Judge David C. Joseph, a Trump-appointed district court judge in Louisiana, handed down a credulous opinion this week about the supposed dangers of mifepristone — but didn’t give Louisiana the abortion restrictions it wanted, at least yet. The red state wants to reimpose restrictions on the drug, primarily the in-person dispensing requirement and a ban … Read more
Those protections mean a broader range of plaintiffs can sue the state. Duane said this was the first lawsuit since Dobbs that brings together plaintiffs who illustrate the ways that abortion bans harm people, including women who experience obstetrical emergencies, fatal fetal conditions, ectopic pregnancies, sexual assault and simply being pregnant against their will. “It … Read more
The laws used in most of these prosecutions, Pregnancy Justice pointed out, are typically meant to protect children, not fetuses. By prosecuting pregnant women under them, the group says, states are cementing the legal doctrine of “fetal personhood”, which seeks to grant embryos and fetuses full legal rights and protections – sometimes at the cost … Read more
Texas’ new legislation, by design, will be difficult to preemptively challenge, as it’s enforced by ordinary citizens. A legal clash is likely only after someone is sued under it. “They’re trying to provoke a fight over the Comstock Act,” Hill said, referencing an 1873 federal law banning the mailing of abortifacients that the anti-abortion movement … Read more
“The evidence does not show that the American people have traditionally considered the right to obtain an abortion so fundamental to liberty that it ‘goes without saying’ in the Constitution,” she wrote. “In fact, the evidence cuts in the opposite direction. Abortion not only lacked long-standing protection in American law – it had long been … Read more
Quantitative and qualitative evidence suggests that the delays created by abortion restrictions are having an effect on health care. A recent report from the Gender Equity Policy Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for women’s equality, found that, although the overall risk of dying from pregnancy is low, mothers living in states where abortion is banned … Read more
Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the US supreme court case that rescinded the constitutional right to abortion, is failing on its own terms. Since the ruling, in June 2022, the number of abortions in the US has risen. Support for reproductive rights is on the upswing. And the rate of voluntary sterilization among young … Read more
Amid all the news coverage of the GOP’s spending-bill extravaganza— ……. —one piece of the package has received comparatively little attention: a provision that would block abortion clinics from receiving Medicaid funds for any of the non-abortion services they provide. But if this proposed provision passes, clinics all over the country will be affected. It … Read more
Indeed, Project 2025, the conservative policy agenda that the Trump administration appears to be following, specifically calls for removing Ella from the Affordable Care Act contraception coverage mandate because it is a “potential abortifacient.” And politicians in multiple states have expressed support for the idea of restricting these contraceptive methods, as well as contraception more … Read more
For the second year in a row, abortion providers performed more than 1m abortions in the United States in 2024. About 155,000 people crossed state lines for abortions – roughly double the number of patients who did so in 2020, before the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and paved the way for more … Read more
