Shocking In Its Cruelty: Looking Back at The First Year of Trump 2.0

It has now been one year of the second Trump administration, with many attacks to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice aligning entirely with Project 2025’s blueprint. Amy Friedrich-Karnik, Director of Federal Policy at the Guttmacher Institute and Anna Bernstein, Principal Federal Policy Advisor at the Guttmacher Institute, sit down to talk with us about the year’s assaults on sexual and reproductive health and rights, LGBTQI+ rights, and science and healthcare by the Trump administration.

From day one of their return to office, protections for abortion access put in place by the Biden administration were rolled back. This included several protections for privacy, emergency care, and veteran’s access. President Trump immediately pardoned anti-abortion activists who had previously violated the FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act and has stopped enforcing the act in most places. Anti-science rhetoric increases, with the Food and Drug Administration endorsing junk-science against mifepristone-- one of the drugs used in a medication abortion. To promote mis- and disinformation, data sets, research, and websites were removed from the internet. The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act defunded Planned Parenthood and set work restrictions on Medicaid coverage. Additionally, the administration froze Title X funding, expanded the already-expanded Global Gag Rule, and issued endless attacks to the transgender community.

LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE

Guttmacher Institute on Facebook
Guttmacher Institute on X
Year One of Project 2025: Tracking the Trump Administration’s Devastating Campaign Against Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
The Global Gag Rule is Once Again Expanded, Maximizing Harm

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Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]

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Hi, rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So, I tried thinking that accountability would work by telling y'all I was going to get back on my baking bread train and thinking that will make me finally pull the trigger and do it. And it did not. So, I'm gonna have to think of some other type of incentive to get me to finally make some fresh bread that didn't work last week. So, I think my goal for this weekend is to make a big thing of soup and have crusty bread to dip in it, and that just sounds lovely. And so that is my goal for this weekend is to make soup. I don't know what kind yet. I'm thinking maybe tomato sounds lovely and have some bread to go with it. Yeah, that's my plan. So, fingers crossed that it works this week. Right now, I'm not feeling super ambitious, but I think it's like it's really gloomy here today when I'm recording this. It's really foggy and it's kind of misting outside, and it's gonna be raining later. So, my ambition levels are really low. But y'all, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. All I can think about right now is how lovely it would be to be curled up with a book and a great big cup of tea. That sounds, like, really nice. It's not gonna happen right now because I'm not done with my workday yet. But hopefully, maybe when I'm done working, that that'll be what I'll do today is curl up with a cozy book and read.

I would love it if y'all have any suggestions for books I should read. I'm really trying to read down my TBR, my list of books that are already downloaded on my iPad. So, I am always looking for, like, new and exciting. So, if anybody has anything that they have read that they have loved recently, please let me know. I could really use some recommendations. I'm feeling like I'm in a tiny bit of a slump. I'm still reading, I just feel like I've been slowly reading and kind of dragging this year. So, I just feel like I need something to just inspire me and be fun. So, I would love for any fun reading recommendations y'all have. You can, you know, either reach out on socials. I'm at @JennieInDC on Bluesky or @AllBooksAndBread on Instagram, or you can email me: jennie@reprosfightback.com. You can always feel free to reach out if you have something you would like us to talk about. But I'm also looking for any fun book recommendations right now. I think that's kind of all I have right now. Like I said, it's like a gloomy day and my brain is kind of checking out. So, I don't really have much else to chat about.

But I did have a really great conversation with our guests for this week's episode. We had two wonderful people from Guttmacher come on, Amy Friedrich-Karnik and Anna Bernstein, to talk about one year into the Trump administration and what we have seen for his attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights. So, with that, let's go to my interview with Amy and Anna.

Jennie: Hi, Amy and Anna. Thank you so much for being here today.

Amy: Hello.

Anna: Hi, thanks for having us.

