Introducing The Overreach Monitor: A Catholics for Choice Watchdog

By Ashley Hildebrand, Senior Advisor, Catholics for Choice & Editor-in-Chief, The Overreach Monitor

Three years ago, the world changed. Or did it? The Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade, doing away with fifty years of precedent and abolishing the constitutional right to abortion. But the fact that it did so was the crowning achievement of decades of campaigning by an anti-abortion movement that has always been religious.

If you follow our work, it is hopefully no secret to you that all of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago today are, or were raised, Catholic. Every. Single. One. Is. (Even him.) (And we’re not letting him off the hook, either.) You might have even heard of Leonard Leo, the ultra-conservative Catholic behind the current court’s makeup. But this crusade goes even further. We would argue that it’s work led by a small group of old, mostly white, allegedly celibate men who will never, ever become pregnant — the Catholic church hierarchy.

The Overreach Monitor is a new Substack from Catholics for Choice that will expose religious overreach in our politics. Thanks for reading & sharing our first post!

After the Dobbs decision, Catholics for Choice advocates participated in our democratic and civic processes the way most abortion rights organizations did: by focusing on ballot initiatives, decisions at lower courts, and the patchwork of laws being constructed at the state and federal levels. We felt emboldened by statistic after statistic that proved the faithful majority supports abortion access in all or most cases.

But we couldn’t help but notice Catholic power players were still spending millions of dollars to fight abortion access. While they often lost (Ohio and Kansas are particularly sweet examples), in 2024, we saw their influence becoming more successful once again.

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The Work Ahead

Last fall, we asked ourselves and our partners: “What if the various social justice movements we know and support had one place where they could find information about how religious overreach influences American policy and politics?” We realized that more could be done to expose the insidious and pervasive nature of this uniquely Catholic overreach — because it is truly everywhere. And since it lives top-of-mind for us at CFC, we could make it easier for our partners to connect the dots.

And so, The Overreach Monitor was born.

The Overreach Monitor: A Catholics for Choice Watchdog is the opposition research arm of Catholics for Choice.

• We challenge the misinformation of the Catholic hierarchy.

• We expose religious overreach and make information more accessible to people fighting for our democracy.

• We confront the spread of Christian nationalism conducted in the name of our faith.

We’re creating content with a particular audience in mind: partners who work in reproductive rights, health, and justice, and/or anti-Christian nationalism efforts. But we know that others will find this content helpful, too. Overall, we hope this will be a key tool to provide context for anyone seeking to understand Catholic connections to their work.

In launching this Substack, we hope to make the full context of religious overreach and the Catholic strain of Christian nationalism that fuels the anti-abortion movement more transparent. We will post in-depth investigations, rapid-response analysis of the news of the day, and community-sourced content to highlight the pervasive nature of religious overreach.

We hope you will subscribe and invite your friends and coworkers to subscribe, too. Because religious overreach affects us all — whether you are Catholic or not.

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