Author: Jodi Enda

Jodi Enda is an award-winning journalist based in Washington, D.C.

‘We Can Do Hard Things’: Abortion Providers Fight Back Against Rising Violence [Part 4 of 4]

Across the country, abortion providers are installing new security systems, building relationships with local law enforcement, and pushing states to pass their own protections in the absence of federal enforcement. “We really want states to use every tool available to them to pass laws to protect providers and patient communities, and they’re not yet,” says duVergne Gaines of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Clinic Access Project.

Still, advocates refuse to back down. For many, providing abortion is more than a profession—it’s a calling. As Ruth Richardson, who herself was named on the Minnesota assassin’s target list, put it: “We can do hard things. We’ve had to do hard things. This isn’t new.”

‘Dad Went to War’: The Radical Faith Behind the Minnesota Assassinations [Part 3 of 4]

When Minnesota police arrested 57-year-old Vance Boelter after a two-day manhunt, they uncovered notebooks filled with names and addresses of elected officials and abortion providers. The suspect, who authorities say stockpiled 48 firearms, had already gunned down two people and left others gravely wounded. His writings and sermons hint at extremist religious currents, including ties to the New Apostolic Reformation.

“Their vision is violent at the outset,” says Frederick Clarkson, a longtime researcher of Christian extremism.

Advocates warn that rhetoric casting abortion as a holy war is not fringe—it is increasingly mainstream within the movement, fueling both deadly plots and everyday harassment of patients and providers.

The Long Shadow of Dr. George Tiller: Abortion Providers Under Attack [Part 2 of 4]

Julie Burkhart has spent decades on the frontlines of abortion care—from witnessing the “Summer of Mercy” blockades in Wichita to reopening a clinic after her mentor, Dr. George Tiller, was assassinated in 2009. In 2022, before she could open a new clinic in Wyoming, an arsonist burned it down. “It’s definitely more of an unsettling time,” Burkhart told Ms.

The threats extend beyond firebombs. In Pennsylvania this summer, antiabortion activists staged a Red Rose Rescue invasion, disrupting care with fake IDs, “holy water,” and “tickets to heaven.” Several participants had been pardoned by Trump months earlier. Advocates say such incidents show a growing pattern: emboldened extremists traveling across state lines to terrorize clinics.

Murder, Pardons and Impunity: How Antiabortion Violence Escalated Under Trump [Part 1 of 4]

Her friend Melissa Hortman, a longtime Minnesota lawmaker, was murdered at home in June—shot by a man posing as a police officer who had also wounded two others and left behind a hit list of dozens of abortion-rights supporters. Among the names was Ruth Richardson, CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States. “It was one thing to get a threat; it’s another to have confirmed threats where you have a friend and colleague who is assassinated,” she told Ms.

This tragedy unfolded against a backdrop of federal retreat: Trump pardoned extremists convicted of clinic blockades and violence, and his Justice Department declared it would largely stop enforcing the FACE Act, the law meant to protect providers. Advocates warn these decisions have emboldened extremists, leaving abortion providers more vulnerable than at any time in decades.

Worldwide, Many Women Relied on the U.S. for Financial Support. This Afghan Woman Dares to Speak Out.

I’ve been writing for decades about America’s on-again-off-again support for the reproductive healthcare of women around the world, focusing on the Republican presidents who have slashed funding and jeopardized women’s lives.

When I spoke by phone to Seema Ghani in February, there was something more. Unlike many women I had reached out to this year in countries that have relied on the United States for financial support, Ghani was not afraid to speak to me—even though her homeland, Afghanistan, is the world’s most oppressive for women.

The U.S. Aid Freeze: Counting the Global Cost of Chaos

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On the first day of his second stint in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing all U.S. foreign assistance. Four days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio halted foreign aid work already underway. Soon after that, Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and Rubio canceled 83 percent of its programs.

“Since Inauguration Day, I’d say the Trump administration has immediately gone to work in reckless, heartless and shameless ways that have attacked sexual and reproductive health and rights [and] LGBT rights,” said Caitlin Horrigan, senior director of global advocacy for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Women Support Harris, but the American Presidency Remains a Male Bastion

In the end, Americans chose the man whose presidency led to the undoing of abortion rights over the woman who said she would fight to restore them. And yet, in seven of 10 states, residents also voted to protect and in some cases reinstate their legal right to abortion, which is supported by the vast majority of Americans.

The seeming disconnect might be explained by the fact that many more voters were concerned about the economy, and felt they were personally harmed by inflation, than they were about abortion, according to exit polls. Or it might be explained by the fact that the United States never has elected a woman, let alone a woman of color, to be president—and wasn’t ready to do so now. That’s a question the exit polls did not ask.

Sexism in Politics: It’s the Same Old Story

Donald Trump—who arguably is not likable to a good many people, who is not respected by a percentage of world leaders (or some of his own former generals and advisers), who doesn’t represent everyone (women who want abortion rights, to name one group), who has danced (or, at least, swayed) publicly, who consistently lies, whose cognitive abilities have come into question and whose behavior is notably unpresidential—has to jump through fewer hoops than Kamala Harris.

Being a man will do that for you.

Harris Campaign’s Message to Women: Vote Your Consciences

Even as one of their own vies to be the first female president, even with abortion rights high on the list of campaign issues, even after more than a century of suffrage, some women still look to their husbands and other trusted men before casting their ballots.

The phenomenon is not new, but it could make the difference in a presidential race that is projected to be unusually tight. And because polls predict what could be a record-setting gender gap—with the majority of women voting for Harris and most men backing former President Donald Trump—the possibility that even a small number of women will vote like their men has Harris supporters nervous.

A Trump Victory Could Reinvigorate a Global Antiabortion Pact: ‘Women Are Going to Die’

Abortion is one of the most pivotal issues that will determine whether Trump returns to the Oval Office. The Republican nominee routinely brags about his role—via three Supreme Court nominations—in overturning Roe v. Wade in a 2022 ruling that inevitably limited abortion access for millions of people in the United States.

Less known is the work that Trump and his appointees did to prevent women in other countries from obtaining the procedure.