A Tennessee Lawmaker Called for Executing Women
The comments were captured on video at a Washington County GOP meeting
Monty Fritts — A News Update
If you’ve followed me since the beginning, you know the name Monty Fritts. He is a Representative in the Tennessee House known for his extremist views on abortion and “liberty,” and now he’s called for women to be executed for having abortions.
“If you kill a baby from embryo on up with a pill or a scalpel, we outta execute you.”
Of course, he didn’t say this on the record in a general public-facing setting. The remarks were recorded last August at a Washington County Republican Party meeting titled “God, Guns and Guts,” which Kristi Burke, 34, a muralist and content creator, attended. The meeting was billed as a routine GOP event that took place in Jonesborough, Tennessee, just months after a woman in that same town was denied prenatal care because her physician disagreed with her “unmarried lifestyle.”
Burke provided the following firsthand account exclusively to TN Repro News.
Kristi Burke, eyewitness account:
On August 26, 2025, I attended the publicly posted “God, Guns and Guts” legislative event in Jonesborough, Tennessee with four others to hear directly from Republican lawmakers. No credentials were checked, and we sat quietly in the back as legislators discussed their priorities for the coming year. During the event, Representative Monty Fritts spoke about proposing the death penalty for rape and abortion, stating that if you “kill a baby with a pill or a scalpel from an embryo on up, we ought to execute you.” My group laughed in disbelief.
After roughly 15–20 minutes, sheriff’s deputies approached us and told us we had to leave for “causing a disturbance.” I questioned why our laughter constituted a disturbance while cheering and applause from the rest of the audience did not. When I pressed the issue, the deputy responded that it was “because they were clapping for something they agreed with.” When we refused to leave, additional officers arrived and threatened arrest for disorderly conduct, and we exited the building.
The following morning, three of us filed formal complaints with Sheriff Sexton and each received a certified letter stating that our complaint was “unfounded” and referencing Tennessee’s disorderly conduct statute and its statute of limitations. No charges have ever been filed. Video footage later uploaded online shows another attendee standing up, interrupting lawmakers, and loudly criticizing them without being removed, underscoring that our removal was based on viewpoint rather than behavior.
Fritts Resurfaces — Again
Last Spring, Monty Fritts also appeared on a now-deleted X Spaces call the morning after Gov. Bill Lee signed the Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act into law.
The recording was public when it aired. It has since been deleted. TN Repro News obtained a copy and broke down the call’s conversations in a full report last year.
Fritts joined the call while attending a Tennessee Firearms Association event at the private home of John Rich of Big & Rich. Before hopping off, he framed the law in explicitly religious and violent terms:
“I would just say, friends, this is the battlefield. God looks abhorrently upon those who shed innocent blood. And I’m afraid that we have just codified doing that.
And so have your churches pray. And take July, which hopefully he’ll sign in a resolution making July every year a month of prayer and fasting. But pray. Don’t wait till July. Start praying now. Pray that God would move the hearts of these wicked people that have been involved in this. And relieve us from the judgment. Have mercy.”
Fritts described Gov. Lee’s decision to sign the bill as one of the lowest blows of his time in office, even beyond the low blows of not loosening gun restrictions enough.
Where Monty Fits in the Strategy
As I’ve reported before, this rhetoric isn’t happening in isolation.
During the same discussion, Will Brewer — legal counsel for Tennessee Right to Life — made clear that lawmakers like Monty Fritts are central to the plan to undo the law, so long as it can be done quietly and without public division.
Brewer said:
“I would like a unified voice and a unified solution to this problem so that we can act swiftly to take care of this law [The Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act] and not have a lot of debate, not have a lot media attention on the fractions within the conservative movement on this issue.
If we can have the administration’s leadership. And folks like Monty Fritts and Chris Todd and Gino Bulso and Scott Cepicky who really want to do something about this. If we can have a unified bill to address the situation, it can be easily remedied. But that’s going to be the trick to do it.”
This is consistent with reproductive rights advocates’ messaging: opposition to contraception and fertility protections in Tennessee is being driven by coordination between paid lobbyists and fringe legislators. They remain outside the majority of the TN GOP caucus.
Now a Candidate for Governor
Monty Fritts has since entered the race for Tennessee governor, joining a Republican primary field that includes Marsha Blackburn, John Rose, and other candidates.
Gov. Bill Lee is term-limited, making this an open race. The primary election will be on August 6, 2026, with the general election on November 3, 2026.
Pay attention to what they’re saying when they think they’re alone.
Disgusting. While I was busy and not paying attention, my state was apparently becoming ground zero for white-supremacist christo-fascism. It breaks my brain and my heart.
How are these people so vile?