I am bereft of metaphors to describe Trump’s war on abortion access. It is just very, very bad. Women have died because of anti-abortion policies and attitudes, and they will continue to do so. Those that do not die face increased risk of domestic violence and poverty, among other horrors. Children born of unwanted pregnancies suffer, too: they are more likely to live in poverty and less likely to meet developmental milestones than other children.

Like I said, it’s bad. But there are so many bad things happening simultaneously, it can be easy to lose the thread. If you’re feeling lost in the sea of sadists we’re currently sailing, maybe this abortion-specific list of Trump’s misdeeds will help.

This list may depress you, but here’s the thing: We can’t resist what’s happening if we don’t know what’s happening. So here’s a rundown on everything the current administration has done in its first six weeks on abortion alone—and what you can do if you want to fight back.

Removing critical information from government websites. Without information about reproductive health care, how to seek it, or how to keep themselves safe while seeking it, many people will simply not seek reproductive health care. Trump’s lackeys know this. They took down:

• Reproductiverights.gov, “which was the website that pointed folks towards care and had information on reproductive health care,” explains Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy advisor at the Guttmacher Institute,
• Any mention of Biden policies that protected access to abortion care and HIPAA’s protections for reproductive health care from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) website, and
• 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 (CDC) website.

Ending essential data collection. The Trump Administration ended the CDC’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), a federal program “designed to identify groups of women and infants at high risk for health problems, to monitor changes in health status, and to measure progress towards goals in improving the health of mothers and infants,” in the words of the program’s website. PRAMS has run continuously since 1988 and covers everything from the particulars of newborn health and morbidity to issues like postpartum depression.

“Having data and understanding trends—and in particular, understanding the effects of Dobbs and abortion bans is really crucial to making evidence-based policy. If we don’t have the data, we can’t show both the harmful effects of abortion bans and what this Administration is doing, and it really just is part of their attack that I think can often go unnoticed,” says Bernstein.

Issuing batshit executive orders and statements, including ones that:

• Double down on the Hyde Amendment. This Amendment is not a permanent law, but it has been attached as a temporary “rider” to the congressional appropriations bill for HHS every year since the 1970s. This rider prohibits the federal government from funding abortion in most situations. Trump’s new executive order says that the Amendment prohibits not just outright payment for abortion, but also any activities that constitute “promoting” abortion.

What counts as “promoting” abortion is unclear, but it likely encompasses using federal funds to inform the public of reproductive health care services and rights—which could be why government websites no longer mention them. It could also mean that, “if you‘re a university that takes federal dollars,” you cannot distribute information about or potentially even study abortion, says Lizz Winstead, founder of Abortion Access Front. Depending on how broadly the Trump administration defines “abortion,” Winstead adds, this executive order could even suggest that distributing information about or studying IUDs, Plan B, and emergency contraception are verboten.

This executive order also rescinded two Biden-era executive orders related to abortion access, which (among other things) established the White House Gender Policy Council and a Medicaid program that allowed states to try new ways to expand access to family planning services.

• Reinstate the “Mexico City Policy” from Trump’s first term. This policy—also known as the Global Gag Rule—denies certain types of foreign aid to overseas health centers unless they agree not to take a public position in support of reproductive freedom or use their own, non-U.S. funds for abortion services and counseling. Coupled with the Administration’s slash-and-burn approach to USAID, this executive order will devastate overseas health care providers.
• Strongly support a bill pending in the House called the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (H.R. 21). This bill purports to require that children “born alive” after an abortion receive the same standard of medical care as all other infants in the country. According to Bernstein, and several groups of medical experts, this bill is solving a problem that doesn’t exist. “It really just puts patients and providers more at risk by using this inflammatory rhetoric.”
• Suggest the “personhood” of fetuses. Although this order primarily attacked trans rights, it also snuck in language arguably defining life as beginning at conception. Specifically, that order defined “female” as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell” and a male as “a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.” House Speaker Mike Johnson praised the addition of this language when he spoke at March for Life this January, describing “life as beginning at conception rather than birth.” This language caters to anti-abortion activists, who have long sought to have the law see fetuses as “people.” If those activists get their way—and this executive order suggests they might—then fetuses would be accorded the same rights as all other people, such as the rights to equal protection and due process, as well as child support. Abortion would be murder, and stem cell research, assisted reproductive technology like IVF, and certain forms of birth control could well be banned.

These orders are bad, but “one of the important things to remember about these executive orders is that so much of it is really a signaling of actions to come,” explains Bernstein. They can lead to more scrutiny of existing government programs, she adds, as happened with “that bizarre spreadsheet that was sent out to every government program” asking it to identify any current expenditures that promote gender ideology.

These executive orders also have an “overarching chilling” effect on patients and providers alike, notes Winstead. “People who are experiencing miscarriage are terrified to go because they think they’ll be accused of murder or homicide, so they are miscarrying at home. They are not going in for follow-up treatment. They’re afraid of what might happen if they do.”

Changing how laws are enforced by the Department of Justice. Specifically around a law that is supposed to protect patients and providers from harassment.

