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Tag: sexual and reproductive health

  • Morning after pill brand speeds up retail access, doubles supply per pack | CNN Business

    Morning after pill brand speeds up retail access, doubles supply per pack | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    One maker said it is responding to high demand for the morning-after pill, after the US Supreme Court last year ended a constitutional right to abortion, by speeding up availability of the emergency contraceptive in retail stores and introducing a new two-count pack.

    Julie launched as a one-step tablet of emergency contraceptive containing Levonorgestrel, the key ingredient in the popular Plan B emergency contraceptive that was approved by FDA in late 1990s without a prescription, at 4,500 Walmart stores nationwide last September.

    The startup experienced a surge in demand for its $42 tablet at launch amid an overall spike in purchases of emergency contraceptive following the US Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in on June 24, 2022.

    The FDA-approved morning-after pill can reduce the chance of pregnancy after unprotected sex or failure of another contraceptive method like a condom, and is ideally taken within 72 hours. The pill, which is legal in all 50 US states, works by delaying ovulation or preventing implantation and cannot terminate a pregnancy.

    While the plan from the beginning was always to make the product widely accessible as quickly possible, the Supreme Court’s ruling only compelled the startup to accelerate the timetable for Julie’s nationwide rollout.

    “The Dobbs decision and overturning Roe v. Wade last year rocked everyone’s world, our customers and our retail partners,” said Amanda E/J Morrison, cofounder of Julie. “It lit a fire under us to provide our product to more women and, more importantly, to educate women about emergency contraceptives.”

    In April, just seven months after hitting the market, Julie is now expanding into 5,600 CVS stores and 1,500 Target stores. The brand is also introducing a new 2-count pack of its emergency contraception (which has a three-year expiration period). The two-count pack rolled out at CVS locations over the weekend.

    “With the two-pack, we want to make it easier for women to keep extra emergency contraceptive at home, just like they would with other birth control options like condoms,” said Morrison.

    The price for two-count pack is $70. Morrison said the pill works most effectively the closer it is taken after unprotected sex, ideally within 72 hours.

    Dr. Colleen Denny, a clinical associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said she saw the upside to a two-count pack of emergency contraception, which she hasn’t seen before from other emergency contraception brands.

    “It generally makes sense for barriers to emergency contraception, prescription and over the counter, to be as low as possible,” said Denny,

    “Emergency contraception is incredibly safe and effective at preventing pregnancy when used in the right time frame,” she said. “Relationships are complicated. There can be situations where there isn’t access to emergency contraception or women might not ask the partner to use it. So being able to have access to one pill and a backup is a great idea.”

    Kelly Cleland, executive director of the American Society for Emergency Contraception, said emergency contraception brands, like Julie, still have to work harder at making the product not only more accessible, but also more affordable.

    “I am in favor of expanding access, but this is a missed opportunity when a generic brand comes into the market with a high price barrier,” Cleland said about Julie’s $70 price for the two-count pack.

    Cleland said a study done last year by the American Society for Emergency Contraception on access to emergency contraception in stores compared price at retail for branded and generic emergency contraception options. The report said some generic options were priced at $6 or less.

    Julie said it set the price for its single pill and two-count pack so it can fund its one-for-one donation program (in which the company donates one box for every box purchased) and to cover business costs tied to packaging and marketing.

    By overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court revoked the notion that the constitutional right to privacy included an abortion. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court expanded states’ authority to regulate or restrict abortion.

    A total of 26 US states have since implemented new abortion restrictions or all-out bans.

    In the rulings’ immediate aftermath, doctors and prescribers saw a sharp jump in demand for different forms of contraception, including emergency contraception, and longer-lasting forms of birth control. The rush on emergency contraceptives forced some pharmacy chains to impose temporary purchase limits.

    “Every time there is a new development on restrictions to reproduction health care, there’s a run on emergency contraceptive. Our retail partners confirmed this,” said Morrison, adding that news events continue to influence buying patterns for emergency contraceptive.

    “The current political climate has emboldened Julie,” Morrison said. This, according to the company, includes expanding Julie’s available within communities through unexpected places like bars, restaurants and coffee shops.

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  • Abortion foes take aim at ballot initiatives in next phase of post-Dobbs political fights | CNN Politics

    Abortion foes take aim at ballot initiatives in next phase of post-Dobbs political fights | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    After a string of recent ballot-box victories for abortion rights groups, opponents of the procedure are redoubling their efforts – including, in some places, pushing to make it harder to use citizen-approved ballot measures to guarantee abortion access.

    An anti-abortion coalition in Ohio, for instance, recently unleashed a $5 million ad buy targeting an effort to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution through a ballot initiative – just as the initiative’s organizers won approval to collect signatures to put the question to voters in November. Meanwhile, legislators in Ohio and other states are weighing bills that would make it more difficult to pass citizen-initiated changes to state constitutions.

    The US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year left abortion laws up to the states, and abortion rights groups quickly scored wins on ballot measures in six of them – including in the battleground state of Michigan, where voters protected abortion access, and in the Republican strongholds of Kansas, Kentucky and Montana, where voters defeated efforts to restrict abortions.

    “What we saw in the midterms last year was a wake-up call,” said Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. She said helping local groups defeat abortion-related ballot measures is one of the top three priorities for the group’s state affairs team.

    Groups on both sides of the abortion divide have poured big sums into an upcoming state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin that has seen record spending and offers a key test of the potency of the abortion issue among voters in a battleground state. Whether a conservative or liberal candidate wins a swing seat Tuesday on the seven-member high court there could determine the fate of abortion rights in the state. A Wisconsin law, enacted in 1849, that bans nearly all abortions is being challenged in court and is likely to land before the state Supreme Court.

    More fights over ballot initiatives on abortion are stirring to life around the country. In addition to Ohio – where a state law banning abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy has been put on hold by a judge – abortion rights proponents have begun to push ballot proposals in South Dakota and Missouri. Most abortions are now illegal in those two states.

    And groups in at least more six states are considering citizen initiatives as a way to guarantee or expand access to abortions, said Marsha Donat, capacity building director at The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which helps progressive groups advance ballot measures.

    Ohio, however, looms as the next big abortion battleground on the 2023 calendar – with skirmishes already underway in the courts, the state legislature and on the airwaves.

    A state “fetal heartbeat” law that prohibits many abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy took effect when the US Supreme Court struck down Roe with its decision last June in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But the law has been put on hold by a judge in Cincinnati in a case that’s expected to end up before the state’s high court.

    Abortion rights supporters recently won approval to begin collecting signatures to put a measure on the November ballot that would guarantee Ohioans’ access to abortion. If approved by voters, state officials could not prohibit abortion until after fetal viability, the point at which doctors say the fetus can survive outside the womb.

    The initiative says that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions” on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.

    It also would bar the state from interfering with an individual’s “voluntary exercise of this right” or that of a “person or entity that assists an individual exercising this right.”

    A conservative group called Protect Women Ohio immediately launched an ad campaign – putting $4 million on the air and $1 million into digital advertising – to cast the amendment as one that would strip parents of their authority to prevent a child from having an abortion or undergoing gender reassignment surgery, although the proposed constitutional amendment makes no mention of transgender care.

    Officials with Protect Women Ohio argue that the initiative’s language is broad enough to be interpreted as extending to gender reassignment surgery, an assertion initiative proponents say is false.

    In the campaign aimed at defeating the amendment, “we’ll make sure they have to own every last word of this radical initiative,” said Aaron Baer, the president of Center for Christian Virtue and a Protect Women Ohio board member, told CNN. “They chose this language for a reason, and we’re not going to let them off the hook.”

    Lauren Blauvelt – who chairs Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom, the group promoting the initiative – said the ad “is completely wrong” and called it an “unfortunate talking point from the other side.”

    “Our amendment … creates the fundamental right that an individual can make their own reproductive health care decisions” and does not touch on other topics, she said.

    But the ad campaign highlights the effort to link abortion to the transgender and parental rights issues currently animating conservative activists.

    Susan B. Anthony’s Pritchard said she believes that her side can win on the issue of limiting abortions but “we believe also that we broaden our coalition and broaden awareness of what these things actually do when we highlight the parental rights issue that is very real.”

    The initiative’s supporters need to collect more than 413,000 signatures from Ohioans by July 5 to qualify for the November ballot. Under current Ohio law, changes to the state’s constitution can be approved via ballot initiative by a simple majority of voters.

    A bill introduced by Republican state Rep. Brian Stewart would increase that threshold to 60% and would mandate that the signatures needed to put an amendment on the ballot come from all 88 counties in the state, instead of 44, as currently required.

    Ohio state Senate President Matt Huffman backs raising the threshold and also supports holding an August special election to change the ballot initiative rules. If successful, the higher threshold would be in effect before November’s election when voters could consider adding abortion rights to the state constitution.

    Neither Huffman nor Stewart responded to interview requests from CNN.

    Ohio lawmakers recently voted to end August special elections, citing their expense and low participation. But Huffman recently told reporters in Ohio that a special election – with a potential price tag of $20 million – would be worth the expense if it helped torpedo the abortion initiative.

    “If we save 30,000 lives as a result of spending $20 million, I think that’s a great thing,” he said, according to Cleveland.com.

    The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center is tracking 109 measures across 35 states that could affect initiatives put to voters in 2024. Some would increase the threshold for an initiative to pass. Others would increase the minimum number of signatures – or require that they come from a broader geographic area – before an initiative could qualify for the ballot in the first place, Donat said.

