Well, it seems that either a sense of deja vu is flooding the nation, or we’ve traveled back in time. Get your aprons and your saddle shoes ready ladies, we’re heading back to the 1950s. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday, Jan. 23 reinstating the Mexico City Policy, a policy that was first instituted in 1984 by former President Ronald Reagan, requiring non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to agree to cease performing as well as promoting abortions.

The reinstatement of this policy doesn’t come as a surprise, for a colossal part of Trump’s campaign involved advocating against abortions. However, the initial shock of the disparaging of women’s rights alongside the social regression of our country is going to require quite a bit of time to wear off. And by quite a bit of time, I’m talking four years. During that time, we need to fight to ensure our rights are maintained in the face of federal opposition.

Planned Parenthood Federation, a distinguished nonprofit organization that provides an estimated 4.6 million people with reproductive health care services, has stated that it will continue providing abortions despite the global gag rule enforced by Trump. With this declaration of defiance, the organization is subject to forfeit an annual estimate of 500 million dollars in federal funding. “Women will die because of this,” stated Vice President of Planned Parenthood Dawn Laguens. Among all the services that Planned Parenthood provides, according to Rebecca Herrington from Business Insider, abortion constitutes only three percent of total provided health care, with the remaining 97 percent being cancer screenings, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, providing contraception and other services.

This now means that the millions of women, especially low-income women, who depend on Planned Parenthood for services are getting their accessibility to healthcare stripped from them due to the mere three percent that Trump seems to have an irrevocable problem with.

Women must now perpetually live in fear, knowing that the man that calls himself the president of the United States has ordered a potential death sentence to millions of women he took an oath to serve. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation stated that, as funding gets cut, “this means that if a clinic receives even $1 of U.S. foreign assistance for family planning, its doctors and nurses become limited in what they can do to help their patients.” The irony is quite astonishing, as the purpose of the Mexico City Policy is to protect human life, however, it will inevitably do the opposite. And when all is said and done, the blood that is shed from the bodies of millions of innocent Americans will ultimately trace back, and stain the hands of Trump.       

In times like these, we as women, and as citizens, need to stand up, stand tall and let our misogynist of a president know that we are prepared to fight back. The truth of the matter is that this is the 21st century, and we women are entitled to our rights, including our health care. The issue here lies deeper than pro-life versus pro-choice. We are talking about the lives of millions of people being at stake and that includes the life of your mother, sister and daughter. Undoubtedly, there is a long and gruesome fight for our rights ahead. Stick your chin up ladies; we have a lot of work to do