1). “Wake the Hell Up: Democrats think abortion is a dead issue. They need a reality check”, May 16, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
2). “Trump Has a Stay-At-Home Plan for Women”, May 12, 2025, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
3). “Watch the Replay: 'What Trump’s Second Term Means for Reproductive Rights': At this May 7 'Action Call,' Center experts unpack the Trump administration’s first 100 days and its impact on reproductive rights”, May 8, 2025, Statements from Nancy Northup, President and CEO; Rachana Desai Martin, Chief Government and External Relations Officer; Sara Outterson, Chief Federal Legislative Counsel; and Shannon Russell, Federal Policy Counsel, Center for Reproductive Rights, duration of video 42:50, at < https://reproductiverights.
4). Repro Red Flags: Trump's First 100 Days is the textual version of the actual report, May 7, 2025, Report from the Center for Reproductive Rights, at < https://reproductiverights.
5). “Iran-Russia Military Alliance just BLEW UP on Trump, Israel in TROUBLE w/ Mohammad Marandi”, May 16, 2025, Danny Haiphong interviews Mohammad Marandi, Danny Haiphong, duration of video 24:05, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
6). “Trump’s Gulf Visit: Chas Freeman Explains the US–Israel–Gulf Shift | Deep Dive into Middle East”, May 15, 2025, Jyotishman interviews Chas Freeman, India and Global Left, duration of video 1:06:27, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
7). “Scott Ritter & Mohammad Marandi EXPOSE: US Empire’s Collapse in Russia-Yemen Showdown!”, May 16, 2025, Nima R, Alkhorshid interviews Scott Ritter & Mohammad Marandi discuss the U.S. Empire's Collapse, Attalos Farm, (originally posted on Dialogue Works), duration of video 1:21:28, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
8). “Master Sgt Dennis Fritz: Why Trump May Start A War w/Iran (Whether He Wants To Or Not)”, May 16, 2025, Jamarl Thomas interviews Dennis Fritz, Jamarl Thomas, duration of video 27:12, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
9). “Trump’s Not in Charge. This is who Really is”, May 18, 2025, Joanna Coles (editor of The Daily Beast) interviews David Rothkopf (Columnist at The Daily Beast), The Daily Beast, duration of video 26:02, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: For starters the Trump Regime is in power solely due to the stranglehold the Far-Right has on the remnants of Liberal Bourgeois democracy, which allows the Republican Operatives to suppress, purge, and negate the ballots of from 3 ½ million to 8 million voters in the U.S. This ongoing operation allows Extremist Republicans to consistently “win” close elections; though this capability was swamped by the legions of “low-propensity voters”, a group of around 17 million who showed up in 2008, 2012, and 2020, but who did not come out for the 2024 Elections. Trump and his minions have repeatedly proclaimed that they have a “mandate” to implement draconian policies and to destroy the functional operations of the Federal Government. This includes various issues for which the actual people of the U.S., as opposed to the political and socioeconomic elites, have strong preferences for policies that are never pursued. One major aspect of this are the ongoing and multitudinous attacks on Women's Rights and their Abortion Access and Reproductive Health Care Rights.
The plan of the U.S. Ruling Class appears to be to try to compete with China by attracting foreign talent composed of ruthless people willing to work in a totally fascist dominated and sickeningly degenerate social order. The working class and lower middle class native-born population will be used for the most vicious exploitation as 1). cheap labor for the various service industries and limited industrial operations. 2). Cannon Fodder for the new round of Endless Wars, and 3). For sexual use of the rulers and their guests. This list is certainly not in order of importance as category 3 is very important to the U.S. rulers for a variety of reasons, sexual blackmail of political and business figures being one major aspect of the U.S. Ruling Class Sexual Exploitation Milieu. This frames the struggle over Abortion Access and Reproductive Health Care Rights. Desperate women are the main raw material for serious sexual perversions and sexual blackmail operations.
