MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report…

+ The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has terminated 53 of its 67 grants for the federal Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP) Program, totaling about $68 million and affecting grantees in two dozen states. The grants provided funding for programs that offer evidence-based sex education programs for young people. Some of the organizations whose grants were canceled include universities, community organizations and Planned Parenthood affiliates.

+ Two family planning programs—the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) and its member, the Family Health Council of Central Pennsylvania (FHCCP)—sued the Trump administration for curtailing the Title X grant program, which funded clinics providing reproductive healthcare services to low-income patients.

Let’s not forget what else was sent our way over the last month…

Monday, June 1: New Medicaid Work Mandates Target the Medically Vulnerable

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released new guidelines on Medicaid eligibility standards, implementing a strict nationwide work mandate.

Under the new rule, certain Medicaid applicants and current recipients must document at least 80 hours per month of employment, education, job training or community services as a mandatory condition for keeping their health coverage.

Issued under the Working Families Tax Cut legislation passed in July 2025, the framework establishes rigid standards that states must enforce for adults aged 19-64. While the federal rule technically lists exemptions, including for individuals who are pregnant, postpartum, disabled, medically frail, or serving as primary caregivers, health advocates warn that the process of proving these exemptions creates a dangerous administrative barrier. 

A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) study cited by the Trump administration claims the new standards could reduce poverty by up to 2.9 million people, depending on local job availability. In a press statement, CMS administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz touted the mandate, asserting it will “help Americans build skills and independence through work, education, job training, or community service, creating new opportunities for themselves and their families.”    

However, Medicaid leaders, equity advocates and policy experts strongly dispute this narrative. Enrollees will now be forced to navigate extensive, bureaucratic paperwork every six months to prove they are working or medically unfit to work. Experts warn these harsher verification hurdles will inevitably cause millions of the most vulnerable, lowest-income Americans—predominantly women juggling unstable hours and caregiving loads—to lose their health coverage entirely due to administrative red tape.

The work requirement poses an acute threat to individuals with chronic illnesses. Under the new guidelines, a disease or condition must be actively and visibly interfering with an individual’s physical ability to work to qualify for a medical exemption. Consequently, people living with HIV or those undergoing early-stage cancer radiation treatments who are technically capable of working some hours will be denied exemptions.

The refusal to grant protections has devastated public health advocates. Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, who spent the last year lobbying for a blanket exemption for people living with HIV, expressed profound outrage over the work requirement rule: “I’m upset. We’re just going to lose people to Medicaid, and then they are going to get sick, and then they’re going to die.”

Saturday, June 13: Trump Administration Removes LGBTQ+ Veterans’ Healthcare Programs

In an internal directive obtained by The Advocate, the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) has ordered its health facilities nationwide to eliminate gender-identity-based initiatives. The directive also mandates the erasure of the “LGBTQ+” designation from the nationwide network of care coordinators created to help these veterans navigate the system. 

This directive is the latest in a series of actions by the administration to erase references to and acknowledgment of LGBTQ+ identities from federal programs. 

U.S. Army veteran Tanya Walker (left) at a protest outside the Stonewall Inn in in New York City after the word transgender was erased from the National Park Service’s webpage on Feb. 14, 2025. (Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)

VA Healthcare professionals responded to the directive with alarm, warning LGBTQ+ veterans would lose access to services uniquely tailored to their needs. 

Vital health education and affirmative mental health programs such as PRIDE in ALL Who Served and CBT-PRISM now face an uncertain future as facilities scramble to adapt to the new mandate. 

For over a decade, the VA has maintained a nationwide system of LGBTQ+ Veteran Care Coordinators. This network was established in 2016 after the VA’s own internal research concluded LGBTQ veterans face unique barriers to healthcare and mental support due to stigma and discrimination, factors that significantly elevate their risk for adverse health conditions. 

Michael Kauth, the former director of the Veterans Health Administration LGBTQ+ Health Program, sharply criticized the administration’s decision to dismantle these resources:

“LGBTQ+ Veterans have high rates of exposure to violence, discrimination, food insecurity and homelessness. What is honorable about ignoring health inequities and failing to recognize that some groups are more vulnerable and at risk than others?”

Monday, June 15: Louisiana Father Arrested for Giving Abortion Pills to Teenage Daughter

A Louisiana man was charged with counts of first-degree feticide and domestic abuse for allegedly giving abortion pills to his teen daughter without her consent. Police have released limited details about the case, but as Jessica Valenti wrote in Abortion, Every Day,

“Until we learn more information, I’m going to urge us to take the same patient and skeptical approach we do with pregnancy criminalization cases. … Is it possible that this man surreptitiously or forcibly made his 17-year-old take abortion medication? Absolutely. But here’s the problem: Because Republicans and antiabortion activists have been conflating anything having to do with abortion pills with force and ‘coercion,’ they’re muddying the waters and making actual abuse harder to identify.”

