Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Abortion Opponents Seek High Court's OK For In-Your-Face Interactions
The goal, says one group involved in the case, is to get close enough to make eye contact with women as they enter an abortion clinic. (Groppe, 10/28)
Donald Trump has softened his rhetoric, contradicted himself and nearly dropped 鈥減ro-life鈥 from his vocabulary. Yet there is no evidence that his views on abortion have changed. (Sanger-Katz, Miller and Washington, 10/26)
For the anti-abortion movement, Arizona was supposed to be different. After two years of losing abortion ballot measure fights around the country, conservatives held up the state鈥檚 15-week ban as a winning post-Roe strategy 鈥 a middle ground they argued most Americans embrace. Instead, with just days left until Election Day, Arizonans are poised to handily reject the 15-week ban and add abortion protections to their state constitution, just as voters did in Michigan, Ohio and other red and purple states while facing six-week and near-total bans. It鈥檚 the latest evidence that even voters who tell pollsters they oppose second- and third-trimester abortions will, when given a chance, vote against government-imposed restrictions on the procedure 鈥 regardless of the number of weeks. (Ollstein, 10/26)
Florida voters could put the right to get an abortion in the state's constitution on Nov. 5. If Amendment 4 passes, it would limit the state's authority to restrict abortion. With less than 10 days before the 2024 election, supporters of the amendment rallied people to get to the polls. Broward County's Anya Cook has been in an "Ad for the Yes on 4" campaign. She shared with CBS News Miami what happened when her doctor told her that her unborn baby would not live. (Maugeri, 10/27)
As a teenager in eastern Tennessee, Jessica Moerman didn鈥檛 think she could be both a scientist and a Christian. An evangelical who grew up in the foothills of the Great Smoky mountains, Moerman was 鈥渟poiled with the grandeur of God鈥檚 creation,鈥 and remembers learning about nature and conservation from her father, a hunter. It helped fuel her deep interest in environmental science, but that felt at odds with her goal of going into the ministry. (Gopal, 10/25)