In Item 1)., “Wake the Hell Up: ….”, and Item 2)., “Trump Has a ….”, Valenti discusses a variety of attacks on Women's lives and survival. In Item 1 she pointed out that:
“Over the last 48 hours, Republicans advanced a budget bill to defund Planned Parenthood, RFK Jr. directed the FDA to review regulations for mifepristone, and news broke that a brain dead woman in Georgia is being kept alive against her family’s wishes because she’s pregnant.
“In the last week, Louisiana officials have opened a second criminal investigation into a New York abortion provider, demanding her extradition; Missouri Republicans advanced a ballot measure to undo an abortion rights amendment (and the will of voters alongside it); and the Trump administration shared plans to push women out of the workforce and back into the home.
“We don’t need to ask what would happen if women started being arrested for miscarriages—because it’s already happening. We don’t need to conjure up dystopian sci-fi futures where women are being used as incubators, because that future is here.
“Conservatives had fifty years to write their post-Roe wishlist, and they haven’t taken a beat or breath while barreling their way through it. But here’s what’s keeping me up at night: As we speed towards a future where women aren’t full citizens, a source tells me that some Congressional Democrats are calling abortion a dead issue. It didn’t win them the presidency, so why even bother? (Emphasis in original)
“I wish I was kidding.”
And in Item 2 Valenti notes that:
“The Trump administration would save us all a lot of time if they just said it out loud: They want women out of the public sphere and back in the home. If you saw this New York Times headline this morning (May 12th I think, DM), you know exactly what I’m talking about: (Emphasis in Original)
“Now, let’s be clear: Republicans don’t want more ‘parents’ at home—they want more women at home. They’re just smart enough not to frame it that way.
“Reporter Caroline Kitchener—who also broke the news about the White House’s plan to 'persuade' women to have more children—writes today that the Trump administration wants to encourage (force) more parents (women) to stay at home with their children.
“But like their ideas to increase the birthrate, the White House’s plans to push women back into the home don’t include anything that might actually help families. There’s no call for paid parental leave or subsidized child care—in fact, they want to make it harder for parents to afford child care.
“Kitchener reports that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already cut key positions in offices like Head Start, which provides child care programs for low-income families. And the administration is considering doing away with federal tax credits for day care—claiming that it’s 'discriminatory' towards stay-at-home parents.
“And while some Republicans try to frame all this as a move to encourage ‘parents’ to stay at home, others don’t bother with the pretense. This is about forcing women into the domestic sphere. After all, why do you think they want abortion banned? Why else would they be attacking birth control?
“What better way to force women back into the home than to ensure they’re forever pregnant? And how better to keep them there than to make sure they’re financially dependent on a spouse? (Emphasis in original) ….
“Conservatives are furious that ProPublica won a Pulitzer for their reporting on women killed by abortion bans in Georgia and Texas. More than a dozen right-wing outlets have published hit pieces in response to the win, claiming their reporting is biased. (Emphasis in original)
“Why the outrage? Because the anti-abortion movement’s strategy is to blame pro-choice policies for these deaths. That’s right, they want Americans to believe that abortion rights activists are scaring doctors into withholding care—not that bans themselves are killing women. And they can’t sell that lie as credible while Pulitzer-winning reporting says otherwise.
“Here’s the reality: While abortion bans have led to multiple deaths, only a handful have been covered in the media. ProPublica is one of the few outlets consistently reporting on them—which means conservatives only need to discredit one source to keep their bullshit narrative going.” (Emphasis in original)
Item 3)., “Watch the Replay: ….”, & Item 4)., “Repro Red Flags: ….” are different versions of a report by the Center for Reproductive Rights on the first 100 days of the fascist regime of Donald Trump, that document looks in detail the horrific choices made in political appointments and the many sneaky, below general visibility, policies initiated and implemented by this regime.
