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Jabin Botsford

When <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> did not back a national <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/abortion/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">abortion</a> ban, the leader of one of the country’s largest antiabortion groups, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, blasted his position as “morally indefensible.”

The president of another leading antiabortion organization, Students for Life, took a stand months later after Trump called strict state bans “terrible” — deploying volunteers to a Trump rally in Miami with signs that read, “Make Trump Pro-Life Again.”

Now, with voting set to begin in a Republican presidential race that many expect will soon coronate Trump as the presumptive nominee, those two prominent activists and other leading antiabortion figures have largely put their criticisms aside — focusing instead on what a second Trump presidency could mean for the antiabortion movement.

“Is he the most pro-life person? No,” Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life, said in a recent interview. “But he keeps his deals.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who had issued the searing critique of Trump’s abortion ban skepticism last spring, told The Washington Post in recent days that Trump has “built an enormous amount of trust with pro-life voters, as his presidency was the most consequential in American history for the pro-life cause.”

Many antiabortion activists spent much of last year frustrated that the former president, who appointed the three conservative justices who brought down Roe v. Wade, seemed to be tempering his support for their cause as he plotted his White House comeback amid a wave of support for abortion rights at the polls. They watched anxiously as Trump refused to endorse any kind of national abortion ban, privately telling those close to him that the “a-word,” as he called abortion, was a political loser.

But in recent interviews and statements, leading antiabortion advocates are looking past what they characterize as purely political rhetoric — and plotting actions that they believe a Trump administration would take as early as next year to crack down on abortion.

JM Rieger

Leading advocates are concentrating on refining recommendations for two agencies with enormous power over abortion-related policies nationwide — the Justice and Health and Human Services departments — such as revisiting the 2000 approval of a key abortion drug and halting the mailing of abortion pills, <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/project-2025-publishes-comprehensive-policy-guide-mandate-leadership-the-conservative-promise" target=_blank>according to a document</a> published by the conservative Heritage Foundation. The Food and Drug Administration, which approves drugs and has the power to take them off the market, operates under HHS.

Roger Severino, who led several antiabortion efforts at HHS under Trump, said the movement is more focused on potential agency actions than passing a national abortion ban, which leaders privately acknowledge is extremely unlikely to make it through a divided Congress.

For those reasons, the conversation over when in pregnancy to ban abortion nationally is “almost beside the point,” Severino said, emphasizing that he does not speak for Trump or any Republican campaign. “I don’t see his previous statements as limiting [Trump’s] ability to be a strong pro-life president.”

Trump’s approach on abortion reflects what advisers say is his understanding of the need for political balance as he seeks to retain enthusiasm on the right ahead of the primaries but keep his eye on a more moderate November electorate. He aired an ad ahead of this month’s Iowa caucuses aimed at conservatives declaring that he “delivered” on abortion and lived “up to his promise” in helping to overturn Roe, while he has avoided rhetoric on abortion bans that could turn off the many GOP and independent voters who have sided with abortion rights in multiple state-level elections.

Trump’s campaign has assured some conservative leaders in private meetings that the former president only criticized strict state abortion laws as a means of attacking Florida Gov. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/ron-desantis-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Ron DeSantis</a>, one of his opponents in the Republican primary who signed a six-week ban, according to a Trump adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

DeSantis, asked during a CNN town hall Thursday night if Trump was “not pro-life,” pointed to his criticisms of state bans and responded flatly, “of course not.” He accused Trump of shifting his position, adding, “How do you flip-flop on something like the sanctity of life?”

In a written statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not address the former president’s recent public and private comments on the abortion issue, pointing instead to his record in the White House.

“He appointed strong Constitutionalist federal judges and Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, which others have tried to do for over 50 years,” Cheung wrote.

So far, Trump’s equivocation on the issue has not deterred Republican voters, with the GOP electorate continuing to support him over any other candidate by a wide margin.

At a recent Trump event in Fort Dodge, Iowa, 65-year-old retiree Dean Avery said he didn’t take Trump’s comments on abortion too seriously, despite his own opposition to the procedure in most cases.

“Trump says a lot of things … but he gets the stuff done,” Avery said.

Democrats plan to make the issue a central one in a general election and spend tens of millions in the fall to remind voters that Trump did more than any president to restrict abortion — believing it will be an albatross for the Republican ticket, Democratic operatives say.

“The terrifying reality American women are facing today falls squarely at the feet of Donald Trump,” said Shea Necheles, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign. “Trump and his campaign can spin his record all they want, but American women know they no longer have the guaranteed freedom to make their own health-care decisions because of Donald Trump.”

Top antiabortion leaders have continued to push Trump behind the scenes to embrace a national abortion ban — with Dannenfelser lobbying for a national 15-week law and Hawkins standing behind a far more restrictive six-week ban. But Trump has shown no signs of budging on the issue, according to his advisers.

In one meeting with antiabortion advocates at his club last year, Trump told a group of conservative leaders that he’d gotten them what they wanted — the fall of Roe v. Wade — and that now it was up to them to win in the states, according to a person who attended the meeting. At other times, according to advisers, Trump told antiabortion advocates that he will make a deal later but was not interested in a national ban.