• Trump basically ripped up a federal law called the Freedom for Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which prohibits threats of force, obstruction, and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.
• Trump pardoned people convicted of violating the law—including Lauren Handy, who invaded and blockaded a DC abortion clinic and was found with five fetuses in her home—and his Justice Department issued a memo saying that no new “abortion-related” FACE Act cases can be brought without the Department’s approval. “More than anything,” Bernstein says, this new approach is “making clear where this Administration’s values and priorities lie.”

Cutting funding that allowed members of the military to travel for abortion care and fertility treatment. Biden’s Defense Secretary had implemented the policy after the reversal of Roe v. Wade to ensure that troops who were assigned to states where abortions or other types of reproductive health care were no longer provided could still access that care. The Biden-era policy was used just 12 times in 7 months.

Nominating people with really trash views on abortion for critical positions. “The heads of these agencies really potentially have a lot of power to implement anti-abortion, anti-science agendas,” Bernstein explains. The nominated individuals include:

• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: In his new role as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy will oversee all Department policy and administer federal programs related to reproductive health care, including Medicaid and the FDA. During his confirmation hearing, he proudly stated: “I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy” and “I serve at the pleasure of the president. I'm going to implement his policies” on abortion. “It seems that RFK is so profoundly susceptible to bullshit that he will do the bidding of the Trump Administration,” including saying “medication abortion isn’t safe” when it clearly is, says Winstead.
• Attorney General Pamela Bondi: In her previous job as Florida Attorney General, Bondi defended the state’s abortion restrictions. She is now responsible for enforcing the FACE Act and the Comstock Act. What could go wrong???
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio: He has a long history of advocating for abortion restrictions, including a national abortion ban, and he believes that IVF poses a “very difficult bioethical issue.” In his new role, Rubio has already instructed the U.S. Mission to the United Nations to notify other countries that we plan to rejoin the Geneva Consensus Declaration—a non-binding pact stating that there is no right to abortion internationally and asking the UN to respect countries’ individual approaches to abortion access. Rubio has also been tasked with implementing Trump’s reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule.
• Russell Vought: The new Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and co-author of Project 2025, which outlined priorities for Trump’s second term. One of these priorities was eliminating abortion access. Like Kennedy, Vought stated during his confirmation hearing that he would “implement anything the President’s asked” him to implement. In his new role, Vought will be responsible for funding recommendations for all government programs, including the Title X family planning program, the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, and the United Nations Population Fund.
• Dan Bishop, the nominee for Deputy Director of OMB: Bishop has consistently voted against abortion access, even where it is necessary to save the mother’s life. He’ll help Vought carry out his (and Trump’s) agenda.
• Dr. Dave Weldon: The nominee to head the CDC. Weldon is perhaps best known for the Weldon Amendment, a federal appropriations rider that can be used to prevent states from enforcing laws that protect abortion access. In his time serving in the House, he has consistently voted for bills restricting reproductive rights.
• Dr. Martin Makary: Trump’s nominee for Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Makary has fan-boyed on the Tucker Carlson show, where he spouted inaccurate information about fetal development. Focus on the Family and Catholic Vote praised his nomination as opening the door to rescission of the FDA’s approval for medication abortion—which is currently the most common form of abortion in the country.

Who knows what travesties tomorrow holds—to say nothing of what anti-choice states might try to do on their own, separate and apart from what the federal government does.

So what can you do? First of all, take care of yourself. Trump wants to “flood the zone” until we drown. Don’t let him. Keep swimming and help those around you stay afloat. We know it’s exhausting. We’re already exhausted, too, and we have another . . . *checks notes* three years and ten and a half months to go.

What else would help? Here are some suggestions:

• Educate yourself. Did you see our recent piece on how to get or abet an abortion? Buy abortion pills in advance! (And here are more resources from the Washington State Department of Health, and even more from King County.) Learn how to recognize and expose fake clinics that shame people who seek abortion care. Don’t sleep on ProPublica’s helpful overview of how to protect yourself if you have a miscarriage. Learn more about your home state’s abortion laws and policies here. And here’s a great fact sheet about the Hyde Amendment.
• Stay engaged. Do you know where your elected officials stand on reproductive rights issues? Even if they are pro-choice generally, do they think state Medicaid should cover the full cost of abortion services? How much coverage should it provide? You can find your state representatives here, learn about their positions, contact and question them, and show up for protests and marches.
• Donate to abortion funds. These funds provide direct, financial support to reduce the financial and logistical barriers to abortion. The National Network of Abortion Funds is a country-wide consortium of almost 100 abortion funds. The Northwest Abortion Access Fund specifically serves Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.
• Provide practical support. Find networks that help abortion seekers overcome logistical barriers to abortion access in specific communities, or register as a volunteer to be matched with an organization that needs your specific skill set.
• Donate to independent clinics. Small clinics are essential to making sure that people can access care where they live. If they disappear, so do our rights. You can adopt one and help keep it afloat.
• Take heart from history. Before Roe v. Wade, the Janes provided abortion care in secret. Laura Kaplan, one of the Janes’ founders, has said that its members were not “superheroes or Amazon warriors.” Instead, they were ordinary women. You can look at the Janes “and think: that could be me.”