The Week in Abortion

1.20.25 - 1.24.25

Trump’s First Week

Donald Trump didn’t waste any time attacking abortion rights after taking office. I reported this week that the new administration scrubbed abortion information from the Department of Health and Human Services website, shuttered reproductiverights.gov, and released an anti-trans executive order that defined life as beginning at conception. And if you have any doubt that this was a fetal personhood move, consider that House Speaker Mike Johnson lauded the language as such at the March for Life on Friday.

Trump and JD Vance also gave remarks at the March for Life, where they laid out the administration’s anti-abortion plans for the next four years. And while some political media reports that movement leaders were disappointed with their promises, I don’t actually think that’s the case. More coming on this in a big piece tomorrow, but the truth is that Trump/Vance handed the anti-abortion movement a gift they’ve been wanting for a long time.

A hint? It has to do with the two dozen extremists Trump pardoned for their roles in attacking abortion clinics. Keep an eye out for an email tomorrow explaining more.

Social Media Censorship

The other big news this week was tech company attacks on abortion pill providers: Abortion, Every Day broke the news that Meta was censoring Aid Access and Mayday.Health. In Trump’s first week in office, the groups had their accounts blocked, blurred or even taken down. And while we’ve seen social media companies censor abortion content before, this latest attack comes at the same time that Republicans in states like Texas are introducing legislation to ban pro-choice websites, and as Mark Zuckerberg has gotten increasingly chummy with Trump. Full story here.

To learn more about social media censorship on reproductive rights issues, check out this terrific Amnesty report.

The Bad News

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita may finally get his wish that abortion reports become public records in the same way birth and death certificates are. Rokita has been in a long-standing legal fight with his own health department, claiming that the only way he can prosecute abortion providers is if the public (aka anti-abortion extremists) can comb through the reports looking for evidence of wrongdoing. The health department rightly points out that the information in the reports could be reverse engineered to identify abortion patients.

What also makes this so important—not just Indiana, but everywhere—is that Republicans have always held that abortion reporting is about protecting women’s health, not criminalization. Now, newly-elected Republican Gov. Mike Braun has signed an executive order that insists abortion reports exist to aid in prosecutions, and demands that the department of health “fully cooperate” with Rokita. Full story here.

Also out of Indiana: anti-abortion groups want Republicans to ‘streamline’ the adoption process, which is another way of saying they want to make it easier to terminate the parental rights of the most marginalized.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick played language games with voters this week, claiming that he thinks the state should ‘clarify’ its abortion ban. It’s a talking point we’ve seen before, created to generate good PR while actually making bans worse. Full story here and here.

Nebraska is considering a bill that would make abortion medication near-impossible to get. The legislation would require patients to go to an in-person appointment before getting the pills, and another appointment afterwards to “document any adverse events.” For a refresher on abortion ‘complication’ reporting and Republicans’ plan to misuse that data, read Abortion, Every Day’s 2023 investigation:

Texas is Fabricating Abortion Data

We also found this week that the Vermont Department for Children and Families is keeping a secret calendar tracking the pregnancies of women they deem “unfit parents” in order to take custody of their newborns. In fact, a suit brought by the ACLU of Vermont and Pregnancy Justice alleges that DCF took custody of one woman’s baby by by declaring her mentally unfit before she even gave birth and without a formal mental health evaluation. What’s more, DCF even tried to get a court order to force the woman into a c-section while she was in labor. Read full story here.

Finally, Republicans in Kansas are introducing a bill to ban and criminalize abortion even though abortion rights are protected in the state constitution; and in Pennsylvania, anti-abortion groups are attacking Planned Parenthood after finding out that the group would be endorsing and supporting candidates for local school boards.

The Good News