The chief medical operating officer at Planned Parenthood of Michigan said the rise could be a result of more patients coming from out-of-state.

Abortions in Michigan were at an all-time high in 2023 according to a report from the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.

There were 31,241 induced abortions in Michigan last year, a number not seen since 1995, and 2,750, or roughly 9%, were from out-of-state patients, the report concluded.

Induced abortions could be either a medical or surgical procedure that ends a pregnancy; these include miscarriage management care as well as medication abortion and dilation and evacuation, a surgical termination of a pregnancy.

Over 91% of the abortions were obtained by Michigan residents; in previous years that number reached over 97%. The number of non-residents who obtained abortions in Michigan rose after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade in June 2022.

Dr. Sarah Wallett, chief medical operating officer at Planned Parenthood of Michigan, told the Michigan Independent that following the Dobbs decision numbers to their clinics from patients coming out-of-state have tripled.

Wallett cited both the Reproductive Freedom for All legislation that was signed into law in 2022 and Michigan Proposal 3, a ballot measure approved by voters in 2022 that enshrined abortion access in the state constitution, as reasons why patients travel to the state for abortion.

“Michigan is viewed as a safe haven for abortion care, and we do see people come to see us for that care who say, ‘I knew I could come to Michigan,’” Wallet said.

Wallet explained that the rise in medication abortion numbers in Michigan reflects the same rise in medical abortions across the country.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, medication abortions accounted for 63% of all abortions in the U.S. in 2023, an increase from 53% in 2020, before Roe was overturned.

“Because [obtaining abortion] medication doesn’t necessarily require a visit to an office, and it’s becoming more accessible through telehealth, I do think more people are having the opportunity,” Wallett said.

The number of abortions in Michigan and in the U.S. has gone down since the 1980s. In 1982, there were 43,512 abortions in Michigan and the number steadily dropped until 2021.

Wallett pointed to greater access to information about abortion care and long-acting contraception as one possible reason for the decrease in abortion numbers.

She warned, however, that post-Dobbs there’s been an environment that has politicized and stigmatized birth control, and abortion numbers may rise as a result, at least in states where it remains accessible.

“No other medical procedure is tracked like this,” Wallett said. “We’re not watching data around vasectomies or colonoscopies in the same way. We’re watching this data, not because abortion is risky or unsafe, but because it’s politicized and stigmatized. And I think that’s important to remember as we talk about why we’re even looking at this data.”

On Nov. 24, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also released its latest surveillance data on abortion rates across the nation for 2022.

According to the CDC, there were a total of 613,383 abortions in 2022, a drop of about 2% compared to 2021.

‘Being able to access people’s medical records is just another tool in law enforcement’s toolbox to prosecute people for stigmatized care,’ said Nina Rani Dutta, research counsel at If/When/How.

A federal judge in Texas dealt a blow to accessing reproductive health care nationally by nullifying a federal privacy rule created to protect abortion seekers and providers from possible criminal inquiries.

On June 18, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas vacated the 2024 HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden. In his opinion, Kacsmaryk wrote that the Biden administration “invoked HIPAA as a shield against abortion-restrictive states.”

Kacsmaryk is the federal judge who ruled in 2023 to suspend the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. The case went before the Supreme Court, and in June 2024, the court unanimously preserved access to the drug.

“Striking down this critical rule is cruel,” Maddy Gitomer, senior counsel at the national legal organization Democracy Forward, said in a statement sent to the American Independent.

“Vacating this regulation will be detrimental to the privacy rights of pregnant people across the country, and will interfere with the ability of healthcare providers and patients to communicate confidentially and openly about a patient’s health needs,” Gitomer said.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was enacted by Congress in 1996, allowing patients to maintain health insurance between jobs and to curb insurance fraud. In 2000, the HIPAA Privacy Rule set standards to prevent the identifiable medical information of individuals from being shared. In April 2024, in response to the Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, HHS proposed strengthening the privacy rule to specifically include reproductive health and abortion, concerned that states with abortion bans could attempt to prosecute residents or those who help them leave the state for care.

“The overturning of this rule, unfortunately, is not unexpected to me, but it is a really important signal to those states that do want to prosecute patients, or do at least want to wield investigation or the threat of investigation as the lever of power, that they are more free to do so,” said Alyssa Morrison, senior staff attorney with Lawyers for Good Government.

