Table of Contents
Welcome to the latest edition of our weekly roundup. Every Monday, we’ll send you a summary of the biggest stories about bodily autonomy. (Except for this version, which you’re receiving on a Tuesday because of the holiday weekend.) We’ll also include links to pieces that Garnet or Susan have published.
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Let’s dive in.
On Autonomy News
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Federal news
A coalition represented by Democracy Forward is suing the Trump administration over the $1.7 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” we told you about last week. This slush fund was established as part of a settlement in a lawsuit Trump filed against the Internal Revenue Service, and will benefit domestic terrorists and other extremists who claim they were unfairly targeted by the Biden Department of Justice. One of the plaintiffs challenging the fund is the National Abortion Federation, which argues that the Trump administration made conditions more dangerous for abortion providers by stepping away from meaningful enforcement of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, and is now poised to reward people who perpetrate clinic harassment and violence. We noted that the 23 anti-abortion activists Trump pardoned for their FACE Act violations would likely be among those to receive payouts, and a settlement agreement made public by the DOJ all but confirms this, naming “the Biden Administration's abuse of the FACE Act” as a “well-known” example of “Lawfare and Weaponization.” NAF’s annual Violence and Disruption Report, released last week, showed a notable rise in violent threats against abortion providers following Trump’s pardons.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired the leaders of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the group that decides which health services qualify as preventive care and therefore must be covered by health insurers at no additional cost. Secretary Bear Carcass has reportedly been weighing canning all the members of the task force for nearly a year. He also canceled their planned meeting last summer, interfering with their ability to update recommendations.
The Department of Health and Human Services also reestablished a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division within its Office for Civil Rights. This division—which was established during Trump’s first term and later dissolved by the Biden administration—expanded the rights of healthcare professionals to deny patients care based on their personal religious beliefs.
Texas is appealing a decision in which a New York judge ruled that the state’s “shield” law protects abortion provider Dr. Maggie Carpenter from paying a civil penalty for violating Texas law by prescribing abortion pills to a Texas resident. The judge’s decision also protected a New York county clerk who refused to compel Carpenter to pay. Texas argues that the clerk violated the U.S. Constitution, once again confirming that officials in anti-abortion states are gunning to get a shield law case before the U.S. Supreme Court—something Justice Samuel Alito would certainly welcome. Meanwhile, Irish media recently reported that Carpenter is now living in Dublin.
Anti-abortion organizations continue to express anger at what they see as the Trump administration’s inaction on restricting access to abortion pills. It still remains to be seen whether they’re actually willing to pull electoral support from the GOP if they don’t get what they want.
State news
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed three bills that will limit access to reproductive healthcare. First, House File 2788 requires doctors to prescribe “abortion-inducing drugs” in person. Iowa law already forces patients to undergo a mandatory ultrasound and biased counseling at least 24 hours before having an abortion, meaning that two in-person trips to a clinic were already required. This law may, therefore, be intended to target out-of-state “shield” law providers, or simply to scare patients out of seeking telehealth care from them. Under Senate File 304, Iowans under 18 will no longer be able to obtain vaccines that prevent sexually transmitted infections—like HPV and Hepatitis B—without a parent’s consent. Finally, House File 571 expands “conscience” protections for healthcare providers and institutions, giving them broad leeway to refuse to provide or pay for care on religious or moral grounds.
In one of its final acts of the session, the Missouri legislature sent a bill that would expand access to contraception and pregnancy-related care to Governor Mike Kehoe’s desk. Among other things, HB 2372 would require private insurers to cover a one-year supply of birth control upfront, and would require insurance to cover blood pressure monitoring equipment for pregnant and postpartum people. Kehoe has yet to take any action on the “born alive” bill that would limit access to palliative care for very sick newborns.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed SB 169, which codifies the pre-Trump interpretation of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)—requiring hospitals to provide abortions when necessary to save the life or health of a pregnant person—into state law.