    Many of the bills that seek to make it more difficult to pass ballot initiatives do not specifically target abortion issues. But they come as progressive groups increasingly turn to the initiative process as a way to bypass Republican-controlled legislatures and put a raft of issues – from legalizing marijuana to expanding Medicaid eligibility and boosting the minimum wage – directly to voters.

    “Attacks, through state legislatures, on the ballot measure process have been pretty consistent and pretty aggressive for the last several (election) cycles,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which has helped pass progressive measures in red states.

    Hall said the abortion issue, while not the sole focus of current efforts to curb ballot initiatives, has put “additional fuel on an already burning fire.”

    In Missouri, a state law banning most abortions – including in cases of rape and incest – took effect last year after Roe was overturned. A group called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom has filed petition language that proposes adding abortion protections to the state constitution via ballot initiative. In recent cycles, voters in Missouri have expanded Medicaid eligibility and legalized recreational marijuana use through such initiatives.

    This year, the state’s Republican-controlled legislature is weighing making it harder for those initiatives to succeed. In February, the state House voted to raise the bar for amending the state constitution from a simple majority to 60%. Voters would have to approve the higher threshold.

    “I believe the Missouri Constitution is a living document but not an ever-expanding document,” Republican state Rep. Mike Henderson, the measure’s sponsor, said during House floor debate. “And right now, it has become an ever-expanding document.”

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  • Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates clash over 1849 abortion ban in lone debate | CNN Politics

    Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates clash over 1849 abortion ban in lone debate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The two candidates battling for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court clashed Tuesday over the state’s 1849 abortion ban in their lone debate, underscoring the high stakes of an election that could decide the issue in one of the nation’s most important swing states.

    Former Justice Daniel Kelly, a conservative, and liberal opponent Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz will square off April 4 in an election that will decide the balance of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In a state where control is split between a Democratic governor and a Republican-controlled legislature, the high court could decide the outcome of legal battles over the state’s abortion laws, its legislative maps and more.

    The debate – the only one scheduled between Protasiewicz and Kelly – took place on the same day Wisconsin voters began casting early ballots in person.

    It’s the nation’s most expensive judicial contest on record, with about $30 million already spent on advertising and counting, as there are two weeks remaining in the campaign. Wisconsin is one of 14 states in the country that directly elects Supreme Court justice in this manner.

    Protasiewicz focused her attacks on Kelly on abortion, with the state’s 1849 ban on nearly all abortions currently being challenged in court and likely to land before the state Supreme Court.

    “If my opponent is elected, I can tell you with 100% certainty, that 1849 abortion ban will stay on the books. I can tell you that,” Protasiewicz said in Tuesday’s debate.

    She said she is “making no promises” on how she would rule on the 1849 abortion law. But she also noted her personal support for abortion rights, as well as endorsements from pro-abortion rights groups. And she pointed to Kelly’s endorsement by Wisconsin Right to Life, which opposes abortion rights.

    Kelly shot back that Protasiewicz’s comments are “absolutely not true.”

    “You don’t know what I’m thinking about that abortion ban,” he said. “You have no idea. These things you do not know.”

    The debate took place before a crowd of about 100 people who were seated in an auditorium at the offices of the State Bar of Wisconsin in Madison. The candidates answered questions from a panel of three Wisconsin reporters as the audience watched in silence.

    The rhetoric grew increasingly bitter and testy, particularly on the topics of abortion, redistricting and criminal sentencing, with the two rivals standing several feet apart on a small stage. The differences that have been aired in a multi-million television ad campaign came alive.

    Kelly looked directly at his opponent and repeatedly raised pointed questions about her integrity, saying at one point: “This seems to be a pattern for you, Janet, telling lies about me.” He called her by her first name, Janet, rather than judge.

    Protasiewic only occasionally looked toward her challenger, but pushed back against an allegation that she is soft on crime: “I have worked very hard to keep our community safe, each and every day I’m on the bench.”

    Kelly accused Protasiewicz of handing down light sentences to violent offenders.

    He cited the case of Anton Veasley, who in 2021 was convicted of child enticement and third degree sexual assault and was released after Protasiewicz stayed his five-year prison sentence with four years of probation, giving him credit for 417 days he’d already spent in jail.

    “We look at the sentencing she has composed and the reasoning she used to reach those conclusions, and that’s just irresponsible to allow dangerous convicted criminals back out so easily with no repercussions into the communities they just got done victimizing,” Kelly said.

    Protasiewicz acknowledged that “hindsight is 20/20.” But she said Kelly was mischaracterizing her record.

    “I have sentenced thousands of people. And it’s interesting that a handful of cases have been cherry-picked and selected and twisted, and insufficient facts have been provided to the electorate,” she said.

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  • This community’s quarter century without a newborn shows the scale of Japan’s population crisis | CNN

    This community’s quarter century without a newborn shows the scale of Japan’s population crisis | CNN

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    Tokyo
    CNN
     — 

    When Kentaro Yokobori was born almost seven years ago, he was the first newborn in the Sogio district of Kawakami village in 25 years. His birth was like a miracle for many villagers.

    Well-wishers visited his parents Miho and Hirohito for more than a week – nearly all of them senior citizens, including some who could barely walk.

    “The elderly people were very happy to see [Kentaro], and an elderly lady who had difficulty climbing the stairs, with her cane, came to me to hold my baby in her arms. All the elderly people took turns holding my baby,” Miho recalled.

    During that quarter century without a newborn, the village population shrank by more than half to just 1,150 – down from 6,000 as recently as 40 years ago – as younger residents left and older residents died. Many homes were abandoned, some overrun by wildlife.

    Kawakami is just one of the countless small rural towns and villages that have been forgotten and neglected as younger Japanese head for the cities. More than 90% of Japanese now live in urban areas like Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto – all linked by Japan’s always-on-time Shinkansen bullet trains.

    That has left rural areas and industries like agriculture, forestry, and farming facing a critical labor shortage that will likely get worse in the coming years as the workforce ages. By 2022, the number of people working in agriculture and forestry had declined to 1.9 million from 2.25 million 10 years earlier.

    Yet the demise of Kawakami is emblematic of a problem that goes far beyond the Japanese countryside.

    The problem for Japan is: people in the cities aren’t having babies either.

    “Time is running out to procreate,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a recent press conference, a slogan that seems so far to have fallen short of inspiring the city dwelling majority of the Japanese public.

    Amid a flood of disconcerting demographic data, he warned earlier this year the country was “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions.”

    The country saw 799,728 births in 2022, the lowest number on record and barely more than half the 1.5 million births it registered in 1982. Its fertility rate – the average number of children born to women during their reproductive years – has fallen to 1.3 – far below the 2.1 required to maintain a stable population. Deaths have outpaced births for more than a decade.

    And in the absence of meaningful immigration – foreigners accounted for just 2.2% of the population in 2021, according to the Japanese government, compared to 13.6% in the United States – some fear the country is hurtling toward the point of no return, when the number of women of child-bearing age hits a critical low from which there is no way to reverse the trend of population decline.

    All this has left the leaders of the world’s third-largest economy facing the unenviable task of trying to fund pensions and health care for a ballooning elderly population even as the workforce shrinks.

    Up against them are the busy urban lifestyles and long working hours that leave little time for Japanese to start families and the rising costs of living that mean having a baby is simply too expensive for many young people. Then there are the cultural taboos that surround talking about fertility and patriarchal norms that work against mothers returning to work.

    Doctor Yuka Okada, the director of Grace Sugiyama Clinic in Tokyo, said cultural barriers meant talking about a woman’s fertility was often off limits.

    “(People see the topic as) a little bit embarrassing. Think about your body and think about (what happens) after fertility. It is very important. So, it’s not embarrassing.”

    Okada is one of the rare working mothers in Japan who has a highly successful career after childbirth. Many of Japan’s highly educated women are relegated to part-time or retail roles – if they reenter the workforce at all. In 2021, 39% of women workers were in part-time employment, compared to 15% of men, according to the OECD.

    Tokyo is hoping to address some of these problems, so that working women today will become working mothers tomorrow. The metropolitan government is starting to subsidize egg freezing, so that women have a better chance of a successful pregnancy if they decide to have a baby later in life.

    New parents in Japan already get a “baby bonus” of thousands of dollars to cover medical costs. For singles? A state sponsored dating service powered by Artificial Intelligence.

    Kaoru Harumashi works on cedar wood to make a barrel.

    Whether such measures can turn the tide, in urban or rural areas, remains to be seen. But back in the countryside, Kawakami village offers a precautionary tale of what can happen if demographic declines are not reversed.

    Along with its falling population, many of its traditional crafts and ways of life are at risk of dying out.

    Among the villagers who took turns holding the young Kentaro was Kaoru Harumashi, a lifelong resident of Kawakami village in his 70s. The master woodworker has formed a close bond with the boy, teaching him how to carve the local cedar from surrounding forests.

    “He calls me grandpa, but if a real grandpa lived here, he wouldn’t call me grandpa,” he said. “My grandson lives in Kyoto and I don’t get to see him often. I probably feel a stronger affection for Kentaro, whom I see more often, even though we are not related by blood.”

    Both of Harumashi’s sons moved away from the village years ago, like many other young rural residents do in Japan.

    “If the children don’t choose to continue living in the village, they will go to the city,” he said.

    When the Yokoboris moved to Kawakami village about a decade ago, they had no idea most residents were well past retirement age. Over the years, they’ve watched older friends pass away and longtime community traditions fall by the wayside.

