New laws restricting access to medications used to terminate pregnancy and limiting minors' access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, including the HPV vaccine, have taken effect in Iowa, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Iowa's new law requires medications such as mifepristone and misoprostol to be dispensed in person, restricting access to these medications via telehealth. The law also mandates that providers report to the state whether a patient took mifepristone or misoprostol within 14 days of a pregnancy loss.

Kimya Forouzan, a principal state policy adviser at the Guttmacher Institute, stated, "The reporting requirement is something that really has raised alarm bells for us because we know that mandatory state reporting of abortion has a potential to cause a lot of harm and increase the feelings of surveillance that patients experience." Additionally, Iowa lawmakers adopted a law prohibiting state residents under 18 from consenting to vaccinations for sexually transmitted diseases and infections.

Mississippi passed a law in April to include mifepristone and misoprostol under the state's drug trafficking law, which has now taken effect. This law makes it a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to distribute or intend to distribute these medications. Republican lawmakers in Mississippi indicated that the bill's intention is to prevent these medications from being sent to residents, thereby upholding the state's abortion ban.

In Tennessee, new restrictions on medication abortion permit the state attorney general to initiate civil lawsuits for violations of the state's in-person dispensing requirements. The law also authorizes the imposition of fines for such violations.

Bhavik Kumar, a family medicine physician, said, "Healthcare providers are suddenly having to think about laws and rules that have nothing to do with patient safety."

Why It Matters

These new laws enacted in Iowa, Mississippi, and Tennessee represent a trend of increased state-level restrictions on reproductive healthcare access. The specific provisions, such as mandatory in-person dispensing for abortion medication or criminalizing its distribution, affect how healthcare providers operate and how patients access care. The legal landscape surrounding abortion medications is also subject to federal decisions, as a lawsuit is ongoing to determine the future of U.S. Food and Drug Administration rules allowing mifepristone to be dispensed via telehealth.