The reelection of former President Donald Trump has brought to light a woman’s right to choice. As a proud Southern Californian living in a mostly blue state, I am surrounded by lots of pro-choice voters. As someone in high school, I am also surrounded by people who are still trying to figure out their opinions on issues like abortion and women’s healthcare. Sometimes, I see and hear people my age on social media and in my community saying that “abortion is murder” but I strongly disagree.
After the Presidential debate in September, I was left thinking about how Trump refused twice to comment on whether he would veto a national abortion ban. This was shortly after vice president J.D. Vance, told NBC in an interview that Trump would “explicitly” veto a ban. During the debate, Trump walked back Vance’s response, saying that Vance was not speaking for him. By being ambiguous, Trump implies that he wanted to keep the issue open, allowing him leeway to approve national abortion bans in the future.
The effects of a national abortion ban would be catastrophic for all women. Victims of sexual assault would be forced to deliver a child of their abuser. Young women would not be able to determine whether their future involves being a parent, or not. Women who have miscarriages or high risk pregnancies would be forced to take the risks with their health.
In the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, harsh state abortion laws in Georgia led to the deaths of two women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, who died after complications from being denied timely, life-saving medical care.
The new question is if life-saving medical care and medicine will be treated as a woman’s right going forward.
More recently, former president Donald Trump said that he would leave the issue of abortion to the states. The federal government still has control over federal healthcare spending, so the Trump administration can spend less money on women’s health education and give less money to states providing greater access to reproductive healthcare. Additionally, Trump has a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which signals how they will rule on upcoming cases about women’s healthcare.
In response to the election, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement, “Now the work begins to dismantle the pro-abortion policies of the Biden-Harris administration. President Trump’s first-term pro-life accomplishments are the baseline for his second term. In the long term, GOP pro-life resolve must be strengthened and centered on the unalienable right to life for unborn children that exists under the 14th Amendment. In America, where you live should never determine whether you live. Across the nation, there are still hundreds of thousands of babies to save and moms to serve and we can’t stop fighting for them now.”
Although pro-life advocates argue that the Biden-Harris administration worked against mothers and babies, they worked to provide more access to maternal and reproductive health care for women by giving grants of almost $9 million through the Affordable Care Act to states, and President Biden signed an Executive Order to fund women’s health research. This research and funding for education is important because women need to make educated decisions about their healthcare and know their options for family planning. However, with control of federal funding, Trump can choose to allocate money to other causes instead.
After the election, the Center for Reproductive Rights released a statement.
“A second Trump administration will compound these harms with new, potentially far worse ones. It will seek to stop the availability of medication abortion by mail, which has been a lifeline in post-Roe America,” President Nancy Northup said.
Northup continued, “It will attempt to gag all organizations, including U.S.-based ones, from advocating for abortion law reform or providing abortion care abroad, even with their non-U.S. funds. It will push policies designed to disempower reproductive and human rights organizations while aiding their anti-rights counterparts. Such attacks at the federal level will reverberate in the states, undoubtedly leading to more prosecutions, investigations, and lawsuits against providers, patients, and their loved ones.”
For example, the currently conservative Supreme Court could hear a legal challenge to federal regulations in place concerning the prescription abortion drug mifepristone.
For my generation in particular, the Trump administration policies are compounded by the information that we receive through social media channels. We need to know how to obtain reliable information about reproductive healthcare, and also to be able to identify if the information in front of us is true. We shouldn’t believe everything on TikTok and Reels, and we should question the information we’re seeing, especially medical information.
Some resources I found helpful while trying to learn more on this topic, and that I would recommend, are the Noise for Now and Center for Reproductive Rights organizations. Noise for Now does a great job of providing information in a concise and not-overwhelming way, while the Center for Reproductive Rights is well-established and has more general information about reproductive rights, maternal health, and abortions.
