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
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) cannot enforce state false advertising and consumer protection laws against crisis pregnancy centers that promote pseudoscientific abortion pill “reversal.” The Second Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that the First Amendment likely protects CPCs’ statements claiming that pregnant patients can “reverse” their medication abortion by skipping the second drug in the abortion protocol and instead taking high doses of progesterone. The judges agreed with a lower court that the CPCs’ speech was not commercial but rather religiously and morally motivated. This dispute could end up at the Supreme Court.
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in First Choice v. Platkin, a case stemming from New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin’s attempt to subpoena information from the local crisis pregnancy center chain First Choice Women’s Resource Centers. The conservative legal giant Alliance Defending Freedom is representing First Choice. Its senior counsel Erin Hawley—wife of Senator Josh Hawley—will argue the case. Erin Hawley was a key figure behind the overturn of Roe, and one of the architects of the current legal attacks on mifepristone. Trump’s Department of Justice also asked to intervene on the side of the CPC and will split argument time with ADF. Technically, this case hinges on a procedural issue: whether it was appropriate for First Choice to fight Platkin’s subpoena in federal court, or whether they should have tried state court first. But a favorable decision in this case could set the stage for a major anti-abortion victory in one of several other cases quickly working their way toward the Supreme Court, including the above case from New York. We broke down the significance of this case—and the others following close behind—in our collaboration with Mother Jones.
Garnet Henderson
Speaking of Erin Hawley, there’s a vacancy on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals—which covers Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota—and Erin Hawley has apparently expressed interest in the job “through intermediaries with White House contacts.” Josh Hawley sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would be responsible for vetting his wife if she were to be nominated. When asked by Bloomberg Law whether he’d recuse himself from that process, Hawley said, “Why would I recuse myself from voting for someone who I think would be terrific?” Bloomberg reports that the White House is considering Sarah Pitlyk, a federal judge for the Eastern District of Missouri and one of many Trump 1.0 nominees to be rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association. As an attorney with the far-right Thomas More Society, Pitlyk defended pre-Dobbs abortion bans, argued that embryos created via in vitro fertilization should be considered people, and represented Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden after he created doctored videos that falsely accused Planned Parenthood of profiting from the sale of fetal tissue.
Enhanced tax credits for people buying Affordable Care Act plans will expire at the end of this month—unless Congress can manage to extend the subsidies before it leaves town on December 19. Many Republicans oppose the credits in general, but are wary of the impact that increased healthcare costs could have on the midterm elections. Anti-abortion groups have urged lawmakers considering an extension to make the subsidies even more restrictive when it comes to coverage of abortion. Today, Planned Parenthood and Reproductive Freedom for All sent a letter effectively warning Democrats not to support anything short of a “clean” extension. The groups said they’ll score any votes on subsidies, which is really only a threat to lawmakers who would seek their endorsement.
Senators John Cornyn of Texas, James Lankford of Oklahoma, and 10 other Senate Republicans have introduced the “Conscience Protections for Medical Residents Act,” which would replace the current abortion training system—in which resident physicians are allowed to opt out of instruction—with an opt-in system. The Senators claim that residents face pressure “to participate in procedures that violate their moral or religious beliefs” and fear that opting out could harm their careers. In reality, though abortion training is technically an accreditation requirement for OBGYN residencies, many programs fell short of this requirement even before Roe was overturned. A 2024 study found that, prior to Dobbs, only 49 percent of OBGYN residencies offered routine abortion training. Post-Dobbs, 14 percent of residency programs lost in-state abortion training, and, even in states where abortion is legal, 46 percent of programs lack routine abortion training. Despite this data, the anti-abortion movement has long claimed that doctors are coerced into participating in abortion care when the opposite is true, and this legislation is endorsed by every major anti-abortion group.
Today is World AIDS Day, but for the first time since 1988, the United States government isn’t commemorating it. State Department employees and grantees were told they can’t use federal funds to recognize the day. According to the United Nations, 2.5 million people worldwide have lost access to HIV prevention drugs due to President Trump’s cuts to foreign aid. Modeling studies suggest that global cuts to HIV prevention programs—the Trump administration’s cuts chief among them—could lead to an additional 10 million HIV infections, including 1 million among young children.
