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reproductive rights
Democrats Fume Over Trump's Moms.gov Website Promoting Anti-Abortion Centers
"Moms.gov is not about promoting women’s health. It is an attempt to use HHS resources to further strip women of their rights and privacy.”
Jun 24, 2026
Eleven members of the Senate Democratic Caucus on Wednesday urged US President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “cease using federal resources to direct people to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers" via a government website.
Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched Moms.gov, which claims to offer "resources, information, and help for new and expecting mothers" by "addressing the needs of mothers and fathers who face difficult or unexpected pregnancies and ensuring the well-being of mothers and the health of American families."
The site has two main options: so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" (CPCs)—which present themselves as reproductive health clinics but often provide misleading information and counseling aimed at discouraging abortion—and "federally qualified health centers," which, presented alongside anti-abortion services on Moms.gov, can blur the distinction between evidence-based healthcare providers and ideologically driven groups.
"This raises profound concerns about the health, safety, and privacy of people who access this government website at a time when women’s health and reproductive rights face increasing attacks,” the 11 senators said in a letter to Trump and Kennedy and shared with HuffPost. “Instead of offering concrete resources to protect the health and safety of pregnant women and their families, the Trump administration is using this website to highlight anti-abortion CPCs."
The letter—led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and signed by Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden (Ore.), Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Ed Markey (Mass.), Tina Smith (Minn.), John Hickenlooper (Colo.), Cory Booker (NJ), and Michael Bennett (Colo.)—was sent on the four-year anniversary of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a ruling by the right-wing US Supreme Court that canceled half a century of abortion rights formerly enshrined in Roe v. Wade.
“Since the US Supreme Court took away the fundamental right to abortion care... 21 states have banned or severely restricted access to abortion, decimating access to care for tens of millions of people,” the senators wrote.
The lawmakers said that the direct link to Option Line, an anti-abortion hotline, "on a government website is also troubling from a data privacy perspective," as the site collects and shares user data with "affiliates, partners, vendors, or contract organizations" and has been beset by breaches.
“Moms.gov is not about promoting women’s health—it is an attempt to use HHS resources to further strip women of their rights and privacy," the letter asserts. “In order to protect the health and data privacy of millions of women, HHS should remove the pregnancy center link from Moms.gov and cease using federal resources to direct people to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.”
In a Wednesday interview with HuffPost, Warren said, "It's horrific that the Trump administration is using taxpayer dollars to prop up a website that pushes pregnant women towards nonmedical anti-abortion centers."
"The Republican plan is to sneak through anti-abortion resources and backdoor abortion bans because they know Americans don’t support their extreme agenda," she added. "Democrats are fighting back.”
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Platner Says Collins Is 'Lying Through Her Teeth' in Latest Defense of Kavanaugh Vote
Republican Sen. Susan Collins falsely said the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a 6-3 vote.
Jun 23, 2026
US Sen. Susan Collins on Monday faced backlash, including from the Democratic candidate trying to unseat her, for falsely stating that the Supreme Court ruling overturning the federal right to abortion was decided 6-3 and that Justice Brett Kavanaugh was not a pivotal vote.
In a newly aired Fox News interview, Collins (R-Maine) said she "disagreed with the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, but the fact is, whether Justice Kavanaugh were confirmed or not, Roe v. Wade would have been overturned, given the 6-3 vote." The vote to overturn Roe, ending the constitutional right to abortion, was in fact 5-4, with Kavanaugh joining the majority despite Collins' repeated insistence during the judge's Senate confirmation process that he would not support toppling critical precedents.
“Susan Collins is lying through her teeth," Graham Platner, the Republican incumbent's Democratic challenger, said in a statement. "Roe v. Wade was not overturned 6-3. That is a lie. It was 5-4. Brett Kavanaugh was the deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, and Susan Collins was the deciding vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court."
"And let’s be very clear: Everyone knew that Brett Kavanaugh would overturn Roe," Platner continued. "She can lie and say she was misled. She can claim she’s disappointed. But the reality is, she knew exactly why Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh—and she voted to confirm him anyway."
She's lying. Roe was overturned 5-4. Kavanaugh was the deciding vote. Susan Collins is responsible. https://t.co/kV0viaPq9t
— Demand Justice (@WeDemandJustice) June 22, 2026
Collins said last week that she doesn't regret voting to confirm Kavanaugh in 2018, despite the devastating impact of the high court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. A new analysis by the National Partnership for Women & Families found that "more than 47 million women of reproductive age live in states with clinic closures" or "states that have attacked access to medication abortion" in the aftermath of Dobbs.
