Health Law Advisor

On August 13, 2026, Senior U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the District of Idaho issued a ruling in Seyb v. Members of the Idaho Board of Medicine, holding that Idaho’s near-total abortion ban is unconstitutional to the extent it prohibits abortions necessary to protect the health—not just the life—of the pregnant patient. Along with that holding, the court entered an injunction barring enforcement of the ban in those circumstances. The ruling is the first federal district court decision since Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to hold that the U.S. Constitution affirmatively protects a right to health-preserving abortion.

In June 2026, the Trump administration announced nearly $2 million in federal grant funding for an Embryo Adoption Awareness and Services (EAA) program administered through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). While embryo adoption programs have existed at the federal level since 2002, the new grant notice contains language that may have far-reaching implications for reproductive health law, in vitro fertilization (IVF) regulation, and the ongoing legal debate over fetal personhood.

Last month, Judge Matthew Kaszmaryk of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas, in Purl v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, No. 2:24-cv-00228-Z (N.D. Tex Jun. 18, 2025) struck down nearly all of the 2024 Reproductive Health Amendment to the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

On October 23, 2024, Dr. Jill Biden, first lady of the United States,  announced the winners of $110 million in awards on behalf of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to accelerate transformative research and development in women’s health.

“It’s time for investors, researchers, and business leaders to have [conversations about women’s health], not as an afterthought but as a first thought,” Dr. Biden said in her prepared remarks. “Those kinds of questions belong in your research proposals, in your laboratories, in your pitch decks.”

The awards will go to 23 teams from small startups to global innovators working to further developments in women’s health—with projects ranging from a non-invasive blood test to diagnose endometriosis to a revolutionary treatment for late-stage and metastatic ovarian cancer.

On November 7, 2023, the citizens of the state of Ohio voted to codify reproductive rights, including the right to abortion, in the state constitution.

In 2019, Ohio banned nearly all abortions once fetal cardiac activity was detected (typically around six weeks’ gestation) through its “Heartbeat Law.” Challenges to Ohio’s Heartbeat Law  under Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey prevented it from taking effect until the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization repealed those cases. After Dobbs, Ohio’s “Heartbeat ...

The 21st Century digital age has provided women with numerous sexual and reproductive health tools that track periods, ovulation, and pregnancy. By simply plugging certain health data inputs into these apps, women can now accurately track the most intimate moments of their lives. But is this sensitive health information secure?

Introduction

Following the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade, the federal government, pursuant to President Biden’s Executive Order (the EO) took several steps to protect reproductive health privacy, some of which we previously discussed here. Specifically, the EO called for agencies to protect “women’s fundamental right to make reproductive health decisions.” Shortly following issuance of the EO, the Biden Administration created its HHS Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force, requiring all relevant federal agencies to draft measurable actions that they could undertake “to protect and bolster access to sexual and reproductive health care.”