Our two legal trackers, the Mifepristone Litigation Tracker and Mifepristone Federal Action Tracker, provide timely, regularly updated, information on the status of current litigation and new federal administrative actions that could shape regulation of and access to mifepristone.
Background on Mifepristone
The Mifepristone Litigation Tracker
To date, mifepristone litigation includes:
7 cases filed to protect or expand current access:
- Three FDA Decisionmaking Cases addressing whether current FDA regulations on mifepristone are overly burdensome and restrictive given mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness
- Two Federal Preemption Cases addressing whether federal law preempts (supersedes) and invalidates additional state restrictions on mifepristone beyond FDA’s regulations
- One State Law Case addressing whether additional state restrictions on mifepristone are invalid under state law
- One Due Process Case seeking to prevent any enforcement of a court decision suspending FDA approval of mifepristone without due process
1 case filed to restrict current access:
- One FDA Decisionmaking Case challenging FDA’s decisions removing prior restrictions on mifepristone, including the in-person dispensing requirement, and seeking to reimpose those restrictions
The Mifepristone Litigation Tracker was last updated in June 2025. Download a PDF version here.
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Case |
Court |
Date and Location Filed |
Summary of Challenge |
What’s at Stake |
Current Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (on appeal from U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia)
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January 25, 2023 |
GenBioPro, a manufacturer of generic mifepristone, argues that federal law preempts West Virginia laws banning abortion in almost all cases and banning prescription of mifepristone by telemedicine because Congress authorized only FDA to impose restrictions on access to mifepristone. GenBioPro also challenges as preempted West Virginia restrictions on mifepristone requiring counseling and a waiting period that are not currently in effect but would be reimposed if the state’s general abortion ban were struck down. GenBioPro argues that the state’s ban and restrictions also burden interstate commerce in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause. The district court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss GenBioPro’s claim related to West Virginia’s general abortion ban, reasoning that the ban restricts when an abortion may be performed rather than how mifepristone may be prescribed and thus is not in conflict with or preempted by FDA’s regulations. The court also concluded that the general abortion ban does not violate the Commerce Clase because it does not impede the flow of mifepristone nationally. The court dismissed GenBioPro’s claims regarding the counseling and waiting period requirements since they are not currently in effect. However, the district court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss GenBioPro’s claim regarding the telemedicine ban, holding that West Virginia’s restriction on prescribing mifepristone via telemedicine is in direct conflict with and preempted by FDA’s regulations, which permit prescription via telemedicine. GenBioPro appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. |
This case could affect access to mifepristone by deciding whether states may impose burdensome restrictions on mifepristone beyond FDA’s regulations, including by banning mifepristone for its approved use in almost all circumstances and barring prescription via telehealth or otherwise making it more difficult to access. |
The case is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The parties have submitted briefs, and the court held oral argument on October 29, 2024. A decision has not yet been issued. |
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U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (on appeal from U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina) |
January 25, 2023 North Carolina |
Plaintiff, a medical provider in North Carolina, asserts that federal law preempts North Carolina laws imposing additional restrictions on mifepristone beyond FDA’s requirements. The district court upheld other challenged state requirements for an in-person advance consultation, ultrasounds, an in-person examination, blood type testing, and adverse event reporting to state health authorities, concluding that these provisions were not expressly considered and rejected by FDA or “focus more on the practice of medicine and a patient’s informed consent,” and thus are not preempted. Plaintiff, the defendant state Attorney General (who agrees with plaintiff that the state laws are preempted), and several legislative leaders (who have intervened as defendants in the case and argue that the state laws are not preempted) have all appealed the district court’s judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. |
This case could affect access to mifepristone by deciding whether states may impose burdensome restrictions on mifepristone beyond FDA’s regulations, including those barring administration via telehealth or otherwise making mifepristone more difficult to access.
