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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
A Georgia-based Planned Parenthood affiliate has been hit with three lawsuits alleging discriminatory firings. Six women say they were fired for pushing back on the direction former interim CEO Mairo Akposé wanted to take Planned Parenthood Southeast. In early December, we broke the story that Akposé wanted to halt abortion care; she was fired later that month. Akposé is also suing her former employer, as is a former HR executive. (Share this story on Instagram, Bluesky, or TikTok.)
Susan Rinkunas
And, for our New York subscribers: Extend your Halloween weekend and come see Garnet speak at “The Body is Political,” an event at QED Astoria exploring how “horror has long reflected our deepest fears around bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom.” Get tickets here—proceeds benefit the New York Abortion Access Fund.
Federal news
Democratic lawmakers are demanding the immediate release of Maria Alejandra Valero Brinez, who is being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention despite her high-risk pregnancy. Valero Brinez, who is five months pregnant, has a low-lying placenta, which increases the risk of complications for both her and her fetus. She suffered a stillbirth related to the same condition three years ago, and fears the same could happen again. She has already visited the hospital multiple times due to abnormal bleeding, one of the symptoms of the condition, which could eventually cause a more severe hemorrhage. She says she’s not receiving regular medical care, and is not being given enough calories per day to sustain her pregnancy. Multiple women who have been detained in the same Arizona facility while pregnant have said they received insufficient care, including one who miscarried.
Thankfully, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s wildly unethical study that would have withheld the Hepatitis B vaccine from some newborns in Guinea-Bissau will not move forward. The Danish researcher slated to run the study said the project hadn’t received the necessary approvals from Guinea-Bissau’s government, which also seized the vaccines following a search of the researchers’ office. The vast majority of newborns exposed to Hepatitis B develop chronic liver disease, which can even result in liver failure or cancer. The project was to be funded with $1.6 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and an additional $1.6 million from private donors, including a foundation run by pro-Trump billionaire Bill Ackman.
State news
You might remember that Susan reported on a lawsuit filed by a single mom against anti-abortion group Students for Life under HB 7, the supercharged Texas abortion pill “bounty” law. Following that suit, John Seago, head of Texas Right to Life, said his group is planning to target abortion providers, funds, and other helpers in “more serious” HB 7 lawsuits. Seago and Texas Right to Life were instrumental in the campaign to get local governments to pass anti-abortion ordinances, which laid the groundwork for SB 8, the state’s first “bounty hunter” abortion ban. Legal activist Jonathan Mitchell, who wrote SB 8, has already added HB 7 claims to two of his ongoing lawsuits against abortion pill providers.
Nonhospital birth centers with midwife-led care are associated with better health outcomes in average-risk pregnancies. They are also an increasingly attractive option for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, who experience worse outcomes within the traditional health system. However, 10 states have no birth centers at all.
In 2024, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a law that requires private health insurers to cover roughly one month of doula visits with no cost-sharing. But implementation has been spotty at best, leaving many people to pay out of pocket.
A Wilmington, North Carolina program for adolescent parents is looking for new backers after a private foundation did not renew its funding. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which runs the program, said it consistently “met or exceeded every established goal for the grant.” It helped five teen mothers and one teen father earn high school diplomas or GEDs, and PPSAT said the county saw a rate of repeat teen pregnancies lower than the statewide average. For now, PPSAT is continuing to operate the initiative using general funds while seeking new grant and donor support.
Last week, Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County passed a policy that requires employers with more than 15 employees to provide 12 weeks of paid parental leave. It’s the first such county-level policy in the country, and unlike many statewide programs, it puts the onus on employers to fund leave for their employees. The effort was led by union nurses. If there’s one thing we love at Autonomy News, it’s a worker-led movement.
Also in Pennsylvania, the state education department is proposing to take abstinence out of its sex ed curriculum, instead focusing on evidence-based approaches like teaching kids about consent, boundaries, bodily autonomy, asking for help, and how to prevent STIs and unwanted pregnancies. Access Matters, a Pennsylvania nonprofit that advocates for better sexual and reproductive health education, is urging people to sign a petition in favor of the changes. The writer of this op-ed against the changes, on the other hand, seems unable to make a strong enough argument on her own, considering that the tracking codes in her URLs suggest she used ChatGPT.
Violence is the second most common cause of death for pregnant people in the U.S., behind unintentional drug overdose. And a new study finds that more women of reproductive age may be dying from homicide in states that ban abortion, with an estimated 135 excess deaths over two years.
Elections
There are five states with ballot measures that seek to restrict the rights of transgender people this November. As Uncloseted Media explains, the amendments could “ban trans people from sports and bathrooms, restrict access to gender-affirming healthcare, pressure schools to out kids to their parents and introduce invasive sex tests for young girls. The states are: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and Washington. There are also protective amendments for LBGTQ people on the ballot in Vermont and Virginia.
Speaking of Virginia, the state also has a reproductive freedom amendment on the ballot that would codify a right to abortion through the second trimester, plus protections for birth control and fertility treatment. However, even if voters pass it, there’s an active legal challenge over how the legislature put it on the ballot and an appeals court could potentially block its implementation.
In Missouri, advocates knocked on a record 17,000 doors on Saturday urging people to vote no on Amendment 3, which would ban both abortion and youth gender-affirming care, and Proposition A, which would impose a gerrymandered Congressional map. Supporters of Amendment 3 claim it would protect people facing medical emergencies, but abortion ban exceptions are unworkable in practice.
