The paper notes that more than two million deaths in India were attributable to air pollution in 2023. It points to PM2.5, or particulate matter measuring 2.5 microns or less, which can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream.
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Speaking at the company’s second quarter earnings call on the recent regulatory changes on the healthcare sector, Reddy said “We need to continue to sensitise them (the government). They are looking at it in terms of the costs of cancer medicines or consumables. But it’s not a cost-plus model. It’s a model where the entire service is delivered and the costs are attached to it."
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Revenue of Fortis’ hospital business grew 18.6 per cent YoY to Rs 2,340 crore, while PAT fell 1.1 per cent YoY to Rs 284 crore. Occupancy rose slightly to 72 per cent in Q2 FY27 from 71 per cent last year.
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The KFF Health News Minute is available every Thursday via direct download or the RSS feed.
Nov. 5
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads the week’s news: Hospital units treating critically ill kids are disappearing. Plus, many Americans say they’re feeling priced out of healthcare.
Arielle Zionts [arr-ee-ELL ZY-ence] reads the week’s news: Prescription drugs can be lifesavers, but taking many different meds can be risky. Plus, people shopping for Obamacare plans for next year may see some changes.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads the week’s news: Support for “Medicare for All” is at its highest in at least a decade, even though many don’t understand the specifics. Plus, celebrities are getting full-body medical scans, but more screening might not be a good thing.
Sam Whitehead reads the week’s news: If patients can’t afford their bills, hospitals are typically supposed to offer financial aid — but you might have to ask. Plus, as the number of nursing home beds declines, older Americans are seeking alternatives.
Katheryn Houghton [CATH-er-in HOW-tun] reads the week’s news: Hundreds of thousands of immigrants with legal status have become ineligible for government health insurance. Plus, some states are considering universal coverage to ease consumer health costs.
Arielle Zionts [arr-ee-ELL ZY-ence] reads the week’s news: If you’re an older patient taking a long list of medications, consider reviewing them with a primary care provider to make sure they’re helping more than hurting. Plus, states are experimenting with Medicaid meal deliveries to cut costs and improve patients’ health.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads the week’s news: Many small businesses say they can no longer afford to offer their staff health insurance. Plus, when friends and neighbors act as informal caregivers, they’re unlikely to receive protection for time spent away from work.
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads the week’s news: The high cost of fertility treatment is making some Americans look abroad for help getting pregnant. Plus, a nonprofit in Austin, Texas, is trying to keep its city’s music scenes going by helping artists pay for health insurance.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads the week’s news: Laser cataract surgery, which can be pricier, may not be worth the extra cost. Plus, the federal government is pulling funding for test strips that can help users detect fentanyl in drugs in favor of other public health approaches.
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads the week’s news: Violence against hospital workers fuels calls for mandatory staffing rules. Plus, tips on how to find a clinical trial.
Katheryn Houghton [CATH-er-in HOW-tun] reads the week’s news: A wristband with the words “I Gave Birth” could be a lifesaving tool for new moms, and many homeless people will have to prove they’re working to stay on Medicaid.
Arielle Zionts [arr-ee-ELL ZY-ence] reads the week’s news: Pediatricians try to persuade more parents to vaccinate their kids amid measles outbreaks. Plus, how hospital monopolies drive up costs for patients and insurers.
Rachel Spears reads the week’s news: Many people with disabilities fear that a new Justice Department legal opinion could roll back protections that have given them access to in-home care. Plus, some cities are using 911 to respond to mental health distress calls with mobile crisis teams instead of police.
Katheryn Houghton [CATH-er-in HOW-tun] reads the week’s news: Some older adults are seeking roommates to help them age in place. Plus, doctors say they shouldn’t be the ones determining if someone is too sick to comply with Medicaid’s new work rules.
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads this week’s news: Health insurance companies promised to make it easier to get doctor-ordered care, but patients are still waiting. Plus, a common surgery might not be the best way to solve knee pain.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads this week’s news: Coverage disruptions can have fatal consequences when switching health plans. Plus, more states are shaming employers that use your tax dollars to cover health costs for their low-income workers.
Sam Whitehead reads the week’s news: Some health plans are pocketing their enrollees’ drug discounts, while many Affordable Care Act insurers want to raise rates by double digits next year.
Rachel Spears reads the week’s news: When babies receiving infant formula allegedly get sick or die, what happens next is largely up to the companies that make it. Plus, abortions continue to rise four years after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads the week’s news: More Americans than ever are surviving cancer and face lingering mental health issues. Plus, tips to get your health insurance company to pay for a GLP-1 drug.
Zach Dyer [DYE-er] reads the week’s news: The U.S. is getting its first new sunscreen ingredient in decades. Plus, at-home cancer tests have their limits.
Katheryn Houghton [CATH-er-in HOW-tun] reads the week’s news: New rules that require millions of Americans to work to access Medicaid are stricter than many expected. Plus, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act protects many people’s jobs — but there’s a big catch.
Sam Whitehead reads the week’s news: More Americans are getting access to physician-assisted suicide as states legalize the practice. Plus, hundreds of people allege medical neglect in ICE detention centers.
Arielle Zionts [arr-ee-ELL ZY-ence] reads the week’s news: For some older adults, the risks of certain preventive screenings might outweigh the rewards. Plus, cost spikes for Obamacare plans have consumers seeking cheaper health coverage, which is often less comprehensive.
Jackie Fortiér [FOR-tee-ay] reads this week’s news: Suicide prevention experts argue that improving Americans’ financial well-being could save lives. Plus, the Trump administration proposes looser artificial intelligence safeguards to speed innovation in healthcare.
