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reproductive healthcare
4 Years After Dobbs, Abortion Is Still on the Ballot
This November, will the American people show up to the polls to defend reproductive freedom? Or, will our elected officials succumb to pressure from extremists seeking to ban abortion nationwide?
Jul 08, 2026
In today’s post-Roe world, the current landscape of abortion care is not defined by a single sweeping law or dramatic congressional vote. Instead, it is shaped by something far more subtle, sinister, and more consequential for millions of Americans. As we speak, every lever of government is being used to chip away at our reproductive freedom—and anti-abortion extremists are just getting warmed up.
This November, will the American people show up to the polls to defend reproductive freedom? Or, will our elected officials succumb to pressure from extremists seeking to ban abortion nationwide?
This year marks four years since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated federal protections for abortion care. As the lead plaintiff in Zurawski v. Texas, I have felt the full weight of the deadly Dobbs decision, and what happens when extremism infiltrates our democracy leading to devastating consequences for women and patients nationwide.
In a recent New York Times piece entitled “The Missing Middle in the Abortion Debate,” the author asserts that candidates need to find a “middle ground” and compromise when it comes to abortion laws in states like Texas. But the reality is that there is no “middle ground” when lives are at risk.
Protecting abortion access is still popular with Americans across the political spectrum, and yet, anti-abortion extremists and lawmakers continue to ignore what most Americans want.
As soon as Roe was overturned, states with anti-abortion legislatures quickly instituted trigger bans resulting in several women dying in states like Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina after being denied or delayed abortion care. In the years since we lost federal protections for abortion rights, many more women and patients from across the country have jumped through unimaginable hurdles just to seek care they needed.
Let me be clear, the piece treats abortion like a line on a chart. I know how being denied abortion care can mean the difference between life and death, and I also know that compromising on reproductive rights can cost women their lives.
My husband Josh and I always knew we wanted a family, so after trying for over a year, I found out that I was pregnant with my baby girl, Willow. However, at 18 weeks pregnant, our lives completely changed when we learned that my cervix had prematurely dilated, that amniotic fluid was leaking from my body, and that Willow was not going to survive to birth. Because of the Dobbs decision, which happened two months prior to everything I was experiencing, doctors sent me home because they could not legally treat me. Days later, I was in the ICU with sepsis, fighting for my life. Today, because I was denied the care I desperately needed, I am unable to bear children in the future.
My pregnancy was wanted. My daughter Willow was wanted. In a perfect world, I would be growing my family with my husband and daughter by my side. Instead, I turned my trauma into advocacy and have spent the last four years fighting for women across the country to be able to access safe abortion care.
Right now, anti-abortion extremists are leveraging every opportunity to ban abortion nationwide—no matter the cost. They are orchestrating a layered, coordinated effort to restrict abortion access through our judicial system, state legislatures, and federal agencies. Anti-abortion extremists are taking these measures to achieve several goals at one time: eliminate abortion care without further complicating their chances in the upcoming midterm elections.
And yet, anti-abortion politicians and lawmakers have been relentless in their efforts to chip away at abortion access. From Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-M. attacks on medication abortion, and Senate Republicans upholding President Donald Trump’s ban on abortion care for veterans or demanding anti-abortion riders in critical funding legislation—these extremists have demonstrated a clear commitment to enacting their anti-abortion agenda.
What’s alarming is that these attacks are not happening in isolation. Republicans are publicly avoiding discussion of abortion ahead of November. However, wherever they are governing, they are actively fighting to take away our freedom to choose.
Though the post-Dobbs landscape was initially framed as “a return to states’ rights,” the reality is that Trump and his administration have taken a number of covert steps to diminish abortion care, while allowing states to lead the charge in an all out assault on abortion rights. Republican-led state legislatures are advancing laws to block the mailing of abortion medication, criminalize its distribution, and even classify these medicines as controlled substances.
Furthermore, several states have taken up lawsuits similar to Louisiana v. FDA to challenge federal approval and distribution rules. In other words, state-level bans are being weaponized to attack all forms of abortion care and eliminate a patient’s ability to receive comprehensive reproductive healthcare.
As we look toward November, now more than ever we must be mindful of who will stand up for reproductive freedom—because lives are on the line. Abortion is on the ballot once again, and we deserve to know who will protect our freedoms without hesitation or compromise.