Jennie: I'm so excited to talk to you today about mostly terrible things, but still, it'll be a great conversation. Before we get started, let's do a round of introductions so everybody knows who's talking when. Amy, would you like to go first? Sure.

Amy: Hi. My name is Amy Friedrich-Karnik, and I'm the Director of Federal Policy at the Guttmacher Institute.

Anna: And hi, I'm Anna Bernstein, and I'm a Principal Federal Policy Advisor at the Guttmacher Institute.

Jennie: So, we are now just over a year. It feels like 10, but it's only been one year of the second Trump administration, and so much has happened around anything, but especially around sexual and reproductive health. And you all released a great piece outlining all of the things that have happened. So, it felt like a good time to take a pause and talk through some of the stuff that has happened in the last year. You helpfully divided it into buckets in your piece. So, let's do it in buckets. First, there's been a range of attacks on abortion access. What are some of the things that have happened in the last year around abortion?

Anna: Yeah, so as you've noted, the Trump administration has taken a number of actions that have harmed both people's access to and really equitable good information about abortion care. So, from day one, they've really worked to actively roll back protections put in place by the Biden administration after the Dobbs decision happened and removed that federal guarantee of abortion access. So, this includes a number of protections for privacy, access to emergency care, care for veterans. Veterans’ access was really expanded under the Biden administration. And we've seen just recently at the end of last year that the Department of Veteran Affairs has stopped this expansion that allowed VA facilities to provide abortion counseling and services in cases of rape, incest, or life or health endangerment. And these rules were really critical in providing some level of access for veterans and their dependents. We've seen from the very beginning of the administration sort of an endorsement of some of the violence against anti-abortion extremists who were harassing and committing acts of violence against clinics. So, President Trump immediately pardoned a number of activists who were charged under the FACE Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which was put in place to protect abortion providers, clinic staff, and patients. And not only did he pardon these folks, some of whom have already been charged under new charges since being pardoned just last year, he's also stopped enforcing the act in most cases. And this is really dangerous, especially at a time when anti-abortion rhetoric is being elevated by the Trump administration and the folks that they are in league with and putting abortion providers and clinics really in more danger than ever.

Jennie: Yeah, it was very striking because you've seen this uptick in violence since the Dobbs decision to see them really backing off on prosecutions is really disconcerting.

Anna: Yeah, definitely. And in addition to some of this violent rhetoric, they're obviously amping up a lot of anti-science rhetoric. They're put in place a number of personnel who are not only anti-SRHR, but just anti-science in general, which is obviously something we're watching closely at Guttmacher. And I think one of the most notable ways that we're seeing this is at the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA obviously is in charge of access to mifepristone. They've heavily restricted the drug since its approval in 2000. Despite it being incredibly safe and effective, it does already have pretty severe restrictions on its dispensation and use. And we've seen some junk science come out over the last year that has been endorsed by folks within the Trump administration and used as a convenient excuse to launch a political attack on mifepristone. Commissioner Makary of the FDA has announced their review of mifepristone and even within just the confirmation hearings themselves of high officials like HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Makary, just sort of deferring to Trump. RFK Jr. said he'll do what Trump wants on abortion, which is really concerning because that's not how HHS should operate. They should follow the science. And we have decades of science on mifepristone, and we know it's safe and effective, and we know there's political reasons for this review. And it's concerning to sort of not know how that's being conducted at the FDA and not having a lot of insight into how they're making these decisions.

Jennie: Yeah, that's one of those ones that I feel like I see different pieces of it happening in different ways, where one of the big talking points around mifepristone is that it's as safe as Tylenol. And then you saw the administration be like, oh, well, Tylenol isn't actually safe for pregnant people. And I was like, oh, I see what you're doing here. Like you could have said acetaminophen, but you said Tylenol. Like, I see you.

