RFK Jr Orders Mifepristone Review as Anti-Abortion Groups Push for Ban
The Guardian, May 14, 2025
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on Wednesday that he had directed the FDA to review the regulations around the abortion pill mifepristone. The review, he said, was necessary due to “new data” – data that emerged from a flawed analysis that top US anti-abortion groups are now using to pressure the Trump administration to reimpose restrictions on the abortion pill, if not pull it from the market entirely. “It’s alarming,” Kennedy told the Missouri senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, during a congressional hearing. “Clearly, it indicates that, at very least, the label should be changed.” The analysis, which has not been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal, came after the Food and Drug Administration commissioner said he was open to reviewing new safety data on the pills, which are used in nearly two-thirds of abortions nationwide. The conservative organizations are rallying behind a paper published on 28 April by a rightwing thinktank, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which claims there are higher complication rates from taking mifepristone than previously known. The paper has attracted scrutiny for appearing to dramatically overstate what it characterizes as “serious adverse effects” associated with the pill, according to medical experts. The data, the authors say, means the FDA should reinstate earlier restrictions on mifepristone, including a ban on telemedicine and limiting use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy – but they do not intend to stop there.
South Carolina Supreme Court Decides Heartbeat Definition, Allows Six-Week Abortion Ban
Associated Press, May 14, 2025
The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Wednesday the state can keep banning abortions around six weeks after conception by agreeing with the earliest interpretation offered of when a heartbeat starts. The justices unanimously ruled that while the medical language in the 2023 law was vague, supporters and opponents of the law all seemed to think it banned abortions after six weeks until Planned Parenthood lost its challenge to the entire law two years ago. The law says abortions cannot be performed after an ultrasound can detect “cardiac activity, or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart, within the gestational sac.” The state argued that is the moment when an ultrasound detects cardiac activity. Planned Parenthood said the words after the “or” mean the ban should only start after the major parts of the heart come together and “repetitive rhythmic contraction” begins, which is often around nine weeks. The justices acknowledged the medical imprecision of South Carolina’s heartbeat provision, which is similar to language in the laws in several other states. But they said this drove them to study the intent of the General Assembly, which left no doubt that lawmakers on both sides of the issue saw it as a six-week ban.
Fringe Movement Sparks Divide With Push To Charge Women Who Get Abortions
The Washington Post, May 14, 2025
An emboldened fringe movement is breaking with the antiabortion establishment by pushing for women who get abortions to face criminal charges, a departure from decades of “pro-life” tradition. The “abortion abolitionist” movement wants to see the procedure eradicated and supports changing the law to grant personhood to embryos, making their destruction an act of homicide that would be punishable by death in some states. Many prominent antiabortion groups have long been uncomfortable with the prospect of criminalizing patients, instead emphasizing restrictions to access or criminalizing providers. Critics and legal experts say abortion abolitionism is rooted in Christian nationalism. But T. Russell Hunter, the president of the Oklahoma-based group Abolitionists Rising, described the stance as “unapologetically biblical” – and unafraid of clashes with establishment antiabortion groups. This year, at least 13 bills filed in state legislative sessions around the country would grant personhood status to embryos. Still, the bills are seen as long-shot legislation, and several have already failed. In states where the bills remain active, they are languishing in committee or have not been called for a vote. While the measures have been broadly unsuccessful in statehouses, abortion rights advocates are not writing them off.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore Signs Bill To Tap Unused ACA Insurance Funds for Abortion Grant Program
Associated Press, May 13, 2025
Maryland will become the first state to use money collected from a surcharge on insurance plans sold under the Affordable Care Act to fund a program to pay for abortions, regardless of a patient’s insurance coverage, under a measure signed into law Tuesday by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore. The law will make about $25 million available when it takes effect July 1, because a $1 surcharge has been unused and growing over the last 15 years since the ACA took effect in 2010. It’s estimated to make about $3 million available annually in future years. “The lieutenant governor and I were very clear from Day 1 – that Maryland will always be a safe haven for abortion access,” Moore said, highlighting the measure among some 170 bills signed at a ceremony. The program will be paid for through the transfer of certain insurance premium funds collected by carriers that can only be used for abortion coverage in accordance with the ACA. Supporters say other states have access to a similar surplus of funds through their state exchange insurance systems. Officials in New York and Illinois already have reached out to Maryland officials to learn more about the program, said Lopez, who sponsored the bill.
Louisiana Investigating Second Abortion Pill Case Against New York Doctor
The Hill, May 13, 2025
Louisiana’s attorney general is investigating a second case involving New York doctor Margaret Carpenter after she allegedly prescribed and mailed abortion medication to another woman in the state, this time located in the city of Shreveport. The Shreveport woman was 20 weeks pregnant when she took the abortion medication and subsequently went into labor, Attorney General Liz Murrill said during a testimony for an anti-abortion bill in the state’s House Civil Law and Procedure Committee on Monday. Murrill did not say why she believes it was Carpenter who mailed the abortion medication to the woman in Shreveport. Murrill’s office did not immediately respond to questions from The Hill nor did Carpenter. A Louisiana grand jury indicted Carpenter in January for violating a state law after she allegedly prescribed abortion medication to a woman in the state who then gave it to her teenage daughter. State law enforcement issued an arrest warrant for Carpenter, and she was charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion inducing drugs. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry issued an extradition request for Carpenter, who co-founded the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine.
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