#aaplog

Alyssa Tirrell at MMFA:

In recent weeks, the conservative online magazine The Federalist has published two articles encouraging the Trump administration to restrict access to the abortion pill, citing the concerns of both the Make America Healthy Again and anti-abortion movements. Published by fellows from the Ethics and Public Policy Center and The Heritage Foundation, the articles argue that the administration should restrict access to the abortion pill on the grounds that it keeps a promise to the MAHA faction of President Donald Trump’s base. 

On March 10, two EPPC fellows wrote that Trump couldn't “Make America Healthy Again” without restricting the abortion pill. According to the authors, “The Trump administration is all about promises made, promises kept. And the president made three relevant promises here. First, he promised to ‘Make America Healthy Again.’ But you can’t make America healthy with a pill that causes 1 in 9 women who take it to experience a serious adverse event.” [The Federalist, 3/10/26]

About a week later, two Heritage Foundation fellows wrote a piece titled “Trump Admin Can’t ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Without Abortion Pill Restrictions.” The article read, “If MAHA is serious about protecting Americans from dangerous chemicals, it can’t keep ignoring what the abortion pill does to women.” [The Federalist, 3/16/26] 

In reality, the Food and Drug Administration has found that medication abortion is a “safe and highly effective method of pregnancy termination. When taken, medication abortion successfully terminates the pregnancy 99.6% of the time, with a 0.4% risk of major complications, and an associated mortality rate of less than 0.001 percent (0.00064%).”  The two articles, however, reflect the anti-abortion stance of their respective organizations: EPPC's Life and Family Initiative produces literature advocating against abortion pill access, and The Heritage Foundation has promised to “mobilize and advance policies at the state and federal levels to ... reduce both the demand for and availability of abortion at all stages of human development.” 

Both organizations have also promoted restrictions on in vitro fertilization, at times citing the MAHA movement as the champion of alternative treatments to infertility. Patrick T. Brown, an EPPC fellow working in the organization’s Life and Family Initiative, wrote last year that Trump's executive order aimed at improving access to IVF betrayed MAHA because it didn't “treat the root causes of infertility.” A more recent report from The Heritage Foundation — which proposes to increase the population by incentivizing heterosexual marriage and family — cited MAHA advocacy for restorative reproductive medicine as an alternative to IVF. 

In recent months, right-wing media and anti-abortion activists have kept up a drumbeat linking abortion pill restrictions to the Trump MAHA platform

The Federalist has been advocating common ground between the MAHA and anti-abortion movements since at least October 2025, when it published two articles that framed FDA action on the abortion pill within the context of MAHA objectives. Staff writer Jordan Boyd credited MAHA with putting a review of the abortion pill “back on the table,” and contributor Kristi Stone Hamrick wrote, “If we want to Make America Healthy Again, we must reevaluate deadly chemical abortion pills, not approve even more of them.” Anti-abortion advocates have also emphasized debunked claims that the abortion pill contaminates wastewater. Last December, the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America launched a campaign to add mifepristone to the Environmental Protection Agency's list of drinking water contaminants. A press release announcing the campaign quoted the organization’s president, Kristan Hawkins, as saying, “All I want for Christmas is for millions of Americans to let the Trump Administration know that we want assurances that the Make America Healthy Again agenda includes clean water for all life.” 

As Politico reported, “By aligning their new campaign with the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ agenda and its concerns about the impact of chemicals on human health, the group hopes their efforts will convince the Trump administration to restrict access to the drug or, at minimum, shape public opinion about its safety.” And the strategy seems to have produced results. Last week, House Republicans introduced the “Clean Water for All Life Act,” a bill that would restrict access to medication abortion under the pretense of limiting water contamination.   [...] The MAHA and anti-abortion movements have something else in common, too: They have both reportedly grown disillusioned with the Trump administration's lack of action on key movement concerns. 

From American Association of Pro-Life OB-GYNS on Facebook:

If you are a medical student, consider applying to residency programs in pro-life states. With the national media expressing fears that physicians will avoid working in states with abortion bans, it is now more important than ever that these states be equipped with medical providers who are ethical and fully committed to serving both pregnant and preborn patients.

See this resource to track state laws related to abortion: SBA Pro-Life America’s pro-life laws tracker: https://sbaprolife.org/lifesavinglaws

Learn more about how to successfully navigate the post-Roe world when you attend the annual AAPLOG Matthew Bulfin Education Conference February 10-12 in Tucson, Arizona. Become part of a network of pro-life medical students and veteran practitioners. Receive support where you need it most. Help shape Hippocratic medicine for the future. Register now. Early bird discount for those who register before October 1. https://conference.aaplog.org/

Eric Hananoki at MMFA:

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, news outlets have published numerous stories documenting how restricted abortion access has medically harmed women across the U.S. In contrast, numerous groups involved with Project 2025, including lead organizer The Heritage Foundation, have falsely claimed over the years that abortions are never medically necessary.  The Associated Press reported that doctors have said “that there are many circumstances in which abortion — meaning the termination of a pregnancy — can be medically necessary,” and AFP wrote that “the scientific consensus” is “that abortion is sometimes medically necessary.” 

