autism):

50% of babies with DS have heart defects. 75% will have hearing challenges. Over 50% will have vision problems. Impaired immune function, developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, delayed physical development, poor muscle tone, structural issues with face, decreased lifespan, etc…Sadly, the list is long; feel free to look it up…Down Syndrome isn’t a “blessing”; it is objectively shi**y from a health perspective.

I didn’t realize just how rough it is for the child, let alone the family…more often than not, they would be fully dependent on others for the rest of their life.

The miscarriage risk is also close to 50%, which made matters worse…they may never see the light of day, and it puts Ashley further at risk.

We spoke with doctors, friends, family, and genetic counselors and learned that up to 90% of women terminate their pregnancy after learning the baby has Trisomy 21.

He concluded, "I believe that’s because most terminations happen privately; it feels shameful. A lot of judgment being cast. You never think you’d be in this type of situation until it happens to you, and then things change."

Sadly, despite Ridgway's complaint of supposed judgment, the overwhelming majority of commenters across social media platforms applauded his decision to have an abortion.

Reality Check:

There are many outdated, offensive, inaccurate stereotypes of Down syndrome perpetuated by Ridgway in his harmful, discriminatory statement.

Some of what he said applies to the general population; a whopping three-quarters of Americans have problems with vision and need correction through glasses or contacts. One in seven Americans has hearing loss. These are health concerns for the entire population.

It is true that people with Down syndrome have learning delays, poor muscle tone, and other developmental delays. However, there have been huge advances in therapies and early intervention services, which help people with Down syndrome address these issues and work through them.

There is an increased risk of heart defects and blood cancers in children with Down syndrome under the age of five. However, advances in medicine have allowed these conditions to be treated in many instances, while in previous decades, these heart defects may have brought an early death. Today, that is no longer the case.

Regarding cancer, people with Down syndrome are significantly less likely to develop solid tumor cancers than the general population, so much so that researchers are trying to determine why that is, so they can better help with cancer prevention and treatment for everyone. Young children with Down syndrome are more likely to develop leukemia, but the survival rate is extremely high — 90% — compared to 70% in the general pediatric population.

In addition, the life expectancy for people with Down syndrome has skyrocketed in recent years, to the point that people with Down syndrome can expect to live for nearly as long as the general population does.

Additionally, research has found that families that include children with Down syndrome are overwhelmingly happy and more fulfilled, with almost 100% of parents reporting that they love their child with Down syndrome, almost 90% of siblings saying their brother or sister with Down syndrome has made them a better person, and 99% of people with Down syndrome confirming they are happy with themselves, their lives, and who they are.

Another study found similar results. Parents reported that they had a more positive outlook on life after having a child with Down syndrome.

And thanks to advances in medicine, as well as early intervention services, not only has the life span of people with Down syndrome drastically improved, but their quality of life has as well. People with Down syndrome work, live on their own, get married, and have children.

Down syndrome is not "objectively shi**y from a health perspective," as Ridgway put it.

Why It Matters:

Though there has never been a better time to have a child with Down syndrome, attitudes like Ridgway's persist. Abortion rates due to Down syndrome vary by country — lower than 90% in the United States, but near-universal in countries like Iceland.

This increase in death by abortion is the result of the rise in prenatal testing and the misuse of that testing, as new research from Dr. Brian Skotko revealed:

As countries made prenatal screening more available and financially covered by their governments, we modeled the impact on the 'reduction percentage' for DS — that is, the percentage of fetuses with DS that were not born as a consequence of selective terminations ... [i]f a country were to expand the availability or reimbursement of prenatal screening for DS, while all other factors are constant, that country should also expect to have fewer live births with DS as a consequence.

What makes it all the more disturbing is that prenatal testing is a valid and pro-life tool, which should be used to allow families to medically and emotionally prepare for a child who has a diagnosis. Instead, it has been hijacked by a pro-abortion and eugenic mindset to kill anyone deemed "defective" or "unfit." Even more disturbingly, it is not always the parents' fault; the way a diagnosis is delivered can have devastating consequences, with some doctors even intentionally giving parents inaccurate, negative information in hopes of convincing them to abort, which could have happened in the Ridgways' case as their attitude appears to have shifted at some point between videos. When these babies are aborted, it is a violent, painful process.

Ashley Ridgway was likely about 20 weeks pregnant when she had the abortion, and the abortion procedure most often committed at that stage is a dilation and evacuation, or D&E, dismemberment abortion. This is usually a multi-day procedure, during which the abortionist uses forceps to tear the arms and legs off the baby, at a period in pregnancy in which the child can almost certainly feel pain.

The Ridgways' baby boy could have also died by an induction abortion, in which a drug was used to stop his heart before delivery, or he may have been born alive and denied medical care.

It's also been found that parents, specifically mothers, who undergo an abortion due to a prenatal diagnosis "ultimately felt as if they were betraying themselves and their children." On the other hand, those who carried to term expressed feelings of closure and peace. The Journal of Clinical Ethics reported that 97.5% of parents who chose to carry to term rather than abort did not regret the decision. “Parents valued the baby as a part of their family and had opportunities to love, hold, meet, and cherish their child,” it explained.

According to Perinatal Hospice and Palliative Care, which provides resources for parents who are facing such a diagnosis, significant research shows that women who have an abortion following a diagnosis suffer “physical and emotional pain, with psychosocial and reproductive consequences.”

Commentary:

Following the announcement of the abortion, pro-lifers spoke up about the false idea that it is compassionate to kill innocent children via abortion.

"A disability should not mean a death sentence," said Live Action founder and president Lila Rose on X. "They showed video of this baby moving around in the womb, did a gender reveal, and it was a boy, and then all of a sudden, this post hits the internet, and they said, 'We chose termination.' .... This is the culture of death, my friends. This is why we fight to make abortion illegal. This is why we fight for life. This is why we fight to restore our medical establishment to stop recommending death for little children just because they have a disability. Every single life is precious. Every single life has value. This little boy deserved to live, and I pray that his parents can wake up and repent of what they did... that they can heal ultimately from this evil..."

Ridgway responded to the pushback they received, saying, "I've never seen such hate and vitriol for two people grieving the loss of their unborn child and making an impossible decision." He added that he is "shocked" that their abortion was "suddenly newsworthy in 2026...? There are over 1,000,000 abortions every single year for a myriad of reasons, this is happening on a DAILY BASIS and is the most common outcome for Trisomy 21, yet this one blows up and people are surprised...? The reason this blew up is quite simple: IT'S BECAUSE NOBODY TALKS ABOUT IT."

First of all, Ridgway thought it was at least somewhat newsworthy, or he wouldn't have shared it. But he's not wrong; most Americans have their heads in the sand when it comes to abortion. They have no idea what is involved in the abortion process, even when they have undergone one or supported someone in having one. That's why, when the truth comes out about why abortions are happening and what it looks like to celebrate a baby's life one minute and then end that life by abortion the next, the darkness of the abortion industry and the culture of death are exposed and shocking. This little boy died because of the eugenic mindset that plagues society — the discriminatory, elitist belief that some people are not worthy of life.

Ridgway, however, also said they have received messages of support that make them "feel less alone in this and less ashamed." He added that they will "[t]ry for a kid again in the near future," as if this child was a failure or a mistake. He wasn't. He was a gift.

The Bottom Line:

Ridgway's story is a public flaunting of eugenics and ableism, which would be disturbing enough on its own. Yet he is an online celebrity with massive reach and influence, who is promoting dangerous, inaccurate views to the masses. The reality is, people with Down syndrome do not lead miserable lives filled with suffering, and they are not better off dead.

The tracker compiles publicly reported cases from across the country and organizes them by state. Heartbeat International plans to update the resource as additional incidents become known.

Heartbeat International is the world's largest network of life-affirming pregnancy help organizations, supporting more than 4,000 affiliated locations in more than 100 countries. Through programs including Option Line® and the Abortion Pill Rescue®Network, Heartbeat International connects women facing unexpected pregnancies with compassionate support, medical referrals, and life-affirming care.

The project was developed in response to an increasing number of calls received through Heartbeat International's Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN), which provides care to women who regret beginning a chemical abortion and seek information about continuing their pregnancies. In recent years, APRN staff have also observed a troubling increase in calls involving reproductive coercion, pressure to abort, and allegations that abortion drugs were administered without a woman's knowledge.

"We are hearing from more women who feel pressured into abortions they do not want, many coerced or forced abortions, and we are increasingly hearing from women who believe they are being poisoned with abortion drugs," said Christa Brown, senior director of Medical Impact for Heartbeat International who oversees the Abortion Pill Rescue Network. "Many of these women are frightened, confused, and unsure where to turn. They often are afraid that no one will believe them.”

According to Brown, the concerns extend beyond individual cases and point to a broader pattern emerging alongside the widespread availability of abortion drugs through mail-order distribution and online providers.

"Every woman deserves to make decisions about her pregnancy free from coercion, threats, manipulation, violence, or deception," Brown said. "When abortion drugs become increasingly accessible outside traditional medical settings, opportunities for misuse also increase. The stories we hear every week remind us that these drugs can be used not only for abortion but, in some cases, as tools of control and abuse."

While Heartbeat International has maintained internal records of reported incidents for years, organizational leaders determined that a public-facing resource was needed to help identify trends and provide greater visibility into a growing concern.

"Publicly reported cases likely represent only a fraction of what is actually occurring," said Andrea Trudden, vice president of Communications and Marketing for Heartbeat International. "Many women never report what happened to them, particularly when the person responsible is someone they know and trust. By creating this tracker, we hope to provide a factual resource that helps illuminate patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed."

Heartbeat International hopes the tracker will serve as a reference point for media coverage, policy discussions, research, and public awareness efforts related to abortion pill distribution and safety.

The tracker is available now through Heartbeat’s news website Pregnancy Help News and will continue to be updated as new reports emerge.

Key Takeaways:

• Jersey Shore Women's Center helps women overcome the obstacles that are keeping them from embracing motherhood.

• Rebecca had scheduled and canceled multiple abortion appointments, including one at 35 weeks, which she was moments away from undergoing.

• She was struggling with drug addiction and thought having her baby would tie her to that lifestyle. Instead, having her daughter helped to free her from it.

The Details:

In a video for the Jersey Shore Women's Center, Rebecca explained, "I had a very hard time grieving. At first, I started using Adderall to help focus on school, but soon I was abusing Adderall. Eventually, I found myself in the drug scene. It still doesn't feel real, but I ended up addicted to meth. I dropped out of school, moved home, but I fell into the drug scene there as well. Then I found out I was pregnant. I knew right away I wanted an abortion."

The drugs were supposed to provide Rebecca with a temporary escape from her grief, and she was sure she would eventually go back to her planned life. Rebecca thought "a baby would be an anchor in this other life that wasn't really mine."

She scheduled an abortion, but out of fear of the procedure, she cancelled it. She did this several more times — scheduling abortions and then canceling them out of fear for herself.

"Finally, I was 35 weeks along when I started researching late term abortions. I found a place in Washington, D.C. that would take me," she said. "Those procedures are very expensive, but the clinic connected me with funding from the National Abortion Federation. They emailed me a packet with all the information I would need. They set me up with travel and a hotel. In all, the National Abortion Federation put up $10,000 for my abortion."

Sitting on the table in the facility, she was told that an injection would be used to stop the baby's heartbeat. Faced with the grim reality of the situation, she told them, "'I don't think I can do it. Can I think about it? Can I come back tomorrow?' Their reaction was strong and cold. They said something like, 'I don't think we're open tomorrow.' I think they know once you end up leaving that table you probably aren't going to come back."

Despite that pressure, Rebecca got up and left the facility. She went back to the hotel and called her mother. She would later learn that her mother then called Jersey Shore Women's Center and spoke with the pregnancy center's founder and president, Tricia Bradberry, who stepped in to help, sending women to pick up Rebecca from the hotel.

"The women brought me directly to the center, where I met Tricia," said Rebecca. "She was so kind and she offered me so much help. A few weeks later I gave birth to a baby girl. I wish I could say our happy ending started there. But in truth, that's really just the beginning of my story. I still had a lot more to go through and Jersey Shore Women's Center was there with me for all of it."

Tricia offered to help Rebecca into rehab, but Rebecca refused. Her addiction had such a grip on her, that after her daughter was born, Rebecca lost custody of her. Once she finally felt ready for rehab, Tricia helped her find one, but Rebecca left the program early. Her addiction was running her life and she soon found herself walking the streets of Atlantic City alone and without adequate shoes or a place to go. She asked someone if she could use their phone, and she called Tricia.

Tricia, who had been texting Rebecca everyday to check up on her, called an Uber and got Rebecca to the pregnancy center. From there, she helped Rebecca find another rehab program.

Tricia told Live Action News:

"We got her connected three different times. We probably called 20 different places for her to try to get her to the right place. We had volunteers go to their home and paint the nursery, we got them furniture, put up curtains... She also had a dog that was very important to her and she didn't want to go to rehab because she didn't want to leave the dog or lose the dog. We got her dog vaccinated and found a place to board her dog.

In the beginning while Rebecca was getting well, Rebecca’s mother and baby visited the center every month meeting with client advocate, Sue Decker. Rebecca continued to stay in touch through the 24 text line and phone calls. Rachel’s mother and Sue worked on short-term and long-term family goals and eventually, Rebecca was able to take over coming to the appointments and even participated in our free Mommy and Me Music Classes, budgeting classes and more.

At one point, Rebecca had lost her financial aid, and we were able to help her with part of her tuition. We helped her with food, material items, clothing, and everything she needed for her baby. When it came time for Rebecca to get an apartment, Jersey Shore Women's Center was able to help her with her rent too.”

Now, Rebecca is reunited with her daughter and they are doing amazing. Last month Rebecca graduated with her Bachelors of Psychology and is continuing on with even more college education.

"I want to be clear," said Rebecca. "I ended up going to rehab because I had something to live for. I wanted to have an abortion because I thought having a baby would tie me to this other life — this life on drugs. But it was having my daughter that actually pulled me out of it. Jersey Shore Women's Center didn't just save my daughter's life. They saved mine."

Zoom Out:

Rebecca is just one of countless women who has received life-changing and life-saving assistance from a pro-life pregnancy resource center like Jersey Shore Women's Center.

"Most of our stories are just as dramatic as Rebecca's," said Tricia. "We don't call it a 'save' when someone walks into our center and decides they are going to keep their baby. It's not even a save when the baby is born. We call it a 'save' when they're where Rebecca is — when mom and baby are saved. I think that's what makes our center extra special."

Jersey Shore Women's Center aims to show women how worthy they are even after the baby is born, checking in with them if they don't hear from them in a while, and supporting them through any struggle that arises.

"We had a young lady who came to this country and she was raped when she got here," said Tricia. "And she was having an abortion at the abortion facility next door to us and one of the sidewalk advocates brought her over and she was there all day with us. She didn't speak English, which made it more challenging, but we gave her an ultrasound and she chose life and is doing very well."

She added:

"We had a couple who was living in a cemetery. They had graduated out of the foster system and she was pregnant. She had her baby, and though she doesn't have custody right now, her daughter is alive and doing well. We had another woman who was scheduled to have an abortion and we ended up sending her out of state to a safe and more stable environment and as a result of that assistance she chose to have her baby, which is what she really wanted all along, but just needed some help."

Stories like these show the truth of how pregnancy centers help women both before and after the births of their children.

Jersey Shore Women's Center is located next door to American OBGYN, an abortion facility. Since the pregnancy center opened five years ago, abortion services at American OBGYN have decreased from four full days a week to just two hours per week, according to their website. But now, there's a new Planned Parenthood that has opened. Tricia hopes to see both facilities close, and if there is any place with the passion and talent to take on Planned Parenthood in South Jersey, it is Jersey Shore Women's Center.

The Bottom Line:

Pregnancy centers provide vital services to support women and families. To help women choose life with confidence and thrive, Jersey Shore Women's Center is open six days a week and available to women through a 24-hour hotline. Since 2021, staff and volunteers there have served more than 5,600 women through monthly appointments, classes, the family boutique, a food pantry, pregnancy tests, and ultrasounds.

Meanwhile, the National Abortion Federation was willing to spend $10,000 on one woman's completely elective abortion at 35 weeks — the type of abortion that abortion organizations like NAF claim don't happen or only happen for medical reasons.

Key Takeaways:

• House Bill 5295, known as the Reproductive Health Privacy Act, requires health information exchanges to have the technological capability to keep a woman's abortion off her electronic medical record.

• The bill is intended to keep abortions "private," but can also endanger women who may not receive adequate medical care if they are experiencing abortion complications.

The Details:

House Bill 5295, known as the Reproductive Health Privacy Act, "requires health information exchanges to implement policies and technical capabilities...to segregate medical information related to abortion care, restrict access by out-of-state entities, and limit disclosure."

The legislation's intent is to "protect the privacy" of people who obtain abortions in the state, especially those traveling from elsewhere. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Celina Villanueva, claimed the legislation was necessary because people have faced retaliation when traveling from out-of-state to get an abortion in Illinois.

“We’ve heard from patients from other states who have traveled to Illinois and were dropped by their primary care physician once their physician saw, via their electronic medical records, that they got an abortion,” Villanueva claimed.

“The surest way Illinois can protect our residents and their reproductive records is by requiring health information exchanges to implement new policies that keep sensitive information out of bad actors’ hands,” she added.

The bill passed the Senate in a 38-19 vote, and the House in a vote of 73-39. In a statement, Governor JB Pritzker said he looks forward to signing the bill “to fortify the protections around choice and consent, and that anyone receiving safe, legal abortion care here will not be criminalized.”

Zoom In:

One of the dangers of this legislation is that if a woman accesses an abortion in Illinois and then experiences complications after returning to her home state, medical professionals may not be able to properly treat her if they are not aware of her abortion.

 Rep. Bill Hauter, R-Morton, a physician, emphasized this during a House debate earlier in the session.

“We rely, as medical professionals, on the medical record to be complete and accurate and private,” he told The Center Square. “To say that this information is unimportant… ignores real-world scenarios where it could be critical to patient care.”

The Bottom Line:

Over the years, Illinois has passed many bills radically expanding abortion and ensuring women have access to abortions at all costs, while actually disregarding the health and safety of women. This is yet more legislation that prioritizes the profits of abortion over the well-being of women.

Key Takeaways:

• There are currently 10 ballot initiatives regarding abortion in the United States.

• Six would protect and expand access to abortion.

• Four would protect preborn children from abortion.

The Details:

With the fall of Roe v. Wade, individual states were again permitted to make their own laws regarding abortion, rather than being federally mandated to allow abortion through viability.

In 2022, the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision officially overturned Roe v. Wade, which was enacted in 1973. Since then, some states have placed laws in place protecting preborn children from abortion, while others have put strict abortion protections in place.

There are multiple ballot initiatives under consideration in 2026; some of them would further protect abortion, while others would ensure preborn children remain protected from it.

Colorado

The Colorado General Assembly is considering the Repeal Constitutional Right to Abortion measure; if passed, it would appear on the ballot in November. Voters would then be able to decide whether or not to overturn the 2024 provision that made abortion a constitutional right in the state.

Florida

In 2028, Florida voters might have the opportunity to decide the Florida Prohibition on Abortions Amendment. If approved, preborn children would be protected from all abortions in the state.

Idaho

In one of the most pro-life states in the country, Idaho voters will take to the polls this year to decide the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act Initiative. If passed, the Idaho code would be amended to read that "[e]very person has the right to reproductive freedom and privacy," and to "make personal decisions about reproductive health care that directly impacts the person's own body."

Included as "personal decisions" are

• abortion;

• childbirth care;

• contraception;

• fertility treatment;

• miscarriage care; and

• prenatal, pregnancy, and postpartum care.

There are numerous issues with this ballot initiative, which was presented by a pro-abortion group.

Missouri

An upcoming ballot initiative in Missouri would, if passed, overturn the pro-abortion Amendment 3, passed in 2024. Should Missourians vote yes, the state would:

• repeal the constitutional right to abortion;

• ban abortions except in cases of "medical emergency, fetal anomaly, rape, or incest," and permit abortions in cases of rape or incest only through 12 weeks of gestation;

• ban gender transition surgeries for minors, as well as the prescription or administration of cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs to minors, with an exception for treatments "unrelated to the purpose of a gender transition," along with other changes.

Montana

Though it is a long shot, there is a possibility that Montana legislators could consider a measure which would define personhood as occurring at the moment of fertilization. A constitutional amendment was previously passed in 2024, enshrining abortion as a right in the state constitution.

Republicans have argued that voters did not fully understand the initiative. Two-thirds of lawmakers must agree before a measure appears on a ballot, and this measure fell nine votes short. However, because the vote was so close, there is a decent chance it could be revived.

Nebraska

Nebraska voters may have the chance to decide on an abortion-related amendment. The Nebraska Establish Personhood of Preborn Children Amendment would state that "preborn child is a person at every stage of development, beginning at fertilization" in the state constitution.

Nevada

Voters will decide on Question 6 in November, which seeks to create a constitutional right to abortion in the state of Nevada. In Nevada, initiated constitutional amendments can only be approved in two even-numbered election years. As Question 6 was approved in 2024, a second vote will therefore be held on November 3, 2026, which, if approved again, would finalize and approve the amendment.

North Carolina

House Bill 1232 is making its way through the legislature, and would declare that “human life begins at the moment of fertilization.”

The bill has created nationwide controversy, however, as it also states that “[a]ny person has the right to defend his or her own life or the life of another person, even by the use of deadly force if necessary, from willful destruction by another person.”

If passed, the bill would be placed on the November ballot for voters to decide.

Oregon

A potential ballot measure could be on the way, as signatures are currently being gathered for a new initiative. The amendment would explicitly state "that the state constitution’s equality language prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity, pregnancy, and sexual orientation, and protects contraception, abortion, same-sex marriage, and gender-affirming care. "

Virginia

The Virginia Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment will be on the ballot in November for voters to decide. The extreme amendment would create the "right to reproductive freedom," which is defined as "the ability to make and carry out decisions relating to one’s own prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, abortion care, miscarriage management, and fertility care.”

The Bottom Line:

Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, pro-abortion amendments at the state level have largely proven successful as a way to ensure abortion is legal at any time for any reason. More extreme than Roe itself, these amendments have led to the deaths of countless innocent human beings, and similar amendments are in the works.

Key Takeaways:

• Planned Parenthood kills babies in the womb and grooms born children to reject the biological reality of sex.

• Planned Parenthood affiliate of the Rocky Mountains states, “At its core, both gender-affirming care and abortion care are rooted in one fundamental principle: bodily autonomy.”

• Biological sex is determined at the very moment of a person's conception and remains the same regardless of any belief or actions taken in direct opposition to reality.

• Both abortion and 'gender-affirming care' stand in direct opposition to real health care, which serves to heal.

• Planned Parenthood offers social, medical, and legal interventions for 'gender affirming care' and has seen explosive growth in these 'services.'

The Details:

Beyond denying the humanity of preborn human beings, Planned Parenthood encourages impressionable children and society to reject self-evident biological realities, ultimately aiming to deconstruct the human body itself. This predatory-style grooming of America’s children is inseparable from the explosive rise in ‘trans’ and ‘non-binary’ self-identification experienced over the last decade. 

Planned Parenthood's 'fundamental principle' of bodily autonomy

To understand the magnitude of Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the transgender movement with its “gender-affirming care” (GAC), it is necessary to first explore why the abortion industry leader is so committed to the cause. 

Planned Parenthood affiliate of the Rocky Mountains (PPRM) provides an answer to this question on its website. It states, “At its core, both gender-affirming care and abortion care are rooted in one fundamental principle: bodily autonomy.” PPRM goes on to define bodily autonomy as “having the power to make personal decisions about one’s own body and future, free from political interference, violence, and oppression.” 

Essentially, Planned Parenthood contends that everyone, regardless of age, should possess the "power," or the capacity, to purposely end the life of a preborn human being (violating that child's own bodily autonomy) through abortion, and have the authority and capacity to potentially cause permanent physical damage and body-mutilation upon themselves, a practice often resulting in sterilization. Both abortion and 'gender-affirming care' stand in direct opposition to real health care, which serves to heal. Yet, Planned Parenthood demands these dehumanizing practices be performed without any legal or ethical boundaries. 

Regarding Planned Parenthood’s use of the word “oppression” — Merriam-Webster defines "oppression" as an “unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power.” In reality, no one, not an individual, organization, nor any scientist or doctor, has any “authority or power” over a person’s biological sex. Why? Because it is determined at the very moment of a person's conception and remains the same regardless of any belief or actions taken in direct opposition to reality. In other words, a person cannot be kept or "oppressed" from an “authority or power” which no human possesses.  

What Planned Parenthood is really attempting to say is that it desires to become the dictator of such “power or authority,” over something Planned Parenthood nor anyone could ever control—reality. 

Explosive Growth

Recently, Live Action News reported on the explosive growth in 'gender affirming care' services that many Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country report.  

However, Planned Parenthood and its affiliates are extraordinarily vague in their reporting. For instance, Planned Parenthood and its affiliates often provide no clear and direct explanation of what it means by 'gender affirming care,' which is used as a euphemism often covering a broad range of possible implications. Planned Parenthood and its affiliates state that their involvement in a wide-range of 'gender affirming care' services including “social,” “medical,” and “legal.”

Under the euphemism of 'gender affirming care' these interventions generally include:

Social interventions: 

• Providing ‘gender affirming sex ed’ (which is actually indoctrination) that leads to the acceptance of the intentional use of pronouns that are contrary to a person’s biological reality. This is often a precursor to ‘social transition’; 

• Breast binding (or “chest binding”) is the medically unnecessary compression of breast tissue for the purpose of appearing more masculine. Planned Parenthood provides education and resources on binding.

• “Tucking” is defined by the group Genspect as “the practice of males compressing their genitalia into the groin or up between the legs to produce a “feminine” appearing crotch.” Genspect further describes “tucking” as “another do-it-yourself intervention that causes harm” and “is not recommended.” Planned Parenthood also provides education and resources on how to "tuck."

Medical interventions: 

• The off-label use of sex hormones (e.g., prescribing females testosterone) and puberty blockers (including birth control for minors), which Planned Parenthood provides and prescribes.

• Surgeries, including medically unnecessary surgeries aimed at reflecting how someone ‘feels.’ Some Planned Parenthood affiliates provide referrals for body-mutilating surgeries. 

• Such hormones and surgeries often cause several negative effects including fertility issues and sterilization, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the White House.  

Legal interventions:

• Referrals to help clients change their name on legal documents.

Propaganda used in ‘Social Transition’ 

Part of ‘social transition’ is the acceptance of pronouns, a different name, and outward appearances contrary to one's biological sex. Since this is easily identified by most people as being contrary to reality, ‘gender affirming sex ed’ or indoctrination is necessary to convince children and society to accept affirmations contradicting what is real. As master dehumanizing propagandist, Planned Parenthood and its allies in the Future of Sex Education (FoSE) coalition thrive in this the precursor to ‘social transition.’

Distortion and Merging of Words

The words sex and gender have meaning and those meanings are important. Britannica defines sex as “the sum of features by which members of species can be divided into two groups—male and female—that complement each other reproductively."

Gender is a construct used to describe general attributes commonly perceived as traits associated with the human male compared to human female. The United Nations states that gender is “learned through [the] socialization processes” further explaining that gender is compiled through “the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as the relations between women and those between men.”

In other words, gender reflects the objective reality of biological sex, which never changes. Since gender is a construct of reality, if a person’s understanding is misaligned with biological reality, gender can be incorrectly perceived. 

As Live Action’s report explains, humans are not sexless beings. Rather, biological sex, is part of who a human being, male or female, is. Science affirms this reality, and this is why practices carried out to deny the reality of sex and gender, like Planned Parenthood does, are so damaging to the human person as it literally attempts to strip the person of that which the person is and always will be, male or female.

Misunderstood and misapplied stereotypes have frequently distorted the distinct understanding of what it means to be male or female. These superficial constructs are often flawed and subjective, failing to serve as a reliable reflection of the reality of the human male/female person. For instance, the arbitrary notion that young boys must exclusively favor toy trucks or that girls must prefer dolls is a social fabrication. In truth, a child’s choice of play is irrelevant to their biological reality, because no social stereotype could ever alter or negate an individual’s immutable biological sex. 

Planned Parenthood’s radical deconstruction of gender intentionally severs this foundation of objective truth, and instead attempts to merge and distort biological sex, subjective perceptions of gender, and stereotypes. Even worse, Planned Parenthood’s sex ed and propaganda intentionally aim to distort reality while the person is in their most cognitively vulnerable state of development, during childhood. 

Queer Theory

The strategic messaging used by Planned Parenthood is part of a calculated effort to advance its destructive agenda, exposing its deep-seated alignment with the radical tenets of Queer Theory. Queer Theory is a byproduct of Critical Theory, which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines as “a family of theories that aim at a critique and transformation of society by integrating normative perspectives with empirically informed analysis of society’s conflicts, contradictions, and tendencies” which narrowly refers to “the work of several generations of philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School.” 

Queer Theory permeates every facet of Planned Parenthood’s 'gender-affirming' propaganda. By dismantling traditional frameworks, Queer Theory seeks to challenge objective reality and subvert established academic and societal standards under the guise of combating inequality, and fighting for “bodily autonomy.”

In the book “The Queering of the American Child,” authors Logan Lancing and James Lindsay further explain that Queer Theory aims to be a “vehicle for a complete and perpetual cultural and personal revolution by”:  

• Abolishing "normalcy" by deconstructing societally accepted truths for personal advantage.

• Persuading people that nothing is natural and that society must escape the "prison" of traditional constructs.

Lancing and Lindsay further explain in Queer Theory power (the ability to act) and knowledge (the ability to reason, or “know what we know”) are placed on equal footing (power-knowledge), and therefore, conflated and intertwined. “Consequently, knowledge about sex and gender becomes erroneously and directly linked to political control in these areas.” Live Action’s report further highlights that according to Lancing and Lindsay, Queer Theory “must be correctly identified and understood as a political movement aimed at ensuring so-called “justice” and preventing any perceived “injustice” that has been entirely manufactured on subjective thoughts and feelings.”

By severing the anchor of reality from the person’s essence, Queer Theory is easily identifiable in Planned Parenthood’s curriculum. 

For example, it intentionally conflates the words gender and sex, with their definitions purposely ripped apart and merged, as seen in Planned Parenthood’s Sex Ed To-Go for Students (SETG). SETG tells children that sex is “assigned at birth.” To ‘assign’ means to, “designate, select, allot, or appoint.” Objective reality, confirmed by science, is that biological sex is not chosen, designated or appointed, but rather encoded, engrained into a person’s very DNA from the moment of conception. 

Planned Parenthood and its FoSE allies promote gender as "fluid," merging subjective feelings with biological sex to suggest physical reality can change. By linking this fluidity to Planned Parenthood’s warped view of "bodily autonomy," it subsequently labels objective reality as "oppressive." Consequently, Queer Theory propagandists like Planned Parenthood teach gender as something performed or imposed rather than an inherent unchangeable state of being.

The Bottom Line:

Planned Parenthood is carrying out a multi-pronged attack on reality through abortion and so-called ‘gender-affirming care.' This calculated assault begins by transforming the womb into a place of death for the preborn, yet the destruction does not end there. For the children whom Planned Parenthood doesn't abort, it seeks to groom them with a radical political agenda sold as ‘sex ed’ as part of its ‘social transition’ efforts.  

Key Takeaways:

• Mayday Health has filed a lawsuit to challenge South Dakota's new law prohibiting the promotion of items "intended or adapted to induce an abortion."

• The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction from a federal judge to prevent the state from enforcing the law.

• Mayday Health had been advertising the abortion pill at gas stations in the state, despite South Dakota's law protecting most preborn children from abortion.

The Details:

South Dakota is witnessing a new legal tussle over abortion-pill marketing, and the case emphasizes a rising clash between pro-life lawmakers and abortion advocates over whether “advertising” abortion drugs can be classified as protected speech. MayDay Health had been advertising abortion pills, including on gas station pumps, in the state following the enactment of the state's pro-life law in 2022. That law only allows abortion when the mother's life is at risk. A legal battle over the advertisements ensued, with a settlement resulting.

In March, Gov. Rhoden signed a new law prohibiting not just the dispensing, distribution, and sale of abortion drugs. The new legislation prohibits the dispensing, distribution, sale, or advertisement of certain articles or things for purposes of an unlawful abortion..." The restriction also extends to any article, instrument, substance, drug, medication, or other means used for that purpose. Breaches of the law would constitute felony offenses, carrying penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment and fines of up to $4,000. Besides, the law would empower the state attorney general to seek civil penalties of $10,000 for each violation.

On May 29, the pro-abortion group Mayday Health, together with Watertown-based attorney Nancy Turbak Berry, initiated a federal lawsuit against South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden and Attorney General Marty Jackley concerning that new law, which is scheduled to take effect on July 1. 

Notably, the lawsuit alleges that House Bill 1274’s ban on “advertising” was inherently unconstitutional, claiming that it limits or deters a considerable amount of protected speech.

Also, the lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction from a federal judge to prevent the state from enforcing the law. Rapid City attorney Jim Leach filed the case on behalf of Mayday Health and Nancy Turbak Berry, while she served as a state legislator, according to AOL. 

In response to this new lawsuit, Gov. Rhoden  posted on X:

If Mayday Health and the abortion lobby want to sue us for defending unborn life, bring it on.

Similarly, State Attorney General Marty Jackley penned: 

The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that states have the right to protect life,” Jackley said. “As with Mayday’s previous unsuccessful lawsuit, I will defend innocent life.

The Backstory:

Mayday was previously embroiled in a legal dispute with Jackley over the advertisements it installed at gas stations across the state, which read, “Pregnant? Don’t want to be?” and directed viewers to its website for information on procuring abortion pills. In parallel state and federal cases, Jackley lambasted the pro-abortion group for contravening South Dakota’s pro-life laws, while Mayday alleged that its ads were protected by the First Amendment. The matter was eventually settled through a deal that required Mayday to remove the advertisements.

The Bottom Line:

According to the Guttmacher Institute, the abortion pill comprised 63% of all abortions in the United States in 2023. The drugs most commonly used for these procedures—mifepristone and misoprostol—are also encapsulated on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines.

If South Dakota’s law emerges unscathed after this lawsuit, other pro-life states may enact more robust restrictions on abortion-pill marketing, particularly in the states where preborn lives are protected to varying degrees. By doing so, pro-abortion campaigns that try to regularize chemical abortion as a consumer product can hopefully be reduced. 

Key Takeaways:

• Women's soccer has been increasingly adding more support and resources for pregnant and parenting players.

• Sophia Wilson, a member of the United States Women's National Soccer Team, recently returned to the field after taking a postpartum hiatus.

• Wilson said she was given the freedom to be patient with herself, and return to soccer when she felt ready.

The Details:

The International Federation of Professional Footballers’ (FIFPRO) new postpartum Return-To-Play launched a guide in 2024 to aid professional footballers and those involved in their lives to better understand and address the responsibilities and demands of pregnancy and parenthood. Previously, the FIFA Maternity Regulations, introduced in January 2021 after advocacy from FIFPRO, were set up to protect the rights of professional footballers who become pregnant during their careers.  

Players like Sophia Wilson returned to the United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNST) in April 2026 following a hiatus after giving birth in 2025. Wilson, who welcomed her daughter in early September, returned to competition on March 14, coming on for the final 13 minutes of the team’s season opener against Washington at Audi Field. Since then, she has played in every match, slowly increasing her playing time. She also recently logged 68 minutes in a match against the Kansas City Current.

Yet Wilson admitted that she was not coerced to head back to the pitch, opting to be “patient” with herself during the process.

“I knew from the time I got pregnant that I was going to be very patient with myself through the whole process, even during pregnancy,” Wilson said, adding, “I’m in a really great place right now. I’ve taken this journey the right way. I think I’ve gone about it the right way. I’ve had so much support, so much help, and I haven’t felt pressured in any way. …. I’ve taken my time and gone about it how I need to go about it.” 

She continued:

“Getting back to playing at a high level is not just a straight path. It’s not going to happen with the snap of my fingers. A lot of work went into it behind the scenes that a lot of people didn’t see, and a lot of work is still going into it."

Wilson scored four goals in 12 appearances for the second-placed Thorns, and her smooth return to the USWNT this year has showcased her clear intent and sustained momentum in her sport. 

“For me, it’s (about) being gracious with myself and going into it with the perspective of, ‘look at what my body has done for me and what it’s still continuing to do for me’, and knowing that it is very possible to be great at both things — be a great mom and be a great athlete,” Wilson said.

Regarding Wilson's post-pregnancy performance, head coach Emma Hayes said:

Watching her play 70 minutes the other night, it was almost like, I couldn’t believe she’s had a baby and come back to perform at the level she’s done. Real credit to her and the team around her, that I think really positioned pre- and post- pregnancy planning in a fantastic way. It’s a real credit to everyone to get her to that place.

Zoom In:

There are an increasing number of athletes opting to embrace motherhood while at the zenith of their careers. With broader support systems, particularly within the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and the USWNT, athletes like Wilson are making the most of the resources now available. 

There is a growing understanding in the sports world that pregnancy and motherhood are not hiccups or endpoints in an athlete’s career, but a phase that can coexist with high-level competition. 

Wider societal acceptance of working mothers, increased visibility of athletes returning to elite play after childbirth, and considerable progress in medical care, infrastructure, and support for women balancing motherhood with professional sport, have catalyzed this rise. 

