"Big, Beautiful" Fallout Hits Planned Parenthood
7.23.25
Click to skip ahead: Calculated Cruelty reports on a new study showing that forcing women to carry doomed pregnancies is really, really, bad for their health. ‘Big Beautiful’ Fallout checks in on Planned Parenthood clinics across the country. Attacks on Travel reminds us that Texas is the canary in the coal mine. In the States, news from Nevada, Alabama, Arizona, and Idaho. In the Nation, another budget bill to watch out for, and an abortion rights podcast with some of our favorite thinkers.
Calculated Cruelty
Everything about abortion bans is cruel, but there’s a particular horror for those diagnosed with fatal fetal abnormalities: women have described feeling like a “walking coffin” or a “walking tomb.”
Being forced to carry a doomed pregnancy to term isn’t just mental and emotional torture, though—it’s physically dangerous. In news that will surprise no one who’s been paying attention, a new study reports that denying women abortions for nonviable pregnancies greatly increases their risk for serious complications like preeclampsia, hemorrhage, hysterotomy, and even death.
In fact, researchers found that after Texas enacted its abortion ban, the rate of maternal morbidity in patients diagnosed with fatal fetal abnormalities spiked from 15% to 72%.
Before the ban, patients were given the choice of abortion or ‘expectant management’, aka waiting for it out. After the ban, patients could only do the latter—carrying to term or waiting for their pregnancy to be life-threatening enough that doctors could intervene. Patients who were treated (if you can call it that) with expectant management fared much worse than their counterparts who had abortions.
The results of the study should be common sense, but they’re important to highlight—especially right now. Since Roe was overturned, anti-abortion activists and legislators have tried to convince women with devastating diagnoses that it’s better for them to carry to term.
Not only do they claim it will give women ‘closure’ or insist having an abortion would be dangerous—these activists will actually lie to patients about their fetus’ condition, claiming that they might be ending a healthy pregnancy. (There’s a reason I called my multi-part series on this effort, “Calculated Cruelty.”)
To that, I just wanted to point out this line from the study:
“Stillbirth or neonatal death was reported in all pregnancies with expectant management.” (Emphasis mine)
In other words, there were no living babies at the end of these pregnancies. Just a woman who was sick, or a woman who was not.
If there is any justice in the world, this study will be picked up by mainstream outlets far and wide.
‘Big Beautiful’ Fallout
A federal court has partially blocked the Trump administration’s ‘big beautiful bill’ provision that defunds Planned Parenthood—allowing some clinics to retain funding while others remain unprotected.
It’s a little complicated, but here’s the short version: The way the law strips clinics of federal funds is by labeling abortion providers “prohibited entities.” This temporary ruling protects clinics that don’t individually meet that definition of ‘prohibited’ because they’re located in banned states and don’t provide abortion, or if they received less than $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in 2023.
But for clinics that aren’t covered by this injunction, the “defund” provision now takes effect, putting patients across the country at risk of losing health- and life-saving reproductive healthcare.
Planned Parenthood said in a statement that the legal fight “isn’t over,” as they await a ruling on whether the preliminary injunction might extend to all providers and not just those who narrowly avoid ‘prohibited entity’ status. “We remain hopeful that the court will grant this relief,” the group said.
There’s at least some cause for encouragement: The judge determined that the ‘defund’ provision is likely unconstitutional and stressed the dire, immediate harms imposed on Medicaid and Planned Parenthood patients.
The law threatens to shutter two-thirds of Planned Parenthood health centers, and one in four abortion providers nationwide—all at a time when Republicans are increasingly trying to target remote access to abortion pills, too. In effect, it’s a national backdoor abortion ban:
The impacts of defunding are already hitting clinics across the country:
Planned Parenthood of California, which serves more than one million patients per year—80% of whom are on Medicaid—is set to lose $300 million. This “will be felt in every corner of the state and will disproportionately impact people who… have no other options for health care,” said Jodi Hicks, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.
In West Virginia, whose entire Congressional congregation voted for the budget bill, a third of all Planned Parenthood patients in the state could lose access to care.
In New Jersey, where 20 Planned Parenthood clinics serve more than 120,000 patients, the organization is scrambling to secure funding to keep caring for the one-third of patients who rely on Medicaid.
