Trump ‘Defunds’ Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood Sues: July 7 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
Susan wrote about how a national abortion ban is closer than people might think. The budget reconciliation bill could close one in four abortion providers nationwide at the same time that Republicans are pushing to restrict access to abortion pills via telemedicine. As we saw with Roe, a right only on paper is no right at all. (Share this story on Instagram or Bluesky.)
Susan Rinkunas
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Federal news
Big, bad bill
On Friday, Donald Trump signed the budget bill that “defunds” large abortion providers for one year by kicking them out of Medicaid even for providing non-abortion services. The bill was meant to target Planned Parenthood but would also affect at least one independent provider, Maine Family Planning. Planned Parenthood pledged on Thursday that it would sue the administration, and filed a lawsuit on Monday in Massachusetts federal court arguing the provision is unconstitutional. The organization has said that the bill could shutter as many as 200 clinics.
According to the bill, the provision takes effect “as of the first day of the first quarter beginning after the date of enactment of this Act"—which means October 1. Autonomy News reported that, when the bill text “defunded” providers for 10 years, Planned Parenthood’s national federation announced waivers that would allow affiliates to stop providing abortions in order to remain eligible for Medicaid. After the Senate passed the amended bill, the New York Times confirmed our reporting that some affiliates were considering whether to halt abortion care. The paper obtained a June memo from Planned Parenthood Mar Monte—which has 35 clinics in California and Nevada—informing leadership that continuing abortion care would cause enough revenue loss to shutter 10 health centers. Still, Mar Monte’s president told the Times that it would continue to provide abortions even if the bill became law. It remains to be seen if any affiliate will apply for a waiver under a one-year exclusion.
Anti-abortion movement leaders had urged their followers to pressure lawmakers to restore the original ten-year “defund” period, but quickly pivoted to celebrating the bill once it passed. Planned Parenthood fundraising campaigns are directing supporters to give to the organization’s 501(c)(4) advocacy arm, or to split a donation between the federation and a local affiliate. People interested in giving directly to their local affiliate can find a list here.
Big, bad court
The Supreme Court agreed to hear cases over state bans on transgender girls participating in school sports. The ACLU challenged such laws in Idaho and West Virginia and far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom is representing both states. ADF wrote the Mississippi abortion ban the court used to overturn Roe v. Wade, so this is just the latest example of what we mean when we say our rights are intertwined. The court will hear the cases sometime next term, which starts in October.
State news
ProPublica found more evidence that abortion bans make miscarriage increasingly dangerous. Their analysis showed that in Texas, the number of blood transfusions required in emergency room visits for first-trimester miscarriage went up by a staggering 54 percent after the state made abortion a felony in 2022. The number of emergency room visits for first-trimester miscarriage rose by 25 percent overall.
Last week, a Wyoming judge blocked enforcement of a new law that would have punished doctors and pharmacists for prescribing medications for off-label uses, the state’s latest convoluted attempt to restrict access to medication abortion. (The drugs are FDA-approved through 10 weeks of pregnancy but some providers serving Wyoming prescribe them off-label up to 14 weeks. Misoprostol, which can be safely used alone for abortion as well as for other obstetric uses, has never been FDA-approved for these purposes.) Advocates are awaiting a decision from the Wyoming Supreme Court as to whether a host of other abortion restrictions, including a total ban and a specific ban on medication abortion, will be permanently blocked or allowed to go into effect.
A judge in Missouri ruled once again that most of the state’s abortion restrictions likely violate a constitutional amendment voters passed in November, after the state Supreme Court struck down the judge’s prior order on technical grounds. Planned Parenthood clinics resumed providing a limited number of procedural abortions up to 13 weeks in February only for the court to halt access in May. Planned Parenthood said it would resume procedural abortions following this new ruling.
Massachusetts lawmakers will hold a public hearing on Thursday to consider a bill that would expand abortion access throughout pregnancy, which advocates including Reproductive Equity Now say is necessary because people still have to travel out of state for later care. The Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act (H. 2370/S.1563) is modeled after a bill that passed in Maine in 2023.
Assaults on queer people
Since the 2024 election, Democrats have largely abandoned attempts to talk to the public about trans rights and gender-affirming care. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly trans member of Congress and the country’s highest-ranking trans elected official, has faced criticism from within the trans community for some of the stances she has taken—and not taken—such as her choice not to fight back against the Capitol bathroom ban proposed by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). However, journalist Katelyn Burns reported and NOTUS confirmed that McBride and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) were instrumental in killing a ban on Medicaid payments for gender-affirming care, which was removed from the final draft of the reconciliation bill.
Extremism
Tony Perkins, president of the far-right Family Research Council, referred to the abortion medication mifepristone as “the Biden kill pill.”
Quick hits
- A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that in states that instituted total abortion bans after Dobbs, rates of intimate partner violence increased between seven and 10 percent—a total of 9,271 to 13,998 additional incidents of intimate partner violence.
- A woman who was forced to give birth alone in a shower in Alabama’s Etowah County Jail, while suffering the life-threatening complication of placental abruption, settled a federal lawsuit against the county, the jail, and its medical providers.
- An analysis in The Lancet lays out all the ways in which the actions from Trump’s first 100 days in office will harm the U.S. health care system.
- “Only electoral math matters,” said an internal Trump campaign presentation on abortion rights, per a new book. As many advocates suspected at the time, Trump’s campaign trail flip-flopping on abortion appears to have been driven by a conclusion that specifying plans for a national ban after a specific number of weeks would “play directly into Joe Biden’s hands.”
- The ACLU of Missouri is suing the state to block a proposed 2026 amendment that would ban abortion as well as gender-affirming care for minors, claiming that it violates the state’s single-subject rule for ballot measures.
Actual good news
A Missouri health nonprofit said that its federal family planning grants were restored after a three-month freeze. The Trump administration paused Title X grants in March, leading some clinics to close their doors. Missouri Family Health Council is one of four nonprofits to have funds restored.
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