Washington View, March 2025

Florida Man Takes Office, Chaos Ensues

Chaos may be too tame a word to describe the first weeks of this administration. By the time you read this, much will have changed — hopefully things will have gotten better, but it’s equally likely that they will have become worse. Much, much worse.

Inauguration aftermath

On Monday, January 20, at 12pm EST, a twice-impeached former president convicted of 34 felonies was sworn into office for a second term in the White House.

In less than 24 hours, Donald Trump had ordered a 90-day halt to all foreign assistance in order to ensure that it didn’t conflict with his positions on anything. He also announced that he was withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris Climate Accords. And he ordered that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) cease all communications — in the middle of a worsening flu season and a rising threat from bird flu.

His fellow Florida man, Marco Rubio, was confirmed as Secretary of State hours after Trump was inaugurated. He’s assuming management of a department being systematically hollowed out. The new administration demanded the resignations of scores of career diplomats in order to appoint loyalists.

Trump pardons violent anti-abortion extremists

On January 23, the President issued pardons for 23 anti-abortion extremists who had been convicted of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

Several of them were convicted in Washington, DC, after forcing their way inside a clinic using chains, locks, ropes, and other implements. During this live-streamed assault, they injured a nurse and harassed patients. One of those pardoned was found with five fetuses in her house at the time of her arrest.

This continues the early pattern of Trump offering pardons to people convicted of violent crimes.

Return of the Global Gag Rule

Trump waited until the evening of Friday, January 24, to reinstate the Global Gag Rule, which blocks US health assistance to any overseas provider that has anything to do with legal abortion in their own country, even if they do so with non-US funds.

When in effect, the Global Gag Rule forces health care providers into an impossible choice: They can either deny their patients crucial information about all of their reproductive health care options, or they can forfeit desperately needed funding to provide family planning, maternal health, vaccines, and any other health care required by the people they serve.

The policy, when in effect, as it has been under every Republican president since 1984, has caused clinics to shut down and outreach efforts to end. It has caused contraceptive shortages and dramatic increases in unsafe abortion. The evidence on the impact of this policy is clear: It violates human rights, undermines public health, and threatens global efforts to reduce poverty and protect the environment.

The same day that Trump reimposed the Global Gag Rule, Marco Rubio announced that the United States was signing on to the so-called “Geneva Consensus Declaration,” joining a coalition of some of the most oppressive governments in the world dedicated to weakening international reproductive health programs.

“At a time when women around the world are facing unprecedented threats to their safety and well-being — including conflict-related sexual violence — the Global Gag Rule is a cruel and dangerous step backward.”

– Rep. Lois Frankel

Global HER Act revived

On January 28, Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) in the House and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in the Senate reintroduced the Global Health, Empowerment, and Rights (HER) Act (H.R.764/S.280) to eliminate the Global Gag Rule and prevent a future president from unilaterally reimposing it.

Sen. Shaheen is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and serves on the Appropriations Committee where she has pushed for inclusion of this legislation in funding bills. She is joined on that committee by Sen. Murkowski, who has long supported reproductive health and family planning programs around the world. In the House of Representatives, Rep. Frankel is succeeding Barbara Lee, as both primary sponsor of this bill and as the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State Department and Foreign Operations.

We expect the first debates on this bill to occur when the House committee takes up the 2026 funding bills in late spring or summer.

Bills seek to improve and protect access to care nationally

Democrats in the House and Senate are preparing to reintroduce several bills focusing on access to reproductive health care and contraceptives in the United States. The Right to Contraception Act to create a federal guarantee for all Americans to use the birth control they want will be introduced in the House by Reps. Angie Craig (D-MN), Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), and Nikema Williams (D-GA). In the Senate, we expect Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) to bring the bill back.

Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA) will be introducing the Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act. This bill will give veterans the same access to affordable contraceptives as non-veterans with health insurance, without co-pays.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) is introducing The Health Care Providers Safety Act. This legislation will create a new federal grant program to help reproductive health providers improve and expand security at their clinics or offices.

– Brian Dixon, bdixon@popconnect.org