| Good morning! The top of this newsletter was reported along with Emily Wax-Thibodeaux and Kelsey Ables. Send your thoughts to rachel.roubein@washpost.com. Not a subscriber? Sign up here. Today's edition: The latest on where the House's abortion-related amendments to the annual defense policy bill stand. A key House panel releases details on a Thursday mark-up for bills to reauthorize an emergency preparedness law and addiction services. But first … | Iowa's governor will sign the bill Friday, while abortion rights groups pledge to sue |  Protestors fill the Iowa Capitol rotunda as the legislature convenes for special session to pass a ban on abortions after roughly six weeks. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/Des Moines Register/AP) | | | It took less than 15 hours for Iowa Republicans to pass a ban on most abortions after roughly six weeks. State lawmakers convened for a rare special session yesterday — a legislative sprint Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) initiated for the "sole purpose" of restricting abortion. By the end of the day, the GOP-controlled legislature passed the new restrictions set to kick in immediately after receiving the governor's signature. Shortly afterward, Reynolds issued a statement saying she'd sign the bill Friday. "Justice for the unborn should not be delayed," she said. But a battle in the courts is brewing again. Planned Parenthood North Central States, a local abortion clinic and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa called the measure "the latest in Iowa politicians' attacks on reproductive freedom." They've vowed to file a lawsuit against the ban on most abortions after fetal cardiac activity has been detected, often around six weeks. The bill is nearly identical to one passed in 2018 but that never went into effect. Until now, abortion has remained legal in the state up until 22 weeks of pregnancy, even after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion last year. The new ban comes after several states in recent months have moved to impose new limits on abortion, an attempt to alter the nation's abortion landscape once again. South Carolina passed a similar bill, which has since been blocked in court. Meanwhile, Republicans in North Carolina and Nebraska instead approved 12-week bans that allow most abortions to continue — a reaction, some said, to sustained political backlash against strict limits. | | More from Reynolds: |  | | | | | In Des Moines, the new ban — and the rushed process to pass it — resulted in heated disputes between lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the abortion debate. Hundreds of protesters packed the state capitol, with some shouting "Bans off our bodies," and others yelling "Abortion is murder." | | | | | | | | 24/7/365. Hospitals care for patients and keep communities healthy. But access to care is at risk. Support caregivers and tell Congress to reject proposals that would reduce patient access and services.
| | | | | | | | In the morning, lawmakers held hearings on the legislation. In the afternoon and well into the evening, they debated the abortion restrictions on the floor, with the friction palpable at points. | - "If they are not ready to have a baby, they shouldn't have sex. A lot of people need to review their birds and bees," state Rep. Brad Sherman (R) said at one point, while Democrats called the bill "disrespectful" and "obscene."
| | How we got here: Last month, the state Supreme Court deadlocked on whether to reinstate a similar 2018 law, effectively preventing the ban from taking effect. But Republicans view that decision as related to procedure, and not because the law is actually unconstitutional. They're hoping that by passing a new ban in the post-Roe era they'll be able to ban abortions early in pregnancy. The bill says a provider must perform an abdominal ultrasound on a patient, and if "a fetal heartbeat" is detected, an abortion is prohibited. | | Galen Bacharier, the Des Moines Register: |  | | | | | Reynolds will officially sign the bill Friday. Then, the question will be whether it gets blocked or not. | - "Planned Parenthood will not stand for this," Alexis McGill Johnson, the head of Planned Parenthood Federation of America said in a statement. "We will see Gov. Reynolds in court."
| | In the meantime, Planned Parenthood North Central States wrote on Facebook that it would continue to provide abortions "to the extent legally allowed" and help patients connect with providers and resources elsewhere. | - The rate of abortions in the state has declined slightly on average since before the June 2022 ruling, according to data from the Society of Family Planning, which supports abortion rights. Mazie Stilwell, the director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa, attributed this dynamic to the "uncertainty and fear" created by the nation's new patchwork of abortion laws.
