Anticipating challenges, blue states vow to create abortion protection ‘firewall’ • Oregon Capital Chronicle

Officials in blue states are vowing to build a “bulwark” to protect reproductive health as they anticipate federal and state attacks on abortion access under the Trump administration.

“We’re going to go on the offensive,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, told Stateline. “We are in an unprecedented war against American women and patients. State attorneys general, especially myself and my colleagues who support abortion rights and reproductive freedom, have been building this firewall for some time.”

President-elect Donald Trump has said he will leave access to abortion up to individual states, following the US Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and dismantled the federal right to abortion.

But even in states with strong anti-abortion protections, such as Connecticut and Massachusetts, lawmakers and other officials are already discussing ways to fend off legal challenges from various quarters, including federal agencies under the Trump administration and anti-abortion lawmakers in conservative states.

“What we’re looking at is this interaction between the protective states and the Trump-Vance administration and what impact that administration will have on state laws and access to sexual and reproductive health care,” said Candace Gibson, director of state policy at Guttmacher. Institutes, a research and policy organization focused on advancing reproductive rights.

“It’s going to be an interesting time.”

Aims at abortion pills

Tong said one of his biggest concerns is that legislative efforts and legal challenges from anti-abortion lawmakers in red states could lead to nationwide restrictions on the drug mifepristone. It is one of the two drugs most commonly used in medical abortion, which now represents almost two thirds of all abortions.

“If you ban this, it will be nothing but a national abortion ban,” he said.

Conservative-led states could follow the example of Louisiana, which passed a law in the most recent legislative session to classify mifepristone and the drug misoprostol as controlled substances. Both are used in medical abortions as well as to treat other conditions such as life-threatening postpartum hemorrhage. Since the Louisiana law went into effect, hospitals in the state have withdrawn mifepristone and misoprostol from obstetric hemorrhage carts and instead stored them in password-protected lockers outside the labor and delivery rooms. It’s a move that some doctors worry could waste valuable time in emergency situations.

Last week, Republican state Rep.-elect Pat Curry submitted a similar bill in Texas. Conservative lawmakers in North Carolina hastily passed a law in 2023 that overrides Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto that included additional restrictions on dispensing abortion drugs. That law has been mired in lawsuits.

But last month, Democratic attorneys general in 17 states and the District of Columbia asked a federal appeals court to uphold a ruling that North Carolina cannot impose restrictions on mifepristone that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said are medically unnecessary.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups released a “Make America Pro-Life Again” roadmap last week outlining their plans to reduce access to abortion at the federal and state levels, including a focus on challenging access to mifepristone.

“We have a siege engine ready for these legal walls that we’re going to face at some state legislatures and legislative levels as well as federal levels,” Kristan Hawkins, president of the anti-abortion organization Students for Life Action, said in a presser. he called last week.

Hawkins said lawmakers in nine states — Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming — will introduce bills targeting the sale or distribution of drugs that can be used to abortions.

Arizona State Representative Rachel Jones, a Republican, said in a recent call with the media that she plans to target the abortion pill in her fight against Arizona’s new constitutional amendment protecting access to abortion, which voters approved in the beginning of this month.

“There are other ways, first of all, to encourage women to make a different decision before they even walk into that abortion clinic, before they order the pills, to stop the ability to be able to do it so easily through the mail . Jones said. She said she plans to educate her fellow lawmakers on how to combat the “big push” for medication abortion.

Strengthening shield laws

A number of states have enacted “safeguard laws” designed to minimize legal risks for people who provide or access abortions. But only eight states — California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — protect abortion providers from legal action regardless of where their patient is located.

For example, telehealth providers in states including California, Massachusetts and New York prescribe abortion drugs to patients in states where abortion is prohibited. Shield laws attempt to protect these providers from prosecution.

State shield laws haven’t seen many challenges yet, but they could come, said the Guttmacher Institute’s Gibson.

Attorneys in the reproductive justice division of the Massachusetts attorney general’s office are looking for ways to further strengthen the state’s protective law. With the incoming Trump administration, they anticipate more efforts by conservative prosecutors and attorneys general to mount legal challenges in anticipation of a friendlier federal climate.

“My office, including through the Reproductive Justice Unit, will continue to ensure that Massachusetts remains a leader in advancing access to care, protecting our health care rights, and addressing disparities while working collaboratively with my counterparts across the country.” , Massachusetts said. Democratic Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell in a statement to Stateline.

“Regional Impact”

Officials in blue states also support protections for access to contraceptives, digital privacy and emergency abortion care in hospitals. For example, in Maryland, Democratic lawmakers passed a online data privacy legislation in April in an attempt to limit how technology platforms and phone apps can collect and use consumers’ personal data, including reproductive health data.

Connecticut and Massachusetts are among states looking for ways to strengthen their laws to protect emergency reproductive care if the Trump administration reverses current federal guidelines that say abortion is covered under the Hospital Emergency Care Act, known as EMLATE.

If the Trump administration says hospitals are no longer federally required to provide abortions as part of emergency reproductive care, Tong said, even patients in a state like Connecticut could be affected. Without state requirements, religiously affiliated hospitals, for example, could refuse to terminate pregnancies in situations where a patient’s life or health might be at risk.

Gibson said he expects to continue to see more state lawmakers introduce contraception protection bills in future legislative sessions. In the most recent session in Virginia, Democratic lawmakers passed a bill to guarantee access to contraception, although it was with veto by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Earlier this year, Campbell, of Massachusetts, organized a working group of Democratic state attorneys general and others to collaborate on how to use protective laws and other legal and legislative tools to protect abortion rights.

“There has been an increase in collaborative conversations between different state policymakers,” Gibson said in an interview with Stateline. “I think policymakers understand that these state abortion access bans are not just state bans, but that they also have a regional impact.”

This article was first published by Statelinepart of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains its editorial independence. Contact editor Scott S. Greenberger with questions: (email protected). Watch Stateline on Facebook and X.