How a Trump victory would change abortion rights in America | Wilnesh News

This week, voters in seven out of 10 states approved ballot measures guaranteeing abortion rights, a popular question This helps drive Americans to the polls.

But health policy experts warned that President-elect Donald Trump’s victory early Wednesday could make the procedure more fragile and uncertain across the United States, leaving many women’s reproductive well-being hanging in the balance.

Trump’s stance on abortion has been fairly vague, recently saying he would Not supported federal ban and wants to leave the issue to the states. But Trump and his federal appointees can further restrict abortion at the federal level through methods that do not require Congress to pass new legislation.

“The more restrictions we place on abortion over the next four years, the worse health outcomes are going to be,” said Katie O’Connor, senior director of federal abortion policy at the National Women’s Law Center. “People are suffering and dying needlessly.”

In the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the federal constitutional right to the abortion procedure, abortion access in the United States has been in a state of flux — a decision that Trump has taken credit for since reorganizing the court to him. As of last year, More than 25 million women People aged 15 to 44 live in states with stricter abortion restrictions than before the court’s 2022 ruling, according to PBS.

Experts say the Trump administration’s further crackdown on abortion could harm the health of many patients, especially those with low or low incomes. people of colorthere is danger.

“As long as our government is not fully committed to providing access to abortion to everyone who seeks it, there will be confusion and confusion on the ground about what is legal and what is available,” O’Connor said. “This will exacerbate our The ongoing health care crisis when it comes to abortion.”

It’s unclear what action Trump will take on this issue. There is little public support for Congress to pass a nationwide abortion ban, according to one person. polling June conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. At least 70% of Americans oppose a federal ban on abortion or a ban on abortion within six weeks.

Experts say that if Trump does decide to restrict abortion, that could include limiting the use of medical abortions, especially those performed through telemedicine or by mail.

In the United States, medications are the most commonly used method of terminating pregnancy, accounting for 63% of abortions in the United States Last year, according to a March study by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-life research group.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Biden administration insists the provisions of the Comstock Act are outdated. Trump said in August he has no plan Enforcement of the Comstock Act.

But anti-abortion advocates and people in Trump’s close circle, including his running mate, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, have urge on the contrary. Some of Trump’s former advisers also supported using the Comstock Act to restrict abortion pills in Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint. So does every major anti-abortion organization in the country.

O’Connor noted that any enforcement efforts would likely be met with legal objections.

The issue could eventually make its way to the Supreme Court, where justices are open to the idea that the Comstock Act might ban abortion. Earlier this year, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas Called repeatedly In cases involving medical abortion, the Comstock Act was cited during oral argument.

In 2023, anti-abortion doctors launched a legal battle with the FDA over its more than two decades of approval of the drug. In June, the Supreme Court unanimously approved fired The challenge to mifepristone and on the side of the Biden administration means the commonly used drug remains widely available.

But Trump’s FDA appointees may push to roll back some of the changes made between 2016 and 2021 that expanded the use of mifepristone. This may include reinstating the requirement for in-person dispensing of mifepristone, which would Effectively eliminate Get your pills via telemedicine.

Telemedicine has become an increasingly common way to obtain abortion bills, accounting for nearly one in five in the final months of 2023, according to statistics. a research project Published in May by Planned Parenthood.

Alina Salganicoff, senior vice president and director of women’s health policy at KFF, a health policy research organization, said limiting telemedicine as an option would have an “incredible chilling effect” on abortion.

“We may see that in states where abortion is banned, more people have to travel and it takes longer to get care, and more people may not actually be able to get an abortion in person because of the difficulty of accessing it,” she said. Get medical care.

The new FDA leaders may also try a more extreme approach: revoking mifepristone’s approval entirely. Experts say both strategies ignore important scientific research demonstrating that mifepristone is safe and effective for use in the United States.

trump card vaguely suggest In August, he did not rule out instructing the FDA to revoke mifepristone’s authorization. A few days later, Vance trying to walk back these remarks.

Trump’s comments appeared to be a shift from his stance in June, when the former president said during a CNN debate that he “would not block” the use of mifepristone.