America’s pro-life movement readies 2025 federal- and state-level policy efforts

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 19, 2024 / 06:00 am

Pro-life advocates plan to push federal- and state-level legislative and policy reforms on abortion when the United States Congress and many state legislatures enter into session in January 2025.

Many plans look toward regulating the abortion drug mifepristone, which is used in chemical abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion policy group, chemical abortions accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023, which is an increase of 10 percentage points from 2020 and more than double what it was in 2014.

Other efforts will include rolling back the abortion policies of President Joe Biden’s administration, supporting conscience protections for doctors and hospitals opposed to abortion, and backing a federal law that restricts abortion by a certain point in pregnancy. There is currently no federal abortion cutoff, and nine states permit elective abortion for any reason through the ninth month of pregnancy, until the moment of birth.

Abortion policy has become a major battle over the past two and a half years after the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. With this decision, states and the federal government can restrict abortion. More than 20 states adopted laws to restrict abortion and protect life, but pro-abortion activists pushed back in several states through the referendum process.

President-elect Donald Trump will provide the movement with an executive branch more friendly to their cause. However, he has also changed his position on abortion in recent years — rejecting a ban on chemical abortion drugs and promising to veto a federal law to ban abortions, instead favoring a state-by-state approach.

Pro-life efforts are further complicated by voters who support Republican candidates but also want abortion to remain legal. For example, in 2024 voters in Montana, Missouri, Arizona, and Nevada voted to elect Trump but also voted in favor of pro-abortion ballot initiatives.

The effort to regulate abortion drugs

Students for Life of America (SFLA) unveiled its “Make America Pro-Life Again” roadmap, which makes chemical abortion pills the primary focus. The organization sees opportunities to regulate and restrict those drugs, even in the states where voters have enshrined a legal right to abortion in their state constitutions.

SFLA President Kristan Hawkins told CNA “there’s a lot that you can do” in states that have a constitutional right to abortion, noting that a right to abortion “doesn’t mean [every] type of abortion should be permitted.”

For instance, Hawkins said states could follow a new law in Louisiana to classify mifepristone and misoprostol — two drugs used for chemical abortions — as controlled substances. 

She also pointed to state and federal efforts to pass legislation that regulates the disposal of human remains of the unborn child expelled from the body after taking chemical abortion pills. She said the remains are commonly flushed into American waterways, which pollutes the water supply.

Other state-level measures include bans on the sale, manufacture, and distribution of chemical abortion pills within a state. Such a measure successfully passed in Wyoming but was temporarily blocked by a judge. Another route would be to impose civil and criminal liabilities on abortionists who mail abortion drugs into their state.

At the federal level, Hawkins suggested enforcement of the Comstock Act, which prohibits the delivery of “obscene” and “vile” products through the mail, including anything designed to produce an abortion. The law was first adopted in 1873 but was updated as recently as the 1990s. 

During Trump’s campaign, the president-elect said he would not enforce the Comstock Act to prevent the mail delivery of abortion drugs and said chemical abortion is “going to be available” during his presidency. Hawkins said that if Trump “wants to be the president of law and order,” he should enforce the law as it is written.

Other federal efforts would focus on issuing regulations through the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration. 

Reversing Biden’s policies

At the federal level, pro-life advocates hope to work with Trump on reversing some of Biden’s policies.

“We’re very focused on encouraging the Trump administration to undo all of the harm [from] the Biden administration,” Kelsey Pritchard, the director of state public affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, also told CNA. 

Biden’s policies include federal funds for abortion overseas, a policy at the U.S. Department of Defense to fund abortion travel costs for service members and their families, and the prosecution of pro-life protesters charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

Hawkins also referenced the “weaponization of the government against Americans who are pro-life” in reference to recent FACE Act convictions. She criticized the U.S. Department of Justice for its harsh prosecution of peaceful protesters and its failure to prosecute more individuals who have attacked pro-life pregnancy centers. 

Pardoning the “pro-life prayer warriors,” as Hawkins referred to them, should be a priority on his first day in office, she said. Trump has said if he is elected he would get those protesters “back to their families.” 

During his campaign, Trump signaled his openness to reversing other elements of Biden’s abortion agenda. He told EWTN News he would look into reinstating the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits taxpayer funds for overseas organizations that provide abortion.

“We’re going to be giving that a very good, serious look,” Trump said, without committing to reinstating the Mexico City Policy. The president-elect did reinstate it during his first term.

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Hawkins said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services must also ensure that Catholic hospitals will have their freedom of faith and conscience respected and tell them they will not be “threatened and forced to commit abortions as the state of California is currently doing with Catholic hospitals there.”

Abortion restrictions and support from Republicans

Pro-life advocates still aim to eventually secure congressional passage of federal restrictions on abortion, a goal that will be challenging to achieve given the House’s narrow Republican majority and the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for most bills.

“We need some sort of national minimum standard when it comes to abortion because we are one of eight countries in the world that allows abortion at any point,” Pritchard said, adding that many Americans are open to restricting most abortions at the 15-week mark. 

“That’s something that’s not going to be achieved overnight,” she said.

Hawkins called Trump’s position that abortion should remain a state issue a “shortsighted view” but that she believes “we can work with him on that.”

Pritchard added that the pro-life movement needs stronger support from Republicans and referenced Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign against the the Florida abortion referendum, which narrowly failed to reach the 60% threshold needed for adoption.

“We need more Republicans to do that,” Pritchard said. “Democrats are so far out of step with the American people.” 

Although the amendment failed to reach the 60% threshold, 57% did vote in favor of it. However, the pro-life movement succeeded in referendums in two other states. In Nebraska, voters supported a ballot initiative to restrict abortion at the 12-week mark and in South Dakota, voters rejected an initiative to enshrine a right to abortion in the state’s constitution.

Pritchard pointed out that Democrats spent a lot of their money running advertisements on abortion but still lost the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, which shows “abortion is not the silver bullet that the Democrats believed it was.”

“We can only win in states where the [Republican Party] is willing to be bold about what these measures actually do,” Pritchard said.