USA – ‘Rolling Thunder’: Inside conservatives’ strategy to curb abortion pill access

Abortion opponents hope a new report will spur the GOP to ban abortion pills and defund Planned Parenthood.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein
May 7, 2025

The nation’s most influential anti-abortion groups have a new plan to roll back access to the procedure for millions of Americans in what they’re calling the “biggest opportunity for the pro-life movement” since toppling Roe v. Wade.

The effort, which the groups have privately named “Rolling Thunder,” is the movement’s first concerted attempt under the second Trump administration to target abortion pills, and aims to convince the FDA, Congress and courts to crack down on their use.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/07/anti-abortion-pill-gameplan-rolling-thunder-00331933

07.05.2025

Commentary

abortion pills

American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs

Americans United for Life

Angela Vasquez-Giroux

anti-choice anti-science

anti-choice cruelty

anti-choice dishonesty

anti-choice extremism

anti-choice junk science

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misogyny

Brittni Frederiksen

Colson Center for Christian Worldview

Dr. Christina Francis

Ethics and Public Policy Center

FDA

Food and Drug Administration

Marjorie Dannenfelser

Marty Makary

mifepristone

Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RollingThunder

Ryan Anderson

safety of abortion pills

Students for Life

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America

United States

Activism

Anti-choice

Abortion bans are killing women — and states like Texas want to hide the truth

As the laws’ predictable harms come to light, anti-abortion groups want us to look away.

Dec. 3, 2024
By Susan Rinkunas

Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision two and a half years ago, state abortion bans have restricted pregnant women’s access to emergency medical care. And as the predictable harms — up to and including death — come to light, some states are acting as if they want to hide them from the public.

…from 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal deaths in Texas increased by 56%, compared with 11% nationwide. But rather than investigate, the state is essentially admitting that the bodies are piling up faster than the state can address them. Its solution is not to dedicate more time and effort — like, perhaps, increasing the size of the 23-member committee — but to simply brush these women’s lives under the rug and skip ahead to 2024.

Continued: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/texas-georgia-women-deaths-abortion-ban-rcna182540

Emboldened anti-abortion groups create wishlist for second Trump term

‘Make America pro-life again’ legislation includes banning abortion pills entirely and outlawing telehealth abortions

Carter Sherman
Sun 17 Nov 2024

The anti-abortion movement is ready for its comeback in 2025.

With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, complete with a Republican-dominated Congress, anti-abortion groups are unfurling ambitious lists of policies they hope to see enacted under a sympathetic administration.

In the two years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the movement has largely been relegated to playing defense. Popular support of abortion rights surged, while red-state voters defended abortion rights through ballot measures and many Republicans downplayed their opposition to the procedure.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/17/anti-abortion-groups-trump-2025

USA – Harris hoped to ride abortion to another post-Dobbs Democratic victory. It didn’t work.

The issue failed to stop Donald Trump, who on Tuesday overcame a large gender gap — and Democrats’ relentless focus on women’s reproductive health — to win back the White House.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly
Nov 6, 2024

Abortion has haunted Republicans since the fall of Roe v. Wade. But the issue failed to stop former President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday overcame a large gender gap — and Democrats’ relentless focus on women’s reproductive health — to win back the White House.

With message discipline that often eluded other parts of his campaign, Trump and his allies positioned themselves as moderates on abortion, arguing the issue should be left to states, pledged to veto a national abortion ban should it reach his desk, pitched government support for in-vitro fertilization and other reproductive health services, and promised to be a champion for women. These attempts to neutralize an issue that has dogged Republicans since Roe’s fall in 2022 helped Trump notch a clear victory against Vice President Kamala Harris with an electorate angry over the economy, inflation and immigration bent on punishing the party in power.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/06/abortion-trump-2024-00187825

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s the Anti-Abortion Group Pulling Trump’s Strings

New documents show where Trump's 'post-birth' abortion lie comes from

Jessica Valenti
Sep 24, 2024

When Donald Trump claims that Democrats support ‘post-birth’ abortion—a noxious and dangerous lie that he’s repeated countless times on the campaign trail—the assumption has largely been that this is just ‘Trump being Trump.’ After all, we’re used to seeing the disgraced former president make up extreme stories to sow disinformation and distract from his incompetence.

But Trump’s horrific talking point that states are “executing babies” isn’t some wild off-the-cuff claim from a habitual liar. Instead, it’s a carefully crafted message fed to Trump by a powerful anti-abortion organization that positions itself as mainstream and credible. And Abortion, Every Day has the documents to prove it.