Since Dobbs, media outlets have also highlighted cases where state abortion bans have caused significant medical issues.  ABC News talked to “18 women from across 10 states who say their medical care was impacted by abortion bans -- bringing some of them to the brink of death.” ProPublica reported on how doctors “say they can’t give women potentially lifesaving care.” The Washington Post “found that many hospitals have failed to provide specific guidance or policies to help doctors navigate high-stakes decisions over how to interpret new abortion bans — leading to situations where patients are denied care until they are on the brink of permanent injury or death.” And the AP reported this week on how “abortion bans complicate risky pregnancy care.”  Media Matters has documented how Project 2025 seeks to significantly restrict reproductive rights in the country. Multiple Project 2025 partners have also continued to signal that they want to criminalize abortion.

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

For years, anti-abortion activists and legislators have been laying the groundwork to try to ban birth control. And now, just a few days after Donald Trump took office, they think they may have found a way to do it. Anti-birth control groups are seizing onto a new small study that shows the active ingredient in the emergency contraceptive Ella could end a pregnancy if paired with misoprostol. The study, which looked at just 133 women, is too small to be definitive or to change anything about the way patients use the drug. But conservatives are weaponizing the research to mislead Americans and threaten birth control in a moment when when women are already dying from lack of reproductive healthcare.

In the New York Times, Students for Life spokesperson Kristi Hamrick said that the group is “absolutely” considering bringing a legal challenge against Ella. “We’ve been arguing for years that Ella acts as an abortifacient,” she says. But here’s the thing: The study did not find that Ella causes abortion. You cannot take Ella, or its active ingredient ulipristal acetate, to end a pregnancy. What researchers did find was that women could end a pregnancy by taking twice the dose of ulipristal acetate found in Ella, followed by misoprostol—which is a drug that can induce abortion on its own. (As one source put it to me, “Miso and a pretzel can cause an abortion.”) To suggest that Ella can end a pregnancy–especially in a moment when those in anti-choice states are desperate to access abortion—is irresponsible bordering on dangerous. Conservatives know that their lie could cause women to seek out Ella to end their pregnancies. They also know that it won’t work, which could further delay or squash women’s ability to get real abortion care. But anti-contraception activists don’t care about the truth, and they certainly don’t care if their talking points send women on wild goose chases that prevent them from being able to end their pregnancies. To these people, it’s all about stopping women and girls from accessing any kind of reproductive health care. And that’s the thing: Groups like Students for Life don’t actually care about the science behind these drugs because they oppose all contraception. In fact, the only forms of birth control the group doesn’t want made illegal are sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods. But these groups know that birth control is way too popular for them to publicly oppose: 99% of American women of reproductive age have used it! Instead, they call contraception ‘abortion,’ a lie that allows them to pretend they never opposed birth control at all. If that sounds confusing, it’s because they mean it to be. As I’ve outlined here and in my book, anti-abortion and anti-contraception organizations have worked hard to confuse Americans over the difference between birth control and abortion—especially when it comes to emergency contraception.

[...] Here’s the truth: Americans support birth control, and because of Republican attacks on reproductive health, it’s more needed than ever. Ella, in particular, is an important contraceptive. Unlike Plan B, Ella is effective for five days after unprotected sex, and is also more effective for people with larger body sizes. And while I hope that the drug behind Ella could be used in abortion care—the more medication we have the better—there’s just not enough evidence for that yet.

So a month or so ago I sent a letter to AAPLOG about my concerns on doctors  mismanaging threatened miscarriages in “pro-life” states, and then claiming that they are unable to do anything because of abortion restriction. I asked them to address this issue directly and to provide resources for solutions.

They have since started posting more on maternal medicine and life saving procedures, but idk if it was directly related to my letter lol. But they have compiled this brand new PDF debunking various pro-abortion myths on maternal fetal medicine.

From AAPLOG on Facebook:

As women’s healthcare experts, we fight hard every day for the health of our patients. And when political agendas supersede the health of our patients, it is our responsibility to speak up. The FDA’s announcement yesterday that they plan to lift safety restrictions that govern the dispensing of medication abortions makes women’s health simply a pawn in the effort to push for more abortion. The American Association of Prolife Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) represents approximately 7,000 women’s healthcare practitioners who will not allow our patients’ lives to be put in jeopardy in order to appease the abortion industry and their allies.

When Mifepristone was first approved in 2000, it was only approved with safety regulations in place (known later as REMS) that would attempt to minimize the significant risk of hemorrhage, tissue not removed, and infection. These REMS were relaxed in 2016 by the FDA, without any further safety testing and despite evidence of significant adverse events, as well as maternal deaths. Inexplicably in 2016, the FDA stopped collecting data on non-fatal adverse events and has only collected data on maternal deaths related to Mifepristone. They have chosen to completely ignore the thousands of women who are showing up in their local emergency rooms due to heavy bleeding, retained tissue, infection, or other complications as a result of medication abortions. A recent analysis of the Adverse Events submitted to the FDA with the REMS in place shows over 3000 women suffering with complications, of which 24 of these women died, and another 500 would have died if they had not reached emergency medical care in time. These numbers will only increase if the current REMS, which require that a woman be seen and evaluated by a licensed healthcare practitioner prior to receiving the medications for an abortion, are removed. This requirement is not restrictive – it is protective.