Anti-Abortion Slenderman & Wife Are Going All in on Forced Birth Ballot Measures
The Missouri Senator took a break from feuding with the FDA commissioner to launch a group supporting constitutional amendments to ban abortion.
Photo: Getty Images AbortionPolitics
Last we checked on Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), he was throwing a desperate fit because the head of the Food and Drug Administration wasn’t moving fast enough to restrict abortion pills, something Hawley had been begging him to do since March.
Now, an apparently fed-up Hawley has launched a dark money group to support anti-abortion state ballot measures and vague “pro-family” policies alongside his wife, Erin, who’s an attorney at the ultraconservative law firm, Alliance Defending Freedom. This is all because the pair doesn’t think other Republicans are doing enough for the forced birth cause, per interviews they gave to Axios.
The dark money group, which doesn’t have to disclose its donors, is called the Love Life Initiative and the Hawleys say they plan to run national campaigns featuring “pro-family” TV ads, possibly during the Super Bowl. (Oh good, more creepy ads during my football game.) Hawley cited dubious polling they commissioned where majorities said that family formation is “very important” to them, and agreed that culture overly emphasizes careers over family life. The polling was from a group called OnMessage and Axios didn’t publish a single piece of data from the poll, only summarized it. Somehow, I don’t think people who want to form families will like the idea of being forced into it.
Erin’s employer, ADF—a recurring villain on this website—is the Christian nationalist law firm that was instrumental in getting the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Erin is representing Louisiana in a lawsuit it recently filed against the FDA over the abortion drug mifepristone, which is itself a rehash of an unsuccessful 2024 case where she represented anti-abortion doctors trying to make the pills harder to get. She also argued for an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center at the Supreme Court earlier this month.
She told Axios, “If you look at the reason that most women think they need to have an abortion, most of those reasons are lack of support.” Hmm does this mean anti-abortion Slenderman and his wife are going to throw their weight behind paid parental leave, universal childcare, a massive government jobs program, and free college or technical school for every person in the U.S.? I won’t hold my breath.
Instead, Hawley told the outlet that “elected officials have been more and more reluctant to comment, to weigh in, to frankly, do much on the issue of life.” Translation: Hawley is apoplectic about why the Trump White House and GOP-controlled Congress aren’t doing more to restrict abortion at the federal level now that Roe is out of the way. In May, Hawley introduced a bill to restrict abortion pills, and it has zero co-sponsors so far, so he could be upset about that. He may also be hinting at his feud with FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makary.
Perhaps it’s also a hint that the Hawleys are worried the president won’t ensure that their home state can ban abortion once and for all. As part of Love Life, they plan to support a 2026 Missouri ballot measure that would ban abortion—even though voters already enshrined the right in their constitution in 2024. (By the way, a judge just rewrote the summary of the amendment because it wasn’t clear that voting “yes” would overturn the nascent right to abortion.) The couple is threatening to get involved in other states as well.
Trumpworld is furious about this new venture, with anonymous sources telling Axios they’re worried that more talk of abortion bans will hurt Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, and sniping that the Hawleys didn’t tell anyone before the launch article. One Trump adviser described as being deeply involved in midterm strategy said the GOP needs to focus on “aggressive action” to create positive gains in the economy. “That alone will be the driving force behind the next election,” the adviser said. “Picking a fight on an issue like abortion in a midterm is the height of asinine stupidity.” I guess the Hawleys love abortion bans so much that they’ve lost critical thinking skills.
If you recall, Republicans had hoped for a huge red wave in the 2022 midterms under the Biden presidency, as the party in power typically loses seats. But those elections came just months after the court overturned Roe and abortion bans snapped into effect across much of the South and Midwest, upsetting many swing voters. The red wave was a trickle at best, and even Donald Trump notoriously blamed the abortion “issue” for the party’s electoral struggles. As a second Trump advisor told Axios of the new venture, “Clearly, Senator Hawley and his political team learned nothing from the 2022 elections, when the SCOTUS abortion ruling resuscitated the Democrats.”
During the 2024 campaign, Trump himself rejected pressure from anti-abortion groups to endorse a nationwide ban at 15 weeks of pregnancy or earlier. He stuck with the claim that he would “leave abortion to the states,” the groups endorsed him anyway, and now they’re pissed that the FDA hasn’t already slashed access to the abortion pill. The drugs mifepristone and misoprostol are used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S., and telemedicine shield laws that allow clinicians to prescribe the pills across state lines are allowing people to evade abortion bans. These facts are of particular concern to groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which called for Makary to be fired.
As for Hawley, sources suggested to Axios that something bigger could be afoot here: perhaps Hawley is taking this step to position himself as a challenger to Vice President JD Vance for the Republican nomination in 2028. But polling suggests that embracing abortion restrictions isn’t a winning message for anyone—which Trump knew.
It’s fairly notable that Erin is getting involved in this explicitly political enterprise when she is publicly angling for a job as a life-tenured federal judge. Bloomberg reported in November that Hawley expressed interest in a vacant seat on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals “through intermediaries with White House contacts.” (The Eighth Circuit covers Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.) Bloomberg asked her husband, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee responsible for vetting all nominees, if he’d recuse himself from the process. Hawley replied, “Why would I recuse myself from voting for someone who I think would be terrific?”
Just terrific.
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