Antiabortion groups, including Students for Life and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, have already used the arrest to call for restrictions to abortion pills, claiming they enable abusers. This case echoes another arrest in Louisiana from January 2025, when police arrested a mother on criminal abortion charges for obtaining abortion pills for her teenage daughter. She is still awaiting trial. In both cases, local prosecutors and antiabortion advocates have alleged that the arrested parents “coerced” their daughters into having illegal abortions; however, neither parent was officially charged with coercion.

The possibility of people being coerced into having unwanted abortions is a favorite talking point of the antiabortion movement. In reality, it’s statistically far more common for abusers to force women into keeping pregnancies and prevent them from having abortions. 

Tuesday, June 16: Trump Administration Defines Embryos as ‘Children’ With Embryo Adoption Program

In a call for grants from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Trump administration described frozen embryos as “children who already exist,” while allocating millions of dollars in federal funding to an embryo adoption program. (The program itself isn’t new to Trump; the George H. W. Bush administration started it in 2002.)

By revising the language of the federal grant program (previous versions only referred to “embryos,” not “children”), the Trump administration is echoing the language of “fetal personhood,” or the idea that fetuses and embryos should have the full rights of any human.

Thousands of abortion-rights activists gather in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after the Court announced a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case on June 24, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Over the past four years, since Dobbs, the concept of fetal personhood has been gaining traction in state legislatures and in Congress. In 2025, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) introduced a bill called the Life at Conception Act (HR 722) that seeks to ban abortion nationwide—as well as restrict access to IVF and criminally prosecute pregnant women for actions that could endanger their pregnancies—by extending the legal definition of personhood to fetuses.

By using the words “child” and “children” nearly 40 times in the most recent document regarding the embryo adoption program, the Trump administration is quietly taking another step toward enshrining fetal personhood and giving constitutional rights to fetuses, undoubtedly further limiting access to both abortion and fertility treatments such as IVF.

According to Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for reproductive rights and health equity at the National Women’s Law Center,

“This revised grant language to call embryos ‘children’ may seem small, but it could have enormous consequences for abortion, IVF treatment, and birth control access for people nationwide. Defining frozen embryos as children gives antiabortion extremists so-called ‘evidence’ that they could use to convince an extremist judge that embryos and fetuses deserve the same legal rights as people. This type of move must be taken seriously and understood for what it truly is: a threat to reproductive health care rights and access nationwide.”

Wednesday, June 17: Over 770,000 Children Lose SNAP Benefits Following Federal Food Program Cuts

More than 770,000 children have been dropped from receiving SNAP benefits, a ProPublica investigation revealed. One year after President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which introduced nationwide reforms to the federal food program, state enrollment rolls show a sharp decline in the number of children receiving assistance. 

Food policy experts are raising concerns over the collateral damage of the SNAP reforms, which states must implement before October 2027. The two biggest structural changes require states to cover 75 percent of administrative costs (up from 50 percent) and to absorb larger shares of costs based on their error rates.

GOP lawmakers who backed the changes praised the reform as a historic accomplishment that would restore the program’s integrity. Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.), Chair of the House Agriculture Committee, claimed the changes would “ensure it works for the most vulnerable among us.” 

However, the pressure to lower administrative error rates can incentivize states to drop eligible people. Parker Wilde, a food economist at Tufts University, explained how the push to decrease unintentional human errors creates a temptation for states to bump off working families whose precarious, fluctuating incomes make it harder to calculate benefits accurately. 

The most dramatic decrease has been recorded in Arizona, where 205,223 children have been removed from the rolls since July 2025—a staggering 55 percent drop.

The cuts have dramatically strained local resources. Milt Liu, CEO of St. Mary’s Food Bank in Arizona, has seen a 15 percent increase in need, resulting in an estimated 300,000 additional visits from people seeking food. Warning against the rationale of a stricter, smaller SNAP program, Liu cautioned:

“It’s important for everyone to realize that policies have implications for people on the edge, and we’re seeing that in our line everyday.”

Wednesday, June 24: + Dobbs v. Jackson‘s Grim Fourth Anniversary

This month marked the fourth anniversary of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade and ended the federal right to abortion access. Today, 41 states have some form of abortion restrictions in place, including 13 states that ban abortion entirely.

