Once off the table, bills to charge women who get abortions with murder get votes before failing

Abortion rights advocates feared the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that opened the door to state abortion bans would also lead to tracking women and charging women who get abortions with murder.

No states have allowed either, but the ideas, once off the table, have gotten attention in legislatures this month.

Oklahoma lawmakers killed a bill that would have allowed murder charges after a public hearing, and North Dakota did so after a floor debate. Similar bills have been introduced before, but they haven't been granted hearings, in part because most major anti-abortion groups oppose them.

A Missouri committee heard testimony on a bill to create a database of pregnant women deemed “at risk” of getting an abortion and connecting them with prospective adoptive parents.

Here’s a look at the proposals:

Missouri proposal would make a database of certain pregnant women

Under the Missouri legislation, the state Department of Social Services would be directed to create a new division tasked with maintaining a “central registry of each expectant mother who is at risk for seeking an abortion.”

The division would also keep a list of prospective adoptive parents and coordinate adoption proceedings.

House Speaker Jonathan Patterson, a Republican, said Thursday that he wants to aid adoption but that the bill doesn't have broad support among House Republicans. Two similar bills were rescinded this week.

“There is some question about the central registry and databases,” Patterson said. “That has to be really tightened up to make sure that people’s privacy is protected.”

Republicans are also wary of expanding government and concerned about the measure's estimated $30 million-a-year cost.

Still, it has won some support.

“Bills like this continue to disprove the false narrative advanced by pro-abortion advocates that the pro-life movement does not care about women, or care about children after they are born,” Susan Klein, executive director of Missouri Right to Life, wrote in a statement supporting the bill.

Tracking pregnancies is not a new worry for advocates

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America says the Missouri legislation is the first of its kind, though fears over the potential tracking of pregnant women are nothing new.

Abortion rights advocates have long argued that if individuals’ reproductive health information is not kept private, then it could be used not only in targeted ads but also in law enforcement investigations. Some Democratic-led states have taken steps to protect such health data in recent years.

On a call with reporters Wednesday, Katie Knutter, executive director of Wellspring Health Access, which provides abortion in Wyoming, said that she hears from out-of-state patients that they might be tracked by their home states when they seek abortion — even though laws to do so are not on the books.

“The broader discussion in the media has made patients very aware and very concerned about these things,” Knutter said.

Lawmakers consider but reject allowing charges against women who obtain abortion

Oklahoma’s Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted 6-2 against advancing a proposal to allow murder charges against women who obtain abortions, with possible punishments including the death penalty and life in prison.

A week earlier, North Dakota’s House rejected a measure with similar features 77-16.

Groups including the National Right to Life Committee and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America have for years been urging lawmakers not to consider those measures, arguing that women are often coerced into abortion and should not be punished.

Some conservative lawmakers see it differently.

“While the abortion clinics no longer offer or perform abortion, there is a massive loophole in Oklahomans' laws,” Sen. Dusty Deevers, who sponsored the Oklahoma measure, told the judiciary committee during a hearing Wednesday. “Namely, they don’t apply to the mothers themselves.”

For the sponsor, the influx of abortion pills is the growing concern

Deevers said his approach is the only way to stop the flow of abortion pills prescribed by doctors in other states via telehealth and shipped in. A survey conducted for the Society of Family Planning, which advocates abortion access, found that there were nearly 1,000 abortions via telemedicine in Oklahoma in the second half of 2023. The Guttmacher Institute, another research organization that supports abortion rights, has found that by 2023, more than 6 in 10 abortions in the formal healthcare system nationally involved pills.

Democrats and some Republicans on the committee had concerns, including that the law could lead to criminal investigations of women who have miscarriages, that such an extreme approach could rally support for a state constitutional amendment to allow abortion, or that enforcement would be hard.

Similar measures in Idaho and Indiana appear unlikely to advance. Bills have also been introduced in South Carolina and Texas.

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Associated Press writer Summer Ballentine contributed to this report.