Consequently, players presently can look forward to a level of care and backing that was previously unheard of, as explained by Emily Kraus, a sports medicine physician at Stanford University working with the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance. 

“You’re not going to be alone on an island with your baby breastfeeding, trying to understand how to get a workout in or get strong and feeling this like pressure to come back. Women feel like now there’s help,” Kraus said. 

And as more athletes embrace motherhood, others will feel empowered to do the same.

Wilson said witnessing superstar Alex Morgan arrive at camp with her daughter, Charlie, years earlier left an indelible impression, especially as Morgan returned to top-level play after becoming a mother. Wilson alluded to other moms in the sport, including Crystal Dunn and Bella Bixby, as role models as well.

“Having those examples made me believe and know that I could do the same thing," Wilson said. "I’m very fortunate to have gone through this when we did have more support than (players had) previously. I do still think there’s a long way to go, but I’m just very fortunate (to be) in the position I’m in right now."

Just like Wilson, Mallory Swanson returned to action in 2026 following her maternity leave, having been reinstated to the Chicago Stars’ active roster after welcoming a child in November 2025. She is likewise expected to elite competition.

“When it comes to pregnancy and postpartum, I don’t think there is one way to do it,” Swanson said. “There’s an outline that you can follow, but everyone’s pregnancy and delivery and postpartum are completely different.” 

Other elite athletes, including track stars Allyson Felix and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, and tennis legend Serena Williams, were becoming pregnant and then returning to competition, often at an even higher level than before motherhood. 

The Bottom Line:

The example of elite soccer players returning back to play after pregnancy and embracing motherhood are encouraging, as they show what genuine support for women seeking to balance both motherhood and careers appears like: safeguarding, respecting, and accommodating motherhood instead of penalizing it. Too often,  contemporary public life and mainstream media narratives regard pregnancy as a problem to be managed around work.

In a statement from the San Diego Police Department, it was confirmed that the baby girl passed away, less than aweek after her mother's murder. "On June 7, the newborn, who had suffered a severe hypoxic brain injury, passed away," the statement read. "The San Diego Police Department extends its sincere appreciation to the neonatal intensive care unit staff at Rady Children’s Hospital for the care they provided and their extraordinary efforts to save her life."

On the family's GoFundMe page, they said Jariah Edwards' mother and sister had been caring for the baby, and doing everything they could to ensure her survival.

According to the New York Post, Edwards had been trying to leave her abusive relationship and was seeking a restraining order when she and her baby girl were murdered. Trevon Williams, who is accused of Edwards' murder, could now face a second murder charge in the death of his daughter.

6/3/2026: Media reports indicate that a 17-year-old girl who was eight months pregnant was fatally shot by her older boyfriend last weekend. The girl's baby was delivered early following the incident and is currently in critical condition.

Key Takeaways:

• 17-year-old Jariah Edwards was fatally shot, allegedly by her older boyfriend, Trevon Williams.

• Edwards was eight months pregnant at the time. Her baby was delivered by emergency c-section and is currently in critical condition.

• Williams is facing felony charges of murder and attempted murder.

The Details:

The teenage victim, Jariah Edwards, was reportedly visiting San Diego from Arizona and was staying in a short-term rental with her family. Her boyfriend, Trevon Williams, allegedly traveled from Arizona separately and surprised her at her vacation rental. There, he fatally shot her before fleeing the scene. Media reports and press releases give conflicting information about Williams' age, reported as both 19 and 21.

"Officers arrived within minutes and located a 17-year-old female suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. The victim, who was approximately 32 weeks pregnant, was found unresponsive," police said. "Officers immediately initiated life-saving measures for both the victim and her unborn child. Paramedics transported the female to a local hospital where an emergency cesarean section was performed. The newborn remains in critical condition. Despite life-saving efforts, the mother died at the hospital."

Police later found Williams "hiding" and also recovered a semi-automatic handgun. Williams is currently facing charges of both murder and attempted murder. According to Law & Crime, "The young man showed up unexpectedly [in the middle of the night] with flowers and then shot the mother-to-be when she came outside to get them, according to family and friends."

Zoom In:

Edwards' friends and family say she was excited about becoming a mother. “She was so excited. I feel like it gave her something to look forward to," one friend told AZ Family.

Her aunt confirmed she was looking forward to welcoming her baby, saying, "She recently just started growing into herself and becoming who she's supposed to be." 

“[Edwards'] legacy is that her daughter is going to be everything she wanted to be and so much more, and she should be proud of that," Edwards' aunt said.

Sadly, homicide remains a leading cause of maternal death, and many of these instances are domestic violence situations.

Key Takeaways:

• Dr. William Lile, known as the "Pro-Life Doc," told attendees at Live Action's Young Leaders Summit that true maternal-fetal medicine treats both mother and baby as patients.

• He gave examples of how modern medicine can often treat preborn children while they are still growing in the womb.

• He also explained that though there are times maternal-fetal separation is necessary due to an emergency, intentional killing (induced abortion) is not medically necessary.

The Details:

Lile, often known as the “Pro-Life Doc,” explained that maternal-fetal medicine recognizes preborn children as patients deserving of care and protection.

“We have a couple of rules in our school of medicine,” he said. “Rule number one is that abortion is not health care. The second rule is that patients have rights. All patients.”

Those patients, Lile said, include preborn children. He explained that there are now procedures doctors can perform on these preborn babies, including life-saving blood transfusions administered while they are still in the womb. When this is done, a doctor can insert a needle through the mother’s abdomen and into the umbilical vein to treat severe fetal anemia — as early as 17 weeks of pregnancy.

“If we can give lifesaving blood transfusions to babies in the womb, is that a patient?” Lile asked. “Yes. And a patient is a person, no matter how small.”

He also highlighted groundbreaking fetal surgeries, including the case of a baby who underwent open-heart surgery at just 27 weeks gestation in order to remove a dangerous tumor attached to his heart. A team of 36 medical professionals operated on both mother and child, ultimately allowing the baby to remain in the womb for 10 more weeks before delivery.

“This is health care at the highest level,” Lile said. “Two patients with heartbeats went in, two patients with heartbeats went out.”

In another instance, a preborn baby underwent vascular brain surgery while in his mother’s womb. “A patient is a person, no matter how small,” Lile reiterated. “And all patients have rights.”

Zoom In:

Lile also addressed medical emergencies, arguing that these should be treated by delivering the baby rather than intentionally ending the child’s life.

“Is abortion ever medically necessary to save the life of the mom?” he asked, then answered:

"Short answer is no. Sometimes we have to deliver the baby early because yes, pregnancy is a challenge to the mom's body. We can have patients going into heart failure, liver failure, kidney failure in the womb. How do we cure them? We separate the mom from the baby, fetal maternal separation by delivering that baby early. And our maternal fetal medicine centers are doing so well with taking care of these tiny preemies."

“If mom’s health is truly in jeopardy, deliver the baby,” he said. “Killing the baby does not help the health and the life of the mother.”

The Bottom Line:

Lile concluded by encouraging attendees, saying, “When we work together and we put our faith into action,” he said, “we will save the lives of God’s preborn.”

Key Takeaways:

• An 18-year-old patient was injured at the Chicago Near North Planned Parenthood in March.

• She experienced a uterine perforation, which is a serious injury that can cause severe hemorrhaging, internal bleeding, and even death.

• The same facility allegedly injured a woman in December and then kicked her out on the sidewalk, leaving her to call an ambulance for herself.

• Illinois does not license or inspect abortion facilities in the state.

The Details:

On March 4, an employee at the Planned Parenthood Near North abortion business in Chicago called 911 for a patient who suffered a uterine perforation following an abortion procedure.

During the 911 audio recording, the employee tells the dispatcher the teen patient experienced a uterine perforation following an abortion procedure, resulting in the abortionist inserting a foley catheter to try and stop the bleeding. "Right, right because she's bleeding out," the dispatcher commented, expressing the seriousness of the injury.

The Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) report for the incident indicates it received an “A1” priority designation, which is the highest designation for serious and/or life threatening emergencies.

Uterine perforation, in which a surgical abortion instrument tears the uterine wall, is a significant risk and can result in severe hemorrhaging, internal bleeding, and even death.

“Uterine perforation is not a minor complication,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “And abortion clinics are not equipped to deal with such a life-threatening injury that can permanently harm a young woman’s reproductive system or even claim her life. Abortion facilities cannot continue to portray these procedures as ‘safe, routine, and harmless' while women are being gravely injured and some even die."

Zoom Out:

As Operation Rescue pointed out, abortion facilities in the state of Illinois are not required to meet any licensing or inspection requirements. This significant lack of oversight has allowed these dangerous businesses to injure women with no repercussions.

In 2025, there were 21 known injuries at Illinois abortion businesses — a number that may be underreported, as pro-life witnesses are not always on-hand to document ambulance arrivals. One of those injuries occurred at this same Chicago Near North Planned Parenthood, in which the facility allegedly kicked out a woman who was injured so significantly following her abortion procedure that she couldn't stand. The woman, in tears, called an ambulance for herself from the sidewalk outside the facility.

About an hour south of Chicago, in Champaign-Urbana, abortionist Keith Reisinger-Kindle botched a woman's abortion so badly that he perforated her uterus and left half of her second-trimester baby's body inside her. For this, the state of Illinois fined him a mere $5,000, made him take 20 hours of continuing medical education, and allowed him to go right back to work as an abortionist.

The Bottom Line:

Abortion is not only deadly to preborn children, it's also dangerous to women. Despite this, Illinois lawmakers continue to pass laws to make abortion easier to access with information about injuries more difficult to obtain, while letting abortion businesses continue to harm women without any ramifications.

Key Takeaways:

• A coalition of 159 lawmakers has sent a letter to the Trump administration, urging the restoration of the Protect Life Rule, which was in place under the first Trump administration.

• A similar letter requesting the reinstatement of the Protect Life Rule was sent to Kennedy and Trump in March by 10 U.S. senators.

• Under the rule, abortion businesses were required to separate their family planning services from their abortion business in order to receive Title X federal funding.

• The rule, repealed during the Biden administration, has inexplicably not been restored during the current Trump administration.

The Backstory:

The "Protect Life Rule" was put into place during the first Trump administration in 2019. Under the rule, organizations receiving Title X funding for family planning services were required to separate those services, both financially and physically, from their abortion business. They were also prohibited from referring for abortions. When this rule was instituted, Planned Parenthood chose to reject the requirements, walking away from millions in federal funding to continue its abortion focus.

When President Biden took office, he disbanded the rule. Since regaining control of the White House, the Trump administration has not reinstated the rule; though abortion businesses were temporarily disqualified from receiving Title X funding, that funding was eventually restored.

As Live Action News reported at that time:

A 2015 report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that Planned Parenthood and its affiliates receive approximately $60 million annually through the Title X program.

The Details:

A similar letter requesting the reinstatement of the Protect Life Rule was sent to Kennedy and Trump in March by 10 U.S. senators. The most recent letter, spearheaded by U.S. Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and U.S. Representatives Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) and Michael Guest (R-Miss.), was signed by 159 lawmakers across both the House and the Senate. It urges Kennedy and the Trump administration to restore the rule and ensure that abortion businesses unwilling to separate their abortion business from the rest of their services no longer receive Title X funding.

The letter points out the problem of fungibility of funding, which serves as a support for abortion-related business without this rule in place:

During President Trump's first administration, the Protect Life Rule successfully fulfilled the spirit and letter of this decades-old law by firmly separating abortion from family planning. The rule appropriately eliminated the egregious abortion referral mandate, which protected the conscience rights of health care providers and increased the potential for diversity among program applicants. Furthermore, it stipulated that Title X projects had to be organized with complete physical and financial separation between a grantee's Title X activities and abortion activities.

This much-needed reform ended the practice of "co-location," which had made federal funds vulnerable to misuse and implied that abortion was a method of family planning. The Protect Life Rule also implemented a stronger focus on protecting women and children from being victimized by abuse, rape, incest, and trafficking by bolstering oversight of grantee compliance with state abuse reporting requirements.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration's decision to suspend and revise the Protect Life Rule compromised the integrity of the Title X program...

The letter also notes that without the rule in place, Title X is a "funding stream" for the abortion industry, with Title X funds making up over $170 million of Planned Parenthood's expenditures between 2013 and 2015.

The Bottom Line:

The lawmakers urged the administration to take swift action to prohibit any more Title X funds from funding abortion businesses, saying: "It is time to restore the bright line of separation between family planning and abortion that is consistent with the plain text of the statute and Congressional intent."

Accounts of women being coerced or forced to take abortion drugs have become more public and more widespread, as the drugs have become more easily accessible due to online abortion pill dispensaries and mail-order options.

Key Takeaways:

• On May 28, police in Columbus, Ohio, were notified by dispatch that a father had allegedly attempted to force his daughter to take the abortion pill.

• This type of incident appears to be a growing problem, as the abortion pill has become much more easy to obtain due to mail-order dispensing.

• Despite the fact that abusers can easily obtain the drugs and the fact that federal law makes it illegal to send abortion drugs through the mail, the FDA and federal government appear to be doing little to halt mail-order abortion, despite the risk to women and preborn children.

The Details:

'Abusers use shockingly available' abortion drugs

Last week, Live Action News was contacted by Allie Frazier, a pro-life advocate and native of Columbus, Ohio, about the incident.

Frazier told Live Action News:

"I like to keep up to date on what’s going on in my community. While listening to local reports on an emergency calls app, I was shaken to hear a report that a father had held his daughter down and attempted to force her to take abortion drugs."

The call, which did not specify what drug was used, was placed to the Columbus Police Department on May 28, 2026, around 10:36 a.m.

It is unclear who is speaking or the exact location of the call, which stated:

They have a client in there, says the [audio not legible] father held her down on Saturday and tried to force her to take an abortion pill.

This happened at Livingston or Hamilton, possibly on way home.

The call was brief and confirmed by Live Action News in an archived scanner which hosts Columbus Police Citywide Dispatch radio traffic.

It is not clear whether Livingston and Hamilton is an intersection in Columbus or possibly city locations of Livingston (near downtown Columbus) or Hamilton, which is about an hour and half from Columbus.

Frazier, who reportedly has worked as a volunteer and professional connecting women facing unexpected pregnancies to care in Ohio for nearly a decade, added:

This the reality of abortion drugs. Abusers use these shockingly available drugs to intimidate women and girls and kill their preborn babies. It is chilling to realize that this horrible abuse is occurring in my own community. Your community isn’t safe from abortion drugs, and I was heartbroken to find out that neither was mine.

Frazier also noted:

The Lakeland Planned Parenthood was shut down in March, and the Gainesville will be shutting down in June. Both were abortion referral centers, which referred many, many innocent babies to the Planned Parenthoods in Orlando and Kissimmee.

Thankfully these Planned Parenthoods are shut down, but this month, the time will be up for withholding Medicaid funding from PP. We must demand that these places of death never receive a cent from taxpayers!  We must hold our politicians accountable.

Live Action News reached out to the Columbus Police Department, but received no response prior to the time of print.

Is FDA's removal of in-person dispensing to blame?

Coercion is becoming a growing concern of mail-order abortion dispensing, as predators hide behind computer screens and clandestinely slip the mailed drug into the beverage of their intended pregnant victim, or force them upon victims some other way. 

This is due in part to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) erosion of the REMS safety regulations on the drug mifepristone (200mg)/Mifeprex, which removed in-person dispensing. In-person dispensing meant that a clinician could confirm the drugs would be handed to pregnant women rather than sex traffickers or other abusers, including parents who might coerce a young woman into taking the drugs.

Catherine Herring learned she was pregnant with her third child one week after her husband asked for a separation. According to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF):

In March 2022, Catherine Herring’s husband brought her breakfast in bed and a cup of water. When he pressured her to chug her drink, she noticed something wasn’t right. The cup of water in her hand—that she had already consumed—was murky. It wasn’t just water. It was a vessel for chemical abortion drugs. Her now ex-husband had poisoned her drink in an attempt to kill their baby.

The effects from the drugs were severe and sent Catherine to the emergency room. This was the first of seven total poisoning attempts. Miraculously, Catherine’s baby girl survived.

Catherine’s husband Mason Herring accepted a plea deal in 2024. As Live Action News reported, he admitted to spiking his wife's drink with an abortion drug. He was sentenced to just six months in prison with 10 years probation on charges of injury to a child under 15, bodily injury, and assault of a pregnant person. But after violating his probation, he was sentenced last October to eight years in prison. 

The changes to the REMS have triggered lawsuits from multiple states; one included coercion victim and Louisiana resident Rosalie Markezich as a plaintiff.

Markezich claimed that "mail-order abortion" led to a situation in which her then-boyfriend coerced her into taking abortion drugs that ended her preborn child's life. He allegedly obtained the abortion pill regimen by mail in 2023 from a doctor in California.

Markezich also claimed that if an in-person visit had been required for a woman to get the abortion pill at the time, she would have been able to inform the doctor that she was being coerced, and her baby would likely be alive today.

“If mail-order abortion wasn’t a thing, I’m 100% sure I would have my child,” Markezich said.

Additional cases have been documented by Live Action News. In Live Action's chemical abortion pill report, cases from recent years have been documented in which men administered easily-obtained abortion drugs to women without the women's knowledge or consent (forced abortions); in addition, some women are alleging that even abortion facility workers are pressuring them.

University of Toledo Medical Center doctor Hassan-James Abbas was indicted in December by a Lucas County Grand Jury on multiple felony charges after he forcibly gave his victim abortion pills when she refused to abort his child. The victim Abbas’s patient, with whom he had a sexual relationship.

In a stunning interview, the victim told WTOL News11:

"I just told him that I took a test. I sent him a picture of it, you know, I was happy to talk to him about it and have a conversation. He called me on the phone and was screaming at me, just erratic behavior that I have never seen before. I laid there and I went back and forth on if he was gonna kill me, you know. That was my biggest thought was that he was going to kill me."

Abbas has since pleaded no contest to the allegations.

In another case, according to an affidavit filed in Tarrant County by the Texas Rangers and obtained by the Texas Tribune, "39-year-old Justin Anthony Banta put mifepristone, an abortion-inducing medication, into cookies and a beverage that he then gave to his pregnant girlfriend. Banta had previously asked her to get an abortion, but she said she had wanted to keep the child, according to the affidavit. A day after drinking the beverage, the woman miscarried."

Estimated Abortion Pill Abortions

At least 732,000 abortions by pill took place in 2025, which equates to approximately 60,992 per month; 2,005 per day; 84 per hour; and one every 44 seconds.

A report on "reproductive coercion" published by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) claimed that, "In early 2025, abortion by way of mail-order abortion drugs made up an estimated 27% of all abortions performed nationwide."

The CLI report gave some startling statistics:

A non-peer-reviewed BBC poll of a nationally representative sample of 1,060 women in the United Kingdom found higher numbers, with 15% having experienced pressure to have an abortion when they did not want to and 8% having experienced pressure to continue a pregnancy when they did not want to.

In the BBC poll, 5% of respondents had suffered violence that was intended to end a pregnancy, and 3% were given pills to force an abortion without their knowledge/consent.

Why It Matters:

According to the FDA's REMS, mifepristone must be provided by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber who meets the following qualifications:

• Ability to assess the duration of pregnancy accurately. 

• Ability to diagnose ectopic pregnancies. 

• Ability to provide surgical intervention in cases of incomplete abortion or severe bleeding, or have made plans to provide such care through others, and be able to assure patient access to medical facilities equipped to provide blood transfusions and resuscitation, if necessary. 

• Has read and understood the Prescribing Information for mifepristone.

Prescribers of the drug who do not adhere to the strict requirements must be decertified by the drug's makers, but as Live Action News previously documented, this is not happening.

Attorney Mike Seibel recently wrote:

The manufacturers (sponsors) are responsible for certifying these providers and pharmacies, monitoring compliance, and de-certifying those who fail to maintain it. They control distribution and are supposed to ensure the drug reaches only compliant parties...

If manufacturers are certifying (or continuing to supply) providers and pharmacies that ignore these obligations—failing to verify gestational age properly, allowing misleading safety claims, or skipping required counseling and documentation—then they are not fulfilling their REMS duties. The sponsors’ own agreements state they will de-certify non-compliant parties and stop distribution to them.

Mailing abortion drugs is federally illegal

The Comstock Act is a federal law that prohibits the mailing of “any article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing [that] may, or can be used or applied for producing abortion” through the mail. Yet, when the FDA allowed the mailing of the abortion pill during the COVID-19 pandemic, this law was violated and continues to be ignored.

• 2000: Abortion pill (Mifeprex or mifepristone 200 mg) approved by the FDA for the “termination of pregnancy” in a regimen with a second drug called Misoprostol.

• 2011: Concern about the drug's safety placed mifepristone/mifeprex under the REMS.

• 2016: Safety measures eroded when FDA allowed the drug to be prescribed through ten weeks of pregnancy and removed requirements that the manufacturer report all adverse events.

• 2023: FDA removed the in-person dispensing requirement, allowing for the drug to be dispensed by mail or pharmacy.

These changes occurred despite the fact that the federal Comstock Act prohibits the mailing of abortion inducing drugs.

Key Takeaways:

• Live Action's third annual Young Leaders Summit took place in Anaheim, California, on March 21.

• Live Action founder and president Lila Rose encouraged and inspired attendees to stand for life.

• In her speech, she called for each person to realize their purpose and have the courage to follow it.

The Details:

Rose began her speech explaining how she became pro-life, and became inspired to start Live Action.

"We love all student backgrounds, but the homeschool kids, we got something weird going on, and we do weird things sometimes. And for me, that was Live Action and starting this organization, because I had a broken heart," she said. "And I had a broken heart because growing up in this homeschool family, all these kids, I'm the third oldest, I'm the oldest girl, all these babies, there's ultrasound images on the fridge. Life was chaotic but beautiful."

She said she learned about abortion when, as she got older, she read about it in a book:

"I learned about 1973 and Roe v. Wade, and how it was legalized, and learning about fetal development and human life. And I thought, well, is this a problem happening now or is this historical? 

And then I hit the statistics page about worldwide abortion, global abortion, that there had been a billion abortions in the last decade — a billion lives taken by abortion. And then I learned that it's legal in the United States. It's legal today in the United States. 

In California, it's legal through all nine months of pregnancy in our own state. And then I came to the middle, where there's pictures, and you can see beautiful images of human development."

After those beautiful pictures of human development came horrifying pictures of death:

"And then I see an image of a baby who you can see that baby's humanity, those arms, those legs, this beautiful tiny little face, first trimester baby, maybe 10 weeks old, who had been torn apart by a powerful first-trimester suction abortion. And I remember just being heartbroken, just being heartbroken. I mean, how can you look at somebody's death and not be heartbroken by it? 

And I thought, is this really happening? Is this really here in my own community? And then I found out about the abortion clinic miles from where I grew up, having abortions twice a week, up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

And all of a sudden I realized I was living in the middle of the greatest human rights abuse in our nation's history. And so it was out of that broken heart that I was inspired. I had to do something. And I think you're all here because you feel that call. And it's not just about abortion. It's about a lot of things."

Zoom In:

Rose said we are currently in a culture of "chaos" and "brokenness," all while we also suffer an identity crisis. And though she said it can be terrifying and dangerous to ask God to use us for His purpose, we are meant to do so anyway:

"My brothers and sisters, we were made for purpose. Each person here, you were uniquely designed for love. Yes, to be loved and to love, but you were made for a specific purpose. And that purpose we discover by stepping up in faith, rooted in our true identity as beloved sons and daughters of God, and asking God, "Hey, here I am. Use me. Show me what you want me to do. Use me for your purposes." 

It's very dangerous to ask God to use you, because He will. He will. He'll take you on an adventure you could have never have dreamed."

The Bottom Line:

Sometimes, she explained, we might sin or stray from our path, but we should always have the strength and faith to come back and try again. And ultimately, we all have value and worth because we are children of God, and as long as we remember that and lead with love, we cannot fail. She added:

"We're pro-life because we love that baby, not for what they can do, because they can't do anything.... They're completely dependent. They're completely vulnerable. We love them because of who they are. We love each other because of who we are.... If our identity is in who we are as sons and daughters of God on our journey to heaven, this world and all of its struggles and all of its chaos cannot shake us."

Watch the entire speech here.

Key Takeaways:

• Parker notes that corporate America is not designed to support mothers who need to care for their young children.

• Corporations aren't against women, but they define "supporting women" as "whatever way best preserves women's productivity and workflow for the corporation rather than supporting women as a whole."

• Currently, workplaces will pay for things like egg freezing and abortions, because they enable a woman to stay in the workforce.

• Instead, Parker says women should be offered flexibility and the chance to work from home, and corporations should implement generous policies for both maternity and paternity leave.

The Details:

Parker begins by noting that what most moms really want is more time at home with their babies and small children. Unfortunately, the reality for far too many is that they are forced to return to work shortly after their children are born, because in the U.S., many moms aren't offered paid maternity leave.

However, she adds, most corporations aren't against women. it's just that "they define 'supporting women' in whatever way best preserves women's productivity and workflow for the corporation rather than supporting women as a whole — mothers in particular."

The Big Picture:

This leads to a deeper layer of the discussion.

"Motherhood in particular collides with our modern culture’s obsession with productivity and output," Parker said.

When women become mothers, they recognize that their children are infinitely more important than work deadlines or quarterly goals.

"Because of this reality, so many modern workplace 'solutions' for uplifting women revolve around helping women delay, suppress, outsource, or minimize motherhood rather than restructuring their own workplace for women," she explained.

She pointed out that many companies will pay for things like egg freezing, or even abortions, because these things allow women to remain at their jobs, pushing motherhood to some undetermined time in the future — or forgoing it altogether.

The Bottom Line:

Parker suggests that real accommodation for working mothers would be accommodating work to allow moms more time with their kids:

The core of this discussion is really about what matters most. It’s about what we should revolve around in this short time we are given on earth. 

The greatest joys in your life — whoever you are watching this video — are probably not economical. It’s probably not about the raise you got at work — as awesome and well-deserved as it was...

... I think deep down, women know there is something wrong with the vision that work ought to come before our children. 

Because children are not obstacles to our flourishing as humans — they aren’t burdens to eliminate so we can get back to living real life. 

As a solution, she urges that moms be allowed to work from home. Moms should be offered at least half a year of maternity leave, and paternity leave should be standard for dads as well.

"Having a baby is one of the most meaningful, profound, formational things human beings can experience," she says. "We should advocate for a workplace culture that recognizes and works with that reality."

Key Takeaways:

• The Nevada Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a state law requiring parental notification before an abortion is unconstitutional.

• Justices ruled against the law because it was "unconstitutionally vague."

• Though originally passed in 1985, the law didn't take effect until last year due to Roe v. Wade and a series of legal challenges.

The Details:

The Court unanimously ruled on May 28 to reverse the lower court's decision to allow the 1985 law to take effect. The law required a minor to inform her parents that she is intending to commit an abortion, or receive a judicial bypass in place of that parental notification. Parental consent for the abortion was not required.

However, in its ruling, the Court decided that the law cannot stand because it is "unconstitutionally vague" as there was no firm guideline defining a "reasonable effort" to notify parents. It also determined that the judicial bypass procedure was vague.

“The lack of specificity arguably leaves it up to each potential investigating agency and thereafter, judge, to arbitrarily decide what effort is sufficient,” Chief Justice Douglas Herndon wrote.

Nevada Right to Life, which had advocated for the law, said the court "abandoned our children."

"On May 28, the Nevada Supreme Court betrayed Nevada's children. It struck down Senate Bill 510, a law that asked one simple, humane thing: before a doctor performs an abortion on a girl under 18, her parents deserve to know. Not to give permission. Not to give consent. Simply and solely to know. Now that protection is gone," the group wrote on social media.

The Background:

Though the parental notification law was originally passed in 1985, it was declared unconstitutional and, because of Roe v. Wade, never took effect. Following Roe's reversal, previously dormant laws including the notification law started to take effect, leading to a quick challenge by the abortion industry.

What followed was a series of back-and-forth rulings. In April 2025, a federal judge temporarily blocked the law from taking effect so that Planned Parenthood could file a motion contesting the law both federally and at the state level. The case made its way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused to suspend the law, allowing it to finally take effect. Planned Parenthood filed another lawsuit to stop the law, which was denied by a judge in September 2025. That ruling led to the Supreme Court's final say last week.

The Bottom Line:

The idea that a young girl can get an abortion without her parents ever knowing is extremely troubling. Today, schools aren't allowed to give out pain relief medication without parental consent. Abortion is a serious, life-altering, (and life-ending) procedure.

With this ruling, the court has determined that the abortion industry, which thrives on secrecy and lies, matters more than parents.

Key Takeaways:

• The Planned Parenthood in Gainesville, Florida, plans to close on June 26.

• The organization blames the closure on a lack of patients.

• It will transition to a telehealth facility — a move that has long been part of Planned Parenthood's business plan.

The Details:

According to The Gainesville Sun, the city's Planned Parenthood business will permanently close on June 26. Patients have been told they can continue appointments through telehealth.

Vice President of Communications for Planned Parenthood of Florida Michelle Quesada said the closure is “due to the Gainesville clinic’s declining patient volume.”

The facility reportedly did not commit abortions, but did offer cross-sex hormones to individuals. 

Michele Herzog, Director of Pro-life Action Ministries Central Florida, told Live Action News that the Gainesville facility "did not do abortions" but was "a major referral center and we are glad they are closing.”

The business's closure was also announced in an Instagram post.

“While this was an incredibly difficult decision, it does not change our commitment to our patients. Patients will continue to have uninterrupted access to high-quality, compassionate care at all PPFL health centers — including Tallahassee and Jacksonville — and via Telehealth, where we have recently expanded services,” the social media post said.

The Big Picture:

In an article announcing the closure, the Independent Florida Alligator claimed that because of the Gainesville Planned Parenthood's closure, "local patients will now have to travel farther for in-person reproductive health services."

But Planned Parenthood is not the only place that offers "reproductive health services," as any OB/GYNs office or federally qualified health center can provide such services.

Planned Parenthood closures are <a href="/news/planned-parenthood-virtual-health-centers-expand-closes">nothing new</a>, as the organization has been actively closing facilities for years. Its move to a telehealth model and abortion pill via telemedicine has been a part of the organization's business plan since at least 2019. It continues to play the victim and lament closures in the press while transitioning to a business model that is more profitable in the long run — killing babies without requiring clients to ever step foot in an office.

The Bottom Line:

Women in Gainesville will not lose access to health care after Planned Parenthood's closure, and Planned Parenthood is likely to continue to do business online. This corporation, riddled with countless scandals and abuses, should be shut down for good across the country.

Key Takeaways:

• Dr. James MacLean must practice under supervision for the next six months due to two instances in which he violated MAiD protocols.

• In the first instance, he approved a man for death outside a Tim Hortons coffee shop, and later drove the man to the place he was to be euthanized.

• In the second instance, MacLean failed to administer the full euthanasia concoction. He declared the patient dead, only for the man to start breathing again after MacLean left the home.

• There has been some outcry over the decision to allow MacLean to continue to practice medicine.

The Details:

According to the National Post, the  College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario investigated Dr. James MacLean after two public complaints were made in relation to MacLean's administration of euthanasia. The investigation's findings concluded MacLean "did not meet the standard of practice of the profession, displayed a lack of judgment and that his conduct exposes or is likely to expose patients to harm or injury in five out of twenty charts reviewed."

In response, MacLean was verbally “cautioned” and agreed to mandatory clinical supervision for at least six months. He can, however, continue practicing medicine under supervision.

Assessing for MAiD outside of a coffee shop

In the first instance, MacLean reportedly assessed 45-year-old Thomas Dillon for MAiD outside a Tim Hortons coffee shop. Dillon had a medical history of inflammatory bowel disease and associated surgeries, along with mental health concerns, but was not terminally ill.

MacLean later drove Dillon to the MAiD location described by The Globe and Mail as "a room at a holding facility in an industrial unit where cadavers are prepared for transport to funeral homes" and administered the deadly drugs which ended Dillon's life.

A finding from the MAID Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee took issue with the casual manner in which MacLean interacted with Dillon, along with “specifically discussing sensitive MAID-related matters in an informal public setting.”

“In the committee’s view, this reflected a lack of the level of formality and care expected when assessing requests for MAID," the report said, noting, "The committee was also troubled by the respondent’s communications and degree of personal involvement with the patient,” describing text messaging with Dillon that "went beyond" what was reasonable.

Failure to complete full euthanasia protocol

In the second instance, the committee found that MacLean failed to administer one of the three necessary drugs in the fatal concoction meant to kill a patient. After driving to the patient's home to commit the euthanasia, he failed to administer a neuromuscular-blocking medication, which causes paralysis, because "he was unable to locate it in his briefcase."

Though the patient lost consciousness and was declared dead with the two drugs MacLean did administer, after MacLean left the home “the patient resumed spontaneous breathing.” MacLean returned to the home, administered more lethal drugs “and again pronounced the patient’s death.”

Zoom In:

Despite the seriousness of these MAiD violations, MacLean is still able to work as a physician — and that is prompting some pushback.

“I am horrified that the college has not stopped him from practising,” Dillon’s aunt, Megan Nichols, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “What does it take?”

Dr. Ramona Coelho, a former member of the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario’s MAID death review committee, also questioned the decision by the committee to allow MacLean to continue to practice medicine. “What is striking is not only the seriousness of the concerns identified in these cases, but the limited regulatory response,” she said.

MAiD violations are nothing new — and neither is a half-hearted response. In 2024, a report published by Alexander Raikin, a visiting fellow in bioethics at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, analyzed leaked documents which revealed that Ontario’s euthanasia regulators had tracked 428 cases of illegal euthanasia deaths through non-compliance since 2016. Despite that incredibly high number, no violations resulted in a criminal complaint to authorities.

The Bottom Line:

Since its legalization, euthanasia in Canada has spiraled out of control. Those who are sick and suffering deserve real, compassionate care, not a rush toward death, and more than 100,000 have been killed so far.

Key Takeaways:

• Monica Potter appeared on the "Still Here Hollywood" Podcast last week, where she told host Steve Kmetko that she was once pressured to have an abortion.

• Potter explained that when she was 18 and pregnant with her first child, Daniel, she had a modeling contract lined up and her agency told her that she would be having an abortion.

• Potter refused to abort her child and went on to have a successful career.

The Details:

In an interview with "Still Here Hollywood" Podcast with Steve Kmetko, actress Monica Potter shared that, at age 18, she had a modeling job lined up when she learned she was pregnant with her son, Daniel. She and her then-husband were expecting their first child together, but her agency expected her to abort the baby to fulfill a modeling contract.

"When I got pregnant with Danny, I was supposed to go to Japan for a six month modeling contract," she told Kmetko. "And I went and I talked to my agency and they said, 'Okay, well you have this modeling contract coming up for Japan so we'll take care of this first and then...' And I was like, 'What?' I wasn't getting it... and I was excited about having a baby."

Kmetko asked, "They were talking to you about possibly ending your pregnancy?"

She replied, "Yeah."

"That's outrageous," said Kmetko.

Potter said that having an abortion "was never really a thought in my head. Like never. Like it was just never a thought..."

Why It Matters:

Like Potter, countless actresses and musicians have shared their own stories of being pressured to have abortions. Unfortunately, many have given in, leading to years of grief and regret.

As previously reported by Live Action News, Hollywood has a long history of controlling women through agents, studios, and executives. As early as 1922, actresses reportedly had “morality clauses” written into their contracts that would ensure pregnancies were ended in abortion.

The Bottom Line:

It takes courage for a woman in the entertainment industry to stand up to the pressure to abort a child. Kmetko is right: it is outrageous for anyone to endure pressure to abort a baby, but sadly, it is not at all uncommon.

Key Takeaways:

• In November of 2025, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit over claims from Planned Parenthood that mifepristone, known as the abortion pill, is 'safer than Tylenol.'

• Uthmeier said the claim is misleading, and the state is seeking $350 million in damages.

• Planned Parenthood filed a request to have the lawsuit dismissed.

• First Circuit Court Judge J. Scott Duncan denied Planned Parenthood's request.

The Backstory:

AG Uthmeier filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood in November, saying the abortion giant's claim that mifepristone is safer than Tylenol is a lie, and therefore, violates Florida law.

"The ‘safer than Tylenol’ marketing campaign has been ongoing for years and targeted to women in Florida. Just a few weeks ago, Defendant Planned Parenthood Florida Action proclaimed on X.com that ‘Mifepristone is safe. Safer than Tylenol.’ — That claim is manifestly false," Uthmeier said.

In addition to damages of $350 million, the state of Florida is asking the court to implement sanctions against Planned Parenthood, as well as require Planned Parenthood to sell off real estate, bar it from committing abortions, or be dissolved altogether.

“It is vile that Planned Parenthood cares more about lining their pockets than providing women with factual information about the health risks of chemical abortion drugs,” Uthmeier said.

The Details:

Planned Parenthood asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, and in a new ruling, First Circuit Court Judge J. Scott Duncan refused, allowing the lawsuit to move forward.

"The defendants did not simply claim the abortion-inducing medications were safe; rather, according to the Complaint, they claimed they were safer than other medications," the ruling read. "In making a comparison, the Defendants went beyond vague promotional language. Now whether these statements are actionable or non-actionable may depend upon the context in which they were made. However, that is a question the Court currently cannot answer. The Court is bound to the four corners of the Complaint. Accordingly, the Court declines to dismiss the Complaint in its entirety."

