On Wednesday, Feb. 5, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania re-heard a civil case against the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. The case, Allegheny Reproductive Health Center v. Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, represents a decades-long fight by reproductive health organizations to remove Medicaid restrictions on abortion funding.
Medicaid is a government-funded health insurance program that provides coverage for low income individuals and families who meet certain eligibility requirements. Medicaid helps ensure access to essential healthcare services for those who might not otherwise afford them — especially reproductive healthcare as low-income individuals experience unintended pregnancies and seek abortions at significantly higher rates than those with higher incomes. Additionally, research shows that those who are denied abortions are more likely to experience poverty than people who receive them, an effect that lasts up to 4 years after being denied an abortion. This ruling will affect low-income people who can become pregnant by determining whether Medicaid will provide funding for their abortions.
To understand the civil case, readers should understand the history of this issue. The Abortion Control Act was enacted in Pennsylvania in 1982, which banned Medicaid from covering abortion care except in the cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother. That same year, appellants filed Fischer v. Department of Public Welfare, challenging the constitutionality of the Medicaid ban because it violated the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania upheld the Medicaid Ban in 1985.
34 years later, Allegheny Reproductive Health Center v. Pennsylvania Department of Human Services was filed in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. Their arguments stated that there is precedent for allowing state Medicaid funds to cover abortion beyond the three exceptions, that there is no “parallel exclusion of coverage” for men” and that pregnancy and childbirth expenses are covered under this program even though they are more expensive than an abortion.
Regardless, the court upheld the Medicaid ban, leading the various healthcare providers to file the case with the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which overturned Fischer last January. The Supreme Court determined that providers had standing to pursue claims and that members of the legislature should not be permitted to intervene in the case.It also provided new standards for evaluating discrimination claims. Finally, it sent the case back to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania so the appropriate standards could be applied.
The PA Supreme Court declared that the Medicaid coverage exclusion “treats the fundamental right to reproductive autonomy non-neutrally” because pregnant people seeking an abortion are not provided with funding, in contrast to pregnant people who are planning to carry their pregnancy to term. This implies that the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania will rule in favor of Allegheny Reproductive Health Center and the other providers. However, it could take between a few days to many months for the judges to publish a decision.
Amid nationwide attacks on reproductive health and justice, a new fertility treatment provides hope to those trying to conceive. It’s called in vitro maturation (IVM), and it mirrors most of the procedures of in vitro fertilization (IVF), with one key difference: doctors collect immature eggs instead of mature ones.
IVF provides a way for people struggling with infertility to have children, either personally or via surrogacy. However, as a recent article from The Atlantic mentions, it can be emotionally, financially, and physically draining, as it involves hormone shots, weeks of doctor’s appointments, and it may cost up to $20,000 per cycle. Before the process starts, IVF patients undergo multiple ultrasounds and blood tests. During IVF, the patient with ovaries receives hormonal injections that encourage egg maturation, then the eggs are retrieved. After that, the mature eggs are fertilized by sperm in a lab using a small needle, and the fertilized eggs (now called embryos) are placed in a uterus. If the embryo implants in the uterine wall, the individual is pregnant! A full cycle of IVF can take two or three weeks.
Another type of assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment is IVM, which follows most of the procedures of IVF. The key difference is that doctors collect immature eggs in the IVM process, which allows patients to skip most or all of the hormone shots that IVF uses to increase egg production and maturity. After the immature eggs are collected, they are placed in a cell culture for one to two days, then combined with a protein dimer called cumulin and c-AMP cell signaling molecules to make them mature. IVM procedures are the same as IVF after this step, starting with the fertilization of the mature eggs and the implantation of the embryos inside the uterus.
The American Pregnancy Association estimates that one IVM cycle costs from $5,000 to $7,000 in comparison with $15,000 to $20,000 per IVF cycle. However, because pregnancy rates are slightly lower with IVM, it is not necessarily more cost-effective than IVF, as patients may forgo the cost of IVF’s hormone shots but need to repeat the IVM process. Similarly, one cycle of IVM takes less time than a cycle of IVF, because it takes about a week to complete the required blood tests and transvaginal ultrasounds for IVM, compared to multiple weeks of IVF.