State news
Anti-abortion protester Mark Baumgartner has been charged with two crimes—assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, and possession of a weapon during a violent crime—after allegedly pepper spraying and shooting another man near a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia, South Carolina last month. Video of the confrontation seemed to show that two people on the scene had guns—Baumgartner and another person who appeared to be a member of the organization he runs, A Moment of Hope. It’s unclear whether this other person will face charges. Baumgartner was booked into jail and later granted a $50,000 bond.
HB 7, the newly expanded Texas medication abortion bounty law, goes into effect this Thursday, December 4. It allows citizens to sue anyone facilitating the mailing of abortion pills into or within Texas for a bounty of $100,000. It is the first new policy designed explicitly to target “shield” laws, which protect abortion providers in legal states when they provide medication abortion via telemedicine to patients in ban states. Texas Right to Life president John Seago said his organization was working with crisis pregnancy centers to identify people to sue, and such coordination was already evident in the campaign to get the law passed. Anti-abortion lawyer Jonathan Mitchell has also said in court documents that he plans to amend a wrongful death lawsuit against a California doctor to allege violations of HB7 once it takes effect.
An Arizona GOP lawmaker is proposing a new tax credit that would forgive up to $4,000 owed in state taxes in a year that a person gives birth. His goal is to “encourage women in this state to carry their unborn children to full term.” However, the full credit would only be available to people living below the federal poverty level—that means earning just $21,150 for a two-person household or $26,650 for a family of three. The credit would be reduced at incomes above that, and wouldn’t apply to anyone making more than 145 percent of the federal poverty level, which is still less than $39,000 for a family of three. Because the bill itself doesn’t say anything about abortion, or attempt to regulate it, some Democrats say they could get on board.
An Alabama state lawmaker has filed a perhaps well-intentioned though ethically dubious bill that would require men convicted of rape or incest that results in a pregnancy to get a vasectomy or be castrated. Rep. Juandalynn Givan said her bill is about the double standard when it comes to states controlling people’s bodies and a desire for more accountability for sex crimes. As Robin Marty, executive director of WAWC Healthcare—formerly the state’s largest abortion provider—told a local news outlet, “It is just as terrible to create a bill that would take away the reproductive autonomy of a man as it is to have no abortion allowed for a person who can become pregnant." Plus, the criminal legal system is deeply flawed and results in wrongful convictions, especially of Black men, who are already disproportionately incarcerated in Alabama’s infamously brutal prison system.
Extremism
We recently noted that anti-abortion extremist and Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry—architect of the largest-ever abortion clinic blockades back in the 1990s—had purchased a former church campus in Memphis, Tennessee, to use as a training “academy” for a new generation of anti-abortion activists. He’s joined in this effort by members of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, a self-described “leftist” anti-abortion group that has joined forces with Terry in the past, despite the fact that his values are far-right across the board and theirs supposedly are not. They say they’re planning to blockade a Planned Parenthood clinic in Memphis this Friday, December 5, despite the fact that the clinic does not provide abortions because abortion is illegal in Tennessee. Planned Parenthood still provides resources and information to help people travel out of state for abortion care, so the activists baselessly accuse them of participating in abortion “trafficking.” “We are going to blockade an abortion clinic. We are coming for your rights. We are coming for your abortions,” say PAAU members in a recent video posted to Instagram.
Quick hits
- The man charged in a 2015 shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado recently died in federal custody. Robert Dear, who was accused of killing three people and injuring nine others, was repeatedly found incompetent to stand trial and was civilly committed at a medical center for federal prisoners. Dear reportedly said “no more baby parts” during his arrest, in an apparent reference to the aforementioned disinformation videos released by the anti-abortion organization Center for Medical Progress.
- The viral Oklahoma University essay scandal is actually about attacking trans people.
- The group behind a proposed ballot measure that would make abortion legal in Idaho until fetal viability announced it has collected more than 50,000 signatures out of the nearly 71,000 needed to get the initiative on the 2026 ballot. Idahoans United for Women and Families has until April 30 to submit signatures.
Palate cleanser
He eat plum :’)
Big news! The groundhog is back at my sister's and she gave him a plum
— Artologica aka Michele Banks (@artologica.net) 2025-11-25T12:39:15.034Z
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