Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Idaho Judge Orders State To Expand Exemptions In Near-Total Abortion Ban
AP: Strict Idaho Abortion Ban Loosened By Judge's Ruling On Medical Exemptions
An abortion in Idaho is not prohibited if pregnancy complications could cause a woman’s death, even if that death “is neither imminent nor assured,” a state judge said Friday in a ruling that loosens one of the strictest abortion bans in the U.S. Four women have sued over Idaho’s strict abortion bans. The women, who are represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, aren’t asking for the state’s abortion ban to be overturned. Instead, they want the judge to clarify and expand the exceptions to the strict ban so people facing serious pregnancy complications can receive abortions before they are at death’s door. (4/12)
AP: Wyoming: Abortion Bans Set To Be Argued In State Supreme Court
When a Wyoming woman phoned the state’s only abortion clinic recently to make an appointment to end her pregnancy, she received news that complicated her life even more. Wellspring Health Access had stopped providing abortions that same day, responding to a slew of new requirements for the Casper clinic to become a licensed surgical center. ... Though abortion remains legal in Wyoming, it has become increasingly difficult because of new requirements for abortion clinics and women seeking abortions. In this case, the woman had to go to Colorado, which partially borders southern Wyoming. (Gruver, 4/13)
The Texas Tribune: Texas Republican Lawmakers Unwilling To Change Abortion Laws To Address Doomed Pregnancies
For the first time since Texas banned nearly all abortions, Republican lawmakers are considering tweaking the language of the law to protect the lives of pregnant women. But this much-lauded bipartisan effort will offer no reprieve for women carrying doomed pregnancies diagnosed with lethal fetal abnormalities. (Klibanoff, 4/11)
AP: Anti-Abortion Faction Wants Criminal Charges For Abortions
As Kristan Hawkins, president of the national anti-abortion group Students for Life, tours college campuses, she has grown accustomed to counterprotests from abortion rights activists. But more recently, fellow abortion opponents, who call themselves abortion abolitionists, are showing up to her booths with signs, often screaming “baby killer” at her while she speaks with students. Hawkins has had to send alerts to donors asking them to help pay for increased security. (Fernando, 4/12)
Politico: ‘We Are Flying Blind’: RFK Jr.’s Cuts Halt Data Collection On Abortion, Cancer, HIV And More
The federal teams that count public health problems are disappearing — putting efforts to solve those problems in jeopardy. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s purge of tens of thousands of federal workers has halted efforts to collect data on everything from cancer rates in firefighters to mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and syphilis to outbreaks of drug-resistant gonorrhea to cases of carbon monoxide poisoning. (Ollstein, 4/13)
