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
We obtained recordings from a crisis pregnancy center industry conference and they’re awfully revealing regarding quality of “care” and legal strategy. We’ve been working on this story—published in collaboration with Mother Jones—for the entire four-month life of Autonomy News. (Share it on Instagram or Bluesky.)
Garnet Henderson
We also had the pleasure of joining WORT, Madison’s public radio station, to discuss the changing landscape of abortion care in Wisconsin and across the country.
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Federal news
The Trump administration used the government shutdown as a pretext to lay off practically the entire office that runs Title X, the country’s only program dedicated to birth control for low-income people. Title X provides roughly $300 million in annual grants to health clinics so they can provide low- or no-cost contraception, STI and pregnancy testing, and basic infertility care to underserved people. Republicans attack the program whenever they’re in power because grantees include abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. Title X is housed within the Office of Population Affairs (OPA), a 50-person department which also runs programs focused on teen-pregnancy prevention and LGBTQ+ health, and the administration appears to have laid off all but one person in OPA. Advocates fear these layoffs are a way to shut down the program without Congressional approval.
President Trump made a wild claim on the campaign trail that his administration would require insurance to cover in-vitro fertilization. In February, he signed an executive order commissioning a report on ways to make IVF more affordable. But on Thursday—nearly five months after that report was due—Trump announced that the White House’s big plan is to make some IVF drugs a little cheaper through deals it has negotiated with just one manufacturer and two specialty pharmacies. It was never plausible that Trump would make IVF free, because doing so would require an act of Congress and would enrage anti-abortion groups that oppose IVF for various reasons, including the destruction of embryos. Trump will try to frame these discounts as a win, but his announcement comes as Republican policies are set to make people’s health insurance drastically more expensive overall.
In a short, written order with no noted dissents, the Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to California’s school vaccine mandate. The conservative group We the Patriots had argued that complying with a vaccine mandate makes families “complicit in abortion” based on the false claim that vaccines contain fetal cells.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a bill that would ban health insurance plans sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges from covering most abortions, as well as gender-affirming care for minors. The Hyde Amendment already bars federal funds from being used to pay for abortion except in rare cases, and Obamacare requires plans to separate premium payments for abortion services into different accounts. But conservatives still claim that the ACA’s advance premium tax credits indirectly subsidize abortions, and Hawley says his bill ends this alleged “loophole.” According to his press release, the bill is supported by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group that has been urging lawmakers to make changes to the tax credits.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the Senate Health Committee chair, sent a whiny letter to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary asking for information about the agency’s recent approval of a second generic version of the abortion drug mifepristone. The letter, signed by 16 other GOP Senators, also asks for an update on the FDA’s completely unnecessary review of mifepristone’s safety data.
State news
Abortion advocates are urging Texans to vote no on Proposition 15, a parental rights ballot measure, because it could further limit young people’s access to healthcare in the state. They point to a similar law in Idaho that left minors unable to use a Crisis and Suicide Hotline without parental consent.
As we previously noted, a total abortion ban under consideration in South Carolina, which would criminalize people who have abortions, also changes the definition of contraception in state law to exclude contraceptives that prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg. In other words, the bill is written to classify some birth-control methods, including IUDs and the morning-after pill, as abortifacients, based on the common but incorrect claim that they prevent implantation. The bill’s sponsor confirmed this in a recent interview: “If and when [contraception] acts to prevent implantation, that's an early abortion." One more time for the people in the back: This is not true.
Bills are being filed in advance of Florida’s legislative session, which begins in January. One Republican-backed bill would let people file lawsuits for wrongful death of a fetus at any stage of development. Another bill, sponsored by a Democrat, would eliminate the state program that funds crisis pregnancy centers.
A Missouri appeals court smacked down the state’s attempt to reinstate a host of targeted regulation of abortion provider (TRAP) laws, which means that procedural abortions can continue. Earlier this year, procedural abortion care resumed after a judge issued an injunction to block enforcement of the TRAP laws on the basis of Missouri’s successful 2024 reproductive rights ballot measure. Former Attorney General Andrew Bailey—who is now co-deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—had appealed that decision to a higher court in one of his final acts as AG.
A proposed zoning amendment in Lynchburg, Virginia, would prevent abortion clinics from being opened within 1,000 feet of residential districts, historical districts, and cultural districts. It would also bar abortion clinics from locating “within 1,000 feet of any church or other place of worship, public library, public or private pre-kindergarten, elementary, middle or high school, public park, children’s museum, or child day care center.” Additionally, it changes the city’s definition of hospitals and medical centers to exclude abortion clinics.
