Kaiser Health News Original Stories

Bill of the Month: His-and-Hers Cataract Surgeries, But His Bill Was 20 Times as Much

Whether a simple operation is performed under the auspices of a hospital or at an independent surgery center can make a huge difference in cost. (Angela Hart, 7/2 )

Five Things to Know Now That the Supreme Court Has Overturned Roe v. Wade  

By undoing that landmark decision, the law of the land since 1973, the court has empowered states to set their own abortion restrictions — so where people live will determine their level of access. (Victoria Knight and Rachana Pradhan and Julie Rovner, 7/2 )

Genetic Screening Results Just Got Harder to Handle Under New Abortion Rules

Most prenatal genetic tests aren’t performed until after 11 weeks’ gestation, and the time between drawing a sample and getting results may be additional weeks. But new abortion restrictions prevent parents from choosing an abortion when they find out their child has a genetic disease, and make the already difficult decision for them. (Sara Reardon, 7/2 )

A Post-‘Roe’ World in Georgia Will Mean More Restrictions — And More Political Battles

Abortion will almost certainly face new restrictions in Georgia. Patients will have a harder time finding services, and providers will have to figure out how to navigate the new landscape. Meanwhile, abortion opponents see the moment as an opportunity to put further restrictions on the procedure. (Sam Whitehead, 7/2 )

‘It’s Not a Haven’: With Limited Capacity for Abortion Care, Minnesota Clinics Brace for Influx

In Minnesota, where abortion rights are protected by the state’s constitution, legal doesn't necessarily mean accessible. The state has just eight clinics that provide abortions, and both providers and advocates say resources available aren’t enough to meet demand as nearby states reduce abortion access. (Rachana Pradhan and Christina Saint Louis, 7/2 )

Conservatives on Supreme Court, as Expected, End Nationwide Right to Abortion

The 6-3 decision, telegraphed in May by an unprecedented leak of a draft opinion, eliminates the right to abortion as if it never existed at all. (Julie Rovner, 7/2 )

After Two Ectopic Pregnancies, I Fear What Might Happen Without Roe v. Wade

A journalism professor’s four failed pregnancies forced her to use procedures or drugs that could soon be difficult to turn to. (Joanne Faryon, 7/2 )

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Supreme Court Overturns 'Roe'

It was expected, but the reality was still jarring: The Supreme Court has formally overturned Roe v. Wade, erasing the nearly 50-year-old guarantee of abortion rights nationwide. Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Sarah Varney of KHN, and Laurie Sobel, associate director for women’s health policy at KFF, join KHN’s Julie Rovner for this special episode to talk about the decision and what happens next for reproductive health care. ( 7/2 )

Journalists Investigate Private Equity, Medical Debt, and Mental Health Care

KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances. ( 7/2 )

Kaiser Health News provides a fresh take on health policy developments with "Political Cartoon: 'Unprecedented Times'" by Mike Peters.

Here's today's health policy haiku:

Roe stripped; a new age! Forced birth, poverty, trauma We reap what they sow

If you have a health policy haiku to share, please Contact Us and let us know if we can include your name. Haikus follow the format of 5-7-5 syllables. We give extra brownie points if you link back to a KHN original story.

Opinions expressed in haikus and cartoons are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions of KHN or KFF.

Frenzy Of State Abortion Laws Already In Works After Supreme Court Ruling

Legislators rush to outlaw or protect abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court decision that empowers states to end abortion rights within their borders. And activists on both sides of the issue gear up to respond to those efforts. Meanwhile, many women reel from a decision that strips away their rights.

The New York Times: The Ruling Was Just the Beginning: Both Sides Mobilize Over Abortion The Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade has unleashed a frenzy of activity on both sides of the abortion fight, with anti-abortion forces vowing to use the ruling to push for near-total bans in every state in the nation, and abortion rights groups insisting they would harness rage over the decision to take to the streets, fight back in the courts and push the Biden administration to do more to protect abortion rights. (Zernike, 6/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Abortion Providers Confront New Landscape After Roe  Abortion providers in several states across the country halted services in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, while supporters and opponents began to shift their focus to pill-based abortions and how new restrictions would be enforced. Clinics in a variety of states, including Texas, Wisconsin and Kentucky, stopped offering services Friday. Providers in other states, like North Dakota and Idaho, were moving ahead with services before more state bans took effect, typically in a matter of days or weeks. (Calfas and Paul, 6/26)

AP: Abortion Foes, Supporters Map Next Moves After Roe Reversal  At the National Right to Life convention in Atlanta, a leader within the anti-abortion group warned attendees Saturday that the Supreme Court’s decision ushers in “a time of great possibility and a time of great danger.” Randall O’Bannon, the organization’s director of education and research, encouraged activists celebrate their victories but stay focused and continue working on the issue. Specifically, he called out medication taken to induce abortion. (Willingham and Bauer, 6/25)

Politico: 18 Ways The Supreme Court Just Changed America The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will create two Americas when it comes to abortion access — the mostly red states where abortion is illegal in most circumstances, and the mostly blue states where it is mostly available with restrictions. But this sudden cleaving in the United States will go far beyond abortion access, affecting healthcare, the criminal legal system and politics, at all levels, in the coming years. (6/25)

How will the laws be enforced? —

The Washington Post: More Than 80 Elected Prosecutors Say They Won’t Enforce Bans Elected prosecutors across the country, including from 12 states with “trigger bans,” are saying they will not prosecute people who seek or provide abortion care. Over 80 district attorneys and other elected prosecutors signed a statement issued Friday through the Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP) group, a national network of elected prosecutors. “Not all of us agree on a personal or moral level on the issue of abortion,” the statement said. “But we stand together in our firm belief that prosecutors have a responsibility to refrain from using limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions.” (Somasundaram, 6/26)

CNBC: Anti-Abortion States Split On How To Enforce Ban, Whether To Prosecute Or Surveil Doctors The Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade is not only splitting the country into states where abortion is legal and illegal. It is also illustrating sharp divisions between anti-abortion states on whether to allow exceptions and how to enforce the law. Nearly half of the states had “trigger laws” or constitutional amendments in place to quickly ban abortion in the wake of a Roe v. Wade ruling. Yet lawmakers and governors on Sunday illustrated how differently that may play out. (Repko, 6/26)

Women reel from the blow —

The Hill: Most In New Poll Say Overturning Roe Is ‘Step Backward’ Over half of the Americans questioned in a new poll say the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is a “step backward” for the U.S. In the CBS News-YouGov poll released Sunday, 52 percent of voters said the decision was a “step backward,” while 31 percent said it was a “step forward.” Seventeen percent said it was neither. (Scully, 6/26)

AP: A ‘Sucker Punch’: Some Women Fear Setback To Hard-Won Rights  At 88, Gloria Steinem has long been the nation’s most visible feminist and advocate for women’s rights. But at 22, she was a frightened American in London getting an illegal abortion of a pregnancy so unwanted, she actually tried to throw herself down the stairs to end it. Her response to the Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade is succinct: “Obviously,” she wrote in an email message, “without the right of women and men to make decisions about our own bodies, there is no democracy.” (Noveck, 6/25)

Los Angeles Times: Abortion Rights Activists Protest Across Los Angeles Sunday For the third day in a row, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday to express their grief and anger over the Supreme Court’s decision to end a constitutional right to abortion. Peaceful protesters assembled in the afternoon outside Los Angeles City Hall and then marched through downtown streets, waving signs lambasting the Supreme Court and listening to speakers from local reproductive rights groups. The crowd peaked at 450 people. “When abortion rights are under attack, what do we do?” demonstrators shouted in a call-and-response. “Stand up, fight back!” (Sheets and Newberry, 6/26)

KHN: Conservatives On Supreme Court, As Expected, End Nationwide Right To Abortion  The Supreme Court on Friday formally overturned its 49-year-old landmark Roe v. Wade decision, and with it ended a half-century of constitutionally guaranteed abortion rights in the United States. The 6-3 decision in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, was telegraphed in May by an unprecedented leak of an early draft of the majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito. But even though the final, official version was slightly less strident than the leaked document, the impact is the same. The right to an abortion has been eliminated as if it never existed at all. The decision about whether to allow the procedure now falls to individual state governments, and only 16, plus the District of Columbia, have passed laws to preserve the option, while two others have state constitutional protections that have been cited by state courts as protections for abortion. (Rovner, 6/24)

KHN: Five Things To Know Now That The Supreme Court Has Overturned Roe V. Wade  The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Health dramatically and rapidly alters the landscape of abortion access in the U.S. The court on June 24 ruled 6-3 to uphold a Mississippi law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but also to overturn the nearly half-century precedent set in Roe v. Wade that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion. With the Dobbs decision, states have the ability to set their own restrictions, so where people live will determine their level of access to abortion. The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, stated that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey [Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 1992] are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” (Knight, Pradhan and Rovner, 6/24)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Supreme Court Overturns ‘Roe’ The Supreme Court formally overturned the nearly 50-year-old right to abortion. Bolstered by the three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump, the 6-3 vote wiped from the books the two cases that had established and reaffirmed abortion rights; 1973’s Roe v. Wade and 1992’s Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. Panelists for this special podcast to discuss what the justices did and what the immediate ramifications might be are Julie Rovner of KHN, Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Sarah Varney of KHN, and Laurie Sobel, associate director for women’s health policy at KFF. (6/24)

Ohio Lifts Block On Law Banning Abortions After 6 Weeks

News outlets from Ohio report on the impact of a ban on abortions in Ohio after fetal cardiac activity can be detected at about six weeks — including cancelled appointments and referrals to out-of-state facilities. Other abortion news from across the Midwest and South East of the country is also reported.

Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio Bans Abortions After Six Weeks Following Roe V. Wade Ruling Abortions in Ohio are now illegal once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. The news came Friday evening in the form of a ruling from a federal court judge who lifted the nearly three-year injunction on the law following the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade on Friday morning. Judge Michael Barrett granted the state's request to lift an injunction in place since 2019. (Staver and Knight, 6/24)

Columbus Dispatch: Canceled Appointments, Out-Of-State Referrals: 6-Week Ban Uproots Ohio Abortion Access A 15-year-old girl laid flat on an examination table at the Northeast Ohio Women’s Center, staring at a swirling blue pond with lotus flowers and koi fish on the ceiling above her head. She's about 14 weeks pregnant and visited the Cuyahoga Falls clinic on Friday as access to abortion fell away in much of the country. The teen is too far along to have a medication abortion, so she scheduled a surgical procedure for next week. Hours later, Ohio's six-week abortion ban became law. The girl's appointment was canceled. (BeMiller and Marshall, 6/25 )

CBS News: Whitmer Says "With The Current Legislature I Have, There Is No Common Ground" On Abortion  Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer warned Sunday that the current political makeup of state legislature makes it difficult to find common ground on reasonable restrictions on abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court's seismic decision rolling back the constitutional right to an abortion. "What I'm trying to fight for is the status quo in Michigan and there are reasonable restrictions on that," Whitmer said in an interview with "Face the Nation." "With the current legislature that I have, there is no common ground, which is the sad thing. They've already introduced legislation to criminalize and throw nurses and doctors in jail. They've all endorsed the 1931 law. All of the Republican people running for governor, they want abortion to be a felony, no exceptions for rape or incest. That's the kind of legislature that I'm working with." (Quinn, 6/26)

KHN: ‘It’s Not A Haven’: With Limited Capacity For Abortion Care, Minnesota Clinics Brace For Influx  A few minutes west of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport sits a brick, one-story building with opaque windows. From the nearby freeways, most drivers wouldn’t recognize it as the location of one of the few clinics in the state that provide abortions. Should they approach its entrance, just off an Interstate 35 on-ramp, they might see anti-abortion placards propped against the pine trees that border the parking lot. Those who arrived on a recent Wednesday confronted declarations that included “Demand to see your ultrasound,” “Pregnant? We will help you,” and “Abortion kills a human being.” (Pradhan and Saint Louis, 6/24)

From Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina —

AP: Providers Argue Florida's Privacy Measure Protects Abortion  A state court is being asked to block a new Florida law which bans most abortions after 15 weeks just days after a conservative U.S. Supreme Court majority overturned a landmark case that had provided constitutional protections for women seeking abortions for almost 50 years. Planned Parenthood centers in Florida and other reproductive health providers on Monday are asking a Florida judge in Tallahassee to issue a temporary, emergency injunction stopping the new law passed by a GOP-controlled Florida Legislature from taking effect on Friday. (6/25)

The Hill: Abrams Says It Is ‘Very Dangerous’ For Women In Georgia Following Abortion Ruling  Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D) on Sunday called a six-week abortion ban now poised to go into effect in her state in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade “horrendous,” arguing that it makes it “very dangerous” for women. ... “I would tell anyone, whether you are a business or a citizen thinking about being in Georgia, to take into very real consideration the danger that Brian Kemp poses to the life and welfare of women in the state,” she said. (Schonfeld, 6/26)

KHN: A Post-‘Roe’ World In Georgia Will Mean More Restrictions — And More Political Battles  Jerisha Morton didn’t realize she was pregnant until about six weeks into her pregnancy. She soon started feeling waves of intense nausea. “I can’t smell anything. You’re so weak that you have to lay down all the time. It’s rough,” Morton, 27, said recently as she sat in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Atlanta. Morton was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, or severe nausea during pregnancy. She thought she couldn’t handle nine months of being sick, she said, so she chose to have an abortion. (Whitehead, 6/24)

North Carolina Health News: Carolina Abortion Fund Helps Patients Afford Care  Anna wasn’t sure if she wanted to be a mom. She was sure that she wasn’t happy with her part-time job — which didn’t offer health insurance — and that she and her partner were in a rough spot in their relationship. A northern transplant to the Triangle in her late twenties, everything felt messy and in flux. On top of all that, she’d just missed her period. (Donnelly-DeRoven, 6/27)

Planned Parenthood Sues To Stop Utah's 'Trigger' Abortion Ban

The law went into effect after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but Planned Parenthood opposes it. The organization is trying to block officials from enforcing the law, which it calls "unconstitutional." Meanwhile, in South Dakota the Republican governor called for an abortion pill ban.

The Washington Post: Planned Parenthood Sues To Halt Utah Abortion Ban  The Planned Parenthood Association of Utah filed a lawsuit Saturday to block the state’s “trigger ban” on abortion, which went into effect shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The organization is also seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent Utah officials from “enforcing this flagrantly unconstitutional law,” according to a complaint filed with the Salt Lake City-based 3rd District Court. (Somasundaram, 6/25)

From South Dakota and Wyoming —

AP: SD Gov: Bar Abortion Pills, But Don't Punish Women For Them  South Dakota’s Republican governor pledged on Sunday to bar mail-order abortion pills but said women should not face prosecution for seeking them. In apparent defiance of legal guidance by the Justice Department after the Supreme Court last week stripped away women’s constitutional protections for abortion, Kristi Noem indicated in national television interviews that she would put in place a plan approved by state lawmakers to restrict the pills. The majority ruling Friday by the court’s conservative justices triggered abortion bans in South Dakota and elsewhere. (Yen, 6/25)

ABC News: Wyoming Abortion Rights Advocates Fight For Access Up To The Last Minute In March, Gov. Mark Gordon signed a bill passed by both the Wyoming House and Senate. The bill, HB0092, would ban abortion in all circumstances except rape, incest or if the mother is in serious risk of death or injury, if the protections of Roe are overturned. It would also prohibit the use of government funding towards an abortion. Following a Supreme Court ruling, the law could become active in about a month. (Guilfoil, 6/25)

From New Mexico and Texas —

The Texas Tribune: New Mexico Warily Assumes Role As A Destination For Abortion Seekers  Abortion providers and advocates in Texas’ neighbor to the west say the state will never be able to completely fulfill the increased need for care, as hundreds of thousands if not millions of the most vulnerable women will be unable to make the journey. And although they welcome additional resources, advocates are concerned some providers will want to focus only on abortion while they’re left to continue a decadeslong fight to increase New Mexicans’ access to full reproductive health services. (McCullough, 6/25)

The Texas Tribune: Texas’ Safe Haven Law Allows Parents To Give Up Newborns, But Few Do  Patsy Summey spent more than a decade with a nonprofit providing education about Texas’ safe haven law. She distributed signs, gave presentations, helped with public service announcements and cold emailed fire stations. The lifelong educator wanted to spread the word: If people were searching for a way to safely and legally relinquish their newborn babies, there is a law to help them. “Some, because they don't know about it, they don't realize, ‘I can go in the hospital and have this baby, leave and not take the baby with me.’ They can do that,” Summey said. The idea behind Texas’ safe haven law is simple. Any parent can bring their baby who is less than 60 days old to a fire station, hospital or EMS station and hand it over, no questions asked. If the baby is unharmed, parents face no criminal charges and the Department of Family and Protective Services takes custody. (Edison, 6/26)

The Texas Tribune: Wendy Davis, Donna Howard Worry The Worst Is Yet To Come After Roe Falls Nine years ago, former state Sen. Wendy Davis stood on the floor of the Texas Senate in pink sneakers for 13 uninterrupted hours in an attempt to block a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks into a pregnancy and shut down a majority of the state’s clinics. Back then, she and other reproductive rights advocates in the Legislature thought those efforts by Texas Republicans to restrict abortion access would be “as bad as it could get.” They were buoyed by their confidence that they had the law of the land on their side: Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to an abortion. And although the Legislature ultimately passed the law she protested, the U.S. Supreme Court would later strike it down, yet again affirming the legal right to the procedure. (Neugeboren, 6/26)

The Texas Tribune: Six Years Ago, Texas Abortion Providers Won At The Supreme Court On a sunny Monday morning, as journalists sprinted out of the U.S. Supreme Court building, decision in hand, the crowds gathered out front exploded into cheers. It was 2016, and the high court had just overturned Texas’ latest efforts to restrict abortion access, ruling that the requirements in a 2013 law placed an undue burden on people seeking to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. Just six years later, on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled there was no constitutional protection for abortion — and thus, the “undue burden” standard that had so recently been upheld was now moot. (Klibanoff, 6/27)

Churches Walk Celebratory Line Over Roe Reversal

The historic ruling was referenced at Sunday services across the nation, with some pastors celebrating and others acknowledging mixed sentiment on the issue. A Vatican editorial reminded people that "pro-life" does not just mean anti-abortion and that more needs to be done to improve maternal health and income inequality.

