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/

Planned Parenthood sues Trump administration over funding cuts in big bill

The reproductive health giant has estimated that the defunding could force about 200 of their clinics to shutter

Carter Sherman and Reuters
Mon 7 Jul 2025

Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration on Monday over a provision in Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill that would strip funding from health centers operated by the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.

In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Planned Parenthood said the provision was unconstitutional, and its clear purpose is to prevent its nearly 600 health centers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/07/planned-parenthood-trump-lawsuit

07.07.2025

News

Alexis McGill Johnson

Defund Provision

defunding Planned Parenthood

Why so many clinics that provide abortion are closing, even where it’s still legal

May 16, 2025
Michigan Public Radio, by Kate Wells
4-Minute Listen, with Transcript

On the last day of patient care at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Marquette, Mich., a port town on the shore of Lake Superior, dozens of people crowded into the parking lot and alley, holding pink homemade signs that read "Thank You!" and "Forever Grateful."

"Oh my god," physician assistant Anna Rink gasped, as she and three other Planned Parenthood employees finally walked outside. The crowd whooped and cheered. Then Rink addressed the gathering.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/16/nx-s1-5397314/planned-parenthood-clinics-abortion-close-telehealth-rights

USA – The Supreme Court Could Gut Access to Birth Control This Year

By Susan Rinkunas
January 27, 2025

With Donald Trump back in the White House, access to contraception is, sadly, not something that people can bank on anymore — whether they know it or not. This issue didn’t get much airtime during the chaotic 2024 campaign, but birth control has been in conservatives’ crosshairs for years. And while Trump’s administration will undoubtedly attack it, he’ll likely have additional help from his appointees to the Supreme Court.

On Jan. 10, the justices agreed to hear a case, Braidwood v. Becerra, that threatens the Affordable Care Act’s insurance coverage of preventive care. A group of conservative Texas employers who object to paying for birth control and pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV argue that the Affordable Care Act can’t require preventive services be covered without costs like copays because the panels that determine coverage are unconstitutional.

Continued: https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/the-supreme-court-could-gut-access-to-birth-control-this-year/

The GOP Plot to Bankrupt Planned Parenthood

By Susan Rinkunas
Jan 15, 2025

Despite the crucial fact that federal money cannot be used for abortions, Republicans have been trying to cut off all sources of federal funding to Planned Parenthood since 2007. The money the health care organization receives through various government programs covers birth control, sexually transmitted infection testing, and cancer screenings, but archconservatives want to shut down the country’s largest abortion provider by excluding it from these programs. Donald Trump pledged to anti-abortion groups during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns that he would “defund” the organization. It’s possible that Republicans for the first time in years have a plausible path to this longtime goal and Trump might not even need to act.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/01/gop-plot-bankrupt-planned-parenthood-abortion-trump.html

USA – Our comprehensive guide for protecting your access to birth control, medication abortion, and emergency contraception before Donald Trump takes office

Dec 16, 2024
Cameron Oakes, Rewire News

After Donald Trump was re-elected to a second term as president of the United States, the alarm over reproductive health-care access that began after the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade came to a head. Clinicians, prescribers, and pharmacies reported a surge in purchases and requests for abortion pills, emergency contraception, and birth control.

… To better understand how the reproductive health-care landscape could change under the Trump administration, RNG spoke to half a dozen experts about what they’re anticipating and how people can prepare before January 20.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/2024/12/16/how-to-protect-your-reproductive-health-during-trumps-second-presidency/

16.12.2024

Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act

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

The anti-abortion plan ready for Trump on Day One

The stakes of the election go far beyond whether a GOP president signs a bill banning the procedure.

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
01/29/2024

Anti-abortion groups have not yet persuaded Donald Trump to commit to signing a national ban if he returns to the White House.

But, far from being deterred, those groups are designing a far-reaching anti-abortion agenda for the former president to implement as soon as he is in office. In emerging plans that involve everything from the EPA to the Federal Trade Commission to the Postal Service, nearly 100 anti-abortion and conservative groups are mapping out ways the next president can use the sprawling federal bureaucracy to curb abortion access.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/29/trump-abortion-ban-2024-campaign-00138417

What Would a Second Trump Presidency Look Like for Health Care?

By Julie Rovner
JANUARY 16, 2024

On the presidential campaign trail, former President Donald Trump is, once again, promising to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act — a nebulous goal that became one of his administration’s splashiest policy failures.

“We’re going to fight for much better health care than Obamacare. Obamacare is a catastrophe,” Trump said at a campaign stop in Iowa on Jan. 6.

Continued: https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/donald-trump-health-record-second-presidency-abortion-drugs-covid/

16.01.2024