State Legislatures and the Fight for Reproductive Rights in 2025
Written by Jennifer Driver
Senior Director of Reproductive Rights at the State Innovation Exchange
52 years after the Supreme Court first handed down the Roe v. Wade decision, abortion has gone from a constitutionally protected right to the focus of an all-out fight in the states, with state legislators on the frontlines. This year, the inauguration of Donald Trump—and one of the most anti-abortion administrations and congresses in our country’s history—signals the next chapter of that fight, and lives are on the line—but not lives that these politicians care about.
Politicians like JD Vance have built their identities and platforms around words like “pro-life.” But their agenda is not about protecting life and it never has been.
I know this because their playbook is nothing new for SiX. For decades, our Reproductive Freedom Leadership Council members have seen this extremist agenda play out in statehouses and communities and the harm it causes, especially to Black and brown communities and those working to make ends meet–people who were most likely to lack access to abortion even before Roe fell.
Try as these politicians might to hide their intentions, we know the truth: Abortion bans aren’t protecting life; they’re destroying it. In the past year alone, we saw story after story of people who died after being denied emergency care or forced to delay miscarriage treatment. Since Dobbs, we watched clinics close, ob-gyns leave ban states, and people (with the means) forced to travel out of state for abortion care.
And it’s not just abortion policies that call anti-abortion politicians’ values into question. Politicians who preach family values are planning mass deportations that will tear families apart. Lawmakers who sound the alarm about “protecting children” are proposing legislation to deny transgender children health care, while doing nothing to regulate guns despite hundreds of school shootings each year.
If these politicians cared about life, they would take up policies and allocate resources that protect it. They would strengthen state maternal mortality review committees instead of appointing anti-abortion extremists. They would push to expand contraception instead of attacking it. They would protect Medicaid and other programs to meet people’s basic needs instead of gutting it.
But policies that protect life are nowhere to be found on their agenda. In the world they’re creating, patients have to be airlifted to hospitals, doctors are under threat of civil and criminal punishment for providing care, and lifesaving medications are locked away from hospital staff. We will see people continue to lose their lives under this administration and its policies.
As troubling as this moment in our history is, one thing gives me hope. We have something on our side that these extremist politicians don’t: the people. Most Americans, across political ideology, support abortion access. We saw this in the election, as abortion rights ballot measures passed even in states that went to Trump. The power has always been with the people and in the states–and we must act on it.
The administration that gutted Roe will be emboldened. But so will we.
This year, state legislatures must hold the line, defending our freedom, health, and well-being in the face of renewed attacks. State lawmakers have incredible power to make decisions that protect our lives and our freedoms. We’ve seen incredible examples of this, from Michigan’s Senate advancing the “Momnibus” package to address maternal health disparities, including a bill requiring reports of obstetric racism and another protecting reproductive health data, to California Democrats introducing several bills to safeguard medication abortion and enforce the state’s Reproductive Privacy Act, which ensures the right to make reproductive care decisions without government interference, to Kentucky pushing for postpartum insurance coverage, diversifying medical teams, and increasing access to doulas.
In the face of a Trump presidency and the ongoing attacks on our democracy, state lawmakers are on the frontlines. They have a renewed duty to use their power for good and to advocate for policies that allow us, not politicians, to make our own decisions about our lives and futures.
That’s pro-life.