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Trump's Anti-Trans Order Could Pave Way for National Abortion Ban
"They are going to try to sneak in that fetal personhood language anywhere they can, anywhere and everywhere," said advocate and author Jessica Valenti.
Jan 23, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have insisted that the White House would not sign a nationwide abortion ban—despite the latter's expression of support for one as recently as 2022—but an unrelated executive order Trump signed this week may put the country on the path to outlawing abortion care without the president needing to sign any legislation into law.
Reproductive rights advocates including author Jessica Valenti noticed shortly after Trump signed an executive order stating the government will not recognize transgender people that the document included language that was unmistakably linked to the right-wing push for "fetal personhood" laws.
"'Female' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell," reads the executive order signed on Monday. "'Male' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell."
Aside from the fact that the order suggests the Trump administration will recognize everyone born in the United States as a female—because in the first weeks after conception, explained one 2001 scientific paper, "fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female"—the document claims that a fetus is a "person" from the moment of conception.
"And so it begins," said Valenti after the executive order was issued. "They are going to try to sneak in that fetal personhood language anywhere they can, anywhere and everywhere."
The order's language is in line with the Republican Party's 2024 platform, which did not call for a nationwide abortion ban but expressed support for states that would establish fetal personhood by extending the protections of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees that "no person can be denied life or liberty without due process," to fetuses.
The Texas Republican Party last year asserted in its platform that "abortion is not healthcare, it is homicide," and said the party would push to extend "equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization."
Rights advocates have warned that adoption of the fetal personhood doctrine at the national level could ultimately lead to the prosecution of pregnant people who obtain abortion care—something anti-abortion groups have long claimed they wouldn't support.
When the national GOP platform was released last August, Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern said its language suggested that "the GOP has recognized that this task is too unpopular to enact democratically, so they're outsourcing it to the federal courts."
"Fetal personhood means a nationwide abortion ban imposed by judicial fiat," said Stern.
Anti-abortion advocates aim to ultimately bring fetal personhood to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping the right-wing majority would rule that the 14th Amendment applies to fetuses from the moment of conception.
Including a reference to fetal personhood in an unrelated executive order is "an intentional way to continue to normalize the idea that embryos are people," Dana Sussman, senior vice president of Pregnancy Justice, told The Guardian.
"This is yet another attempt to codify it in one form or another," said Sussman.
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52 Years After Roe, Reproductive Rights Group Launches Abortion Justice Playbook
"There is still an incredible amount of work left to be done in order to achieve abortion justice in this country, and we hope this playbook serves as a guide to realizing that goal," said All* Above All.
Jan 22, 2025
Wednesday marked 52 years since the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in the Roe v. Wade decision that Americans have the right to obtain abortion care, but as the reproductive justice group All* Above All said as it released its Abortion Justice Playbook, marginalized communities across the U.S. faced barriers to necessary healthcare "even before the fall" of Roe in 2022.
With Republican-controlled states given free rein to pass abortion restrictions and bans, said All* Above All, "those inequities have only deepened, with millions denied the healthcare they need."
The threat to abortion access has only "escalated" as President Donald Trump returns to the White House, said the group, "as his administration continues to push for even more restrictive abortion laws at the state level."
While the U.S. government is now in the hands of a president who has bragged about overturning Roe, mocked the family of one Georgia woman whose death was caused by the state's six-week abortion ban, and whose vice president has backed a nationwide abortion ban, All* Above All emphasized that Trump's views do not represent those of the majority of Americans.
"The American people remain committed to protecting abortion access with Pew Research finding 63% support for abortion rights nationwide," reads the Abortion Justice Playbook. "Since 2022, voters in 13 states have enacted state constitutional protections for abortion care. State legislatures across the country have also sprung into action to protect abortion access in their states and mitigate the effects of restrictions in others."
"There is still an incredible amount of work left to be done in order to achieve abortion justice in this country, and we hope this playbook serves as a guide to realizing that goal," reads the 21-page document.
The organization was established in 2013 with the goal of repealing the Hyde Amendment, the federal restriction passed in 1976 that bars federal funding from being used for abortion care. The policy blocks abortion care for low-income people who are covered by Medicaid, even in states where abortion remains legal.
"This isn't just about policies—it's about people. It's about transforming a broken system to ensure that everyone, no matter who they are or where they live, can access the healthcare they deserve with dignity and without barriers."
All* Above All's playbook calls for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment through the passage of the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Act, which would ensure the "basic right to abortion care is extended to every person who receives care or insurance through the federal government. Additionally, it will prohibit political interference with decisions by private insurance companies to offer coverage for abortion care."
But with Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress for at least the next two years, reads the playbook, "states can step up to serve as a crucial backstop in providing affordable abortion care" as abortion rights advocates continue to push for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment.
The group called on states to repeal all bans on insurance coverage of abortion, which exist in 35 states, and to require all health insurance plans to cover abortion care without cost sharing.
All* Above All said states should also expand access and affordability by:
- Mandating insurance providers to produce consumer-friendly information about covered services;
- Eliminating restrictions on telehealth abortion services to ensure accessible, timely, and equitable care; and
- Working with providers to ensure sustainable and equitable reimbursement rates.