Continued: https://jessica.substack.com/p/exclusive-heres-the-anti-abortion

Kamala Harris, once Biden’s voice on abortion, would take an outspoken approach to health

By Stephanie Armour, Julie Appleby, Julie Rovner, KFF Health News
July 21, 2024

Throughout Joe Biden's presidency, he leaned on the outspoken former prosecutor and senator he selected as his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the White House's voice of unflinching support for reproductive health rights.

Now, as Democrats rebuild their presidential ticket just a few months before Election Day, Harris would widely be expected to take an aggressive stance in support of abortion access if she became the party's new presumptive nominee — hitting former President Donald Trump on an issue that could undermine his chances of victory. Biden endorsed Harris on Sunday when he announced his decision to leave the race.

Continued: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-campaign-abortion-outspoken-approach-health/

USA – Project 2025 and Vance agree: “The Dobbs decision is just the beginning.”

Shawn Musgrave
July 17 2024

DONALD TRUMP HAS tried to distance himself from Project 2025, the conservative playbook for a new Trump administration penned by dozens of right-wing organizations — and especially its hard-line anti-abortion proposals.

In the lead-up to the Republican convention, many credulously lauded Trump for “softening” or “moderating” the GOP platform on the issue, despite the fact that the platform proposes fetuses and embryos already have full constitutional rights.

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2024/07/17/jd-vance-trump-project-2025/

The Terrifying Global Reach of the American Anti-Abortion Movement

Conservatives have not limited their attack on reproductive rights to the United States. They’ve been busy imposing their will on other countries, too—with disastrous consequences for millions of poor women.

Jodi Enda
March 18, 2024

Because Editar Ochieng knew the three young men, she didn’t think twice when they beckoned her into a house in an isolated area near the Nairobi River. One was like a brother; the other two were her neighbors in the sprawling Kenyan slum of Kibera.

Ochieng did not know the woman who performed her abortion. She and a friend scoured Nairobi until they found her, an untrained practitioner who worked in the secrecy of her home and charged a fraction of what a medical professional would. Mostly, what Ochieng remembers is the agony when this stranger inserted something into her vagina and “pierced” her womb. “It was really very painful. Really, really, really painful,” she told me. Afterward, Ochieng said, she cut up her mattress to use in place of sanitary pads, which she could not afford. She was 16 years old.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179485/american-anti-abortion-movement-terrifying-global-reach

18.03.2024

Bethany Van Kampen Saravia

Biden Amendment

Caitlin Ryan Horrigan

Center for Women and Work

Council for Global Equality

Family Life Association of Eswatini

Feminist for Peace Rights and Justice Centre

Fòs Feminista

Foundation for AIDS Research

Geneva Consensus Declaration

Initiative for Strategic Litigation

Institute for Women’s Health

Marjorie Dannenfelser

maternal deaths

Mexico City policy

Mike Pence

MSI Reproductive Choices

Nelly Munyasia

Nerima Were

PEPFAR

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Population Action International

population control

President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

Project 2025

Reproductive Health Network Kenya

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America

Terry McGovern

Torchlight Collective

Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health

U.N. Fund for Population Activities

U.S. Agency for International Development

The Supreme Court dismantled Roe. States are restoring it one by one.

Support for abortion cuts across party lines, performing significantly better at the ballot box than Biden and other Democrats.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN, MEGAN MESSERLY and JESSICA PIPER
11/09/2023

Justice Samuel Alito challenged voters to decide the future of abortion when he wrote the U.S. Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade last year. “We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond,” he noted as he threw out half a century of precedent.

Now, 17 months later, the court has an answer: Americans want to preserve or restore Roe-like protections.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/09/abortion-rights-elections-red-states-00126225

Confuse and mislead: US anti-abortion groups’ strategy to soften extreme bans

Critics decry ‘vague language and misinformation’ as Susan B Anthony claims US does not have true ‘bans’ since exceptions exist

Ava Sasani
Thu 13 Jul 2023

In the year since the US supreme court ruled there is no constitutional right to abortion, the anti-abortion movement is still struggling to define a cohesive vision of post-Roe America.

Now they are employing a new strategy: use confusing or misleading language to repackage and soften the more extreme types of abortion restrictions.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/13/anti-abortion-language-restrictions-bans-roe-v-wade