This week would have marked the 53rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide — that is, until 2022, when the court overturned it. Since then, abortion has been banned in 13 states and severely limited in 10 others.

Yet anti-abortion activists remain frustrated, in some cases even more so than before Roe was overturned.

Why? Because despite the new legal restrictions, abortions have not stopped taking place, not even in states with complete bans. In fact, the number of abortions has not dropped at all, according to the latest statistics.

“Indeed, abortions have tragically increased in Louisiana and other pro-life states,” Liz Murrill, Louisiana’s attorney general, said at a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing this month.

That’s due in large part to the easier availability of medication abortion, which uses a combination of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, and particularly to the pills’ availability via mail after a telehealth visit with a licensed health professional.

Allowing telehealth access was a major change originally made on a temporary basis during the covid pandemic, when visits to a doctor’s office were largely unavailable. Before that, unlike most medications, mifepristone could be dispensed only directly, and only by a medical professional individually certified by the Food and Drug Administration.

The Biden administration later permanently eliminated the requirement for an in-person visit — a change the second Trump administration has not undone.

While the percentage of abortions using medication had been growing every year since 2000, when the FDA first approved mifepristone for pregnancy termination, the Biden administration’s decision to drop the in-person dispensing requirement supercharged its use. More than 60% of all abortions were done using medication rather than a procedure in 2023, the most recent year for which statistics are available. More than a quarter of all abortions that year were managed via telehealth.

Separately, President Donald Trump’s FDA in October approved a second generic version of mifepristone, angering abortion opponents. FDA officials said at the time that they had no choice — that as long as the original drug remains approved, federal law requires them to OK copies that are “bioequivalent” to the approved drug.

It’s clear that reining in, if not canceling, the approval of pregnancy-terminating medication is a top priority for abortion opponents. This month, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America called abortion drugs “America’s New Public Health Crisis,” referencing their growing use in ending pregnancies as well as claims of safety concerns — such as the risk a woman could be given the drugs unknowingly or suffer serious complications. Decades of research and experience show medication abortion is safe and complications are rare.

Another group, Students for Life, has been trying to make the case that the biological waste from the use of mifepristone is contaminating the nation’s water supply, though environmental scientists refute that claim.

Yet the groups are most frustrated not with supporters of abortion rights but with the Trump administration. The object of most of their ire is the FDA, which they say is dragging its feet on a promised review of the abortion pill and the Biden administration’s loosened requirements around its availability.

President Joe Biden’s covid-era policy allowing abortion drugs to be sent via mail ”should’ve been rescinded on day one of the administration,” SBA Pro-Life America’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a recent statement. Instead, almost a year later, she continued, “pro-life states are being completely undermined in their ability to enforce the laws that they passed.”

Lawmakers who oppose abortion access are also pressing the administration. “At an absolute minimum, the previous in-person safeguards must be restored immediately,” Senate HELP Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy said during the hearing with Murrill and other witnesses who want to see abortion pill availability curtailed.

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) said at the hearing that he hoped “the rumors are false” that “the agency is intentionally slow-walking its study on mifepristone’s health risks.”

The White House and spokespeople at the Department of Health and Human Services have denied the review is being purposely delayed.

“The FDA’s scientific review process is thorough and takes the time necessary to ensure decisions are grounded in gold-standard science,” HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said in an emailed response to KFF Health News. “Dr. Makary is upholding that standard as part of the Department’s commitment to rigorous, evidence-based review.” That’s a reference to Marty Makary, the FDA commissioner.

Revoking abortion pill access may not be as easy as advocates hoped when Trump moved back into the White House. While the president delivered on many of the goals of his anti-abortion backers during his first term, especially the confirmation of Supreme Court justices who made overturning Roe possible, he has been far less doctrinaire in his second go-round.

Earlier this month, Trump unnerved some of his supporters by advising House Republicans that lawmakers “have to be a little flexible” on the Hyde Amendment to appeal to voters, referring to a decades-old appropriations rule that bans most federal abortion funding and that some Republicans have been pushing to enforce more broadly.