In Colorado, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountain president Adrienne Mansanares recounted having to tell nearly 1,000 patients they could no longer provide them care. “Each one of those conversations was absolutely devastating,” she said.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood affiliates in states like Arizona and Oregon have made clear that their clinics remain fully open.
The patchwork landscape is incredibly difficult for patients and providers, both, to navigate—which is the point. “The Trump administration’s attack on Planned Parenthood is designed to sow chaos and confusion,” Planned Parenthood said.
For now, the organization instructs patients to keep their appointments and call 1-800-230-PLAN for help.
Attacks on Travel
If you want to know how anti-abortion activists plan to restrict women’s right to travel, just pay attention to what’s happening in Texas. This week, yet another city passed an ‘abortion trafficking’ ordinance, making it illegal to help someone leave the state for an abortion. The Hooks city council voted unanimously, making the town of less than 3,000 the 59th Texas city to adopt such a law.
Remember, unlike ‘anti-trafficking’ laws passed in states like Idaho and Tennessee, these ordinances don’t just target minors—but women of all ages. That means anyone who drives a patient across state lines, helps to get her abortion medication—or even lends her gas money—could be held civilly liable. The idea is to terrify and terrorize those considering abortion, stripping them of any potential support.
After all, leaving the state without any support from friends or family isn’t so easy for most people.
The point is also to create a precedent across the country that criminalizes women traveling for abortion, framing it as a protection against ‘trafficking’. When the national organizer behind these local ordinances, Mark Lee Dickson, was asked how he could label it trafficking when grown women leave the state of their own free will, his answer spoke volumes: “The unborn child is always taken against their will.”
And there it is! Pregnant women who leave their home state are ‘trafficking’ their fetuses. Think I’m reaching? Consider that it wasn’t so long ago that Montana Republicans introduced a bill that would codify that very thing.
Unfortunately, we’re not done with Texas and travel yet. You probably remember that Republicans are holding a special legislative session to push through more nightmare anti-abortion bills—including SB 2880, the Trojan Horse legislation Attorney General Ken Paxton hopes will allow him to prosecute patients and criminalize abortion travel.
Abortion, Every Day has written quite a lot about that particular legislation, but there’s another travel-related bill in Texas everyone should have their eye on: SB 70. This legislation would criminalize supporting young people, making it a felony to “knowingly transport or fund the transportation of” a minor seeking an abortion.
Under SB 70, buying a teenager a bus ticket or giving them a few dollars to leave town could land you in prison. And while the primary target is clearly Texas abortion funds, even a grandma who lends her car to a teenage granddaughter could be arrested.
That’s what makes the ‘trafficking’ rhetoric so infuriating. They’re framing it as protection for young girls, even as they isolate teenagers and threaten their support system.
I’ve written often that minors are the canaries in the coal mine—what happens to them today, comes for us tomorrow. That’s doubly true in Texas, where anti-abortion groups are using the state as a testing ground.
To learn how one Texas town fought back against Dickson, read this guest post from the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance.
In the States
Bad news in Nevada, where a federal judge just allowed a 40-year-old parental consent law to take effect for the first time.
When Nevada first passed this law in 1985, it was blocked because it violated Roe. After Roe fell, however, anti-abortion district attorneys sued for it to be enforced—and the law has existed in a legal limbo for about three years now.
The fight remains ongoing—we’re waiting on a ruling from a federal appellate court—but for the time being, this law is devastating. Minors already face unthinkable barriers to access to abortion care, and their rights are all too often sacrificed or forfeited by the broader reproductive rights movement.
From Jessica Goldberg, Associate Director of Youth Access at If/When/How:
“Whether a young person can access abortion or not can determine the entire trajectory of their life — young people are capable of making their own decisions about their bodies and their futures.”
Nevada attorneys who want to support young people’s access to a judicial bypass can join the If/When/How Network.
Elsewhere, some uplifting news: Alabama abortion funds are back in action!
Since a federal judge determined that Attorney General Steve Marshall can’t criminalize advocates for helping others obtain abortions, abortion funds have been able to continue their work without the threat of criminal charges. (After well over a year of terror and confusion.)
This is vital especially for later abortion patients, who are being forced to spend as much as $15,000 to travel out-of-state for care. Here’s what Kelsea McLain, executive director of Alabama’s Yellowhammer Fund, told News From the States this week:
“Literally within the hour of us finding out that the lawsuit was decided and that we could resume opening, we had already provided funding assistance for our first client that we knew was in the works, because even while we were closed, people were still traveling to receive care.”
