The letter points to a 2024 Live Action News article about the women who challenged Idaho’s law that said Adkins’ health risks and diagnosis were uncertain and non-fatal.
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Three women who spoke publicly about seeking abortions amid fatal fetal diagnoses while living in Idaho are among a group demanding an anti-abortion website retract its “defamatory” statements made about them.
Attorneys from an abortion-rights legal group called Amplify Legal sent a letter July 15 to the anti-abortion advocacy website Live Action for posts regarding 13 women who have previously made statements about seeking abortions.
Jennifer Adkins, Kayla Smith, and Jilliane St.Michel in 2024 joined a lawsuit challenging Idaho’s abortion ban, seeking an exemption to protect the mother’s health, including in cases of a fatal fetal diagnosis. The three women have since moved out of Idaho.
The letter, sent last week, argues that Live Action’s articles about Adkins, Smith, St.Michel and 10 other women from around the nation were “false and defamatory.” Most of the Live Action statements referenced in the letter suggest that the women’s pregnancies were not dangerous and abortions were unnecessary.
The letter went to Live Action founder Lila Rose and assistant editor of the news branch of the organization and author of many of the cited articles, Nancy Flanders.
“The result of such defamation is devastating,” the letter said. “Megan Kling, whose story is described in detail below, has feared for her life and the lives of her husband and children as a result of Live Action News’s and Ms. Flanders’s actions. Other clients have received death threats as a direct result of Live Action News’s conduct.”
The attorneys from Amplify Legal requested a response by July 29. Live Action could not be reached for comment.
What are the claims about the women who sued over Idaho’s abortion law?
The letter points to a 2024 Live Action News article about the women who challenged Idaho’s law that said Adkins’ health risks and diagnosis were uncertain and non-fatal. She previously told the Idaho Capital Sun that an ultrasound revealed her fetus had Turner syndrome, a chromosomal abnormality, and severe swelling.
Another Live Action article suggested Adkins and her husband had “eugenic motives” to seek an abortion.
Smith said in the lawsuit against Idaho’s abortion ban that her fetus had severe heart defects and that she was already at high risk for preeclampsia. Smith said no doctor would perform surgery to keep the fetus alive, and so she opted to end the pregnancy.
Another 2024 article by Live Action News countered Smith’s account, claiming the condition was operable. The article claimed a “feticide” was injected to terminate the pregnancy.
“Live Action News presented no evidence for this statement because none exists: No feticide was ever administered to Ms. Smith at any time,” the letter said. “Live Action News knew or should have known this claim was baseless yet still concluded that Ms. Smith decided ‘the risk of possibly developing preeclampsia was not worth her son’s life.’”
One of the Live Action News articles used quotes around “fatal” to describe the diagnosis that St.Michel received, in which her fetus had several genetic and developmental conditions impacting the heart, spine, bones and ureter.
The letter described Live Action’s use of quotes as “sarcastic scare quotes.”
The 2024 article said all the women involved in that lawsuit “traveled out of state to kill their babies.”
Letter may precede further legal action
The Amplify Legal attorneys demanded Live Action’s news arm immediately stop publishing or disseminating false “further false statements about other pregnant individuals who sought, obtained, or were denied abortion care,” including the 13 women named in the letter.
It also calls for the anti-abortion group to delete previous posts that had the named statements about the women and to post a retraction.
The letter states that the women represented by the firm “may be entitled to additional legal remedies” if the anti-abortion group doesn’t comply with the demands.
