U.S. Repro Watch, February 12

U.S. Repro Watch provides periodic updates on news of interest on U.S. reproductive rights. Here are a few recent items you won’t want to miss.

1. Meta accused of “shadow-banning” abortion-related content.

• Multiple organizations that help people access abortion care reported that Meta blocked their Instagram and Facebook accounts, including by blurring or removing their posts. Some of the organizations reported being temporarily locked out of their accounts.
• The timing is suspect: the organizations’ online issues appeared in the two weeks leading up to President Trump’s inauguration and coincided with Meta’s announcement that they would end fact checking on their platforms.
• In a statement, a Meta representative claimed the issues stemmed from “over enforcement and a technical bug.”

2. New York’s strengthened shield law will further protect doctors prescribing abortion medication.

• Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the new law on February 3, just days after a New York doctor was indicted by a Louisiana grand jury for prescribing and mailing abortion pills to a patient living in the state, where abortion is banned. 
• With assistance from the Center for Reproductive Rights’ state team, New York State strengthened its telehealth shield law so providers prescribing abortion medication can request that a dispensing pharmacy print their practice’s name on the prescription bottle label instead of their name. 
• The law makes it more difficult for hostile states to target New York doctors serving patients in states lacking access to abortion care. 

3. A bill was introduced in Congress that would grant embryos the same legal rights as people.

• Introduced on President Trump’s first day in office by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO), HR 722 seeks to codify into law “fetal personhood”— the idea that a human being exists from the moment of conception.
• The bill would grant embryos and fetuses the same legal rights as a person and as a result, would ban abortion completely, restrict IVF and other fertility treatments, and put pregnant people at risk of criminal prosecution for any actions that negatively impact their pregnancy.
• Rep. Burlison filed this bill against the will of his own constituents: Missouri residents voted to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitution just three months ago.

4. President Trump’s foreign assistance freeze will prevent nearly 1 million women and girls from getting contraception each week.

• Congress appropriates $607.5 million annually in foreign aid for family planning, including $32.5 million for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and has done so for the past nine years.
• Over the course of the full 90-day review period, 11.7 million women and girls will be denied contraception. If this comes to pass, 4.2 million will experience unintended pregnancies, and 8,340 will die from complications during pregnancy and childbirth.

5. The Department of Defense announced it will no longer provide paid leave and travel reimbursement for servicemembers’ travel for abortion care.

• The Department of Defense on January 29 rescinded a 2023 Biden administration policy that provided paid time off and travel expenses and allowances for servicemembers and their dependents who had to cross state lines to obtain abortion and other reproductive care. 
• Texas and Georgia are two of the top five states with the largest population of military personnel. Abortion is entirely banned in Texas and banned after only six weeks of pregnancy in Georgia. Many have had to travel to neighboring states to get the care they need.

6. U.S. Senate confirmation hearings progressed for key Trump administration nominees dangerous to reproductive rights.

• Russell Vought was confirmed as Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Ending all abortion is a central issue for Vought, a main architect of Project 2025, who will now have the power to fund fake abortion clinics (also known as “crisis pregnancy centers”) through the President’s budget and reject any agency rules that advance reproductive health care.
• Pam Bondi was confirmed as Attorney General. During her hearing in January, Bondi continually reiterated her anti-abortion beliefs. As AG, Bondi will be responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinical Entrances (FACE) Act, overseeing the National Task Force on Violence Against Health Care Providers, and determining the Department’s position on the Comstock Act.
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, suggested in his confirmation hearings he was open to significantly limiting access to abortion medication and refused to say whether emergency rooms should have provide emergency abortion care to save the lives of pregnant patients.
• Kash Patel, the nominee for Director of the FBI, could weaponize his position as FBI Director to surveil abortion providers and activists and cooperate with anti-abortion states requesting assistance in tracking abortion-related activities. Patel’s Senate hearing is February 13.

Women and families personally impacted by Georgia’s six-week abortion ban shared their stories in an amicus brief urging the state supreme court to strike down the ban.

• The families include the sister and son of Candi Miller, a Georgia woman whose tragic and preventable death was exposed by the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee. (The state disbanded the committee shortly afterward.)
• The brief was submitted in a case brought by the Center challenging the ban.
• At a hearing March 18, the Georgia Supreme Court will decide whether it agrees with a lower state court ruling that the ban violates the state’s constitution.

February 13: Michigan court to hear Center case challenging state’s remaining abortion restrictions.

• A Michigan trial court will hear arguments in the Center’s case aiming to strike down several laws that make it harder to access abortion care. The lawsuit claims that the laws violate the recent voter-passed constitutional amendment protecting reproductive freedom.