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The case is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The parties have filed briefs, but the case is temporarily suspended pending a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in GenBioPro, Inc. v. Raynes (Case No. 23-2194) (see above). |
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U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii |
October 13, 2017 Hawaii |
Plaintiffs—a health care provider, Society of Family Planning, and the California Academy of Family Physicians—challenge FDA’s current set of restrictions (the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS)) on mifepristone as unduly burdensome and arbitrarily restrictive given mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness. Plaintiffs argue that these restrictions—which require patients to certify they have decided to take mifepristone to end their pregnancy and limit who can prescribe and dispense the drug by requiring providers and pharmacies to undergo a special certification process—delay care, deter qualified providers and pharmacies from prescribing and dispensing mifepristone because of the burdens related to certification, and impede research and training on mifepristone at academic institutions. Plaintiffs assert claims under the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, alleging they are treated differently from other similarly situated parties without a sufficient state interest, and that FDA’s imposition of the REMS was not based on a reasoned decision or rational basis. |
The case could affect access by eliminating or leaving intact current restrictions on mifepristone that impede access by limiting the health care professionals who can prescribe it and the pharmacies that can dispense it. The case could also determine whether FDA may continue to require the patient agreement form, which plaintiffs assert presents privacy risks for patients and providers. |
The case is currently pending in federal district court in Hawaii. In October 2024, plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment. In December 2024, defendants filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that plaintiffs’ claims should be dismissed on the merits, and that plaintiffs lack standing. Oral argument on the motions for summary judgment is scheduled for August 22, 2025. |
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Washington et al. v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration et al., |
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington |
February 23, 2023 Washington |
17 states and Washington, D.C. (the States) challenge FDA’s mifepristone REMS as unduly burdensome and arbitrarily restrictive given mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness. The States argue that these restrictions—which require patients to certify they have decided to take mifepristone to end their pregnancy and limit who can prescribe and dispense the drug by requiring providers and pharmacies to undergo a special certification process—are unnecessary barriers that make it more difficult to access care. The States argue that FDA violated the Administrative Procedure Act by imposing the REMS against evidence showing the restrictions are unnecessary, and violated the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment by treating providers, pharmacists, and patients who prescribe, dispense, or use mifepristone worse than those who prescribe, dispense, or use other medications. |
The case could affect access by eliminating or leaving intact current restrictions on mifepristone that impede access by limiting the health care professionals who can prescribe it and the pharmacies that can dispense it. The case could also determine whether FDA may continue to require the patient agreement form, which the States assert presents privacy risks for patients and providers. |
The case is currently pending in federal district court in Washington. In October 2024, the States filed a motion for summary judgment. In December 2024, defendants filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that the States’ claims should be dismissed on their merits, and that the States lack standing to challenge the prescriber certification and patient agreement form requirements. Defendants also argue that the States’ claims should be dismissed because they did not administratively exhaust them by first raising them with FDA. Oral argument on the motions for summary judgment has not yet been held. |
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GenBioPro v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, et al., |
U.S. District Court for Maryland |
April 19, 2023 Maryland |
GenBioPro, a manufacturer of generic mifepristone, filed suit in April 2023 to prevent other federal court rulings (including those issued by the district court and Fifth Circuit in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA) from stripping FDA approval of generic mifepristone without following the required statutory and regulatory procedures for suspension of a drug’s approval. GenBioPro argues that suspending approval of mifepristone without proper process would violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the All Writs Act, and the due process guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. GenBioPro asserts that any enforcement action characterizing its mifepristone as misbranded and without an effective drug approval based on federal court rulings that did not provide a constitutionally adequate procedure for suspending drug approval would be unlawful. |
The case could affect access to mifepristone by determining whether court decisions may suspend its approval. |
This case was stayed while the Supreme Court resolved Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, and remains stayed until August 15, 2025, awaiting the Texas federal district court’s decision on pending motions to dismiss Missouri v. FDA, Case No. 2:22-cv-00223. |
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Whole Woman’s Health Alliance et al. v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration et al., |
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia |
May 8, 2023 Virginia |