The 2024 rule protects information related to lawfully provided reproductive health care. For example, if a person leaves a state with an abortion ban and travels to another state to receive lawful care and the state with the ban decides to open an investigation into that care and subpoenas the provider in the abortion-protected state, without the rule in place, the provider has the discretion to decide whether or not to provide information on the patient.

“I think most people’s instinct, particularly if that’s coming from a government entity, is to be compliant, and so they would then have the discretion to provide that information,” Morrison said, adding that the state where she lives, Texas, has been aggressively looking to investigate these kinds of scenarios.

The rule went into effect in December 2024. However, in October, Dr. Carmen Purl sued HHS, claiming that the 2024 HIPAA rule limits her ability to investigate child abuse cases.

“Reporting child abuse is something that providers are generally required to do under state law,” said Nina Rani Dutta, who serves as research counsel at If/When/How, a national reproductive justice organization. “The unfortunate thing here was that Dr. Purl specifically wanted to report people for getting abortions as child abuse of a fetus, or to report parents who allowed their kids to get wanted abortions or wanted gender-affirming care.”

If/When/How submitted an amicus brief to the court to explain how the 2024 rule was critical to people’s ability to seek reproductive health care without fear that their information could be turned over to law enforcement.

Morrison said that at the core of the ruling by Kacsmaryk is an administration at the federal level aiming to chip away at decisions people have made related to health care. “I do see it as a bellwether,” she said. “And this case, of course, was in front of a judge who is pretty notorious for rubber-stamping these kinds of arguments that maybe wouldn’t fly in court.”

Rani Dutta said that Americans simply have fewer medical privacy rights today than they did six months ago.

“Conservative states can now go fishing through medical records of their own residents who received abortion care in a medical emergency or who were able to access an abortion in a state where it’s legal, and police are already tracking residents across state lines in an effort to charge people with crimes,” she said. “We have been hearing about individual officers following people’s license plates across the country. So this is a very real problem. It is already happening, and being able to access people’s medical records is just another tool in law enforcement’s toolbox to prosecute people for stigmatized care.”

The 2024 election was a mixed bag for abortion rights.

Voters in seven states moved to protect abortion access by passing ballot initiatives to include protections for reproductive rights in state constitutions. But similar measures in three other states failed—a blow to abortion-rights supporters. And the country ultimately decided to reelect the man who has claimed credit for the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade: former President Donald Trump.

Measures meant to protect abortion rights passed in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and New York, but failed in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota. This election saw the highest number of statewide abortion-related ballot measures in a single year, surpassing the previous record of six in 2022. The results break a previous trend—before this year, voters had sided with abortion rights every time the issue has been on state ballots since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision two years ago.

While reproductive rights advocates celebrated the wins, they were dismayed by the measures that failed and worried about the potential threats a Trump Administration would pose to abortion access nationwide. But overall they argued that the ballot measure results indicate, once again, strong support for abortion rights across various states.

“We have seven big wins in states that are really different from each other, and that brings the total of abortion or reproductive freedom state constitutional amendments to 11,” says Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, referring to three previous ballot measures that passed in 2022 in California, Michigan, and Vermont, and one that passed in 2023 in Ohio. “Eleven state constitutional amendments in two years … is a huge success.” (Smith adds that, in 2022, voters also protected abortion rights by rejecting three measures meant to restrict access in Montana, Kansas, and Kentucky.)

Many polls have shown that most Americans support abortion rights, but 21 states have either banned or restricted abortion since the Dobbs decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion. As state lawmakers have taken steps to curtail abortion rights, advocates have turned to state ballot initiatives to try and protect access. The majority of the statewide abortion-related measures that appeared on the ballot this year were citizen-led initiatives.

Here are the results of the statewide abortion-related ballot measures in 2024.

Arizona

In the battleground state of Arizona, voters approved a measure that will establish “a fundamental right to abortion under Arizona’s constitution,” allowing abortions until fetal viability or later if an abortion is needed to protect the pregnant person’s life or health.

Nearly 62% of voters supported the measure, while about 38% voted against it, with about 60% of votes counted as of 9:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday. The Associated Press called the race at 3:31 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Currently in Arizona, abortion is banned after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for medical emergencies. But the newly-passed amendment is expected to upend the state’s existing restrictions on abortion.

