Funders and nonprofits focused on reproductive rights and gender equity are shifting strategies in response to Donald Trump’s presidential re-election. Conservative anti-abortion groups are seeking federal restrictions while progressive groups want to strengthen reproductive rights at the state level.
It is unclear how Trump — who nominated three Supreme Court judges resulting in the conservative majority that overturned federal protections for abortion rights in 2022 — will approach the issue in his second term. His position was inconsistent during his campaign. On the one hand, he suggested decisions on abortion rights should be left to states, and, on the other hand, he signaled support for a national 15-week abortion ban. This inconsistency emerged while poll after poll since the high court’s decision has shown a majority of Americans favor keeping abortion legal in most or all cases.
Over the past two years, states like California, Michigan, Ohio, and Vermont have passed ballot measures that would block full abortion bans. That trend continued this year with seven other states — including some Trump won, such as Missouri — voting this month in favor of abortion rights ballot measures.
But that hasn’t quieted expectations that the Trump administration could support proposals for a federal abortion ban. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan for overhauling American public policy and government includes proposals to ban federal funding for abortion and revoke approval of mifepristone, an FDA-approved medication that nearly two-thirds of women who terminate pregnancies use.. Democrats have said Project 2025 is a blueprint for a second Trump administration despite Trump distancing himself from the document during his campaign.
The Two Sides
Some nonprofit women’s groups want to see abortion restrictions enacted.
With President Trump in the White House and Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, anti-abortion advocates see an opportunity to prevent funding from federal agencies, such as the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense, to support abortions domestically and internationally, said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an influential 501(c)(4) conservative group.
The Trump administration also could start interpreting nondiscrimination laws to protect medical providers who withhold abortion services “so Americans are never forced to participate in abortion,” she said.
Trump also could reinstate the Protect Life Rule, a rule the Department of Health and Human Services issued under the previous administration granting health care workers the right to refuse to provide services like abortion, sterilization, or assisted suicide if they had religious or conscientious objections, according to Dannenfelser. Both domestically and internationally, he could help “stop funneling tax dollars to the abortion industry and free the patriots unjustly put in prison for peacefully protesting the killing of unborn children,” she added.
“The common-sense policies of President Trump’s first term become the baseline for the second, along with reversing the Biden-Harris administration’s unprecedented violation of longstanding federal laws,” Dannenfelser said.
In a new strategy memo, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America urged the Trump administration to reverse Biden administration policies that “expanded abortion access for veterans, service members, and the general population,” Politico reported. In the memo, the group has also requested the return of Trump policies like a Title X federal family planning program rule that barred federally funded clinics from referring patients to abortion providers.
Students for Life Action, a 501(c)(4) advocacy group affiliated with Susan B. Anthony, recently unveiled a “Make America Pro-Life Again Roadmap,” outlining a plan to file lawsuits related to federal regulation of abortion pills and advocate for legislation in Congress as well as in at least 15 states, mostly targeting mifepristone.
Meanwhile, progressive funders and reproductive rights groups are preparing to battle these efforts. They are developing strategies focused at the state level, where they argue there might be opportunities to enshrine civil rights protections.
“While many of us hoped for a different outcome, we knew that this was a possibility,” philanthropist Melinda French Gates wrote in a LinkedIn post following the election. French Gates endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency and has become one of the most prominent funders of women and girls nonprofits, recently pledging $1 billion to groups focused on women’s health care and political rights.
“Advocates, activists, and champions for Americans of all backgrounds and identities have prepared for this moment, and they are ready to work at all levels using every tool at their disposal to ensure that progress keeps moving forward,” French Gates wrote. “Over the next four years, we will see heroic work across our country — in our state legislatures, in our court system, in community organizations distributing frontline services, and everywhere in between.”
The Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity, an intermediary funder group that received an undisclosed amount from French Gate’s recent $1 billion pledge, said it is solidifying its strategy of protecting reproductive, gender equity, and LGBTQ+ rights at the state level.
Liberal women’s nonprofits were neither as surprised nor as unprepared as they were when Trump was first elected in 2016, according to Cristina Uribe, the collaborative’s director of advocacy and judicial strategies. Uribe is also the director of the Gender Equity Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) that is separate but aligned with the collaborative. During the first Trump administration, and especially after the Supreme Court reversed federal abortion rights, funders have been directing money to state and local women’s and gender equity groups with the objective of pushing back against efforts to limit reproductive rights, she said.
Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity is itself a product of that funding surge. The organization was founded in 2018 with an initial $50 million pledge from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Since then, it has created a “state power-building” program to provide multiyear grants to organizations and campaigns in states like Texas, where there is a near-total abortion ban. The group also helped launch a reproductive health center in New Mexico, where abortion remains legal. Over all, the program encourages civil society groups to engage with state policymakers — such as governors, attorney generals, state legislatures, city councils, and county officers — to push for the expansion of reproductive and gender equity rights, Uribe said.
The collaborative also has a judicial strategy that works with groups seeking to advance civil rights through the state, rather than the federal courts system.
“It really is about how state courts are being used to expand rights,” Uribe said. “How are state constitutions being maximized to their fullest?”
The collaborative has made it a point to provide general operating grants to nonprofits, so that they can protect themselves against lawsuits targeting reproductive and DEI programs, Uribe said. Moving forward, it will be important that more funders “orient themselves to legal fees, general counsel, lawyers, and defense,” she said.
Uribe added that she still hopes federal lawmakers will heed public support for reproductive rights when considering potential changes, such as limiting access to abortion pills. This year, 10 states voted on abortion rights measures. They passed in seven states and failed in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
“Why would they move forward with a policy that in state after state voters have said, ‘We don’t want this’?” Uribe asked.
Support for these abortion-related measures shows that the majority of people agree on this issue even when they disagree about political candidates, Uribe said.
Another left-leaning women’s group, the Ms. Foundation, is still determining how best to move forward with the looming possibility that much of its reproductive and gender rights work could be quickly undone if the Trump administration decides to make sweeping policy changes.
“We could have speculated on this moment, but there’s no way we could have actually prepared for this moment,” said Teresa Younger, the foundation’s CEO and former executive director of the Connecticut General Assembly’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Women.
The Ms. Foundation for Women was established in 1972 by Gloria Steinem, Patricia Carbine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Marlo Thomas to help fund organizations and specifically grassroots groups focused on women and girls across race and class.
Right now, the Ms. Foundation is thinking about how it can take an intersectional approach to the issues that women and other marginalized communities face if key parts of Project 2025 are implemented, said Younger.
Much remains unclear about the Trump administration’s future policies, but the nonprofit will be “doubling down on our commitment to movement building and justice and equity,” she said.
Among the things the foundation will likely examine is how to bridge the gap between white women and women of color. Exit polls show that about 53 percent of white women voted for Trump, while 91 percent of Black women voted for Harris. About 60 percent of Latina women voted for Harris and 38 percent voted for Trump.
“We know that women are not a monolith, regardless of race and ethnicity, age or religious background,” Younger said. “And we should expect that we’re going to have a variety of thought.”
“It will be about finding common ground, not dividing out further on what people did and didn’t do.”
