Trump Revives Anti-Abortion Policies in Executive Orders

President Donald Trump's campaign-trail promise to leave abortion regulation to the states lasted just a few days into his presidency.

He issued executive orders on Friday that revive some anti-abortion policies from his first administration -- including restrictions on federal funding for family planning and other health programs abroad that discuss abortion as an option or provide referrals for the procedure.

The president signed the executive orders hours after addressing the annual anti-abortion March for Life in a prerecorded video that included no mention that the policies were coming, provoking frustration from some of his supporters who feared the issue would not be a priority to the new administration. Vice President JD Vance, who spoke at the march in person, similarly did not mention them or other policy promises, but assured the crowd that Trump would be "the most pro-family, most pro-life American president of our lifetimes."

The orders will likely go a long way to calm fears in the anti-abortion movement about Trump's commitment to their cause -- fears he recently fanned by not taking these actions in his first couple days in office and by nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a onetime supporter of abortion rights, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the executive orders "a big win for babies and mothers."

"With this action the president is getting American taxpayers out of the abortion business and restoring sanity to the federal government," she said.

The programs impacted by the executive orders -- which were first reported by RealClearPolitics -- include overseas health organizations that distribute contraception and help combat HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Grantees were already barred from using any U.S. taxpayer money for abortions, but sometimes used separate funding to provide them.

One of the executive orders repeals a pair of Biden administration orders from the last few years that encouraged government agencies to look for ways "to protect and expand access to abortion care, including medication abortion" as well as "the full range of reproductive healthcare services," including birth control and emergency contraception. The order argues that it will ensure enforcement of the Hyde amendment -- a decades-old budget rider that bars any federal funding of abortion.

The other executive order Trump signed Friday reinstates the so-called Mexico City Policy -- named for the city where it was first announced -- restricting foreign organizations receiving U.S. global health funding from providing and promoting abortion with other sources of financing.

In doing so, Trump is following a tradition for Republican presidents Ronald Reagan started in 1984. Democratic presidents have rescinded the policy.

The Trump administration renamed it "Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance" during his first term.

A 2022 study by The National Academy of Sciences estimated that Trump's anti-abortion restrictions on foreign aid led to 108,000 deaths of women and children in poor countries over the four years of his first administration. That's because it slashed funding for groups like the nonprofit MSI Reproductive Choices, which operates clinics that provide contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections with U.S. funds and uses separate revenue streams to provide abortions.

MSI said ahead of the policy being reinstated that it wouldn't abide by it. This will lead to the organization losing $14 million in U.S. Agency for International Development funding, an MSI spokesperson said. The organization estimates the financial loss could result in an additional 2.4 million unintended pregnancies because it would have to stop providing contraception in several countries.

Another study by Stanford University researchers found that the narrower version of the Mexico City policy that several GOP presidents enacted prior to Trump caused the number of abortions to increase across sub-Saharan Africa because so many women lost access to contraception.

Abortion-rights advocates have also argued that the policy is overbroad because it imposes restrictions in countries where abortion is legal.

"The imposition of the U.S. policy is really driven by an anti-abortion ideology that is designed to both disrupt and coerce other countries' health systems and civil societies into restricting the health and rights of people around the world," said Elizabeth Sully, principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research and advocacy group.

International abortion-rights advocates worried that Trump would further extend the policy to organizations receiving any type of U.S. foreign assistance, including humanitarian aid -- a policy the Heritage Foundation recommended in its Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump term. Trump's executive order does not do that.

The order also directs the secretary of State "to take all necessary actions, to the extent permitted by law, to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars do not fund organizations or programs that support or participate in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."

The order came on the same day that Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed the U.S. Mission to the United Nations to rejoin the Geneva Consensus Declaration, an international anti-abortion pact signed during Trump's first term.

One day earlier, in another move that thrilled abortion opponents, Trump issued pardons for roughly two dozen people convicted of forcibly entering and blocking access to abortion clinics.

Still, the anti-abortion groups that helped Trump win reelection are looking beyond these actions and are pushing for more from the new administration, including a ban on telehealth prescription and mail delivery of abortion pills, rules forcing states to provide more detailed information on all abortions within their borders, and the repeal of Biden administration rules that expanded abortion access for some military members and veterans.

Kristi Hamrick, the vice president of media and policy with Students for Life of America, called the Mexico City policy "low-hanging fruit."

"I don't feel like we should have to beg the administration to do things which are in line with their stated goal of cutting back on federal engagement," she said, adding that both policies got the government out of abortion. "We're really looking for newer things, bigger things."