New Reports Bring Global Solutions to Bolster U.S. Lawmakers in the Fight to Protect Reproductive Freedom

November 20, 2025
O’Neill Institute, Georgetown Law

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the State Innovation Exchange (SiX) and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health, released Beyond Borders, a groundbreaking report series that examines how countries around the world have successfully expanded abortion access and protected reproductive rights. The reports offer U.S.-based policymakers proven strategies to counter restrictions and treat abortion as essential health care.

Designed as a catalyst for state-level policy innovation, each Beyond Borders report synthesizes international human rights norms, public health standards, and real-world legislation, with evidence-based approaches that can be implemented in U.S policy. Additionally, Beyond Borders situates the United States within the broader global context, revealing how far the country has fallen behind international standards and the pathways available to catch up.

Continued: https://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/press/new-reports-bring-global-solutions-to-bolster-u-s-lawmakers-in-the-fight-to-protect-reproductive-freedom/

21.11.2025

Commentary

Research

Beyond Borders report

Jennifer Driver

O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health

Rebecca Reingold

State Innovation Exchange

Supreme court paves way for South Carolina and other states to defund Planned Parenthood

Decision could embolden red states in US to block clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid funds

Carter Sherman
Thu 26 Jun 2025

The US supreme court has paved the way for South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its status as an abortion provider, a decision that could embolden red states across the country to effectively “defund” the reproductive healthcare organization.

The case, Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, centers around a 2018 executive order from South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, that blocked clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. Medicaid is the US government’s main health insurance program for low-income people. About 80 million people rely on it.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/26/supreme-court-planned-parenthood-decision

U.S states are already collecting more abortion data. And HIPAA won’t always keep it private.

BY: KELCIE MOSELEY-MORRIS
JUNE 1, 2024

Years before the Dobbs decision that struck down U.S. constitutional abortion rights, providers like Dr. Kylie Cooper were already uncomfortable with some of the reporting requirements for abortion procedures in states where they practiced.

Cooper was a maternal-fetal medicine specialist for several years in Idaho before she reluctantly left the state in 2023 because of the near-total abortion ban that is now in place. But when abortion was still legal, she was required to fill out a form and submit it to the state with information about the patient and the procedure, including the physician’s name and when it occurred. While the law said that the information would be aggregated and could not identify individual patients, Cooper never felt sure about how it would be used or how secure the data would be kept.

Continued: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2024/06/01/states-are-already-collecting-more-abortion-data-and-hipaa-wont-always-keep-it-private/

Arizona, Dominican Republic both grapple with 19th century abortion laws

BY: GLORIA REBECCA GOMEZ
DECEMBER 26, 2023

In Arizona, the state’s highest court is considering whether to restore a near-total abortion ban from 1864, and in the Dominican Republic, women are fighting against an all-out ban from 1884.

The just 20-year difference separating the two laws was striking for Sen. Anna Hernandez, D-Phoenix, who traveled to the Caribbean country earlier this month to learn what awaits women in Arizona if access to abortions is cut off.

Continued: https://www.azmirror.com/2023/12/26/arizona-dominican-republic-both-grapple-with-19th-century-abortion-laws/

26.12.2023

Anna Hernandez

Arizona Abortion Access Act

Human Rights Watch

Jennifer Driver

near-total abortion ban

Reproductive health advocates take the fight for abortion rights to the United Nations

Oct 26, 2023
By Kaitlyn Kennedy

Geneva, Switzerland - As a slew of abortion bans take effect around the US, advocates are fighting back during the 139th session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

They argued that guaranteeing access to abortion falls within the scope of the US' international obligations, as bans can deprive pregnant people of their right to life under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Continued: https://www.tag24.com/topic/abortion-rights/reproductive-health-advocates-take-the-fight-for-abortion-rights-to-the-united-nations-2988945

Legislators in 49 states ask SCOTUS to preserve access to abortion pill

34 Colorado lawmakers sign amicus brief

BY: KELCIE MOSELEY-MORRIS
OCTOBER 13, 2023

A group of more than 600 Democratic legislators from 49 states, including 34 from Colorado, have signed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court urging the justices to overturn an appellate court decision that would roll back access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used to safely terminate early pregnancies and treat miscarriages.