Abortion providers in Virginia, Montana, and Kansas challenge FDA’s current mifepristone REMS as unduly burdensome and arbitrarily restrictive given mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness. The providers argue that these restrictions—which require patients to certify they have decided to take mifepristone to end their pregnancy and limit who can prescribe and dispense the drug by requiring providers and pharmacies to undergo a special certification process—are unnecessary barriers that make it more difficult to access care. Plaintiffs argue that FDA violated the Administrative Procedure Act by imposing the REMS against evidence showing the restrictions are unnecessary, and violated the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment by treating providers, pharmacists, and patients who prescribe, dispense, or use mifepristone worse than those who prescribe, dispense, or use other medications. |
The case could affect access by eliminating or leaving intact current restrictions on mifepristone that impede access by limiting the health care professionals who can prescribe it and the pharmacies that can dispense it. The case could also determine whether FDA may continue to require the patient agreement form, which plaintiffs assert presents privacy risks for patients and providers. |
The case is currently pending in federal district court in Virginia. In October 2024, plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment. In December 2024, defendants filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that plaintiffs’ claims should be dismissed on the merits, and that plaintiffs lack standing and did not administratively exhaust their claims by first raising them with FDA. The court held oral argument on the motions for summary judgment on May 19, 2025. The court has not yet issued a decision. |
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Missouri et al. v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration et al., |
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas |
November 18, 2022 Texas |
Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho (the States) seek to revive a prior case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, et al., v. FDA, in which the States had intervened. In June 2024, the Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs in AHM v. FDA—anti-abortion doctors and activists who never prescribed and never experienced harm related to mifepristone—lacked standing, and all claims in AHM v. FDA were dismissed. In October 2024, the States filed an amended complaint in the same federal district court in Texas that presided over AHM v. FDA. The States claim FDA decisions in 2016, 2021, and 2023 relaxing prior restrictions on mifepristone and FDA’s 2019 approval of the generic form of the drug were not supported by adequate evidence and as a result violate the Administrative Procedure Act. The States seek to rescind the 2019 generic approval and reimpose restrictions on mifepristone that FDA has determined are medically unnecessary, including the pre-2021 requirement that it be dispensed in-person, and the pre-2016 restrictions requiring three office visits, limiting prescription of mifepristone to only certified physicians, indicating it could only be used for pregnancies up to 7 weeks (rather than 10 weeks), and requiring the reporting of all serious non-fatal adverse events to FDA. The States also seek an order prohibiting provision of mifepristone to adolescents. |
This case could affect access to mifepristone by imposing burdensome restrictions on mifepristone FDA has determined are medically unnecessary, including requirements for in-person dispensing and office visits (which would prohibit mifepristone’s administration via telehealth) and limitations on which health care providers can prescribe mifepristone. The case could also affect adolescent access to mifepristone. |
Defendants have moved to dismiss this case, arguing that it should be dismissed or transferred because the States have no connection to the Texas district in which they filed their complaint. Defendants additionally argue that the case should be dismissed because the States haven’t demonstrated they suffered any injury as a result of FDA’s decisions, failed to first raise their claims through FDA’s review process, and some of the claims are barred by the statute of limitations. The parties have completed briefing on defendants’ motion to dismiss. Next, Judge Kacsmaryk, who previously ruled in favor of the anti-abortion doctors and activists in AHM v. FDA, will decide whether to dismiss the case. |
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Birthmark Doula Collective v. State of Louisiana, |
Louisiana State Trial Court (19th Judicial District Court) |
October 31, 2024 Louisiana |
Plaintiffs—birth workers and other medical professionals, advocates, and a pregnant person—challenge a Louisiana law classifying mifepristone and misoprostol, safe medications with no risk of abuse or dependence, as controlled dangerous substances. Plaintiffs argue that this classification delays access to the medication, risking the health and safety of patients, including those carrying pregnancy to term and experiencing miscarriages. Plaintiffs assert that the law discriminates based on physical condition thereby violating Louisiana’s constitutional right to equal protection. Plaintiffs also argue that the legislature violated state constitutional requirements (the single object requirement and germane amendment rule) in amending a bill introduced to create the crime of coerced abortion to add the unrelated matter of classifying mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances. |
This case could impact emergency care for pregnant people in Louisiana. Classification of mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances delays access to care, posing a particular threat to the health and safety of people experiencing obstetric emergencies. |
The case is currently pending in Louisiana trial court. On May 15, 2025, the court held a hearing on defendants’ motion requesting dismissal of the case and ruled that plaintiffs’ challenge can proceed. |
The Mifepristone Federal Action Tracker
The Mifepristone Federal Action Tracker covers federal actions since January 1, 2025, and was last updated in June 2025. Download a PDF version here.
