The Media’s Eating Up Trump’s Latest Abortion Propaganda

Andrea Grimes
15 minutes

Plus: Dems build momentum to repeal the Comstock Act

Here’s another edition of Hard to Believe It’s Only Tuesday, a weekly roundup of the top headlines, tweets, toks, takes, and more in abortion news. You can always email me (andrea.grimes@gmail.com, or grimesandrea@proton.me for more sensitive inquiries) or DM me on instagram with action items, takes, and news clips. This post is probably too long for email, so click the headline above or head to the HTBIOT page to get the full read in your browser, because you don’t want to miss this week’s Goodnight and Good Dunk!

Photo by Victoria Pickering via Flickr/Creative Commons

The big takeaway: The early-week abortion news cycle has been dominated by breathless mainstream and legacy coverage of Trump’s latest word vomit (“states’ rights“!!! my god!!) on abortion, this time in the form of a video posted to his preferred propaganda platform, Truth Social, in which he somehow contradicted most of what he’s ever said on abortion while still confirming that he backs abortion bans and is proud to have been the president behind the fall of Roe v. Wade.

But if you look at the toplines, leads, and framing, you mostly get the impression that Trump ~ finally ~ released a coherent policy proposal on abortion, emerging from a studied, hard-considered previous silence on the topic.

Reading this coverage, you’d get the impression Trump opposes a national abortion ban (he doesn’t — less than two months ago, he said he’d back a national second-trimester ban) and thinks abortion should be “left to the states,” as if this is a new, more moderate approach to abortion from the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Of course, it isn’t. Leaving abortion bans to the states in fact indicates that Trump backs abortion bans of nearly every kind, some of which include criminalizing people who have abortions, who he has previously said should be “punished.” Every state in the country restricts abortion in some way — yes, even abortion “havens” such as Oregon, Vermont, and California — and most states that don’t outright ban it pretty significantly restrict abortion. Indeed, there are nearly as many states that outright ban abortion as states on the opposite, “very/most protective” of abortion rights end of the spectrum. Leaving abortion “up to the states” is not moderate. It is an extreme and explicit anti-abortion position.

Moreover: a good deal of the national coverage of this stuff takes pains to note that Trump said he supports “exceptions” to abortion bans for rape and incest survivors and health risks to pregnant people. He does not support these exceptions, which are functionally meaningless, because he doesn’t have views on abortion, but let’s pretend. If Trump supports exceptions to abortion bans for rape survivors, that means abortion bans affecting people who aren’t rape survivors, but who have abortions anyway, will need to be enforced.

What is Donald Trump’s preferred punishment for people who violate abortion bans? He’s said in the past that he thinks there should be one. But Trump — and anti-abortion politicians in general — are practically never asked how they would enforce their preferred abortion bans. I wrote about this for MSNBC last year:

The question is not when Republicans would prefer to ban abortion, but how. How do they plan to enforce their preferred abortion ban, whatever it may be? And what are the consequences for violating that ban, and for whom? 

These are glaringly obvious follow-up questions that reporters should ask every single time a politician stakes out a position on abortion. The answers will tell us far more about how anti-abortion politicians think — and how they might govern — than theoretical finagling over gestational bans or deflections about the political prospects of federal abortion restrictions. And yet national coverage of Republican politicians’ views on abortion is almost exclusively concerned with everything except the obvious: that outlawing abortion means surveilling, prosecuting, and punishing people who have, support, or provide abortions.

Donald Trump does not have a “stance” to “outline” on abortion, he has air to fill until November and he and his handlers are hoping that if he manages to stay out of jail and say everything possible about abortion, voters will decide which thing he said they like best and pretend like everything else he said was just political posturing. His mixed messaging, his flip-flopping and his incoherence are all part of a deliberate strategy that is being laundered through mainstream coverage that strong-arms readers into taking whatever he says seriously, as if he were a normal candidate with normal policy positions, and not a fascist puppet doing the bidding of richer, more powerful, much smarter fascists.

If Trump wins the presidency, he will back whatever abortion bans are preferred by the white supremacist, Christian Nationalists who put him in the White House, men like Leonard Leo and fundamentalist groups like the Heritage Foundation. Leo, Heritage, and their ilk are vastly more monied and powerful and connected than Trump will ever be, and they will never hesitate to remind Trump of this — that they bestowed upon him his position, and they can take it away if he does not comply.

The plan is not a secret. It is called Project 2025 and the GOP is very proud of it and openly tout it as their roadmap for the election and beyond. It includes a plan to use the Comstock Act to ban abortion nationwide, a measure backed openly by anti-abortion SCOTUS Justices Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.

