A slate of new anti-abortion laws proposed by Republican state legislators has exposed the "fundamental lie" behind their opposition to reproductive rights, according to a report.
GOP legislators in several states have introduced bills that would set homicide and other criminal charges for seeking abortion care and, while it's unlikely that all of those bills would pass, their proliferation reveals an intention that was always lurking behind the anti-choice movement, reported The Guardian.
“This exposes a fundamental lie of the anti-abortion movement, that they oppose the criminalization of the pregnant person,” said Dana Sussman, the acting executive director of Pregnancy Justice. “They are no longer hiding behind that rhetoric.”
Some major anti-abortion organizations, including Students for Life of America and Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, made clear they don't support those bills, but reproductive rights activists say criminalizing abortion has always been a goal of the most ardent opponents.
“What we’re seeing, post-Dobbs, is a splintering in tactics that abortion opponents are using, and emboldening on the part of more hardline [factions]," said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How. “That has always been an undercurrent. As we see other abortion opponents declaring their opposition to criminalization of people who end their pregnancies, this is the opportunity for them to really step up and put those principles into action.”
Bills in some states target abortion medications, and a proposed bill in Alabama would establish fetal personhood from conception and repeal a current prohibition against homicide charges for abortion, which reproductive rights activists say could open the door to battery and assault charges against pregnant people for endangering a fetus.
“It never starts or stops with abortion,” Sussman said. “That means that not getting prenatal care, not taking pre-natal vitamins, working a job that is physically demanding – all of those things could impose some risk to the fetus – and that could be a child neglect or child abuse case.”