    “There are not enough people to maintain villages, communities, festivals, and other ward organizations, and it is becoming impossible to do so,” Miho said.

    “The more I get to know people, I mean elderly people, the more I feel sadness that I have to say goodbye to them. Life is actually going on with or without the village,” she said. “At the same time, it is very sad to see the surrounding, local people dwindling away.”

    Kaoru Harumashi is a lifelong villager. Kentaro calls him grandpa.

    If that sounds depressing, perhaps it’s because in recent years, Japan’s battle to boost the birthrate has given few reasons for optimism.

    Still, a small ray of hope may just be discernible in the story of the Yokoboris. Kentaro’s birth was unusual not only because the village had waited so long, but because his parents had moved to the countryside from the city – bucking the decades old trend in which the young increasingly plump for the 24/7 convenience of Japanese city life.

    Some recent surveys suggest more young people like them are considering the appeals of country life, lured by the low cost of living, clean air, and low stress lifestyles that many see as vital to having families. One study of residents in the Tokyo area found 34% of respondents expressed an interest in moving to a rural area, up from 25.1% in 2019. Among those in their 20s, as many as 44.9% expressed an interest.

    The Yokoboris say starting a family would have been far more difficult – financially and personally – if they still lived in the city.

    Their decision to move was triggered by a Japanese national tragedy twelve years ago. On March 11, 2011, an earthquake shook the ground violently for several minutes across much of the country, triggering tsunami waves taller than a 10-story building that devastated huge swaths of the east coast and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

    Miho was an office worker in Tokyo at the time. She remembers feeling helpless as daily life in Japan’s largest city fell apart.

    “Everyone was panicking, so it was like a war, although I have never experienced a war. It was like having money but not being able to buy water. All the transportation was closed, so you couldn’t use it. I felt very weak,” she recalled.

    The tragedy was a moment of awakening for Miho and Hirohito, who was working as a graphic designer at the time.

    “The things I had been relying on suddenly felt unreliable, and I felt that I was actually living in a very unstable place. I felt that I had to secure such a place by myself,” he said.

    The couple found that place in one of Japan’s most remote areas, Nara prefecture. It is a land of majestic mountains and tiny townships, tucked away along winding roads beneath towering cedar trees taller than most of the buildings.

    They quit their jobs in the city and moved to a simple mountain house, where they run a small bed and breakfast. He learned the art of woodworking and specializes in producing cedar barrels for Japanese sake breweries. She is a full-time homemaker. They raise chickens, grow vegetables, chop wood, and care for Kentaro, who’s about to enter the first grade.

    The big question, for both Kawakami village and the rest of Japan: Is Kentaro’s birth a sign of better times to come – or a miracle birth in a dying way of life.

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  • New Mexico governor signs bill protecting access to reproductive and gender-affirming care into law | CNN Politics

    New Mexico governor signs bill protecting access to reproductive and gender-affirming care into law | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday signed into law a bill that prohibits local municipalities and other public bodies from inferring with a person’s ability to access reproductive or gender-affirming health care services.

    HB7, the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care Freedom Act, also prohibits any public body from imposing laws, ordinances, policies or regulations that prevent patients from receiving reproductive or gender-affirming care.

    The move comes in the wake of the reversal of federal abortion rights last year and as several states have enacted measures to prevent minors from accessing gender-affirming care.

    Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender – the gender by which one wants to be known.

    “New Mexicans in every corner of our state deserve protections for their bodily autonomy and right to health care,” Lujan Grisham said in a media release. “I’m grateful for the hard work of the Legislature and community partners in getting this critical legislation across the finish line.”

    Each violation of the law can result in a fine of $5,000 or damages, if the amount is greater, according to the bill.

    The law follows ordinances that several municipalities in the state had previously passed related to abortion care access after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

    While abortion is legal in New Mexico, several GOP-led states have introduced or enacted measures restricting abortion, including Texas and Oklahoma, which have banned the procedure at all stages of pregnancy with limited exceptions. In response, New Mexico, which neighbors both states, allocated $10 million to build a new abortion clinic near the Texas border.

    Several other Democratic-controlled states have moved to reaffirm reproductive care in response to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling.

    Minnesota’s Democratic governor signed a bill into law earlier this year that enshrined the “fundamental right” to access abortion in the state. Last year, California passed several bills expanding abortion access, including protections for abortion providers and patients seeking abortion care in the state from civil action started in another state.

    As states move to enact measures, new legal challenges could further complicate abortion access in a post-Roe America.

    A federal court in Texas heard arguments this week to block the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in a medication abortion, which made up more than half of US abortions in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Though the Trump-appointed judge has not issued a ruling, he suggested during arguments that he is seriously considering undoing the FDA’s approval.

    Also at risk is access to gender-affirming care for trans youth, which LGBTQ advocates have long stressed is life-saving health care.

    So far this year, lawmakers in Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah and South Dakota have enacted legislation to restrict minors’ access to such care.

    Additionally, more than 80 bills seeking to restrict access to gender-affirming care have been introduced around the country through early last month, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union and shared with CNN.

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  • 19th century chastity law endangers 21st century abortion medicine | CNN Politics

    19th century chastity law endangers 21st century abortion medicine | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    The Wild West of the post-Roe v. Wade legal landscape is focused on a lone federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, who could use a 19th century law to limit access to abortion medication for every American woman.

    The judge, 45-year-old Matthew Kacsmaryk, held a hearing Wednesday about whether he should impose a preliminary injunction that would require the US Food and Drug Administration to withdraw or suspend its approval of the drug, mifepristone, while a larger case progresses.

    Mifepristone is taken along with another drug, misoprostol, as part of the two-step medication abortion process. Misoprostol can be prescribed on its own, but it is considered less effective.

    Kacsmaryk, who sounded open to the idea of restricting access to mifepristone, will have to agree with some or all of these general points raised if he decides to issue an injunction:

    • That doctors who don’t perform abortions and live in Texas, where abortions are already banned, are harmed by abortions conducted elsewhere.
    • That an FDA approval conducted over the course of four years and finalized 23 years ago was so flawed that it should be rescinded.
    • That a single federal judge in Amarillo should do what no federal judge has ever done and unilaterally rescind an FDA approval.
    • That a drug, which studies suggest is on par with ibuprofen in terms of safety, is actually so harmful it should be reconsidered by the FDA.

    CNN’s Tierney Sneed wrote a longer list of takeaways from the hearing, where anti-abortion rights doctors and activist groups teed up their lawsuit in Kacsmaryk’s courtroom to further limit access to abortion care in the US.

    It’s important to note that no matter what Kacsmaryk does, it will be appealed up through the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals and potentially to the Supreme Court.

    But perhaps the most incredible question Kacsmaryk faces is whether an 1870s chastity law named for an anti-vice crusader, Anthony Comstock, should be resuscitated and applied to the medicine that now accounts for a majority of US abortions.

    Comstock operated the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and was a special agent of the US Postal Service. He was known for seizing contraband like contraceptives and condoms in the name of rooting out obscenity, according to the New York Historical Society.

    Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis who has written about the Comstock Act for CNN Opinion, described Comstock as being “obsessed by what he saw as the decaying morals of a country preoccupied with sex.”

    Ziegler writes:

    The law he inspired barred not just the mailing of “obscene books” but also birth control and abortion drugs and devices. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Comstock Act was used to prohibit the mailing of many literary classics, from Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” to works by James Joyce and Walt Whitman.

    Comstock himself proudly carried a gun and scoured the mail for cases involving information about abortion or contraception, even if a doctor provided it. By Comstock’s standard, the law was a great success: he claimed to have destroyed 15 tons of books, arrested more than 4,000 people and driven at least 15 people to suicide.

    While Congress has acted to relax elements of the Comstock Act, including to allow the mailing of contraceptives, it is still technically on the books with regard to the mailing of anything that could be used for an abortion.

    During the Covid-19 pandemic, the FDA dropped its requirement that a person obtain mifepristone in person. A prescription is still required.

    In December, the Department of Justice notified the US Postal Service that the Comstock Act did not apply as long as “the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully.”

    The FDA permanently removed the in-person requirement in January, hoping to guarantee more access to the medication after the Supreme Court ended Roe v. Wade last June.

    The group that brought the Texas lawsuit, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, wants to reapply the Comstock Act and restrict the mailing of abortion medication.

    The FDA’s already exhaustive and detailed drug approval process was especially scrutinized for mifepristone, which was more commonly known as part of the RU-486 regimen when it became available to American women at the turn of the century.

    It had been available in Europe for a dozen years before that. Here’s CNN’s report from September 2000.

    That the drug works safely as a means of abortion is not really up for dispute as a medical matter after all that time, according to CNN’s Jen Christensen, who explains more about the medication in this article about mifepristone.

    Another CNN data analysis suggests mifepristone is safer than penicillin and Viagra.

    Mifepristone has a death rate of 0.0005% – five deaths for every 1 million people in the US who used it. Penicillin’s death rate is four times greater. Viagra’s is 10 times greater, according to the analysis by CNN’s Annette Choi and Will Mullery.

    Kacsmaryk had a long history of challenging laws providing greater access to reproductive rights before he became a federal judge. While he has promised to be an impartial judge, every Democrat and one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, opposed his nomination in 2019.

    Now Kacsmaryk is the only federal judge at the courthouse in Amarillo, which almost guarantees he hears cases filed there.

    So it may be no coincidence that the group challenging use of mifepristone set up an outpost months before filing its lawsuit. The group is based in Tennessee, but one of the doctors named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit practices near Amarillo.

