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
Sources told Susan that allegations of mismanagement at Planned Parenthood Southeast affiliate go far beyond what was previously reported. Notably, interim CEO Mairo Akposé allegedly told staff she would consider ending abortion care entirely. Akposé remains in her role following a board-led investigation. (Share this story on Instagram, Bluesky, or TikTok.)
Susan Rinkunas
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Federal news
Senate Democrats will force a vote this week on a three-year extension of enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act health insurance plans. The measure is expected to fail, as conservative groups are urging Republicans to vote against any bill that doesn’t further restrict coverage of abortion. As a result, monthly premiums will ratchet up for millions of people who buy their own health plans—some of whom will consequently drop their coverage. This will have ripple effects across the healthcare system, especially on rural hospitals. A promise of this doomed vote is all eight Democrats got for voting to end the government shutdown.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reportedly worked in secret to strip a provision out of the defense spending bill that would have mandated coverage of in-vitro fertilization in TRICARE, the federal health insurance plan for active duty military. One source said Johnson’s opposition stems from his anti-abortion views, as IVF involves disposal of unused embryos. Text of the bill released Sunday does not include the provision, per NOTUS reporter Oriana González.
A federal judge blocked the budget law provision “defunding” Planned Parenthood and other large abortion providers, agreeing with a coalition of 22 states and Washington, D.C. who argued the law harms them. However, Judge Indira Talwani said the preliminary injunction only applies to those states. She also paused her own ruling for seven days to give the Department of Health and Human Services time to appeal the order to the First Circuit Court of Appeals—and the agency did just that. Now we wait for the First Circuit to weigh in. A separate lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood Federation of America against the Trump administration remains ongoing.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill that would repeal Washington, D.C.’s so-called “shield law”—something Congress could sadly do because D.C. isn’t a state. In 2022, the D.C. City Council passed a law that protects abortion providers and doctors providing gender-affirming care to minors from out-of-state legal action. Lee’s bill is endorsed by the usual oppressive suspects, including Alliance Defending Freedom and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Once again, DC statehood is a reproductive justice issue.
Sen. Lee also sent a letter urging the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to end insurance coverage of most abortions in health plans for members of Congress and their staff. Lee claims OPM is violating a law known as the Smith Amendment, which says no federal funds may be used to cover abortions for federal employees except when abortion is necessary to save someone’s life, or the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. The letter has just 24 signatures.
A federal appeals court struck down a local Florida ordinance that created a “buffer zone” around an abortion clinic. An anti-abortion group sued over a 2023 Clearwater ordinance that prevented pedestrians from entering a 38-foot section of public sidewalk, 28 feet of which cross the clinic’s driveway. A panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the law burdened the group’s free speech. The dissenting judge, Biden appointee Nancy Abudu, said it was doubtful that the ordinance seriously limited the group’s rights. “The buffer zone is only five feet and the adjacent sidewalk area and the remaining portions of the driveway remain available. FPR counselors testified that their voices could carry the additional five feet to communicate with an individual inside the buffer zone,” she wrote.
A former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas named David Bragdon was confirmed to a lifetime federal judgeship in the Middle District of North Carolina. His nomination succeeded in a party-line vote of 53-45 even though he wrote in college that “a fetus has just as much right to life as an infant does.” Eight Senate Democrats voted to confirm to the same district a former Justice Department lawyer who refused to say that Trump lost the 2020 election. The vote for Lindsey Freeman was 60-39, with yeses from seven Democrats and one Independent who caucuses with them.
State news
Over a year after Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion until fetal viability, so many restrictions remain on the books that only 80 abortions were provided in the state’s clinics from January through October of 2025. An additional 79 were performed in hospitals in medical emergencies. By contrast, according to the Missouri Abortion Fund, at least 2,000 Missourians traveled out of state for care between July and September alone. A 2026 measure placed on the ballot by Republican lawmakers could ban all abortions once more, and ban youth gender-affirming care.
Speaking of that Missouri ballot measure, an appeals court rewrote the summary language that will appear on the 2026 ballot, after finding that the text approved by a lower court did not sufficiently inform voters that a “yes” vote on the measure would repeal the 2024 reproductive rights amendment and ban abortions.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic has officially dropped its bid to get back into South Carolina’s network of Medicaid providers. This long legal battle began in 2018, when Governor Henry McMaster booted PPSAT out of the state’s Medicaid program via executive order. The affiliate and an individual patient sued to reverse the decision, and their case eventually landed at the Supreme Court. In an entirely unsurprising move, earlier this year the justices sided with South Carolina in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. However, Planned Parenthood then tried another tactic, filing paperwork in August to challenge its exclusion on different legal grounds. But now, the organization’s attorneys say they see no path forward because of the federal Medicaid “defund” of Planned Parenthood and other large abortion providers.
