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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
The history of cesarean sections shows how the fetus is often prioritized over the pregnant person. Biological anthropologist Kate Clancy traces this connection from 18th-century Spain to Georgia in 2025, when a hospital kept Adriana Smith on life support for nearly four months until performing an emergency C-section. Learn more in this excerpt from her book, Pregnancy Interrupted: The Science and Stories of How Pregnancies Really End. (Share this story on Bluesky.)
Kate Clancy, PhD
Federal news
A federal judge paused a lawsuit filed by the states of Texas and Florida that seeks to revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s 26-year-old approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. Notably, he had an option to dismiss the case, but didn’t take it. The Trump administration asked Judge Reed O’Connor in March to pause the litigation until the FDA finishes its sham "review" of mifepristone, or to dismiss the case outright. O’Connor denied the motion to dismiss, and instead put the case on hold through December 1 or until the review is complete, whichever comes sooner. In his order, O’Connor also wrote that it’s not too late for Texas and Florida to challenge mifepristone’s approval under a recent Supreme Court decision called Corner Post that blew up the statute of limitations for such cases. The states sued in December, filing in a Texas division where they were guaranteed to draw the ultraconservative O’Connor. Alarmingly, their lawsuit claims that the FDA’s approval of the drug violates the 19th-century Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity law that conservatives hope to use to ban abortion nationwide. The complaint also cites the junk science analysis from the far-right Ethics and Public Policy Center to argue that mifepristone is less safe than the FDA says it is.
Speaking of the FDA, Trump’s nominee to lead the agency, anti-abortion physician Heidi Overton, likely won’t have a confirmation hearing before the midterm elections, let alone a full Senate vote. That’s a potential sigh of relief for Maine Senator Susan Collins, who’s facing a tough reelection battle where her abortion record is a key issue. She voted against now-Attorney General Todd Blanche in part because he pledged to end telehealth access to abortion pills. Overton also opposes medication abortion. Collins, who serves on the health committee that would need to advance Overton, said in a statement that she has "longstanding policy" of waiting until after a nominee’s confirmation hearing to determine how she’ll vote.
The very same Senate committee that will consider Overton’s nomination released a report that calls on the FDA to end telehealth prescriptions of the mifepristone and require in-person appointments nationwide. How convenient. The report comes after committee chair Senator Bill Cassidy and four other colleagues launched “investigations” into manufacturers of the drug. Again, Susan Collins serves on this committee, though her name is not attached to the report. Autonomy News contacted Collins’ office to ask whether she supports its recommendation to roll back access to abortion pills and a staffer referred us to her statement about Blanche.
The federal judge in Idaho who ruled that the state’s total abortion ban violates the U.S. Constitution because it lacks exceptions to protect a pregnant person’s health has narrowed his ruling so that it only applies to the doctor who filed the legal challenge, Stacy Seyb. This means that the law can still be enforced against other doctors in the state if they perform abortions in circumstances outside the ban’s very narrow exception allowing abortions to save a pregnant person’s life. This comes after Attorney General Raúl Labrador appealed the ruling.
This morning, a group of six Texas-based abortion funds and one clinician asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm that they can sue state officials to ensure they won’t be prosecuted for helping people get legal, out-of-state abortions. The three-judge panel included two Democratic nominees plus the far-right Trump appointee Judge James Ho. It sounded like the funds would win legal protection in some form after the lawyer representing district attorneys across the state said in court that they can’t be prosecuted for aiding care in other states, but nothing's official until the court releases a ruling.
A third Title X lawsuit has dropped: A coalition of 23 states sued the Trump administration over its changes to the federal family planning grant program, which refocus it on promoting pregnancy rather than preventing unwanted pregnancy, and require grantees to align with the administration’s anti-trans, anti-DEI priorities. Similar suits filed by Planned Parenthood and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association remain ongoing.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, the nation’s largest anti-abortion political advocacy organization, is encouraging Republicans to reheat some very stale nachos in their messaging on abortion this election cycle. They’re deceptively claiming that a recently enacted Massachusetts law allows “elective abortion until birth,” and urging GOP candidates to slam Democrats on their supposed support for this type of policy. Sound familiar? Donald Trump said something very similar on the debate stage in 2016, and again in 2024, and the talking point dates back much farther than that. SBA claims that Democrats support “extremism” on abortion, leaving out that conservatives want to ban abortion nationwide starting at fertilization.
State news
The nonprofit behind the ballot measure that would repeal Idaho’s total abortion ban is suing the state over summaries that will appear on the ballot explaining the meaning of a “yes” or “no” vote. They argue that the “no” summary doesn’t accurately describe the ban, its criminal penalties, or very limited exceptions, and that the “yes” statement describes fetal viability in a way that differs from the text of the amendment. This is the second time organizers have sued the state in the course of their campaign to get this measure on the ballot. They previously sued—and won—over a misleading ballot title and fiscal impact statement.
Opponents of the reproductive freedom constitutional amendment set to appear on the Virginia ballot in November say that, even if voters pass the measure, they plan to sue in an attempt to overturn it. A measure that would have redrawn the state’s congressional districts was overturned earlier this year.
In the dramatic lawsuit in which his client is alleged to have hidden text messages and an entire second phone, anti-abortion attorney Jonathan Mitchell has added a claim that abortion telemedicine service Aid Access violated HB 7, the supercharged version of his “bounty hunter” law, which allows suits against abortion pill providers for a minimum of $100,000 per violation.
Surprise, surprise: Despite a 50 percent increase in state funding, anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers in Kansas served 21 percent fewer clients and spent 41 percent fewer hours serving those clients, according to a new report. CPCs have long been known to inflate the value of services they provide, and serve much smaller numbers of clients than legitimate health clinics.
