Politics
Column: These red states say teens should be forced to have babies so the states don't lose congressional seats
The arguments made by antiabortion states to sugarcoat their manifestly misogynistic policies have always borne the acrid odor of cynicism and hypocrisy.
You know what I mean: that their restrictions on reproductive medical care are all about protecting the health of women, preserving the lives of the unborn, fulfilling a moral imperative to honor the sanctity of life, etc., etc.
So we should thank the red states Missouri, Kansas and Idaho for at least being honest. As they disclosed in a federal lawsuit this month, their real goal is to farm pregnant teenagers and their unwanted babies to keep up their population numbers, in order to avoid shrinkage in their congressional delegations and lose federal dollars from programs based on population.
That may sound incredible, but it’s set forth in black and white in a joint legal filing in federal court.
“Each abortion,” they write, “represents at least one lost potential or actual birth.” Because of this “loss of potential population,” the states face “subsequent ‘diminishment of political representation’ and ‘loss of federal funds,’ such as potentially ‘losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding if their populations are’ reduced or their increase diminished.”
The target of their legal filing is the dispensing by mail of mifepristone, the abortion drug that the Supreme Court allowed to remain on the market in a decision in June. “Remote dispensing of abortion drugs,” they assert, “is depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers.”
So there you have it. Missouri, Kansas and Idaho think it’s of paramount importance to keep up the rates of teen pregnancy, lest they lose a congressional seat here or there or a few bucks in federal handouts. One might ask whether this sounds humane or even sane, but to ask the question is to answer it.
Here’s the background on this ghastly argument. It started with the Supreme Court’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by a passel of antiabortion fanatics that aimed to roll back the Food and Drug Administration’s approvals of mifepristone dispensing by mail. The lawsuit persuaded federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Amarillo, Texas, one of the Trumpiest of Trump-appointed federal judges, to overturn FDA approvals dating to 2020 and throw the drug off the market.
The Supreme Court overturned his ruling and an appellate court ruling. Its grounds were that none of the plaintiffs in the case had themselves suffered an injury from the FDA policy — so none of them had “standing” to bring the suit under constitutional rules in the first place.
The three states’ amended lawsuit, filed in Kacsmaryk’s court on Oct. 11, is designed to circumvent the standing issue. That required the states to show that they’ve suffered an “injury” from the FDA policy. Their argument is that medical abortions, or “chemical abortions,” erode their population, leading to those adverse consequences for the size of their congressional delegations (Idaho has two representatives, Kansas four, Missouri eight) and their grip on federal program dollars.
To be absolutely fair, that isn’t the states’ only injury claim. They also maintain that complications experienced by women taking abortion drugs will create a burden on their Medicaid budgets.
This would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical. The states’ lawsuit discloses how much they’ve spent on women who have needed emergency room care as a result of such complications. In 2022, they report, Idaho’s estimated costs ranged from a total of $839.20 to a maximum $13,556; Missouri’s estimate ranged from $2,524 to $6,274.
The differences arose from estimates of the “severity” of the complications being treated — the more severe, the higher per-patient cost. Missouri’s estimate of the number of ER visits in 2022 by women experiencing complications and enrolled in Medicaid was about eight to twelve, pegged to a range of complication rates.
Idaho’s estimate of the number of Medicaid patients treated for medical abortion complications in 2022 ranged from a low of fewer than four to a high of fewer than six. Plainly, the states don’t even know the real figures. They were basing their estimates on estimated complication rates, not empirical data. (Kansas data weren’t disclosed in the lawsuit.)
If anyone still thinks this is all about protecting the lives of mothers and babies, consider the broader landscape of maternal and infant medical care in these three states. All three landed in the below-average category in the Commonwealth Fund’s 2024 scorecard on women’s health and reproductive care: Idaho ranked 27th, Kansas 32nd and Missouri 40th. Kansas, by the way, hasn’t expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, or its spending might have been even lower.
You might think, under the circumstances, that this legal filing is just an election-season stunt by three state attorneys general who have nominated themselves as flag carriers for Donald Trump. There’s some evidence for that: Their filing name-checks the “Biden-Harris administration” or “Biden-Harris FDA” no fewer than eight times; it reads like a Trump-Vance bumper sticker. The original lawsuit didn’t mention Vice President Kamala Harris even once, but then again it was filed in November 2022.