Despite four years of legal attacks on abortion access (and almost five in Texas), the number of abortions in the U.S. has actually increased since Dobbs, thanks in large part to the continued availability of telehealth and abortion pills that can be shipped across state lines. However, medication abortion is currently facing threats in the courts and in Congress. Earlier this year, the Senate Health, Labor, Education & Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing to ostensibly investigate the safety of mifepristone, one of two drugs commonly used in medication abortions, despite extensive evidence showing that the medication is safe. Last fall, HHS Secretary RFK, Jr. and FDA commissioner Marty Makary also launched a new FDA review of mifepristone, which could result in revocation of its FDA approval.

Besides the most immediate threats to abortion access, the consequences of Dobbs have been far-reaching. States with abortion bans have been attracting fewer medical school applicants since 2022, while OB-GYNs in abortion-ban states have migrated to states that don’t restrict their ability to practice, exacerbating maternal healthcare deserts in red states and rural areas.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf and Joyce Vance, writing for Ms. last week, described additional post-Dobbs threats to women’s healthcare:

“For those who choose or require in-person abortion care, travel costs and delays have increased steadily over the past few years, according to a study published by the American Journal of Public Health. 

“Surveillance of pregnancy outcomes and outright criminalization for miscarriages and stillbirths—long a reality for women of color in this country—are also escalating, as prosecutors in antiabortion states intimidate people by leveraging unrelated statutes for child endangerment, homicide or abuse of a corpse in the context of pregnancy and reproductive healthcare. 

“Women with nonviable pregnancies are forced to wait to receive care, as their health deteriorates, because medical professionals fear that their judgment will be second-guessed.”

+ New Bill Would Fund Out-of-State OB-GYN Training for Abortion-Ban States

On Dobbs’ fourth anniversary, Reps. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas), Kelly Morrison (D-Minn.), Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) and Ami Bera (D-Calif.) introduced a bill that would fund out-of-state OB-GYN residency training in abortion care for student doctors attending medical school in states with abortion bans. In most cases, state-level abortion bans extend to medical school curricula, meaning that OB-GYN residents in abortion-ban states are leaving medical school with a crucial gap in their knowledge, making them less equipped to serve patients.

OB-GYN patient rooms at a medical clinic in Hondo, Texas. (Kaylee Greenlee / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The bill, called the Safeguarding Access to Full-spectrum Education (SAFE) and Training for OB-GYNS Act, hopes to begin a grant program to offer funding for OB-GYN residents to travel to states where abortion is legal to receive abortion training there.

Morrison, who was an OB-GYN for most of her career before running for elected office, said, “An abortion ban in even one state affects access to safe healthcare across the country. If doctors can’t receive proper training, lives will inevitably be put at risk. This bill will make it safer and easier for women to get the care they need, and will ensure that future generations of doctors are able to care for all of their patients.”

Thursday, June 25: Supreme Court Lets Trump Administration End Legal Protections for Haitians and Syrians

In a 6-3 decision (Mullin v. Doe), the Supreme Court’s conservative majority cleared the way to end legal protections for migrants escaping violence and natural disasters from Haiti and Syria, effectively exposing hundreds of thousands of people to deportation.

The ruling overturns lower court orders and grants the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the authority to immediately terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian program that has protected a total of 1.3 million people from roughly a dozen countries.

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, the administration has worked to dismantle TPS protections, including some that have been in place for well over a decade. 

Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, decried the ruling as a “devastating betrayal of Haitian families who have lived, worked and contributed to this country for years, only to be cast out based on anti-Black immigration sentiment.”

Immigration attorneys and activists caution that the terminations were made through an improperly hasty process, even though countries like Haiti and Syria remain dangerous, particularly for women. In addition to dangerous environments awaiting deportees, advocates warn against the trauma of separating families and tearing adults and children out of local schools, workforce and communities. 

“Today, many of our community members feel lost,” Farrah AlKhorfan of Immigrants Act Now said about Syrian immigrants losing TPS protections. “They are trying to understand … what this decision means for them and how it will be implemented and how much time they will have to prepare for what comes next.”

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Look to these trusted groups if you or a loved one needs to know more about reliable abortion care:

• A one-stop-shop for abortion seekers: I Need An A
• Safe websites to buy abortion medication: Aid Access, Plan C Pills, Abortion Finder
• If you need help affording abortion care, contact an abortion fund near you.
• To protect your digital privacy when planning your abortion, click here.
• For free legal help as a patient or doctor, call If/When/How’s Repro Helpline: 844-868-2812
• For medical advice, contact the Miscarriage & Abortion Hotline: 833-246-2632
• If you need to know the abortion law in your state, look to the Center for Reproductive Rights.