IVM is a better treatment option for patients with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), recovering from cancer, and those who have a limited number of remaining eggs. Additionally, it can be useful for IVF patients whose eggs are not mature enough when collected. Although patients with blocked, damaged, or removed fallopian tubes, ovulation disorders, premature ovarian failure, uterine fibroids, genetic disorders, and infertility are eligible for IVF, they could also benefit from IVM. On the other hand, patients with normal ovulation patterns experience more success with IVF, demonstrating the importance of choosing a procedure that is right for you.
A recent scientific article on IVM points out several policies that would support commercial and widespread development, including innovation from clinical teams, “a legislative landscape that enables embryos to be used for research,” and education and training centers to teach best practices for clinical IVM. These support systems are integral to upholding personal bodily autonomy and allowing individuals who want children to choose the best path for them. Even as the Trump administration attempts to roll back our rights, medical advancements such as IVM offer new ways to ensure individuals retain access to innovative reproductive options.
On Jan. 20, in front of his family, billionaire tech CEOs and Cabinet members, Donald Trump was once again sworn in as president of the United States. His inaugural speech laid out his extreme policy priorities, ranging from immigration to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and more. He moved quickly to sign a sweeping set of 26 Executive Orders, 12 memorandums and four proclamations addressing these priorities, many of which closely resemble Project 2025’s policy agenda, all while taking questions from reporters in an unprecedented move.
One executive order, entitled “Initial Recissions Of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” reversed 78 such orders from the Biden Administration on topics such as the climate crisis. In a more widely discussed move, Trump issued a proclamation pardoning over 1,500 individuals convicted in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and commuted the sentences of 14 more to time served. This action implies that he will permit future violence, as a recent Time article illustrates, striking fear in some of his political enemies. Regardless, it is important to turn an eye to the other statements and actions Trump made on Inauguration Day.
Mass Deportations and Immigration Restrictions
Several of Trump’s inaugural promises have already been upheld due to various executive orders, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border, halting illegal entry, starting mass deportations, reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, planning to send troops to the southern border, ending the catch and release policy (requiring all migrants to be detained) and designating various cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.
In fact, his executive orders went even further by suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, directing the establishment of a border wall, ending humanitarian parole for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, tightening immigration laws, restricting federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions and intensifying the screening process for visa seekers. Trump claimed he would close the border, but has not explicitly taken action toward this goal yet.
Climate and Energy
“We will drill, baby, drill.” This phrase encapsulates Trump’s profit-driven attitude towards the environment, as he assured his audience that he would increase drilling for the so-called “liquid gold under our feet,” oil and gas. He claimed this would strengthen the U.S. economy and solve the national energy emergency that he put into effect later that day. To do so, he revoked Biden-era clean energy initiatives and paused the disbursement of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, which would have invested in domestic clean energy production. This contributes toward two of his inaugural goals, ending the Green New Deal and revoking the electric vehicle mandate.
Although his speech did not mention plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and other international climate agreements, suspend leasing of wind energy projects, eliminate restrictions on drilling and extraction in Alaska or review agency activities that might burden development of domestic energy resources, these policies were also passed by Executive Order on Monday.
At the Inauguration, Trump stated that he would establish the External Revenue Service to collect tariffs, duties, and revenues from other countries, take back the Panama Canal, pursue Manifest Destiny onto Mars, reinstate service members expelled from the military for opposing Covid vaccine policies and stop service members from being “subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty,” although it is unclear what this last point means.
While he has not moved to enact these ideas, other promises like establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), bringing back free speech by directing the Attorney General to investigate federal policies on online platform censorship and changing the names of geographic locations have become reality via executive orders. The Gulf of Mexico will now be referred to as the “Gulf of America” in federal settings, although this requirement will not hold locally or globally, and the mountain Denali in Alaska, which was renamed to honor Alaska Natives, has reverted to its previous name, “Mount McKinley,” after President McKinley.
