We’re in a bleak moment in the fight over abortion access. Those waging the brutal battle in support of reproductive health care are facing conservative assaults on many fronts, and with dwindling resources.
Abortion activists have been holding their breath, waiting to see exactly how Donald Trump will respond to pressure from his socially conservative supporters to further restrict abortion access at the federal level. Some antiabortion leaders are advocating that he make use of the Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity law from 1873, to ban the mailing of medication abortion. That would likely cause a massive public backlash, especially because the arcane law was highlighted in Project 2025 and is a talking point in the furthest right corners of the Christian nationalist movement.
But there are also other, less flashy ways that antiabortion extremists are working to further restrict access to reproductive health care.
A more bureaucratic scenario is playing out with the erosion of access to mifepristone, one of two pills used in medication abortion care, which now accounts for the majority of abortions in the country. In the Senate hearing on Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s nomination to be secretary of health and human services, he suggested that he was open to limiting access to mifepristone, citing safety issues. “President Trump has asked me to study the safety of mifepristone,” Kennedy said at the hearing, despite dozens of studies over decades showing the medication’s safety and effectiveness. “He has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it.” Kennedy could pressure the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reverse its 2021 loosening of restrictions, which allowed for telehealth provision and has profoundly altered the landscape of…
Auteur: Anne Rumberger
