The Quickie: Senate Committee Hearing on the Abortion Access Crisis
For Immediate Release: June 4, 2024
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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: Senate committee hearing on abortion access crisis and tomorrow, NC court hears case challenging abortion restrictions.
SENATE COMMITTEE HEARING ON THE ABORTION ACCESS CRISIS: Right now, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee is holding a hearing entitled “The Assault on Women’s Freedoms: How Abortion Bans Have Created a Health Care Nightmare Across America.” Planned Parenthood provider Dr. Allison Linton, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is testifying, alongside abortion patient Madysyn Anderson, Dr. Nisha Verma from Physicians for Reproductive Health, and Destiny Lopez from Guttmacher Institute. Tune in here.
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TOMORROW: NC FEDERAL COURT HEARS CASE CHALLENGING ABORTION RESTRICTIONS: Tomorrow, June 5, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina will hold a summary judgment hearing in the ongoing legal challenge to several provisions of the state’s abortion ban that took effect last year.
The first provision requires that any abortion provided after the 12th week of pregnancy under one of the ban’s exceptions (in case of rape or incest, or life-limiting fetal anomaly) must be provided in a hospital setting – prohibiting them in a clinic setting, where abortions are currently performed just as safely as in hospitals. The second challenged provision demands that physicians "document the existence of an intrauterine pregnancy" before providing medication abortion – but leaves physicians without guidance as to how to satisfy this requirement, and potentially even bans medication abortion in the early stages of pregnancy, when it is too early for a pregnancy to be detected on an ultrasound.
Both of these restrictions threaten to shrink the already extremely narrow window when abortion remains available in North Carolina. As it stands, North Carolina is the closest state where abortion is available past six weeks of pregnancy for thousands of patients across the South.