Anna: Yes, exactly. And I think, there's been anti-vaccine rhetoric, anti-Tylenol. I think some of these we saw coming and some of these maybe we didn't. And to have HHS, which is typically a source for good information and a reputable source for health information for the general public, it is concerning to know that folks might be listening to some of these really anti-science officials spouting nonsense. And I think that sort of connects to some of the initial actions from the Trump administration were not only some of these rescinding guidance and formal pieces like that, but they also immediately took down reproductiverights.gov, which was put in place immediately following the Dobbs decision, so that the public has a source of reputable government information about where abortion is available, how to access this care, and what's the status of SRH access where they live. And taking away these pieces, I think Amy will talk a little bit about the CDC, but these are typically agencies that their job is to provide scientific evidence and it's no longer necessarily credible.

Jennie: Okay, so one of the things you mentioned when you started talking about attacks on abortion access was access to emergency abortions. Can we talk a little bit more about what the administration did around emergency access?

Anna: Yeah, so most of this relates to a federal law called EMTALA, which is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which applies to all hospitals that receive Medicare funding, which is most hospitals, and it stipulates that they have to provide emergency care regardless of folks' ability to pay. And the Biden administration had issued guidance just affirming that this emergency care, of course, includes abortion care in emergency situations. We know that abortion is healthcare, so of course it is required under EMTALA in emergency situations. The Trump administration, of course, rescinded this guidance. And not only that, but there was also ongoing litigation that folks probably know about. And the Trump administration dismissed this lawsuit. And this had been a suit that was initiated by the Biden administration against Idaho, a state with a total abortion ban, just saying that they had violated EMTALA by enforcing an abortion ban without a health exception, because EMTALA does require that emergency abortion care. And the Trump administration dismissed this lawsuit in March of last year. So, this is really dangerous for patients that are in a banned state and need this emergency care. We've heard stories about folks being airlifted out of Idaho. That's just not an option for people who need emergency abortion care. They need to get it at the hospital in their community. And the Trump administration's doubling down on not providing this care shows that they're really not about protecting women, how often they might repeat that line. This is not about the safety and health of pregnant people. It's about denying abortion care at all costs.

Jennie: This is one of those that just boggles my mind every time that like you're saying that somebody who is in a health emergency can't get the needed health care treatment. It just blows my mind that people are okay with that and are like advocating that stance. Like, just what kind of monster is like, oh, yeah, it's fine.

Anna: Yeah, and I think we've seen time and time again sort of putting it back on the providers as if providers are not doing their job in providing care when they're rightfully scared of legal implications for laws that don't actually provide them with protections to give patients the care that they need. And I think any way that they can hide behind this is pretty transparent. But I think with the emergency, it's particularly galling.

Jennie: And then I feel like one other thing that we mentioned but maybe didn't dig into as much is some of the attacks on privacy. What was something that the administration did attacking patient privacy or patient privacy protections?

Anna: Yeah, so yet another example of a Biden-era protection that was immediately revoked. So, in the world where there are states that are going after patients for receiving abortion care, especially states who are traveling from banned states into states with access, that patient privacy is really important. So, the Biden administration had issued guidance just affirming that their health data is protected under HIPAA, including for reproductive health care. And the Trump administration, or sorry, a Trump appointee, Judge Kacsmaryk, whose name might be familiar if you've been following really unhinged litigation. He's based in Texas and has consistently ruled in some anti-abortion cases. And he vacated these regulations last June. And we know that patient privacy is really important for traveling patients. At Guttmacher, we're tracking patient travel. We know that tens of thousands of patients are traveling out of state every year to receive abortion care. This is obviously not the end goal. We want patients to be able to receive care in the communities where they live and work. But in the reality of 13 states banning abortion, patients are gonna continue having to travel for care. And when they return to their home state, their health data should be protected, and they shouldn't be concerned about criminalization for receiving necessary health care.

Jennie: I'm gonna take us a little out of order just because I feel like this is like the perfect transition into the ways that this administration is promoting miss and disinformation. Do you maybe want to talk a little bit about the ways we're seeing that?

