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Kelcie Moseley-Morris, States Newsroom

Stories By Kelcie Moseley-Morris, States Newsroom

17 states seek to end abortion privacy rule. A federal judge is questioning HIPAA itself

17 states seek to end abortion privacy rule. A federal judge is questioning HIPAA itself

Seventeen states want to end an abortion privacy rule. A federal judge is questioning HIPAA itself.

by Kelcie Moseley-Morris, Kansas Reflector
March 31, 2025

The decades-old federal law protecting the privacy of individual health information is threatened by multiple lawsuits that seek to throw out a rule restricting disclosure of information in criminal investigations, including for those seeking legal abortion and other reproductive health care. ...

Idaho doctor who worked at closed maternity ward says abortion ban harmed recruiting

Idaho doctor who worked at closed maternity ward says abortion ban harmed recruiting

A hospital in a rural area outside of Idaho’s capital city of Boise closed its labor and delivery and neonatal intensive care units April 1, citing declining birth rates and staffing issues.

West Valley Medical Center is the third facility to close its maternity services in Idaho since the state enacted a near-total abortion ban in August 2022. The county where the medical center is located had more than 3,300 births in 2022, and West Valley sees about 45,000 outpatient visitors in a year. The entire medical center has 112 beds.

The law subjects physicians to two to five years in prison, fines and the loss of their medical license for providing an abortion, even in emergency situations, at least until the U.S. Supreme Court makes a definitive ruling on the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act’s application in Idaho. Oral arguments in that case will take place April 24. ...

Male anti-abortion religious leaders mull murder charges for pregnant people at national event

Male anti-abortion religious leaders mull murder charges for pregnant people at national event

An all-male panel of anti-abortion religious leaders from around the country met in Georgia Friday night to discuss the strategies that should be used to end abortion in every state at any stage of pregnancy, without exceptions for rape and incest, and with criminal punishment for the pregnant person in line with existing criminal penalties for murder, which includes the death penalty.

The panel was part of a week-long series of events hosted by Operation Save America, an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim religious group that wants all Americans to follow “God’s law” and their interpretation of the Christian gospel. Many of the events were held in Douglasville, Georgia, at Pray’s Mill Baptist Church, which broke away from the Southern Baptist Convention for supposed acceptance of liberal social justice views regarding race and gender. Tuesday through Friday, the group started its mornings by protesting outside of A Preferred Women’s Health Center, an abortion clinic near Atlanta.

Friday’s speakers included Wisconsin-based Operation Save America Director Jason Storms and former OSA director Rusty Thomas, along with Arizona-based End Abortion Now communications director Zachary Conover, Georgia Right to Life President Ricardo Davis, and Gabriel Rench, a member of the extremist Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho....

Male anti-abortion religious leaders mull murder charges for pregnant people at national event

Male anti-abortion religious leaders mull murder charges for pregnant people at national event

An all-male panel of anti-abortion religious leaders from around the country met Friday night to discuss the strategies that should be used to end abortion in every state at any stage of pregnancy, without exceptions for rape and incest, and with criminal punishment for the pregnant person in line with existing criminal penalties for murder, which includes the death penalty.

The panel was part of a week-long series of events hosted by Operation Save America, an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim religious group that wants all Americans to follow “God’s law” and their interpretation of the Christian gospel. Many of the events were held in Douglasville, Georgia, at Pray’s Mill Baptist Church, which broke away from the Southern Baptist Convention for supposed acceptance of liberal social justice views regarding race and gender. Tuesday through Friday, the group started its mornings by protesting outside of A Preferred Women’s Health Center, an abortion clinic near Atlanta.

Friday’s speakers included Wisconsin-based Operation Save America Director Jason Storms and former OSA director Rusty Thomas, along with Arizona-based End Abortion Now communications director Zachary Conover, Georgia Right to Life President Ricardo Davis, and Gabriel Rench, a member of the extremist Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.

Speakers focused on equal protection bills in state legislatures

The theme of OSA’s national event was unity, and highlighted divisions within anti-abortion circles over what they described as the proper approach and response to legislation that seeks to limit or entirely restrict abortion procedures. The moderator of the panel, Derin Stidd, opened by asking, “Why do you all hate women?” to which the men laughed. ...

Viable male birth control options could be on the horizon

Viable male birth control options could be on the horizon

Heather Vahdat has been advocating for male contraceptive options for nearly a decade, but she is the first to say it is a lonely space to occupy in the health science field.

Vahdat is the executive director of the Male Contraceptive Initiative, based in Durham, North Carolina, which has been working with a single donor to provide up to $1.5 million in grants per year for emerging male birth control technologies since 2017 — and that makes it the second largest funder of that type of research in the U.S., second only to the National Institutes of Health.

At the moment, the options for men are limited to condoms and vasectomies, Vahdat said, and while vasectomies can potentially be reversed, it doesn’t always work. ...