| Federal immigration officers have shot and killed or injured at least six people since the last Repro Nation newsletter. Two of the most prominent victims—mother and poet Renee Good and Veterans Administration nurse Alex Pretti—have spurred widespread protests and outrage. Even the feckless Democrats in Congress appear to be growing a spine. But is it enough to end these state-sanctioned executions?
When I hear people use this phrase—”state-sanctioned executions”—I think about other deaths that can be directly attributed to Trump. The seven women ProPublica has reported on whose deaths after Dobbs were preventable. The 600,000 people, many of them children, who have died due to the dismantling of USAID. And the deaths we can expect from an ever bigger expansion of the Mexico City Policy.
First introduced by President Ronald Reagan, the policy blocks nongovernmental organizations receiving US funds for global health aid from using that funding for abortion services or referrals. It is revoked by every Democratic president and reinstated by every Republican one. But in trying to curry favor with anti-abortion groups ahead of the January 23 “March for Life,” Trump’s administration announced it would expand the policy to prohibit “activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as well as support for gender-affirming care and services, and legal protections based on gender identity (among other activities),” as the independent health policy research organization KFF noted.
A 2024 issue brief from KFF suggested that Trump’s reinstatement of the policy “could result in 108,000 maternal and child deaths and 360,000 new HIV infections over a four-year period.”
It’s crucial to see all of these deaths as connected because they demonstrate why we need reproductive justice. The state is executing people on its soil and overseas with guns and with inhumane policies, to punish those who disagree with its agenda and to control women and anyone the administration deems is unable to make the “right” choices about how to live their lives. No one is safe from this violence, not even children.
But we get to choose how we show up for one another and what we will leave behind for future generations. The Trump administration’s body count may be growing, but more and more people are putting their bodies on the line and risking it all to show the world that a better life is possible. That is a future worth fighting for.
In solidarity,
Regina Mahone
Senior Editor, The Nation
Coauthor, Liberating Abortion |
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