The Quickie: Iowa Six-Week Abortion Ban Remains Blocked
For Immediate Release: June 16, 2023
Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.
In today’s Quickie: IA Supreme Court keeps 6-week ban blocked, birth control access for teens at risk, and Niñas No Madres wins case affirming abortion rights for children.
IOWA SUPREME COURT KEEPS 6-WEEK ABORTION BAN BLOCKED: Today, the Iowa Supreme Court kept in place the 2018 permanent block of the state’s six-week abortion ban. The high court was divided 3-3, so following Court rules in such ties, the district court’s 2018 decision blocking the injunction remains in place.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last summer, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds tried to resurrect the 2018 abortion ban, which had been ruled unconstitutional and blocked in district court.
“This case has been pivotal to the fight for abortion access throughout the region, as Iowa has served as a critical access point during the 11 months since the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said. “With this ruling, thousands of patients seeking care in the state and beyond can continue to receive the necessary, life-saving care that they need. This is a victory for Iowans’ bodily autonomy and freedom, and Planned Parenthood remains committed to defending patients’ fundamental right to an abortion.”
Read more at ABC. Check out PPFA’s full press release here.
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BIRTH CONTROL ACCESS FOR TEENS IS ALREADY HARD, IT COULD GET HARDER: This week, USA Today featured an op-ed written by Maia Lopez, a high school student in Grapevine, Texas, discussing the difficulty of accessing birth control as a teenager. As Maia notes, accessing birth control pills is already difficult for teens: “finding the time, money and means to get to a doctor for a prescription, getting our parents’ support and being able to pick up the pills is hard enough for a high-schooler.”
On top of that, in Texas, due to a ruling by Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk (the same judge who tried to revoke FDA’s approval of mifepristone), young people in Texas can no longer get birth control pills without parental permission, a massive blow to access as one in five people ages 15 to 17 reported that they would not seek birth control if it risked their parents finding out. Advocates for Youth found in a 2022 survey that 88% of young people indicated they experienced at least one barrier to getting oral contraception and 55% of those people said those barriers prevented them from getting a prescription. Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling only applies at Title X clinics in Texas currently, but could have an impact on access across the country if it’s upheld.
“For the past year, I’ve been working with Advocates for Youth to make this a reality,” Maia writes. “Their #FreeThePill Youth Council is a network of young activists across the country working with our communities to bring birth control OTC, covered by insurance, with no age restriction… Birth control shouldn’t be something that’s only available to people who live in certain states or whose parents happen to be open to it. It is essential health care that every single one of us deserves, no matter our age, race, income or life circumstance… Now, as the FDA makes its final decision this summer, I’m counting on its officials to turn that recommendation into a reality and make over-the-counter birth control available to us all.”
Read their full op-ed at USA Today.
JUSTICE SERVED: UN COMMITTEE RECOGNIZES ABORTION RIGHTS FOR CHILDREN: This week, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child condemned Peru for violating the human rights of "Camila", an indigenous Peruvian girl who, after years of being raped by her father, became pregnant, was forced to maintain the pregnancy and was criminalized when she had a miscarriage.
Similarly, the United Nations Committee on Human Rights is set to announce its decision next month in the cases of four other girls who experienced forced maternity as children from Ecuador, Guatemala and Nicaragua: Lucía, Fátima, Norma, and Susana.
The justice that Camila has achieved is the result of the litigation strategy developed by the Niñas, No Madres (Girls, Not Mothers) movement made up of a dozen organizations fighting for the rights of girls in Latin America founded by Planned Parenthood Global, Amnesty International, GIRE and CLACAI.
Read more at The Guardian and UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.