Here’s Your (Bleak) 2025 Reproductive Rights Preview

In August, reproductive rights organizers in Idaho announced they intend to get an abortion rights measure on the ballot in 2026.

IVF and fetal personhood

Karen Thompson, legal director at Pregnancy Justice, told Jezebel that the possibility Trump will issue an executive order enshrining fetal personhood—that is, legal recognition that embryos have the same rights as pregnant people—on day one is “front of mind for our organization right now.” Dana Sussman, executive vice president at the organization, warned that lawmakers and prosecutors at every level have long treated fetuses and embryos as people; last year, Pregnancy Justice issued a report that tracked 22 cases of people facing criminal charges for pregnancy loss in the first year (June 2022 to June 2023) after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. “That is a very large number,” Sussman said. She expects it to rise.

In February, the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that embryos are “extrauterine children” and their destruction warrants wrongful death lawsuits resulted in several fertility clinics pausing IVF services, until the state legislature intervened. IVF remains legal and available in Alabama, but remains under threat across the country: Senate Republicans repeatedly rejected legislation to codify rights to IVF in 2024, and several state Republican parties oppose the destruction of embryos, endangering IVF.

Laws bolstering fetal personhood, like the Alabama ruling, aren’t always explicit. On the state and federal level, expect more bills such as “child tax credits” for fetuses, or other ostensibly benevolent legislation that functions as a backdoor to fetal personhood, Mariappuram said. Similarly, Sussman pointed to continued litigation concerning when pregnant people can receive life-saving abortions under medical emergency exceptions—some anti-abortion attorneys argue that under the federal law EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act), which requires hospitals to provide stabilizing care to patients, fetuses are the patients that should be prioritized. Fetal personhood will also lead to bills that classify abortion as homicide, consequently threatening abortion patients with the death penalty, Sussman says, citing South Carolina’s new bill and warning that it will be replicated in other states. A handful of states have introduced similar bills since Dobbs, while the Texas Republican Party enshrined this in its 2024 platform.

Prepare for a crackdown on abortion pills

Whether your state enforces an abortion ban like Texas, voted to pass an abortion rights ballot measure like Arizona, or has strong abortion rights protections like California, every state could still lose key rights anyway. Project 2025 outlines how the incoming Trump administration can weaponize the dormant Comstock Act of 1873, which bans the mailing of “obscene” materials across state lines, to ban abortion pills from being mailed to or from any state. The FDA could also revoke the approval of abortion pills, which were approved in 2000. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said in December that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to run the Health and Human Services Department, has also expressed willingness to reinstate old, medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion pills.

At the state level, expect abortion-banned states to make it even more difficult to access the medication. In 2024, Louisiana became the first state to enact a law that criminalizes possession of the most common abortion pills, mifepristone and mispropstol, and classifies them as Schedule IV drugs. (The only exception is if you’re able to prove you’re about to take them.) While this might be difficult to enforce against individuals, it’s severely impacting Louisiana hospitals’ protocol to treat life-threatening cases of postpartum hemorrhaging, which requires immediate access to misoprostol.

Texas Republicans have since filed a similar bill in November, as well as a bill to classify sending medication abortion through the mail without an in-state prescription as a deceptive trade practice—a jailable offense. Indiana is similarly weighing a bill to classify prescribing abortion pills as a misdemeanor. Diaz-Tello warned that we’ll see “a continuation of Louisiana’s scheduling laws,” which “use War on Drugs tactics to deprive people of access to medication abortion, and criminalize those who try to help them.”

Mariappuram pointed to another “particularly awful” bill in Texas, also filed in November, that would ban internet providers from hosting websites of abortion funds or sites that offer any information on abortion, including abortion pills. Meanwhile, at the federal level, Congress continues to consider KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act), which is designed to protect children on the internet, but activists have been sounding the alarm that it could be used by anti-abortion attorneys general to block online information about abortion. KOSA has received broad, bipartisan support, save from one Senate Democrat who’s vocally criticized it for its threats on abortion and LGBTQ youth.