    However one feels about judicial shopping and whether that happened in this case, the word appears to be out that a conservative judge is alone in Amarillo and open for business.

    According to a CNN profile, Kacsmaryk has also put on hold Biden administration policies related to immigration and overseen cases related to vaccine requirements and gender identity. Last December, he halted a federal program in Texas that allowed minors to get birth control without their parents’ consent.

    That suit regarding the birth control program established in 1970 was brought by a Texas father “raising each of his daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on matters of sexuality,” which he said forbids premarital sex.

    Kacsmaryk agreed, even citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church in his decision to say “contraception (just like abortion) violates traditional tenets of many faiths, including the Christian faith Plaintiff practices.”

    His sister described him to The Washington Post as an anti-abortion rights activist and detailed her own decision to give a child up for adoption rather than seek an abortion.

    “He’s very passionate about the fact that you can’t preach pro-life and do nothing,” Jennifer Griffith told the Post. “We both hold the stance of you have to do something. You can’t not.”

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  • Takeaways from the Texas hearing on medication abortion drugs | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from the Texas hearing on medication abortion drugs | CNN Politics

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    Amarillo, Texas
    CNN
     — 

    Over the course of about four hours of arguments, a federal judge in Texas asked questions that suggested he is seriously considering undoing the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a medication abortion drug and the agency’s moves to relax the rules around its use.

    But the judge, US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, also indicated he was thinking through scenarios in which he could keep the drug’s 2000 approval intact while blocking other FDA rules.

    Anti-abortion doctors and medical associations are seeking a preliminary injunction that would require the FDA to withdraw or suspend its approval of the drug, mifepristone, and that would block the agency’s more recent regulatory changes making the pills more accessible.

    Here are takeaways from the hearing:

    Kacsmaryk showed a particular interest in the arguments by the abortion opponents that the FDA approved mifepristone in an unlawful way.

    He zeroed in on a claim by the abortion foes that the studies that the FDA looked at when deciding whether to approve the drug did not match the conditions under which the agency allows it to be administered.

    Erik Baptist, attorney for the challengers, alleged that those studies all featured patients who received ultrasounds before being treated with the drug, which is not among the FDA’s requirements for prescribing abortion pills. Baptist accused the FDA of “examining oranges and declaring apples to be safe.”

    Kacsmaryk returned to that “apples to oranges” argument several times throughout the hearing.

    Justice Department attorney Daniel Schwei defended the FDA’s approach, arguing that the relevant law gives the FDA discretion to determine what studies are adequate for approving a drug’s safety. He also said the challengers’ claims were factually flawed, because the FDA also was looking at studies where the patients did not receive an ultrasound.

    Kacsmaryk was similarly focused on a claim by the plaintiffs that the FDA violated the law in the special, accelerated process that it used to approve mifepristone in 2000.

    At one point the judge revealed in the hearing that he had downloaded a list of the other drugs the FDA had approved through the process. He ticked through the list of drugs, which were made up mostly of treatments for HIV and cancer, and he asked the Justice Department for its “best argument” for why mifepristone fit into the list.

    One of the sharpest questions from the judge was whether the anti-abortion activists could point to another analogous case when a court intervened in the way he is being asked to intervene here.

    Baptist conceded there was none and blamed FDA delays in addressing citizen petitions and challenges. Later in the hearing, Baptist raised other times the FDA had suspended or withdrawn drugs based on court cases in other contexts, arguing those cases showed that Kascmaryk had the authority to grant the plaintiffs’ request.

    Attorneys for the defendants – which include both the FDA and a drug company that manufactures mifepristone and intervened in the case – pushed back on those examples. They said that the plaintiffs were relying on patent cases, where the dispute was between a brand name drug and a generic counterpart, and those examples were not analogous here.

    The medication abortion lawsuit targets actions the FDA took around medication abortion pills before last summer’s Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade’s abortion rights protections.

    While that decision, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, didn’t play a major role in Wednesday’s arguments, the judge referenced it and suggested it could have an impact on his thinking about the case.

    He brought up Dobbs early on in the hearing and raised it specifically in connection with a friend of the court brief filed by 22 GOP-led states supporting the challengers.

    The judge noted that the red states’ brief argued that the FDA’s actions were infringing on their state laws concerning abortion pills.

    He asked Erin Hawley, an attorney for the challengers, whether Dobbs was an “intervening event” that has “changed the landscape” around the relationship between state and federal government concerning abortion policy.

    Hawley agreed, calling it a “sea change.”

    If Kacsmaryk has any sore feelings over the blow up around his efforts to keep Wednesday’s hearing plans quiet, he didn’t show them at the proceedings.

    When questioning both sides of the case, Kacsmaryk had a restrained, straight-forward tone. He had occasional follow-up questions for the plaintiffs, but did not aggressively push back on their arguments. The substance of his questions for the FDA’s defenders was more skeptical, but he kept with the measured approach in his questioning, and avoided any pushiness when grilling the government and the drug company about the approval process.

    At the end of the hearing, he thanked the parties, as well as those who filed dozens of friend of the courts briefs, for their “superb” briefing. He also acknowledged the logistical hurdles the lawyers at the hearing went through to get to his courthouse in Amarillo, which is a several hours’ drive from Texas’ biggest cities.

    Left unmentioned by the judge was the fact that he tried to delay the announcement of the hearing until the evening before, which would have made it difficult for members of the public and the media to attend Wednesday’s proceedings. When there was blowback to The Washington Post reporting about his plan – laid out in a private teleconference with attorneys where he pointed to death threats and harassment that had been directed to the courthouse staff – he announced the hearing on Monday.

    The courtroom was open to the public, but only with limited seating: 19 seats for reporters and 19 for members of the public. By 6 a.m. CT Wednesday there were already lines outside the courtroom to claim those seats. Those attendees were not allowed to bring electronics in with them, and if they left the courthouse, they were not allowed back in.

    Kacsmaryk warned at the beginning of the hearing that anyone who disrupted the proceedings would be immediately removed without warning. But there were no such disruptions.

    Kacsmaryk wrapped up the hearing without any explicit timeline for when he’ll rule, telling the parties he would issue an order and opinion “as soon as possible.”

    While he was arguing, Schwei, the DOJ attorney, requested that the judge – if he were to rule against the FDA – to immediately put that ruling on pause so it could be appealed. The judge stopped short of promising an automatic stay in the event of an adverse ruling, but he acknowledged he understood what DOJ was asking for.

    An appeal would first go to a panel of three judges of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, arguably the most conservative appeals court in the country. The panel’s decision could then be appealed either to the full 5th Circuit or the US Supreme Court.

    Beyond these procedural questions, Kacsmaryk seemed to be grappling with the practical impact of a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs. He asked plaintiffs’ attorneys, the DOJ lawyers and the attorneys for the drug company Danco whether it would be possible for him to block some but not all of the FDA actions the challengers were targeting. He returned to the question again when the plaintiffs were back up for the rebuttal.

    He also pressed Baptist, the attorney for the abortion opponents, on whether the plaintiffs were seeking an order that the FDA begin the withdrawal of the drug – a process that would take months – or if they thought the judge could directly take if off the market.

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  • First on CNN: Kamala Harris to make first trip to Iowa since becoming vice president | CNN Politics

    First on CNN: Kamala Harris to make first trip to Iowa since becoming vice president | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday will make her first trip to Iowa since taking office for an abortion rights event, a White House official told CNN.

    Harris will travel to Des Moines to convene a roundtable with local leaders about the fight to protect reproductive rights.

    The last-minute, high-profile trip comes after flurry of activity from Republicans presidential hopefuls who’ve descended on the early caucus state, like former President and current candidate Donald Trump and potential 2024 GOP candidate Ron DeSantis. GOP politicians have begun to woo caucus-goers who favor personal politicking, as the state is set to play its traditional role in kicking off the party’s 2024 nominating contest.

    President Joe Biden, who is expected to launch a 2024 reelection bid, has been absent from the state after urging national Democrats to replace Iowa first-in-the-nation caucuses with South Carolina, a primary state where the majority of Democratic voters are Black, which propelled him to the nomination in 2020. The Democratic National Committee adopted the president’s changes last month but the vice president’s visit to Iowa underscores how Democrats do not intend to fully abandon the state, despite its Republican-leaning trends.

    Harris’ trip will also come a day after a federal judge overseeing a challenge to the federal government’s approval of a medication abortion drug will hold a hearing in the case. The vice president has become the Biden administration’s lead messenger on the issue after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, holding that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion.

    This week, she slammed attacks on medication abortion and warned that preventing doctors from prescribing mifepristone, the first drug in the medication abortion process, could have wider ramifications.

    “But if extremists and politicians can override FDA approval and remove one medication from the shelves – in this case, abortion medication – one must ask: What medication is next?” Harris said in a recent press call with local media and coalition outlets.

    Harris has held dozens of events on access to abortion care since last year, meeting with activists and state lawmakers about abortion rights in deep red and swing states.

    Recently, Iowa State House Republicans introduced a bill that would ban all abortions in the state, determining that life begins at conception. Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled last year that the state Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion, clearing the way for the state’s Republican legislative majority to potentially enact stricter abortion measures.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Media outlets urge judge to announce his plans for a hearing in blockbuster medication abortion case | CNN Politics

    Media outlets urge judge to announce his plans for a hearing in blockbuster medication abortion case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Several media organizations asked a federal judge on Monday to publicly announce his plans to hold a hearing Wednesday in a blockbuster medication abortion case after the judge reportedly moved to keep the hearing under wraps.

