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
The Associated Press did a story on crisis pregnancy centers that was so bad it inspired us to do media criticism on a weekend. (Share this story on Bluesky.)
Garnet Henderson
Relatedly, Long Lead’s newsletter Depth Perception featured this lovely interview with our own Susan Rinkunas, all about Autonomy News and why we reject traditional notions of “objectivity.”
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Federal news
Following numerous reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining pregnant people in violation of federal policy, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Project, and other human rights organizations are calling on ICE to identify and release all the pregnant people it is currently detaining, and to stop holding people who are pregnant, postpartum, or nursing. Autonomy News wonders: Where is the lawsuit?
Anti-abortion activists are taking credit for the fact that Trump’s recent announcement on in vitro fertilization fell so far short of his campaign promise of making IVF free. While his administration certainly does care what powerful anti-abortion groups think, it’s also likely that this was simply a wild promise Trump made and never intended to follow through on, as is his wont.
“Defund” fallout
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has resumed scheduling abortion appointments after “pausing” that service for nearly a month. The organization says that it dropped its designation as an “essential community provider,” and believes it will be able to continue providing abortions and billing Medicaid for other services because of this loophole. (The GOP’s one-year Medicaid “defund” provision applies to health providers who meet several key criteria: they are nonprofits, received more than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursement in fiscal year 2023, provide abortion care as of October 1, 2025, and are “essential community providers”—a designation for facilities that predominantly serve “low-income, medically underserved individuals.” PPWI cited a court filing in which lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services suggested organizations could keep their Medicaid eligibility by either dropping the ECP designation or giving up their nonprofit status. According to PPWI, this designation change will not affect its services or their cost—but whether HHS will actually let them use this loophole and allow them to continue billing Medicaid remains to be seen.
New York and California are the latest (and largest) states to pledge funds to fill Planned Parenthood’s budget gap due to the “defund.” New York will give roughly $35 million, and California has promised a whopping $140 million. Several other states had already stepped up to provide stopgap funding for Planned Parenthood in the wake of the disastrous budget law, including Washington, Hawaii, New Mexico, Colorado, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. This will help clinics stay open, and help them continue to provide services for people who have Medicaid health insurance. But these blue-state funding bandaids are not sustainable—something that Attorneys General have argued in their lawsuit against the Trump administration—nor are they equitable for people living in states controlled by Republicans.
Planned Parenthood’s two affiliates in Oregon are warning that they’ll be in trouble without such state funding. The executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Oregon, the organization’s political arm, said in an interview: “The affiliates are very clear-eyed that without support from the state they’re going to have to make tough decisions about how long they can continue to care for Medicaid patients without getting reimbursed.”
As a reminder, our list of the status of care at every Planned Parenthood affiliate—including whether the affiliate is still providing abortion care and still seeing patients with Medicaid—can be found here.
Garnet Henderson
Earlier this month, Melody Health, a primary care program operated by Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, had announced it would close by December and lay off 77 staff members in another “defund” loss. It’s not clear whether promised state funding may help save the program, which provides care including cancer screenings, diabetes management, birth control, and behavioral health services.
In other fallout news, the labor and delivery ward at St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Lavonia, Georgia, will close today. St. Mary’s is consolidating its labor and delivery services in the larger city of Athens, nearly an hour away. The health system said the “big, beautiful” budget law’s cuts to Medicaid “solidified” its decision. Nationwide, more than 40 percent of all births are covered by Medicaid. In rural areas, that number is 47 percent, and in the South, the proportion is even higher, meaning that many other rural, Southern labor and delivery wards are likely to follow suit. In some ways, losing just L&D would be a best-case scenario, because many rural hospitals may be forced to close entirely.
State news
Voters in Pennsylvania will decide next week whether to “retain” three state Supreme Court justices, and whether these judges keep their seats could make the difference in expanding abortion access in the state. Advocates have challenged the state’s discriminatory ban on using Medicaid funds to cover abortions, and last year the top court said that abortion restrictions could be considered sex-based discrimination under Pennsylvania’s Equal Rights Amendment. The justices sent the case back to a lower court to apply that standard to the Medicaid dispute, so the case isn’t over and they are likely to hear any appeals. Prohibiting Medicaid coverage of abortion can be a functional ban for people living on low incomes unless they can get financial help from groups like abortion funds.
Also in Pennsylvania, lawmakers on a House committee passed a resolution to add a constitutional amendment that would codify abortion rights in the first of many steps to put the measure on the ballot. House Bill 1957 is likely to pass the Democratic-controlled House, though it’s not clear that it can pass the Senate, which currently has a Republican majority. It would have to pass both chambers in two consecutive legislative sessions. The proposed amendment text appears to grant a true right to decide whether to continue a pregnancy without giving the state the ability to ban the procedure at later gestations.
