Pro-abortion offensive precedes Trump administration

Already one of the most pro-abortion states in the nation, California is redoubling its efforts.

Last month, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced two new bills, one of which details the state’s intent to protect access to chemical abortion pills like mifepristone and shield providers from liability when distributing the drugs. The Attorney General Enforcement of the Reproductive Privacy Act prevents local government entities from regulating abortion facilities within their districts.

California isn’t alone in beefing up its pro-abortion stance ahead of a second Trump administration. Several states have doubled down on abortion laws based on their expectations that President-elect Donald Trump will take steps to increase protections for unborn babies.

One day after New York passed an amendment to add abortion-related language to the state’s existing constitutional protections against discrimination, Gov. Kathy Hochul launched the “Empire State Freedom Initiative.” Per a news release, the task force will be “focused on key areas where New York State and New Yorkers are most likely to face threats from a Trump administration, including reproductive rights.” In November, Michigan lawmakers introduced a bill requiring sex education teachers to inform students about how to obtain abortions. And Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs recently called for an end to abortion reporting in her state. “The government has no place in surveilling Arizonans’ medical decision-making or tracking their health history,” Hobbs said in a statement.

Some pro-abortion bastions specifically fear that Trump will move to protect babies from chemical abortion. The Center for American Progress reports that at least six states, including Massachusetts and Maryland, have stockpiled abortion drugs. Oregon’s Health and Science University has enough pills to last until 2028.

Chemical abortion was responsible for 63% of the more than 1 million abortions performed in 2023, up from 53% percent in 2020, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. The increase is partly due to the FDA’s 2023 decision to permanently update its telehealth and mail restrictions on mifepristone, removing a protection that required a woman to meet with a physician in person to receive the drug.

Pro-abortion pundits worry that Trump will want to enforce the Comstock Act, an 1873 law which prohibits mailing, among other things, pornography and abortifacients. But during an interview with CBS News in August, Trump clarified he wouldn’t revive the law to apply it to telehealth abortions.

Some states, including California, are buckling down for a Comstock revival anyway. Ingrid Duran, director of state legislation for National Right to Life Committee, argues the state’s two new bills are mainly a public relations stunt.

“I honestly think it’s like a nothing-burger, where they’re just regurgitating the hype, but there’s no need for it,” said Duran. She argued both bills are likely to pass but that California already has permissive laws on abortion, which is enshrined as a right in the state’s Constitution. Still, Duran said that in the “very unlikely event” of a federal law protecting unborn babies, abortion laws in states like California could be in jeopardy since the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution would override state law. “It would need to be resolved in court,” Duran told me in an email.

As of November, 10 states have constitutional protections for abortion. Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., have established interstate “shield” laws to defend providers who prescribe medication abortion to out-of-state patients.

But in some ways, states hardly know what to expect.

During his first term, Trump paved the way for the downfall of Roe v. Wade by appointing conservative Supreme Court justices. He also supported a failed House bill that would have protected unborn babies nationally after 20 weeks gestation.

But while campaigning in his latest bid for office, Trump’s stance became hazier as he distanced himself from the pro-life movement. “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, in October.

Trump’s hands aren’t necessarily tied when it comes to abortion policy going forward. Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, believes that there’s still plenty Trump can accomplish without confirming blue state panic. “Returning abortion to the states, as Trump promised during the campaign, requires revoking every Biden abortion policy, especially when they tried to subvert state pro-life laws,” Anderson told WORLD in an email.

Trump’s new Food and Drug Administration appointee could try to reverse Biden-era rules for how abortion pills are distributed. Several pending lawsuits might also determine the future of chemical abortion. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit in December against a New York abortionist for prescribing abortion drugs to a 20-year-old woman via telehealth. The landmark case is one of the first to challenge interstate shield laws.

It’s unclear if California’s latest bills would do anything to insulate the state’s abortion providers from such lawsuits, although the deep blue state is likely well-prepared for the Trump administration. “But I think a lot of the rhetoric coming from Democrats is overblown, and it’s meant to be showy and demonstrative to the donor class,” said John Gerardi, executive director of Right to Life of Central California. “[State Attorney General] Rob Bonta wants to be the governor. [Gov.] Gavin Newsom wants to be president of the United States. A lot of this, I think, is performative.”