Under President Joe Biden, the Justice Department said it did not believe Comstock prohibited mailing these pills. But abortion opponents have been pressing the Trump administration to change that policy. The Supreme Court’s most conservative members, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, have also expressed openness to that legal interpretation. That approach, too, could spark … Read more
Judge Bryan Gantt orders doctor to stop prescribing and sending pills to state, setting up challenge to ‘shield laws’ Read more at The Guardian
Texas judge says states can revive challenge to abortion pill access nationwide The American Civil Liberties Union said the case should have been settled when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to mifepristone. Kacsmaryk’s decision “has left the door open for extremist politicians to continue attacking medication abortion in his courtroom,” the ACLU said. … Read more
Texas Republicans pre-filed several bills to target pills. One would make it a “deceptive trade practice” to send pills via mail without a prescription from an in-state doctor after an in-person exam. Similar to a measure in Louisiana that doctors warn will delay life-saving care, another would reclassify abortion drugs as dangerous “controlled substances”. Yet … Read more
Abortion bans don’t just kill women. They kill babies. This is evident in the data, which shows a dramatic rise in the state’s infant mortality after Texas banned abortion. As the Washington Post documented last week, it’s also happening in a viscerally disturbing way, as the number of newborns found abandoned to die has spiked, … Read more
“It’s giving away the game: It has been about, all this time, men controlling women, and they’re not even pretending anymore,” Jessie Hill, associate dean and reproductive rights scholar at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, told TPM. Read more at Talking Points Memo
Texas sues New York doctor for telemedicine prescription of abortion pills In the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Collin County, Paxton said that Margaret Daley Carpenter, a New York doctor, provided mifepristone and misoprostol, a pair of abortion-inducing drugs, to a 20-year-old pregnant woman there, which led to a medical abortion. “Carpenter’s conduct violates the Texas … Read more
In the Dobbs decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that U.S. citizens have a “constitutional right to interstate travel,” including for abortions. But abortion opponents are nonetheless trying to prevent people from crossing state lines for care that they see as a threat to unborn life. In Alabama, for example, Attorney General Steve Marshall has said … Read more
This censorship effort doesn’t just impact the data about abortion ban-related deaths, either. Before 2022, both Texas and Georgia had some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. There’s been an eye-popping 56% rise in pregnancy-related deaths in Texas over the past few years. Anyone who actually cared about women or “life” would want … Read more
A Texas committee that is meant to review pregnancy-related deaths in the state won’t review cases from 2022 and 2023, the Washington Post reported. That means that pregnancy-related deaths since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision won’t be reviewed in the state. In Texas, doctors who violate the state’s strict … Read more