Meanwhile the U.S. Ruling class faces some pretty daunting situations overseas. As always the Israel Lobby and the Israelis, with Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, want to get the U.S. entangled in an attack on Iran. Item 5)., “Iran-Russia Military Alliance ….”; Item 6)., “Trump’s Gulf Visit: ….”; Item 7)., “Scott Ritter & Mohammad Marandi EXPOSE: ….”; and Item 8)., “Master Sgt Dennis Fritz: ….”, all address the problems the U.S. Rulers face in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Mohammad Marandi sets the tone in Item 5)., when he notes that the U.S. is much weaker than it was the last time Trump took a significant interest in Iran when he, under heavy pressure from his Zionist donors, the Israel Lobby, and Netanyahu, abrogated the JCPOA treaty that had some pretty strict limits on Iran's ability to enrich Uranium. Now Trump, Vance, and their Secretary of State Marco Rubio are all drawing lines in the sand and demanding that Iran give up their nuclear enrichment efforts, and even that Iran unilaterally disarm; an option that looking at what the U.S. and NATO did to Libya cannot be very appealing. After 2 months of intensive bombing Trump agreed to quit and leave Yemen and the Houthis alone. Of course, Donald claimed that the Houthis had capitulated to him when, in reality, Trump had capitulated to the Houthis who are still free to interdict shipping bound for, owned by, or flagged to Israel.
One dangerous aspect of this period is the fact that the U.S. rulers know that time is on the side of China and the BRICS, while the U.S. will grow proportionally weaker with the passage of time. The U.S. Navy (USN) had dispatched two of its Nuclear powered Super Aircraft Carriers to the Red Sea and Middle East Horn of Africa Region, the U.S. Air Force has sent a large number of B-52s and 6 of the 21 B-2s to Diego Garcia, a sizeable distance from the Red Sea in the Indian Ocean. The USN has 11 nuclear powered Super Aircraft Carriers, and will shortly have 12 when the newest one, the USS John F. Kennedy, is fitted out and ready for action. China has 500 times the shipbuilding capacity that the U.S. has so the future does not look to good for the USN.
Only from the most marginalized commentators on the left do we hear anything about trying to engineer a “soft-landing” for the U.S. as its empire devolves. A Soft landing that would enable us to continue to live in a civilized society with Libraries, good Public Schools and Universities that don't require students to take out crippling amounts of debt, Health Care for all, major improvements in urban and long distance transportation, affordable housing for everybody. But as Item 9)., 9). “Trump’s Not in Charge. ….”, points out Trump is not really in charge. He has at least 25 allies and advisors who tell him what to do and who manage his marionette strings. Trump is 78 years old, soon to be 79 and is primarily interested in enriching himself and his family, he serves as a central point around which a coterie of dangerous extremists and their bosses, the rich donors and operatives gather, very similar to the way Ronald Reagan operated.
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Wake the Hell Up
I know we’re all feeling overwhelmed and despairing. What’s happening to this country—not just on abortion rights, but with everything—is downright soul-wrenching. But as tempting as it is to stew in that sadness, I’m asking us all to stand up and snap out of it. Because this issue needs us right now.
Over the last 48 hours, Republicans advanced a budget bill to defund Planned Parenthood, RFK Jr. directed the FDA to review regulations for mifepristone, and news broke that a brain dead woman in Georgia is being kept alive against her family’s wishes because she’s pregnant.
In the last week, Louisiana officials have opened a second criminal investigation into a New York abortion provider, demanding her extradition; Missouri Republicans advanced a ballot measure to undo an abortion rights amendment (and the will of voters alongside it); and the Trump administration shared plans to push women out of the workforce and back into the home.
We don’t need to ask what would happen if women started being arrested for miscarriages—because it’s already happening. We don’t need to conjure up dystopian sci-fi futures where women are being used as incubators, because that future is here.
