What does a second Trump term mean for women in the US? What will access to abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and the future of women’s rights look like?
They couldn’t be more different: Mia, a student involved in the anti-abortion movement in Florida, and Molly, a mother from California with the child who made the long drive to come to Washington to demonstrate three days after the election. What connects them and millions of other women in the US: Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections; what this victory means for their rights as women in the US evokes strong reactions among them. “I’m definitely happy that Trump won and even more so that Harris and Walz lost,” Mia Akins told DW.
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz have spoken out in favor of a nationwide right to abortion. And in his first term, Trump appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned nationwide abortion rights in the US in 2022.
Mia Akins is a third-year student at Florida International University in Miami and co-founder of her alma mater’s Students for Life of America (SFLA). SFLA is a US-wide organization of students who are strongly opposed to abortion. Trump isn’t really the “ideal candidate,” Akins says, because he wants to leave the issue of abortion up to the states rather than support a national ban. But the student is optimistic: A Trump administration “is something we can work with.”
LGBTQ COMMUNITY CONCERNED ABOUT THE FUTURE UNDER TRUMP
Molly and Sammy agree that Trump is not the ideal candidate. Both went to a spontaneous protest in Washington after his election with homemade signs. Molly says she fears what could happen in a second Trump administration regarding the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. Her child Sammy does not belong to the male-female binary, and sees himself as neither male nor female, in English the pronoun “they” is used. “I’m worried that Trump is going to take away the rights of the LGBTQ community,” Molly says. “That he will limit us in who we want and who we want to be”.
From now on, the family feels the restrictions. Sammy is going to college next year. Universities in Republican-majority federal states are no longer an option for this family. “I’m afraid that my friends who are also LGBTQ won’t go to their dream universities because they’re afraid they’ll be attacked there,” says Sammy. “I look very carefully at where the universities are, where I can apply, how the election results came out.” Still active in the US is the “Women’s March” initiative that held protest marches with nearly half a million people in Washington in 2027 , after Trump’s first victory in the presidential elections. Tamika Middletone, one of the leaders of the initiative, explains that even after Trump’s second victory, the mandate of this initiative is “feminist resistance against fascism”.
RESTRICTIONS FOR WOMEN IN THE FIELD OF HEALTH
Trump’s party not only won the presidential election, but also has a majority in the Senate and both houses of Congress. This means that the governing plans of this party can be carried out relatively without problems. “Normally we say that the system of checks and balances prevents overwhelming power. But we would certainly see more conservative decisions and stricter health restrictions, especially for women, in Trump’s second term,” says Laura Merrifield Wilson, a researcher in politics at the University of Indianapolis.
But now on the left wing, progressive in the USA, there is a fear that the policy of ‘Project 2025’ will become a reality, the expert points out. “Project 2025” is a kind of ultra-conservative roadmap for the future of the USA. Trump himself was not personally involved in the list of such measures of the project, as banning the abortion pill and replacing federal officials with Trump loyalists , but many of his former associates were involved in this manifesto.The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has conceived Project 2025.TRUMP’S SECOND TERM – GOLDEN TIME FOR OPPONENTS OF ABORTION
Meanwhile, other women turn their eyes with great hope to a second Trump term, also for the sake of the next generation, as they say. “I’m incredibly grateful that Kamala Harris was not elected to office because of her abortion extremism,” Reagan Barklage said in an interview with DW. She works at Students for Life of America as a statewide coordinator. he [Trump] can work with Congress to protect children’s lives.”
Barklage wants Trump to regulate the distribution of abortion pills more strictly and for him to “make wise decisions when he appoints judges.” The president makes nominations for federal judges who must then be confirmed by the Senate. Trump’s Republicans have a majority in the Senate; So it’s likely that Trump could appoint a large number of conservative federal judges who want to limit abortion rights. Good times are coming for Mia Akins, Reagan Barklage and Students for Life of America, but not for all American women. (DW)