And while the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration has many analysts noting how much of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint has been realized, the most headline-grabbing portions on reproductive health have yet to be enacted. The Trump administration has not, for example, revoked the approval of mifepristone for pregnancy termination, nor has it invoked the 1873 Comstock Act, which could effectively ban abortion nationwide by stopping not just the mailing of abortion pills but also anything else used in providing abortions.

Still, abortion opponents have decades of practice at remaining hopeful — and playing a long game.

HealthBent, a regular feature of KFF Health News, offers insight into and analysis of policies and politics from KFF Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner, who has covered health care for more than 30 years.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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Congressional Republicans are reportedly trying to insert anti-abortion language into government funding legislation as the shutdown continues, with the GOP and President Donald Trump digging in against a clean extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits as insurance premiums surge.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sounded the alarm on Saturday about what he characterized as the latest Republican sneak attack on reproductive rights.

“Republicans said they might vote to lower Americans’ healthcare costs, but only if we agree to include a backdoor national abortion ban,” Wyden said in remarks on the Senate floor.

The senator was referring to a reported GOP demand that any extension of ACA subsidies must include language that bars the tax credits from being used to purchase plans that cover abortion care.

But as the health policy organization KFF has noted, the ACA already has “specific language that applies Hyde Amendment restrictions to the use of premium tax credits, limiting them to using federal funds to pay for abortions only in cases that endanger the life of the woman or that are a result of rape or incest.”

“The ACA also explicitly allows states to bar all plans participating in the state marketplace from covering abortions, which 25 states have done since the ACA was signed into law in 2010,” according to KFF.

Wyden said Saturday—which marked day 39 of the shutdown—that “Republicans are spinning a tale that the government is funding abortion.”

“It’s not,” Wyden continued. “What Republicans are talking about putting on the table amounts to nothing short of a backdoor national abortion ban. Under this plan, Republicans could weaponize federal funding for any organization that does anything related to women’s reproductive healthcare. They could also weaponize the tax code by revoking non-profit status for these organizations.”

“The possibilities are endless, but the results are the same: a complete and total restriction on abortion, courtesy of Republicans,” the senator added. “Trump said he’d leave abortion care up to the states. Well, this latest scheme makes it crystal clear: A de facto nationwide abortion ban has been his plan all along.”

The GOP effort to attach anti-abortion provisions to government funding legislation adds yet another hurdle in negotiations to end the shutdown, which the Trump administration has used to throttle federal nutrition assistance and accelerate its purge of the federal workforce.

Trump is also pushing a proposal that would differently distribute federal funds that would have otherwise gone toward the enhanced ACA tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

“It sounds like it could be a plan for health accounts that could be used for insurance that doesn’t cover preexisting conditions, which could create a death spiral in ACA plans that do,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican widely suspected of having aims on the 2028 presidential nomination, has continued to cause frustration among his congressional colleagues due to his obsession with an issue many of them see as repellent to voters, according to NOTUS.

Despite President Donald Trump's appointees being credited with overturning Roe v. Wade, he and many other members of the GOP have tried to avoid anti-abortion issues since the party drastically underperformed in the 2022 midterms, which was widely attributed to its abortion stances. While Trump has since returned to the White House and Republicans control both chambers of Congress, they have opted not to pursue much in the way of high-profile anti-abortion legislation in spite of their advantages, fearing more voter revolt.

One Republican lawmaker who has consistently bucked that trend is Hawley, who has made numerous moves in the past year to try and put a national spotlight on anti-abortion causes. Most recently, he put forward a bill that would ban Mifepristone, the drug used for medication abortions, at the federal level, with NOTUS reporting that the move has renewed frustrations from his conservative colleagues by reviving their "least favorite campaign issue."

"Not talking about abortion, they may think that’s a feature. I think that’s a bug,” Hawley told the outlet. “I’m pro-life. I want to do what I can to advance the pro-life cause.”

According to NOTUS's Thursday report, Democratic opposition means the bill is dead-on-arrival in the Senate, but even in the House, where Republicans still hold a razor-thin majority, some in the party have spoken out against Hawley for dredging up anti-abortion policies beyond the state level. Rep. Max Miller, an Ohio Republican in a district considered vulnerable in the upcoming midterms, spoke with the outlet about his view that abortion issues should remain a matter for the states.