Conservatives had fifty years to write their post-Roe wishlist, and they haven’t taken a beat or breath while barreling their way through it. But here’s what’s keeping me up at night: As we speed towards a future where women aren’t full citizens, a source tells me that some Congressional Democrats are calling abortion a dead issue. It didn’t win them the presidency, so why even bother?
I wish I was kidding.
I know we’re all feeling overwhelmed and despairing. What’s happening to this country
Let’s be clear about what’s happening: While our elected leaders back off rights and freedom for half the country, the anti-abortion movement is more organized and determined than ever.
In fact, opposition researchers I’ve spoken to over the last few weeks tell me that they’ve never seen this level of coordination among anti-abortion activists. I’ve noticed the same: organizations are coming together with unprecedented momentum.
In part, that’s because ultraconservative billionaire Leonard Leo just poured tens of millions into a new coalition of the country’s most powerful anti-abortion groups, giving them a clear directive: strategically unify and get shit done. Backed by the Trump administration, that’s exactly what they’re doing.
Just look at what’s happened with mifepristone. A few weeks ago, FDA chief Marty Makary said he wouldn’t move against abortion medication—unless new data showed it was unsafe. Days later, the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) dropped a report conveniently ‘proving’ just that. Within 24 hours of the study’s release, Sen. Josh Hawley had a letter on Makary’s desk demanding restrictions on mifepristone.
The coordination wasn’t exactly subtle: Republicans were ready for this study before it even went public. The broader conservative machine was ready to do their jobs, too: Right-wing media outlets ran headline after headline about the ‘danger’ of abortion medication, while conservative influencers amplified the disinformation. In the background, anti-abortion groups rallied around a shared message and launched a website urging readers to flood Makary, Congress, and the HHS with letters.
If you scroll to the very bottom of that site, do you know what you’ll find? These words:
“A coalition effort led by the Ethics and Public Policy Center”
That’s right—the supposedly objective EPPC researchers behind the mifepristone study are heading the activist effort to ban the medication. In fact, the study’s two authors—Jamie Bryan Hall and Ryan T. Anderson—were long-time employees of the Heritage Foundation, the group responsible for Project 2025. (I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the EPPC’s recommendations for mifepristone are pretty much exactly what Project 2025 calls for.)
Anderson, who is also EPPC’s president, even wrote an anti-abortion book, “Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing.” In it, he bemoans that women get to “consent” to parenthood, noting that “pro-abortion feminists” want the ”freedom to walk away from unwanted pregnancy—by killing the child.”
Does that sound like a serious researcher to you?1 Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter that the research is garbage or that the authors are basically three incels in a trench coat. The anti-abortion machine has the influence to make bad science stick—especially when mainstream media is too afraid of being labeled biased to call it out.
And remember, this is just the organizing and coordinating effort behind one issue area of the anti-abortion movement. As much of a priority as abortion medication is, they have a long list to get to: defunding Planned Parenthood, rerouting more taxpayer dollars to religious anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, ‘encouraging’ women to forgo jobs and birth control, and—as much as they’d like to deny it—laying the groundwork to prosecute abortion patients.
For the anti-abortion movement, ending Roe wasn’t the finish line—it was the starting pistol. And while the crowd watching may be cheering for those of us who protect reproductive rights, our rivals are still running laps around us. Just as bad, they have their eye on that crowd, too.
The anti-abortion movement knows they can’t win in the long run without public support—that’s why so much of their strategy is dedicated to sparking a culture shift. They’re not flooding social media with disinformation, tradwives, and manosphere podcasts for the fun of it! They’re doing it for the same reason they’re pushing anti-abortion propaganda videos into public school classrooms: to reach, influence, and indoctrinate young people.
Now, abortion is incredibly popular—so this kind of effort could take decades. But conservatives are willing to wait it out. After all, they’ve done it before. And with the power of the Trump administration and motivated funders behind them, it’s no wonder that we’re seeing a movement so wholly uninterested in compromise or rest.
