The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Changing the Rules in Plain Sight

16 Jul 2026
Alisa Berry Ryan

The anti-abortion movement does not always start by announcing a ban.  Sometimes it starts with a new definition. A benefits rule. A court case. A “religious freedom” argument. A Victorian law dragged back into use because apparently the 1800s did not do enough damage the first time around.

That is the pattern running through this week’s news.

From Spain to the US, conservative politicians, far-right parties and Christian-right legal groups are using different tactics to push the same idea: that embryos should have more legal protection, while women should have less control over their own pregnancies.

Continued: https://abortionrights.org.uk/the-weekly-spotlight-the-anti-abortion-movement-is-changing-the-rules-in-plain-sight/


The Dangerous Unraveling Of The United States’ Family Planning Safety Net

Since taking office, the Trump administration has inflicted chaos on Title X, the only federal program that supports the provision of comprehensive reproductive health care to low-income people.

Amy Friedrich-Karnik and Megan L. Kavanaugh
July 14, 2026

Every person, regardless of income or insurance status, deserves the chance to create the family they want on their own timeline. For more than 50 years, the Title X program—the only federal program that supports the provision of comprehensive reproductive health care to low-income people—has been dedicated to serving that mission. Title X was signed into law by a Republican president and has long received bipartisan support. However, today, the goal of ensuring that everyone has access to high-quality reproductive health care faces an unprecedented attack from the Trump administration.

While Title X has been underfunded in recent years—and took a massive hit under the first Trump presidency—it has shown resilience and continues to provide high-quality reproductive health care. In 2023 alone, Title X served 2.8 million people.

Continued: https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/dangerous-unraveling-united-states-family-planning-safety-net


Geneva Consensus Declaration: Institutionalizing Attacks on Women and LGBTQ+ Rights

May 28, 2026

Trump’s former Special Representative for Global Women’s Health and a long-time anti-abortion activist, Valerie Huber, argued recently in an opinion piece in The Hill that an international anti-abortion agreement she spearheaded is one of the “most underused diplomatic assets in America’s current foreign policy toolkit.”

Huber, now CEO of The Institute for Women’s Health, served during the first Trump administration, where she was instrumental in the creation of the October 2022 Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD). Signed by 41 countries, the GCD is a nonbinding international agreement with the stated goal of promoting better “health for women, the preservation of human life, strengthening of the family as the foundational unit of society, and protecting every nation’s national sovereignty in global politics.”

Continued: https://globalextremism.org/post/geneva-consensus-declaration/


Year One of Project 2025: Tracking the Trump Administration’s Devastating Campaign Against Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights


Guttmacher institute
Jan 15, 2026

During the 2024 campaign, President Trump repeatedly tried to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation’s far-right policy agenda Project 2025,1 claiming to know nothing about the framework or the people behind it (despite many of its authors having roles in his first administration). One year in, however, it is clear that Project 2025 is serving as the Trump administration’s playbook for implementing an extreme policy agenda at the federal level, attacking sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) both domestically and globally. 

… This fact sheet summarizes key components of Project 2025’s anti-SRHR agenda and then describes how and to what extent each has been implemented during the first year of the current administration.

Continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/year-one-project-2025-tracking-trump-admins-campaign-against-srhr


2025 Was a Year of Chaos for Reproductive Rights Under the Trump Administration

Project 2025 initiated a war on reproductive rights that could escalate into even higher gear in 2026.

By Lauren Rankin , Truthout
December 27, 2025

With a decidedly anti-choice Trump administration taking office at its start, 2025 was poised to be yet another brutal year for abortion rights. Advocates feared the imminent resurgence of the Comstock Act, an 1873 law that made it a criminal offense to share contraceptives, abortifacients, and information about either across state lines or through the mail.

As of now, the last month of this very difficult political year, that is yet to happen.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/2025-was-a-year-of-chaos-for-reproductive-rights-under-the-trump-administration/


America’s new top health diplomat has strong opinions on abortion and gender

December 19, 2025
By Jonathan Lambert

America's new top health diplomat is Bethany Kozma. The job she took on this week — leading the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Global Affairs — does not have a high profile. And Kozma herself is not a familiar name in the world of public health.

But it is a position with power — and Kozma has a record of public statements and activism on health issues, equating abortion with "murder" and campaigning against gender-affirming care.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/12/19/g-s1-102765/americas-new-top-health-diplomat-has-strong-opinions-on-abortion-and-gender


The Heritage Foundation goes from MAGA to MEGA — Make Europe Great Again

On the agenda: pro-natalism, freedom of expression, opposing trans rights and fighting Chinese influence.

November 10, 2025
By Hannah Roberts

ROME — The conservative think tank behind Donald Trump’s Project 2025 roadmap is looking for new friends across the Atlantic.

The Heritage Foundation, the intellectual engine behind the 922-page blueprint that has become the key policy manual for Trump’s second term, is partnering with a constellation of European nationalist far-right movements to export its playbook for countering progressive policies.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/the-heritage-foundation-goes-from-maga-to-mega-make-europe-great-again-donald-trump-us-influence/


USA – Baby Bonuses and Motherhood Medals: Why We Shouldn’t Trust the Pronatalist Movement

August 13, 2025
National Women’s Law Centre

To download the full issue brief, click here.

Over the next few pages, we’ll give you all the information that you need to call a pronatalists’ bluff. From racist eugenics to harmful policy solutions, this movement is steeped in controlling women’s bodies and creating a dystopian, white supremacist future.

Finally, we’ll tell you (and any pronatalists reading) what can be done instead.

Continued: https://nwlc.org/resource/baby-bonuses-and-motherhood-medals-why-we-shouldnt-trust-the-pronatalist-movement/


USA – How Viability Limits End Up Criminalizing Pregnancy

Pregnancy Justice’s legal director, Karen Thompson, warns: “We are in dangerous territory. This is our reality now.”

Nina Martin, Mother Jones
June 30, 2025

When Karen Thompson became the legal director at Pregnancy Justice a year and a half ago, she was still learning about the reproductive justice issues at the heart of the organization’s mission. But after 20 years focused on the criminal justice system, first at the Innocence Project and then at the ACLU of New Jersey, she did know a lot about racial profiling, government surveillance, law enforcement overreach, and wrongful convictions. And to her, the parallels between her earlier work and the increasing criminalization of pregnancy and abortion in post-Roe v. Wade America could not have been clearer. “We are seeing all the same kinds of issues in the repro space that people in the criminal defense space have been talking about for years,” Thompson says.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/06/pregnancy-justice-karen-thompson-viability-limits-fetal-personhood-criminalizing-pregnancy/