What a Trump Presidency Would Do to Abortion Rights
From Comstock to the courts, it’s not good
I know, I know—I don’t want to think about it either. But if the worst happens, we need to be prepared. So let’s talk about what would happen to abortion rights if Donald Trump wins the presidency.
Despite Trump trying to appear moderate on abortion rights over the last few months, conservatives’ plan for reproductive rights should he win is about as extreme as it gets—from the Comstock Act and reversing approval of abortion medication to appointing two new Supreme Court justices.
To start, let’s be clear that if Trump had the votes, he would absolutely sign a national abortion ban. Despite the disgraced former president’s promises to veto a ban, Republicans simply wouldn’t call it that. Instead, they’d say that they’re passing a ‘minimum national standard’ on abortion. Because remember, the only thing that they consider an abortion ban these days is total prohibition—no exceptions, even to save a woman’s life. They’d push for something like the 15-week abortion ban Sen. Lindsay Graham has been proposing and insist it’s merely a restriction.
Then there’s abortion medication, which is a primary target for conservatives, who know that many patients in anti-choice states have been obtaining the pills via telehealth and mail. To stop that from happening, Trump would replace the head of the FDA in order to repeal approval of abortion medication or seriously restrict it. (Three Republican Attorneys General have already brought a lawsuit to try to rollback access to the drug.)
Trump would also replace the head of the Department of Justice, who would in turn start to enforce the Comstock Act. This 150-year old obscenity law doesn’t just ban the mailing of abortion medication, but of any tools used in abortion; it could also prohibit the shipping of birth control that Republicans claim aren’t contraception, but abortions.
Since 63% of abortions are done using abortion medication, these attacks on the pills would amount to a national backdoor ban impacting the entire country, not just anti-abortion states.
A Trump administration could also make it easier for states to deny women emergency, life-saving abortions. Conservatives have already been attacking the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), with Republican state leaders arguing that the federal law doesn’t trump their abortion bans and that EMTALA doesn’t require emergency abortions at all. With Trump at the helm of the federal government, that bogus interpretation of the law could become standard.
What’s more, a Trump administration could decline to enforce EMTALA, allowing states with extreme abortion bans to deny women life-saving care. (States like Idaho and Texas are already fighting for that right in the courts.)
Some of the names being thrown around for DOJ appointments should send a chill down your spine. Abortion, Every Day sources tell us that Erin Hawley—the high-profile anti-abortion lawyer from Alliance Defending Freedom, involved in the Dobbs case, the mifepristone lawsuit, and EMTALA cases before the Supreme Court—is on a shortlist. Also being considered is Jonathan Mitchell, the anti-abortion lawyer behind Texas’ “bounty hunter” law and the “Sanctuary City of the Unborn” travel ban ordinances.
These are the worst of the worst when it comes to abortion rights—giving them the reins of any federal agency (or even access to it!) would be a full nightmare.
Then there’s Project 2025. In addition to all of the attacks listed above, this conservative roadmap for forcing women back into the home calls for expanded ‘conscience laws’ to allow doctors, pharmacists, insurance companies, and employers to refuse to dispense or cover not just abortion—but birth control.
The plan also details how a Trump administration would gut Title X funding for contraception and use the program to focus on “fertility awareness and holistic family planning,” and to “provide educational information on healthy marriage and relationships.” In other words, they’d advocate for the rhythm method and push women into marriage. How would they do that? By directing that funding to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers—religious groups that oppose birth control.
The last thing Project 2025 would direct a Trump administration to do is collect massive amounts of data on abortion, support bad science and attack patient privacy—from laws forcing doctors to ask women invasive questions and report their answers to the state to the fabrication of abortion ‘complication’ data. In other words, a pregnancy surveillance system.
Finally, let’s get into what a Trump win would mean for the Courts. If you think Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are bad, it could get so much worse. Republicans’ plan to turn the U.S. into a Christian nationalist country requires the courts to enforce that vision, and a Trump presidency would hand them that power on a platter.
Legal scholars anticipate that conservative maniacs Justices Thomas and Alito would likely retire at some point during his administration. They’re even hoping that Justice Sonia Sotomayor—one of the remaining liberal judges on the Court—might retire, too.
The conservative legal powerhouses behind Project 2025 have a plan to stop any nomination (for SCOTUS or the lower courts) that don’t meet their “biblical worldview” threshold and have already released a list of vetted judges in anticipation of any retirements. As expected, the judges are all anti-abortion zealots.
At the forefront of the shortlist are the conservative judges that make up the Fifth Circuit—the extremist right-wing appellate court that ruled against EMTALA and mifepristone. Essentially, the Fifth Circuit has become an “audition” for Trump’s potential second term appointments.
Judge James Ho, for example, who wrote the dissenting Fifth Circuit decision in the lawsuit attempting to gut FDA approval for abortion pills, is at the top of Trump’s shortlist. Throughout his career, Ho has ruled on what he calls the “moral tragedy of abortion.” Fifth Circuit judge Kyle Duncan is also on that shortlist: He composed the Supreme Court briefs behind the anti-abortion Hobby Lobby decision that allowed employers to refuse contraception coverage, and helped usher in Texas’ pre-Dobbs abortion bounty law.
Ninth Circuit judge Lawrence VanDyke is also being considered; he’s a radical anti-abortion judge who, among other decisions, upheld Idaho's abortion ban in the EMTALA lawsuit. As is Kristen Waggoner, the CEO, president, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom—the organization behind the Dobbs decision, the SCOTUS mifepristone case, and countless pieces of anti-abortion legislation. Waggoner has made clear that Dobbs is only the first step to outlaw abortion; she also wants to give fetuses personhood rights under the 14th Amendment and to ban emergency contraception.
I could go on about the Supreme Court, but I’ll spare you the migraine (if you don’t have one already).
Some other anti-abortion activists to keep an eye on should Trump win: Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge who threw out Special Counsel Jack Smith's case against him for hiding classified national security documents at Mar-a-Lago, is being considered for Attorney General. As is Mike Davis, a conservative attorney and podcaster, who was pivotal in the battle to get Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Trump could also place Roger Severino in the Department of Health and Human Services; he’s the Right to Life anti-abortion activist who wants to turn the department into the “Department of Life.” Valerie Huber, a former senior advisor within his administration’s HHS might also make an appearance. She’s a long time anti-abortion and anti-sex education activist.
All of which is to say: Conservatives’ plan for a Trump presidency is centered around massive attacks on abortion, birth control, and women’s rights more broadly, and the people he would empower are the most radical players in the game.
So if you know anyone undecided between Harris and Trump—or whether to vote at all—consider sharing this with them. Make sure they know what the immediate impact would be if Trump is elected. We need every single vote we can get.
In all the articles I have read about the abortion apocalypse into which we may be heading, no one has ever talked about what happened in Romania under Ceaușescu. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romania-alabama/ As I am wont to say, historians are always standing on the sidelines saying, "Don't do that! We tried it before, and it didn't work." But nobody listens to us.
A Trump presidency would also ban abortion for people in the military. That was true the last time around, and Biden reversed it.