|
Date |
Summary of Action |
What’s at Stake |
Current Status |
|---|---|---|---|
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June 5, 2025 |
California, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey file a Citizen Petition requesting FDA eliminate the current REMS for mifepristone or in the alternative, cease enforcing the restrictions as unnecessary. |
According to a representative of the states, in response to the filing of this petition, FDA will need to consider the ample scientific research of mifepristone’s safety and effectiveness, including newer research, and it cannot change its current regulation of mifepristone while the petition is pending. In response to the petition, FDA may decide to eliminate or leave intact current restrictions on mifepristone that impede access by limiting the health care professionals who can prescribe it and the pharmacies that can dispense it. FDA may also determine whether to continue to require the patient agreement form. |
FDA acknowledged receipt of the petition on June 6, 2025. FDA must respond to the petition within 180 days by granting or denying the request, or saying it needs more time to respond. |
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May 14, 2025 |
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that he has ordered FDA administrator Martin A. Makary to conduct a “complete review” of mifepristone regulations. In response to a question from Senator Hawley, Kennedy agreed that FDA review of mifepristone is necessary in part because of a recent report on mifepristone released by anti-abortion activists that was not peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal. (Hearing on Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Health and Human Services Budget, May 14, 2025, 1:48:15-1:50:40) In contrast, more than one hundred scientific studies conducted over the last 30 years have conclusively proven mifepristone’s safety.
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If FDA were to impose additional restrictions on mifepristone, whether reimposing prior restrictions or creating new ones, it could decrease access throughout the country, including in states where abortion is legal. |
Kennedy indicated FDA review of mifepristone is ongoing. (Hearing on Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Health and Human Services Budget, May 14, 2025, 1:48:15-1:50:40) |
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May 12, 2025 |
An individual, James Brinkruff, files a Citizen Petition requesting immediate suspension of the approval of mifepristone for medication abortion, an FDA study of mifepristone when used via telehealth, and imposition of requirements for in-person dispensing and a follow-up appointment. |
If FDA were to suspend approval of mifepristone for medication abortion, it would severely affect access to abortion throughout the country—medication abortion is currently used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States. Imposing additional restrictions on mifepristone would also decrease access throughout the country, including in states where abortion is legal. |
FDA acknowledged receipt of the petition on May 14, 2025. FDA must respond to the petition within 180 days by granting or denying the request, or saying it needs more time to respond. |
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March 6, 2025 |
Dr. Marty Makary (then-nominee, now head of the FDA), states during his confirmation hearing that he would review whether FDA should re-impose an in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone. |
FDA’s imposition of an in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone would significantly decrease access, particularly for rural and underserved communities, and those who can’t travel or take time away from work. |
Kennedy has since indicated that FDA review of mifepristone is ongoing. (Hearing on Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Health and Human Services Budget, May 14, 2025, 1:48:15-1:50:40) |
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January 31, 2025 |
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Society of Family Planning, and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine submit a Citizen Petition requesting FDA eliminate the current REMS for mifepristone or in the alternative refrain from taking any action that would further reduce patient access to mifepristone or increase the burdens associated with prescribing or dispensing mifepristone. |
FDA may decide to eliminate or leave intact current restrictions on mifepristone that impede access by limiting the health care professionals who can prescribe it and the pharmacies that can dispense it. FDA may also determine whether to continue to require the patient agreement form. |
FDA acknowledged receipt of the petition on February 4, 2025. FDA must respond to the petition within 180 days by granting or denying the request, or saying it needs more time to respond. |
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January 29, 2025 |
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (then-nominee, now Secretary of Health) states during his confirmation hearing: “President Trump has asked me to study the safety of mifepristone. He has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it. Whatever he does, I will implement those policies.” |
If FDA were to impose additional restrictions on mifepristone, whether reimposing prior restrictions or creating new ones, it could decrease access throughout the country, including in states where abortion is legal. |
Kennedy has since indicated that FDA review of mifepristone is ongoing. (Hearing on Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Health and Human Services Budget, May 14, 2025, 1:48:15-1:50:40) |
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January 7, 2025 |
American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists submit a Citizen Petition noting that there had been news reports that mifepristone’s manufacturer had planned to apply to add miscarriage management as an indication for mifepristone, and requesting that if FDA approve that indication it establish a REMS prohibiting telehealth, requiring an in-person follow-up appointment with an ultrasound, and requiring reporting of all adverse events. Students for Life of America had also filed a Citizen Petition in December 2024, requesting that FDA refrain from modifying the approved usage of mifepristone to include miscarriage care. |
Currently, mifepristone is commonly prescribed off-label for miscarriage management. In all areas of medicine, “off-label” use of medications to reflect evolutions in evidence-based practice is permissible, common, and necessary to ensure that clinical care is not undermined by scientifically outdated labeling. Imposition of stricter restrictions than currently exist for mifepristone’s use to treat miscarriages—as requested by this petition—would unnecessarily limit access and burden providers and patients. |
On June 4, 2025, FDA denied the petition filed by American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, stating that to the extent there is any pending application to add miscarriage management as an approved indication for mifepristone, FDA had not issued a final determination to approve it and consideration of the issues presented in the petition outside FDA’s approval process would be procedurally improper. Citing the same reasons, FDA denied the petition filed by Students for Life of America on May 21, 2025. |
On March 6-7, UCLA Law’s Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy, in partnership with Yale Law School and Temple Law School, convened legal scholars and experts for a series of discussions on rebuilding constitutional foundations for equality and reproductive rights and justice post-Dobbs.
