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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
Far-right activists have been trying since the Dobbs decision to revive a 19th-century anti-obscenity law called the Comstock Act to ban abortion pills—if not all abortions. Trump's pick for Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a hearing last week that he would review a Biden-era legal opinion on Comstock, an action that could greenlight federal prosecutions under the law. The Senate Judiciary Committee must first vote to advance Blanche’s nomination before it goes to the full body. (Share this story on Instagram, Bluesky, or TikTok.)
Garnet Henderson
Federal news
In March, Garnet covered a court hearing in which the Trump administration accused gender-affirming care providers of conspiring with drug manufacturers to violate federal law by doing very common things, such as prescribing medications off-label. She warned that this argument could easily be used against abortion providers, and on Friday, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley did just that. He sent a letter to acting AG Todd Blanche asking the Department of Justice to investigate the abortion pill information site Plan C, which directs users to various options, including “shield” law providers in the U.S. and online pharmacies that ship pills from overseas. Hawley, who called Plan C a “left-wing dark-money operation,” alleged that the organization is conspiring with mifepristone manufacturer Danco Laboratories to violate the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The FDCA regulates manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, not prescribers or information services like Plan C. Hawley’s main piece of evidence for the alleged collusion is that Danco mentions Plan C as a resource on its website.
However, the letter focuses mostly on things Plan C does that have nothing to do with Danco: Helping people in ban states figure out where to get abortion pills, listing pill providers outside the U.S., offering digital security tips, and listing providers who prescribe pills beyond the current FDA-approved limit of 10 weeks. Abortion pills can be used safely and effectively after 10 weeks, but this is technically—you guessed it—an off-label use. The timing here is no coincidence: Hawley is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Blanche can't lose a single vote on that committee if he hopes to be confirmed. This is nothing short of a shakedown.
Multiple grantees of the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program sued the Trump administration after it abruptly canceled more than 50 five-year grants before their expiration, and announced changes to the program. The plaintiffs include counties in Minnesota and Washington, a Planned Parenthood affiliate serving Iowa and Nebraska, and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). The proposed changes prohibit grantees from engaging in “gender ideology” and diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, which the plaintiffs argue violates both the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act.
In September 2025, a Trump administration spokesperson wrongly referred to a stockpile of hormonal contraception intended for people in low-income countries—including pills, IUDs, and arm implants—as “abortifacient birth control.” Emails obtained as part of a lawsuit the Center for Reproductive Rights filed under the Freedom of Information Act show that, the previous month, an unnamed State Department official called those three methods sitting in a warehouse “abortifacients.” None of them are classified as causing abortions by the Food and Drug Administration, because they all prevent pregnancy, rather than ending it. The State Department doubled down in a statement regarding the emails, saying that “a preliminary decision was made to destroy certain abortifacient birth control commodities from terminated Biden-era USAID contracts.” This is chilling language given that, in a federal court case, the administration refuses to take a position on whether birth control causes abortions.
Republicans are moving forward on a third budget reconciliation bill and, to the chagrin of anti-abortion groups, it doesn’t include “defunding” large abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. The one-year “defund” from last year’s reconciliation bill expired on July 4 and Students for Life said it gave every member of Congress an “F” on its legislative report card for failing to extend the provision. However, there could be a fourth reconciliation bill in the works. Stay tuned (derogatory).
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals revived lawsuits against the makers of Tylenol, in which hundreds of families allege that using the product during pregnancy caused their children to develop autism. A district court judge had excluded a report from an expert witness that was also cited by the Trump administration in its attempts to link Tylenol to autism, noting that the report was widely criticized by other scientists for its failure to consider other factors beyond Tylenol use. A panel of Second Circuit judges overruled the district court’s decision, saying essentially that scientists can disagree, and disagreement isn’t necessarily a reason to exclude expert testimony. Multiple large systematic reviews have found no causal link between autism and the use of Tylenol, or acetaminophen, during pregnancy. This was just a procedural decision, not a final one—the lawsuit will continue on.
