Legislators in 13 States Have Introduced 15 “Abortion Abolition” Bills in 2025

Inside a dingy conference room in the North Dakota state house, Texas attorney Bradley Pierce coolly made the case that the 14th Amendment and biblical scripture require the state to charge anyone who obtains an abortion with murder.

When asked by North Dakota Representative Jayme Davis (D–9) about whether the overtly Christian basis of his reasoning disregarded other people’s freedom of religion, Pierce responded with a wry smile and a comment to match. “Well, you know, I think the Aztecs believed it was okay to rip the hearts out of children and offer them as a burnt sacrifice to their gods, and I think that should be illegal.”

Pierce’s testimony in support of HB 1373, a bill that would criminalize all abortions in North Dakota, was one of more than a dozen heard by the state’s House Human Services Committee on February 5. Other supporters taking the podium that morning inside the crowded Pioneer Room included the son of Democratic career diplomat Susan Rice, the co-executive director of a Wisconsin-based network of crisis pregnancy centers, and a “post-abortive” activist from North Dakota.

HB 1373 is not a “typical” anti-abortion bill in post-Roe America. Introduced in January, it would expand the definition of “human being” in the state’s Century Code to include zygotes at “the beginning of biological development at the moment of fertilization” for the explicit purpose of banning all abortions and subjecting anyone who performs or obtains one to criminal punishment. Under this law, anyone who harms a zygote or embryo in North Dakota could be prosecuted for murder or assault, or sued for wrongful death.

Despite the impassioned in-person and written testimony from supporters of HB 1373, the bill was so extreme that even the co-director and general counsel of the North Dakota Catholic Conference testified against it, prompting the committee to issue a “Do Not Pass” recommendation. The bill went on to fail decisively in a full House vote a week later, earning a mere 16 “yeas” out of 93 votes cast.

“Abortion Abolition” Bills Introduced in 13 States This Year

The introduction of this extreme bill in North Dakota was not an isolated incident. This year alone, at least 14 other so-called “abortion abolition” bills have already been introduced in a dozen other states.

Since 2017, state lawmakers have considered abortion abolition bills in at least 21 states. Often called “prenatal equal protection” acts, most were introduced after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and opened the door to this type of legislation, which had previously run counter to SCOTUS precedent on abortion.

Even in states with severe restrictions on abortion access and criminal penalties for abortion providers, those who actually obtain an abortion are not subject to prosecution themselves. However, under abortion abolition laws, they would be.

The explicit criminal liability for the person who obtains an abortion is the most crucial difference between abortion abolition bills and other more common anti-abortion legislation. These types of bills amend state criminal codes to charge those who obtain an abortion with homicide for the “death” of their “unborn child,” including anyone who self-induces an abortion using medication legally prescribed and mailed from another state.

No exceptions are made for rape and incest. The bills do include vague, ill-defined allowances for attempting to save the life of a pregnant person, but only insofar that this attempt is “accompanied by reasonable steps, if available, to save the life of her preborn child.”

Though none of these bills has ever survived a simple majority vote in state legislatures, the rapid reemergence of abortion abolition legislation across the country indicates the growing influence of a radical, militant faction of anti-abortion fanatics whose ultimate goal is nothing short of the complete and total eradication of abortion access in the U.S.

Extreme Christian Patriarchy

The abortion abolitionist movement is a relatively nascent one, tracing its origins to a new generation of mostly white, male, conservative Baptists, Presbyterians, and Christian Reconstructionists emboldened by the anti-abortion stance of the Trump administration.

While anti-abortion activists have likened abortion to slavery since the passage of Roe v. Wade more than a half a century ago, the abortion abolition movement takes this comparison to extremes. Abolitionists appropriate rhetoric from the anti-slavery abolitionists of the 19th century, employing an “equal protection” argument from the 14th Amendment to compare embryos and fetuses to enslaved people.

Another distinguishing feature of abortion abolitionism is its “maleness.” For instance, T. Russell Hunter heads Abolitionists Rising, a group that organized the first abortion abolition national conference in 2020. End Abortion Now, an “outreach ministry” of Apologia Church, has an all-male staff of four, three of whom are pastors. Red State Reform, a 501(c)4 on the IRS auto-revocation list, features former pro-baseball player Dennis Sarfate as president. This is in contrast to the female figureheads of the biggest so-called “pro-life” organizations, such as Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Carol Tobias of National Right to Life, Lila Rose of Live Action, and Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America.

Abortion abolitionism differs from the pro-life movement in other key ways. Abolitionists find the pro-life movement to be insufficiently opposed to abortion, claiming that the pro-life position is too secular, too incrementalist, and too complacent in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe. Most pro-life organizations have long maintained that because women are the “second victims” of abortions and that the majority of abortions occur under some form of duress, individuals who get an abortion should be automatically exempt from criminal prosecution. Abolitionists fundamentally reject this premise, arguing that unless coercion is proven on a case by case basis, anyone who has an abortion is an active and willing participant in the “murder” of her “preborn child.”

