Blog Series: SiX Repro’s ICYMI Research Roundup (August/September Edition)

SiX Repro’s ICYMI Research Roundup is a new regular update and short summary of recent sexual and reproductive health fact sheets, toolkits, and journal articles.  We bring you these latest and most relevant insights in the reproductive health, rights, and justice landscape to support state legislators in advancing evidence-based policymaking. These updates cover a wide range of reproductive health, rights, and justice topics, from abortion to contraception to maternal health to assisted reproductive technology and from the intersections of climate change or disability justice or gender affirming care and beyond. We value engagement from our state legislator community and invite you to join us as we explore these latest developments.

New Resources

• Issue Brief: A Look at the Potential Impact of the High Unemployment Hardship Exception to Medicaid Work Requirements (KFF)
• Attacks on Shield Laws Are the Next Step in Criminalizing Abortion Care (The Guttmacher Institute)
• Campaign Funds for Security (Vote Mama Foundation)
• Issue Brief: Restorative Reproductive Medicine (The American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists)
• Medicaid Unwinding: Resources and Analysis (The National Health Law Program)
• OBBBA is Now Law, But the Fight is Not Over: Utilizing Existing State Resources to Protect SRH Coverage (The National Health Law Program)
• Preliminary Guttmacher Data Show a Decline in Abortions and Cross-Border Care in States Without Total Abortion Bans (The Guttmacher Institute) 
• Stop Censoring Abortion: Documenting Social Media Suppression of Reproductive Health Information (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
• Summer Wrap-Up: Reviewing 2025 Proactive State Legislative Trends (National Institute for Reproductive Health)
• Unions aren’t just good for workers—they also benefit communities and democracy (Economic Policy Institute)
• Unpacking The Supreme Court’s Decision Over NIH Funding (Health Affairs)
• Unregulated Pregnancy Clinics:  The Policy Playbook (The Public Leadership Institute)
• ICYMI: Governor Newsom signs new landmark laws to protect reproductive freedom, patient privacy amid Trump’s war on women

Blog Posts 

• Digital IDs Put Health Care Privacy at Risk (Convergence Magazine, August 2025):  Experts from Collaborative Research Center for Resilience, the ACLU, and National Women’s Law Center discuss how Digital IDs threaten to expand government power to police people’s movement and medical care. They note that  this is particularly concerning as more people cross state lines to get necessary health care. New Jersey’s governor signed legislation introducing the first set of guardrails on digital ID systems in July 2025. The authors urge state lawmakers to take action by  demanding that digital driver’s license programs be subject to democratic debate;  pushing for protections for access to physical driver’s licenses, to the internet, and data generated by verifying identification; and advocating for protections that prevent expansion of when and where government identification must be presented.

• Who Age Verification Laws Really Benefit & How to Resist  (User Mag, August 2025):  This guest post by Cynthia Conti-Cook (Research & Policy at Collaborative Research Center for Resilience), Rebecca Williams (ACLU), and Pratika Katiya (ACLU) discuss how age verification laws  restrict young people’s ability to learn, express themselves, and connect; creates a pretext for censoring political dissent; and concentrates more power in the tech industry.

• Project 2025 and Pronatalism: How Trump’s Allies Are Pushing a Far-Right Family Agenda (National Women’s Law Center, August 2025): Read this blog about pronatalism and how policies inspired by this movement have begun to appear in national budgets and right-wing playbooks like Project 2025.  To read more about the pronatalist movement, and what a real pro-family agenda looks like read National Women’s Law Center’s issue brief, Baby Bonuses and Motherhood Medals: Why We Shouldn’t Trust the Pronatalist Movement, where they explore the pronatalist movement, their history of eugenics and racism, the Trump administration’s concerning ties to the movement, and what we should be doing instead to support women and families.

• The Rise of Pronatalism in the U.S.: The Risks to Reproductive and Sexual Health Outcomes (O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, August 2025): Since taking office earlier this year, the Trump administration has solicited suggestions for and proposed various programs and policies aimed at encouraging childbirth and increasing the birth rate in the United States. This blog discusses how these policies are connected to the pronatalist movement and how pronatalist policies harm health outcomes.

• Deja Vu: the Future of Abortion Coverage in ACA Marketplace Plans (KFF, September 2025): Anti-abortion advocates are currently urging Congress to prohibit any premium tax credits to be used towards any plans that include abortion coverage. This policy watch by KFF explains how abortion coverage works in ACA Marketplace plans, state actions to include or exclude abortion coverage in these plans, and the potential impact if Congress bans abortion coverage in all Marketplace plans.

• Medicaid Work Requirements Will Gut Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Access for Millions (The National Health Law Program (NHeLP), September 2025):  In this blog post series, NHeLP’s Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) Practice Area breaks down how the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) will harm SRH care access. This installment addresses how nationwide Medicaid work requirements — OBBBA’s largest Medicaid cut — will gut SRH care access for millions.

