Bioethics Public Policy Report: September 29, 2026
State by State
In California, Assembly Bill 2540, which would require community colleges to provide students with access to chemical abortion drugs, was passed in the state’s legislature and now awaits Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature. For further information, click here.
Idaho’s state supreme court, siding with a pro-abortion group that collected signatures for an abortion initiative on the ballot in the midterm elections this November, ordered the language to be revised, finding that the language was misleading as worded. For further information, click here.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin filed suit against Wisconsin in state court “seeking to establish a constitutional right to abortion” by challenging the constitutionality of the requirement that only physicians perform abortions and a 24-hour waiting period. The Wisconsin Catholic Conference has denounced the lawsuit, calling the laws “commonsense” that “provide critical protection and medical safeguards for Wisconsin’s women and their children.” To read the Conference’s statement, click here. To read Planned Parenthood’s statement, click here.
Federal Courts
In Mirabelli v. Bonta, a case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals where parents are challenging California schools’ policies requiring teachers to hide students’ gender confusion from their parents, 12 amicus briefs have been filed by sitting U.S. senators, states, coalitions, and scholars in support of the parents challenging the policy. For further information, click here.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops submitted an amicus brief in Grand v. City of University Heights, a case where a Jewish man is challenging a municipality on its enforcement actions taken against him for inviting people to his house to pray. Specifically, the case will address the “finality” rule, which requires plaintiffs to exhaust all other legal options before resorting to a lawsuit. To read the bishops’ amicus brief, click here. For further information, click here and here.
Surrogate mother McKenna West filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to block a California court’s order declaring the couple who made the surrogacy contract with West the parents of the child. For further information, click here.
Another temporary restraining order was issued by a federal district court in Illinois against enforcement of the state’s “End of Life Options” Act, an assisted suicide law, as applied to the Archdiocese of Chicago, two religious orders, and a pharmacist. The law, as it is written, would require those who refuse to assist in patients’ suicide to refer the patients to a physician or healthcare entity that will do so. For further information, click here and here.
Oregon agreed to a court order requiring the state to allow a woman to adopt a child after a legal battle over the state’s requirements that prospective adoptive parents be willing to affirm a child’s potential gender confusion. For further information, click here.
National
The NCBC and colleague agencies submitted public comment to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services seeking revisions to the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) codes for payments for medical procedures, seeking consistency with procedures that respect the dignity of human life. To read our public comment, click here. For further information, click here.
Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester was nominated to serve on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which monitors religious freedom issues around the world and has the goal of deterring religious persecution. For further information, click here.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it is conducting a national study of pollutants in drinking water. Earlier this year, the EPA had indicated that it sought to test for traces of contraceptives and abortifacients, including mifepristone, the most widely used method of chemical abortion, in the water supply. For further information, click here, here, and here.
international
In the United Kingdom, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, an assisted suicide bill, was rejected by a vote of 286 to 270. A nearly identical bill had passed in the House of Commons but was rejected by the House of Lords previously. For further information, click here. NCBC provided public comment to Parliament in opposition to the legalization of physician assisted suicide, which can be found here.
Ilva Myriam Hoyos Castañeda, a former adviser to the Pontifical Council for the Family, is now to lead Colombia’s Ministry of Education and will be tasked with reviewing textbooks used in public schools and working out proposals for religious education in public schools. For further information, click here.
Of Note
Church officials and Catholic thinkers are calling on legislators and Silicon Valley to consider the human consequences of the emergence and rapid development of artificial intelligence. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the USCCB have made statements urging caution and reflection on the emerging technologies, and Catholic thinkers are discussing the possible consequences of the new technology. For further information, click here, here, here, and here.
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