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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Let’s dive in.
On Autonomy News
We’ve written about laws like concealing a birth and abuse of a corpse, which are often used to criminalize people for their pregnancy outcomes. But did you know that these laws have their roots all the way back in the 1600s? Learn more in this op-ed from Pregnancy Justice senior policy counsel Kulsoom Ijaz. (Share this story on Instagram, Bluesky, or TikTok.)
Kulsoom Ijaz
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Federal news
A federal judge in Louisiana put the state’s lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration on hold pending the agency’s politicized “review” of the safety of abortion drug mifepristone. Louisiana had asked the judge in December to put a stop to telemedicine prescriptions as the case proceeded. In a March court filing asking for this pause, the FDA laid out a number of avenues it could take to restrict mifepristone depending on the results of its “review,” including the fact that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could unilaterally suspend the drug’s approval. Trump appointee David Joseph declined to do so, but did say in his written opinion that the state is likely to eventually succeed in its challenge to the 2023 regulatory changes that allowed telehealth. In other words, there is no change to the status quo for now, but the future isn’t looking good. Joseph also denied two mifepristone manufacturers’ requests to dismiss the case entirely. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has already appealed Joseph’s ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in a continued bid to restrict telehealth immediately.
Following the Louisiana lawsuit news, nearly 80 anti-abortion groups sent a letter to the Department of Justice, urging acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to stop opposing the three lawsuits that Republican states have filed against the FDA. The other two cases were filed by Missouri and Texas, and Trump’s FDA has asked to pause or dismiss them.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is reportedly ready to let the one-year budget bill provision that “defunded” Planned Parenthood and other large abortion providers by making them ineligible to accept Medicaid expire, rather than extending it like anti-abortion groups and members of his own party want. As we’ve noted previously, backing away from the policy could be a bid to help Republicans in the midterms, given how unpopular anti-abortion policy is. But it also appears that some Republicans may be willing to trade this anti-abortion policy for the Department of Homeland Security funding they so desperately want. Senator Josh Hawley, for one, is big mad.
State news
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves has until today to sign a bill that would criminalize mailing “abortion-inducing drugs” to pregnant people, though it can become law without his signature. The text of House Bill 1613 does not name specific drugs like mifepristone or misoprostol, which could scare clinicians, patients, and others away from any number of medications that could end a pregnancy. Reeves would have to veto the bill for it not to take effect.
As we predicted, the Kansas legislature has overridden Democratic Governor Laura Kelly’s vetoes of two anti-abortion bills. One law makes it easier to sue abortion providers by allowing certain complaints against them to bypass the normal medical malpractice process, and another requires the state health department to produce new “informed consent” materials for abortion providers and patients in accordance with a law that is already largely blocked, and could be permanently overturned. The legislature had already overridden Kelly’s veto of the Alliance Defending Freedom model legislation that protects crisis pregnancy centers from lawsuits and other regulations.
Two more women joined a lawsuit seeking to overturn Arkansas’ abortion ban on the grounds that it violates the state constitution’s guarantee of life, liberty, and equality. As Susan wrote for The Guardian, one woman was denied the standard of care for her ectopic pregnancy while another simply didn’t want to be pregnant and had to travel out of state for an abortion. Both got the care they needed in Kansas, where abortion remains legal due to similar language in its constitution.
Planned Parenthood Arizona is now offering medication abortion via telehealth after a judge struck down laws blocking telemedicine care. The ruling came in February in a case challenging the laws under the state’s 2024 abortion rights constitutional amendment. The judge blocked a mandatory 24-hour waiting period that required two trips to a clinic, an explicit ban on telehealth abortion, and several other restrictions.
The New Hampshire House passed a bill that would ban “the transporting of an unemancipated minor in order to obtain a surgical procedure or a termination of the minor's pregnancy without parental permission.” An earlier version of HB 191 was more explicit that it was about abortion, and Democrats have criticized Republicans for altering the text to obscure this purpose. The current version still needs to be approved by the Senate.
Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe signed a law that will make it easier for pregnant people to get divorced. State law used to allow judges to refuse to finalize the divorce until after a child is born, but the new law says pregnancy cannot prevent the final dissolution of marriage.
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a bill that guarantees a right to contraception in the state. She’s also expected to sign a bill that requires health insurers to cover over-the-counter birth control without cost sharing, the same way they cover prescription birth control.
In Georgia, lawmakers sent a bill that would allow pharmacists to prescribe contraceptives to Governor Brian Kemp’s desk. Surprisingly, it was a Republican state representative who introduced HB 1138, after her daughter faced a two-month delay in renewing her birth control prescription. Patients under 18 would need a prior prescription to get birth control from a pharmacist, while adults would not. Thirty states and Washington, D.C. already allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control, though many restrict access for minors.
In Michigan’s rural Upper Peninsula, an urgent care practice is stepping up to fill a gap in care by providing medication abortion following the closure of a local Planned Parenthood clinic last year. The doctor who runs the clinic and added the service says she considers herself “individually pro-life,” proving that respecting others’ bodily autonomy has nothing to do with what choices you might make for yourself.
Maine Governor Janet Mills signed into law a budget that allocates $5 million in annual funds for family planning care amid federal attacks. The money will go to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and Maine Family Planning, which was also affected by the federal “defund” of large abortion providers.
Elections
Wisconsin voters elected pro-choice judge Chris Taylor to the state Supreme Court. Taylor won by more than 20 points and cemented a 5-2 liberal majority on the court until at least 2030.
Pregnancy criminalization
A former college student in Kentucky pleaded not guilty to multiple charges connected to human remains found in her off-campus housing last summer. She was indicted in March for manslaughter, concealing the birth of an infant, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with physical evidence. Yes, two of the very same charges highlighted in the op-ed we published last week. The Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office claimed that Snelling delivered an “infant” who was born alive, but the country’s largest organization for medical examiners has said that it’s very difficult to discern the difference between a liveborn and stillborn infant.
First Amendment watch
A federal appeals court heard arguments in a case where anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers are challenging an Illinois law that requires them to make referrals for abortion. The plaintiffs, three CPCs and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), are represented by the far-right law firms Thomas More Society and Alliance Defending Freedom. They argue that an abortion referral requirement violates their speech and conscience rights, or as ADF attorney Erin Hawley put it: “No one should be forced to express a message that violates their convictions.” That’s an interesting claim given that the Supreme Court has upheld laws that compel speech by abortion providers in the form of biased informed consent scripts.
Assaults on queer people
In Oklahoma—where youth gender-affirming care is already banned—lawmakers advanced SB 904, which would prevent Medicaid from covering gender-affirming care for adults. Nearly a dozen states already have such bans.
Idaho passed a law last year that prohibited cities from flying flags not on an official list, in order to ban the flying of Pride flags at government buildings. The city of Boise responded by declaring the Pride flag an official city flag. This year, the legislature tightened the rule to prohibit flags declared official in 2023 or later. So now, Boise is putting the emblem in lights, on pole wraps, and in other public signage.
Extremism
Late last week, a fire was set at a Cincinnati Planned Parenthood clinic. The fire was an arson attack, perpetrated by an intruder who broke into the building, said the CEO of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio. Fortunately, a sprinkler system contained the damage and the clinic was able to reopen the next day.
Quick hits
- Despite a 2023 FDA change allowing retail pharmacies to dispense the abortion drug mifepristone, the vast majority of prescriptions come via mail-order pharmacies, per a new study published in JAMA.
- The Trump administration is asking for unprecedented access to federal employees’ medical records, for reasons that are unclear.
- Lawmakers in several states are trying to redefine what counts as an abortion, by attempting to separate care for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies from what they would deem “elective” abortions. It’s a dangerous strategy that seeks to falsely paint abortion as never medically necessary while reducing the backlash to bans.
- “The right to free speech is sacred in this country—especially if your speech is speech that Neil Gorsuch likes”: How the recent Chiles v. Salazar ruling on conversion therapy lays bare the Supreme Court’s perversion of the First Amendment.
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