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July 10th, 2025
Senate Republicans’ ‘Big, Beautiful’ Backdoor Ban
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Congressional Republicans have spent the last few years now pledging they won’t ban abortion—just impose “reasonable limits,” perhaps a “minimum national standard” sprinkled here and there.
And now, here we are: Senate Republicans just voted to pass a budget bill that effectively serves as a national backdoor abortion ban—defunding Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers across the country.
Planned Parenthood estimates that two-thirds of its brick-and-mortar health centers across the country could be forced to shutter, with 90% of those closures happening in states where abortion is protected. In fact, a whopping 75% of abortion-providing clinics in pro-choice states could close.
What does that mean on a broad scale? One in four of all abortion providers in the U.S. could soon close—leaving abortion legal but almost impossible to access (at least in a clinical setting) in many states.
In other words, the so-called “big, beautiful bill” is actually Republicans’ “big, beautiful” backdoor ban on abortion.
Not-so-coincidentally, this bill comes at a time when Republicans are aggressively attacking abortion pills and telehealth—which account for one in four abortions in the U.S. They’re pointing to one bogus “study” after another to misrepresent telemedicine abortion access as unsafe—and to pressure Trump’s FDA to adopt medically unnecessary restrictions.
If patients can't access telemedicine abortion, they’re naturally forced to seek in-clinic care, which might not exist if their state bans abortion. And now, even in states where abortion is legal, in-clinic care could soon be pushed even further out of reach, if not decimated altogether.
Republicans’ budget bill also comes right on the heels of the Supreme Court ruling last week that South Carolina can strip Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds, opening the door for other states to do the same. Meanwhile, in April, the Trump administration froze over $65 million in federal grants for Planned Parenthood affiliates and other reproductive health providers.
So, where else are patients to turn for basic health care? Here’s what Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill-Johnson says:
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Abortion Bans are Another Weapon for Abusers
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Two years before Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Luba Reife remembers a question she received from one of her clients, whose abusive partner didn’t know she was pregnant yet: What difference would it make if she had an abortion, versus if she chose to move forward with her pregnancy?
“That obviously wasn’t a choice I could make for her, but the answer is, it could make all the difference in the world,” Reife said. A senior staff attorney at the New York-based victim advocacy organization Sanctuary for Families, Reife is also co-founder of the organization’s new Reproductive Abuse Initiative.
Sharing a child with your abuser can link you to them for the rest of your life—and that’s exactly why impregnating their victims, with or without their consent, is such a common line of attack from abusers. In some states, including several that have banned abortion, a divorce can’t be finalized while someone is pregnant, without exceptions for abuse.
Earlier this month, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a new study showing abortion bans have increased intimate partner violence across the U.S. since Dobbs, linking these laws to 9,000 additional incidents of intimate partner violence in states that limit abortion rights.
That shouldn’t be a surprise. In the first year after Roe was overturned, calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline about reproductive coercion doubled. And, of course, the landmark Turnaway Study shows that people who are denied abortions face significantly increased risk of long-term domestic violence.
The Reproductive Abuse Initiative is one of few programs in the nation that offer cost-free, legal representation to victims experiencing reproductive coercion, which occurs when an abuser exerts control over someone’s pregnancy-related decisions. Reife’s clients have included one victim whose abuser “would trap her with him” by repeatedly impregnating her, “coercing her to have unprotected sex,” and ensuring she was “more and more deeply entrenched in the relationship” with each of their three kids.
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Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down state's 1849 near-total abortion ban
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday formally struck down an abortion ban from 1849 that had technically retaken effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights.
In a 4-3 decision that came down along ideological lines, the court’s liberal majority affirmed a lower court ruling that overturned the 176-year-old ban and left in place a more recent law in Wisconsin allowing most abortions until about the 20th week of pregnancy.
"We conclude that comprehensive legislation enacted over the last 50 years regulating in detail the 'who, what, where, when, and how' of abortion so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was meant as a substitute for the 19th-century near-total ban on abortion," liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet wrote in the majority opinion. "Accordingly, we hold that the legislature impliedly repealed [the 1849 ban] to abortion, and that [that law] therefore does not ban abortion in the State of Wisconsin."
The ruling is a win for abortion rights activists in the battleground state, where Democrats had put the issue at the forefront of many elections — including two races in 2023 and 2025 that recalibrated the state Supreme Court's ideological balance — in the years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The state’s 1849 law — enacted the year after Wisconsin was granted statehood — banned abortion in almost all cases by making performing the procedure a felony. Under the law, doctors who perform the procedure technically faced up to six years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines. The law included an exception for abortion care only to save the life of the woman, but not for her health or for rape or incest.
As was the case in many states with similar older laws, or newer so-called trigger laws, the ban technically snapped back into effect almost immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade in 2022. In short order, the decision prompted Planned Parenthood’s Wisconsin operations to suspend abortion services in the state.
But a series of legal developments then put the question of the law’s future before the state Supreme Court.
Read More [[link removed]]
📌 Training: Abortion, Trans Rights & Bodily Autonomy
* Join Unrestrict Minnesota for a virtual training where we’ll explore the deep connections between abortion rights and trans rights, and gain tools to talk about these issues with the people in our lives.
* 📅 Wednesday, July 30 | 5:00 PM CT
* 🎟️ Register HERE [[link removed]]
📌 Join AAF on Saturday, August 9th, from 1pm -- 2:30pm CT for Operation Save Abortion!
* Join Abortion Access Front’s Feminist Buzzkills and crew for a high-energy, high-impact workshop streamed live from Netroots Nation. In this session of Operation Save Abortion, you’ll get the inside scoop on the tactics being used to roll back abortion rights, and learn exactly how to fight back.
* This isn’t just talk. It’s action. With toolkits, Q&A, and clear steps to get involved, you’ll leave ready to defend abortion access in your community.
* 📅 Saturday, August 9 | 1:00-2:30 PM CT
* 🎟️ Register HERE [[link removed]]
📌 Screening of Zurawski v. Texas.
* The documentary produced by Jennifer Lawrence, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton, exposes the devastating impact of abortion bans on pregnant women.
* 📅 Wednesday, July 16 | 🕞 3:30 PM & 7:00 PM
* 📍 The Main Cinema, Minneapolis
* 🎟️ Tickets available HERE [[link removed] .]
* 💸 $20 donation | $5 for students
* 🎤 Q&A with director Abbie Perrault after each showing.
📌 Abortion Access Community Resources from OurJustice
* From locating a clinic to finding childcare or transportation, we know it can be overwhelming to arrange everything necessary to access an abortion. Women Winning partner, OurJustice, has collected lists of community resources and services so that it’s easier to get the care you need.
* Find a clinic, get the abortion pill, find resource funding and more from OurJustice. [[link removed]]
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