Earlier on Monday, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) endorsed Platner's campaign to deny Collins a sixth Senate term, noting that "in the four years since the Supreme Court ended the federal right to an abortion, the Trump administration and its backers in Congress and the states have repeatedly weaponized Dobbs and attacked reproductive healthcare."
“President Trump and his allies are using every lever of power at their disposal to make it harder for people to get the care they need, including by attempting to permanently ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood," said Alexis McGill Johnson, PPAF's president and CEO. "Mainers deserve a senator they can trust to have their backs at every turn. It is clear that is not Susan Collins."
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What We Learned When We Stayed to Provide Abortion- and Gender-Affirming Care
On the anniversary of both Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and US v. Skrmetti, support independent clinics in hard places keeping the doors open.
Jun 18, 2026
We’ve been here before. When Dobbs came for abortion care in our states, we did two things: We opened clinics across state lines so our patients would still have a legal option. And we stayed. We kept our original clinics open, expanding the care we'd always offered or always wanted to offer. When Skrmetti came for gender-affirming care, we kept providing that too, because abortion care patients and transgender patients are not separate communities. The calculation patients make before they walk through the door is identical for both communities: Will I be seen? Will I be safe? Will the person across from me treat my body like a problem to be managed, or a life to be supported? June marks anniversaries of both Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and US v. Skrmetti, and that conviction has never felt more urgent.
Long before Dobbs or Skrmetti, the intersection of abortion rights and trans rights was already living in our waiting rooms, in the patients who received reproductive care and gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) under the same roof; in the person who drove hours across the state because we were the only provider they trusted; and in those who trust us with their whole-person care because their grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, and friends have relied on our clinics for care for 50 years. Throughout that history, our organizations have been guided by a simple principle: When members of our community are targeted, excluded, or denied the care they need, we do not look away. We listen, we adapt, and we show up.
When abortion care moved across the border after Dobbs, the patients who remained still needed care they couldn’t access at home. The wall between reproductive healthcare and LGBTQIA+ healthcare that exists in policy language and funding categories has never existed in our exam rooms.
What connects every patient who walks through our doors, whether they’re coming in for an abortion or a hormone therapy appointment, is something our staff recognized long before we had language for it: the experience of arriving at a clinic while carrying the weight of a political target on your back. A clinic’s job of creating a space where people can receive care without shame or fear has always been exactly the same job regardless of why they came.
Bodily autonomy is the foundational principle of reproductive rights, and it only means something if it applies to everyone.
Marty had learned, growing up as a transgender person in rural Maryland, to brace himself before every medical appointment, because finding healthcare that was both competent and genuinely affirming had always required a fight. What he found at our clinic was a staff that met him without conditions, no justifications required, no explanations asked for. His mother has supported the Women’s Health Center (WHC) since its earliest days, and used to volunteer as a clinic escort. Watching the same clinic support her son in his gender-affirming care gave her, in her own words, a peace she hadn’t known she needed. When gaps in care left Ben, a transgender West Virginian, navigating painful dysphoric cycles and a transition that had stalled, he found his way to WHC West Virginia. Today, he says that every time he looks in the mirror, he sees more of himself looking back.
When one of our providers first interviewed to work for CHOICES, she didn't really know much about gender-affirming care. In the time she has been with CHOICES, she has cared for hundreds of gender-affirming care patients across the mid-South. "It's clear how important this care is for patients," she shared. "After patients start hormone replacement therapy, they come back as a much more energetic, vivacious person.” Since the state of Tennessee has restricted gender-affirming healthcare, including banning minors from accessing care, our patients are experiencing increased anxiety and fear about their privacy, safety, and continued access to care. CHOICES' provider shared, "Hormone replacement therapy is routine, like every other service we offer.” If something has such a profound impact on someone's life, why wouldn't we keep this care accessible?
The pattern behind Skrmetti is one reproductive rights advocates should recognize immediately, because it follows the same logic as the restrictions that led to Dobbs: They come for the most vulnerable first, in the states where the political ground is most hostile, and they build from there. Idaho passed the first transgender athlete ban in 2020, West Virginia followed with the Save Women’s Sports Act in 2021, and Tennessee’s restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors moved through the courts the same way abortion restrictions moved state by state in the years before Dobbs. Since abortion care moved across the border, thousands have received gender-affirming and LGBTQIA+ care at our clinics, even as the political, legal, and financial pressure on both organizations has intensified.