State lawsuits
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday appealed a landmark ruling that struck down a ban on Medicaid funding for abortion care. It’s now up to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to decide whether the state’s Equal Rights Amendment guarantees a “fundamental” right to abortion, as the lower court held. The high court already weighed in on a procedural issue in the case in 2024: Justices ruled that abortion providers had standing to challenge the Medicaid coverage ban, and strongly suggested they saw abortion as a constitutional right. Unfortunately, while they await a final decision, Pennsylvanians won’t be able to use their Medicaid to pay for abortion care.
With no explanation, the Indiana Supreme Court refused to take up a challenge to the state’s total abortion ban, leaving in place lower court rulings that found it constitutional. Abortion providers had argued that the ban’s exceptions are too narrow to comply with constitutional rights to life and liberty.
As in about half of U.S. states, under Arizona law, only physicians can provide abortion care. Advanced practice providers like nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and physician assistants believe that Arizona’s reproductive rights constitutional amendment—which established a right to abortion until fetal viability—should negate this “physician-only” law. They’ve filed a legal challenge, but the case won’t be heard until 2027.
The Arkansas Supreme Court recently overturned a law that restricted county courts’ authority to consider certain constitutional challenges. Now, a county judge is considering whether to revive the first legal challenge to the state’s total abortion ban, which she previously dismissed because of the now-defunct law.
Ohio’s 2023 reproductive freedom constitutional amendment, which enshrined a right to abortion until fetal viability, is again being challenged. We already told you about the judge who’s upset he can’t deny more young people abortion care. Now, a separate lawsuit argues that a ballot measure alone was not enough to change the Ohio Constitution, and that a constitutional convention should have been required. This… is not what the Ohio Constitution says. “Some folks are being sore losers,” said Jessie Hill, an attorney who defends abortion providers and helped draft the amendment.
Elections
Two justices on the Georgia Supreme Court won re-election last week, defeating pro-choice Democratic challengers. Incumbents have a 104-year record of keeping their seats.
Abortion “abolitionist” and former Idaho state Senator Scott Herndon effectively won back his former seat in the state legislature. Technically, he still has to win in the general election, but the Republican primary is the only contested election in his district. Herndon was one of 15 far-right incumbents to lose his seat in 2024, following a major effort led largely by moderate Republicans seeking to pull their state back from the brink of fascism. Garnet interviewed an ex-member of Herndon’s abortion “abolitionist” organization in 2023, who described it as a cult and said they feared for their safety after leaving. While in office, Herndon had complained that the narrow exceptions to Idaho’s abortion ban were too permissive, and infamously referred to rape as an “opportunity.”
Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe used his power to reschedule some ballot measures slated for this year. While he left a constitutional amendment that would reinstate an abortion ban on the ballot for the November general election, he did reschedule a different measure for the August primary, when turnout is lower. The amendment Kehoe moved up would make it harder for citizen-initiated measures to pass by requiring that they not only win a majority of the vote statewide, but also pass in every congressional district. (The changes would not apply to amendments referred by the Republican-controlled legislature.) If voters approve changes to the ballot process in August and ban abortion via the deceptive measure in November, the ban could be indefinite.
Personhood watch
A grand jury in Texas indicted a man for allegedly giving the abortion drug mifepristone to a pregnant woman without her knowledge, crushing the pill and mixing it into water along with an electrolyte supplement. She then miscarried at around 14 weeks. (Some outlets have incorrectly referred to this as a “stillbirth,” but a stillbirth is a pregnancy loss after 20 weeks.) We’ve reported on several cases of alleged coerced abortion—some that are highly dubious and others that are more credible. However, this one stands out because the man was charged specifically with one criminal count of providing an abortion, as well as one count of injury to a child. These are both first-degree felonies that carry punishments of five years to life in prison. Previous cases have mostly involved civil suits for wrongful death or criminal charges like murder. All of these charges advance the legal theory of fetal personhood, and place little importance on the victim of such an assault: the pregnant person.
