Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
FDA May Reform Abortion Provision By Allowing More Pills By Mail
Politico: 'Quite Hopeful': Abortion Pill Decision Could Reshape Reproductive Health War
As the Supreme Court weighs the fate of Roe v. Wade, the Food and Drug Administration is set to open a new phase in the abortion wars this week, when it issues a key decision on how doctors can dispense pills to end an early pregnancy. Regulators are due to decide Thursday whether to uphold, revise or scrap longstanding restrictions on the abortion drug mifepristone — a review triggered by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the rules in court. Loosening the rules, which have already been suspended due to the pandemic, would allow any doctor to prescribe the drugs online and send them by mail, allowing patients to terminate a pregnancy at home even if justices strike down or cut back Roe v. Wade. (Ollstein and Tahir, 12/15)
NPR: The FDA May Be Poised To Ease Access To Abortion Pills
Before the pandemic, doctors like Nisha Verma could only prescribe abortion pills to patients who came to her clinic in person. But at least for now, the Biden Administration is allowing patients to get the pills by mail. "I think that makes it much more accessible for people where they don't actually have to physically come into a clinic, they don't have to expose themselves to COVID, they can do this all from the comfort of their home," said Verma, an OBGYN and abortion provider based in Washington, D.C. (McCammon, 12/15)
In other news about abortion —
Houston Chronicle: Harris County Can Spend Public Money To Counter Texas’ Strict New Abortion Law, Analysts Say
Three months after Democrats on Harris County Commissioners Court sought advice on how to counter Texas’ new abortion ban, policy analysts for the court on Tuesday advised County Judge Lina Hidalgo the county could spend public money to support groups that aid those seeking abortions — and perhaps even to directly fund abortion care. The memo to Hidalgo and her top aides detailing the county’s options came in response to a resolution passed by Commissioners Court in September, two weeks after the abortion law took effect, that directed their policy analysis office to investigate how the county could “support individuals impacted by” the ban or “otherwise mitigate the law’s negative effects.” (Scherer, 12/15)
NPR: It's not as simple as abortion v. adoption. Just ask Bri
Bri had wanted to be a mom for as long as she can recall. "I remember in high school, one of my aunts had a large family, so I used to say I wanted five kids like her," she said. But seven years ago, Bri got pregnant by accident. She was 21 years old and the reality she confronted was very different from her teenage fantasy. (Isackson, 12/14)
The New York Times: Who Gets Abortions In America?
The portrait of abortion in the United States has changed with society. Today, teenagers are having far fewer abortions, and abortion patients are most likely to already be mothers. Although there’s a lot of debate over gestational cutoffs, nearly half of abortions happen in the first six weeks of pregnancy, and nearly all in the first trimester. The typical patient, in addition to having children, is poor; is unmarried and in her late 20s; has some college education; and is very early in pregnancy. But in the reproductive lives of women (and transgender and nonbinary people who can become pregnant) across America, abortion is not uncommon. The latest estimate, from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group that supports abortion rights, found that 25 percent of women will have an abortion by the end of their childbearing years. (Sanger-Katz, Miller and Bui, 12/14)
