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
Last week, we told you that the state of Louisiana appealed a judge’s decision to pause litigation over the abortion drug mifepristone. The latest update is that Attorney General Liz Murrill and attorneys for Alliance Defending Freedom asked the ultraconservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to rule by May 11 and reinstate a nationwide ban on telemedicine prescriptions of the drug.
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley—who recently announced his own “investigations” into the makers of the abortion drug mifepristone—sent a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche encouraging him to open an official investigation into one of those manufacturers, Danco Laboratories. Danco is the original manufacturer of mifepristone in the U.S., and makes only that drug. Its creation was largely funded by billionaires Warren Buffett and George Soros, though only Soros is name-checked in the letter. Gosh, we wonder why!
A California physician being sued for wrongful death of a fetus after he prescribed abortion pills to a Texas woman asked a federal judge to dismiss the case. Lawyers for Remy Coeytaux argue that plaintiff Jerry Rodriguez, a man upset about his ex-partner’s abortion, doesn’t have legal standing to sue for either wrongful death or for a $100,000 bounty under a Texas law known as HB 7. Coeytaux’s lawyers believe the law violates both the Texas and U.S. Constitutions, and say that Rodriguez cannot sue under HB 7 because he’s been convicted of a family-violence offense. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Rodriguez was convicted of assaulting one woman in 2006 and threatening to kill another in 2009. (The woman mentioned in Rodriguez’s lawsuit also told police in October 2024 that he punched and choked her, and had “strangled her 8 times” over the previous five months.) Rodriguez is represented by anti-abortion legal activist Jonathan Mitchell, who hopes to use the case to strike down “shield” laws that allow clinicians to prescribe mifepristone across state lines.
In response to a White House spokesperson’s recent statement that Planned Parenthood will receive Title X federal family planning funds for one more year, Republicans have introduced the “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act,” which would prevent these funds from being awarded to any organization that provides or funds abortion. Lawmakers are suggesting that Title X amounts to an abortion subsidy, but like all federal funds, the money can’t actually be used to pay for abortions. Title X covers care like birth control, cancer screening, and STI testing. Trump barred most abortion providers from Title X during his first term, and recently, his administration released a 2027 budget that would essentially eliminate the program. Apparently, that’s not good enough for Congressional Republicans.
Relatedly, activists are still trying to get Congress to extend the “defund” of large abortion providers like Planned Parenthood that’s set to expire in July. Following reporting that House Speaker Mike Johnson was not going to include the provision in a “skinny” reconciliation bill focused on the Department of Homeland Security, anti-abortion groups are pressuring him and Senate Majority Leader John Thune to make sure Planned Parenthood remains ineligible to accept Medicaid. Some GOP Senators claim they could instead include the “defund” in a third reconciliation bill—which only requires 50 votes to pass—but that seems quite unlikely in an election year.
A federal judge ruled from the bench that a 2017 Oregon law requiring health insurance plans to cover abortion and birth control is unconstitutional. The judge said the Reproductive Health Equity Act could not be applied to anti-abortion group Oregon Right to Life—which sued the state—and that a written opinion would follow. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said he would appeal the ruling.
A woman was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement days before an ovarian cyst operation in February, at the height of the agency’s assault on Minneapolis. The cyst could rupture at any moment—a potentially life-threatening situation—but she remains in detention without appropriate care.
At least four Department of Justice attorneys who prosecuted anti-abortion activists for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act have been fired as part of the Trump administration’s campaign to accuse the Biden administration of inappropriately targeting them for their religious views.
State news
An everything-but-the-kitchen-sink abortion ban—which would ban nearly all abortions, outlaw self-managed abortion, make it a felony to provide abortion-inducing drugs to a pregnant person, designate mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances, and prohibit abortion providers from receiving any government funds for family planning care—continues to move forward in the South Carolina Senate. A committee vote for SB 1095 is scheduled for Tuesday. People who have abortions could be charged with a misdemeanor and jailed for up to two years.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed HB 1613, the drug trafficking law that makes it a felony to distribute, or intend to distribute, any abortion-inducing medication.