The Wall Street Journal: Churches Move Cautiously On Abortion And Call For Calm Post-Roe Members of the clergy treaded carefully in discussing abortion on the first Sunday after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and they called for respectful discussions over an issue that divides many congregations. “For many in our country who’ve been fighting for this for so long, this felt like a huge win,” said pastor Andy Stanley at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga. “But for others in our country, this felt like a gut punch. These are the cultural moments where the church has an opportunity to shine, even when we don’t necessarily agree.” (Francis, King and Mettela, 6/26)

Reuters: Pro-Life Is Not Just Opposing Abortion, Vatican Says After U.S. Ruling  Anti-abortion activists should be concerned with other issues that can threaten life, such as easy access to guns, poverty and rising maternity mortality rates, the Vatican's editorial director said on Saturday. In a media editorial on the United States Supreme Court's ruling to end the constitutional right to abortion, Andrea Tornielli said those who oppose abortion could not pick and choose pro-life issues. (Pullella, 6/25)

Kansas City Star: Kansas Catholics Are Fighting Abortion Rights Midway through every Catholic Mass — after the Bible readings but before Communion — parishioners are led through intentions, call and response prayers focused on specific needs in the community, nation and world. The prayers differ by church and by week as congregants are asked to pray for the sick, for peace, for victims in a recent tragedy, newly-married couples or the recently deceased. In recent weeks, an additional prayer has been used at Ascension Catholic Church in Overland Park. It speaks of political victory and a change to Kansas’ foundational governing document. “For a renewed respect for human life at all stages and that the upcoming referendum on the Value Them Both amendment will pass so that Kansans will be protected from the unfettered quest of the abortion industry, Lord hear our prayer.” (Bernard, 6/26)

Time: How Religious Leaders Are Reacting To The Roe Decision  The bulk of the work overturning Roe has been undertaken by Christian organizations, but not all Christian organizations are opposed to abortion. Both sides of the debate rapidly released statements after the decision. CatholicVote President Brian Burch set the tone for many of those in the anti-abortion camp: “Catholics and pro-life advocates across the country celebrate today’s landmark Supreme Court decision as the ‘dawning of a new day in America’—a long-awaited first step toward the full protection of American women and children,” he wrote. “A dark chapter in our nation’s history has finally been closed.” Burch pointed to technological advances that he said have shown that the “humanity of children in the womb has become plain and undeniable.” (Luscombe, 6/24)

BBC News: Roe V Wade: Church That Helped Jane Roe Still Aids Abortion-Seekers  First Unitarian Church of Dallas, specifically, has a long history fighting for abortion access, having helped bring about the 1973 ruling that had guaranteed the right to the procedure. That mission has not ended with the reversal of Roe v Wade - and First Unitarian's fresh fight to help women get abortions reveals much about surprising divisions among American Christians over the matter. (Bailey, 6/26)

The Washington Post: In Mississippi, Abortion Opponents Differ With Supreme Court Decision For many Mississippians, Saturday prompted a more complicated conversation. Ten miles from the clinic, at Strawberry Patch Park in the neighboring city of Madison, Sharon Gilmore, 55, was out for a morning walk, keys in hand, a cross dangling from her key ring. She said she is against abortion but “had a lot of mixed feelings” about the decision. “I have never been in a position where I’ve had to have an abortion or had a friend or person I was really close to have an abortion so I struggle with it a lot and I feel for people who may have been in a situation and that was their only option,” Gilmore said. “Then, on the other hand, I am a follower of Jesus Christ and the word of God is really important in my life, so, when he says to not kill, I really believe strongly in not taking the life of an unborn child.” (Fowler, 6/25)

Biden Administration Gears Up To Preserve Access To Abortion Pills

The Department of Justice issued a warning that states can’t restrict access to mifepristone, as it is a FDA approved drug. But such restrictions are already on the books in 30 states.

Stat: Biden’s DOJ Could Fight States’ Abortion Pill Restrictions, But It Won’t Be Easy Attorney General Merrick Garland is hinting he’s ready to get tough on states that block access to an FDA-approved pill used to terminate pregnancies. He’s got a lot of work ahead of him. On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right to an abortion, overruling the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. In response, the Justice Department declared that it will “work tirelessly to protect and advance reproductive freedom.” Namely, it warned that states can’t restrict access to mifepristone, a drug approved by the FDA in 2000 to terminate pregnancies. (Florko, 6/24)

The Hill: Next Big Fight Looms Over Abortion Pills Immediately following the ruling, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department will protect the right to an abortion, including medication abortion. “We stand ready to work with other arms of the federal government that seek to use their lawful authorities to protect and preserve access to reproductive care,” Garland said in a statement. “In particular, the [Food and Drug Administration] FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy,” Garland said. (Weixel, 6/24)

The New York Times: Abortion Pills Take The Spotlight As States Impose Abortion Bans  In the hours after the Supreme Court released its decision overturning the legal right to abortion in the United States, nearly 100 requests for appointments flowed into Just the Pill, a nonprofit organization that arranges for patients to obtain abortion pills in several states. That was about four times the usual daily number of appointment requests for the organization, and many came from patients in Texas and other states that quickly halted abortions after the court ruling. (Belluck, 6/26)

Newsweek: Abortion Pill: 'Lift Restrictions' On Mifepristone Petition Builds Momentum With Roe's fall expected to lead to abortion being banned in about half the states, a petition launched by Allison Fine, the former chair of the national board of NARAL: Pro-Choice America Foundation, calling on the FDA to lift barriers to accessing the drugs. (Rahman, 6/26)

Fox News: What Is Mifepristone? Abortion Medication In Focus After Supreme Court Roe V. Wade Decision Following the Supreme Court's upheaval of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that states cannot ban the abortion medication mifepristone. "And we stand ready to work with other arms of the federal government that seek to use their lawful authorities to protect and preserve access to reproductive care," he wrote. "In particular, the FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy," Garland stated. (Musto, 6/25)

Mifepristone might help cancer, other illnesses —

NBC News: The ‘Abortion Pill’ May Treat Dozens Of Diseases, But Roe Reversal Might Upend Research Dr. Nancy Klimas has spent the better part of her three-decade research career trying to find a cure for Gulf War illness. Military veterans with the unusual, unexplained illness  — which affects some 300,000 U.S. service members who fought in the 1991 Operation Desert Storm — suffer from a range of symptoms, including constant aches and pains, trouble concentrating, fatigue, respiratory issues and irritable bowel syndrome, all understood to stem from exposure to neurotoxic chemicals during combat. Apart from symptom management — which she says is really just “chasing the tail of the dog” — there’s no treatment for Gulf War illness. And the clock is ticking: According to Klimas, director of the Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, the condition could turn into severe neurodegenerative disease if left untreated. (Hopkins, 6/25)

Where To From Here? Abortion Opponents Consider Next Steps

With Roe v. Wade overturned, opponents of abortion debate the extent of next steps within the movement. Also, news outlets examine what last week's Supreme Court decision means for contraception and same-sex marriage.

The Wall Street Journal: Abortion Opponents Consider How Far To Press After End Of Roe V. Wade Now, having achieved a Supreme Court victory that overruled Roe and ended the constitutional right to an abortion, antiabortion advocates are considering what to do next. Some powerful voices in the movement urge a measured approach guided by political realities post-Roe, seeking to ban the procedure after the first trimester in more moderate states and maintaining meaningful exceptions for rape and incest. Others view this as a once-in-a-generation moment and moral imperative to push for a complete end to abortion, especially in states where conservatives hold political power. The staunchest opponents want states to treat it as murder. (Kusisto, 6/26)

More on the right to contraception —

The Hill: Graham: Alito ‘Set The Right Tone’ In Roe Ruling By Arguing Same-Sex Marriage, Contraception Not In Jeopardy Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday said Justice Samuel Alito “set the right tone” by writing in an opinion overturning Roe v. Wade that Supreme Court decisions protecting contraception and same-sex marriage are not in jeopardy. Graham made the remarks during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” while noting that he respects Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote that he wanted to take a look at contraception and same-sex marriage after overturning Roe and abortion protections. (Dress, 6/26)

Stat: Supreme Court Decision Suggests Right To Contraception Is Under Threat Over the past half century, Roe v. Wade has been a bedrock of constitutional rights extending beyond abortion. The Supreme Court decision overturning this ruling, issued Friday, makes clear that those other rights founded on the same principle of privacy, including gay sex, same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, and the freedom to use contraception, are now also called into question. Writing for the majority in Dobbs v. Jackson, Justice Samuel Alito states that “​​nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” ​​But, in a solo concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas explicitly calls on the Court to overturn other such constitutional rights. (Goldhill, 6/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Clarence Thomas’s Abortion Opinion Revisits Same-Sex Marriage, Contraception  When the Supreme Court removed the constitutional right to an abortion, most of the justices in the majority focused on what they described as the “egregiously wrong” ruling that established that right in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Justice Clarence Thomas took a broader view. In his opinion concurring with the majority, he wrote that if the legal underpinnings of Roe v. Wade were wrong, then so were the underpinnings of other rights not enumerated in the Constitution that the court recognized in recent decades. They include the right of married couples to use contraception, the right to same-sex romantic relationships and, in 2015, the right to same-sex marriage. (Wolfe, 6/25)

The Washington Post: Clarence Thomas Says Right To Contraception In Griswold V. Connecticut Was 'Erroneous'  In an opinion concurring with his conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court to overturn the fundamental right to an abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote on Friday that striking down Roe v. Wade should also open up the high court to review other precedents that may be deemed “demonstrably erroneous.” Among those, Thomas wrote, was the right for married couples to buy and use contraception without government restriction, from the landmark 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut. (Kornfield, Bella and Wang, 6/26)

The New York Times: Pride March In New York Infused With New Sense Of Urgency  The festivities began on Sunday with a familiar feel: Revelers adorned in a palette of bright colors, waving rainbow flags and handmade signs, tossed confetti into the air as the roar of screams and bikers revving their motorcycle engines signaled the start of the annual New York City Pride March in Manhattan. But there was no mistaking that this year’s event, for all its joyous celebrations, had taken on sudden urgency and heightened significance just two days after the United States Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion and signaled that the court could reconsider other liberties, including the 2015 decision that allowed same-sex marriage. (Haag, Marcius and McCarthy, 6/26)

On calls to expand or impeach Supreme Court justices —

Insider: White House: Biden Does Not Want To Expand Supreme Court As calls for remedies to restrictions on abortion access grow, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Saturday that President Joe Biden "does not agree with" expanding the Supreme Court. "I was asked this question yesterday, and I've been asked it before... about expanding the Court. That is something that the President does not agree with. That is not something that he wants to do," Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing on Air Force One. (Getahun, 6/25)

The Hill: Ocasio-Cortez Says Conservative Justices Lied Under Oath, Should Be Impeached  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y) on Sunday said conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices who “misled” Americans during their confirmation hearings about whether or not they supported overturning Roe v. Wade should be impeached and face “consequences” for lying under oath. (Dress, 6/26)

More on the history behind the Roe v. Wade ruling —

Politico: The Supreme Court’s Faux ‘Originalism’  There is ample reason to disagree with originalism as a legal philosophy. Should a 21st century society really interpret its Constitution by the standards of 1787 — an era before the introduction of semi-automatic weaponry, steam power, penicillin, automobiles, trains, electric lights and indoor plumbing? In some ways, though, that’s a pointless debate at the moment. With originalists holding six of the Supreme Court’s nine seats, we’re all living in an originalist world. The functional problem with originalism is that it requires a very, very firm grasp of history — a grasp that none of the nine justices, and certainly few of their 20-something law clerks, freshly minted from J.D. programs, possess. (Zeitz, 6/26)

The Washington Post: How Roe V. Wade Ruling Changed As Justices' Thinking Evolved  As the country grapples with a radically changed abortion rights landscape now that Roe v. Wade has been struck down, it’s worth considering that Roe very nearly didn’t happen in the first place — at least not the way it’s governed the country for the past half-century. A review of internal Supreme Court documents reveals that the justices’ thinking on Roe evolved dramatically over the course of eight months of deliberations. If not for several key changes of heart — and strategy — we wouldn’t have ended up with an ironclad right to abortion before a pregnancy is considered viable. (Robenalt, 6/26)

Candidates Eye Signs About How Abortion Issue May Shake Up Midterms

Republicans hailed the Supreme Court's decision during weekend political rallies, with former Vice President Mike Pence advocating for a federal ban. And news outlets report on how conservative attitudes are gaining ground in many parts of the U.S.

