Table of Contents
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
In a hearing last week, a federal judge sounded skeptical of Louisiana’s argument that ending telehealth prescriptions for mifepristone would end demand for abortion pills. As we’ve covered, the state sued the Food and Drug Administration in an attempt to reimpose unnecessary in-person appointments and asked the judge to immediately force that change while the lawsuit continues. The FDA asked the judge to pause litigation while it completes a bogus safety review of the drug. Trump-appointed judge David Joseph asked the FDA to file a brief by Tuesday outlining what steps it would take if it found “concerning information” during the review; he could rule at any time after that. The judge also ruled that mifepristone makers Danco and GenBioPro can join the litigation as interested parties.
Trump didn’t mention abortion in his State of the Union address last week—or in his address to Congress last year. Anti-abortion groups are making a big show of being angry about it, but we can’t help but feel this is a useful bit of political theater on both ends: Trump gets to pretend to moderate on abortion, and anti-abortion organizations get to fight from their favorite “oppressed” position.
Surgeon General nominee Casey Means—who has a medical degree but no medical license or board certification—has previously made comments about the “horrifying health risks of hormonal birth control on the female mind and body,” and said that using birth control shows a “disrespect of things that create life.” However, in response to questions from Sen. Patty Murray in a confirmation hearing last week, Means struck a more careful tone, simply claiming that she wants “what’s best for women” and feels that birth control isn’t always prescribed with informed consent. She sounded an awful lot like Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who at his confirmation hearings danced around some of his past work delegitimizing vaccines, and merely said he’d do whatever Trump wanted him to do when it came to regulating abortion pills.
Christian nationalist law firm Alliance Defending Freedom claims that family medicine residency programs are “violating federal conscience protections by compelling residents to train in abortions and promote gender ideology,” and is now asking the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate. Medical residency programs receive significant federal funding, so ADF is essentially asking the Trump administration to further expand its existing strategy of attacking reproductive health and gender-affirming care by threatening to withhold federal funds from institutions that don’t comply with its demands.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that early prenatal care is on the decline in the U.S. Pregnant people are more likely to start seeing a healthcare provider later in pregnancy, and a growing number are receiving no prenatal care at all. The rate of prenatal care in the first trimester fell from 78.3 percent in 2021 to 75.5 percent in 2024, and the number of births to people who received no prenatal care, or started prenatal care in the third trimester, grew from 6.3 to 7.3 percent during the same period. This was true across the country and across nearly all racial demographics, but the decrease in early prenatal care was even higher among people of color. For example, rates of early prenatal care among Black parents decreased from 69.7 percent in 2021 to 65.1 percent in 2024.
State news
State legislation
A Utah lawmaker wants to require doctors to note in a patient’s medical record, upon request, that an abortion “was not elective” if it occurred under circumstances she believes are justified—like because of a miscarriage, certain fetal diagnoses, or to save the pregnant person’s life. However, the confusingly written bill contradicts itself as to which abortions are and are not defined as “elective,” and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says it opposes “legislative interference with the medical record.” HB480 has passed the House and now moves on to the Senate.
Arizona Republicans are pushing 16 new abortion restrictions despite voters’ adoption of a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to abortion until fetal viability in 2024—and in the face of a recent court decision that struck down a host of remaining restrictions, including a 24-hour waiting period, a ban on telemedicine for abortion pills, and a so-called reason ban prohibiting abortions due to certain genetic conditions. Proposed restrictions include new reporting requirements and criminal penalties for “partial birth abortion,” which is not a medical term and is already illegal on the state and federal level; a bill that would forbid employees of public schools and universities—including student health centers—from facilitating abortions; and one that would criminalize shipping or receiving abortion pills by mail.
Lawmakers on a New Hampshire House Committee voted down a bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks except in the case of medical emergencies; the current limit is 24 weeks. House Bill 1590 failed by a vote of 13 to 4.
Maine lawmakers are considering a bill to provide additional funding for reproductive health providers to fill gaps the Trump administration caused. Both Maine Family Planning and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England say they need the state to step in to offset a federal bill that kicked them out of Medicaid as well as illegal pauses in Title X family planning funding.
A committee of the Connecticut legislature held a hearing Monday on a bill that would expand the state’s so-called “shield law.” The current law protects clinicians from out-of-state investigations, but Senate Bill 295 would explicitly protect providers for abortions prescribed via telehealth. If passed, it would make Connecticut the ninth state with a shield law protecting telemedicine prescriptions. In less-good news, the same committee also considered House Bill 5309, which would require parental notification of minors who want to get an abortion.
