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.

From the “big, beautiful” bill to ICE: 2025 in review

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 published the first story to emerge from those efforts: A look at the physical and mental health problems that immigration enforcement can cause in pregnant people and their babies. Doctors are seeing high blood pressure, sleep disruptions, and heart palpitations. Some patients, fearful of going outside, are missing the prenatal appointments where those conditions might be treated.

Read: Pregnant Immigrants and Their Babies May Suffer Complications from Chronic Stress of ICE Raids, Experts Warn

It’s not all doom and gloom. Several good-news stories in 2025 have punctuated RNG’s coverage. One of those stories came from reporter Priyanka Bansal, who wrote about LGBTQ+ groups feeding their communities—communities that are more prone to hunger than the general U.S. population—this holiday season.

Editing the story brought me so much joy. It served as a much-needed reminder that community can unite people despite seemingly insurmountable hardship. And it brought me a little extra hope in this dark winter. I hope it will do the same for you.

Read: How Queer Organizers Feed Their People, from New York to Atlanta

What I’m watching in 2026: Abortion laws

Abortion access will continue to be in flux throughout 2026. The biggest threats will likely come from the federal government, as law professor Rachel Rebouché wrote for RNG on Dec. 10, 2025.

Read: 2026’s Abortion Battles Will Be Fought More in Courts and FDA Offices Than at the Polls—Analysis

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to reassess the safety of abortion medication mifepristone, in what many experts worry amounts to a sham review with a predetermined outcome: less abortion access. Bloomberg Law recently reported that FDA Commissioner Marty Makary is pushing the process until after the 2026 midterms—presumably because abortion is a losing issue for Republicans.

The Department of Health and Human Services disputes the allegation that pushing the review amounts to a deliberate delay for political gain. As a journalist on this beat, I’m dubious that denial indicates any meaningful change to the administration’s plans for abortion access.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has also signaled an openness to enforcing the Comstock Act, a dormant 19th century anti-vice law that could be used to effectively ban abortion by making it illegal to mail abortion pills. Prominent anti-abortion lawyers have been confirmed to positions in Bondi’s Department of Justice, opening the possibility that the nation’s highest law enforcement agency could deploy its might against reproductive health care.

Immigration will remain a newsroom priority in 2026.

All evidence indicates that the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign will continue in the coming year. Experts and providers I’ve spoken to said we’re only just beginning to see the physical impact, on both pregnant people and their babies.

Coupled with a web of state-level abortion restrictions, Medicaid cuts, and the expected lapse of Affordable Care Act tax credits at the end of this year, I anticipate that the government’s ongoing attacks on immigrants will have measurable harms to people’s reproductive health.

Whatever happens next year, RNG will be watching. Along with my colleagues Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo, both expert SCOTUS watchers, I will be keeping close tabs on the courts and federal public health agencies in 2026. And we won’t just bring you the news—we’ll go behind the headlines to explain what new laws, policies, and rulings mean for reproductive justice and bodily autonomy in the U.S.

I will also be monitoring stories at the intersection of reproductive health, disability justice, and science in 2026. Think news on cutting-edge research on endometriosis, undercovered accessibility issues in reproductive health, and how changes to federal regulations will impact people with disabilities, both visible and invisible.

I see this kind of reporting as essential in 2026. Both Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have spoken disparagingly of disability, using slurs and suggesting some disabled people be put in “wellness farms.”

And since Trump took office, hundreds of millions of health-care research dollars—money that was meant to fund investigations into breast cancer, HIV, autism, and ways to make health care more accessible to disabled folks—have been either frozen, threatened, or stripped from institutions altogether.

How you can help

Fuel reporting like mine by becoming a Rewire member or subscribing to RNG’s newsletters in 2026. Our new membership tiers come with cool benefits, including exclusive access to Gandy’s private Discord community. And our revamped newsletters deliver our latest reporting straight to your inbox, fresh and spicy every week.

My final ask is to keep in touch! I’m always looking to speak with people who have reproductive justice expertise, as well as those who bring revelatory lived experiences and relevant perspectives to my reporting. You can follow me and my work Bluesky, LinkedIn, and on our site.

The post I Am a Reproductive Justice Reporter. These Are My Favorite Stories from 2025. appeared first on Rewire News Group.