In The News

by Andrea Grimes, Senior Political Reporter, RH Reality Check

A federal judge once again advised counsel to keep their arguments focused on legal reasoning, rather than emotional pleas, on the last day of arguments in Whole Woman’s Health v. Lakey, the latest challenge to a Texas’ omnibus anti-abortion law expected to shutter all but seven existing abortion providers in the state come September 1, barring judicial intervention.

Judge Lee Yeakel pushed lawyers both for the plaintiffs—a group of independent Texas abortion providers from across the state who say they have been forced to close clinic doors in the wake of HB 2‘s passage—and the State of Texas, which is defending the law, to answer the key question posed in practically every abortion case since Roe v. Wade: “Exactly what is an undue burden?”

Guttmacher Institute, September 19, 2014

The proportion of privately insured U.S. women who paid zero dollars out of pocket for oral contraceptive pills increased sharply, from 15% to 67%, between the fall of 2012 (before the ACA’s contraceptive coverage requirement took effect for most women) and the spring of 2014, according to a new Guttmacher study published in the journal Contraception. The study found that the proportion of women who paid nothing out of pocket also increased among those using the vaginal ring (from 20% to 74%) and among those using injectable contraceptives (from 27% to 59%). For women using the IUD, the proportion increased from 45% in the fall of 2012 to 62% in the three subsequent waves of the study combined.