The claim that mifepristone is safer than Tylenol has been debunked, and one recent analysis which examined a large insurance database found that the abortion pill's adverse events occurred at a rate 22 times higher than that reported on the drug's Food and Drug Administration label. Another study found it to be four times more dangerous than a first-trimester surgical abortion. As Live Action News previously explained:

Recent research from Ireland about the abortion pill showed 12% of women went to the ER for bleeding or infection. In addition, 16% suffered incomplete abortions.

This percentage corresponds with a recent U.S. insurance database analysis from the EPPC, showing a nearly 11% “serious adverse events” rate after taking the abortion pill.

Still another study found that women were overwhelmingly unprepared for just how painful the chemical abortion process would be. Known side effects are severe cramping, contractions, and heavy bleeding, as well as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and headaches. Other risks include incomplete abortion, hemorrhage, infection, and death.

The Bottom Line:

Women deserve better than to be lied to by the abortion industry in a twisted effort to pad its own pockets.

The missing documents likely include correspondence, expert reviews, studies, trials, or data surrounding the often secretive abortion pill approval process.

Key Takeaways:

• Full records of the abortion pill's approval process under the Clinton administration have been kept hidden for more than 25 years.

• The records likely include communications between FDA officials and the White House counsel’s office during the Clinton administration, internal discussions about mifepristone’s original approval application, and materials related to the Population Council.

• Questions continue to be raised about the negative health effects the abortion pill has on women.

• Numerous Freedom of Information Act requests surrounding the abortion pill have been made, and revealed potential eugenic motives for approving abortion drugs.

• A new lawsuit seeks all communications sent to, received by, or copied to the Commissioner of Food and Drugs regarding mifepristone, RU-486, or any form of mifepristone reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, and all documents related to any meeting with the Commissioner of Food and Drugs in which mifepristone, RU-486, or any form of mifepristone reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration was discussed.

The Backstory:

The abortion pill's approval process began in 1994, when the Bill Clinton Administration pressured French pharmaceutical company and patent owner Roussel-Uclaf to assign the U.S. rights of marketing and distribution of the abortion pill (under the name RU-486) to the eugenic-based Population Council.

The right to distribute the drugs was later granted to Danco Laboratories, a sub-licensee of the Population Council. Then, by 1996, the Population Council (funded in part with investments from the Susan Thompson Buffett (Warren Buffett) and David and Lucile Packard Foundations) submitted its application for the drug to the FDA — and a series of clinical trials began.

The FDA initially approved the drug, known then as RU-486, for the termination of pregnancy in 2000, in a regimen with a second drug called misoprostol.

As the years went on, use of mifepristone (200mg)/Mifeprex was expanded multiple times, including in 2016, when, with funds from Big Abortion groups like Planned Parenthood, Danco sought to erode safety regulations known as REMS for the drug. In 2023, additional erosions removed the required in-person dispensing of the drug to allow for mail-order and pharmacy dispensing, prompting multiple lawsuits challenging these erosions.

The Details:

But the full record has been kept secret by the FDA for nearly 26 years.

Live Action News wrote last year:

Even today, 25 years later, the public still has little information about the abortion pill’s approval process in the United States. Were the ‘experts’ associated with pro-abortion organizations or even possibly abortionists? Was the data properly analyzed, or did bias in favor of abortion take precedence over actual safety? We simply do not have these answers, because we have not been given access to the data.

...Interestingly, decades later (May 2020) the ‘record’ about the abortion pill had still not been released, when Columbia University journalists Lauren Mascarenhas and Abigail Brone interviewed early abortion pill advocates while most of the public has no access to the record, these two Columbia University journalists were able to locate one of the FDA’s senior medical reviewers who reportedly “chose to remain anonymous” but admitted, “It’s definitely not standard. It’s not routine; you can look up almost every other drug that I was the primary medical officer for and my name would appear right there on the review.”

The journalists noted that they did look up this anonymous reviewer’s name and found it “listed on at least eight other FDA drug reviews. But no staff names are listed on the review of mifepristone.”

Court Grills FDA on 'Administrative Record'

During oral arguments in the case Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM) v. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2023, a tense exchange took place between the FDA’s legal representative and a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit regarding access to relevant documentation about the FDA’s original approval of the abortion pill.

Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod, one of the three judges hearing the case, confronted FDA legal counsel Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sarah Harrington: “I just wanted to ask quickly about the record. We don’t seem to have the administrative record in this case.” Harrington said she had even “checked with the clerk’s office” that morning.

“We absolutely do not have the administrative record,” the FDA’s attorney confirmed.

“Why don’t we?” the judge asked, insisting that the court “absolutely need[s] it.”

Harrington sounded rattled as she admitted that the FDA had not yet assembled the documents, claiming it was due, in part, to the fact that there were “hundreds of thousands of pages.”

“Where is it and how do we get it?” Judge Elrod asked.

“The District Court acted before we were able to produce,” Harrington claimed.

“How long will it take you to get it to us?” Judge Elrod asked.

Harrington was unable to give the judge a precise date, which seemed to frustrate the judge.

AAF's Claims

According to WSJ:

After two years of litigation, the Food and Drug Administration admitted in March that it has more than 125,000 pages of documents, which it has withheld from public scrutiny for 30 years," wrote Wheat.

These records likely include communications between FDA officials and the White House counsel’s office during the Clinton administration, internal discussions about mifepristone’s original application for approval, and materials related to the controversial Population Council, a nonprofit group co-founded by the eugenicist Frederick Osborn.

Back in June of 2024, Advancing American Freedom (AAF) filed a FOIA request for "copies of communications" between the FDA and various agencies regarding Mifepristone dating back to the 1990s.

"As required by law, the Biden FDA was supposed to release the mifepristone records in June 2024 to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Advancing American Freedom. It refused to do so," wrote Wheat, adding:

Only after a change in administration and a successful lawsuit did the FDA finally acknowledge the existence of these documents. But even now, agency bureaucrats could slow-walk their release to a few hundred pages per month, meaning it would take decades to reach full disclosure.

Enough is enough. For the sake of women’s health, it’s time for transparency.

Judicial Watch FOIA Requests

Judicial Watch has filed numerous FOIA requests surrounding the abortion pill, and has, in some instances, been granted shocking documents suggesting eugenic motives for approving chemical abortion drugs — specifically relating to the Clinton files and RU486.

In September 2023, Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request regarding stability test results, new drug applications, and related materials of the abortion drug Mifeprex.

More recently, in May 2026, a lawsuit, seeking "records of communications and meetings" of the FDA commissioner "involving the abortion drug Mifepristone" was filed by Judicial Watch (JW) after the FDA failed to respond to three Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests involving communications for "the period April 1, 2025, to the present," JW claimed.

The lawsuit filed against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the FDA, read in part:

To trigger FOIA’s administrative exhaustion requirement, Defendant was required to make a final determination on Plaintiff’s request by March 25, 2026, at the latest. Because Defendant failed to make a final determination within the time limits set by FOIA, Plaintiff is deemed to have exhausted its administrative appeal remedies.

The lawsuit is seeking access to:

• "All communications sent to, received by, or copied to the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, or to the Commissioner’s immediate office, that concern, refer to, or discuss mifepristone, RU-486, or any generic or branded form of mifepristone approved, regulated, or reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration."

• "All documents related to any meeting with the Commissioner of Food Drugs where mifepristone, RU-486, or any generic or branded form of mifepristone approved, regulated, or reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration was discussed, including, but not limited to, calendar events, calendar invitations, talking points, PowerPoint presentations, written or audio recordings, and post-meeting summaries."

"The new FDA leadership needs to get its act together quickly, stop providing special treatment for the abortion pill, and ensure transparency to preserve the rule of law and the public health," Tom Fitton, founder of JW, wrote on X in May.

The Bottom Line:

Meanwhile, the FDA's promised safety review of the drug has ironically been rumored not to have started yet.

Until the full record on this approval process is revealed, the American public should continue to question the purported safety of self-managed abortion for women; we already know it has been unsafe for 7.5 million preborn children and counting, who have died because of it.

"For three decades, Democratic and Republican administrations have kept the information surrounding the initial approval of the abortion pill under lock and key," John Shelton, Vice President of Policy at AAF wrote on X.

" Sunlight is the best disinfectant. It’s high time the Trump administration released the RU-486 files," he added.

Key Takeaways:

• An Italian appeals court has recognized three parents for a four-year-old who was born in Germany to a man and a woman who were close friends.

• The man's husband, who is a citizen of both Germany and Italy, adopted the boy in Germany and then sought to adopt him under Italian law as well.

• For the first time, Italy has recognized a three-parent family, opening the door to changes in how the nation approaches same-sex couples and parental rights.

The Details:

The little boy, who lives in Germany with his biological father and his father's husband, now has three legal parents. The boy was born to the biological mother and father, who were close friends, in Germany, potentially while the man was already in a relationship with his husband. The father's husband is a citizen of both Germany and Italy. He legally adopted the boy under German law and then attempted to adopt him in Italy as well.

Suspecting that an illegal foreign surrogacy had been carried out, an Italian authority rejected that application. The decision was appealed, and a court overturned the rejection, finding that surrogacy was not involved in the pregnancy. In giving parental rights to the man, Italy has joined Germany in recognizing a three-parent family — two legal fathers and one mother — for the child.

Attorney Pasqua Manfredi told Reuters, "There was no secret surrogacy deal here, this is a case of three people who all want to be the parents of this child, and the court ‌recognised this." It's the first time a court has validated such an arrangement in Italy, and legal experts say it has the potential to reshape Italy's approach to same-sex parenting.

Pro Vita & Famiglia, a Catholic organization, said legalizing same-sex marriage has "upended family law, exposing minors to all kinds of social and ideological experimentations."

Zoom Out:

Research from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that young children who live in homes with one or more unrelated adults are nearly 50 times more likely to die from an inflicted injury such as physical abuse compared to children who live with both of their biological parents. Most often, the adult is the boyfriend of the child's mother.

“I've seen many cases of physical and sexual abuse that come up with boyfriends, stepparents,” said Eliana Gil, clinical director for the national abuse-prevention group Child Help.

“It comes down to the fact they don't have a relationship established with these kids,” she said. “Their primary interest is really the adult partner, and they may find themselves more irritated when there's a problem with the children.''

Another concern is that this ruling will open the door to further manipulation of the biological reality that each child has two biological parents. States like California, Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, and Florida allow more than two parents to be legally recognized on a birth certificate. In some cases, children are conceived via IVF with either no true knowledge about which man in a gay couple is the biological father, and then there are cases involving donor eggs or sperm and IVF.

There is also the use of Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy (MRT) in which the egg of the intended mother and a donor egg are both fertilized with the father’s sperm, and then the nuclear DNA is removed from both, with the nucleus from the intended mother's embryo put into the donor mother's embryo. This process creates two human embryos, destroys them both, and merges them to create a third embryo with DNA from three adults in order to prevent a genetic health condition or to combat age-related infertility. Research shows that 54.8% of embryos created this way had the wrong number of chromosomes.

The Bottom Line:

Adults' desires should never be put ahead of children's rights. Children have a right to know, be loved by, and be raised by their biological parents. Those who are raised by their married, biological parents have better educational and emotional outcomes than those who aren't.

Key Takeaways:

• On May 28, the City Commission of Ranger, Texas, passed an ordinance outlawing abortion and abortion trafficking, protecting preborn babies and their mothers.

• The vote was unanimous.

• The ordinance makes Ranger the 98th city in the nation to become a Sanctuary City for the Unborn.

The Details:

The effort to see Ranger become a Sanctuary City for the Unborn did not happen overnight. Since 2019, residents throughout the city have expressed interest in seeing their city adopt the measure. Communication with city leadership dates back as early as May 2020. While it took a while to get off the ground in Eastland County, once it did, it spread like wildfire. The nearby City of Carbon (pop. 345) passed the ordinance in February 2021, followed by the City of Gorman (pop. 1,083) in March 2021, Eastland (pop. 3,970) in August 2021, and Cisco (pop. 3,913) in October 2021. While renewed interest was seen with city leadership in Ranger in late December 2022, the ordinance did not make it onto the City Commission agenda. 

After citizens in Brownfield, Texas (pop. 9,976) saw their City Council vote 5-3 against the SCFTU Ordinance in April 2026, a citizen initiative petition process began in the City of Brownfield. Weighing the possibility that Brownfield could be on the November ballot, discussions began in other cities where SCFTU ordinances had been discussed but never passed. Several residents in Ranger were confident that, if enough signatures were collected, their council would recognize the citizenry’s support and adopt the measure. If the ordinance was not adopted by a majority vote of the Ranger City Commission, then surely the ordinance would be adopted by the City of Ranger’s electorate at the November election. A petitioner’s committee was soon formed with five residents of the City of Ranger: Gary Wayne McDaniel, Sylvanus G Underwood, Ruby Page Underwood, Blanca Estela Vasquez, and Jack Steven Jackson, Sr. With help from volunteers from Right to Life Across Texas, signatures were collected across the City of Ranger: both door-to-door and at churches and businesses. 

Seeing Brownfield citizens' success in collecting enough signatures for their citizen initiative only helped further encourage Ranger citizens to complete their initiative. The Ranger SCFTU Citizen Initiative Petition was turned in to City Manager Charlie Archer on Friday, May 1; the initiative was deemed successful. When Ranger residents heard the Brownfield City Council adopted the SCFTU Ordinance on May 7, many were optimistic their council would feel empowered to adopt the measure as well – especially with over 50 citizens of Ranger having signed the petition in support. 

On May 11, the Ranger City Commission received the results of the initiative. At that meeting, the council expressed a desire to pass the measure. Due to the Ranger City Charter requiring two readings of all ordinances passed by the Ranger City Commission and thirty days for the Ranger City Commission to pass an ordinance brought forth by the citizen initiative petition process, the Ranger City Commission scheduled a first reading and a hearing for its next meeting. 

The first reading vote on Tuesday, May 26th, was a unanimous 4-0, with Commissioner Katie Billings making the motion to adopt the measure, Commissioner Jim McCullough seconding, and Mayor Robert Butler and Commissioner Jared Calvert joining the commissioners in supporting its passage.

The second and final reading vote took place on Thursday, May 28th. The vote was a unanimous 3-0, with Commissioner Katie Billings making the motion to adopt the measure, Commissioner Jim McCullough seconding, and Mayor Robert Butler joining the commissioners in supporting its passage.

The Ranger SCFTU Ordinance prohibits: (1) performing an elective abortion and aiding or abetting elective abortions within the city limits, (2) elective abortions on residents – regardless of where the abortion takes place, (3) abortion trafficking through the city, (4) the mailing of abortion-inducing drugs into the city, (5) criminal organizations from doing business inside the city limits, and (6) the transportation or disposal of the remains of unborn children who have been killed by an elective abortion across state lines and carried by waste management companies into Texas in and through the city. The ordinance is not enforced by the City of Ranger, its elected officials, or by any of its employees. Instead of being enforced criminally, the law is enforced civilly by private citizens. This is the same way the Texas Heartbeat Act is enforced, through a private enforcement mechanism allowing private citizens to file a lawsuit against anyone in violation of the law. 

The Ranger Sanctuary City for the Unborn Ordinance also educates about the state-funded Thriving Texas Families Program and the services provided through pregnancy care providers partnered with the Texas Pregnancy Care Network and The Pregnancy Network. 

In August 2023, twenty Texas Senators and Representatives penned a letter in support of cities and counties passing ordinances outlawing abortion across the State of Texas. The letter read: 

Currently there are over 50 political subdivisions in Texas which have passed local ordinances prohibiting abortion within their jurisdictions. As elected officials who voted for state legislation allowing these local actions, we are thrilled to see this wave of pro-life action at the local level and hope to see these ordinances continue to spread across our state – even in a post-Roe Texas. While it is true that abortion is outlawed in the entire State of Texas, from the point of conception, our work is far from over. Right now, throughout the State of Texas, women are being trafficked across our borders by abortion traffickers funded by abortion trafficking organizations still operating in our state. As a result, these women are being abused and traumatized by abortion across our Texas–New Mexico border and sent back to Texas for our cities and counties to deal with the aftermath taking place in our homes, our schools, our churches, and our hospitals.

The letter continued:

The Sanctuary for the Unborn ordinances seek to protect these institutions by putting safeguards in place to protect men, women, and their children for years to come. These ordinances, which seek to close as many loopholes as possible, do not penalize women who seek or undergo abortions, but places the penalty on the party who most deserves it – the abortionist and the industry profiting from the unjust procedure, including abortion traffickers.

The Ranger SCFTU Ordinance is the fourteenth ordinance to pass in 2026 and is identical in substance to all 13 of the other ordinances passed by Texas cities and counties in 2026 and all 29 of the ordinances passed by Texas cities and counties in 2025.

What's Happening Now:

Those interested in seeing their city or county join the initiative are encouraged to sign the online petition on the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn website.

Key Takeaways:

• IVF doctor Brian Levine says even though women spend decades seeing OB/GYNs, they are rarely warned of the realities of fertility decline.

• While women's regular visits often involve cancer screenings and birth control, Levine claims these visits do not typically discuss a woman's plans or goals for her future fertility.

• The fertility industry thrives because OB/GYNs are silent, according to Levine.

The Details:

In an op-ed for The Free Press, Levine wrote about the falling fertility rate in the United States, which has allowed his business as an IVF doctor to thrive. He said that "housing, smartphones, and capitalism" often get blamed, but an issue with how OB/GYNs operate is also part of the problem.

"My own field — the multibillion-dollar industry of in vitro fertilization (IVF), egg freezing, and reproductive endocrinology — is, in part, a monument to my colleagues’ silence," he said. "The patient who arrives to my office in tears at age 33 is the one the gynecologist never had a thoughtful, baseline conversation with."

Too often, women don't seek help with fertility until it's too late. Levine explained, "By the time a woman finds her way to a fertility clinic, the most consequential decisions about her timeline have already been made. The annual visit is the front line in the fight for fertility, whether the doctor or patient realizes it."

Zoom Out:

Women have increasingly been encouraged to put off having children in favor of pursuing a career. Due to the rise of assisted reproductive technologies, like IVF, even when women are aware of the limitations of their fertility, they often assume that it can be managed. The number of women freezing their eggs has grown, and they are also doing so at younger ages than ever before.

As previously reported, a 2022 study found that the chance of having a live birth from frozen eggs is just 39%. Live Action News explained:

National data on the success rates of having a baby after freezing your eggs remain unknown, Dr. Timothy Hickman, president of the society and medical director of CCRM Fertility in Houston, told The New York Times. Women are trying to buy time in hopes of having a baby in the future but there is no guarantee — and it could cost them tens of thousands of dollars. Once they have paid to retrieve, freeze, and store their eggs, there are still costs associated with the IVF process, which carries its own low success rate. For women under 35, IVF has a success rate of just 44.5%, dropping to 2.8% for women ages 42 and over, according to data. Just seven percent of babies created through IVF survive to the newborn stage of life.

While women can and do conceive naturally at advanced maternal ages, the reality is that, for most women, fertility decreases past the age of 35. The most marked decline begins at approximately 37 years old, as women not only have fewer eggs, but the eggs that remain are often of poorer quality. This makes conception more difficult, and for women who do conceive, the risks are higher.

Older women are more likely to suffer complications like miscarriage, gestational diabetes, fetal chromosomal abnormalities, preterm birth, and stillbirth.

It is for these reasons that women often pursue IVF and surrogacy, which add ethical problems to an already emotionally difficult time. IVF and surrogacy carry significant risks and ultimately reduce children to consumer products, denying them their own inherent rights.

The Bottom Line:

Levine is right that women are not being guided well by OB/GYNs. Women deserve to be told the realities of what to expect with their fertility, rather than being deceived into thinking that babies can wait.

If signed into law, Illinois would become the 24th state to privilege bypassing parental involvement in a minor child’s medical care, but only if that minor is a girl and only if she wants a prescription for birth control. Her ability to obtain Tylenol at school, or to get a tan or a tattoo, will still hinge on her parents’ say-so. 

Key Takeaways:

• A bill allowing teen girls to obtain hormonal contraception without parental consent has passed the Illinois Senate and House.

• The bill has headed to the desk of Gov. JB Pritzker, who is expected to sign it.

• According to the bill, in the case of contraception, "a minor is deemed to have the same legal capacity to act and has the same powers and obligations as a person of legal age." This same misguided logic does not apply to Tylenol or other minor medical decisions.

• Up to 400 healthy young women die every year of hormonal contraception-related complications, especially blood clots.

The Details:

Hormonal birth control clearly enjoys special status, which sponsor Democratic Senator Graciela Guzmán believes is right and necessary. During the Senate hearing, she insisted, “Illinois has been, and must continue to be, a protector of contraceptive care. We have to create safeguards so that we have a choice when it comes to our bodies.” But critics insist that “safeguards” for teen health are precisely what this bill and similar legislation lack. 

Tellingly, Illinois law is already quite broad and arguably plenty permissive, with special mention made of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, which, according to its 2024-2025 report, took in $832 million in taxpayer funding that year. 

At present, Illinois statute reads:

    Sec. 1. Birth control services and information may be rendered by doctors licensed in Illinois to practice medicine in all of its branches to any minor:

1. who is married; or

2. who is a parent; or

3. who is pregnant; or

4. who has the consent of his parent or legal guardian; or

5. as to whom the failure to provide such services would create a serious health hazard; or

6. who is referred for such services by a physician, clergyman or a planned parenthood agency.

The new legislation, Senate Bill 3341, argues that “any minor may give effective consent for contraceptive services or supplies and the consent of no other person is required.” It insists that only when it comes to contraceptives specifically, “a minor is deemed to have the same legal capacity to act and has the same powers and obligations as a person of legal age.” Further, a minor could request a prescription from a physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, or pharmacist. 

Baked into the legislation is the premise that the government knows better than parents what is and isn’t good or acceptable for their teen daughters. 

In an Illinois Senate Democrats article, senior manager of legislative affairs at Planned Parenthood Great Rivers Action, Marissa Jackson-Donnell, said, “As these attacks on reproductive health care continue on the national level, Illinois must do more to protect the bodies, lives and futures of our youth. Illinois can protect the current level of access in our state by removing antiquated language and explicitly affirming that the right to consent to care includes the right to consent to contraception." 

But who has a more vested interest in protecting “the bodies, lives and futures of our youth” than the parents who birthed and raised them?  

Legislation like SB3341 ensures that Illinois parents will be as surprised as this Maryland mother was to find out that her daughter’s arm pain was caused by an improperly inserted birth control implant put in without the mother’s knowledge. 

Over-the-counter birth control is already here, including for teen girls

Importantly, Opill, the progestin-only birth control also known as the mini pill, is already available over the counter without any age limit, despite the known safety risks, which include heart attack or stroke, even among otherwise healthy users. 

Illinois bill leaves behind sex trafficked or sexually abused teen girls

Removing parents from the equation when it comes to involvement in their daughters’ medical care endangers certain girls more than others. Girls who are sex trafficked or sexually abused will certainly be placed on birth control to prevent any “evidence” of the criminal activity from getting out. Without the safeguard of requiring a parent’s direct consent, what stands in the way of filling these prescriptions, no questions asked, and sending these girls straight back into the arms of their abuser(s) or trafficker(s)? 

Teen girls face particular health risks from hormonal birth control

Contrary to Planned Parenthood representatives’ nonchalant attitude, hormonal contraceptives come with real health risks for teen girls. Just ask the families of 19-year-old Sydney Marshall, whose birth control led to a blood clot that traveled to her brain; or 16-year-old Layla Khan, who died of a blood clot in the brain just weeks after starting birth control; or 19-year-old Áine Rose Hurst, who died in 2025 of a blood clot in the brain caused by her birth control; among others. 

In fact, a 2019 systematic review of medical literature suggested that 300-400 healthy young women die every year of hormonal contraception-related complications, especially blood clots.

But, the average person might argue that the vast majority of teens and young women won’t die of blood clots or other birth control complications. Still, we know that for many more girls, hormonal birth control wreaks havoc on their mental health, which is already tenuous at best for fully three in five, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Study after study connects hormonal birth control with new-onset or worsening depression, suicidal ideation, and even suicide attempts, and teens and young women are consistently hit hardest. The research connecting hormonal birth control and mental health struggles is summarized here. 

The Bottom Line:

Democratic lawmakers may insist that allowing minors to request hormonal birth control without their parents’ knowledge or consent is necessary to “protect the bodies, lives and futures of our youth.” Facts and logic tell a different story. Claiming that teenage girls can consent to health care choices — but only those surrounding birth control and abortion — exposes an agenda that exists surrounding minors and sex and the money to be made by businesses like Planned Parenthood.

Key Takeaways:

• A new report examined a rise in men who sell sperm online, and how it's exploiting women who want to become mothers but can't afford in vitro fertilization (IVF) or to buy sperm through a clinic.

• Many of the men are serial donors, or insist on so-called "natural insemination" — sex, called NI online —which has resulted in women claiming to have been assaulted and raped when they refused.

• The practice raises more questions about the increasing acceptance of alternative fertility arrangements.

The Details:

The Standard published an expose on the rise of sperm sellers in the United Kingdom (UK), with women desperate to become mothers increasingly turning to online groups to find sperm donors rather than pay the costs of IVF or sperm through a clinic. “You’re excited and you’re not thinking rationally,” one woman, Christy, told the Standard. “I was holding on to potential donors, thinking that they were a miracle — but then they ended up being a nightmare.”

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) regulates the fertility industry in the UK, and limits sperm donation to 10 families per donor to lessen the risk of accidental incest when the children grow up. Online donors, however, are not tracked or regulated, allowing men to father hundreds of children.

"[O]n social media, desperation for a child all too often outweighs the many risks that come with unregulated conception," Charlotte Lytton wrote for The Standard. "As a result, grim endings abound. There are reports of sexual assault, rape and being fleeced out of large sums of money as a result of these groups, which are, according to one victim, 'the perfect, unregulated platform for sexual predators and psychopaths preying on desperate and vulnerable women.'"

Lytton added that there are numerous dangers from the donors who frequent the online groups:

One, who claims to have fathered hundreds of children, has made repeated attempts at taking custody from their mothers and being named on their birth certificates, with multiple cases overturned by the courts. Another, with nearly 200 ... children, runs groups from several profiles and has also made racist and body-shaming remarks about women he has coerced into NI. These groups have also, at least at some stage, had members including convicted rapists and stalkers.

The groups also have given rise to a risk of sexual assault, according to Clare Ettinghausen, director of strategy and corporate affairs at HFEA. “To be frank, they are coercing women into having sex,” she said.

Through the HFEA, a vial of sperm can cost £1,500, whereas it's available for significantly less online, if not for free. “The prices are crazy, and I didn’t realise how detailed and difficult the process was as a single person," Christy said.

Zoom In:

One donor, who is active in these online groups, criticized some of the women who go online to buy sperm, saying, “There are a lot that are treating it like a spunk Deliveroo service." Many, like Christy, do not require donors to undergo any genetic or STD testing. Another donor said:

[T]he whole expectation of what the majority of recipients want is a complete contradiction to reality. [They] want a mature and responsible man to happily impregnate a financially struggling complete stranger after a short conversation and then completely ignore the fact that the child should have the human right to reach out to him once they turn 18. They want a guy who will travel up to three hours with very little notice but they don’t want him to be a total loser with nothing going on in his life.

The HFEA says selling sperm is illegal, and it violates META guidelines. Yet it persists regardless.

“We found it difficult to constructively engage Meta,” Ettinghausen said. “These prolific unregulated donors are very public, some of them are running Facebook groups, they’re not hiding. None of it’s a secret, they’re very transparent about what they’re doing.” Continuing to give them a platform is “facilitating these people breaking the law, and they should do something about it."

The Big Picture:

Regardless of how sperm is being obtained, these problems are endemic throughout the fertility industry. As Live Action News has previously reported, for example, serial donors are incredibly common:

In Australia, there have been multiple scandals involving donors who have fathered hundreds, if not thousands of children. A Netflix documentary, "Our Father," exposed how numerous people were fathered by one fertility doctor, who injected his own sperm into patients. At least two of the siblings did not know they were related, dated each other, and became intimate before realizing they were siblings. This doctor's actions are not an anomaly; over 30 fertility doctors in the United States alone have used their own sperm to impregnate patients without the women's knowledge.

There have been so many problems with the unchecked fertility industry that multiple countries in the European Union have begun calling for stricter limits on sperm donation.

Parents are increasingly learning that their children have hundreds of siblings, and as sperm is exported around the world to bypass regulations, donor-conceived children have begun complaining of being mass-produced. The number of women who are buying sperm with the express intention of becoming single mothers has likewise increased rapidly, with children being deprived of a father, as well as knowledge of their medical background and heritage in most cases.

The Bottom Line:

An adult's desire for a child does not trump a child's right to be raised by his or her married, biological parents. Research has shown for years that this provides the safest, most stable environment for children, both physically and emotionally. Using sperm 'donors,' who financially profit off what is essentially selling their future children, denies children the right to know their biological father, sometimes any father at all, and their own biological history.

A Harvard Medical School study found that 62% of donor-conceived children believe donor conception is unethical and immoral.

“I am a human being, yet I was conceived with a technique that had its origins in animal husbandry,” one donor-conceived person wrote in a book for Anonymous Us. “Worst of all, farmers kept better records of their cattle’s genealogy than assisted reproductive clinics … how could the doctors, sworn to ‘first do no harm’ create a system where I now face the pain and loss of my own identity and heritage?”

Key Takeaways:

• Though earnings for men in their 20s and 30s have remained stable, marriage rates have plummeted, weakening the argument that poor economics are responsible for the decline.

• A Heritage Foundation report claimed cultural changes, like acceptance of sex outside of wedlock, are a bigger culprit in the decrease in marriage.

• There are also increasing expectations linked to marriage that dissuade young adults.

The Details:

Declining wages among working-class men are often considered a factor in the decrease in marriage rates, particularly in moderate- to low-income groups. However, Rachel Sheffield, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, stated that data reveal an alternative perspective. As per the report, marriage rates in the United States have nosedived from over 90% of individuals marrying by ages 30-35 in 1962 to 55% projected for 2025. 

“The economic argument doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny,” Sheffield said.

Sheffield noted that census data on the median earnings of men in their 20s and 30s have generally been stable or have fluctuated, without a consistent decline. While there have been downturns at various times, she mentioned that wages have attained some of the highest levels recorded in the last five decades. 

The acceptance of sex outside of marriage and having children outside of wedlock has separated marriage from family formation among all income groups. Additionally, increasing material expectations for marriage, such as home ownership and income stability, have heightened the requirements for marriage while diminishing the belief that marriage will endure, Sheffield said.

“People go into marriage today with more of an expectation that this might not last because of shifts over time in divorce rates,” she added. 

Zoom Out:

Pew Research Center data revealed that one in three Americans who have been married have also gone through a divorce. Divorce rates, however, have decreased since the 1980s, which is partly due to a rise in the married population among adults with higher education levels.

Sheffield explained that cultural norms surrounding sex and childbearing have changed across different income levels, with the most considerable impact observed among the working class, which tends to have a higher likelihood of having children outside of marriage. 

As the report explained,

People at all education and income levels have embraced the cultural push to disconnect marriage and sex, but among the college-educated, roughly 90% of children are born within marriage. While the college-educated are most likely to promote the cultural messages that marriage is unnecessary, outdated, and even oppressive, they do not practice what they preach.

While inflation-adjusted earnings did decline among working-class and lower-income men during the 1970s and 1980s, earnings rose thereafter and have fluctuated since then — even as marriage rates have steadily dropped. Although economic factors may explain why marriage declined during some periods across the past several decades, cultural shifts instead have been the main drivers.

Sheffield called for the use of funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to support initiatives for “strengthening marriages,” which entails the implementation of marriage education programs in high schools. 

She also alluded to Utah’s “Healthy Marriage Initiative” as a key illustration of a state providing resources for marriage preparation, such as discounted marriage licenses for couples who have finished premarital education programs. 

Apart from introducing marriage education at the high school level, Sheffield suggested a shift in cultural messaging within media, television shows, and advertisements to include information about the importance of marriage and to guide individuals toward educational resources meant to boost marital relationships.

The Bottom Line:

Marriage remains one of the most robust social pillars for welcoming children. Although governments cannot manufacture love or fidelity, they can reaffirm or erode the conditions that make marriage more plausible. If law and bureaucracy make marriage feel risky, expensive, or unnecessary, more couples will procrastinate or cohabitate rather than commit to each other. 

For years, pro-life and pro-family advocates have been maintaining that couples need stable work, realistic expectations, as well as a culture that honors marriage. Indeed, the Heritage report is another reminder that the defense of life does not stop at the abortion issue. A culture that divorces sex from marriage, treats children as optional, and regards commitment as temporary will inevitably give rise to fewer stable families. 

The contemporary decline in marriage is not merely a reflection of individual lifestyle trends, but a civilizational cautionary tale. If America and the rest of the world want to rejuvenate family life, they would need a renewed moral vision of marriage as a faithful, child-friendly, and life-giving institution instead of mere economic incentives to procreate.

Key Takeaways:

• Omar and Cissy Dekker's daughter Iris struggled with depression throughout her life, and carried out multiple suicide attempts.

• Iris applied for euthanasia at the age of 16, which is allowed without parental consent under Dutch law; however, her parents did not disapprove of her desire to die.

• Ultimately, Iris chose to stop pursuing treatment and opted for VSED, dying just short of her 20th birthday.

The Details:

Omar and Cissy Dekker spoke to Rupa Subramanya of The Free Press about their daughter, Iris, who had lifelong struggles with depression, suicidal ideation, and a diagnosis of functional neurologic disorder (FND), which includes symptoms such as weakness or paralysis, seizures, and vision problems. Cissy said each day, when she asked Iris if she needed anything before leaving for work, Iris would reply, “Can you put a pillow over my head so I can die? Please make my suffering stop.” They likewise described her eyes as "empty" and a "black hole of depression."

By 15, Iris had unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide twice, and her psychologist's suggestion was not more intensive treatment, but euthanasia, which was presented as a more "humane" way for Iris to die. Dutch law allows children to apply for euthanasia without requiring parental approval at the age of 16, and once she turned 16, Iris applied, though her parents supported her decision.

“I thought, if it stops her from trying to kill herself, then it’s okay,” Omar said. “Maybe she’ll get better with more treatment.”

Iris considered seeking treatment for several more years, with her medical records acknowledging  “persistent euthanasia wish” and “high levels of suffering,” though they did not describe her condition as untreatable. She was placed on a waiting list for euthanasia. In the meantime, she tried ketamine treatment and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), but it was not in an effort to improve her condition.

“She wanted to make sure she had tried everything—so the euthanasia clinic couldn’t reject her application,” Omar said. And yet nothing seemed to work.

“Every time, the list of treatments got shorter, and all of a sudden, everything was already done, and nothing seemed to be helping,” Cissy said. “Every time, I had to admit it didn’t work.”

Doctors said her depression was "treatment resistant," though this is not something the greater medical community supports. As Jim van Os, a psychiatrist at the University Medical Center Utrecht, told The Free Press, “Everybody begins to converge on the idea that the situation is hopeless—the doctors, the parents, the patient. And then euthanasia starts to appear as the only solution.”

On a 2025 trip to Scotland, Iris told her parents she was ready to die, saying:

I don’t feel any difference. I still have the wish to die. It’s not going to get better here for me.

I’ve had everything. I’ve had a good life. I have good friends. I have loving parents. I worked in a bakery when I was 14—it was the best job I’ve ever had. I know I’m going to be sick for the rest of my life. I’m not getting better. For me, life is fulfilled. It’s completed.

But when she didn't hear back from the euthanasia clinic, Iris decided to pursue VSED instead. In the Netherlands, this is part of the medical system for people who cannot be euthanized. Iris was placed in hospice at the age of 19.

“It’s very hard as a mother that your child doesn’t want to live anymore, but I knew this was not the life I had in mind for her when I gave birth to her,” Cissy said.

Omar added, "I don’t want her to leave this world. But if I stopped her from dying, it would only be for my own ego, and not for her. The doctors had already told us there was nothing that could be done."

As her condition worsened while in hospice, doctors broached the idea of terminal sedation, to which Iris agreed. She died just five days before her 20th birthday. “She looked so happy,” Omar said. “I couldn’t give her more love than letting her go.”

The Big Picture:

Child psychiatrists in the Netherlands have warned against allowing euthanasia for cases like Iris' and instead recommend a "not now" approach for people under 25 struggling with mental illness. They cited several reasons, including brain development, peer influence, social media, and the potential for improvement in treatments.

And yet euthanasia for mental illness has become appallingly common in the Netherlands. Multiple people are known to have been killed for depression or similar mental health issues.

The only requirement for euthanasia in the Netherlands is for someone to have what is described as "unbearable and hopeless suffering," with children as young as 12 eligible. Eight people under 25 died by euthanasia based on mental health concerns alone in 2023, 13 in 2024, and seven in 2025.

The Bottom Line:

Assisted suicide and euthanasia make victims of the most vulnerable people in society, like Iris. Those struggling with illness, disability, and mental health issues are all too often told they are better off dead.

Key Takeaways:

• Olivia Plath is one of the stars of "Welcome to Plathville," which appears on Disney+ and Hulu, and follows the Georgia-based Plath family.

• She spoke about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding mifepristone in an Instagram video, and revealed she has had two abortions by pill.