Amy: Yeah, sure. And I think Anna did such a great job summarizing some of the stuff that's happened so far in this administration. I think it's worth noting, especially with our piece online, that it tracks with Project 2025. And so, a lot of the actions of this administration may on the surface just seem that they were running around and rescinding guidance and doing these things that really inhibit access to abortion care. But it is notable that it is all part of a plan and it was all laid out very clearly in Project 2025. And so, a lot of what we saw, especially in this first year, was a systematic kind of going through Project 2025 and literally checking the boxes and doing the things that have been outlined in that document. And that's a lot of what we've seen so far in this first year. But yes, to get back to kind of the attacks on- mis and disinformation, we've seen this obviously within the space of sexual and reproductive health care, and really this administration really expanded that into so many different realms of science and healthcare and gender equity and LGBTQ rights and things. So, I think as we talked about many of the different research sites were taken down almost immediately upon this administration coming in. I thought it was fascinating, a lot of data sets, things that are full of data that are for public use, research and survey data and things were taken down. Some of those were put back up online, but there were some really notable exceptions to the way that the administration did this. So, part of what was in Project 2025 was to say that the idea of gender equity and gender and women and all of these things, reproductive freedom, all of that needed to be taken offline off any government website and any government source. And in some really extreme cases, they really did. So, for example, the PRAMS's data, which is around pregnancy risk and assessment and things like maternal health, that data came down, and statements were put back up on that site saying, “okay, we have to put this data back up, but we don't believe in it.” And then, where it talks about gender equity, “we don't agree with this, but sure, we're putting it up because the court is telling us to put it up.” So, these broad attacks have been so broad in so many areas and just really promoting this and disinformation in so many places.

Jennie: Yeah, I think one of the things that I also think of in this area is we might touch on this in the global section, where they want to burn the stockpile of contraception. And I feel like for the first time we saw an administration, like in a public official statement conflating contraception with abortifacients in a way that, like, we've seen that among the anti-rights advocates and in that space, but to see like an administration official saying that was really disconcerting.

Amy: Absolutely. I think it's so important, and that's why coming back to the science and the evidence is so important. And there's so many things that are said that kind of we want to pull our hair out, but it's so important to always come back and remind the public and folks where the science is, where the evidence is, what is what is safe and effective, and what these medications, what this healthcare, what this range of services really mean for people and how important they are to their sexual and reproductive health, to come back to the facts.

Jennie: Okay, so the next bucket of things that we saw was weaponizing federal Medicaid dollars.

Amy: Yes. So, this was definitely again another piece of the plan laid out. And some of this, some of this work that they did this last year was definitely has been building for well over a decade. So unfortunately, with the support of the Republican controlled Congress, they passed the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” over the summer last year. Kind of one of the most devastating pieces of that was to defund Planned Parenthood for a year. And so, the mechanism for that folks who use Medicaid for their health insurance are not able to take that health insurance with them to a Planned Parenthood clinic to get sexual and reproductive health care. So, it was really not just an attack on Planned Parenthood per se, but really an attack on low-income folks and people who use Medicaid for their health insurance to suddenly say where they can and can't go get care, knowing especially that Planned Parenthood provides such high-quality health care. So, that piece was in there. Again, an example of weaponizing Medicaid and also a really devastating provision that will instill work requirements on folks who use Medicaid. That provision is set to go into effect in the coming months and a couple of years. But that will especially have devastating effects for women. We know that women are more likely to be on Medicaid. And so, with that provision specifically, we expect between 2.1 and 6 million women of reproductive age will be impacted by that and probably lose their Medicaid coverage in the coming months, which then impacts their access to care. So, there's many examples of where this administration is going after people's health coverage, specifically around Medicaid, and we know that that has such a devastating impact on people's access to reproductive health care.