The Washington Post: Pence Leans In As Abortion Ruling Leaves Trump, Other Potential 2024 GOP Candidates Cautious In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, former vice president Mike Pence says abortion should be banned nationwide and is planning behind the scenes to focus on the issue in the coming weeks, according to advisers. Former president Donald Trump, in contrast, fears the ruling could hurt the GOP’s election chances, his advisers said, even as he hailed the ruling as “victory for life” at a Saturday rally. And some ambitious Republican governors have called for tightening restrictions in their states while other leading figures in the party have avoided such ideas, as strategists say it remains unclear how abortion will reshape key races in future elections. (Knowles and Dawsey, 6/27)

Newsweek: Donald Trump Hails His Supreme Court Picks Behind Abortion Ruling Donald Trump hailed his three Supreme Court picks for "standing their ground" to end the constitutional right to abortion, as he spoke at a rally in Illinois on Saturday—a day after the court overturned Roe V Wade. ... "Thanks to the courage found within the United States Supreme Court, this long divisive issue will be decided by the states and by the American people," Trump said. "That's the way it should have been many, many years ago and that's the way it is now so congratulations. As for the Republican Party, we are today the party of life and we are the party of everyone." (Rahman, 6/26)

The Washington Post: Mary Miller Says Abortion Ruling 'Victory For White Life' At Trump Rally  A Republican lawmaker called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the nationwide right to abortion established nearly 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade a “victory for white life,” which was met with cheers at a rally held by former president Donald Trump. “President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday,” Rep. Mary E. Miller (R) said at the rally Saturday night in Mendon, Ill., referring to Trump’s former campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” ... Miller’s team swiftly issued an explanation for what it deemed to be “a mix-up of words.” Miller’s spokesman, Isaiah Wartman, told the Associated Press that the Illinois Republican misread her prepared speech and was supposed to declare the divisive court ruling a victory for the “right to life.” (Hassan, 6/26)

The New York Times: Under Court’s Shadow, N.Y. Governor Candidates Lob Final Pitches  A pair of seismic rulings by the Supreme Court jolted the race for governor of New York on Sunday, as Democrats and Republicans made final pitches to an electorate that found itself at the center of renewed national debates over guns and abortion rights. All three Democratic candidates for governor fanned out Sunday morning to Black churches in Harlem and Queens, Manhattan’s Pride March and street corners across the city to denounce the rulings and promise an aggressive response. (Fandos, 6/26)

The Washington Post: Conservatives On The March: Republicans Gain Ground Despite Democratic Control  The conservative Supreme Court’s landmark victories this week on abortion and guns capped a year-long string of victories on the right, especially in 23 states, including giants like Texas and Florida, where conservatives control all branches of elected government. Republicans have expanded school choice, reformed school curriculums, curbed voting access, lowered taxes and launched a new wave of culture wars against gay, lesbian and transgender Americans. With the court overturning Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion on Friday and curtailing restrictions on gun ownership on Thursday, conservative activists have had reasons to celebrate amid growing hopes for retaking the House and Senate this fall. (Scherer, 6/26)

Politico: Battleground Republicans Squeezed Hardest On Abortion After Roe Falls  House Republicans say they’re mostly unfazed by the political ramifications of Friday’s Supreme Court abortion ruling. Except some of their most endangered incumbents, who’d rather not say much about it at all. Even Republicans from the nation’s biggest battlegrounds now embrace the anti-abortion mantle, a near-universal position in a House GOP conference veering rightward. But as abortion rights remain highly popular with voters, including in swing districts, most of those vulnerable lawmakers were uninterested in discussing the particulars of what, if anything, should happen following the court’s Friday ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. (Ferris and Mutnick, 6/26)

AP: More Than 1 Million Voters Switch To GOP In Warning For Dems A political shift is beginning to take hold across the U.S. as tens of thousands of suburban swing voters who helped fuel the Democratic Party’s gains in recent years are becoming Republicans. More than 1 million voters across 43 states have switched to the Republican Party over the last year, according to voter registration data analyzed by The Associated Press. The previously unreported number reflects a phenomenon that is playing out in virtually every region of the country — Democratic and Republican states along with cities and small towns — in the period since President Joe Biden replaced former President Donald Trump. (Peoples and Kessler, 6/27)

Reuters: Democratic Women Call On Biden, Congress To Protect Abortion Rights Leading Democratic women called on President Joe Biden and Congress on Sunday to protect abortion rights nationwide after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, in a ruling that has heightened political tensions between the federal government and states. Two Democratic progressives, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, urged Biden to use federal land as a safe haven for abortion in states that ban or severely restrict the practice, after the high court on Friday overturned the landmark 1973 ruling that had recognized women's constitutional right to abortion. (Morgan and Lawder, 6/26)

Newsweek: Supreme Court 'Set A Torch' To Its Legitimacy With Roe Ruling: Warren Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren blasted the U.S. Supreme Court on Sunday, just days after it released its ruling that overturned Roe. v. Wade, and argued that the institution "burned whatever legitimacy they may still have had" with its decision. During her interview on ABC's This Week, host Martha Raddatz discussed how after the decision was released, Senators Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, and Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said they felt they had been misled during the confirmation hearing of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Before Kavanaugh was confirmed, Collins said he told her that he viewed Roe v. Wade as "settled law." The two senators said they also felt misled by Justice Neil Gorsuch in his confirmation hearing in regards to Roe in statements they released Friday. Both justices voted to overturn the landmark case. (Landen, 6/26)

The Washington Post: Democrats Seize On Abortion Ruling In Midterms As Republicans Tread Carefully Democrats across the country are seizing on the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, with state and federal candidates seeking to turn anger about the decision into support at the ballot box, even as Republicans aim to keep attention on rising prices and crime less than five months before the midterms. Led by President Biden, who declared Friday that “Roe is on the ballot” and “personal freedoms are on the ballot,” Democrats on the front lines of the fight to keep the party’s slim congressional majorities have cast their campaigns as key parts of a larger battle to restore abortion rights and prevent the rollback of other liberties. Democratic candidates for governor, attorney general and offices at the state level, where abortion laws will now be fully determined, pledged to put the issue at the forefront of their campaigns. (Linksey and Itkowitz, 6/26)

Politico: ‘This Is A Crisis’: Politicians Dig In On Abortion Following Supreme Court Ruling  It was clear on Sunday that the Supreme Court decision to overturn decades of abortion precedent has only further cemented Republican and Democratic entrenchment in their positions on the issue. “I am horrified … that my daughters will have fewer rights than I’ve had virtually my whole life,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” a comment reflective of the emotional response to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. (Niedzwiadek, 6/26)

Demand Surges, Women Turned Away: Clinics Prepare For Post-Roe World

In some states, the Supreme Court decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion took effect quickly, leavbing patients and staff in clinics stunned and helpless.

The 19th: Patients Sat In Abortion Clinic Waiting Rooms As Roe Fell. They All Had To Be Turned Away Patients were in the lobby, waiting, the moment it became a post-Roe America. The staff at Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services Clinic in San Antonio had just received a call from their attorney: Abortion procedures in Texas would have to stop immediately. The dozen or so patients in the lobby Friday morning would have to be turned away. The clinic staff would have to be the ones to tell them. (Carrazana, 6/24)

The New Yorker: Roe’s Final Hours In One Of America’s Largest Abortion Clinics  At seven o’clock on Friday morning, Ivy turned on the lights of the Houston Women’s Clinic, the largest abortion provider in the state, where she has worked as a supervisor for nearly two decades. Since May, when the draft of a Supreme Court decision leaked, revealing its conservative majority’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade, Ivy, who is fifty-six and asked to be identified only by a nickname, went to work each day knowing that it might be her last. But neither the likely end of a woman’s right to an abortion, nor Texas’s existing onerous regulations against it, had altered her brisk morning habits. Tucking her graying, hip-length hair into a bun and covering it with a black surgical cap, she sterilized all the syringes, counted the curettes one by one, and waited for her colleagues to trickle in. Only Ivy’s message to her patients had changed. Now every greeting had to come with a disclaimer. (Taladrid, 6/25)

The New York Times: The Final Days Of Mississippi’s Last Abortion Clinic  A young woman entered the parking lot of the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, her shoulders hunched. She was accompanied by an older woman and a stone-faced young man with a handgun on his hip. She appeared terrified. All around them, the noise was deafening. It was early Saturday morning, and a man with a powerful P.A. system was preaching about Jezebel being eaten by dogs. Dozens of evangelical Christians had come to pray. (Fausset, 6/26)

The Washington Post: A Women’s Clinic Run By Two Generations Of Women Braces For The Post-Roe Era The flowers seemed innocent enough, but Jakaiser Jackson wasn’t taking any chances. The security guard at the Scotsdale Women’s Center in Michigan’s biggest city stopped the delivery before it could even reach the building’s outer vestibule. Abortion clinics like this one have long been a target for protests and violence, so Jackson and others are extra vigilant about who comes inside and even what packages are accepted. Protesters rarely show up armed, but they do harass employees and patients. (Bellware, 6/26)