“It’s my opinion that each and every Republican has to run their own race,” Miller said. “The state of Missouri is very much different from the state of Ohio... I respect his opinion. I am extremely pro-life and I’ve never been anything but pro-life. But I’m going to go ahead and stick with President Trump on this one and not the senator."

Rep. David Valadao of California, another Republican in the Democrats' midterm crosshairs, also expressed frustration about Hawley's priorities.

“I think what we should be focusing on right now is funding the government, get DHS back open, pass the farm bill, getting permitting reform done and working on things that actually make our economy better and make our country stronger,” Valadao said.

When pressed about whether or not the GOP should focus on abortion issues ahead of the midterms, Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, another lawmaker considered vulnerable to Democrats, said only, "No," with NOTUS noting that he smiled while giving the answer.

Former CNN host Don Lemon is among the 39 people facing federal charges in connection with a January 18 protest inside an evangelical Christian fundamentalist church in Minneapolis, where demonstrators interrupted a service to speak out against aggressive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Federal prosecutors are arguing that interrupting the service was an attack on churchgoers' First Amendment rights.

Lemon, however, is emphasizing that he wasn't part of the protest — he was strictly there as a journalist covering it.

Reporter Claire Wang examines the legal issues the case raises in an article published by The Guardian on March 4. And according to some legal scholars, prosecutors in the Donald Trump-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) are perverting a 1994 law — the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act or FACE Act — in order to attack political opponents.

Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, told The Guardian, "What we're seeing with Trump is the favoring of some places and viewpoints over others, and an increase in prosecutions to blur the line between speech and intimidation and protests…. The FACE Act is the nuclear option. The penalties are extreme. It's one thing to say people shouldn't disrupt religious services and another to charge them with a felony."

The 39 defendants, according to Ziegler, are being accused of violating First Amendment rights when it is the Trump DOJ that is attacking the First Amendment.

Wang notes that the FACE Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton 32 years ago, "was initially established to protect abortion clinics from an eruption of violence" and that "a clause extending the protections to houses of worship was added later."

"For most of its history," Wang notes, "the FACE Act has been used exclusively to prosecute anti-abortion groups and agitators. The Trump Administration, Ziegler said, has rolled back the use of the law to prohibit blockades of abortion clinics while expanding its powers against pro-Palestine and anti-ICE protests near religious sites…. In September, the Justice Department used the law to sue the pro-Palestinian activists involved in the 2024 New Jersey synagogue protest. It marked the first time the Face Act was used to target a demonstration at a place of worship."

Sophie Ellman-Golan, director of strategic communications for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, believes that a "political event" taking place inside a place of worship is fair game for nonviolent protests.

Ellman-Golan told The Guardian, "We really believe that First Amendment protest rights are an essential part of building an open society and democracy that have allowed Jews to thrive in New York City…. Something should not be given the shield of religion just because they're taking place inside a church."

Kai Schwemmer, political director of College Republicans of America (CRA), was attempting damage control when he stated that he was "not a groyper" — a reference to followers of white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

Schwemmer drew criticism from Jewish groups for streams on Cozy.tv, a platform founded by Fuentes — and Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, in a March 13 post on X, formerly Twitter, warned, "Appointing Kai Schwemmer, a longtime ally of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, as political director signals the College Republicans of America is normalizing antisemitism and white supremacy, full stop. Fuentes holds strong influence over his fans, the 'Groyper Army,' and regularly jokes about the Holocaust. Schwemmer has appeared at Fuentes' conferences, streams on his platform and has spread conspiracy theories about 'Zionists' in America."

CRA President Martin Bertao is doubling down on his decision to hire Schwemmer as political director, writing that he will "apologize…. to absolutely NOBODY."

In an article published on March 30, however, The Guardian's Jason Wilson stresses that Schwemmer has become a liability for Republicans on college campuses.

"The newly appointed College Republicans of America Political Director Kai Schwemmer has made racist, antisemitic, homophobic and sexist statements while espousing extremist right-wing views on abortion, a Guardian review of livestream recordings can reveal," Wilson reports. "Schwemmer said he would accept a world in which slavery was legal if abortion was criminalized, describes himself as 'very much an anti-universal-suffrage guy' and accepts a supporter's description of him as 'our Mormon Nick Fuentes' — referring to the white nationalist influencer whose platform he streamed on for years. The comments were made after Schwemmer's return from a two-year Mormon mission to Argentina, a period he recently claimed had seen him undergo a 'process of growth' that led him to abandon previous racist beliefs."

