With Trump set to begin another term and Republicans in control of Congress, the anti-abortion movement is positioned to make further gains at the the state and national levels.
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During his first term in office, President-elect Donald Trump delivered on many goals of the antiabortion rights movement. Now those activists hope a second Trump term will be a chance to take their agenda further. NPR’s Sarah McCammon looks at what could be coming next.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Former President Donald Trump did a lot for antiabortion rights groups. He chose three conservative justices for the U.S. Supreme Court, and they ultimately voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. He also made it more difficult for organizations like Planned Parenthood to receive federal funding.
KRISTAN HAWKINS: All of that is good, what we saw in the first Trump administration, but we can do better.
MCCAMMON: That’s Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America. Her organization recently unveiled a plan called Make America Pro-Life Again. She hopes to build on what she and other activists achieved during Trump’s first term.
HAWKINS: We are taking President Trump at his word, and we can work with what he said and his promises he made to the American people on the campaign trail.
MCCAMMON: Hawkins was among antiabortion activists who criticized some of Trump’s statements during the campaign, such as the idea that abortion policy should be left up to the states.
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DONALD TRUMP: The states will determine by vote or legislation, or perhaps both. And whatever they decide must be the law of the land – in this case, the law of the state.
MCCAMMON: Many antiabortion rights groups would like federal restrictions on abortion, but Hawkins still sees an opening.
HAWKINS: If he’s serious about ending the federal role in abortion policy, then we need to cut federal taxpayer money.
MCCAMMON: Federal funding for abortion is already prohibited in most cases under a longstanding policy known as the Hyde Amendment. But federal aid for family planning at home and abroad has been a continued source of debate. Antiabortion groups want to go back to Trump-era policies that limited funding for groups like Planned Parenthood who refer patients for abortion. They also want to overturn Biden administration policies designed to facilitate abortion access for military service members and veterans. Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, calls those goals more realistic than another goal of many antiabortion groups, a national abortion ban.
CAROL TOBIAS: Well, what I want is going to be different than what’s going to happen.
MCCAMMON: Ahead of the election, Trump said he would veto a federal abortion ban if it came to his desk. And Republicans won’t have enough votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. Plus, Tobias says there’s no consensus in the movement about where a national ban would draw the line.
TOBIAS: Is it at 12 weeks, 15 weeks, 20 weeks? I mean, there’s a lot of – I don’t want to say disagreement, but there’s no consensus within the pro-life community. So there’s no way we are going to get a consensus, you know, through Congress and the White House.
MCCAMMON: Abortion opponents also will be looking to the Trump administration for regulations designed to limit access to mifepristone, known as the abortion pill. Erik Baptist is senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which helped lead an effort to challenge the FDA’s approval of the medication. He wants to revisit rules that have made it easier for patients to access the pill.
ERIK BAPTIST: So if the Trump administration goes back and looks at how the FDA justifies its recent decisions, it will go back and potentially revisit and repeal those actions.
MCCAMMON: Some antiabortion activists have also pushed for restricting abortion by reviving a 19th century anti-obscenity law known as the Comstock Act. It criminalizes sending abortion-related materials through the mail, which could include abortion pills. Given Trump’s mixed messaging on the issue in recent years, it’s hard to predict what his administration will do first, says Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. She says an action like cutting off access to abortion pills nationwide would be significantly out of step with public opinion.
JENNIFER DALVEN: We’ll have to see whether President Trump wants to fight that battle. We know one thing for certain, that President Trump does not like to be unpopular, and that would be an incredibly unpopular decision.
MCCAMMON: Abortion rights groups say with Trump set to take office in two months, they’re gearing up for another round of fights over abortion rights at the state and federal level, in legislatures and the courts.
Sarah McCammon, NPR News.
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