Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Abortion Reporting Requirements Are Now Too Risky, Advocacy Group Says
States should stop requiring health providers to file reports on every abortion because the information poses a risk to both them and their patients in the current political environment, a research group that advocates for abortion access says. The Guttmacher Institute says in a new recommendation that the benefit of mandated and detailed data collection is no longer worth the downsides: It could reveal personal information, be stigmatizing for patients and cumbersome for providers — or could be used in investigations. (Mulvihill, 3/12)
A Justice Department attorney who defended the availability of abortion pills in a high-profile case during the Biden administration will be the Food and Drug Administration's top lawyer, a choice made by commissioner-designate Marty Makary. The future of access to medication abortion — specifically mifepristone — is a hot-button issue facing the Trump administration and was a key line of questioning at Makary's Senate confirmation hearing last week. (Owens, 3/11)
With a steady but urgent cadence, Dr. Jim Souza told reporters what would become one of the most cited talking points in a protracted legal fight over Idaho’s abortion ban: Without a court order protecting emergency room doctors from prosecution, his hospital system was sending patients to nearby states when certain pregnancy complications meant termination might be necessary. It was April 2024. Souza said Boise-based St. Luke’s Health System had airlifted six pregnant patients in a span of four months to states where abortion was a legal treatment option in health emergencies. (Dutton and Moseley-Morris, 3/12)
A Louisiana woman pleads not guilty Tuesday to a felony, after allegedly getting abortion pills from a New York doctor and giving them to her teenage daughter to terminate a pregnancy. The woman’s arraignment is part of a cross-state legal battle that involves what may be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state, putting Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban in tension with New York’s shield laws. (Cline, 3/11)