I don’t say any of this to add to the stress and defeat we’re all feeling right now, and I certainly don’t want any of us to feel hopeless. It’s precisely the opposite: now is the moment when we need to muster all the hope and energy possible. But the only way we do that is by being truly clear-eyed.
And here’s the thing: It’s a good thing that these attacks aren’t random. That means we can identify trends and patterns, and predict what they’re going to do next. Reminding other Americans that none of this is an accident is also helpful: anti-abortion lawmakers want voters to believe that this post-Roe nightmare of child rape victims and ‘walking coffins’ are just legislative growing pains. But they’re not.
All of the horrors that we’re witnessing—every single one—was planned for. Every Texas woman with sepsis, every Ohio cancer patient denied radiation, every little girl in Mississippi forced into childbirth—they were all strategized over, polled, messaged, and backed with billionaire dollars.
They knew women would die, so they started dismantling maternal mortality committees. They knew they’d get bad PR, so they started blaming doctors early. They knew voters would oppose them, so they attacked democracy.
As overwhelming and horrific as this all is, remember that we know exactly who they are and precisely how they operate. It’s not chaos—it’s choreography. All we need now is the powers that be to wake the fuck up and get behind us.
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Trump Has a Stay-At-Home Plan for Women
Click to skip ahead: Operation Housewife digs into the Trump administration’s plan to force women out of the public sphere. In Meet the Creeps, our would-be surgeon general is an anti-birth control wellness influencer. Care Crisis looks at the role hospital policy plays in the sepsis rate in Texas. Attacks on Abortion Pills has the latest on the Republican move to restrict mifepristone using bunk science. Attacks on Democracy reveals how Republicans are using accusations of voter fraud to stop pro-choice ballot measures. In the Nation, abortion clinics are ramping up security while the White House makes cuts to programs for infant and maternal mortality. Finally, Coming Soon gives a sneak peek of tomorrow’s stories.
Operation Housewife
The Trump administration would save us all a lot of time if they just said it out loud: They want women out of the public sphere and back in the home. If you saw this New York Times headline this morning, you know exactly what I’m talking about:
Now, let’s be clear: Republicans don’t want more ‘parents’ at home—they want more women at home. They’re just smart enough not to frame it that way.
Reporter Caroline Kitchener—who also broke the news about the White House’s plan to “persuade” women to have more children—writes today that the Trump administration wants to encourage (force) more parents (women) to stay at home with their children.
But like their ideas to increase the birthrate, the White House’s plans to push women back into the home don’t include anything that might actually help families. There’s no call for paid parental leave or subsidized child care—in fact, they want to make it harder for parents to afford child care.
Kitchener reports that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already cut key positions in offices like Head Start, which provides child care programs for low-income families. And the administration is considering doing away with federal tax credits for day care—claiming that it’s “discriminatory” towards stay-at-home parents.
And while some Republicans try to frame all this as a move to encourage ‘parents’ to stay at home, others don’t bother with the pretense. This is about forcing women into the domestic sphere. After all, why do you think they want abortion banned? Why else would they be attacking birth control?
What better way to force women back into the home than to ensure they’re forever pregnant? And how better to keep them there than to make sure they’re financially dependent on a spouse?
I’ll have more on this in the coming days—there’s definitely a pissed off column percolating in my brain right now. In the meantime, I’m going to go scream into my pillow for a few minutes.
“Within authoritarian or fascist regimes, reproductive labor becomes a state obligation specifically for women. So it’s an obligation that is in service to the state.”
- Denise Lynn, history professor and director of gender studies at the University of Southern Indiana, in a must-read interview at HuffPost. (Seriously, read it)
Meet the Creeps
Alas, we’re not done talking yet about the White House’s obsession with forcing women into childbirth.
I’m just catching up on Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, and she’s just about as fucking ridiculous as you’d expect: Wellness influencer Casey Means is a full-blown MAHA conspiracy theorist who opposes birth control pills because “it’s a disrespect of things that create life.”