“We are excited for the future of Arizona,” says Chris Love, spokesperson for the campaign behind the state’s ballot measure. “We’re pleased that Arizonans who have supported us from the beginning of our effort really turned out yesterday and showed the country that Arizonans truly believe that patients should have the freedom to make their personal and private decisions about abortion with their healthcare providers and without government interference.”

Colorado

Voters in Colorado supported a ballot measure that will enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, with more than 61% voting in favor and nearly 39% voting against it, as of 5:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday when about 73% of votes were counted. The AP called the race at 10:26 p.m. on Tuesday.

The state already allows for abortion at any stage of pregnancy, but supporters of the measure have said that the amendment will ensure that future state lawmakers wouldn’t be able to roll back abortion rights. The amendment will also repeal a nearly 40-year-old ban on state and local government money being used to pay for abortion services.

Florida

In Florida, a measure that would have amended the state constitution to guarantee the right to abortion up until fetal viability or when necessary to protect the health of the pregnant person, failed. The measure needed the support of at least 60% of voters to pass, but fell short, with about 57% of Floridians voting in favor and nearly 43% voting against, as of 9:49 a.m. ET on Wednesday when about 99% of the votes were counted. The AP called the race at 9:06 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

Florida has banned abortion beyond six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many people know they’re pregnant. The restriction carries some exceptions, such as when the life of the pregnant person is at risk. With the failure of the proposed amendment, the state’s existing six-week ban will remain in place.

The lead-up to Election Day was contentious for the ballot initiative. Those behind the measure launched an extensive campaign to reach voters, sharing the stories of many people who were unable to receive care because of the state’s restrictions. But state officials tried to keep the initiative off the ballot and repeatedly attacked the campaign.

Lauren Brenzel, director of the campaign behind the ballot measure, said at a press conference Tuesday night that the vote breakdown showed that the majority of Florida voters supported it, even though the measure ultimately failed. Brenzel called on Florida politicians to repeal the six-week ban, given the vote breakdown.

“They are tired of women dying because of abortion bans. They are tired of women being forced to give birth to children who died in their arms because of abortion bans,” Brenzel said. “A bipartisan group of voters today sent a clear message to the Florida legislature.”

Maryland

Maryland voters passed a measure that will enshrine the right to reproductive freedom in the state constitution. The AP called the race at 9:28 p.m. on Tuesday. About 74% of Maryland voters supported the measure and nearly 26% rejected it, as of 4:34 a.m. ET on Wednesday, when about 76% of votes were counted.

Unlike most of the other statewide abortion-rights measures this year, this initiative was placed on the ballot after a vote from Maryland’s Democratic-controlled legislature. Abortion is already legal in the state until fetal viability—or after that if necessary to protect the pregnant person’s life or health, or if the fetus has a serious abnormality—but, as with the initiative in Colorado, supporters have said that this amendment will prevent the possibility of state lawmakers restricting access in the future.

Missouri

In a major win for abortion-rights supporters, Missouri voters decided to amend its state constitution to guarantee the right to abortion until fetal viability, with exceptions after that if the pregnant person’s life or physical or mental health is at risk. Nearly 52% of voters backed the measure, while 48% rejected it, with about 99% of the vote counted by 9:34 a.m. ET. on Wednesday. The AP called the race at 11:24 p.m. on Tuesday.

The newly-passed amendment is expected to invalidate Missouri’s existing near-total ban on abortion, which is one of the strictest in the country and was the first to be enacted after the Dobbs decision in 2022. The result marks the first time that a citizen-initiated ballot measure will overturn an abortion ban in the wake of the Supreme Court’s controversial ruling.

“This is the first time that voters in a state with a total abortion ban have voted to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitution, and they did that to repudiate their elected officials who have put a draconian abortion ban in place against the will of their constituents,” Smith says. “The win in Missouri cannot be overstated.”

Montana

In Montana, more than 57% of voters supported amending the state constitution to guarantee the right to abortion until fetal viability, or after that if necessary to protect the pregnant person’s life or health. The measure passed, since it only needed a simple majority, with nearly 43% of voters rejecting it, as of 9:47 a.m. ET on Wednesday, when about 87% of the votes were counted. The AP called the race at 6:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Abortion is currently legal until fetal viability in Montana, and the Montana Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that abortion is protected under the state constitution. But state lawmakers have tried to restrict abortion in the past few years, and reproductive rights advocates have said that the measure would protect abortion rights if lawmakers continue those attempts in the future.

