On the challenges their organizations faced in protecting people’s rights under the administration’s policies in 2025.
Taylor St. Germain: Where do I even start? The Trump administration has done more harm to reproductive rights than many of us even thought was possible in a 10-month time span. This “Big Beautiful Bill,” which is more like a big abortion ban, has really taken steps to restrict access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care, especially for communities that rely on Medicaid to access that care.
We are seeing that up close, and it's impacting clinics here in Massachusetts. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England has been forced to shut clinics. Maine Family Planning has been forced to shut down its primary care in order to continue providing reproductive health care because of these Medicaid cuts.
Courtney White: Our "Weaving Well-being" program was really born out of this increased isolation, anxiety and stress that immigrant communities were facing during COVID-19. But we're seeing the same challenges come up again. Folks are staying home because they're scared. There's anxiety and stress because of all these really harmful policies that are coming from the federal government. Folks are told, "Go to your immigration appointment, check in with ICE." If you don't, you will get deported. But if you do go to your appointment, you could still get deported.
Plus, the really harmful rhetoric and narratives that are being put out about our immigrant communities, that immigrants are taking folks' benefits, that immigrants are criminals. That's just a really false narrative that has been sweeping across our communities and really undermining this effort to protect folks.
Vatsady Sivongxay: Right now, with the federal government dismantling the public education system, both through threats of executive orders and also stealing the money away from our public schools, it's been a lot of work for MEJA. Typically, years before now, we were fighting for equitable funding, fixing the funding formula so that our most impacted students receive the funding they need. Now, we see that we have to expand our work to more of a national work. Because while Massachusetts is a wealthy state, the 11-14% of federal funding that comes to our schools is substantial for low-income households.
Students who are already in those schools that are struggling to get paper, full-time nurses, counselors, having libraries in their schools. This is a really big issue. Education is the foundation of a strong democracy. An educated public, an educated community, is a foundation for a strong country.
On the many threads of protecting democracy.
TSG: I think we as a movement need to do a better job of talking about reproductive healthcare as an affordability issue. We are facing really devastating cuts to the Affordable Care Act, to Medicaid's ability to cover reproductive health care at clinics that also provide abortion care. And we know that those attacks are going to impact low-income communities the hardest.
The other thing that we really have to talk about, especially in the lead-up to the midterms, is how abortion is a democracy issue. The ability to vote is the determination right now of whether or not you can also control your bodies. This is an autonomy issue. This is a freedom issue. The rollback of women's rights is a huge indicator of a backsliding democracy. We have seen this since 2022, and we're seeing it in Technicolor right now. We have to mobilize across movements.
We have to think about the intersection of reproductive justice and immigration justice. We have to think about democracy reform and environmental justice as being a part of our mutual fights. And the more that we can work together and really shore up that movement-building and coalition strategy, the stronger we're going to be in 2026.