Let’s get into it: Means, who doesn’t have an active medical license, dropped out of her residency program after finishing med school. And Donald Trump’s claim that she graduated “first in her class at Stanford,” appears to be a lie.
Means has linked autism to vaccines, and claims that most health issues—from infertility to cancer—are caused by environmental factors. The Associated Press reports that Means blames “the ‘toxic stew’ of harmful products, air pollutants, food additives and technology overload that we are living in.”
Then there’s what she believes about contraception. Here’s what she said in an appearance last year on The Tucker Carlson Show:
As you might be able to tell, her language is pretty much identical to the anti-contraception rhetoric conservatives have been pushing out online to young women, in particular. The idea is to make young people think that there’s something ‘toxic’ or ‘unnatural’ about birth control—one of the most important modern advances for women’s health and freedom.
What makes this messaging so slick is that it co-opts very real issues that young women face, like medical sexism or feeling unheard by doctors. And that’s the thing: this attack on birth control is coordinated and extraordinarily well-funded. It’s not a coincidence that some of the influencers bashing hormonal contraception, for example, are pushing period tracking apps backed by anti-abortion billionaires.
It’s also no accident this is happening alongside Students for Life claiming birth control is poisoning the groundwater, Republican legislators trying to redefine contraception as abortifacients, and the Trump administration’s push to “encourage” women to stay home.
It’s almost as if they had a plan.
Care Crisis
There is so much that’s difficult to stomach about the consequences of abortion bans, but something I’ll never get over is how our health and lives are now being determined by…bureaucracy. Whether or not we live or die is now up to a few lines in a law or a policy change at a hospital. Literally.
Just look at what’s happening in Texas, where pregnant women are much more likely to develop a life-threatening infection if their hospital is in Houston rather than Dallas. This news comes from an ongoing (and excellent) ProPublica investigation into the Texas sepsis rates.
Basically, ProPublica reported back in February that the sepsis rate among Texas women who lost their pregnancies skyrocketed by over 50% after the state banned abortion. Unsurprisingly, that sepsis surge was most acute for miscarrying patients whose fetus still had a heartbeat when they got to the hospital. In other words, doctors are terrified of providing timely care because of the state law.
ProPublica expanded on their reporting last week, finding a massive difference in patient outcomes based on hospital policy: They report that while major Dallas hospitals allow doctors to provide miscarriage patients with abortions, most hospitals in Houston don’t. Instead, they require physicians to wait until a patient has developed a serious infection.
The result? The graph says it all:
As ProPublica reporters note, “It shows that when a state law is unclear and punitive, how an institution interprets it can make all the difference for patients.”
It’s not just fear of criminal charges, though, that stops some hospitals from providing patients with care—it’s money. When an OBGYN at Baylor College of Medicine emailed her department chair about the issue, for example, he responded that if he allowed doctors to intervene according to medical standards, the hospital could lose tens of millions of dollars in state funding.
I don’t even know what to say anymore.
I do know, however, that the work ProPublica did here should be replicated in every state with an abortion ban. Local pro-choice groups and politicians should be demanding the policies of every single hospital, and those policies should be made public—so that patients can make informed decisions about where they want to receive care.
In related care crisis news: Conservatives are furious that ProPublica won a Pulitzer for their reporting on women killed by abortion bans in Georgia and Texas. More than a dozen right-wing outlets have published hit pieces in response to the win, claiming their reporting is biased.
Why the outrage? Because the anti-abortion movement’s strategy is to blame pro-choice policies for these deaths. That’s right, they want Americans to believe that abortion rights activists are scaring doctors into withholding care—not that bans themselves are killing women. And they can’t sell that lie as credible while Pulitzer-winning reporting says otherwise.
