U.S. Repro Watch, March 1

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

1. Twenty governors from across the country announced a new alliance to strengthen abortion access on February 21.

• Led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Reproductive Freedom Alliance is a coalition of 20 governors from states including Maine, New York, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Washington.
• The multi-state Alliance will allow governors to collaborate on building protections for abortion, including sharing best practices and model legislation. The group also aims to coordinate responses to threats to abortion access, including the lawsuit threatening medication abortion nationwide.

2. The fight to protect abortion access is picking up at the state level.

• In North Carolina, over 1,000 doctors are urging state lawmakers not to further restrict abortion. In an open letter, they underscore how such laws jeopardize their patients’ health and the need to “keep the government out of exam rooms.”
• In Ohio, a proposal for a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights has been submitted to state officials for approval. If approved, over 400,000 signatures must be collected in order to put the measure on the November 2023 ballot.
• In New Mexico, lawmakers advanced legislation to protect access to abortion and gender-affirming care, including a bill to shield providers and patients from out-of-state legal actions.

3. Vice President Kamala Harris met with reproductive rights groups on February 24 to discuss ways to protect access to medication abortion.

• The Vice President met with the organizations in light of the looming case threatening access to medication abortion across the country. Harris said that the lawsuit—filed by anti-abortion groups against the FDA—represents “an attack on the very foundation of our public health system.”
• Briefs have been submitted in the case, and the court could schedule a hearing or rule without holding one.

4. Women’s History Month begins today, March 1.

• The right to abortion has played a critical role in the progress women have made towards gender equality in the U.S. “The Link Between Abortion Rights and Gender Equality,” a piece in U.S. News, reports on an analysis that found that the best states for gender equality are the same ones that protect abortion access.

March 2: Hearing on Louisiana’s trigger ban.

• The Louisiana Court of Appeal will hear arguments over an injunction that blocked the state’s three trigger bans. Although a lower court issued the injunction in July 2022, it was suspended while the state appealed. The bans have now been in effect for more than six months. Read more here.
• Abortion providers are asking the appellate court to uphold the injunction. Louisiana doctors have argued that the state’s overlapping bans have created utter confusion about how to do their jobs, putting them at risk of jail time for providing essential abortion care.

February 21 marked one year since the Constitutional Court of Colombia ruled to decriminalize abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The landmark ruling made Colombia the eighth country in Latin America and the Caribbean to decriminalize abortion. The decision was in response to a 2020 lawsuit filed by the Causa Justa movement—an alliance of more than 90 organizations, including the Center—which sought to eliminate abortion as a crime.