Sponsors (208)
Introduced June 24, 2025 by Judy Chu · Last progress June 24, 2025
The bill would establish strong federal protections to preserve access to abortion and related reproductive care nationwide, protecting patients and providers but provoking extensive federal–state legal conflict, implementation costs, and enforcement complexity.
Pregnant people nationwide (including cisgender women, transgender men, and nonbinary individuals) gain clear federal protection to obtain abortion care before viability and after viability when continuing the pregnancy endangers life or health.
Health care providers and clinics are expressly authorized and protected to provide, prescribe (including FDA‑approved medication abortion), and arrange abortion-related care — including via telemedicine — preserving local services and clinicians' ability to practice.
People in restrictive states (and those who assist them) can lawfully travel across state lines and receive help to obtain prenatal, childbirth, fertility, or abortion services, reducing barriers for rural, low‑income, and out‑of‑state patients.
State governments, taxpayers, providers, and patients are likely to face extensive litigation and federal–state legal conflicts as states that restrict abortion challenge federal protections, producing cost, uncertainty, and delays for many communities.
Implementation and enforcement of the Act could increase federal and state costs (litigation, enforcement, potential new programs or funding), raising budgetary pressure on taxpayers and public agencies.
Providers, hospitals, and clinicians may face compliance and licensure uncertainties, conscience‑based conflicts, or increased regulatory obligations as state and federal rules collide, creating operational and legal risk for health care workers.
Based on analysis of 11 sections of legislative text.
Creates federal rights to provide and obtain abortion care before fetal viability, protects interstate travel for reproductive care, preempts conflicting laws, and authorizes federal and private enforcement.
Creates a federal right for health-care providers to provide, and for patients to obtain, abortion services before fetal viability and a conditional right after viability when the provider judges abortion is needed to protect the patient’s life or health. It also protects the right to travel between states for reproductive health care, preempts conflicting state or federal laws, defines key terms, and sets out enforcement tools including lawsuits by the Attorney General and private parties. Requires courts to use a high legal standard to uphold any law that limits abortion access, authorizes damages and fee awards to prevailing plaintiffs, and removes certain sovereign-immunity defenses so states and officials can be sued for enforcement of conflicting laws. The act takes effect immediately on enactment.