The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) on Wednesday published a list of attacks on reproductive rights and healthcare during Trump’s first 100 days in office.
First, the Trump administration is refusing to defend the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law that requires hospitals to provide treatment to those in emergency medical situations, including dire and necessary abortion procedures. This comes after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to stay a district court’s ruling in favor of the Biden administration on a restrictive Idaho abortion law. The question was whether EMTALA preempted Idaho’s “Defense of Life Act,” a near-total ban on abortions. The Supreme Court dismissed the case as improvidently granted and returned this issue to the lower courts. For now, Idaho is disallowed from enforcing its Defense of Life Act to the extent that it conflicts with EMTALA.
Second, CRR reported in a press release that Trump pardoned 23 people who were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinical Entrances (FACE) Act. The FACE Act prohibits the physical obstruction, intimidation, or interference with any “person or any class of persons” who are “obtaining or providing reproductive health services,” among other things. Several of the defendants were convicted of orchestrating a clinic blockade that “physically obstructed patients seeking access to their doctors.”
Third, the Trump administration took down ReproductiveRights.gov, a website that included information about patient rights and reproductive healthcare. The decision came amidst Trump’s issuance of Executive Order 14182, which upholds the Hyde Amendment, prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortion.
Fourth, the Trump administration has frozen millions of dollars in funding from Title X, which “provides grants to public and nonprofit agencies for family planning services, research, and training.” The Department of Health and Human Services has fired thousands of individuals, and many clinics have already begun to close in response to the funding slash. Utah is one of seven states losing all Title X funding. The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) has filed a lawsuit challenging the withholding of Title X grants.
Finally, Trump has purported to attack lawyers who challenge his administration. In a memorandum issued in March, Trump directs “the Attorney General to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States or in matters before executive departments and agencies of the United States.”
The future of reproductive healthcare remains hazy in the US, especially considering the fact that the Supreme Court is set to rule at the end of its term on a bid by South Carolina to remove Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid coverage.
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/sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-research-(srh)/translation-room-at-the-world-health-organization.tmb-1200v.jpg?sfvrsn=6a145bd9_1 "Finding a path to language justice in sexual and reproductive health and rights")
