Texas Abortion Pill Bills and Destroying Birth Control: July 21 News Roundup
Plus, what you missed on Autonomy News last week.
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 reported about a strange survey sent to OBGYNs last week that seeks to assess their attitudes on abortion for a forthcoming study. But the survey was sent by anti-abortion groups with a history of promoting junk science and implied affiliation with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. ACOG told us it had nothing to do with the email and that it sent a cease and desist. (Share this story on Instagram and Bluesky.)
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Federal news
Planned Parenthood ‘defunding’
A federal judge is set to rule today on whether the budget reconciliation bill provision that bans large abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from participating in Medicaid should be blocked as litigation proceeds. Such a preliminary injunction would only apply to Planned Parenthood, but independent provider Maine Family Planning filed its own lawsuit on Wednesday. MFP argued in the complaint that, if the law takes effect, it may be forced to close up to half of its 18 clinics.
Fertility treatments
During his first presidency, Donald Trump upended the Title X family planning program, booting out abortion providers and giving funds to at least one crisis pregnancy center chain. This time, he appears poised to go even farther. After freezing nearly $66 million in grants to abortion providers earlier this year—a few of which were quietly restored in April—the Trump administration is now directing funds from Title X, which is intended to help low-income people access birth control, toward fertility initiatives. In particular, the administration is seeking proposals for a $1.5 million grant to establish an “infertility training center” focused on “holistic” approaches like menstrual cycle education classes.
Speaking of, this Friday is World IVF Day. Will the Trump administration release its IVF policy recommendations this week? Stay tuned. Per an executive order Trump signed early in his presidency, a report recommending policy changes to make IVF more accessible was due on May 19.
Miscellaneous cruelty
The Trump administration reversed Biden-era legal guidance that allowed federal funding to be used to pay for abortion-related travel, but not the abortion itself. After the 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Joe Biden’s Health Department took the view that paying for travel associated with abortion didn’t violate the Hyde Amendment ban on funding abortion. That interpretation was backed up by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Justice Department, but Trump’s OLC now says its predecessors were wrong. This is bad on its own, and it’s another reminder that OLC could rescind guidance on the Comstock Act, which conservatives want Trump to weaponize to ban abortion pills if not all abortions nationwide.
The State Department is set to destroy $9.7 million worth of birth control that was procured for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) prior to its destruction. Democrats are attempting to stop this with a bill called the “Saving Lives and Taxpayer Dollars Act,” which would also stop the spoilage of emergency food commodities currently sitting in USAID warehouses. While contraceptives sit on the shelf, MSI Reproductive Choices, one of the world’s largest family planning providers, said that “nine out of 19 countries we surveyed were facing stockouts of at least one contraceptive method.” MSI says it even offered to pay for the shipping and distribution of the supplies, and was turned down.
State news
A special session of the Texas state legislature begins today. Among the issues Governor Greg Abbott has asked lawmakers to consider are redistricting and abortion restrictions. Though Senate Bill 2880, a sweeping crackdown on abortion pills, failed during the legislature’s regular session, lawmakers have already introduced similar anti-abortion bills ahead of the special session. These include bills that would impose a $100,000 fine against anyone who helps a minor travel out of state to get an abortion, allow citizens to sue any person or organization that facilitates the distribution of abortion pills in Texas, and require internet service providers to block websites where people can obtain abortion pills. Lawmakers have also introduced a bill to clarify exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. The anti-abortion group Students for Life has once again urged Texas lawmakers to “end chemical abortion.”
Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region announced that it will shutter two clinics as of August 1. The organization cited the budget reconciliation bill and the ensuing loss of Medicaid funding as the reason for the closures. The two clinics slated for closure were chosen because of their volume of Medicaid patients, per affiliate president and CEO Nan Whaley.
A state appeals court in Kentucky ruled that a Jewish woman has legal standing to challenge the state’s abortion ban because the law codifies that life begins at conception, which conflicts with the Jewish belief that life begins at birth. Three women initially sued on religious freedom grounds, claiming that the state is “giving preference to Christian values to the detriment of their Jewish faith.” The judges said that plaintiff Jessica Kalb can sue because she has multiple embryos she’s paying to preserve and doesn’t know how she can proceed with IVF under the ban.
A panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to reject a challenge to West Virginia’s abortion ban from the maker of a generic version of the abortion drug mifepristone. In a previously untested legal argument, GenBioPro had argued that the Food and Drug Administration’s authority to regulate drugs should preempt state law, including an abortion ban. (Meaning: states can’t ban FDA-approved drugs.) The far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom helped represent the state. It’s not yet clear if GenBioPro will appeal, either to the full Fourth Circuit, or to the Supreme Court. Law professor David Cohen noted that the Fourth Circuit has a majority of judges appointed by Democrats. (Relatedly, House Democrats introduced legislation that would prevent states from banning drugs and vaccines that are approved by the FDA. It’s sad that a bill like this even exists.)
A federal judge in Tennessee has permanently blocked part of the state’s abortion travel ban—which makes it a crime to help a minor travel out of state to have an abortion—on First Amendment grounds. The judge agreed with state Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville), who argued that the law’s language about "recruiting" young people to have abortions was unconstitutional and vague.
Relatedly, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador and two Idaho county prosecuting attorneys agreed that they won’t attempt to prosecute some doctors for referring their patients out of state for abortion care. However, this promise is part of an agreement to settle a federal lawsuit, and only applies to the local Planned Parenthood affiliate and the two individual doctors who were plaintiffs in the suit.
Assaults on queer people
Puerto Rico Governor Jenniffer González-Colón signed a law banning gender-affirming care for all trans people under the age of 21. Anyone who provides this care faces a penalty of 15 years in prison, revocation of their medical license, and a $50,000 fine. The group Federación LGBTQ+ called González-Colón “the most anti-equity governor in history.”
Two hospitals in Chicago rolled back access to gender-affirming care last week in response to the Trump administration’s threats to withhold federal research grants and Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement. First, Rush University Medical Center said it would no longer accept new patients under 18 for puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy treatments. Then on Friday, University of Chicago Medicine said it would “discontinue all gender-affirming pediatric care effective immediately." In February, Lurie Children’s Hospital stopped offering gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19 years old.
Extremism
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to let them deny workplace accommodations to people who have even medically necessary abortions.
Quick hits
- A Tennessee woman says her OBGYN refused to offer her prenatal care because she’s not married, citing a 2025 law allowing medical providers to refuse treatment on religious or moral grounds. She is now traveling to Virginia for care.
- Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has asked the state Supreme Court to overturn the newest injunction that let limited abortions resume in the state.
- A county clerk in New York has once again rejected an attempt by Texas to enforce a civil judgment against a doctor who prescribed abortion pills under the state’s shield law.
- A Polish court found three doctors guilty of endangering the life of a pregnant woman in 2021. The woman, identified only as Izabela, died of septic shock after doctors refused her an abortion following premature rupture of membranes when she was 22 weeks pregnant. Doctors found fatal fetal anomalies, but still waited until the fetal heartbeat stopped to intervene. Poland has a total abortion ban, and because courts determined in 2020 that fetal abnormalities are not legal grounds for abortion, the hospital says doctors acted in line with the law.
- The Nation reports on how midwives in Sweden provide abortion pills to terminate pregnancies through 22 weeks’ gestation.
- The Guardian: “Republicans wanted fewer abortions and more births. They are getting the opposite.”
- In Slate, sociologist Andréa Becker looks at how hysterectomies can be a great decision for some. It’s from her new book “Get It Out.”
- Stopped clock alert: Podcaster Joe Rogan called Texas abortion laws “very creepy” and “incredibly insensitive.”
Actual good news
Bucking the national trend, New Hampshire's Republican governor, Kelly Ayotte, vetoed an anti-LGBTQ bill that would have rolled back nondiscrimination protections for trans people in public spaces, like bathrooms. Still, it remains to be seen if Ayotte will veto a pair of bills that would restrict healthcare for trans youth. The bills are HB 377 and HB 712.
Palate cleanser
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