Jennie: And I feel like that feeds right into the next one because like what are the sexual and reproductive health services that a lot of people were accessing via Medicaid— contraception is a big part of that. So, there were also attacks on contraception beyond just Medicaid.

Amy: Absolutely. For those folks, Medicaid is a huge source of people's access to care. And for many of those folks, as well as many others, especially those who are uninsured, they rely on going to clinics that receive Title X funding. So, Title X is the nation's only program that is dedicated to making sure low-income folks have access to sexual and reproductive health care and they provide funding to clinics that provide really high quality care. And so, kind of in the middle of last year, rather abruptly, the Trump administration just decided to freeze the funds that were going to Title X clinics and claimed that they were in violation of diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements that this administration had put out. And so, clinics really had to scramble for several months to kind of prove that they were actually providing high-quality health care. And so, that funding was eventually turned on after several months, but you had clinics not receiving, both being attacked on the Medicaid front, also attacked on their funding streams for Title X. And it was just such a direct attack on people's access to sexual and productive health care, especially for, like I said, low-income folks, immigrants, young people and others who rely on those clinics for care. And we expect in the coming months to see even further attacks on that system.

Jennie: Yeah, and it's one of those that yes, the money is back now, but if they had to lay people off or close clinics, like that is just like those people don't come back. Like you can't just magically reopen a clinic. Like, this is long term harm, not just the immediate harm for the people who couldn't access care when they wanted it, but now those people could be gone and not able to access care in the future.

Amy: 100%. We see this both with, like, Title X clinics, with abortion clinics. This is health care that's being provided. And so, the infrastructure for providing that care is not just an on and off switch. And so, speaking to that Title X kind of network, there were really harsh provisions put on that network towards the end of the first Trump administration in 2019. Those were lifted almost immediately when Biden came into office in 2020. So those restrictions were only in place for about a year. And yet they had devastating consequences. And we are just now barely starting to recover from those, you know, six years later, we haven't even reached the full height of the care and the kind of network that had existed before. And so, the damage is not just when the policy turns on and then when the policy turns off, but it's long lasting. We're going to see that with the Planned Parenthood Defund, even though that provision will end this summer and they will once again be able to accept Medicaid funds. So many clinics have closed in the meantime. And so, the devastation to these systems and to these clinics and this access to care definitely outlives the policy.

Jennie: And I think the other thing that is always useful to mention is, especially for Title X, like people may not know that the low cost or free contraception they were getting was part of this program called Title X. So all they know is they went to see their provider for care that they used to get and now they can't get it. And it breaks trust with the provider. Even if that provider was able to stay in business and is still there, that patient may not come back.

Amy: Absolutely. We did so much research on the provisions that were in place back in 2019 and then lifted. And that research really just shows that whether the clinic was directly impacted by the provision, whether they were peripherally impacted by the provision; overall, the system just wreaked havoc. And people very specifically showed they weren't able to get their contraceptive of choice; if they were able to get the contraception that they wanted, if they were able to get in the door, where they had gotten free care before, they went back six months later and suddenly they had to pay, and so they couldn't get the care. The impacts were definitely felt at the individual level with what they were able to receive. And again, exactly like you said, the trust.

Jennie: Okay, so that is that same type of conversation. I feel like we have a lot around Global Gag Rule. So that makes me think of: they have done a lot targeting reproductive health care worldwide. What are some of the ways that they have done that?