    “Across the ideological spectrum, the public is intensely interested in this case,” the organizations wrote in their letter to US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.

    The case concerns a challenge brought by anti-abortion doctors and medical associations to the federal government’s 2000 approval of a drug used to terminate pregnancies. Medication abortion is the most common method of abortion in the United States.

    “The Court’s delayed docketing of notice of Wednesday’s hearing, and its request to the parties and their counsel not to disclose the hearing schedule publicly, harm everyone, including those who support the plaintiffs’ position and those who support the defendants’ position,” the media outlets added.

    At 7 weeks pregnant she wanted an abortion. Here’s why she turned to a doctor in Austria

    The letter pointed to reporting by The Washington Post on Saturday that said on Friday, Kacsmaryk held a private phone call with the lawyers in the case and told them he was scheduling a hearing for Wednesday but not announcing those plans on the case’s docket until Tuesday evening. The judge reportedly told the lawyers not to publicize the hearing plans in the meantime.

    Kacsmaryk is currently considering the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction that would “withdrawal or suspend” that approval while the lawsuit plays out.

    If the judge grants the request to block access to the drug nationwide, it could make the pills harder to obtain even in states where medication abortion is legal.

    The media outlets told Kacsmaryk that the “Court’s attempt to delay notice of and, therefore, limit the ability of members of the public, including the press, to attend Wednesday’s hearing is unconstitutional, and undermines the important values served by public access to judicial proceedings and court records.”

    Kacsmaryk’s courtroom is in Amarillo, Texas – a division in the northern Texas panhandle that is a several hours’ drive from Texas’ biggest cities and accessible only by a limited number of direct flights.

    According to the Post, Kacsmaryk told the case’s lawyers he was holding off until Tuesday to announce the Wednesday hearing to limit the potential for protests and disruptions to the proceedings.

    “The Court cannot constitutionally close the courtroom indirectly when it cannot constitutionally close the courtroom directly,” the media outlets wrote.

    “The United States Supreme Court has made clear that, because of our historical tradition of public access to judicial proceedings, and because of the structural necessity of such access to ensure government transparency and accountability, the circumstances in which a courtroom can be closed without violating the First Amendment and common law rights of access are rare.”

    The organizations signing onto the letter are the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, The Washington Post, NBCUniversal News Group, ProPublica, Inc., Texas Press Association, The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, The Markup, and Gannett Co., Inc.

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  • Washington Post: Judge keeps plans for medication abortion hearing out of public view for now | CNN Politics

    Washington Post: Judge keeps plans for medication abortion hearing out of public view for now | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge has set a hearing for next week in a blockbuster medication abortion case in Texas but took a series of highly unusual steps to delay making the public aware that such a hearing was being scheduled, The Washington Post reported.

    US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who is hearing the case, held a private call Friday with the case’s lawyers and scheduled the hearing for Wednesday, according to the Post. The call was not publicly noticed on the case’s docket, nor did the judge issue a public order announcing that Wednesday’s hearing had been scheduled. The case is not under seal.

    In the case, anti-abortion doctors are asking the judge – an appointee of former President Donald Trump – to undo the federal government’s 2000 approval of pills used to terminate a pregnancy. Such a move could cut off access nationwide to the most common method of abortion.

    Kacsmaryk told the lawyers on the call, according to the newspaper, that he would hold off on publicly announcing the Wednesday hearing until Tuesday evening, so as to limit disruptions and potential protests at the proceeding. He also asked that the attorneys on the call – which reportedly included the Justice Department’s lawyers who are defending the drug’s approval, lawyers for the anti-abortion activists who are challenging it, and lawyers for a company that distributes the drug and has intervened in the case – not to publicize the hearing plans before then.

    The judge’s efforts to limit transparency around Wednesday’s hearing comes in a case that has major implications for access to abortion and is arguably the biggest legal battle over the procedure since the Supreme Court overturned nationwide abortion protections in a ruling last June.

    Voicemails left by CNN on Sunday morning with the court’s clerk’s office and with Kacsmaryk’s chambers about the Post’s Saturday night report were not immediately returned.

    The case is unfolding in Amarillo – a far-flung court division in Texas’ northern panhandle that is a several hours’ drive from the state’s biggest cities and has only limited direct flight routes. Federal judicial proceedings typically play out in public.

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  • Michigan Senate votes to repeal 1931 abortion ban | CNN Politics

    Michigan Senate votes to repeal 1931 abortion ban | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Michigan state Senate on Wednesday voted to repeal the state’s 1931 abortion ban as well as its sentencing guidelines.

    The bills were passed 20-18, along party lines in the Democratic-controlled Senate after passing the House last week and were sent to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her signature. Democrats control the governor’s office and the state legislature for the first time in four decades.

    Whitmer has been a vocal supporter of abortion rights, using the issue as a driving force in her 2022 reelection campaign. The governor filed a lawsuit against several county prosecutors in her state last year in an attempt to prevent the 1931 ban from taking effect after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

    The Michigan law, which was invalidated by the 1973 high court decision but remained on the state’s books, prohibits abortions even in cases of rape or incest, except to preserve the woman’s life.

    Michigan state Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks previously told CNN one of the first priorities of the new legislature would be to repeal the ban that was put back in play after the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer.

    In September, a state court declared the abortion ban unconstitutional and blocked it from being enforced, allowing abortion to remain legal in the state.

    Michigan voters enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution during the midterms, a move that was intended to help block the ban from taking effect.

    But reproductive rights advocates see the bills’ passage through the legislature as “major step forward.”

    “This is proof positive that elections matter,” Mini Timmaraju, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement. “Michiganders made clear in the midterms that they overwhelmingly support reproductive freedom, and repealing this oppressive pre-Roe ban sends an unmistakable signal that Michigan will always fight for abortion access.”

    Democratic state senators celebrated the bills’ passage in the legislature Wednesday.

    “My abortion was necessary to save my life,” state Sen. Rosemary Bayer said on Twitter. “I’m glad I’m here today because of that, and to be able to vote on this bill and ensure this life-saving healthcare is protected and kept safe and legal here in Michigan.”

    Republicans in the Michigan state Senate, however, oppose the new effort and have described it as “dangerous.”

    “While Senate Republicans have introduced legislation to strengthen safeguards for women, Senate Democrats are rushing dangerous bills to repeal long-standing protections for women and the unborn,” GOP state Sen. Joseph Bellino said in a statement.

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  • Newsom to shut Walgreens out of California state business following abortion pill decision | CNN Politics

    Newsom to shut Walgreens out of California state business following abortion pill decision | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    California will cease all its business with Walgreens, the retail drugstore chain, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Monday, days after the company announced it would not dispense abortion medication in 21 Republican-dominated states.

    “California won’t be doing business with @walgreens – or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk,” the Democratic governor tweeted. “We’re done.”

    Newsom’s pushback came at an already fraught time for the future of medication abortion, which is used in more than half of all procedures nationwide, as a Texas judge weighs issuing a ban on Mifepristone, the first pill in a two-drug abortion regimen. Walgreens had responded to legal pressure from Republican attorneys general in 21 states – including a handful where abortion remains legal – in deciding to partially halt its efforts to sell the drug.

    “We intend to be a certified pharmacy and will distribute Mifepristone only in those jurisdictions where it is legal and operationally feasible,” the company said last week in a statement.

    Walgreens declined to comment on Newsom’s tweet.

    The clash between Newsom and Walgreens, a massive chain with thousands of stores around the country, marks the latest round of fallout following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The ruling, handed down in June of last year, shook up national politics ahead of the 2022 midterms – with many Democrats crediting the backlash for helping their candidates in tough, swing state and seat races – and complicated relationships between political and business leaders.

    The state is currently “reviewing all relationships between Walgreens and the state,” said Newsom spokesman Brandon Richards. He also accused the company of giving in to “right wing bullies.”

    Newsom’s office announced Wednesday that California would be “pulling back” a renewal of a $54 million contract with Walgreens that would have taken effect May 1, 2023.

    California’s Department of General Services holds a contract with the retailer “to procure specialty pharmacy prescription drugs,” mostly used by the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and its correctional health care system, Newsom’s office said in a news release.

    The state will explore other options “for furnishing the same services,” his office said.

    CNN has reached out to Walgreens for comment on Wednesday’s announcement.

    Late last week, Democratic California state Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a statement slamming Walgreens for bowing to political pressure from GOP officials.

    “Medication abortion is safe, effective, and serves as a lifeline for people in need of critical care, especially those from vulnerable and underserved communities,” Bonta said on Friday. “I am disappointed that Walgreens has decided to give in to political pressure from anti-abortion states, and cut off access to these necessary and lifesaving medications.”

    The company on Monday sought to clarify its position, though their latest statement only added to the confusion.

    “Walgreens plans to dispense Mifepristone in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so,” the company said. Medication abortion is legal and accessible in states like Kansas and Iowa, among others, despite opposition from top Republicans, who have threatened legal action.

    In a letter addressed to Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, an anti-abortion Republican, from last month, Walgreens said it “does not intend to dispense Mifepristone within your state and does not intend to ship Mifepristone into your state from any of our pharmacies.”

    Abortion remains protected under Kansas state law. Last summer, the state voted overwhelmingly to block efforts by lawmakers to ban the procedure following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade less than two months earlier.

