Trump Administration Drops Lawsuit Seeking To Ensure Abortion Access in Emergency Rooms
CNN, March 5, 2025
President Donald Trump’s administration took a major step Wednesday in support of states with sweeping abortion bans, dropping a Biden-era lawsuit against Idaho that sought to protect abortion access in medical emergencies. The Biden administration had prevailed in early stages of the lawsuit challenging Idaho’s extremely strict abortion restrictions, with the Supreme Court last year leaving in place a temporary court order that allows Idaho hospitals to provide abortion when a pregnancy endangers a woman’s life or health. In a court filing Wednesday, the Justice Department said it was now dropping the lawsuit. The move will not change the immediate status quo for emergency abortion access in the state. Idaho’s largest hospital system, the St. Luke’s hospital system, brought its own lawsuit earlier this year challenging the state abortion ban and on Tuesday, secured a temporary restraining order in its case preserving access to emergency abortions in the state. But how higher courts will view that lawsuit is not clear, and even the conservative Supreme Court justices who sided with the Biden administration in its case last year signaled they could change their mind once more of the litigation played out. The Justice Department’s dismissal of the case could also encourage other states to expand their abortion restrictions.
Arizona’s 15-week Abortion Ban Is Now ‘Permanently and Forever’ Struck Down
Arizona Mirror, March 5, 2025
Doctors and women now have the final say about when an abortion should be performed, after a Maricopa County Superior Court judge struck down the state’s 15-week ban following last year’s vote to enshrine abortion rights in the Arizona Constitution. Two local OB-GYNs and the Arizona chapter of Planned Parenthood took the state to court over the ban late last year. The trio argued that the 2022 law, which prohibited abortions after its gestational deadline unless a patient was facing death or the impairment of a major bodily function, should be struck down because voters in November overwhelmingly decided to make the procedure a fundamental right via Proposition 139. Judge Frank Moskowitz agreed, writing in a two-page ruling that the 15-week law is instantly nullified and no one will ever be able to carry out its punishments. The law threatened doctors who violated it with up to two years in prison.
A New Missouri Bill Would Let Residents Donate to Anti-Abortion Centers Instead of Paying Any Taxes
ProPublica, March 5, 2025
In an unprecedented move to funnel more public tax dollars toward groups that oppose abortion, Republican lawmakers in Missouri are advancing a plan to allow residents to donate to pregnancy resource centers instead of paying any state income taxes. The proposal would establish a 100% tax credit, up from 70%, and a $50,000 annual cap per taxpayer. The result: Nearly all Missouri households – except those with the highest incomes – could fully satisfy their state tax bill by redirecting their payment from the state to pregnancy centers. The move comes four months after Missouri voters reversed one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans, and just as clinics have begun performing the procedure again after overcoming Republican obstacles.
People Are Flocking Out-Of-State for Abortion Care. Clinics Are Fighting To Keep Up.
USA Today, March 5, 2025
On an early morning Zoom call, Michele Landeau is working from her home in St. Louis, Missouri. But most mornings, she drives across the state border to Granite City, Illinois. Landeau is the Chief Operating Officer at Hope Clinic, an abortion clinic that has tripled their intake of out-of-state patients since the 2022 Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion. Bordering five restrictive abortion states – including two with total abortion bans (Indiana and Kentucky) – the Illinois Supreme Court embedded protections into the state’s constitution, making it a popular destination for women seeking abortions. The vast majority of patients at Hope Clinic pre-Dobbs came from Missouri and Illinois, but after Dobbs, they experienced a 700% increase in patients from other states – from 6% of all patients to now 40%.
Medication Abortion Is Still the Most Common Type
TIME, February 27, 2025
New data reveal that the majority of abortions that were provided in most states in 2023 were medication abortions – a pattern that reproductive health experts say underscores the need to protect access to abortion pills. The Guttmacher Institute, which researches and supports sexual and reproductive health and rights, released on Feb. 27 an analysis of state-level data on medication abortion in 2023. Guttmacher researchers had previously found that medication abortions accounted for 63% of all abortions provided by clinicians in 2023 in states without the most restrictive policies – most states, in other words – and the data released on Thursday expanded on that finding by breaking that number down by state. A full 95% of abortions performed in Wyoming were medication abortions, and 84% of abortions in Montana were. Lowest were Washington, D.C., at 44%, and Ohio, at 46%, according to the report. Researchers also looked at how women were receiving medication abortion: whether through prescriptions from in-person clinics or via telemedicine. In states without near-total abortion bans or bans on telemedicine provision, about 10% of abortions in 2023 were provided by online-only clinics, ranging from 7% in states like New York and California to as high as 60% in Wyoming.
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Trump’s Plan to Slash Medicaid Will Harm Older Women and the Economy
Read more about the National Partnership and Justice In Aging’s new analysis that reveals congressional plans to cut $880 billion from Medicaid spending amounts to cutting off benefits for nearly 4.8 million recipients ages 65 and older annually.
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Note: The information contained in this publication reflects media coverage of women’s health issues and does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Partnership for Women & Families.