Montana voters previously weighed in on reproductive healthcare in 2022, when they rejected a legislative referendum that would have further restricted abortion by classifying an embryo or fetus as a legal person entitled to medical treatment if they are born prematurely or in the rare case that they survive an attempted abortion.

Nebraska

Unlike the other states voting on the issue this year, Nebraska had two competing abortion-related measures on the ballot.

Ultimately, voters backed the measure that will amend the state constitution to include a ban on abortion in the second and third trimesters, with exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, or incest. About 55% of Nebraskans voted in favor of the measure, while nearly 45% voted against it, as of 6:52 a.m. ET on Wednesday, when about 99% of votes were counted. The AP called the race at 1:02 a.m. on Wednesday.

The other initiative, which would have enshrined the right to abortion until fetal viability in the state constitution (with exceptions beyond that in situations when an abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant person’s life or health), failed, with more than 51% of voters rejecting it and nearly 49% supporting it, as of 6:52 a.m. ET on Wednesday, when about 99% of the votes were counted. The AP called the race at 3:27 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

In Nebraska, abortion is currently prohibited beyond 12 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the pregnant person’s life. The failure of the abortion-rights initiative allows the state’s existing restriction to remain in place, and the passing of the anti-abortion amendment will enshrine the restriction into the state’s constitution.

Nevada

Voters in Nevada took the first step to enshrining the right to abortion until fetal viability, or later when necessary to protect the pregnant person’s life or health, in the state constitution. About 63% of voters supported the abortion-rights measure and about 37% rejected it, as of 5:09 a.m. ET on Wednesday, when about 84% of the votes were counted. The measure only needed a simple majority to pass, but voters will need to approve it again in 2026 in order to officially amend the state constitution. The AP called the race at 3:21 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Nevada currently allows abortions until the 24th week of pregnancy.

New York

New York will amend its state constitution to include equal rights protections, such as declaring that no one should be discriminated against because of “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” Nearly 62% of people voted in favor of the measure, while almost 39% voted against it, as of 9:49 a.m. ET on Wednesday, with about 88% of the vote counted. The AP called the race at 9:31 p.m. ET on Tuesday. New York was the only other state, in addition to Maryland, that had a legislative abortion-related initiative on the ballot.

Abortion is allowed until fetal viability in New York. The New York initiative didn’t explicitly mention abortion, but was a broad equal rights amendment that included protections for reproductive healthcare, as well as factors like ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

South Dakota

South Dakota voters rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would have guaranteed the right to abortion in the first trimester. The measure needed a simple majority to pass, but only about 40% voted in favor, while nearly 60% voted against it, as of 9:55 a.m. ET on Wednesday, when about 90% of the votes were counted. The AP called the race at 2:49 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

The initiative would have also amended the state constitution to allow the state to regulate abortion in the second trimester only if “reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman,” and permit the state to regulate or prohibit abortion in the third trimester except in situations where abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant person’s health or life.

Because the measure failed, South Dakota’s near-total abortion ban will remain in place.

CNN —

Two years ago, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion and setting off a fierce fight for reproductive rights at the state level.

Abortion has emerged as a key issue in the 2024 election, and as access narrows in many states, reproductive freedom advocates are working to get measures preserving reproductive rights on the November ballot to let voters weigh in.

Abortion rates reach a decade-long high in the US

Two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, 14 states have total or near-total bans on abortion, including Alabama, Texas, Idaho and Tennessee.

Despite an increase in restrictive policies, the number and rate of abortions in 2023 hit their highest point in over a decade, according to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy non-profit that advocates for sexual and reproductive health rights.

The organization estimates there were more than 1 million abortions in the formal US healthcare system last year, a 11% increase from 2020. States without total abortion bans saw a 26% increase from 2020, according to the report.

The loss of abortion access in states with bans, the authors noted, was countered by “efforts on the part of clinics, abortion funds and logistical support organizations to help people…access care.”

Nearly two-thirds of all abortions in 2023, about 642,700, were medication abortions – not including self-managed medication abortions outside of the healthcare setting, the report says. The authors note a steady increase since 2001, when medication abortions accounted for less than 10% of all procedures.

