Tag: anti-abortion

Evie Magazine’s Brittany Hugoboom Wants Women to Have It All (With Some Caveats for Vaccines, Hormones, and Abortions)

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Such is the world of Evie, the magazine founded by Hugoboom, a former model with big brown eyes and pillowy lips that would look appropriate on the cover of a romance novel. At Cafe Cluny, her hyperfeminine style–she’s always gravitated to dresses, she says–is on display with a slinky, décolletage-oriented dress and long, wavy hair.

Her business partner is her husband, Gabriel Hugoboom, who she met when they were both 18-year-olds at University of Dallas. Today they are both 34-year-old residents of Midtown Manhattan, where they moved a year ago from Florida, and parents to two toddler girls. He’s CEO and handles operations; she oversees editorial. Evie has a staff of 12 people, all women save for Hugoboom’s assistant, who is a man.

The couple also own 28, a wellness app for menstrual cycles backed by Peter Thiel’s Thiel Capital, and Sundress.co, which carries their Raw Milkmaid Dress. (Both have been advertisers in Evie.) “Sometimes people are like, what are they doing? Because it just feels very out there, but we kind of merge the more liberal health world with a kind of more conservative relationship world,” says Hugoboom. Evie is for the kinds of women she knows, who were the first to go off the Pill because of fear around hormones, but who shopped at Erewhon and wore Reformation—MAHA before the movement had a name.

According to a representative, the brand gets 175 million views per month on its digital articles and videos. And over 600K followers on social media, with 285K on Instagram, where it fits seamlessly into the digital ecosystem awash in performances of womanhood waiting to be algorithmized. Evie’s Substack, which is less than a year old, has almost 200K subscribers and recently got as high as number three in Rising in Culture. Nor is this an entirely heartland phenomenon, its biggest audiences lie in the country’s largest biggest cities. “I have a huge love for America. Like, I love California, I love New York, I love Texas, I love Miami,” says Hugoboom.

She certainly understands the way political and media ecosystems intersect. Hugoboom has been compared to Phyllis Schlafly, the ambitiously anti-feminist who campaigned against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1960s. But Hugoboom seems, to me, a bit more like the provocateur Camille Paglia. Hugoboom has recently hired her first publicist (recommended by Brett Cooper, a conservative YouTuber; Candace Owens and Stephen Bannon are fans of Evie as well) and is recording our conversation at the same time I do. The only time that’s ever happened to me is with politicians, Fortune 500 CEOs, or people who are very nervous about how they will be quoted. She doesn’t seem anxious about anything at all. She’s chatty and appears comfortable in every way, in her own skin and in her own views. Last year, when The New York Times profiled her, they wrote that she interpreted feminism as encouraging “women to ‘be just like men’ to succeed in corporate fields. Such messaging, she says, has made women anxious, lonely and unfulfilled.” I asked, as she sipped her coffee, what have people gotten wrong about her, or about Evie, a publication known to some as the tradwife magazine? “That I don’t want women to work,” Hugoboom says. And then she laughs.

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Marisa Meltzer

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February 17, 2026
Yes, Abortion Access Is a Motivating Issue for Voters

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In Virginia, Democrats maintained control of the state Senate and flipped the House of Delegates. While one race remains uncalled, as of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats held a three-seat margin in both the Virginia House of Delegates and state Senate. The fear, ahead of Tuesday night, was that Republicans would win both chambers of the Virginia state legislature—gaining complete control of the state government and paving the way for Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s agenda. As I previously reported, Democrats in the state called on the national Democratic Party and the White House over the summer to pay greater attention to the Virginia elections, arguing that Youngkin, who has been propped up as a potential alternative to Trump in 2024, posed a real threat given his influence within the commonwealth and his fundraising chops. “I’m a little bit amazed that this isn’t a higher priority…at the White House,” Virginia senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, told VF in August.

Warner warned that Youngkin was not one to underestimate. Had Republicans won a trifecta on Tuesday night, the fear was that abortion access would be restricted, if not fully banned, as Youngkin has shifted his position on abortion from seeking a 15- to 20-week ban to saying he will sign “any bill…to protect life.” As Senator Tim Kaine put it to VF, “Make no mistake: If Republicans are successful in 2023, they will continue pushing their extreme agenda in 2024 and beyond.”

Democrats’ success on Tuesday night comes amid escalating fears surrounding Joe Biden’s reelection odds prompted by troubling polls in which Biden is shown trailing Donald Trump in key battleground states. But in the wake of the results, the Biden camp was zealous in their defense of the president’s agenda—specifically on reproductive rights.