Bodily autonomy is the foundational principle of reproductive rights, and it only means something if it applies to everyone. When it becomes conditional, granted to some patients and denied to others, it stops being a principle and starts being a permission slip, and permission slips get revoked. The fights to protect abortion access and gender-affirming care are not parallel struggles that happen to share a difficult political moment. They are the same struggle, rooted in the same conviction, playing out in the same clinics with the same patients, and the forces working to end both of them have always understood that connection even when the rest of us have sometimes lost sight of it.
Between our two organizations, we’ve earned a century’s worth of experience at the practice of staying, enduring. CHOICES has kept their doors open for 52 years, and the Women’s Health Centers of West Virginia and Maryland will celebrate 50 years of care on June 24—the same day Roe v. Wade was overturned four years ago.
Support independent clinics in hard places keeping the doors open. And when the next fight comes, show up for the communities under pressure. Remember that those targeted first won’t be the last, but they will be the ones to lead the way.
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Abortion Bans Not Only Harm Patients, But Cost US Economy $140 Billion: Analysis
States that deny people's bodily autonomy limit "their ability to pursue the education and career options that are right for them, and to build financial stability," said the Institute for Women's Policy Research president.
Jun 16, 2026
Reproductive rights advocates and experts have long highlighted the dangers of abortion bans to people's health, but amid a wave of new state-level restrictions in the wake of Roe v. Wade's reversal, some have also recently emphasized the economic impact, as detailed in an analysis published Tuesday by the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
"IWPR's latest estimates show that states with the most restrictive abortion policies could cost the national economy nearly $68 billion annually in lost earnings, up from $64 billion in last year's estimate," according to the analysis. "Historically, legal abortion access has increased women's labor force participation and earnings. IWPR's analyses suggest that abortion restrictions continue to erode those gains nationwide, reducing women's labor force participation and earnings potential while weakening state and national economies in the process."
"Those losses—amounting to billions of dollars—could otherwise support what families actually need: affordable healthcare, caregiving, higher wages, business growth, and new jobs that strengthen local communities and state economies," the report notes. "This $68 billion estimate reflects only the impact of the most severe restrictions, including total bans and six-week gestational bans, that were in effect in 16 states in 2025."
The publication points out that "many other states may not have banned abortion outright, but still impose barriers that make abortion care harder to access, like waiting periods, mandated counseling, or targeted regulations on abortion providers that delay or deny care altogether. When accounting for all state-level restrictions on abortion access, combined with the federal funding prohibitions and the absence of federal protections, the annual average economic cost now exceeds $140 billion nationwide."
The overall figure is nearly $7 billion more than IWPR's estimate from last year. Putting that figure into context, the report explains that $7 billion "could fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for about 1 million American families with children for an entire year. This is a striking figure considering the so-called 'One Big Beautiful Bill's' cuts to the program, which are projected to reduce or eliminate benefits for many low-income households."
Removing barriers to reproductive care on a national scale "could mean nearly 325,000 more women participating in the labor force each year, with the largest increases concentrated in states with some of the most restrictive abortion policies," IWPR estimated. For example, in Alabama, Kentucky, and Louisiana, their labor force participation could be over 1.3% higher, while in Mississippi, it could be up 1.5%.
If more women joined the workforce thanks to policies allowing reproductive freedom, IWPR projected that "national gross domestic product (GDP) could rise by 0.5%, and the economic gains would be largest in states such as Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, and West Virginia, which rank poorly on both abortion protections and per capita GDP. These states could potentially see their GDP grow by nearly 1% annually."
Like previous analyses, the publication also acknowledges that "Black and Latina women are more likely to experience the consequences of restrictive abortion policies and confront additional economic and structural barriers to accessing care that their White counterparts do not—even as abortion restrictions harm all women and the economy more broadly."
IWPR president and CEO Jamila K. Taylor stressed in a Tuesday statement that "this is fundamentally about human rights and economic justice."
"We know that legal access to abortion care increases women's autonomy to be able to participate in the labor force, which supports the stability of our entire economy," Taylor said. "When states deny people their bodily autonomy, they're also limiting their ability to pursue the education and career options that are right for them and to build financial stability for their family and community. Abortion restrictions don't just harm those who may become pregnant—they harm everyone."
President Donald Trump delivered mixed messages during the last campaign cycle: bragging about being the one to appoint the justices who helped reverse Roe with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, but also suggesting that he wasn't in favor of a nationwide ban on abortion and that the issue doesn't really matter to Americans.
