🪦 ROE RECKONINGS: The Carousel of Horror Continues

Edition: The Most Alarming Anti-Abortion Bill Since Dobbs?

👻 Miscarriages, bounty laws, and anti-abortion vigilantism—welcome to post-Roe America.

☠️ Policing Pregnancy

Texas has jailed a woman for having a miscarriage. That is not an exaggeration.

Mallori Patrice Strait was arrested in December 2024 after miscarrying in a petrol station bathroom. The charge? Abuse of a corpse. Her bond? $100,000. She spent nearly five months in jail, including her 34th birthday.

The case was only dropped last week—because there was no evidence she committed any crime. Meanwhile, an anti-abortion group took the foetal remains, named them, and held a public funeral.

This is not an anomaly. It’s part of a growing trend across the US to criminalise pregnancy outcomes—especially when the people involved are Black, poor or otherwise marginalised. Strait’s story echoes the recent case of Brittany Watts in Ohio, who was arrested for miscarrying at home. Like Strait, Watts was splashed across local media in dehumanising, sensationalist terms.

These are not isolated injustices—they are structural. And they are becoming more common.

“You cannot undo the harms of ignorant law enforcement responses to a miscarriage.”
— Karen Thompson, Pregnancy Justice

🧠 Language Matters: “Abortion as Intention”

Legal language is shifting—and that’s no accident.

Take this from Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr:

“Removing life support is not an action ‘with the purpose to terminate a pregnancy’.”

That phrase—“with the purpose”—is about redefining abortion not as a medical procedure but as a moral intention. A sin. A crime.

This logic aims to distinguish “good women” (those who wanted to be pregnant) from “bad ones” (those who didn’t). If this shift continues, a woman who loses a pregnancy but once searched “abortion clinics near me” could find herself under suspicion.

It’s a clever, dangerous sleight of hand: reframe abortion as criminal intent rather than healthcare.

💉 Care Under Siege

This summer, hundreds of OBGYNs will be forced to travel to Texas for their professional certification exams—even though Texas is one of the most hostile states in the US for reproductive care.

Why? Because the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (ABOG) refuses to offer the tests virtually, despite having done so during the pandemic. Instead, it insists on in-person attendance at its new $34 million testing centre in Dallas.

For many of these doctors—especially those who provide abortions—this isn’t just inconvenient. It’s dangerous. Texas law allows life imprisonment for abortion providers. Violence against clinics and doctors has skyrocketed. Yet the exams remain scheduled, and the risks are very real.

🔥 SB2880: America’s Next Anti-Abortion Export?

Let’s talk about Senate Bill 2880, which recently passed the Texas Senate and may soon become law. It’s arguably the most aggressive anti-abortion measure since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Here’s what it does:

Enables lawsuits up to $100,000 against anyone involved in providing abortion pills—including manufacturers, distributors, and even people offering information or assistance.
Encourages lawsuits from “biological fathers”, a provision already being exploited by anti-abortion activists to punish partners and healthcare workers.
Applies these lawsuits across state lines—meaning someone in Texas could sue a doctor in Colorado for providing a legal abortion.
Extends the legal timeline for these actions from two years to six.
Threatens judges who rule against the law with personal lawsuits.
Punishes lawyers who challenge the law, forcing them—not their clients—to cover legal fees if they lose.

This isn’t just legislation—it’s an authoritarian power grab wrapped in faux morality. It’s also, experts warn, a model other US states are poised to copy.

“What happens in Texas sure as hell doesn’t stay in Texas.”
— Anna Rupani, Fund Texas Choice

The bill also gestures toward resurrecting a 1925 abortion law, and undermines so-called “shield laws” designed to protect out-of-state providers. If passed, it could effectively criminalise abortion support organisations—even those working entirely outside Texas.

🧬 IVF, Planned Parenthood, and the Long Game

Meanwhile, in Washington, Republicans are targeting Planned Parenthood—trying to strip the organisation of its funding, including services entirely unrelated to abortion, like cancer screenings and contraception.

At the same time, the White House is claiming to review new protections for IVF. But the real agenda, critics say, will likely centre on new restrictions framed as “health and safety” rules—particularly around discarding embryos, a routine part of IVF that anti-abortion campaigners oppose.

The same groups calling for “fertility rights” are also trying to criminalise the clinics that make those pregnancies possible.

🌍 And Globally…

For readers in the UK and Europe, it may be tempting to treat this as uniquely US extremism. But these tactics—civil lawsuits, surveillance of healthcare providers, intimidation of judges—have a way of spreading.

Anti-abortion campaigners in Britain are watching this playbook closely. Some are already adapting it.

We are not immune. Reproductive rights anywhere are reproductive rights everywhere.