On Friday, the 53rd March for Life will be held in Washington. Nearly four years after the Dobbs decision, the center of gravity of abortion politics has moved to state capitols. Moreover, the fight against abortion in the culture remains as important as the political battle, and the fight for a culture of life goes beyond this one issue to encompass matters such as assisted suicide and IVF. But federal abortion policy still matters — and there is fresh evidence that the president and other D.C. Republicans need to hear from pro-lifers and not take them for granted.
Pro-lifers could hardly have asked for more from Donald Trump’s first term, capped off by the end of Roe v. Wade two years after Trump left office, with three Trump-appointed justices casting the decisive votes. While there is credit to go around, the president deserved a large share of that. He won the trust of many pro-lifers who had viewed him with skepticism. He has earned a place in pro-life history.
But this is no time for anyone to rest on their laurels. From the time that the Dobbs decision came down, there have been many signs that Trump thinks he has done enough and can safely forget abortion and move on to other priorities. In 2022–23, Trump’s political allies, and later his campaign, began pointing fingers at Dobbs to shift political blame for midterm election setbacks away from Trump’s own conduct. Then, during the presidential campaign, Trump attacked Ron DeSantis for Florida’s heartbeat bill and pursued a general-election message that downplayed the powers the federal government continues to exercise regarding abortion. Still, that was campaign rhetoric; many still trusted that Trump would be sound on abortion policy once elected.
Trump’s decisive election victory, after Kamala Harris bet heavily on the abortion issue, showed that it was not the third rail that some pundits predicted after Dobbs. Yet, the hesitancy remained. We warned, when Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, of RFK’s long pro-abortion record and lack of trustworthiness in the blandishments he offered to pro-life senators. Still, that was personnel rather than policy.
A year later, we have a policy record. There have been some accomplishments, but the Trump–Vance administration has veered far from the vigorously pro-life posture of the Trump–Pence years.
The good: There have been positive steps, if limited ones, on several fronts. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act finally took Medicaid funds away from Planned Parenthood — but only for one year, a weak remedy that Planned Parenthood and its favorite district judge, Indira Talwani, have responded to with a transparent strategy of delay. The administration reversed the Biden interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to impose a national pro-abortion standard of care on emergency rooms, a reading never intended when EMTALA was enacted. Trump pardoned the targets of excessive Biden administration prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and promulgated guidance to limit such prosecutions on his watch. HHS has launched multiple investigations into whether state health departments are discriminating against faith-based organizations that assert conscience rights against involvement in abortions. Trump issued an executive order promoting the foster care system and encouraging government to work with faith-based organizations rather than punish them for stances of conscience.
The bad: There has been backsliding. Politico reported that the ACLU dropped its lawsuit against the administration after HHS quietly released tens of millions in Title X family planning funds to Planned Parenthood and other clinics. Trump and RFK both pleaded ignorance. Pro-lifers sympathetic to HHS have argued that doing so was legally necessary and will set up the administration to take a stronger defunding position later based on new regulations. We shall see. At the same time, the administration’s IVF guidelines make things worse by further subsidizing a practice whose moral dimension has been all too commonly neglected.
The undecided: Much remains up in the air, and the portents are distressing. A bill passed through the House with some Republican votes not only imprudently extended pandemic-era “temporary” Obamacare subsidies, but also followed Trump’s guidance and strong-arming to be “a little flexible on Hyde”: to be willing, that is, to vote for extra subsidies for health insurance policies even if those policies cover abortions. The bill has yet to clear the Senate, where the abortion issue thus far remains a stumbling block to a bipartisan sellout. If Republicans were serious about life, they could push for stronger rather than weaker protections against subsidizing abortion.
With the mifepristone-based abortion pill now representing a majority of abortions in the country, the federal government has a significant role in its distribution and prescription. Yet, the administration has been reluctant to act.
The administration has thus far shown no inclination to enforce the Comstock Act’s long-standing federal ban — dating back to 1873 — on mailing abortion drugs. The Biden administration read the law to mean absolutely nothing; while there are differing views on how expansively to enforce it, the administration has simply continued Biden’s pretense that the law does not exist.
The FDA, under RFK’s HHS, has yet to roll back the Biden-era rules permitting mail-order access to abortion pills without a single in-person doctor visit. This was a dangerous policy, and when women died after using the pills without medical supervision, Democrats and progressive media falsely blamed state pro-life laws. Senate Republicans haven’t given up, holding hearings to pressure the FDA, but where is the president?
The FDA is also still studying the broader question of the safety of the pill anew. Nothing yet has been done, while RFK places a higher priority on reviewing vaccine schedules and the food pyramid. The apparently deliberate slow-walking of this initiative has led some pro-life groups to demand that Commissioner Marty Makary be fired.
The CDC has also moved slowly on reporting, let alone improving, its annual data on abortions in the country.
It is encouraging that the administration, for the second year in a row, will send Vice President JD Vance to speak to the March for Life, together with a video message from the president. It would be better to have Trump appear himself — but then, Vance, unlike Trump, is likely to face Republican primary voters again. If Trump is complacent about his standing with pro-lifers, Vance can and should push this administration to do more.