USA – RFK Jr. Is Coming for Abortion Pills

And he’s relying on bogus science to make his case.

Julianne McShane, Mother Jones
May 15, 2025

Earlier this month, the Trump administration scored seemingly positive headlines when it asked a federal court to dismiss a case brought by three Republican states seeking to restrict telehealth access to mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a medication abortion.

Several news outlets claimed in headlines that the administration would “defend” access to the pills, despite the fact that Project 2025 and several of Trump’s top appointees have made it clear that they believe access to mifepristone—which, along with the second drug, misoprostol, now account for more than 60 percent of all abortions that occur nationwide—should be drastically rolled back, as I have previously reported. In reality, the administration merely argued the states do not have standing to sue and did not weigh in on the underlying issue of access to the pills.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/rfk-jr-is-coming-for-abortion-pills/

SCOTUS Just Gave Abortion Clinics a Rare Win

But more significant threats from Trump’s Department of Justice remain.

Feb 24, 2025
Julianne McShane, Mother Jones

On Monday, the Supreme Court handed abortion rights advocates a rare win when they declined to take up a pair of cases seeking to challenge a decades-old decision limiting protesters’ actions near the entrances of abortion clinics. But, experts say that even though this result is positive, the decision’s reach is limited and does nothing to roll back the near impunity the Trump administration has extended to anti-abortion protesters who target abortion clinics.

Anti-abortion activists who brought the cases sought to overrule Hill v. Colorado, a 2000 decision in which a majority of the justices upheld a Colorado law requiring that abortion protesters obtain consent before coming within eight feet of another person to speak to them or distribute leaflets within 100 feet of the entrance of a health care clinic, including abortion clinics.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/scotus-just-gave-abortion-clinics-a-rare-win/

Will SCOTUS Allow Pregnant Women to Die?

6/24/2024
by CARRIE N. BAKER, Ms. Magazine

A decision from the U.S. Supreme Court will be coming any day now in two cases, Idaho v. United States and Moyle v. United States, about whether states can prohibit doctors from treating women with life-threatening pregnancies until a patient’s condition deteriorates to the point where they are about to die.

The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) filed an amicus brief in these cases describing several of the more than 70 documented cases of women almost dying—and at least one who did die—when they were denied emergency medical care because of abortion bans enacted across the country after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. And “the true number of cases is likely significantly higher,” according the NWLC brief.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2024/06/24/emtala-supreme-court-women-die-abortion-bans-pregnant/

USA – How Abortion’s Legal Landscape Post-Roe is Causing Fear and Confusion

We spoke with seven reproductive rights organizations — here’s what we found.

By NICOLE LEWIS and AALA ABDULLAHI
June 1, 2024

For years before the Supreme Court upended Roe v. Wade, the landmark precedent protecting abortion access, a network of conservative Christians was slowly and methodically stacking the courts through political means. “[W]hat Trump and his Republican allies had done was to change the country by leveraging political force to conquer the courts,” Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer wrote in their recent recounting of the network’s maneuvering for The New York Times Magazine.“

Their policy arms churned out legal arguments and medical studies. Their lawyers argued their cases, and their judges ruled on them,” Dias and Lerer explained.

Continued: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/06/01/abortion-supreme-court-roe-dobbs

Melinda French Gates: The Enemies of Progress Play Offense. I Want to Help Even the Match.

May 28, 2024
By Melinda French Gates

Many years ago, I received this piece of advice: “Set your own agenda, or someone else will set it for you.” I’ve carried those words with me ever since.

That’s why, next week, I will leave the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, of which I was a co-founder almost 25 years ago, to open a new chapter in my philanthropy. To begin, I am announcing $1 billion in new spending over the next two years for people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/opinion/melinda-french-gates-reproductive-rights.html

Abortion rights groups don’t want to “restore Roe” — but they won’t fight Biden on it

Many reproductive health organizations want to codify stronger standards. They’re not going to pick that fight this year.

