AI Abortion Misinformation, Paxton Divorce Unsealing, Lindsey Halligan Bar Complaint

AI Chatbots Direct Women to Call Unproven and Unethical “Abortion Pill Reversal” Hotline

On Thursday, CfA released a report showing how five top AI chatbots—ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Meta AI, Grok, and Perplexity—directed women to call the phone number of a biased anti-abortion hotline when asked questions about a woman’s options during a medication abortion. The hotline pushes women to try so-called “abortion pill reversal”—a potentially harmful use of prescription progesterone that anti-abortion groups claim, without scientific evidence, might “reverse” the effects of mifepristone, the first of two medications taken as part of a medication abortion.

Abortion regret is extremely uncommon, though in “very rare case[s]” when women feel conflicted after beginning a medication abortion, medical experts advise women to call the doctor who prescribed them the medicine so they can “be supported and offered non-directive, neutral counseling [about] the benefits and risks of each of their options,” and that “nobody minds of you change your mind.”

Yet, anti-abortion groups are determined to get women on the phone with them instead, where they can provide inaccurate health information and attempt to guilt women into abandoning the abortion process altogether. To this end, avowed anti-abortion organization Heartbeat International operates an “Abortion Pill Reversal Helpline”—a centralized phone number pushed by hundreds of “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs), which uses “coercive, antiabortion messaging […] to transmit misinformation about the possibility and evidence behind reversal.”

In the experiment, CfA asked five AI models questions meant to simulate what a woman may ask in that extremely rare situation of questioning their options amidst a medication abortion. In response to at least one of two test queries, all five AI models provided users the phone number for this biased, anti-abortion “helpline.” In 50% of all responses, the biased “helpline” was the only phone number provided.

Although other recent studies have shown mixed results on AI’s ability to deliver “acceptable” responses to abortion questions, the answers to CfA’s questions on “abortion pill reversal” fall dangerously short. The likely reason? While some authoritative medical sources have published guidance debunking myths around “abortion pill reversal,” the few entries from those trusted sources pale in comparison to the hundreds of pages produced by the anti-abortion industry.

CfA’s report was covered by Bloomberg and Abortion, Every Day.

CfA executive director Michelle Kuppersmith said, “If some AI models continue to preference information quantity over quality when answering ‘hot button’ medical questions, the vulnerabilities spotlighted in this report likely extend far beyond the topic of abortion. Given that we are now seeing once-trustworthy entities like HHS prioritizing ideology over science, AI purveyors must be mindful to ensure their training methods are not leading searchers actively toward medical harm.”

Texas AG Ken Paxton Files Brief, Hearing Set for Divorce Unsealing

This week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a brief with the 468th District Court in Collin County, Texas arguing that his divorce proceeding—that may reveal relevant information about his conduct and character, and which Campaign for Accountability (CfA) filed a motion to unseal—should remain hidden from public view.

In July, Angela Paxton filed for divorce “on biblical grounds” and—unusually—their divorce record was sealed from public view. Given that Mr. Paxton has attempted to position himself as a paragon of Christian virtue and sought to force Texans to abide by his own moral code—going so far as to require public schools to display the Ten Commandments—the invocation of “biblical grounds” suggests the records may contain information relevant to his core appeal to voters.

In response to Paxton’s brief, CfA’ Michelle Kuppersmith said, “Despite a political career predicated on moral values, Ken Paxton is working overtime to hide the truth about his divorce, arguing the public already has access to all the information required. Paxton’s constituents can fairly wonder what he is so desperate to hide. It is clearly in the public interest for the public to have full access to the record.”

A hearing to consider CfA’s motion is currently set for December 19th.

Update on Interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan Bar Complaint

This week delivered a stunning series of revelations surrounding Trump-appointed Interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan’s efforts to indict former FBI Director James Comey.

The courtroom was shocked on Wednesday after Halligan revealed that she never presented the final, signed indictment to the full grand jury. Two days prior, Judge William Fitzpatrick’s ruling requiring the DOJ to hand over grand jury materials contained new details about Halligan’s conduct during her presentation of the indictment that the grand jury did see, including that she made “fundamental and highly prejudicial” misstatements of the law.

Multiple details in Fitzpatrick’s ruling appear to buttress allegations that CfA made in its complaint to the Florida and Virginia bars—asking for investigations to determine whether Halligan broke myriad rules by which lawyers must abide.

CfA laid out the details of these potential violations in threads on BlueSky and X.