Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Donate to our newsroom

Menu

Topics

  • Abortion
  • Politics
  • Education
  • LGBTQ+
  • Caregiving
  • Environment & Climate
  • Business & Economy
View all topics

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email [email protected] to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].

  • Latest Stories
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Ways to Give
  • Search
  • Contact
Donate
Home

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

Topics

  • Abortion
  • Politics
  • Education
  • LGBTQ+
  • Caregiving
  • Environment & Climate
  • Business & Economy
View all topics

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email [email protected] to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].

  • Latest Stories
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Ways to Give
  • Search
  • Contact

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email [email protected] to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Health

The Trump campaign is touting its anti-abortion record. It could preview what a second term could bring.

Trump once publicly supported the right to have an abortion. But as president, he’s made limiting access a signature issue.

A group of protesters standing outside of the Supreme Court holding anti-abortion signs.
Anti-abortion activists protest outside of the U.S. Supreme Court, during the 2019 March for Life in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Shefali Luthra

Reproductive Health Reporter

Published

2020-09-11 14:40
2:40
September 11, 2020
pm

Republish this story

Share

  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Email

Republish this story

With the November election weeks away, President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is leaning on his anti-abortion record — emphasizing reproductive health on the campaign trail as well as at August’s Republican National Convention.

Before joining the Republican Party, Trump said publicly he supported the right to have an abortion. Now, limiting abortion has become a signature issue for the president. In the 2016 race, he — along with many other then-candidates for the Republican presidential nomination — called for “defunding” Planned Parenthood. Candidate Trump also pledged to look “very, very carefully” at Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case that guarantees the constitutional right to abortion, and appoint judges who might overnturn it.

As president, Trump was the first sitting president to speak in person at the March for Life, an annual anti-abortion rally that draws hundreds of thousands. He has overseen a massive effort to curtail abortion, restrict access to contraception, and create more exemptions for both insurers and health care professionals when it comes to reproductive health services. All those changes have broad ramifications for health and health care. 

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

“It’s been a very holistic attack,” said Katherine Kraschel, a lecturer at Yale Law School and expert on reproductive health policy.

Experts agreed that reproductive health will likely emerge as a top administrative priority if Trump wins a second term. But it’s harder to tease out what, exactly, that will look like in practice.

Earlier this week, Trump put out a list of potential Supreme Court nominees that included Sens. Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, all of whom have vocally opposed both abortion in general and the Roe v. Wade precedent specifically. That garnered praise from the Susan B. Anthony List, a major anti-abortion advocacy group. 

Federal judge picks have the most potential to reshape access to abortion specifically, and reproducitve health care broadly, Kraschel said. 

In a campaign letter sent September 3, Trump promised to, if re-elected, appoint federal judges who would oppose abortion, as well as to “fully defund” health care providers that perform abortions, including Planned Parenthood. Already, health care clinics do not use federal funds for abortion, a restriction enacted by the Hyde Amendment (with exceptions if continuing a pregnancy will endanger the parent’s life, or if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest).

That emphasis appears to be part of an effort to court anti-abortion voters. And though its electoral implications are unclear, anti-abortion groups are rallying around Trump.

“During his first term, President Trump has become the most pro-life president our nation has ever seen. But there is more work to be done and that is why the pro-life movement is working vigorously to secure four more years for President Trump and Vice President Pence,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA List’s president, in a statement.

But gauging just how widespread the president’s impact on anti-abortion efforts has been is tricky. Virtually all of the president’s reproductive health initiatives have faced court challenges, and the record of success is about evenly split. 

A rule to let health care professionals decline to provide medical care if they had moral objections, which included procedures like abortion and gender-affirming care, was blocked last year by a federal judge, who called it “arbitrary and capricious.” 

But others regulations, including efforts to broaden exemptions for employers that might otherwise be required to provide insurance that covers contraception, have survived and had an impact.

And the administration is currently arguing that the Supreme Court undo a lower court order that allowed people in the pandemic to take mifepristone — a drug used as part of medication abortions — from home, without visiting a doctor in person. Appealing such a ruling straight to the Supreme Court and bypassing the appeals process was uncommon prior to Trump’s presidency, but has become a frequent strategy for the administration.

