Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Future Of Abortion Rights In Virginia Will Be Decided By Voters
Virginia lawmakers have approved a constitutional amendment that would protect reproductive rights in the Commonwealth. The proposed amendment—which passed 64-34 in the House of Delegates on Wednesday and 21-18 in the state Senate two days later—will be presented to voters later this year. (Holmes and Oakes, 1/16)
Colorado will pay $6.1 million to two religious rights organizations to settle a case over a law that sought to ban so-called abortion pill “reversal.” The law, supported by Democrats and passed in 2023, was blocked by a federal judge who found it unconstitutionally infringes upon religious liberty. (Ingold, 1/19)
Roughly 1% of the more than 53,000 Missourians who received abortions over the past 10 years in Illinois and Kansas experienced complications, ranging from infection to incomplete abortions to hemorrhaging. Lawyers for Planned Parenthood and the Missouri attorney general’s office are dissecting dozens of Missouri’s Targeted Regulation of Abortion, or TRAP laws, as a judge decides which, if any, should remain in place. The safety of abortion is at the heart of the debate. (Spoerre and Hardy, 1/19)
For over a year, we’ve been writing about pregnant women who have died in states that banned abortion after Roe v. Wade was overturned. And we’ve been trying to better understand: Who are the women who are most likely to suffer because of these new laws? Many of the early cases we uncovered involved fast-moving emergencies. While women were miscarrying, they needed procedures to quickly empty their uterus, and, tragically, they didn’t get them in time. (Surana and Presser, 1/20)
Also —
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Friday told Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz that it is not “cool” that robots are performing ultrasounds in Alabama, after Oz brought up the subject at the White House earlier in the day. Oz joined President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to tout rural health in the U.S. Oz said there are no OB-GYNs in most Alabama counties, “so they’re doing something pretty cool. They’re actually having robots do ultrasounds on these pregnant moms.” (Mancini, 1/16)
