This Week in Abortion: IVF in the Pelican State and Utah’s abortion module

A collection of good reads, events from the week, and policy insights.

Welcome back to This Week in Abortion - Your weekly substack roundup of good reads, news updates, and policy insights on abortion.

This week, reporters in Utah highlight a disturbing requirement in the state’s abortion regulations, Louisiana’s legislature is hoping to win the anti-access gold medal, and there are now three conflicting abortion-related ballot measures in play in Nebraska.

Good Reads

• Caroline Krum and Abhilasha Khatri describe what it takes to access abortion in Utah, including an online module complete with a quiz. Patients must present a certificate of completion before they can get an abortion. You can see for yourself. It isn’t as obviously in your face as, say, the Live Action video. However, with the official seal of the state,  it still forces patients to answer invasive questions and presents inaccurate information like when and how a fetus feels pain and the validity of medicated abortion reversal. 

• Following up on last week’s Time article on IUD/long-acting reversible contraceptives, Eric Boodman at STAT just started a series examining the denial of reproductive autonomy for people with sickle cell disease - 90% of whom are Black.

• I realize how annoying it is to my readers, and family, and friends, and really anyone in earshot how much I talk about the need for a Republican access strategy. So for a change, I want to acknowledge how truly hard that is. While I believe there are candidates out there and I try to highlight them. There is not a lot of trust between the movement and the party. The congressional race in Maryland speaks to why that is.

• IVF is in the news again this week. For a reminder of what the controversy is about, watch the Politico video below, produced in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling. (Alabama’s legislature has since taken action that allowed clinics to restore the procedure.)

Top news updates

• 👎 Louisiana saw Alabama’s IVF controversy in February and said, “Hold my beer!” (Or Sazerac, as it were.) This week legislators (including some Dems) made Misoprostol and Mifepristone controlled substances. This means that prescriptions and prescribing Doctors will be tracked, even when the conditions are unrelated to abortion. Thankfully we are nearing the end of most state legislative seasons. But, this is going to be the gold star anti-access law for 2025. 

• 👎  Louisiana legislators didn’t stop there. They also went and made IVF more difficult. LA is currently the only state that bans the destruction of frozen embryos. This week, before passing a bill that was meant to help IVF providers, state senators added language making it illegal to transfer embryos out of state for destruction, which is precisely what makes the state’s current extreme IVF laws workable. The amended bill still needs to pass the House.

• 👎 Speaking of, there are now two competing partisan IVF bills in the Senate. Neither is going to become law. But, the differences are stark and reflective of party philosophies on reproductive freedom. Listen here. Cruz’s bill would leave laws like Louisiana’s in place. Duckworth’s would - subject to interpretation - require the state to loosen its restrictions on the procedure.

• 👎 In Nebraska, things are getting weird. Three abortion-related ballot initiatives are in play one would protect access up to viability, another would enshrine the state’s current 12-week ban, and a third that’s now in play would establish a personhood law and all-out ban. NPR explains what will happen if conflicting initiatives make it to the ballot.

• 👎 In Amarillo, TX, residents are forcing the city council to consider a symbolic ordinance that would outlaw the use of the city’s streets to access abortion in neighboring states. Congressional races are exciting, but consider this your regular reminder that abortion policy is local policy. 

• 👎 Everyone hates the Texas medical board. That’s the takeaway from the five-hour public hearing on Monday. Even anti-abortion advocates told the Board that their guidance on when abortions could be considered appropriate was unworkable. It makes you wonder if exceptions are even a real thing!?   

• 👍Illinois legislators are thinking ahead. State House members approved protections of the current federal EMTALA standards that would serve as a backstop in the event that the Supreme Court limits HHS’s authority next month. It’s likely that the Senate will also approve.

• 👍Pro-access ballot measures in Colorado and South Dakota are moving forward after signature petitions were certified.

• 👍 Providers in Kansas are suing the state over a new law that requires doctors to ask an invasive and medically unnecessary set of questions before providing abortion services. 

• 👍 More lawsuits brought by the DOJ against anti-access activists who interrupt patient care.