Amy: It's been nothing short of completely devastating. I'll talk in just a quick second very briefly about the Global Gag Rule, but it's interesting to know that the Global Gag Rule came out a few weeks ago, at the end of January. So, technically after the first year of the Trump administration, and yet the damage that the Trump administration wreaked on the system of foreign aid has been devastating. So, as we all know, the USAID system was completely dismantled last year. There was an immediate foreign aid freeze really soon into the Trump administration that even before the destruction of USAID wreaked havoc because suddenly funds were no longer flowing. In the melee of all of that, at the time especially, Secretary Rubio said we will not be funding international family planning. And so, clinics around the world, the access to commodities and contraception and that was just completely thrown into chaos. And we heard so many stories of people having devastating health consequences over the year, because where they had received care was just no longer available. And so, this administration is completely trying to rewrite not only how we do foreign assistance around the world but also rewrite what human rights look like and even the fact that being able to access reproductive health care is a human right and trying to turn all of that on its head. So this kind of all culminated in the Global Gag Rule, which was announced a few weeks ago, like I said, which would really impose anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, anti-human rights restrictions on a whole range of actors that receive US foreign assistance from international organizations to foreign governments to US-based organizations, are all now going to have various levels of restrictions put on not only the funding they receive from the US, but in many cases their other funding to be able to provide the health care that people need, the support services that people need around the world. And it promises to have very devastating consequences with a lot of chaos and confusion in the process.

Jennie: Yeah. And that's one of those- it's complicated. There's a lot of moving parts in it. So, if people want to learn more about this new terrible, terrible expansion to the global gaggle, we'll put a link in our show notes to an episode we did, I don't know, at this point, maybe two, three weeks ago, where you can get a deeper dive into what happened. But Amy did a great job like doing the quick frame of what happened because it is not good, y'all. And that is one of the spaces— thinking about what happened in the global space, I think we were all prepared for a lot of things, but I don't know that any of us were prepared for thinking they would just dismantle the entire aid system like day one. Like, all the things that I had been thinking could happen, that I didn't think that that was one of them. So, it was just shocking in its cruelty.

Amy: I agree. And also, it's the dismantling of the system. And when we talk about the system, it means the impact on people worldwide. It also means the system. It also means all of those people, all of the infrastructure, all of the expertise and knowledge and care that was built into that system and how to deliver services and healthcare to people on the ground. All of that was eliminated. All of the humans who know how to do that were fired, as they were across so many agencies across the whole federal government. It's just the huge loss of expertise and understanding and care and compassion and all of that was lost.

Jennie: Okay. Next, I think we already did the human rights part, right?

Amy: Yeah.

Jennie: Next, you one of the things that we have also seen is a really, really laser focus on targeting the transgender community and attacking transgender rights and healthcare. What are some of the ways that we have seen that play out?

Anna: Yeah, I mean, obviously, as Amy mentioned, they're going after the term “gender” itself and “gender equity” more broadly, but they've really, really gone after transgender individuals and their rights and protections in this country. And so, immediately into the administration, Trump issued an executive order banning transgender individuals from serving in the military. This was followed by another couple actions impacting trans individuals in the military and their access to gender-affirming procedures. But even more recently, we've seen a few rules come out of CMS, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as well as another rule impacting transgender care under disability. So even more recently, just at the end of last year, we saw Trump's CMS, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, release two proposed rules that once they go into effect will be incredibly devastating for transgender individuals' access to health care, one of which might look familiar to those of us who are familiar with the Hyde Amendment. We've seen, time and time again, them really use the same playbook to attack abortion access and transgender care. And they're doing this once again by proposing a rule that would bar any Medicaid and ship, so the children's health insurance program funding from going towards gender-affirming care for individuals under the age of 18. And this other regulation would go even further by barring hospitals that are participating in Medicare and Medicaid programs from providing any gender-affirming care to folks under the age of 18. So, this is forcing hospitals to continue to provide necessary lifesaving, evidence-backed care or lose federal funding, which is really not an option for many hospitals. I think what we've seen is that they're once again using minors as they do in abortion access as sort of a canary in the coal mine. They see this as sort of a low-hanging fruit. They go after minors' access, but we know they won't stop there. And we also know that minors' access to health care for transgender individuals is incredibly important. So, I think what we've seen is, similar to the Hyde Amendment, this is just the first, one of the first attacks on transgender care. But they're not gonna stop with just this federal funding piece, and they're not gonna stop with minors. They're really going after health care for transgender individuals across the board. And we're seeing individuals from this administration appointees really endorse some really harmful views and elevate really harmful rhetoric that really goes against all of the science that shows that access to gender-affirming care, especially for young people, is incredibly important to their well-being and their health.