Fact Sheets

• DACA Recipients’ Access to Health Care: 2025 Report (National Immigration Law Center, August 2025):  This fact sheet presents findings from a 2024 survey of 433 DACA recipients. The results show that respondents continue to experience significant health disparities and face ongoing barriers to accessing health care.

• Pregnancy as a Crime: An Interim Update on the First Two Years After Dobbs (Pregnancy Justice, September 2025): Pregnancy Justice published new interim findings on pregnancy-related prosecutions during the first two years post-Dobbs (June 2022 to June 2024), as part of their research study with partners, University of Tennessee and University of South Carolina, and in collaboration with University of Texas Austin and University of Alabama. They found that prosecutors initiated at least 412 cases across the country charging individuals with crimes related to their pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth. The data is part of the Pregnancy Prosecutions Tracking Study, a research study examining pregnancy criminalization in the three years after Dobbs.

• Growing Market Power Among Catholic Hospitals Restrains Access to Reproductive Health Care (The Center for American Progress, September 2025): From 2001 to 2020, Catholic provider growth rate was 28.5% while the number of non-Catholic hospitals declined by nearly 14%.  By 2020, four of the country’s ten largest hospital systems were Catholic, and at least 1 in 6 of America’s hospital beds were in Catholic hospitals.  As hospital systems, and especially Catholic hospitals, continue to consolidate, it is critical that all patients retain meaningful access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care. Antitrust and consumer protection laws are powerful tools that can be utilized to prevent market concentration from further limiting choice, raising prices, and restricting care.

Research Briefs 

• Three Years after Dobbs, What’s the State of Abortion in Wisconsin? (Collaborative for Reproductive Equity (CORE), August 2025):  In July, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the Wisconsin legislature had effectively repealed the 1849 ban– which banned abortion except in life-threatening emergencies– through comprehensive legislation regulating abortion over the past 50 years. The ruling means that abortion providers can continue offering care under existing state laws, maintaining the current level of access to abortion care.  Following this development, in this brief CORE reviews the latest research on the state of abortion in Wisconsin.

• Minors’ Ability to Consent to Contraception and Abortion Services (KFF, August 2025):  Across the country, minors’ ability to consent to their health care, particularly their reproductive health care, varies significantly. Conservative groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, have made limiting minors’ ability to consent to their own care by expanding “parental rights” a political priority. This brief examines state laws explicitly addressing consent requirements for minors accessing contraceptive and abortion care, processes for minors to attempt to obtain abortion without parental involvement, and trends in state policy increasing requirements for parental involvement in minors’ health care decisions.

• Cascading Harms: How Abortion Bans Lead to Discriminatory Care Across Medical Specialties (Physicians for Human Rights, September 2025):  Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and their partners have conducted research with health care providers in Oklahoma, Idaho, Louisiana, and Florida to document the multiple ways that state abortion bans have harmed the health of pregnant patients. PHR conducted 33 semi-structured interviews with physicians from reproductive and non-reproductive health specialties across 20 states in three different policy environments: states with abortion bans before 12 weeks, states with abortion bans after 12 weeks, and states with abortion protections. In this research, providers repeatedly emphasized the cascading impact of abortion bans on other forms of care and the need for peer clinicians from multiple specialties to work together to address restrictions that impede quality of health care.

Research Reports

• Investing in Economic Opportunity for Women in North Carolina (Institute for Women’s Policy Research, August 2025):  This report was commissioned by the North Carolina Council for Women and Youth Involvement (CFWYI), an advocacy division housed in the North Carolina Department of Administration, and the North Carolina Council for Women, a group of 20 gubernatorial appointees who advise the governor, General Assembly, and state agencies on the status of women and recommend efforts to improve life for women in North Carolina. This report highlights the intersections of child care, education, earnings and employment, and opportunities to enable data-driven decisions to prioritize investments, set programmatic goals and strategies, and shape public and private policies to improve the lives of women and families.

• State Abortion Policies and OB-GYN Residents: How Abortion Policies Influence Career Choices, Relocation Decisions, and Perceived Protection While Providing Care (UCLA School of Law Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy, August 2025):  OB-GYN residents face an array of policy environments when deciding where to practice post-residency, with the potential to determine their learning, restrict the care they provide their patients, and dictate the care they or their loved ones can receive if they become pregnant.  The report examines how restrictive and protective state abortion policies influence where OB-GYN residents practice after residency, and explores how policies affect their level of concern, sense of legal protection, ability to provide all the care their patients need, and willingness to remain in certain policy environments. It also provides research and policy recommendations to improve reproductive health care education, training, and state health policy.

