Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Abortion Providers Sue Over La. Laws Following Supreme Court Ruling
Abortion providers in Louisiana filed suit Friday to invalidate state laws regulating the procedure, an early example of litigation likely to target antiabortion laws following a Supreme Court ruling earlier this week. The Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based advocacy group representing two of Louisiana’s four abortion clinics, filed the action in federal court in Baton Rouge, alleging seven abortion-related laws enacted in the state this year are unconstitutional. (Bravin and Radnofsky, 7/1)
Abortion clinics and their doctors in Louisiana are challenging new abortion restrictions that include making women wait longer and barring a common second-trimester procedure. The federal lawsuit filed Friday in Baton Rouge seeks to keep the new rules from taking effect on Aug. 1. Among other restrictions, lawmakers voted to force many women to wait 72 hours and undergo ultrasounds before getting abortions, and they banned a procedure called dilation and evacuation. (7/1)
In the shadow of the Supreme Court’s decision on Texas abortion clinics on Monday was a second one, a day later, that saved the one remaining abortion clinic in all of Mississippi. The decision brought a momentary breath of relief for clinic staff, but they say they don’t expect it to mean new clinics will open in the state anytime soon. ... The state’s only other abortion clinic closed its doors in 2006. Women from across the state travel for three to four hours to the Jackson clinic for abortions or for reproductive care, including birth control and routine checkups. (Seervai, 7/1)
A federal judge's decision to block a new Indiana abortion law from taking effect was a setback for anti-abortion activists who backed the push to tighten restrictions on the procedure that are already among the most strict in the country. Provisions put on hold a day before they were to take effect Friday would have banned abortions sought because of a fetus' genetic abnormalities, such as Down syndrome or because of the race, gender or ancestry of a fetus, and required that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated. (7/4)
And, new data show that Hispanic women were the most affected by the Texas regulations that were just overturned —
The number of Texas Hispanic women who had abortions in 2014 dropped 18 percent compared with the year before, proving that the state’s now-overturned tough restrictions on clinics had an adverse effect on a woman’s constitutional right to the procedure, advocates said Friday. (Lepro, 7/1)