The rest of the three states’ legal filing is filled with claims about the safety and efficacy of medical abortion drugs, many of which have long since been debunked, and aren’t particularly relevant to this civil court case anyway; it attempts to goad a judge into discarding the years of studies consulted by the FDA in approving the drugs and replacing it with his own ideological worldview and pseudoscientific judgments.
Most experienced judges are wary of doing so. Not Kacsmaryk. It’s entirely conceivable that he’ll buy into this new attempt to outlaw a safe and effective abortion procedure, and send the three states’ threadbare case back up the judicial pipeline. So mifepristone isn’t out of the woods yet.
WASHINGTON — The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee said some members would support a presidential pardon for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her assistance in the committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
But good luck getting any of them to admit it.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) told Politico on Wednesday that “a lot of people” support the idea of Maxwell receiving a pardon from President Trump in exchange for her cooperation in the committee’s investigation.
Although Comer said he opposed a pardon himself — “other than Epstein, the worst person in this whole investigation is Maxwell” — he offered that his committee was “split” on the issue.
Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the top Democrat on his committee, condemned the idea of a Maxwell pardon and said Democrats on the committee uniformly oppose it.
“It’s outrageous that Republicans on the Oversight Committee are considering a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell,” Garcia said in a statement. “She is a sexual abuser who facilitated the rape of women and children.”
The Times reached out to all 26 Republicans on the committee to see who, if anyone, supported the idea of a pardon.
Although most didn’t respond, the few who did expressed outrage at the idea.
“I am absolutely not supporting a pardon for her nor have I heard that from anyone else,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said.
“Never in a thousand years,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said.
Maxwell declined to answer the committee’s questions during a video deposition in February from the Texas federal prison where she is serving her 20-year sentence.
She still is challenging her 2021 conviction on five counts related to the sex trafficking of minors for her role in recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein to abuse. She was accused at trial of also participating in the abuse of one victim.
At the time of her February deposition, Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus said she would offer the “unfiltered truth” if granted clemency by Trump.
Attorneys who have represented victims abused by Epstein and Maxwell strongly opposed the idea of a pardon.
“This is a woman who belongs behind bars for the rest of her life for what she did to women,” said Spencer Kuvin, who has represented numerous Epstein victims.
Sigrid McCawley, a managing partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, questioned the value of information Maxwell could provide.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is a proven self-serving liar,” McCawley said in a statement. “There is nothing credible that she will offer the government, and the assertion that she would provide information is simply a smoke screen.”
Trump has not said he is considering a pardon, but when asked by reporters he has declined to rule it out.
Epstein abused more than 1,000 girls and young women over the span of decades. He negotiated a lenient deal nearly two decades ago with federal prosecutors in south Florida that allowed him to serve 13 months in a Palm Beach County jail, where he was allowed to come and go freely, to settle claims that he had abused dozens of high school girls.
Following investigative reporting on that deal by the Miami Herald, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York brought new sex charges against Epstein in July 2019. He died in federal custody one month later.
Epstein and Maxwell counted members of the British royal family, multiple presidents and business titans among their friends. They have been accused of forcing victims to have sex with some of those men. Maxwell is the only other person who has been charged in connection with Epstein’s crimes.
The committee has deposed numerous people who knew Epstein, including Ohio billionaire Les Wexner, who hired Epstein to manage his finances, and former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The committee has not, however, deposed Trump, who once famously called Epstein a “terrific guy” and said “I just wish her well” when told of Maxwell’s arrest in 2020.
The Department of Justice has released millions of pages of documents from its investigations in response to the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last year.
The release led to criminal inquiries in the United Kingdom into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, and Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the United States, over allegations that they provided secret government information to Epstein.
So far, the files have not led to any publicly known criminal investigations in the United States.
U.S. military forces stopped and boarded a second sanctioned tanker carrying oil from Iran in the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said on Thursday, ramping up pressure on Tehran as the Trump administration seeks to resume negotiations to end the war.
A naval boarding team roped down from hovering helicopters and fanned out on the vessel, the M/T Majestic X, according to a Pentagon statement that included a 17-second video of the operation.
The military said the boarding was part of a “global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate.”
Earlier this week, Navy SEALS boarded another ship in the Indian Ocean, the M/T Tifani, after the Pentagon said it was carrying oil from Iran.