State court news
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against telemedicine abortion pill provider Aid Access and California physician Dr. Remy Coeytaux for allegedly providing abortion pills to people in Texas. Paxton is asking a state judge to block the parties from mailing pills to Texans. Clinicians write these prescriptions under the legal protections of “shield laws;” Paxton sued a Delaware-based provider last month on similar grounds. This suit cites the questionable claims of twice-convicted abuser Jerry Rodriguez, a Texas man who says Coeytaux prescribed abortion pills to his girlfriend. Rodriguez was arrested in July 2025 for allegedly choking that woman, and he is represented by far-right lawyer and recurring villain of this newsletter, Jonathan Mitchell. Paxton’s complaint also cites the disputed allegations of a Texas woman who claims a Marine drugged her with abortion pills against her will. That man is countersuing.
Planned Parenthood Association of Utah is challenging an attempt by the Attorney General to move its lawsuit over the state’s abortion ban from a district court to a newly created three-judge “constitutional court” panel. Gov. Spencer Cox signed a law in February allowing the AG to make such transfers when legal actions challenge state laws. A trial over the abortion ban was set for April 16. PPAU is asking the state Supreme Court to halt the transfer because it believes the panel itself is unconstitutional.
Hard-right Wyoming Republicans are still big mad at the state Supreme Court for overturning two abortion bans—so much so that one even proposed striking a budget line item for security at courthouses across the state. This was too much even for the Republican-dominated legislature, and the measure failed 48-12 in the House.
A state court will hold a hearing in Phillips v. Tennessee on Thursday. The case, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of a group of doctors, women who were denied medically necessary abortions, and the American Medical Association, seeks to clarify when doctors are allowed to provide abortion care under the state’s ban, which has only narrow exceptions. A trial is scheduled for April. The March 5 hearing, which will be focused on pretrial motions, begins at 2pm CT/3pm ET and will be livestreamed here.
Personhood watch
A Kentucky prosecutor recently admitted that she didn't read the law closely before wrongly charging a woman who allegedly had an abortion with fetal homicide. Pregnant people are explicitly exempt from fetal homicide charges in the state, but Commonwealth Attorney Miranda King sought an expedited indictment last month on that charge and others. Only after the grand jury indicted the woman did King drop the fetal homicide charge. As she told a local outlet recently, "When we looked at it for the grand jury, we took a more intense look at it, and we realized we were unable to prove it." King is a Democrat who previously said she ran as a “pro-life prosecutor”—she’s now admitted to rushing to charge a woman over her abortion. The woman still faces three other charges: abuse of a corpse, concealing the birth of an infant, and tampering with physical evidence.
Relatedly, Kentucky lawmakers have proposed a bill that would allow homicide charges for people who end their pregnancies. House Bill 714 would repeal the existing fetal homicide statute and add language allowing anyone to be charged with homicide for the “death of an unborn child.” It’s a version of the abortion “abolitionist” movement’s Prenatal Equal Protection Act, based on the insulting and dangerous idea that fertilized eggs have more rights than the people carrying them. (A second proposal, House Bill 764, was withdrawn on Friday but would have permitted prosecutions of pregnant people for abortions or causing the death of a fetus.).
In better news, Tennessee Republican Sen. Mark Pody said he’ll drop his attempt to make abortion punishable by the death penalty because he doesn’t have the votes—though he did have the endorsement of the Southern Baptist Convention. As we explained last week, Pody was attempting to shoehorn a “prenatal equal protection” clause into a bill related to funding for a planned “monument to unborn children” on state capitol grounds.
First Amendment watch
Alabama already requires that sex education programs in schools emphasize abstinence, but its Senate has now passed a bill that would prohibit teachers from telling students how to obtain and use birth control, or how to obtain an abortion. Instead, SB209 requires them to focus exclusively on “sexual risk avoidance.” It moves on to the House for consideration.
A South Dakota House committee advanced a bill that would make it a felony to sell, distribute, or even advertise abortion pills, as well as any other “article” or “instrument” used for abortion. HB 1274 would also allow the state Attorney General to seek civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation. That money would go to the “life protection subfund,” which is used to defend the state’s anti-abortion laws. AG Marty Jackley, who happens to be running for U.S. House, supports the law, which is no surprise given that he has been trying to use state courts to kill an abortion pill information advertising campaign from the advocacy organization Mayday Health.
