The second administration of President Donald Trump—once hailed as the most pro-life president ever—isn’t taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the Supreme Court opinion that overturned abortion precedent Roe v. Wade, a pro-life expert says.
“The pro-life movement has been frustrated with the Trump administration—at least this time around—because they have so many [fewer] restraints,” Gavin Oxley, legal operations and media relations manager for Americans United for Life, told the Daily Signal in an interview Tuesday. “They have a lot more freedom to enact pro-life policy, and they’re not acting on it.”
The newfound freedom comes as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The Trump Administration in a Post-Dobbs Era
During Trump’s first term, pro-life advocates often praised the president as a staunch ally. In 2020, Trump became the first sitting president to speak in person at the annual March for Life.
“Trump is proving to be the most fearlessly pro-life president in history,” Marc Thiessen claimed in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed.
Following the Dobbs decision, pro-lifers had high hopes. In Roe and other precedents, the Supreme Court had established abortion as a constitutional right, but Dobbs reopened the issue for political discussion.
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“There was a lot of initial momentum and excitement,” Oxley said. “We are free from the chains of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which were both overturned that day, and so now we have the freedom to press forward and press the culture.”
According to Oxley, Dobbs did not make abortion a “state’s issue.” Instead, it made it a “people’s” issue. Abortion policy “goes to the people and their elected representatives. That does not imply just the states; that implies Congress as well. That implies the president.”
With Trump’s reelection in 2024, all eyes were on the president and his administration to take advantage of the post-Dobbs opportunities and hold true to his promise of being the “most pro-life president in history.”
However, according to Oxley, this is not what pro-lifers have seen from Trump during his second term. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reports 1,126,000 abortions in the United States in 2025 alone, a 21% increase since before Dobbs, largely due to easy access to abortion pills. The abortion rate in 2025 remained nearly identical to the abortion rate in 2024 under Joe Biden’s presidency.
“Trump 2.0 has been largely underwhelming for the pro-life movement,” Oxley told the Daily Signal.
“We’ve seen a lot of emphasis on policies that were the status quo under Trump 1.0,” Oxley said. “We also want to see forward progress and things that weren’t done under Trump 1.0 because it wasn’t possible under the framework of Roe v. Wade that was still overarching at the time.”
3 Things Trump Can Do
Oxley pointed to three easy steps the Trump administration could take to combat abortion, some of which the president “could do tomorrow.”
First, Trump could enforce the Comstock Act, a largely unenforced law that prohibits sending abortion materials, including abortion pills, through the mail. Trump could do so fairly easily, and it would produce a large impact.
“He doesn’t have to do anything other than tell his Department of Justice to start enforcing it,” Oxley said.
Second, Trump could support research on the abortion pill and its side effects.
Third, Trump could extend the defunding of abortion providers. In the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump withheld funding through Medicaid reimbursement restrictions from certain abortion providers for one year.
In December 2025, however, the Trump administration released the funds back to the grant recipients and announced in April that the administration would not withhold the funds in 2026.
“While that’s a more congressional action, Trump holds immense influence over what Congress includes in their reconciliation packages,” Oxley said.
What Pro-Lifers Can Do
So, why hasn’t Trump 2.0 taken these steps?
Oxley blames an ideological split in the Trump administration.
“Not everyone in the Trump administration is pro-life,” he said. Furthermore, some in the administration see the abortion issue as “a political poison.”
While the Trump administration has not taken these steps yet, there is still hope for the pro-life movement.
“It’s unwise to give up hope on your greatest tool in reversing the harms of chemical abortion,” Oxley said. “We want to work with them, keep showing them how important it is, and how much the American people care about protecting women and preborn children.”
“We just have to keep pressing forward,” Oxley told the Daily Signal.
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