Better headlines would have run more along the lines of: “On social media, Trump continues to send mixed messages on abortion,” and the overall framing would not treat this as a policy announcement, but a political ad published on a right-wing, closed-circuit propaganda social media site just as the GOP is struggling to connect with an increasingly pro-choice electorate who opposes the party’s hard-line anti-abortion stance. I would have described Trump’s video as a typical refusal to stake out a coherent and consistent position on a core issue. I’d have couched the video not as a policy proposal, but as a campaign message that, to the extent it matches up with them at all, largely contradicts his recent statements and his party’s views overall.

But nobody asked me!

The Top Headlines

The Takes

  • Minnesota Senator Tina Smith is in the New York Times with a call to repeal the Comstock Act: “We can’t let anyone — not the Supreme Court, not Donald Trump and certainly not a random busybody from the 19th century — take away Americans’ right to access medication abortion. We must protect the ability of doctors, pharmacies and patients to receive in the mail the supplies they need to exercise their right to reproductive care.“

The Tweets/Toks/Skeets/Grams

  • Rewire News tweeted a thread about emergency abortion care — the other abortion issue in front of SCOTUS.
  • Robin Marty of the West Alabama Women’s Center posted a thread on Bluesky following the news that Florida’s abortion ban will go into effect in a few weeks, writing about the incredible challenge of keeping abortion providers open until (and if) voters approve the state’s abortion rights ballot measure.

The Fuck Are We Supposed to Do About It?

  • 👕 SWAG OF THE WEEK! 👕
    • Yeehaw! Real cowpokes ride for abortion access, and Buckle Bunnies Fund has the t-shirt to prove it!
  • 🪧 Des Moines: Rally for repro rights at the Capitol at noon on Thursday, April 11!
  • 🧶 Tennessee: The Mountain Access Brigade is looking for makers to participate in their market!
  • 💸 EVERY-THE-FUCK-WHERE: It’s abortion fund-a-thon season, an annual bevy of bowl-a-thons, bake-a-thons, craft-a-thons, and basically every other kind of a-thon you can think of to celebrate and fund members of the National Network of Abortion Funds. Find your local event here!
  • 💸 Alabama: Donate to keep the West Alabama Women’s Center’s doors open so they can provide gender-affirming care, repro care, pre- and post-natal care, miscarriage management, and much more!
  • 💸 Alabama: The Yellowhammer Fund is looking for more abortion fund-a-thon teams to help ensure they can fully fund their Catalysts for Reproductive Justice Fellowship. You needn’t be based in Alabama to fundraise!
  • 🍰 McAllen, TX: The Frontera Fund’s bake-a-thon for abortion is back, and they “knead” (lolololol) you! The bake sale is Saturday, April 20 at The Gremlin.
  • 🎥 Dallas: The Texas Equal Access Fund is hosting a screening of Preconceived, a new documentary about crisis pregnancy centers, on Saturday, April 20th.
  • 🤠 Dallas: Join Avow Texas for Deep Canvassing Volunteer Days on March 29 and April 20th. Sign up here.
  • 👶🏽 North Texas: The Texas Equal Access Fund‘s infant care resource drive is back, this time on Saturday, May 4th, at Rubber Gloves in Denton.
  • 🥂 Dallas: The Texas Equal Access Fund‘s First Bloom event is set for Thursday, May 16th.
  • 🦺 St. Louis area: Illinois’ Hope Clinic is looking for clinic escorts. Here’s how to learn more.
  • 🐝 Anywhere: The “Pollination Station,” Apiary Practical Support‘s volunteer training series, is now taking applications.
  • 🚗 Kentucky: The Kentucky Health Justice Network is looking for volunteer drivers and case managers. Here’s where to sign up.
  • 📱 North Texas: The Texas Equal Access Fund is looking for bilingual Spanish-speaking volunteers for their text line. Here’s where to sign up.
  • 🤠 Texas: Local teen-friendly businesses in in Bryan, College Station, Lubbock, or San Angelo can become pickup spots for repro kits assembled by Jane’s Due Process. Here’s the application form.
  • ⛰️ Southwestern Virginia and Appalachia: The New River Abortion Access Fund is looking for volunteers.
  • 🗳️ Anywhere, U.S.: Hey Jane x Vote America helps prep voters to support pro-abortion policies and candidates

Goodnight and good dunk — Repro reporter Susan Rinkunas reminds us that Donald J. Trump is a lying liar who lies.

That’s all for this week. I’m sure I’ve missed something you’d like to see featured in this roundup, for I am but one woman with a computer and an abortion-news-induced drinking problem. Holler at me — andrea.grimes@gmail.com or grimesandrea@proton.me for more sensitive inquiries, or DM me on Instagram, and I’ll try to add follow-ups as I’m able.

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