• Plath urged her followers to attend an upcoming pro-abortion fundraiser in the Washington, D.C. area.

The Details:

In a video posted to Instagram, Plath told followers to join her at the My Body, My Festival in Washington, D.C., on May 28, which raised money for the D.C. Abortion Fund. She said the festival was personally important for her, and pointed to the recent Supreme Court decision allowing mifepristone, better known as the abortion pill, to be dispensed through the mail. Plath pointed to her own mother's life as her reason for having the abortions:

The future of mifepristone being used in abortion care here in the U.S. is very uncertain. Why does this matter to me? Well, one, I believe that health care is a human right. And two, I believe that women deserve to have the same autonomy over their bodies as men receive in health care. This is probably also a good time to mention something that I've not talked about a lot very publicly, but I've actually had two abortions. And for each of those, I took mifepristone. My mom didn't have the support that I have to decide whether or not she wanted to be a parent or to have any kids. She was from a different generation, and she lived in a pretty religious-controlling world. And I knew from the time I was a child that my mom had more kids than she wanted or felt that she was able to take care of. That just showed. I'm really thankful for therapy now. And I always told myself I was never going to repeat that life. I am so thankful that I had the options that she didn't. I think every woman — I don't even think, I know that every woman deserves that. Having an abortion is a decision I have never regretted, truly. I knew I was not ready to be a parent. I never should have had kids with that person.

Why It Matters:

Though Plath bemoans the possibility that mifepristone may not be sent through the mail any longer, it is a long-overdue development. Safety regulations surrounding abortion have been drastically weakened in recent years, putting women's lives at risk.

When first approved by the FDA in 2000, mifepristone could only be taken up to seven weeks, required an in-person doctor's visit, and adverse events also had to be reported. Over time, mifepristone was approved through 10 weeks gestation, women no longer needed to see a doctor in-person, and non-fatal adverse events were no longer required to be reported. In 2021, under the guise of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration FDA temporarily enabled abortion pill distribution and expanded the REMS to limited mail-order pharmacy distribution. The FDA then further weakened the REMS by eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement and enabling the abortion pill to be permanently shipped by mail. Read the full timeline of the abortion pill in the U.S. here.

The EPPC released data in 2025 showing that the rate of serious adverse events is 22 times higher than what is reported by the FDA; it has since released more data showing that when mifepristone is taken without a doctor's oversight, the risk of complications, including ectopic pregnancy, increases.

In addition, abortion doesn't even the tally marks in health care between men and women. Legalized abortion allows women to determine whether another human being gets to live or die. Legalized abortion was built on the idea that if bad men could abandon their children, then women could kill them. Abortion has allowed for a “gender perspective” in which the mother can choose life or death for the baby while the father has no say at all.

This is not equality.

Not wanting to "repeat" her mother's life with nine children does not mean that Plath had to have abortions.

The Bottom Line:

Abortion is not health care, and women deserve better than to put their lives and health at risk for a lie that tells them they cannot have a happy or successful life with unexpected children.

Proposal 3, Michigan’s so-called Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative, established a state-level constitutional “right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care.” Over 56 percent of Michiganders voted to approve it in November 2022.

The practical fallout extended beyond direct abortion bans; in May 2025, State Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel ruled that Proposal 3 also invalidated state laws requiring informed consent and 24-hour waiting periods for abortion, as well as that only licensed physicians perform them.

The following October, RLM along with “concerned parents” filed an appeal to “challenge the overreach of Proposal 3 on the grounds that the state constitutional amendment threatens parental rights related to a minor child’s decision to seek an abortion,” arguing parental rights are covered by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which trumps state constitutional provisions.

Writing for the majority on May 27, however, Circuit Judge John Bush agreed with a lower-court ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, in part because they could not show specific injuries that would be redressed by enjoining the named defendants – Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

“From the start, this lawsuit was a procedurally flawed, meritless, and politically motivated attack on reproductive rights that Michigan voters overwhelmingly supported,” responded Nessel. “I am relieved that the Court has once again rightly rejected this unfounded challenge. Although a loud faction remains determined to undermine bodily autonomy, the Michigan Constitution guarantees that decisions about your health belong to you. My office will continue to defend the reproductive freedom of Michiganders.”

RLM President Amber Roseboom responded to the news by lamenting the ruling, but noting how little it said about the law itself.

“While the decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is disappointing, it is based entirely on what is known as ‘standing,’ without addressing the merits or specifics of the actual challenge,” she said. “Our narrow appeal sought to challenge the overreach of Proposal 3 and the threat it poses to parental rights related to a minor child’s decision to seek an abortion. Parental consent for abortion remains in Michigan law and is supported by the large majority of Michigan voters. The radical left is hell-bent on creating a wedge between parents and their children when it comes to abortion, gender identity and sex education, and will use anything, including Proposal 3, to do so.”

Thirteen states ban most abortions starting at conception; another five ban it once a fetal heartbeat can be detected (around six weeks), with additional states imposing a range of later restrictions. 

But the abortion lobby works feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions, whether via activist lawsuits or state constitutional amendments.

Amendments have been one of the abortion lobby’s most potent tactics to preserve abortion “access” without Roe v. Wade. Up until 2024, it had consistent success since the overturn of Roe using false claims that pro-life laws are dangerous to stoke fear about the issue among the general public. 

After 2020, pro-lifers either failed to enact pro-life amendments or stop pro-abortion ones in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont, Kansas, and Ohio, prompting much conversation among pro-lifers about the need to develop new strategies to protect life at the ballot box as well as consternation within the Republican Party over the political ramifications of continuing to take a clear pro-life position.

Ten states had such amendments on the ballot in November 2024. Pro-lifers defeated pro-abortion ballot initiatives in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota, breaking the abortion lobby’s two-year winning streak, but amendments to embed abortion “rights” in state constitutions prevailed in the remaining states.

Planned Parenthood deserves to be permanently defunded — and Live Action News' series, 'DEFUND 250,' serves to remind the public of many reasons why.

Over the years, Planned Parenthood has been at the center of numerous scandals and abuses, all of which prove that it has no business receiving taxpayer dollars.

Key Takeaways:

• Planned Parenthood has participated in numerous scandals and abuses, including fraud, privacy violations, racism, discrimination, false and deceptive marketing, and internal corruption.

• It has also openly flouted FDA safety protocols, killed several of its patients, failed to protect children from sexual abusers, and coerced patients to abort.

• All of these scandals are reasons why the organization does not deserve taxpayer dollars.

The Details:

#1: Fraud

Planned Parenthood has a history of overbilling abuses and Medicaid fraud, with former staffers claiming that it has filed false claims and marked up the cost of birth control drugs.

In 2015, former Planned Parenthood manager Sue Thayer testified before a Congressional committee accusing Planned Parenthood of filing “false claims totaling about $28 million with Iowa’s Medicaid program for (1) illegally dispensing ‘medically unnecessary’ quantities of oral contraceptive pills and birth control patches to C-Mail Medicaid patients and doing so without a prescription; (2) fraudulently billing the Iowa Medicaid program for abortion-related services; and (3) coercing ‘donations’ from Medicaid patients.”

Read more:

<a href="/news/new-report-discovers-planned-parenthood-taxpayer-fraud-millions">New report exposes millions in taxpayer fraud at Planned Parenthood</a>

<a href="/news/audit-records-reveal-overbilling-potential-fraud-planned-parenthood">More audit records reveal overbilling and potential fraud at Planned Parenthood</a>

#2: Failure to protect children from abusers

Live Action investigations have repeatedly documented Planned Parenthood’s willingness to aid sex traffickers and to cover up the crimes of rape.

Live Action’s Aiding Abusers investigative report and docuseries exposed how Planned Parenthood covers up child sexual abuse. In addition, Live Action undercover investigative videos documented Planned Parenthood employees at 15 different facilities showing a willingness to cover up child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking.

Read more:

<a href="/investigations/aiding-abusers">Aiding Abusers</a>

<a href="/investigations/child-sex-trafficking-cover-up">Exposed: Planned Parenthood’s Cover-Up of Child Sex Abuse</a>

#3: Racism

Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger — a woman with racist and eugenic ties — so it's no surprise that the organization continues to be steeped in racism today. The abortion corporation has faced multiple lawsuits from former employees who allege experiencing racial discrimination while they worked there.

Read more:

<a href="/news/former-planned-parenthood-employees-accuse-racism">More former Planned Parenthood employees come forward with accusations of racism</a>

<a href="/news/report-19-planned-parenthood-affiliates-admit-racism">Report: 19 Planned Parenthood affiliates have admitted to past and present racism</a>

#4: Discrimination

There have been numerous documented accusations of Planned Parenthood discriminating against its own staffers. One employee alleged that the organization failed to accommodate her after she was diagnosed with cancer. In several instances, the organization was accused of discriminating against pregnant employees.

Read more:

<a href="/news/report-planned-parenthood-discriminated-pregnant">Report: Planned Parenthood discriminated against pregnant employees</a>

<a href="/news/sues-planned-parenthood-discrimination">BOMBSHELL: Former employee sues Planned Parenthood for discrimination after cancer diagnosis</a>

#5: False and deceptive marketing

Planned Parenthood has repeatedly used false and deceptive marketing to deceive women and girls. Examples include changing the definition of when life begins, claiming that the preborn child is nothing more than a "clump of cells," inaccurately depicting the growth and development of the preborn baby, claiming the abortion pill is "safe," failing to inform patients about the risks of abortion, and much more.

Read more:

<a href="/news/7-ways-planned-parenthood-deceptive-marketing">7 ways Planned Parenthood misleads women through deceptive marketing</a>

<a href="/news/florida-planned-parenthood-lawsuit-abortion-pill">Florida sues Planned Parenthood over abortion pill safety claims</a>

#6: Privacy violations

There are numerous instances of Planned Parenthood violating patient privacy. Private medical results have been mailed to the wrong person. Staffers have disclosed information about patient abortions to third parties. Previous patient data was left up on the ultrasound when another patient walked into the room. There have also been massive privacy breaches and abuses due to PP’s negligence, exposing thousands of the organization's patients.

Read more:

<a href="/news/reject-planned-parenthood-failure-protect-patient-privacy">REJECT Planned Parenthood: Corporation has repeatedly failed to protect patient privacy</a>

<a href="/news/private-information-planned-parenthood">Is private medical information really safe at Planned Parenthood?</a>

#7: Coerced abortions

Numerous testimonies reveal that Planned Parenthood has a long track record of coercing women into getting abortions they didn't want. Women recount having been lied to and misled within the abortion business. Even former workers have conceded that the organization focused solely on committing as many abortions as possible —and reaching that daily quota involved coercing patients.

Read more:

<a href="/news/planned-parenthood-coerces-playing-fears">Planned Parenthood coerces women into abortion by playing on their fears</a>

<a href="/news/planned-parenthood-coercing-abortion">Planned Parenthood’s pattern of coercing women into abortion</a>

#8: Violating FDA safety protocols

Planned Parenthood has openly flouted FDA's safety protocols requiring that the abortion pill be used only up to 10 weeks; many Planned Parenthoods openly advertise distributing the pill past that timeframe.

Recently, one of the organization's affiliates advertised "just in case" abortion pills, meaning it will dispense the abortion drug to women who aren't even pregnant — again, openly in violation of FDA safety protocols.

Read more:

<a href="/news/against-fda-planned-parenthood-just-case-abortion-drugs">Against FDA rules, Planned Parenthood to offer 'just in case' abortion drugs</a>

<a href="/news/planned-parenthood-affiliates-abortion-pills-fda">More proof that some Planned Parenthood affiliates offer abortion pills past FDA-approved limits</a>

#9: Death of patients

Planned Parenthood purports to offer "routine health care." Why, then, have some of its patients died after abortion injuries? Lexi Arguello, Cree Erwin-Sheppard, Tonya Reaves, and Roselle Owens all sustained such severe injuries and complications following their Planned Parenthood abortions that they lost their lives.

Read more:

<a href="/news/testimony-teen-died-abortion-colorado-planned-parenthood">TESTIMONY: 18-year-old died after 22-week abortion at Colorado Planned Parenthood</a>

<a href="/news/brother-woman-died-planned-parenthood">Brother of woman who died from abortion at Planned Parenthood: Abortion is not a safe procedure</a>

#10: Internal corruption

For years, former Planned Parenthood employees have detailed internal corruption, including corrupt financial practices, poor management, abuse, retaliation, systemic racism, lack of decent wages, and more. Over the years, it has benefited from taxpayer funds despite having what has been called a "toxic" work culture.

Read more:

<a href="/news/planned-parenthood-perpetually-toxic-culture">Planned Parenthood staffers expose the corporation’s perpetually toxic culture</a>

<a href="/news/employees-planned-parenthood-mask-crack">As employees speak out, Planned Parenthood’s mask begins to crack</a>

The Bottom Line:

Planned Parenthood is a corrupt organization with countless violations. An organization that openly flouts the law and is so dangerous to women doesn't deserve another dime of taxpayer dollars.

Key Takeaways:

• Leith is a chef, restaurateur, novelist, and broadcaster, most notably as a judge for The Great British Bake Off.

• She is also a supporter of Dignity in Dying, an assisted suicide advocacy organization, and has spoken in favor of assisted suicide and euthanasia for years.

• In a recent op-ed, she noted that four percent (4%) of all deaths in Canada are from euthanasia, and called that a "real success."

The Backstory:

Leith, a South African and British restaurateur, novelist, and chef, is best known as one of the judges on The Great British Bake Off. She is also a long-time campaigner for assisted suicide, and is a patron of the organization Dignity in Dying. She has also campaigned on the group's behalf and used her brother's death from bone cancer to justify legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia.

“That is no way to treat a human being," she said. "Whose life is it anyway? How dare anyone keep a person alive, when they are so ill and they are going to die and they want to die. Dying like that, in so much indignity and pain is monstrous. It’s barbaric. We wouldn’t treat a dog like that."

The Details:

She recently spoke out again, this time in a Radio Times op-ed in which she praised Canada for killing so many people through euthanasia. In response to the failure of a United Kingdom (UK) bill which would have legalized assisted suicide, she pointed to other countries in comparison.

"How come all those countries where assisted dying is legal do not suffer the dire consequences the bill’s opponents dread?" she asked, and then added that no country has yet repealed its laws. But then, she continued:

Today four percent of deaths in Canada are by euthanasia. Our opponents claim this is proof of the law not protecting people. But I see it as proof of real success, allowing those wanting to be done with life to get peace.

The Big Picture:

As Right to Life UK pointed out, the percentage of euthanasia deaths in Canada is actually higher than what Leith reported. It has climbed to five percent (5%), with over a fifth of applicants citing “isolation or loneliness” as reasons for their request to die. In the meantime, Canada is in the process of legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia for individuals whose only 'illness' is a mental health condition.

Canada is on track to reach 100,000 deaths from euthanasia and assisted suicide, and it has become a leading cause of death in the country.

And while Leith, like many assisted suicide advocates, tries to present it as a compassionate solution for people who, like her brother, are suffering through a long, painful death, this is not what is occurring. Reports have found that people have been offered MAiD for reasons such as poverty, homelessness, and even an inability to access disability or mental health services.

Yet to Leith, helping people commit suicide for these reasons is a success story.

The Bottom Line:

The needless deaths of thousands of people are not something to celebrate. Encouraging people to take their own lives is not compassionate, and it can never be justified, no matter the excuses activists like Leith make.

Key Takeaways:

• Some parts of Central Asia are seeing imbalanced sex ratios, likely due to sex-selective abortion.

• Girls are considered less valuable in cultures with a strong preference for sons.

• Gender imbalances have had catastrophic consequences, including higher crime rates, more domestic violence, and societal instability.

The Details:

In societies where women and men have equal access to food, health care, and education, the sex ratio remains even and is sometimes tilted in favor of women. 

However, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the imbalance of sex ratios in some areas of Central Asia reaches 110 boys to every 100 girls. Even considering the natural male penchant for risk-taking and males’ shorter life expectancies, RFE/RL stated that such a discrepancy does not occur naturally. 

Sex-selective abortion is a familiar story in China and India, but women in Central Asia also often feel pressure from husbands, in-laws, and society to produce a son, something totally out of their control.

In Central Asian societies, women are often seen as “economically and socially less valuable” due to the burden of providing dowries, and their inability to carry on the family name.

Zoom In:

RFE/RL told the story of Guli, a 35-year-old Uzbek woman who underwent pressure from her husband to produce a boy with each pregnancy and pressure from her in-laws to abort when doctors told her that her fourth child would be another girl. She refused:

At first I thought my husband was joking […]. But my mother-in-law constantly repeated that it was my fault we kept having girls.’

She finally convinced her son to take a second wife, believing she would give him a long-awaited son. […].

But she also gave birth to four girls. Now my husband has a total of eight daughters.

Experts fear that such demographic gender imbalances will have security implications, including higher crime rates, more domestic violence, human trafficking, and societal instability as men look to start a family but cannot find wives. 

The United Nations (UN) estimates that 142 million girls are missing globally due to a cultural preference for male children. According to RFE/RL, the UN “has urged governments to ban technologies that are being used to help sex-selection by parents." But there is a contradiction in the UN’s approach.

The UN condemns “sex-selective practices [as] one of the most direct and blatant forms of sex-based violence and discrimination, beginning at the earliest stages of life.” The paradox is that the UN also states that “denial of access to abortion has been identified as a form of gender-based violence against women, which can amount to torture and/or cruel inhuman and degrading treatment.” 

The Bottom Line:

Ultimately, abortion harms both the baby and the mother and denies females in the womb their rights even before they have a chance to be born.

Sex-selective abortion is a major problem around the world. Babies should never be aborted because of their sex. Governments and organizations like the UN have the power to remind the world that human value and dignity are inherent to every person regardless of gender.

Key Takeaways:

• The Luca Coscioni Association, which supports assisted suicide, announced that a man named Christian has died from assisted suicide at the age of 55.

• Christian had multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition for which there is no cure, although treatment is available. Life expectancy is most often not shortened, and MS is very rarely fatal.

• Assisted suicide was decriminalized in Italy in 2019, though Tuscany is the only region to have formally legalized it.

The Details:

The Luca Coscioni Association issued a press release last week announcing that a man named Christian had died via assisted suicide in Lombardy, Italy. According to the organization, which supports assisted suicide, Christian is the third person in Lombardy, and the 17th overall, to die by assisted death in Italy.

Christian was 55, and reportedly had multiple sclerosis (MS). The press release did not say that he was dying, but that he sought assisted suicide due to "the irreversibility of the disease and the progressive worsening of his condition."

According to the Cleveland Clinic, MS is not a fatal condition except in very rare instances. While there is no cure for MS, and it can lead to disability, there are treatments available, and life expectancy for the majority of people with MS is the same as the typical population.

Christian applied for assisted suicide in February, and he was killed last week. Marco Cappato and Filomena Gallo, the Treasurer and National Secretary of the Luca Coscioni Association, said:

Christian’s case confirms the full applicability of the Constitutional Court’s sentence throughout the national territory, not only in Tuscany and Sardinia. It is also confirmed that when a healthcare company fulfills its tasks in a timely manner, the patient manages to avoid having to suffer a long agony against his will. However, because the situation is different from one health care company to another, in Lombardy as in the rest of Italy, it is imperative that regional rules clarify the procedures to be followed, in order to guarantee those “quick times” required by the Constitutional Court, and that citizens and doctors are informed.

The Big Picture:

Before assisted suicide was decriminalized in Italy, the Luca Coscioni Association would help take people to Dignitas in Switzerland, a notorious assisted suicide and euthanasia business. Now, the organization works to help Italian doctors kill their patients.

The legal status of assisted suicide and euthanasia in Italy remains murky, though. Euthanasia is still prohibited in the Italian Criminal Code. In 2019, the Italian Constitutional Court ruled euthanasia is not a crime if it is committed due to a chronic, non-life-threatening condition or for “intolerable” pain, and that anyone who commits assisted suicide or euthanasia under those circumstances would not be charged with a crime. However, the Italian parliament never came to a decision, despite being ordered by the court to put the new guidelines into statutory law, meaning there is no national legal framework in place for assisted suicide.

Due to Parliament's lack of action, regional governments were instead able to make their own laws regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia. Tuscany was the first region to officially legalize assisted suicide in 2025.

The Bottom Line:

Killing someone is not compassion, and the fact that people with disabilities, like Christian, are able to be approved for assisted suicide shows just how dangerous this practice is.

Key Takeaways:

• Abdulah Mohmand is accused of swapping his girlfriend's prescription medication with an "unknown medication" to abort their preborn child.

• The woman went to police, fearing for her preborn baby's safety.

• She told authorities Mohmand had said they could not have a baby, and his family would "kill him" if they knew about the pregnancy.

The Details:

Abdulah Mohmand, 26, of Bowling Green, is accused of swapping his girlfriend's medication with an "unknown medication" with the intent of causing an abortion.

According to the Kentucky State Police, the woman became concerned when she noticed Mohmand had replaced her prescription with an "unknown medication." She went to authorities, fearing for the safety of her preborn baby.

"After an investigation, a search warrant for Mr. Mohmand’s residence was obtained. During a search of the residence, medication was found to match the unknown medication that was located at the female’s residence," the police statement says.

Police have not released details about what abortion drug Mohmand used; however, various news outlets are claiming that the "unknown medication" was misoprostol, the second drug of the abortion pill regimen. Though it is commonly used in conjunction with mifepristone, it can cause abortions on its own by causing contractions and is sometimes used to induce labor in a hospital setting.

The woman told police Mohmand's family lives in Afghanistan, and that they wouldn't approve of her pregnancy.

"Mohmand had told her they could not have a baby because his family would kill him," court documents say.

He has been charged with attempted fetal homicide, a capital offense in Kentucky.

Why it Matters:

The widespread availability of the abortion pill over the internet and through the mail has proved incredibly dangerous to women, as predatory men have been able to access abortion drugs and then coerce, trick, or force women into abortions they did not want.

With relaxed FDA safety regulations allowing these dangerous drugs without any doctor oversight or patient verification, anyone can go online, order the deadly drugs, and use them for nefarious purposes.

Abortion supporters tout the ease and convenience of the abortion pill allowing women to access abortion without ever leaving the house. What they fail to account for, however, is how many women are now victims of abusive men who access the pill due to its easy availability, and then use the drugs to kill preborn children.

Key Takeaways:

• Mater Hospital Springfield is a Catholic public hospital in Queensland, Australia.

• It is the first major hospital to open in the province in nearly a decade.

• The hospital will not commit abortions or assisted suicide, nor will it dispense contraception.

The Details:

Mater Hospital Springfield has just opened outside of Brisbane, and it is already creating a stir. Mater operates 11 hospitals across Queensland and is a Catholic public hospital boasting cutting-edge care. But what you won’t find happening at Mater are life-ending services, such as assisted suicide and abortion, along with hormonal contraception. These services, although legal, go against the institution's Catholic religious beliefs. 

Health Minister Tim Nicholls said the Liberal National Party (LNP) government committed $638 million in funding over four years to the hospital. "That is wonderful for the people of western Brisbane, for Ipswich, and for the greater Springfield area," Nicholls said, adding that the facility would offer "a full suite of services" to the community "closer to where they live." These services will include emergency care, maternity services, intensive care, surgery, paediatrics and specialist outpatient services. However, not everyone feels these life-saving services are enough. 

Zoom In:

One Brisbane woman, named Elisa, expressed her concerns about the lack of abortion access and the impact she felt it had on her. Elisa was an outpatient at Mater Mothers Hospital under the care of a private obstetrician. She and her husband were informed at their 12-week ultrasound that their baby had a serious genetic abnormality. Elisa and her husband Brent say that their distress was compounded when they were told that Mater would not facilitate an abortion. In response to the interview, a spokesperson from Mater said:

Mater respects every woman’s right to follow her conscience in making medical decisions, including requests for elective termination. In these cases our health services will ensure patients can access other services to discuss treatment options. Like most public hospitals in Australia, Mater does not offer elective surgical terminations.

A doctor who works at a different hospital told ABC News Australia that Mater's decision not to commit abortions is a "long-standing disgrace."

Queensland decriminalized abortion in 2018. Induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of preborn children — is not medically necessary. If a pregnancy must end, the baby can be delivered prematurely and provided with appropriate care. Aborting a baby due to a fetal diagnosis is discriminatory.

The Bottom Line:

Abortion is something Catholic hospitals are staunchly against. All life holds value and dignity, and every person deserves the right to life, even if only to be loved and held for a short time. 

Key Takeaways:

• New figures from England show single men pursuing surrogacy overwhelmingly turn to foreign women, many living in poverty.

• Advocacy groups warn that the trend amounts to the purchase of children from vulnerable women through commercial deals that would be unlawful if conducted on British soil.

• A coalition of campaign groups is pressing the British government to eliminate the legal gap that allows citizens to enter paid surrogacy contracts abroad and return home with a child.

The Details:

Paid surrogacy is prohibited under British law. What is not prohibited, however, is leaving the country to enter one. Once a British citizen returns home with a child born through a foreign commercial surrogacy arrangement, they can apply for a parental order granting them full legal parenthood. 

Helen Gibson, who leads the campaign group Surrogacy Concern, said the figures paint an uncomfortable picture of where these arrangements are taking place and who is bearing the burden of them.

“Single men are flying to Eastern Europe, California, South America and increasingly nations in Africa, effectively buying babies from low-income women in poverty, who are put through high risk pregnancies and who do not see their children again,” Gibson told The Times.

The geographic spread of these arrangements is significant. Among the more than 1,500 parental order applications filed in England between 2018 and 2024 involving children born abroad, the United States accounted for the largest share, followed by Ukraine, and a range of countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The annual number of such applications more than doubled between 2018 and 2024.

Closing the Gap

In March 2025, a coalition of 13 advocacy organizations wrote to government ministers calling attention to what they described as a clear gap in the law. The prohibition on commercial surrogacy within the UK, they argued, means little if citizens face no legal consequence for pursuing identical arrangements overseas before returning home with a child.

The groups called on Parliament to address the inconsistency directly.

Gibson’s organization has gone further, calling for the overseas pursuit of commercial surrogacy by British citizens to be made a criminal offense.

The Bottom Line:

A prohibition that applies only within national borders offers limited protection to the women most affected by the practice it claims to ban. The women entering these arrangements abroad have no recourse to British law, no advocacy from British institutions, and in most cases, no path back to the children they carried. If the practice is harmful enough to outlaw at home, the case for tolerating its export grows harder to make.

Key Takeaways:

• Washington Attorney General Nick Brown has filed a lawsuit against Providence Health & Services, the largest health care provider in the state.

• The suit alleges pregnant and nursing employees were not granted accommodations as required by law.

• It also says these employees were denied the ability to attend prenatal appointments and the chance to sit more frequently, and were not granted a reprieve from heavy lifting.

• The suit maintains that employees who sought reasonable accommodations were retaliated against.

The Details:

According to a press release from Brown's office, the suit follows an investigation dating back to 2021, in which employees, including many nurses, were not granted appropriate accommodations as required by state law under the Healthy Starts Act and the Washington Law Against Discrimination. The release explains:

Even when Providence granted an accommodation on paper, Providence often failed or refused to implement the accommodation, denying employees the ability to sit more frequently in jobs that otherwise required standing, schedule flexibility for prenatal visits, limits on heavy lifting, and a private space to express breast milk. 

The suit also alleges Providence violated state law by retaliating against employees who sought reasonable accommodations by terminating them, forcing them to go on leave, or assigning them to more difficult duties.

The lawsuit alleges that employees had to "wait several weeks or a month" for the hospital to respond to pregnancy accommodation requests, with many forced to continue working without any interim accommodations while requests were pending. It also alleges that the hospital routinely denied accommodation requests and engaged in sex discrimination against pregnant employees.

“Taking commonsense steps to keep pregnant and nursing employees and their babies safe and healthy isn’t optional—it’s the law,” said Brown. “A health care provider like Providence should know better.”

Zoom In:

Providence Health is reportedly the largest health care provider in Washington state, with more than 35 hospitals and various outpatient facilities.

The Attorney General's release notes that though the hospital system offers prenatal care and breastfeeding support, it failed to ensure its own employees received the necessary care they needed.

Some of the accommodations denied to Providence employees were bitterly ironic. Thousands of pregnant patients go to Providence facilities for prenatal visits that keep them and their pregnancies safe, but Providence denied its employees the opportunity to attend their own prenatal visits.

Patients at Providence Swedish’s First Hill campus can use a state-of-the-art facility to help new parents with breastfeeding, but Providence’s own employees were denied adequate time and convenient, private spaces to express breast milk. 

Following the news of the lawsuit, the Washington State Nurses Association put out a statement "applauding" Brown for his efforts.

"These are dreadful allegations that go against everything we believe as nurses and as a union," the statement said. "Pregnant workers and their partners deserve every support for the health of themselves and their babies."

The Bottom Line:

Pregnant and nursing mothers deserve full support and accommodations — especially from a health care provider.

Key Takeaways:

• Tyrone Malloy was hired as the medical director to serve as Carhart's replacement, at his facilities in both Nebraska and Maryland.

• He has no license to practice medicine in Nebraska, spent four years in prison due to Medicaid fraud, and has faced numerous malpractice cases.

• His medical license in Maryland has now been placed on probation after complaints of substandard care.

The Backstory:

Carhart, one of the country’s most notorious late-term abortionists with a history of injuring women, died in 2023 at the age of 81. His daughter, Janine Weatherby, hired Tyrone Malloy as Carhart’s replacement, including for the Nebraska facility, despite Malloy not being licensed to practice medicine there. Weatherby is not a doctor, and told The Times, “In the wake of Carhart’s death, Dr. Tyrone Malloy took over as medical director. However, Malloy primarily operates out of the Maryland clinic as its main doctor.”

Malloy has a scandal-ridden history, including a conviction for Medicaid fraud in 2014 for which he was sentenced to four years in prison and six years probation. He served less than two years in prison, and his medical license in Georgia was reinstated. He has also faced cases of malpractice, including the 1999 death of a newborn baby after a C-section and the 2008 death of a 23-year-old woman on whom he committed a 25-week D&E abortion during which he perforated her uterus and her intestine.

His past is so disturbing that an anonymous informant sent an e-mail to Operation Rescue reporting:

Tomorrow patients will illegally be seen at the Bellevue clinic under Dr. Carhart’s DEA license, and pharmacy. As you are aware he is dead. The new medical director, Tyrone Malloy MD is not registered in Nebraska and has previously lost his medical license for fraud. His colleague will see patients, and she is not a dispensing physician. The clinic license is no longer active following Dr. Carhart’s death. Do what you will with this, I have reported this to the state.

The Details:

It has been revealed that Malloy's medical license has now been placed on probation in Maryland; additionally, he has been fined $5,000. The probation period evidently stemmed from a 2024 complaint filed by an emergency department physician who reported that Malloy delivered "substandard care" for a third-trimester abortion patient.

That prompted a state investigation, which found that Malloy:

• failed to act according to "evidence-based medical guidance for third trimester abortions (Patients 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10)

• failed to confirm or document the cessation of the fetal heartbeat before placment of cervical dilators (Patient 3)

• failed to document his rationale for administering sedation several hours prior to the actual abortion

• administered large amounts of misoprostol (which causes contractions) to patients and then released them

• failed to complete and document presedation physical exams prior to sedation

• failed to administer medication to stop bleeding

The state also found record-keeping deficiencies, including the failure to document the administration of medications and a patient's admission to the ER.

The Bottom Line:

The abortion industry is shockingly under-regulated, and this is a perfect example. Had the emergency department physician not filed a complaint, it seems unlikely that Maryland would ever have taken action. As it is, despite Malloy's checkered past and current problems, he is still being allowed to practice medicine, putting countless women at risk.

Baby Blake was born 13 weeks early when his mother, Lauren, was only 15 years old. Lauren’s water broke when she was only five months pregnant, and she remained in a slow labour for a further month afterwards. 

During a check-up, doctors were unable to find baby Blake’s heartbeat; the umbilical cord had become caught, and circulation had been cut off. Lauren then had to have an emergency cesarean section birth. 

Blake was successfully delivered, and doctors immediately put the premature baby into a Tesco-branded sandwich bag. Techniques like this are often used when babies are born prematurely or at a very low weight to help regulate their temperatures and keep them warm enough. 

“Blake was taken straight to intensive care, so I didn’t get to see him before he was taken down. My mum saw him in the bag and told me about it, but I didn’t believe her until I saw it for myself”, Lauren said.

“I didn’t understand why he was in it; all I knew was that whatever they were doing was what was best for him. Being so young, I obviously didn’t know anything about the care of premature babies, nor did any of my family back then, as we’d never experienced it before. I didn’t know anyone who had had a baby born as early as Blake”, she added. 

Despite health challenges, Blake is now thriving aged 13

Blake spent the first four months of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), with health issues including anaemia, a bleed in the brain, and inflammation and tissue death in the intestines. He also developed chronic lung disease, which meant he had to use supplemental oxygen for three years. 

Despite this, Blake is now doing well. “Blake is 13 now and thriving”, Lauren said. 

“He has even set up his own home baking business, spent years in sea cadets, taking part in charities and remembrance parades”, his mother added.

The whole experience had highs and lows, Lauren explained, saying, “Although that time was scary, and Blake’s life was touch and go, the experience itself was amazing. I actually got to watch my baby develop as he would have in the womb”.

“It was incredible to witness. Blake and other [premature] babies like him, despite them being so fragile and vulnerable and so poorly, are so strong, resilient and little miracles”, she said.

“Blake’s start in life is something that has helped me ensure I never take life for granted, and so we make sure everything second counts”, Lauren added. 

Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “It is great to hear that Blake is now doing so well aged 13. His strength as a young baby to make it through all the health challenges that being so premature poses is a testament to everyone that premature babies can make it through”.

But Waldorf never needed an induced abortion. The treatment she needed was not in violation of any law.

Key Takeaways:

• Emily Waldorf experienced cervical insufficiency at 17 weeks pregnant, and four days later her water broke.

• Doctors at Washington Regional Hospital tried to send her home despite her baby's foot protruding from the cervix.

• They ultimately admitted her, but failed to provide medical care, claiming the hospital's risk management team would not allow labor to be induced, even after Waldorf's water broke and her temperature began to rise.

• Rather than deliver her baby as would have been the legal standard of care, the hospital sent her by ambulance to a Kansas hospital, where labor was induced.

• Induced labor in a medical emergency is not an abortion.

The Details:

As ProPublica reported, after experiencing pressure and bleeding, Waldorf went to Washington Regional Hospital in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where she happened to be employed:

In a dark room, a doctor pointed to an hourglass shape glowing on the ultrasound screen: There was [Waldorf's] amniotic sac, funneling into her dilated cervix, and there was their tiny daughter’s foot, dipping out. 

“Your body is about to miscarry,” the doctor said. 

Doctors told Waldorf and her husband, Justin, that she was suffering from cervical insufficiency, a condition in which the cervix is 'weak' and begins to open too early. With her cervix open, Waldorf was at risk of an infection that could turn to sepsis, a life-threatening infection that could require a hysterectomy. They advised that the best course of action was to 'empty her womb.'

The standard of care for cervical insufficiency is to stitch the cervix closed if possible and monitor the mother for signs of infection for as long as possible with the hope and goal of reaching viability (at least 21 weeks). If signs of infection begin or her waters rupture too soon, a preterm delivery may be necessary, but would not be classified as an induced abortion.

For Waldorf, at this stage of cervical insufficiency, the standard practice of stitching the cervix closed to try to postpone delivery does not appear to have been a feasible option. The other option would still be expectant management, but, if all else failed, to deliver the baby, who was too young to survive. Board-certified OB/GYN Dr. William Lile explained to Live Action News that at this point, with a foot protruding from the cervix at 17 weeks, it would likely not have been possible to continue the pregnancy for four more weeks, and preterm induced delivery was necessary — not abortion.

Induced abortion vs induced delivery

An induced abortion is the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child. At 17 weeks, an induced abortion would be committed by using a drug to stop the baby's heart before delivery or by using a Sopher clamp to dismember the baby as doctors removed her from the uterus.

An induced preterm delivery to save the life of the mother, however, does not carry the intent to cause the child's death and therefore is not an induced abortion. The doctor would not inject a medication to stop the child's heart and would not dismember her. She would be delivered and given age-appropriate care.

ProPublica and hospital staff seem to be confused about the difference between the two, claiming that doctors couldn't 'empty her womb' because of the pro-life law (emphasis added):

The baby still had a detectable heartbeat, and stopping it would run afoul of a state abortion ban that snapped into place after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022; violations carried penalties of up to $100,000 in fines and 10 years in prison. They needed to wait until Waldorf went into labor on her own or showed signs of a dangerous infection, or until the fetal heartbeat ended.

But doctors didn't need to 'stop' the baby's heartbeat before delivering her. They needed to deliver her.

Rather than help her deliver her child, doctors told Waldorf to go home, and that "[a]t any moment, she could start bleeding heavily and go into labor." ProPublica explained what doctors allegedly advised Waldorf:

When the baby started to emerge, the doctor said, Waldorf shouldn’t pull too hard or she could rip the baby’s head off. She would need to cut the umbilical cord herself and return to the hospital for care in a diaper, her fetus wrapped in towels and the cord hanging between her legs. 