Clinics prepare for a tidal wave of patients —

The 19th: Clinics In States Where You Can Get An Abortion Prepare For 'Wave Of Clients' Early Friday, emails flooded Dr. Jen Kerns’ inbox. In the hours after Roe v. Wade was overturned, doctors and patients turned to providers in states where abortion is still legal, like Kerns, who performs abortions in San Francisco and Kansas, asking for appointments. These partnerships between providers were happening already as abortion access started to shrink across the country, but now the work has taken on a “slightly more frenzied tone to it, knowing that people are going to have to jump through multiple hoops in order to get out of their state to access care,” Kerns said. (Gerson and Carrazana, 6/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Abortion Access In California Isn’t Equal Statewide. These Maps Show Where Clinics Are Concentrated California is already home to nearly 20% of U.S. abortion clinics. Now that the Supreme Court has struck down Roe v. Wade, it’s likely that ensuing closures across the nation will mean the state becomes host to a third of U.S. clinics within months. But within California, abortion access is uneven. More than half of the state’s abortion clinics are concentrated in five counties, and 22 counties have no abortion clinics at all. These 22 counties are concentrated along the state’s eastern flank, spanning Modoc in the north to Inyo in the south. (Neilson, 6/25)

ABC News: Without Abortion, Pregnancy Aid Programs Face Surge In Demand Maternity homes and crisis pregnancy resource centers – offering everything from housing support to free diapers -- are expecting a surge of demand in states enacting strict new bans on abortion. The Catholic Church is one of the leading backers of a national pregnancy aid network. ... Critics say the church is dangerously ill-equipped and unprepared. In the 13 states with trigger laws enacted to ban abortions after Roe was overturned, more than 103,000 were performed in 2020 alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Dwyer, Herndon and Meneses, 6/25)

Insider: North Dakota Abortion Clinic Raised More Than $500,000 In Two Days An abortion clinic based in North Dakota has raised more than $550,000 to fund its move in the two days since the Supreme Court's decision to roll back Roe v. Wade. The Red River Women's Clinic of Fargo, North Dakota, set up a GoFundMe to assist with a planned move to Moorhead, Minnesota. North Dakota is one of the at least 13 states that has a "trigger" law, which immediately bans abortions following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. (Dzhanova, 6/26)

Vandalism reported at pregnancy centers in Virginia and Colorado —

The Washington Post: Virginia Antiabortion Pregnancy Center Vandalized, Police Say  The Lynchburg Police Department is investigating a vandalism incident that occurred early Saturday morning at the antiabortion Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in Lynchburg, Va. At 10:40 a.m. Saturday, police responding to a call at 3701 Old Forest Rd. found that the building had been spray-painted with graffiti and that multiple windows had been smashed. Security camera footage showed four masked individuals vandalizing the center, according to police. (Sanchez, 6/26)

AP: Police Investigating Fire At Colorado Pregnancy Center A weekend fire at a Christian pregnancy center in north-central Colorado is being investigated as a possible arson, police in Longmont said. The fire at Life Choices was reported at 3:17 a.m. Saturday, hours after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and said abortion laws would be decided by the states. (6/26)

IVF Patients, Doctors Make Contingency Plans For Frozen Embryos

"There is a race to see who can be the most extreme on abortion restrictions, and I can tell you who the losers of that are going to be: fertility patients and women who might need contraception," said Sean Tipton of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine..

ABC News: Overturning Roe V. Wade Raises Stakes For Patients Who Need IVF, Experts Say  Cara Skowronski and her husband are the parents of a 2-year-old daughter who was born through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and a gestational surrogate, who carried their daughter. ... Skowronski and her husband recently moved from Nebraska to Texas, where abortion will be banned under a trigger law that goes into effect 30 days after the Supreme Court's decision. The couple's remaining frozen embryos are in Nebraska, where Gov. Pete Ricketts has said he will push for the state legislature to pass a total abortion ban in the wake of Roe being overturned. (Kindelan, 6/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Fertility Doctors Move Embryos, Expecting Abortion Law Changes Fertility companies and patients have been moving embryos and making contingency plans, anticipating that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, abortion laws in some states could extend to protect eggs fertilized in laboratories. More than 2% of 3.7 million babies born in the U.S. in 2019 were conceived through in vitro fertilization, the latest federal data show. Many embryos created through IVF aren’t viable, fertility specialists said, and those that aren’t ultimately transferred into a uterus may be discarded. (Mosbergen and Andrews, 6/24)

The Washington Post: Roe Is Gone. How Will State Abortion Restrictions Affect IVF And More? Increasingly, state legislatures that pass laws restricting abortion have included explicit exemptions for the fertility industry. Since 2010, states have introduced or passed 83 bills that mention both abortion and IVF. Of these, 45 bills explicitly exempt IVF and assisted reproductive technologies. None of these bills explicitly included IVF — or any reproductive technology — in banning abortion or defining legal personhood as beginning at conception. (Heidt-Forsythe, Kalaf-Hughes and Mohamed, 6/25)

Other repercussions of the ruling —

KHN: Genetic Screening Results Just Got Harder To Handle Under New Abortion Rules  Ann was 15 weeks pregnant with her fourth child when the results of her prenatal genetic test came back last August. The test suggested that her daughter, whom she and her husband planned to name Juliet, was missing one of her two X chromosomes — a condition called Turner syndrome that can cause dwarfism, heart defects, and infertility, among other complications. Many people decide to terminate their pregnancies after this diagnosis, a genetic counselor told Ann and her husband. But the counselor had more bad news: In two days, the family would no longer have that option in their home state of Texas. A law, in effect as of Sept. 1, 2021, allows anyone to sue those who assist any person in getting an abortion in Texas after six weeks’ gestation — and the state provides a $10,000 bounty to plaintiffs if they win. The genetic counselor told Ann she could no longer discuss termination with her for this reason. (Reardon, 6/27)

Fortune: The Roe V. Wade Decision Is "Pushing People Into Psychological Crisis," Mental Health Expert Warns Following the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision guaranteeing federal protection of abortion rights, experts warn of dire mental health consequences. Frank C. Worrell, president of the American Psychological Association (APA) calls for mental health providers to support people as they grapple with their reproductive health decisions.  “We are setting up a situation where we are deliberately pushing people into a psychological crisis,” Worrell tells Fortune, emphasizing that the decision will disproportionately hurt the mental health of low-income individuals and people of color. “If you live in a state with a law that will get rid of abortion, your level of anxiety will go up.” Even for those who are not pregnant, Worrell says, there is new anxiety that can impact people's everyday lives, as they worry about what may happen if they don’t have a choice when pregnant. And for many seeking abortions, he says, the decision affects how they feel they are seen in society, highlighting fears of being judged as irresponsible or criminal. (Mikhail, 6/24)

KHN: After Two Ectopic Pregnancies, I Fear What Might Happen Without Roe V. Wade  I’ve been pregnant five times. I have one child. A son, Sam, who was born on his due date, weighing 6 pounds and 14 ounces, in 1997. My four other pregnancies didn’t go so well. After Sam, carrying a baby past the first trimester proved impossible. I had one miscarriage early in the first trimester; a second in which the baby’s heart stopped beating between the ninth and 10th week; and then two ectopic pregnancies, a condition in which an embryo implants outside the uterus. If not treated, ectopic pregnancies can be deadly. (Faryon, 6/24)

The New York Times: In Light Of Roe V. Wade Ruling, Men Share Their Abortion Stories  When Quenton Albertie, 29, found out his college girlfriend was pregnant, he was surprised at first — and then elated. He was 23, she was 19 and they had been dating for roughly five months while attending Mercer University in Georgia. “I called my mom the next day to tell her and she was excited, too,” Mr. Albertie said. “She always goes on about how she wants a grandchild.” But two months later, his girlfriend got an abortion without telling him. She informed him after the fact, saying she couldn’t manage school and the pregnancy at the same time, Mr. Albertie recalled. (Gupta, 6/25)

HIPAA Won't Shield Reproductive Data; Digital Health Trail Worries

News outlets examine how medical records and online data, including women leaving trace evidence of their reproductive health on websites and in apps, may be impacted by the Supreme Court's controversial decision on abortion. Separately, CNN notes which U.S. companies will cover some abortion costs.

Stat: HIPAA Doesn't Protect Reproductive Records From Prosecutors With Roe v. Wade now overturned, patients are wondering whether federal laws will shield their reproductive health data from state law enforcement, or legal action more broadly. The answer, currently, is no. If there’s a warrant, court order, or subpoena for the release of those medical records, then a clinic is required to hand them over. And patients and providers may be made legally vulnerable by the enormous trail of health-related data we all generate through their devices every day. (Boodman, Bannow, Herman and Ross, 6/24)

How to make it harder for someone to track your health data —

The Washington Post: Seeking An Abortion? Here’s How To Avoid Leaving A Digital Trail. Everything you do online is already tracked. That information is about to become even more sensitive if you’re seeking an abortion in the United States. (Kelly, Hunter and Abril, 6/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Period-Tracker Apps Aim For Anonymity Following Roe V. Wade Decision Developers of period trackers and fertility apps are working on ways to anonymize user data in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down the constitutional right to an abortion. Millions of women use services such as Flo, Clue and Apple’s Health app to help them become pregnant, avoid pregnancy or know when their next period is due. The court’s decision brought more attention to the services, which hold sensitive data that could be used against people in states where abortion may be criminalized.  (James and Tibken, 6/26)

The Washington Post: How To Delete Yourself From The Internet  You can’t fully scrub yourself from the internet. A little bit of you will always linger, whether it’s in data-broker databases, on old social media you forgot about or in the back of someone else’s vacation photos on Flickr. That’s no reason to give up! You can absolutely take steps to protect your privacy by cleaning up things like your Google results. For the best results you’ll need time, money, patience, and to live in a country or state with strong privacy laws. (Kelly, 6/24)

ABC News: Abortions To Move Underground In Half The US: Here's How It Might Work  Before the Supreme Court released its ruling Friday upending abortion rights in the U.S., Elisa Wells was thinking of virtual mailboxes. For people who move or travel a lot, a virtual mailbox is a way to check their mail online. If an item is critical, they forward it to their current location. For Wells, founder of the online abortion site Plan C, which tells women how to find the abortion pill, it’s a potential workaround to state laws restricting access. (Flaherty, 6/25)

CNN: These US Companies Will Cover Travel Costs For Employees Who Need An Abortion  After the Supreme Court ruled on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, corporate giants from a range of industries pledged to provide support and financial assistance for employees — and, in some cases, their dependents — seeking abortions in states that outlaw the procedure. (Duffy and Korn, 6/25)

'Big Step Backwards': Many World Leaders Condemn Abortion Decision

"Horrific" and "appalling" were among some of the descriptions global leaders used to describe the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of decades of abortion rights. Combined with recent increases in gun violence, some of those also see America's ability to lead on the world stage as again backsliding.

