A second Donald Trump presidency threatens to upend women's rights
There is no sugarcoating it. In the politest way I can muster, the election of Donald Trump as the 47th President is fucking terrible news for women — even the women who voted for him. If this election was a referendum on gender, as many suggested, it’s safe to say the men have won, propped up by the bro-vote and ushered in by the leaders of the manosphere, like Elon Musk and Joe Rogan, and in many very real ways, women have lost.
One of the biggest issues of the election was abortion access in light of the overturning of Roe v Wade, the constitutional right to abortion, in 2022. A Harris government promised to restore this right, However, under Trump, and a Supreme Court hellbent on doing his bidding, we can only expect access to abortion to become even harder (despite Trump claiming otherwise towards the end of the campaign in a desperate bid to attract women voters). Project 25, a document devised by leading right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation and believed to be Trump’s Road map for his next term (though he has denied knowing anything about it), makes plain that dismantling abortion rights will be a priority. Efforts to invoke the Comstock Act — a 150-year-old law that bans sending ‘obscene materials’, will aim for a ban on abortion pills being sent in the post, a lifeline to women stranded in anti-abortion corners of the country. There has also been talk of banning crossing state lines for obtaining an abortion, as well as threats of a national ban
But it’s not just abortion. Women’s healthcare at large will likely suffer. Project 25 proposes attacks on emergency contraception, an ongoing goal from the far right of the party, while this year a judge in Alabama banned IVF because the state claimed that embryos were made in the image of God and cannot be destroyed, a feeling gaining traction among Republican politicians. Republicans have also pledged to defund Planned Parenthood, a key source of healthcare for women, as well as the Affordable Healthcare Act, or Obamacare, which provides healthcare access to 50 million Americans.
The consequences of a Trump-influenced world are already here. Women have died because of state abortion bans introduced after the fall of Roe, as they were refused treatment, and doctors were met with threats of imprisonment. Last week saw the news of a pregnant 18-year-old in Texas who, on the day of her baby shower, was sent away from three emergency rooms in severe pain. Doctors had to wait until there was no fetal heartbeat. She died later that evening of a completely preventable infection. Unquestionably, under Trump’s next term, more women will die.
In the rubble of all this devastation, there are a few shards of light from this week's election. The state of Missouri, which had one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, voted to enshrine abortion rights in their constitution, and six other states also expanded their abortion rights. I think we will also see a return to women performing abortions themselves, much like the group Jane, based in Chicago in the late 1960s and early 1970s that performed illegal abortions with the help of doctors.
Under an administration that is removing women’s agency to access healthcare, or indeed, the life they want, women will take matters into their own hands. Just before the fall of Roe, Luara Kaplan, one of Jane’s members who is now in her 70s, told me “Women don’t abandon women”. More recently, pro-abortion activists took mifepristone outside the Supreme Court in a show of defiance and an act of refusal to accept the limitations being placed on them. After the end of Roe, women from Mexico were smuggling abortion pills in jewellery boxes into Texas — a once unimaginable role-reversal. In the void of official care, women will fall into the very ancient practice of helping each other. Because, quite simply, what else can they do?
As fundamental as it is to a woman’s life, healthcare is just one issue. Trump’s second presidency will have other major impacts on women. It will embolden misogyny. How could it not when the most powerful man in the world has been found liable for sexual assault, and makes sexist and racist remarks, permitting the millions of his followers to do the same, many of whom are young men who are spending too much time online? Trump is flanked by tech-bros, the type who are not exactly famous for their enlightened feminist views on women’s liberation. His victory also begs the question: can a woman ever be president? Will America ever be prepared to have a woman leader?
This is just scratching the surface of what life for women under Trump’s second term might look like because this is based only on what Trump and his supporters have claimed they will do so far. But, whatever comes next, we’ve already seen the tragic consequences of a post-Roe world. And this time, Trump promises ‘vengeance’ and to protect women ‘whether they like it or not’. This time, when arguably he should be in prison, the gloves are off, and the orange genie is out of the Mar-a-lgo bottle. Many had predicted that women would turn out to vote against Trump and save themselves. Despite all the threats he posed to them, that was not the case. Instead, women will now get to work, building whatever shelter they can for the stormy and scary days ahead.
Marisa Bate is a freelance journalist and author. You can sign up to her newsletter Writing About Women here.
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