A Rundown of President Trump’s 3 Pro-Life Executive Orders
By: Ben Johnson, originally published January 28, 2025, The Washington Stand
On the day voters from all 50 states showed their support for the unborn, the Trump administration enacted three pro-life executive actions to limit taxpayer-funded abortions and end the weaponization of government against pro-life advocates.
President Donald Trump ended Joe Biden’s whole-of-government push to expand abortion, signing two executive actions which protect U.S. taxpayers from funding or advocating abortion in the United States or overseas. Polls show lopsided majorities favor the policies, known as the Hyde Amendment and the Mexico City Policy, which Trump reinstated Friday onboard Air Force One while being whisked to see massive property damage caused by California’s wildfires. The same day, the Justice Department noted it would stop the Biden-Harris administration’s prosecution of peaceful pro-life advocates under the FACE Act, except in “extraordinary circumstances.”
“No American tax dollars should be used to pay an abortionist to kill an innocent unborn child. American taxpayer dollars should only be used to promote human flourishing, and the reinstating of the Mexico City Policy and the enforcement of the Hyde Amendment will help ensure this,” Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand.
73% of Americans Oppose Funding Foreign Abortions
President Trump’s presidential memorandum reinstates his 2017 Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA), which requires non-governmental organizations that receive federal tax dollars to agree not to carry out nor advocate for abortion in foreign nations.
The amount of total foreign health funding remains the same; this policy merely delivers health care through providers who agree to respect pro-life taxpayers. Under the Biden-Harris administration, one organization funded by President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) carried out 21 abortions in Mozambique during the Biden-Harris administration. PEPFAR financial authorization ends on March 25.
The memo also directs the secretary of State “to take all necessary actions, to the extent permitted by law, to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars do not fund organizations or programs that support or participate in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The first Trump administration defunded the United Nations Population Fund, noting UNFPA’s facilitation of China’s forced abortion regimen under its One-Child Policy.
The memorandum continues the bipartisan back-and-forth over foreign abortion funding, known as the Mexico City Policy, which was originally announced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 and took effect in 1985. The global pro-life financial protection has come and gone with each fluctuation of political control. The policy was repealed by President Bill Clinton, reinstated under President George W. Bush, repealed by Barack Obama, reinstated in stronger form during the first Trump administration, repealed on day one of the Biden-Harris administration, and now reinstated once more.
The Government Accountability Office found that President Trump’s PLGHA applied to 1,340 centers and $28.7 billion of taxpayer funding — and only eight grant recipients refused to sign on to the policy, according to the State Department. That number includes the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Marie Stopes International (MSI), two of the world’s largest abortion businesses.
Both global abortion chains promptly highlighted real concerns over losing a combined $75 million in U.S. taxpayer funding. As an IPPF official said the Mexico City Policy “will have devastating consequences for women and girls,” the organization admitted it “will lose $61 million USD for programs that provide sexual and reproductive health services for millions of women and youth.” Marie Stopes International organized a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London, whining in an online fundraiser, “We stand to lose $14 million in US funding.”
IPPF branded the policy a “global gag rule,” a “far-reaching, destructive American foreign policy, one that is deeply unpopular with the American people.” Yet three out of four Americans (73%) oppose taxpayer-funded abortions in foreign nations, according to a Marist poll released last week.
The Hyde Amendment: Restoring a 49-Year-Old Consensus
On Friday, President Trump also signed an executive order “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment.” The Hyde Amendment — which was enacted in 1976 under President Gerald Ford and supported by the late President Jimmy Carter because of the “moral factor involved” in abortion — protects pro-life taxpayers from funding abortions with their federal tax dollars, except for rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life. Just 20 states elect to fund most abortions with their own tax dollars.
“For nearly five decades, the Congress has annually enacted the Hyde Amendment and similar laws that prevent [f]ederal funding of elective abortion, reflecting a longstanding consensus that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for that practice. However, the previous administration disregarded this established, commonsense policy by embedding forced taxpayer funding of elective abortions in a wide variety of [f]ederal programs,” the executive order noted.
“For example, under President Biden, the Department of Defense reimbursed abortion-related travel expenses, the Department of Veterans Affairs allowed hospitals to provide abortions, and the Department of Health and Human Services paid for abortions for illegal immigrants,” pointed out a White House fact sheet accompanying the executive order.
