Alabama Threatens Abortion Pill Websites, New York Budget Leaves Out Trans Care: June 15 News Roundup

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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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Federal news

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley suggested that, in order for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to get his vote to remain in the role, Blanche would need to settle multiple federal lawsuits involving the abortion drug mifepristone. A settlement would likely involve the Food and Drug Administration agreeing to reinstate some old restrictions on mifepristone, such as prohibiting telehealth prescriptions. Conservative-led states including Louisiana, Missouri, and Texas are suing the FDA for allowing telehealth prescriptions, which the states say make it difficult for them to enforce their abortion bans. Hawley’s wife Erin just happens to be representing Louisiana. But the litigation process is slow, and the Hawleys are apparently in a hurry. Influential anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said late Monday that it also wants Blanche to settle the Louisiana case, while Erin Hawley asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite the scheduling of oral arguments. (You’re reading that right: The Fifth Circuit tried to prohibit mifepristone by mail in all 50 states without so much as a hearing; the Supreme Court halted that order a few days later.)

In related news, more than a dozen Republican Attorneys General and nearly 20 GOP members of Congress urged the Environmental Protection Agency to classify mifepristone as a drinking water contaminant. This has long been a goal of the anti-abortion group Students for Life, which cheered the letters as it seeks to turn public opinion against abortion pills. It’s still a very small group of lawmakers that signed on, though: there are more than 270 Republicans in Congress.

GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine poured cold water on the idea of a third, party-line budget bill—which would be the only way for Congress to continue blocking large abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from accepting Medicaid insurance with just 50 votes. Anti-abortion groups want to extend the “defund” provision, which expires on July 4. Students for Life Action said it will give all lawmakers an F on its report card if the funding resumes. The allegedly pro-choice Murkowski infamously voted for last year’s reconciliation bill, while Collins did not. Planned Parenthood said more than 50 clinics shuttered in 2025 as a result of that law, other Trump policies, and overall financial pressures.

Susan Collins, who also claims to be pro-choice, voted to confirm two more anti-abortion judges to lifetime seats: Anthony Powell and Tony Mattivi in Kansas. The “yes” votes came one week after she confirmed Katie Lane, an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ nominee, to a federal judgeship in Montana. Collins has now confirmed at least 14 anti-abortion judges in Trump’s second term, and she notoriously cast the deciding vote on Brett Kavanaugh in Trump’s first term.

More than 80 House Democrats demanded answers from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about Moms.gov, the anti-abortion website unveiled on Mother’s Day that directs people to crisis pregnancy centers. The letter called the site “duplicitous, a waste of government resources, and a thinly veiled attempt to push a far-right agenda onto people at a vulnerable time in their lives.” The lawmakers want to know, among other things, what offices, agencies, contractors, or outside organizations were involved in the project.

During Trump 2.0, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained more than 500 babies and toddlers. On an average day, the agency has 25 children in its custody who are three years old or younger.

Remember the nearly $10 million in birth control the Trump administration wanted to destroy, but couldn’t because of local laws in Belgium, where it was being stored? We’ve known for months that most of it is likely unusable due to improper storage. Now, a report from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Inspector General—the agency’s internal watchdog—finds that about $1.7 million worth of this stock is still usable, and that the agency has spent more than $360,000 to store and transport the birth control while it’s remained in limbo. So much for reducing government waste. The nonprofit MSI Reproductive Choices has repeatedly offered to distribute the supplies at its own expense.

For the first time ever, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has issued its own vaccine guidelines for pregnant people. The ACOG recommendations are endorsed by 13 other medical societies, including those representing pediatricians, family physicians, and nurse-midwives. The main difference between the ACOG vaccine schedule and the new, RFK Jr.-endorsed U.S. government version is the Covid vaccine, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer recommends for pregnant people. ACOG pulled out of a CDC vaccine advisory group in February, citing concerns about its scientific integrity, and previously stopped accepting federal funding due to the Trump administration’s policies opposing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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State news

A Wyoming judge declared three abortion restrictions unconstitutional: One that required an ultrasound at least 48 hours prior to an abortion, another that would have required abortion clinics to become ambulatory surgical centers, and a third that limited off-label uses of abortion pills. All three laws were passed in 2025 and had already been temporarily blocked for almost a year, so there’s no change to the status quo. As in several previous cases, the judge determined that a constitutional amendment granting Wyomingites the right to make their own healthcare decisions made these abortion restrictions impossible to uphold