Planned Parenthood’s two Ohio affiliates say they received letters on September 24 informing them that they are not eligible to participate in Medicaid, citing the federal budget law. While the federal “defund” only lasts for one year, the state’s decision could kick them out of the program indefinitely. The affiliates are requesting an administrative hearing to challenge the decision.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador is asking a court to dismiss a lawsuit from Dr. Stacy Seyb, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist for the state’s largest health system, St. Luke’s. Seyb argues that federal law still protects the right to abortion in circumstances that endanger a patient’s health, and that Idaho’s total abortion ban subjects pregnant people to unnecessary medical risks. Labrador argues that the case is moot because of a decision from the Idaho Supreme Court that modified the ban to say doctors can use “good faith medical judgment” to determine when an abortion is necessary. He also alleges that Seyb “did not educate himself on what Idaho law permits.”
Republicans in New Hampshire are advancing an abortion travel ban for minors—or, in the anti-abortion movement’s parlance, a ban on “abortion trafficking.” Specifically, their version would require written parental consent for someone to transport a minor for the purpose of having an abortion. Unlike other states that have enacted such bans, abortion is legal in New Hampshire. Democratic legislators point out that Governor Kelly Ayotte has pledged to veto any further restrictions on abortion access. In response, Republicans argue this law isn’t strictly about abortion—but if that’s true, then existing laws against kidnapping and endangering child welfare ought to suffice.
Personhood watch
A group of women and physicians sued the state of Michigan over a law that overrides people’s end-of-life wishes when they’re pregnant, which could force unwanted medical interventions like life support. So-called “pregnancy exclusions” to advance directives are fetal personhood statutes because they prioritize the potential life of an embryo or fetus over that of the person gestating it. Michigan is one of more than 30 states with an exclusion, though it’s one of the few that also has state constitutional protections for decision-making in pregnancy. The plaintiffs argue the law violates this protection, which voters adopted in 2022.
Assaults on queer people
Republicans in Maine are working to get an anti-transgender referendum on the ballot next year. The proposed measure would ban trans student athletes from participating on public school sports teams. The Trump administration sued the state for its inclusive sports programs, and its lawsuit cited only three trans students on scholastic girls teams statewide. Organizers need to collect 68,000 verified signatures to get their proposal on the ballot.
Extremism
Earlier this month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid off the staff that supports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Secretary Bear Carcass had already booted all the real experts from the committee and replaced them with his own handpicked weirdos, and the committee’s working groups haven’t met in months. This means ACIP is unlikely to issue its annual recommendations for childhood vaccines by the usual deadline of January 1. In addition to the fact that kids could miss out on lifesaving immunizations, these delays will also affect vaccines in the development pipeline.
The American Mind, a publication run by the Trump-boosting, Christian nationalist think tank the Claremont Institute, says RFK should re-investigate the “health repercussions” of the birth control pill. The article claims that hormonal contraception induces “medicated menopause,” which demonstrates (at best) a profound misunderstanding of menstruation, menopause, and how hormones work in general. Additionally, the authors of the piece appear to have used ChatGPT in the drafting process as multiple links are appended with source tags from the generative AI tool. It would be funny if it weren’t part of such a serious political agenda.
Repro workers
Workers at Planned Parenthood Southeast allege that the affiliate’s interim president, a human resources executive with no experience in nonprofits or reproductive health, is gutting the organization, which serves Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Former employees who spoke to multiple outlets said that Mairo Akposé laid off the public policy and organizing teams after staffers filed a complaint with HR over senior leadership appearing not to prioritize abortion access and for misgendering multiple workers. The PPSE board said in an October 13 statement that it had hired a law firm to review the allegations. Autonomy News will have more information on this coming soon.
The Center for Reproductive Rights Union (CRRU) is bargaining its next contract, and notes that the nonprofit’s proposed minimum salary of just $59,450 is less than what some executives earn in “other compensation” alone. This includes benefits like retirement fund contributions and health insurance, rather than take-home pay. Still, the contrast is stark.
Quick hits
- The rate of stillbirths—or pregnancy losses at or after 20 weeks—is higher than previously reported in the U.S., affecting roughly 1 in 150 pregnancies, per a new study. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the average at 1 in 175. Stillbirth rates were even higher in low-income areas (1 in 112), and areas with higher proportions of Black families compared to White families (1 in 95).
- A senior United Nations official said that Palestinian women are giving birth in rubble on roads, comparing the conditions in Gaza to a “dystopian film.”
- Last week, “a group of attorneys, advocates and abortion providers launched Reproductive Futures, a group that aims to increase the number of telehealth services offering medication abortion and other reproductive care in the United States and bolster legal protections for their workers and volunteers.”
Actual good news
A new all-trimester abortion clinic is in the works in New Jersey. Dr. Kristyn Brandi and nurse practitioner Catherine Obando hope to open Luminosas Wellness Collective by summer 2026. Despite the fact that New Jersey is one of only a few states with no gestational age ban on abortion, it currently has zero providers who offer care beyond 28 weeks.
And Colorado has regained an all-trimester provider: After the abrupt closure in April of Boulder Abortion Clinic—perhaps the nation’s best-known all-trimester clinic—13 of the clinic’s former staff members came together to form RISE Collective. They officially opened to patients on October 14, and are still working to raise funds to buy a building for the clinic’s forever home, and make care affordable for patients.
Palate cleanser(s)
Gourd season is upon us.
@oregonzoo let the gourd times roll #pumpkinseason #animals #asmr #squish #oregonzoo ♬ original sound - Oregon Zoo
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