Since returning to the White House, the Republican and his allies in Congress have taken steps to reduce access to reproductive healthcare, and although the right-wing Supreme Court last month declined to restrict access to mifepristone, at least for now, Trump's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently reviewing the medication, which is commonly used in abortion and miscarriage care.
Reproductive rights advocates have sounded the alarm over the FDA review. In response to reporting on it earlier this month, Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson called it "a politically motivated farce."
"Mifepristone is safe and effective. We know it, the FDA knows it, and the more than 7.5 million people who've used mifepristone for abortion and miscarriage care over the past 25 years know it too," Johnson said. "But the Trump administration is bulldozing the overwhelming body of medical research and evidence to try to make it harder for everyone, everywhere to get an abortion. It's time for every American to take this threat seriously."
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Human Rights Watch Calls Out 'Troubling Conditions' in Trump Health Aid Agreements With Africa
“After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights."
Jun 08, 2026
The Trump administration is requiring African nations to agree to a series of "troubling conditions" to restore lifesaving health aid, according to a Human Rights Watch report on Monday.
The administration's abrupt shuttering of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) last year shut off billions of dollars and caused havoc across Africa's healthcare system, resulting in what public health models project could be hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.
But under what has been dubbed the “America First” Global Health Strategy, the administration has negotiated secretive agreements with dozens of these countries to restore some of the funding. Most of them have been kept under lock and key by the US.
Those that have been made public have come with terms that Human Rights Watch said "raise concerns that health aid is being inappropriately leveraged to extract terms beneficial to the US in negotiations around natural resources and access to sensitive health data from recipient countries."
In March, a draft memorandum of understanding with the government of Zambia was revealed to have conditioned $1 billion for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and other disease prevention for millions of people, on the country's acceptance of a separate bilateral treaty that would have given US companies greater access to the country's minerals.
A leaked State Department memo, prepared for Secretary Marco Rubio, put the exploitative terms plainly: “We will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.”
After the details of that agreement were met with backlash, the text of agreements with several other countries—Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Uganda—were suddenly removed from the State Department’s Freedom of Information Act Library.
A Human Rights Watch assessment of the agreements with those five countries—as well as agreements with Rwanda and Liberia that were leaked—revealed that in order to restore a portion of the more than $800 million collectively stripped from them by the US, they'd have to agree to several coercive measures that jeopardize the reproductive and privacy rights of their citizens.
“The agreements show the US intends to condition vital health assistance for millions of people on acquiescence to troubling conditions,” said Julia Bleckner, senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch. “After the sudden and devastating pullback from US assistance in 2025, governments are now being pressured to accept agreements with contingencies that jeopardize human rights.”
All seven of the agreements require the governments to provide the US with "broad access to data and information" to monitor compliance with the Helms Amendment, which forbids the use of US foreign assistance to pay for abortion care.
The agreements with Mozambique, Rwanda, and Liberia require them to provide “any data” requested by the US to ensure compliance with the amendment, while Uganda's permits the US to conduct unannounced spot checks of health facilities and clinics.
"By making a broad package of health aid contingent on broad and potentially invasive surveillance of Helms compliance, the agreement could encourage a more restrictive regulation of abortion than national law mandates and give rise to further violations of the right to healthcare,” says the report.
The agreements also give the US permission to directly audit clinics, laboratories, and health programs to ensure compliance with the conditions. Six of them require clinics to provide access to "any data" requested by the US at a sample of facilities it chooses.
Agreements with five countries also mandate that they share biological specimens taken from patients and associated information related to novel infectious diseases, which HRW described as part of an effort to undermine a global pathogen access and sharing system being created by the World Health Organization, from which Trump has removed the US.
HRW said in a news release:
The agreements raise serious concerns about use of people’s private health data, without clear limits, uniform safeguards, or meaningful protections for patient confidentiality, including in several countries with weak or absent domestic data protection laws. The agreements contain no prohibition on this data being shared with US pharmaceutical companies without patient consent.
“Governments negotiating health assistance agreements with the United States face difficult choices,” Bleckner said. “They should be wary of terms asking them to sign away their populations’ rights and push for the inclusion of civil society representatives and multilateral global health organizations like the Global Fund in deliberations.”
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'Her Charade Is Over': Platner Slams Collins for Skipping Abortion Hearings Since Roe Reversal
The Maine Republican was a decisive vote for Brett Kavanaugh, "and in the years since Roe was overturned, Susan Collins has done everything she can to skirt responsibility and avoid accountability," said the Democrat.
May 22, 2026
As part of Graham Platner's campaign to oust Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, the Democrat on Friday called out the five-term senator for skipping committee hearings on reproductive healthcare, including abortion, since the US Supreme Court that she helped build overturned Roe v. Wade.
