While new threats to gender justice won’t slow down any time soon, we’re heading into this weekend focused on good news.
Lawmakers Are Working to Protect the Public from CPCs
As we know, the anti-abortion movement flourishes when people don’t have access to legitimate medical information, which is why it uses crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) to disseminate false and misleading anti-abortion talking points.
When we first started working on CPC industry accountability, the issue was marginalized. Now, policymakers across the country are waking up to the escalated public health and privacy threats crisis pregnancy centers pose post-Roe and taking action to hold them accountable.
This excellent new Ms. Magazine article details CPC accountability legislation recently introduced around the country. These efforts include measures to prohibit deceptive advertising, protect health data privacy, advance public education about CPCs, and create avenues for consumer complaints about their deceitful and dangerous practices.
As WLP interim co-director Amal Bass told Ms. Magazine, “In the absence of a federal right to reproductive autonomy, it’s urgent that state and local governments step up to protect people from the predatory practices of fake clinics that deter, delay and deceive people seeking abortion or other reproductive healthcare.”
Here in Pennsylvania, leaders of the Women’s Health Caucus have called for the state to stop double-funding Real Alternatives, the state-funded anti-abortion organization that oversees a chain of crisis pregnancy centers and have announced forthcoming legislation (that we still share when introduced).
Unfortunately, Pennsylvania Department of Human Services recently double-funded Real Alternatives with money intended for Pennsylvania’s poorest pregnant people and children, despite serious allegations of fiscal malfeasance, a record of promoting false and misleading anti-abortion talking points, and targeting low-income Pennsylvanians with a predatory practice medical experts call “an unmonitored research experiment” on pregnant people.
Ruling in FDA Mifepristone Case Delayed
Admittedly, “relief” is a better word than “good” for this next update: A ruling in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, the anti-abortion litigation filed to force women and birthing people in the U.S. into substandard medical care by removing mifepristone from the market despite its proven safety, has been postponed until at least February 24. Mifepristone is used in medication abortion, miscarriage management, and to treat reproductive health issues, as well as Cushing’s syndrome.
This delay gives us all more time to prepare for all possible scenarios and mitigate the intended harm to pregnant people which, rest assured, is what we are doing. We’ll send more information on this case soon.
The PA House is Getting Back to Business with New Leadership
And finally, the Pennsylvania House is finally going to be back in session …. with lawmakers generally supportive of reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ equality in the majority. That means the anti-abortion constitutional amendment is unlikely to pass this session (though we are continuing to watch other bad amendments including a voter suppression effort and a “regulatory” amendment that could function as a back-door way to impose more political restrictions on abortion access). Let’s go!
Women’s Law Project is a non-profit public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing and defending the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people in Pennsylvania and beyond.
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