Why is Ron DeSantis Stacking Florida's Medical Board with Anti-Birth Control Freaks?
3.9.26
Click to skip ahead: White House Seeks to Pause Mifepristone Lawsuit; Republicans Ignore the Courts to Ban Abortion; In the States: Florida, South Dakota & More; A Judge Has Blocked Indiana’s Abortion Ban—For Some; Republicans Want to Ban the Regulation of CPCs; Legislation Watch
White House Seeks to Pause Mifepristone Lawsuit
The Trump administration is asking a federal court to pause or dismiss the mifepristone lawsuit brought by Kansas, Missouri, and Idaho against the FDA. Before anyone gets excited, please know this is not the White House defending abortion pills. It’s a calculated attempt to avoid dealing with a massively unpopular issue before the midterms.
The administration knows very well that the last thing they need is a national fight over abortion pills-by-mail—especially when nearly 30% of abortions in the U.S. now happen that way.
That’s why the Department of Justice filed a motion to stay on Friday, arguing that the suit interferes with the FDA’s ability to finish its (bogus) ‘safety review’ of mifepristone. The administration says they’ll decide whether abortion pills should be further restricted once they’re done with their supposed study.
If this all sounds familiar, it’s because the White House made pretty much the exact same request in January, when it asked a court to pause Louisiana’s mifepristone lawsuit: it claimed the FDA needed time to complete its review of the drug.
It’s worth remembering that FDA chief Marty Makary is reportedly slow-walking that study until after the midterms. So no—this isn’t the administration backing off abortion pills. It’s an indication that they realize how dangerous the issue is for Republicans, and that they don’t want to give Democrats any ammunition.
For a refresher on the lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Kansas, Missouri, and Idaho, read our explainer below:
And a quick reminder: Abortion, Every Day broke the news about this lawsuit—and we were the first to report that the FDA was conducting its sham safety review. That reporting is only possible because of supporters like you.
Republicans Ignore the Courts to Ban Abortion
Just unbelievable: Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has signed a 6-week abortion ban even though the state Supreme Court ruled in January that abortion is healthcare and protected by the state constitution.
Gov. Gordon acknowledged that signing the Human Heartbeat Act would spark a legal battle—that’s the point. In fact, in the two months since the Wyoming Supreme Court struck down two abortion bans and reaffirmed the right to abortion, Republicans have relentlessly worked to undo that decision: the attorney general accused the justices of making “legal errors” and demanded a new ruling, while GOP lawmakers pushed forward new abortion restrictions anyway. Some legislators even proposed shrinking the court to push out certain justices—and moved to strip security funding from the court.
While this should be an easy legal challenge for pro-choicers, there will still be serious fallout for patients. Julie Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access—the state’s only abortion clinic—says, “Every day that this law is in effect means people in our state will face even greater barriers to abortion care.”
An icky side note: the Wyoming ban claims that the state has an “obligation to support and encourage childbirth” and a “compelling interest in providing for the state’s future population.” 🤮
Ohio Republicans don’t give a shit what the courts say either: lawmakers there are advancing a new 24-hour waiting period for abortion even though a judge blocked enforcement of a similar law in 2024.
HB 347 would require doctors to meet with patients at least 24 hours before the abortion to “document the woman’s informed consent,” and would force providers to repeat state-crafted misinformation about abortion’s risks.
Remember, Ohio voters codified abortion protections in the state constitution in 2023, but the GOP has pushed ahead with restrictions in spite of that vote—even as the courts keep telling them to cut it out.
The message couldn’t be clearer: Republicans will do anything to attack our bodies and freedom, regardless of what judges or voters say.
RSVP for ‘Banned in Texas’: We’re hosting Dr. Shelley Sella tomorrow at 5:30pm EST to give the talk that Texas conservatives called “illegal.” I hope you can join us!
In the States: Florida, South Dakota & More
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has appointed yet another anti-abortion doctor to the state Board of Medicine. But Dr. John Littell doesn’t only oppose abortion—he opposes birth control.
At a state Senate committee hearing last week, Littell—who lost his American Board of Family Medicine certification for spreading COVID misinformation—said that young women are being “stripped of their fertility” by hormonal birth control. He also claimed birth control has “done more damage to women than any single drug ever created by mankind.”
If confirmed, Littell will join a 15-person board that already has quite a few anti-abortion members. Dr. Steven Christie, for example, is the author of 30-Second Pro-Life Rebuttals to Pro-Choice Arguments. And Dr. Hector Vila served as a witness for the state in a suit over Florida’s waiting period. (Vila is a pediatric anesthesiologist, so it’s unclear how his expertise was warranted.)
Why is this important? The state medical board creates rules for physicians and can discipline doctors—that means DeSantis can weaponize them against healthcare providers.
To me though, this appointment is all about Republicans’ broad—and sneaky—war on contraception. The GOP doesn’t need to make birth control outright illegal if they just keep chipping away at access, or stacking influential boards and agencies with extremist maniacs.
Some interesting news from South Dakota: Attorney General Marty Jackley has reached a settlement with Mayday Health over the pro-choice group’s gas station ad campaign. Remember, Jackley has been trying to ban Mayday’s ads—which direct people to the group’s website where they can learn about how to access abortion pills. The Republican AG’s move is part of a nationwide attack on pro-choice speech.
Jackley is out doing victory laps today, claiming the settlement as a win:
“Mayday Health targeted women and young girls encouraging them to take abortion pills while misleading them about the physical risks. My position has been clear and unwavering, South Dakota law governs, and the misleading advertisements must be, and are, stopped.”
Local media outlets are parroting that perspective: KEOLAND, for example, reports that Mayday “has agreed to remove all ads from gas stations and will no longer deceptively advertise in the state of South Dakota.”
