Donald Trump’s arrival in Washington has caused much worry among abortion rights activists—and rightfully so. Given that he ran a campaign in which he supported punishment for women who seek abortions, should the procedure be banned, questions about what a Trump presidency (combined with the Republican majority in Congress and the Republican majority in statehouses across the country) means for access to reproductive justice loom large. However, a new report released by the Guttmacher Institute indicates that, so far, there has not been as much anti-abortion activity at the state level as previously predicted or as compared to previous years.
The institute’s report finds that state legislatures across the country have introduced some 1,053 reproductive-health-related provisions since January, and that of those proposed measures, 431 would restrict access to abortion services, while 405 would expand access to reproductive health services—the report does not categorize the remaining measures.
Of course, this may not be simply because states have suddenly given up their desire to prevent women from accessing abortions but instead because other, more immediate issues, have caught their attention. And since we know that Republicans are like a dog with a bone when it comes to abortion, it shouldn’t surprise us if they pick back up their efforts at a later date.
"There is this competition to the bottom that has been happening with state legislatures and abortion over the past six years," says Elizabeth Nash, the state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute and the lead author on the report. But in 2017, she adds "the scale has changed." She explained that compared with the same period from 2011 to 2016, "we haven’t been seeing as much activity on abortion as we have seen." Rather than suggesting a diminished interest in abortion restrictions, Nash explains that given the onslaught of new abortion restrictions in the past six years, some states might simply be running out of measures to introduce. But beyond that, health care reform, state budgets, and the opioid crisis might have caused conservative state legislatures to focus their attention elsewhere at the beginning of their legislative sessions, suggesting that anti-abortion activity might pick up later in the year.
To be clear, this is mixed news at best. Several states have been quite busy working on abortion restrictions this year and some of them are downright awful. Kentucky, Wyoming, Arizona, Arkansas and Utah have already passed restrictions in 2017. In Utah, doctors are now required to lie to women by saying that medication abortions can be “reversed” midway through the process, even though that appears not to be supported by any scientific evidence whatsoever. And in Arizona, there are now specific requirements for doctors to work to preserve the life of a fetus after an abortion procedure. Still, as Congress remains in the hands of the Republicans, it appears that more important reproductive justice battles will be waged at the state level.
Proactive legislation on the state level is likely to become increasingly important as the Republican-controlled Congress and other conservative-led legislatures continue to use funding to target reproductive services providers such as Planned Parenthood. Last week, Trump signed into law a measure allowing states to withhold public funds used for family planning—also known as Title X funding—marked for contraception and other nonabortion services from groups that also provide abortions.
Donald Trump can be counted on to flip-flip on many issues on any given day but abortion isn’t likely one of them—especially not with Mike Pence at his ear. Our best hope for ensuring that women have access to safe reproductive health options is to continue to work for progressive policies at the state level and to work for change at the national level in 2018. Let’s stay vigilant, folks!