Abolitionist leaders are rather explicit about this. According to NPR, Hunter told a crowd of several hundred supporters at an April 2024 Abolitionists Rising event, “We know the mother is the abortionist or the father is the abortionist. Whoever it is, the abortionist needs to be punished and we’re not going to lie about it in order to be friends with the world, because that is precisely what the pro-life movement has done and is doing.”

Jeff Durbin, leader of End Abortion Now, takes this position to its most extreme conclusion. In an audio recording, the Christian pastor calls for women who have abortions to be executed by the state.

“If you take the life of a human being, unjustly, then what the state owes you — if it’s proven and it’s true — is capital punishment. You forfeit your right to live.”

Origins of the Model Bill

Despite advancing a broadly unpopular position, legislators have introduced 15 abolition bills in 13 states so far this year. These bills don’t just share an underlying ideology. An analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) found the same language — word-for-word or nearly word-for-word — in all but one bill. This suggests that these abortion abolition bills all emanate from a single source that provides lawmakers with a template to quickly and easily draft legislation.

One person stands out as the most likely author of this template: Bradley Pierce, the Texas attorney who used such forceful language when testifying before the North Dakota House Human Services Committee in February.

Pierce is the co-founder and president of Abolish Abortion Texas, a state-based abolition organization, and the vice president and general counsel of Heritage Defense. His public LinkedIn page also identifies him as an “allied attorney” with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

Most significantly, Pierce leads a national abolitionist nonprofit called Foundation to Abolish Abortion (FAA), which he founded in 2019. According to the organization’s IRS form 990 from 2023, its mission is “to exalt and vindicate the image of God” through “promoting sound public policy that provides all preborn human beings the equal protection of the laws.”

FAA’s revenue for 2023 reached over $350,000, with at least $85,000 coming from the National Christian Charitable Foundation, a favorite donor conduit of the Christian Right that funneled more than $2 billion in donations that year to its preferred causes. Other than this one grant, the sources of FAA’s funding are unclear.

As the sole staff member listed on FAA’s website, Pierce is described as a “constitutional lawyer” who claims that he has drafted “dozens of equal protection bills filed to abolish abortion.” The 990 form also discloses that FAA “draft[s] and analyze[s] legislation.”

In 2022, Pierce filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973, on behalf of 21 organizations and 20 state lawmakers. In it, he laid out the same argument of “equal protection” under the 14th Amendment and Christian scripture that is the basis for past and present abolition bills.

The lawmakers who signed this brief included four state Freedom Caucus members and six state legislators affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Only nine of the 20 state lawmakers who signed the brief are still in office just three years later, but six of those nine have sponsored abortion abolition bills introduced during this legislative session.

Pierce has continued to connect with state lawmakers across the country, establishing relationships that likely provide him with the kind of access necessary for advancing his legislative agenda. In January, he appeared on a Crosspolitic podcast episode with Idaho State Senator Brandon Shippy (R–9) and first-term Texas State Representative Brent Money (R–2), the sponsors of Idaho SB 1059 and Texas HB 2197, respectively.

Neither Shippy nor Money are particularly coy about how closely they work with Pierce. Shippy disclosed that, “With the help of Bradley Pierce, we drafted some legislation that would essentially provide equal protection for the baby in the womb, the preborn child,” referring to Idaho’s “Prenatal Equal Protection Act.”

Shippy has previously said that under SB 1059, law enforcement officers could be authorized to investigate miscarriages as suspected abortions, according to the Idaho Statesman.

Pierce describes his national reach even more bluntly, stating, “We’re working, getting bills drafted and ready for legislators around the country…. We’re expecting around 20 to be filed this year.”

Emails obtained by CMD through an open records request show that Missouri is another state where FAA has been deeply involved in pushing abortion abolition legislation.

“At Foundation to Abolish Abortion, we offer to write the press releases for our legislators to save them time,” wrote John Rice-Cameron in a January email to Missouri State Representative Justin Sparks (R–110) and State Senator Mike Moon (R–29), sponsors of HB 1072 and SB 619, respectively. Sparks is the vice chair of Missouri’s Freedom Caucus, while Moon is one of the signatories of the Dobbs amicus brief.

Rice-Cameron, the son of Susan Rice, testified in favor of North Dakota’s HB 1373 and is not listed as a staff member on FAA’s website, nor did he disclose this affiliation during his testimony. However, the registration page for an Equal Protection Advocacy Workshop event held in February describes him as a “Legislative Liaison” for FAA.