States may also follow the lead of Tennessee, which recently introduced a bill to punish people who mail abortion pills into the state with a $5 million fine. The bill poses a significant threat to shield laws, which protect doctors and health care providers who prescribe and send abortion pills to patients in states that ban abortion from facing criminal charges and legal repercussions. (Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Vermont, New York, and California all have these laws.) “We’re likely going to need states with shield laws to adopt even stronger protections,” Mariappuram said—especially as, just last month, Texas waged the first major challenge against shield laws by suing a New York doctor for mailing abortion pills into Texas.

Republicans are coming for abortion-related travel and minors

A new study estimates that 65% of people who had to travel for abortion care *before Dobbs* incurred a “catastrophic health expense”—defined as 40% or more of their ability to pay—compared to 32% of those who were able to access care in their home states https://t.co/WLtru9bgXT

— Garnet Henderson (@garnethenderson) November 8, 2024

In 2024, Tennessee followed Idaho’s lead and enacted a law that criminalizes so-called “abortion trafficking,” or helping minors access information about abortion and helping them travel out-of-state for care without parental permission. Tennessee’s law is temporarily blocked in court pending additional litigation. But, Mariappuram warned, we’re guaranteed to see similar bills in state legislatures this cycle, as anti-abortion politicians increasingly crack down on abortion-related travel.

We’re seeing this at pretty much every level: A rash of Texas counties have passed ordinances outlawing the use of county highways for abortion-related travel, though it’s unclear how these measures can be enforced, while, last year, Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would codify a right to interstate travel for abortion. Anti-abortion officials justify their actions to stop “abortion trafficking,” but what they really want is to trap people of all ages under their abortion bans. This will be high on their agenda in 2025, Mariappuram said.

Even when anti-abortion lawmakers’ bills are unsuccessful, their objective is disinformation and confusion. So, to be clear: Interstate abortion travel remains 100% legal. 

Under the guise of supporting “parental rights,” anti-abortion lawmakers are set to target young people in a range of other ways. Last year, a wave of states introduced bills to force public schools to show students anti-abortion propaganda videos; New Hampshire has already filed a similar bill for this year’s session. More bills will likely (continue to) attack minors’ access to any sex ed whatsoever—all to ostensibly “empower” parents.

“The parental rights movement is huge right now, and weaponized to attack young people on everything, especially abortion, sexual health, book bans, access to gender affirming care,” Mariappuram said. “And as we’ve seen for trans people, the right starts with minors, and then once legal action can effectively be taken against young people, everyone else is next.”

States may try to conceal worsening maternal health crises

Abortion bans have increasingly fueled maternal care deserts in states across the country. Naturally, this drives worsened maternal health outcomes. But over the last year, states like Georgia, Texas, and Idaho have all led efforts to censor or even bar their maternal mortality committees from tracking maternal deaths; last year, ProPublica reported on five maternal deaths that were confirmed to be caused by abortion bans—two in Georgia and three in Texas.

Diaz-Tello warned that, as states increasingly try to “conscript health care workers to act as law enforcement officers,” and report patients suspected of abortions or substance use during pregnancy, more pregnant people may forego seeking health care altogether, further worsening maternal outcomes.

Expect a mixed bag for birth control

Thanks to Project 2025, we know that birth control is on the chopping block for the Trump administration, which is expected to slash funding for family planning programs and allow more insurers and employers to deny contraceptive coverage. Sussman says she also expects the Trump administration to make steep cuts to Medicaid, Planned Parenthood, and reproductive care writ large; just last month, the Supreme Court accepted a case weighing whether anti-abortion states can withhold Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood even for the range of non-abortion services it provides.

But in response, Mariappuram says that “states are taking proactive measures to protect birth control, and even states with conservative majorities have some luck with this.” One such example is Michigan. An Idaho law expanding access to birth control took effect this month, requiring insurers to cover larger supplies of birth control. Virginia lawmakers have previously introduced legislation to establish constitutional rights to birth control and gender-affirming care along with abortion.

