How a rightwing machine stopped Arkansas’s ballot initiative to roll back one of the strictest abortion bans

A Guardian investigation into the ballot’s demise tells a more complicated story than just a bureaucratic screw-up, revealing a confluence of rightwing actors working in parallel to ensure it never got to voters: a reclusive donor who has helped shape the anti-abortion movement across the US; the inner circle of Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, … Read more

Anti-abortion centers raked in $1.4bn in year Roe fell, including federal money

Anti-abortion facilities raked in at least $1.4bn in revenue in the 2022 fiscal year, the year Roe v Wade fell – a staggering haul that includes at least $344m in government money, according to a memo analyzing the centers’ tax documents that was compiled by a pro-abortion rights group and shared exclusively with the Guardian. … Read more

Dark money is flowing to groups trying to limit medication abortion. Leonard Leo is again at the center.

Central to the effort to block use of the drug is conservative legal activist Leonard Leo, who has played a well-known role shaping the current judiciary via the Federalist Society and advising former President Donald Trump on Supreme Court picks. Less examined is the vast web of entities linked to Leo that work to promote … Read more