October 4, 2025
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#Fight4HER's Repro Rundown
Hello friend,
September 28th, International Safe Abortion Day, marked the 25th anniversary of the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a milestone in reproductive health that has transformed abortion access across the United States. Over a quarter-century of use and more than 100 peer-reviewed studies confirm what patients and providers already know: mifepristone is both safe and effective. It has been used by more than 7.5 million people since its approval, and accounts for over 60% of all abortions in the U.S.
Now, under the Trump administration, access to mifepristone is under threat. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has ordered a new “review” of its safety and efficacy, a thinly veiled move to restrict and ultimately ban mifepristone, championed by rabidly anti-abortion organizations and attorneys general. Rather than following the decades of scientific evidence that demonstrate the drug’s safety, the Trump administration is in cahoots with its anti-abortion cronies. The administration’s recent move to link Tylenol use in pregnant women to autism only underscores how science is being entirely disregarded in favor of right wing ideology.
Mifepristone has been lifesaving for many people who otherwise might have been denied abortion care due to state level bans, or barriers like travel costs, childcare expenses, and a lack of paid time off of work. By 2023, nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States were medication abortions. Telehealth providers operating under “shield laws” in states that protect reproductive rights have further expanded access, ensuring that patients in states with bans still have options.
Anti-abortion advocates are ruthless in working toward their true goal: making abortion impossible to obtain. This strategy is not about preventing harm, it is about controlling people and their reproductive lives. And when public health agencies lend legitimacy to this blatant act of deception, the result is confusion, stigma, delayed care, and in the worst case scenarios, death.
The consequences are stark. If access to mifepristone is blocked, more people will be forced to continue unwanted pregnancies, with all the associated risks to health and autonomy. Patients who might otherwise have been able to manage their care safely at home will be forced to travel to states without abortion bans, or left with no option but to pursue unsafe abortion options. Evidence-based medicine will be pushed aside in favor of ideology. At its core, this is a struggle over whether people can make their own decisions about their health and futures, with dignity, respect, and the safe care they deserve.
Alongside this latest attack on mifepristone, the Trump administration is still threatening to destroy $10 million worth of already purchased contraceptives. Take action now to prevent this needless destruction.
Stop the Destruction of Contraceptives [[link removed]]
The Rundown
Abortion
* The Guttmacher Institute reports a 5% decline in clinician-provided abortions in states where the procedure is legal, and an 8% drop in out-of-state travel for abortions, a reversal of prior trends. The researchers suggest this may reflect greater reliance on medication abortions (which are less consistently tracked in traditional data) and the expansion of “shield laws” enabling mail delivery of abortion pills across states: After years of increases, abortion trends are shifting in states without bans [[link removed]] (CNN, September 30, 2025)
* South Carolina legislators held a hearing on Senate Bill 323, a proposed “Unborn Child Protection Act” that would ban virtually all abortions by removing rape and incest exceptions and treating abortion referrals as criminal aiding and abetting. Under the bill, doctors performing abortions outside narrowly defined life-threatening scenarios could face felony charges and up to 30 years in prison, and pregnant women could lose legal protections for seeking care: SC senators hear testimony on one of America’s most restrictive abortion bills [[link removed]] (Carolina News, October 3, 2025)
* A California woman is suing Dignity Health, an organization that operates dozens of hospitals and thousands of clinics in California, Arizona, and Nevada, including two Catholic hospitals that denied her an emergency abortion when her water broke at 17 weeks in back-to-back pregnancies. The condition she experienced (previable preterm premature rupture of the membranes, or previable PPROM) is always fatal for the fetus and poses serious threats to the person carrying the pregnancy. The plaintiff suffered from sepsis and required a blood transfusion at an out-of-network hospital after she was denied an emergency abortion the second time she experienced previable PPROM: Emergency abortion denials by Catholic hospitals put woman in danger, lawsuit claims [[link removed]] (LA Times, September 30, 2025)
Domestic Health Care
* Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has closed its three abortion-providing clinics so that its other 22 clinics can continue receiving Medicaid reimbursements for other reproductive health care services. Trump’s sweeping budget bill prohibits Medicaid reimbursements to organizations that provide abortions and receive more than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements a year. Clinics in Illinois are preparing for an influx of abortion patients coming from Wisconsin: Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin closes abortion providing clinics [[link removed]] (PBS Wisconsin, September 25, 2025)
* Trump and Congressional Republicans chose to let the government shut down rather than address the health care crisis they caused by repealing tax credits for health care coverage. Policies come up for renewal in November, and Democrats are demanding action now to avoid price increases of up to 75 percent: Health insurance costs for 22 million in limbo as shutdown begins [[link removed]] (The Hill, October 1, 2025)
* In the two years after Roe v. Wade fell, prosecutors charged over 400 women with pregnancy-related crimes, most having to do with substance abuse. Over three-quarters of the accused women were receiving benefits for low-income individuals. Despite proponents of abortion bans claiming that criminal charges can "only" be levied against providers, nine of the women's cases involve abortion-related allegations, based on dubious “fetal personhood” laws: Hundreds of US women charged with pregnancy-related crimes since fall of Roe [[link removed]] (The Guardian, September 30, 2025)
International Reproductive Health
* South Africa’s Constitutional Court struck down discriminatory leave laws, ruling that all parents, whether mothers, fathers, adoptive, or surrogate, must be entitled to equal parental leave and can share it as they choose. The unanimous decision reframes caregiving as a shared responsibility, protecting children’s wellbeing while dismantling outdated assumptions that only women should be primary caregivers: Fathers entitled to equal parental leave, South Africa's top court rules [[link removed]] (BBC, October 3, 2025)
* Activists In Sierra Leone say that U.S. cuts to foreign aid have left the country ill-equipped to address a surge in Mpox and untreated HIV: How Mpox revealed an epidemic of untreated HIV in Sierra Leone – as Trump’s aid cuts begin to bite [[link removed]] (The Independent, September 19, 2025)
* The Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid and cuts to USAID grants are jeopardizing HIV prevention efforts in Kenya and across sub-Saharan Africa: Trump’s aid cuts bring fresh hate for young people with HIV in Kenya: ‘It takes little to push people back’ [[link removed]] (The Independent, September 26, 2025)
Feeling fired up by the Repro Rundown ? Take action now to prevent the destruction of $10 million worth of already paid for contraceptives by the Trump administration.
Prevent the destruction of contraceptives today! [[link removed]]
[[link removed]] Lauren Salmiery
National Field Director
She/Her/Hers
Support the #Fight4HER [[link removed]]

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