An Iowa House committee has advanced House File 2563, which would require mifepristone and other medications that can cause abortion to be prescribed and dispensed in person. One Republican is also seeking to add an amendment that would require abortion providers to tell people that medication abortion can be “reversed,” which isn’t true. Another amendment would classify abortion as homicide and allow criminal charges for pregnant people. It remains to be seen whether the bill will make it to the House floor. Abortion is currently legal until about six weeks in Iowa, and telemedicine care is available.
Colorado Democrats have introduced a bill that would require college and university health centers to provide medication abortion. HB 26-1335 passed out of committee and will be heard by the full chamber on Tuesday.
In Virginia, Governor Abigail Spanberger suggested a small amendment tweaking some of the language in the Contraceptive Equity Act, which would require health insurers to cover over-the-counter birth control with no cost sharing. The Assembly can either accept or reject the amendment when it reconvenes this week. Spanberger also signed the Virginia Health Care Protection Act, which prevents Virginia from assisting other states in investigating or punishing people for providing or accessing forms of healthcare that are legal in Virginia. It also allows for civil suits against those pursuing “abusive litigation” intended to “deter, prevent, sanction, or punish any person engaging in protected health care activity.”
New York reproductive justice groups will hold a day of advocacy in the state capital this week for the Maternal Health, Dignity, and Consent Act, which would require informed consent before drug testing pregnant and postpartum patients. Known as A860/S845, the bill is still in committee in both chambers.
While working on her story about crisis pregnancy center director and Ohio state representative Melanie Miller’s version of the “Baby Olivia Act,” Garnet heard that there was an organization working to develop a scientifically accurate alternative to the misleading fetal development videos created by anti-abortion group Live Action. The alternatives, from Health Care Education and Training, are now available in English and Spanish.
An Ohio judge asked the state Supreme Court to halt enforcement of the reproductive rights constitutional amendment because—wait for it—he says it limits his ability to deny abortions to young people whose parents don’t approve. Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas Judge David Engler argues that the 2023 amendment infringes upon his jurisdiction over judicial bypass petitions, where minors ask a court to get an abortion without parental involvement. The basis for his claim is that he typically presided over two such cases per year, but hasn’t received any petitions since 2025 and blames the amendment. Engler happens to be running in the Republican primary for a seat on an appeals court.
The Indiana Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of a decision in a religious freedom lawsuit blocking the state’s abortion ban as it pertains to Jewish plaintiffs. The court will hold arguments on September 10.
Personhood watch
A woman recently indicted on murder charges related to an “infant” Kentucky police found more than 30 years ago had her bond reduced from $1 million to $5,000 and was released from jail while she awaits trial. The woman, who now lives in Virginia, maintains that the baby was stillborn. Prosecutors agreed to the bond reduction after two experts submitted exhibits to the court arguing that “lung float” tests used to determine whether the baby was born alive are scientifically flawed and have been discredited. A former state medical examiner who’s now a medical pathologist told the court that the “results cannot be used as the sole indicator of live birth.” May no one ever be arrested due to a lung float test again.
The Texas Medical Board disciplined three doctors whose pregnant patients died as a result of delayed or inadequate medical care under the state’s abortion ban. Two of the doctors failed to properly treat a teenager named Nevaeh Crain who showed signs of an infection, while a third didn’t empty the uterus of Porsha Ngumezi, who bled heavily from a miscarriage at 11 weeks. Both families have filed medical malpractice lawsuits, according to ProPublica. Due to the criminal penalties in abortion bans, doctors in states like Texas have delayed necessary care until they can no longer detect cardiac activity. Anti-abortion groups blame doctors for these tragic outcomes, but the truth is that the bans themselves are the reason hospital lawyers act overly cautious.
Assaults on queer people
The Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal from a group of Massachusetts parents who lost their legal challenge to a school district policy that allows students to socially transition—for example, by changing their name or pronouns—without telling their parents. However, the Court has yet to decide whether it will take a similar “parental rights” case from Florida, and in March the justices blocked a California law that prevented school districts from requiring teachers to notify kids’ parents about social transitions via its “emergency docket.” In other words, social transition policies and so-called parental rights remain a live issue at the Supreme Court. Relatedly, the New York Times has an in-depth look at the haphazard process that led to the creation of the emergency docket, also known as the “shadow docket.” Believe it or not, it’s only existed for 10 years.