At the same time, Mariappuram warned that anti-abortion lawmakers will pursue backdoor methods to attack birth control, namely by falsely equating it with abortion—a long-standing strategy among the movement. Last year, Senate Republicans blocked a bill to codify a right to contraception, with several falsely claiming its protections for emergency contraception amounted to protections for abortion. On the state level, Mariappuram says Republican lawmakers may add amendments to bills governing insurance coverage policies or state budgets that bar coverage of certain birth control methods by mislabeling them as abortifacients, as we saw in Indiana and Mississippi in 2024.

Empowering abusers

Marcus Silva, has filed a notice to dismiss his claims against a group of women after he alleged assisted his ex-wife in obtaining a self-managed abortion.

Background: https://t.co/Gkz7cEMK6N pic.twitter.com/YU6S7UYl4s

— Cameron Abrams (@CameronSAbrams) October 11, 2024

In November, Texas Right to Life said the organization is recruiting men to file lawsuits against partners or ex-partners for having abortions without their consent. Before that, prominent anti-abortion attorney Jonathan Mitchell represented several Texas men against their partners in various legal harassment campaigns. In 2023, he helped Marcus Silva sue the women who helped his ex-wife buy abortion pills for $1 million. (Silva and Mitchell dropped the suit in October 2024, days before it went to trial when it was clear they had no case—but the women say the damage of a nearly two-year legal harassment campaign was already done.) Mitchell helped a different Texas man file a legal complaint against his ex for allegedly traveling out-of-state for an abortion, and the Texas Tribune identified at least one other case of Mitchell helping a man take action against his ex for an alleged abortion. Attorneys for the woman warned that if Mitchell has his way, “any scorned lover could harass or intimidate their ex … for simply receiving a false-positive pregnancy test.”

In June, the National Domestic Violence Hotline published a survey on reproductive coercion (acts of control over your partner’s reproductive decisions) showing that since Dobbs, 5% of over 3,000 survey respondents said their partners threatened to report them to police or other authorities for considering abortion, and another 5% said partners threatened to sue or take them to court if they sought abortion. 

“This will continue [into 2025], because that’s what these laws are for,” Diaz-Tello told Jezebel. Abortion bans—especially bans like Texas’ SB 8, which rely on civil enforcement via costly lawsuits—are expressly for the purpose of “litigation abuse.”

Time to get proactive

States where abortion is legal can and should enshrine abortion rights in their state constitutions, or increase access to abortion to be able to serve more out-of-state abortion seekers. For example, they can pass legislation that expands which health care workers are eligible to provide abortion services, or expand access to medication abortion to ease the extreme strain on abortion clinics. They can also enact shield laws, and states that already have these laws in place should closely watch how Texas and New York’s legal battle plays out, and prepare to update and strengthen their shield laws. 

Plenty of states where abortion is legal maintain restrictive laws on minors’ abortion access, or even archaic laws like a 1911 law in Nevada, which says that use of “any drug, medicine or substance, or any instrument or other means with the intent to terminate” a pregnancy after 24 weeks can be charged with manslaughter. There’s no reason states shouldn’t act in 2025 to repeal these laws.

Even states where abortion is banned should try to pass proactive legislation, Mariappuram said, pointing to a Tennessee bill to restore a right to abortion. “It’s about stating clearly, ‘Hey, this isn’t what people want, these aren’t our values,’” she said.

There’s no way to sugarcoat it: 2025 will present an existential fight for our reproductive rights, and it’s hard to know what if anything will remain under the incoming administration. But the fight will unfold beyond the federal level. “Some of the greatest harm people are experiencing is at the local level, from local prosecutors, local lawmakers, local interpretations of laws to criminalize pregnant people,” Thompson said. “So, we’re thinking locally and how we can approach this work as close to the ground as possible, because that’s also where we can be the most creative and agile.”