Anti-abortion advocates push to ban mifepristone under the guise of protecting women from abusive partners
Written by Helena Hind
Published
Updated
A recent Senate hearing and subsequent right-wing media coverage have highlighted anti-abortion groups' latest strategy in their push to ban the abortion medication mifepristone: claiming telehealth access to the abortion pill enables abusers to force their partners into having an abortion. In reality, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says forced pregnancy is a common form of reproductive coercion, and restriction to abortion access has been linked to higher rates of intimate partner violence-related homicide.
During a July 15 confirmation hearing for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Senate Republicans repeatedly referenced the legal battle over mifepristone, with Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Katie Britt (R-AL) arguing that access to mifepristone makes women more vulnerable to abusive partners who would force them to undergo an abortion against their will. MS NOW guest Joyce Vance summarized the tactic: “Senate Republicans are coming for mifepristone, and it’s interesting how they’re doing it. They're telling stories that aren't indictments of the drugs, they're indictments of other behavior.”
Right-wing media echoed the coercion narrative following Blanche's hearing. Referencing the hearing in a July 17 article for The Washington Stand, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins wrote, “More proof was presented that unborn babies are losing their lives through the abortion drug mifepristone, and increasingly, the drug is being obtained through the mail by men who secretly administer it to the mothers of their unborn children.” The Washington Examiner published an op-ed titled “Abortion pills don’t empower women. They empower abusive men.” Anti-abortion podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey hosted a woman who was poisoned by her husband with abortion pills to highlight this narrative.
Anti-abortion advocates have been toying with the strategy for a few years. The Heritage Foundation has maintained a list of publicly documented instances of alleged abuse involving medication abortion since 2023, and anti-abortion campaign 40 Days for Life also tracks instances of alleged abuse and coercion by “people who took advantage of the proliferation of abortion pills.”
In June, National Review declared, “Chemical abortion is the best friend of a man who wants to abuse women," and Catholic outlet EWTN News referenced “the rising crime of forced abortions” in an article titled “The women forced to abort: How U.S. law enables abusers." In May, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed titled “Mifepristone as a Tool of Coercion” that cited research from the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute to argue abortion pill coercion is common and that telehealth access to the medication is “a potent tool to those who wish to override a woman's will.”
But in a January MedPage Today article, Dr. Dara Kass, Dr. Stephanie Psaki, and Brown University professor Liz Tobin-Tyler pushed back on the forced abortion narrative:
Abusers use pregnancy as a tool of control, trapping their victims in relationships through forced parenthood. The statistics are stark. Women in abusive relationships face higher rates of unwanted pregnancy. They're more likely to be abused during pregnancy. Homicide is now a leading cause of death for pregnant women. After the Dobbs decision, the National Domestic Violence Hotline saw a 98% surge in calls about reproductive coercion. Studies confirm that restricting abortion access puts intimate partner violence survivors at greater risk by forcing them to remain tethered to their abusers through pregnancy and parenting.
The proliferation of the narrative by right-wing media and anti-abortion advocates that access to medication abortion puts women at risk of abuse does not demonstrate a genuine concern for women's safety. Rather, it betrays the anti-abortion movement's willingness to cynically weaponize progressive rhetoric about protecting women from abuse in order to advance its goal of ending abortion writ large.
As Kylie Cheung explained in the Abortion, Every Day newsletter:
The anti-abortion movement initially threw their support behind abusive men—openly or privately recruiting them to take legal action over their partners’ abortions. Ultimately, this failed to yield results, and, if anything, may have been counterproductive: In now two high-profile cases, the man’s history of abusing his partner came to light in court—exposing exactly what kind of person would sue over his partner’s abortion, and wield the legal system to punish or control their victim’s reproductive decisions.
It speaks volumes that the anti-abortion movement’s first instinct was to collude with abusers—only pivoting to pretend to care about some victims when this didn’t work.
Correction (8/7/26): This piece originally linked to an article that claimed the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists identified forced pregnancy as “the most common form of reproductive coercion.” Upon further review, language has been updated with a link to ACOG's study describing it as among the most common forms.