Speaking of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his weird obsession with autism, new reporting finds that he pushed for the National Institutes of Health to dedicate $5 billion to identifying a link between vaccines and autism, and attempted to eliminate the childhood immunization schedule entirely. While he didn’t achieve these things, he did manage to significantly undermine childhood vaccine recommendations, as well as vaccine research and development. Even if he never achieves anything else, we’ll be dealing with the fallout of those policy choices for decades.
State news
There was some legal whiplash in Pennsylvania last week as a judge initially ruled that Medicaid could start covering abortions in the state. Then Attorney General Dave Sunday appealed the ruling, putting the ban back into effect, according to the Abortion Liberation Fund of PA. This started when the state Supreme Court struck down the ban on Medicaid funding as a violation of the state constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment in April, then several clinics asked a judge to allow Medicaid coverage as the litigation proceeds.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed Senate Bill 3341, which will allow minors to consent to birth control without notifying their parents. Current law says young people need their parents’ consent for this care, with exceptions if they’re pregnant or married, or other circumstances. Half of states now give young people the autonomy to access birth control on their own.
One of two lawsuits challenging Virginia’s reproductive rights constitutional amendment was dismissed. This case alleged that the clerk of the House of Delegates missed a procedural step by failing to send copies of the amendment to every circuit court clerk in the state. While lawmakers removed that requirement earlier this year, critics argue the process still should have been followed since the legislature voted on the amendment prior to the rule change. A second challenge is still pending: A case brought by plaintiffs represented by an anti-abortion organization argues that the ballot language is “deceptive.” The ballot measure would enshrine a right to abortion until the third trimester, or later if a pregnancy threatens a person’s health or if the fetus is not viable. It would also protect fertility treatments, miscarriage care, and birth control.
Kansas Democratic Governor Laura Kelly selected Judge Christopher Jayaram to fill a vacancy on the state’s Supreme Court. Jayaram, a former healthcare attorney, is currently a state district judge. He oversaw last year’s trial in which abortion providers challenged the state’s biased and extensive “informed consent” law, most of which he had blocked pending the outcome of the case. Christian nationalist law firm Alliance Defending Freedom stepped in to argue in favor of upholding the law alongside the office of Attorney General Kris Kobach, a staunchly anti-abortion Republican. Alice Wang, a staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, praised Jayaram when speaking to Autonomy News in October. “He dug into the quality of, and the reliability of their sources and their methods, and rightly determined that what is out there purporting to show the efficacy and safety of [abortion pill reversal] is junk science,” she said.
Jayaram said he’ll complete his work as a district judge “in the coming days,” which means we could see a final ruling in the case very soon. This was Kelly’s last chance to appoint a judge before the August election, in which voters will decide whether to scrap the merit-based selection process that exists now in favor of direct election for Supreme Court justices. Republicans put this measure on the ballot in large part because the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled strongly in favor of abortion rights on more than one occasion.
California’s “shield” law, which protects providers of abortion and gender-affirming care from out-of-state prosecutions, was first enacted via executive order by Governor Gavin Newsom. Lawmakers have since passed bills codifying various protections into state law, such as prohibiting agencies from cooperating with out-of-state investigations into care that’s legal in California, and protecting Californians from civil liability when they seek or help someone else seek reproductive healthcare. Now, legislators have introduced AB 2164, which would prohibit the governor from honoring extradition requests from other states in cases related to abortion or gender-affirming care. This would ensure the “shield” law stays intact regardless of who’s governor, an issue that has become very relevant since Republican candidate Steve Hilton said he would honor extradition requests from states like Texas.
A new report finds that, in California alone, federal budget cuts and the broader political climate have resulted in at least $113 million in funding losses for organizations that serve girls and gender-expansive youth. The vast majority of losses were reported by organizations working on healthcare, including reproductive health and gender-affirming care. About 15 percent of these organizations said they were considering closure—but in what we’ll call a bronze lining, nearly half said they’d seen an increase in youth activism.
