USA – Some states on track to restore abortion access, while others push for fetal rights in 2025

By: Sofia Resnick and Kelcie Moseley-Morris
January 2, 2025

Heading into the third year since Roe v. Wade was overturned, states will continue to introduce and consider legislation to expand or restrict access to reproductive health care and abortion as legislative sessions begin. In anticipation of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, states with broad reproductive rights protections have introduced bills to shield patients and doctors if the incoming Republican administration overturns protections implemented under President Joe Biden. States with strict bans, meanwhile, have started floating fetal personhood bans, abortion pill punishments and other restrictions.

Most legislatures will convene during the second week in January or later and adjourn midway through the year.

Continued: https://ncnewsline.com/2025/01/02/some-states-on-track-to-restore-abortion-access-while-others-push-for-fetal-rights-in-2025/


Republicans try to block Biden administration plan to cut money for anti-abortion counseling centers

In a new twist in the abortion access fight, congressional Republicans are trying to block a Biden administration spending rule that they say will cut off millions of dollars to anti-abortion counseling centers

By AMANDA SEITZ, Associated Press
January 12, 2024

WASHINGTON -- In a new twist to the fight over abortion access, congressional Republicans are trying to block a Biden administration spending rule that they say will cut off millions of dollars to anti-abortion counseling centers.

The rule would prohibit states from sending federal funds earmarked for needy Americans to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” which counsel against abortions. At stake are millions of dollars in federal funds that currently flow to the organizations through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a block grant program created in 1996 to give cash assistance to poor children and prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/republicans-push-back-biden-plan-axe-federal-funds-106346479


What President Biden’s executive order on abortion does not address

By Shirin Ali
July 8, 2022
President Biden attempted to preserve abortion access on Friday through executive action but stopped short of restoring full access to the procedure or preventing states from enacting their own restrictions or bans.

The executive order Biden signed empowers Health and Human Services (HHS) in a variety of ways, including the authority to protect and expand access to medication abortion — something the Department of Justice also warned states of, saying they cannot ban mifepristone, a drug used to aid in abortion, as it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/accessibility/3550413-what-president-bidens-executive-order-on-abortion-does-not-address/


Can Michiganders obtain abortion pills in Canada? Governor seeks clarification.

Jul. 07, 2022
By Danielle Salisbury

Furthering her efforts to secure comprehensive reproductive health care for Michiganders, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is asking for clarity on the rights of residents to cross the U.S. border to obtain care or prescription medication, including abortion pills.

Current rules on importing drugs, including those that may be used for medication abortion, are complex and not well-understood by the public, Whitmer wrote in a letter to the secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2022/07/can-michiganders-obtain-abortion-pills-in-canada-governor-seeks-clarification.html


Supreme Court To Hear Challenge To Trump-Era Abortion Rules

February 22, 2021
Nina Totenberg, NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court said it will hear a set of cases involving a Trump-era rule on abortion, giving the 6-3 conservative majority its first opportunity to weigh in on the hot-button issue. At the same time, the justices tossed out an appeal brought by former President Donald Trump, who once again was seeking to block the New York district attorney from obtaining his tax and other financial records.

The abortion case involves a 2019 Trump administration rule adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services that barred health clinics from receiving federal family planning funds if they provided referrals for abortions, prompting organizations including Planned Parenthood to withdraw from the Title X program.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/22/970180543/supreme-court-to-hear-challenge-to-trump-era-abortion-rules


Trump fetal tissue ethics board urges rejection of nearly all research proposals

By Amy Goldstein
August 18, 2020

A new advisory board, created to review the ethics of proposed fetal tissue research grants, is urging the Trump administration to block government funding for nearly all of the applications — essentially seeking to ban support for most such scientific work.

The recommendation that the National Institutes of Health withhold funds
from all but one of a slate of 14 research proposals means that Health and
Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who has the final say, would need to buck
the will of a board he convened — and of social conservatives crucial to
President Trump’s political base — for the projects to get federal support.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-fetal-tissue-research/2020/08/18/85902fcc-e157-11ea-8dd2-d07812bf00f7_story.html


USA – HHS Moves to Curtail Abortion, Transgender Health Protections

HHS Moves to Curtail Abortion, Transgender Health Protections

June 12, 2020

The Trump administration has finalized a policy that would remove women seeking abortions and LGBT people from the Affordable Care Act’s non-discrimination protections, the HHS announced Friday.

The regulation would let health-care workers, hospitals, and insurance companies that receive federal funding refuse to provide or cover services such as abortions or transition-related care.

Continued: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/hhs-moves-to-curtail-abortion-transgender-health-protections


USA – They’re Doctors. They’re Also Incredibly Effective—and Dangerous—Anti-Abortion Activists.

They’re Doctors. They’re Also Incredibly Effective—and Dangerous—Anti-Abortion Activists.
Your OB-GYN could be one of them.

Marisa Endicott
June 4, 2020

In April 2019, when meetings like this still took place, Diane Foley took the stage in Indianapolis, looking out into the faces of anti-choice advocates and doctors who were gathered for their annual conference. The Health and Human Services official began her presentation: “Opportunities for Collaborative Engagement in Policy Development.” The bland, policy-wonkish title belied its almost-revolutionary substance: nothing less than a major shift in American health care—and a threat to the more than 4 million primarily low-income people who rely on a key government program for family planning and other care.

Title X, which Foley oversees as the head of the Office of Population Affairs—and which also includes the government’s teen pregnancy program—offers health care providers more than $286 million in funding each year. Just a month before her presentation, a new rule passed that would, for the first time, prohibit Title X recipients from performing abortions on-site or even providing abortion referrals. This effectively shut out a quarter of all clinics that were getting funding—including Planned Parenthood, which has traditionally received some $60 million a year from the program and provides more than 2.4 million patients with a slew of services, from birth control to cancer screenings to wellness exams.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/american-association-pro-life-obstetricians-gynecologists-aaplog-anti-abortion-doctors-june-medical-supreme-court-decision/


USA – Anti-Abortion Groups Ask Trump’s HHS to Use COVID-19 Outbreak to Stop Abortion

Anti-Abortion Groups Ask Trump’s HHS to Use COVID-19 Outbreak to Stop Abortion
Anti-abortion organizations had a list of suggestions for how the Trump administration could take advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak to cut off access to abortion care.

Mar 24, 2020
Dennis Carter

Officials from anti-abortion organizations asked the Trump administration on Tuesday to take steps to halt abortion access as part of the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Anti-abortion groups, led by Trump ally and Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser, wrote in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar that clinics continuing to provide abortion care during the COVID-19 outbreak are “compounding one crisis with another.”

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2020/03/24/anti-abortion-groups-ask-trumps-hhs-to-use-covid-19-outbreak-to-stop-abortion/


Trump ban on fetal tissue research blocks coronavirus treatment effort

Trump ban on fetal tissue research blocks coronavirus treatment effort

By Amy Goldstein
March 18, 2020

A senior scientist at a government biomedical research laboratory has been thwarted in his efforts to conduct experiments on possible treatments for the new coronavirus because of the Trump administration’s restrictions on research with human fetal tissue.

The scientist, Kim Hasenkrug, an immunologist at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana, has been appealing for nearly a month to top NIH officials, arguing that the pandemic warrants an exemption to a ban imposed last year prohibiting government researchers from using tissue from abortions in their work.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-ban-on-fetal-tissue-research-blocks-coronavirus-treatment-effort/2020/03/18/ddd9f754-685c-11ea-abef-020f086a3fab_story.html