This Week in Congress

House and Senate

The House and Senate are in recess this week and will return for legislative business on July 10, 2023.

Other Newsworthy Topics

Disease Intervention Specialists

This week NCSD continued to advocate for funding to replace the $400 million that was rescinded in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Letters were written to the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committee and to Director of the Office of Management and Budget. The NCSD letter to Director Young can be found here. The Partnership letter can be found here

Executive Order on Birth Control Access

President Biden signed a wide-ranging executive order aimed at protecting and increasing access to contraception. The Executive Order directs the Secretaries of the Treasury Labor, and Health and Human Services to consider new guidance to ensure that private health insurance under the Affordable Care Act covers all FDA approved contraceptives without cost sharing and to streamline the process for obtaining care women need and want and to improve access to affordable over-the-counter contraception, including emergency contraception. The Executive Order can be found here

Supreme Court Ruling on Affirmative Action

Overturning decades of precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of affirmative action, ruling that it is unconstitutional for colleges, universities and professional schools for law, medicine, and nursing to consider race as one factor in deciding who they will admit. The decision comes as a blow to many in the field of medicine, which has been unable to appreciably increase the numbers of Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous doctors in recent decades. Many medical schools have turned to using race as one factor among many in admissions decisions to try to boost the numbers of students from underrepresented groups and help overcome obstacles to entry like MCAT testing that favor students from wealthier backgrounds. The article can be found here. The Supreme Court Ruling can be found here.

Other Legislative Happenings Around the Nation

MPOX

Colorado health officials are launching a new vaccination campaign after a handful of cases of mpox have been identified in the state in recent weeks. The state epidemiologist at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said three cases were identified in June and one in May.

COVID-19

The CDC is now tracking several new COVID-19 variants, adding more Omicron descendants to an increasingly complex list of new strains that are competing nationwide. Among the new variants is a strain first designated by scientists earlier this year over its rapid ascent in some European countries. The WHO is showing a decrease in new cases across all global regions. All regions, except Africa, also reported decreases in deaths from the virus. The WHO cautioned, however, that the update is not an accurate reflection of virus activity, because of reduced testing and spotty case reporting. During this period, the WHO said, only 56% of countries and territories (133 of 234) reported one case.

Abortion

Arizona

Arizona Governor Hobbs signed an executive order to protect anyone involved with a legally obtained abortion from prosecution. The order bans local prosecutors from bringing abortion-related charges and state agencies from assisting in any criminal investigations without a court order. In addition, Arizona will not honor any extradition requests for people wanted for assisting, providing, or seeking an abortion.

Iowa

Planned Parenthood plans to close three Iowa locations but provide more services at others in response to increasing demands for abortions, staff shortages and increasing costs. The consolidation at Planned Parenthood North Central States, which provides abortions in Minnesota, Nebraska, and Iowa, comes as states that provide abortions have seen a sharp increase in people coming from states that have prohibited or sharply restricted the procedure.

New Mexico

New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham says her administration has set up a new telephone hotline for women seeking access to abortion clinics plus transportation and other assistance. The hotline is already live but is still being built out, according to Lujan Grisham. The number is (833) 767-3776. It will be staffed by registered nurses with the state Department of Health and paid for using existing resources.

North Carolina

A federal judge said she won’t temporarily block most of a newly revised abortion law from taking effect this weekend in North Carolina, including a near-ban on the procedure after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The U.S. District Judge said that she won’t grant the request by lawyers for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a physician to set aside most of the new restrictions before they are to come into force on Saturday, calling it overbroad.

Texas

A research paper linked 9,799 additional live births in Texas to an abortion ban that the state passed in 2021, confirming what researchers had expected to happen after the bill was passed. The Texas Legislature passed a bill in September 2021 that effectively banned abortions about 5 to 6 weeks after a woman’s last menstrual cycle.

LGBTQ Issues

Health Care

As an increasing proportion of Americans identify as LGBTQ, leaders in sexual and gender minority health care say that the nation’s medical schools are largely failing to adequately prepare the next generation of doctors to properly care for this population. The need is critical, according to experts in medical education and LGBTQ care. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, as stigmatized minorities, often have difficulty accessing health care that properly addresses their health concerns, that is sensitive to their sexual and gender identities and that is not flat-out discriminatory, researchers have found.

California

The number of California prisoners requesting gender-affirming health care more than doubled last year, and the state’s corrections agency expects the trend to continue even as the overall state inmate population is projected to decline. The estimate comes from budget documents detailing the agency’s responsibilities for two groundbreaking policies the state adopted over the last seven years.

Georgia

A group of Georgia parents of trans children have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the state’s new law restricting gender-affirming care for minors — days before it’s set to go into effect. Nearly 20 states have passed laws restricting access to this care for minors and many have already faced trouble in the courts.

Kansas

A new Kansas law requires the state to reverse any previous gender changes in its records for trans people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses while also preventing such changes going forward, the state’s conservative Republican attorney general declared. The Attorney General also said public schools’ records for students must list them as being the gender they were assigned at birth, whether or not teachers and staff recognize their gender identities.

Kentucky/Tennessee

Judges in Kentucky and Tennessee temporarily halted some restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender youths shortly before the provisions were set to go into effect. Both federal courts blocked parts of respective state laws that would have prevented transgender minors from receiving hormone therapy and puberty blockers, which the Kentucky court described as “appropriate and medically necessary” in some cases. In Tennessee, the judge did not go as far as blocking a ban on surgeries for minors; in Kentucky, the case did not directly discuss surgeries.

Maine

The Maine House has voted in favor of a bill to ensure 16- and 17-year-olds can receive gender-affirming hormone therapy without parental consent if certain conditions are met. The bill, approved 73-60, allows those teens to undergo treatment without parental consent if they are diagnosed with gender dysphoria, are experiencing harm, and have received counseling. It now goes to the Senate for further debate.

Michigan

Michigan lawmakers gave final approval to legislation banning so-called conversion therapy for minors as Democrats in the state continue to advance a pro-LGBTQ+ agenda in their first months in power. The legislation would prohibit mental health professionals from engaging youths in the scientifically discredited practice of trying to convert people who are LGBTQ+ to heterosexuality and traditional gender expectations.

New York

New York became the latest in a growing list of states to pass legislation protecting access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors as more than a dozen other state governments have moved to ban treatments including puberty blockers and hormone therapy. New York’s new “safe haven” law bars state courts from enforcing the laws of other states that authorize a minor to be removed from their home if their parents or legal guardians allow them to receive gender-affirming health care.

Oklahoma

The Oklahoma State Department of Education put out a “public service message” describing transgender students as a threat in schools. The message continues state schools Superintendent’s ongoing opposition to the presence of transgender students in school bathrooms and to classroom discussions of gender-nonconforming identities. Members of Oklahoma’s LGBTQ+ community have said this rhetoric is harmful to transgender youths who are already vulnerable.

RSV Vaccine

The CDC has approved RSV vaccines for older adults and expects them to be available in the fall. The endorsement from CDC follows recommendations from the agency’s independent vaccine advisory committee and approvals from the FDA.