Medicaid health insurance in Arkansas will cover doula services from certified providers starting on September 1. The change comes after a 2025 law that aimed to make doula care more affordable to try to improve maternal health outcomes in the state, but the rollout was delayed.
Elections
It’s déjà vu in Missouri, where voters feel like they just voted on abortion—because they did, in 2024, passing a constitutional amendment that guaranteed a right to abortion until fetal viability. Back then, abortion rights advocates urged people to vote “YES on 3” to overturn the state’s total abortion ban. Now, they’re telling people to vote “NO on 3,” thanks to the identically-named measure the GOP-controlled legislature put in this year’s ballot, which would reinstate the abortion ban and amend the constitution to ban youth gender-affirming care, which is already illegal in the state. You can see why people might be confused—it’s intentional.
Personhood watch
Should ballot measures meant to protect reproductive rights restrict the right to abortion in the third trimester? Melanie Folwell, leader of the campaign to overturn Idaho’s total abortion ban, argues yes, and Erika Christensen, cofounder of the later abortion patient advocacy organization Patient Forward, argues no.
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First Amendment watch
Anti-abortion groups are very mad that New Jersey recently enacted a “shield” law, which protects patients and providers of reproductive healthcare and gender-affirming care. It also prevents people from physically interfering with or intimidating patients and providers, in a mirror of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. Conservatives have falsely claimed that the law bans praying outside abortion clinics, and now 40 Days for Life is offering to pay legal fees for anyone who defies the law.
Assaults on queer people
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to uphold its ban on transgender people serving in the military. Even though the policy was technically blocked by lower courts, it is currently in effect because the Supreme Court previously ruled that the ban could be enforced while litigation plays out.
In the ongoing fight over trans kids’ medical records, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a lower court, blocking the administration’s attempt to get records from hospitals in New York.
The Department of Health and Human Services has released a very heavy-handed new report called “Wolves in White Coats,” in which it continues to make false claims about gender-affirming care and medical professionals who provide it.
Today is the last day of California’s legislative session and parents of transgender children with Medi-Cal insurance are hoping state lawmakers approve emergency funding for their gender-affirming care. The push comes after the Trump administration finalized a rule that bans Medicaid from covering this medically necessary care.
A federal judge struck down a Texas ban on drag shows, calling the law an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. Judge David Hittner said the law was so vague that it could have criminalized Dolly Parton “because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure.” Parton’s passing was announced the same day as the ruling. Hittner also wrote that “for those who find such activities as described in this case offensive, the solution is relatively simple ... just don't go.”
Extremism
A judge said at a court hearing that she plans to decide by September 8 who can make medical decisions for the baby boy at the center of the multistate surrogacy media circus.Rumi was born in Texas this month after surrogate McKenna West relocated there from Alaska in mid-July, against the wishes of his intended parents in California. West claims she fled to Texas to escape pressure to have an abortion after the fetus was diagnosed with a rare and very serious heart defect. Rumi underwent the first surgery required to treat his condition, and his biological parents got a restraining order preventing West from seeing the newborn or making medical decisions for him. West, who’s represented by Christian nationalist law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, is seeking custody of the child. A court-appointed attorney for Rumi rebuked West for writing an op-ed in the New York Post about the case. A lawyer for Rumi’s parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, said that a California court already deemed them the parents, and that what West and ADF want to do is “rewrite the Texas Family Code, rewrite the Constitution, eradicate surrogacy, period.” Gilkar testified that she and her husband tried eight rounds of in vitro fertilization before she needed a hysterectomy and ultimately turned to surrogacy.
The Colorado chapter of White Rose Resistance, an extremist abortion “abolitionist” organization, protested outside a Planned Parenthood health center in Colorado Springs that was the location of a mass shooting driven by anti-abortion conspiracy theories in 2015. The group has also been harassing the all-trimester abortion clinic RISE Collective, even posting threatening language about the clinic on social media.
Actual good news
Your Choice Healthcare, an independent abortion clinic in Columbus, Ohio, had been slated to close. But the community stepped up and raised enough funds to keep the clinic open indefinitely.
A WONDERFUL UPDATE IN OHIO: Your Choice Healthcare—an indie clinic in Columbus—will no longer close 🎉 Find all Ohio's abortion clinics on our website: www.abortionfundofohio.org/clinics
— Abortion Fund of Ohio (@abortionfundofohio.bsky.social) August 27, 2026 at 9:15 AM
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Quick hits
- Women are less likely than men to receive CPR in public, and that may be because people learn to perform the life-saving measure on dummies without breasts.
- A law professor who studies women who kill their children says that Lindsay Clancy deserves mercy—and that our legal system needs to change to actually deliver justice in cases like hers.
- Our friends at 404 Media revealed that a Texas cop used Flock license plate cameras to track an abortion seeker far out of state. Now, Flock’s CEO is lying about it.
- A new study finds that, for women of reproductive age in the U.S., the median driving distance from their home to an abortion clinic was more than three times the driving distance to the nearest crisis pregnancy center—and that’s for a person seeking abortion care at 9 weeks. At 19 weeks, the nearest abortion clinic is nearly 6 times farther than the nearest CPC. In some regions, especially the South, these distances are even greater.
- Health insurance for employees of New York City will include coverage for doula services starting in January.
- A state court judge in Kentucky said a lawsuit challenging the sales tax on menstrual products can move forward.
Palate cleanser
Are you team Grover, or team Cookie Monster?
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@conciergetravelco The nightly entertainment at Beaches Turks & Caicos did NOT disappoint!🍪🍹 #BeachesTurksAndCaicos #BeachesResorts #TurksAndCaicos #FamilyVacation #AllInclusiveResort ♬ original sound - conciergetravelco
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