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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On Autonomy News
On Friday, Planned Parenthood confirmed our previous reporting on its response to the GOP’s attempt to kick it out of Medicaid. On a press call, the organization’s CEO admitted it did consider allowing its regional affiliates to drop abortion care in order to remain eligible as a provider in the federal insurance program. However, a spokesperson claimed that’s no longer an option after an appeals court ruling—more on that below. (Share this story on Bluesky.)
Garnet Henderson
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Federal news
In an unexpected move, the First Circuit Court of Appeals overturned two injunctions that had blocked enforcement of the Congressional budget provision intended to “defund” Planned Parenthood. This means that the Trump administration is free to deny Medicaid reimbursement to Planned Parenthood affiliates for services like birth control and STI testing while litigation continues.
The Trump Administration is hellbent on destroying nearly $10 million worth of contraception purchased by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) intended for people in low-income countries, and is citing an alarming reason for doing so. While the stockpile of birth control pills, IUDs, and arm implants has not yet been incinerated, a USAID spokesperson falsely claimed last week that these contraceptive methods cause abortion. “President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world,” the statement said. “The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.” USAID—which has largely been dismantled by the Trump administration, anyway—is already banned from purchasing abortion-inducing drugs like mifepristone.
By definition, contraception prevents pregnancy. IUDs, implants, and emergency contraceptives typically work by preventing fertilization, either by delaying the release of an egg or by creating a physical barrier to sperm. But abortion opponents have long claimed that these methods block implantation of fertilized eggs, which in their view is tantamount to abortion. It’s chilling to see a White House agency regurgitate this talking point, as conflating birth control with abortion is one way the right could restrict access to contraception without passing any new laws. We should note that USAID is being wound down by Russell Vought, the Office of Management and Budget director who was heavily involved in Project 2025. That playbook referred to Ella, a prescription emergency contraceptive, as causing abortions and said insurance plans shouldn’t be required to cover it. Vought also led drafting of the 2024 Republican party platform, which embraced the idea of fetal personhood from the moment of fertilization.
As Congress considers whether to extend more generous tax credits for insurance plans purchased on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges, a coalition of anti-abortion groups is urging lawmakers to exclude plans that cover “elective” abortion. Advance tax credits lower the monthly insurance premiums that people pay, and they were enhanced under covid relief bills in 2021 and 2022. But the enhancements are set to expire on December 31, which could lead to big increases in people’s bills during a midterm election year. The ACA siloes funding so that federal money only pays for abortions in situations the Hyde Amendment allows: rape, incest, or to save the life of the pregnant person. But Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America sent a letter to members of Congress arguing that the setup isn’t strict enough and demanding that any extended subsidies exclude plans that cover abortion. Making abortion care cost more out of pocket is another way to effectively ban abortion in states where it’s still legal. It would also set up another state-federal showdown, given that 12 states require exchange plans to cover abortion.
State news
Several states have updated their “shield” laws this year to further protect providers of abortion and gender-affirming care by allowing them to keep their names off the labels of prescriptions sent to states that ban those forms of care. A new bill passed in California would also allow the pharmacy to withhold its own name and the patient’s name. This move will protect providers in other states who send prescriptions to California-based mail order pharmacies, which handle requests from the bulk of telehealth services. It’s also meant to make it harder for authorities in ban states to build cases against “shield” law providers, and to reassure those who may be afraid to order abortion pills following several high-profile prosecutions and wrongful death lawsuits.
The Houston-area midwife who was arrested in March, along with two clinic employees, was indicted in June on 15 felony charges related to allegations that she performed abortions in violation of Texas law and practiced medicine without a license. The indictment was made public when the local district attorney’s office uploaded it to a folder of public court documents. The midwife is represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, which has argued that there is no evidence she practiced medicine without a license, as opposed to providing services consistent with being a midwife.
Last year, Louisiana lawmakers replaced the state’s “Alternatives to Abortion” program with a new one, called the “Pregnancy and Baby Care Initiative.” Under this program, the Department of Children and Family Services was supposed to monitor exactly how state dollars were spent at anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers.” But a new report from the Legislative Auditor’s Office reveals that the agency failed to follow through on this directive. It didn’t require pregnancy centers to provide documentation of how or where the money was spent, nor did it enforce provisions of the law designed to make sure CPCs met certain service goals. The state gave a total of $1.2 million to 12 CPCs last year.
The nonprofit Mayday Health has been running an advertising campaign at Kentucky gas stations. The ads say, “Pregnant? Don’t Want to Be?” and include the url for Mayday’s website, which in turn features links to online abortion pill providers including Aid Access, Abuzz, and A Safe Choice. Local CPCs aren’t pleased, and Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman says his office is “reviewing the matter.”
New Mexico will become the first state to provide free pre-kindergarten to every family in the state after Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham rolled out a plan that will also include higher pay for pre-K educators. The state already offered no-cost pre-K to many families, but will remove its income cap as of November.