I recently traveled back to Washington, DC to tell my story alongside more than 150 abortion storytellers to talk about the impact of the Dobbs decision on our lives and in our communities. We met with both Democratic and Republican offices to stress the importance of fighting for reproductive freedom to save lives.
Protecting abortion access is still popular with Americans across the political spectrum, and yet, anti-abortion extremists and lawmakers continue to ignore what most Americans want. According to the latest data by Navigator Research, a majority of Americans continue to believe that abortion should be legal in most cases and that lawmakers who support anti-abortion policies, including banning or restricting contraception and abortion nationally, are deal-breakers.
The debate is no longer just about whether abortion is legal in a given state. It’s about who controls the systems that determine access: courts, agencies, supply chains, and Congress.
Extremists are weaponizing the machinery of democracy to erode our freedoms—not all at once, but piece by piece, at the expense of American lives. Now more than ever, we must use our voices at the ballot box and beyond to fight back.
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Planned Parenthood Can Access Medicaid Funds Again as Congress Lets Ban Expire
Reproductive healthcare advocates vowed to keep up the fight as conservative activists pressure Congress to make the funding ban permanent.
Jul 05, 2026
Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health clinics regained access to Medicaid funding on Saturday after a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act defunding the organizations expired.
The provision depriving Planned Parenthood was touted as a major victory for the anti-abortion movement when the bill was signed on July 4, 2025, but, due to Senate rules, the defunding only lasted for one year, and Congress failed to renew it before their summer recess.
While this means that Planned Parenthood, Health Imperatives in Massachusetts, and Maine Family Planning can once again bill Medicaid for non-abortion related healthcare, it doesn't reverse the damage caused by a year-long lack of access to funds totaling more than $800 million per year for Planned Parenthood alone.
“Tens of thousands of patients have been denied access to services like cancer screenings and birth control and STI testing and treatment. These are things that just can’t be undone,” Nora Walsh-DeVries, vice president of political and legislative affairs at Planned Parenthood Action Fund, told The Hill.
"Patients have totally borne the cost of this politically motivated attack on care."
In a report published July 1, Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood Action Fund said that the defunding had led to the closure of almost 30 health centers, two-thirds of which were in rural areas, or locations that had a shortage of medical services or healthcare professionals. In addition, all of the closed centers were in "contraceptive deserts." Overall, the number of Medicaid visits to the organization decreased by 25% compared with the year before.
“By deliberately targeting Planned Parenthood, President [Donald] Trump and his allies in Congress worsened a public health crisis, making it harder for people to get the essential and lifesaving care they needed at their trusted provider," Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement.
Olivia Pennington, a spokesperson for Maine Family Planning, told NPR, "It's been devastating to see this defund and to see the impacts that it's had across the nation."
As Walsh-DeVries further told The Hill, “I think it’s just really clear that patients have totally borne the cost of this politically motivated attack on care."
Despite the restoration of funding, uncertainty lingers. Walsh-DeVries said that it wasn't clear how clinics could obtain the restored funds, and states can now block Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood on their own, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling last year. To date, 13 states have blocked or tried to block funds.
What's more, conservative and anti-abortion advocates have expressed outrage at Congress' failure to extend the funding ban, and are determined to pressure it do so via a reconciliation bill.
"This failure must be corrected immediately. President Trump and Congress must act as fast as possible to restore and extend the defunding of Planned Parenthood and every organization that commits abortion," Lila Rose, founder and president of anti-abortion group Live Action, said in a statement.
However, 65% of Americans oppose congressional efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, according to polling by the organization, and it is unclear if Republicans as a whole have the political will to renew the ban ahead of the midterm elections. Planned Parenthood Action Fund is currently mobilizing to unseat House republicans who voted for the ban last year.
“We have to really continue to do the work that we’re doing to make this as politically toxic as possible,” Walsh-DeVries told Politico.
McGill Johnson affirmed: "Anti-abortion lawmakers are trying to make ‘defund’ permanent because Planned Parenthood health centers provide abortion care where it’s legal. They are willing to sacrifice the lives and health of people across the country if it gets them closer to their goal of banning abortion everywhere and shutting down Planned Parenthood."
She continued: "We’re in a fight for survival—not just for Planned Parenthood health centers, but for everyone to get high-quality, affordable healthcare from their trusted provider. And know this: Planned Parenthood will never stop fighting to ensure everyone can get the care they need.”