So far, Republican attempts to punish abortion helpers has had limited legal success. But even without judges ruling in their favor, terror and confusion over what is and isn’t criminal are highly effective tools in the anti-abortion toolbox.
Miss our story yesterday about the Texas lawsuit against a California abortion provider? Make sure to catch up, because this is one of the anti-abortion movement’s biggest strategies: they’re picking an interstate fight they hope will make it to the Supreme Court.
Arizona voters may have codified abortion protections in November, but that’s not stopping Republicans. They’re in court this week trying to enforce old, unnecessary abortion restrictions.
The Arizona GOP claims these laws, including a waiting period and mandatory in-person counseling, are essential to protect women and girls from being “coerced” to take abortion pills in their homes. (For more on that bullshit line conservatives are using all the time now: Here!)
Pro-choice lawyers say that Republicans waited too long to respond to their lawsuit, so their response should be thrown out. Frankly, I agree: If anti-abortion lawmakers are going to block people from having abortions if they “wait” too long the same should apply to them! The next hearing in this case is August 1.
Over in Idaho, the quest to put a pro-choice measure on the 2026 ballot is well underway. At the end of last week, Idahoans United for Women and Families hosted their ninth signature collection drive in just two weeks for the “Reproductive Freedom & Privacy Act.” They need to collect 70,700 signatures by April 30 to qualify for the ballot—something only three ballot initiatives have been able to do in the last decade.
The good news? Advocates say they’re seeing big excitement for the measure—which makes sense, since the state’s extreme abortion ban has been drawing national attention for almost killing several women in just the last three years.
“At the end of the day who makes decisions for your family, is it you or the government?” Idahoans United’s Melanie Folwell said. “There is no one coming to save us from our extreme ban. … We write our own law. We put it on the ballot and let people vote.”
Quick hits:
The Washington Post has more on the Maine reproductive healthcare clinic that’s been targeted by Trump’s big bullshit bill.
Axios Nashville and the Tennessee Lookout with more on the ruling striking down part of Tennessee’s ‘anti-trafficking’ law;
In Colorado, advocates warn that attacks on youth access to gender-affirming care are bleeding into youth access to abortion;
And here’s a closer look at how states like Massachusetts are modeling how blue states shouldn’t just protect a right to abortion, but actively expand access to care.
In the Nation
I know we’re all thinking about the ‘big bullshit bill,’ but there’s another Republican budget bill I wanted to flag: the Defense Appropriations Act, which just advanced out of the House. In addition to all sorts of horrible shit, the legislation would prohibit service members from taking paid time off for abortion care, and stop them being reimbursed should they need to travel for an abortion.
This comes after the Trump administration ended a Biden-era policy allowing paid leave and travel reimbursement for those who had to cross state lines in order to get care. Way to take care of our military members!
Want to hear some of the nation’s smartest abortion rights thinkers all in one place? The latest episode of Ms. magazine’s podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward, features law professor Michele Goodwin, WeTestify founder Renee Bracey Sherman, Plan C co-directors Angie Jean-Marie and Amy Merrill, Women’s Law Project executive director Susan Frietsche, and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey. Quite the line-up! Listen below:
Quick hits:
Thank you Jessica for your unrelenting advocacy for women and girls self determination. I have said it before and will say it again - before Roe v Wade was law, there was an unground railroad made up of Protestant and Jewish clergy who were getting women and girls safe abortions. My Presbyterian minister was part of it. Our church believed that “life” began as defined in Genesis - when the child drew its first breath. My minister said he wouldn’t bury another parishioner or visit another girl or woman in the hospital because of a back alley abortion they were forced into - because of a FAITH THAT WASN’T HIS.
We have Freedom of Religion in this country. Genesis says defines when “life” begins. These men are setting themselves above God by legislating anything else.
Keep fighting - you are fighting for our Constitution.
Bless You🙏
All of these patchwork laws, abortion a right protected by a state constitution in one place and a felony in another- it's unsustainable. Women's rights to bodily autonomy shouldn't depend on their zip code. We need a new, uncorrupted scotus, and a ruling throwing out Dobbs and basing the right to bodily autonomy on the equal protection clause. Or even better- let's finally codify the ERA!