| | Some antiabortion advocates in the state say there is more work to be done. "While this is a good first step in moving forward, we're going to continue our work and our advocacy to protect all human life," said Maggie DeWitte, the executive director of Pulse Life Advocates, an antiabortion group in Iowa. Read the full story here. Read our FAQ on what you need to know about the impending ban. And thanks to Emily Wax-Thibodeaux and Kelsey Ables for their reporting help. | | Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa: |  | | | | | |  | On the Hill | | Where the defense policy bill stands in the House |  House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) sits next to the panel's top Democrat, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) | | | The annual defense policy bill is sputtering along in the House. Leadership is grappling with addressing the demands of far-right lawmakers, who are threatening to withhold their support unless they get votes on controversial amendments, our pals at The Early 202 reports this morning. | | There was an eight-hour delay, but the House Rules Committee came back into session at around 11 p.m. Tuesday night with an incremental plan in hand: Take up the least controversial measures — 290 amendments — and advance the bill to the floor. The amendment list didn't include the abortion-related policies we detailed in yesterday's newsletter. But at some point before lawmakers can pass the annual defense policy bill through the House, Republicans will have to figure out how to handle the amendments the far-right lawmakers of the party that is demanding votes on diversity, transgender care, abortion and Ukraine, Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer write. | | The House Energy and Commerce Committee released more details on much-anticipated legislation aimed at reauthorizing an emergency preparedness law and an array of services to treat people with an addiction. Such measures would expire at the end of September if Congress doesn't renew them, and there's little time before lawmakers skip town again for the August recess. The health subcommittee is slated to mark-up 17 bills Thursday morning. Legislation to reauthorize sweeping emergency preparedness powers were offered by Republicans in the form of two bills. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats have been pushing for the inclusion of measures to address the nation's drug shortages, which Republicans have deemed outside the scope of the bill. Another measure that caught our eye: Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Ann McLane Kuster (D-N.H.) released a bill aimed at continuing critical addiction treatment and recovery programs passed in 2018. | | |  | Daybook | | | On tap today: The House Education and the Workforce Committee will meet at 10:15 a.m. to mark-up a bipartisan legislative package aimed at increasing health-care price transparency for patients and employers. Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and ranking Democrat Rep. Bobby Scott (Va.) announced yesterday that they struck a deal on four bills, including one that seeks to strengthen compensation disclosure requirements for pharmacy benefit managers and third-party administrators. Other policies focus on boosting competition and ensuring that group plans only pay claims to hospitals that have accurate billing practices. | | |  | Coronavirus | | GOP probes covid origin paper as authors protest allegations |  Yesterday's hearing marks the latest convened by subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) to probe the origins of the outbreak. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) | | | The House GOP's allegations that Anthony Fauci helped with a "coverup" of the lab-leak theory in an influential 2020 paper are "false and absurd," one of the paper's authors testified yesterday in an oft-contentious hearing. During a hearing yesterday, Republicans on the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic were critical of how former National Institutes of Health officials responded to a widely cited paper by five leading virologists, which concluded that a lab-leak theory isn't plausible. | - That allegations of a "coverup" were detailed in a Republican staff report released ahead of the hearing, which homed in on the authors' initial concern that the virus may have leaked from a lab and how that position changed after a Feb. 1, 2020, conference call with Fauci and Francis Collins.
- Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) claimed in his opening statement that such a move could have been motivated by the federal government's desire to conceal its relationship with the Wuhan Institute of Virology or its funding of potentially risky research into coronaviruses.
| | The view from the other side: Fauci, Collins and the virologists have denied the Republican allegations as baseless and politically motivated, saying they updated their positions as they studied the virus. Democrats released their own review yesterday as well, which found that there was no coverup of the origins of the pandemic and no suppression of the lab leak theory by Fauci or Collins. | | Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the full House oversight panel: |  | | | | | Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a member of the subcommittee: |  | | | | | |  | In other health news | | - On the move: The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has appointed Brian Bauer to serve as its new vice president of application solutions. Bauer was previously a top executive at the Health Care Service Corporation.
- In Idaho: A new law criminalizing the act of transporting minors across state lines to obtain an abortion without parental permission violates the Constitution and is too vague to be enforced, advocacy groups argued in a federal lawsuit filed yesterday against Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador (R), Kelcie Moseley-Morris reports for the Idaho Capital Sun.
- The federal health department proposed a new rule yesterday that would strengthen protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in health and human services programs. The proposal is open for public comment for 60 days.
| | |  | Health reads | | | By Liz Essley Whyte | The Wall Street Journal ● Read more » | | | | | By Beth Hundsdorfer and Molly Parker | Capitol News Illinois, Lee Enterprises Midwest and ProPublica ● Read more » | | | | | |  | Sugar rush | | | Thanks for reading! See y'all tomorrow. | |
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