Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
In 2019 There Was A Flood Of Restrictive State-Level Abortion Bills Introduced. A Second Surge Is Waiting In Wings.
The New York Times: They Pushed Hard This Year To Curtail Abortion. Wait For 2020.
Months after state lawmakers around the country approved some of the most restrictive limits on abortion seen in decades, some states want to push still further. Leading the way is Ohio, where Republicans are contemplating banning nearly all abortions from the time of conception, with no exceptions for rape or incest, and the highly unusual step of allowing women who have abortions to be prosecuted for murder. Especially contentious in the Ohio proposal is a provision that would direct doctors treating women with a sometimes life-threatening condition when a fertilized egg implants outside of the uterus to try to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy into the woman’s uterus.” (Williams, 12/4)
The New York Times: What Happens If Roe Is Overturned? Answers To 7 Questions On The Battle Over Abortion
Nationwide access to abortion is more vulnerable than it has been in decades, partly because of an aggressive campaign by Republicans and President Trump’s election and appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices. But as The Times’s Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer recently reported, many abortion rights advocates have also blamed their movement’s own missteps. Some pointed to a rift between national organizations like Planned Parenthood and independent clinics. Others said they saw peril in making support for abortion access a litmus test for Democratic candidates. (12/3)
In other abortion news —
Boston Globe: Petition To Block State Taxpayer Funding For Abortions Falls Short
For the third time in five years, a petition drive aimed at ending state taxpayer funding for abortions has failed to garner the support it needed to land on the election ballot. The Massachusetts Alliance to Stop Taxpayer Funded Abortion alerted supporters Tuesday that its petition-gathering drive had not reached the threshold necessary to start the process to amend the constitution by ballot question. (Ebbert, 12/3)