Reproductive freedom advocates across Maine have renewed efforts to replace Collins since she voted to confirm various anti-choice judicial nominees during President Donald Trump's first term, including Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was credibly accused of sexual assault, in 2018.
Kavanaugh is part of the far-right supermajority that reversed Roe with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision in 2022, which led to a fresh wave of state-level restrictions on reproductive healthcare.
Beacon, run by the Maine People's Alliance, reported Friday that since the Dobbs ruling, Collins has not attended any Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee "meetings focused on abortion or reproductive healthcare," according to the panel's hearing reports.
They included the July 2022 hearing titled "Reproductive Care in a Post-Roe America: Barriers, Challenges, and Threats to Women's Health" and the June 2024 hearing titled "The Assault on Women’s Freedoms: How Abortion Bans Have Created a Healthcare Nightmare Across America."
More broadly, the Beacon noted, "Collins has also missed more than half of all possible HELP Committee meetings during her current term. Between 2021 and March 2026, she did not attend 67 of 125 possible HELP Committee and relevant subcommittee hearings."
Since launching his campaign last year, Platner has repeatedly called out Collins for demonstrating "symbolic opposition" to Trump while enabling his agenda and serving the interests of wealthy donors instead of working people. The combat veteran and oyster farmer—who's now the presumptive Democratic nominee after Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the primary race last month—similarly took aim at his opponent in response to the new reporting.
"Thanks to Susan Collins' decisive vote for Brett Kavanaugh, the freedom to choose was stolen from millions of women. And in the years since Roe was overturned, Susan Collins has done everything she can to skirt responsibility and avoid accountability—from skipping hearings to avoiding town halls at all costs," said Platner in a statement.
"In November, Susan Collins will learn she can only run and hide from her damaging votes for so long. Because whether she knows it or not—her charade is over," added the Democrat, who has been open about his family's fertility struggles during the campaign.
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Supreme Court Temporarily Extends Abortion Pill Access, But 'Care Is Still Under Attack Every Day'
"Mifepristone is safe and effective, and women should be able to get abortion medication through the mail or telehealth if they need," said Sen. Patty Murray.
May 11, 2026
Defenders of reproductive rights, including key Democrats in Congress, reiterated the safety of mifepristone on Monday after the US Supreme Court temporarily extended access to the medication—commonly used in abortion and miscarriage care—by mail while the justices review a ruling from a notoriously right-wing appellate court.
The US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit blocked a federal rule allowing mifepristone to be dispensed by mail at the beginning of the month. Drugmakers quickly appealed to the high court, where Justice Samuel Alito, who is part of the right-wing supermajority, issued a one-week stay to give himself and colleagues time to review the case.
As Alito's initial Monday evening deadline approached, he extended the stay until 5:00 pm ET on Thursday. The move means that "for now, mifepristone is still available via telehealth, mail order, and pharmacy while the case proceeds," noted the Democratic Women's Caucus in the US House of Representatives.
However, pro-choice advocates and policymakers are still sounding the alarm and arguing that, as the caucus put it in a social media post, "reproductive freedom should not depend on emergency rulings or political attacks."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement that "mifepristone has been safe, effective, and trusted for decades. Today's order keeps access in place for now, but it's not cause for celebration—it's a reminder that basic reproductive care is still under attack every day. Anti-abortion extremists are trying to use the courts to roll back access to medication abortion nationwide, and Senate Dems will keep fighting to protect women's freedom to make their own healthcare decisions."
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) similarly wrote on social media: "Another extension, but this shouldn't be complicated. Mifepristone is safe and effective, and women should be able to get abortion medication through the mail or telehealth if they need. Extremist judges shouldn't get to decide how women get healthcare."
This case traces back to early 2023, when the Biden administration's Food and Drug Administration permanently lifted mifepristone's in-person dispensing requirement, just months after the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority overturned Roe v. Wade. Louisiana, which has among the most restrictive abortion policies in the country, sued over the FDA's policy change.
Medication abortions account for the majority of abortions provided in the United States, and those patients generally take both mifepristone and another drug, misoprostol. Demand for abortion pills by mail increased after Roe's reversal, as advocates of forced pregnancy policies in Republican-controlled states ramped up attacks on reproductive freedom.
"With the Supreme Court punting a decision on access to mifepristone—a safe, effective medication used in abortion care—until later this week, patients and providers are left facing continued uncertainty," said Rachel Fey, interim co-CEO of Power to Decide. "Wondering day by day whether you'll have access to an essential medication is not practical, and the confusion only deepens the barriers people already face when seeking abortion care."