What a horrifying thing to tell a scared, grieving pregnant mother. Unsurprisingly, Waldorf begged to stay in the hospital, which is what standard of care would have called for anyway. Doctors "agreed," and Dr. Britte Smith consulted with the hospital's risk-management team. ProPublica wrote:

Smith returned about two hours later, Waldorf recalled, and told her she had two options: She could remain under observation at the hospital, or she could get into her car and drive nearly four hours to Kansas, a state with no abortion ban, where doctors could induce her. The hospital would not authorize a transfer or arrange to send her in an ambulance, and it offered no explanation for why. 

On her fourth morning in the hospital, Waldorf was using the bathroom when she "felt something heavy fall." There was a large blood clot, and her water had broken. The next day, her temperature rose to 99.3 degrees.

Still, the risk-management team would not allow induction, claiming there were no signs of maternal infection, and that her temperature had to reach 100.4.

Andrew Cozart, the hospital’s director of risk management, and Thomas Olmstead, its general counsel, allegedly claimed the doctors could not act because they "cannot rule out the possibility of an overzealous prosecutor." It appears that doctors knew what needed to be done to help Waldorf, but the hospital's risk management team refused to allow them to provide that care based on unfounded fears that a delivery before viability is an abortion. This is not true.

According to Dr. Lile, there is no reason why the hospital could not have induced labor at this point. The water had broken, the baby's foot was out of the cervix, and Waldorf's temperature had risen. Based on this limited amount of information, Dr. Lile believes labor should have been induced to protect Waldorf's life.

What the law says

Arkansas law defines abortion as:

the act of using, prescribing, administering, procuring, or selling of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance, device, or means with the purpose to terminate the pregnancy of a woman, with knowledge that the termination by any of those means will with reasonable likelihood cause the death of the unborn child.

This definition alone is problematic because it implies that it would be illegal for a doctor to carry out any procedure — such as a preterm induced delivery — that would likely lead to the death of the baby. And it was clear that at 17 weeks, Waldorf's daughter was too young to survive. But the law doesn't end there.

It also states that an abortion is allowed for a medical emergency:

'Medical emergency' means a condition in which an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of a pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.

And it goes on to say:

It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under this section if a licensed physician provides medical treatment to a pregnant woman which results in the accidental or unintentional injury or death to the unborn child.

And that's the key part of the law that allowed doctors in Arkansas to intervene for Waldorf regardless of their confusion over the difference between induced abortion and induced delivery. In fact, Waldorf and her sister pulled up that definition of medical emergency on a phone and pointed out to hospital staff that Waldorf qualified. They also contacted attorney Molly Duane, who worked with several women who were denied maternal care. She noted that "providing the standard of care is legal." That standard of care at this point was induced delivery, and even ProPublica reported that the treatment Waldorf needed was "an induction."

Waldorf's lawsuit against the state says, "Throughout this time, Ms. Waldorf continually requested labor induction, understanding the reality that this pregnancy was no longer viable, but failing to grasp why hospital staff refused."

Sending Waldorf to Kansas

ProPublica reported that Duane sent the hospital evidence that not providing care for Waldorf "would be a violation of medical standards and common understandings of the law’s exception..."

But the hospital decided that rather than treat her, it would put Waldorf in an ambulance at 10 p.m. and send her four hours away to a hospital in Kansas. When she arrived, she was given misoprostol to induce labor, and she delivered her daughter at one in the afternoon. ProPublica reported:

She and Justin held their daughter for a few precious moments as her heartbeat stilled, marveling at her perfect tiny fingers and toes and whispering private words of love. 

They named her Bee. It was noted in Waldorf's medical records that the induced labor was carried out "with the intent to preserve the life and health of the mother."

Bee wasn't aborted. She was delivered, alive but prematurely, to save her mother.

Then Waldorf began to bleed heavily. Her placenta was not detaching, and doctors reacted to save her as she lost a liter of blood. It is presumed that this complication occurred due to Waldorf's delay in care.

Doctors have 'forgotten about basic professionalism'

Dr. Jody Steinauer, an OB-GYN professor at the pro-abortion University of California, San Francisco, told ProPublica, "Hospital leaders and institutional lawyers are basically interpreting these laws so conservatively, and so worried about a criminal charge, that they have forgotten about basic professionalism values of healthcare."

Likewise, Ghazaleh Moayedi, a doctor in Texas who has continued to provide care for women suffering miscarriages, told ProPublica, "It’s been five years, and people are still like: ‘I don’t know what we can do.' That’s willful ignorance at this point.”

Zoom Out:

ProPublica brought in stories of other women who suffered medical neglect during pregnancy emergencies, including Josseli Barnica and Amber Thurman, both of whom died after a medical emergency during pregnancy and a failure on the part of doctors to provide the standard of care.

ProPublica claimed that if any of these women had gone to a hospital "from Nigeria to Mexico, that follow standards from the World Health Organization and countless medical associations," then "treatment would have been much different."

It explained that in "those hospitals, when a patient's cervix opens too soon, signaling an 'inevitable miscarriage,' or when their water breaks before the fetus can survive, known as previable preterm premature rupture of membranes (shorthanded as 'PPROM'), it's standard for doctors to offer to empty the uterus. That's true even if there is still a heartbeat, given the high risk of infection."

Dr. Allison Goulding told ProPublica that this "is basic obstetrics."

According to several medical sources, including Yale Medicine, treatment for cervical insufficiency "includes monitoring, progesterone supplement, and surgery (cervical cerclage)." UChicago Medicine states, "Placement of a cerclage is the standard treatment for cervical insufficiency." And the American Pregnancy Association says, "The treatment for an incompetent or weakened cervix is a procedure that sews the cervix closed to reinforce the weak cervix."

As for PPROM, the Cleveland Clinic writes, "Treatment depends on the gestational age of the pregnancy.... the health of the fetus and how severe your condition is." It offers two options: delivery or expectant management. Not abortion. And, according to the WHO, treatment for PPROM includes expectant management with monitoring for infection, fetal wellbeing, and active labor. As long as there is no active labor, no sign of infection, and the baby is doing well, doctors will continue expectant management. Prior to 34 weeks, they will administer steroids to help the baby's lungs, give antibiotics to try to prevent infection, and monitor both mother and child until delivery is necessary. Abortion is not listed as standard care.

The Bottom Line:

The Arkansas pro-life law — or any state pro-life law — is not causing harm to pregnant women facing medical complications. Hospital staff who haven't read the laws or don't understand the difference between induced abortion and induced delivery are failing both women and children.

Key Takeaways:

• The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has appealed a federal rule forcing religious employers to provide accommodations for employees who undergo abortions.

• The lawsuit contests regulations connected to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and seeks the blockage of the rule.

The Details:

On May 18, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other Catholic groups filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, requesting a halt to a federal ruling that mandates some employers to provide accommodations for employees seeking abortions in some situations. 

The lawsuit, titled United States Conference of Catholic Bishops v. EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), contests regulations connected to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act — a bipartisan measure implemented by Congress to guarantee workplace accommodations for pregnant employees and new mothers. The statute requires provisions such as restroom breaks, adjusted work schedules, and other accommodations for workers' pregnancy-related limitations. However, it also includes abortion as a reason for such accommodations.

The Catholic organizations contended that the pro-abortion rule would compel churches and other religious entities to change ministry policies, statements of belief, employee expression, and workplace practices in order to comply. Additionally, the Catholic organizations argued that the regulation jeopardizes religious protections guaranteed under the law and other civil rights statutes.

“Bureaucrats tried to twist a bipartisan law protecting pregnant women and their unborn babies into a mandate that churches facilitate abortion within their own ministries,” proclaimed Laura Wolk Slavis, counsel at Becket and an attorney for the ministries. “If there’s one thing everyone should agree on about abortion, it’s that Uncle Sam can’t make Mother Teresa support it.” 

She added, “In 250 years, our nation has never allowed the state to make the church support abortion — and now’s not the time to start."

The Backstory:

In May 2024, the USCCB, along with other Catholic groups, filed the lawsuit against the pro-abortion mandate, with aid from the religious liberty law firm Becket.

Although a lower court partially blocked the rule, it still permitted abortion accommodations in some situations, including cases entailing symptoms such as nausea, anxiety, or hormonal changes linked to pregnancy, the plaintiffs asserted. 

Also, the pro-life groups mentioned that the court refused to apply exemptions owing to religious freedom concerns, thus requiring them to abide by the pro-abortion mandate. 

In May 2025, a federal court decreed that the statute itself — independent of the implementing regulations—obliges the Catholic bishops and other Catholic entities to offer abortion-related accommodations only when a pregnancy gives rise to adverse health effects. Based on the USCCB’s lawsuit, these adverse effects can include grave pregnancy complications as well as more common conditions such as hormonal imbalances, anxiety, nausea, and vomiting.

Daniel Blomberg, a lawyer with Becket, informed EWTN News that several of the listed conditions applied broadly to virtually any pregnancy. He elaborated that the ruling obliges the Catholic organizations to not only allow for abortion-related accommodations in such cases but also to amend their internal policies and procedures to explicitly notify current and prospective employees of these provisions.

The Bottom Line:

This case is about more than one federal regulation; it's a litmus test of whether the state can redefine “pregnancy accommodation” in a way that makes abortion appear ordinary, necessary, or even compassionate.

Once abortion is enshrined in workplace policy, the next step is legal compliance and cultural regularization. This is a cautionary tale showing that abortion expansion often comes via bureaucratic interpretation instead of direct legislation, which makes vigilance over administrative agencies indispensable.

Key Takeaways:

• Ann and her husband were told at 20 weeks that their daughter Althea would not survive long after birth.

• Doctors advised them to undergo an abortion, but since Indiana's law protected Althea, they traveled to Chicago for a two day abortion.

• Ann described Althea as "too sick to live" and opted to have a two-day abortion, likely a D&E dismemberment abortion.

• It should never be an option to abort a child because they receive a difficult diagnosis.

The Details:

Ann and her husband were trying to become pregnant when they learned they were expecting Althea. But at their 20 week ultrasound, doctors said baby Althea's kidneys were not visible. Her lungs also weren't developing, a known complication of Althea's condition. Kidneys are needed to produce amniotic fluid, which then helps the lungs develop. Doctors predicted that Althea wouldn't live more than a few days after birth. They likely weren't wrong; there are only two cases of an infant surviving after being born without kidneys.

In 2013, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler welcomed daughter Abigail, who had Potter Syndrome, a condition in which the kidneys do not develop. Hoping to save her daughter, Beutler underwent amnioinfusions during pregnancy. Abigail was born, survived, and underwent dialysis until she was grown enough her father to donate his own kidney to her. She is thriving today. Likewise, Ivorie Nicole underwent amnioinfusions to save her daughter River.

It is unclear if Ann was given the option of amnioinfusions, or if she was even eligible to receive the experimental treatment. MirrorIndy reported, "The couple faced an impossible choice: terminate the pregnancy or risk complications waiting for the inevitable end."

It should go without saying that giving parents the "impossible choice" of aborting their baby rather than attempting to save her shouldn't be a choice at all. It's cruel. Calling it "impossible" pulls on America's heartstrings to exploit a tragedy to promote abortion.

“I didn’t want her to know pain,” Ann said. “With all her genetic problems, we would’ve just had to watch her die.”

No parent wants to watch their child suffer, but that doesn't mean children facing health complications should be killed.

Indiana protects most preborn children from abortion, except if the baby is conceived in rape, to prevent the mother's death or serious injury, or if the baby is diagnosed with a health condition considered to be fatal. Under the exceptions, aborting Althea would have been legal, but by the time Althea's condition was confirmed, it was "too late" to abort her in Indiana. Abortion under these circumstances is limited to 22 weeks. Her life was protected.

But not everyone sees it that way. "Their case highlights how Indiana's near-total abortion ban is forcing women to jump through hoops for care," MirrorIndy said.

Zoom In:

A few days after Christmas, Ann and her husband drove four hours to have an abortion in Chicago. They were given assistance to pay for their travel expenses, and she underwent what MirrorIndy calls a "two-day procedure." At this stage of pregnancy, Ann either underwent a D&E dismemberment abortion or an induced delivery abortion as both can take two days.

Ann left the facility with just a blue sheet of paper featuring Althea's footprints. Further testing showed that Althea had triploidy, meaning she had an extra set of chromosomes. The survival rate for triploidy is extremely low, with the longest known survival being 10 1/2 months. Many of the babies die during pregnancy.

In addition, triploidy can increase a woman's chances of developing pre-eclampsia, which led Ann to feel justified in aborting Althea.

“It was already rare that I was able to carry her for so long. It was incredibly unsafe," she said. "I could’ve died or lost the ability to have children."

However, delivering a baby early to save the mother's life is not an abortion, and is legal in every state. There was never a reason to intentionally kill Althea. But that's what abortion enthusiasts want Ann and other parents to believe.

An induced abortion is an act carried out to deliberately and intentionally kill or cause the death of the preborn child by methods such as lethal injection or dismemberment. An induced delivery, however, is an act carried out when necessary to save the mother's health or life and to provide the child with age-appropriate care and comfort.

“They recommended that we terminate because they said it would have been dangerous for me to continue to carry her, and that the outcome would have been the same," Ann explained. "Either way, she was going to die. So it was, you know, to have her never know a moment of suffering, or watch her die slowly.”

She added, "They're making it more dangerous for all pregnant women. My baby was wanted, but too sick to live."

No one is so sick that they deserve to be killed.

Why it Matters:

Ann's desire to protect her daughter is understood by every loving parent, but it's an impossible task. Parents can't always protect their children from pain, but they can provide them with love and comfort, along with every effort to give them the care they need when facing medical issues.

Except, instead, parents are being fed the lie that its more compassionate to end their child's life via abortion than to welcome them and love them for exactly who they are. Rather than abortion being an "option" for parents whose children receive a prenatal diagnosis, abortion has become an expectation.

Ann also understandably said they didn't want to "watch her die." This is a sentiment expressed by any parent of a seriously ill child. But under that reasoning, abortion is about protecting the parents, not the child. Adults need to do the hard things so children are protected.

"Too sick to live" isn't an invitation to kill someone. If Ann's life was at risk, Althea could have been delivered. She could have been kept comfortable and given any care that could have prolonged her life. She could have been held and known by her parents, even if her life was short.

Aborting a baby due to a diagnosis is discriminatory. Its eugenics. Every human deserves to live out their full lives, no matter how long or short. And every parent should be given the hope and peace that comes with doing everything they can for their child.

A study found that women who have undergone an abortion due to a fetal diagnosis “ultimately felt as if they were betraying themselves and their children.” However, those who carry to term expressed feelings of closure and peace. The Journal of Clinical Ethics reported that 97.5% of parents who chose to carry to term rather than abort did not regret the decision. “Parents valued the baby as a part of their family and had opportunities to love, hold, meet, and cherish their child,” it explained.

According to Perinatal Hospice and Palliative Care, which provides resources for parents who are facing such a diagnosis, significant research shows that women who have an abortion following a fetal diagnosis suffer “physical and emotional pain, with psychosocial and reproductive consequences.”

The Bottom Line:

Ann's "impossible choice" shouldn't have been a choice at all.

Key Takeaways:

• A 69-year-old woman has become the first in Uruguay to undergo legal euthanasia.

• The law allowing euthanasia went into effect last month, after it was passed in October 2025.

• Though supporters claim euthanasia is "peaceful," the reality is likely very different, as the drugs used are paralytic and can hide any pain or distress the patient is experiencing.

The Details:

The victim, a 69-year-old woman from Montevideo who had terminal cancer, reportedly died under the newly-enacted "Dignified Death" law on May 22.

Lawmaker Federico Preve hailed news of her death, reportedly saying it was "a very important, symbolic day for the country."

"This person was able to choose to die in peace. They were able to choose to pass away in accordance with their own convictions," he told reporters.

The Backstory:

Last October, lawmakers in Uruguay passed the "Dignified Death" bill, making it the first country in Latin America to embrace "assisted dying."

The law allows euthanasia for adults who are in the end stage of a chronic illness or experiencing "unbearable suffering" from the illness, even though they may not be close to death. Reportedly, the illness from which they are suffering could be psychological.

According to Associated Press reporting from October 2025, the law permits euthanasia — which means a medical practitioner admits the lethal concoction — but not assisted suicide, in which the patient would administer drugs themselves.

Zoom In:

Though euthanasia is often praised as a way to "die in peace," the reality is much harsher. Some of the same drugs used for assisted suicide and euthanasia are those used for lethal injections. This involves a paralytic, meaning a person can look peaceful, while they actually drown to death in their own bodily secretions.

“Advocates of assisted dying owe a duty to the public to be truthful about the details of killing and dying,” Dr. Joel Zivot, an associate professor of anesthesiology and surgery at the Emory School of Medicine, has previously said. “People who want to die deserve to know that they may end up drowning, not just falling asleep.”

The Bottom Line:

Assisted dying and euthanasia are tragedies, no matter what the circumstances. Anyone experiencing a terminal illness deserves to feel supported and cared for — not that death is their best option.

Key Takeaways:

• A new report from CLI found that 81% of online abortion pill businesses that report their data ship abortion drugs to women whose pregnancies exceed the FDA's 70 days’ gestation safety protocol.

• None of the 18 foreign-based companies require identification from customers before ordering the abortion pills. Of those, 17 send unapproved or mislabeled drugs into the U.S.

• There are eight "online-only organizations" that are shipping abortion drugs into pro-life states and, in doing so, are violating pro-life state laws.

• None of the five community networks that give free abortion drugs to American women have gestational age limits at which they stop sending abortion drugs.

The Details:

According to the report, companies selling abortion drugs through virtual-only, hybrid brick-and-mortar facilities, international online organizations, e-commerce websites, and community networks are breaking safety rules, along with state and federal laws. Most are dispensing the abortion pill to women who are beyond the FDA's 70 day, or 10 week, gestation requirement; others are shipping the abortion drugs against federal law, and into pro-life states in violation of those state laws.

In all, the report from CLI found that 81% of online abortion pill businesses that report their data ship abortion drugs to women whose pregnancies exceed the FDA's 70 days' gestation safety protocol. Of online abortion pill sellers in the United States health care system, the report notes that only 19% complied with the FDA's safety requirement that the drugs can't be shipped after 70 days' gestation (10 weeks). "This means 64 sellers violated the FDA's safety limit," the report stated.

In addition, of 42 total online-only abortion organizations, 34 publicly report stopping the prescribing and shipping of abortion drugs after 77 days and longer. Additionally, 16 do not require a video call before prescribing the drugs. 17 of these virtual-only facilities allowed the abortion drugs to be sent to women and girls who were not pregnant at the time that they requested the drugs.

Of the 38 hybrid brick-and-mortar facilities, 28 reported prescribing and shipping the abortion pill after the 70 day gestational limit. At least 11 do not require a video call before prescribing the drugs. Furthermore, at least nine of the businesses allowed the dispensing of the abortion pill to women who were not pregnant. Ten of the businesses ship abortion drugs to states in which they do not operate.

There are three international online abortion businesses, according to the report, and two ship abortion drugs into the United States. Only Telefem Mexico does not ship the drugs; rather, it requires women to travel to the United States-Mexico border. Two of the three international online businesses prescribe and ship the abortion drugs after the 70 day limit, and none require a video call. Two of them allow the drugs to be sent to women who are not pregnant and the third does not report if it allows such advanced provision or not. Two do not require any form of identification for obtaining the drugs.

All of the 18 e-commerce abortion pill websites allow women of any gestational age to buy abortion drugs, meaning that none of them comply with the FDA safety limit of 70 days' gestation. "Some e-commerce websites, such as Pill Pulse, include phrases on the pages for certain abortion drugs such as 'for the non-surgical termination of intrauterine pregnancy up to 63 days (9 weeks) of gestation.' However, the websites do nothing to confirm or formally require that a woman prove she is under a certain gestational age," the report said. Five of the e-commerce sites require a prescription, and six claim they require one. Sixteen do not require women to consult with a healthcare professional and none require an ID.

In all, 18 foreign-based companies do not require any identification from women or any customers before they order the abortion pills. Of those, 17 send unapproved or mislabeled drugs into the U.S.

There are five abortion community networks included in the report, none of which require that the woman have a prescription from a certified prescriber, consult a health care professional, or submit an ID. None of them have a stated gestational limit at which they stop mailing the drugs to women, and all get their abortion drugs from overseas, despite being based in the United States.

The Big Picture:

While United States-based online abortion sellers, as well as brick-and-mortar abortion facilities also committing telehealth abortions, operate within the rules of the American health care system, international online organizations, e-commerce pharmacies, and networks operating outside of the United States health care system, often don't use doctors, and they ship abortion drugs that have been produced by companies other than those on the FDA's approved supply chain.

The report noted,

Under federal law, it is illegal for international organizations, e-commerce websites, and community networks to import abortion drugs into the United States without FDA approval. Federal law (21 U.S.C. § §331(a), 331(d), 355(a)) prohibits the importation into the U.S. and distribution in interstate commerce of misbranded and unapproved drugs. Furthermore, because these abortion drugs are unapproved they also cannot comply with FDA’s REMS requirements. However, these laws are routinely violated by sellers that ship into the U.S. and distribute unapproved and misbranded drugs, with some advertising the abortion drugs on their websites as FDA-approved.

In addition, under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), it is illegal to import foreign-made versions of FDA-approved drugs that have not been through the FDA approval process. Further, the Comstock Act prohibits the mailing of abortion drugs within the United States. Any organization or business that ships abortion pills is, therefore, violating the Comstock Act.

Further, in its review, CLI found that there are eight "online-only organizations" that are shipping abortion drugs into pro-life states and, in doing so, are violating pro-life state laws. In addition, there were 28 abortion pill websites that received abuse letters from the FDA in 2019, yet ten still actively sell the abortion pill in violation of federal law.

The Bottom Line:

Mia Steupert, institute research associate and author of the report, said:

“The abortion industry loves to claim ‘abortion is healthcare,’ but their actions and advocacy have shown they don’t want abortion to be treated with the same level of regulatory scrutiny as legitimate medical procedures. No one should be able to obtain abortion drugs as easily as purchasing something off Amazon. The egregious findings of this paper should serve as a wake-up call to policymakers that a wild west of online abortion drug access only serves to end unborn life at all costs, even at the expense of women’s safety.”

Key Takeaways:

• 20-year-old Jordyn Kauffman has been arrested and charged with multiple felonies, including murder.

• She allegedly gave birth to a baby girl, who was born alive, and then left her to die in a field.

• The next day, she went to the hospital seeking medical care and admitted to what she had done.

• Police are now searching for the father of the baby.

The Details:

Kauffman allegedly gave birth on May 14 at home, and then placed the baby in a field near her home before going to work, putting the placenta and umbilical cord in a trash can. The next day, when the bleeding seemingly did not stop, Kauffman went to the hospital, where she told nurses what she had done. She admitted that her baby was alive when she had abandoned her, and said her father had threatened to disown her if she ever got pregnant.

It also appears that Kauffman was aware she was pregnant and had at some point considered having an abortion. Yet she missed her appointments and did not go through with it because she felt she was too far along.

Zoom In:

The county coroner's autopsy confirmed that the baby girl was, in fact, born alive.

"This was not a peaceful or natural death. This was the death of a newborn child under deeply tragic circumstances. There are some investigations that stay with you, and this is one of them," a statement from the coroner's office said. The statement continued:

As coroner, we speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves. At the center of this investigation is a baby girl who deserved dignity, care, and a voice. My office remains committed to giving her that.

I also want to personally thank the many members of our community who have reached out to support not only this baby girl, but also the first responders, investigators, and staff involved in this case. Your kindness, prayers, and compassion do not go unnoticed.

Cases like this take a heavy emotional toll on everyone present at the scene. The support shown by this community is a reminder that even in the face of heartbreaking circumstances, there is still good in this world.

Police are now attempting to identify the father of the baby, and are asking men to voluntarily submit their DNA to determine next of kin.

Kauffman is charged with first-degree murder, endangering the welfare of children, aggravated assault, and concealing the death of a child.

The Bottom Line:

Every state has safe haven laws allowing women like Kauffman to voluntarily relinquish a newborn. In Pennsylvania, parents can bring a newborn up to 28 days old to any hospital or emergency services department anonymously and without facing charges.

Released earlier [on Tuesday] by Public Health Scotland, the figures reveal a stark increase in the number of abortions over the last ten years. 2025 saw an increase in the total number of abortions of 6,648 or 54.78% compared to 12,135 in 2016.

The abortion rate per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 increased from 11.9 in 2016 to 17.6 in 2025. 

There was also a rise in repeat abortions from 7,672 in 2024 to 7,927 in 2025. In 2025, 42.2% of abortions were repeat abortions.

Lanarkshire has had the greatest increase in abortions of any region in Scotland in the last ten years, from 1,426 in 2016 up to 2,650 in 2025, representing an 85.83% increase in abortions.

The figures also show there were 277 disability-selective abortions in 2025. This is a 61.05% increase compared to 2018, when there were 172.

The number of abortions at between 18 and 20 weeks gestation was 138 in 2025, a 50% increase from 2018, when there were 92 abortions at between 18 and 20 weeks gestation.

Extreme abortion up to birth plans

A review of abortion law in Scotland, commissioned by Humza Yousaf when he was Scottish First Minister, has recommended that Scotland scrap the 24-week abortion time limit and allow abortions on social grounds, including for sex-selective purposes, right up to birth. 

Unborn babies could legally have their lives ended by an abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy – right up to when they are about to be born.

This would leave Scotland with one of the most extreme abortion laws in the world.

The change would position Scotland drastically away from the European Union, where the most common abortion time limit among EU countries is 12 weeks.

The proposed law change would also likely lead to an increased number of viable babies’ lives being ended well beyond the 24-week abortion time limit and beyond the point at which they would be able to survive outside the womb.

There is now pressure from the abortion lobby for these extreme proposals to become law following the Scottish Parliament election, which took place on 7 May.

Follows continued push for introducing extreme changes to abortion law in Scotland

In September 2024, delegates at the SNP National Conference voted in favour of a resolution calling for “the right to abortion” to be enshrined in a “future constitution of an independent Scotland”.

The resolution states that access to abortion “should not be subject to the changing tides of political or judicial decisions”, and that “legal abortion is a fundamental aspect of healthcare and bodily autonomy”.

The resolution also states that enshrining abortion in the constitution would safeguard access to abortion “against any potential political or legal regression”.

An absolute right to abortion would mean that abortion would be available on demand, for any reason, up to birth. If this radical change were introduced, Scotland would be left with one of the most extreme abortion regimes in the world.

Abortion buffer zones introduced in 2024

The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Act came into force on 24 September 2024, introducing the world’s most extreme buffer zone law in Scotland.

It created a minimum of 200m ‘safe access’, or buffer, zones around any facility that performs abortions where offering support to women would be criminalised. The 200m is a minimum, as abortion providers can apply for the zone to be extended, with the Act giving the Scottish Government the power to extend any buffer zone beyond the 200m if they judge that the existing zone “does not adequately protect” women seeking an abortion. There is no limit on the size of the buffer zone that can be created under this power.

The minimum size of the buffer zones introduced by this law extends further than the minimum size of any other buffer zones in the world. For example, the Public Order Act 2023 in England and Wales sets the limits of the buffer zones at 150m and the legislation does not give the Government the power to extend buffer zones beyond 150m. Most buffer zones in Northern Ireland are 100m, half the size of what is being proposed in Scotland.

Within these zones, it is illegal to influence a person in regard to their decision “to access… the provision of abortion” in an abortion clinic or a hospital. These provisions make offers of help to women seeking an abortion illegal within a buffer zone, and appear to criminalise silent prayer.

Anyone who commits an offence can be fined up to £10,000 on a summary conviction, or an unlimited fine on indictment.

The provisions of the law apply to anything “visible or audible” within a buffer zone, even if these relate to private buildings. This means it may be illegal for pro-life signs to be displayed from a window within a private home or outside a place of worship if the signs are within the boundaries of or visible to a buffer zone. Similarly, conversations in private homes or outside churches may be included if they are audible inside a buffer zone. Referring to private dwellings, Mackay herself told the Committee “it is essential that such premises are covered by the legislation”. 

At-home abortion

This significant rise in abortions has accompanied the fifth full year that at-home abortion services have been operating in Scotland. Since home abortions were introduced, a number of significant problems have arisen. 

Polling published in the Daily Telegraph shows that 71% of women support the reinstatement of in-person appointments and only 9% are in favour of the status quo. In contrast, only 16% of the public support proposals to decriminalise abortion.

Polling also shows large majorities of women in the UK support a number of changes to abortion laws that would have a positive impact on lowering the number of abortions. The polling shows that 70% of women want the current time limit on abortion to be lowered and 91% of women want a ban on sex-selective abortion.

Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said, “It is a great tragedy that 18,783 lives were lost to abortion in Scotland last year, the highest number on record”.

“Every one of these abortions represents a failure of our society to protect the lives of babies in the womb and a failure to offer full support to women with unplanned pregnancies”.

“This significant rise in abortions comes as a review of abortion law in Scotland, commissioned by Humza Yousaf when he was Scottish First Minister, has recommended that Scotland scrap the 24-week abortion time limit and allow abortions on social grounds, including for sex-selective purposes, right up to birth”.

“There is now pressure from the abortion lobby for these extreme proposals to become law following the Scottish Parliament election, which took place on 7 May”.

“If these proposed changes become law, this would leave Scotland with one of the most extreme abortion laws in the world”.

“The proposed law change would also likely lead to an increased number of viable babies’ lives being ended well beyond the 24-week abortion time limit and beyond the point at which they would be able to survive outside the womb”.

“Instead of making extreme changes to abortion legislation in Scotland, MSPs should come together to introduce policy changes that increase protections for babies in the womb and stop pregnancy discrimination for women – policies that will save lives by protecting and supporting both mother and child”.

“This rise has also accompanied the fifth year that abortion services outside of a clinical setting have been operating in Scotland”. 

“Ahead of at-home abortions being permanently made available, a large number of MSPs, MPs and medical professionals warned about the negative impact these schemes would have on women”. 

“Since then, we have seen these concerns confirmed, with women such as Carla Foster performing at-home abortions well beyond the 24-week time limit, putting their health at serious risk. If Carla Foster had been given an in-person consultation, where her gestation could have been accurately determined, she would not have been able to access abortion pills and this tragic case would have been prevented”.

“The clear solution here is the urgent reinstatement of in-person appointments. This would prevent women’s lives from being put at risk from self-administered late-term abortions”.

“Polling shows that 71% of women support the reinstatement of in-person appointments and only 9% are in favour of the status quo”.

“We are calling on the Scottish Government to urgently reinstate in-person consultation for home abortions”.

A recent essay, "Abortion and Infant Mortality: Termination Does Not Prevent Death," published in The New Bioethics, countered that idea. The essay authors, researcher Nicholas Colgrove and Monica Snyder, executive director of Secular Pro Life, set out to prove that abortion restrictions benefit infants and don't contribute to an increase in infant mortality.

Key Takeaways:  

• An essay published in The New Bioethics counters a 2024 study that said Texas's pro-life protections had led to an increase in infant deaths.

• The essay authors, Nicholas Colgrove and Monica Snyder, argued that the law resulted in 10,000 more births and was therefore a positive for infants.

• They also argued that the law helps reduce ableist assumptions of those in the medical community who encourage abortion after a prenatal diagnosis, and it benefits families who do not undergo the trauma of abortion.

The Backstory:

In 2024, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) attempted to blame a Texas law protecting preborn children from abortion, SB 8, for an increase in the state's total number of infant mortalities in 2022. Study authors Alison Gemmill et al claimed that “abortion restrictions may have negative spillover effects on infant health."

More infants died at birth, they claimed, because they weren't killed in the womb.

Pro-abortion media took that claim and ran with it. In the days following the study's release, for example, USA Today stated, “[Texas’] near-total ban on abortion appears to have triggered an increase in infant deaths[.]”

Live Action researcher Bettina di Fiore pointed out that the infant mortality rate (the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births) was the same in 2022 and 2016, and that the infant mortality rate for 2022 was “well within historical norms.”

"The key change, from a statistical standpoint, is the manner in which these deaths are reported," di Fiore wrote. "Before SB8, they were reported as abortion statistics, but now, they are reported as infant/neonatal deaths."

The full Live Action News analysis is found here.

The Details:

Researcher Nicholas Colgrove and Monica Snyder, executive director of Secular Pro-Life, have issued their own response to the faulty study. 

The duo argued that though all infant deaths are tragic, abortion restrictions actually benefit, not harm, infants.

The authors surmised:

“One can reduce teenage deaths by causing deaths before age thirteen, but this does not save lives. Likewise, abortion restrictions may lead to more infants dying (since fewer subjects are aborted), but this does not imply that abortion restrictions harm infants.”

Abortion restrictions are a positive for infants

The authors pointed out that due to Texas's pro-life law, there were 10,000 additional births in the state in 2022. This already implies that the law had a net benefit for infants, since without it, there would be 10,000 fewer individuals.

They wrote:

So, when Gemmill et al. (and their commentators) state that abortion restrictions are bad for infants, these statements rely on contentious assumptions. Worse, for Gemmill et al.’s discussion of ‘congenital anomalies,’ is that it also relies on (or, at least, overlooks) major ableist assumptions.

Abortion restrictions reduce ableist assumptions

Colgrove and Snyder argued that abortion restrictions are beneficial because they minimize the ableist mindset of those who would encourage abortion due to a prenatal diagnosis. Sadly, that mindset pervades the medical community, as many parents are encouraged to choose abortion if their child has an "anomaly."

According to Gemmill et al., there was a 22.9% increase in infants born with "anomalies" in 2022. However, that study did not distinguish between life-compatible conditions and life-limiting conditions, and it also failed to take into account that not every parent wants to abort a child with a prenatal diagnosis.

As Colgrove and Snyder pointed out, a flaw with the study is that "under abortion restrictions, it is not clear whether people were 'forced to continue pregnancies' or whether providers simply lost the power to pressure them into aborting."

Colgrove and Snyder's report referenced a study by Meredith et al. (2024), which found that the majority of medical providers displayed bias when offering a prenatal diagnosis, thereby "perpetuating harmful societal stereotypes about people" with disabilities, and assuming that life with a disability would be "bad news." This created "lasting trauma to parents" and limited "the information and prenatal care they need[ed] at a vulnerable time."

They also pointed out that when infants are not killed in the womb, there is the opportunity for them to receive medical treatment they would not have otherwise gotten. Sometimes, that medical treatment has a positive impact on the child.

"In sum, judging that abortion restrictions are harmful to infants with 'congenital anomalies' requires several assumptions," they wrote, continuing:

First, that congenital anomalies are uniformly ‘lethal.’ Second, that life with disability would be worse than death in utero. Third, that a given infant’s suffering in infancy would likely be worse than suffering they would experience during an abortion. Fourth, one must assume that mercy killing is permissible. Each of these assumptions is contentious, but Gemmill et al. neither acknowledge nor defend them. Thus, their claim that abortion restrictions are harmful to infants with ‘congenital anomalies’ is unsubstantiated.

Abortion restrictions as a benefit for families

Though the Gemmill study surmised that "babies that died shortly after being born with birth defects probably caused a lot of unnecessary trauma to families," Colgrove and Snyder noted that this is pure speculation. They explained that Gemmill failed to consider the traumatic impact abortion can have on a mother's mental health, and they also pointed out that abortion doesn't prevent an infant from dying — it just changes the location and means of death.

As Live Action News has pointed out, studies have shown that women who abort children with congenital anomalies and/or prenatal disability diagnoses are at increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder and emotional trauma than women who carry these pregnancies to term.

The Bottom Line:

The duo said that more needs to be done to support those who choose life for their child, especially when that child has a "congenital anomaly" or a disability. They also advocated for the need to combat ableist assumptions within the medical community, so that parents feel supported as they navigate caring for their infant.

The essay concluded by reiterating that Texas's abortion restrictions are a net benefit for infants, and that "abortion cannot reasonably be regarded as beneficial to subjects who are aborted."

Moving forward, therefore, we hope to promote bipartisan cooperation in the service of preventing infant death sensibly. Sensible approaches will work at preventing infant deaths by saving infants’ lives. Killing subjects prior to infancy, by contrast, is not a sensible approach, as it does not save any such lives.

There, she was startled to discover that many young people held passionate pro-choice views.

Pro-choice views on a Christian college campus

Geiger told Live Action News, “It was my first semester there when I heard about a huge protest organized by the students in response to the local pregnancy resource center hosting a fundraiser on campus. I realized then that this issue mattered.”

Yet Geiger was reluctant to speak out publicly. She was worried about the consequences of expressing her views on such a controversial topic, fearing she might be ostracized by her peers.

Then, during the second semester, her best friend persuaded her to attend a pro-life group meeting. That night, Geiger made the decision to join the campus pro-life club, committing to advancing pro-life principles within the college community.

“At the time, we were just a four-member club trying to host events but failing miserably,” Geiger said. “We designed a display about abortion and installed it in the student union, a prime real estate area where student traffic was high. The display was vandalized 13 times.”

Geiger submitted a bias report to the university administration about these incidents, citing her concerns about discrimination and the suppression of free speech, yet it was met with silence.

That summer, Geiger took over leadership of the pro-life club.

She explained, “I wanted to formulate new strategies to communicate our message with integrity and respect, because our efforts just seemed to be fomenting hostility on campus.”

Abortion apologetics training transforms campus culture

As if in answer to prayer, she received an email from the local pregnancy resource center informing her that their staff was planning to enroll in abortion apologetics training hosted by Equal Rights Institute, an organization that equips pro-life activists with the tools to argue persuasively, and they offered to cover her enrollment fee as well.

