Kristan Hawkins is president of the anti-abortion rights groups Students for Life of America, which is pushing for state and federal legislation to recognize human life as beginning “at conception.” Her group takes the position that some devices and pills that can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg are “mislabeled” as contraception—a position at odds with the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, which defines pregnancy as beginning at implantation.
“I think legislators should be able to have the right to decide and to investigate if there are devices, if there’s chemicals that are ending the lives of their citizens in their state,” Hawkins said.
In an interview last week, Hawkins denied that birth control is a focus of her movement—and called that notion a “scare tactic.”
Some Republican leaders, including a state lawmaker in Idaho, have expressed an openness to entertaining questions about the safety of contraceptives, which are tested by federal regulators before they are put on the market.
Last week, a Louisiana state lawmaker proposed a bill that would classify abortion as a homicide—beginning at the moment of fertilization.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, when host Jake Tapper asked Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves about the bill in his neighboring state, Reeves declined to rule out support for similar legislation, saying only, “That is not what we are focused on at this time.”