Navy destroyers are also shadowing several other Iranian vessels, including the Dorena and Sevin, which had left from the Iranian port of Chabahar before the U.S.-imposed blockade began on April 13, a U.S. military official said. The Navy is directing those ships to return to an Iranian port, the official said.
With the M/T Tifani and M/T Majestic X now at least temporarily in the custody of the military, a U.S. military official said it was up to the White House to decide what to do with the sanctioned vessels and their cargo. The administration previously seized several tankers carrying illicit oil from Venezuela after a U.S. commando raid there in January that seized Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president.
“International waters cannot be used as a shield by sanctioned actors,” the Pentagon said in its statement on Thursday, adding that the department would “continue to deny illicit actors and their vessels freedom of maneuver in the maritime domain.”
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hinted last week that the U.S. military would likely commence boarding operations like the ones this week. He said that U.S. military commanders elsewhere in the world, and especially in the Indo-Pacific region, would “actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran.”
The U.S. Navy has turned back at least 31 ships trying to enter or exit Iranian ports since an American blockade outside the contested Strait of Hormuz began about a week ago, U.S. Central Command said late Wednesday.
Last Sunday, a Navy destroyer disabled and seized the Touska, an Iranian cargo ship, after it tried to evade the blockade. It was the first time a vessel was reported to have tried to evade the U.S.-imposed blockade on any ship entering or exiting Iranian ports since it took effect last week.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained why President Donald Trump does not consider Iran’s seizure of two ships in the Strait of Hormuz a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
Leavitt made the statement during an interview with Fox News’ Martha McCallum on Wednesday just hours after Iran captured the Greek and Mediterranean-flagged vessels.
“Does the seizure of two ships — as we said, they were Greek and Mediterranean-owned ships with cargo on them, and the reports are that Iran basically seized them and then moved them into Iranian waters. We don’t know what’s going to happen to these crews. We’re not sure where all of this is going. Does the president view that as a violation of the ceasefire?” McCallum asked.
“No, because these were not U.S. ships. These were not Israeli ships. These were two international vessels,” Leavitt responded.
US FORCES ATTEMPTING TO BOARD SANCTIONED RUSSIAN-FLAGGED OIL TANKER IN NORTH ATLANTIC, SOURCES SAY
Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, conducts a press briefing. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“And for the American media, who are sort of blowing this out of proportion to discredit the president’s facts that he has completely obliterated Iran’s conventional Navy, these two ships were taken by speedy gunboats. Iran has gone from having the most lethal Navy in the Middle East to now acting like a bunch of pirates. They don’t have control over the strait,” she continued.
“This is piracy that we are seeing on display. And the naval blockade that the United States has imposed continues to be incredibly effective. And, to be clear, the blockade is on ships going to and from Iranian ports. And the point of this is the economic leverage that we maintain over Iran now. While there’s a ceasefire with respect to the military and kinetic strikes, Operation Economic Fury continues, and the crux of that is this naval blockade,” she added.
The Iranian made ‘Seraj’ a high-speed missile-launching assault boat on display in Tehran on August 23, 2010, as Iran kicked off mass production of two high-speed missile-launching assault boats the ‘Seraj’ (Lamp) and ‘Zolfaqar’ (named after Shiite Imam Ali’s sword) speedboats which will be manufactured at the marine industries complex of the ministry of defense. (YALDA MOAIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said the vessels, identified as the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, were operating without proper authorization and had tampered with navigation systems, accusations that could not be independently verified. The ships had earlier reported coming under fire near the strait, underscoring the increasingly volatile conditions in one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.
US ‘LOCKED AND LOADED’ TO DESTROY IRAN’S ‘CROWN JEWEL’ ‘IF WE WANT,’ TRUMP WARNS
The Guard attacked a third ship, identified as the Euphoria, which had become “stranded” on the Iranian coast, Iranian media reported. It did not seize that vessel.
Ships and tankers in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Musandam, Oman, April 18, 2026. (Reuters)
Both the U.S. and Iranian sides have targeted commercial and cargo vessels as part of a broader pressure campaign tied to stalled negotiations. U.S. forces have also moved to seize at least one Iranian-linked vessel in the region, with each side accusing the other of violating the terms of a fragile ceasefire.
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The Strait of Hormuz is a vital artery for global oil shipments, with roughly 20% of the world’s supply passing through it. Traffic has slowed dramatically as ships reroute or avoid the area amid gunfire, seizures and conflicting directives from both militaries.
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
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