The course proved valuable in helping Geiger implement weekly outreach initiatives in the student union, a strategy formulated to promote open and honest debate.

Geiger said, “Now that I knew how to actively engage pro-choice students to change their perspective without generating hostility, these events would prove to be a game changer.”

Over the next three years, Geiger’s pro-life debates simultaneously served to expand the membership of the pro-life club while transforming the culture on the campus by creating a platform that fostered open dialogue among students, professors, and others around a deeply divisive issue, stoking a growing respect among those who were pro-choice.

“The benefits were two-fold,” Geiger said. “Our visibility inspired other students to join the pro-life club, whereas by presenting compelling arguments in the case for life, we began gaining credibility among pro-choice students and the university administration.”

During this time, the vandalism all but ceased, and when one such act did occur, Geiger received an apology from university officials along with a promise to discipline the culprit, who was clearly identified on camera.

Geiger noted, “We had been successful in changing perceptions, which was a huge accomplishment given we had been swimming upstream amid such a previously unreceptive environment.”

In tandem with hosting outreach, Geiger volunteered with Equal Rights Institute throughout her college years. When she graduated with a degree in education, she went to work at the organization full-time, helping to create curriculum and materials that would provide a fresh perspective on pro-life apologetics while addressing common misconceptions about abortion. 

“Our training isn’t just for college students,” Geiger told Live Action News. “We’ve also developed Equipped for Life Academy, which teaches younger students in grades seven through 12 about how to argue convincingly for life. We meet people where they’re at, whether through open dialogue, podcasts, or on campus events.”

College activism leads to a rewarding career

Now five years in, Geiger serves as Director of Education and Outreach. The young woman who was formerly “lukewarm” about pro-life apologetics has a full agenda these days:  speaking at college campuses and churches across the country, overseeing the high school program in collaboration with teachers and school administrators, and advising college pro-life clubs. Additionally, she manages social media initiatives.

Geiger said, “I’m especially proud of the Equipped for Life Academy. It took three years to launch, but it is the only pro-life apologetics curriculum approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). I love that we provide young people with the tools to effectively speak out for life in a powerful way.”

For TikTok and Instagram, Geiger creates short, compelling videos to help viewers learn how to engage their peers in a productive way. She has amassed more than 50,000 followers on Instagram and 34,000 on TikTok.

She explained, “I switch up the content of the videos to include role playing where I take on two opposing viewpoints and address popular misconceptions about the pro-life stance.”

Activism in today's climate

Geiger notes that in today’s environment, conversations on campuses are easier, yet harder. She has observed a noticeable shift in student attitudes following the overturn of Roe in 2022.

“Since then, young people appear to be more fervent about their pro-choice views,” she noted. “But abortion remains a topic that compels them to engage in meaningful dialogue, and we encourage those exchanges. We’re glad to be part of that discussion and welcome the opportunity to change hearts and minds around abortion.”

The information raises concerns about the factories at which generic abortion pills are manufactured in places like India, China, and Spain.

The Details:

"Ninety percent of prescriptions filled in the U.S. are for generics," claimed the pro-abortion ProPublica. It noted that "many of these factories are overseas, in India and China." Live Action has consistently reported on concerns surrounding the manufacturers of abortion drugs.

Abortion Pill Manufacturers

Live Action's abortion pill report described abortion drug manufacturers:

1). Danco Laboratories

In 2000, Danco Laboratories, a highly clandestine “pharmaceutical company,” was granted “an exclusive license from the Population Council to manufacture, market, and distribute Mifeprex [Early Option Pill Mifeprex (Mifepristone Tablets, 200mg)] in the United States."

Danco was originally set up as a sub-licensee of the Council and received initial funding from organizations dedicated to abortion philanthropy. For instance, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation invested an excess of $14.2 million in Danco and consistently provides financing for studies attempting to prove the safety of the abortion pill.

Interestingly, Packard has also contributed to ProPublica.

2). GenBioPro (GBP)

GenBioPro, the initial generic manufacturer of the abortion pill, obtained FDA approval in 2019. By 2021, the company boasted that it held a significant share of the abortion pill market.

Similar to the highly secretive brand-name manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, GenBioPro has received substantial investment, totaling millions of dollars, from the pro-abortion David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Furthermore, public data indicate that GenBioPro has dispersed thousands of dollars in "consulting fees" and "honoraria" over the preceding years.

Some of these payments were directed to study authors and other recipients, many of whom failed to disclose this potential conflict of interest in their published research.

3). Evita Solutions, LLC

The FDA approved a second manufacturer of a generic abortion pill, Evita Solutions, LLC, in September 2025 — a decision made despite the agency's prior commitment to conducting a safety review of the abortion pill.

Information concerning Evita Solutions, LLC is scarce, but its drug application was initially submitted in 2021.

The abortion pill (mifepristone 200mg) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2000, in a regimen along with a second drug, misoprostol, for the “termination of pregnancy.”

Concerns Over Generic Drug Safety

"The truth is, most of our generic drug supply comes from overseas, produced in underregulated markets and in factories with far less oversight than those in the United States, and the danger of our overreliance on foreign-made medicines and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) from India and Communist China cannot be overstated," stated Senator Rick Scott in February.

Months later, ProPublica wrote:

This is a story about a powerful government agency that’s in charge of keeping us safe withholding scary information about our medications. The stuff we put into our bodies every day. So we’re going to do what the FDA won’t: tell you where our generic medications come from and the truth about the factories that made them. 

To be clear, ProPublica's report did not indicate that it found issues with factories manufacturing abortion drugs. However, this is not cause for relief, given that the names and locations of factories that manufacture abortion drugs are often obscure and not publicly identified.

ProPublica added:

ProPublica reporters uncovered reports from the FDA’s own inspectors detailing everything from pigeons pooping onto boxes of sterilized equipment to evidence of a factory cheating on quality testing. Even though the FDA knew about these reports, it let some of those troubled factories overseas keep shipping their drugs to the U.S. — some of which might have ended up in your medicine cabinet. 

"For decades, the U.S. government has promised and we all grew up believing that if you take a generic drug, it is just as safe and effective as a brand-name drug," ProPublica investigator Debbie Cenziper said, adding:

But when I was hearing stories from inspectors who had spent months or years going from one factory to another in remote areas of China and India and other countries, and describing what they saw, I thought, How is that possible? How is that promise possible?

ProPublica reporter Jessica Lussenhop noted that while "[m]uch of these factories should be as sterile as an operating room," the reports that ProPublica reviewed indicated "that really wasn’t the case at some of these factories. Inspectors described them as being dirty and having manufacturing breakdowns."

ProPublica identified disturbing issues, including:

• Dirty water collecting in buckets around the sterile area

• Metal shavings on equipment

• Urinals dripping near the sterile factory

• Pigeons perched on wires and defecating in sterile areas. 

Lussenhop noted:

In addition to just writing down the things they observed, inspectors would also check to see if the factories were testing their drugs properly...

It turns out the FDA doesn’t regularly test generic drugs that are coming into the U.S. to make sure they are safe and effective. It just lets the companies do the tests themselves. But the inspectors found serious issues with some of these tests, too. Like in this report talking about testing records from a factory in India.

This is little comfort given the massive number of abortion drugs flooding across U.S. borders.

What Countries are Abortion Pills Manufactured in?

1). Danco: The original abortion drug maker, Danco Laboratories, was initially suspected of manufacturing abortion drugs in China.

In 2008, Hua Lian distributed contaminated leukemia drugs that paralyzed at least 200 Chinese cancer patients, according to a New York Times report. The contaminated drug problem was such a concern that even abortion corporation Planned Parenthood called on FDA officials to investigate.

However, a 2023 settlement in False Claims Act litigation against Danco, filed for not stating the country of origin on the drug's packaging, revealed the abortion drug maker was manufacturing abortion pills in Spain.

While not specifically related to the manufacturing of their drugs, Danco Laboratories has also been cited by the FDA multiple times:

In 2016, Danco was cited for:

• Adverse drug experience information has not been reported to the FDA

• Incomplete periodic safety report

In 2010, it was cited for:

• Adverse drug experience information obtained or otherwise received from any source was not promptly reviewed, including information from commercial marketing experience, post-marketing clinical investigations, post-marketing epidemiological/surveillance activities, reports in the scientific literature, and unpublished scientific papers

• Written procedures have not been developed for the surveillance, receipt, evaluation, and reporting to the FDA of post-marketing adverse drug experiences

• Not all adverse drug experiences that are both serious and unexpected have been reported to the FDA within 15 calendar days of initial receipt of the information

• An FDA Form 3500A has not been completed for each report of a domestic adverse drug experience

FDA citations from 2006 were similar.

2). GenBioPro: The generic manufacturer GenBioPro (GBP) was once suspected of importing the drug from India.

But, while it is unclear whether GBP is still importing, drug packaging under the GBP name, including a 2024 packaging label for misoprostol and a March 2023 mifepristone label located in the FDA Report, as well as the FDA label search website, fails to show the manufacturing country of origin, other than to indicate that misoprostol is a "Product of United Kingdom."

3). Evita Solutions: The newest generic pill maker, Evita Solutions, shows the drug is manufactured in India, according to Daily Med's website:

UK/Drugs/12/UA/SC/P-2009
Made in India

While Daily Med lists India as the manufacturing location, Evita's packaging does not appear to specify a manufacturing country of origin.

Ironically, a search on ProPublica's website revealed that the pro-abortion media company does not know the country of origin for the generic abortion pill made by GenBioPro, nor the drug overseen by Danco.

In October 2022, Glamour Magazine described the online abortion pill dispensary Aid Access' process as shipping drugs into the U.S. from India, writing in part at that time, "In states where abortion is illegal...A distributor in India ships the medication into the United States."

In 2023, DKT International, which distributes and sells millions of abortion pills globally and operates a U.S. affiliate called Carafem, was suspected of shipping abortion drugs into the U.S. manufactured by the Delhi-based Synokem Pharmaceuticals Ltd, which is alleged to have a “shoddy quality record,” according to Bloomberg.com. The outlet also noted that DKT International “has become one of the world’s largest sellers of abortion pills, serving women from India to Mexico.” 

In addition, Bloomberg claimed that:

While the inspection reports didn’t flag significant issues, at least 23 samples of Synokem’s drugs have failed quality tests since 2018, according to test results Bloomberg collected from six state and federal drug regulators in India... One of the tests, involving a misoprostol sample collected at a hospital pharmacy in 2019, had so little active ingredient that a government-run hospital network warned all its members to stop using any medication from the entire batch, official records show.

While Bloomberg claimed that “Synokem abortion pills haven’t been linked to any deaths or serious injuries,” they went on to note that “the company’s product failures, all detected after the drugs had been sold to pharmacies and other distributors, suggest its internal quality assurance system is not working, medical experts consulted about the data told Bloomberg.”

Ironically, DKT is also funded by the Packard Foundation.

The Bottom Line:

As the FDA conducts its safety review of the abortion pill, perhaps a full review of the facilities that manufacture these drugs would also be prudent.

Key Takeaways:

• California's birth rate has reportedly declined to an unprecedented low.

• Currently, there is an average of 1.48 children born per woman — far below the necessary 2.1 replacement level.

• Between 2008 and 2022, births for women in their early twenties dropped by 50%.

• The trend is not unique to California, but has been experienced worldwide.

The Details:

PPIC's report states that California's current birth rate is lower than ever before, with a current average of 1.48 children per woman in 2023 — far below the necessary 2.1 replacement level and a significant drop from a 2.2 average in 2008.

The report states:

This decline is not merely a return to pre-boom levels, it represents a new low in California’s recorded history—and the speed of it is noteworthy. While birth rates have been on a general downward trajectory since the 1960s, the pace has accelerated since 2008 in California.

The California Department of Finance predicts that deaths will exceed births by 2038.

The report notes that between 2008 and 2022, births for women in their early twenties dropped by 50%, from 94 births per 1,000 women to 44%. Rates did rise seven percent (7%) in the over 35 demographic, but this was not enough to offset the significant decline elsewhere.

The Big Picture:

Declining birth rates have a significant impact on society at large; already, schools in the state have faced budget cuts due to declining enrollment. Fewer births also impacts the labor force, which affects things like health care, social services, and infrastructure. As the current population ages, there are fewer younger people to provide care and economic support.

California is far from alone in this crisis. Nations across the globe have reported similar declines, including Poland, Japan,  France,  Singapore, and Jamaica.

Demographers have struggled to pinpoint why this decline is happening. PPIC's report notes:

A key consideration is the status of women, their increasing opportunities for education and employment, and access to effective means of family planning. The costs of having children, including child care, schooling, and lost work opportunities have long been identified as important determinants of family size.

However, rarely discussed is the fact that for decades, children have been viewed as an inconvenience rather than a blessing. The rapid rise and societal acceptance of birth control in the twentieth century led to the belief that a pregnancy is something to avoid, rather than embrace. Likewise, abortion has led to the deaths of countless preborn children.

Though there are likely many contributing factors, if society embraced a culture of life, rather than one of death, it may stand a better chance of flourishing.

Patients who commit VSED are often not terminally ill. In fact, euthanasia organizations promote self-starvation to the elderly who are not dying and as a means of becoming eligible for assisted suicide where it is legal by making oneself “terminal” via lack of sustenance.

VSED must be distinguished from the common circumstance when actively dying people stop eating. That’s a natural process and often peaceful because the body cannot assimilate food as organs shut down. VSED, in contrast, deprives the body of sustenance it needs to remain alive toward the end of causing death, i.e., it is a suicide method.

Without palliation, many people attempting VSED would abandon the attempt. The bioethicists know this and claim that once the decision to commit suicide is made, doctors are duty-bound to medically ameliorate the suffering that inevitably results:

If a patient is adamant in their refusal of food and water, the same physician must respect the competent refusal by not force‐feeding the patient and should offer standard palliative care, as they would for any other dying patient. Medical support for patients undertaking VSED should be adequate and proportionate to their symptoms, as per any other form of palliative care. This is arguably not assisted suicide.

No, it is precisely that. First, but for the self-starvation, many people who undertake VSED would not be dying. Second, palliation permits the patient to complete the suicide that would otherwise be abandoned. Hence, the palliating doctor is facilitating the patient in becoming dead, i.e., it is a form of suicide assistance.

The authors acknowledge that if a doctor’s assurance of palliation factors into the decision to undertake VSED, that could be deemed assisted suicide:

We acknowledge that there may be some cases in which combining these two practices could amount to assistance in suicide. Jox et al. identify two key factors which, if present, arguably classify VSED cases as assisted suicide: (a) the promise of medical assistance is instrumental to the individual’s decision to pursue VSED, and (b) the physician shares, at least in part, in the individual’s decision to pursue VSED (amounting to some level of encouragement).

The authors next argue that VSED patients should be allowed to be rendered permanently unconsciousness if experiencing “refractory delirium”:

We propose the following criteria for VSED with TS in the setting of refractory delirium:
1. The patient is experiencing unbearable suffering.
2. The patient has lost decision‐making capacity.
3. The patient has previously stopped all fluids.
4. The patient has previously indicated that they would not wish for fluid to recommence if delirious.
5. Other measures to address confusion/distress have been attempted (or refused in advance), such as antipsychotics.

Ah, the old “strict guidelines protect against abuse” scenario.

The video player is currently playing an ad.

Let’s discuss this in the real world. Strict restrictions rarely stay strict. For example, needle “exchange” to prevent the spread of HIV eventually slouched into outright needle give away, no used syringes required.

The same kind of slippage would happen if sedating people committing VSED were allowed. Eventually, such drugging would become a standard technique, its availability amplified by assisted suicide advocates.

The authors’ answer to this objection? Let doctors predetermine whether to facilitate the suicide with sedation:

We believe that this harm can be reasonably mitigated through a thorough pre‐assessment of individuals requesting VSED. Prior to initiating physician involvement in the VSED process, physicians should seek to confirm that the individual (a) has decision‐making capacity, and (b) expresses a genuine intention to end their life. This pre‐assessment should also seek
to confirm that the individual is fully informed, their decision is voluntary, their decision is consistent with their known values, and that the individual is free from mental illness compromising their decision.

Wait: The authors wrote earlier that when “the promise of medical assistance is instrumental to the individual’s decision to pursue VSED, and “the physician shares, at least in part, in the individual’s decision to pursue VSED (amounting to some level of encouragement),” that it would amount to assisted suicide. Pre-assessment would fit those very criteria, no?

So, we see the slippery slope slip-sliding away in the very article calling for allowing sedation under strict guidelines to prevent abuse. If this proposal is implemented, the next step will be to quit beating around the bush and get on with the lethal jabs.

Why write about this, Wesley? Articles in professional journals are a means of constructing future public policy and people need to be warned about what is being planned before it is imposed from on high. Or to put it another way, these issues are too important to be left to the bioethicists.

Key Takeaways:

• Last month, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled that the state could not prohibit Medicaid from covering abortions.

• Abortionists sued the state to have a law barring Medicaid-funded abortions overturned, and pro-abortion Governor Josh Shapiro refused to defend it.

• The state's Attorney General, Dave Sunday, has now appealed the ruling.

The Backstory:

In April, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled that the state's ban on taxpayer-funded abortion is unconstitutional. In the 4-3 ruling, the court justices determined that Pennsylvania's constitution includes a 'right' to abortion, and that, therefore, a 1982 state ban on Medicaid-funded abortions was unconstitutional.

In their decision, the justices cited the state's Equal Rights Amendment, which they said "guarantees a fundamental right to reproductive autonomy," and that so-called right means Medicaid must cover abortion procedures.  

The case was originally brought by abortionists in the state, with the Department of Human Services, which oversees Medicaid, listed as a defendant. However, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro had declined to enforce the law, instead siding with the abortion industry. According to WESA, this resulted in a unique situation, when, during a hearing last year, both plaintiff and defendant appeared on the same side of the courtroom, and no attorney was present to defend the law.

The Details:

Attorney General Dave Sunday, who has been in office since 2025, has stepped in to defend the law on behalf of the state.

“My responsibility as Attorney General is to defend the rule of law and defend statutes without interference of personal opinion or political posturing,” he said.

Sunday filed his appeal in the state Supreme Court on May 19.

Dan Bartkowiak of the Pennsylvania Family Policy Institute told WGAL that the court's April ruling was an overreach.

"You have a court that's really looking to make policy,” he said. “Pennsylvania shouldn't be forced to fund abortion through their tax dollars.”

Susan Frietsche, the lead litigator on the case on behalf of the abortion businesses, ironically argued that Sunday's fight against taxpayer-funded abortion was "wasting taxpayer dollars."

“The Attorney General has chosen to waste taxpayer dollars on trying to take reproductive rights away from Pennsylvanians,” she said. "We look forward to once again arguing that reproductive choice belongs to the people, not the government."

Key Takeaways:

• In the latest episode of Human Matters, host Sami Parker discussed why cohabitation before marriage isn't a good idea.

• She pointed to statistics that show that couples who live together before marriage face higher rates of divorce than couples who do not cohabitate.

• Cohabitating couples and married couples face the same challenges, but those who are married have made a vow and entered into a commitment to stay together, while cohabitating couples don't have the same levels of commitment.

The Details:

In the video, Parker noted that "living together before marriage has become the 'next step' in modern relationships." However, this wasn't in God's plan for flourishing — and the statistics back it up. Studies consistently show that couples who live together before marriage face higher rates of divorce than couples who do not cohabitate before marriage.

"Cohabitation asks you to give someone marriage-level access to your life, body, routines, and future without marriage-level commitment, protection, or accountability," she said.

She explained that marriage can have incredible joys and significant struggles, the same as cohabitation. However, unlike cohabitating couples, married couples have made a commitment to stay together. She said:

"In marriage, you vow before God, your parents and siblings and a bunch of other people that you will stick together and be one, especially when it’s hard. But in cohabitation, there is no covenant, no vow, no circle of accountability from friends and family that helps hold your relationship together. Having endurance to build and grow and love one another better is optional because the only external force really keeping you together to some degree is a rental agreement."

"Cohabitating is conditional," Parker explained. "But marriage is entirely different because at its core, it says, 'I chose you' instead of cohabitating, which says, 'I am still deciding on you based on your performance.'” 

The Bottom Line:

Ultimately, Parker said, marriage offers stability that isn't found in cohabitation.

"There is profound importance in preserving the most tender aspects of your humanity (your deepest fears, your greatest flaws, your truest hopes) for the person who decides to anticipate, pursue, sacrifice for, and choose publicly and permanently," she said. "Marriage is the best."

Key Takeaways:

• In 2025, Alexia Williams and her husband, Michael, discovered they had naturally conceived quadruplets.

• No local hospital was equipped to handle the birth of quadruplets, so she turned to WellSpan Health in York, Pennsylvania.

• She gave birth at 25 weeks of gestation, with all four of the babies weighing approximately one pound.

• One year later, the babies are home and healthy, and they were recently reunited with the NICU staff who cared for them.

The Backstory:

WTAJ reported that Michael and Alexia Williams were already parents to a two-year-old boy when they decided to grow their family again. “She wanted to add an addition onto her family,” her mother, Brendalynn Diehl, said. “She wanted to have another baby.”

Alexia soon found out she was pregnant, but she wasn't having just one baby — instead, she was having four. Making the situation even more rare is that, according to a WellSpan Health press release, the quadruplets were conceived naturally.

However, living in rural Bedford County, Pennsylvania, posed a problem; there were no local hospitals with NICUs equipped to handle caring for quadruplets, who would likely be born prematurely. While at first she thought she would need to commute three hours to Philadelphia, she was able to turn instead to WellSpan York Hospital, which was slightly closer.

On May 15th, 2025, the quadruplets were born. Alexia was 25 weeks pregnant, making the babies extremely premature; they each weighed just one pound. The smallest of the babies, Dean, weighed just 14 ounces and had to remain in the NICU for 250 days before he was able to go home.

The Details:

On the babies' first birthday, Michael and Alexia brought them back to the hospital for a reunion with the team that had cared for them.

Today, all of the quadruplets weigh 16 pounds, are rolling over, and are otherwise thriving.

"Being farther away, we relied on the doctors to call us every day to share updates on the kids as they were progressing. Dr. Goodstein, especially, was very helpful in providing regular updates when we were back home because of my husband’s job," Alexia said. "I’m thankful for the care provided by the team at WellSpan. There were so many people involved every step of the way."

Dr. Michael Goodstein, division chief of neonatal medicine for WellSpan and the medical director of the WellSpan York Hospital Level III NICU, said the credit belonged to everyone on the care team.

"Caring for babies born this prematurely takes highly coordinated work from neonatologists, nurses, respiratory therapists, advanced practice providers, rehabilitation specialists, social workers, support staff and many others who show up every day for families during some of the most difficult moments of their lives,” he said.

“To see these four children back with us one year later, thriving and celebrating their first birthday, is incredibly meaningful for everyone involved.”

After reuniting with staff in the NICU, the Williams family had a special birthday celebration at WellSpan Park, home of the York Revolution, a minor league baseball team. The quadruplets got to wear matching jerseys, and the crowd sang happy birthday to the now-toddlers.

“In neonatal care, no one person carries a story like this alone. It takes an entire hospital team working in partnership with a family over many months to help create the best possible outcome,” Dr. Goodstein said. “We are grateful to have been part of this family’s journey, and it is a joy to see Samuel, Dean, April and Hailey doing so well one year later.”

The Bottom Line:

Every life is valuable and deserves the best care available to help him or her grow and thrive. The Williams babies' success is proof of how preemies can thrive with proper medical help and support, and families of multiples can thrive with the support of their community.

Key Takeaways:

• Antoine Jean Porcenat has been charged with felony aggravated assault of an unborn child, misdemeanor assault, and misdemeanor reckless endangerment.

• A woman, who has remained anonymous, reported to a local hospital saying Porcenat assaulted her after she refused to have an abortion.

• He also tried to make her drink an unknown liquid.

The Details:

According to the Chambersburg Public Opinion, the anonymous woman went to WellSpan Chambersburg Hospital on May 18, reporting severe pain and bleeding. She told hospital staff that she was eight weeks pregnant, and her boyfriend, Porcenat, wanted her to have an abortion. She refused, and he allegedly struck her twice in the stomach with "substantial force."

He also tried to make her drink an unknown liquid, but it is not clear if she drank any or if it had been spiked with anything. Reportedly, he had wanted her to drink the "unknown liquid to ‘get rid of the baby,'" insinuating he may have put abortion drugs into it.

Porcenat was arrested and arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Glenn Manns on May 19. When he was unable to make his $25,000 bail, he was placed in the Franklin County jail. He has been charged with felony aggravated assault of an unborn child, misdemeanor assault, and misdemeanor reckless endangerment.

The Big Picture:

Women who refuse abortion when their significant others demand it face serious threats of violence. With the advent of mail-order mifepristone, men have frequently been able to force women into abortions they did not want. In some cases, men add the abortion pill to drinks, as Porcenat seemingly tried to do. In others, they are more violent, forcing the pills into the victims' mouths or vaginas.

Homicide is also a leading cause of death for pregnant women. The threat is so severe that research has found homicide “exceeded all the leading causes of maternal mortality.” While this is not always related to abortion refusal, it is not unusual.

The Bottom Line:

No woman should ever fear for her life or that of her preborn child because she did not want to have an abortion.

Key Takeaways:

• In the majority of countries, the birth rate is below 2.1 children per woman, the number known as the "replacement rate" necessary to keep a population stable.

• Many experts are predicting there will be demographic and economic crises as a result.

• Burn-Murdoch argued that countries have experienced declines in birth rate after smartphones were introduced.

The Details:

In a new article for The Financial Times, Burn-Murdoch examined the issue of plummeting birth rates around the globe, and how they are falling across numerous demographics. It no longer seems to matter if a nation is wealthy or poor, how much or how little education the adults have, or any of the other numerous explanations previously offered. The replacement rate for most countries is far below the 2.1 children per woman needed to maintain the population.

"Almost all of the world is now affected. Until recently, ultra-low and rapidly falling birth rates were primarily a concern for rich countries, but many developing countries now have lower fertility rates than much wealthier ones," he said, and later added, "[A]cross a wide range of countries, the decline in births and coupling is much steeper among those with the least education and lowest incomes. By contrast the share of university graduates forming couples and having children is stable or even rising in some cases. Family formation, it seems, has become K-shaped."

He continued to point out numerous other issues, including housing, cultural changes, and the global financial crisis, but likewise repeatedly explained that they don't apply to all of the countries facing a demographic decline. Instead, data are pointing to another culprit: technology and, more specifically, smartphone usage. Burn-Murdoch explained:

Nathan Hudson and Hernan Moscoso-Boedo of the University of Cincinnati published a paper last month looking at birth rates through the lens of the rollout of 4G mobile networks in the US and UK.

The number of births fell first and fastest in the areas that received high-speed mobile connectivity earliest. The authors argue that smartphones have transformed how young people spend time with one another, sharply reducing in-person socialising and leading to the collapse in their fertility.

He continued:

For example, US, British and Australian birth rates for teens and young adults were broadly flat during the early 2000s but began to fall markedly from 2007.

The same slide began in France and Poland around 2009, and in Mexico, Morocco and Indonesia around 2012. What had been steady declines in fertility in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal became precipitous drops between 2013 and 2015.

All of these inflection points coincided with the mass adoption of smartphones in local markets — as measured by Google searches for mobile apps.

In country after country the birth rate plunged after the introduction of smartphones, no matter what the previous trend was. The younger the age group, the more pronounced the downturn — a mirror image of smartphone usage patterns.

The issue is that being perpetually online has negative effects.

“To meet a person you are going to marry requires filtering through a lot of people,” demographer Lyman Stone said. “If you socialise much less, it takes you much longer to find a match if you find one at all. If you spend lots of time socialising with your peers in the real world, your standards [for a potential partner] are anchored in the real world. If you spend your time on Instagram, your standards are anchored to an artificial sense of what is normal.”

Time on social media is also said to diminish real-world relationships, which is why Stanford University’s Alice Evans told Burn-Murdoch that countries with more traditional cultures see the biggest declines after smartphones are introduced. “Instagram and TikTok enable young women across the world to bypass traditional authorities . . . raising their expectations for a relationship in a way their male counterparts are often not prepared for," Evans said.

The Big Picture:

Whatever the cause, there is no doubting how severe the global population decline is. Numerous countries are now seeing the lowest birth rates in recorded history, in places like Japan, Jamaica, Singapore, France, Poland, Taiwan, and the United States.

Alongside low birth rates are often large aging populations, leading to major economic problems. This creates a large number of retirees without workers to pay into the system, which then puts pressure on the country's health care, pension, and social services. This, then, leads to an economic crisis.

Given that assisted suicide and euthanasia are likewise being legalized around the world, it would not be surprising to see vulnerable populations, like the elderly, being pressured into euthanasia to save money, which has already begun occurring in Canada.

Key Takeaways:

• Claire Brennan faced charges for violating a 'buffer zone' law by allegedly peacefully praying and providing aid to women outside Causeway Hospital, which commits abortions.

• Brennan’s case was dismissed last week after various principal charges were withdrawn, witnesses did not appear in court, and the remaining evidence was judged inadequate to support a conviction.

• The case underscores the unfortunate reality for pro-life advocates that “buffer zones” do not mainly concern physical safety, but they are about safeguarding abortion as a normalized service.

The Backstory:

Claire Brennan, a Ballymena-based mother of four backed by the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), faced charges under the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act 2023 for allegedly peacefully praying and providing aid to women outside Causeway Hospital, which commits abortions, in Coleraine.

The charges against Brennan concerned three distinct alleged incidents in September, October, and November 2025, during which she was accused of trying to “influence” individuals within a 150-meter designated buffer zone surrounding the hospital, Christian Concern said. 

The Details:

Last week, Brennan’s case was dismissed during proceedings at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court after various principal charges were withdrawn, witnesses did not appear in court, and the remaining evidence was judged inadequate to support a conviction.

In order to convict Brennan, the British Public Prosecution Service depended on a blend of written witness statements, CCTV footage, and testimony from three witnesses who appeared in court; when two of those witnesses failed to attend, the final charge crumbled, as the prosecution could not determine that Brennan was the individual who advanced toward the last complainant. 

On her end, Brennan has consistently rebuffed the allegations, maintaining that her conduct was peaceful, rooted in prayer, and grounded in compassion. She added that she offered conversation and small Christian medals only to those open to interactions, insisting that her actions were influenced by the Holy Spirit and aimed at providing solace to those in distress. 

After the decree, Brennan declared:

“This is a huge relief, not just for me, but for everyone who believes that compassion should never be criminalised. I have always acted peacefully, praying, offering hope, and trying to help women who may feel they have no alternative. These censorship zones are unjust. They silence prayer, restrict free speech, and prevent women from hearing that there is another option besides abortion.”

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the CLC said the case demonstrated significant loopholes in how these so-called ‘censorship zones’ are implemented. 

"These laws are having a chilling effect across Northern Ireland, criminalising ordinary people who simply want to offer women real choice, including alternatives to abortion," Williams said. 

"No society committed to freedom can justify punishing prayer or quiet offers of help.” 

The Big Picture:

Brennan’s case underscores the unfortunate reality for pro-life advocates that “buffer zones” do not mainly concern physical safety, but they are about safeguarding abortion as a normalized service from moral scrutiny and from interactions with pro-lifers who remind women that life starts at conception.

Her case also comes on the heels of Pastor Clive Johnston, 78, who was recently convicted for preaching a sermon on John 3:16 outside the same hospital and is currently contemplating an appeal. Johnston’s prosecution, like Brennan’s, entailed peaceful speech and scriptural reflection, instead of threats or harassment as alleged by pro-abortion supporters. 

The “buffer zones” effectively seeks to eradicate the most visible pro‑life presence at abortion‑service locations, leaving only pro‑abortion signage, clinic staff, and government-sanctioned information. This alarming trend in the United Kingdom reflects how moral witness is regarded by pro-abortion governments as a kind  of “distress” to be policed and penalized.

Although Brennan’s aforementioned acquittal does not repeal the pro-abortion “Safe Access Zones Act” in the UK, it indicates that it would be challenging to enact the law consistently without risking unjust convictions. The very reality that the prosecution could not prove Brennan’s identity to the final complainant ignites genuine questions about the quality of evidence given at court, witness reliability, and the fairness of relying on such testimonies to prosecute pro‑life witnesses.

The Bottom Line:

The ruling in Brennan’s case beckons pro‑life communities to remain vigilant, to pray for women facing abortion, and to continue providing practical alternatives—shelter, counseling, financial help—while also defending the ability to quietly bear witness to the dignity of all human lives in the shadow of abortion facilities. 

Planned Parenthood deserves to be permanently defunded — and Live Action News' series, 'DEFUND 250,' serves to remind the public of many reasons why.

Though Planned Parenthood is best known as the nation’s leading abortion business, committing abortions isn’t all it does; Planned Parenthood has also been branching out into so-called “gender-affirming care,” peddling cross-sex hormones and surgery referrals — in some cases, even for minors. Numerous stories reveal that Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country are routinely offering these life-altering drugs — even to teens — sometimes in as little as just one phone call or visit.

Key Takeaways:

• Planned Parenthood has been found to offer cross-sex hormones, even to minors, in just one phone call or visit.

• Its victims detail Planned Parenthood prescribing the life-altering drugs without requiring any tests or therapy.

• Some are now speaking out about the lack of informed consent and all-too-easy access to life-altering drugs.

The Details:

#1 Undercover calls reveal Planned Parenthood willing to give hormones to minors ‘same day’

In 2025, an undercover journalist posing as a 16-year-old female called Planned Parenthood facilities offering ‘transgender services’ in eight one-party consent states/territories —Minnesota, Oregon, Maine, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Colorado, and Washington, D.C.

Staff at seven of the 33 locations confirmed that they would offer cross-sex hormones at the first appointment — even virtually. At five of the locations, the caller was told she didn't need any type of therapy, mental health clearance, or documentation of a mental health assessment before receiving hormones.

The fact that the caller posed as a minor did not seem problematic.

#2 A 30-minute call was all it took for her to get hormones

Cat Cattinson had suffered from mental health issues; in addition to being autistic, she had suffered eating disorders and suicidal ideation, and had a history of trauma. Yet when she called Planned Parenthood and told staff there she wanted to be a male, none of those factors were taken into account. Instead, she was approved for testosterone shots after just one 30-minute phone call.

“It was so easy to get testosterone — they didn’t require any tests or therapy. I was surprised at how quickly they gave it to me,” she later said. 

#3 Autistic teen reportedly got cross-sex hormones from Planned Parenthood ‘in little over 30 minutes’

Fred was an autistic teen from New Jersey who announced in 2022 that he was transgender. When his parents were out of town, he traveled to the local Planned Parenthood and that same morning was given a prescription for estrogen. His parents later filed a complaint with New Jersey’s nursing and medical boards.  

“Instead of a months-long evaluation by expert psychiatrists, a nurse practitioner had, in little over 30 minutes, prescribed their special-needs son a powerful drug without their knowledge or consent,” explained the  Washington Free Beacon, which reported the story.

#4 Staff put teen’s ‘life in serious danger’ with cross-sex hormones

Helena Kerschner is a detransitioner who now actively speaks out about the so-called "care" she received at Planned Parenthood.

A few weeks after her 18th birthday, she visited Planned Parenthood after a combination of anxiety, social media, and a history of family issues had her convinced she needed testosterone.

She recalled:

"The appointment took about one hour and none of the clinicians I saw were interested in what was behind my desperation to change my body. They told me that because I seemed 'so sure,' they would forgo doing blood tests and prescribe the hormones that day. I told the clinicians that I wanted a high dose, because I wanted to see more changes in my body. They agreed, and prescribed me 100mg of testosterone per week."

That high dose was reportedly four times the typical starting dose of testosterone, and it was given to Kerschner by a nurse practitioner in less than an hour, without ever seeing a doctor. The drugs had lasting effects, sending her mental health spiraling.

#5 Spending 30 minutes at Planned Parenthood changed her forever. Now, she’s suing.

Cristina Hineman visited Planned Parenthood weeks after turning 18 — and walked away with a testosterone prescription after an appointment lasting less than 30 minutes.

“I had heard online about Planned Parenthood as a provider which will just give you hormones if you want them, and doesn’t do any kind of gatekeeping,” Hineman later explained.

As a teen, she experienced mental health struggles, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation; however, Planned Parenthood took none of those into account, reportedly diagnosing her with a gender identity disorder without a mental health evaluation and without even looking at her mental health or medical records.

Hineman later filed a lawsuit against the organization, noting that what it offered her wasn't care:

Diagnosing a patient with gender identity disorder and providing a prescription for cross-sex hormones to treat gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria after a single, thirty-minute meeting where no mental health evaluation or assessment was performed and where no attempt was made to resolve myriad mental health comorbidities are appalling breaches of the standard of care.

#6 ‘Word on the street’ leads teens to Planned Parenthood for ‘easy’ hormone access

Journalist Jennifer Block — who identifies as firmly pro-abortion — investigated Planned Parenthood's testosterone distribution.

“I had heard through several sources that Planned Parenthood was known, kind of on the street, among young people as a place to go if you’re a teen… you can walk in and out with hormones — that was kind of the word on the street,” Block explained.

Her investigation confirmed this, as she called Planned Parenthood “the largest single provider of cross-sex hormones for young people under the age of 28.”

