Health Care

Packages of Mifepristone tablets are displayed at a family planning clinic on April 13, 2023, in Rockville, Maryland.

Abortion, contraceptive access among Alliance Defending Freedom’s lawsuits

BY: - December 10, 2023

Nearly a dozen of Alliance Defending Freedom’s ongoing lawsuits involve abortion and contraceptive access. Here is a look at those cases. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. ADF represents anti-abortion activist medical groups (three states have recently filed motions to intervene in the case) and is asking the U.S. Supreme Court […]

Newly elected U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, delivers remarks with fellow Republicans on the East Front steps of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol

Anti-abortion attorneys ascend federal government ranks with Christian right legal training

BY: - December 10, 2023

When Mississippi Solicitor General Scott G. Stewart presented Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to the U.S. Supreme Court in December 2021, he argued that state lawmakers should be able to ban abortion at any time in pregnancy, not just after so-called “viability,” the point where a fetus could survive outside of a uterus. The […]

O’Laysha Davis looks down at her 3-month-old daughter, Journee’ Divine Stokes, while she sleeps.

Being Black and pregnant in the Deep South can be a dangerous combination

BY: - December 9, 2023

O’laysha Davis was a few weeks shy of her due date when in mid-August she decided it was time to switch doctors. Davis had planned to give birth at a small community hospital about 20 minutes from her home in North Charleston, South Carolina. But that changed when her medical team started repeatedly calling her […]

Chenita LeBlanc, a program manager with DePaul Community Health Center, holds a flyer for Louisiana Medicaid members

Louisiana has removed 197,000 people from Medicaid over five months

BY: - December 4, 2023

Louisiana removed 197,000 people from its Medicaid rolls over a five-month period from June to October, as it complies with renewed federal standards for the government-backed insurance.  About a quarter of the people dropped, or 47,000, are children. Two-thirds of the individuals cut have lost their health insurance for “procedural reasons,” including not filling out […]

Volunteer escorts gather outside Delta Clinic in Baton Rouge

Some Republicans supported abortion ban exceptions. Activists made sure they failed.

BY: - November 27, 2023

State Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt was speaking on the floor of the South Dakota Capitol, four months pregnant with her third child, begging her Republican colleagues to care about her life. “With the current law in place, I will tell you, I wake up fearful of my pregnancy and what it would mean for my children, […]

white pills are shown coming out of a prescription bottle that has been placed on its side

Evolving overdose crisis shakes previously effective treatments

BY: - November 26, 2023

BURLINGTON, Vermont — “You can’t inject a horse tranquilizer and think nothing bad is gonna happen” to you, said Ty Sears, 33, a longtime drug user now in recovery. Sears was referring to xylazine, a sedative used for animal surgeries that has infiltrated the illicit drug supply across the country, contributing to a steady climb […]

The Ohio March for Life rally against November’s Issue 1 reproductive rights amendment takes to the streets near the Statehouse on Oct. 6, 2023.

Anti-abortion groups shrug off election losses, look to courts, statehouses for path forward

BY: - November 25, 2023

Anti-abortion groups are firing off a warning shot for 2024: We’re not going anywhere. Their leaders say they’re undeterred by recent election setbacks and plan to plow ahead on what they’ve done for years, including working through state legislatures, federal agencies, and federal courts to outlaw abortion. And at least one prominent anti-abortion group is […]

A physician writes on a clipboard next to a pregnant woman with her hands on her midsection.

New Tulane study connects abortion, maternal health care access with birth outcomes

BY: - November 22, 2023

NEW ORLEANS — A study published last week by Tulane University researchers found that people living in areas lacking both abortion and maternity health care were more likely to give birth prematurely than those with more reproductive health services. While previous studies have documented adverse birth outcomes for those who live far from abortion clinics […]

Nurse practitioner Anthony Carano speaks with a patient at the Mountain Park Health Center, Thursday, March 30, 2023, in Phoenix.

The ‘doctor of nursing practice’ will see you now

BY: - November 19, 2023

When Vernon Langford sees patients, he typically wears a white lab coat with his title — “Dr.” — and his credentials as a nurse practitioner stitched on the front. “My credentials are on any jackets I have, the shirts I wear. If I have a name tag, it’s on that,” said Langford, who works as […]

VA veterans crisis line to face new investigation by congressional watchdog agency

BY: - November 15, 2023

WASHINGTON — The Government Accountability Office plans to investigate multiple whistleblower allegations of “gross mismanagement” at the Department of Veterans Affairs veterans crisis line, following a request from Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, States Newsroom has learned. Moran, ranking member on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, sent a letter to the VA secretary this week […]

Wesley Jackson Wade poses for a picture while seated on a bench

Underdiagnosed and undertreated, young Black males with ADHD get left behind

BY: - November 12, 2023

As a kid, Wesley Jackson Wade should have been set up to succeed. His father was a novelist and corporate sales director and his mother was a special education teacher. But Wade said he struggled through school even though he was an exceptional writer and communicator. He played the class clown when he wasn’t feeling […]

Soldiers from Fort Lee, Virginia help mark Veterans Day ceremonies at the World War II Memorial Nov. 11, 2011, in Washington, D.C.

Veterans’ health care coverage expanded by Biden administration

BY: - November 10, 2023

Ahead of Veterans Day, Biden administration officials said Friday the Department of Veterans Affairs will expand health care coverage for certain groups of veterans and their families and create new programs meant to make care more accessible. The VA will make coverage of certain toxic burn pit-related conditions available sooner than anticipated. Family members of […]