Bioethics Public Policy Report: June 24, 2025
STATE By State
In California, the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles will be closing its “Transyouth Health and Development” in July, citing funding cuts as the reason. The decision comes just five months after President Trump’s executive order ending federal support of transgender procedures for persons under the age of 19 back in January. For further information, click here.
In Georgia, a brain-dead woman on life support gave birth to a 1-pound, 13-ounce baby by emergency C-section. She was taken off life support a few days later, but the baby, born at 29 weeks, is expected to survive. The woman had been kept on life support due to what has been characterized as a misunderstanding of Georgia’s LIFE Act. For further information, click here.
In Texas, a man who worked for the Department of Justice was charged with capital murder in the state after spiking his girlfriend’s drink with “Plan C,” an abortion drug, to cause her to miscarry her child without her knowledge or consent. For further information, click here.
In Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law a bill that will require schools to show students to show the stages of fetal development, specifically to depict “the humanity of the unborn child.” It prohibits materials promoting abortion. For further information, click here.
In Montana, the state’s supreme court struck down three pro-life laws, claiming that the laws violated the right to privacy guaranteed under the state constitution. The bills would have placed a 20-week restriction on abortion, barred telemedicine abortions, and required an ultrasound to be performed prior to an abortion. For further information, click here.
In Idaho, the state’s supreme court ordered Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador to revise a ballot initiative to create a constitutional right to abortion in order to make it comply with state law regarding the wording of such provisions. The court said that the phrasing involving impacts to Medicaid and the state prisoner population were improperly prejudicial. For further information, click here.
In Tennessee, a law protecting access to birth control and in vitro fertilization is set to go into effect on July 1 of this year. For further information, click here.
In Ohio, a law was introduced that would seek to criminalize abortion, grant civil and criminal protections for the unborn child at the moment of fertilization, and ban in vitro fertilization. It is unclear whether the legislation will be overturned following the passage of Ohio’s “Reproductive Freedom Amendment” in its state constitution, even if the legislation is passed. To track the bill, click here. For further information, click here.
Federal Courts
A Christian married couple is suing Vermont after the state revoked their foster-care licenses because they expressed their religiously based beliefs against transgender ideology, despite Vermont’s desperate need for foster families. Represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the couple is asserting a violation of their constitutional rights. For further information, click here.
Following a study on Pfizer’s progestin-based birth control shot linking the medication with a likelihood of developing meningioma, a form of brain cancer, about 400 women are suing Pfizer in a class action lawsuit. For further information, click here.
The U.S. Supreme Court sent a case back down to the New York Court of Appeals, the supreme court in the state, to determine whether certain employers should be exempt from state law’s requirements for health care coverage including abortion. The New York case began in 2017, but the Court remanded the case again to the state following the recent unanimous decision rendered in the Wisconsin Catholic Charities case. For further information, click here.
The Orthodox Church in America has joined the Catholic bishops of Washington state in their lawsuit against the state over the passage of a law that would require priests to violate the seal of the confessional. For further information, click here.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Tennessee’s ban on transgender procedures for minors by a vote of 6–3. The Court held that the law was subject only to rational basis review, which only requires that a law be rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest, and not arbitrary or motivated by animus. For further information, click here.
national
The Trump administration is probing hospitals that have previously performed transgender treatments and procedures on minors to ensure that they are compliant with the new rules and guidelines of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In a letter sent by Mehmet Oz, the director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, hospitals were asked whether they had changed their protocols. To read the letter, click here. For further information, click here.
Planned Parenthood announced that it would be closing four facilities in Iowa and four in Minnesota, citing threats to federal funding as the reason. The Trump administration’s freeze on $20 million in funds in April combined with the threatened cuts to Medicaid in President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” were the reasons given for the decision. For further information, click here.
international
French President Emmanuel Macron plans to move forward with a ban on social media for children under the age of 15, citing medical, psychological, and legal concerns. The move comes after a 14-year-old student stabbed a teaching assistant outside of a school. For further information, click here.
Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom voted last week to decriminalize abortion in all circumstances as part of a broader crime reform bill. Lawmakers claimed that it would be cruel to prosecute women for obtaining abortions under the law, which prohibits doctors from performing abortions after 24 weeks. The broader crime bill has not yet been passed, but is expected to pass, and the amendment specifically decriminalizing abortion passed by a vote of 379–137. For further information, click here.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) issued a report on the ongoing fertility crisis worldwide that found that most people were uncertain whether they would ever be able to afford to have the number of children they desired to have. UNFPA’s report stated that the likely cause of this was lack of “reproductive autonomy.” For further information, click here.
of note
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sent a letter to Congress warning of the necessity for ethical guidelines in the development and use of artificial intelligence. To read the bishops’ letter, click here. For further information, click here.
A new biotech company called Nucleus Embryo is starting a service that would allow people utilizing in vitro fertilization procedures to screen embryos for conditions and traits that might be present in them. For further information, click here.
A public opinion poll showed that approximately two-thirds of U.S. citizens support the use of biological sex on identification cards and in athletics, rather than gender identity. For further information, click here.
The USCCB announced the theme of this year’s Religious Freedom Week, from June 22–29, as “Witnesses to Hope.” It is highlighting “the impact of political polarization on religious freedom.” For further information, click here.
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The National Catholic Bioethics Center website is a significant resource for bioethics information. NCBC bioethicists are also on call for consultation twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, at 215-877-2660.
Justin Corman
Justin Corman is a guest editor at the NCBC, and a student at Ave Maria School of Law.