Trump’s action rescinded two Biden-era executive orders aimed at expanding abortion nationwide. Biden’s Executive Order 14076 declared that promoting abortion “is essential to justice, equality, and our health, safety, and progress as a [n]ation.” It ordered the secretary of HHS to draw up a plan “to protect and expand access to abortion … including medication abortion” and established the “Interagency Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access” to coordinate a whole-of-government effort to assist the abortion industry after Dobbs.
Biden’s Executive Order 14079 attempted to exploit an alleged loophole in the Hyde Amendment by using federal Medicaid dollars to pay for mothers in pro-life states to travel for abortion.
Nearly six out of 10 of Americans (57%) oppose taxpayer-funded abortion — including 58% of registered Independents, 41% of voters who call themselves “pro-choice,” and 33% of Democrats, according to the Marist poll.
Abortionists may soon get more bad news about abortion funding, as the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Kerr v. Planned Parenthood, which will decide whether states have the legal ability to remove Planned Parenthood as a qualified health care provider.
Facing Down the FACE Act
Also on Friday, a senior Trump administration official walked back the Biden administration’s legal targeting of pro-life advocates under a controversial, Clinton-era statute protecting a “constitutional right” that never existed: the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
“President Trump campaigned on the promise of ending the weaponization of the federal government and has recently directed all federal departments and agencies to identify and correct the past weaponization of law enforcement,” wrote Chad Mizelle, chief of staff to the attorney general, in a January 24 memo. Since many Americans see FACE Act prosecutions as “the prototypical example of this weaponization,” the DOJ will bring no further FACE Act cases except in such “extraordinary circumstances” as cases involving “death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage. Cases not presenting significant aggravating factors can adequately be addressed under state or local law,” the memo said.
“Over the last four years, we saw the DOJ weaponized against pro-lifers. Under the FACE Act, grandmothers and grandfathers singing hymns while conducting peaceful sit-ins at abortion facilities have been placed behind bars, while those who have threatened workers and destroyed property at pro-life pregnancy centers have gone free,” Szoch told TWS. “We are grateful to the Trump administration for its commitment to ensuring the FACE Act is no longer used as a tool to place pro-lifers in jail.”
The memo ordered officials to permanently dismiss, with prejudice, three FACE Act cases. The move follows President Trump’s decision to pardon 23 pro-life advocates arrested for prayerful acts of civil disobedience. Furthermore, the memo ordered, “until further notice, no new abortion-related FACE Act actions — criminal or civil — will be permitted without authorization from the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.”
Mizelle, whom President Trump referred to as “a MAGA warrior, serves as Acting Associate Attorney General. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the Assistant AG for the Civil Rights Division was held by Kristen Clarke, who stands credibly accused of committing perjury by hiding an apparent history of domestic violence during her confirmation hearings. Under Barack Obama, it was Thomas Perez, who boasted of prosecuting pro-lifers but refused to press charges against nightstick-wielding Black Panthers threatening white voters in Philadelphia.
‘Every Innocent Life Deserves to Be Protected’: Pro-Life Advocates Pleased
All three executive actions coincided with the 52nd annual March for Life, at which Vice President J.D. Vance spoke in person and President Trump delivered a recorded message of encouragement. And all drew praise from pro-life lawmakers and litigators nationwide.
“Every innocent life deserves to be protected. Ensuring that taxpayer dollars don’t pay for abortions has saved lives, and it’s a policy that continues to receive bipartisan support from a majority of Americans. Government-compelled participation in abortion has no place in our country. American taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund abortions or to export and promote them abroad. We’re pleased to see the Trump administration take these crucial steps to redirect American taxpayer dollars to programs that offer real health care for women and children instead of the scandal-ridden abortion industry,” Erin Hawley, senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, told TWS.
“GREAT move by President Trump reinstating the Mexico City policy which ensures American taxpayers do NOT fund the killing of babies overseas!” wrote Lila Rose of Live Action on social media.
“This powerful executive order ends abortion-President Joe Biden’s work to hijack global health funding to promote abortion on demand around the world,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, told TWS. “Through PLGHA, President Trump demonstrates again that U.S. foreign policy can consistently provide compassionate, tangible assistance to women and children and rejects the grisly business of abortion.”
“Under President Trump, the United States will now once again work with organizations that share pro-life, pro-health principles instead of groups that place their abortion agenda ahead of true health care,” said Smith.
Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.