As part of the new Trump administration’s purge of information it would prefer people not have access to, the website reproductiverights.gov has been taken offline, for the first time. spotted by CBS News.
The site was launched by the Biden administration in 2022 following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wadeupending federal protections that gave people the right to access abortion. The site, which was run by the Department of Health and Human Services, offered information about abortion rights, informing people about the type of care available to them and how to advocate for access to this care. It also offered information on a number of other sexual and reproductive health services, including breast and cervical cancer screening, antenatal care and HIV testing. While a archived version of the site is accessible via Internet Archive, the information is no longer hosted on the dedicated federal domain.
With the overthrow of Roe deerLaws regarding abortion care are left up to individual states, meaning access varies wildly depending on where a person lives. According to the Guttmacher Institute41 states impose some restrictions on access to abortion, 12 of which ban health services altogether. Access may vary depending on how far along a person’s gestation process is, and exceptions may or may not be available.
This is exactly the type of situation where you would want a regularly updated database that provides easy-to-navigate and understand care options, managed by experts. So of course it’s over now.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Trump led a similar purge of scientific information hosted on government websites during his first term, primarily targeting information on climate change. On his first day in office in 2017, he removed all mentions of climate change from whitehouse.gov, deleted pages related to climate change on the websites of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Energy, and essentially tried to stifle any suggestion that climate change was occurring or would impact people. Fortunately, if you ignore it, it only go away…RIGHT?
Either way, the reality is that shutting down reproductiverights.gov and other federal sites is virtue signaling on the part of the Trump administration. It is not the website that dictates the reality of reproductive rights, and there are many third parties like Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rightsand the Guttmacher Institute that provide actionable information to those seeking abortion care. Hell, you can still find information about abortion rights on government websites thanks to people like Dan Goldman, New York Congressmanwhich maintains a list of resources for its constituents.
But the decision to shut down the site on day one shows where this administration’s priorities lie. The White House Spanish Pages he arrived yesterdayalso, just like pages referring to LGBTQ rights. If you want to know who’s in the firing line, just look at who’s access to information is being cut off.