Galvanized by a crucial election nearly two years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal abortion protections, patients, doctors and activists fought in 2024 for renewed and expanded reproductive rights, while that others have pushed for more restrictions. These are some of the people and organizations that have made an impact on reproductive health and abortion access legislation this year.
Women with a desired pregnancy affected by the abortion ban
In state legislatures, in Congress, in the courts, in presidential campaign ads, and on stage at the Democratic National ConventionWomen across the country have relived some of the worst moments of their lives in an effort to roll back abortion restrictions that have changed reproductive health care in America.
The year after Kentucky banned abortion, Hadley Duvall began speaking publicly about how she was raped at age 12 by her stepfather, who made her pregnant. She advocated for abortion rights in Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s 2023 reelection campaign ads and appeared in national campaign ads for Democrats this year.
Kaitlyn Joshuaof Baton Rouge, represented many Louisiana women at this year’s Democratic National Convention, reporting on what is becoming increasingly popular. common history of being unable to access miscarriage treatment after the state passed a strict abortion ban. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill then disputed Joshua’s social media story.
Kristin Lyerlyan obstetrician-gynecologist from Wisconsin, is one of several doctors across the country who have filed lawsuits against state abortion bans that they say have changed medical practice. Lyerly participated this year in a civic engagement experience in Madison, where strangers came together and shared the life experiences that inform their views on abortion. Even when the right to abortion was protected by Roe v. Wade, Lyerly said she was almost forced to give birth to a stillborn child, instead of a less invasive abortion procedure. She also ran a campaign focused on reproductive rights as a Democrat in a conservative-leaning congressional district, a race she lost.
Allie Phillips ran as a Democrat for a seat in the Tennessee Legislature after the state’s abortion ban prevented her from terminating a non-viable pregnancy in her home state, effectively preventing her from terminating a non-viable pregnancy in her home state. led to travel to New York for treatment. She lost the race but said in November that she plans to continue fighting for reproductive rights and announced her new pregnancy. Phillips is a plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit with other concerned women and doctors to clarify the state’s health care medical exceptions. A panel of three judges ruled in October, that doctors cannot be penalized if they perform an emergency abortion to save a patient’s life.
Amanda Zurawski developed sepsis in Texas after her water broke at 18 weeks, and doctors waited days to terminate her pregnancy, fearing prosecution under the state’s strict abortion ban. Since then, she has become a staunch defender of abortion rights. She campaigned for abortion rights candidates this year and said she wants to continue working in politics.
The Charlotte Lozier Institute
THE high-profile federal trial The issue of medical abortion was made possible in part by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of anti-abortion political powerhouse Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. The institute’s data figured prominently in the plaintiffs’ filing for revocation of federal drug approval for mifepristone and was directly used as part of U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s reasoning for granting standing to the plaintiff doctors. Researchers found a significant increase in Medicaid-funded emergency room visits after medication abortion over two decades, which also corresponds to an increase in access to medication abortion over time. Public health experts told the States Newsroom that researchers inflated their results and seemed to confuse all emergency room visits with serious adverse events like sepsis. Their findings contradicted a large body of research showing a low rate of serious adverse events after taking mifepristone, prompting curious scientists, as well as the academic publishing house that published them, to wonder further.
In February, Sage retracted three studies produced by researchers at Charlotte Lozier and published in the journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology between 2019 and 2022, after an invited reader survey revealed flaws in the studies’ methodology and data representation. The team behind the studies included Charlotte Lozier, vice president and director of data analytics, James Studnicki and long-time anti-abortion researchersincluding the then-CEO of one of the plaintiff groups in the medical abortion lawsuit. They Sage continued.saying the retractions were unwarranted and politically motivated.
The United States Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the abortion drug lawsuit last summer — not on the merits of the case, but on the question of the plaintiff doctors’ standing. Anti-abortion activists promised find another plaintiff who could potentially convince the court that abortion pills are too dangerous. After the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court, in October, the intervening states of Idaho, Kansas and Missouri amended their complaint, which no longer cites the retracted study articles but rather cite new article by Studnicki and fellow Charlotte Lozier researchers, making similar claims.
The Alabama Supreme Court
A common fertility treatment, in vitro fertilization, was thrust into the national spotlight in February after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, that frozen embryos should be considered childrenin a wrongful death lawsuit following the accidental destruction of the embryos.
A lower court had rejected the request, finding that the embryos did not meet the legal definition of children. But in the majority opinion Siding with the couples who sued the Mobile fertility clinic, Judge Jay Mitchell cited a 2018 constitutional amendment guaranteeing “protection of the rights of the unborn child.” He also cited an 1872 law allowing civil suits for the wrongful deaths of children and argued that it did not explicitly include an exception for frozen embryos. Mitchell held that the law “applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation.” Chief Justice Tom Parker, a influential conservative Christian activistcited biblical texts in his concurring opinionwriting: “Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without blotting out His glory.”
Soon after, many IVF clinics in Alabama closed their doors until the state legislature adopted a bill in March, this extended criminal and civil immunity to IVF clinics for operations. This created major problems for families spending tens of thousands of dollars for urgent treatment. Alabama’s decision also sparked fear among families have difficulty conceiving in other states banning abortion and has shown that fertility treatment is widely supported by voters in both political parties. The Republicans updated their national party platform to include support for access to IVF. During his presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised: “your government will pay or your insurance company will be mandated to pay all costs associated with IVF treatment” – what it I probably couldn’t do it without Congressional action. Meanwhile, Republican congressmen widely opposed IVF access protections and bills.
Mark Lee Dickson and Jonathan Mitchell
This year, lawyer Jonathan Mitchell and pastor Mark Lee Dickson together experimented with ways to prevent out-of-state abortionsusing their home state of Texas as their primary testing ground. Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general, used a little-known state rule to strip abortion funds, doctors and women who left the state to have abortions. Like the Texas Tribune reportedthese actions created fear and confusion but did not result in charges. Mitchell has already filed a wrongful death lawsuit against women who allegedly helped their friend obtain medication to terminate a pregnancy, which has since been abandoned.
Through their Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn project, Dickson and Mitchell have helped pass approximately 80 ordinances in cities and counties, primarily in Texas, but also in strategically located cities in states with access to abortion, such as Illinois and New Mexico. Some orders state that a doctor in a state where abortion is legal cannot perform an abortion on a resident who lives in a city that has adopted one of these laws. Some ordinances prohibit the use of this city’s highways to drive someone to an out-of-state abortion clinic. And some point to a dormant federal anti-obscenity law known as the Comstock Act, which they say the federal government should use to ban the transportation of abortion pills through the mail.
Much like Texas’ six-week abortion ban in 2021, which Mitchell and Dickson helped to designmany of these orders are unenforceable by the governments that pass them, instead allowing private citizens to sue other residents or medical professionals for “aiding and abetting” an abortion. Activists suffered a significant loss on Election Day, with the majority of voters in the conservative district of Amarillo, Texas, vote against a ballot measure block abortion-related travel on its high-traffic roads. But just before the end of the year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued New York doctor for prescribing abortion drugs to Texas residentwhat Dickson told States Newsroom is a victory for the anti-abortion movement. He said that in 2025, he plans to push for local anti-abortion ordinances in Arizona and Missouri, which overturned their abortion bans in November.