The Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Skrmetti is devastating for transgender people’s lives and health but also for equal protection law and for women, pregnant people, and LGBT people who are most vulnerable to demands to conform their bodies, families, and lives to gender stereotypes.  

In Skrmetti, the Court reaffirmed that heightened scrutiny is still the standard for reviewing sex discrimination challenges under the Equal Protection Clause, but it refused to apply that test and upheld Tennessee’s ban on certain medical treatments for transgender youth. To reach that result, it resurrected and breathed new life into a long-discredited case to essentially insulate laws related to pregnancy, sexuality, gender identity, motherhood and fatherhood, or other presumed “biological differences” from heightened scrutiny. It is a massive blow to sex equality law and, like Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it is a decision that intentionally turns back the clock on constitutional rights and gender equality. 

To read this full commentary, click here.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic that Medicaid patients do not have the right to challenge a state’s decision to exclude Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program. This ruling comes in a case where patients and Planned Parenthood challenged South Carolina’s executive action, which had the effect of blocking Medicaid beneficiaries from receiving any covered care at Planned Parenthood clinics, not just abortion, which was already a service South Carolina residents could not use Medicaid coverage to obtain. While the Court did not rule on whether South Carolina’s policy itself is lawful, the decision makes it nearly impossible for individuals on Medicaid or providers to challenge in court state efforts to banish from Medicaid any entity that provides abortion care with non-public funds. As SCOTUSblog explains, the Court held that the “any qualified provider” provision in the Medicaid Act "does not create the kind of clear and unambiguous right required under the Supreme Court’s cases to allow private lawsuits.” Not being able to access care at Planned Parenthood clinics could have profound and far-reaching consequences for South Carolina Medicaid recipients, jeopardizing access to a broad range of essential health care services, from cancer screenings to STI testing to birth control.  To understand the far-reaching implications of this decision for Medicaid coverage, provider choice, and health equity, read CRHLP Legal Extern Tarj Patel’s commentary What Amici Have to Tell the Court: Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.  This case is a blow to reproductive health access and also part of a wave of rulings making it much more difficult to enforce important civil rights laws in court. 

This week, Congress passed and the President signed a budget bill that funds huge tax cuts for the wealthy and a massive scale-up of immigration enforcement with nearly a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid, blocking Planned Parenthood and some other abortion providers from receiving federal reimbursement for care they provide to people on Medicaid for one year. The bill also includes several harmful changes to the Affordable Care Act that flew more under the radar, such as provisions to force insurers to drop coverage for abortion or lose federal subsidies even in states that require plans to have that coverage. These cuts could lead to the closure of up to 144 rural labor-and-delivery units which would turn large swaths of the country into maternity care deserts. The budget also funds tax cuts and historic increases in immigration spending by slashing funding for student loans, food security benefits, environmental tax credits, and more. The new federal budget and the Medina decision pose an existential threat to reproductive health and maternal care nationwide.  These moves will acutely affect low-income people, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and rural communities, the same communities who already face the greatest barriers to care.

Planned Parenthood provides critical care to our communities. The effort to hobble it is part of a larger effort to quietly but effectively ban abortion nationwide by forcing provider shut-downs and fewer and fewer places for people to turn for any type of reproductive health care. And the bill is also the start of a myriad of ways the federal government is going to try take away abortion for everyone by exacting severe financial penalties on states with policies to protect and cover abortion. 

CRHLP Executive Director Melissa Goodman is featured in a new San Francisco Chronicle article on the devastating impact federal budget cuts will have on abortion access, even in states like California that protect the right to abortion.  

As Melissa explains, “The federal effort to defund those who provide abortion services is a key tactic for restricting abortion access in states that protect abortion by radically shrinking the pool of abortion providers who can afford to continue operating.” This legislation will limit access to reproductive health care across California and disproportionately put care for low-income people out of reach. Strong rights to access reproductive health care mean very little if there are no places to get the care you need. 

Read the full article here.

CRHLP has launched a one-stop resource for staying up to date on efforts to restrict or protect access to mifepristone. To access the resource, visit:  https://bit.ly/CRHLPMifeTracker.