The Washington Post: Biden Says America Is Leading. On Abortion, Europeans Disagree Since taking office, the message undergirding nearly all of President Biden’s foreign trips has been that America is back. But as Biden began a five-day swing through Europe Sunday, he arrived in the Bavarian Alps bearing a less pleasant reality: America is backward, at least in the view of almost every foreign leader with whom he will meet this week, who responded to the news that the U.S. Supreme Court had overturned a woman’s right to abortion with abject dismay and alarm. (Parker and Viser, 6/26)

AP: Tale Of 2 Summits: 'America's Back' To America's Backsliding “Abortion is a fundamental right for all women,” tweeted French President Emnanuel Macron. “It must be protected. I wish to express my solidarity with the women whose liberties are being undermined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” Biden told reporters Sunday evening that the subject of the abortion decision had not come up in his chats with world leaders. “Not related to Ukraine or any of the issues discussed,” he said, replying flatly “no” when asked if the matter was broached to him by another summit attendee. Yet when the Supreme Court ruling came down Friday morning, Biden ended up being the third G-7 leader to offer reaction, with Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Britain’s Johnson quickly condemning the ruling even before Biden had delivered remarks at the White House. (Miller, 6/27)

The Washington Post: U.S. Abortion Decision ‘Horrific’ And ‘Appalling,’ World Leaders Say World leaders and abortion rights advocates described the ruling as “horrific” and “appalling.” Crowds protested in cities including London, Paris and Ottawa. “One of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime,” Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon tweeted. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the decision “clearly has massive impacts on people’s thinking around the world.” He called it “big step backwards.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described it as “horrific.” “No government, politician, or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body,” he tweeted. (Taylor, Cunningham, Tsui and Parker, 6/25)

The Guardian: ‘Blood On Their Hands’: World’s Medics Condemn US Overturn Of Abortion Rights  Doctors and pro-choice activists have condemned the overturning of Roe v Wade, describing it as an “unconscionable attack” that will leave the supreme court justices with “blood on their hands” and cause a global chilling effect on women’s rights. In a statement signed by more than 100 global healthcare organizations, including the UK’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (RCOG), medics said the US supreme court’s move was “a catastrophic blow” to millions. The statement, also signed by the RCOG’s faculty of sexual and reproductive healthcare, warned: “It is a decision that will cost lives for years to come.” (Davies, 6/24)

NBC News: Abortion Ruling Will Impact Globally, Health Organizations Warn As Some Activists Emboldened Criminalizing abortions would not prevent them, but make them more deadly, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday. “A staggering 45% of all abortions around the world are unsafe, making this a leading cause of maternal death,” a statement by the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency read. The World Health Organization also tweeted Friday that access to safe abortion care was “essential” and removing it would “put more women and girls at risk of illegal abortions and the consequent safety issues that would bring.” (Kwan, 6/25)

Houston Chronicle: Fact Check: Roe Reversal, Ending Abortion Protections, Makes U.S. An Outlier Among Developed Nations "With this decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country," Biden said a couple hours after the ruling was released on June 24. "They have made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world." While the high court’s decision leaves in place state laws that permit abortion, it removes the national right to an abortion — something that is widely guaranteed by laws or court rulings in other developed nations. With few exceptions, legal abortion is available in "peer nations," including in countries comparable to the U.S. in terms of development or in their use of a common law system, said Martha Davis, a law professor at Northeastern University who filed an amicus brief in 2021 with the court arguing that Roe should not be overturned. (Czopek and Kertscher, 6/26)

Press Association: Abortion Summit Will 'Reaffirm Women's Autonomy' An abortion summit on Monday will be an important opportunity to "reaffirm women's autonomy and right to choose", First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said. The summit, in Edinburgh, aims to ensure that women in Scotland can access services without fear, harassment or intimidation and will look at legislative mechanisms to establish buffer zones around clinics. It will also seek to identify immediate, short term actions to protect women from harassment or intimidation outside hospitals and sexual health clinics, following protests by anti-abortion campaigners outside such facilities in recent weeks. (Cameron, 6/27)

Hypocritical Or Consistent? Court Allows State Limits On Abortion But Not Guns

Last week's two controversial decisions ignite legal debate over the direction of the conservative-majority court and their "originalism" arguments. In related news, gun violence experts weigh in on the new federal safety measures President Joe Biden signed into law Saturday.

AP: Guns And Abortion: Contradictory Decisions, Or Consistent? They are the most fiercely polarizing issues in American life: abortion and guns. And two momentous decisions by the Supreme Court in two days have done anything but resolve them, firing up debate about whether the court’s conservative justices are being faithful and consistent to history and the Constitution — or citing them to justify political preferences. To some critics, the rulings represent an obvious, deeply damaging contradiction. How can the court justify restricting the ability of states to regulate guns while expanding the right of states to regulate abortion?“ The hypocrisy is raging, but the harm is endless,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday after the court released its decision on abortion. (Brumback, Geller and Tarm, 6/25)

The New York Times: For Gun Violence Researchers, Bipartisan Bill Is A ‘Glass Half Full’  America’s gun violence research community includes psychiatrists, epidemiologists, law professors, emergency room doctors and social policy experts. Their interest is not purely academic; they want to use science to make change. They are mindful of the political realities of Washington, and many have deeply personal connections to the work. (Stolberg, 6/26)

NPR: Biden Signs Gun Safety Bill Into Law President Biden on Saturday signed into law the first major gun safety legislation passed by Congress in nearly 30 years. ... "While this bill doesn't do everything I want, it does include actions I've long called for that are going to save lives," Biden said just before signing the measure. "Today, we say more than enough. We say more than enough," he added. "At a time when it seems impossible to get anything done in Washington, we are doing something consequential." (Clyde and Miranda, 6/25)

AP: 8 Things To Know About The Gun Violence Bill  Highlights of the bipartisan gun violence bill that President Joe Biden signed on Saturday. (6/25)

In related news from Oklahoma —

The Oklahoman: Oklahoma Gun Deaths Jumped After Stitt Signed ‘Permitless Carry’ Law Just 44 days on the job, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed his first bill as governor, which allowed Oklahomans over the age of 21 to carry a gun without a permit or training. During the ceremony to sign the so-called "permitless carry" law, Stitt said it would expand the rights of Oklahomans while also making the state safer against gun violence. “There shouldn't be any uptick in violence,” said Stitt, who was flanked by more than a dozen lawmakers there to show their support. Since Nov. 1, 2019, when the “permitless carry” law went into effect, Stitt’s prediction has not come true. (Felder, 6/26)

Pfizer Says Omicron Shot Better Against Variant Than First Jabs

Pfizer has developed a new version of its covid vaccines designed to combat omicron, and now says its results show a better antibody response against the variant than earlier Pfizer shots. Other research shows a fourth Pfizer dose is effective at preventing severe outcomes in nursing homes.

Stat: Pfizer: Omicron-Containing Boosters Outperform Current Vaccine  Pfizer said Saturday that using new versions of its Covid-19 vaccine as boosters led to a superior antibody response against the Omicron variant compared to its current shot. The results in some ways mirror those released by Moderna earlier this month. Data from both companies will be evaluated on Tuesday by a panel of experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration in the hopes of deciding what strains of the SARS-Cov-2 virus should be included in booster shots for the fall. Companies will need lead time to manufacture doses of new vaccines if it is decided they are needed. (Herper, 6/25)

In other news on the vaccine rollout —

CIDRAP: Fourth Pfizer Dose Effective Against Severe COVID-19 In Nursing Homes A study yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that a fourth Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine dose provided 64% to 67% protection against hospitalization and 72% protection against death in nursing home residents, but only 34% protection against infection during an Omicron-dominated period. (6/24)

AP: Army Guard Troops Risk Dismissal As Vaccine Deadline Looms Up to 40,000 Army National Guard soldiers across the country — or about 13% of the force — have not yet gotten the mandated COVID-19 vaccine, and as the deadline for shots looms, at least 14,000 of them have flatly refused and could be forced out of the service. Guard soldiers have until Thursday to get the vaccine. According to data obtained by The Associated Press, between 20% to 30% of the Guard soldiers in six states are not vaccinated, and more than 10% in 43 other states still need shots. (Baldor, 6/25)

And more on the spread of covid —

The Boston Globe: Experts Expect Subvariants To Cause ‘Substantial’ Summer Cases Of COVID-19 Until last week, Dr. Ali Mokdad expected the United States to have “a very good summer” in terms of COVID-19. Projections by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, where he works, forecasted falling cases, hospitalizations, and deaths through at least September. Then, circumstances changed: Researchers discovered that BA.4 and BA.5 — subvariants of Omicron spreading in the United States — are “immune escapes,” adept at avoiding the antibodies the body produces after vaccination or infection to neutralize the virus. “That has changed our view for what will happen this summer,” Mokdad said. Though he still expects cases to decrease, the decline will be slower and smaller than projected. (Caldera, 6/26)