The playbook places an emphasis on other actions states can take while groups push to protect abortion rights at the federal level.
"The Abortion Justice Playbook is a bold and necessary blueprint for building a future where abortion access isn't just restored but reimagined to address the systemic inequities that have long denied care to Black, Brown, LGBTQIA+, and low-income communities," said Lexi White, director of state strategies at All* Above All. "This isn't just about policies—it's about people. It's about transforming a broken system to ensure that everyone, no matter who they are or where they live, can access the healthcare they deserve with dignity and without barriers."
To further protect medication abortion—which accounts for 63% of all abortions in the U.S.—after the Supreme Court ruled last year that the abortion pill mifepristone can maintain its federal approval, the group called on states to repeal any in-person dispensing requirements for medication abortions.
Physician-only dispensing requirements should also be repealed, the group added, and state legislatures should pass shield laws to protect providers from out-of-state criminalization of prescribing and dispensing abortion pills.
In December, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against a doctor in New York who prescribed abortion pills to a patient in Texas.
All* Above All applauded 14 state governors who have issued 18 executive orders to protect abortion rights since Roe was overturned, and called on governors to take further steps.
Governors should use state budgetary powers to ensure providers can care for patients who need abortions, including by supporting abortion funds; protect medication abortion, especially at universities, through executive action; and direct state health authorities to affirm state and federal requirements to provide emergency abortion care, said All* Above All.
While many of the more than 90,000 local governments in the United States have used their authority in recent years to restrict abortion rights through "arbitrary permit denials, zoning restrictions, reductions in funding, and more," said All* Above All, local leaders can also "fight back against restrictions."
The group called on local governments in states with abortion bans to restrict funding so local funds can't be used in abortion investigations and ensure that criminalization of abortion care is local law enforcement agencies' "lowest priority."
Local governments in all states can work to repeal any abortion travel bans, remove arbitrary restrictions that limit where and how clinics can operate, prohibit local police from taking part in federal or state abortion investigations, and speak out against reproductive injustice by publicly supporting the EACH Act and other legislation.
"The Abortion Justice Playbook," said All* Above All president Nourbese Flint, "is our blueprint for a future where abortion access is equitable, universal, and free from discrimination."
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Cecile Richards, Reproductive Rights Champion Who Led Planned Parenthood, Dies at 67
"To honor her legacy and life, let's do everything we can in this moment to create the just world that everyone deserves," said former Texas lawmaker Wendy Davis.
Jan 20, 2025
Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood and longtime champion of women's rights and other progressive causes, died on Monday at the age of 67. The cause was an aggressive brain cancer that had been diagnosed in 2023.
Richards' husband and three children confirmed her death in a statement posted on social media.
Richards, the daughter of forner Democratic Texas Gov. Ann Richards, had an early introduction to progressive politics. At 16 she worked on a campaign to elect Sarah Waddington, the lawyer who argued in favor of abortion rights before the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, and in college she helped push Brown University to divest from companies that supported apartheid in South Africa.
After years of labor organizing work, Richards became the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She sat at the helm of the organization for 12 years, leading it as it became more vocal in electoral politics and fought state-level battles against abortion restrictions.
She was the national face of the organization and spoke frequently on its behalf at political events and galas, but also stood shoulder-to-shoulder with abortion rights supporters at pivotal moments in the fight against right-wing efforts to attack reproductive justice.
In 2013, after then-Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D-10) made national headlines by spending 13 hours filibustering an omnibus bill that contained a host of anti-abortion measures, Richards rallied supporters in the state Capitol to yell loud enough to halt the Senate debate over the legislation—a move that Republican lawmakers later blamed for the bill's failure.
"That was vital," Dave Cortez of Occupy Austin toldThe Texas Tribune. "Her support really helped put it all together."
Davis called Richards "a light, a champion, a force for good" on Monday.
Calling her death "a heartbreaking loss," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said the former Planned Parenthood leader "spent her life on the front lines, fighting for women's rights throughout this country."
After leaving Planned Parenthood in 2018, Richards co-founded the progressive political mobilization group Supermajority and toured the nation speaking out against President Donald Trump's nomination of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
She also cofounded the chatbot Charley, which connects people seeking abortion care with reproductive health organizations, and Abortion in America, a project that publishes the personal stories of people who have obtained abortions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022.
"The only thing people respond to and remember are stories," Richards told The New York Times last October. "We have to figure out: How do you catch the attention of people that, even if they could find the article, don't have 20 minutes to read it?"
Richards' death was announced just hours before Trump, who has bragged about his role in overturning Roe and mocked the family of one woman who died after being unable to receive standard care under Georgia's abortion ban, was to be sworn in for his second term in office.
"As if today wasn't bad enough, the passing of Cecile Richards, former Planned Parenthood leader, is beyond tragic for all women in U.S," said former Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). "Her powerful voice for women's freedom has been silenced. Rest in power, dear friend."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Richards "modeled guts and grit in public service, showing courage and fortitude beyond words as a champion of women's reproductive freedom."
In their statement, Richards' family asked that supporters who wish to honor her listen to "some New Orleans jazz, gather with friends and family over a good meal, and remember something she said a lot over the last year: It's not hard to imagine future generations one day asking, 'When there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do?'"
"The only acceptable answer is: Everything we could."
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