Trump administration touts pro-life policies while pro-lifers hope for greater action

Over the week leading up to the March for Life, the Trump administration made a number of pro-life policy changes, leaving some pro-life leaders and advocates wondering if it's a political strategy to appease them as the administration has yet to act on the regulation and legality of the abortion pill.

Key Takeaways:

• Last week, the Trump administration made announcements that affect the lives and dignity of preborn children, including the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), the suspension of the use of aborted fetal tissue in NIH research and HHS-funded research, and the expansion of the Mexico City Policy.

• However, pro-life advocates continue to press the Trump administration to block and/or reign in mail-order abortion pills, which are being distributed by bad actors in violation of state pro-life laws, putting women and children in danger.

• Thus far, the administration has taken no evident action as to the regulation or availability of abortion drugs.

The Details:

January 22, 2026, was the 53rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and in the week surrounding this date, the Trump administration made three significant announcements affecting pro-life issues.

NIH halts aborted fetal tissue use

The first came on Thursday, the day before the March for Life in Washington, D.C., when it was announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will no longer use fetal tissue obtained from aborted babies in its research. The change was made effective immediately and will apply to "the NIH Intramural Research program and all NIH-supported extramural research, including grants, cooperative agreements, other transaction awards, and research and development contracts."

This is substantial because those experiments were unethical and often gruesome. A February 2025 congressional hearing revealed some of the disturbing experiments that utilized tissue from aborted children. Much of the research involved transplanting the body parts onto animals. One of the horrific experiments involved scalping 5-month-old aborted fetuses to stitch onto lab rats. Another involved killing infants delivered alive during abortions for liver harvesting.

Nearly 90% of the experiments were funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of 27 institutes and centers that make up NIH.

Withdrawal from the WHO

Also on January 22, the United States completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), and all government funding for the pro-abortion WHO was ended.

The change will reduce funding for various institutions — including the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), which claims abortion is a "human right," promotes abortion as a way to avoid having children, and has been linked to forced sterilization and abortions in China.

In addition, the WHO advises against certain common-sense regulations on abortion, such as gestational limits, waiting periods, and a requirement that only doctors commit abortions. The WHO seeks to expand the culture of death globally.

READ: Why pro-lifers should question the agenda of the World Health Organization

Mexico City policy expansion

On January 23, Vice President JD Vance announced in a speech at the March for Life that the Trump administration would be expanding the Mexico City policy, which prohibits U.S. federal funding from going to foreign Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) that commit, counsel for, or advocate for abortion. The expanded policy will apply to both foreign NGOs and U.S. NGOs, going "beyond $8 billion in global health to cover more than $30 billion in foreign assistance."

"And today," said Vance, "our administration is proud to announce a historic expansion of the Mexico City Policy. We're gonna start blocking every international GO that performs or promotes abortion abroad from receiving a dollar of U.S. money. We're expanding this policy to protect life, to combat DEI, and the radical gender ideologies that prey on our children, and with these additions, the rule will now cover every non-military foreign assistance that America sends."

HHS halts aborted fetal tissue use

Also on January 23, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it will no longer allow the use of human fetal tissue from elective abortions to be used in the research it funds. The directive from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., affects grants, contracts, and programs administered across HHS.

"Secretary Kennedy's announcement on the day of the National March for Life follows the HHS Office for Civil Rights' actions this week to safeguard federal health care provider conscience rights and protect the dignity of human life. On December 9, 2025, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requested that the Maryland Insurance Administration cancel implementation of the Maryland Public Health Abortion Grant Program to ensure full compliance with federal law," said an HHS press release.

Commentary:

The pro-life efforts from the Trump administration appear to be too little, too late for many pro-lifers, who have been pleading with the administration to protect the Hyde Amendment and end mail-order access to the abortion pill.

