Reproductive Rights Today

A doctor in Idaho recently saw a pregnant patient whose water broke at 15 weeks of pregnancy — something that normally happens at 38 weeks or later. 

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided in January to consider a case about whether a federal law regarding emergency medical treatment supersedes an abortion ban in Idaho, air transports out of state for pregnancy complications at one of the state’s largest hospitals have increased from one in all of 2023 to six in the past four months. 

Following a legislative session with no action taken to clarify or amend Idaho’s near-total abortion ban, some residents have formed a political group called Idahoans United for Women and Families to explore options for a possible 2026 ballot initiative that would restore and protect access to reproductive care statewide, including abortion.

More young Americans sought sterilization procedures after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — with twice as many women as men seeking them, according to a study published this month in JAMA Health Forum. 

Rules on how employers can comply with a federal law that provides protections for pregnant workers are set to take effect in roughly two months. 

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician who helped uncover the Flint water crisis, is leading a program that provides expecting mothers in the city with $1,500 mid-pregnancy and $500 per month postpartum until the baby turns 1, Michigan Advance reports. “When you’re born into and when you grow up in poverty, it really alters your entire life course. So for a long time, I had wished for the antidote — the prescription — to prescribe away poverty, and that’s how this idea came together,” Hanna-Attisha said.  

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, released a nearly five-minute video last week about abortion, saying the issue should be left to the states. 

Colorado is one of the least restrictive states when it comes to abortion access, with no gestational limits and a clinic that provides care for those who need terminations in the third trimester of pregnancy. But activists are pushing for stronger protections through a ballot initiative, like 10 other states in the country, to include abortion rights in the state constitution and to allow people to pay for an abortion with public insurance, which is prohibited by law. 

Thursday marked the beginning of Black Maternal Health Week, a period when reproductive rights advocates and policymakers spotlight racial disparities in pregnancy care. 

The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to uphold an 1864 near-total abortion ban drew condemnation from Democratic and Republican officials. Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said she will not prosecute patients and providers, or enforce the ban that has only an exception to save a pregnant person’s life. “I think this was a seismic decision, and not in the way that Republicans thought it was going to be for Arizona politics and for the election in November,” Mayes said. 

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of reinstating a Civil War-era abortion ban that includes a lone exception to save a pregnant person’s life. The ban is set to take effect in less than two months, Arizona Mirror reported.

Kelly Shannon was grieving a pregnancy she would need to terminate because of multiple fetal anomalies when she got the call that Alabama doctors wouldn’t approve an abortion procedure despite exceptions in the law. That meant she would have to leave the state.