By Rachel M. Cohen
Feb 5, 2024

When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris held their first joint campaign event of 2024 last month in northern Virginia, they left no doubt that codifying abortion rights would be central to the president’s reelection bid. With the rally timed to honor what would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Biden stood under a large “Restore Roe” sign and beside supporters holding smaller posters to “Defend Choice.”

“We need the protections of Roe v. Wade in every state. And we can do it. You can do it,” Biden stressed at the event. “Give me a Democratic House of Representatives and give me a bigger — a bigger Democratic Senate, and we will pass a new law restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade, and I will sign it immediately.”

Continued: https://www.vox.com/24056692/abortion-roe-dobbs-2024-biden-election-presidential

What to Know About the Federal Law at the Heart of the Latest Supreme Court Abortion Case

The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA, requires hospitals to provide medically necessary care to stabilize patients in emergency situations.

By Pam Belluck
Jan. 18, 2024

One of the newest battlefields in the abortion debate is a decades-old federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known by doctors and health policymakers as EMTALA.

The issue involves whether the law requires hospital emergency rooms to provide abortions in urgent circumstances, including when a woman’s health is threatened by continuing her pregnancy. But, as with many abortion-related arguments, this one could have broader implications. Some legal experts say it could potentially determine how restrictive state abortion laws are allowed to be and whether states can prevent emergency rooms from providing other types of medical care, such as gender-affirming treatments.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/18/health/emtala-abortion-supreme-court.html

Law protecting women seeking emergency abortions is target in US supreme court case

Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act is at the heart of the court’s latest blockbuster abortion case, which comes out of Idaho

Carter Sherman
Tue 9 Jan 2024

Mylissa Farmer’s pregnancy was doomed. But no one would help her end it. Over the course of a few days in August 2022, Farmer visited two hospitals in Missouri and Kansas, where doctors agreed that because the 41-year-old’s water had broken just 18 weeks into her pregnancy, there was no chance that she would give birth to a healthy baby. Continuing the pregnancy could risk Farmer’s health and life – yet the doctors could not act.

Weeks earlier, the US supreme court had overturned Roe v Wade and abolished the national right to abortion. It was, legal counsel at one hospital determined, “too risky in this heated political environment to intervene”, according to legal filings.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/09/emergency-abortion-supreme-court-case-emtala-idaho

Troops avoid abortion travel policy fueling Tuberville blockade

A senator has stalled high-level military confirmations over a program many service members don’t even use.

By LARA SELIGMAN and JOE GOULD
09/15/2023

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville has blocked hundreds of military promotions over a single policy that allows troops access to abortions, creating turmoil within the Pentagon and even his own party.

But few actually use the program. Only a small number of service members have taken advantage of the year-old rule that offers paid leave and travel reimbursement to troops seeking abortions and other reproductive care, according to the Pentagon.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/15/troops-reject-abortion-travel-policy-fueling-tuberville-blockade-00116276

15.09.2023

National Women’s Law Center

Patrick Ryder

Robert Greenway

Tommy Tuberville

U.S. military and abortion

United States

Human Rights

A legal scholar sizes up the religious argument against abortion bans

ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL
JULY 9, 2023

(JTA) — The abortion debate is often portrayed as a clash between religious beliefs on the pro-life side and secular or humanist convictions on the pro-choice side. Indeed, lawmakers and activists have often invoked God in enacting state bans on abortion since the Supreme Court, in last year’s Dobbs decision, struck down a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy.

Some clergy and faith groups, however, including a number of Jews, are pushing back. In efforts to overturn these restrictions, they have been pressing a legal strategy claiming that abortion bans violate their religious liberty. In Kentucky, a case brought by three Jewish women argues that the state’s near-total abortion ban violates their religious beliefs about when life begins and protecting a mother’s life. In Indiana, a suit brought by Hoosier Jews for Choice and four women who represent a variety of faiths demands exemptions from the state’s abortion ban for people whose religions support abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.jta.org/2023/07/09/ideas/a-legal-scholar-sizes-up-the-religious-argument-against-abortion-bans