Sponsors (208)
Introduced June 24, 2025 by Judy Chu · Last progress June 24, 2025
The bill would create strong federal protections for abortion access, providers, and interstate travel—expanding reproductive autonomy and safeguarding evidence‑based care—while provoking substantial federal–state legal conflict, increased litigation and administrative costs, and operational challenges for objecting providers and entities that assist patients.
People who can become pregnant nationwide (including low-income, rural, and marginalized groups) would have a federal right to obtain abortion care before viability and, when necessary to protect life or health, after viability, strengthening reproductive autonomy and legal protection for those decisions.
Health care providers, clinics, pharmacists, and clinicians would be expressly authorized and defended to provide abortion services — including medication abortion and telemedicine — reducing regulatory barriers, preserving local services, and helping prevent provider attrition.
People in states with restrictive laws (and the individuals or groups who assist them) can lawfully travel across state lines and receive or help obtain prenatal, fertility, childbirth, or abortion care, lowering travel/logistical burdens and protecting interstate access to services.
State governments, local governments, and taxpayers would likely face substantial increases in litigation and legal defense costs as many state restrictions are challenged and defended in federal court.
The Act would produce significant federal–state conflicts and preemption disputes, reducing state policy autonomy, provoking political backlash in some jurisdictions, and creating legal uncertainty for providers and patients.
Providers, facilities, and staff who conscientiously object to participating in abortions could face legal conflicts, operational limits, or liability, creating burdens on religious or conscience‑based actors.
Based on analysis of 11 sections of legislative text.
Creates federal protections to obtain and provide abortion pre‑viability, protects travel for reproductive care, preempts conflicting laws, and enables DOJ and private suits to enforce those rights.
Creates federal rights that protect people’s ability to obtain abortion care before fetal viability and to allow health‑care providers to offer that care without state restrictions that are more burdensome than rules for comparable medical procedures. It also preserves a conditional right to abortion after viability when, in the treating provider’s good‑faith medical judgment, continuing the pregnancy would risk the patient’s life or health, and it expressly protects the right to travel to another State to obtain reproductive health services. Preempts and bars enforcement of conflicting state or federal rules, sets a high legal standard (clear and convincing evidence) for upholding restrictions, and provides both Department of Justice enforcement and a private right of action with fee shifting, pre-enforcement challenges, and waiver of certain sovereign immunity defenses. The Act takes effect immediately on enactment.