Over the years, the US Food and Drug Administration relaxed some of the restrictions for use of the abortion pill, and access to the medication increased. In 2016, the agency deemed the abortion pill safe to use up to 10 weeks into pregnancy, rather than seven, and expanded the pool of providers who could prescribe it. After the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the FDA allowed for the pill to be dispensed by certified pharmacies and through the mail, rather than just in healthcare settings.

States implement increasingly restrictive abortion policies

Abortion policies have changed rapidly in many states since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. Four states, California, Michigan, Vermont and Ohio, have since enshrined rights to reproductive freedom in their constitutions, while lawmakers in New York and other states implemented policies to protect abortion patients and providers.

More than a dozen states passed abortion “trigger laws” ahead of the court’s decision, meant to take effect almost immediately in the event that Roe was overturned, and at least seven states without trigger laws have followed suit with restrictive reproductive health policies that critics say put patients in danger and leave providers at risk of civil and criminal liability.

Patients and providers have struggled to navigate a patchwork of sometimes hastily implemented abortion policies that include mandatory waiting periods to obtain an abortion in states including Arizona and Georgia, limits on Medicaid coverage for abortion, in states including South Dakota, and vague language around medical emergency exceptions to abortion bans in states including Texas. Lower courts have been asked to take abortion issues up in multiple legal challenges across states.

These policies have already had real-world effects. For example, one woman in Texas sued the state to access an abortion for a pregnancy that was threatening her future fertility. Another Texas woman was unlawfully charged with murder for using abortion medication to self-induce an abortion and spent two nights in jail before the charges were dropped. Providers say that patients in states with abortion bans have been forced to carry pregnancies against their will, leading to compromised fertility and other life-threatening consequences.

Last month, Florida replaced its 15-week abortion ban with a six-week ban, which falls before many women know they’re pregnant. The move was a major blow to reproductive access in the South, where Florida was a critical access point for people seeking abortions. Providers and advocates say the restrictive policies have created a reproductive care “desert” in the region.

Some reproductive care providers say the South has become an abortion services desert. Marco Bello/Reuters

Patients cross state lines to access reproductive care

More than 171,000 patients travelled for an abortion in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Many people who traveled to obtain abortions before Roe was overturned were going to states that now have total abortion bans, meaning people are now traveling farther distances – sometimes crossing multiple state lines – to access care, the organization noted recently.

In just the first half of 2023, nearly 1 in 5 people who had an abortion ­– more than 92,000 people – traveled across state lines for abortion care, according to a December 2023 analysis from the institute.

As the abortion care landscape becomes more and more restrictive, Alexandra Mandado, president of Planned Parenthood in South, East and North Florida, says that remaining abortion clinics will struggle to absorb the increase in out-of-state patients.

Supreme Court takes up other high profile reproductive rights cases

The Supreme Court recently rejected a challenge to access to the abortion pill, mifepristone, maintaining widespread access to medication abortion in a ruling that will allow for continued mailing of the pills to patients without an in-person doctor’s visit. Experts say abortion pill access could face additional legal challenges in the future.

The court is considering another case this summer dealing with medical emergency exceptions to abortion bans. In the case, the Biden administration sued the state of Idaho, where exemptions to its abortion ban are limited to life-threatening situations, arguing that federal law requires hospitals receiving Medicare funding to provide stabilizing care, including abortions, when a pregnant person’s health is in danger.

The abortion pill has emerged as a major access point for abortion amid increasing restrictions since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Access to other reproductive care services is challenged

In February, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are considered human beings and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death, causing fertility clinics throughout the state to pause in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments out of fear of legal prosecution.

As families across the state lost access to IVF treatments, lawmakers scrambled to meet the widespread demand for a fix. In March, the state passed a law aimed at protecting IVF patients and providers from the legal liability imposed on them by the state court’s ruling. While some services resumed, at least one of the state’s limited pool of IVF providers says it will halt services altogether by the end of the year, citing litigation concerns.

Experts have expressed concern that other reproductive care services, like contraception, are also on the line amid a swell of misinformation that some say is sown intentionally to create panic, like lawmakers conflating emergency contraception with abortion, for example.

Advocates work to get abortion on state ballots in November

Most abortion policies implemented after the Supreme Court overturned Roe were directly triggered by that decision or handed down by lawmakers or state courts. In an effort to restore the issue of reproductive health access, organizers across the country have been working to get measures to enshrine reproductive health rights in state constitutions on ballots in November.