Wilson adds, "Schwemmer had previously expressed extremist and bigoted views. The streams, many of which are not publicly available but remain accessible behind a paywall on Schwemmer's Gumroad page, also contain previously unreported material from his earlier broadcasts. In one, he walks a user through a sequence of antisemitic leading questions on the Omegle platform before directing her to Fuentes' streaming site. In others, he claims gay men are 'weaponizing' gyms 'to give you AIDS' and celebrates a DNA test he says proved 'I'm 0% Jewish.'"

Jeff Tischauser, a senior researcher for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is skeptical about claims that Schwemmer is distancing himself from Fuentes and the groyper movement.

Tischauser told The Guardian, "Any time someone claims they have left the movement, you need to watch them closely to see if their actions match their rhetoric, and if they are being sincere. It does not seem like Kai Schwemmer is being sincere."

Although Missouri is a red state — Donald Trump carried Missouri by 18 percent in 2024 compared to roughly 14 percent in Texas — its largest city, St. Louis, is a Democratic stronghold. Tensions have long existed between St. Louis' Democrat-dominated city government and Missouri's GOP-controlled state government in Jefferson City, and those tensions escalated when Donald Trump became the Republican Party's most influential figure.

St. Louis-based journalist Devin Thomas O'Shea describes the growing tensions between that city and Missouri Republicans in an article published on March 20.

Those tensions, according to O'Shea, are underscored by Republican responses to a May 2025 tornado that killed five people in the St. Louis and inflicted considerable damage.

"In St. Louis, as The Wall Street Journal pointed out, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been antagonistic to recovery efforts," O'Shea explains. "Neither the president nor this last year's Homeland Security director, Kristi Noem, believe that FEMA should exist. Some Senate Democrats believe Noem's pausing and delaying FEMA payments violated federal law, but the effect is that Missouri has been added to a growing list — alongside North Carolina after Hurricane Helene — of states cut loose, left to rebuild on their own."

O'Shea continues, "Noem cut FEMA's workforce by thousands to achieve this result, and if St. Louis is a test case for contemporary climate disasters, the verdict is in: You're on your own."

St. Louis City Mayor Cara Spencer, according to O'Shea, "admits that things have moved too slowly" with tornado recovery efforts "and that money has not reached storm victims."

"While some Missouri Republicans claim they are upset about FEMA's dysfunction, they are also using the tornado recovery to lash St. Louis," O'Shea notes. "This year, the GOP plans to bankrupt the city. This is not an exaggeration — in January, the Missouri Legislature turned $100 million in relief into a weapon to compel St. Louis to enact the budget policy of eliminating the earnings tax, a prime source of city revenue. It's also not an exaggeration to say that the Missouri State Legislature spent last year moving forward with the re-invasion of the City of St. Louis."

O'Shea adds, "The Republican-controlled state spends much of its legislative time trying to overturn voter referendums. State-wide, Missourians approve abortion, vote in favor of increasing the minimum wage, and reject right-to-work legislation. Meanwhile, Missouri lawmakers go to work to criminalize abortion, lower the minimum wage, and get right-to-work back on the ballot. In March 2025, three months before the tornado, Gov. Mike Kehoe rejected a 2012 voter referendum that granted local control of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (STLPD) to the City of St. Louis."

After a lengthy delay, President Donald Trump released a national cybersecurity strategy on Friday afternoon — and, as one critic observed, it seems at odds with the reality of America “hemorrhaging cyber-talent.”

Trump’s strategy is "impressively underachieving, even by the abysmal standards this Administration has set for itself,” said Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) He then pointed out that the plan does not account for the most glaring issue facing the Trump administration.

Thompson added, “Completely lacking is even the most basic blueprint for how the Administration will go about achieving any of its cybersecurity goals — an objective possibly hamstrung by the hemorrhage in cyber talent across all Federal agencies since Trump took office.”

By contrast, Trump claimed his strategy “calls for unprecedented coordination across government and the private sector to invest in the best technologies and continue world-class innovation, and to make the most of America’s cyber capabilities for both offensive and defensive missions.”

