Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
In Fiery House Hearing Over Abortion, Dems Invoke 'Handmaid's Tale' Imagery As GOP Rails Against Loose Laws In Blue States
The fight over state abortion bans moved to Congress on Tuesday with Democrats holding a hearing to declare an ongoing 鈥渃risis鈥 in states across the country. 鈥淭his country has reached a crisis point for women鈥檚 constitutional rights to control their own bodies and their own reproductive choices,鈥 House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said at a hearing Tuesday. (Hellmann, 6/4)
The debate over abortion聽continues to heat up as a House panel sparred Tuesday over the slew of new state restrictions that conservatives hope could lead to a court challenge that would undermine the nationwide guarantee of a right to abortion. The congressional dispute came soon after the nation鈥檚 top anti-abortion group outlined on Monday night its main goals for the 2020 elections, and Missouri state officials and Planned Parenthood went to court Tuesday over the future of the state鈥檚 last abortion clinic. (Raman, 6/4)
Democratic Louisiana State Rep. Katrina Jackson聽appeared in a series of interviews over the last few days defending her state's new anti-abortion law, saying she thinks of the procedure as "modern-day genocide." Louisiana last month became the sixth state聽to recently聽pass聽a ban on abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is usually at about six weeks of pregnancy. (Rodrigo, 6/4)
Meanwhile, in related news 鈥
For nearly three years, Jill Dinwiddie worked quietly. She talked to potential donors about how desperately Planned Parenthood needed a new health center, one large enough to add abortion to the clinic鈥檚 services for the first time in three decades. She needed to raise $10聽million, find a building in the city鈥檚 competitive real estate market and renovate it 鈥 all without media outlets or protesters finding out. Dinwiddie and her co-chairs of the capital campaign committee, Crandall Bowles and Linda Hudson, conducted an under-the-radar search for a real estate agent, purchased a building with a limited-liability company set up to mask the buyer and built a password-protected donation website. (Valade, 6/4)
Stacey Abrams, the Democrat from Georgia who earned national attention after narrowly losing her bid for governor last year, is urging Hollywood not to abandon the state over its new and more restrictive abortion law. Some of the biggest names in film and television 鈥 including Walt Disney and WarnerMedia 鈥 have suggested they might boycott Georgia if the legislation survives court challenges. But Abrams, political allies and business leaders contend an economic boycott would serve to only deprive working-class people of jobs with no guarantee it would reverse a law that is being teed up to challenge Roe v. Wade. (Shaban, 6/4)