I Am a Reproductive Justice Reporter. These Are My Favorite Stories from 2025. |
Over the busy past year here at Rewire News Group, our team has brought you breaking news, enterprise reporting, and sharp analysis on the latest in reproductive justice, from vaccine policy changes to state elections that shape abortion access.
It is my hope that our stories have armed you with the information you need to make sense of the world and be an informed voter. RNG’s journalism is designed to give readers a sense of agency. Even as the Supreme Court’s conservative majority aligns with state and federal lawmakers to gut basic civil rights and democratic protections, you still have power.
As RNG‘s resident reporter-editor, I’m sharing the 2025 reporting I’m proudest of, where my attention will be in 2026, and how you can help RNG continue to serve as a watchdog of democracy.
Let’s jump in.
President Donald Trump’s massive July 2025 budget package, dubbed the “big, beautiful bill,” featured sweeping cuts to federal spending, including a provision largely reported as an effort to strip Planned Parenthood of its Medicaid dollars.
That was certainly the most obvious consequence of the law’s anti-abortion provision; Planned Parenthood has been battling to get its funding back since. But I spied another potential consequence of Trump’s BBB: The wording of the measure could easily sweep smaller, independent reproductive health-care clinics up in its anti-choice dragnet.
After working the phones and parsing through thousands of pages, I identified two indie clinic networks whose bottom lines would be hit hard by the “big, beautiful” bill, and informed RNG readers. One, Maine Family Planning, was eventually forced to close its primary care operation because of Trump’s new law—and when it did, I covered that story, too.
Read: Federal Cuts Force Maine Family Planning To End Primary Care; Abortion Services Will Continue
In the fall, I turned to immigration. The aggressive contours of Trump’s immigration priorities had sharpened, and I wanted to understand how ICE raids were affecting reproductive health across the country. I spent months interviewing advocates, experts, and front-line health-care workers, and poring over academic research and clinical guidance.
This month, we