We told you this.
The moment that they went after Roe and struck it down, we told you that birth control was next.
So…are we ‘ hysterical’.
That’s what we’ve been called.
From Politico:
Trump Is Going After Birth Control. Here’s Why.
By Mary Ziegler
04/25/2026 10:00 AM EDT
We are entering a startling new era in the politics of birth control, with President Donald Trump launching the most serious effort in decades to curb contraception.
The Department of Health and Human Services recently released new guidance that outlines a major overhaul of federal family planning programs — prioritizing childbirth over contraception, and privileging “natural family planning,” like period-tracking apps, over far more effective methods, like the birth control pill. The Trump administration is also poised to establish new regulations that would end further funding for Planned Parenthood chapters.
Millions of Americans who receive federally-backed family planning services are likely to feel the impact of such a policy shift. And there is real political risk as well. Birth control remains overwhelmingly popular in the United States: Only 8 percent of Americans say using contraception is morally wrong, according to Pew Research Center polling. (More Americans object to drinking alcohol, getting a divorce or being extremely rich).
Given widespread support for birth control, it’s no surprise that politicians have long been reluctant to zero in on it. So, what’s changed?
The unwieldy political coalition that sent Trump back to the White House in 2024 is clamoring for action. For different reasons, an alliance of MAHA adherents, social conservatives and pronatalists are eager to go after birth control. With Trump sinking in the polls and his coalition fracturing, he may want to deliver for his core supporters. But regardless of whether he succeeds, the administration’s move signals a major transformation in America’s culture war: Contraception has gone from being politically untouchable to a real target on the right.
A bit of history underscores just how significant this shift is.
In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approved the birth control pill, and a broad consensus in support of birth control quickly took hold. Nearly a century after moral crusaders had introduced the first laws criminalizing the use, mailing or sale of birth control, millions of Americans began using the pill.
At the same time, as sexual mores changed, opposing contraception became a liability for an emerging anti-abortion movement. These activists claimed to champion the civil rights of the unborn. If they also targeted birth control, they opened themselves up to the argument that they were really trying to control women or police sex. The result: For years, opposing birth control outright was something of a political third rail, even after Congress passed Title X in 1970 to provide free or low-cost contraceptives to low-income patients.
Social conservatives did mount indirect attacks on contraception in the 1980s and 1990s. Some Republicans called for the repeal of Title X because it poured money into the coffers of groups like Planned Parenthood that also offered abortion. The Reagan administration argued that parents had rights to limit teenagers’ access to birth control.
When conservatives directly attacked the idea of contraception, though, they paid a price. That was a central lesson of Robert Bork’s failed 1987 Supreme Court nomination. A hero to the Federalist Society, Bork was widely expected to be confirmed and ultimately cast the deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. But when he testified before Congress at his confirmation hearing, Bork condemned Supreme Court decisions recognizing a right to birth control. The backlash, led by a Delaware senator named Joe Biden, sank the nomination.
In the intervening years, conservatives shied away from campaigning against birth control, even if they secured some policy wins like effectively blocking research on new contraceptives.
The new assault on contraception is a result of the shifting political, cultural and legal landscape in the Trump era, and of key factions in the Trump coalition uniting on the issue.
The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to throw out Roe was a monumental victory for social conservatives, but it angered much of the public. Since then, polls and election results have made it seem costly for conservatives to further curb access to abortion. At least so far, the Trump administration has slow-walked changes on mifepristone, the abortion pill that anti-abortion groups are targeting, and ignored social conservatives’ calls to use the Comstock Act, a 19th century obscenity law, to ban the mailing of abortion drugs.
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Anti-contraception messaging appeals to MAHA voters convinced that the pill or IUDs are unnatural, just like food additives or pesticides. Ironically, public affirmations about the safety of common contraceptives only deepen those suspicions, suggesting to some that contraception’s dangers are being buried by an untrustworthy public health establishment. One study of the most viral TikTok videos on contraception found that 34 percent expressed distrust of health care professionals.
With new allies, social conservatives have become far more willing to argue that birth control threatens marriages and families. The Heritage Foundation, which has taken a hard-right turn under Trump 2.0, has asserted that the chemicals in birth control pills have polluted the groundwater, potentially exposing boys to estrogen and compromising their masculinity.
Heritage and its allies also condemn birth control for underwriting the sexual revolution and allegedly making marriages weaker and men and women less happy. Without the pill, conservatives seem convinced that women would be more likely to prioritize marriage and child-rearing. And if that happened, these advocates suggest, we’d all be better off.
This directly correlates with Monday’s post.
It’s all connected.