Some executive orders were not mentioned in Trump’s inaugural speech, including various policies making it easier to remove employees who disagree with Trump and ending remote work for federal employees. Both orders resemble directives from Project 2025 by removing federal government employees who disagree with the administration’s beliefs and eliminating labor protections.
Despite denying any connection to Project 2025, these are not the only statements or actions that Trump made on Inauguration Day that mirrored its far right agenda. Project 2025 states that oil and natural gas are the “lifeblood of economic growth” and that concern for the environment is unfounded, and Trump paved the way for increased oil and gas extraction. Project 2025 also outlines a closed border, a definition of sex that means “biological sex assigned at birth,” and supports free speech by banning critical race theory and gender ideology from schools and other institutions, all policies and ideas reflected in Trump’s statements and actions on Inauguration Day.
The tone of Trump’s second term is clear. He will prioritize profit over the American people and the planet, permit violence that benefits him, and remove any government officials who challenge his directives. Trump will put America first by ending aid to other nations and extorting them for funds, damaging our global community, and he will send a clear message about who really belongs in the United States — very few of us.
Along with over 400 other human rights organizations, the Feminist Majority Foundation has signed on to a letter written by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to oppose H.R. 28, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. This House bill would alter Title IX to block transgender women and girls from participating in federally funded women’s sports programs. In the aftermath of the recent Tennessee v. Cardona case, where a federal district judge ruled that Title IX protections cannot be expanded to include gender identity, the letter from the Leadership Conference represents an important coalition of support for transgender students.
The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 was introduced on January 3, 2025 by Rep. Gregory Steube (R-FL-17), and passed on January 14, 2025. The New York Times reports that it mirrors the 2023 bill by the same name, which passed the House but not the Senate, and was immediately condemned by the ACLU. The 2023 version would have resolved that federally funded education programs and activities cannot “operate, sponsor, or facilitate athletic programs” that allow individuals “of the male sex” to participate in programs for women or girls. In this bill, “sex” is based on “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
The coalition letter outlines multiple issues with H.B. 28, including its discriminatory impact on transgender youth, the lack of attention to athletics barriers that women and girls face, and the danger it poses to the civil rights of all students. This bill invalidates trans identities by referring to trans women and girls as “of the male sex.” Furthermore, it is exclusive, invasive, and single-sided. In a recent press release, President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center Fatima Goss Graves stated that “it only makes it more likely that women and girls will be targeted and punished based on someone else’s idea of what a woman or girl should look or act like.”
The bill’s provisions focus on banning individuals “of the male sex” from participating in programs for women or girls, and states that it will determine sex based on “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” However, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) pointed out, there is no enforcement mechanism, meaning that it is unclear who will investigate athletes’ genetics and what measures they will use to do so. A notable gray area regards intersex people, who may have chromosomes that vary from the commonly regarded, stereotypical XX (female) and XY (male), while also possessing combinations of reproductive organs that differ from the stereotypical sets.
Given this consideration, H.B. 28 even has the potential to target cisgender women and girls, especially women and girls of color. Eurocentric ideals of womanhood have historically, and presently, been used to challenge the success of cisgender female athletes, with contemporary examples including Olympic athletes such as runner Caster Semenya, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting. Perceptions of womanhood that are based on “biology,” such as beliefs surrounding appropriate hormone levels, are also inherently based on whiteness.
Finally, H.B. 28 directs the Government Accountability Office to compile one-sided data on the harms that transgender women and girls’ participation in sports causes to their cisgender counterparts, including the benefits that they will lose and any psychological, developmental, participatory, and sociological negative impacts. Creating this body of data is dangerous, as it intentionally omits and ignores the neutral or positive of trans participation in sports. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals found that an inclusive athletics policy in Connecticut did not detract from cisgender girls’ participation, while the Center for Disease Control’s program, “What Works in Schools,” implied that including transgender people in sports may be beneficial because it reduces experiences of violence, poor mental health, and suicidal thoughts among high school students regardless of sexual identity.
H.B. 28 will now move to the Senate, where it would require seven Democrats to vote with Republicans in order to move past a filibuster.