A New Jersey bill intended to protect providers of abortion and gender-affirming care is facing scrutiny for provisions that could chill speech. The bill, S 2260, has two main components: The first is a telehealth “shield” law to protect healthcare providers who treat patients across state lines. (Currently, eight states have such laws, under which clinicians provide nearly 15,000 medication abortions per month.) The measure would also function as a state-level version of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act: It would make it a crime to interfere with reproductive health services—including trans care—by prohibiting the harassment or blocking of patients, staff, or volunteers from entering a healthcare facility. It’s the harassment part that’s drawn criticism, with the bill text saying someone would be guilty of interfering with healthcare if they cause a “reasonable” reproductive healthcare worker “mental anguish” or “emotional harm.” Critics say this violates the First Amendment. A final vote is expected later this month.

A Senate committee approved another bill in New Jersey that would create a new state midwifery board. Currently, midwives are regulated by the medical board, which licenses doctors. Midwives say it will improve oversight and access to care for their work to be overseen by experts in their own field.

An Ohio bill that would undermine the state’s 2023 abortion rights constitutional amendment is temporarily stalled. House Bill 347 seeks to reimpose an unnecessary 24-hour waiting period and mandated counseling before abortions; Republicans are pursuing this after a judge paused the old law in 2024 for the duration of a lawsuit over the amendment. Physicians testified before the Senate Health Committee to say that the bill is both discriminatory and patronizing. HB 347 passed the House in March, but the Senate committee didn’t vote to advance the bill before the legislature began a summer break. Lawmakers aren’t expected to return until after the November election.

North Carolina Democrats introduced a bill to codify the right to use birth control at the state level, but they have little hope of it advancing in the GOP-controlled legislature. Senate Bill 413 is intended as a backstop if the Supreme Court overturns the 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, something that Justice Clarence Thomas urged his colleagues to do.

After the revelation that an O’ahu fertility doctor had been inseminating clients with his own sperm without their consent, a Hawaii state lawmaker said she will introduce legislation to ban this practice—14 other states already do.

State lawsuits

A Planned Parenthood affiliate is challenging Alaska’s ban on telehealth abortion care. Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaiʻi, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky (PPGNHAIK) argues in its lawsuit that the ban violates the state constitution’s guarantees of privacy and equal protection. It also says the law is particularly harmful for people living in rural areas of the country’s largest state. The affiliate has another case pending at the state Supreme Court about a law that bans advanced practice clinicians from providing abortion. A lower court struck down the law in 2024, but the state appealed.

While Emily Waldorf was being denied care for a life-threatening miscarriage in Arkansas, her sister called the office of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. A man in the office said, “What do you expect the governor to do?” and told her to get a lawyer. Now, Waldorf is a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the state’s total abortion ban, and the Attorney General is fighting her legal team’s attempts to depose the governor—meaning interview her under oath.

Right to Life of Michigan and a Grand Rapids crisis pregnancy center are suing the state over a civil rights law that changed the definition of “sex discrimination” to include “termination of pregnancy.” The anti-abortion groups, who are represented by none other than Christian nationalist law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, say this could force them to hire people who support abortion access. “By and large, they are wrong,” wrote an assistant attorney general. That’s because the law prohibits employment discrimination against someone who has had an abortion.

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Elections

Arizona Republicans sent a constitutional amendment to the November ballot that would ban transgender student athletes from using bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity. The state already bans trans girls from participation in school sports and has been unable to pass laws expanding that ban due to the veto pen of Governor Katie Hobbs, so Republicans chose to put it on the ballot.

A Florida GOP candidate for governor, James Fishback, not only wrote on Twitter that he would prosecute abortion as “murder,” he also told Fox News that he would “shut down the 53 abortion clinics that remain in Florida and replace every single one with a crisis pregnancy center.” He’s running against Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds; the primary is August 18.

Kansas voters will soon decide on a constitutional amendment that would change the selection process for state Supreme Court justices from appointment to election. A columnist reminds her neighbors that anti-abortion groups are pushing for judicial elections because they want to overturn the 2019 Supreme Court decision that affirmed abortion as a constitutional right. The election is August 4.

In 2006, Virginia voters amended their constitution to ban same-sex marriage. “The amendment also prohibited Virginia from recognizing legal statuses that approximated marriage, making it one of the broadest marriage bans adopted in the country,” per The Advocate. Now, with marriage equality under threat at the federal level, advocates are campaigning for a new amendment that would scrap the old ban and guarantee the right to marry.