“Tonight, Americans once again voted to protect their fundamental freedoms—and democracy won,” Biden said in a statement from the White House. “Ohioans and voters across the country rejected attempts by MAGA Republican elected officials to impose extreme abortion bans that put the health and lives of women in jeopardy, force women to travel hundreds of miles for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors and nurses for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide.”

The statement continued, “This extreme and dangerous agenda is out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans. My administration will continue to protect access to reproductive health care and call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law once and for all.”

The elections across the country on Tuesday have been cast as a harbinger of whether or not Biden will win back the White House and which party will win the US House and Senate. For instance, in Ohio, the vote on Issue 1 has been tied tightly to Democratic senator Sherrod Brown’s reelection bid next year. Seen as one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators up for reelection, Brown’s success or failure in 2024 could determine if Democrats hold on to their majority in the Senate—a majority that, albeit slim, could serve as a bulwark against a national abortion ban if Republicans win the House and Trump beats Biden.

Reproductive rights advocates are adamant that Republicans’ attacks on access will prove to be the party’s downfall in 2024. And according to public opinion polls, abortion continues to be a motivating issue for voters. A survey conducted by Impact Research of likely general election voters in 61 battleground congressional districts found that 64% of voters think abortion should be legal in all or some circumstances, according to data provided to VF. In contrast, just 6% think it should be completely illegal. Meanwhile, a majority of voters opposed overturning Roe v. Wade, and nearly 60% support a law that would protect abortion nationwide—including 47% who would strongly support such a law.

“We’ve said it before, and we will say it again: When abortion is on the ballot, reproductive freedom wins,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. “Despite every effort and every dollar spent to mislead the public, voters made it clear that when given the choice, the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies, lives, and futures will always prevail.”

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Abigail Tracy

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November 8, 2023
“The National Model for How to Lose Elections”: North Carolina Republicans Pass 12-Week Abortion Ban, Overriding Governor’s Veto

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North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature has officially passed a 12-week abortion ban, after overturning Governor Roy Cooper’s veto. The Tuesday night vote served as a stunning final act to what has been a closely watched clash between Cooper, a Democrat, and North Carolina Republicans over the bill—including a recent Democrat-to-Republican convert, who, despite a long pro-abortion-rights record, voted for the ban. The conclusion—a cut to abortion access for not only North Carolinians, but also for the many women in neighboring states with even harsher restrictions—has re-emboldened Democrats nationally to bring a blue wave to the state.

“The dangerous antics by the North Carolina Republican Party are the national model for how to lose elections in 2023 and 2024,” Philip Shulman, a spokesperson for liberal super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, said. “As Republican legislators and the party’s top choice for governor, Mark Robinson, attack and take away people’s basic freedoms, voters have that much more reason to vote for Democrats up and down the ticket.”

“North Carolina is a battleground state for 2024,” Jesse Ferguson, a veteran Democratic strategist tweeted after the vote. “GOP candidate is gonna own this.”

Going into Tuesday’s vote, it was unclear whether Republicans could garner enough votes to trump Cooper’s opposition to the bill. “This is a very purple state, every battle is won or lost on a very tiny, tiny number of votes,” Jenny Black, the CEO and president of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, told Vanity Fair Monday evening. This played out the same way. The Senate voted 30 to 20 along party lines to override Cooper’s veto and the House also voted to override the veto in a final vote of 72 to 48; four Republicans who had previously said they did not favor tighter abortion restrictions supported the ban.

“North Carolinians now understand that Republicans are unified in their assault on women’s reproductive freedom and we are energized to fight back on this and other critical issues facing our state,” Cooper said in a statement following the vote Tuesday night.

The political calculus around abortion rights in North Carolina changed last month when House member Tricia Cotham defected from the Democratic ranks, providing Republicans with a slim supermajority. Previously an ardent supporter of abortion rights, Cotham voted for the 12-week ban. Her hypocrisy on the issue has been glaring. “My womb and my uterus is not up for your political grab,” she declared in a 2015 speech. Among the three other Republicans—House representatives Ted Davis and John Bradford, and state senator Michael Lee—who also staked out positions on the campaign trail against extreme abortion bans, two voted (Lee and Bradford) for the initial measure, and one (Davis) was absent. As Rolling Stone reported, just last year Bradford said he had “no intentions” of making North Carolina’s current 20-week abortion ban more restrictive. Similarly, in an op-ed, Lee staked out, “I am against bans in the first trimester.” And Davis said, “I believe in the [existing] law…. If a woman desires to have an abortion up to 20 weeks, which is the second trimester of pregnancy, she can have an abortion.”

