Nikki Sapiro Vinckier, an OB-GYN physician assistant, turned her “disappointment” of President-elect Donald Trump‘s election win into a way to help women who may feel anxious and confused about the state of their reproductive health with the incoming administration.
Women’s reproductive rights were a touchstone of Vice President Kamala Harris‘ presidential campaign against Trump, who took credit for the end of federal abortion rights when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022—leaving the issue up to individual states. While abortion rights overwhelmingly won when on the ballot as separate voting measures, with seven out of 10 states enshrining abortion access in their constitutions, the candidate who ran on the issue, lost.
Vinckier launched Take Back Trust—a website dedicated to empowering women and other people to take control of their reproductive health care by keeping them informed on topics from contraceptives to abortion to gender-affirming care—10 days after Trump won this year’s election.
“Our goal is simple: to support you in preparing for what lies ahead, navigating the challenges of a second Trump term with confidence,” Take Back Trust’s website says.
During a phone conversation with Newsweek late last month, Vinckier explained how her feelings of sadness and disappointment in Trump’s defeat of Harris in the November 5 election fueled her work on the site.
“I think that a lot of people have been comparing the pain of 2016 to the pain to the loss of this election now,” Vinckier said, referencing former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s 2016 presidential election loss to Trump.
She continued: “I think with this election when Trump won, it felt like so much sadness because there was this feeling of such sheer disappointment. I think we had been on this consistent march of progress since Hillary had lost. And then obviously when Roe [v. Wade] was stripped away, it kind of amplified the conversation around reproductive rights.
“For the first day or two after this election, I was pretty numb. And then through that numbness, I kind of just started plugging away on, ok, what are the skills that I can bring to the table right now? Where can I make myself most helpful for the women and the people and patients in the world? How can I use my strengths to help invigorate this environment? To provide a sustainable supportive tool for people to be able to use.”
Photo Illustration by Newsweek/Getty Images
Vinckier has over a decade of clinical experience in reproductive health care. After she was fired from her job as an OB-GYN physician assistant in Metro Detroit she held for 8 and a half years “for her unapologetic demeanor and advocacy work,” according to her bio on the Take Back Trust website, she became a full-time reproductive rights advocate.
She told Newsweek that she was fired for not being, what her company called, “a professional fit” for the firm after she pushed back on her company’s request to take a Pride pin off her white coat because she said the company called it “too polarizing.”
During her time in clinical care, Vinckier noticed that a lot of the time, her patients would not know exactly the right questions to ask. She had the idea of Take Back Trust in her head since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
“And then when Trump won the presidency, knowing that we were going to be in for kind of a rollercoaster of reproductive rights over the next four years, what I really thought was necessary was giving patients an empowerment tool to make their visits with their gynecologist, more efficient, more effective, and help them to advocate for their own needs,” she said.
Kelli Taylor of Purple Tree Photography
Vinckier has help from her medical advisory board, a group of five, who she calls “powerhouse,” women with professional experience in reproductive and gender-affirming health care who offer their input on everything from policy to patient care.
She gave all the credit for the technical process of getting the site up and running in 10 days to a woman named Emily, who she called her “unicorn.” Emily had messaged Vinckier on social media two days after the election, wanting to help in her advocacy work.
“It was kind of just this like magical thing that just happened at exactly the right time,” Vinckier said.
It’s too early to know what really lies ahead for women’s reproductive rights and transgender rights with Trump heading into the White House on January 20, 2025.
During his first term, Trump nominated three conservative Supreme Court Justices—Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch—who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The president-elect has repeatedly said that abortion must be left up to the states and said during the presidential debate with Harris in September he would not sign a national abortion ban, noting that “there is no reason to sign the ban because we’ve gotten what everyone wanted.” However, he declined to say whether he would veto a national abortion ban if Congress passed such a law. If he didn’t sign or veto a potential federal abortion bill, it would automatically become law within 10 days.
Meanwhile, in January 2023, Trump vowed to “stop” gender-affirming care for minors, calling it “child sexual mutilation.”
Gender-affirming care, including hormone therapy and surgery, has been a hot-button issue with some believing that the government should intervene to make sure children aren’t making life-altering decisions at such a young age and some seeing it as a decision between the child, the parents and the child’s doctor that could help treat gender dysphoria and even prevent suicide among transgender children.
With Take Back Trust, individuals can learn about their reproductive health care options and their reproductive rights, and it even provides resources for parents trying to help their children, including those who have already been sent off to college, navigate their own reproductive or transgender health care journey.