Ahead of the March for Life, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser came down firmly against the Trump administration's inaction on the abortion pill (emphasis added):

"Despite the horrifying stories of women being poisoned with abortion drugs and red states begging for action, the Trump-Vance Administration has not reversed Joe Biden’s Covid policy allowing for the mail-order of the drugs.

This is making state pro-life laws completely unenforceable – undermining Trump’s ‘back to the states’ position – and the biggest driver behind the number of abortions going up, not down since the Dobbs decision. At the same time, President Trump has suggested the GOP be ‘flexible’ on the Hyde Amendment, which for decades has been an unshakeable bedrock principle and minimum standard in the GOP that prevents taxpayer-funded abortion.

Dannenfelser called on the Trump administration to "recommit to its promises on Life," including expanding the Mexico City Policy, launching a review of Planned Parenthood's $88 million in Covid Paycheck Protection Loans, ending NIH-funded research using aborted baby tissue, and enforcing conscience protections in Illinois, where the state is forcing medical professionals to refer for abortions.

While the administration has now responded to each of these requests, the abortion pill mifepristone is still easily accessible, and chemical abortion now accounts for at least 63% of all abortions in the U.S.

Likewise, in a thread on X, National Review contributor Alexandra DeSanctis Marr had strong words for the administration:

... Since Dobbs, the abortion rate has risen sharply. Chemical abortions account for nearly two-thirds of all U.S. abortions and are available across the country via mail, regardless of state pro-life laws. The Trump administration could roll this back, and it hasn’t.

The Trump-Vance administration does not deserve the praise or support of the institutional pro-life movement until it uses its executive authority to regulate dangerous chemical-abortion drugs. Full stop. Its current policy position is actively pro-abortion.

Why It Matters:

In his address at the March, Vance referred to the disappointment pro-lifers are feeling regarding the Trump administration and the abortion pill.

“I must address an elephant in the room,” Vance said. He mentioned “a fear that some of you have, that not enough progress has been made, that not enough has happened in the political arena, that we’re not going fast enough, that our politics have failed to answer the clarion call to life. I want you to know that I hear you and that I understand there will inevitably be debates within this movement."

Those "debates" are costing human lives.

Earlier this month, President Trump reportedly instructed House GOP leadership to "be a little flexible" on the Hyde Amendment, a 50-year-old rider that prevents federal tax dollars from being used to pay for abortions. Statistics show that when abortion is made "free" to women through Medicaid, it acts as added pressure for them to go through with an abortion they may not want, but that others — parents, partners, and stressors like educational or financial demands — are making the decision to abort a child difficult to resist.

While on the campaign trail, both Trump and Vance seemed to soften on abortion. Trump refused to say he would call on Congress to pass a national pro-life law, even though he said during his first term that he aimed to protect preborn children from abortion after 20 weeks.

Trump also said he would not block access to mifepristone — an unfortunate promise he has kept despite pro-lifers' efforts.

For his part, Vance told CBS News in 2024, that abortion pill laws must "be made by the states" and that the drug must be prescribed in "a safe way."

But as Dannenfelser pointed out, the ability to mail-order the abortion pill has made state abortion laws unenforceable and put many pregnant women in danger of coerced and forced abortion and significant abortion pill complications. Some women have already suffered complications as a result — and while states have attempted to pursue justice, they are blocked from doing so by other states' so-called "shield laws" that protect abortion pill pushers.

The Bottom Line:

During his first term, Trump was often referred to as the 'Most Pro-Life President' as he was the first sitting president to speak at the March. But failing to reign in or block a drug that is used for the vast majority of abortions, which is also causing serious adverse events in potentially 11-12% of women, is not pro-life. Not for women and not for preborn children.

“It’s hard to say someone is ‘the most pro-life’ when they are allowing the abortion pill [to remain accessible] and they could stop it," said Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, "or they’re saying things like they could be ‘flexible’ on Hyde, or they’re taking things actively out of the Republican Party platform that defended life and saying, basically, some abortions are acceptable."