A person close to Trump said the former president had been briefed on abortion pills but hadn’t decided whether he would take action to further restrict their use if he returns to the White House. The person, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said Trump was interested in “Washington’s role” in limiting abortions and noted top officials in the first Trump administration had met during his term to discuss ways government agencies could reduce the procedure.

Cheung said Trump had given antiabortion advocates “negotiating power they have never had before.”

“President Trump has always advised fellow Republicans that they must learn to talk about this critical issue the right way and remind voters that it is Democrats who are the extreme ones on abortion, not Republicans, despite the left’s attempt to paint it that way,” he said.

Trump “faces no pressure right now” from the conservative movement, said Marc Short, chief of staff for former vice president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/mike-pence-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Mike Pence</a>. “From some of the pro-life groups, there is a recognition that a large number of their supporters are pro-Trump, so there is a reluctance to be critical.”

After saying last spring that Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America would oppose any candidate that did not back a 15-week national abortion law, Dannenfelser in a statement this week only called for Trump to publicly attack Democrats for supporting what she called “painful late-term abortion.”

To advance their ultimate goal of blocking abortion access nationwide — not just in red states — the primary target for many antiabortion advocates is medication abortion, a two-step regimen now used in over 50 percent of abortions nationwide. The Supreme Court will consider a case this spring that could reinstitute restrictions on mifepristone, one of two drugs used to end a pregnancy, that would make the medication far more difficult to access.

But the courts are not the only way to further restrict abortion pills, said Severino, the former HHS official under Trump who now works at the Heritage Foundation. Under a Republican administration, the HHS could decide on its own to reimpose restrictions on mifepristone, which would include requiring an in-person visit with a medical professional. A particularly aggressive HHS secretary and FDA commissioner could even revisit the initial approval of the drug, which has been used widely in the United States for more than 20 years.

While the FDA has traditionally stayed out of politics — and been run by people who are generally nonpartisan — a Trump administration could decide to break with those norms, said David Cohen, a professor at Drexel University School of Law who focuses on abortion policy.

“If we’re in a world where Trump and his administration decide that they’re just going to do it anyway, then all bets are off,” he said.

Cohen said that if the FDA decided to rescind approval of mifepristone, the agency would first need to navigate legal hurdles. The manufacturer of the drug would need to be heard in court, and then the decision would be subject to appellate review, he added.

David Gortler, a former senior adviser to the FDA commissioner under Trump, noted that the agency has taken drugs off the market before. One major challenge to halting the flow of mifepristone, he said, would be employees at the FDA — but he added that a strong commissioner could probably navigate around them.

“The FDA commissioner could always reassign people,” Gortler said.

Evan Vucci

A Republican Justice Department could also take aim at abortion pills. The Heritage document suggests that a Republican administration could enforce the long-dormant Comstock laws from the 1800s, which ban the mailing of abortion pills — a move that could stop any individual from legally receiving abortion pills in the mail and could even disrupt abortion care at clinics, which also receive supplies through the mail.

“I think the right person appointed to the Department of Justice could look at this and say, ‘Wait a minute, Democrats have known about this law for decades. … Now we’re finding out that they’ve been ignoring it the whole time, hoping nobody will uphold the rule of law,’” Hawkins of Students for Life said.

Antiabortion advocates declined to cite specific names of appointees they would like to see join a Trump administration. But, Hawkins said, Trump’s Cabinet picks would be key to the future of abortion access across the country.

Students for Life is looking for Trump to appoint people who are “stridently against abortion,” she said — rather than someone who is opposed to abortion in theory but “doesn’t want to wade into controversial issues.”

Severino, who wrote the portion of the Heritage document that pertains to HHS, said he feels “confident” that Trump would appoint an HHS secretary who is “pro-life.”

In the GOP primary, many Republican voters do not view abortion as central to their 2024 vote, even if they supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade and new restrictions in their home states. Many recognize that federal restrictions are difficult to pass even with a Republican president.

At Trump’s rally in Fort Dodge this fall, attendee Diana Dierson said she was strongly opposed to abortion unless the pregnant person is endangered and said she wants to see some sort of national restriction. Yet she was all-in for Trump, despite his recent criticism of six-week bans like the one that passed last year in Iowa — convinced that the former president’s record spoke for itself.

“He is for the people. He knows what he’s doing. He’s a businessman,” Dierson said. “Our economy was better then. Everything was better then.”

Exiting the post office in Sioux City, Iowa, Trump supporter Eugene Means said he thought abortion should be left up to the states. “Because when our constitution was set up, the power lies with the people in the state government, not federal government,” Means said.

While Means disagreed with Trump on six-week abortion bans, he said he was willing to look past his comments.

“There’s a lot of things I like about him,” Means said.

Hannah Knowles reported from Fort Dodge and Sioux City,

Post Grad: Five Women and Their First Year Out of College 

Princeton University, BA in History 

Caroline Kitchener is a reporter covering abortion at The Washington Post. She won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. 

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White House Correspondents Award for Deadline Reporting

University of South Carolina

Josh Dawsey is a political enterprise and investigations reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the paper in 2017 and previously covered the White House. Before that, he covered the White House for Politico, and New York City Hall and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the Wall Street Journal.

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Stanford University, BA in English

Hannah Knowles is a national politics reporter covering campaigns at The Washington Post. She previously reported for The Post's general assignment desk.

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