    The US Food and Drug Administration said in early January that pharmacies certified to dispense Mifepristone can do so directly to someone who has a prescription from a prescriber.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Texas sued by women who say state’s abortion bans put their health at risk | CNN Politics

    Texas sued by women who say state’s abortion bans put their health at risk | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Several women who say Texas’ abortion bans posed significant risks to their health have sued the state this week, opening a new front in the legal battles that have emerged since the Supreme Court overturned national abortion rights protections last year.

    Five women allege in the lawsuit that uncertainty around when medical emergency exemptions in Texas’ abortion laws apply exacerbated medical emergencies that put their lives, health and fertility in danger.

    “To the extent Texas’s abortion bans bar the provision of abortion to pregnant people to treat medical conditions that pose a risk to the pregnant person’s life or a significant risk to their health,” the lawsuit says, “the Bans violate pregnant people’s” rights under the state constitution’s provisions protecting fundamental rights and the right to equality.

    The lawsuit is not seeking to block Texas’ abortion bans outright. Rather, the women – who are joined by two medical providers in the lawsuit – ask the court to clarify that abortions can be performed when a physician makes a “good faith judgment” that “the pregnant person has a physical emergent medical condition that poses a risk of death or a risk to their health (including their fertility).”

    The women’s complaint details harrowing stories of being denied abortion care when they faced emergency complications in their pregnancies, which were all wanted. They filed the lawsuit in state court in Austin, Texas.

    Texas, its Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Texas Medical Board and its Executive Director Stephen Brint Carlton are listed as defendants in the lawsuit. Neither Paxton’s office nor a spokesperson for the state medical board responded to a request for comment from CNN. Gov. Greg Abbott’s office also did not immediately respond to CNN’s inquiry.

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  • DeSantis agenda — and potential campaign platform — in the spotlight as Florida lawmakers return to work | CNN Politics

    DeSantis agenda — and potential campaign platform — in the spotlight as Florida lawmakers return to work | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    In the coming weeks, Gov. Ron DeSantis is poised to show Floridians – and the country – just how much further he is willing to go than any other Republican leader to turn his state into a conservative vision where abortion is nearly outlawed, guns can be carried in public without training, private schools are subsidized with taxpayer dollars and “wokeness” is excised.

    DeSantis’ agenda is expected to dominate the debate in Tallahassee when state lawmakers return to action on Tuesday for what is perhaps the most anticipated legislative session in recent memory. With a decision on his presidential ambitions waiting on the other side of the 60-day session, DeSantis has hyped the humdrum of parliamentary proceedings and legislative sausage-making into a spectacle worth following.

    “People look at Florida like, ‘Man, the governor has gotten a lot done,’” DeSantis told “Fox & Friends” last month. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

    With DeSantis’ backing or urging, Republican lawmakers have filed a slate of bills that will keep Florida at the forefront of the culture wars that are raging in statehouses across the country. There are legislative proposals targeting drag shows, treatments for transgender children, diversity and equity programs at public universities, gender studies majors, professor tenure, teachers unions, libel protections for the media, so-called “woke” banking and in-state college tuition for undocumented residents. Other proposals would extend DeSantis’ powers as governor, including to control the hiring of professors on every public campus through his political appointees and put him in charge of picking the board that oversees scholastic athletics in the state. Another would amend a longstanding “resign to run” law so DeSantis could launch a bid for president without stepping down as Florida governor.

    Though no governor in Florida’s modern history has wielded executive power or the bully pulpit quite like DeSantis, it’s the closely aligned, Republican-held legislature that has handed the governor many of the policy wins that have fueled his political rise. Already this year, the legislature has met in special session to shore up several of DeSantis’ priorities, including the freedom to transport migrants from anywhere in the country to Democratic jurisdictions and fewer hurdles for his new election crime office to charge people for voting errors and violations.

    Lawmakers in the special session also approved DeSantis’ plans for a takeover of Disney’s special government powers – punishment for the entertainment giant’s objection last year to the Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics, which prohibited the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity until after third grade. Under the new law, DeSantis chooses the board members that oversee the taxing district around Disney’s Orlando-area theme parks. Last week, he appointed to the board a political donor, the wife of the state GOP chairman and a former pastor who once suggested tap water could turn people gay.

    Now, lawmakers have proposed taking up the legislation at the heart of that feud once again, by extending the prohibited topics in the Parental Rights in Education law to eighth grade. The bill also declares “it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex” and it prohibits school districts from requiring teachers or other employees to use a student’s preferred name or pronouns.

    For his part, DeSantis will deliver the state of the state address on Tuesday and then spend much of the following weeks on the road to promote his new book, “The Courage to be Free,” a memoir transfixed on the political battles from his first term. It will be up to Republican lawmakers to give DeSantis fresh material from which he can build a narrative for a presidential campaign, should he choose to run. DeSantis has said he intends to decide after the session if he will jump into the 2024 contest.

    Privately, DeSantis’ political team believes that as a sitting governor, DeSantis’ ability to stack policy wins is critical to mounting a campaign against former President Donald Trump. Like Trump and former Gov. Nikki Haley, the only other major declared candidate, many potential contenders for the nomination are out of office and unable to dictate an agenda for other Republicans to match. And, unlike DeSantis, their records may not reflect what animates GOP primary voters at the moment.

    In a speech behind closed doors last week to the conservative Club for Growth, DeSantis also suggested he is a singular force among elected Republicans in pushing the party to engage in ideological battles.

    “I’m going on offense,” DeSantis said, according to audio of his speech obtained by CNN. “Some of these Republicans, they just sit back like potted plants, and they let the media define the terms of the debate. They let the left define the terms of debate. They take all this incoming, because they’re not making anything happen. And I said, ‘That’s not what we’re doing.’”

    Democrats, a perennial minority in Tallahassee with even fewer members after the last election, have little recourse to stop DeSantis and Republican lawmakers. Democrats have asserted that the Republican agenda is failing to address the problems many Floridians are facing, including skyrocketing rents, a housing shortage and fast-rising property insurance rates.

    “Just a reminder, eggs are still $5 for a dozen,” Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book said Monday. “It’s $3.50 for a gallon of gas. If you live in the state of Florida in a high rise, you still have to buy flood insurance. But the Republicans want to fight about drag and which bathroom people use.”

    Still, there are signs of dissent among Republicans in how hard to push on several fronts. Some Republicans have raised concern at the price tag for a DeSantis-backed expansion of a school voucher program that currently allows low-income parents to offset the cost of sending their children to private and religious school. Under the latest proposal, the program would be open to virtually all parents regardless of income, including those who choose to home school their kids.

    At a committee meeting last week, state Sen. Erin Grall, a Republican, warned that the “potential for abuse rises significantly with the dollar amount and keeping a child at home.”

    Republicans also have not settled on a new legislative framework for the future of abortion access in the state. Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, DeSantis signed a bill to ban abortion at 15 weeks without exception. He recently signaled he would support legislation that banned abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected; however, he has not publicly advocated for it with the same fervor as his other priorities. Meanwhile, the state’s Senate President Kathleen Passidomo previously said she wanted a 12-week ban that included exemptions for rape and incest.

    John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, an influential conservative group, said he expects a compromise heartbeat bill will pass that includes some exceptions. Other anti-abortion groups want to see DeSantis sign a complete ban on abortion.

    “While exceptions are important and represent real human beings, the bottom line is they are small in number, so it’s a huge victory even with exceptions and I think the governor and his staff are thinking the same way,” Stemberger said. “He’s certainly committed to signing a heartbeat bill.”

    It remains to be seen, too, how Republicans respond to DeSantis’ immigration agenda. DeSantis has proposed repealing a measure that granted in-state tuition for undocumented students who were brought to the US by their parents. The law, championed by his own lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nuñez, when she was a state representative, was a top priority of his predecessor, then-Gov. Rick Scott, and passed the GOP-controlled legislature with help from many of the party’s Latino members. Additionally, DeSantis wants lawmakers to mandate that employers check the immigration status of all workers against a federal database called E-Verify, a proposal opposed for years by the state’s influential hospitality and agriculture industries that bankroll many Republican campaigns.

    Republicans have also faced pressure from the right on another DeSantis priority: eliminating the state permit to carry a concealed weapon in Florida. Under the proposal, eligible Floridians could carry a concealed gun in Florida without seeking approval from the state, which currently requires proof of training and a background check to obtain.

    While Democrats and gun-control advocates have criticized DeSantis for removing one of the few checks on firearms in the state, gun-rights activists have said the measure doesn’t go far enough. They want Florida to allow people to carry a gun in public in the open and for the state to eliminate gun-free zones. In Florida, it’s currently illegal to carry a firearm at a school or on a college campus.

    “The title of ‘constitutional carry’ for this bill is a lie,” Luis Valdes, the Florida director of Gun Owners of America, said during a recent committee hearing on the bill. “Why are Republicans defending (former Democratic attorney general) Janet Reno’s gun control policies?”

    DeSantis has suggested, at times, that it is up to the legislature to put these bills on his desk. But for some conservatives, DeSantis has set the expectation that he can bully Republican lawmakers into supporting any measure he gets behind.

    DeSantis himself has said his political philosophy is guided by taking political risks that others won’t.

    “Boldness is something that voters reward,” DeSantis said Sunday in California. “The lesson is swing for the fences. You will be rewarded.”

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  • 12 blue states sue FDA, saying it’s too strict in limiting abortion drugs as legal battle over mifepristone heats up | CNN Politics

    12 blue states sue FDA, saying it’s too strict in limiting abortion drugs as legal battle over mifepristone heats up | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Twelve states led by liberal attorneys general announced Friday that they had sued the Food and Drug Administration, saying its limits on mifepristone, one of the two drugs used for medication abortion, are too strict.