In Kentucky, a man was arrested after allegedly switching his girlfriend’s regular prescription medication with pills the police say are misoprostol. The man was charged with fetal homicide—as was a Kentucky woman who was arrested earlier this year, though in that case experts said the charge was improper because the fetal homicide statute contains an exception for pregnant people.
We’ve covered the wrongful death lawsuit that threatens to upend access to in vitro fertilization in Utah because it argues that the state’s fetal personhood law should apply to embryos. According to Pregnancy Justice, at least 10 states have laws that could be used in a similar way.
Worker news
The National Abortion Hotline Union, whose members staff the nation’s largest abortion support service, is on strike. Garnet covered their fight to ensure members won’t lose their jobs to artificial intelligence last month, and has another story coming on the strike. Stay tuned!
Garnet Henderson
Staff at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, the largest of Planned Parenthood’s regional affiliates, have successfully formed a union. This is the same affiliate that recently started offering cash-pay cosmetic services like Botox to help offset losses due to the Trump administration’s attacks on the family planning safety net. The affiliate also confirmed to the New York Times that it considered halting abortion services in an attempt to remain eligible for Medicaid when the GOP “defund” kicked abortion providers out of the federal health insurance program. Autonomy News was first to report that Planned Parenthood affiliates were weighing such a decision last summer.
Assaults on queer people
The Kansas City Council repealed a ban on conversion therapy in a 7-5 vote. Earlier this year, a group of Christian counselors and former Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey—who is now co-deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—filed a federal lawsuit against the city over the ordinance. Initially, a district court judge ruled against them, but after the Supreme Court held in Chiles v. Salazar that such bans should face the highest degree of legal scrutiny, the counselors revived their case before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, leading the city to repeal the ordinance in the hopes of avoiding further litigation.
The Boise High School Sexuality and Gender Alliance dropped its legal challenge to Idaho’s cruel bathroom ban after one student plaintiff died by suicide, and another stopped attending the school. Violating the ban, which applies to government buildings and private businesses, carries criminal penalties.
Extremism
The Montana man accused of planning to murder an abortion provider in Missoula this year, and firing a gun into a Helena Planned Parenthood in 2023, plans to use a mental health-related defense. He remains in county jail, where he’s being held on $5 million bail. His trial is scheduled to start in late September.
The abortion “abolitionist” organization Foundation to Abolish Abortion says it got an “encouragingly positive” response when it attended the Heartbeat International annual conference. That’s a big deal, because more mainstream anti-abortion organizations like Heartbeat have historically opposed criminal charges for abortion seekers, while “abolitionist” groups promote them.
Actual good news
Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai'i, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky has begun offering “just in case” abortion pills to patients in Washington and Hawaii. This is the first time a Planned Parenthood affiliate has offered advance provision of medication abortion—meaning prescriptions for patients who aren’t currently pregnant but want to have abortion pills on hand, an increasingly popular option. The cost will be $100 as an add-on to another service, like a well exam or STI test, or $150 for a standalone appointment.
Quick hits
- ProPublica tells the story of Emily Waldorf, who was denied care for a life-threatening miscarriage in Arkansas even after meeting with the hospital’s CEO, calling the Governor’s office, and getting a lawyer.
- Relatedly, a new study confirms that patients have fewer miscarriage treatment options in states with abortion bans.
- Meet Katy Faust, the longtime anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ activist who has become a major player in the national campaign to end same-sex marriage, alongside groups like the Heritage Foundation and Southern Baptist Convention.
- The Guardian reports that an image circulated by an Australian anti-abortion activist purporting to show two human fetuses actually depicts two baby sugar gliders—a type of small marsupial.
- Senate Democrats are proposing that Medicare cover home healthcare, which would be the first new benefit added to the program in over 20 years.
- Why Trump’s rural health fund isn’t coming close to relieving the rural health crisis.
Palate cleanser
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