The Week in Abortion

6.30.25 - 7.4.25

Lenin famously observed that “there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen,” but he forgot to mention the weeks where, for a second time in a row, conservatives find a way to defund Planned Parenthood. I doubt you missed those developments, but if you did and need a refresher, or didn’t and want to know everything else that happened last week, here’s the rundown.

A National Backdoor Abortion Ban

Coming off the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling to allow South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood off Medicaid, Senate Republicans passed a budget bill to defund Planned Parenthood and abortion providers across the country. And on Friday, Donald Trump signed it.

In addition to decimating Medicaid and food assistance, the bill could shut down one in four of all abortion providers in the U.S.—leaving abortion legal but almost impossible to access (at least in a clinical setting) in many states. This loss of funding could shutter two-thirds of Planned Parenthood’s brick-and-mortar health centers across the U.S., with 90% of those closures happening in states where abortion is protected.

Not-so-coincidentally, the bill comes at a time when Republicans are aggressively attacking abortion pills—which account for over 60% of abortions in the U.S.—and telehealth—which delivers one in four.

Where else are pregnant patients supposed to go for health care—especially if they’re among the estimated 17 million Americans expected to lose insurance coverage?

You can probably see why abortion rights groups have been calling the BBB a national backdoor abortion ban. Read Abortion, Every Day’s explainer for more:

Senate Republicans’ ‘Big, Beautiful’ Backdoor Ban

More Attacks on Telehealth & Pills

Conservatives are going after brick-and-mortar clinics while they’re also trying to block telemedicine access to abortion pills. And they’re getting more and more shameless about it: In Louisiana, Gov. Jeff Landry signed the atrociously named “Justice for Victims of Abortion Drug Dealers Act” to further stigmatize abortion pills and expand the window of time for people who have had medication abortions to bring civil actions against providers.

That may not change things too much, seeing as abortion is already sweepingly banned in Louisiana—which also became the first state in the nation to make the pills a controlled substance. But, as we walked you through last week, legislation like this bolsters the anti-abortion movement’s “coercion” bullshit to sweepingly equate abortion with abuse:

Abortion Bans are Another Weapon for Abusers

Abortion, Every Day also shined light this week on a jarring new strategy: money-rich anti-abortion organizations are launching “telehealth” crisis pregnancy centers.

Heroic Media’s so-called “groundbreaking telehealth service” is all about co-opting feminist language to trick women—in the same way IRL crisis pregnancy centers do. The group is already getting taxpayer dollars in Oklahoma, with a plan of expanding across the country and (they hope) becoming a bigger household name than Planned Parenthood.

This is exactly what we warned about in our analysis of the Supreme Court’s recent decision on Planned Parenthood defunding: conservatives think they’re going to be able to position anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers as ‘comprehensive care’ replacements for the real and credible clinics they’re shuttering.

A Brief Break for Some Wins

Let’s take a minute to remember the bits of good news we had this week: A new Maryland law took effect on Tuesday, making $25 million available for uninsured and underinsured abortion seekers. Maryland is now the first state to wield funds collected from a surcharge on insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act to fund a Public Health Abortion Grant Program. Hopefully, other states will follow its lead.

In Wisconsin, the narrow, all-female liberal majority repealed an 1849 law Republicans used as a total abortion ban. The ruling came just months after the Trump and Musk-backed Republican candidate wrote female justices off as “too driven by emotion” to rule responsibly on abortion.

Brad Schimel was roundly defeated by Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who formerly represented Planned Parenthood, a teachers union, and a voting rights organization. (•‿•)