Sept. 28 marked the 35th annual International Safe Abortion Day. This global day of action was established by feminists in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s to celebrate and fight for the decriminalization of abortion. But in the United States, three years following the disastrous overturning of Roe v. Wade, not one word has been uttered about this holiday from elected officials.
Instead, the attacks on abortion rights continue here. Mifepristone, the drug that revolutionized abortion access, is now “under review” by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for alleged “safety concerns.” Some are trying to get medications that induce abortions declared “controlled substances,” to create obstacles to their use. Some legislators are even offering bounties to people who successfully sue distributors and prescribers of these pills.
Meanwhile, recent studies have revealed a direct link between lack of access to abortion and an increase in maternal deaths and life threatening sepsis, more women nearly bleeding to death during miscarriage, and in the use of emergency for conditions involving pregnancy, including miscarriage.
A critical safe and simple public health service
The World Health Organization considers abortion to be a critical public health service that is safe and simple when carried out properly. Nearly 30 percent of all pregnancies end in abortion, a rate which the WHO notes is fairly constant regardless of abortion’s legality in various locations. Where safe, quality abortions are unavailable, unsafe abortions simply take their place.
Just three years ago, the United States jumped off the global trend of increasing safe abortion access. Despite polls showing that nearly two-thirds of all Americans supported the legality of abortions in all or most cases, nine unelected Supreme Court justices voted to slash abortion as a right on the national stage. What followed was the creation of a patchwork of inconsistent abortion laws by state.
Different U.S. states now encompass the full spectrum of legality: 14 states suffer from total abortion bans, while the other 36 have varying legality based on the circumstances of the abortion. Among the 14 states with total bans, the number of clinics dropped from 63 to 0, impacting 62.7 million women and girls. This has led to a surge in out-of-state travel for abortion services, which many legislators are now also trying to criminalize.
It is clear that these abortion restrictions and bans are rooted in cruelty and control, not the ostensible desire among far-right legislators to “preserve human life.” The WHO writes that:
“Inaccessibility of quality abortion care risks violating a range of human rights of women and girls, including the right to life; the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; the right to benefit from scientific progress and its realization; the right to decide freely and responsibly on the number, spacing and timing of children; and the right to be free from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment.“
It is also evident in recent statistics that indicate that mothers living in states with total abortion bans are nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or soon after birth than mothers who live in states where abortion is accessible. These are women who have carried their pregnancy through, not seeking abortion. Of course, the figure is even higher for women of oppressed groups in the United States: Black mothers living in total-ban states were 3.3 times as likely to die over their white counterparts in the same state.
Maternal deaths in Texas 155% higher than in abortion supportive states
Texas, the first state in the country to enact a sweeping abortion ban, saw a maternal death rate 155% higher than the rate in abortion-supportive states like California. In the first year of the abortion ban alone, maternal mortality rose 56 percent. More maternal deaths now occur in Texas than any other state in the nation.
More data from Texas hospitals show the downstream effects of the abortion ban on other forms of care:
- After performing an abortion became a felony in 2022, the number of blood transfusions needed to treat women suffering from first-trimester miscarriage increased by 54%;
- The number of emergency room visits for early miscarriage rose by 25%, hinting that women who could not receive dilation and curettage procedures due to fears surrounding the abortion ban were returning to hospitals in worse condition;
- The rate of sepsis, a life-threatening condition, skyrocketed by more than 50% for women who lost their pregnancies in the second trimester.
But for right-wing legislators this is still not enough. Emboldened by the complete silence of their so-called opposition party, the Democrats, the Trump administration is launching even more cruel and absurd initiatives against abortion. Their desire to control women’s bodies seems to have no bounds:
- Mifepristone, the drug that revolutionized abortion access, is now “under review” by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for alleged safety concerns informed by a right-wing organization whose president served on the advisory board of Project 2025;
- Last year, Louisiana became the first state to classify mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances, a move that one doctor predicted would also impact non-abortion-related care, including postpartum hemorrhages and IUD insertions;
- Legislators are offering bounties of $100,000 or more to private citizens who successfully sue prescribers and distributors of abortion pills, the most common form of abortion;
- In August 2025, the Trump administration proposed new rules completely barring doctors at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from performing abortions or providing counseling that might lead to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. This is especially egregious considering the high rates of sexual assault in the military;
- In July 2025, the State Department announced that it would spend over $167,000 in taxpayer dollars to burn a warehouse full of $10 million dollars worth of paid-for, unexpired contraceptive pills. These pills were intended for women in low-income countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, and Tanzania, that are facing contraceptive shortages. The fate of the pills is still unclear.
In light of these appalling attacks, opposition from the so-called pro-choice party is nowhere to be found. An issue that was once “one of Democrats’ most powerful rallying cries” is now absent from national political discourse and relegated to swing-state electoral races.
Most people support abortion rights
Trump and his cabinet have intentionally shied away from publicly addressing the topic of abortion since 2022, knowing that it still has a majority of public support even among Republican voters. This leaves a massive vacuum around the issue where Democrats could seize the momentum and, even if for their own opportunism, attack the Republicans for these outrageous policies. But perhaps the Democratic Party avoids abortion because it’s still a sore spot: after all, Roe v. Wade was overturned under Biden following decades of failure by Democratic lawmakers to codify the right to abortion into law.
By allowing the Republicans to throw the abortion question off the table, the Democrats only open the door to more far-right attacks. With abortion out of the national spotlight, news like the announced burning of $10 million of birth control can fly under the radar, while Republicans continue to chip away at the entrails of local and state abortion protections.
The past three years have shown us that Democrats will not only step aside for Republicans to dismantle the principal issue among their voting base, but they will roll out the red carpet for them to do so. Only a powerful people’s movement that can truly force their legislators’ hands will win back this fundamental right for all women in America.
Photo: Pueblo ProChoice.
