On Friday, I hosted a Reddit AMA, prompting the Internet to ask me anything about my coverage of anti-abortion activist Kristan Hawkins and the movement she represents.
I spent months following and getting to know Kristan. I watched her debate students who were victims of sexual assault, order medication abortion pills online in a state where abortion is banned to show that it was still accessible, and discuss how to weaponize environmental laws against abortion. I also watched her fend off attacks from all sides—from abortion rights supporters to misogynists within her own movement.
Redditors were particularly interested in the effectiveness of Kristan’s message, and curious about what the anti-abortion movement is planning next.
Here’s an excerpt of the Reddit discussion. Don’t forget to read my full story on Kristan Hawkins and watch our documentary.
Do you think Hawkins is successfully influencing college students at all? How is she perceived on campus?
AL: My colleagues and I watched Kristan in action on two very politically different college campuses—one in Texas and one in California.
What was striking to me in both these venues is that most students seemed to come to the “change my mind” debates that Kristan organized with their views pretty fully formed already. There were some conservative Christian students who strongly agreed with her and saw her as a hero…others who thought she was out of her damn mind.
We have a pretty epic clip in the documentary that shows one student shutting down her arguments, for example…and then some who were in between.
But the polling data shows that overall, young people on college campuses—and especially young women, which is the demographic Kristan cares about most—overwhelmingly support abortion rights. So while I think she’s been able to whip up a relatively small, loyal following, by and large, her message is failing to win over the majority of students.
“We spent enough time together that I did get to see her with her guard down.”
Assuming that you don’t share Hawkins’ views, what is the relationship like between you and your subject? Is the experience one that feels very performative so as to present a very particular image of her and her movement, or does the subject relax and become more genuine?
Is there a component of trying to be persuasive towards you? Or does the interaction have an adversarial element, like she believes she’s working with the enemy to further her goals?
You are correct in thinking I do not share Kristan’s views, and she knew that going into it. But I have a record of accurately reporting on right-wing figures I disagree with. In fact, Kristan read my book, Killers of Roe: My Investigation Into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights, before our first interview. I think it sometimes helps with the source relationship when I can be open with my views, because Kristan wasn’t trying to guess where I stood.
While part of my time with her involved sifting through well-rehearsed talking points, some of which were pretty wild (i.e. her views about the dangers of abortion pills in the water supply, which most scientists think are bogus), we spent enough time together that I felt like I did get to see her with her guard down at times…like when she was exhausted, in a T-shirt, putting on makeup in an airport bathroom after we’d both spent the night in the Houston airport during the government shutdown.
This was the moment when she told me: “My brand consultant would probably say you shouldn’t be filming me.” But as a reporter, I was like…actually…I think this version of you is probably more genuine and likable than the version that’s out there posting ragebait on social media all the time.
How do you see the anti-abortion movement on college campuses and among college students evolving in our current political climate?
Young people, especially young women, are overwhelmingly pro-choice. About two-thirds of people under 30 want abortion legal. Among young women, it’s as high as 76 percent. So for conservatives like Hawkins and her followers, it’s really an uphill battle, and I think that leads to a sense of cultural embattlement that has actually been galvanizing for the minority of students who oppose abortion.
Kristan stokes this feeling with her constant stream of content showing pro-choicers angrily reacting to Students for Life displays. IMO, this kind of content shows their message is unpopular…but Kristan is a master of spin, so she’ll use it to suggest that abortion opponents are under attack by crazy pro-choicers.
To Kristan’s credit, though, there really isn’t a pro-choice parallel to Students for Life. No group on the abortion rights side has as much reach and presence on college campuses, even though that is the more popular point of view.
What is their next move?
First, they’re coming after shield laws—the laws passed in blue states that allow clinicians in New York or Massachusetts or California, for example, to mail abortion pills into states where abortion is banned.
“She’s trying to stop something unstoppable: The mail and abortion pills.”
The Supreme Court lawsuit filed by three red states last week is the opening salvo in this major constitutional showdown. But their holy grail would actually take us back in time…to 1873.
Kristan Hawkins and her allies would like the Trump administration to revive the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-vice law that they believe can act as a de facto abortion ban nationwide to shut down the mailing of pills, maybe even all abortion supplies, including in states where abortion is legal.
There’s also the ongoing review of mifepristone by Trump’s FDA, which will reportedly be out in March, and could disrupt access to one of two drugs used in the ideal medication abortion protocol. But no matter what happens, community suppliers say they will keep sending pills through the mail, and not even the most zealous postal inspectors can confiscate every package.
Ultimately, one of the major reasons I think Kristan has lost is that she’s trying to stop something unstoppable: The mail and abortion pills.
Is the next plan removal of all birth control?
Going after birth control was always, always part of the plan—it just happens to be less salient as a political talking point than going after abortion, so they tend to be more quiet about it!
Kristan Hawkins and many of her fellow abortion opponents oppose most birth control methods, because they believe (incorrectly) that they can cause abortions. What’s been fascinating lately is watching the intersection of old-school religious opposition to contraception with the MAHA movement and its crunchy online influencers who claim to eschew birth control for a whole host of other reasons.
Kristan is definitely taking advantage of this trend. I picked up a Students for Life postcard at a conference over the summer, for example, that touted getting off birth control as a way to “go green.”
“I don’t think she’ll quit the movement, but I do think she’ll increasingly have trouble navigating these divides.”
How does Hawkins deal with the attacks from the misogynists in her own movement? How does she move forward without being discouraged, and would there be a point where she quits the movement because of these attacks?
This question is a big part of why I wanted to follow Kristan Hawkins in this moment! She and other women in the anti-abortion movement are getting a wave of animosity right now from a hard-right faction of their own movement that blames women leaders like her for the fact that abortions have gone up, and that wants to punish people who have abortions with jail, maybe even the death penalty.
In fact, Kristan has said she’s more afraid of being shot by these folks than by pro-choicers. Kristan’s walking a pretty wild line here, because she is a brawler by nature whose inclination is to fight off the misogynists, but she can’t sound too feminist or she risks alienating her base of conservative supporters.
So her solution has been to try to have it all. She leans into feminist talking points sometimes as a way to hook in young women and shoot down the misogynists. But then, ultimately, she still embraces an extreme anti-abortion POV.
At least for now, she disagrees with the so-called abortion “abolitionists” who want people who have abortions to be charged with murder…although in her persistent effort to have it all, she told me that there might come a time when criminalizing women makes sense. I don’t think she’ll quit the movement, but I do think she’ll increasingly have trouble navigating these divides, and she’ll spend more and more of her time fighting internal battles.