One Month of Trump 2.0: Amidst All the Chaos, Attacks on Reproductive Health and Rights

Yesterday marked one month of President Donald Trump’s second term. Amidst the weeks of chaos and confusion, the President picked up right where he left off from his first term, resuming attacks on reproductive rights and access to care. 

Within days of taking office, Trump acted to rescind President Joe Biden’s executive orders to protect reproductive health care, scrub information about these essential health services from government websites, impose global restrictions on the provision of abortion care and information, nominate a slew of anti-abortion extremists to his administration, and more.  

The Center for Reproductive Rights has been chronicling these and other developments on Repro Red Flags: Agency Watch, a new web tool featuring information on Trump’s key nominees and appointees, their anti-repro backgrounds, and the powers of the agencies they will oversee. 

Below, the Center takes a closer look at confirmed Trump officials and the substantial steps the administration has already taken to target and diminish reproductive rights both in the U.S. and abroad. 

Anti-Repro Nominees

President Trump is stacking the government with anti-reproductive rights officials responsible for leading critical federal health programs and providing reproductive health services domestically and globally. While high-ranking government positions (such as agency heads) require Senate confirmation, thousands of other officials are simply appointed by the President and assume office immediately.  

Senate-confirmed officials with alarming anti-reproductive rights backgrounds include:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was unanimously confirmed on the President’s first day in office and acts as the President’s chief foreign affairs officer.

• In this role, Secretary Rubio oversees the implementation of global reproductive rights norms and standards, in addition to funding for international health programs directly linked to the “Global Gag Rule”—which restricts U.S. foreign assistance to organizations providing abortion services or information.
• Rubio, a former Senator, established a long track record of advocating for anti-abortion policies, including a national abortion ban, and has stated he believes life begins at conception and that IVF poses a “very difficult bioethical issue.”

Attorney General Pamela Bondi, who now leads the Department of Justice (DOJ) and serves as the federal government’s chief law enforcement officer.

• Bondi will be responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinical Entrances (FACE) Act—which protects patients and providers from violence and harassment; overseeing the National Task Force on Violence Against Health Care Providers—which combats violence against health care providers; and determining the Department’s position on the Comstock Act—a Victorian era anti-sex law that extremists are hoping to misapply to restrict access to, or even ban, abortion nationwide.
• As Florida Attorney General, Bondi joined amicus briefs advocating for limits on abortion and contraception access and defended the state’s abortion restrictions in court. During her Senate confirmation hearing, Bondi agreed to use her position as Attorney General to protect crisis pregnancy centers—anti-abortion fake clinics that try to block patients from accessing abortion services—and answered questions regarding the DOJ’s efforts to protect access to medication abortion by stating that she is “personally pro-life.”

Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought, who is responsible for developing the President’s budget.

• In this role, Vought is responsible for making funding recommendations related to government reproductive health care programs, including the Title X family planning program, the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, and the United Nations Population Fund, which works to improve reproductive and maternal health worldwide. He also has the power to fast-track regulations that restrict reproductive health care.
• Vought was a co-author of Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump’s second term outlining plans to utilize all the available instruments of the federal government to decimate access to abortion. He has also stated that he does not believe in abortion exceptions for rape, incest, or to save the life of the pregnant person. In responding to a question about the Global Gag Rule during his confirmation hearing, Vought stated that he “will implement anything the President has asked [him] to direct.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now oversees all Department policy and administers major federal programs and agencies critical to reproductive health care.

• In this role, Kennedy’s oversight includes such programs and agencies as Medicaid, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Title X program.
• During his confirmation hearing, Kennedy made clear he would readily implement a wide range of anti-abortion policies, which could include reinstating the Title X domestic gag rule, prohibiting research using fetal tissue, restricting access to medication abortion via telehealth, ending abortion later in pregnancy, strengthening religious refusals of care, and eliminating “federal funding for abortions here or abroad.”

Executive Actions

President Trump and his officials took swift action to change domestic and foreign policies and erase information on reproductive health care.

Erasing Information—and Transgender People

• The administration took down the entire government-run website ReproductiveRights.gov—which provided resources and information on reproductive health care and abortion access.
• It scrubbed the Department of Health and Human Services website of any mention of abortion related to Biden-era policies that protected care.
• It removed contraception guidelines and pages related to HIV testing directed specifically toward LGBTQ+ people, along with entire data sets of research, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
• It deleted from the HHS website any mention of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protections for reproductive health care, making it more difficult for patients to know and advocate for their privacy rights.
• In an attempt to erase transgender people’s existence under the law, the administration issued an Executive Order declaring it official U.S. policy to recognize only two genders, “male and female,” while using language attempting to normalize the concept of personhood at conception.
• Another Executive Order directed agencies to restrict access to gender-affirming care for individuals under 19 years of age through federal health insurance programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and TRICARE.

Foreign Policy: Withdrawing Aid, Imposing Restrictions

• The administration acted to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization—the United Nations (UN) agency responsible for global public health—and the UN Human Rights Council, jeopardizing the health and rights of millions around the world.
• It broadly froze foreign aid funding for 90 days—suspending contraception and other women’s health services throughout the world.
• Secretary Rubio announced that the U.S. would immediately rejoin the Geneva Consensus Declaration, an anti-reproductive rights and anti-LGBTQ political statement that attempts to undermine the broad legal basis for reproductive rights as human rights. 
• Rubio was tasked with implementing Trump’s Presidential Memorandum reinstating the Global Gag Rule (GGR). (In response, the Center has relaunched its Global Gag Rule Pro Bono Clearinghouse to provide pro bono counsel to non-governmental organizations affected by the GGR.)
• Rubio also led the State Department’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an agency that provides humanitarian assistance, including crucial family planning resources.

Domestic Policy: Removing Protections, Imposing Restrictions

• President Trump pardoned 23 people convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act), six of whom had blockaded a Michigan clinic represented by the Center. Attorney General Bondi’s DOJ also ordered their prosecutors to cease enforcing this law protecting abortion patients and providers from violence and harassment.
• President Trump issued an Executive Order rescinding two sweeping Biden-era Executive Orders designed to protect and expand access to reproductive health care.
• The Department of Defense revoked Biden administration policies providing travel reimbursements and administrative leave for servicemembers seeking abortion care. This deprives our servicemembers and their dependents of timely access to the full range of comprehensive reproductive health services.

Looking Ahead

It’s clear that we can expect this chaos and confusion—and the attacks on reproductive rights and health—to continue over the next four years.

The Center’s Federal Policy team will continue to remain on high alert, tracking key policies impacting abortion access, maternal health, assisted reproduction, and other reproductive health and rights issues.

Repro Red Flags: Agency Watch will help you keep on top of it all—actions by the president, his officials, and the agencies they manage—and how they directly impact the reproductive health and rights of Americans, as well as people across the globe. The tool, updated on an ongoing basis, will also continue to provide opportunities to take action against the administration’s harmful nominees and policies.

Check out Repro Red Flags: Agency Watch here.