One Year Into Trump’s Second Term, Some Anti-Abortion Leaders Say They Were ‘Betrayed’

A year into President Donald Trump’s second term in office, some anti-abortion leaders have reached one conclusion: The administration does not prioritize the movement.

Trump has “done nothing for the pro-life movement. He’s made things significantly worse, just like he said he would,” Abby Johnson, a prominent anti-abortion advocate, told NOTUS. “He said he wouldn’t restrict abortion, and he’s done exactly that.”

“One day, the pro-life movement is going to realize that he’s not the pro-life president that they were hoping for. One day, they’re going to realize they have all been fooled by this man. They’re going to stop saying that he’s the most pro-life president that we’ve ever had,” Johnson continued.

Trump was, at least temporarily, back in anti-abortion leaders’ good graces during his first six months in office, even after spending much of his presidential campaign moving away from the issue. Advocates celebrated the passage of Trump’s reconciliation bill, which cut federal funding from Planned Parenthood for a year, the pardons of 25 activists convicted of blocking abortion clinic entrances and, of course, that his Supreme Court picks ended up overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to speak at Friday’s March for Life, with Trump reportedly planning to address the march virtually. But they may get a chillier reception than in the past.

Advocates’ anger has been fueled by a long list of grievances: the Department of Health and Human Services quietly restoring Title X funding to Planned Parenthood, the inaction to restrict abortion pills and the approval of a new generic version of mifepristone, the Justice Department’s lack of action to enforce the Comstock Act, which would ban abortion nationwide, and most recently, Trump’s calls for Republicans to be “flexible” on the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding from being used on abortion.

“How ridiculous is that?” Johnson said. “Why would we put a mic in their hand after they have just betrayed the pro-life movement?”

Lila Rose, president of Live Action, told NOTUS it’s “problematic” to have the administration featured at the March for Life “without an action” to target abortion pills.

“I think it is problematic if the pro-life movement is a cheap date,” Rose said. “We’re not here to just enjoy ourselves” with “meetings at the White House. That’s not the point of the pro-life movement, the point of the pro-life movement is results.”

Rose said that March for Life organizers must ask the administration “to make an announcement about the abortion pill and restricting the pill. For offering platforms at the march, I think it should come with action.”

One anti-abortion leader, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, told NOTUS that during Trump’s first term, “you had an environment where there was more of a foothold for the actual pro-life movement within the administration. Leading up to the second administration, I think you could see the writing on the wall that that was not going to be the case this time around.”

“Trump felt like he very much needed the pro-life movement in 2016, but the pro-life movement was very wary of him,” the leader continued. “He needed to have a contractual relationship with the pro-life movement in order to win the nomination and to then win the election.”

The leader added that a Trump administration without former Vice President Mike Pence, who they described as “committed” to the anti-abortion movement, “changes the dynamics.”

Since the start of the 2024 campaign, Pence has strongly condemned Trump for distancing himself from the anti-abortion movement.

“One of the real reasons he wanted to serve was to protect life, so it’s always been a priority,”

Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, told NOTUS.

“I don’t want to create this illusion, though, that it was an arm-twisting of Trump,” Short was quick to add. “The president deserves enormous credit for the courage to make the decisions he did, particularly with his judicial nominees. I think that the pro-life community feels an enormous debt of gratitude to the president for the first administration.”

“I do think, however, that it seems that ever since the Dobbs victory, there’s been a sense of, ‘Well, we wipe our hands of it,’” he continued. “There’s just been an attitude of, ‘We have served the pro-life community, gave them their win, and now we don’t need to tend to that issue anymore.’”

In a statement to NOTUS, White House Spokesperson Kush Desai said Trump “is the most pro-life and pro-family president in American history.”

“The spate of actions that the Trump administration has taken this week alone on abortion reaffirm the President’s commitment to life,” Desai said.

Those actions include the administration’s plans to expand its so-called Mexico City Policy, which bans foreign aid from going to organizations that promote or provide abortions, and its decision to stop funding research that uses “fetal tissue from elective abortions.”

However, these were immediately criticized by anti-abortion leaders, who argued they missed the point.

“We are glad the Trump-Vance Administration announced new pro-life policies,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement. “However, abortion drugs and the forced taxpayer funding of abortion are the most urgent issues.”

“The March For Life is the moment for this administration and the GOP to recommit to its promises on Life. They must stand firm on these basic pro-life tenets or depress the base and risk losing the midterms,” Dannenfelser added.

There’s concern that Trump’s comments, and lack of action, on abortion will lead 2026 GOP candidates to water down their own positions. Vance himself went from advocating for Comstock Act enforcement in 2023 to saying he supports abortion pill access in 2024, after he became Trump’s running mate.

Two days after Trump said Republicans should be “flexible on Hyde,” 17 House Republicans joined House Democrats in passing a bill to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years that did not contain any abortion funding restrictions. Some anti-abortion advocates believed that was a direct result of the president’s comments.

While some of those members “certainly would have voted for that without Trump’s influence, we don’t believe that 17 would have voted to extend it without Hyde,” said Gavin Oxley, spokesperson for Americans United for Life.

Oxley added that the comment on Hyde from Trump — who is “the head of the Republican Party” — “undermines the Republican Party’s commitment to upholding the value of human life.”

Since voter turnout in midterms tends to be lower than in general elections, anti-abortion advocates say Republicans need to focus on hyping up their base. Weakening their support for anti-abortion causes could threaten their chances in November.

“Republicans need their base and need pro-life voters,” Kelsey Pritchard, SBA’s communications director, told NOTUS. “If you do something so basic as betray the pro-life movement on Hyde, you’re depressing your base, and you’re really hurting your ability for those people, those pro-life canvassers and workers to go door-to-door for you and do the work for you to get you reelected.”

SBA plans to spend $80 million in the midterms, but will not be using it to support Republicans who do not back anti-abortion causes, including the 17 lawmakers who supported the ACA subsidy extension.

“We will be instead investing those dollars in Republicans that stand firm in their commitment to life,” Pritchard continued. “If Republicans do something so basic like cross the line with the Hyde Amendment, they can’t count on our support in this election.” (Of the 17 lawmakers, SBA only donated to two in 2025 — Reps. Derrick Van Orden and Monica De La Cruz.)

In a strategy call last week hosted by SBA, some state-level anti-abortion leaders sounded the alarm over Republicans’ moderating on abortion. Bob Vander Plaats, the president and CEO of The Family Leader, a conservative group based in Iowa, said that without Trump on the ballot, “we’re going to have to rely on the evangelical base.”

“In Iowa, we have one of the hottest races for governor that will take place, we have three hotly contested congressional races, and … a U.S. Senate race that’s going to be hotly contested,” Vander Plaats said. “If you demoralize this base, it’s going to be a terrible midterm.”

Students for Life Action released a poll earlier this week that found that almost seven in 10 respondents “support laws limiting abortion.” Kristi Hamrick, the group’s vice president of media and policy, told NOTUS that shows Republicans are “dropping the ball” by not pursuing more anti-abortion policies.

Hamrick said the group briefed Republican congressional staffers on Wednesday, arguing that “there is a lot of public policy that a large group of voters is interested in. … We need to be showing that we’re going to protect life in law and in service.”

“With the midterms coming up,” Hamrick continued, “they’re going to need pro-life voters.”