Our Mifepristone Litigation Tracker and Federal Action Tracker provide timely, regularly updated information on key court cases and federal administrative actions that could shape the future of abortion access nationwide. The Mifepristone Litigation Tracker provides timely updates and analysis on legal challenges that could impact access to mifepristone nationwide and potentially put medication abortion back in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Mifepristone Federal Action Tracker, meanwhile, monitors new federal agency activity starting from January 1, 2025, including FDA actions that may affect how the drug is regulated, prescribed, dispensed, and accessed.  

To explore the Mifepristone Litigation and Federal Action Tracker, visit: https://bit.ly/CRHLPMifeTracker.

Join the Williams Institute for a conversation exploring two LGBTQ-related Supreme Court cases: US v. Skrmetti and Mahmoud v. Taylor. Faculty Director for CRHLP and the Williams Institute and Constitutional Law Scholar Cary Franklin will analyze the decisions, explain their broader implications, and discuss what they mean for LGBTQ rights and the legal landscape ahead. RSVP at bit.ly/LGBTQCourt 

Photo Credit: iStock Images

A new ProPublica analysis reveals that early miscarriage is becoming more dangerous in Texas under the state’s abortion ban. After abortion was criminalized in August 2022, emergency room visits for first-trimester miscarriage rose by 25%, and blood transfusions during those visits spiked by 54%. These increases suggest that patients are being denied timely care, particularly dilation and curettage (D&C), a standard treatment for miscarriage care that has become legally fraught in states that ban abortion. While Texas has passed new language clarifying that care is allowed in life-threatening emergencies, doctors say it doesn’t resolve the ambiguity or prevent harm from delays.

Illustration Credit: Society of Family Planning

Society of Family Planning has released its latest We Count report, which tracks national abortion volume month-by-month since Dobbs. The report shows that the total number of abortions in the U.S. increased in 2024 compared to both 2022 and 2023 despite mounting legal restrictions in many states. In-person care still accounts for the majority of abortions, but telehealth access continues to grow. By the end of 2024, 25% of abortions were provided via telehealth. Shield laws played a critical role in maintaining access to care, as the number of abortions provided under these protections increased significantly throughout the year, from a monthly average of 8,747 in early 2024 to over 12,000 by year’s end. Texas saw the highest average, with more than 3,400 shield-protected telehealth abortions per month in the final quarter. Read the full report here. 

Photo credit: Morry Gash/AP

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has held that the state’s 1849 abortion ban was effectively repealed and does not ban abortion in the state. In Kaul v. Urmanski, the Court held that “comprehensive legislation” enacted over the past 50 years “so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was clearly meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion” and “impliedly repealed” it. In connection with its decision, the Court dismissed as now moot a separate case raising a constitutional challenge to the ban, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin v. Urmanski. The ruling creates more legal certainty for providers and patients, who resumed abortion care in Wisconsin following a lower court’s 2023 decision in the case, that likewise held the law could not be enforced to ban abortion. Advocates say the decision is a major victory for reproductive rights and may open the door to challenging remaining restrictions in the future. 

Photo credit: Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP 

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case brought by a New Jersey faith-based crisis pregnancy center challenging a subpoena from the state attorney general seeking information on its donors, staff, and advertising. The center claims the subpoena, which has not yet been enforced, violates its First Amendment rights and is politically motivated due to its anti-abortion views. New Jersey argues that the center may have misled patients about the services it offers and is simply refusing standard legal oversight. The case, which the Court will take up this fall, could have major implications for state authority to investigate potentially deceptive practices at crisis pregnancy centers across the country. 

With so much going on in the world of reproductive health, law, and policy, every week we'll share articles, books, and media you might have missed. 

3 Years After Abortion Rights Were Overturned, Contraception Access Is At Risk 

Funder, Pilot, Survivor, Physician: Inside the Network Assisting Abortion Journeys 

The Big Beautiful Bill? A Big Bad Blow to Maternity Care 

Data, Death, and Delay — America’s Maternal Health Crisis 

Reimagining the future of reproductive health, law, and policy.

UCLA Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy is a think tank and research center created to develop long-term, lasting solutions that advance all aspects of reproductive justice, and address the current national crisis of abortion access.