AILSA CHANG, HOST:
South Carolina is one of the most restrictive states when it comes to abortion access. Abortions are only allowed up to six weeks into a pregnancy, but some on the far end of the anti-abortion movement say that that is not restrictive enough. NPR domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef recently spent some time with some of these activists in Greenville. She joins us now. Hi, Odette.
ODETTE YOUSEF, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so tell us more about these people you met with.
YOUSEF: Well, they call themselves abortion abolitionists, and they were gathering in Greenville for a regional conference in March. It was convened by a group called Operation Save America. They're a rebrand of Operation Rescue, which, you may recall from the '80s and '90s, staged huge blockades of women's health clinics.
CHANG: Right.
YOUSEF: The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Operation Save America a hate group, but OSA leaders say they're just committed to saving the, quote, "preborn." This is really the farthest edge of the anti-abortion rights movement.
CHANG: And I understand you met some of these members outside a women's health clinic, is that right?
YOUSEF: Yes. On a Thursday morning, dozens of activists were posted outside a clinic in Greenville that's one of the last three clinics that offer abortions in South Carolina.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTIVIST: My friends, today's the day that you got to start using your hand that God gave you...
YOUSEF: And they were trying to intercept people who were headed into the clinic.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTIVIST: Ma'am, if this loser has brought you here to kill his child, what kind of man is he?
YOUSEF: Many activists brought their families. Small kids played in the grass by a busy road. Teenage girls hold up signs with graphic images of bloody fetuses or messages like, date rapists love abortion. It's a school day, but parents here say this is part of their children's Christian education. Among these activists is a man named Jason Storms.
JASON STORMS: The next generation we've been raising up and training up to be a strong voice here for justice and for children and families.
YOUSEF: Storms is national director of Operation Save America. He's bothered by the fact that even after Roe was overturned, this clinic remains open, and he blames that on most of South Carolina's Republican lawmakers.
STORMS: A lot of these guys are fake pro-lifers. They're pro-life frauds, right?
YOUSEF: There's another thing that bothers Storms, and it's that after Roe fell, estimates of abortion in the U.S. went up. He believes the reason is that women are able to self-administer abortions at home with pills. He proposes a solution to this, as he calls it, loophole - punish women who get abortions. It isn't a new idea, but historically, it's one that the Republican Party has not endorsed, and now it seems to be gaining ground. Bills were introduced in at least 14 states during the current or most recent sessions - a record. And in South Carolina, Storms and activists were busy making the rounds.
STORMS: We did a lit drop in the district of the speaker of the House and put some pressure, you know, via staff and so forth. But we focused more on the Senate.
YOUSEF: Abortion rights advocates don't expect these bills to pass, but they're still paying close attention. Jessica Valenti is author of "Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lives, And The Truths We Use To Win."
JESSICA VALENTI: Whereas Republican legislators used to talk about these bills as, these are outliers, these are extremists, they have nothing to do with, you know, the Republican Party, now they're sort of saying, well, it's good to hear everyone out, right? Like, they're saying that they want them to be a part of the conversation.
YOUSEF: Elements of extremism are baked into this militant anti-abortion movement, with justifications for antigovernment activity and even violence. But first, it's worth noting that these bills could affect many more than just pregnant women. All the bills define fertilized eggs as full humans, with the exception of Oklahoma's, where prior abortion law had already established that. They still allow for abortion to save a mother's life, but otherwise, these bills consider abortion to be homicide. This could mean certain forms of birth control would also become illegal, and it could jeopardize access to popular IVF services. Again, Valenti.
VALENTI: Abortion rights are very, very much about a small group of extremist legislators imposing their will on the vast majority of Americans who do not want these laws.
YOUSEF: In 2023, legislators in South Carolina were presented with a similar bill. It would have punished women who get elective abortions. But after a national publication wrote about it, almost half the bill's sponsors withdrew their names. NPR reached out to 17 members of the state's House Republican Caucus leadership to talk about the bill currently filed there. Few responded. Those who did declined interviews. Even if these bills fail, though, activists still believe they have a failsafe.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Well, thank y'all for being here again. I'm going to read from Psalm 72, then we'll...
YOUSEF: The morning after I met them outside the clinic, Operation Save America held a pastor's brunch in a small storefront church. Roughly 20 listened to OSA leaders explain how to pressure state legislators. One of them raised his hand. He said that his reality felt far away from the business of state politics.
UNIDENTIFIED PASTOR: I'm a pastor in a small town. So what are some - and is there - differences? Is there a different approach to, say, a small-town mayor than there is a representative at the state Capitol?
YOUSEF: Jason Storms responds to the question with a book title.
STORMS: There's a good book I recommend called "The Doctrine Of The Lesser Magistrates."
YOUSEF: "The Doctrine Of The Lesser Magistrates" - it was first published more than a decade ago. It's rooted in a goal of bringing a certain kind of Old Testament biblical governance to America, one that would criminalize abortion, same-sex relations, no-fault divorce and adultery. It argues that local officials have a Christian duty to defy state and federal laws that they deem immoral. The author of the book is a pastor who once cosigned a statement calling the 1993 murder of a women's doctor outside a clinic justifiable. He's also Storms' father-in-law.
Jessica Valenti says, promoting the belief that mayors, sheriffs or council members are the law when it comes to abortion can change how people behave.
VALENTI: If they can institute a chilling effect in their communities, if they can make people think in their town that it's illegal to leave the state for an abortion, then they've done their job. They don't need it to be written in the law.
CHANG: That's interesting. I mean, the thing is, Odette, polling does show that most Americans still believe that there should be some right to access abortion. So how is this part of the anti-abortion movement making inroads in South Carolina?
YOUSEF: Well, something that stood out to me in Greenville, Ailsa, meeting leaders within this movement is that they're all men, every single one. And their messaging around abortion is completely wound up with messaging about what it is to be a man. And so we're also reporting on how this movement is building off a heightened national discussion right now about manhood - and in this corner of it, the call for biblical manhood. I'll be back tomorrow with more on that.
CHANG: That is NPR's Odette Yousef. Thank you so much, Odette.
YOUSEF: Thank you.
CHANG: And this story was made possible in part by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