Participants explored and debated theories and strategies to advance reproductive and sex equality rights grounded in constitutional and doctrinal principles, fresh historical analysis, and novel legal arguments.
Scholarly Essays on Legal Pathways
In connection with the convening, eleven scholars contributed thought-provoking essays for a Balkinization Symposium on Legal Pathways Beyond Dobbs (April 10, 2025).
Professors Cary Franklin and Mary Ziegler, make powerful cases for further interrogating and resisting the Court’s history-and-tradition approach in Dobbs and other recent cases. As Ziegler argues, relying on history and tradition allows conservative movement leaders and their allies in the judiciary “to speak through past actors to whom they claim to defer . . . to conceal the policy choices they face in critical areas” where they lack support, including criminal abortion bans, interpretation of the Comstock Act and fabrication of “fetal rights.” And, as Franklin proposes, because “too many regulatory traditions violate contemporary understandings of equality for courts to adhere consistently to the results of the history-and-tradition test,” there may be “contexts in which the Court is less willing to disregard concerns about sex equality and basic rights to life and health.” Offering a different tack, Professor Michael C. Dorf encourages progressives to pursue “ideological jujitsu” and “evade the history-and-tradition test” altogether by building out claims to reproductive and sexual freedom grounded in enumerated rights. And with vivid analogy to the fictional monster Cthulhu (imagined by notoriously xenophobic novelist H.P. Lovecraft), Professor Evan D. Bernick argues that modern attacks on reproductive rights and birthright citizenship, like prior incarnations of similar “[m]onstrous institutions and ideas,” such as the Fugitive Slave Act, Chinese Exclusion Act and Comstock Act, can be, and have been, thwarted through a combination of legal and community-based resistance strategies.
Several scholars offer compelling arguments, and cautionary notes, for theorizing ways that equality doctrine or values can vindicate rights related to reproduction, bodily autonomy, gender identity, and family formation. Professor Jessie Hill argues grounding abortion rights in a “right to equality in health care, or a right to health care nondiscrimination,” while recognizing this “equality lens” also “requires dismantling the elective-therapeutic distinction regarding abortion” as itself a product of sexism. Professor Laura Portuondo, observing that the “Supreme Court has extended a broad new vision of equality to religious conservatives,” through recent free exercise decisions, proposes a strategy of extending this First Amendment “anti-devaluation theory of equality” to achieve reproductive justice ends. Meanwhile, Professor Cahill exposes how Dobbs’s revisionist use of “footnote twenty from Geduldig, which held that pregnancy discrimination wasn’t sex discrimination” is an example of “precedent manufactured in real time – and therefore, by definition, not a precedent at all – that lacks grounding in text, history, and actual precedent.” And Professor Douglas NeJaime calls out the need to more “clearly name” how legal appeals to biological or “natural” parenthood hide animus and “smuggle in arguments that rely on sex-based stereotypes” to harm LGBTQ families and women alike. More skeptically, tracing the Court’s methodological inconsistency in case after case, Professor Neil S. Siegel cautions that in the current political moment, it is unlikely the Court will adhere to its interpretive commitments when it comes to equality rights for disfavored groups, particularly transgender people.
Finally, responding to the rise of “fetal personhood” arguments in law and public narratives, Professors Kimberly Mutcherson and Meghan Boone urge autonomy and equality responses to these efforts to erase the personhood of pregnant people. Mutcherson argues that those who would legally “subordinate pregnant women to the nascent lives they carry” cannot offer a secular account for this deprivation of bodily integrity and Boone urges advocates to call this out for what it is – “arguments against women’s equality.”
Collectively, these essays offer multiple pathways for advancing reproductive and sex equality rights under law, with special attention to the Court’s history-and-tradition approach, the realities and challenges of our modern judiciary, and the need for liberty, autonomy, equality, and health rights that redress the related threats to reproductive, racial, and economic justice.