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Reproductive Justice Is a Men's Issue, Too
If men are part of the pregnancy equation, and they are, then they must also be part of the solution by advocating for abortion rights and taking shared responsibility for contraception.
Jun 21, 2026
There is a dangerous myth embedded in the fight for reproductive justice: that the battle is solely about women, or even solely about those who can become pregnant. It is not. It is equally about men, especially those who hold power, and perhaps more critically, those who choose not to use it, because silence, in this moment, is not neutral. It is consequential.
Across the United States, reproductive rights are being dismantled by legislative bodies that remain overwhelmingly male. Men still make up roughly 73% of Congress, while some state legislatures, particularly those passing the most restrictive abortion bans, exceed 80% male representation. The result is accelerating policy built on distance: lawmakers regulating bodies they will never inhabit, consequences they will never personally endure.
As educator and activist Jackson Katz has long argued in his work, including his TED Talk “Violence Against Women, It’s a Men’s Issue,” gender-based injustices are too often framed as “women’s issues,” allowing men to disengage. Katz argues that the silence of men who consider themselves allies is itself part of the system that allows harm to continue. In the context of reproductive rights, that silence has had profound consequences.
And yet, there is a growing body of work challenging exactly this imbalance, calling attention to the role men play not just in policy, but in pregnancy itself. In Ejaculate Responsibly, author Gabrielle Blair reframes the abortion debate with striking clarity as an advocate for condoms and vasectomies; she says, “Women are expected to practice and learn how to use birth control, I don’t think it’s unrealistic to ask men to learn how to use their birth control options.” The premise is simple but often ignored: Pregnancy does not occur without male participation, and yet responsibility overwhelmingly falls on those who become pregnant.
This Father’s Day, men have a choice: to continue benefiting from silence and distance, or to finally recognize reproductive justice as their fight too.
Blair further notes that men are fertile continuously and capable of causing multiple pregnancies, while women and other people who can become pregnant have limited reproductive windows. Yet public policy overwhelmingly regulates the latter, not the former.
At the ground level, the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP) knows the human impact. Funding abortion care from coast to coast and working with more than 700 clinics nationwide, WRRAP supports thousands of patients each year, many navigating financial hardship, domestic instability, or complete abandonment by their partners.
WRRAP’s experience consistently reflects a painful pattern: Patients are often left carrying the financial burden alone after disclosing a pregnancy. Costs related to transportation, childcare, lodging, lost wages, and medical care frequently fall entirely on the pregnant person, even though pregnancy itself involves two people.
This is where the conversation about men must deepen, because while men are part of every pregnancy, they are often absent from its consequences. For WRRAP, 69% of patients have had their partner abandon them, placing the financial burden on the patient.
What would it look like if that changed? What if men were held financially accountable for pregnancies from the moment they occur, including the cost of abortion care? What if responsibility extended to ensuring that the pregnant person had the resources to make the decision that is right for them?
It is a question that exposes a fundamental inequity. The current system allows men, whether lawmakers or partners, to exert influence without bearing equivalent responsibility. They can legislate restrictions without experiencing the outcomes. They can disengage from pregnancies without absorbing the costs. And when they do neither, when they simply remain silent, the system continues unchecked.
The political reality is impossible to ignore. Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, more than 1,500 politicians, overwhelmingly male, have supported abortion bans or severe restrictions.
Meanwhile, public opinion data from Pew Research Center show that a majority of men support legal abortion access in at least some circumstances. Yet support in polling has not translated into sustained advocacy, organizing, or political pressure.
Katz’s work emphasizes that change requires more than awareness, it requires action. Men must see themselves not as peripheral to this issue, but as central to it. They must challenge harmful narratives in their own circles, advocate for policies that protect access, and support organizations like WRRAP doing the work.
Because reproductive justice is not just about access to care, it is about who bears the burden. Right now, that burden falls disproportionately on pregnant people: those navigating financial instability, healthcare barriers, social stigma, and abandonment, often without support.
If men are part of the equation, and they are, then they must also be part of the solution. Not quietly. Not passively. But visibly, vocally, and materially invested in the fight for reproductive justice.
This Father’s Day, men have a choice: to continue benefiting from silence and distance, or to finally recognize reproductive justice as their fight too through advocacy, accountability, and even shared responsibility for preventing pregnancy, including vasectomies.
This piece was provided by American Forum.
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