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Screenshot: Griffin is targeting the sites Plan C and Mayday Health, which do not prescribe or sell the drugs mifepristone or misoprostol— as some local news reports suggested-but rather inform people about where they can find the pills. (Plan C is well known in the reproductive rights world and, in the days following Donald Trump's November victory, the site experienced a 625% increase in traffic.) Griffin sent letters to the sites' parent companies Possibility Labs and Mayday Medicines Inc. in which he alleges that, by referring to abortion pills as safe, the language on the sites "may constitute false, deceptive, and unconscionable trade practices" under the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA).

Screenshot 2/2 with part of a sentence highlighted: More than 100 studies have shown medication abortion to be safe and effective for ending a pregnancy, but **Griffin cites a paper from the far-right Ethics and Public Policy Center which suggests abortion pills result in higher complication rates than what's printed on the drug label.** The paper is methodologically flawed and was not published in a peer-reviewed journal, but conservatives have nonetheless rallied around it to try and pressure the Food and Drug Administration to restrict access to the drugs-especially by ending telemedicine prescriptions. EPPC president Ryan Anderson argued on a private Zoom call reported by Politico that requiring in-person appointments would align with Trump's stated desire to leave abortion policy to the states because, he said, "You're not leaving it to states if California can mail pills to Texas."

The Arkansas AG claims Plan C and Mayday Health may be engaging in deceptive practices for simply referring to abortion pills as safe, and cites the junk science EPPC paper

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Arkansas AG Threatens to Sue Sites for Providing Info About Abortion Pills One of the sites, Plan C, is a well-known resource for information about medication abortion.

NEW: Arkansas AG Tim Griffin sent a cease and desist letter to @plancpills.bsky.social for merely telling people where to find abortion pills—the site doesn’t prescribe them.
The letter was buried amid news that 16 GOP AGs asked Congress to override abortion shield laws. Me in @autonomynews.co:

Arkansas AG Threatens to Sue Sites for Providing Info About Abortion Pills One of the sites, Plan C, is a well-known resource for information about medication abortion.

got that @autonomynews.co in my inbox and one thing to add to this from @susanrinkunas.com:

this kind of speech is *exactly* the sort of thing the court has said crisis pregnancy centers have a first amendment right to say. it's just the other side of the story.

will the court care? lol lmao

Arkansas AG Threatens to Sue Sites for Providing Info About Abortion Pills One of the sites, Plan C, is a well-known resource for information about medication abortion.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin is targeting websites like Plan C that don’t even provide abortion pills but simply tell people where they can find them. Our latest:

If anyone has seen state guidance for abortion providers on how to bill Medicaid amid litigation over the "defunding" provision of the Big Ugly Bill...I would also like to see it

Signal: susanrinkunas.73

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Planned Parenthood ‘Defund’ Blocked, But 11 Clinics Close: July 28 News Roundup Plus, what’s coming up on Autonomy News.

We're back with another weekly roundup of bodily autonomy news.

Planned Parenthood's "defunding" is blocked (for now), but 11 clinics have announced they'll close since the GOP budget bill passed. Plus: @acog.org refuses federal funding, a Nevada parental involvement law goes into effect, and more.

Shuttering clinics is a way to ban abortion without ever passing a law that bans it. Read my piece in @autonomynews.co:

screenshot of a spreadsheet of Planned Parenthood closures: date state affiliate cities number closed budget reconciliation passes July 18 Ohio PP Southwest Ohio Region Springfield, Hamilton 2 July 23 Indiana PPGNHAIK Evansville 1 July 23 Texas PP of Greater Texas Tyler 1 July 25 Texas PP Gulf Coast Prevention Park and Southwest 2 July 25 California PP Mar Monte South San Francisco, San Mateo, Gilroy, Westside/ Santa Cruz, Madera 5 TOTAL 32

New: 11 more Planned Parenthood clinics have announced that they will close, or have closed, after Trump signed the budget bill which "defunds" large abortion providers.

