2025 and the start of Trump’s second term marked major blows for reproductive healthcare. Medicaid funding cuts forced about 50 Planned Parenthood clinics to close throughout the U.S. and blocked 1.1 million Planned Parenthood patients on Medicaid from using their insurance to pay for reproductive healthcare. Twenty-three independent abortion clinics throughout the country also shut down in 2025, according to Abortion Care Network’s annual report.
Last year also saw some new, troubling trends in state-level reproductive healthcare policies, including restrictions on medication abortion and shield laws and criminalization for people who help patients access abortions.
In 2025, Guttmacher tracked 841 legal provisions introduced throughout the U.S. that would restrict access to sexual and reproductive healthcare. Of these, 70 were enacted—many attacking abortion pills and other channels for abortion access that have managed to survive post-Roe v. Wade. Now, in the fourth year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe with the Dobbs decision, here are some of the key ways states are pushing harder than ever to end any access to abortion.
The post The Next Phase of the Abortion Wars: Targeting Pills, Helpers and Patients appeared first on Ms. Magazine.