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ICYMI: Trump Touts ‘Freedom’ on the Anniversary of the Day He Took It Away From Millions
ICYMI: Trump Touts ‘Freedom’ on the Anniversary of the Day He Took It Away From Millions
Today marks four years since the conservative majority on the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and ended a 50-year federal right to abortion access. Trump has also chosen today for a rally to mark the White House’s Great American State Fair, celebrating 250 years of American freedom.
In a new op-ed published in MS NOW, Reproductive Freedom for All President and CEO Mini Timmaraju examines why reproductive freedom remains a defining issue heading into the 2026 midterm elections, and the irony of Trump championing freedom on the anniversary of the day he took it away from millions of American women.
According to Timmaraju, anti-abortion politicians promised Dobbs would settle the issue of abortion by returning it to the states. Four years later, abortion access is just as popular, yet they continue pursuing new ways to restrict access to care through the courts, federal agencies, Congress, and state legislatures.
Timmaraju details Republicans’ public retreat from their anti-abortion records ahead of the midterms, “Vulnerable Republican candidates with years of anti-abortion extremism, including Reps. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., Tom Barrett, R-Mich., and Ryan Mackenzie, R-Penn., scrubbed their anti-abortion records from their websites—while voting to gut Medicaid, defund Planned Parenthood, and confirm judges and agency heads to do their bidding.”
Anti-abortion lawmakers are targeting medication abortion, advancing fetal personhood policies that threaten IVF and contraception, and continuing their relentless pursuit of a national abortion ban—all while desperately trying to distance themselves from the issue entirely. But despite their best attempts, these attacks are not going unnoticed by voters.
“Their efforts to distance themselves from abortion politics stand in sharp contrast to what’s happening in state legislatures, where anti-abortion lawmakers continue to introduce some of the most extreme and dangerous legislation we’ve seen since Dobbs,” Timmaraju said.
The piece documents what the last four years has produced for women in states with bans—from a South Carolina bill that would imprison people for receiving abortions, to a Georgia hospital keeping a woman on life support against her family’s wishes, to two women in Florida forced into virtual courtrooms from their hospital beds over C-sections they had explicitly refused. At the federal level, Timmaraju examines how the Trump administration has weaponized the FDA against mifepristone and how anti-abortion groups have made clear they will not stop at abortion, with IVF and contraception next in their sights. The op-ed also takes on the question of abortion’s salience heading into the midterms, arguing that reproductive freedom and economic security are inseparable for most Americans.
Timmaraju closes the piece by calling on Americans to hold the architects of this agenda accountable. “For 250 years, Americans have fought to expand freedom. For 50 of those years, the constitutional right to make decisions about your own body was part of what it meant to be free in this country. This year’s “Freedom 250” programming is being headlined by the man who took that right away from American women, on the anniversary of the day it happened. Come November, voters will have their say in how free they feel in Trump’s America.”
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For over 55 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.
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