Trump Thought He’d Escaped the Abortion Trap

Now the Supreme Court is facing a blockbuster case that threatens to spin out of control.

Nina Martin, Mother Jones
May 12, 2026

By all accounts, President Donald Trump really, really did not want abortion to become a major issue this election year. But here we are, six months before the midterms, and abortion pills are back at the Supreme Court, as the state of Louisiana and abortion drug manufacturers ask to fast-track oral arguments in what is shaping up to be a blockbuster case. Conservatives are invoking the Comstock Act. And Trump’s Food and Drug Administration has been AWOL, while its top official has been forced to resign.

The swift escalation of the showdown between Louisiana and the FDA over telemedicine abortion highlights just how little control Trump has over the abortion issue—both in terms of the timeline and the outcome. Meanwhile, the case is sparking confusion, uncertainty, and dread among patients, providers, and advocates across the US.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/05/mifepristone-scotus-trump-thought-hed-escaped-the-abortion-trap/

A Dangerous Shift in Maternal Health Policy

by Stephanie Psaki, Dara Kass and Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler
Apr 30, 2026

More than 85% of maternal deaths in the United States are preventable. Yet last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the Senate, defending a budget that would eliminate Title X, Healthy Start, and the CDC’s Safe Motherhood and Infant Health Portfolio: the very programs designed to prevent maternal deaths and keep infants healthy. Earlier this year, the House passed legislation to funnel federal dollars toward unregulated pregnancy centers that largely lack medical licensure and rarely provide actual prenatal care. The Supreme Court also recently ruled that anti-abortion centers can proceed with a legal challenge to a state subpoena of fundraising records.

Continued: https://time.com/article/2026/04/29/a-dangerous-shift-in-maternal-health-policy/

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/

USA – Restrictions on fetal tissue research would threaten progress on breakthrough treatments for devastating diseases — and yet not prevent a single abortion

By Lawrence S. B. Goldstein
Nov 8, 2025

Human fetal tissue (HFT) research has been indispensable for understanding and combating diseases that affect millions worldwide. Reports that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) may not renew grants supporting this work are deeply troubling, as such action would jeopardize progress against devastating conditions including cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, eye disorders, and neurological and rare diseases.

For decades, HFT has been funded by the U.S. government. It’s had broad bipartisan support under both Republican and Democratic administrations because this research has saved lives. Yet, there are early signs that the Trump administration may ban ethical and well-established uses of fetal tissue in important medical research based on politics rather than science.

Continued: https://www.livescience.com/health/restrictions-on-fetal-tissue-research-would-threaten-progress-on-breakthrough-treatments-for-devastating-diseases-and-yet-not-prevent-a-single-abortion

08.11.2025

Commentary

Research

human fetal tissue research

Lawrence S.B. Goldstein

National Institutes of Health

Neurodegenerative disease

Parkinson's disease

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

vaccines and fetal tissue

USA – The Abortion Pill Is Safe. Scientists Fear an FDA Investigation Will Ignore Science

Some scientists are concerned that the Trump administration will use “junk science” when reviewing mifepristone’s safety record

October 30, 2025
By Liz Szabo

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., recently announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will launch a review of the safety of the abortion pill, mifepristone. Health researchers say they’re concerned that the review will be politicized and based on flawed reports. More than 100 studies published over the past few decades have shown that the drug, which was approved by the FDA in 2000, is safe and effective at ending a pregnancy.

Given Kennedy’s history of misrepresenting scientific evidence about vaccines, autism and Tylenol, some scientists say they worry that the health secretary will base the FDA report on unreliable sources.

Continued: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fda-is-investigating-the-abortion-pill-mifepristone-despite-decades-of/

The Ripple Effects of the U.S. Retreat from International Reproductive Care

U.S. cuts to global health funding are putting reproductive rights, healthcare access and human rights at risk worldwide. Human rights experts discuss exactly what’s happening—and what would stop the suffering.

10/19/2025
by Jaime M. Gher, Payal Shah and Floriane Borel

The U.S. has long been the largest donor to global health programs, but under the Trump administration, that support is rapidly disappearing. The resulting funding cuts are devastating reproductive health access, disease prevention efforts and human rights around the world.

In this Q&A, global health and human rights experts Jaime M. Gher, Payal Shah and Floriane Borel break down the global ripple effects—and the urgent need for action.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/10/19/usa-trump-international-global-health-aid-cuts/

Celebrating mifepristone, a hero in modern abortion access, on its 25th anniversary in the U.S.

Though it faces new legal challenges, mifepristone may offer yet more

By Elisa Wells
Sept. 28, 2025

When the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone, the abortion pill, on Sept. 28, 2000, none of us working on expanding access to reproductive health care could have imagined the future we find ourselves in 25 years later. From the fall of Roe in 2022 and the subsequent banning or restriction of abortion in 19 states, to South Carolina’s recent efforts to include some forms of birth control in its total abortion ban, access to the basic medical care and medications that allow us to control our reproductive destinies is hanging by a thread. In the midst of this reproductive health care apocalypse, mifepristone is proving itself to be a hero in the fight for abortion access.

Continued: https://www.statnews.com/2025/09/28/mifepristone-abortion-pill-fda-approval-25th-anniversary/

USA – Abortion opponents are coming for mifepristone using what medical experts call “junk science”

Using flawed studies and scientific journal publications, abortion opponents are building a body of research meant to question the safety of the abortion pill mifepristone, a key target for the movement.

Shefali Luthra
May 30, 2025

The effort comes as federal officials have expressed a willingness to revisit the drug’s approval — and potentially impose new restrictions on a medication used in the vast majority of abortions.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2025/05/abortion-opponents-mifepristone-junk-science/

USA – How shoddy science is fueling a charge to restrict abortion pill access

The FDA has been tasked with re-evaluating the safety of mifepristone after a flawed report claimed it has a high rate of serious complications.

May 19, 2025
By Aria Bendix

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has tasked the Food and Drug Administration with conducting a safety review of mifepristone, a pill used in most U.S. abortions. Kennedy said this week that the review was warranted due to an “alarming” new report on serious adverse events released last month.

“Clearly it indicates that, at very least, the label should be changed,” he told Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., at a Senate budget hearing on Wednesday. “I’ve asked Marty Makary, who’s the director of FDA, to do a complete review and to report back.”

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/shoddy-science-fueling-charge-restrict-abortion-pill-access-rcna207034

20.05.2025

Commentary

abortion pills

anti-choice fake science

fake science

Food and Drug Administration

Josh Hawley

Marty Makary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

United States

Anti-choice

Human Rights

USA – Abortion providers challenge FDA’s remaining mifepristone restrictions in federal court

“It’s really important that we protect … safe access to medication abortion no matter where people live — Virginia is playing a key role in the South right now,” Whole Woman’s Health Alliance founder and president Amy Hagstrom Miller said Monday.

By: Sofia Resnick and Charlotte Rene Woods
May 19, 2025

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Abortion pills — and questions over their inherent safety — were back in federal court Monday. Unlike a lawsuit rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, plaintiffs this time are not anti-abortion activists arguing medication abortion should be banned, but abortion providers arguing the remaining restrictions should be lifted to match the drug’s 25-year record of safety and efficacy.

The suit seeks to make abortion pills more accessible by removing several existing restrictions on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s mifepristone-misoprostol regimen first approved in 2000. The drug was approved under the FDA’s drug safety program called Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS), provisions of which have been steadily eliminated over time but not fully.

Continued: https://virginiamercury.com/2025/05/19/abortion-providers-challenge-fdas-remaining-mifepristone-restrictions-in-federal-court/