Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Attack On Title X Family Planning Program Continues Assault On Women; Scientists Oppose Six-Week Abortion Ban
Los Angeles Times: Trump's Title X Rule Will Restrict Abortion Access And Obstruct Women's Healthcare
The Trump administration’s disdain for women’s reproductive rights and reproductive healthcare are well known. Shortly taking office, President Trump reinstituted the “global gag rule” that forbids foreign aid for any overseas healthcare provider that offers abortions or abortion counseling — even if the federal funds are carefully spent only on nonabortion services. Since his election, Trump has regularly threatened to defund Planned Parenthood. He has appointed anti-abortion judges and cut federal grants for family planning research. Now, he and the officials he has put in place at the Department of Health and Human Services are taking aim at the much-respected Title X Family Planning Program in an effort to further limit women’s access to safe and legal abortion. (3/25)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Scientists Oppose Six-Week Abortion Ban In ‘Hearbeat' Bill
The Georgia State House of Representatives and a State Senate committee recently approved House Bill 481, the so-called “fetal heartbeat” bill that would effectively ban abortions after six weeks. In the Senate Science and Technology committee, the bill passed 3-to-2 along both partisan and gender lines, with all three “Yes”’ votes coming from Republican men. HB 481 is not designed to help mothers and children, but rather poses a threat to women’s health and autonomy. (Nastassia Patin, 3/22)
Lexington Herald Leader: ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Bill Passed In Kentucky Infringes On Basic Rights Of Pregnant Women
Last Thursday, Kentucky became the latest in a growing list of state legislatures passing “fetal heartbeat” bills that would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected—as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. The bill was temporarily blocked Friday by Judge David J. Hale of the Western District of Kentucky. But Hale’s decision, like the many other court rulings that have questioned the constitutionality of these bills, is no cause for relief among advocates of reproductive rights. The battle being fought here is not only legal but cultural. (Susan Bordo, 3/22)
The New York Times: The First Time Women Shouted Their Abortions
You couldn’t just casually threaten suicide — you had to sound like you meant it, the woman onstage recalled. “You have to go and bring a razor, or whatever: ‘If you don’t tell me I’m going to have an abortion right now, I’m going to go out and jump off the Verrazzano Bridge.’” The woman was speaking in 1969. Legalized abortion nationwide was still four years away; in New York, so-called therapeutic abortions were legal — but only if a doctor judged you mentally unfit to have a child. And so, the woman explained, she ended up seeing two psychiatrists who, to her relief, deemed her suicide threats real enough to be granted the procedure. (Nona Willis Aronowitz, 3/23)
