Abortion Rights

How Project 2025 Seeks to Obliterate Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

Project 2025 promotes a presidential agenda that rolls back civil and human rights and implements extremist conservative policies across every federal department and agency. Its sweeping far-right policy framework,1 by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, includes numerous attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights.  The plan’s far-reaching recommendations would severely limit reproductive autonomy and access to reproductive health care, while turning back the clock on hard-won gains, both domestically and globally. This fact sheet enumerates some of the agenda’s most serious threats to sexual and reproductive health and describes potential effects.
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Parental rights at center of reproductive health debate

The anti-abortion movement has framed certain protections for abortion care as attacks on parental rights. Opponents of successful reproductive rights ballot measures in Ohio, Missouri, Maryland and New York often deployed this rhetoric while campaigning. Parental rights were not included in Ohio’s Issue 1 ballot language that passed in November 2023. But that didn’t stop first lady Fran DeWine from saying in an ad that the measure “would deny parents the right to be involved when their daughter is making the most important decision of her life,” Ohio Capital Journal reported.
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Trump health pick Kennedy faces US Senate scrutiny over vaccine, abortion views

 Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's pick to lead the top U.S. health agency, is set to face a grilling from Senate Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday over his views on vaccines, abortion, and potential conflicts of interest. Kennedy, 70, will appear in front of the Senate Finance Committee at 10 a.m. ET (1500 GMT) on Wednesday. While that committee is responsible for advancing his nomination to the full Senate, Kennedy is also scheduled to appear in front of a second Senate panel that oversees health on Thursday.
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Johnson touts ‘new era’ of abortion opposition under Trump

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Friday abortion opponents are “entering a new era” with President Trump and Vice President Vance in the White House.  Speaking at the March for Life, Johnson praised the new administration for anti-abortion actions taken in the first week, including pardoning nearly two dozen anti-abortion activists. 
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Governor Whitmer Signs Bills Expanding Reproductive Freedom, Reducing Barriers to Affording Contraception and Care in Michigan

Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed 16 bills that will expand reproductive freedom in Michigan, including a bill that allows pharmacists to directly prescribe and dispense contraceptives to patients. This package of bills ensures women can more easily access critical health care by lowering costs and cutting unnecessary red tape. These bills also bolster Governor Whitmer’s commitment to advancing reproductive freedoms here in Michigan, giving more Michiganders the opportunity to control if, when, and how they choose to start their families
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Trump uses executive power to reinstate anti-abortion pacts

“President Donald Trump on Friday used his executive authority to restore U.S. participation in two international anti-abortion pacts, including one that cuts off U.S. family planning funds for foreign organizations if they provide or promote abortions. Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which opponents call the "global gag rule" because they say it silences abortion advocates. Established by former President Ronald Reagan in 1984, it has been rescinded by each Democratic president since then and reinstated when a Republican returns to the White House….”
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An abortion clinic moved to a ‘safe haven’ state. It didn’t get a warm welcome

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, LaDonna Prince decided to move her abortion clinic from Indiana, where abortion became banned, to a town just over the border in Illinois, where abortion is legal. Illinois has become a key access point for people who have to travel to get an abortion; it has welcomed more out-of-state patients than any other state, according to one estimate. The new location of Affirmative Care Solutions in Danville is just about an hour from where it was before. Prince said she chose the location to keep the commute manageable for her staff and as convenient as possible for patients facing…
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Reproductive rights and justice groups plan for Trump’s return

In the days following President-elect Donald Trump’s win last November, a national abortion-assistance hotline was being inundated with calls. “They were confused about whether abortion was even still legal in the country, because they have heard the rhetoric around Trump’s position on abortion,” said Brittany Fonteno, the president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation.
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Biden declares Equal Rights Amendment adopted, sparking a debate about his abortion legacy

“President Joe Biden’s Friday announcement declaring the Equal Rights Amendment part of the U.S. Constitution is reviving long-simmering tensions in the abortion-rights movement about the outgoing president’s legacy on reproductive rights. The last-minute move, three days before the end of Biden’s term, has sparked arguments between Biden’s defenders and his detractors over its significance, since even the White House acknowledged the announcement does not have the force of law. And the president’s declaration is also fueling a broader debate about whether Biden did enough to prepare for and respond to the fall of Roe v. Wade….”
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Defining fetal viability among GOP priorities after Missourians overturn abortion ban

"The day he was sworn in as speaker of the Missouri House, Jon Patterson declared that defining fetal viability could be a difficult task. A surgeon serving his fourth term in the legislature, Patterson said despite the vagueness of the medical phrase, the decision by voters to overturn Missouri's abortion ban means lawmakers have no choice but to try. "What I'll tell you is, if you took 10 doctors and lined them up and said 'what's the definition of fetal viability,' you'd get 10 different answers," Patterson said at a press conference last week. "Our citizens deserve to know what…
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Live Far From a Clinic? Telehealth Abortion Services Are on the Rise

Women who live far from an abortion clinic depend on telehealth and mail to obtain access to medication abortion, a new study says. Each 100-mile increase in distance from an abortion provider increased telehealth requests for abortion pills by about 61%, researchers reported in a new study published Jan. 8 in the American Journal of Public Health.
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Voters Backed Abortion Rights But State Judges Have Final Say

In November, Montana voters safeguarded the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. They also elected a new chief justice to the Montana Supreme Court who was endorsed by anti-abortion advocates. That seeming contradiction is slated to come to a head this year. People on polar sides of the abortion debate are preparing to fight over how far the protection for abortion extends, and the final say will likely come from the seven-person state Supreme Court. With the arrival of new Chief Justice Cory Swanson, who ran as a judicial conservative for the nonpartisan seat and was sworn in Jan. 6,…
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