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
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Garnet Henderson
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Federal news
A federal judge in Pennsylvania struck down a 2017 rule issued during Donald Trump’s first term which granted a broad exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. The rule allowed all non-profit and for-profit employers, including large, publicly traded companies, to refuse contraceptive coverage for their employees for any religious or “moral” reason. Two Supreme Court cases, 2014’s Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and 2016’s Zubik v. Burwell, directed the Department of Health and Human Services to craft carveouts to the ACA’s contraceptive mandate for religious employers and institutions. In issuing such rules, however, the Trump administration bypassed the normal rulemaking process. The Supreme Court gave this procedural move the OK in the 2020 case Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, but the broader fight over the contraceptive mandate continued. Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns, is represented by the right-wing law firm Becket Fund, which says it will appeal the decision.
Recently, Susan reported on a letter sent to Congress by 16 Republican Attorneys General, demanding they ban “shield” laws that allow providers of abortion and gender-affirming care to treat patients across state lines. Law professor Mary Ziegler called this move “weird,” and even anti-abortion lawyer James Bopp Jr., general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, agrees. “It’s just not realistic,” he told the Hill. “There is absolutely zero prospect of it passing the Senate, and it makes no sense to waste your time on things that are completely hopeless and pointless.” Bopp is, however, in favor of state lawsuits challenging “shield” laws.
State news
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called a second, 30-day special session after the first one ended without passing a bill to alter the state’s congressional maps because Democrats fled the state. Abbott is trying to help Republicans keep control of the House in the 2026 midterms by redistricting the state five years ahead of the next census, but lawmakers also seek to pass a monster bill that would restrict access to abortion pills. One version of the legislation, Senate Bill 6, did pass in the first special session and would need to be re-introduced and passed again. (This bill failed to pass in the regular session, but Texas Republicans won’t take no for an answer.)
A Kansas abortion clinic, Aria Medical, is suing the state for banning advanced practice providers like certified nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners from prescribing medication abortion. Currently, only physicians can prescribe the pills. Kansas is one of about 10 states where abortion is available after six weeks of pregnancy and care is (wrongly) limited to physicians.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey was rebuffed by the state Supreme Court after he asked them to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed procedural abortions to resume in the state last month. In a 7-0 ruling, the Supreme Court told Bailey he shouldn’t have skipped the Missouri Court of Appeals and run straight to the highest court. Sucks to suck.
Idaho has lost 43 percent of its OBGYNs since its total abortion ban went into effect in 2022. In addition to decreased access to care for patients, this means that remaining doctors are shouldering huge burdens. In 2024 alone, the state lost 55 OBYNS, with 23 moving out of state, 12 retiring, and others dropping obstetrics and practicing gynecology only.
Personhood watch
Speaking of Idaho, it’s one of about 20 states in the U.S. that define prenatal substance use as child abuse. This is yet another example of fetal personhood, because under the law, fetuses are treated as children. In Idaho, a positive drug test during pregnancy can land people on a child abuse registry for 10 years, empowering the state to carry out surprise inspections of their home and even take custody of their child away if they are ever found to be using drugs again. Keeva Rossow, a woman who was placed on the registry because she used THC to treat nausea so severe she was losing weight during pregnancy, is suing to challenge Idaho’s law.
You may recall the enraging case of Lizelle Gonzalez, a Texas woman who is suing officials who wrongly charged her with murder after she managed her own abortion with misoprostol. (She went to a hospital with bleeding and told hospital staff about the pills; a nurse called the cops.) State homicide law explicitly exempts women who terminate their own pregnancies from criminal charges, so the Starr County District Attorney dropped the charges, but Gonzalez is suing for $1 million in damages. Chillingly, in depositions as part of the civil suit, one employee of the Texas sheriff’s office said he believed there was cause to investigate the incident as a homicide case because “there was a death of an individual.” Embryos and fetuses are unfortunately considered people under Texas law, and even though women and pregnant people are nominally exempt from prosecution, they can still be criminalized.
Assaults on queer people
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld Arkansas’ ban on youth gender-affirming care. A lower court issued an injunction to block the law shortly after its passage in 2021, and struck it down in 2023, declaring it unconstitutional. But the Eighth Circuit reversed this ruling, citing the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a similar Tennessee law in U.S. v. Skrmetti earlier this summer. The justices sent the case back to the district court, but Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said he expects the appeals court to issue a mandate directing the state to enforce the law within the next few weeks.
Extremism
The wholesale chain Costco said last week that its pharmacies will not dispense the abortion drug mifepristone, a decision it had reportedly been considering for more than a year. Costco claimed it would maintain the status quo due to “lack of demand,” but did not say how it determined demand for a drug it doesn’t dispense to its members and nonmember pharmacy customers. The medication also has several off-label uses, including miscarriage management.
The announcement came after a pressure campaign from groups including far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, which wants to ban abortion nationwide. Currently, CVS and Walgreens are the only national retail pharmacies with locations that stock the drug. ADF and Republican Attorneys General have been threatening pharmacies with unfounded claims that carrying mifepristone would violate the Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity statute passed in 1873. Now, ADF is claiming victory as it seeks to prevent or reverse pharmacy access; other chains like Walmart and Kroger have yet to say whether they’ll stock the drug. Conservatives are doing everything they can to restrict access to abortion pills as part of a strategy to make abortion inaccessible without Congress passing any new laws.
A vandal broke the glass front door of Care for All Community Clinic, a nonprofit Wisconsin provider of sliding scale abortion and other reproductive health services. The clinic had just opened its doors in June, and is now fundraising for security upgrades.
Angela White, formerly known as Blac Chyna, plays Bevelyn Williams in the new film Pardon Me. Williams was one of 23 people convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act who Trump pardoned during his first week in office. Williams was sentenced to 41 months in prison for her role in the 2020 blockade of the soon-to-be-shuttered Planned Parenthood clinic in Manhattan, during which she injured a staff member and threatened to “terrorize this place.” On social media, Williams has complained that few movie theaters are willing to screen the film, and has called on churches and other religious organizations to host screenings instead.
Quick hits
- Small-scale studies suggest that the abortion pill mifepristone may prevent breast cancer, but abortion stigma is preventing further studies, a group of experts wrote in The Lancet.
- A new study finds that medical providers who treat adolescents don’t feel comfortable helping them access abortion care in the post-Dobbs landscape. Of 118 clinicians surveyed, fewer than half reported high confidence in their ability to help patients navigate barriers, and the number was even lower in restrictive states.
- Louisiana prosecutor Tony Clayton, who filed criminal charges against a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills to a patient in Louisiana, made an awfully menacing statement last week: “We will take all legal measures afforded to us to extradite Dr. Carpenter back here, and you will see something along those lines in the not-so-distant future.” Please recall that Attorney General Pam Bondi met with Clayton earlier this year and he asked for her help in the case. She responded: “I would love to work with you.”
- The National Women’s Law Center announced that its client Angela Costales has settled with pharmacy chain CVS. Costales sued CVS after a pharmacist at a San Diego location refused on apparent religious grounds to dispense misoprostol, a medication to help her manage a miscarriage.
- Creators of “The Pitt” told Variety that season 2 of their hit show will incorporate storylines about Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” and its devastating cuts to Medicaid. “We take our platform very seriously,” said an executive producer. In case you missed it, two experts wrote for Autonomy News last month about the show’s accidentally aspirational season one medication abortion storyline.
Jessica Army, MD
Palate cleanser
She’s got a plan to get us out of here.
@mansbestfriendforlife ♬ Fast Car (2015 Remaster) - Tracy Chapman