Elections
Today, Reproductive Freedom for All announced its endorsement of Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, a doctor and former director of the state health department. Acton has said she’ll defend reproductive rights in Ohio, but recently alienated progressives with her support for transgender sports bans. Worst of all, she has mirrored right-wing framing of the issue, saying last month: “I do not support boys playing in girls’ sports.” Following the controversy—during which she was criticized by several groups within her own party—Acton added “standing up for Ohio’s LGBT community” as a priority on her campaign website, but she hasn’t apologized for or explained her comments.
Speaking of questionable endorsements from reproductive rights organizations, after Planned Parenthood Action Fund endorsed incumbent Missouri Congressman Wesley Bell over reproductive justice champion Cori Bush, Bush is hoping the very thing that got her ousted from Congress could get her back in: staunch support for Palestine. A super PAC associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent $8.5 million to help Bell oust Bush in 2024. However, recent races in Colorado, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have shown that Democratic primary voters are enthusiastic about backing pro-Palestinian candidates, and are responding to anti-AIPAC messaging.
Personhood watch
A Marshall Project analysis of eight states found that child welfare agencies are more likely to report Black parents of newborns to police over allegations of substance use in pregnancy than white parents. Some of these reports are based on false positives from routine drug tests done without patients’ knowledge or consent. Following the outlet’s reporting, New Jersey now requires hospitals to confirm test results before sharing them with child welfare agencies, and to obtain informed consent for drug screens.
First Amendment watch
Another abortion pill information non-profit, Mayday Health, got a federal judge to temporarily block a South Dakota law that makes the dispensing, distribution, and advertising of medication abortion a felony. Mayday and a former Democratic state legislator argued in their lawsuit that HB 1274 violates the First Amendment, and they will now seek a permanent injunction to block the state from enforcing it. The legislature passed the law after Mayday tried to run gas station ads in the state.
Assaults on queer people
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth likes gender-affirming care as long as it’s for cisgender men: Last week, he announced that the military will begin screening for “testosterone deficiency,” saying this is necessary for soldiers to perform at their “absolute best.” Screening will be mandatory for those over 30, and optional for those under 30. Testosterone therapy will also be optional. This is the same man who said trans people should not serve in the military because they’re “reliant on chemicals.”
After helping to lead the crusade against trans people participating in girls’ and women’s sports, the Heritage Foundation—best known for creating Project 2025—is now openly advocating against all women’s sports. After insisting that Title IX was vital for protecting women, they now say that Title IX is bad, actually, and that ladies shouldn’t exert themselves too much lest they damage their fertility.
Extremism
Amplify Legal sent a cease-and-desist letter to extremist anti-abortion group Live Action, telling it to stop making false statements about one of its clients in Wisconsin, who had to travel to Minnesota for an abortion at 22 weeks of pregnancy. Live Action has falsely claimed that the woman, Megan Kling, could have enrolled in a study at the Mayo Clinic that might have “saved” her child. She was not eligible for the study because the fetal diagnosis she had received was too severe.
Texas lawmakers will explore prohibiting non-U.S. citizens from using Texan gestational surrogates. This comes amid a xenophobic right-wing panic about Chinese citizens using American surrogates, thus obtaining birthright U.S. citizenship for those children. Students for Life leader Kristan Hawkins recently posted on X about this conspiracy theory, as well.
Actual good news
The Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire is funding gender-affirming care, and offering transportation support and free affirming garments. They also have a Queer Care Fund helpline. Rock on.
Quick hits
- Patients say that a venture-capital backed women’s healthcare clinic called Tia failed to detect pregnancies and pushed expensive alternative medicine for IUD pain relief.
- The country’s only research center for disabled parents is losing federal funding and may be forced to close next month.
- Medication abortion is just as safe and effective when provided by advance practice providers like nurse practitioners and physician assistants, a new study finds.
- Planned Parenthood’s decision to close its Iowa City clinic will leave the eastern part of the state in a reproductive healthcare desert.
- The Texas legislature’s funding of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers may mean that the state is subsidizing unproven and dangerous abortion pill reversal.
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