Biden lifts abortion referral ban on family planning clinics
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Monday reversed a ban on abortion referrals by family planning clinics, lifting a Trump-era restriction as political and legal battles over abortion grow sharper from Texas to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Department of Health and Human Services said its new regulation will restore the federal family planning program to the way it ran under the Obama administration, when clinics were able to refer women seeking abortions to a provider.
The goal is to “strengthen and restore” services, said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Groups representing the clinics said they hope the Biden administration action will lead some 1,300 local facilities that left in protest over Trump’s policies to return, helping to stabilize a longstanding program shaken by the coronavirus pandemic on top of ideological battles.
Planned Parenthood, the biggest service provider, said on Twitter its health centers look forward to returning.
But the group criticized part of the Biden administration rule that allows individual clinicians who object to abortion not to provide referrals. The administration said that’s “in accordance with applicable federal law.”
Known as Title X, the taxpayer-funded program makes available more than $250 million a year to clinics to provide birth control and basic health care services mainly to low-income women.
Under former President Donald Trump, clinics were barred from referring patients for abortions, prompting a mass exit by service providers affiliated with Planned Parenthood, as well as several states and other independent organizations.
The new abortion referral policy for family planning clinics will take effect Nov. 8.
NYC vaccine mandate:
A COVID-19 vaccination requirement for teachers and other staff members took effect in New York City’s sprawling public school system Monday in a key test of the employee vaccination mandates now being rolled out across the country.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said 95% of the city’s roughly 148,000 public school staffers had received at least one vaccine dose as of Monday morning, including 96% of teachers and 99% of principals.
Some 43,000 doses have been administered since the mandate was announced Aug. 23, de Blasio said.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona joined de Blasio’s virtual briefing and hailed the vaccine mandate.
Europe vaccine boosters: The European Union’s drug regulator gave its backing Monday to administering booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people 18 and older.
The European Medicines Agency said the booster doses “may be considered at least 6 months after the second dose for people aged 18 years and older.”
The agency’s human medicines committee issued the recommendation after studying data for the Pfizer vaccine that showed a rise in antibody levels following boosters given around 6 months after the second dose in people from 18 to 55 years old. The agency also said it supports giving a third dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna vaccine to people with severely weakened immune systems at least 28 days after their second shot.
The agency said its decision came after studies showed that an extra dose of the vaccines increased people’s ability to produce antibodies against the virus that causes COVID-19 in organ transplant patients with weakened immune systems.