Health experts outline how Trump administration could impact abortion and birth control access • Nebraska Examiner

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump has several choices to make in the coming months about whether his second administration will maintain access to birth control and abortion as it is now or implement changes.

While Trump cannot pass nationwide laws or abortion bans on his own without Congress, he and those he picks for key posts in the federal government will have a significant impact on reproductive rights across the country.

During Trump’s first term in office, he barred health care providers that perform abortions or refer patients for abortions from receiving Title women are at risk.

About a quarter of providers have withdrawn or been disqualified from receiving federal family planning grants as a result of the policy, Alina Salganicoff, senior vice president and director of women’s health policy at the nonpartisan health research organization KFF, said in a call with reporters Friday.

“The Title X program basically funds family planning services for low-income people,” Salganicoff said. “It’s basically a small program, about under $300 million, but it’s a critical program for people who otherwise wouldn’t have insurance.”

Abortions as stabilization care

Trump will also have to decide whether to leave in place guidance from the Biden administration that says a federal law from the 1980s protects health care providers who perform abortions as stabilizing care during an emergency that could affect a woman’s health or life.

That law, known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, has become a sticking point between the Biden administration and Republican states that have imposed abortion bans or strict restrictions after the Supreme Court ended abortion rights nationwide.

In a letter published in July 2022, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote that under federal “law, women have the right to emergency care, including abortion care, no matter where you live.”

In the center of EMTALA an ongoing lawsuit There was a dispute between the Biden administration and Idaho over the state’s abortion law. Oral arguments in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals are scheduled for early December.

abortion pill

The future of two-drug abortion, which is used in about 63% of abortions nationwide and is approved for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, will be another area the Trump administration could change without congressional approval.

Salganicoff said it’s not possible yet to know whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will seek to change prescribing guidance for medication abortion or revoke the 2000 approval of mifepristone altogether.

“We don’t know if they’re actually going to reconsider the approval, but let me tell you, they’re going to reconsider the conditions for medication abortion, which now accounts for almost two-thirds of all abortions in this country.” country can be provided,” Salganicoff said.

He said the Trump administration will likely focus on revisions made during the Biden administration that allow doctors or other qualified health care providers to prescribe a two-drug abortion regimen via telehealth and then have mifepristone and misoprostol mailed to the patient.

Salganicoff predicts that anti-abortion organizations will encourage the Trump administration to address the latest findings from the We Count Project; These findings show that 1 in 10 abortions occur after medication abortions are sent by mail to people in states with significant restrictions from states that ban or lift laws.

“This FDA protocol is legal to do this, but obviously that would be a target,” he said.

Mailing of abortion pills

The Comstock Act, a late 19th-century anti-obscenity law that once banned the mailing of boxing photos, pornography and birth control, will also be front and center after Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

The law, which has not been implemented in decades but is still on the books, would allow the U.S. Postal Service to block abortion pills or other tools or equipment used in abortion from being sent through the mail.

“The Biden administration’s Department of Justice did a review and said they would not enforce Comstock,” Salganicoff said. “Project 2025 sees this very differently, and although President-elect Trump has said he won’t implement Comstock, it’s not clear and there will probably be a lot of pressure to do it.”

Project 2025 is a policy map for the Trump presidency published by the Heritage Foundation. Trump has denied any involvement in the matter, although former members of his first administration helped develop it.

Salganicoff said implementation of the Comstock Act would impact access to medication abortion nationwide, even in states that have strengthened reproductive rights in the past two years.

“Obviously this is going to create a lot of litigation and challenges,” Salganicoff said.

Larry Levitt, KFF’s vice president of health policy, said during the call that the Trump administration’s possible increase in people spreading misinformation or disinformation could lead to more confusion about research-based health care.

“I think there is potential for misinformation, especially with the increased prominence of RFK Jr.,” Levitt said, referring to prominent anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has supported Trump and campaigned extensively. with him.

“We are turning to the government for reliable data, public health information and scientific information,” Levitt said. “And now the government has the potential to be not only an effective source of health information, but also an accelerator of misinformation.”

Last update 14:51, 8 November 2024