Texas statewide candidates including Gina Hinojosa and James Talarico are largely ignoring the topic of abortion as they try to win races for Governor and Senate, which is disappointing to some groups that have endorsed them. Hinojosa even released an ad about choosing to carry a doomed pregnancy without mentioning that Texas families no longer have a choice in the matter. raven Freeborn, chief executive officer at reproductive rights advocacy group Avow Texas, told the Texas Observer that, “This is a crisis that ends in death. It is necessary for our candidates to be brave, bold, and direct about abortion rights.” Texas-based journalist Mary Tuma notes that loudly pro-choice candidates have repeatedly lost the state over the last decade or so, like Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, and Wendy Davis.
Personhood watch
A new report from Pregnancy Justice found that, in the first three years after the fall of Roe v. Wade, prosecutors charged at least 900 people with crimes relating to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth. Nearly all of the charges were related to alleged substance use during pregnancy, based on ideas of fetal personhood. People struggling with addiction deserve healthcare, not criminal charges, and it’s a slippery slope from here to charging abortion patients with murder. In 77 cases, prosecutors or police even alleged that lack of prenatal care was evidence of a crime. South Carolina has the dubious distinction of the most pregnancy-related charges with 381, followed by Oklahoma (222), and Alabama (204).
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a recently posted interview with extremist organization Live Action that his intervention in surrogacy cases is about promoting fetal personhood—an argument that could imperil not just surrogacy, but also IVF and abortion. Live Action president Lila Rose asked Uthmeier if he thinks he’ll see an end to abortion in Florida in his lifetime. He replied that anti-abortion advocates need to keep “educating” the public, and surrogacy is one avenue to shift public opinion—and then the law. Uthmeier said surrogacy contracts are akin to slavery because they involve the buying and selling of a human being. Recall that Uthmeier intervened in two cases involving Florida surrogates this year: The first to contest a French gay couple’s parentage and another over the custody of two living triplets with an intended parent from China. He’s claiming that embryos and fetuses have the same legal rights as born children. Uthmeier told Rose of the cases, “It is going to bring the conversation of fetal personhood and life front and center.” In 2024, six of the seven justices on the Florida Supreme Court appeared to support the idea that fetuses have a right to life under the state constitution. An appeals court will hold a hearing on the French couple’s case in January.
Uthmeier also told Rose that a lawsuit he filed against Planned Parenthood Federation of America for correctly telling patients that medication abortion is safer than Tylenol could “bankrupt” the organization because it could potentially be liable for billions of dollars in damages. Uthmeier bragged to Rose that he was excited to “take the enemy down using any tool we have above and beyond just our heartbeat bill.” Medication abortion is safer than Tylenol, but Uthmeier and other conservatives are relying on a paper from the far-right Ethics and Public Policy center to bolster their claims that it’s dangerous.
First Amendment watch
An appeals court rejected Indiana’s request to prevent Planned Parenthood clinics from referring pregnant minors out of state for abortion care. In August, a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said a 2017 state law was unconstitutional. State officials asked for a hearing by the entire circuit, but the court denied the request.
A coalition of 18 Republican Attorneys General is backing South Dakota in its effort to enforce a ban on advertisement of medication abortion. A lower court blocked the law in July, and the state is now appealing to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals to be able to enforce it as the case proceeds. The AGs are led by Arkansas’ Tim Griffin, who simply loves to attack the First Amendment.
Assaults on queer people
The Supreme Court rejected an emergency application from the Trump administration that would have allowed the Bureau of Prisons to forcibly detransition people incarcerated in federal prisons. Instead, the cruel BOP policy—which bars gender-affirming care in federal prisons—will remain blocked while litigation around it continues. In news that will surprise no one, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have allowed the change to go into effect.
Despite the administration’s orders to force transgender people out of the military, the New York Times reports that some of the secretive tribunals tasked with this duty are rebelling, and voting to let trans service members stay. This pattern has only appeared in the Navy and Marines, not in the Army or Air Force, and it could change as time goes on.
Actual good news
The abortion information site I Need an A has acquired abortion.org, which previously directed traffic to an Alabama adoption agency. Now, the site points users to I Need an A, and features some frequently asked questions about abortion access. Founder Rebecca Nall also said that a similar directory for Mexico is coming soon.
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains opened a new clinic in Albuquerque last week. This is its second clinic in the city—New Mexico’s largest—which means the organization has nearly doubled its capacity for abortion and family planning care there.
Quick hits
- As access to abortion pills via telehealth increased, out-of-state travel for abortion care decreased, according to a new Guttmacher Institute analysis.
- The recently reopened Planned Parenthood clinic in New Orleans may not accept many forms of insurance yet, but they fundraised to be able to subsidize people’s care until they get more carriers online.
- In Poland, where abortion is illegal with very limited exceptions, Parliament narrowly passed amendments that would broaden exceptions to the ban—but the country’s conservative president is expected to veto them.
- Though Food and Drug Administration rules now allow the abortion drug mifepristone to be prescribed via telehealth, providers still have to be certified to prescribe it, and pharmacies have to be certified to dispense it. A new study finds that removing similar restrictions in Australia increased the number of pharmacies ordering medication abortion.
- Some women are crowdfunding the cost of their divorces.
Palate cleanser
The very pink girls are fighting.
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