Cooper has served as a bulwark against North Carolina Republicans’ conservative agenda for years now; the Democratic governor has vetoed more than 75 pieces of legislation since he took office in 2017. His veto, which he issued Saturday in Raleigh to a crowd of hundreds, was expected. “Standing in the way of progress right now is this Republican supermajority legislature that only took 48 hours to turn the clock back 50 years,” Cooper said. The governor spent the last week campaigning in Republican districts to urge constituents to sway their elected leaders.

Black was hoping the political pressures would work. “November wasn’t that long ago,” she said ahead of Tuesday. Instead, this episode once again thrust North Carolina into Democrats’ purview nationally. A Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t won the state since Barack Obama in 2008 (Mitt Romney won the state in 2012). And despite Cooper’s victory in 2016 and hopes that Donald Trump’s drag on the GOP would help Democrats claim a Senate seat—or two—Republicans have held a mostly firm grasp on the state federally. Still, abortion has proven to be a salient issue for voters, even in much redder states than North Carolina. With that and Joe Biden’s wider appeal in southern states, Democrats appear to be more hopeful about their prospects.

Republicans pitched the 12-week ban as something of a compromise on the abortion issue. For instance, Republican senator Phil Berger characterized the bill as “a mainstream approach to limiting elective abortions.” But Democrats and abortion rights activists have dismissed this line of argument. “Make no mistake: Your actions today will harm women,” Representative Julie von Haefen, a Democrat, said on the House floor. And a Meredith poll in February showed that 57% of respondents supported the state’s current 20-week ban or expanding access further.

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Abigail Tracy

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May 16, 2023
Erin Morrow Hawley Is Leading the Charge to Ban Abortion Medication. She’s Also Josh Hawley’s Wife

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As a Texas federal judge deliberates his decision in a high-profile case that could impose a nationwide ban on a leading abortion drug, reproductive rights activists are now raising scrutiny about a member of the plaintiffs’ legal team: Erin Morrow Hawley, an attorney and the wife of Missouri senator Josh Hawley.

The case, which is playing out in a courtroom in rural Texas, could have the most far-reaching ramifications on abortion access in the United States since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Should the judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, rule in favor of the plaintiffs in the case and issue a preliminary injunction, it could effectively block the use of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in medication abortions, which account for more than half of all abortions in the US. Hawley is one of the main lawyers arguing on behalf of conservative legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, which sued the Food and Drug Administration last November for its approval of the abortion medication.

“They are partners in this crusade,” a reproductive rights advocate said of Josh and Erin Hawley in an interview with Vanity Fair, noting the congressman’s conservative record on abortion in the Senate and his wife’s work to ban abortion and limit access through litigation. “Their political partnership shows how coordinated the antiabortion movement is—working at all levels of government to take away access—even after we lost the fundamental right to abortion.”

Hawley’s involvement in conservative legal causes is well documented. As The Kansas City Star reported, she serves as senior counsel at the ADF, which was involved in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that ultimately led to the fall of Roe v. Wade. Indeed, as the newspaper noted, Hawley’s appearance at Georgetown Law earlier this month—an event titled “After Dobbs”—drew criticism from student groups and reproductive rights activists.

The fact that the wife of a senator is involved in a high-profile lawsuit is not necessarily noteworthy on its face. But notably, before his ascension to the federal bench, Kacsmaryk, a Trump-appointed judge, donated $500 to Josh Hawley in 2018, according to data from OpenSecrets. Taken in whole, Kacsmaryk’s donor history paints a picture of an individual active in supporting conservative politicians and causes, with political donations also made to Texas senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, as well as Republican governor Greg Abbott.

Senator Hawley, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has played a significant role in shaping the nation’s courts; he previously threatened to block the confirmation of a judge whom he deemed insufficiently antiabortion, and he has pushed for nominees to have records indicating the belief that the ruling in Roe v. Wade was wrong. “Republican elected officials have been promising for years to appoint pro-life judges to the bench,” Hawley said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in fall 2020. “And over and over, we see judges get appointed, they turn out not to be for life when it really comes down to it. So I just gave voice to what people have been saying for years and a deep frustration they feel.”

Senator Josh Hawley’s office, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk did not respond to Vanity Fair’s requests for comment.

Notably, both Hawleys spoke before Congress on abortion access in America post-Roe. “We need to come alongside women and support them. We need to provide them with the resources that are necessary for them and their children to survive. The Dobbs decision is not only a legal victory, but it is a rallying cry: We must become a culture that values life, that values women’s lives,” Erin Hawley told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in her capacity as a Republican witness and attorney with the ADF. The couple has been open in their parallel efforts to ban abortion. In an interview with Spectrum News last summer, Senator Hawley said abortion was a topic often discussed at home and praised his wife’s work in the Dobbs case. “Erin was central to that effort, absolutely central, and I’m really, really proud of her,” he told the outlet.