After the fall of Roe v. Wade, and particularly once attacks on mifepristone started to heat up, several states announced that they would stockpile the drug in case its FDA approval was revoked or availability was otherwise limited at the federal level. Now, Washington is set to destroy 30,000 doses of mifepristone that expire at the end of January. If you’re wondering why the hell they wouldn’t just give the pills away, good question! According to the governor’s office, they have to sell them for the same price they purchased them for, and clinics can still get them more affordably from wholesalers. If you’re wondering why the hell they wouldn’t just give the pills away, good question! The state has an additional 17,600 doses of mifepristone that don’t expire until 2028 or 2029, and in the case of these pills, the supplier agreed to accept unused pills in exchange for new ones at no cost if and when they expire. Meanwhile, the University of Washington had its own cache of pills, and said all 10,000 doses have been distributed to clinics. Stockpiles in Oregon won’t expire until 2028.
In Missouri, a judge held a hearing in a challenge brought by two Planned Parenthood affiliates, which argue there’s still a law preventing them from resuming medication abortion care despite voters passing an abortion rights ballot measure in 2024. The law in question requires clinics to have a “complication plan” approved in advance by the state. Both affiliates submitted theirs earlier this year and have been caught in regulatory back-and-forth since. They’re asking a judge to block the law, arguing the regulation is excessive and violates the new constitutional amendment. Meanwhile, the state of Missouri continues to appeal an earlier ruling that allowed procedural abortion care to resume in the state. No decision has been made in either matter.
Personhood watch
An op-ed published by a staffer of the anti-abortion group Live Action claims that Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett's public comments on abortion are unacceptable because they don't suggest a belief in fetal personhood under the 14th Amendment. Barrett said in a recent interview with CBS that "Dobbs did not render abortion illegal. Dobbs did not say anything about whether abortion is immoral. Dobbs said that these are questions that are left to the states." The Live Action writer argued that a nationwide abortion ban is already on the books, citing “legal scholar” Josh Craddock, who recently joined the Department of Justice. “The right for every innocent human being in the United States to not be deprived of life already exists in the 14th Amendment,” they said, adding "it is unconstitutional to allow states to hold votes on whether or not certain human persons can be legally killed." Importantly, Barrett’s comments on states rights do not preclude her from interpreting the 14th Amendment this way in a future case.
Assaults on queer people
During the first Trump administration, the Pentagon said that transgender service members had to either leave or get an official medical diagnosis for gender dysphoria in order to stay. President Joe Biden repealed this ban in 2021, but now that Trump is back in office, the Pentagon is using trans service members’ documented diagnoses against them as it works to kick them out. NPR reports that the policy is leaving openly trans people in the military “with no due process to save their jobs … and in some cases, without the benefits they were promised.”
Texas lawmakers passed a bill that bans trans people from using bathrooms or locker rooms that align with their gender identity in public schools or government buildings, and from being incarcerated in facilities that align with their gender. The Texas Tribune reports that 19 states have some form of bathroom ban, and that Texas considered such a law 16 times in the past decade. This feels like a lifetime ago, but recall that, in 2016, corporations loudly opposed a bathroom ban in North Carolina.
Virginia is one of two states with gubernatorial elections this fall. GOP nominee Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is badly trailing in polls behind Democratic former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, so she and her allies are resorting to transphobia. The Earle-Sears campaign released digital ads critical of Spanberger’s February 2021 vote for the Equality Act, a failed bill to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the traits protected under federal civil rights laws. One ad says, “Spanberger is for they/them, not us,” borrowing a line Trump used against Kamala Harris.
Also in Virginia, an effort to repeal the state’s ban on same-sex marriages needs to pass the legislature a final time before the measure can go to voters. This is unfortunately important because the ban would snap back into effect if the Supreme Court overturns its 2015 marriage equality decision, Obergefell v. Hodges. Democrats have a strong majority in the state Senate, but every seat in the House of Delegates is up this fall.
Extremism
Kansans for Life has created an “outdoor walk-through exhibit” called THE AFTERMATH, documenting the rise in abortions and increase in the number of abortion clinics ever since voters defeated an anti-abortion ballot measure in 2022. The exhibit will tour the state from September 13 through October 25.
Quick hits
- The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation said it has received nearly 100 reports of social media platforms taking down content from abortion providers, reproductive rights groups, and individuals.
- “The news from The Wall Street Journal on Friday that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to announce a link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism in children is a return to a regrettable past when autism was routinely blamed on something mothers had or hadn’t done,” writes Eric Michael Garcia.
- In 2024, researchers from Michigan State University launched Rx Kids, a program that gave every pregnant person in Flint $1,500 during pregnancy, and $500 every month in their child’s first year of life. Now, they’ve published a study showing that the program reduced postpartum depression rates by 14 percent, improved infant outcomes, and stabilized families’ housing—none were evicted during the study period. The program has since expanded to nearby communities.
- Deeply sad news: You can no longer buy “baby lives matter” merch from Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity, who appears to be making a pivot on the issue. In addition to backing off anti-abortion merch as she prepares to challenge Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, Garrity has said she won’t support an abortion ban. When asked about it by Politico, she said, “Can I call you back?”
Actual good news
Dekalb County, Georgia—which is in the Atlanta metropolitan area—has allocated $150,000 to Feminist Women’s Health Center, an abortion clinic, and $50,000 to the abortion fund ARC-Southeast.
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