Here’s the reality: While abortion bans have led to multiple deaths, only a handful have been covered in the media. ProPublica is one of the few outlets consistently reporting on them—which means conservatives only need to discredit one source to keep their bullshit narrative going.
(So yes, this is me calling on more newsrooms to step up and report on these deaths.)
Attacks on Abortion Pills
Republicans are making headway on their attack on mifepristone.
A brief refresher: In a recent interview, new FDA chief Marty Markary said that he’d consider restricting mifepristone if new data showed it was unsafe. And wouldn’t you know it—just days later, a conservative think tank released a junk ‘study’ claiming the abortion pill is dangerous. Since then, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley has been calling on the FDA to roll back access.
It’s hard to imagine a more obviously coordinated setup.
Then last week, Hawley got Trump’s nominee for HHS deputy secretary, Jim O’Neill, to agree to review the drug’s safety. (Worth noting: Hawley’s wife is one of the country’s top anti-abortion lawyers—she argued against mifepristone at the Supreme Court.)
Bottom line: they’re not letting up. Both Republicans and right-wing media keep pushing the bogus research, even though it’s been thoroughly debunked—most recently by The Washington Post.
I mean, even some anti-abortion leaders admit the study is garbage: Last week, Alice Miranda Ollstein at POLITICO reported that Christina Francis, president of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs (AAPLOG), said the so-called research is “not a study in the traditional sense” and “not conclusive proof of anything.”
But the truth isn’t going to stop Republicans. They’re desperate to ban abortion pills—especially by blocking the ability to mail them. That’s because conservatives are pissed off that so many people are getting around state bans by accessing mifepristone through telehealth. (Right now, about 1 in 5 abortions happen that way.)
I’ll keep you posted, but it seems clear to me that they’re moving quickly.
Want some extra credit reading? Media Matters published an excellent breakdown of the ‘study’ and the politics behind it. And you can always count on Moira Donegan at The Guardian to call it like it is.
Abortion, Every Day exists thanks to support from readers like you. If you can swing the $5 a month or $50 a year, please consider upgrading your subscription tonight:
Attacks on Democracy
An Arizona man has been indicted by a grand jury for allegedly falsifying petition signatures in support of the state’s pro-choice ballot measure. Regardless of what happened in this particular case, you should plan on seeing similar charges brought across the country—with those arrested getting a whole lot more media attention.
You know why: Republicans are eager to dismantle citizen-led petitions in order to stop voters from having a say on abortion. One of their primary tactics has been claiming that the ballot measure process is rife with voter fraud. That way, anti-abortion lawmakers and leaders don’t have to admit that they simply don’t want Americans to have a say on the issue.
Take what’s happening right now in Missouri, where voters just passed a state constitutional amendment that protects abortion rights until ‘viability’. Republicans have refused to accept the will of voters, and are now pushing through their own ballot measure.
Here’s where it gets really disgusting: Since Republicans are well-aware that Missourians want abortion to be legal, they know they can’t admit that their amendment would ban abortion. So here’s what the ballot measure would say:
“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to: Guarantee access to care for medical emergencies, ectopic pregnancies, and miscarriages; Ensure women's safety during abortions; Ensure parental consent for minors; Allow abortions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, rape, and incest; Require physicians to provide medically accurate information; and Protect children from gender transition?”
That’s right, the measure doesn’t mention that it would ban abortion—in fact, the language almost makes the measure sound pro-choice!
This kind of trickery has become a growing anti-abortion tactic: in Nebraska last year, for example, voters were fooled into supporting an anti-abortion ballot measure designed to appear pro-choice. The anti-abortion group even launched with a name that was near-identical to the pro-choice organization, and had its petitioners tell voters that they’d be supporting abortion rights.
In the Nation
Abortion clinics across the country are boosting their security, Bloomberg reports. It makes sense: One of Donald Trump’s first moves as president was to pardon two dozen violent anti-abortion extremists, and tell the March for Life attendees that they didn’t have to worry about being arrested for harassing abortion providers and patients. At the same time, Trump’s DOJ made clear that they wouldn’t be enforcing the FACE Act—the federal law that protects clinics.