Those findings were surprising to Planned Parenthood donors and supporters, including one former Planned Parenthood exec who shocked to realize that the corporation’s guidelines allowed young people cross-sex hormone prescriptions after single, 30-minute conversations.

“If people are not fully informed and prepared, she said, it could be a nightmare,” Block recalled.

#7 Woman says Planned Parenthood doctor recommended transgender surgery without meeting her

A woman named Ryan detailed her experience while on the Dr. Phil show, as she said she received no counseling from Planned Parenthood prior to receiving cross-sex hormones as a teen.

“The biggest mistake I made was that I did not get the right amount of therapy or medical advice needed,” Ryan told Dr. Phil. “Before I went on hormone therapy, I wasn’t required to see any therapist or any sort of a doctor at all.”

She said Planned Parenthood also gave her a letter referring her for "top surgery," in which the female breasts are removed, after only a 45-minute phone call.

#8 ‘Ruined’: Reddit users regret how easily they got hormones from Planned Parenthood

Though only a handful of people have gone public about their negative Planned Parenthood experiences, one Reddit thread reveals that there are far more who have been impacted after receiving hormones at the organization.

A Reddit user asked if others had obtained hormones through Planned Parenthood and felt “they were not truly warned about the negative effects of transitioning.” Comments on the thread were revealing.

One responder said their "physical and mental health was ruined," while another said it was "a horrible experience."

One response noted:

...the biggest beef for me was their painfully lacking ‘psych eval’ type few questions less than an hour before slapping the prescription into my hands. Questions that I definitely answered the ‘wrong’ aka of greater concern answers to like: do you have a history of mental illness? Suicidal thoughts/actions? Family abuse? Drug or alcohol abuse?

These questions are not verbatim obviously but my answers were all major yes’s, so I just don’t understand how my demonstration of a complete lack of mental stability kept me an eligible candidate.

#9 Co-founder of first US pediatric gender clinic hints Planned Parenthood is off the rails

Even those within the industry are warning that Planned Parenthood is taking its "gender affirming" practice too far. Laura Edwards-Leeper, who co-founded the nation’s first pediatric gender clinic and helped to develop transgender advocacy group WPATH’s standards, told the Wall Street Journal that Planned Parenthood was operating "beyond the scope of practice."

In responding to reports of how quickly and easily Planned Parenthood was giving out cross-sex hormones, she said, “It really seems that their protocol is substandard and lacks the rigor necessary for a life-altering intervention.”

#10 Detransitioner was only 16 when Planned Parenthood gave her testosterone

In March 2025, Elle Palmer spoke during a public hearing of the Connecticut Judiciary Committee, describing how Planned Parenthood gave her testosterone when she was just 16 years old.

She testified:

I told the doctor about my traumatic female puberty with debilitating painful periods, severe suicidal thoughts, and self-harm, and anxiety so bad that I dropped out of school. I told him that I went to a children’s mental hospital three times before I was 14.

You might be surprised to hear that the doctors, nurses, and therapists not only knew these things, but they believed the root cause was due to my internal sense of gender identity. Transition was supposed to be the cure. Not even a history of sexual abuse will stop these medical professionals from putting a young girl on testosterone.

Years later, when she returned to Planned Parenthood and told them she wanted to transition back to a female, they were unable to help her.

" As weeks turned to months eventually every single doctor had called me back saying, ‘I don’t know. Maybe another doctor can help you,'" Palmer recalled. "Planned Parenthood could easily put a teenage girl on testosterone, but no one in the entire state knew how to treat a woman who just wanted her female body back.”

The Bottom Line:

It is clear it is far too easy to obtain powerful, potentially irreversible hormonal treatments at Planned Parenthood facilities. An organization that endangers its clients — especially minors — to such an extent does not deserve a time of taxpayer dollars.

Key Takeaways:

• Minority Veterans of America has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for revoking a Biden-era rule that allowed the VA to commit abortions at the expense of taxpayers.

• The rule was implemented in 2022 and revoked in December 2025.

• The lawsuit claims the Department of Veterans Affairs violated the Administrative Procedures Act by revoking the rule.

The Details:

Minority Veterans of America filed its lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 14. The suit claims the VA violated the Administrative Procedures Act when it revoked a Biden-administration rule change that allowed the VA to offer abortions to pregnant veterans and their beneficiaries.

The complaint maintains the “VA failed to provide any explanation — let alone a reasoned explanation — for disregarding its previous factual findings addressing veterans’ need for abortion care, and … failed to address significant comments.” 

"The decision by the VA to eliminate abortion care and abortion counseling from the health care provided to veterans and their families is a betrayal..." the lawsuit reads. "This essential medical care is particularly important for veterans and their families, yet VA has imposed a ban on abortion services that is the strictest in the entire federal government."

The suit cites one pregnant veteran who says her unexpected pregnancy is “already exacerbating existing health conditions," and claims the abortion ban is threatening her health.

“VA’s ban on abortion care and counseling is a direct threat to my health and my ability to parent my existing children and a betrayal of the sacrifices I have made for my country,” the service member said, according to The Hill.

The Backstory:

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the Biden administration told the VA that its doctors could commit abortions, despite federal law prohibiting taxpayer dollars from funding the deadly procedures. That led to a VA rule change, authorizing VA doctors to commit abortions under Chapter 17 of Title 38 of the U.S. Code. Prior to that 2022 rule change, the VA did not commit abortions.

In December 2025, the Department of Justice reversed the Biden-era decision. At that time, a memorandum written by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Josh Craddock said that federal law “unambiguously commands that VA may not provide abortions when furnishing medical care under 38 U.S.C. § 1710 or any other provision in chapter 17 of Title 38."

The Bottom Line:

True health care means treating both the pregnant mother and her preborn child. There is never a medical reason why that child should be directly and intentionally killed in the womb, nor should taxpayers be required to foot the bill.

Key Takeaways:

• New Zealand's birth rate dropped to 1.53 births per woman, a historic low.

• While the Māori ethnic population and overall population rose slightly, the birth rate continued to decline.

• The declining birth rate could cause a demographic crisis.

The Details:

According to a report from Stats NZ, the Māori population grew by 1.2% (10,800 people) from 2024 to 2025, compared to 0.6% for the total population of New Zealand.

Despite the increase in the Māori population, New Zealanders are still not having enough children to replace the nation's total population over time. Live births for the year ending March 2026 totaled just 57,927, down from 58,539. The fertility rate fell from 1.58 to 1.53 births per woman — a historic low — while deaths rose slightly.

Some New Zealanders blame abortion for the declining birth rate. A woman named Cathrine commented on Centrist, "The continual whining about lack of population – not enough children being born, fertility rates are down, etc, etc, is totally ridiculous when no-one has guts enough to factor in the millions of babies being aborted world-wide. Stop abortions, support educating self-thinking-able children into society than there will be no need for continual immigration of incompatible cultures to our countries."

Distinguished Professor at Massey University, Paul Spoonley, explained, "We now know what's happening in terms of our total fertility rate and that it is declining - and declining quite significantly."

Zoom In:

RNZ reported that women are skipping motherhood in favor of growing their education and careers, but the cost of having children is a contributing factor.

"And the [other] factor, I think, is the concerns particularly amongst millennials, and I think Generation Z, that the environment is important: Can I have children and not impact upon the environment?" said Spoonley.

He added, "There's been all these measures put in place to try and halt or reverse fertility decline and there are literally no examples of them succeeding. So, I think fertility decline is simply part of our demographic future."

The Bottom Line:

Experts believe the declining birth rate in New Zealand will lead to a huge demographic crisis in which a quarter of the population will be over the age of 65 by 2048. New Zealand has yet to come up with a strategy to improve the birth rate despite a 1986 report raising concerns about the issue.

"That report went largely unheeded," wrote Joel Abrams for The Conversation. "The risk is this one does, too."

While he doesn't believe New Zealand is in a crisis right now, he feels that the government must take action before it's too late.

Key Takeaways:

• Alaska House Bill 195 would allow pharmacists to prescribe and distribute certain medications.

• Some warn that the bill would permit pharmacists to prescribe the abortion pill.

• The bill passed the House on a 32-8 vote.

The Details:

House Bill 195 would allow pharmacists to prescribe and distribute medications "intended to achieve outcomes related to the cure or prevention of a disease, elimination or reduction of a patient's symptoms, or arresting or slowing of a disease process."

The Alaska Watchman shared an analysis of the bill written by Alaska Legislative Attorney Conran Gunther, who believes the legislation could open the door for the pharmacists to prescribe the abortion pill.

Gunther explained:

"...before prescribing such a drug, the pharmacist would need to enter a 'collaborative practice agreement with a written protocol approved by a practitioner who is not a pharmacist....' If that written protocol included prescribing or administering an abortion drug for one of the reasons described above, then the pharmacist would be permitted to prescribe or administer a drug that induces an abortion to a patient. One caveat, however, is that all health care professionals must confine the care they provide to their scope of practice. I do not know if providing an abortion falls under the scope of practice of pharmacists."

The Alaska Medical Board also previously spoke out against the legislation, warning that it would include controlled substances and "abortion medications."

"The authority to broadly prescribe any medication would mean pharmacists would have the ability to diagnose and therefore treat any medical condition. The diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions is the practice of medicine. The State Medical Board opposes pharmacists being granted the ability to practice medicine in Alaska," the group wrote.

Though an amendment was proposed to ensure that the bill would not apply to abortion-inducing drugs, that amendment was voted down. In the end, the bill passed the House on a 32-8 vote, with 11 Republicans voting in favor. The legislation next heads to the Senate.

Zoom In:

The abortion pill is known to be dangerous to women, with one study finding it to be four times more dangerous than a first-trimester surgical abortion. An analysis of insurance data looked at "serious adverse events" (complications) of the abortion pill, and found that they reportedly occur at a rate 22 times higher than the rate currently held by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These complications include hemorrhaging, infection, sepsis, transfusions, hospitalization, and more.

The Bottom Line:

Though pharmacists have medical training, they are not doctors. Allowing a pharmacist to prescribe such a dangerous drug (which has an FDA black box warning), only increases the risk to women. And it always kills preborn children.

Key Takeaways:

• Jon Rueben Gabriel Demeter has been charged with illegal abortion and injury to a child after authorities say he tricked a woman into consuming an unspecified abortion drug.

• Demeter allegedly ordered the pill online and crushed it into an electrolyte drink, encouraging the woman to consume it. She later miscarried.

• He had previously pressured the woman and offered her money to abort her preborn child, but she refused.

The Backstory:

As Live Action News previously reported, Jon Rueben Gabriel Demeter, 25, of Spring, Texas was arrested in February after police were called to a hospital for a report of a woman experiencing a "suspicious" miscarriage.

The woman told police that she believed Demeter had slipped her an abortion drug without her knowledge or consent.

He was arrested and charged with with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon causing serious bodily injury-family violence; at the time, authorities said those charges could be upgraded.

The Details:

This week, Demeter was indicted by a grand jury on charges of performing an abortion and injury to a child, both first-degree felonies carrying a sentence of five years to life in prison.

A search warrant obtained by KPRC 2 News reporter Corley Peel offers more details about Demeter's alleged crime.

As Peel reports, the search warrant indicates that Demeter obtained an abortion drug and then crushed it up inside an electrolyte drink. He gave the drink to the woman and encouraged her to drink it, telling her it helped the mother of his other children during her pregnancy.

Shortly after, the woman started feeling unwell and went to the hospital, where she miscarried her child, whom she named Presley Mae. She was 14 weeks pregnant at the time.

The warrant also details that prior to giving the woman the drink, Demeter had offered to pay the woman $1,000 to abort their child, telling her he could obtain abortion drugs online. She refused.

Zoom Out:

A number of decisions by the FDA under the Obama and Biden administrations loosened safety regulations on the abortion pill mifepristone, which allowed the drug to become available online and without a doctor’s appointment. That easy access has had devastating consequences.

Over the past few years, there has been a substantial increase in instances in which predatory men have ordered the abortion drugs online and then coerced, forced, or tricked pregnant women into aborting their preborn children.

Demeter is hardly the first; he joins a growing list of such predators.

The Bottom Line:

As long as there are so few regulations on abortion pill distribution, women will continue to be injured and their preborn children killed.

Key Takeaways:

• House Bill 1168 criminalizes abortion-drug trafficking in Oklahoma.

• The bill was signed by Governor Kevin Stitt on May 5.

• Violators face a felony charge with a $100,000 fine and/or 10 years in prison.

• Online and mail-order access to the abortion pill has led to abortion pill injuries and resulted in abusive men ordering the pills themselves and then tricking, coercing, or forcing women into abortions they did not want.

The Details:

House Bill 1168 makes it a crime to provide abortion-inducing drugs, such as the abortion pill, to anyone intending to use the drugs to commit an unlawful abortion. Violators will face a felony charge and a $100,000 fine, 10 years in prison, or both.

The bill was authored by Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader, who said that though nearly all preborn children in the state are protected from abortion, the abortion pill is still making its way into the hands of vulnerable women.

"What has happened, however, since that has become law in our state, is that people are trafficking abortion-inducing drugs to women who are already in a vulnerable state," Crosswhite Hader said. "That's unscrupulous, and it needs to stop. This bill is about protecting women from the horrible side effects of these pills. It's also to protect women from being taken advantage of by someone looking to personally profit from the distribution of these pills."

The bill's Senate sponsor, Sen. David Bullard, called the abortion pill "the greatest threat to motherhood," saying:

The trafficking of the abortion pill is no different than human trafficking and possibly worse. It is the largest killer of babies and the greatest threat to motherhood.

It is the death sentence to an innocent baby who has been convicted of no crime and a false hope to a mother, soon to kill the child she carries. In fact, the injustice of the abortion pill being trafficked in Oklahoma is a generational loss of Holocaust proportions, and the victims are always twofold.

Today, we took a big step in stopping both of those wrongs. Oklahoma will continue to stand for the rights of a person to have life, liberty, and property."

Why It Matters:

In 2021, the FDA loosened its safety regulations for the abortion pill by eliminating the in-person dispensing requirement and enabling it to be permanently shipped by mail. This means that women are now taking the abortion pill at home, without any oversight from a doctor — and many are being injured in the process.

Additionally, lack of in-person dispensing has resulted in abusive men ordering the pills themselves and then tricking, coercing, or forcing women into abortions they did not want.

The Bottom Line:

Though states like Oklahoma have passed laws protecting preborn children from abortion, those laws are routinely being flouted by abortionists who are shipping pills into the state. This Oklahoma bill is another attempt to protect women and children.

Key Takeaways:

• The Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill will have its first reading on June 9, and the Infant (Born Alive) Protection Bill on June 11.

• Data suggests the number of complications from abortion are higher than what is currently being reported.

• The rise of at-home abortions has led to fears that more women could potentially give birth to living, viable babies.

The Details:

Lord Moylan’s Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill is scheduled to come before the House of Lords after being drawn 14th in the Lords’ Private Members’ Bill ballot, with its First Reading scheduled for June 9. Baroness O’Loan’s Infant (Born Alive) Protection Bill was drawn at number 17, and is supposed to have its First Reading on June 11.

Although the bills’ entire contents have not yet been disclosed to the public, a government review released in November 2023 revealed that abortion complications may be considerably undercounted in yearly statistics, which depend  on reports from abortionists.

The review, conducted by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, evaluated Hospital Episode Statistics for England from 2017 to 2021, and found that its figures hinted at a higher complication rate than the one documented through the Abortion Notification System and published in the yearly abortion data.

The review also disclosed that the complication rate based on Abortion Notification System (ANS) data averaged 1.52 per 1,000 abortions between 2017 and 2021. In contrast, the analysis of Hospital Episode Statistics over the same period produced a rate of 4.06 per 1,000 — over 2.6 times higher than the figure reported in the annual abortion statistics.

When incomplete abortions were also included in the hospital data analysis, the rate rose to 18.16 per 1,000 abortions, which was nearly 11.9 times higher than the rate calculated from the ANS data, which does not factor in incomplete abortions.

The disparity in reported complication rates was significantly higher among women under 20 versus the overall population. In this younger group, the complication rate derived from HES data was 4.43 times higher than the rate calculated from ANS data, whereas for the general population, it was 2.67 times higher. When incomplete abortions were also included in the HES analysis, the gap increased even more: for women under 20, the HES-based complication rate was 17.43 times higher than the ANS figure, as opposed to an 11.95-fold difference in the general population. 

The review also discovered that complications occurring after a patient’s discharge, or after the relevant reporting form had already been handed over to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), were often not documented by abortionists. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) pointed out that, as of the 2022 review, there was no proof that abortion providers were notifying the DHSC to revise records when patients subsequently reported complications after submitting report forms. 

Additionally, the review observed that complications may be underreported in cases where one or both abortion medications are taken at home. Under such circumstances, the individual completing the HSA4 form is unlikely to be aware of any complications encountered after the procedure, reducing the likelihood that these events are captured in writing. 

Zoom In:

After a legislative change in the previous parliament removed criminal penalties for women committing their own abortions for any reason and at any stage up to birth, Baroness O’Loan introduced the Infant (Born Alive) Protection Bill to outline the legal safeguards granted to babies who are born alive after surviving an abortion attempt.

The amendment to the law, implemented earlier this year through the Crime and Policing Act 2026, is expected to give rise to a notable rise in women carrying out high-risk, late-term abortions at home, potentially putting more lives at risk. 

This legislative change is also expected to result in a spike in the number of viable infants being aborted beyond the 24-week legal limit, including at stages when they can survive outside the womb. 

Discussing Lord Moylan’s Complications from Abortions (Annual Report) Bill being drawn in the ballot, Catherine Robinson, spokesperson for Right To Life UK, stated: 

A Government review in 2023 revealed that abortion complication rates are likely much higher than has been previously reported in the annual abortion statistics, which are based on reporting from abortion providers. In this new parliamentary session, the Government needs to urgently introduce measures to ensure that abortion complications data is accurately collected and reliably reported moving forward.

While it is rare for Lords Private Members’ Bills to become law, this Bill will ensure that the issue of complication rate underreporting is put on the radar and debated extensively in Parliament, the media and wider society.

This will help raise the profile of this major issue and put pressure on the Government to ensure that abortion complications data is accurately collected and reliably reported for years to come.

Similarly, Robinson said:

Babies born alive following an abortion should receive the same standard of care as any other baby born at the same gestation.

Sadly, the fact that it is no longer illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, including sex-selective purposes, and at any point up to and during birth, means that late-term abortions outside a clinical setting are far more likely.

Such babies need the full protection of the law.

At the start of each new parliamentary session, members of the House of Lords can submit a Private Members’ Bill for entry into a ballot, with the hope that it will be chosen and given enough parliamentary time to pass into law.  No proposed legislation on assisted suicide was selected in the ballot, and no measures supporting abortion were chosen.

The Bottom Line:

The two bills come at a time when worries are rising over the accuracy of abortion complication data in the United Kingdom and the legal status of children who survive abortion attempts. While Private Members’ Bills rarely become law on their own, their value lies in sparking public debate and putting neglected pro-life issues on the parliamentary agenda.

In this case, the bills on abortion complications and babies born alive after abortion single out two questions that many lawmakers would rather gloss over: whether Britain is accurately recording the harms of abortion, and whether it is doing enough to safeguard infants who survive it.  The first bill calls for transparency, and the second for accountability and care. Given that abortion is erroneously framed as “healthcare” by mainstream British society, the public deserves honest data, while every child who is born alive deserves protection, instead of abandonment leading to death. 

Any sane and moral person recoils at the idea of someone being drugged without their knowledge or consent.

This is not up for debate. There is no gray or nuance. We do not contextualize or excuse it. 

When the crimes of Bill Cosby were exposed, the cultural response was swift and unified. A man once celebrated as “America’s Dad” was rightly recognized as a predator who violated women by secretly administering drugs. The consensus was clear. Covertly causing the ingestion of a substance into someone’s body without their consent is a profound violation.

Ignoring a hard truth

And yet today, a disturbingly similar form of abuse is being enabled.

Across the United States, reports continue to surface of women being unknowingly given abortion drugs by the fathers of their unborn children or others seeking to end a pregnancy without the mother’s knowledge. These are not hypothetical scenarios. 

The response from abortion advocates has been noticeably absent.

Why?

Because confronting this abuse would require acknowledging a hard truth. The current chemical abortion system, stripped of meaningful safeguards in the name of “access,” has created conditions where this kind of harm is not only possible, but increasingly easy.

Empowerment or exploitation?

What was framed as “reproductive freedom” or “healthcare access” has foreseeably flung the door wide open to exploitation.

A recent video by the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) illustrates just how non-existent chemical abortion protections are. In this video, an AAPLOG physician intentionally entered blatantly inconsistent and medically concerning information into the system of one of the nation’s largest online abortion pill providers to see what would happen.

Inputs included implausible medical histories and red flags that, in any responsible clinical setting, would require immediate follow-up or disqualification.

Yet the system still approved the request, claiming to have a doctor’s oversight. Even when the process briefly halted after the applicant identified as male, it took nothing more than clicking back and changing the answer to proceed:

If a system can be so easily manipulated in a controlled demonstration, what is happening in real-world situations where coercion and abuse are actually present?

Shunning safeguards

There is a deep irony at the heart of this issue.

We are told that these policies exist to empower women, protect their autonomy, and ensure 'access' to care.

But 'access' has been turned into a weapon against the very women these policies claim to champion.

In most areas of public life, when a policy produces clear and repeated harm, there is at least some willingness to reassess. We expect leaders to say, “Something is wrong. We need to fix this.”

But in the current abortion landscape, even modest calls for safeguards are met with fierce resistance.

Basic regulations such as in-person medical oversight and gestational limits that most Americans support are not radical proposals. So why are they treated as violations of basic human rights by those who say they are women’s biggest defenders?

This is Radical Individualism at its ugliest. 

'Untouchable' abortion

Because in a system where abortion is treated as an untouchable and almost sacramental, any acknowledgment of harm becomes a betrayal of The Cause. So instead, the harms are minimized and ignored.

This issue shouldn’t be complicated:

• If it is wrong to secretly drug a woman in any other context, it is wrong here, and the systems that allow for it must be fixed.

• If we believe women deserve protection from coercion and abuse, then that belief must be applied consistently, even when it challenges preferred policies.

• If we truly care about women, we cannot build systems that make it easier for them to be harmed.

The current chemical abortion landscape is not simply a policy debate. It is a growing ethical failure.

And until there is the courage to confront it honestly, this will continue. The next headline may not be about a stranger a thousand miles away, but someone we know or love.

Because more headlines are coming.

In Part three of our series on misoprostol abortions, Live Action News breaks down a short history on the promotion of the one-drug regimen. (Read parts one and two.)

Key Takeaways:

• Misoprostol-only, self-managed abortions were “very widespread, well before Roe fell," according to one author.

• The risks of the drug are known, including that it is not as effective as mifepristone/misoprostol (the abortion pill regimen) in combination, failing anywhere from 15-25% of the time.

• Despite knowledge of these risks to women, the abortion industry has been promoting this misoprostol-only protocol once again in case mifepristone is restricted.

The Details:

Predicting misoprostol-only abortions

Despite not being approved as a single-use drug for abortion, some abortion industry insiders have pivoted to a one-drug regimen of misoprostol only, to circumvent the FDA's REMS safety protocols on mifepristone.

In his book, “The Abortion Pill,” French researcher Etienne-Emile Baulieu, who invented the abortion pill, noted misoprostol’s use in countries where abortion was illegal, claiming he had personally “bought misoprostol in pharmacies to experiment with the drug as an abortifacient.”

He wrote, “In the future, the availability and convenience of misoprostol may become crucial if RU-486 is offered under more private conditions than in abortion clinics."

According to the New York Times (NYT):

Dr. Baulieu said that when he got the idea of using Cytotec with RU486... from reading a newspaper article, he was unaware that it was marketed in France. Dr. Baulieu, who is an endocrinologist, said he immediately made plans to carry out the study with an obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr. Elisabeth Aubeny, at Broussais Hospital in Paris with approval from the hospital's ethics committee.

Prior to approval as an abortion drug, Dr. John C. Willke, former president of National Right to Life, testified at an FDA hearing that [misoprostol] Cytotec ''will be on the street literally days after it is made available on prescription,'' and that it will be used specifically to produce abortions, the NYT reported in 1988.

An old playbook

"In a study of 610 women at three New York clinics in largely Dominican neighborhoods conducted eight years ago, 5 percent said they had taken misoprostol themselves, and 37 percent said they knew it was an abortion-inducing drug," NYT reported in 2009.

"The side effects can be serious, and include rupture of the uterus, severe bleeding and shock," NYT wrote, adding:

In 2007 in Massachusetts, an 18-year-old Dominican immigrant named Amber Abreu took misoprostol in her 25th week of pregnancy and gave birth to a 1-pound baby girl who died four days later; a judge sentenced her in June to probation and ordered her into therapy.

In South Carolina in February, a Mexican migrant farm worker, Gabriela Flores, pleaded guilty to illegally performing an abortion and was sentenced to 90 days in jail for taking misoprostol while four months pregnant in 2004.

A Virginia man, Daniel Riase, is serving a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2007 to slipping the pills into his pregnant girlfriend’s glass of milk.

In 2021, Live Action News documented the reckless way abortion advocates promoted the unapproved method of abortion, going as far as advising women to deceptively obtain misoprostol. One tweet even claimed, “People have successfully acquired pills by telling the pharmacist their grandparent with rheumatoid arthritis is visiting and forgot their pills at home” and contacting your dog’s vet for the drug.

“Misoprostol is also used to treat stomach ulcers in dogs. If you have a relationship with a local, friendly vet, you might be able to work it to your advantage!” tweeted @bpdbasedgirl.

In 2023, Live Action News' Bad Actors series took a deeper dive, displaying examples of abortion facility websites advertising the less effective method of chemically ending the life of a baby in the womb.

Pro-life OBGYN Dr. Ingrid Skop wrote at the Charlotte Lozier Institute website:

The abortion industry has utilized this playbook before. In response to staffing shortages, when few ob/gyns were willing to perform surgical abortions and abortion clinics had trouble hiring and retaining surgeons, the industry began promoting medication abortions over surgical abortions, even though studies demonstrate that approximately four times as many complications occur following mifepristone and misoprostol abortion compared to surgical aspiration abortion.

Big Abortion collaboration

Misoprostol-only, self-managed abortions were “very widespread, well before Roe fell," wrote pro-abortion author Carrie Baker in her book, "Abortion Pills: US History and Politics."

1990s: "In November of 1990, women’s rights activists from across Latin America met in Argentina to share the knowledge about misoprostol for medical abortions. Delegates from the United States attended," Baker wrote.

Early 2000s: Susan Yanow at the Abortion Access Project (later named Provide) was instrumental in collaborating with Big Abortion to push the one drug regimen. Yanow was involved with Women on Waves, founded by Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts who also founded Aid Access.

According to Baker:

The Abortion Access Project convened a Misoprostol Alone Working Group between 2004 and 2010, which included Ibis Reproductive Health, Gynuity Health Projects, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and later, the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The Working Group sparked several research projects, developed talking points, and began to raise awareness about self- induced abortion in the United States. The Working Group also discussed whether it was ethical to recommend self- induced abortion with misoprostol given it was not considered the “gold standard”— that is, clinic- based medical care with mifepristone and misoprostol.

Ibis Reproductive Health and the Office of Population Health at Princeton University developed a website, www.medicationabortion.com, in the early 2000s, providing information on three early abortion regimens, including misoprostol alone, in multiple languages.

The website shows less than effective outcomes:

The best available evidence suggests that the optimal protocol has an overall completion rate of 75% to 85% when used in the first nine weeks of pregnancy.

Efficacy appears to be at the higher end of this range when the pregnancy is at an earlier gestational age.

In the roughly 15%-25% of cases where misoprostol administration does not lead to a complete abortion, additional intervention in required. Recent studies have shown that approximately 10% of women using misoprostol for early pregnancy termination will experience an ongoing pregnancy. 

If their website is to be believed, then out of the 732,000 estimated abortion pill abortions in 2025, at least 73.2K may face an incomplete abortion from misoprostol alone.

According to Baker, Beverly Winikoff, who founded Gynuity Health Projects, had hoped that the number of women using misoprostol alone for abortion would put pressure on Danco to reduce the price of mifepristone: “If people know there’s a competing thing, even if it’s not quite as good, at some price point, you begin to lose people."

2012: Abortionist Daniel Grossman, who has overseen clinical trials on the two-drug abortion pill regimen, warned of potential failures, telling NYT in 2012:

“The biggest risk for these women is that it’s not going to be effective” at ending their pregnancies, he said. A woman for whom the drug doesn’t work might well not know it, he added. “She could potentially have a continuing pregnancy and not get a follow-up.”

2013: Abortion advocates met in D.C. in 2013, where, according to Baker, "They brainstormed about advance prescriptions for misoprostol and adding the medication to collaborative practice agreements with pharmacies." Among them was Francine Coeytaux, co-founder of Plan C, who co-authored a paper calling for “bold action to meet women’s needs: putting abortion pills in U.S. women’s hands.”

Coeytaux and her co-authors made two proposals, wrote Baker: "First, eliminate the FDA’s... restrictions on access to mifepristone and, second, promote the off-label use of misoprostol alone."

Still, there was pushback from Big Abortion, which "resisted these proposals. Some argued misoprostol alone lowered the standard of care," Baker wrote, noting that despite the concerns, their ideas "became the blueprint for Plan C’s approach to mifepristone and misoprostol."

"Despite the misoprostol-alone contingency plan, reproductive rights advocates fought to keep mifepristone on the market," Baker pointed out.

2020: The Covid-19 pandemic ushered in multiple chemical abortion expansions, including misoprostol only. "Carafem, a reproductive healthcare company that prescribes abortion medication via telehealth in 19 states and D.C., providers have offered the option of misoprostol-only abortions since 2020," Slate.com reported.

2023: Within a few short years, the one drug misoprostol-only regimen was ingrained in the larger abortion landscape, with known abortion researchers publishing a misoprostol protocol warning:

Outcome assessment is important with use of a misoprostol-only regimen.

The risk of ongoing pregnancy and need for further treatment is higher with misoprostol-only than with regimens that include mifepristone.

That protocol was authored by:

• Elizabeth G. Raymond (Gynuity Health Projects)

• Alice Mark (National Abortion Federation)

• Daniel Grossman and Ushma D. Upadhyay (Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, Oakland, CA)

• Mitchell D. Creinin (Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA)

• Melissa Grant (Carafem, Washington, DC)

• Jen Castle (Planned Parenthood Federation of America, New York, NY)

• Jamila Perritt (Physicians for Reproductive Health, New York, NY)

... and others.

The Bottom Line:

Big Abortion's determination to end the lives of as many preborn babies as possible by a variety of chemical abortion drugs may only end when the federal Comstock Act, which prohibits the mailing of abortion-inducing drugs, is finally enforced.

A new organization is trying to change that.

Key Takeaways:

• A Canadian nonprofit called Right to Live is raising $600,000 to offer real alternatives for people pursuing assisted death for economic or social reasons.

• Experts warn that existing data fails to capture how many assisted deaths are driven by poverty, loneliness, or lack of social support rather than illness alone.

• Of the 16,499 assisted deaths recorded in Canada in 2024, 732 fell under Track 2, meaning the patient’s death was not imminent.

The Details:

Right to Live was founded in 2023 by Eric Holmes after he began noticing a pattern: Canadians were pursuing medically assisted death not because they were dying, but because poverty and lack of support had left them feeling they had no other option.

One case that prompted Holmes to act involved a woman identified only as Sophia, who died by assisted suicide in 2022 after two years of failed attempts to find affordable housing compatible with her Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

Holmes is now seeking $600,000 to launch a pilot program that would identify people in that situation, connect them with “viable alternatives,” and fund the support needed to make those alternatives real.

“I wouldn’t define our organization as against MAiD,” Holmes said. “More so seeking to restore choice by offering the most competitive options possible.”

Why It Matters:

The concern is not hypothetical. Dr. Sonu Gaind, a University of Toronto medicine professor, said current data collection fails to capture how many Track 2 cases — those where death is not imminent — are driven by social suffering rather than illness alone.

“About half of all the people on Track 2 suffer from significant loneliness and feeling a burden on others,” Gaind said. “Those are strong suicide risk factors.”

Gaind also noted that Track 2 patients skew female and tend to be less financially stable than Track 1 patients, a disparity that reveals the gap between what the program promises and who it is actually serving.

“If there exists some possible future that a person would rather prefer to live, and we can help facilitate that – that would be the ideal choice,” said Holmes.

Michael Sanchez was arrested for shooting and killing his pregnant girlfriend, Rylee Montgomery, who was just 16. He also shot the 17-year-old and a 22-year-old woman. Authorities said they are recommending adding an additional murder charge in addition to the two first-degree murder charges Sanchez is facing. The 17-year-old is recovering and the 22-year-old remains hospitalized in critical condition.

Police also arrested 19-year-old Antonio Enrique Tequida for allegedly driving Sanchez to the scene of the shooting and then helping him get away.

5/23/2026: An 18-year-old man is behind bars in Arizona after authorities say he shot three women, killing a pregnant teen and injuring two others, including another pregnant teen who delivered her child early at 25 weeks as a result.

Key Takeaways:

• 18-year-old Michael Sanchez has been arrested for killing 16-year-old Rylee Montgomery, and injuring a 17-year-old pregnant girl and 22-year-old woman.

• Montgomery was reportedly 14 weeks pregnant at the time of her death.

• According to family, Sanchez had threatened Montgomery and wanted her to abort her baby, which she refused to do.

• Homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant women.

The Details:

According to the Buckeye AZ Police Department, the shooting occurred on May 14.

"Two of the victims, a 17-year-old pregnant girl and a 22-year-old woman, were rushed to the hospital where they remain in critical condition," police wrote. "A third victim, identified as 16-year-old Rylee Montgomery, who was also pregnant, died on scene."

The suspect in the shooting is 18-year-old Michael Sanchez, who was reportedly in an "on again off again" romantic relationship with Montgomery and was the father of her preborn baby.

A GoFundMe established to pay for funeral expenses alleges that Sanchez was abusive towards Montgomery.

"Once he got her pregnant in February, it was all over," Amy Montgomery, the victim's stepmother wrote. "After telling her to 'kill the baby,' and when she refused, he turned his anger on her, threatening her numerous times. He even went so far as to choke her at our house. When she broke up with him in March, he decided to point a gun at her face and told her she wasn't allowed."

Amy Montgomery told AZ Family that Rylee was 14 weeks pregnant.

“She did not know it was a baby girl. We’re going to have a gender reveal on the 7th of June to tell her,” said Amy.

According to the GoFundMe, the 17-year-old pregnant teen who was also shot was forced to deliver her child early.

"[She] was shot in the back and nearly bled out, forced to deliver her baby boy at 25 weeks. They are all 3 in ICU," the fundraiser page states.

Why It Matters:

Tragically, homicide is one of the leading causes of death for pregnant women. Many of these incidents are domestic violence situations, especially when a woman refuses to abort the preborn child she is carrying.

The Bottom Line:

Decades of acceptance for abortion have led to abusive men believing they have the right to coerce or force abortions upon women for children they don't want.

This societal acceptance increases the risk for women when they push back against this abuse and stand up for the life of their preborn child. Both the mother and her child need to be protected against abusive men.

When people hear that my husband and I became foster parents, they usually assume it began with a carefully planned decision. I am sure they imagine we researched foster care, completed training, and intentionally set out looking to foster children. But our story is different. 

How homeless ministry led us to foster parenting

At the time, we were already deeply involved in serving families experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles through our nonprofit, SOFESA. Our work has never been about simply providing services from a distance. It is rooted in true and authentic accompaniment by way of walking with families through instability, crisis, trauma, setbacks, victories, and the years-long process of rebuilding their lives.

Through our work, we encountered a homeless mother with six children who was pregnant with her seventh. Like many of the families we accompany, they became part of our lives relationally. We knew their struggles, their personalities, their fears, and their dignity beyond case files. We pray with families, worry about them, celebrate progress with them, and walk with them through setbacks.

This mother in particular struggled deeply with a meth addiction. At one point, I helped her get into rehab, and for a while there was hope that things might stabilize. But addiction is brutal; the “no cost” programs were insufficient, and eventually she relapsed.

The deeper we came to know her story, the more we understood how much trauma had shaped her life long before addiction ever entered it. As a little girl, she lost an older sister to kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder. Her parents, shattered by grief, turned to alcohol to cope. With no support for the trauma she went into survival mode at 12 years old.

Though her story does not excuse the neglect and harm her children experienced in her care, it changed how we saw her. She was not simply an addict. She was also a deeply wounded human being carrying pain most people cannot even imagine surviving as an adult, let alone as a little child. 

As circumstances surrounding the family became more serious, it eventually became clear that two of the children, ages 10 and 12, specifically needed a safe place to be.

Looking back now, it felt less like we “decided” to become foster parents and more like God slowly allowed circumstances to unfold in a way that made it undeniable these children were supposed to be in our home. So we said yes, and began our foster parent journey for the first time. 

Enter into their chaos

People often romanticize foster care, but the reality is far more complicated. Foster care is not simply opening your home. It is opening your life to children carrying enormous trauma and instability who may struggle to trust adults because adults have repeatedly disappeared or harmed them.

These are children who have learned survival behaviors in environments because it was necessary — children carrying grief too large for their age and trauma they don’t even know how to process or understand. 

One of the children, the 10-year-old boy, had spent much of his life isolated in a run down shack with almost nothing around him except a TV, a VCR, and one movie: The Hulk. That was the world he knew. So when he became angry, he became the Hulk.

