Dear John,

They didn’t hesitate.  They didn’t debate.  They didn’t listen. They didn’t care.  

They hid behind closed doors.  They kept their midnight dirty work secret. 

And now....they’re lying about what they’ve done.

Donald Trump and his MAGA-Republican Congress have passed a Budget Reconciliation Bill so cruel, so vindictive, it’s already shutting down care for women nationwide.

Trump and his majority in the House and Senate called it “The Big, Beautiful Bill.”

But....Let’s all call it what it is: a declaration of war on women’s health.

Effective immediately, this bill slashes Medicaid and Title X funds to almost all Planned Parenthood and many independent women’s health clinics all across the country. These cuts aren’t some abstract line items. These are cancer screenings and birth control, STI testing, and maternal care—all stripped away.

In Maine, California, Ohio, and many other states, clinics are already cutting hours, laying off staff, and bracing for closure. In some rural counties, there will be no providers left.

We won’t let them lie. Despite the Republicans’ claims, the effective date of these cuts is not “deferred” until 2027. These cuts are happening now.

And they are happening on purpose.

This isn’t budget policy against waste and fraud. It’s a vendetta. A scorched-earth campaign waged by men in suits and red ties who grin while entire health care systems for women are gutted.

They tell us to be calm. That it’s complicated. That it’s deferred. But we know better.

In California, the cuts threaten 114 clinics that serve over 1 million patients annually, and in rural northern California, three independent clinics could be forced to close. In Southern Ohio, two Planned Parenthood health centers will close immediately.

This isn’t a fiscal issue. It’s a moral one.

Let’s be clear: This isn’t only about abortion. Trump and his anti-woman majority in both the House and Senate have slashed the lifelines for cancer screenings and for contraception.

It’s not just money that’s been taken away. It’s control.

And then there’s the next phase of their cruelty: they’ve rigged the Rural Health Fund to exclude any clinic even remotely associated with abortion—even if abortion isn’t the care being delivered.

What’s left for women in the margins of their bill? Crisis pregnancy centers run by right-wing fanatics who offer no medical care, no compassion, and no choice.

THEN... just when you think they’ve run out of ways to hurt us, they come for the doctors.

In Texas, the Attorney General is suing a New York physician who prescribes abortion pills via telemedicine. It doesn’t matter that those doctors and their actions are legal. It doesn’t matter that they’re saving lives. The far-right machine wants them silenced, sued, and shackled.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the very extremists Trump previously pardoned and released from prison three days after he took office—the same ones who shoved patients to the ground, who terrorized clinics—are back targeting doctors and clinic staff in an effort to close clinics. Same people. Same tactics. And now, they’ve got the green light from Trump and his captive Department of Justice.

This is not policy.  This is punishment.

And it’s not just an attack on Planned Parenthood or clinics. It’s an attack on every woman who has ever needed care. On every daughter who might. On every mother who remembers life before Roe and sees it all coming back.

At the Feminist Majority Foundation, we’ve spent 38 years fighting this.

We led the campaign to bring mifepristone (the abortion pill) into the U.S. We stood outside bombed clinics and opened them the next week. We’ve sued, testified, trained defenders, and never backed down.

But this moment? This is different. This is existential.   We are holding the line—but the line is under siege.

Please, if you’ve ever given before, give again. If you’ve never given, now is the time - $35. $100. $250. More, if you’re able.

Every tax-deductible dollar you give is used to defend clinics, protect doctors, fund lawsuits, and fight this war with every legal, political, and human tool we have.

This is the moment. Not to watch. Not to wonder. But to act.

In furious resolve,

Ellie Smeal 
President  

Kathy Spillar 
Executive Director 

P.S. Trump and his MAGA extremists are emboldened. Clinics are closing. Doctors are being hunted. This is what happens when cruelty wins. Help us fight back—right now.