"Access to mifepristone should be based on scientific evidence, not ideology," Fey declared. "We urge the Supreme Court to follow that science and maintain current telehealth access to mifepristone—not just for a few days at a time, but permanently."
Alito's extensions in recent days are not necessarily signals of where the conservative will ultimately come down. The Associated Press pointed out Monday that "the current dispute is similar to one that reached the court three years ago," when the justices blocked another 5th Circuit ruling "over the dissenting votes of Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas," and then unanimously dismissed that case due to lack of standing, or a legal right to sue.
The battle comes as the Trump administration's FDA is conducting a review of mifepristone that Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, has said seems "designed to manufacture an excuse for further restricting medication abortion across the country."
The New York Times noted Monday that US Department of Justice "lawyers have not said in court proceedings or publicly whether they back regulations that allow people to be prescribed the pills through telehealth appointments. Instead, they have asked the lower courts to pause the litigation to give the FDA time to complete a review of the safety of mifepristone, which was first approved in 2000."
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Mifepristone Maker Appeals to US Supreme Court Amid Fears of 'National Abortion Ban'
"The safety of mifepristone has never actually been in question," said one advocate. "As this case moves towards the US Supreme Court, we will fight until every person has access to the care they need."
May 02, 2026
A pharmaceutical company which manufactures mifepristone filed an appeal to the US Supreme Court on Saturday asking for emergency relief from the "sweeping and dangerous" lower-court ruling Friday that would prohibit the mailing of the widely used abortion medication nationwide.
Danco Laboratories, which makes the popular drug and is part of ongoing litigation stemming from a legal challenge by the Republican-controlled state of Louisiana, said Friday's ruling by the Fifth Circuit of Appeals—a decision roundly condemned by reproductive rights advocates as an attack on women's health and the right to choose across the country—will cause "tremendous uncertainty" on the "legal status of mifepristone throughout the country” if it goes into effect.
The company further argued that the ruling as it stands leaves medical providers, patients, and pharmacies “all to guess at what is allowed and what is not," whether or not abortion is legal in the state where a patient is trying to obtain it.
The company asked the nation's highest court for an immediate administrative stay to the 5th Circuit's ruling while the challenge to the drug's availability makes its way through lower courts. It also urged the Court to take up the case itself prior to the upcoming summer recess.
According to Politico:
Even a temporary disruption of access to mifepristone will have massive implications. The medication is used in nearly two-thirds of all pregnancy terminations, and a quarter of patients depend on telehealth to obtain them. The ruling also cuts off telemedicine prescription of the drug for non-abortion purposes, such as easing miscarriages.
In the wake of Friday’s ruling, medical and progressive advocacy groups stressed that doctors can still use telehealth to prescribe the other abortion pill — misoprostol. The drug can be used on its own to end pregnancies and carries fewer restrictions because it is used for an array of other purposes, including treating ulcers and stopping hemorrhages.
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward who also the legal effort to make mifepristone available by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic as then-Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, issued the following statement
“Women’s ability to access mifepristone through the mail or from their pharmacy has revolutionized access to care. Now, as anti-abortion extremists seek to employ their anti-abortion playbook and reverse this hard-fought victory for patients, this decision needlessly blocks people around the country from critical healthcare, discriminating in particular against those who live in rural and other areas where healthcare is inaccessible.
"Here's what is very clear: mifepristone has an OUTSTANDING safety record," said the Center for Reproductive Rights on Saturday. "It has been FDA-approved for 25 years and used by more than 7 million people."
Following Friday night's ruling by the 5th Circuit, Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of the advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, said the stakes could night be higher for the right to choose in the United States.
"The court’s decision moves us one step closer to a national abortion ban," Timmaraju warned.
"It is now much more difficult for people to access abortion care," she said. "Anti-abortion politicians know their policies are unpopular, so they are using every lever of government they can. Louisiana built this case on debunked, junk science. The safety of mifepristone has never actually been in question. As this case moves towards the US Supreme Court, we will fight until every person has access to the care they need."
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'Sweeping and Dangerous': US Appeals Court Blocks Mailing of Abortion Pills
The "politically driven" ruling, warned one campaigner, "overrides medical expertise and years of research, and threatens to upend how abortion care is delivered nationwide."
May 01, 2026
Rights advocates swiftly sounded the alarm on Friday after the infamously far-right US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit temporarily blocked a federal rule allowing mifepristone to be dispensed by mail, dramatically curtailing access to the medication—commonly used for abortion and early miscarriage care—nationwide, particularly in states with policies hostile to reproductive freedom.
