Major anti-abortion groups gathered in the nation’s capital on Thursday to begin a lobbying effort with Congress and President Donald Trump’s administration aimed at eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood, with some calling on Elon Musk to make the organization one of his cost-cutting targets. (3/27)
Abortion news from Kentucky, Texas, Maine, New York, and Maryland —
The Kentucky General Assembly has overturned Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of a bill meant to clarify the state’s abortion ban, which some doctors said fell short of that goal. House Bill 90 will immediately add to Kentucky law an itemized list of certain conditions under which doctors can legally end a pregnancy — including during hemorrhage, ectopic and molar pregnancies.
It will also make it possible for Kentucky to have freestanding birth centers. Doctors previously told the Lantern that the bill doesn’t clarify the ban for them and causes more confusion about when they can legally perform an emergency abortion. (Ladd, 3/27)
The Texas Tribune: Critics: Texas Bill To Clarify Abortion Ban Won’t Save Lives
A bipartisan bill to clarify exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban garnered widespread support Thursday from health care professionals and abortion opponents who said the bill would remove any hesitation doctors might have to save a pregnant woman’s life.
Critics, meanwhile, told lawmakers that Senate Bill 31 doesn’t go far enough to protect women facing pregnancy-related medical emergencies and even quietly resurrects 160-year-old laws that could be used to criminalize those who have undergone an abortion or have helped those who receive an out-of-state abortion. (Salhotra and Klibanoff, 3/27)
The Judiciary Committee is hearing public testimony starting at 9:30 a.m. on Friday on seven of these bills. Abortion is legal in Maine up to the point of fetal viability, or around 24 weeks of pregnancy. (Davis, 3/28)
The unprecedented move catapults the interstate abortion wars to a new level, setting the stage for a high-stakes legal battle between states that ban abortion and states that support abortion rights. (Belluck, 3/27)
In other reproductive health news —
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