Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Can 13th Amendment Protect Abortion Rights?; Overturning Roe May Criminalize IVF
In its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court made clear that its new majority rejects the interpretation of the right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution that made Roe v. Wade and a host of other Supreme Court precedents possible. In permitting Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks, the majority in Dobbs declared the ground on which the right to privacy stands to be sand — shifting and unsound. (Lisa A. crooms-Robinson,
A few days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, Boston IVF, a fertility company with centers in six states, posted a statement that speaks to the havoc this decision will wreak not just for abortions, but for other forms of reproductive care. (Lisa C. Ikemoto, 7/7)
As state abortion bans snap into effect after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, one group who will be most affected seems to be least discussed: women under criminal court control. For these women — the vast majority of whom are poor and disproportionally Black or Latina — state surveillance and control of their bodies are not new. (Kate Weisburd, 7/5)
Have public health officials and the news media been less than candid in their explanations of the risk factors in the worldwide monkeypox outbreak? Are we seeing a replay of why people are losing confidence in doctors and journalists who have not been forthright about the public in the COVID-19 pandemic? (Cory Franklin and Robert Weinstein, 7/6)
More than 7,200 cases of monkeypox have been reported this year in dozens of countries, including over 600 cases in the United States, largely but not exclusively in men who have sex with men. While it is not as contagious as COVID-19, monkeypox could easily gain a foothold in communities now suffering from the latest spread of the disease. (Zain Rizvi and Gregg Gonsalves, 7/7)
On June 17, the Food and Drug Administration finally authorized the use of the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, based largely on advice from a panel of outside experts. By my accounting, it could have — and should have — made it possible for young children to be vaccinated much sooner. (Jorge A. Caballero, 7/6)
