Welcome to the latest edition of our weekly roundup. Every Monday, we’ll send you a summary of the biggest stories about bodily autonomy. We’ll also include links to pieces that Garnet or Susan have published.
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Let’s dive in.
On Autonomy News
Last week, we were first to report that Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will stop providing abortions as of October 1. This is the first known regional affiliate to halt abortions in the wake of federal attempts to “defund” Planned Parenthood. We are continuing to monitor this story and investigate whether any other affiliates have similar plans. If you have information to share, contact us on Signal: garnethenderson.12 and susanrinkunas.73. (Share this story on Instagram or Bluesky.)
Garnet Henderson
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Federal news
Speaking of the Planned Parenthood “defund,” a coalition of 22 Democratic attorneys general asked a federal court to grant a preliminary injunction that would block the Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing the budget law provision that makes large abortion providers ineligible to participate in Medicaid. The coalition also includes the state of Pennsylvania, which is not represented by its own AG ostensibly because he is a Republican. The group first sued the Trump administration over the policy back in July. This is in addition to ongoing lawsuits from Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Maine Family Planning—an independent abortion provider that also meets the “defund” criteria.
Sunday marked 25 years since the Food and Drug Administration approved the abortion medication mifepristone—and it’s under attack like never before. Most recently, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary wrote in a letter to a group of GOP attorneys general that their agencies are undertaking a review of the “safety and efficacy” of the drug. The pair have previously pledged to conduct a review, but this is the first time they’ve said it’s in motion. The letter, dated September 19, was first obtained by the far-right publication Gateway Pundit, then shared by anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. It cites as legitimate the methodologically flawed paper on mifepristone from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Project 2025 advisory board member. That playbook for a second Trump term called on the FDA to end telemedicine prescriptions of the drug, if not pull it from the market entirely.
Susan wrote for MSNBC about how this move suggests the administration will do here what it did to acetaminophen: use cherry-picked data to achieve a predetermined outcome. The interplay of these two issues could be devastating, because making abortion pills less accessible will lead to more unintended pregnancies. These pregnant people will be navigating the administration’s new “recommendations” for acetaminophen use, which could result in worse health outcomes for them and their babies, including miscarriage, birth defects, and premature birth.
There might be a federal government shutdown starting Wednesday in part due to a fight over whether extending more generous tax credits for insurance plans purchased on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges indirectly subsidizes abortions, as anti-abortion groups falsely claim. The expanded credits expire at the end of the year and some vulnerable Republicans are nervous about a vote that would increase people’s premiums during a midterm election year.
State news
As was first announced in early August, Planned Parenthood’s two remaining clinics in Louisiana, in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, are set to close after Tuesday. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, the affiliate that operated these facilities, also had six clinics in Houston. These will remain open and become part of another affiliate, Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, and Gulf Coast will be no more. According to PPGC, 60 percent of patients at the Louisiana clinics were enrolled in Medicaid, and 71 percent were people of color. The two clinics had served nearly 46,000 patients over the last five years.
Maine Governor Janet Mills signed a bill that will provide $6 million in state funds to shore up the state’s family planning network, which includes the local Planned Parenthood affiliate, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, and the independent provider Maine Family Planning (MFP). However, MFP said that while it is thankful for the additional funding, the boost comes too late to prevent service cuts. This is in part because state funding for MFP had been flat for the last 10 years, causing the organization significant financial hardship even before it was ensnared in the federal Medicaid “defund.”
Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are pursuing a bill that would kick Planned Parenthood out of the state’s Medicaid network, following the Supreme Court ruling in Medina v. Planned Parenthood, which allowed a similar move in South Carolina to stand. The state already bans Medicaid from covering abortion in most circumstances, so this move would mostly impact low-income patients' access to services like birth control and cancer screenings. North Carolina Governor Josh Stein is a Democrat, but the legislature has overridden his vetoes in the past.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an update to his state’s “shield” law on Friday. Now, California pharmacies will be able to fill abortion pill prescriptions without putting the provider’s name, the patient’s name, or the pharmacy name on the label. The law also requires health plans in California to cover mifepristone regardless of its FDA approval status. Newsom signed several other reproductive health-related bills, including one that protects attorneys who help people in other states access reproductive health care from discipline by the California State Bar, and another that promises to improve access to over-the-counter birth control.
Remember how we told you that a judge ordered Missouri Republicans to rewrite the ballot summary of their proposed constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion and youth gender-affirming care, because their original summary obscured that the measure would ban abortion? Well, they’ve doubled down. Their latest revision still fails to mention this basic fact. The judge will review it this week.
Meanwhile, Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe’s inner circle is playing a key role in the campaign for the anti-abortion, anti-trans ballot measure. The governor’s wife, Claudia Kehoe, is the treasurer for the PAC leading the campaign in favor of the amendment. In fact, she’s the only officer listed in the PAC’s filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Last summer, a judge blocked an Ohio law that forced abortion seekers to wait 24 hours in between a mandatory, in-person “counseling” appointment and their actual abortion saying it violated the state’s 2023 constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to abortion prior to fetal viability. However, Republicans are seeking to reinstate this policy with a new bill, HB 347. It’s unclear why they believe a mandatory waiting period wouldn’t simply be blocked again.
Personhood watch
A very scary total abortion ban, which would classify abortion as homicide, will be heard by a South Carolina Senate committee on Wednesday. If the bill is enacted, people who have abortions could be charged with murder. Alarmingly, the bill contains an explicit exception for contraception—but defines contraception as “the prevention of fertilization of an ovum by a sperm.” A “contraceptive” is specifically defined as “a drug, device, or chemical that prevents conception.” Currently, drugs and devices that prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg are also considered contraceptives under state law, but this bill would remove that part of the definition, seemingly elevating the status of fertilized eggs under law. As we recently explained, contraceptives like IUDs and the morning-after pill don’t generally work by preventing implantation—but conservatives often claim they do. This redefinition suggests that South Carolina Republicans may be itching to target these forms of birth control by claiming they cause abortion, echoing recent rhetoric from the Trump administration.
Assaults on queer people
Women’s Law Project has filed a first-of-its-kind complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, arguing that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s move to deny gender-affirming care to patients under 19 violates state laws against sex discrimination.
The Trump administration said it had pulled $15 million in funding for new magnet programs in New York City schools because of policies that allow transgender students to access bathrooms and play on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity. The administration argues this is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title IX. According to school officials, these funds would have paid for summer learning opportunities, afterschool programs, and specialized curricula. The administration is carrying out similar attacks on schools in Chicago and Fairfax County, Virginia.
Extremism
A federal judge in Colorado ruled that the man charged in the November 2015 mass shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic is mentally incompetent to stand trial, despite being involuntarily medicated since April. The judge said the suspect Robert Dear is unlikely to improve even with additional treatment, meaning that the case could be permanently stalled. Dear killed three people and wounded nine others. He reportedly said “no more baby parts” during his arrest, in an apparent reference to deceptively edited videos released months earlier by the anti-abortion organization Center for Medical Progress.
Quick hits
- “A campaign for the FBI to adopt a new designation of ‘transgender ideology-inspired violence and extremism’ is less about law enforcement than politics,” writes Melissa Gira Grant in the New Republic.
- Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the anti-abortion Women Speak Out PAC will spend $4.5 million in an attempt to get a Republican into Michigan’s vacant Senate seat in 2026. They’re also pumping the same amount into the Senate race in Georgia.
- A California woman is suing two Catholic-affiliated hospitals in state court for denying her emergency abortion care.
- Singer Florence Welch on her ectopic pregnancy and ruptured fallopian tube: “The closest I came to making life was the closest I came to death.”
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