Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Wyoming's Highest Court Won't Take Up Challenge To Strict Abortion Ban
Wyoming Public Radio: Wyoming Supreme Court Declines To Take Up State Abortion Case
The Wyoming Supreme Court has declined to rule on the future of abortion access in the state. The move is just the latest development in the lengthy legal battle over reproductive rights in the Cowboy State. Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens had asked the high court to decide if the state’s near-total and medical abortion bans — passed by the state legislature last year — are constitutional, sending over 14 questions for the justices to answer. (Merzbach, 4/9)
Abortion news from Florida —
New York Magazine: Florida Prepares For ‘Catastrophic’ 6-Week Abortion Ban
The team at the independent abortion clinic A Woman’s Choice has been overwhelmed with patients at its North Carolina and Florida locations since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. People from all over the South travel hundreds of miles to get care at the clinics, with staff doing the best they can to meet the crushing need. Hoping to alleviate some of the strain, the team decided to open a fifth location in Danville, Virginia, which borders North Carolina, last month. “We opened the clinic in Virginia because of the 12-week ban in North Carolina but then also in anticipation of the six-week ban in Florida,” says Amber Gavin, the organization’s vice-president of advocacy and operations. “We knew that there was really nowhere in the Southeast that folks were going to be able to access care after 12 weeks.” (Gonzalez-Ramirez, 4/9)
Politico: Trump’s Abortion Stance Could Put Florida Republicans In A Bind
There’s no state that will need to navigate Donald Trump’s abortion stance quite like Florida, which has authorized one of the strictest abortion bans in the country but also could broadly enshrine abortion rights protections in the state constitution through a ballot measure in November. The Republican Party of Florida and key conservative lawmakers, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, consider Florida’s ballot initiative “extreme” and want voters to oppose it. But they’re not calling on Trump to pick up a megaphone over the cause. They generally support his stance to leave one of the most politically treacherous issues for Republicans up to states to decide — even as abortion rights supporters in Arizona, a key battleground state, also are trying to put a similar initiative on the ballot. (Leonard and Sarkissian, 4/10)
Also —
The Hill: RFK Jr. Running Mate Shares Views On Abortion After Arizona Ruling
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, shared her views on abortion in a lengthy post online after the Arizona Supreme Court abortion law made national news Tuesday. “People are asking about my views on abortion,” Shanahan’s post on X, formerly Twitter, began. Shanahan, recently named Kennedy’s vice-presidential candidate, is a mother to one child with Google co-founder Sergey Brin. She said that as a mother, she doesn’t “like the feeling of anyone having control over my body.” As a woman, she said she “would not feel right terminating a viable life” insider of her, especially if she and the fetus were healthy. “I can hold both beliefs, as someone who believes in the sacredness of life, simultaneously,” she said. (Irwin, 4/9)
Ms. Magazine: Meet The Republican Attorneys General Wreaking Havoc On Abortion Access
Members of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) are working to fulfill anti-abortion power broker Leonard Leo's extreme agenda. (Demirhan, 4/9)
CNN: Civil War-Era Abortion Ban Rises Again, Exactly What Roe Opponents Wanted
Laws from the 1860s in states and territories like Arizona, enacted decades before women in the US had won the right to vote, helped lead the 2022 Supreme Court to the “inescapable conclusion … that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.” And so, with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that replaced Roe, justices turned away from the ’70s idea that women should have certain rights and returned to the 1860s idea that states should have them instead. (Wolf, 4/9)
