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  "path": "/2026/06/04/abortion-abolition-punish-women-republican-south-carolina/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-04T22:32:35.000Z",
  "site": "https://msmagazine.com",
  "tags": [
    "Health",
    "Justice & Law",
    "National",
    "Politics",
    "Abortion Access",
    "Antiabortion Extremism",
    "Antiabortion Laws",
    "Christianity",
    "Dobbs v. Jackson",
    "Masculinity",
    "Religion",
    "Texas",
    "The Growing Acceptance of a Movement That Wants to Punish Women for Abortion",
    "Ms. Magazine"
  ],
  "textContent": "When South Carolina’s abortion abolitionist bill, the Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1095), was voted out of committee and onto the full Senate floor in late April—“an unprecedented move toward locking up women who have an abortion,” according to Dana Sussman in _Slate_ —it raised a question: How much influence have abortion abolitionists gained within the broader antiabortion movement?\n\nAbortion abolitionists, who seek to criminalize abortion without exceptions and punish women who obtain abortions as murderers, have long been considered the outer fringe of the antiabortion movement. Their roots can be traced to what Colleen Scerpella described in _The Prospect_ as “a new generation of mostly white, male, conservative Baptists, Presbyterians and Christian Reconstructionists”—or what she calls “extreme Christian patriarchy.”\n\nAs I wrote in _Ms._ a little more than a year ago, the dramatic increase in abortion abolitionist bills filed by state lawmakers after _Roe v. Wade_ fell, signaled the growing influence of this movement.\n\nThat extremism has not gone unnoticed: In 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified four abolitionist organizations as “male supremacist hate groups.” Recent research has likewise found that the strongest supporters of arresting women who have abortions are Americans who endorse Christian nationalism, believe “true Americans are white,” and look to the state to enforce a particular ethnocultural social order.\n\nThe South Carolina bill, which makes the pregnant woman herself subject to misdemeanor liability, prompted me to revisit the question of whether abortion abolitionists have made more inroads into the mainstream antiabortion movement.\n\nThe evidence suggests they have.\n\nThe post The Growing Acceptance of a Movement That Wants to Punish Women for Abortion appeared first on Ms. Magazine.",
  "title": "The Growing Acceptance of a Movement That Wants to Punish Women for Abortion"
}