Bay Area News Group: Alameda County Lifts Indoor Masking Requirement — Again Alameda County is once again lifting a requirement for people to wear face masks in most indoor settings. The change was scheduled to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. The county on June 3 became the first in the Bay Area – and perhaps the state – to reimpose the face mask requirement. At the time, COVID-19 cases from new omicron variants were pushing hospitalizations to levels that alarmed local health officials. (Green, 6/24)

The Baltimore Sun: University Of Maryland Doctors Look To College Athletes To Understand COVID’s Effects On The Heart  Doctors learned early in the pandemic that COVID-19 was more than a respiratory disease. It was attacking bodily organs, including the heart — even in healthy, young athletes. Enough athletes with COVID were experiencing heart inflammation, called myocarditis, that doctors at the University of Maryland and other Big Ten schools didn’t want to take any chances. Myocarditis already was seen as one of the leading causes of sudden death in elite athletes, so doctors across the conference immediately imposed official protocols that kept some players off the fields for up to six months. Some grumbled, but everyone recovered. (Cohn, 6/27)

ABC News: Can High-Tech Air Filtration Systems Lower The Risk Of COVID In Autos?  Still concerned about COVID-19 transmission in automobiles? One carmaker may have a novel approach to keeping passengers safe. British luxury marque Jaguar Land Rover claims the Cabin Air Purification Pro filtration in its new Range Rover SUV can "significantly reduce odors, bacteria, viruses and allergens including SARS-CoV-2 virus" thanks to nanoe X, an electrostatic technology developed by Panasonic. (Korn, 6/26)

Worries Rise That Monkeypox Has Been Evolving Fast

Media outlets report on concerns in the scientific community that monkeypox has been evolving faster than may have been expected and is now more infectious. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization held back from calling the outbreak a global health emergency, even though reports note it's spreading.

Live Science: Monkeypox May Have Undergone 'Accelerated Evolution,' Scientists Say The monkeypox virus has mutated at a far faster rate than would normally be expected and likely underwent a period of "accelerated evolution," a new study suggests. The virus, which has infected more than 3,500 people in 48 countries since its detection outside Africa in May, may be more infectious due to dozens of new mutations. In all, the virus carries 50 new mutations not seen in previous strains detected from 2018 to 2019, according to a new study published June 24 in the journal Nature Medicine(opens in new tab). Scientists usually don't expect viruses like monkeypox to gain more than one or two mutations each year, the study authors noted. (Turner, 6/25)

CIDRAP: Virus Causing Monkeypox Outbreak Has Mutated To Spread Easier The authors said the outbreak was likely not caused by undetected silent spread, or from an animal-to-human crossover event. Instead, "Current data points for a scenario of more than one introduction from a single origin, with superspreader event(s) (e.g., saunas used for sexual encounters) and travel abroad likely triggering the rapid worldwide dissemination." (Soucheray, 6/24)

Stat: WHO: Monkeypox Outbreak Not Yet A Global Health Emergency The World Health Organization on Saturday declined to declare the unprecedented monkeypox outbreak that has spread around the world a public health emergency as of now. A public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, grants the WHO director-general certain powers, such as the ability to recommend how countries should respond. While it’s a legal lever the agency can use, it’s also a tool that can grab public attention and steer it to try to address burgeoning health threats. Such a declaration could further rally donors and member countries to increase funding. (Joseph, 6/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Monkeypox At ‘Critical Stage’ In The Bay Area: Here’s What You Need To Know There are only a handful of confirmed monkeypox cases in the Bay Area, but following the lessons learned from the coronavirus pandemic, local health officials are scrambling to control the rapidly growing global outbreak. With 48 cases counted in California since early May, the state represents almost 28% of the total to date in the United States. Local health officials are advising Bay Area residents and their health care providers to look out for symptoms of monkeypox ahead of summer travel and other festivities, given that most of the cases identified so far are associated with possible sexual transmission. (Vaziri, 6/24)

Houston Chronicle: Monkeypox In Houston: Third Case Of Rare Infection Confirmed The area’s third case of the monkeypox infection has been confirmed. The Houston Health Department said Saturday that the rare sickness – which does not spread easily without close skin-to-skin contact – is not connected to any of the city’s previous two cases. The affected person developed symptoms after returning from travel, did not require hospitalization and is isolating at home, the health department said. (Downen, 6/25)

The Courier-Journal: What To Know About Monkeypox Now That Kentucky Has A Probable Case On Friday, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services reported the first probable case on monkeypox in Kentucky. The patient, whose gender and age have not been made public, is a Jefferson County resident who is isolated while confirmation testing takes place at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Ladd, 6/27)

Daily Beast: The Monkeypox Crisis Is Secretly Spiraling In Virus Epicenter Of Nigeria Unlike in the West, the outbreak of the disease in Nigeria, where the illness is endemic, didn’t begin this year. It started in 2017. Between then and now, there have been more than 650 suspected cases with over 260 confirmed, one-seventh of which were recorded in the first half of this year. But government records in Nigeria, where monkeypox cases are on the rise, don’t tell the true story of the disease that has spiked in Europe and the United States. (Obaji Jr., 6/27)

Supreme Court Nixes Hospitals' Attempt To Change DSH Payouts

Modern Healthcare reports on a legal decision that went in favor of the Health and Human Services Department, denying a safety-net hospital push to change Medicare payout calculations for disproportionate share hospital payments, known at DSH. Past "medical tragedies," Cue Health's covid profits, cataract surgery fees, and more are also in the news.

Modern Healthcare: Supreme Court Sides With HHS, Not Hospitals, In DSH Payment Case The Supreme Court on Friday dealt a blow to safety-net hospitals' Medicare rate calculation. The high court resolved a years-long fight between the Health and Human Services Department and the hospital industry by ruling the agency appropriately interpreted Medicare law when it changed a formula for calculating safety-net payments in 2005. Hospitals won't lose money from the ruling, but they also won't gain extra funds they argued they're entitled to, said Allison Hoffman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. (Goldman, 6/24)

In other health care industry news —

Stat: Vertus Hardiman And The Medical Tragedies That Must Not Be Forgetten Vertus Hardiman wore a wig for more than 70 years. His hair piece concealed a painful secret: a head ravaged by a raw, open wound that was eating through his scalp and skull. As a child, Hardiman was a victim of irresponsible medical practices that left him with physical and psychological scars for the rest of his life. It was 1927 and Vertus, then age 5, had a case of ringworm, a fungal infection that affects the skin. He and nine other Black children from the close-knit community of Lyles Station, Indiana, were taken for treatment to a nearby hospital. The treatment they received was high-dose radiation. The children’s parents had no idea that signing the permission slips for the hospital visit would lead to their kids being irradiated. (St. Fleur, 6/27)

Stat: Cue Health Rode Covid To A $3 Billion Valuation. Now It Faces A Rocky Future It didn’t have the brand recognition of Abbott, or the billions of the medical technology multinational Becton Dickinson. Before the pandemic hit, Cue Health didn’t even have a product on the market. What the fledgling company did have in July 2020 was a deal to provide its newly authorized Covid-19 test for the National Basketball Association’s highly publicized bubble. With the imprimatur of the NBA, Cue rocketed from startup obscurity to primetime fame. (Palmer, 6/27)

KHN: His-And-Hers Cataract Surgeries, But His Bill Was 20 Times As Much  Danilo Manimtim’s vision was cloudy and blurred — and it was growing worse. The 73-year-old retired orthopedic surgeon in Fresno, California, knew it was time for cataract surgery. “It’s like car tires wearing out because you drive on them so much,” he said. In December 2021, he went to the outpatient department of the local hospital to undergo the common procedure that usually replaces the natural eye lens with an artificial one and is designed to restore vision. The outpatient procedure went smoothly, and Manimtim healed over the next few weeks. (Hart, 6/27)

KHN: Journalists Investigate Private Equity, Medical Debt, And Mental Health Care KHN senior correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble examined how private equity hijacks health care, reporting on rural hospital closures in Missouri, on KBIA’s “All Things Considered” on June 23. ... KHN senior Colorado correspondent Markian Hawryluk also discussed private equity, along with power wheelchairs and Colorado’s “right to repair” law, on “Texas Standard” on June 22. (6/25)

Court Allows Juul To Stay On Shelves — For Now

Following last week's Food and Drug Administration ban of the company's electronic cigarettes, Juul sued the FDA. A federal appeals court on Friday allowed sales to continue temporarily.

Stat: Court Rules Juul Can Still Sell E-Cigs While It Prepares Challenge To FDA Ban Juul’s e-cigarettes won’t be pulled off the shelves just yet. A federal court ruled late Friday that the company’s vaping products can stay on the market while the company prepares its full legal challenge to this week’s Food and Drug Administration ban. The move is the latest in a whirlwind 24 hours for the vaping company, which was ordered to shut down all U.S. sales Thursday afternoon. The company sued the FDA over that decision Thursday evening. The company is also now considering bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported. It remains unclear how long Juul will be able to stay on the market pursuant to the judge’s order, though it appears the company will gain at least another two weeks. (Florko, 6/24)

Wired: Juul Survives A Blow From The FDA—For Now  The FDA's denial and the subsequent stay are just the latest developments in a years-long battle between regulators and Juul. Back in 2018, the FDA launched an investigation into sales of Juul products to underage consumers, requested marketing materials from the company, and demanded that the company submit a plan for thwarting sales to teens. The following year, the FDA sent a warning letter to Juul over its claims that vapes were less harmful than traditional cigarettes. At some point, fruity-flavored e-cigarette pods were banned in the US. The latest ban, if it ever goes into effect, would apply to the Juul device itself, a sleek vaping pen, and to four specific liquid cartridges, all of which are tobacco-flavored or menthol-flavored—those that mimic the flavors of traditional cigarettes. The denial from the FDA came just a couple days after the agency said it would also limit the amount of nicotine allowed in real cigarettes sold in the US. (Ashworth and Goode, 6/25 )