Also included on this email exchange was Wesley Scroggins, the executive director of Abolish Abortion Missouri and a professor of management at Missouri State University. In one email, Scroggins asks whether FAA would be willing to bring a legal challenge against Amendment 3 if the abolition bills sponsored by Sparks and Moon passed.

Despite attempts by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) to keep the initiative off the ballot last November, a majority of voters approved Amendment 3, which overturned the state’s total ban on abortion and instead enshrined the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Since then, Bailey has affirmed that he will interpret Amendment 3 as narrowly as possible, while Republican lawmakers are currently working on a constitutional amendment to circumvent the referendum and restore the state ban abortion.

“If the bill were to pass, the AG should defend it,” responded Pierce. “That said, if the AG would not, yes we would [be] more than happy to do so.”

Abolition Advances

North Dakota’s abortion abolition bill is the only one to receive a floor vote so far this year, and its resounding failure in the Republican-dominated legislature suggests that no abolition bills stand a strong chance of becoming law this year. Three out of four Americans oppose criminal prosecution of doctors and parents for abortion, and other anti-abortion legislation presents a far less politically risky alternative.

Nevertheless, abortion abolitionists continue to make incremental headway. Although the “Georgia Prenatal Equal Protection Act” (HB 441) failed to make it out of committee before “Crossover Day” (the deadline for a bill to pass out of one chamber so that it can be considered in the other), it was still granted a public hearing on March 26.

Pierce sat side by side with the bill’s sponsor, Georgia State Representative Emory Dunahoo (R–30), who explicitly introduced him as the author of HB 441. Pierce also answered questions asked by members of the committee.

Abolitionists showed up in full force, with representatives from prominent abolitionist groups like Operation Save America, Operation Gospel, GA Right to Life, and End Abortion Alabama. Durbin, the head of End Abortion Now who voiced support for executing abortion patients, was one of nearly a dozen abolitionists who testified. During an exchange with Representative Esther Panitch (D–51), the only Jewish member of the Georgia Assembly, Durbin told her that her understanding of the teachings of her own faith regarding abortion was incorrect, and equated her pro-choice viewpoint with the Nazi’s dehumanization of Jews during the Holocaust.

The committee also heard from Coleman Boyd, an anti-abortion activist who is currently serving five years on probation after being convicted in 2024 of felony conspiracy and violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. These charges stemmed from a 2021 incident in which Boyd and others affiliated with Operation Save America blockaded a reproductive health center in Nashville for almost three hours.

While HB 441 will not be put to a vote this year, Georgia’s two-year legislative system means that this same bill will be automatically reconsidered next year, giving it another chance to pass. As in many other states where abolition bills have been introduced, Georgia permits the death penalty for acts of homicide.

Abortion abolitionists are also becoming more organized. The Colorado Times Reporter noted in 2023 that Pierce promotes a “precinct strategy” for influencing local Republican parties at the state level. This “ground-up” approach enables abolition activists to infiltrate state and county Republican parties, effectively making their extremist position more acceptable within the broader party by suppressing more moderate voices.

Pierce’s precinct strategy may in fact be working. A coalition letter published in support of Georgia’s HB 441 included the expected names of those affiliated with abolitionist organizations and ministries. However, it was also signed by the chairs of several Georgia county Republican parties as well. A similar joint statement in favor of Texas HB 2197 was signed by 52 “conservative leaders,” including the chair and vice chair of the Republican Party of Texas, members of the State Republican Executive Committee, county chairs, and state representatives.

Support for this position in Pierce’s home state has grown so much that in May 2024 the Republican Party of Texas adopted abortion abolitionism as part of its official platform, becoming the first in the country to do so.

At an abolitionist event in August 2024, guest speaker Rice-Cameron presented an implicitly transactional approach to lobbying state lawmakers: abolitionists offer their time and money to support the campaigns of conservative lawmakers who demonstrate an openness to abortion abolitionism. He alluded to the successful use of this strategy in the case of Texas “abolitionist champion” Money, who unseated the moderate Republican incumbent, boasting that abolitionists helped him win by canvassing for him in the lead-up to the election.

“To the extent that you can, build relationships with sympathetic legislators early on in their political career, preferably before they even get into office, while they’re still campaigning,” Rice-Cameron said. “It’s important to realize that prior to actually winning an election a politician is a lot more open-minded than after being in office for some time.”

Activists like Pierce are under no delusion that their bills will pass in any state legislatures this year. However, the work they do now through abolition organizations and ministries builds crucial relationships with state lawmakers and local Republican leaders that increase their prospects of success in future years.

The growing number of abolition bills, co-sponsored by increasingly more lawmakers, indicates that this position is gradually becoming more mainstream among the conservative base. It’s a position that, if fully realized, would make getting an abortion a capital offense in many states.