    The suit is a possible hedge by states waiting to see how a federal judge in Texas rules in a lawsuit brought by anti-abortion groups seeking to block the FDA’s approval of mifepristone altogether. Conflicting rulings could mean the Supreme Court is asked to sort out the issue.

    RELATED: How a medication abortion, also known as an ‘abortion pill,’ works

    “The federal government has known for years that mifepristone is safe and effective,” Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement. “In the wake of the Supreme Court’s radical decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the FDA is now exposing doctors, pharmacists and patients to unnecessary risk. The FDA’s excessive restrictions on this important drug have no basis in medical science.”

    Mifepristone was first approved in 2000 and medication abortion accounts for more than half of the abortions in the US. It is the first drug, followed by misoprostol, in the medication abortion regimen. Patients and providers must sign agreements stating the drug will be used to end a pregnancy, and pharmacies must have special certification.

    The lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Washington state. The states in the lawsuit are: Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont.

    A lawsuit seeking to block the use of medication abortion nationwide could receive an initial decision at any moment, after the plaintiffs in the case submitted to the court on Friday their final brief on the challenge.

    The lawsuit, filed in November by anti-abortion advocates against FDA, challenges the two-decade-old approval of mifepristone, the first drug in the medication abortion process.

    A decision by US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, in favor of the plaintiffs could have far-reaching consequences since medication abortion now makes up a majority of abortions obtained in the US.

    In the filing submitted Friday, the anti-abortion advocates rehashed many of the arguments they made in earlier briefs. Its submission means that Kacsmaryk could soon rule on a motion by the plaintiffs to temporarily block use of the medication. The judge had previously said that once the February 24 filing deadline ended, “briefing will then be closed on the matter, absent any ‘exceptional or extraordinary circumstances.’”

    Kacsmaryk, however, could also call for a hearing, or ask for additional responses.

    The defendants in the case – the FDA and Danco, which makes mifepristone – argued in separate briefs to the court that a decision against the drug’s approval would be unprecedented and would shutter the drugmaker’s business.

    Reproductive rights advocates have stressed that a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would be devastating, with NARAL Pro-Choice America saying in a statement that if the drug is yanked from the market, “64.5 million women of reproductive age in the US would lose access to medication abortion care, an exponential increase in harm overnight.”

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  • Kentucky Supreme Court ruling allows state’s near-total abortion bans to remain in place for now | CNN Politics

    Kentucky Supreme Court ruling allows state’s near-total abortion bans to remain in place for now | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court of Kentucky ruled Thursday that a lower court wrongfully stopped the enforcement of two state abortion laws, according to court documents.

    The two measures are Kentucky’s so-called trigger law banning the procedure and a separate “heartbeat” law restricting abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy.

    Siding with Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, Justice Debra Hembree Lambert asserted in her opinion that the circuit court “abused its discretion by granting abortion provider’s motion for a temporary injunction.”

    Planned Parenthood, along with an abortion provider represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Kentucky, sued to block Kentucky’s sweeping abortion laws after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

    They filed two complaints challenging the two statutes, which effectively prohibit abortions in Kentucky except in limited circumstances where it is necessary to preserve the life of the mother, according to the opinion.

    The near-total bans outlaw abortion in most instances with no exceptions for rape or incest, making Kentucky one of 13 states that have banned or severely restricted abortion.

    The plaintiffs argued that the laws violate the state’s constitutional rights to privacy, bodily autonomy, and self-determination, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU said in a statement.

    After a circuit court temporarily enjoined the abortion bans last summer, an appellate court judge granted the attorney general’s emergency request to dissolve the injunction, but an appellate panel later recommended that the state’s highest court weigh in on the injunction.

    The Supreme Court of Kentucky ruled that the abortion providers did not have the standing to challenge the six-week ban because they had not argued it violated their own constitutional rights, only those of their patients.

    Although the court found that the abortion providers have standing to challenge the trigger ban, it ruled that the abortion providers did not show they were sufficiently harmed by the ban to warrant a temporary injunction on its enforcement, according to the opinion.

    Instead, the court remanded the case to the lower court to determine the constitutionality of the trigger ban, the opinion stated.

    The opinion does not determine whether the Kentucky Constitution protects the right to receive an abortion, as there was no “appropriate party” to raise the issue in the suit, according to Lambert.

    “Nothing in this opinion shall be construed to prevent an appropriate party from filing suit at a later date,” she said.

    In a statement, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU expressed disappointment with the ruling but said “this fight is not over.”

    “Once again, the Kentucky Supreme Court failed to protect the health and safety of nearly a million people in the state by refusing to reinstate the lower court order blocking the law,” the statement said.

    The statement added, “Even after Kentuckians overwhelmingly voted against an anti-abortion ballot measure, abortion remains banned in the state. We are extremely disappointed in today’s decision, but we will never give up the fight to restore bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom in Kentucky.”

    Cameron called the ruling a “significant victory” Thursday.

    “Since the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade last June, we have vigorously defended Kentucky’s Human Life Protection Act and Heartbeat Law,” he said in a statement. “We are very pleased that Kentucky’s high court has allowed these laws to remain in effect while the case proceeds in circuit court.”

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  • National Archives agrees to give personal tours to activists who say staff asked them to hide anti-abortion attire | CNN Politics

    National Archives agrees to give personal tours to activists who say staff asked them to hide anti-abortion attire | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The National Archives will give “personal tours” to two activists who sued the federal records agency, resolving a days-old lawsuit the pair brought after staff at the museum told them cover up anti-abortion attire during a recent visit.

    A federal lawsuit filed last Wednesday said that the activists were visiting the Washington, DC, museum the same day as the national March for Life in January and “were subject to a pattern of ongoing misconduct by federal government officials, specifically National Archives security officers … who targeted plaintiffs and intentionally chilled their religious speech and expression by requiring plaintiffs to remove or cover their attire because of their pro-life messages.”

    The National Archives quickly issued a statement last week clarifying that its policy allows visitor clothing to “display protest language, including religious and political speech,” and said it would investigate the incident.

    In court papers filed Tuesday by both sides, the museum promised to work with each plaintiff to arrange a “personal tour” of the museum. Under the deal, staff with the National Archives and Records Administration will also extend “a personal apology on that tour regarding the events” that unfolded last month.

    “NARA shall further reiterate to all NARA security officers, as well as all other NARA personnel who interact with the public … that NARA policy expressly allows all visitors to wear t-shirts, hats, buttons, and other similar items, that display protest language, including religious and political speech,” the agreement reads.

    A judge must still approve the agreement.

    Last month’s March for Life event saw scores of anti-abortion activists travel from all over the US to attend the march, which was the first such event held since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year – the primary goal of the annual protest.

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  • What to know about the lawsuit aiming to ban medication abortion drug mifepristone | CNN Politics

    What to know about the lawsuit aiming to ban medication abortion drug mifepristone | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge may rule later this month on a lawsuit seeking to block the use of medication abortion nationwide, in the biggest abortion-related case since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

    The lawsuit, filed in November by anti-abortion advocates against the US Food and Drug Administration, targets the agency’s 20-year-old approval of mifepristone, the first drug in the medication abortion process

    Medication abortion, which now makes up a majority of abortions obtained in the US, has become a particularly acute flashpoint in the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade.

    US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, has extended the briefing deadline in the case until February 24.

    Reproductive rights advocates say that if Kacsmaryk sides with the plaintiffs, “it would eliminate the most commonly used method of abortion care,” according to NARAL Pro-Choice America.

    Here’s what to know about the lawsuit:

    The lawsuit, filed last year by a coalition of anti-abortion national medical associations under the umbrella of the “Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine” and several doctors, is seeking a number of actions by the court, chief among them a preliminary and permanent injunction ordering the FDA “to withdraw mifepristone and misoprostol as FDA-approved chemical abortion drugs and to withdraw defendants’ actions to deregulate these chemical abortion drugs.”

    “After two decades of engaging the FDA to no avail, plaintiffs now ask this court to do what the FDA was and is legally required to do: protect women and girls by holding unlawful, setting aside, and vacating the FDA’s actions to approve chemical abortion drugs and eviscerate crucial safeguards for those who undergo this dangerous drug regimen,” the complaint reads.

    The FDA responded to the lawsuit last month by asking the judge to deny the motion for a preliminary injunction, arguing that issuing one in the matter “would upend the status quo and the reliance interests of patients and doctors who depend on mifepristone, as well as businesses involved with mifepristone distribution.”

    The agency also says a ruling against it would set a dangerous precedent.

    “More generally, if longstanding FDA drug approvals were so easily enjoined, even decades after being issued, pharmaceutical companies would be unable to confidently rely on FDA approval decisions to develop the pharmaceutical-drug infrastructure that Americans depend on to treat a variety of health conditions,” the FDA wrote.

    “A preliminary injunction would interfere with Congress’s decision to entrust FDA with responsibility to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs. In discharging this role, FDA applies its technical expertise to make complex scientific determinations about drugs’ safety and efficacy, and these determinations are entitled to substantial deference.”

    Danco, which makes mifepristone, also made a similar request to the FDA’s in a court filing, stressing that the lawsuit could decimate the company’s business.

    “Danco is a small pharmaceutical company. It sells one drug: Mifeprex,” lawyers for the company wrote in court papers. “Entering the mandatory preliminary injunction plaintiffs seek would force FDA to withdraw approval for Danco’s only product, effectively shuttering Danco’s business.”