But that’s not at all what the settlement says. While the document makes clear that Mayday won’t put ads in South Dakota that “aid, abet, or solicit illegal conduct as established by law,” the settlement does not say Mayday agrees their ad campaign constituted illegal activity. In fact, the last time the issue was in court, a federal judge said the organization’s website is “noncommercial speech subject to protection under the First Amendment.”
Mayday executive director Liv Raisner tells AED that the group didn’t need to take ads down from the state because their campaign had already concluded. In other words, Jackley is trying to save face after it became clear he didn’t have a case.
“South Dakota tried to intimidate Mayday. We sued the Attorney General. A federal judge agreed our speech is constitutionally protected. And now the AG is dropping all charges. We’ll continue exercising our First Amendment right, telling Americans in all 50 states that they can still access abortion pills. That includes South Dakota.”
We love to see it.
Quick hits:
The Alaska Supreme Court is considering the limits of executive and legislative power, including on abortion;
And the ACLU of Wisconsin is partnering with the national ACLU to drive out votes for the state Supreme Court election.
A Judge Has Blocked Indiana’s Abortion Ban—For Some
Some terrific news out of Indiana: a court has blocked the state’s near-total abortion ban from being enforced against those who object to the law on religious grounds.
A refresher: Back in 2022, the ACLU of Indiana sued the state on behalf of Hoosier Jews for Choice—who argued the ban infringed on their religious beliefs about pregnancy and life. In 2024, the state Court of Appeals agreed, ruling that the ban likely violated the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). But they stopped short of actually blocking the ban.
That all changed on Friday, when Marion County Judge Christina R. Klineman ruled that “the only proper relief” was a permanent injunction. Especially interesting? Klineman pointed to the state’s rape exception in her decision—pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of exempting a certain group of people from the ban, but not others:
“The Abortion Law would allow a plaintiff to seek an abortion if her pregnancy were the result of rape, but not if it were mandated by her religious beliefs. The State has not justified this differential treatment by establishing that its interest in the same prenatal life changes based upon the reason for terminating a pregnancy.”
Attorney General Todd Rokita—an anti-abortion maniac who has been trying to make women’s abortion reports public records—has already appealed the decision.
So what does this mean for folks in Indiana who want abortions? Unfortunately, not much—at least for now. As pediatrician and reproductive health advocate Dr. Tracey Wilkinson told the Indy Star, “the number of people it’s going to impact is really small.”
After all, the only places providing abortions in Indiana are hospitals; all the abortion clinics are gone. And because the ruling only applies to those who oppose the ban on religious grounds, it’s unclear if or how hospital administrators would implement that change in exceptions.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction—and an exciting legal decision.
Republicans Want to Ban the Regulation of CPCs
Oklahoma Republicans advanced a bill out of the House today that would prevent the state from regulating anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. The legislation (HB 3194) is part of a broader national push to make the fake clinics effectively untouchable.
As Minority Leader Cyndi Munson put it:
“By passing or killing this bill, we’re not actually ending pregnancy centers. What we’re elevating here is that we have no oversight over these pregnancy centers. It is already the law that you cannot provide an abortion. So what are we doing.”
Well, I can answer that.
In addition to giving crisis pregnancy centers a kind of super-immunity from oversight, these bills are also about banning birth control.
Across the country, similar legislation would make it illegal for states to require CPCs to offer contraception, refer patients somewhere else for birth control, or even post a sign with information about contraception. And this is all happening at the exact same time that reproductive health clinics are being shuttered under Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill.”
In other words, Republicans are running real healthcare providers out of town while making sure the anti-abortion groups they claim will “replace” them don’t have to provide birth control at all.
As I’ve noted before, these laws also lay the groundwork for something else: redirecting Title X funding. The federal program is meant to support contraception access—but Republicans are increasingly positioning crisis pregnancy centers to receive that money instead.
I dug into the strategy behind these bills late last year, if you need a refresher:
Legislation Watch
Some good news out of New Hampshire: legislation (HB 1416) that would outlaw the regulation of CPCs was voted down this week. The House Judiciary Committee also opposed HB 1590, which seeks to criminalize abortion after 20 weeks.
The bad news out of New Hampshire is that the state Senate has blocked a bill that would have codified protections for abortion and contraception—and acted as a shield law for providers. SB 551 would have enshrined “the fundamental right to reproductive health care” in state law, and protected doctors from being sued for providing abortions or contraception to out-of-state patients. New Hampshire is the only state in New England without a shield law, so this one stings.
In better shield law news, Oregon is close to expanding theirs: the state legislature has passed HB 4088, which would prohibit state agencies from cooperating with out-of-state prosecutions targeting healthcare providers. The bill, which is headed to Gov. Tina Kotek for her signature, would also prevent the extradition of providers.
Good news and bad news in Iowa: Republicans haven’t met the deadline to advance their total abortion bans, but they have successfully advanced restrictions on abortion medication.
Here’s what’s moving ahead: SB 3115 and HB 704 would mandate in-person appointments for patients seeking abortion pills, along with “screening for indications of coercion or abuse.” (It’s unclear what this ‘screening’ would consist of.)
What didn’t make the cut? An ‘equal protection’ bill that would punish abortion patients as murderers and a total abortion ban that would give providers life in prison. Small victories, I suppose.
Finally, Mississippi’s legislature has passed a bill that would punish anyone who mails abortion pills as felony drug traffickers. HB 1613 now heads to Gov. Tate Reeves’s desk.
To all those who oppose a woman's right to make choices about her body, her family, and her life situation, I believe abortion should be retroactive and those who think they have control over women, should soon meet their maker face to face.
As someone who lives in an adjacent state in New England, I again apologize for NH. We'd hope they would turn more blue as Mass residents cross the border for less expensive housing and that has ahppened but not quite to the degree we had hoped.