Two Years After Overturning Roe v. Wade, MAGA Republicans Continue To Attack Reproductive Health Care Access
Two years ago today, the MAGA Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending nearly half a century of constitutionally protected abortion rights. Ever since, attacks on reproductive health care from MAGA Republicans have skyrocketed, imperiling access to reproductive care for millions of Americans across the country. Despite the Supreme Court’s recent ruling rejecting a challenge to the abortion medication mifepristone, access to reproductive care is still under threat from the MAGA court. They will soon decide whether politicians can deny emergency medical care to pregnant people under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), while MAGA Republicans elsewhere are pushing hard to limit access to contraception, pass a national abortion ban, undermine the Affordable Care Act, and even ban in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Republicans have done nothing but push to limit access to essential reproductive care. On the anniversary of Roe being overturned, we must continue to hold them accountable for waging war on reproductive freedom. Here’s how reproductive care is still under threat:
- Abortion Access Remains Under Threat. Two years ago, Donald Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the consequences for women’s health have been catastrophic, with cruel and archaic abortion bans spreading across the country. Even though the MAGA court just rejected a challenge to abortion drug mifepristone, the case will return to the MAGA-packed Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for further review. Republicans will not be deterred by the SCOTUS ruling, which rejected the challenge only on standing, paving the way for a future challenge to succeed on the merits of the case. At least 67 Republican members of Congress and 22 Republican attorneys general supported the push to ban mifepristone, and if MAGA Republicans get their way there will be even more extreme judicial appointments and an all-out push to use the Comstock Act to create a de facto national ban on abortions and sharply limit access to medications.
- Emergency Reproductive Care Is On The Chopping Block. The Supreme Court still has a case in front of them awaiting a decision, Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States, that challenges the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) and threatens to jail doctors for providing critical care to save pregnant patients. This case, brought by extreme right-wing politicians, seeks to deny pregnant patients who are experiencing a medical crisis the emergency abortion care they may need to prevent serious health consequences, including death.
- Republicans and Red State Judges Are Threatening Fertility Treatments Like IVF Through Extreme, Anti-Choice Policies. Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children, putting the future of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in jeopardy. Republicans have made it clear that they have no intention to protect reproductive health care in the post-Roe landscape, and Republicans in other states like Idaho are joining in, pushing anti-choice policies that create extreme uncertainty for reproductive health care access. Senate Republicans have moved to block legislation to protect IVF and other fertility treatments multiple times, with all but two Senate Republicans voting against codifying federal protections just last week.
- Trump And His Closest Allies Are Pushing To Restrict Access To Contraception. Trump and his MAGA allies are developing a blueprint for a second Trump administration to restrict birth control through a series of executive actions, and Trump recently said he was “looking at” imposing new policy restrictions on contraception. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan includes numerous proposals that would require coverage of so-called “natural planning” contraceptive strategies and remove requirements that insurance cover certain forms of emergency contraception.
- The Trump Administration Already Made It Harder To Access Reproductive Health Care. The Trump administration took multiple steps to make it harder for women, people of color, and LGBTQI+ Americans to access reproductive health care. As President, Trump allowed more employers to opt out of birth control coverage in their workers’ health insurance. For example, in August 2019, the Trump administration began enforcing a rule that bars certain federally-funded clinics from referring women for abortions. As a result, the nation’s largest recipient of Title X funds, Planned Parenthood, was forced to exit the program, losing $60 million in funding previously used to provide birth control and reproductive health care services for low-income women.
- MAGA Republicans Are Targeting The Affordable Care Act, Which Provides Free Contraception. The Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage requirement has drastically improved health care access and affordability for tens of millions of Americans. The benefits have reached far and wide — improving health outcomes and sharply cutting out-of-pocket costs. Despite the overwhelming success of the ACA’s contraception coverage, Republicans have attempted to eliminate this essential care year after year through legislation and litigation. Republicans have spent years taking dozens of failed votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They have also taken their fight to overturn the ACA to the Supreme Court and failed all three times. This year extremists are still challenging a provision of the ACA that requires insurers to cover lifesaving preventive services for free. The case, known as Braidwood v. Becerra, is set to be decided by a panel of judges at the MAGA-packed Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. During his first term, Donald Trump notoriously tried and failed multiple times to repeal the ACA and throughout his 2024 campaign Trump has repeatedly reignited his calls to “terminate” the Affordable Care Act, which he claims is a “disaster.” By taking these actions, Republicans are fighting to strip protections that provide access to reproductive care.
- The ACA Made Access To Birth Control Free For Over 60 Million Americans. The ACA guarantees that private health plans cover 18 methods of contraception and make them available to 58 million patients with no out-of-pocket costs. More than 99 percent of sexually active women have used contraceptives at some point in their lifetimes, and approximately 60 percent of women of reproductive age currently use at least one birth control method. In addition to increasing access to this essential treatment, this ACA provision has saved money for women and their families: women saved $1.4 billion on birth control pills alone in 2013.
- Republicans Are Waging a War on Medicaid, Which Covers Reproductive Health Care For Millions of Americans. Medicaid, which covers tens of millions of Americans, is an essential source of reproductive health care. Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump are itching for a renewed war on Medicaid. The latest proposals from the Republican Study Committee and the Trump team in-waiting at the Heritage Foundation would throw millions of people off their coverage through block granting and burdensome work reporting requirements. Almost two-thirds, or 62 percent, of those who would lose their Medicaid coverage as a result of work requirements, are women and disproportionately women of color.