The crux of the Texas case is whether the FDA improperly approved mifepristone more than two decades ago. The ADF brought the suit on behalf of four doctors who have said they’ve prescribed mifepristone, as well as four antiabortion medical organizations. At the four-hour hearing before Kacsmaryk last Wednesday, during which both sides presented their arguments, Hawley characterized the approval process used as “agency gamesmanship” and argued that doctors with deeply held antiabortion beliefs were harmed by having to perform surgical procedures in patient cases where complications arose from use of mifepristone, as NPR reported.

“Antiabortion politicians will stop at nothing to advance their dangerous and supremely unpopular agenda. No one is fooled by their plea to make this a ‘states’ rights’ issue—especially when they are weaponizing our federal courts to ban mifepristone, one of the medications used in medication abortion, in states where abortion is legal,” the reproductive rights advocate said. “Their ultimate goal is to ban abortion nationwide, by any means necessary—which is why this case is so damn important.”

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Abigail Tracy

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March 23, 2023
“There’ll Be Political Complications”: GOP Congresswoman Warns Her Party Against a Staunch Antiabortion Agenda

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“I think many, many in our ranks right now are ignoring the results of the midterms,” Republican congressperson Nancy Mace said in an interview Thursday afternoon with Vanity Fair. The House had just finished passing two antiabortion measures—one of Republicans’ first acts since assuming the majority this year. Mace, a two-term South Carolina congresswoman, characterized the effort as “misguided,” and told reporters the bills were a sign Republicans “learned nothing” from their poor showing in November. Still, Mace voted in favor of both measures. They were “two relatively easy pro-life bills that everybody can get behind,” she explains. Plus, they weren’t going to go anywhere. “What we did this week is just pay lip service to life because the bills we worked on aren’t gonna go anywhere in the Senate. They are not ever going to go to the president’s desk to be signed,” she says. “[They] don’t make a difference in women’s lives every single day.”

Mace, who represents Charleston, appears to be a case of a swing-district Republican stuck in the middle. She says she’s heard from a number of members who represent districts like hers. “They’re either swing districts or they’re Biden districts, or maybe they’re in Republican plus one or two or three districts, where they share the same frustrations,” she says. There’s been little reckoning among Republicans despite a lackluster midterms performance largely defined by the end of Roe v. Wade. House Republicans’ two controversial antiabortion measures were a resolution to formally condemn attacks on pro-life facilities (which passed with the support of three Democrats, Vicente Gonzalez, Chrissy Houlahan, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez), and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, intended to impose new criminal penalties on doctors who don’t resuscitate babies “born alive” after attempted abortions, which passed on party lines.

Abortion-access advocates were quick to condemn the move. “It is yet another attempt by anti-abortion politicians to spread misinformation as a means to their warped political end: to ban safe and legal abortion,” Jacqueline Ayers, the senior vice president of policy, organizing, and campaigns at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement regarding the Born Alive bill. “Let’s be clear: Doctors are already required to provide appropriate medical care by law. This is not how medical care works. It’s wrong, irresponsible, and dangerous to suggest otherwise.” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Republicans introduced the bills as part of their “march to criminalize abortion care. To impose a nationwide ban. To set into motion government-mandated pregnancies,” in a speech on the House floor.

Mace is hardly pro-choice, but she thinks abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest go too far. Back in 2019, she shared her story of being raped as a teenager to push for the South Carolina Senate–at the time, she was a member of the state’s House–to include exceptions for rape and incest in its six-week “heartbeat” abortion ban. They were ultimately included; the legislation passed. (This past week the South Carolina State Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional on privacy grounds.) “What I have seen when we have these debates and these conversations oftentimes, particularly in conservative states, is women’s voices are missing,” she says. “I just had sort of gotten fed up with it and a bill written by a man who didn’t have that perspective.”

Now she’s arguing there’s some kind of middle ground on abortion access. Specifically, she thinks that there is room to work with Democrats on expanding medical services for women, particularly in rural areas, and making birth control more accessible. “If you want to get serious about life, one of the things you could do that I believe would have a chance in both chambers would be ensuring that every woman has access to birth control,” she says. “That should not be controversial.”

And if Republicans continue down the extreme path on abortion, she says, “there’ll be political complications two years from now, whether that’s the White House or us retaining the majority in the US House.”

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Abigail Tracy

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January 13, 2023