Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Anti-Abortion Groups Rejuvenated By Trump Win
Christina Hagan, the youngest woman in the Ohio Legislature, received a surprise last week. The toughest piece of abortion legislation in the country — a bill she had championed for years — suddenly passed. The measure, which would ban abortions after a heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks, was long presumed dead. But now that Donald J. Trump is headed to the White House, the political winds have changed, and it passed with overwhelming majorities. (Tavernise and Stolberg, 12/11)
The push to confer full “personhood” status on every fertilized human egg has been rejected by voters and lawmakers in state after state, including deep-red Mississippi. But activists are cautiously hopeful that their cause could get a boost from Republicans who are about to assume leadership in Washington. Georgia Representative Tom Price, who has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to run the Department of Health and Human Services, has twice co-sponsored federal legislation that would define fertilized human eggs as legal persons — a move that would outlaw not just abortion, but also potentially birth control pills and other common methods of contraception. (Robbins, 12/9)
Support and donations to Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio have surged in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and the passage this week of two abortion-ban bills in the Ohio legislature, Planned Parenthood officials say. One bill would make abortions illegal in Ohio after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Another, the so-called Heartbeat Bill, would impose the nation’s strictest abortion law by outlawing the procedure once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is usually around six weeks. (Price, 12/10)