Written By: Richard Massey

On Tuesday, former President Donald J. Trump expressed interest in an increasingly unpopular and controversial stance that has been both embraced and chastised among national Republican leadership; restricting access to birth control.

During the interview with a Pittsburgh news station, KDKA News, interviewer Jon Delano asked the former President if he supported restricting access to contraception. Trump hazily responded with “We’re looking at that and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly”. Trump then emphatically recanted his initial statements around access to birth control in a social media post the following day, stating that he would “never advocate for imposing restrictions on birth control”. This further signals the last minute appeal to voters by the GOP, as they’ve faced backlash from voters and strategists alike around their failure to develop a legitimate plan around abortion access and now access to birth control.

This establishes a truth that American’s are aware of. The GOP backtracking it’s extreme stances on abortion access, contraceptions, and IVF is mere rhetoric. A clear contrast from what Republicans have worked extensively to accomplish as of late throughout the nation. Americans are on edge following the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and rip away Constitutional protections for safe and legal abortions. Conservative Justices and lawmakers alike have embraced birth control bans through their sentiments and voting records.

Trump, through appointing three extremist Justices to the SCOTUS bench, has emboldened statehouses and state courts to further undermine access to both IVF and to criminalize abortion providers. Justice Clarence Thomas opened the door to the Court also potentially reconsidering it’s decision on the coveted 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, a ruling that ensured married couples’ right to access contraception.

House Democrats introduced the Right to Contraception Act in 2022 to safeguard birth control access, in which only eight House Republicans supported the bill.

The Republican dominated Louisiana state House moved to classify abortion pills as controlled substances on Tuesday, placing abortion-inducing drugs misoprostol and mifepristone in the same legal category as narcotics. If it passes the state Senate, abortion pills that have long been FDA approved will now be criminalized. Project 2025, the highly controversial playbook developed for a hypothetical conservative presidency by Republican-backed think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, seeks to revive the Comstock Act, 151 year old law that would ban the mailing of abortion medications and would effectively ban access to mifepristone. Project 2025 also advocated for Trump to expand moral objections to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate by removing emergency contraception, such as Plan B, from the mandate. Therefore gutting previously covered access to crucial contraceptives to American’s who are enrolled in the ACA. These are the conservative strategists, lobbyists, and think tanks that have encompassed Trump throughout his presidency and post-presidency.

They’ve created a agenda that seeks to extend upon the harmful abortion bans that have been imposed throughout the nation since Dobbs.

The threat to birth control is real. The Republican Party has rolled back essential protections to reproductive autonomy throughout the nation, and the consequences have been felt. According to a report from the Gender Equity Policy Institute, women in states with abortion bans are nearly three times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth. According to a comprehensive study published within JAMA Medical Journal, 26,313 rape-related pregnancies occurred in Texas following the abortion ban enacted by the state legislature.

MAGA extremists will not stop at gutting access to safe and legal abortions. They attempted to upend access to IVF in Alabama. They’ve attempted to criminalize access to abortion medication in Louisiana. States have moved to criminalize both abortion providers and people pursuing an abortion.

This is, in fact, the Republican plan in action.