 The American College for Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the defendant in the case, notes that the Food and Drug Administration has relaxed in-person requirements for many other medications for the duration of the pandemic. Currently, the FDA is required to allow people to do medication abortions without an in-person visit. 

The administration has also issued rules barring any health care providers that refer patients to abortion services from getting money through the federal Title X program, which financially supports family planning services including contraception as well as STI screening and treatment. Beneficiaries are predominantly low-income, and mostly women. 

“President Trump has dramatically reshaped federal funding for family planning,” said Larry Levitt, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health care research group. 

The move, largely seen as targeting Planned Parenthood, resulted in more than 1,000 health care clinics across the country losing federal funds — including more than 400 Planned Parenthood affiliates. Experts said the impact extended far beyond abortion access. Planned Parenthood, for example, performs half a million cancer screenings per year. And in many areas, Planned Parenthood is the only family planning provider. The Title X regulation is still winding through court challenges. 

Sign up for more news and context delivered to your inbox, daily

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help.

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email [email protected] to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].

Preview of the daily newsletter from The 19th

Title X represents only a fraction of the government funding at stake. Medicaid, which provides insurance for low-income people and disproportionately covers Black and Latinx people, is a critical source of funding for Planned Parenthood, and is the single biggest source of insurance for people who visit its clinics. 

“These are millions of Americans who, by this one rule change, were directly impacted in a very significant way,” said Dr. Jen Villavicencio, an OB/GYN associated with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “That has had a direct and negative, objectively negative impact on health around the country.”

Efforts to “fully” defund the organization could mean instituting changes so that people with that Medicaid wouldn’t be able to use it to pay for health care at Planned Parenthood, or similar clinics. But that’s complicated. Federal law says Medicaid must give patients their choice of family planning providers, assuming they are both willing and qualified. Referring patients for an abortion or providing abortions themselves is not supposed to be disqualifying. 

So Trump alone can’t “defund” Planned Parenthood entirely. Legally, Congress has to act, too, meaning Republicans would need to regain control of the House of Representatives and get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate — both uphill battles.

But the administration could take other approaches. In 2018, representatives from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a subsidiary of the Department of Health and Human Services, walked back an Obama-era guidance that told states they could not independently try to block Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funding. That guidance “limited states’ flexibility,” CMS argued. 

Observers at the time argued that the change could reflect a willingness not to enforce the Medicaid law. And the administration could try to issue regulations changing how states define a “qualified Medicaid provider,” opening the door to blocking Planned Parenthood, noted Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University. Again, though, it’s not clear whether that would stand muster in court. 

“If he gets a second term, I put this high on the list,” Rosenbaum said.

Republish this story

Share

  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Email

Recommended for you

President Trump speaks on the phone in the oval office of the White House.
All of the ways Trump could impact abortion policy from day one
A Planned Parenthood building against a blue sky framed by shadows from tree leaves.
Trump wants to ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood. The Supreme Court will hear a case aimed at that.
Amendment 3 supporters celebrate after the Missouri Supreme Court in Jefferson City, Missouri ruled that the amendment to protect abortion rights would stay on the November ballot.
Missouri measure to restore abortion rights passes
Sen. Elizabeth Warren questions Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. during a Senate Finance committee confirmation hearing.
Anti-abortion centers face little regulation. The SAD Act could change that.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Please complete the following CAPTCHA to be confirmed. If you have any difficulty, contact [email protected] for help.

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please email [email protected] to subscribe.

This email address might not be capable of receiving emails (according to Bouncer). You should try again with a different email address. If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].

Become a member

Explore more coverage from The 19th
Abortion Politics Education LGBTQ+ Caregiving
View all topics

Our newsroom's Spring Member Drive is here!

Learn more about membership.

  • Transparency
    • About
    • Team
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Community Guidelines
  • Newsroom
    • Latest Stories
    • 19th News Network
    • Podcast
    • Events
    • Careers
    • Fellowships
  • Newsletters
    • Daily
    • Weekly
    • The Amendment
    • Event Invites
  • Support
    • Ways to Give
    • Sponsorship
    • Republishing
    • Volunteer

The 19th is a reader-supported nonprofit news organization. Our stories are free to republish with these guidelines.