Reproductive Rights News Roundup

Florida bill filed would ban abortions of fetuses with disabilities
Staff Report
News Service of Florida
A House Republican is trying to ban abortions that women seek because of tests showing that fetuses will have disabilities.

As the Pandemic Raged, Abortion Access Nearly Flickered Out
By Amy Littlefield
The Nation
The door of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbus was locked when Larada Lee arrived for the first of two appointments she needed to get an abortion under Ohio state law.

U.S. Could Prevent 19 Million Unsafe Abortions Abroad If Helms Amendment Is Repealed
By Alanna Vagianos
Huffington Post
Congress could prevent 19 million unsafe abortions around the world every year if it rescinded the Helms Amendment, a 1973 law that prevents American foreign aid from being used to pay for abortions, according to a new report.

Abortion emerges as key division in Becerra’s Finance hearing
By Mary Ellen McIntire
Roll Call
President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, told the Senate Finance Committee in some of the most tense exchanges in two days of confirmation hearings that he would follow the law on abortion.

‘It’s a Minefield’: Biden Health Pick Must Tread Carefully on Abortion and Family Planning
By Noam N. Levey and Rachel Bluth
Kaiser Health News
As President Joe Biden works to overhaul U.S. health care policy, few challenges loom larger for his health secretary than restoring access to family planning while parrying legal challenges to abortion proliferating across the country.

Group of Senate Democrats call on Biden to create Office of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Wellbeing
By Caroline Kelly
CNN
Seven Senate Democrats are asking President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to establish a White House office devoted to reproductive health that would create a federal policy home positioned to address the issue across the administration.

Supreme Court takes abortion case that could end free speech for doctors
By Lisa Needham
The American Independent
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that could decide whether the Trump administration’s domestic gag rule should be upheld.

How to Spot Anti-Abortion Propaganda
By Robin Marty
Rewire
Abortion opponents are especially good at changing public opinion, usually by reframing abortion rights in harmful or stigmatizing language

Florida lawmakers consider ‘baby box’ as a place to abandon newborns
By Steven Walker
Orlando Sentinel
A bill in the Florida Legislature would pave the way for parents to surrender newborn children through a box, but the legislation faces opposition from some Democrats and advocacy groups.

A Time for Change: Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in a New Global Era
By Sophia Sadinsky and Zara Ahmed
Guttmacher Institute
One year since the global spread of COVID-19 began, the seismic disruptions that the pandemic has provoked are well documented: overburdened health systems, intensifying inequities, heightened political polarization and more.

Change to Florida’s sex ed policy takes unwise risk with teenagers’ health
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
Science-based sex education should be an important part of the public school curriculum.