Colorado, Florida, Maryland and South Dakota have secured the measures on their state ballots, with New York and Nevada likely to follow suit. Organizers in at least seven other states are working to do the same.

In addition to making it more difficult to challenge access to abortion services, organizers hope that the measures will allow voters to send a message to politicians about what they want.

Parental consent and notification laws for minors may be the next steps to erode contraception and abortion access.

As the nation closes in on the second anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that ended the constitutional right to abortion across the country, reproductive rights advocates say contraception is next on anti-abortion activists’ hit list.

Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers and advocates for reproductive justice, who have been battling Republican lawmakers in the state, so far without success, to codify a right to birth control, point out that opponents of abortion never intended to stop there.

“I don’t think this was ever only about abortion,” Michelle Velasquez, director of advocacy and services for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Independent. “When I think of all of these things, and what is encompassed in this right to bodily autonomy, that’s everything. That is birth control, that is [in vitro fertilization]. That is abortion, this full spectrum of reproductive health care, which is really the full spectrum of people’s ability to choose and make decisions for their own lives.”

According to KFF, 90% of women aged 18 to 64 have used birth control during the years they can become pregnant. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, the Guttmacher Institute published the results of surveys of women between the ages of 18 and 44 conducted beforehand in 2021 and afterward in 2022 in Arizona, Iowa, Wisconsin and New Jersey. The institute found that in the first three states, women said they were encountering more barriers to accessing contraception.

Under the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970, now Title X of the Public Health Service Act, which funds low-cost family planning services for those who qualify, adolescents have the right to obtain birth control. Congress amended the program in 1978 to add “a special emphasis on preventing unwanted pregnancies among sexually active adolescents.”

Abortion rights activists say that a lawsuit filed in 2020 by a Texas father named Alexander Deanda is a bellwether case for future legal efforts against birth control and signals a new strategy of advancing the anti-contraception agenda through misleading definitions of its use and parental notification rights.

Deanda v. Becerra argued that Title X violated state law and Deanda’s constitutional right to raise his children. The suit said that Deanda was raising his children according to his religious beliefs, which prioritize abstinence, and that he wanted to be informed if they sought out contraceptives.

In March, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Deanda and said that a Texas law requiring that parental consent be obtained before medical or dental treatment of minors is not preempted by Title X.

Republican attacks on birth control aren’t just happening in Texas. In 2022, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and 194 of her GOP House colleagues voted against the Right to Contraception Act, which would have protected access to contraception. Every Wisconsin Senate Republican voted against it. The Equal Access to Contraception for Veterans Act was passed by the House in June 2021 by a bipartisan 245 to 181 vote, but it died in the Senate. It was reintroduced in February 2023 by California Democratic state Rep. Julia Brownley.

When asked about restrictions on birth control on May 21, former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president in November, said, “We’re looking at that, and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly, and I think it’s something that you’ll find interesting.” Hours later, he posted that he wouldn’t support restrictions on birth control and that he never had supported a ban.

Velasquez said she understands why parents would want to know if their children are using birth control, but that not all minors have the option of discussing it with a parent or guardian

“If their child was, for whatever reason, uncomfortable, unable, scared to have a conversation with their parent in order to get health care, would they still want them to be able to get that health care?” she said. “My thought is that most parents would say, Yes, I would still want my child to get services and to be safe.”

Anti-abortion advocates have also been making a concerted effort to conflate contraception with abortion by redefining birth control, including intrauterine devices or IUDs, as abortifacients, drugs that induce an abortion.

According to Pro-Life Wisconsin, contraceptives such as Plan B pills, Ortho Evra patches, and Depo-Provera injections are all considered “chemical abortifacients.”

“That’s an intentional conflation so that parents may think, Oh, well if my child would have an IUD, that is actually them having an abortion, or, If my child uses contraception, that’s an abortion,” she said. “That is a way that the policymakers and lawmakers are creating legislation to restrict the types of birth control people can access.”

Jessica Waters, an assistant professor in the Department of Justice, Law, and Criminality at American University, told the Wisconsin Independent that the goal of anti-abortion activists is to undermine access with scare tactics about birth control and the need for parental consent.

“The information being peddled is medically false. People should be able to make the decisions that are right for them, but they should be able to do so based on accurate medical information,” Waters said. “And these scare tactics — I hope people are paying attention.”