'Defunding' Planned Parenthood, Supreme Court Doozies, and More: June 30 News Roundup

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

Later this week, Susan will have a piece on how Republicans could functionally ban abortion across the U.S. without ever passing a ban. (No, this isn’t a story about the Comstock Act; it’s fresh hell.)

Federal news

Budget bill

The Senate is currently voting on a budget reconciliation bill that would “defund” Planned Parenthood and some other abortion providers for one year. Federal funds already can’t be used for abortion, but the bill would exclude abortion clinics from Medicaid for providing non-abortion services like birth control. If it passes the chamber, the House must still approve it before it goes to Donald Trump’s desk. (Thankfully, the bill no longer includes a Medicaid ban on gender-affirming care, nor does it ban federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans that cover abortion. Both provisions were in an earlier version.) Due to changes in Medicaid eligibility, nearly 12 million people would lose their insurance over the next 10 years. All to pass tax cuts for the richest Americans.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court ended its term with some doozies: On Thursday, the conservative justices allowed states to kick Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid by ruling that neither Planned Parenthood nor a South Carolina patient can sue the state for doing this. The 6-3 majority claimed that, while the Medicaid Act says patients may choose any qualified provider for their care, it’s not an absolute right that they can sue over. This decision will embolden other conservative-led states to follow suit.

On Friday, the Court made a ruling significantly limiting federal judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions, knocking down what had been a major barrier to Trump’s largely unchecked power.

That same day, in a case stemming from several Christian-owned businesses’ objections to their insurance plans covering the HIV prevention regimen known as PrEP, the Court ruled to uphold the process by which members are appointed to the Affordable Care Act-mandated Preventive Services Task Force. It’s a group of experts that decides which drugs and services health insurers have to cover at no additional cost to the patient. Unfortunately, this is temporary good news hiding some bad news, because the Court also affirmed that the Health Secretary has the power to kick people off the task force at will. In other words, if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes issue with PrEP or other recommended care, coverage could still be at risk.

Amid various federal efforts to “defund” its clinics, Planned Parenthood is pushing state legislators and governors in California, New York, and other states supportive of abortion rights to scrape together emergency funds to help keep clinics open.

State news

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced he will bring lawmakers back to Austin for a 30-day special session starting July 21 to tackle issues including the sale of THC-containing products. Dozens of Republican lawmakers, including Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, signed on to a letter asking Abbott to add abortion restrictions to the agenda. Specifically, they want to reconsider the sweeping abortion pill proposal, SB 2880, that died in committee.

Iowa anti-abortion activists are also taking aim at abortion pills, pledging to introduce a new bill in their next legislative session called the Black Market Abortion Prevention Act. "These drugs are dangerous," said activist Maggie DeWitte. "We need to understand the devastation that these chemical abortions are having on our families here in Iowa." Lawmakers and activists alike are increasingly using War on Drugs-style language in an attempt to convince the public that abortion pills are dangerous. For example, top groups have even referred to the 19th-century Comstock Act as a "federal abortion pill anti-trafficking law."

Ahead of this November’s off-year election, a group connected to SBA Pro-Life America is knocking doors for Virginia House of Delegates candidates who will oppose a pro-choice constitutional amendment. Lawmakers proposed an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, which has to pass again in the 2026 legislative session before it goes to a statewide vote. All 100 House seats are up for election, and if Democrats lose control of the chamber it could doom the amendment.

Assaults on queer people

Two teenage girls were injured in a shooting near New York City’s historic Stonewall Inn as Pride festivities came to an end on Sunday night. Police said they do not have a description of the shooter and don’t know whether he knew the victims. Earlier in the day, there had been a stampede in nearby Washington Square Park after a man sprayed bear deterrent into the crowd.

Assigned Media reports that at least three major providers of gender-affirming care in the San Francisco Bay area have quietly reduced their services for adolescents. Clinicians said the threat of federal investigations spurred the changes, despite California’s “shield” law, which protects providers of gender-affirming care. This comes after Children’s Hospital LA, also citing pressure from the Trump administration, announced that its youth gender-affirming care clinic, which currently treats an estimated 3,000 patients, will shut down in July.

Extremism

If/When/How’s Repro Legal Defense Fund said that, since the Dobbs decision three years ago, it has paid more than $2.7 million in bail and bond to help people investigated for their pregnancy outcomes.

Remember when anti-abortion activist Lauren Handy was arrested and police found five sets of fetal remains that she claimed were from a Washington, D.C. clinic? The anti-abortion movement hasn’t let that go and continues to demand “justice” for the “D.C. five,” suggesting without evidence that the clinic may have violated a 2007 federal ban on an abortion procedure. Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi said there is an “ongoing investigation” into the matter.

Quick hits

• A new report from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research “estimates that the 16 states with total or near-total abortion bans have sustained more than $64 billion in economic losses annually since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022.”
• The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), one of the largest support groups for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, told member clinics to avoid doing ultrasounds on suspected ectopic pregnancies, according to audio obtained by NBC News. The recommendation came after a Massachusetts CPC settled a lawsuit filed by a woman who alleges it failed to diagnose her ectopic, which later ruptured.
• The Second Circuit court of Appeals appeared skeptical of New York’s argument that it can enforce state consumer protection laws to ban CPCs from counseling people on so-called “abortion pill reversal.” 
• This story was first reported in May, but it’s still worth talking about: A Tennessee woman in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention claims she was denied medical care for her pregnancy and had a stillbirth. She told guards at an ICE detention center that she was having contractions but they reportedly ignored her. Detaining people based on their identity and then denying them medical care is arguably another form of eugenics.
• Automatic license plate reader company Flock has stopped law enforcement agencies from searching its cameras in California, Illinois, and Virginia, after 404 Media reported that police were using the database to search for a Texas woman who had an abortion and to aid in Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns these changes “cannot make automated license plate readers safe.”

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