Just months after the US Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority reversed Roe v. Wade, the Food and Drug Administration permanently lifted mifepristone's in-person dispensing requirement in early 2023, under then-President Joe Biden. Louisiana—which has among the nation's most restrictive abortion policies—challenged the FDA's move.
A federal judge in Louisiana paused that lawsuit last month while President Donald Trump's administration conducts an FDA review that seems "designed to manufacture an excuse for further restricting medication abortion across the country," as Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney for the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, warned at the time.
After a panel from the appellate court overturned that decision and revived the in-person dispensing rule on Friday, Kaye declared that "anti-abortion politicians have just made it much harder for people everywhere in the country to get a medication that abortion and miscarriage patients have been safely using for more than 25 years."
"Louisiana's legal attack on mifepristone shamelessly packaged lies and propaganda as an excuse to restrict abortion—and the 5th Circuit rubber-stamped it," she continued. "This decision defies clear science and settled law and advances an anti-abortion agenda that is deeply unpopular with the American people. For countless people, especially those who live in rural areas, face intimate partner violence, or live with disabilities, losing a telemedicine option will mean losing access to this vital medication altogether."
Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), similarly stressed that "this ruling is a sweeping and dangerous rollback that disregards the well-established safety and efficacy of the use of mifepristone via telehealth, and will create immediate, medically unnecessary barriers to care for patients across the country."
"Make no mistake: This ruling is not grounded in science or patient safety," she said. "It is a politically driven decision that overrides medical expertise and years of research, and threatens to upend how abortion care is delivered nationwide. Through this litigation, Louisiana seeks to impose its cruel abortion ban across the nation—including in states with legal protections for abortion—and today the court has taken an extreme step toward that end."
While pledging that "NAF and our allies will continue to advocate to restore full access to medication abortion," Fonteno reminded patients that mifepristone "remains available in doctors' offices, clinics, and hospitals."
Terrific thread. I’ll just add:1. I think there’s a good chance the Supreme Court will stay this decision, allowing providers to keep mailing mifepristone for the time being.2. The Trump administration didn’t want this! Its plan was to wait until after the midterms to crack down on mifepristone.
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— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) May 1, 2026 at 6:52 PM
After Roe's reversal, the anti-choice movement and its allies in elected offices ramped up efforts to impose state-level restrictions on reproductive healthcare. A significant majority of abortions in the United States involve a two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol, and a quarter of those patients receive care via telemedicine.
"Telehealth has been the last bridge to care for many seeking abortion, which is precisely why Louisiana officials want it banned," said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which joined over 100 other reproductive health, justice, and rights groups, including the ACLU and NAF, that filed an amicus brief in this case.
"This isn't about science—it's about making abortion as difficult, expensive, and unreachable as possible," Northup added. "Telehealth has transformed healthcare. Selectively stripping that away from abortion patients is a political blockade."
The drug companies Danco Laboratories, which makes the brand-name version of mifepristone, Mifeprex, and GenBioPro, which makes the generic, have intervened in Louisiana v. FDA. GenBioPro is represented by the law firm Arnold & Porter and Democracy Forward, whose president and CEO, Skye Perryman, declared Friday that "this is the anti-abortion extremists' playbook in action once again: Weaponize the courts to serve their political interests, ignore decades of scientific evidence proving mifepristone’s safety, and put women directly in harm's way."
"Even as this assault defies the will of the overwhelming majority of the American public, these ideologically extreme politicians and organizations are determined to impose a narrow, autocratic agenda—no matter the cost," she continued, emphasizing that "our fight is not over."
This is a ruling purporting to halt telehealth prescriptions of mifepristone NATIONWIDE. Louisiana asked the Fifth Circuit for a decision by Monday, May 11. That they dropped it on a Friday afternoon feels intentional to keep it in effect for longer. Expect emergency appeal to SCOTUS shadow docket
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— Susan Rinkunas (@susanrinkunas.com) May 1, 2026 at 5:35 PM
The effects of the 5th Circuit's decision are expected to be immediate absent a quick intervention from the Supreme Court, and Nourbese Flint, president of All* Above All, warned that "as always, the people most impacted will be Black and brown communities and those already navigating systemic barriers to care."
Serra Sippel, executive director of the Brigid Alliance, a national abortion support group that helps coordinate and fund travel, said that "we expect to see an immediate increase in patients forced to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles for care. That includes many who are later in pregnancy—when care is more complex and more expensive."