The federal workforce is experiencing a massive personnel shortage under the Trump era, both due to the president’s sweeping layoffs and because he has reportedly made it less comfortable to work for the government. Agencies like the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA), the National Weather Service (NWS), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are all bleeding quality staffers.

"Another abrupt departure of a high-ranking Food and Drug Administration official is raising alarm about a brain drain that could mean new drugs take longer to reach the public," reported Axios' Pete Sullivan in December. "Why it matters: Biotech and pharmaceutical companies rely on the FDA for dependable guidance as they spend huge sums developing new treatments. The American public needs the agency to ensure treatments are safe and effective…. Driving the news: The latest uproar surrounds the unexpected departure of Richard Pazdur, a respected oncologist who just three weeks ago became the fourth person to direct the FDA's drug center this year."

He added, "Pazdur's appointment had helped calm nerves to some degree within industry after months of turmoil. But now, executives and even former FDA commissioners are publicly questioning the agency's direction."

Trump’s policies are also causing brain drains from red states to blue states. Last year Common Dreams reported widespread dissatisfaction from individuals over restrictive abortion laws. Among 10,000 adults surveyed by Morning Consult, 1 in 5 of respondents who are planning on having children in the next decade either moved from an anti-abortion state to a pro-choice one or know someone who has. Notably, 14 percent of people with advanced degrees have either moved out-of-state or know someone who has over anti-abortion laws.

"Workers are not willing to trade their health and autonomy for a paycheck," Dr. Jamila K. Taylor, president and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), told Common Dreams at the time.

Trump is even pushing personnel out of his own party, albeit indirectly and perhaps unintentionally. Of the 62 lawmakers who have so far announced they will not seek reelection, 37 are Republicans.

On March 25, the James Dobson Family Institute published an article by far-right evangelical Christian fundamentalist Gary Bauer — president of American Values and former president of the Family Research Council — headlined "The Left Wants to Hijack Jesus! Don't Let Them." Bauer argued that "the secular left" is "trying to recast Christ as a 'woke' socialist who favors open borders and aborting innocent children."

Christian liberals, however, are not a new phenomenon. Over the years, liberal church figures have ranged from the Rev. Al Sharpton and the late Rev. Jesse Jackson to Sister Mary Scullion (a Catholic nun known for her activism in Philadelphia). Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) is a Baptist minister.

In an op-ed published by Religion News Service (RNS) in late March, Paul Brandeis Raushenbush points to Bauer's article as an example of how "panicked" the Religious Right is feeling because of James Talarico (a Presbyterian seminarian and the Democratic nominee in Texas' 2026 U.S. Senate race) and other Democrats who aren't shy about discussing their faith.

"Christian nationalists are sounding a bit panicked these days," Raushenbush argues. "I can't say I am surprised. On Saturday (March 28), 8 million Americans of diverse faiths and beliefs joined together in streets and squares around the world for No Kings protests. The next day, the Christian holy day of Palm Sunday, thousands more came out again. All of these people were rejecting the rising autocracy of our current moment, and many of them were Christians. No wonder, then, that the late James Dobson's Family Institute recently published an article blaring an alarm: 'The Left Wants to Hijack Jesus! Don't Let Them.'"

Christian nationalists in general, Raushenbush observes, are feeling threatened by Talarico and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.

"Pete Hegseth's pastor, Brooks Potteiger, was so incensed by Talarico's faith and politics that he went so far as to wish for his death," Raushenbush writes. "Others have tried to paint Talarico and Beshear's faith convictions as deviant, completely out of step with Christian thought. In reality, they aren't. According to the Pew Research Center and the Public Religion Research Institute, the majority of Christians actually support LGBTQ+ equality and abortion rights."

Raushenbush continues, "Meanwhile PRRI's most recent survey shows that only a third of Americans sympathize with Christian nationalism, and two-thirds of Americans are skeptical or outright reject the ideas and goals of Christian Nationalists. The majority of Christian nationalists are white evangelical Protestants, a group that, Robert P. Jones, president of PRRI, says is shrinking."

Raushenbush describes Christian nationalists' "preferred framing of American politics as secular left vs. Christian" as "false" and ignorant of history.