Jennie: Yeah, this is one of those that I definitely keep a close eye on. And that link between following the anti-abortion playbook, right? You just see the exact same things happening because it's the same players, right? It's the same people attacking both. It's this broader fight over bodily autonomy, and the anti-rights community is hoping that they can, you know, peel off some squishy people who don't want to talk about trans issues. And we can't let them succeed at that, right? We need to make sure that we keep this as one conversation and that we continue to show up for our trans friends and family and the broader transgender community. Okay. So now that we know this laundry list of terrible things— and we didn't even cover everything, so I highly encourage all of you to go and read the piece that Guttmacher put out. We will definitely include it in our show notes, so you have easy access to it because there is more that we were not able to get to because we don't have all the time to be able to talk about all the things. But we always like to end with a little bit of hope or at least ways that we can fight back. So, what are some ways our audience can get involved in the fights right now?

Amy: I think taking us back a few minutes when we were talking about mis- and disinformation, I think that this is a place where every individual, especially those who partake in any way of social media, can really make a difference because I think that is how people get their information, how they're learning about both how they're learning about healthcare that's available to them, whether it's contraception or access to abortion care or anything like that, or where they're learning about policies and what this government is doing. And we didn't even talk about what's happening at the state level and different places and all of that. Where they get that information really, really matters, and then how they share that. So, I really encourage folks who care about these issues to find a couple of good organizations, a couple of good podcasts to follow, folks that are really putting out high-quality evidence-based information to follow those and then share those with their friends. The work of debunking and demystifying false information that's out there is going to be on all of us. And so, I know, especially folks who do care about these issues, I know often their friends or their family will come to them with questions because they, oh, I know that you kind of care about repro or I know you care about abortion. And so having that information and having quality, true information on hand, whether it's about how someone can get medication abortion online, how they can bend a clinic, what's the truth about contraception, all of that is so important. So, I just encourage folks to get that information to follow it. And then if they have the means to support their local abortion funds, another good source of good information as well, but to then, you know, kind of invest back in their community because we know that abortion funds specifically have done so much to make sure people have access to care. And then if they have time, they can go to Guttmacher.org and learn more about our work too.

Jennie: Yeah, and I always say that knowing the information is important and you don't need to know all the things, right? So having your friends come to ask you about things doesn't mean you need to know all the things. It means you know where you can send them to get the right information, right? So, I don't need to know where the closest clinic is or what the laws are in Wisconsin. I can send them to Abortion Finder or some or one of those sites, or I need an A where they can find their closest clinic and have all those things worked out for them. Or I know I can send them to X, Y, or Z. So, making yourself a resource in that way and that you're giving out trusted information, it doesn't mean you need to know the answer to all the things.

Amy: Of course. We don't know the answer to all the things and we live in registers.

Jennie: Seriously. Anna, Amy, thank you so much for being here. I had a great time talking to you about all of these terrible things.

Amy: Thank you so much for having us.

Jennie: Okay, y'all. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Amy and Anna. It was so great talking to them about all of the attacks on sexual and reproductive health we have seen in the first year of Trump 2.0. I know this is only like a small sliver of what they've done. There have been so many harms done by this administration, but we're just staying in our lane and talking about the sexual and reproductive health impacts. And I'm sure there are things we missed because, again, there were so many. Definitely check out the piece that Guttmacher wrote. We'll include it in our show notes because there are things that we were not able to get to in this week's episode. And with that, I will see everybody in two weeks. [music outro] If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@reprosfightback.com, or you can find us on social media. We're at @rePROsFightBack on Facebook and Twitter, or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform, or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprosfightback.com. Thanks all!