Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Biden Admin Appeals Abortion Pill Case To The Supreme Court
The future of the most popular method of terminating a pregnancy is back before the Supreme Court after the Biden administration and pharmaceutical company Danco appealed a lower court ruling rolling back years of FDA policies broadening access to the drug. The Supreme Court is unlikely to consider the case until next year at the earliest, and the justices previously ruled that no changes to federal regulation of the pills will happen until then — leaving the current state-by-state patchwork of access in place for now. (Ollstein, 9/8)
In election updates about abortion —
Republican strategists are exploring a shift away from “pro-life” messaging on abortion after consistent Election Day losses for the GOP when reproductive rights were on the ballot. At a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans this week, the head of a super PAC closely aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., presented poll results that suggested voters are reacting differently to commonly used terms like “pro-life” and “pro-choice” in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, said several senators who were in the room. ... Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., summarized Wednesday’s meeting as being focused on “pro-baby policies.” (Tsirkin, Santaliz, Leach and Brown-Kaiser, 9/7)
This battle over what the abortion-rights movement should fight for is playing out across the country, as activists in Ohio, Arizona, Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota are working on ballot initiatives, mostly for the 2024 cycle. (Pauly, 9/11)
In crafting an anti-abortion message that doesn’t alienate moderate Republicans and swing voters, her approach has won both supporters and detractors. (Lerer, 9/9)
Vice President Kamala Harris rejected claims from some Republican officials that Democrats want to allow abortions up until a person gives birth. ... Asked by CBS’ Margaret Brennan what “week of pregnancy” Harris believes a potential abortion law should protect, the vice president repeatedly said “We need to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade” and that the Biden administration is “not trying to do anything that did not exist before June of last year.” (Pitofsky, 9/10)
More abortion news —
Missouri’s Supreme Court will once again determine whether the state has the authority to restrict public funds from going to Planned Parenthood, after the attorney general formally filed its appeal last week of a December ruling that deemed the effort unconstitutional. (Bates, 9/11)
The graves at the edge of the orphanage tell a story of despair. The rough planks in the cracked earth are painted with the names of children, most of them dead in the 1990s. That was before the HIV drugs arrived. Today, the orphanage in Kenya’s capital is a happier, more hopeful place for children with HIV. But a political fight taking place in the United States is threatening the program that helps to keep them and millions of others around the world alive. The reason for the threat? Abortion. (Musambi, Amiri, Anna and Knickmeyer, 9/9)