The Guardian: US Bans Juul But Young Vapers Are Already Switching To Newer Products  Adolescents often switch from product to product, creating a Whac-a-Mole prevention strategy, says Monica M Zorilla, a researcher at Stanford. When the FDA prioritized enforcement against flavored e-cigarette devices like Juul in 2020, it exempted disposable e-cigarettes and menthol-flavored e-cigarette products, says Zorilla. A Stanford study found that adolescents then moved to those e-cigarettes that were exempt. “Youth went from pod-based [like Juul] to disposables like Puff Bar,” Zorilla says. “As a youth said to me, ‘anything with fruit’ is popular among their peers. This was in part due to the enforcement and in part because the disposables continued to have many flavors.” (Gammon, 6/26)

The New York Times: Juul Users Prepare To Say Goodbye To Their Vape Of Choice  After roughly 25 years of cigarette smoking, Tim Marchman wanted to quit. And yet he didn’t want to become what he calls “a vape guy,” the kind of person who spends hours in specialty shops choosing from dozens of electronic nicotine delivery devices, many of them quite elaborate. So he settled on what struck him as the simplest option, Juul, a brand that for a time was practically synonymous with vaping. “Juul is the default,” Mr. Marchman, an editor at the Vice Media tech and science site Motherboard, said in an interview. “It’s just plug and play.” Unlike some other e-cigarette brands, Juul was also widely available. “In gas stations in the middle of nowhere, they have it,” Mr. Marchman said. (Kurutz, 6/24)

UN Says Cannabis Use Up In US, Globally, From Legalization, Pandemic

A U.N. report says that covid lockdowns and expanding legalization have driven cannabis use up, and that THC strength is rising, too. In other news, a boil water alert in Mississippi, a recall of Daily Harvest products after claims of sickness, and the rise in captioning for people with hearing loss.

Reuters: Cannabis Use Has Risen With Legalization And COVID Lockdowns, U.N. Report Says Places including U.S. states that have legalized cannabis appear to have increased its regular use, while COVID lockdowns had a similar effect, raising the risk of depression and suicide, a U.N. report said on Monday. Cannabis has long been the world's most widely used drug and that use is increasing while the cannabis on the market is getting stronger in terms of its tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its annual World Drug Report. (Murphy, 6/26)

In other public health news —

AP: Boil-Water Alert Issued For Mississippi's Capital City  Residents and businesses in Mississippi’s capital are under a citywide boil-water notice until further notice. The alert was issued Friday because of water pressure issues at the O.B. Curtis Water Plant, city officials said in a news release. It affects all surface and well water customers. (6/25)

The New York Times: Daily Harvest Recalls Lentil And Leek Crumbles After Consumers Fall Ill  The vegan food delivery service Daily Harvest recalled a lentil-based product after customers claimed on social media that they’d become severely sick after eating it. The company said that it had received approximately 470 reports of illness or adverse reactions, including gastrointestinal issues and potential liver damage, according to a press release issued Thursday. (Blum, 6/24)

AP: Why Captions Are Suddenly Everywhere And How They Got There  People with hearing loss have a new ally in their efforts to navigate the world: Captions that aren’t limited to their television screens and streaming services. The COVID pandemic disrupted daily life for people everywhere, but many of those with hearing loss took the resulting isolation especially hard. “When everyone wears a mask they are completely unintelligible to me,” said Pat Olken of Sharon, Massachusetts, whose hearing aids were insufficient. (A new cochlear implant has helped her a lot.) (Arbel, 6/27)

Different Takes: PCPs Must Begin To Provide Abortion Care; Overturning Roe Will Create More Teenage Mothers

Opinion writers examine the effects of overturning Roe.

Scientific American: Primary Care Providers Can Help Safeguard Abortion  The Supreme Court has overturned constitutional protections for abortion, and several states have now immediately outlawed essential care that is used by roughly one in four Americans who can become pregnant. As many people in the health professions have said, these prohibitions will undermine bodily autonomy, criminalize a wide range of pregnancy outcomes and limit the personal and professional lives of millions of Americans. They will also undoubtedly increase pregnancy-related morbidity and mortality. As educators and physicians who provide abortions, we believe that this vital health service must not be limited to abortion clinics and ob-gyn practices. (Diana Carvajal, Casandra Cashman and Ian Lague, 6/24)

Stat: A Major Problem For Minors: Post-Roe Access To Abortion  Now that the Supreme Court has overturned constitutional protection to abortion access, more than two dozen states will ban or severely restrict abortion access. Young people, especially those under age 18, will be disproportionally affected by this decision. The existing barriers to legal access to abortion, already insurmountable for many people, serve as a preview of what to expect and the inequities that will further be exacerbated. In Indiana, for example, consent for a minor to have an abortion requires a notarized parental consent form to be completed; in-person, state-directed counseling; an ultrasound; and an 18-hour waiting period. Given teens also face greater barriers to preventing pregnancy in the first place, including barriers to accessing contraception and limited access to comprehensive sexual health education, the door is closed for them at every turn. (Tracey Wilkinson, Julie Maslowsky and Laura Lindberg, 6/26)

Los Angeles Times: The End Of Roe And Abortion Rights Will Be A Death Sentence For Many Black Women  For all women in the United States, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade will reverse half a century of progress in women’s healthcare. For Black women, this decision represents something even more sinister. For us, losing access to legal abortion could spell the difference between life and death. That may sound like a melodramatic statement, but it’s not. If the past is any guide, ending the right to abortion will spark a public health crisis for Black women defined by more maternal deaths, higher rates of poverty and greater inequality overall. (Linda Goler Blount, 6/24)

NBC News: Roe V. Wade Was Overturned. Adoption Isn't A Solution To A Lack Of Abortion Access “Your son is so lucky.” As mother to an 11-year-old who came to our family via adoption four years ago, I hear this comment a lot. Friends and strangers alike tell me that my child is fortunate, that he “seems like such a happy kid” and “You would never know he’s adopted, he’s so well-adjusted!” Some say these things within earshot of my son or my biological daughter. I know that their comments are mostly well-meaning, so I usually just change the subject, not wanting to start a weighty conversation at the grocery check-out line or at school pickup. But what I want to say is, “He is not ‘lucky.’ He will never ‘adjust.’ Adoption is trauma, and no child — or birth parent — should ever have to go through it.” (Kristin Fasy, 6/26)

Scientific American: How Abortion Misinformation And Disinformation Spread Online  The Supreme Court’s decision to curtail abortion rights has come to fruition. One of the outcomes that will be less discussed is how more people in states with heavy restrictions will turn to search engines and social media to figure out how now to manage their reproductive decisions, and will find themselves reading questionable information. The information they’ll find could be questionable; the number of false and misleading statements online about abortion has grown since the draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked in May, and with the decision now handed down, it will undoubtedly increase. (Jenna Sherman, 6/24)

The Hill: Impact Of Overturning Roe On The Midterms? Look At Kavanaugh‘s Impact On 2018 Elections  In the 2018 midterms, 40 U.S. House seats flipped from Republican to Democrat; 38 of those races had public polling. In 27 of those, the Republican candidate led in September and/or October, coinciding with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearings; those 27 Republican candidates went on to lose in November. In considering how the overturning of Roe v. Wade might impact the 2022 midterms, we must understand 2018. (B.J. Rudell, 6/26)

Viewpoints: Parents Struggle To Vaccinate Young Kids; Improving Sexual Health Can Prevent Monkeypox

Editorial writers delve into these public health topics.

The New York Times: The Wait For Little Kid Vaccines Is Over. Parental Exhaustion Isn’t This week is a milestone for children who can’t remember a time before the pandemic, some of whom weren’t even born before 2020. Still, the vaccines’ availability comes with an asterisk for a lot of families. Anecdotally, many of my friends with preschool-age kids also have Covid in their homes right now, and while they’re glad vaccines are finally available for their children, that development strikes many as anticlimactic. (Jessica Grose, 6/25)

The New York Times: Monkeypox Could Exploit A Big Weakness In Sexual Health Care  Monkeypox infections are spreading rapidly in many countries, and the United States has, yet again, been caught flat-footed when confronted with another virus. Many problems with the Covid-19 response by the United States are being repeated: limited access to testing, contact tracing, vaccination and isolation support, and scant data from public health officials about how and where people are being infected. With infections currently concentrated among men who have sex with men, monkeypox has also exposed another critical vulnerability in the U.S. public health system: limited sexual health services in many parts of the country. That will make it more difficult to know how many monkeypox cases there are and to stop the virus from spreading. (Jay K. Varma, 6/27)

Stat: 'Black Swan' Outbreaks Can Prepare For Future Pandemics  In December 2021, one year into the Covid-19 pandemic, my colleague Alina Deshpande had the idea of searching historical disease records for potential “black swan” disease outbreaks. These are unexpected outbreaks notable for their duration, spread or severity. Why bother doing this? Identifying common features among exceptionally large outbreaks could serve as warning signs of future pandemics or unusually devastating outbreaks. (Nileena Velappan, 6/27)

Stat: It's A Bad Time To Further Cut Hospitals' Medicare Payments  As the U.S. slowly emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, hospitals hope to get back to some semblance of normal. That won’t be possible with the 1% cut in reimbursement rates from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that is slated to go into effect July 1, which comes on the heels of a 1% cut in Medicare payments implemented in April. And these are in addition to an annual cut that CMS put in place with the Affordable Care Act to incentivize hospital productivity. (Cliff A. Megerian and Peter Pronovost, 6/27)

The Star Tribune: Needed Action On 'Forever Chemicals'  Research suggests that PFAS exposure at some levels may be linked to harmful health effects, such as reduced fertility or increased risk of some types of cancer. That's why a recent move by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) toward setting strict guidance levels for PFAS levels in the nation's drinking water is necessary and proper. Earlier this month, the EPA issued health advisories for four types of PFAS. While the advisories are not enforceable, the agency's move serves several worthy purposes: (6/26)

The Washington Post: Virginia Health Commissioner Wakes Up To Structural Racism In Disparities  Virginia’s top health official seems to have missed some of the voluminous research in recent decades demonstrating the link between racism and disparate health treatment and outcomes among African Americans. Actually, he seems to have missed virtually all of it. (6/26)

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