US Supreme Court Sets Date To Hear SC Case Over Non-Abortion Planned Parenthood Services
South Carolina Daily Gazette, February 10, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in April over whether the state can refuse to let South Carolinians use their Medicaid coverage for non-abortion health care services offered at Planned Parenthood clinics, according to a Monday docket entry. The federal case, which began with a 2018 executive order from Gov. Henry McMaster, does not deal with abortion directly. Instead, it questions whether Medicaid patients have the right to choose which medical provider they visit, as long as that provider has agreed to be part of the program. Planned Parenthood, which sued along with one of its patients, contends patients should have the right to use its clinics in Columbia and Charleston for Medicaid-covered “family planning” services. Those include breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. State law does not allow Medicaid to pay for abortions. Of the $35 million total the state spent on Medicaid-covered family planning services in 2022-23, Planned Parenthood received $88,464, or 0.2%, according to the latest data from the state’s Medicaid agency. Attorneys for South Carolina argue the state can find a provider unqualified to receive payment from the government-provided health insurance for poor and disabled people for any reason, including providing abortions, according to legal filings.
When Does a Heartbeat Start? South Carolina Supreme Court Again Takes Up Abortion Issue
ABC News, February 12, 2025
With a heartbeat abortion ban solidly in place in South Carolina, lawyers for the state and Planned Parenthood return to the state’s highest court Wednesday to argue how restrictive the ban should be. The law is being enforced in South Carolina as a ban on almost all abortions around six weeks after conception, setting that mark as the time cardiac activity starts. But Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups are arguing the 2023 law includes alternative definitions about the timing of a fetal heart forming and a “heartbeat” starting and the true ban should start around nine or 10 weeks. Both sides are set to argue for just over an hour at the South Carolina Supreme Court in Columbia. The justices likely will take several months to decide the case. In the meantime, the abortion ban around six weeks likely will remain in place after a lower court upheld it. The 2023 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.” South Carolina and several other states place that at six weeks into development. But what follows the “or” in the sentence could require that a heart has formed, and medical experts say that doesn’t happen until around nine weeks.
Indiana Doctors Sue To Protect Abortion Patients’ Health Information
The Hill, February 10, 2025
A pair of Indiana doctors are trying to stop the state’s Department of Health from releasing personal information on abortion patients. Obstetrician-gynecologists Caitlin Bernard and Caroline Rouse recently filed a lawsuit in Marion County Superior Court to block the release of “terminated pregnancy reports” required under an executive order issued by Governor Mike Braun last month. Gov. Braun urged the Indiana Department of Health to “enforce the law” and release reports on abortions performed in the state, according to reporting from the Indy Star. He also signed an executive order on Jan. 22 to ensure a “faithful execution” of the state’s near-total abortion ban. The executive order notes that under Indiana abortion law, health care providers are required to submit a terminated pregnancy report to the DOH every time an abortion is performed. It then directs all state agencies to make sure the state’s abortion laws are “fully and faithfully executed” and to cooperate with the Office of the Attorney General in its investigation of enforcement of these laws. Under the law, health care providers are required to include 31 different data points in terminated pregnancy reports including the name and address of the abortion provider and when and where the abortion was performed. The plaintiffs argue that the information in these reports can be reverse engineered to identify who has received an abortion in the state. Fewer than 50 received a legal abortion in the state between January and March of last year, according to a report from the Indiana Department of Health.
Some Red States Report Zero Abortions. Doctors and Researchers Say It’s Not True
NPR, February 13, 2025
In Arkansas, state health officials announced a stunning statistic for 2023: The total number of abortions in the state, where some 1.5 million women live, was zero. In South Dakota, too, official records show zero abortions that year. And in Idaho, home to abortion battles that have recently made their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the official number of recorded abortions was just five. In nearly a dozen states with total or near-total abortion bans, government officials claimed that zero or very few abortions occurred in 2023, the first full year after the Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion rights. Those statistics, the most recent available and published in government records, have been celebrated by anti-abortion activists. Medical professionals say such accounts are not only untrue but fundamentally dishonest. For some data scientists, these statistics also suggest a troubling trend: the potential politicization of vital statistics. For decades, dozens of states have required abortion providers to collect detailed demographic information on the women who have abortions, including race, age, city, and county — and, in some cases, marital status and the reason for ending the pregnancy. Researchers who compile data on abortion say there can be sound public health reasons for monitoring the statistics surrounding medical care, namely to evaluate the impact of policy changes. Good-government groups like Common Cause say that the dangers of officials relying on misleading abortion statistics are myriad, including a disintegration of public trust as well as ill-informed legislation.
What To Know About State Proposals To Ban Abortion Pills and Punish Women Who Seek To End Pregnancies
PBS News, February 11, 2025
Lawmakers in several states have introduced measures to classify the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol — which are used together in the majority of U.S. abortions — as controlled dangerous substances, making it a crime to possess them without prescriptions. Louisiana last year became the first state to adopt such a law, despite concerns from doctors who contended that the restrictions would make it harder for them to access the drugs to perform life-saving procedures. The measures have been introduced in states where Republicans control the government and where there are bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions. The legislation has died or appears unlikely to advance in Indiana and Mississippi. Elsewhere — including Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas — it’s too early to know whether they have a chance.
ICYMI: In Case You Missed It
Janice’s story is exactly why we need the #Momnibus Act to address disparities in maternal healthcare costs and outcomes. https://t.co/5um07fAVPq
— National Partnership (@NPWF) February 7, 2025
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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.
