Click to skip ahead: Language Watch has GOP candidates’ latest attempts to conceal their extremism. Ballot Box has smarmy anti-abortion tactics in Georgia. In the Nation unpacks government shutdown chaos and Trump’s IVF nonsense. Stats & Studies has eye-opening new figures on telemedicine abortion access. Finally, today we get to End on a High Note.

Language Watch

Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro faces a challenge from GOP state Treasurer Stacy Garrity next year. Since announcing her campaign, Garrity has been working overtime to soften her image on abortion. She only recently stopped hawking rabidly anti-abortion merch on her website, which included “LIFE WON” bumper stickers, “Born to be Pro-Life” baby onesies, and “DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD” t-shirts. Relatedly: Before running, she called for Planned Parenthood to be defunded and stated, “Pennsylvania needs a PRO-LIFE governor. Who’s with me?”

Now, Garrity insists that she would “respect the current law on the books.”

Pennsylvania-based OBGYNs say they’re not buying this line—certainly not after Garrity campaigned with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, an anti-abortion extremist, this past weekend.

“[Garrity] is campaigning with the most restrictive [anti-abortion] governor. I don’t know what to tell you other than believe what they tell you the first time around,” Dr. Phil Hirshman said at a Monday press conference.

Circling back to Garrity’s line about “respecting” Pennsylvania’s current abortion laws—hmm, where have we heard that one before? Oh, right: from pretty much every GOP candidate ever since Dobbs. It’s the same line from Virginia’s GOP gubernatorial nominee, Winsome Earle-Sears, and the GOP gubernatorial candidates in Wisconsin—who are also scrubbing their anti-abortion records from their websites.

That talking point starts at the top: President Trump campaigned hard on “leaving abortion to the states,” pledging not to enact a national ban or legislate further on abortion. In reality, within months of taking office, he signed a budget law defunding Planned Parenthood, pardoned violent anti-abortion activists while weakening federal protections for clinics, appointed anti-abortion extremists to key judgeships, and is paving the way to restrict abortion pills.

Here’s what ‘respecting the current abortion laws’ means from GOP candidates: finding sneakier ways to attack abortion. Just like their claims that they don’t support a national abortion ban, just ‘minimum national standards’ or ‘reasonable federal limits,’ it’s all bullshit. They know their laws are wildly unpopular—but instead of listening to public sentiment, they think they can just rebrand their positions.

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And, one more thing: Even if they were sincere about ‘respecting the current laws,’ that means nothing. We need to protect and expand abortion access—not just accept the god-awful status quo.

Ballot Box

Since last year’s election, Democrats have been searching far and wide for consultants who have the answers on how to win—in culture and at the ballot box. Well, I can point you to an example of consultants who don’t have the answers. Meet 51&, a new organization to secure more research funding for women’s health…by rebranding the issue and avoiding abortion altogether.

This week, Fortune spoke to 51&’s founders: Jodi Neuhauser, “a branding specialist and founder of fertility company,” and Candace McDonald, a “former alternative health activist,” executive at a “clean beauty” wellness company, and—ah, yes—the CEO and board member of a PAC that backed RFK Jr. for president.

Neuhauser said she hears all the time, “I don’t understand how you can be a women’s health organization and donate to Republicans.” But McDonald explained that 51& will take a “big tent” approach to women’s health, which seemingly means collaborating with figures who are actively attacking women’s health. Recall that RFK Jr. backed a national abortion ban on the campaign trail, conflated birth control and abortion as HHS Secretary. He also recently announced that along with the FDA, the HHS would conduct a ‘safety review’ of mifepristone:

Let’s be clear: No one should be taking advice or strategies like this seriously. Abortion is lifesaving, life-affirming, and popular. A “big tent” that includes people who want child rape victims to give birth or women to die should actually be dismantled, immediately—because it isn’t helping anyone, certainly not women. And, given the organization’s ties to our aggressively anti-women HHS secretary, all of this is a reminder that terms like ‘big tent’ or strategies that involve not touching abortion are often fundamentally conservative. Even when they claim to be ‘bipartisan.’

Over in Georgia, it doesn’t get grosser than this. Recall that the mother of Amber Thurman, one of two women who died as a result of the state’s abortion ban, endorsed a Democratic candidate for governor earlier this month. Anti-abortion activists are now launching unbelievably nasty attacks on Shanette Williams—Thurman’s mom—over the endorsement. Why? They’re still pushing the lie that Thurman didn’t die because of Georgia’s ban—but because of the abortion pills she took. (We won’t be naming or linking to these groups, because we have no interest in giving them oxygen.)

Let’s say this one more time: Abortion pills are highly safe, and less likely to result in serious complications than Tylenol or Viagra. But in the rare cases when there are complications, individuals should be able to access timely emergency care. That was impossible for Thurman because of Georgia’s ban.

In any case, it’s utterly depraved that anti-abortion activists are targeting a mother who tragically lost her daughter—and even more twisted that they’re still spreading the same lies that will inevitably help kill even more women.

In the Nation

As if it weren’t awful enough that Republicans enshrined a law that effectively defunds Planned Parenthood—amid the now two week-long government shutdown, clinics across the country have been left in the dark about where they stand. Bloomberg notes that under the federal budget law the GOP passed earlier this year, HHS has “wide latitude” on exactly when the ‘defund’ portion of the law takes effect and who will be affected.

But providers tell Bloomberg they haven’t received any communication from Trump’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on whether they’re a “prohibited entity” barred from Medicaid reimbursements—or about how to move forward at all.

Congressional Republicans are continuing to hold the country hostage with no end in sight to the shutdown. But even when (if??) the stalemate is resolved, Christina Chang, executive director of the US governors’ coalition Reproductive Freedom Alliance, says the damage will already be done:

“You can’t just turn this off and then turn it back on again. The damage t