Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Memo Calls Into Question Ousted Planned Parenthood Chief's Claim That She Wasn't Political Enough Over Abortion
Politico: Ousted Planned Parenthood Chief Called Abortion ‘The Fight Of Our Time’
Deposed Planned Parenthood chief Leana Wen vowed in a memo before taking her post that she would treat abortion “as the fight of our time,” calling into question her claim that she was ousted as CEO last week for seeking to depoliticize Planned Parenthood’s signature issue. “We are facing [the] real probability that 1/3 of women of reproductive age—25 million—could be living in states that ban or criminalize abortion,” Wen wrote in an October 2018 internal memo where she laid out her agenda. “[W]e need to fight with everything we have.” (Diamond, 7/22)
The Washington Post: New Federally Funded Clinics Emphasize Abstinence, Natural Family Planning
Thousands of California women and teenagers seeking free or discounted reproductive health services through a federal program could find themselves in clinics that focus on abstinence and natural family planning as methods of birth control. Operated by the California-based Obria Group, the health centers appear to be modeled after faith-based crisis pregnancy centers, designed to persuade women to continue their pregnancies, but with a twist: Obria’s clinics encourage young clients to use online apps, developed with funding from religious conservatives, to “move them away from sexual risks as their only option in life, to an option of self-control.” (Cha, 7/22)
Texas Tribune: Texas Anti-Abortion Contract May Be Awarded Without Competitive Bidding
Texas’ fast-expanding, controversial Alternatives to Abortion program, which pays private counselors to discourage women from terminating their pregnancies, is on track to more than double its funding with a $41 million infusion — and one anti-abortion nonprofit is primed to win big on the state’s largesse. Eighty Republican state lawmakers took the unusual step last month of writing a letter to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees the anti-abortion program, directing administrators to expand funding to a particular provider. The Texas Pregnancy Care Network has done such a good job connecting expectant and adoptive parents with counseling and other services, the lawmakers wrote, that the health commission should increase payments to the provider without considering offers from other potential contractors. (Walters, 7/23)
CBS News: Abortion In Arkansas: Arkansas Could Become Seventh State With One Abortion Clinic This Week
Depending on the outcome of a court decision this week, Arkansas could become the seventh state in the country to have only one abortion clinic. Women in the state could also lose access to any abortions after 10 weeks into their pregnancy. On Monday, Judge Kristine Baker, appointed by President Obama in 2012, heard challenges to three of Arkansas' recently-passed anti-abortion bills. If the laws are allowed to be implemented, it would force the closure of the state's last surgical abortion clinic, Little Rock Family Planning Services. (Smith, 7/22)
