Feb. 25, 2026, 6:15 PM EST

Conservatives’ crusade against reproductive freedom is deathly serious. Two controversies over the past week highlight some of the violence undergirding the MAGA movement’s assault on the idea of people choosing when and whether to bear children.

In Tennessee, two GOP state lawmakers are gauging interest in legislation that would make people eligible for homicide charges — and potentially the death penalty — for receiving or assisting with an abortion.

The bill’s co-sponsor in the state Senate said he doesn’t think the bill currently has the votes but ultimately could. Per the WSMV television station in Nashville:

“We want to be very open and have a conversation, whether it’s controversial or not — let’s hear from all sides to see where we are as Tennessee and where we stand,”[stateSenMark[stateSenMark] Pody said. “Talking to some colleagues, we don’t have the votes to move something like that in the Senate at this moment.”

Pody said he does not consider the bill dead on arrival in the Senate, adding he believes there is a possibility for negotiation and that Republicans in the House and Senate could reach an agreement on language that could pass both chambers.

Most Americans seem to think we shouldn’t kick the tires on state-sponsored executions for abortion recipients. Pody apparently disagrees.

His fellow co-sponsor in the House, state Rep. Jody Barrett, didn’t sound any more sane in his exchanges about the bill with reporter Chris Davis from WTVF, the CBS affiliate in Nashville.

“Murder should be murder, whether it’s a person in being or a person in utero,” Barrett said.

I asked Barrett directly about the criticism that the bill unfairly targets mothers.

“I think that’s a talking point saying that you’re targeting mothers. We’re not targeting mothers. We’re targeting unborn children and trying to protect them and give them the protection under the law for you and me,” Barrett said.

The tacit admission came later:

“A simple examination of the death penalty in Tennessee would show that that’s just not realistic. Now, do I have to admit that the death penalty is a possibility? Sure. But since the death penalty was reinstated in Tennessee in 1977, there’s been less than 200 people sentenced to death, and only 16 have actually been executed — none of them women,” Barrett said.

It’s safe to say the latter remarks are probably not going to be enough to soothe concerns about this morbid proposal — one that mirrors several others across the country in the past year.

In Vermont, a different controversy is unfolding over a right-wing influencer named Hank Poitras, who was elected chairman of a county GOP committee — and who once delivered an extremely graphic diatribe about committing an act of violence on a woman’s womb after she got pregnant.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.

Feb. 25, 2026, 5:53 PM EST

The Trump administration is temporarily halting $259 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota, Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday.

Vance said the payments will be paused “until the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American taxpayer.”

The news of the temporary halting of the massive amount of federal funding — which provides health insurance to low-income people — comes as the state has been a target of the federal government following allegations of fraud perpetrated by child care providers in the state. In December, federal officials froze $185 million in child care funds to Minnesota, and last month, the administration announced it was freezing $10 billion in funding for social services programs in five Democratic-led states, including Minnesota.

The latest news also follows President Donald Trump’s announcement at the State of the Union address Tuesday night that he was tasking the vice president with waging a “war on fraud.”

Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Wednesday that officials identified “scammers” who he claimed “hijacked … a certain part of the Minnesota Medicaid system.”

Federal prosecutors have confirmedthere was large-scale social services fraud in Minnesota, with dozensof people — many of whom are Somalis — having been convicted of stealing more than $1 billion in public funds intended for food, housing and services for people with disabilities. But the administration did not provide detailed evidence on Wednesday of the alleged large-scale Medicaid fraud in Minnesota that Oz claimed.

“These schemes disproportionately involve immigrant communities,” Oz said. Generally, undocumented people are not able to be enrolled in Medicaid.

Vance mentioned a program that he said claimed to offer after-school services to autistic children but did not actually do so, though he did not offer any identifying information.

Oz added that the top fraudulent biller in the state “submitted 450 days where they claim they were working more than 24 hours a day,” but also did not provide corroborating information.

According to the health policy research organization KFF, Medicaid covers nearly 1.2 millionkids and adults in Minnesota, more than half of whom are nursing home residents. More than three-quarters of Medicaid enrollees in the state are working full time, that data also shows.

Oz said the federal government will only release the funds “after they propose an act on a comprehensive corrective action plan to solve the problem,” adding that Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., has 60 days to do so. He suggested similar announcements to come in other states “soon,” and mentioned Florida, New York and California as potential future targets.

“This is not a problem with the people of Minnesota,” Oz said. “It’s a problem with the leadership of Minnesota and other states who do not take Medicaid preservation seriously.”

Vance added: “The main reason that we’re doing this is that we want to make sure that the people of Minnesota have access to the services that they’re entitled to.”

In a post on X on Wednesday night, Walz said the announcement “has nothing to do with fraud,” and added, “The agents Trump allegedly sent to investigate fraud are shooting protesters and arresting children. His DOJ is gutting the U.S. Attorney’s Office and crippling their ability to prosecute fraud. And every week, Trump pardons another fraudster.”

Minnesota lawmakers and the state’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, have introduced legislation that would add more than a dozen new staffers to the AG office’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and that would strengthen state fraud laws.

In a statement provided to MS NOW, Ellison hinted the state may sue in response.

“Courts have repeatedly found that their pattern of cutting first and asking questions later is illegal, and if the federal government is unlawfully withholding money meant for the 1.2 million low-income Minnesotans on Medicaid, we will see them in court,” he said.

Shireen Gandhi, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, which administers Medicaid, said the government’s actions “significantly harm the state’s health care infrastructure and the 1.2 million Minnesotans who depend on Medicaid,” adding that federal officials “chose to ignore more than a year of serious and intensive work to fight fraud in our state.”

Spokespeople for Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

Nour Longi and Emily Hung contributed reporting.

Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.