For nearly two years in his second term, and for months on the campaign trail before that, President Donald Trump has done a delicate dance on reproductive rights: trying not to scare voters who support abortion access while keeping conservatives on his side.
Trump was instrumental in the current chaos around abortion access because he nominated three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. States can enforce abortion bans as a result, but the far right is not entirely satisfied because its goal is to end abortion in all 50 states.
Recent developments underscore that the GOP rallying cry that ending Roe would “send abortion back to the states” came with a hidden asterisk — it would be sent back to the states for now. It appears it’s only a matter of time until the president’s nominees make it even harder to get an abortion nationwide.
Contrary to popular belief, Trump has never pledged to preserve the status quo when it comes to abortion pill access.
After the fall of Roe, many Democratic-led states chose to protect their providers from criminal investigations and to expand access. According to the latest data from the Society of Family Planning, as of December 2025, nearly 15,000 medication abortions per month were being provided under shield laws. Last week, Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas asked the Supreme Court for permission to challenge “shield” laws, statutes enacted in Democratic-led states that protect providers from criminal investigations and extradition for prescribing abortion pills across state lines. (The high court usually hears appeals, but it can hold trials on issues between states if there are five votes to do so — though there rarely are.)
The same three states also sued about 30 pill providers and asked a judge to prevent the providers from prescribing medication abortion to the states’ residents — including a backup method of misoprostol-only abortions. Louisiana’s solicitor general wrote in a letter to a different court that the case “will eliminate the ability of nearly three dozen of the most prominent actors to illegally send any abortion drugs into the State.”
Then, on Friday, The Washington Sun reported that administration officials told the Justice Department “to move slowly on any abortion-related actions ahead of the midterm elections.” White House chief of staff Susie Wiles reportedly told Attorney General Todd Blanche — who said during his confirmation process that he supported restricting access to abortion pills — to hold his fire until after November.
“Wiles suggested that an aggressive approach on abortion would generate unwanted attention,” the Sun reported. (The White House denied that these conversations with DOJ officials took place.)
The White House’s skittishness isn’t surprising, given that Republicans are expected to lose the House, and control of the Senate is in play. And when Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterms, just months after the fall of Roe, Trump himself blamed “the abortion issue.”
If anti-abortion groups get their way, red states and the Trump administration could try to make it harder to get an abortion in states where it’s still legal.
Still, the White House is simultaneously telling anti-abortion groups to keep the faith.
“One conservative in touch with the administration, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations,” told the Sun that “once the midterms are over and it’s truly lame-duck time, we’ve heard the gloves will be off. We have heard we have friends, and there are definitely people who are staunch pro-lifers.”
Contrary to popular belief, Trump has never pledged to preserve the status quo when it comes to abortion pill access. Sure, during the 2024 campaign he said he wouldn’t sign a federal abortion ban, but the Food and Drug Administration can restrict the medications without a vote in Congress. And, yes, during a June 2024 CNN debate answer about mifepristone, Trump said he would “not block” a Supreme Court decision preserving access to the drug. But that case was decided on procedural grounds, not on the merits of the FDA changes that allowed prescriptions by telehealth. A few weeks after he was elected, Trump told NBC News that he “probably” would not restrict the availability of medication abortions but noted that “things change.”
Indeed, anti-abortion groups have been pressing the White House to change things. They want Blanche to settle an earlier lawsuit that Louisiana filed against the FDA by brokering a consent decree that ends telemedicine prescriptions of mifepristone nationwide. Mifepristone is the first of two drugs used in a typical abortion pill regimen, but the second drug, misoprostol, is also safe and effective on its own. Dr. Heidi Overton, Trump’s nominee to run the FDA, could achieve the same outcome as a settlement if she is confirmed by shepherding a baseless safety “review” of the drug and saying that it supports reimposing in-person appointments.
Such a change would end virtual access to mifepristone not just across state lines but also within state borders. People would have to travel to a clinic to get medications they will take at home. Reproductive freedom advocates would almost certainly file legal challenges over the move, but the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority would ultimately decide the issue.
Blanche also pledged during his confirmation hearing to review the government’s stance on enforcing the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-obscenity law that abortion opponents want to use to stop the mailing of abortion pills. Conservatives are pushing him to rescind Biden-era DOJ guidance on Comstock, which said it wasn’t presumptively illegal for the U.S. Postal Service and other carriers like UPS and FedEx to deliver abortion pills to states with bans. If that guidance is rescinded, criminal prosecutions could follow.
Chillingly, FBI Director Kash Patel has expressed openness to federal probes. In a September hearing, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley pressed Patel on whether his agency would investigate drug manufacturers that “coach” people how to send abortion pills in the mail to states where it’s banned. Patel responded, “Without naming any of the companies, I’m not saying we’re not [investigating] already, but any use of the federal mail system is a federal crime that falls to the FBI to investigate, especially in conjunction with a violation of a state law that’s already on the books. So we’re committed to that.”
If anti-abortion groups get their way, red states and the Trump administration could try to make it harder to get an abortion in states where it’s still legal. Yes, even if reproductive rights are protected in the state Constitution. The notion that GOP-led states’ efforts to enforce their own abortion laws could hamper access in states where it’s still legal seems of little consequence to Republicans. New York Attorney General Letitia James said it plainly in a statement about the shield law challenge: “Louisiana, Alabama, and Arkansas are asking the Supreme Court to let them impose their abortion bans on New York and punish our doctors for providing legal health care.” Until now, the Trump administration has frequently played coy on this effort, but things could very well be about to change.
The post Todd Blanche’s marching orders on abortion restrictions couldn’t be clearer appeared first on MS NOW.
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