    “Congress entrusts decision-making like this with the FDA. And they’re coming in trying to overrule that, saying this medication is unsafe because women bleed. Well, that’s part of having an abortion. It’s also part of having a pregnancy,” said Ryan Brown, an attorney representing Danco in the case. “The bottom line being that they just want to do away with abortion across the board and for any reason.”

    Kacsmaryk was appointed to the court in 2017 by then-President Trump and was confirmed by a 52-46 vote in 2019.

    Since then, he’s helped make Texas a legal graveyard for policies of President Joe Biden’s administration, presiding over 95% of the civil cases brought in Amarillo, Texas.

    In December, Kacsmaryk put on hold the Biden administration’s most recent attempt to end the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program. And he has overseen Texas cases challenging vaccine mandates, the gender identity guidance issued by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the administration’s limits on the use of Covid-19 relief funds for tax cuts.

    Before joining the court, Kacsmaryk served as deputy general counsel at the First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit religious liberty legal group, where he worked mainly on “religious liberty litigation in federal courts and amicus briefs in the US Supreme Court,” according to his White House biography.

    The case is being closely watched by a number of interested parties, including Republican and Democratic state attorneys general. On Friday, two different multi-state coalitions filed amicus briefs with the court urging them to act one way or another in the matter.

    A coalition of 22 Democratic attorneys general urged Kacsmaryk to deny the motion for a preliminary injunction, writing in court papers that “annulling – or even merely limiting – any of the FDA’s actions relating to medication abortion would result in an even more drastic reduction in abortion access across the entire nation, worsening already dire outcomes, deepening entrenched disparities in access to health care, and placing a potentially unbearable strain on the health care system as a whole.”

    And a coalition of 22 Republican attorneys general asked the court to issue the preliminary injunction, arguing the FDA exceeded its authority when it approved the medication.

    “State laws on chemical abortion thus account for the public interests at issue – and they do so with the benefit of democratic legitimacy (and legal authority). The FDA’s actions can make no such claim. By obstructing the judgments of elected representatives, the agency has undermined the public interest,” they wrote.

    Abortion rights advocates have sounded the alarm on the case, stressing that a ruling by Kacsmaryk in favor of the plaintiffs would affect every corner of the country since the lawsuit is targeting a federal agency.

    “If FDA approval of mifepristone is revoked, 64.5 million women of reproductive age in the US would lose access to medication abortion care, an exponential increase in harm overnight,” NARAL said in a statement on Friday, pointing to internal research.

    “This research reveals the high stakes of this lawsuit, and we can only expect the worst from this Trump-appointed federal judge. Americans want access to abortion, but anti-choice bad actors are dead set on restricting reproductive freedom by any means possible,” said Angela Vasquez-Giroux, the group’s vice president of communications and research.

    And activists are mobilizing in Texas around the issue, with the Women’s March planning to hold a rally at the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas, on Saturday.

    “We’ve said it before: the fight for reproductive rights now lies in the states, and legal challenges like these are just the latest example of how our fight is bigger than Roe,” said Rachel Carmona, the executive director of Women’s March.

    On Thursday, Kacsmaryk told the plaintiffs that they had until February 24 to respond to a recent filing by the Danco, writing in an order that following the deadline, “briefing will then be closed on the matter, absent any ‘exceptional or extraordinary circumstances.’”

    On Friday, the plaintiffs in the case submitted one response to the FDA’s filing. But the deadline extension means that after the plaintiffs submit a separate response to Danco, the case is ripe for judgment since all required briefings will have been filed.

    Kacsmaryk can rule at any time after that, though he could also call for a hearing, or ask for additional responses as well.

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  • China to offer free fertility treatment in bid to boost record low birth rate | CNN

    China to offer free fertility treatment in bid to boost record low birth rate | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    China is planning to offer free fertility treatment to citizens under its national insurance scheme in a bid to reverse its plummeting birth rate.

    The National Healthcare Security Administration said on Friday it would extend its coverage to help shoulder the costs for families trying to conceive.

    It said the new coverage would include assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques and also cover labor analgesia to ease pain in childbirth. The most commonly performed ART procedure is in vitro fertilization (IVF).

    The administration described China’s falling population as one of the biggest obstacles to national development and stressed it had already added ovulation-inducing drugs to its coverage, to help “reduce the burden of infertility.”

    The expanded coverage is part of a wider attempt by Chinese authorities to persuade more people to get married and have more children.

    The country’s birthrate has been falling for years and last year the country recorded its first population decline in more than 60 years.

    The country’s population fell to 1.411 billion in 2022, a drop of 850,000 people from the previous year, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

    At the same time, the birthrate fell to a record low of 6.77 births per 1,000 people. Some 9.56 million babies were born in 2022, compared with 10.62 million in 2021.

    An increasing number of women in China are delaying marriages and choosing not to have children, often citing financial constraints, and the need to prioritize careers, according to Chen Wei, a professor at China’s Renmin University. Options covering costly procedures such as IVF may help to alleviate some of these pressures, said Chen. The average cost associated with IVF in cities such as Shanghai is between $4,500 to $5,000.

    China has 539 ART-approved medical institutions and 27 sperm banks as of June 2021, and each year these facilities facilitate more than one million IVF cycles, according to experts from the country’s National Clinical Research Center for Obstetrics and Gynecology.

    Policymakers are increasingly concerned about the impact China’s growing demographic crisis could have on economic growth.

    China introduced a highly controversial “one child” policy decades ago in an attempt to address fears of overpopulation and alleviate poverty, but decided to scrap it in 2015 amid concerns a rapidly aging population and shrinking workforce could threaten economic and social stability.

    Initially, it allowed couples to have up to two children, but later further loosened the policy to allow up to three.

    Chinese authorities are also moving to drop restrictions on registering the births of children born to unmarried parents in a country where unwed mothers still face stigma.

    In February, the provincial health commission of Sichuan – which is home to over 83 million people – said it would allow single parents to register the birth of their children, a move that granted them access to benefits previously reserved for married couples. These benefits included maternity insurance that covers prenatal healthcare, childbirth-related medical expenses and paid maternity leave.

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  • Minnesota governor signs bill codifying ‘fundamental right’ to abortion into law | CNN Politics

    Minnesota governor signs bill codifying ‘fundamental right’ to abortion into law | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill into law Tuesday that enshrines the “fundamental right” to access abortion in the state.

    Abortion is already legal in Minnesota, but in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, the Protect Reproductive Options Act goes a step further by outlining that every person has the fundamental right to make “autonomous decisions” about their own reproductive health as well as the right to refuse reproductive health care.

    “This is very simple, very right to the point,” Walz said Tuesday on “CNN Tonight.” “We trust women in Minnesota, and that’s not what came out of the [Supreme Court’s] decision, so I think it’s critically important that we build a fire wall.”

    With the passage of the bill, Minnesota is now the first state to codify abortion via legislative action since Roe v. Wade was reversed, the office of the bill’s lead author in Minnesota’s state Senate, told CNN.

    “Last November, Minnesotans spoke loud and clear: They want their reproductive rights protected – not stripped away,” Walz said in a news release. “Today, we are delivering on our promise to put up a firewall against efforts to reverse reproductive freedom. No matter who sits on the Minnesota Supreme Court, this legislation will ensure Minnesotans have access to reproductive health care for generations to come. Here in Minnesota, your access to reproductive health care and your freedom to make your own health care decisions are preserved and protected.”

    The bill states that local government cannot restrict a person’s ability to exercise the “fundamental right” to reproductive freedom. It also clarifies that this right extends to accessing contraception, sterilization, family planning, fertility services and counseling regarding reproductive health care.

    “The Pro Act also goes beyond just granting those rights to abortion, it really says all reproductive healthcare decisions aren’t our business, including access to contraception, including access to really anything that is related to personal and private decisions about your reproductive life,” Megan Peterson, the executive director of pro-abortion rights campaign UnRestrict Minnesota, told CNN following Walz’s signing of the bill.

    In a letter to Walz ahead of the signing, Republican legislature leaders argued that the bill went too far and urged the governor to veto what they called “an extreme law.”

    “As the PRO Act was being rushed through the legislature, Republicans offered reasonable amendments with guardrails to protect women and children,” state Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson and House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth wrote, “Sadly, each of these amendments were struck down by a Democrat majority.”

    In 1995, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in Doe v. Gomez that abortion was a fundamental right protected under the state’s constitution. The Protect Reproductive Options Act ensures that even in the event of a new state Supreme Court reversing the ruling, the right to abortion will be protected under state law.

    “By passing this law, Minnesotans will have a second layer of protection for their existing reproductive rights. A future Minnesota Supreme Court could overturn Doe v. Gomez, but with the PRO Act now in State law, Minnesotans will still have a right to Reproductive healthcare,” Luke Bishop, a spokesperson for Democratic State Sen. Jennifer McEwen, the bill’s author in the Senate, told CNN over email.

    Following the governor’s signature of the bill, the White House applauded Minnesota’s efforts, pointing to the popular support for women’s rights to make their own health care decisions.

    “Americans overwhelmingly support a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, as so clearly demonstrated last fall when voters turned out to defend access to abortion – including for ballot initiatives in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and Vermont,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

    “While Congressional Republicans continue their support for extreme policies including a national abortion ban, the President and Vice President are calling on Congress to restore the protections of Roe in federal law,” she wrote. “Until then, the Biden-Harris Administration will continue its work to protect access to abortion and support state leaders in defending women’s reproductive rights.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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