Personhood watch

A Louisiana man has been arrested and charged with attempted first-degree feticide and domestic abuse battery of a pregnant victim after allegedly giving his teenage daughter “medication to abort her pregnancy” without her consent. She underwent an emergency c-section at 23 weeks, and her infant remains hospitalized. In Louisiana, first-degree feticide carries penalties of up to 15 years in prison—significantly more than the domestic abuse charge.

First Amendment watch

The Attorney General of Alabama threatened to sue six entities that he claims are advertising or distributing abortion pills to state residents. Outgoing AG Steve Marshall sent cease-and-desist letters to websites demanding they “halt all advertising, sale, and delivery of abortion-inducing drugs to consumers in Alabama” or else face investigations and potential legal action. But as the executive director of the West Alabama Women’s Center, a former abortion clinic, told the Alabama Reflector, Marshall effectively just informed residents how they can get abortion pills. The organizations Marshall named are Red State Access, Abortion Pills in Private, Southern Woven, ybycmeds, Cambridge Reproductive Health Consultants (aka The MAP), and Plan C—which doesn’t actually provide pills, just information. The letters follow similar demands from the AGs of Arkansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Texas. Kentucky also investigated a gas station campaign from Mayday health, which provides information.

The Supreme Court declined to hear a case about whether an Indiana high school violated the free speech rights of an anti-abortion student. The student sued after the school said she couldn’t hang fliers for a Students for Life chapter that included photos of people holding signs reading “defund Planned Parenthood” and “I reject abortion.” The school said this amounted to political speech and that flyers could only share the name of the club, along with the meeting date, time, and location. Justice Samuel Alito wrote a whiny little dissent.

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Assaults on queer people

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to transfer 14 transgender women to men’s prisons. The same judge who temporarily blocked the administration’s attempt to forcibly detransition trans inmates.

Federal judges in Maryland and California held hearings in two of the many ongoing challenges to the Department of Justice subpoenas seeking medical records for patients receiving gender-affirming care. Both these hearings related to the first round of subpoenas issued by the DOJ last summer. Unfortunately, victories in these cases may not mean much now that the administration has found more success with grand jury subpoenas from the Northern District of Texas, which so far have proven harder to stop in court.

New York advocates say they were promised for months that funds for gender-affirming care would be included in this year’s state budget—but when the budget was finalized, the money had disappeared. Relatedly, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani came under fire after his administration announced that city-run health clinics will offer gender-affirming care to adults—but not yet to those under 19, while the city “weighs” how to do so without risking funding “clawbacks” from the federal government.

The DOJ said it would investigate four California school districts over their approach to teaching kids about sexual orientation and gender identity. Specifically, the agency said it wants to ensure the districts are properly notifying parents of their rights to opt out of any such education, citing Mirabelli v. Bonta, a “parental rights” case in which the Supreme Court blocked a California law that banned schools from outing trans kids to their parents.

Extremism

At Turning Point USA’s annual conference for women, the misogyny of the conservative movement was too much even for some attendees to stomach.

In his ongoing lawsuit against California abortion provider Dr. Remy Coeytaux, “bounty hunter” abortion ban architect Jonathan Mitchell is trying to add the daughter of his client, Jerry Rodriguez, as a plaintiff in the case. To recap, Rodriguez is suing Coeytaux for the wrongful death of a fetus, claiming Coeytaux prescribed abortion pills to Rodriguez’s ex-partner—whom he is alleged to have abused. Coeytaux’s lawyers say Rodriguez’s past conviction for a family-violence offense makes him ineligible to sue under HB 7, the new, supercharged version of Mitchell’s original Texas bounty hunter law, which allows people to sue over alleged medication abortions to the tune of $100,000. Rodriguez’ daughter would also be a relative of the fetus in question, making her theoretically eligible to sue under HB 7. Mitchell sure takes on some curious clients.

Quick hits

Telehealth abortion provider Hey Jane is expanding into Arizona, after a judge permanently blocked a telemedicine ban in February.
The latest data from Society of Family Planning shows that 28 percent of all abortions within the medical system in 2025 were provided via telehealth. That’s quadruple the rate from 2022.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 83 percent of Americans say using birth control is morally acceptable. That’s a record low since 2001, and a striking seven-point decline since just last year. The share of people who say it’s acceptable to have a child outside of marriage also declined, from 67 to 58 percent.