That brings the total for the year to 32 by my count as the health provider navigates other funding freezes and increased costs

We can only do this thanks to readers like you 🫵

The weekly roundups from @autonomynews.co also include links to our original reporting so if you only want one email per week, choose this one! This story is helpfully tucked in at the top:

We have once again provided our weekly public service of rounding up the repro news that’s coming at us like water out of a firehose:

Currently I am subscribed to:
1. @hellgatenyc.com
2. @autonomynews.co
3. @theappeal.org
4. @flaminghydra.com
5. @inquirer.com
6. @chicagotribune.com
7. @thecity.nyc
+ many newsletters, podcast patreons etc...

I'll add a couple of others to the list this fall.

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Screenshot The Trump administration reversed Biden-era legal guidance that allowed federal funding to be used to pay for abortion-related travel, but not the abortion itself. After the 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Joe Biden's Health Department took the view that paying for travel associated with abortion didn't violate the Hyde Amendment ban on funding abortion. That interpretation was backed up by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Justice Department, but Trump's C.C now says its predecessors were wrong. This is bad on its own, and it's another reminder that OLC could rescind guidance on the Comstock Act, which conservatives want Trump to weaponize to ban abortion pills if not all abortions nationwide.

Bad moon rising:
www.autonomynews.co/texas-aborti...

Texas Abortion Pill Bills and Destroying Birth Control: July 21 News Roundup Plus, what you missed on Autonomy News last week.

The week in bodily autonomy news, explained.

Texas is back for a special session, the Trump administration is set to destroy millions of dollars’ worth of birth control, a judge ruled that a Jewish woman can challenge Kentucky’s abortion ban on religious freedom grounds, and more

OBGYNs Sent ‘Highly Biased’ Survey By Group That Targeted Abortion Pills A group of anti-abortion doctors claims it’s researching the “moral and professional complexity” of abortion. Their study raises red flags following other junk science and retractions.

Forced birther ON/GYNs set up a sketchy survey about abortion…and even suggested this was ACOG endorsed www.autonomynews.co/obgyns-sent-...

OBGYNs Sent ‘Highly Biased’ Survey By Group That Targeted Abortion Pills A group of anti-abortion doctors claims it’s researching the “moral and professional complexity” of abortion. Their study raises red flags following other junk science and retractions.

NEW: The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine—which unsuccessfully sued the FDA to try to revoke approval of the abortion pill—is working on a new sham study about abortion, per an email sent to OBGYNs.

The email and survey site implied affiliation with @acog.org, prompting a cease and desist:

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The survey doesn’t appear to have gone through appropriate ethical review. The National Abortion Federation told its members not to respond.

The survey is an attempt at “manipulating the actual medical community against an essential part of health care,” said @prh.org fellow Elisabeth Sulger.

The study's lead investigator, Hector Chapa, is an OBGYN and former board member of ACOG, who resigned over the group's support for abortion care. The survey site initially touted Chapa's affiliation Texas A&M College of Medicine, though this has since been removed.

The survey came from the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs, and listed the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine as a study consultant. These are among the anti-abortion physician groups that sued the FDA in an attack on abortion pills. They're also linked to past retracted studies.

OBGYNs Sent ‘Highly Biased’ Survey By Group That Targeted Abortion Pills A group of anti-abortion doctors claims it’s researching the “moral and professional complexity” of abortion. Their study raises red flags following other junk science and retractions.

NEW: Last week, some OBGYNs received a strange survey via email. The email used inflammatory terms like "dismemberment" and "feticide," and the survey website suggested affiliation with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. ACOG tells Autonomy News it sent a cease and desist:

Story dropping tomorrow 👀

Fetal Personhood at DOJ and Planned Parenthood Updates: July 14 News Roundup Plus, what you missed on Autonomy News last week.

Love to be hyped up by other worker-owned newsletters! At @autonomynews.co, our co-founder @yourombudsmom.bsky.social's piece on DC's "home rule" and abortion rights was mentioned for its stellar reporting! Thank you @garnethenderson.com & @susanrinkunas.com!

www.autonomynews.co/fetal-person...

Support Autonomy News We will never put our reporting or analysis behind a paywall. Your support makes that possible. Here are a few different ways to power our work: Become a member Support our journalism and help comb...

@susanrinkunas.com and I just PAID OURSELVES for the first time since launching @autonomynews.co. 🥲 It's been about a month and a half since our public launch, but four months of work to get here.

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