Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
HHS Announces Funds, Protections In Response To Texas Abortion Law
The Texas Tribune: Texas Abortion Law Spurs Feds To Send Funds For Emergency Contraception
The federal government announced Friday it is providing additional funding to Austin nonprofit Every Body Texas to address a potential increase in clients’ need for emergency contraception and family planning services now that Texas prohibits abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a release Friday that the Office for Population Affairs will award funding to the group, which is the statewide administrator of the federal Title X funding program, which provides family planning and reproductive health services to low-income patients. (McGee, 9/17)
Axios: Biden's HHS Issues New Protections For Texas Abortion Providers, Patients
The Biden administration's latest move to bolster support for abortion providers and patients in Texas include funding for clinics, protections for health care workers and reinforcement of legal statutes specific to pregnant people, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced Friday. The Biden administration has vowed to fight Texas' new abortion law, the U.S.'s most restrictive since 1973, on multiple fronts. (Chen, 9/17)
Houston Chronicle: 'Abort Abbott': Protesters Rally At City Hall To Decry Texas' Strict Abortion Law
About 50 people gathered Sunday outside Houston City Hall to protest Texas Senate Bill 8, which outlaws abortions after six weeks and puts the power of enforcement in the hands of individual citizens. Bearing signs and shirts with slogans such as “Abort Abbott” and “Don’t Mess With Uterus,” the protesters decried what they feel is a tyrannical exertion of control over women’s bodies. “This is not about ‘saving lives,’ this is about controlling the lives of women, and we will fight back against it just as we have done before,” said Khloe Liscano, 27, one of the organizers of Sunday’s event, to the crowd. (González Kelly, 9/19)
NPR: A Texas Doctor Says He Defied The Abortion Law, Risking Lawsuits
Texas outlawed abortions past the six-week mark in a law that went into effect on Sept. 1. Dr. Alan Braid, a Texas physician, says he performed one anyway just a few days later. In an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Saturday, Braid, who's been practicing for more than 40 years, explained his decision as a matter of "duty of care." The new law, known as S.B. 8, not only makes performing an abortion after about six weeks illegal, but makes it so that anyone who aids anyone else in getting one — by performing the procedure or even by giving them a ride to the clinic where they have the procedure done — runs the risk of being sued for at least $10,000. (Pruitt-Young, 9/19)
Politifact: Fact-Checking How Texas Ranks For Children's Health In Light Of New Abortion Law
The claim: "Let’s get this straight: (Texas is) a state that criminalizes abortion but ranks 50th in baby wellness checks, ranks 50th in clinical care for infants, ranks 50th in uninsured women, ranks 43rd in maternal mortality, ranks 44th in school funding per child, and ranks 46th in child hunger .. " — Occupy Democrats social media post. The post decried a new Texas law restricting abortion, and the Supreme Court’s recent decision to let it take effect. PolitiFact rating: Half true. It was correct about the women’s health insurance rankings and school spending, and it was close for child hunger. However, the most recent data shows that Texas is closer to the middle than to the bottom for baby wellness checks and maternal mortality. And a claim about clinical care for infants was unsupported. (Jacobson, 9/20)
In related news about abortion —
AP: Cecile Richards: Court's Texas Move Could Mean End Of Roe
A year after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the country’s top abortion-rights activists warned that the Supreme Court’s recent inaction on Texas’ extremely restrictive new abortion law could signal the end of judicial checks and balances on the issue. “For a lot of people, they’ve always assumed that, even if they lived in a state that passed restrictions on reproductive care, that there was always a judicial system that would be there to protect them and declare these laws unconstitutional,” Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, told The Associated Press in an interview this week. “That isn’t happening any more.” (Kinnard, 9/18)
The New York Times: With Abortion Rights Under Threat, Democrats Hope To Go On Offense
Democrats in Virginia and beyond are focusing in particular on suburban women, who played a large role in electing President Biden, but whose broader loyalty to his party is not assured. With Republicans smelling blood in next year’s midterm elections as Mr. Biden’s approval ratings slip and the economy faces a potential stall over the lingering pandemic, Democrats are looking for issues like abortion to overcome their voters’ complacency now that Donald J. Trump is gone from office. (Gabriel, 9/19)
In abortion news from other states —
Louisville Courier Journal: Abortion Protesters Mostly Ignore New Safety Zone At Louisville Clinic
On the first Saturday after a new "safety zone" law went into effect at a Louisville abortion clinic, some protesters ignored the 10-foot-wide restricted area at the entrance as they followed patients to the door, shouting and berating them. No police were present to enforce the zone meant to ensure safe access to EMW Women's Surgical Center, where patients often must pass through shouting, jostling anti-abortion protesters waving graphic signs of fetuses. (Yetter, 9/19)
Columbus Dispatch: Ohio Bill To Require Women Be Told Abortions Cause Depression, Cancer
Ohio Republicans are considering a bill to add requirements that doctors tell women that terminating their pregnancies could lead to feelings of guilt, depression, suicidal ideation and breast cancer. State Rep. Jennifer Gross, R-West Chester, introduced House Bill 421 on Thursday with 15 co-sponsors, all Republicans. It drew an immediate rebuke from NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio Executive Director Kellie Copeland. (Bischoff, 9/19)
NBC News: 'We've Been Preparing For A Post-Roe World': Ripples From Texas Abortion Law Spread To Illinois Safe Haven
The day was jampacked at a Planned Parenthood clinic in southern Illinois when a woman who had just driven over 12 hours from Louisiana for an abortion procedure erupted into tears during her health intake. Kawanna Shannon, the surgical services director at the Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, dropped her tasks and led the woman into a private room to talk. The woman said she was panicking because she had used her rent money to pay for child care for her two kids, rent a car, buy gas and drive to the clinic in Fairview Heights. The days leading up to and after Texas’ restrictive abortion law went into effect, clinics in surrounding states became overbooked, diverting patients further away, including this patient who only had one extra day off work to get the procedure done, Shannon said. The woman's only option was Illinois, but it cost her her rent, she said. (Samee Ali, 9/19)