A federal judge in Oregon forcefully struck down what he called an “unserious” directive from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which claimed that gender-affirming care isn’t in line with medical best practices. Federal agencies were attempting to use the December 2025 declaration as a basis to kick health systems that provide gender-affirming care out of the Medicaid and Medicare programs, moves the judge said run afoul of the federal rulemaking process.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an anti-trans group’s attempt to argue that Minnesota state policy violates Title IX by allowing transgender girls to compete in high school sports. Female Athletes United based its arguments in part on Trump’s anti-trans executive orders, but the court held that these are not considered settled law.
Advocates are urging Tennesseans to ask Governor Bill Lee to veto SB676/HB754. This wildly invasive bill would require that personal information about gender-affirming care patients— including their age, county of residence, sex assigned at birth, and details of the treatment they received—be reported to the state and published publicly on the health department’s website. While patients’ names would not be collected or published, trans people represent less than one percent of the population, meaning that “anonymized” information could easily be identifying.
Extremism
According to a new book about Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito written by a Fox News contributor, after his opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization leaked to the press, Alito pressured the Court’s liberal justices to hurry up and finalize their dissents. Apparently, Alito claimed any delay was a security risk, because someone might try to murder a conservative justice to sway the outcome of the case. That’s rich coming from a man with the backing of the anti-abortion movement, which has committed 11 murders and 26 attempted murders since 1977, not to mention thousands of other violent acts including bombings, arsons, acid attacks, and bioterrorism threats. And who could forget the slew of anti-abortion extremists who participated in the January 6 insurrection? One “side” sure is violent here, but not the one Alito claimed to fear.
Actual good news
A Pennsylvania appeals court ruled 4-3 that the state constitution guarantees a “fundamental” right to abortion and struck down a ban on Medicaid coverage of the procedure. The opinion says the ban is contrary to the state’s Equal Rights Amendment, because the policy singles out abortion while funding other medical care. A group of abortion providers sued in 2019 arguing that the ban discriminates against low-income people seeking to end a pregnancy. Republican Attorney General Dave Sunday could still appeal the decision to the state supreme court. (Normally that choice would fall to Governor Josh Shapiro, but he has declined to defend the ban because he opposes it.) The high court has already signaled that it will uphold this decision, as it forced the appeals court in 2024 to hear the providers’ challenge to the law. Pennsylvania still has a forced waiting period, a private insurance ban, and a ban after 24 weeks of pregnancy, so the next step will be to challenge more of these unnecessary restrictions.
The Montana Supreme Court found that discriminating against people because they’re transgender is sex discrimination and is subject to the highest level of legal scrutiny under the state constitution. The justices made that determination in a challenge to state departments’ refusal to update birth certificates and driver’s licenses for trans people, but not for cisgender people. The court said agencies must update identity documents to match a resident’s gender identity.
MONTANA SUPREME COURT: “Transgender discrimination is, by its very nature, sex discrimination,” and is subject to strict scrutiny under the Montana Constitution.
— Matthew Segal (@segalmr.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T19:30:32.213Z
A Michigan judge struck down a law that limits end-of-life wishes for pregnant people, saying that it violates state constitutional protections for decision-making in pregnancy that voters approved in 2022. A group of women and physicians sued the state over a law that overrides patients’ advance medical directives if they’re pregnant, which could force unwanted medical interventions like life support. More than 30 states have a so-called “pregnancy exclusion” to advance directives, which are fundamentally fetal personhood statutes.
Quick hits
- A former staffer at the US Agency for International Development said that Trump political appointees thought USAID’s mission “was just, you know, abortions.”
- Trump has changed Title X “from a contraception program into a pronatalist machine” designed to “persuade, pressure and cajole women into having more babies,” writes Moira Donegan.
- Idaho organizers are “confident” they have enough signatures for a reproductive rights constitutional amendment to qualify for the November ballot. The proposal would codify a right to abortion until fetal viability, and overturn the state’s current ban.
- Nearly one in four people seeking abortions out of state last year chose Illinois—here’s why.
- The building that once housed EMW Women’s Surgical Center, which was Kentucky’s last independent abortion clinic, was demolished last week. The site will eventually be a hotel.
- Three years after the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act went into effect, workers at companies like Amazon and the convenience store chain Speedway say they’re still being denied basic accommodations.
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