"Over the past several years, we've seen a dramatic rise in abortion travel and a growing reliance on practical support networks like ours, particularly in states where patients already travel long distances for care," Sippel noted. "We will continue to monitor the impact of this ruling and are committed to ensuring abortion patients who need to travel can safely get to the care they need, regardless of where they live."
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Georgia Judge Denounces Murder Charge in Abortion Case as 'Extremely Problematic'
States that have criminalized abortion are "getting much more explicit" in pushing to prosecute women for obtaining abortion care, said one rights advocate.
Mar 24, 2026
A state judge in Georgia on Monday set a bail payment at just $1 for a woman who was charged with murder earlier this month after she took abortion pills to end a pregnancy—a charge about which Judge Steven G. Blackerby of State Superior Court expressed extreme skepticism.
“I think that charge is extremely problematic,” Blackerby said during a hearing that the woman, Alexia Moore, attended virtually. “That is going to be a hard charge to convict upon.”
District Attorney Keith Higgins, who is overseeing the case against Moore, also did not appear convinced that the 31-year-old should be imprisoned for the medication abortion she had last December. He told the judge that "whatever bond the defendant can make that will allow her to get out of jail is appropriate," and noted that police in Kingsland, Georgia had brought charges against Moore without his office's support.
Higgins said he was not ready to drop the murder charge altogether, but said he was also not prepared to present the case to a grand jury.
Moore had been in jail for about two weeks when the hearing took place. Investigators in Kingsland accused her of “unlawfully and with malice aforethought [causing] the death of Baby Girl Moore.” In addition to malice murder they charged her with possession of a controlled substance and a dangerous drug.
She was rushed to Southeast Georgia Health Center on December 30 after experiencing severe abdominal pain. Court records showed Moore told the medical staff she had taken about eight pills of misoprostol, a pill that can be used for medication abortion, and oxycodone for pain. She went into labor at the hospital and delivered a baby who was determined to be in the second trimester of development. The baby was declared dead about an hour after birth.
She said she had bought the medication online and believed herself to be less than 14 weeks pregnant.
The Kingsland Police Department did not specifically cite Georgia's six-week abortion ban—which the state Supreme Court has allowed to remain in effect despite a Superior Court ruling that permanently enjoined the ban and found it unconstitutional—but The New York Times reported that documents supporting the department's arrest warrant "echoed aspects of the ban, including saying that 'the baby was well beyond six weeks of conception.'"
The police said Moore was charged with murder because “the victim became a person at the moment of live birth.”
Higgins acknowledged in court that the malice murder charge may not meet "factual and merit" standards, and both Blackerby and Kelly Turner, Moore's defense attorney, noted that Georgia law prohibits the criminalization of someone who has induced an abortion on themself.
The Current, a Georgia-based outlet, also reported that "privacy issues" are likely to be scrutinized in court if the district attorney continues to pursue the case.
"A security guard at Southeast Georgia Health Center in St. Marys called police after medical staff said that Moore had ingested abortion medication and the infant was older than six weeks, according to police records, which also cited Moore’s previous abortion history," reported The Current.
Turner argued in court that Moore legally procured the misoprostol and noted that her blood tests and hospital records did not show Oxycodone in her system.
"Today’s decision is a reminder that justice is not served by accusation alone," said Don Plummer, press officer for the Georgia Public Defender Council, which is representing Moore.
Author and advocate Jessica Valenti of Abortion, Every Day emphasized after Moore's arrest that the murder charge shows how states that have criminalized abortion care are "getting much more explicit" about the anti-choice movement's desire to punish women for obtaining abortions—even though in the past, laws have typically avoided prosecuting them.
A 31-year-old in Georgia has been arrested and charged with murder for allegedly ending her pregnancy with abortion medication.
Here’s what we know: pic.twitter.com/EXAcMqEdak
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) March 16, 2026
The district attorneys of Georgia's four largest counties pledged in 2019, after the passage of the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, that they would not prosecute people who obtain abortions.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, women in states including Kentucky, Ohio, and South Carolina have faced charges for obtaining abortion care and for suffering pregnancy loss. An Ohio woman sued medical providers last year for conspiring with police to fabricate a criminal case against her; she had been charged with felony abuse of a corpse after having a miscarriage, but a grand jury declined to indict her.
"I really hope that people are paying attention to this," said Valenti of the attempt to bring charges against Moore. "They really are counting on us being too overwhelmed to act, so it's incredibly, incredibly important that we let them know we're paying attention."
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