Rollback
and Resistance:
Women’s Rights in the Age of Trumpism
Posted by MUDITHA RUPAVATH 12 March 2025
From the moment Donald Trump stepped into the Oval Office, his administration has waged a relentless war on reproductive rights. His policies have not only rolled back access to abortion but have also choked funding for contraception, HIV testing, and maternal healthcare disproportionately harming low-income women and women of colour. The reinstatement and expansion of the Global Gag Rule ensured that any international health organisation receiving U.S. funds could not even utter the word “abortion” without risking financial collapse. This was not just an attack on abortion services; it was a death sentence for women worldwide who relied on these clinics for basic reproductive healthcare.
In Zimbabwe, for example, U.S.-funded clinics offering birth control are being shuttered, leaving thousands of women stranded with no options. And while Trump and his allies claim these policies are about protecting "life," the reality is that they exacerbate maternal mortality, force women into unsafe abortions, and deepen existing racial and economic disparities.
But this wasn’t just an international crisis. Trump's war on women’s rights bled deep into the U.S. legal system. His enforcement of the Hyde Amendment through Executive Order 14182 stripped federal funding for abortion, making safe care inaccessible for those who rely on Medicaid. Then came the judicial coup: a conservative-stacked Supreme Court that obliterated Roe v. Wade, throwing reproductive rights into chaos and giving states the power to criminalise abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights warns that decades of progress are unraveling before our eyes, leaving women’s autonomy in the hands of right-wing extremists.
Trump’s disdain for women’s health extended far beyond abortion. His administration gutted the Affordable Care Act (ACA), making birth control more expensive and maternity care harder to access. His war on healthcare disproportionately affected marginalised communities, ensuring that Black and Indigenous women who already face the highest maternal mortality rates bear the brunt of his policies.
The Guttmacher Institute has repeatedly warned that a second Trump term would pose an existential threat to sexual and reproductive health, further eroding access to contraception, family planning, and essential medical care. Worse still, the administration’s deep cuts to biomedical and behavioral research threatened to stall medical advancements, delaying treatments for pregnancy complications, maternal health crises, and reproductive diseases. The Guardian reported that these funding slashes not only slowed life-saving research but also drove talented scientists out of the field, pushing women’s healthcare into further jeopardy.
Trump’s policies didn’t just rob women of reproductive freedom; they also undermined their safety and equality in the workplace. The revocation of Obama-era Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces orders stripped away essential protections against wage discrimination and sexual harassment. Women, especially women of colour lost billions due to these rollbacks, making it harder to fight back against systemic sexism in employment.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), once a safeguard against workplace discrimination, was systematically dismantled under Trump. Progressive commissioners were ousted, leaving women, LGBTQ+ workers, and people of colour with fewer protections against harassment, wage theft, and bias. Jocelyn Samuels, a former EEOC commissioner, sounded the alarm that these moves were part of a broader agenda to erase workplace protections for transgender individuals and undermine anti-discrimination laws.
And let’s not forget Trump’s greatest long-term weapon: the judiciary. His administration stacked the courts with right-wing ideologues determined to dismantle civil rights. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade was just the beginning red states followed with a flood of abortion bans, disproportionately harming Black, Indigenous, and low-income women. The Guttmacher Institute warns that these laws will deepen existing inequities, worsening the reproductive health crisis in
marginalised communities.
This conservative assault on reproductive rights doesn’t exist in a vacuum it’s deeply intertwined with systemic racism, economic injustice, and LGBTQ+ oppression. The American Psychological Association highlights how abortion bans disproportionately impact Black and Indigenous women, who already face higher maternal mortality rates and financial hardship that make out-of-state abortion care impossible to access.
The Alliance for Justice has documented how Trump-appointed judges have actively worked to strip away LGBTQ+ protections, reinforcing a judicial climate that is hostile to civil rights progress. These same courts have eroded anti-discrimination policies, leaving LGBTQ+ individuals more vulnerable than ever. The far-right doesn’t just want to control women’s bodies it wants to police sexuality, gender identity, and bodily autonomy at every level.
When Trump was caught on tape boasting about sexually assaulting women “Grab ’em by the pussy” the backlash should have ended his political career. Instead, it emboldened a generation of misogynists. His presidency gave legitimacy to rape culture, normalising predatory behavior and reinforcing the dangerous idea that power protects abusers.
This climate of impunity fueled the rise of the manosphere, a toxic network of online communities where men justify violence against women, harass feminists, and promote extremist misogyny. Under Trump’s watch, digital threats against women skyrocketed, spilling into real-world violence. The far-right even perverted feminist slogans like “Your body, my choice” to push anti-vax propaganda, demonstrating their twisted, opportunistic relationship with bodily autonomy.
Trump’s misogyny wasn’t just personal, it was political. His administration’s ties to white supremacist groups created an environment where patriarchal violence and racism went hand in hand. From his Muslim travel ban to his racist rhetoric about migrants, Trumpism systematically marginalised women of colour, particularly Black, Latinx, and Indigenous women.
His administration’s “zero tolerance” border policy ripped families apart, separating nearly 2,000 children from their parents in just six weeks. The trauma inflicted on migrant mothers was immeasurable, as thousands were left in detention centers, uncertain if they would ever see their children again. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called this one of the worst human rights abuses in recent U.S. history.
And then, the horror escalated….. In 2020, allegations surfaced that migrant women in U.S. detention centers were being forcibly sterilised. A whistleblower revealed that detained women many of whom were Spanish-speaking or Indigenous underwent unnecessary hysterectomies without proper consent. This chilling revelation echoed America’s long history of eugenics, where marginalised women were systematically sterilised to maintain white supremacy. The American Journal of Public Health condemned these actions as blatant human rights violations.
The assault on reproductive rights, workplace protections, and bodily autonomy under Trump was not just about conservative politics, it was about control. Control over women’s bodies, control over marginalised communities, and control over the future of civil rights. The feminist movement has fought too hard for too long to allow right-wing extremism to drag us backward. The fight for reproductive justice isn’t just about abortion, it’s about dismantling systemic oppression at every level. It’s about demanding a world where healthcare is a human right, where workplace protections are non-negotiable, and where bodily autonomy is sacred.