The amicus brief, also called a “friend of the court” brief, was organized by State Innovation Exchange’s Reproductive Freedom Leadership Council and assembled over the past week, said Jennifer Driver, the group’s senior director of reproductive rights. Driver said State Innovation Exchange, also known as SiX, provides tools and resources for state legislators to advocate for progressive public policies after being elected to office.

Continued: https://coloradonewsline.com/2023/10/13/legislators-in-49-states-ask-scotus-to-preserve-access-to-abortion-pill/

Democratic Lawmakers Blast Abortion Pill Ruling In Scathing Letter

Nearly 600 legislators from 49 states signed the letter attacking the "dangerous" ruling by a Trump-appointed judge to revoke FDA approval of mifepristone.

By Kevin Robillard
Apr 14, 2023

Nearly 600 Democratic state legislators have signed on to a letter protesting a federal judge’s ruling revoking FDA approval of mifepristone, saying the “health and wellbeing of our constituents that we were put into office to protect is at grave risk.”

The 588 legislators [now 621] who signed come from every state except North Dakota, a sign of how the party views promoting access to mifepristone, one of the two drugs involved in medication abortion, and defending the Food and Drug Administration from political interference as a winning issue even in conservative areas.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democratic-lawmakers-abortion-pill-ruling-letter_n_64393cb0e4b0ac40918ac299

14.04.2023

News

FDA

Food and Drug Administration

Gretchen Whitmer

Jennifer Driver

Julie von Haefen

State Innovation Exchange

Two months after the Dobbs ruling, new abortion bans are taking hold

August 23, 2022
Sarah McCammon

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week marks two months since the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision reversed decades of precedent guaranteeing abortion rights, and the effects of the decision are continuing to unfold as abortion bans take effect around the country.

Well before the opinion was issued on June 24, more than a dozen states had so-called "trigger bans" in place – laws written to prohibit abortion as soon as Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had legalized the procedure for nearly 50 years, was overturned.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/23/1118846811/two-months-after-the-dobbs-ruling-new-abortion-bans-are-taking-hold

U.S. State legislators look to Mexico for direction in fight for abortion rights

Progressive legislators are studying how activists in Mexico, whose Supreme Court ruled to decriminalize abortion last year, effectively won back certain abortion care rights.

July 24, 2022
By Adam Edelman

State legislators have turned their attention to their neighbor to the south for guidance and direction about how to navigate a newly restrictive legal landscape in the U.S. regarding abortion.

Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalized abortion last year, loosening decades of restrictive laws in the predominately Catholic nation, leading to more permissive laws in several of its states.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/state-lawmakers-look-mexico-direction-fight-abortion-rights-rcna39140

24.07.2022

State Innovation Exchange

Stephanie Stahl Hamilton

USA – Abortion Bans Are Disregarding the Lives of Sexual Assault Survivors

By removing even exceptions for rape from their anti-abortion legislation, Republican politicians are finally starting to say the quiet part out loud.

By Kylie Cheung
Feb 22, 2022

Anti-abortion politicians have always been clear on one thing: Abortion is murder. But for years, this “logic” hasn’t held up against their occasional concession that abortion bans make exceptions for rape. Of course, if these politicians genuinely believed that abortion is murder, they wouldn’t allow any concession at all. Instead, they have long used the rape exception to have it both ways, claiming to simultaneously care about women and also be “pro-life”—two antithetical positions to take.

This dynamic is beginning to shift. Since the much-publicized feud between Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and fellow Republican Rep. Nancy Mace last December over whether abortion bans should include rape exceptions at all, a string of recent proposed and enacted state abortion bans have been made in Taylor Greene’s image more so than Mace’s.

Continued: https://jezebel.com/abortion-bans-rape-exceptions-effect-survivors-1848516164