In other words, they gave violent maniacs the green light to do whatever they want:
More than that, a DOJ attorney just admitted that they only plan to use the FACE Act to target pro-choice activists. (For what? Graffiti on crisis pregnancy centers?)
Since the White House gave anti-abortion extremists free rein, clinic workers say they’re already seeing increased harassment. Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access in Wyoming, says they’re seeing more demonstrators obstructing patients and staff from parking to get into the clinic. “I definitely took that as a signal that now that they know FACE is not going to be enforced, they are emboldened,” Burkhart said.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has dealt some devastating blows to federal health funding: Last month, HuffPost reported on cuts to the CDC division that reports on infant and maternal health; and POLITICO found that the administration had scrapped the offices that ran the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey and the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAM).
Now, POLITICO reports that some conservatives are worried those cuts will undermine the White House’s claim that they are ‘pro-family.’ (Ya think??)
Former HHS statistician Isaac Michael, who worked on PRAM before he was laid off, said that the administration was “dismantling one of the strongest tools we have to prevent maternal deaths, to reduce infant mortality and to close socioeconomic health gaps.” But here’s what sent me over the edge:
“Michael—who said he voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 based on his anti-abortion stance and supports the president’s push to rein in federal spending—said ending PRAMS contradicts the administration’s pro-family messaging.”
Did you scream? I screamed! I mean really, what exactly did you think was going to happen here?
As the top story today reminded us: The Trump administration isn’t interested in helping women, babies, or families. They only want to use the rhetoric of being ‘pro-family’ to push for the regressive gender roles they’re so crazy over.
Quick hits:
The FDA has approved an at-home alternative to pap smears—the cervical cancer screening tool will allow people to test themselves for HPV;
Ms. magazine on the “forgotten mother of the contraceptive pill”;
A column at USA Today calls for fairness in calls for ‘parental rights’ around sex ed classes;
And in international news, The Guardian on how the right to abortion is at risk in Britain.
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Watch the Replay: "What Trump’s Second Term Means for Reproductive Rights" | Center for Reproductive Rights
©Bill Chizek / iStock Watch the replay of “What Trump’s Second Term Means for Reproductive Rights,” featuring Nancy Northup and other Center experts:
The Trump administration has spent its first three months chipping away at reproductive rights and access to reproductive health care in the U.S. and around the world—and the Center for Reproductive Rights is sounding the alarm.
Join us for an action call on Wednesday, May 7 at 2:00 p.m. ET/11:00 a.m. PT to hear what’s at stake and what the Center is doing to fight back.
You’ll learn from Center experts about the:
- Administration’s anti-repro actions during its first 100 days;
- Harmful impacts of those actions on national and global on reproductive rights and health—including access to abortion, birth control, gender-affirming care, and more; and
- Threats to lawyers and how that could impact your ability to fight back when your freedoms are violated.
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- Please click on this link as I could not download to Blogger 4). Repro Red Flags: Trump's First 100 Days is the textual version of the actual report, May 7, 2025, Report from the Center for Reproductive Rights, at < https://reproductiverights.
org/wp-content/uploads/2025/ 04/100days-RedFlags.pdf >. - xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
5). “Iran-Russia Military Alliance just BLEW UP on Trump, Israel in TROUBLE w/ Mohammad Marandi”, May 16, 2025, Danny Haiphong interviews Mohammad Marandi, Danny Haiphong, duration of video 24:05, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=R1_859E0_dI > xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
6). “Trump’s Gulf Visit: Chas Freeman Explains the US–Israel–Gulf Shift | Deep Dive into Middle East”, May 15, 2025, Jyotishman interviews Chas Freeman, India and Global Left, duration of video 1:06:27, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=iTn-CqdOA8Y >. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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