Brittany Watts, the Ohio woman who was arrested for experiencing a stillbirth in her bathroom after being repeatedly sent home from the hospital, is suing the hospital and local police over her arrest. In one of their filings in the case, these defendants quoted part of a law that they say required the hospital to report Watts to the police. But in their response, Watts’ attorneys point out that the defendants omitted some of the law’s text, which makes it clear the hospital did not need to call police.
Also in Ohio, the resident doctor accused of secretly giving abortion pills to his pregnant girlfriend—who he also treated as a patient—has been indicted on six felony charges. His medical license was previously suspended.
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Personhood watch
Apparently too impatient to wait for the 2026 anti-abortion ballot measure, two Missouri state legislators have introduced a new criminal abortion ban called the “Missouri Prenatal Equal Protection Act,” based on model legislation from abortion “abolitionist” groups designed to enshrine full fetal personhood and introduce criminal penalties for people who have abortions.
A Florida bill that would allow people to sue over the wrongful death of fetuses has received its final House committee approvals and can head to a floor vote. However, it still needs to clear two more committees in the Senate.
Jessica Kalb, a Jewish woman in Kentucky, continues to challenge the state’s abortion ban, saying it imposes a religious view about when life begins that conflicts with her beliefs. She is also seeking clarification about the legality of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in the state in light of the abortion ban. Kentucky’s Attorney General claims that IVF remains legal because it’s a procedure to facilitate pregnancy, not terminate it. But the abortion ban explicitly states that embryos are “unborn human being[s].” Kalb was originally one of three plaintiffs in the case, but she’s the last one remaining after courts ruled the other two plaintiffs lacked standing to sue.
The child of Adriana Smith, the Georgia woman who was kept on life support against her family’s wishes in order to incubate her pregnancy, remains in the NICU nearly six months after the hospital performed a C-section on Smith. The infant, who Smith’s family named Chance, weighs only 11 pounds.
Assaults on queer people
The Department of Justice is planning to end prison rape protections for transgender and intersex people. A DOJ memo obtained by Prism says that parts of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) do not align with an anti-trans executive order that Trump signed on his first day back in office, which falsely declares that sex assigned at birth is immutable. The memo targets rules on screening for risk of sexual abuse, use of that screening information to determine where people are housed, and trans and intersex people’s ability to shower separately from other prisoners.
Christian Nationalist law firm Alliance Defending Freedom is continuing its war on correct pronoun use in public schools. An ADF attorney testified at a House hearing that schools requiring staff to honor a child’s chosen name and pronouns are “secret-transition” policies.
Extremism
We’ve been tracking the new anti-abortion “training” facility in Memphis, Tennessee under the leadership of Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry. The group’s planned blockade of a Planned Parenthood health center in Memphis last week was fairly anticlimactic because clinic defenders got there and encircled the building’s doors first. It’s worth noting, however, that because of Tennessee’s total abortion ban, this particular clinic doesn’t even provide abortions, and may have also rescheduled patients or made other changes to mitigate the event’s impact.
Quick hits
- Four lawsuits “at the center of a Republican-led effort to ensure law enforcement can access reproductive health records” have mostly been rejected—but privacy concerns remain.
- A KFF poll that assessed people’s knowledge and views about abortion pills found that four in ten people were “unsure” about the pills’ safety. More than 100 studies have determined the pills are safe and effective for ending a pregnancy.
- A new study published in JAMA Health Forum finds that violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency medical care, including abortion when necessary, increased measurably in states that enacted total abortion bans without health exceptions.
- Another new study that assessed calls to D.C. Abortion Fund found that both overall call volume and the gestational age of callers’ pregnancies increased after the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.
- Should pregnant people get disability parking placards? Some say this would be a“pro-family” move, others say it would further push disabled people—including parents—out of society.
- Federal authorities say that Robert Dear, the man accused but never tried for perpetrating a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood in 2015, died of congestive heart failure and related conditions. He died in a federal prison medical facility in November.
- Good news for people who hate Pap tests: The American Cancer Society now officially endorses at-home, self-collection testing for HPV as a method of cervical cancer screening in people at average risk.
Actual good news
A Wisconsin state lawmaker has introduced a bill to decriminalize pregnancy outcomes. The Pregnancy Loss Protection Act would ban criminal charges or fines related to stillbirth, miscarriage, and abortion.
Palate cleanser
This does indeed bring joy to the world.
@kshumanesociety If you missed the Rockefeller tree lighting, here’s our tree ceremony with one of the stars from our shelter 🥹🐱 Happy Holidays from all of us at KHS! #adoptdontshop #kitten #christmastree #animalshelter #fyp ♬ original sound - nbcnews
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