Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Opposition To Texas Abortion Ban Steps Up With Lawsuit In Illinois
The Washington Post: Texas Abortion Doctor Allan Braid Sues In Illinois To Stop Six-Week Ban
An abortion provider in Texas took the unusual step Tuesday of asking a federal judge in another state to declare unconstitutional the six-week-ban on the procedure that took effect last month in Texas. Lawyers for Dr. Alan Braid, a San Antonio physician who acknowledged performing an abortion after the state’s legal limit, wants a judge in Illinois to block three lawsuits filed against him under the ban, which has halted almost all abortions in the nation’s second-most-populous state. (Marimow, 10/5)
AP: Opponents Of Texas Ban On Most Abortions Expand Challenges
Opponents of a new Texas ban on most abortions filed a lawsuit in Illinois on Tuesday after weeks of being thwarted by courts elsewhere in their efforts to block the nation’s most restrictive abortion law. The latest legal challenge came as the Biden administration waited for a federal judge in Austin, Texas, to rule on a request to halt the law known as Senate Bill 8, which bans abortions in Texas once cardiac activity is detected, usually around six weeks. A hearing was held Friday but there was no timetable on a decision. (10/5)
The New Yorker: How Texas Abortion Volunteers Are Adapting After S.B. 8
Amanda Bennett was in the Texas legislature this past May, on the day that Senate Bill 8, a near-total ban on abortions, was passed by the state’s House of Representatives. Bennett, a twenty-nine-year-old pro-choice activist, had gone to the capitol to protest the legislation. She recalled the eerie calm that day—there wasn’t much debate over the law, which prohibits abortions upon detection of fetal cardiac activity (starting as early as six weeks into a pregnancy) and does not make exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. Many observers assumed that the law would soon be struck down in court. “It wasn’t anything like Wendy Davis’s filibuster,” Bennett said, referring to the Texas state senator’s thirteen-hour attempt to block S.B. 5, an earlier antiabortion bill, in 2013. “It just passed quietly. I honestly think even some of the Republicans thought it was purely symbolic.” But, nearly four months later, the Supreme Court refused to strike down the ban, and getting an abortion in Texas, which was already extremely difficult, became almost impossible. (Widdicombe, 10/6)
CNBC: Dallas Morning News Bars Democratic Super PAC Ad Hitting AT&T Over Texas Abortion Law
The Dallas Morning News won’t run an ad taking aim at AT&T for backing Texas lawmakers who supported the state’s strict anti-abortion law, according to the Democratic super PAC behind the spot. The ad was supposed to run on the paper’s website Tuesday. The newspaper said it had a policy against ads that call out companies by name, according to American Bridge, which paid for the ad. American Bridge said it submitted the spot to the newspaper last week. (Schwartz, 10/5)
Also —
The 19th: 106 Restrictions On Abortions Have Become Law This Year. It’s A Record.
More abortion restrictions have been enacted this year than any other, with 19 statehouses passing 106 new limitations on the procedure, per an analysis first shared with The 19th. A dozen of the new restrictions include some form of a complete ban on abortion. This is the first time that the Guttmacher Institute, which has compiled this data annually since 1973, has counted more than 100 abortion restrictions passed in a single year. In 2011, the only other year since 1973 to come close, 89 restrictions on abortion were passed across the country. (Luthra, 10/5)
The 19th: Title X: What Is It And How Did Trump And Biden Change It?
Title X is the country’s only national, federally funded family planning program. First created with bipartisan support during the Nixon administration, the program has long provided no- and low-cost contraception counseling and dispensation to those who would otherwise be unable to afford or access it. Then, in 2019, the Trump administration implemented a new rule that barred any provider in the Title X network from so much as mentioning abortion care to patients, even if the patient raised questions about it or asked for a referral. As a result, seven state governments and Planned Parenthood dropped out of the Title X network, not wanting to have any restrictions on their ability to provide comprehensive, medically accurate family planning services to their patients. (Title X has never and does not pay for any abortion care services themselves.) (Gerson, 10/5)
Brookings: What If The Supreme Court Reverses Roe V. Wade?
This week, the United States Supreme Court will open one of the most consequential and controversial terms in recent memory. At stake are cases involving divisive issues such as guns and affirmative action. But by far the most contentious case will be an abortion case out of Mississippi. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is about a law that states abortions cannot take place after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It makes exceptions only for the life of the mother and for fetal abnormalities; none for rape or incest. The law effectively guts the “viability” criteria for abortion that has been in place ever since Roe v. Wade was decided a half century ago. (Kamarck, 10/5)