Journal Articles

• Demand for Medication Abortion Through Telehealth Before and After the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court Decision in States Where Abortion Is Legal (Women’s Health Issues, August 2025): Researchers compared the volume of patients receiving medication abortion from a U.S.-based telehealth service in 18 states, the sociodemographic characteristics of patients, and self-reported reasons for choosing telehealth before and after the Dobbs decision using electronic medical records from March 24, 2022–September 24, 2022. They found that demand for telehealth medication abortion increased after the Dobbs decision in states where abortion remained legal and argue that telehealth provides an essential pathway to access safe and effective abortion care for a broad range of patients across different policy environments.

• The illusion of reproductive choice: how restorative reproductive medicine violates reproductive autonomy and informed consent (Fertility and Sterility, August 2025): Heightened awareness of infertility and increased access to fertility care are needed, but the increased attention on IVF has also energized its opponents, especially those advocating for “restorative reproductive medicine” (RRM), which purports to be a scientifically grounded model that treats the root causes of infertility rather than bypassing or suppressing natural reproductive processes. The authors argue that examining the factors contributing to the rise of RRM is essential for safeguarding and advancing access to IVF, and that it is vital for all healthcare professionals to be aware of restrictive treatment approaches like RRM to safeguard the delivery of evidence-based care, promote comprehensive reproductive choice, and uphold the highest standards of medical practice.

Podcasts

• The Dangerous Concept of Fetal Personhood (the Population Institute, rePROs Fight Back, August 2025):  Fetal personhood, in short, gives a fetus the same rights as a person. It is the idea that anything a person is legally entitled to, a fetus is entitled to as well. Fetal personhood tracks alongside viability, which is the point in a pregnancy’s gestation in which the government recognizes personhood. In this podcast episode Karen Thompson, Legal Director at Pregnancy Justice, and Garin Marschall, co-founder of Patient Forward, talk about viability, state involvement in pregnancies, and criminalization.

• The Unhinged Theory Behind Ending Birthright Citizenship and Creating Fetal ‘Personhood’ (Boom! Lawyered / Rewire, August 2025): In this episode of Boom! Lawyered, the hosts dive into the attacks on birthright citizenship and unpack the absurd constitutional arguments conservatives are making to advance these attacks. They are also joined by Lourdes Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice, who connects birthright citizenship to the movement to establish legal personhood rights for fertilized eggs, zygotes, and fetuses. Rivera also explains how conservatives are misusing the 14th Amendment to lob political attacks on bodily autonomy.

Webinars 

• How the Republican Megabill Impacts Black Maternal Health (The Century Foundation, August 2025): Hear from policymakers and advocates about how changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act included in the reconciliation bill will impact Black maternal health. A panel of experts, including MS Representative Zakiya Summers, discuss the immediate and long-term impact of the recently signed law on patients, communities, and health care practitioners serving in under-resourced areas. Panelists also offer their insight on how state and local advocates can prepare for and fight back against harmful provisions in the reconciliation bill.

• Opposition Strategy Huddle: Live Action (Reproaction, September 2025): In this webinar, Reproaction discusses how Live Action is promoting their model bills to state legislators– in part by paying for lawmakers to attend an annual summit at luxury resorts– and the model legislation Live Action is providing to legislators ahead of their 2025 Lawmakers Summit. These bills include a joint resolution declaring full legal rights from fertilization (fetal personhood), bills that would require anti-abortion propaganda in schools, criminalizing abortion funds, exempting large families from paying income tax, and changing adoption regulations.

• Policing Pregnancy: The History of Personhood (Pregnancy Justice, September 2025):  Undoing Roe was just a step for the anti-abortion movement. The true goal is to make embryos and fetuses legal “people” under the 14th Amendment. This is the first webinar in Pregnancy Justice’s two-part Policing Pregnancy series–  a discussion examining history and the fight over who is a person in America. In part two, “Policing Pregnancy: Pregnancy Criminalization in the First Two Years Post-Dobbs,” Pregnancy Justice’s research team launches their latest data, showing that there were 412 pregnancy-related prosecutions in the first two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned. And state-based advocates and practitioners discuss what this looks like on the ground.

• How Will States Implement Medicaid Work Requirements? (KFF, September 2025): In July, President Trump signed a budget reconciliation package into law that mandates all adults who are eligible for Medicaid through the ACA expansion meet federal work and reporting requirements.  Four experts, including two state Medicaid directors (from Oregon and Utah), joined Health Wonk Shop series moderator Larry Levitt in an hour-long discussion of how states will go about implementing the new Medicaid work requirements. During the discussion, panelists addressed important implementation questions and challenges that states will face in the coming months and years.

We welcome your feedback on content and format. Are you a state legislator and have questions? You can reach out to Melissa Madera, Senior Associate of Research and Education, Reproductive Rights, at melissa@stateinnovation.org.  If you’re a researcher or partner and want us to highlight your research, send materials to melissa@stateinnovation.org.