Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Mo. House Committee Floats Plans For More Restrictions On Abortion Providers
A Missouri House committee is putting together recommendations that could place further restrictions on abortion providers, namely Planned Parenthood. Several Republican lawmakers began brainstorming various proposals toward the end of a public hearing Wednesday at the State Capitol. They included random inspections of any facility that performs abortions, including hospitals. (Griffin, 10/15)
State attorneys will try to convince a judge on Thursday that Utah's decision to block federal money from going to Planned Parenthood is not unconstitutional and allowed under contracts with the organization. A judge ruled late last month that the money should temporarily keep flowing to Planned Parenthood, but that order expires Thursday and the organization wants to see it extended. (10/15)
State health officials appear to have taken up Republicans’ ongoing fight against Planned Parenthood by adopting guidelines that prohibit abortion-affiliated groups from contracting with Texas to run abstinence education programs. Officials at the Health and Human Services Commission recently added language to the requirements for groups applying for contracts under the state’s Abstinence Education Services program that would prohibit entities even loosely affiliated with abortion providers from receiving any funding. The move comes even though the state's elected lawmakers did not ask for it when they approved the budget earlier this year, and Planned Parenthood doesn't participate in the state's abstinence programs. (Ura, 10/15)
In a packed day of action Tuesday at the state Capitol, GOP lawmakers advanced a bill to ban certain research on tissues derived from aborted fetuses. The bill moved forward on the same day that national Planned Parenthood officials said they would no longer accept any reimbursement for the costs of donating such tissues for research, with the group's officials saying they are doing so to push back against opponents' claims that Planned Parenthood is seeking to profit from tissue transfers. The group has said only a handful of its clinics, and none in Wisconsin, are involved in the donations. (Stein, 10/13)
