Trump wins back antiabortion movement as activists plot 2025 crackdowns
Many activists are looking past the former president’s refusal to endorse a national abortion ban, focusing instead on how a future administration could restrict abortion pills
By Caroline Kitchener, Josh Dawsey and Hannah Knowles
January 5, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST

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Now, with voting set to begin in a Republican presidential race that many expect will soon coronate Trump as the presumptive nominee, those two prominent activists and other leading antiabortion figures have largely put their criticisms aside — focusing instead on what a second Trump presidency could mean for the antiabortion movement.

“Is he the most pro-life person? No,” Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life, said in a recent interview. “But he keeps his deals.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who had issued the searing critique of Trump’s abortion ban skepticism last spring, told The Washington Post in recent days that Trump has “built an enormous amount of trust with pro-life voters, as his presidency was the most consequential in American history for the pro-life cause.”

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But in recent interviews and statements, leading antiabortion advocates are looking past what they characterize as purely political rhetoric — and plotting actions that they believe a Trump administration would take as early as next year to crack down on abortion.

Leading advocates are concentrating on refining recommendations for two agencies with enormous power over abortion-related policies nationwide — the Justice and Health and Human Services departments — such as revisiting the 2000 approval of a key abortion drug and halting the mailing of abortion pills, according to a document published by the conservative Heritage Foundation. The Food and Drug Administration, which approves drugs and has the power to take them off the market, operates under HHS.

Roger Severino, who led several antiabortion efforts at HHS under Trump, said the movement is more focused on potential agency actions than passing a national abortion ban, which leaders privately acknowledge is extremely unlikely to make it through a divided Congress.

For those reasons, the conversation over when in pregnancy to ban abortion nationally is “almost beside the point,” Severino said, emphasizing that he does not speak for Trump or any Republican campaign. “I don’t see his previous statements as limiting [Trump’s] ability to be a strong pro-life president.”

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To advance their ultimate goal of blocking abortion access nationwide — not just in red states — the primary target for many antiabortion advocates is medication abortion, a two-step regimen now used in over 50 percent of abortions nationwide. The Supreme Court will consider a case this spring that could reinstitute restrictions on mifepristone, one of two drugs used to end a pregnancy, that would make the medication far more difficult to access.

But the courts are not the only way to further restrict abortion pills, said Severino, the former HHS official under Trump who now works at the Heritage Foundation. Under a Republican administration, the HHS could decide on its own to reimpose restrictions on mifepristone, which would include requiring an in-person visit with a medical professional. A particularly aggressive HHS secretary and FDA commissioner could even revisit the initial approval of the drug, which has been used widely in the United States for more than 20 years.

While the FDA has traditionally stayed out of politics — and been run by people who are generally nonpartisan — a Trump administration could decide to break with those norms, said David Cohen, a professor at Drexel University School of Law who focuses on abortion policy.

“If we’re in a world where Trump and his administration decide that they’re just going to do it anyway, then all bets are off,” he said.

Cohen said that if the FDA decided to rescind approval of mifepristone, the agency would first need to navigate legal hurdles. The manufacturer of the drug would need to be heard in court, and then the decision would be subject to appellate review, he added.

David Gortler, a former senior adviser to the FDA commissioner under Trump, noted that the agency has taken drugs off the market before. One major challenge to halting the flow of mifepristone, he said, would be employees at the FDA — but he added that a strong commissioner could probably navigate around them.

“The FDA commissioner could always reassign people,” Gortler said.

Have to keep on bringing you the reality of the continued threat of body autonomy that Trump and the Forced Birthers are. Please read Project 2025. They have an entire anti-abortion section, with the complete disregard for women’s health plain as day. They are going after abortion in the rest of the country. They never did value ‘ state’s rights’, when it comes to abortion, because they want to strip the right to abortion for all women in America.
Donald Trump appointed the three Justices that brought Dobbs to us. He is responsible for the deaths that will happen to women denied healthcare. He is responsible for the women arrested for having miscarriages. He is responsible, and part of the fight in 2024 is to never forget that.