One night, he was on the top bunk bed in our home during a meltdown. He started screaming and thrashing his arms in this exaggerated Hulk like manner. His entire little malnourished body was filled with rage and pain and chaos; honestly, I did not know what to do, so I prayed.

I remember feeling completely overwhelmed and asking God to help us reach him because nothing we were doing seemed to work. And in that moment, I felt prompted to take him outside and tell him to run across the front yard and touch the fence. So I trusted God and did just that.

He started running across the front yard crying and screaming. He touched the fence, then ran back to touch the other side. He was completely dysregulated, overwhelmed, exhausted, and emotionally unraveling right in front of me. Back and forth he ran across the yard, screaming and crying.

And then I felt another prompting: run with him. So I started running too. Back and forth across our front yard we ran together for what felt like forever, but was truly only about 10 minutes.

He screamed. He cried. He ran with everything he had inside of him. And I just stayed in pace with him. Eventually, he stopped, turned to me, and collapsed into my arms. He finally let me hold him.

That moment has stayed with me for years because it taught me something profound about trauma, children, and sacrificial love: Many times healing is not found in having the perfect words or techniques; it begins when a child realizes someone is willing to enter into their chaos with them instead of abandoning them there. 

Living with uncertainty

One of the hardest parts of foster care is living with uncertainty. Our foster son and his sister were sent to live with a relative after only one year with us. You can deeply love children while having very little control over what ultimately happens.

Court hearings, changing plans, reunification efforts, social workers, delays, setbacks, and emotional highs and lows become part of your normal daily life. People sometimes speak about foster care as though foster parents are rescuers and biological parents are villains. But our experience was far more painful and complicated than that.

Many biological parents are carrying devastating trauma themselves like the mom we encountered. Addiction, homelessness, abuse, violence, poverty, and generational brokenness do not emerge from nowhere.

Often foster care exists because entire families are suffering. Again, that does not erase the pain children experience, but it should change how we see everyone involved.

One of the most heartbreaking things for me was realizing how deeply a mother can love her children while still lacking the stability or healing necessary to safely care for them. That tension is difficult to explain unless you have lived it personally. 

And then eventually comes the part that almost everybody has shared their negative feelings openly about: saying goodbye.

In foster care, goodbye should never be a surprise. You should begin the journey knowing eventually the goodbye will come. To me, that is the most important part of the call to foster: saying yes to the goodbye. I think our faith prepared us for that reality differently than many people might expect.

Real love does not disappear simply because daily presence changes. Foster care is a reflection of that reality.

Walking in sacrificial love

The Gospels do not call Christians to care about suffering only in theory. Jesus consistently moves toward the vulnerable, abandoned, forgotten, and those living on the margins. The Church has always taught that authentic love requires presence, sacrifice, and responsibility toward one another. Scripture presents humanity with the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9) and the life of Christ answers with a resounding yes.

The Gospels constantly teach us that real love is sacrificial. Christ does not love only when it is safe, guaranteed, or painless. It is quite the opposite. He pours Himself out completely, not just knowing suffering and loss are part of that love but willingly going deeply into it.

You love fully even while understanding you will not keep what you love in the ordinary sense. You choose attachment and presence anyway. You choose to give children safety, stability, affection, patience, and belonging, even while knowing your heart will most definitely break.

That does not make goodbye easy. It still hurts deeply. But love that is rooted in Christ draws us closer to Him.

Being foster parents taught us that in Christ, love is never truly ended by goodbye, because even loss and separation cannot erase the communion created through sacrificial love. 

The hospital, which must now also build the nation’s first ‘detransition clinic,' is one of several clinics recently facing scrutiny over its sex-rejecting practices imposed on minors, and so far ranks second in settlement amounts reached.

Meanwhile, the nation’s self-proclaimed leader in ‘gender-affirming care,’ Planned Parenthood, continues to evade interrogation. 

Key Takeaways:

• Texas Children's Hospital reached an agreement with the US DOJ and will pay the state $10 million for overbilling for 'gender-affirming care' of minors.

• TCH must also build a 'detransition clinic.'

• Allegations have been made that Planned Parenthood participates in similar fraudulent activity and deserves to be investigated.

• Planned Parenthood affiliates use off-label drugs for an unverifiable psychiatric condition, which experts say is carried out under the false premise of aligning biological bodies with subjective feelings.

• Dr. Miriam Grossman accused Planned Parenthood of "fraud and deceptive practice" via presenting unproven or “demonstrably false” claims as facts to mislead consumers.

The Details: 

On Friday, May 15, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the “first resolution secured under the Department’s ongoing national investigation into violations of federal law in connection with the provision of sex-rejecting procedures on minors (often euphemistically called 'gender-affirming care').”  

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs further stated: 

Under the terms of the agreements, which the Department of Justice reached in coordination with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, TCH will pay $10 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false billings to public and private payors to secure insurance coverage for pediatric sex-rejecting procedures. The Department alleges this conduct violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act, and federal fraud and conspiracy laws.

The ‘landmark settlement’ was reached with no admission of guilt on the part of TCH, according to the DOJ. TCH said it made “the difficult decision to settle with the Texas Attorney General and the Department of Justice,” which it claimed “clos[ed] a chapter that has been wrought with falsehoods and distractions.” 

“To be clear – we are settling to protect our resources from endless and costly litigation. This settlement will allow us to redirect those precious resources to focus on the life-saving care and groundbreaking discoveries of our exceptional clinicians and scientists,” TCH stated.

The DOJ further reported that TCH “has committed to establishing the first-of-its-kind clinic dedicated to restorative care for detransitioners.”

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward stated, “Today’s resolution furthers that commitment and puts providers of so-called ‘gender affirming care’ on notice that this Department will vigorously enforce federal law where children are put at risk.”

The Backstory:

Investigations into TCH began in 2023 after legislators passed Senate Bill 14, which prohibited the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors for the purpose of rejecting biological sex.

In 2023, Dr. Eithan Haim blew the whistle on TCH, which he claimed was continuing its “gender affirming care” of minors after the hospital had claimed to have stopped such services.

Shortly after news broke of the settlement, Haim stated on X, “To appreciate the scale of the Texas AG settlement with TCH consider that the $10M Medicaid fraud settlement tied to its gender clinic makes it the 2nd largest healthcare fraud settlement involving a children’s hospital in U.S. history.”  

Haim further noted: 

"And I would argue the largest by far in practical terms. Why? Because the alleged fraud came from a niche clinic treating a condition where only ~0.05–0.1% of children undergo medicalization.

A question worth asking is how does such a tiny clinic generate $10M in Medicaid fraud claims, especially when those claims exclude private insurance entirely?

The disparity between patient volume and billing volume raises an another question: how could so few physicians submit so many allegedly fraudulent claims unless the improper billing practices were the standard practice in the clinic and how was this not identified the leadership earlier?" 

Responding to Haim, San Francisco attorney and mother of a former trans-identified child, Erin Friday, stated: 

"Another point is that this is a settlement. The hospital that do[es] not proffer - voluntarily admit to their fraudulent billing and settle will be looking at 20-fold in damages. 

Hospitals should be lining up to get a deal for their misdeeds."

Could Planned Parenthood affiliates be planning to do the same? 

Zoom Out:

Friday explained that “cross-sex hormones” and “puberty blockers” are "being handed out as [if they are] candy" as part of the billion-dollar industry. She added, “Planned Parenthood is also reaping the benefits of this market. This is why they want to shut us up.” 

Last year, a Live Action undercover investigation exposed Planned Parenthood’s willingness to prescribe minors sex-rejecting hormones. During a livestream hosted by Live Action, president and founder Lila Rose stated: 

"As many of you know from Live Action’s investigative report, we exposed Planned Parenthood as not just the largest abortion provider but also the leading promoter of cross-sex hormones to minors, including 16-year-olds. Undercover footage shows that they prescribe life-altering hormones without even a mental health consultation — sometimes even on the same day."  

During the livestream, Dr. Haim stated:

"In your investigation, you found a 16-year-old girl got testosterone via telehealth. That’s a Schedule III drug, like ketamine. You can’t just hand that out without evaluation.

That’s a pill mill. But this is a federally funded pill mill.

If I did that, I’d go to prison. What you uncovered is a crime. This is criminal behavior.

Not only should Planned Parenthood be defunded—they should be prosecuted."

Live Action News also reported on the harrowing story of Elle Palmer, a female who testified that Planned Parenthood prescribed her cross-sex hormones when she was a minor. In a Connecticut Judiciary Committee hearing, Palmer stated: 

"Ten years ago when I was 15, I came out to my parents as a transgender boy. One year later, I was prescribed testosterone at Planned Parenthood. I was 16. I told the doctor about my traumatic female puberty with debilitating painful periods, severe suicidal thoughts, and self-harm, and anxiety so bad that I dropped out of school. I told him that I went to a children’s mental hospital three times before I was 14…Transition was supposed to be the cure."

However, when Palmer returned to Planned Parenthood at 19, wishing to detransition, she was told no assistance was available.

“I told them I was female to male but I wanted to go back to female. They didn’t know what to do…Planned Parenthood could easily put a teenage girl on testosterone, but no one in the entire state knew how to treat a woman who just wanted her female body back,” Palmer testified. 

Planned Parenthood’s Fraudulent Activity

The DOJ’s statement regarding the TCH explains that the settlement amount of $10 million awarded to the state was set to “resolve allegations that it [the children’s hospital] submitted false billings to public and private payors to secure insurance coverage for pediatric sex-rejecting procedures." 

Notably, similar questions were raised regarding a Planned Parenthood affiliate’s admission of insurance billing codes for its ‘gender-affirming treatments.’

During the FTC-hosted workshop, psychiatrist and author Dr. Miriam Grossman detailed how deceptive language and potentially fraudulent use of medical codes are used by Planned Parenthood and others to receive financial reimbursement for ‘gender-affirming care.’ 

Dr. Grossman explained that the International Classification of Diseases lists thousands of various diagnostic medical codes used for endocrine diagnosis, ranging from coding for type 1 diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome (now known as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, PMOS), and hyperthyroidism, with codes ranging from E00 to E89.

Grossman pointed to Planned Parenthood’s Southeastern Pennsylvania affiliate, which purports to use codes E34.9 (endocrine disorder, unspecified) and “occasionally” F64.9 (gender identity disorder, unspecified) “to meet the needs of most insurance companies and patients.”

Providing several examples of medical documents obtained by de-transitioners, Grossman explained that, despite the common use of E34.9 and other seemingly misapplied codes, in each of the cases she evaluated, medical documents showed young, “physically healthy people” with only psychiatric diagnoses. 

Endocrinologist Dr. Michael Laidlaw, also a speaker during the FTC workshop, further emphasized that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved any drugs to treat gender dysphoria — a condition Laidlaw states is commonly associated with GAC ‘treatments.’

Laidlaw described gender dysphoria as a “legitimate psychological diagnosis… with an extreme discomfort with one’s [biological] sex and perceived gender leading to significant distress and impairment (emphasis added).”  

Yet, GAC providers like Planned Parenthood affiliates use off-label drugs for an unverifiable psychiatric condition, which Laidlaw and others at the workshop suggested are done under the false premise of aligning biological bodies with subjective feelings — a scientifically impossible feat.

Dr. Grossman echoed these concerns, accusing Planned Parenthood and similar providers of "fraud and deceptive practice" by presenting unproven or “demonstrably false” claims as facts to mislead consumers.

This raises a few questions regarding one of the leading providers of GAC — Planned Parenthood:  

• Could these codes, admittedly used by Planned Parenthood’s affiliate, also be considered ‘false billings’ for “public and private payors to secure insurance coverage” as alleged in the TCH settlement? How many other affiliates use the same or similar codes for their GAC?  

• What exactly are all of the services and demographic breakdowns included in so many of Planned Parenthood's affiliates' reports under the GAC banner? And of those, how much, if any, are paid for or reimbursed with taxpayer funds? 

Despite ongoing investigations and involvement by the DOJ and FTC into multiple organizations such as the World Health Association of Transgender Health (WPATH), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Endocrine Society, and several hospitals and clinics across the country…one of the nation's largest self-proclaimed leaders in sex-rejecting ‘gender affirming care’ providers, Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, seemingly continues to evade scrutiny.

Will Planned Parenthood also be investigated?

The commonly used euphemism, “gender-affirming care (GAC),” has broadly used implications, including social, legal, and medical interventions — all of which Planned Parenthood professes to either directly provide or actively assist clients in finding service providers or resources for.

The scope of social, legal, and medical interventions is wide and vague; however, the terms commonly used include: 

• Social: May mean everything from providing ‘gender affirming sex ed,’ which includes indoctrination and application of falsely applied use of ‘gender-affirming’ pronouns; education on and application of “chest binding” (physically binding a female’s breast for the purpose of appearing more “masculine”) and “tucking” (physically compressing male genitalia for the purpose of appearing more “feminine”); and connecting clients with local Planned Parenthood ‘grooming centers’ and other sex-rejecting resources and groups.

• Medical: May include puberty blockers (which include possible use of birth control for minors (as Live Action News reported), and off-label use of sex hormones, i.e., ‘cross-sex’ hormones, prescribing females testosterone, prescribing males progesterone/estrogen. This also can include providing referrals to outside clinics for body-altering surgeries for the purpose of manufacturing the appearance of the opposite sex. 

• Legal: May include, but not limited to, education on and referrals to ‘legal services’ that can help the person change his/her name on legal documents.  

Although Planned Parenthood has received taxpayer funds through various means, ranging from its ‘sex ed’ programs to Medicaid dollars, it does not provide any specific breakdowns of its "gender-affirming care services."

And yet, many abortion giant affiliates boast of their sharp increase in GAC services.

In the state of Washington, Planned Parenthood has two major affiliates — Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky (PPGNHAIK) in western Washington and Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho (PPGWNI) in the central and eastern regions. In Washington state, there are few restrictions on GAC “treatments” for “two spirit, transgender, nonbinary, and other gender diverse individuals,” regardless of age.

In fact, with few exceptions, clinics like Planned Parenthood, shelters, and school staff are mostly “barred” from sharing most information without permission from the minor, with a Shield Law in place to protect abortion and GAC providers.    

Notably, the PPGNHAIK 2025 report states that 48% of its “patients are uninsured or insured through Medicaid,” yet its reporting remains vague. For example, these Planned Parenthood affiliates label GAC as “appointments,” or “visits” without any details of what the appointments or visits entail, nor any specific demographics such as the ages of the GAC patients.

Recent reports by these two Planned Parenthood affiliates reveal: 

• PPGNHAIK — which provides an extensive list of “GAC resources” including for minors — reported that its GAC appointments increased over 80% from 2024 (13,432 appointments) to 2025 (24,295 appointments).

• PPGWNI — reported an over 50% increase in its GAC visits from 2024 (3,355 GAC visits) to 2025 (5,059 GAC visits). 

The Bottom Line:

Surely, executive and legislative members should reasonably conclude that Planned Parenthood — which has explicitly expressed targeting minors and vulnerable populations and said ‘transgender care’ and abortion go ‘hand in hand’ — deserves an investigative eye. Shouldn't they?

Referred to elsewhere as "advance provision" of the abortion pill, the move blatantly rebuffs the Food and Drug Administration's REMS safety regulations which require prescribers of the drug to have the "ability to assess the duration of pregnancy accurately."

Key Takeaways

• A Planned Parenthood affiliate has announced its plan to launch advance provision abortion pills under the name "Just in Case Abortion Pills."

• This means that, against FDA safety protocols for the drug, the Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai'i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky affiliate will dispense abortion drugs to women who are not even pregnant.

• Prescribers of the drug are expected to have the ability to accurately assess the duration of the pregnancy (determining gestational age), but it is clear that dispensing these drugs in advance of a pregnancy is flouting the FDA's protocols.

• The mountain of evidence of the decades of Planned Parenthood’s discrimination, documented Medicaid fraud, HIPAA violations, failure to report child sexual abuse, massive privacy breaches of client data, and now blatantly violating FDA safety protocols, should disqualify it from receiving any taxpayer funds.

The Details:

A news release published by Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky (PPGNHAIK) announcing the launch of Just In Case Abortion Pills, claimed the policy change was so women could "have them on hand if and when they need them." The affiliate added that "PPGNHAIK joins a growing number of sexual and reproductive health care providers offering this model of care."

In other words, since everyone else is doing it - so will we.

PPGNHAIK claims it will only offer this option to women 18 years of age or older "through telehealth," writing (emphases added):

Just In Case Abortion Pills are not emergency contraception... Just In Case Abortion Pills are prescribed for people who may become pregnant and are used after pregnancy occurs. Both are important tools for supporting people in managing their reproductive health. This medication is prescribed for use up to 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Note also that 12 weeks of pregnancy is two weeks past the FDA's currently approved 10-week limit for the abortion pill.

"[T]his really is the right time for us to step into this space," Rebecca Gibron, president and CEO of PPGNHAIK told NPR.org.

Dr. Colleen McNicholas, chief of medical affairs at PPGNHAIK, claimed that If a patient gets the pills and then goes to use them 11 months later, "we are still available to them as their provider to answer those questions, to review — how do I know how far along I am? What do we expect?" she told NPR.

The affiliate, which operates facilities in Alaska, Hawaiʻi, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, and western Washington, recorded 11,992 abortions committed in 2025.

Reality Check:

→Mifepristone is not FDA-approved for ‘just in case’ provision←

'Just in case' provision, along with the previously crafted 'advance provision' or 'missed period pills' are monikers denoting one more way the abortion industry is flouting the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) REMS safety requirements.

To be approved to prescribe the abortion pill (mifepristone 200mg/Mifeprex), prescribers must be able to properly date a pregnancy.

Selling abortion pills 'just in case' a woman gets pregnant, in advance of a pregnancy, is clearly ignoring the intent of the FDA’s safety requirement.

The FDA has thus far failed to hold Danco and GenBioPro (the manufacturers) accountable for properly policing their prescribers and decertifying anyone who violates the FDA’s REMS.

Live Action News previously documented how Big Abortion’s media darling, Dr. Daniel Grossman — an abortionist with ties to an organization recently funded by the abortion pill’s manufacturer — promoted the unapproved and dangerous idea that abortionists should dispense the abortion pill to women before they become pregnant.

Grossman's 2019 “mixed-methods study” was swiftly withdrawn. A reason for the withdrawal was not specified.

Grossman knew then just like Planned Parenthood knows now, that "advance provision" or "just in case" abortion pill dispensing is NOT FDA approved.

Writing in the LA Times in 2018, Grossman acknowledged:

There’s at least one significant obstacle, however. The Food and Drug Administration has not approved abortion pills for advance provision. The agency doesn’t even allow clinicians to prescribe mifepristone, one of the two drugs that make up medication abortion, for pick-up at a pharmacy.

In 2021, Grossman resurrected the idea of 'advance provision' in a tweet to his followers, as a solution to the overturn of Roe.

READ: <a href="/news/big-abortion-advance-provision-abortion-pill-fda">Big Abortion promotes ‘advance provision’ abortion pill, ignores FDA rules and research ethics</a>

In the same Twitter thread, Grossman warned in a somewhat "fine print" tone: “[…]there are some people who are not good candidates… including those taking blood thinners or who have a bleeding disorder.” Grossman later specified that women at risk of ectopic pregnancy and other conditions are not a “good option” either.

However, he didn't specify how women experiencing a first pregnancy would necessarily know if they were at risk of ectopic pregnancy...

Hemorrhage during the process of expelling the preborn child is a potential complication of the abortion pill regimen.

This is not medical science; this is discarding longstanding FDA requirements to achieve a political end, and at the expense of even women's safety.

Grossman is a co-author on many of the studies reviewed by the FDA which the agency used under two different administrations to justify removing the in-person dispensing requirement and to erode the REMS to allow mail-order and pharmacy dispensing by 2023.

Stunning lack of oversight

In a hearing with then-FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf before a Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee on May 8, 2024, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith stated:

“It has been reported on more than one instance that American women are stockpiling the abortion pills through advanced prescribing through abortion companies and providers. It’s not even approved for that, and they can get it without even seeing a doctor.”

The Senator added:

My husband has a doctor's appointment... for a sinus medication that he can't get refilled until he sees a doctor. It blows me away that you can get this with no doctor oversight, and it is a drug that will literally cause you intentionally to have an abortion and end your pregnancy and the life of that child.

Califf was replaced by Dr. Marty Makary as head of FDA, but he recently resigned and was replaced by Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, who has signaled an interest in addressing concerns surrounding the abortion pill.

Still, as NPR reported, "Trump's FDA has done very little to restrict use of abortion medication thus far, to the frustration of his anti-abortion supporters."

Why It Matters:

The abortion pill was placed under a safety system to monitor adverse events, which is supposed to be policed by the manufacturers: Danco Laboratories, GenBioPro (GBP), and the latest generic company, Evita Solutions, LLC.

Prescribers who violate the REMS should be de-certified by the manufacturers — but as Live Action News has repeatedly documented, this is not being done.

The intentional strategy to violate FDA safety requirements is reminiscent of the pre-Roe years, when doctors violated the law and committed abortions.

The FDA previously warned that shipping women (or teens) abortion pills in advance of verified pregnancies is risky, despite the fact that media abortion allies advocate for it.

In 2022, Politico wrote, “The FDA said health providers prescribing abortion medication to people who aren’t pregnant are acting without its authorization and that the practice is potentially dangerous for patients.” The outlet also stated (emphases added):

The FDA spokesperson told POLITICO that if mifepristone, which stops the flow of hormones supporting a fetus in the uterus, were prescribed before a patient is pregnant, providers wouldn’t be able to properly oversee care to ensure safety and effectiveness. Abortion medication is regulated more tightly by the FDA than other drugs, restricting how the regimen can be prescribed.

[T]he FDA is concerned that if patients were to take mifepristone weeks or months after getting a prescription filled, a medical professional may not be able to assess if a pregnancy is intrauterine or ectopic or date pregnancies properly. The drug is only approved through 70 days gestation for abortions.

What Needs to Happen:

In its 2024-2025 annual report, Planned Parenthood recorded committing a record 434,450 abortions, while receiving a whopping $832 MILLION in taxpayer dollars. Today, the abortion corporation commits over 57 abortions for every one prenatal care service, and kills over 143 preborn babies for every one adoption referral.

Though Planned Parenthood’s report does not specify abortions by pill, its president has claimed that 70% of its abortion business is via this method. If that estimate holds, then it is possible the corporation committed over 304,000 chemical abortions in 2024-25.

This corrupt organization is kept afloat by taxpayer funds, and its access to Medicaid and Title X clients.

The mountain of evidence of the decades of this corporation’s discrimination, documented Medicaid fraud, HIPAA violations, failure to report child sexual abuse, massive privacy breaches of client data, and now blatantly violating FDA safety protocols, should disqualify it from receiving any taxpayer funds.

In July of 2026, Congress could have the opportunity to defund this abortion behemoth for another decade. Until then, Acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas should demand that Planned Parenthood and anyone else violating the REMS requirements on the abortion pill be immediately decertified.

Key Takeaways:

• The Bereaved Parents Rights Act would require hospitals and independent birth centers to inform grieving parents of their options and rights concerning the burial or cremation of a child lost through miscarriage or stillbirth.

• The legislation gives parents the option to organize a funeral following pregnancy loss.

• The bill would also enable individuals impacted by noncompliance with these provisions to seek remedies by filing a civil case in federal court.

The Details:

In mid-May this year, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas put forward the Bereaved Parents Rights Act, a bill requiring hospitals and independent birth centers to inform grieving parents of their options and rights concerning the burial or cremation of a child lost through miscarriage or stillbirth.

As regulations presently differ from state to state, the Bereaved Parents’ Rights Act would mandate that hospitals and birth centers inform parents — within six hours or prior to discharge — of their right to arrange a burial, and provide guidance on transferring their baby’s remains to a funeral home should they wish to hold a service, according to Aleteia. The text of the bill reads:

“A hospital or freestanding birth center shall— ‘‘(i) in the case that the hospital or free standing birth center has custody of a fetus following a miscarriage or stillbirth, not later than the earliest of 6 hours following the miscarriage or stillbirth or when the parent is discharged from such hospital or freestanding birth center, notify the parent or parents of the fetus (using a form developed by the Secretary) of the right of the parents to—

‘‘(I) a private or common burial of the fetus;  ‘

‘(II) cremation of the fetus; or 

‘‘(III) disposal of the fetus by the hospital  or freestanding birth center; and 

‘‘(ii) in the case that, not later than 72 hours after receiving the notice described in clause (i), a parent elects in writing (using the form described in such clause) to arrange for the burial or cremation of the fetus, ensure that the disposition of the fetus  follows the same fetal death disposition options of the State that apply in the case of a fetal death that occurs in the State.” 

The bill would also reinforce a parent’s written decision to pursue burial or cremation in compliance with state laws regarding fetal remains. It also enables individuals impacted by noncompliance with these provisions to seek remedies by filing a civil case in federal court, with the text of the bill declaring: 

“Any individual who is harmed as a result of a violation of the requirements of subparagraph (A) may bring a civil action in an appropriate district court of the United States for appropriate relief.’’ 

With regard to his support of the bill, Senator Marshall stated: 

“As an OB-GYN, I’ve sat with parents during some of the most heartbreaking moments of their lives after the loss of a child,” In those moments of grief, families should be met with compassion and clarity, not confusion about what happens next.

No law can take away that pain, but we can ensure parents are informed of their rights and given the opportunity to make decisions for their child with the respect every family deserves.”

Zoom In:

Representative Kat Cammack of Florida is leading a companion bill in the House, an effort shaped in part by her own experience with an ectopic pregnancy. 

Cammack said:

“Losing a child you never got the chance to hold is a pain no parent can ever prepare for. In the most vulnerable moment of their lives, parents are too often failed by a broken system that leaves them to grieve and fight at the same time — that ends now.

The Bereaved Parents Rights Act ensures parents have the information, guidance, options, and time they need to make deeply personal decisions. I’m proud to help lead this initiative to ensure grieving parents receive the dignity, resources, and support they deserve.” 

Students for Life Action (SFLA) contributed to shaping the legislation and hosted a policy briefing at the Heritage Foundation on May 13. At the briefing, women who had experienced miscarriage or stillbirth recounted their experiences and called on lawmakers to move the measure forward.

READ: <a href="/news/treatments-miscarriage-ectopic-legal-state">FACT: Treatments for miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy are legal in every state</a>

In a statement, SFLA president Kristan Hawkins explained: 

“Many hospitals throw away miscarried babies’ bodies like medical waste without consulting the parents, denying grieving parents the chance to memorialize their precious baby. The Bereaved Parents’ Rights Act would right this immeasurable wrong by ensuring that every parent gets the opportunity to honor the life of their baby following a miscarriage as they see fit.”  

The Bottom Line:

This proposed piece of legislation has wider cultural implications.

By formally acknowledging miscarriage as a bereavement event, the law would contest prevailing narratives that trivialize early pregnancy loss or treat it as insignificant.

Rather, the proposed bill would reiterate that the loss of a preborn child — regardless of gestational age — is a  human tragedy worthy of grief and commemoration. 

Key Takeaways:

• A new JAMA study was published this month claiming that women in pro-life states were more likely to receive delayed miscarriage care.

• The study claims this is because mifepristone, known as the abortion pill, can be more difficult to obtain in some pro-life states.

• The study found a very slight increase in expectant management as opposed to active treatment; however, the reasons for this are unclear.

• The researchers behind the study have a strong pro-abortion bias, and there is little evidence to back up their claims, as other experts have noted.

The Details:

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), was authored by Maria I. Rodriguez, Megan Fuerst, and Kaitlin Schrote; all three are researchers in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Oregon Health and Science University. More specifically, they are members of the Center for Reproductive Health Equity, a think tank and research center dedicated to promoting and protecting abortion.

In the "cross-sectional" study, the authors examined insurance claims for "123 598 individuals aged 15 to 45 years with spontaneous abortion at fewer than 77 days’ gestation from January 1, 2018, through September 30, 2024."

They claimed they found that pro-life states shifted "away from evidence-based care," putting "hundreds of thousands" of women at risk. The study claimed that they found "a 2.8 percentage point increase in expectant management and a 2.2 percentage point decrease in medication management."

"To date, these findings provide the first large-scale, national claims-based evidence that abortion restrictions have altered the clinical management of spontaneous abortion in the United States," the authors wrote. 

Furthermore, the researchers claimed that the alternative — using solely misoprostol to treat miscarriage as opposed to mifepristone and misoprostol together — is dangerous and ineffective.

Interestingly, abortion activists were lauding misoprostol-only chemical abortions as a potential solution should certain safety restrictions for mifepristone be reinstated. Numerous abortion activists and leaders within the abortion industry boasted that using misoprostol only for abortion was not only safe, but effective.

So which is it? is misoprostol ineffective and dangerous for miscarriage, yet safe and effective for induced abortion?

The Other Side:

Though the researchers claim expectant management is not the standard of care, and can lead to complications like hemorrhage and retained body parts, even the pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) lists expectant management as an accepted treatment option for first trimester miscarriage (emphasis added):

With adequate time (up to 8 weeks), expectant management is successful in achieving complete expulsion in approximately 80% of women. Limited data suggest that expectant management may be more effective in symptomatic women (those who report tissue passage or have ultrasound findings consistent with incomplete expulsion) than in asymptomatic women.

Furthermore, studies that included women with incomplete early pregnancy loss tend to report higher success rates than those that included only women with missed or anembryonic pregnancy loss.

Ingrid Skop, an OB/GYN and the Vice President and Director of Medical Affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told Live Action News that pro-life laws do not keep women from receiving treatment for miscarriage.

“It’s important to remember that no pro-life law in the U.S. prevents a woman from being treated for a miscarriage," she told Live Action News, adding:

"Miscarriage treatment isn’t an abortion. If a prescriber is REMS-certified to prescribe mifepristone, there is absolutely no legal reason it cannot be used to treat a miscarriage in a pro-life state.

However, most OB/GYNs, myself included, don’t perform abortions and aren’t registered to prescribe mifepristone, so we use misoprostol alone for medical management of miscarriages because it’s a common and effective option.

Lastly, the study fails to distinguish women’s preferences, as there may be compelling reasons that women choose expectant management over medications or surgery. This study is the latest attempt to blame pro-life laws for variations in medical care, instilling fear in pregnant women unnecessarily.”

Skop also noted that the study did not show any change in the surgical management of miscarriage (D&Cs), and pointed to a study showing that as late as 2024, only 3% of medically managed miscarriages used mifepristone. Skop previously explained why this might be:

"An FDA Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy requires a provider to be registered to prescribe mifepristone, so it is not widely available, because few ob/gyns perform elective abortions. Thus, although there is limited data indicating that the addition of mifepristone may improve the efficacy of misoprostol in completing tissue evacuation during a miscarriage, it is not often used clinically.”

There's another not-so-obvious reason why more women could be handling miscarriages by expectant management, according to Skop: when women visit ERs for miscarriages, research shows they are less likely to be offered any kind of active miscarriage management than they would be at an OBGYN's office.

Since many pregnant women don't have their first appointment to see an OBGYN until eight weeks of pregnancy or later; ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages occurring before this point would then be handled in an ER.

Regarding the JAMA miscarriage study, Dr. Michael New also explained at National Review that, while the study is "analytically rigorous," it is still flawed:

It wrongly assumes that all of the state-level pro-life laws took effect when the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was issued in June 2022. This is not the case. The Texas Heartbeat Act took effect in September 2021 — ten months before Dobbs.

Additionally, Idaho, Kentucky, and Tennessee did not start to consistently enforce their abortion bans until August 2022. West Virginia did not start to consistently enforce an abortion ban until September 2022. Finally, North Dakota’s pro-life law did not take effect until April 2023.

In addition, the differences between pro-life and pro-abortion states are marginal, hardly large enough to claim hundreds of thousands of women will see their lives at risk.

Moving Goal Posts:

Shortly after the Dobbs decision in June 2022, the media began circulating stories of women who allegedly couldn't get immediate surgical (D&C) treatment for miscarriages (which is not typically a first-line miscarriage treatment except in cases of emergency) because of the existence of pro-life laws, and the claim was that women were being left untreated. This, however, turned out to be false; many women had been treated with misoprostol... even in states that restrict abortion.

That's because the laws of pro-life states legally distinguish between induced abortion and miscarriage. And doctors should obviously know the difference between intentionally killing a living baby vs. providing a treatment to remove the remains of an already deceased one.

Now, it appears that pro-abortion advocates and the media are attempting to claim that women can't get drugs for miscarriage, even though misoprostol isn't restricted under the FDA's REMS, has a stated use for treating stomach ulcers, and has been routinely prescribed for miscarriage treatment in pro-life states.

The Bottom Line:

This appears to be another instance of abortion advocates trying to use fear as a weapon, in an attempt to smear pro-life states as anti-medicine and dangerous for women.

These changes rocked a lot of viewers who were left wondering if Cathy's death, altered for the film, was a deliberate insertion of post-Dobbs pro-abortion propaganda.

Key Takeaways:

• The new film adaptation of "Wuthering Heights" is highly sexualized, featuring BDSM and kink themes.

• It also alters the storyline surrounding Cathy's death, replacing her death during childbirth with death from a post-miscarriage infection.

• Abortion advocates took this as an opportunity to spread lies and warped research to promote intentional killing by abortion as if it is a treatment for miscarriage.

The Details:

In the classic novel, Cathy and Heathcliff have a destructive relationship that ruins their own lives and the lives of those around them.

In the new film, their relationship is more erotic, and BDSM and 'kink' themes abound.

For The Conversation, Anna Drury explained that in this film, "domestic abuse has been recast as consensual kink." It's quite disturbing, but it fits in well with Planned Parenthood's vision for society.

John M. Grondelski, Ph.D., explained at Catholic World Review, "The director's shift to sex reflects other shifts in the moral focus of Wuthering Heights, as many of the novel's underlying moral themes are gone."

Cathy's death also gets a reimagining.

In the novel, Cathy dies during childbirth, but her daughter (with husband Edgar Linton) lives and is also named Cathy. A new life brings new hope.

In the new film, however, Cathy experiences a miscarriage that goes untreated, leading to sepsis and her death. Cathy dies along with her baby, completely altering the storyline, which fits the narrative of pro-abortion enthusiasts who have been claiming that women will die from miscarriage as a result of the reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Grondelski writes, "In the film, the baby is miscarried, and the mother dies of sepsis. Is this a feint to the post-Dobbs orthodoxy that 21st-century pregnancy is inherently dangerous?"

Between the Lines:

Abortion advocates apparently didn't miss the message either, and took it as an opportunity to spread lies and warped research to promote induced abortion (which is intentional killing) as a treatment for miscarriage.

Hey Jane Health, a virtual abortion facility, took to social media with a movie "Spoiler Alert" that promoted abortion under the guise of protecting women from miscarriage-related infections.

"So at the end of the movie, Catherine has a miscarriage, and she ends up dying," said Hey Jane Health, adding:

"And it got us thinking about something that people don't talk about enough. When someone has a miscarriage, their body doesn't always pass everything on its own, and when that happens in present day, doctors use the same medications or procedures that they use during abortion care, like misoprostol or a D and C. These methods safely clear the uterus and prevent infections or dangerous bleeding, but when abortion bans pop up, this care for miscarriages gets restricted too."

No, it does not. The laws of pro-life states note the legal distinction between intentional killing via induced abortion and treating a miscarriage (in which the baby has already died). But you never see abortion advocates explaining this; it behooves them to continue the misinformation, deceptively instilling fear into women so that they can garner more support for intentional killing by abortion.

Hey Jane continued:

"And doctors are sometimes afraid to provide it. That means that some patients can be sent home while bleeding until it becomes an emergency.

And just as an example, in Texas, after abortion was banned, researchers found that blood transfusions during early miscarriages increased by more than 50%, which is a sign that people were not getting timely care.

So abortion access isn't just about choice; it's about safety. It's about making sure miscarriages don't become medical emergencies."

No, it's not. This is a blatant lie from a group whose primary business model depends upon women continuing to intentionally kill their preborn children by pill. Women who have miscarried are not ordering abortion pills online from Hey Jane, but the ones attempting to intentionally kill their babies are.

And it's surprising that Hey Jane would express concern about women "bleeding" at home "until it becomes an emergency," since they dispense the abortion pill, which comes with a risk of causing women to hemorrhage. Nearly 11% of women who take the abortion pill, according to a recent analysis, end up suffering 'serious adverse events' — with more than 3% of those women suffering hemorrhage. (Using recent estimates, this would equate to nearly 25,000 women every year.)

First of all, procedures themselves — such as a D&C — are not prohibited by law. It is the act of using a D&C to intentionally kill a living preborn baby that is prohibited. Miscarriage treatments are not restricted in any state. If doctors are "afraid" of doing their jobs, the problem is with the hospital system, not the law. It isn't hard to distinguish killing from removing a dead body. Misoprostol, too, is not prohibited unless it is being used to intentionally kill.

As for the increase in blood transfusions for miscarriages, those behind the ProPublica data analysis admitted that the findings "can't be confirmed." The increase in blood transfusions could be related to both the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased use of the abortion pill, with its risk of hemorrhage.

The Bottom Line:

Abortion groups have been aligned with Hollywood for decades, working abortion into storylines to normalize it and make it appear to be health care. It wouldn't be surprising if Hollywood were now moving to scare women about miscarriage treatment.