Also in Virginia, Fairfax County Public Schools said its investigation into allegations that a school social worker pressured students into having abortions, and even paid for their care, determined the claims are “likely untrue.” Investigators also concluded that a (very strange) letter purportedly written by a student who had an abortion was likely written by the “whistleblower,” a teacher at the school. Unfortunately, the allegations are also under investigation by the state of Virginia and the federal Department of Education.
A new bill in Wyoming would give crisis pregnancy centers broad protections against regulation by local governments, and would ban legislation that requires CPCs to refer people for abortions or offer birth control. This model legislation, known as the CARE Act, is another gem brought to you by our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom. Nearby Montana has already enacted such a law.
Personhood watch
It appears that anti-abortion activists in Colorado will try once again to pass a restrictive ballot measure, even after a protective measure passed in November enshrining the right to have an abortion in the state constitution. The secretary of state’s office approved a ballot title for proposed Initiative 149, which would ask voters whether they want to create “new law that children have the right to continue living once conceived.” This is fetal personhood language, and conveniently leaves out an explicit acknowledgement of the fact that the creation of such a law would repeal the right to have an abortion. The initiative could potentially appear on the 2026 ballot if its supporters get full petition language approved and collect enough signatures. Colorado voters have rejected personhood amendments three times before, and in 2022 voted down an amendment that would have banned abortions after 22 weeks.
Assaults on queer people
Three Supreme Court justices seem to believe that public schools have to out transgender kids to their parents. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch hinted that they believe schools violate the constitutional rights of parents when they acknowledge a student’s gender identity without the parents’ consent. Thankfully, the court will not hear this dispute, but there are similar cases out of Florida and Michigan waiting in the wings, in which conservative parents argue that teachers using their child’s preferred pronouns violates their parental rights.
In Arlington, Virginia, the city council will consider removing protections for LGBTQ+ people from its anti-discrimination ordinance following a Trump administration threat to revoke $65 million in federal grant funds from the city.
Female genital mutilation and cutting are banned at the federal level, but in recent years, advocates have been pushing for state-level protections as well. However, anti-trans activists are co-opting this bipartisan movement, furthering transphobia by claiming that FGM/C laws should also ban gender-affirming care and delaying the passage of important legislation.
Extremism
Anti-abortion activists and elected officials continue apace in their efforts to resurrect the Comstock Act of 1873 by labeling the mailing of abortion pills as drug trafficking. “This is flat-out drug dealing,” said Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill in an interview on Washington Watch, a show hosted by evangelical leader and director of the far-right Family Research Council Tony Perkins. Murrill recently sued the FDA to try to end telemedicine prescriptions of mifepristone.
Speaking of Family Research Council—which the Southern Poverty Law Center considers a hate group—the organization hosted its annual political conference at a California megachurch on October 17. FRC and other Christian nationalist organizations appear to be gearing up to challenge the Johnson Amendment, “a provision of the tax code that sought to keep charities and churches from using their tax-exempt resources to benefit specific candidates.”
Quick hits
- Nearly as many migrants have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention this year than died in the entire four years of the Biden administration. Instead of reconsidering its detention policies, the Department of Homeland Security is looking to hire about 40 healthcare workers.
- Hawaii agreed to protect Native midwives practicing traditional midwifery following the passage of a law that criminalized people providing pregnancy or birth care without a state license. Lawmakers later repealed much of the law, but the state also settled with midwives who sued and agreed that Native Hawaiian midwives won’t face jail time.
- Off-label use of testosterone is becoming a popular option to treat menopause symptoms—but many women don’t know that potential side effects like facial hair and an enlarged clitoris can be permanent.
- Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who claims to support abortion rights, recently voted to confirm an anti-abortion lawyer to a lifetime seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Collins is up for re-election next year.
- A new study found that requests for abortion pills via telemedicine doubled in the first eight months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Palate cleanser
Here, have a puppy in a little sweater.
@pawschicago Jupiter was one of the puppies we pulled from Chicago Animal Care & Control a few weeks ago, with one of the most severe cases of fleas we’ve ever seen. The last three weeks for Jupiter have been full of healing, relaxation, and growing….now she’s nearly ready for adoption! Keep an eye out at pawschicago.org/adopt for her and her fellow planet siblings to make their way over.
♬ original sound - PAWS Chicago
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