321ACTION: January 27, 2025
President Trump issued a host of Executive Orders in his first week in office addressing a wide range of topics. Some orders were noncontroversial, such as ordering the declassification and release of documents related to the investigation of the assassinations of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., President John F. Kennedy, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
Other orders have caused great alarm, including orders conflating gender and sex and denying the existence of trans people; orders suspending asylum and refugee programs and expanding immigration enforcement; orders prohibiting diversity, equity, and including programming, including orders requiring federal workers to report colleagues working on such initiatives; and pardoning or granting clemency to all individuals convicted of or charged with crimes related to the January 6 riots, including those convicted of violent crimes. Read more here. A federal judge has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against possibly the most controversial executive order, which would reinterpret the 14th Amendment to end birthright citizenship. Many of these executive orders, including the order dissolving the Gender Policy Council, harm women, girls, and victims and survivors of gender-based violence, but are paradoxically being justified as necessary to protect women.
Ready to make a difference?
Here are three ways to get started:
3. Share the Repro Legal Helpline
Last week saw the 52nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing abortion nationwide. On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the constitutional right to an abortion with its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. Nearly 50 years later, in 2022, that ruling was overturned, marking a pivotal shift in the nation’s legal landscape. As states impose stricter abortion bans, advocates for reproductive rights are facing new challenges in protecting bodily autonomy.
In states with abortion bans continuing to tighten restrictions, anti-abortion advocates are increasingly targeting male partners of women who have had abortions, encouraging them to report their ex-partners and file lawsuits against those who facilitated the procedure. Read more here. This strategy, which empowers domestic abusers with additional ways to exert power and coercive control and to retaliate against victims, has led to lawsuits that utilize Texas’s wrongful-death statute to challenge abortion access, often involving sensitive and private information about the women involved. To learn more about services that support reproductive rights, the Repro Legal Helpline helps individuals navigate the complex legal landscape and protect their rights in states with increasingly restrictive abortion laws. Share this resource widely!
2. Urge Congress to Protect SNAP
Millions of Americans rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Access Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) to meet their basic food needs. As highlighted in last week’s 321, SNAP benefits are expected to be targeted in the upcoming budget reconciliation bill to offset the cost of tax cuts for large corporations and extremely wealthy people. Click here to email your members of Congress to urge them to protect SNAP!
1. Help build a safer country
In states where elected officials have taken action to pass gun safety laws, fewer people die by gun violence. But no state is an island, and weak policies in neighboring states, among other factors, can undermine strong laws.
Everytown has a comprehensive guide to the policies — local, state, and national — that contribute to mitigating gun violence, producing a roadmap for how to build a safer country.
+ In case you missed it...
Brenda Andrew was sentenced to death for the murder of her estranged husband after a trial in which her sexual history played a prominent role. Although her sexual history was irrelevant to the case, prosecutors showed jurors her underwear in court and referred to her as a “slut puppy,” and otherwise weaponized stereotypes of a “proper woman” to paint Ms. Andrew as a deviant. The U.S. Supreme Court has revived Ms. Andrew’s case, ordering a lower court to revisit whether this evidence prejudiced the jury against her. Read more here.