Read the essays in full:
- History & Tradition’s Equality Problem, Cary Franklin
- The History & Tradition of Criminalization, Mary Ziegler
- Enumerating a Post-Dobbs Pathway, Michael C. Dorf
- Cthulhu and the Constitution, Evan D. Bernick
- Abortion Rights as Health Care Rights as Equality Rights, B. Jessie Hill
- Anti-Devaluation as Reproductive Justice, Laura Portuondo
- The Other Footnote, Courtney Cahill
- Biological Parenthood and Inequality, Douglas NeJaime
- The Fate of Bostock’s Formalism After $215 Million Spent on Anti-Trans Ads, Neil Siegel
- The Shared DNA of Roe and Dobbs: Potential Life as a Tool of Subordination, Kimberly Mutcherson
- The Question of Female Personhood, Meghan Boone
The Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy (CRHLP), in partnership with Yale Law School’s Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice and Temple University Beasley School of Law, invites you to Resistance and Reimagining: Perspectives on Reproductive and Gender Justice from the Academy, Advocacy, and Public Service.
This event will feature a panel moderated by CRHLP's Legal and Policy Director, Diana Kasdan. The panel will include Professor Khiara M. Bridges from UC Berkeley School of Law, Leila Abolfazli, Senior Director of National Abortion Strategy at National Women's Law Center, Mary Bonauto, Senior Director of Civil Rights and Legal Strategies at GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, and Karli Eisenberg, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, CA AG's Office for Healthcare Rights and Access. This event is in person and will be streamed over Zoom, refreshments will be served.
Register here to attend in person or virtually: HTTPS://BIT.LY/March6thRSVP
Please join us for a timely event that examines U.S. abortion restrictions in contrast to global trends toward greater abortion protections. Panelists will look to other countries as well as international human rights norms for clarity – and discuss how to bring international standards to bear in the fight for abortion rights at home.
Speakers
- Elise Keppler
- Executive Director, Global Justice Center
- Lara Stemple
- Assistant Dean, Faculty Affiliate of UCLA Law's Center for Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy
- Irum Taqi
- Director of Global Policy, Guttmacher Institute
- Grace Meng - Moderator
- Executive Director, UCLA Law's David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law & Policy
- Executive Director, UCLA Law's David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law & Policy
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
12:15 PM Pacific Time
In-Person at UCLA Law in Room 1430 and Virtually on Zoom
Shield Laws for Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care: A State Law Guide
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 and eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion, many states enacted bans and further restrictions on abortion.
Shield Laws by Categories of Protection
The protections offered by each state’s shield laws vary. Shield laws may include: (1) Protections Against Out-of-State Investigations and Prosecutions (including specific protections against extradition, arrests, search warrants, subpoenas, witness summons, and state agency assistance in out-of-state investigations or prosecutions), (2) Protections Against Professional Discipline (including specific protections against adverse actions related to providers’ licenses, board discipline, and denial or restriction of facility privileges), (3) Protections Against Civil Liability (including specific protections against application or enforcement of another state’s laws or judgments in the shielding state’s courts, and availability of a “clawback” action to recover damages from litigation in another state as a result of providing, receiving, or assisting in the provision of certain health care), (4) Protections Related to Professional Liability Insurance and Health Plans (including specific protections against an insurer’s refusal to issue insurance, increase in premiums, or denial of coverage based solely on providing protected care and protections for contracts with health plans and insurers), and (5) Protection of Medical Information and Other Data Related to Reproductive or Gender-Affirming Care (including specific protections against disclosure of medical information, location data, providers’ personal information, and data held by businesses providing electronic communications or reproductive health apps). 4 states only offer certain protections by executive order rather than by legislation. The legislatively-enacted shield laws in 8 states explicitly protect provision of care regardless of patient location, which includes telehealth provision.
The chart and maps below show the types of protections offered in each shield law state.
This State Law Guide is designed to provide a foundation on each state’s shield laws related to reproductive and gender-affirming health care. To receive pro bono legal assistance on questions related to the shield laws or other reproductive rights or justice issues, email larj@law.ucla.edu.
For general questions regarding the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy, email crhlp@law.ucla.edu.
The Williams Institute's 2024 NYC Fall Salon will take place on Thursday, September 12 from 6:00-8:30 PM at the Meta office in Hudson Yards.
We invite you to join our discussion on the current state of LGBTQ+ law and policy and what’s at stake in the upcoming November election and beyond.For tickets to our 2024 NYC Fall Salon, please visit: https://bit.ly/NYCFallSalon24RSVP ends on September 4, 2024.
For more information, please contact Williamsdev@law.ucla.edu.