Planned Parenthoods push to get voters to the polls

August 26, 2024

Good morning! I’m Molly Castle Work, a KFF Health News correspondent based in Los Angeles. Planned Parenthood is spending more than $40 million in an effort to elect a Congress that supports abortion rights. Republicans say it won’t work. Got a tip? Send it to mwork@kff.org.

Today’s edition: U.S. teenage birth rates declined, but wide racial discrepancies remain. Families of fentanyl victims and others called on the White House to close a loophole they say makes it easier to mail packages containing illicit drugs to the United States. But first …

Making abortion the No. 1 election issue

Planned Parenthood’s political and advocacy organizations will use a more than $40 million war chest to blitz GOP officeholders and candidates in an effort to flip the House and maintain Democratic control of the Senate and presidency.

The plan is to focus on the records of Republicans who have repeatedly voted against access to abortion, contraceptives, in vitro fertilization or gender-affirming care for trans people.

On Tuesday, the organization’s lobbying arm, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, announced its endorsement of Kamala Harris for president.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, the right to abortion has proved to be an issue that motivates voters, and Planned Parenthood is betting that will again be true at the ballot box this fall. News that Harris is now the leading Democratic presidential candidate, with President Biden stepping back, is also energizing advocates.

Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Action Fund president and CEO, called Harris “one of the fiercest voices we have on sexual and reproductive rights.”

“Having spent meaningful time and energy with abortion providers, patients, organizers and advocates, the Vice President’s presence takes the conversation around abortion rights to heights we’ve never seen before in a presidential campaign,” she said. “There’s no doubt that she will generate new energy for the future of the fight ahead.”

Twenty-five states ban abortion in almost all circumstances or limit access to it beginning early in pregnancy. Other states are considering similar restrictions. And support for a national abortion ban may pick up currency if Republicans gain control of Congress and the White House.

Shwetika Baijal, who runs political initiatives for Planned Parenthood, said recent elections have shown that abortion drives voter turnout, especially among young people and people of color. An example of this is the 2022 Kansas primary election, in which voters from a red state turned out in record numbers shortly after the Dobbs decision to resoundingly protect abortion rights.

“I think you find that when you take someone’s rights away, it makes them really angry,” Baijal said.

The national Planned Parenthood campaign is hoping to leverage this anger starting with races in several battleground states, including Arizona, Michigan and Nevada. The aggressive ad campaign has already hit multiple platforms, including podcasts like Call Her Daddy, a sex and relationship show, which has received an average of 5 million listeners a week.

On top of that, Planned Parenthood’s California affiliates will spend a seven-figure amount to target eight congressional districts, most of which typically vote Republican but in which voters supported a 2022 ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

Republicans dismiss the Planned Parenthood efforts, noting that even districts that backed the 2022 measure also voted to keep their Republican leaders in charge. California Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher, who is on the state Republican Party board, said he doesn’t see a reason the 2024 elections will play out differently.

“People can be supportive of abortion rights and still vote for the Republicans because they feel the Republican is better at addressing the everyday issues,” Gallagher said.

Baijal said calling attention to Republicans’ voting records is crucial now that many are backing away from long-held, hard-line antiabortion positions that are proving unpopular. Some candidates, like Republican Senate nominee Sam Brown of Nevada, have pledged to protect abortion rights, even if their past statements suggest otherwise.

“We have to talk about what these people are trying to do, not what they’re saying,” Baijal says.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism.

Agency alert

Teen birth rates dropped, but there are still disparities

The number of teenage births dropped 69 percent from 2000 to 2022, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released today, The Post’s Dan Keating reports.

“Having a teen birth can have a huge effect on a young woman’s life,” Anne K. Driscoll, the study’s lead author, told The Washington Post. “Whether or not she finishes even high school or has any further education, her income and poverty status and all that looks very different as a teen mom versus if she’s in her 20s at least.”

Key context: Birth rate declines were similar across races, but wide discrepancies remain, with much higher rates of births among Native American, Black and Hispanic teenagers. In 2000, more than 475,100 children were born to all teenagers. In 2022, the latest year studied, there were 145,313 such births. The largest birth rate decline — a drop of 79 percent — was among girls between ages 15 and 17.

In 2022, more Hispanic teenagers gave birth than any other group of teens — they had 57,256 children, representing 39 percent of all teen births.

The overall declines were attributed to teenagers becoming sexually active at a later age, less sexual activity among teenage girls and more effective use of birth control among sexually active teenagers, according to the study’s authors.

CDC flags shortage of blood culture bottles

The CDC alerted health-care providers, medical labs and others Tuesday about “a critical shortage” of special bottles used to identify bacteria and fungi in blood. The shortage of Becton Dickinson (BD) BACTEC blood culture media bottles could delay the diagnosis of certain infectious diseases, the CDC says.

The blood culture bottles contain nutrients that help germs in blood samples multiply, making them easier to detect and identify. Blood cultures are critical for diagnosing and managing infectious diseases in the bloodstream and related conditions, including sepsis, endocarditis and catheter-related bloodstream infections.

From our notebook

Families of fentanyl victims, and members of law enforcement and nonprofit groups on Tuesday urged the White House to fix a trade law that makes it easier to send packages containing illicit drugs into the United States from countries such as China, The Post’s David Ovalle reports.

In a letter sent to President Biden, the Coalition to Close the De Minimis Loophole said the loophole lets bad actors hide counterfeit pills, chemicals used to make the illicit opioid fentanyl and pill presses among the 4 million packages that arrive daily in the United States from abroad.

The loophole allows parcels valued at $800 or less to avoid customs duties and has spurred a dramatic increase in packages from Chinese e-commerce companies. Officials say chemicals used by Mexican cartels to make fentanyl generally come from China, although the finished opioid mostly arrives via ports of entry along the southern border.

Mental health

Army acknowledges lapses, inaction before Maine mass shooting

Before military reservist Robert Card killed 18 people in a mass shooting in Maine on Oct. 25, he displayed warning signs that his Army supervisors failed to address, according to the findings of an investigation made public Tuesday, The Post’s Alex Horton reports.

Key context: Investigators identified “multiple communication failures” between military and civilian hospitals treating Card and his chain of command that affected his “continuity of care,” according to the Army’s report. But officials found no evidence connecting the shootings to Card’s military service.

Card’s family informed law enforcement about his mental health and access to firearms in the months before the shooting. The Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office did not try hard enough to make contact with him, the report found. An independent review requested by the sheriff’s office found that the deputies “acted reasonably.”

In other health news

PBMs grilled on alleged anticompetitive policies

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill grilled pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for their alleged anticompetitive policies yesterday.

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, led by Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), also released a report saying the three largest PBM managers — CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx — have implemented anticompetitive pricing tactics that undermine community pharmacies and harming patients across the United States.

PBMs are third-party administrators that negotiate contracts with health insurance plans and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Yesterday’s was the third hearing about PBM business practices.

But the CEOs of the companies pushed back in their testimony.

“Let me be clear. We do not contribute to rising list prices — a fact confirmed by multiple, quantitative independent studies,” CVS Caremark President David Joyner said.

Health reads

A pricey Gilead HIV drug could be made for dramatically less than the company charges, researchers say (By Ed Silverman | Stat News)

Cows, dairy workers, and America’s struggle to track bird flu (By Madeline Halpert | BBC News)

Rivals emerge to ozempic and zepbound — but with a lag (By David Wainer | The Wall Street Journal)

Sugar rush

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