Susan Ostermann, an associate professor of global affairs at University of Notre Dame, has rejected her appointment to lead the school’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies after protests over her advocacy for abortion rights, including op-eds about medical fraud at crisis pregnancy centers, the effects of anti-abortion misinformation on health policy, and the anti-abortion movement’s ties to white supremacy. More than a dozen Catholic bishops and two cardinals publicly opposed her appointment to the position.
Assaults on queer people
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted 2-1 to reverse a position it held for over a decade by saying that federal agencies can restrict bathroom access for trans people. The EEOC said that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act “permits a federal agency employer to maintain single-sex bathrooms and similar intimate spaces,” and “permits a federal agency employer to exclude employees, including trans-identifying employees, from opposite-sex facilities.” Previously, the EEOC had held that preventing trans people from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity was a violation of federal law. The dissenting vote came from Democratic commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, who argued that a 2020 Supreme Court decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, said Title VII protects trans people from workplace discrimination.
Hundreds of transgender people in Kansas were told that their driver’s licenses were invalid after Senate Bill 244 took effect last week. The law requires the gender marker on licenses to match a person’s sex assigned at birth. But there was no grace period for updating credentials built into the law, making people fearful of what happens if they get pulled over. SB 244 is also a bathroom ban. This provision never got a public hearing, but the ACLU of Kansas notes that it “allows anyone who suspects someone is transgender and in violation of the law to sue that person for ‘damages’ totaling $1,000.” This is a literal bounty for bigots.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, said it will no longer offer gender-affirming surgery for transgender adults, citing “operational limitations and lack of surgical coverage.” VUMC is the only hospital in the state to offer gender-affirming surgery for trans adults and said it would continue to offer “nonsurgical gender-affirming care for adults 19 years and older.” Last time we checked, 18-year-olds are adults. State law bans this care for people under 18, so VUMC is once again overcomplying.
Ken Paxton had a busy week. Not only did he sue two abortion providers, he also issued a legal opinion claiming that the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors prohibits supportive mental health care. Paxton’s office issued the opinion Friday in response to a question from the state agency that regulates therapists, the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council. The 2023 law banning affirming medical care applied to puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and exceptionally rare surgeries for adolescents. Now, Paxton claimes that affirming talk therapy is “indoctrination by activists providing mental ‘health care’ designed to confuse children about their gender.” In likely related news, Paxton is challenging Sen. John Cornyn in a primary that ends Tuesday.
Idaho state representative Tony Wisniewski introduced a resolution that urges the Supreme Court to reverse its 2015 marriage equality decision, known as Obergefell v. Hodges. That’s not how any of this works, but OK, Tony. A more legitimate threat is brewing thanks to a Texas lawsuit filed by the aforementioned Jonathan Mitchell.
Quick hits
- You know you can order abortion pills online no matter where you live, but who do you call if you have a medical question or concern? The Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline. Meet its medical director.
- A new study in the journal Health Economics confirms that states with stricter abortion clinic regulations have fewer OBGYNs—“about 2 fewer doctors per 100,000 women of reproductive age.”
- “Leaked documents reveal that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has blocked its AI chatbot from discussing topics including abortion with minors,” reports Mother Jones.
- “Arguing an abortion procedure is unlawfully barbaric worked once. Will it work again?” States Newsroom reports on how the anti-abortion movement is trying to shape public opinion on medication abortion using a 2007 Supreme Court case.
- There’s a shortage of estradiol patches, a synthetic form of estrogen used in hormone therapy for menopause and gender-affirming care. Here’s what to know if you’re affected—though the story doesn’t mention the impact on trans people.
- Ohio will lose a projected $33 billion over 10 years due to recent GOP cuts to Medicaid. The Trump administration has pitched its Rural Health Transformation Program as offsetting some of these cuts, but so far, the state is only slated to receive $202 million from that program.
- New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani pledged to protect trans people. With two local hospitals ending gender-affirming care, he faces the first test of this promise.
Actual good news
An Ohio appellate court upheld a lower court ruling that blocked a law requiring the burial or cremation of fetal remains from procedural abortions, citing the state’s 2023 reproductive freedom constitutional amendment. “Ohio voters said what they meant,” the Court wrote. “The State may not burden, penalize, or discriminate against those who have an abortion and those who assist them in obtaining one.”
Palate cleanser
Thanks to all the friends who step up to be the asshole.
@mickmessy Help is on the way dear #illsaythething #friendgroup ♬ original sound - Dee
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