Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Colorado Medical Board Skirts An Outright Ban On Abortion 'Reversal'
The Colorado Sun: Colorado Medical Board Finds That So-Called Abortion Reversal Is Outside “Generally Accepted Standard Of Practice”
Colorado doctors who prescribe the so-called abortion reversal pill will be operating outside the “generally accepted standard of practice” and subject to investigation by the state medical board, the board decided Thursday. (Brown, 8/17)
On the military's abortion policy —
Military.com: Six Months After New Abortion Leave Policy, Pentagon Doesn't Know How Many Troops Have Used It
As an Alabama senator's ongoing protest over the Pentagon's abortion leave policy has left three service chief positions vacant, a key question remains: How many service members have actually used the policy to seek abortions? Nearly six months after it was implemented, the Pentagon can't answer that question. (Kime, 8/17)
NBC News: Sinema Calls For Biden Admin And Tuberville To Find 'Middle Ground' In Abortion Standoff
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona independent who left the Democratic Party last year, is calling on both the Biden administration and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., to soften their positions and find a “middle ground” to end the Republican’s monthslong blockade of hundreds of military promotions over a Defense Department policy involving abortion. (Smith and Kapur, 8/17)
More abortion news —
The New Republic: Florida Republicans’ New Plan Is To Fine Abortion Clinics Into Bankruptcy
Florida health regulators have fined an Orlando abortion clinic nearly $200,000, a move that is purportedly for violating a state abortion law and would likely bankrupt the health center into closing. Abortion is currently legal up to 15 weeks in Florida, but patients are required to wait 24 hours between the initial visit with their doctor and getting an abortion. The state legislature passed a law mandating the waiting period in 2015, but it did not go into effect until 2022. (Oten, 8/17)
The Hill: As Abortion Pills Near Supreme Court, Advocates Are Once Burned, Twice Shy
The battle over abortion pills is likely heading to the Supreme Court, whose ruling last year overturning Roe v. Wade has Democrats and abortion rights advocates nervous about another blow. (Weixel, 8/18)
KFF Health News: Abortion Pill’s Legal Limbo Continues
A divided three-judge federal appeals court panel has ruled that a lower court was wrong to try to reverse entirely the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. The panel did find, however, that the agency violated regulatory rules in making the drug more easily available and that those rules should be rolled back. In practice, nothing changes immediately, because the Supreme Court has blocked the lower court’s order that the drug effectively be removed from the U.S. market — for now. (8/17)
Also —
Stat: New Definition Of A Human Embryo Proposed Amid Rapid Advances
Earlier this summer, when scientists revealed they’re now able to create blobs of stem cells in the lab that self-organize into the same sorts of structures embryos themselves build during those first few weeks, it blasted wide open whatever ideas of the embryo we used to have. Were these structures embryo models, as some scientists named them, or something approaching actual embryos? How would anyone know when that line had been crossed? (Molteni, 8/17)
