Americans United for Life (AUL) is pleased to share the latest issue of our Life Litigation Report. The report tracks major bioethics cases in federal and state courts across the country. These cases range from early life issues, such as abortion and in vitro fertilization, to end-of-life questions, such as assisted suicide. The report provides an overview of current litigation trends as well as AUL’s legal insights into courtroom battles over the human right to life. Here are some highlights of the report.
U.S. Supreme Court Updates
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin, holding an overly broad subpoena against pro-life, religious pregnancy centers inflicts a First Amendment injury, and, thus, confers standing for the centers to sue in federal court. The decision is a robust precedent for the freedom of association in public interest advocacy, which helps safeguard the work of pregnancy centers and the greater pro-life movement.
A criminal defendant in a Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act involving the vandalization of pregnancy centers has filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court in Oropesa v. United States. The petition asks whether a criminal statute with comprehensive enforcement provisions and penalties may serve as a predicate law for criminal enforcement under 18 U.S.C. § 241, which prohibits conspiracy against rights and privileges secured under federal law. It then poses the question of whether the FACE Act is “sufficiently comprehensive to preclude additional criminal enforcement through Section 241.”
In Moylan v. Guam Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Supreme Court granted Guam’s application to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari to July 3, 2026. The case presents the issue of whether a court should lift a permanent injunction—which was based solely on Roe v. Wade—against a 1990 abortion ban under Civil Procedure Rule 60(b), which permits relief from a judgment when “it is based on an earlier judgment that has been reversed.”
Mifepristone, Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS), and Abortion Shield Laws
In Louisiana v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a legal challenge to the 2023 REMS that removed the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, litigation has returned to the Fifth Circuit after the Supreme Court granted a stay, ensuring the mifepristone REMS would remain unchanged until the appeal concluded. Oral argument is set for September 9, 2026 in the Fifth Circuit. Litigation continues elsewhere over motions to dismiss legal challenges to the FDA’s deregulation of mifepristone in Florida v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Missouri v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In New York state court, Texas has appealed a New York Supreme Court decision to dismiss Texas’ mandamus action to direct a county clerk to file an enforcement action against a New York abortion doctor that mailed chemical abortion drugs into Texas. The case raises questions under New York’s shield law and the U.S. Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause.
Other State Court Abortion Updates
The Wyoming Supreme Court found a right to abortion within the state constitution’s provision that recognizes a competent adult may make her own health care decisions in Johnson v. Wyoming and subsequently held unlawful Wyoming’s Life is a Human Right Act, which prohibits abortion at all stages of pregnancy.
In Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, Inc. v. Nevada ex rel. Office of the Nevada Attorney General, the Nevada Supreme Court reversed and remanded the denial of a preliminary injunction against a parental notification law. The state legislature had passed the law in 1985, and a federal court enjoined the law under Roe v. Wade. Two Nevada district attorneys filed a motion for relief following the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe, which the federal district court granted. Although the parental notification law was briefly effective, Planned Parenthood subsequently filed this lawsuit in state court, and there is once again an injunction against the parental notification law.
A state trial court struck down most of Missouri’s abortion laws for interfering with the new state constitutional right to abortion in Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains v. Missouri.
Assisted Suicide in the Courts
The Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the residency requirements in New Jersey’s assisted suicide law in Bryman v. Murphy. Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their challenge to the residency requirements in Colorado’s assisted suicide law after the patient-plaintiff passed away in McComas v. Polis, also leaving Colorado’s residency requirements intact.
In Curran v. Meyer, the district court dismissed a lawsuit challenging Delaware’s End of Life Option Act for unlawfully discriminating against persons with disabilities, since the plaintiffs lacked standing. The case is currently on appeal before the Third Circuit. Disability rights advocates filed litigation under a similar disability-rights theory to challenge Illinois’ End of Life Option Act in Payne v. Pritzker and New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act in Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled v. Hochul.
Please reach out if you have any questions regarding the report or to notify us of bioethics litigation to add to our case list.
