Todd Blanche and the Trump Administration's Escalating War on Abortion Access
Source: Jill Filipovic. "Todd Blanche tells anti-abortion groups that he wants to roll back women's rights." August 7, 2026. slate.com
The Gist
The author argues that Trump's pick for Attorney General, Todd Blanche, has revealed plans to make abortion illegal everywhere in the U.S., not just leave it to individual states as originally promised. She points to attacks on abortion pills, potential revival of an old anti-obscenity law, and anti-abortion leaders now considering prosecuting women themselves as evidence that the movement's promises were never sincere and the administration is quietly enabling a much broader crackdown than publicly acknowledged.
Conclusion
The Trump administration, through acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, is preparing to significantly escalate restrictions on abortion access nationwide, betraying earlier promises that abortion would be left to the states.
Premises
- Blanche told anti-abortion religious groups that he and the White House are working to make the Dobbs decision 'permanent in every single state,' suggesting a nationwide rather than state-by-state approach.
- The anti-abortion movement always intended to eliminate abortion access everywhere, not just return the issue to the states, despite claiming otherwise before and after Dobbs.
- The Trump FDA is reviewing mifepristone's safety/legality, a drug with a decades-long safety record, in a move motivated by anti-abortion politics rather than genuine safety concerns.
- The anti-abortion movement is pushing to revive the 1870 Comstock Act to criminalize mailing abortion pills, which would also endanger women needing these drugs for miscarriage and postpartum care.
- Leaders in the anti-abortion movement (e.g., John Seago, Kristan Hawkins) who once promised women would never be prosecuted are now openly reconsidering criminalizing women themselves.
- Because Trump personally deprioritizes abortion as an issue, administration officials and appointees like Blanche can wield outsized power to restrict abortion access with little oversight or media scrutiny.
- Existing abortion bans in the South and Midwest have already caused documented deaths and near-deaths among pregnant women denied care, indicating that further restrictions would cause similar or worse harm.
Assumptions
- Statements made by Blanche in a private call reported by Politico accurately reflect his and the administration's actual policy intentions.
- The anti-abortion movement's past statements about limiting prosecution to doctors, not women, were insincere or strategic rather than genuine.
- Reviving the Comstock Act or restricting mifepristone would primarily harm women's health rather than achieve legitimate safety goals.
- Trump's personal inattention to abortion issues translates into meaningful policy space for anti-abortion appointees to act unilaterally.
- The trajectory of anti-abortion leaders' rhetoric (from opposing to reconsidering prosecution of women) represents a genuine and growing movement shift, not isolated individual opinions.