Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and his wife, Erin, a lawyer for the conservative legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, are launching a dark money group to fund anti-abortion ads across the country, they announced on Friday.
The group, called Love Life Initiative, plans to run “far-reaching advertising campaigns that promote the sanctity of life, advance referendums that protect life, and identify and defeat harmful proposals in statehouses across the nation,” according to its website.
The news was first reported by Axios.
Spokespeople for Hawley and the Love Life Initiative did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s requests for comment.
According to Axios, the ads will not only focus on opposing abortion but also on promoting families — a priority for the Trump administration. The president has said he wants a “baby boom” and pledged to expand IVF access. Vice President JD Vance said at an anti-abortion rally in D.C. earlier this year that he wants “more babies in the United States of America.”
Project 2025, the more than 900-page guidebook to Trump’s second term spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, also included several proposals for boosting the birth rate — including restricting support for abortion across the government, allocating funding for “marriage and relationship education,” and bolstering national data collection on families.
The Hawleys have played key roles in advocating for rolling back abortion rights.
Josh Hawley has a long record of opposing abortion and has recently been behind a push to get Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary to conduct a review of the safety data for mifepristone, the first of two pills used in medication abortion.
More than 100 scientific studies have concluded that abortion pills are safe and effective, including when they are prescribed virtually and mailed to patients. But abortion opponents have long alleged, without supporting evidence, that the drugs are dangerous. Several, including Hawley, have recently rallied around a report from the right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center purporting to show a higher-than-previously-reported rate of complications from the pills — though experts have said the methodology appears flawed and the findings inflated. Erin Hawley unsuccessfully argued against the FDA approval of mifepristone before the Supreme Court last year, and served as co-counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom in their ultimately successful argument to overrule Roe v. Wade in 2022. Gallup polling shows nearly half of all Americans — 49% —support abortion in all or most circumstances, and that about 60 percent support the availability of mifepristone as a prescription drug and oppose the overruling of Roe v. Wade. Research — including data released this week from the Society of Family Planning — has consistently shown that the number of abortions has risen since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overruling Roe, with abortion pills and the rise of telehealth playing key roles in expanding access. “For years, Democrats have drowned out the pro-life narrative and overwhelmed the pro-life agenda. They’ve raised and spent hundreds of millions on infrastructure, advocacy, and advertising — and it’s taken a toll,” the group’s website says. “The Love Life Initiative will remind Americans that life is sacred, life is good, and life is worth protecting.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