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. Learn more about KFF.
ST. LOUIS — Voters’ sweeping support of Democratic candidates in Tuesday’s midterm election didn’t translate into similarly clear outcomes for ballot initiatives on abortion access and transgender issues.
In Missouri, a state that President Donald Trump carried by an 18-point margin in 2024, voters rejected a proposal to ban both abortion and gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors.
Opponents of the measure celebrated the result with a mix of cheers, tears, hugs, and dancing at an election night watch party in St. Louis — as many of the same people had done only two years earlier when Missouri voters enshrined abortion protections in the state constitution.
But in Washington state, which Trump lost by 18 percentage points in his most recent election, voters appeared to back a measure restricting trans kids’ participation in youth sports, with 60% of votes counted on Wednesday.
Masaki Yoshikawa phone banks for Let’s Go Washington, a group backing Initiative 638, which would prohibit transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports, on Oct. 19, 2026, in Bellevue, Washington. (Lindsey Wasson/AP Photo)
Voters also supported proposed restrictions on trans athletes in youth sports in Arizona and Nebraska. And as of Wednesday afternoon, similar restrictions as well as a ban on gender-affirming surgery for minors were leading in Colorado with about 80% of votes counted.
And while voters in Virginia and Nevada backed abortion protections, Idaho voters rejected them.
“Each state also has its own culture,” said Alina Salganicoff, director of Women’s Health Policy at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.
Missouri provides insight into voters’ motivations and thinking about the two separate but related issues. While political messaging in other states, including Virginia and Idaho, tied abortion and trans issues together, Missouri was the only state where the two were explicitly combined into a single ballot measure.
The measure that Missouri voters rejected Tuesday is part of a years-long battle over abortion access in the state. Missouri was the first state to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections with its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, leaving each state to make its own abortion policy.
In 2024, Missouri voters overturned the state ban by passing a ballot measure adding abortion protections to the state constitution. Opponents of that measure argued it would also allow a state ban on gender-affirming care for minors to be overturned. The abortion measure passed by fewer than 100,000 votes while Trump carried the state by over 550,000.
Two years later, the state’s Republican-dominated legislature asked voters to reconsider, with this year’s measure to repeal the 2024 abortion protections.
The initiative also would have barred minors from gender-transition surgery, cross-sex hormone therapy, and puberty blockers. The legislature had already permanently blocked minors’ access to gender-affirming surgeries and temporarily blocked their access to new prescriptions for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones until August 2027. The amendment would have enshrined those bans in the state constitution.
“Tonight is a loss for women, a loss for children, and a loss for life,” James Lawson, campaign manager for Her Health, Her Future, which supported the bans, said in an election night statement. He noted the campaign had built a coalition of doctors, pastors, parents, and volunteers and would continue its advocacy.
A survey of midterm voters by the NORC research organization, with questions from KFF, shows abortion was the stronger motivator of the two issues in Missouri, especially among those opposed to the proposed bans.
Of residents who voted against the measure, 59% said abortion policy was more important to their vote, while 33% said abortion and trans care for minors were equally important. The survey also found that 40% of voters opposed to the combined bans are supportive of restricting gender-affirming care while opposed to repealing abortion rights.
Of the voters who supported the bans, 26% said abortion was more important, 60% weighted the two equally, and 11% said trans care for minors was more important.
“This is the first time we saw these two issues linked,” KFF’s Salganicoff said. And while a sizable minority might be split on the two issues, “it’s not enough to move the needle on abortion rights when you have support in a state.”
Lindsey Dawson, director of LGBTQ Health Policy at KFF, said the Missouri survey data and broader election results across the country also appear to indicate that attempts to politicize trans care may not be as electorally significant as some had thought.
Outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, seemed to agree, telling reporters Nov. 4, “I knew Republicans were in trouble when I was reading an overview about what were they running ads on, and they’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars across the country on transgender ads.”
That may have been effective four years ago, DeSantis said, but during this election, it “was kind of like an attempt to just scare Republicans to vote.”
At the St. Louis watch party for the coalition opposing the proposed Missouri bans, Shira Berkowitz of the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization PROMO Missouri credited the group’s canvassing campaign with helping to sway ambivalent Missouri voters.
The group’s effort included a team of trans Missourians who went door to door to share their personal stories, answer questions, and try to have “transformative” conversations.
“We proved so powerfully that our visibility is not a liability,” Berkowitz said. “We weren’t just running a campaign; we were writing a playbook. What we built here in Missouri, we built to last.”
Shira Berkowitz of the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization PROMO Missouri addresses an election night watch party following the defeat of a constitutional amendment that would have banned most abortions and trans healthcare for minors in the state. (Bram Sable-Smith/KFF Health News)
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. Learn more about KFF.
The legal battle is part of an unprecedented food safety crackdown in India and is seen as a test of how far the regulator can go in policing labels. The energy drinks market is set to be worth $1.6 billion by 2028, with sales growing 12.6% annually, faster than in the US and China, Euromonitor says.
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Democrats’ decisive sweep of the U.S. House and Senate in Tuesday’s elections will reshape the direction of federal health policy — setting the stage for oversight investigations, a legislative push to reverse cuts to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid, and a focus on lowering costs such as insurance premiums and drug prices.
The conclusive string of victories sets up Democrats to argue that voters — who said in preelection surveys that healthcare affordability was a top concern — have given them a clear mandate to overturn historic cuts President Donald Trump and Republicans made to public healthcare programs.
The breadth of success, including wins by Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan and other progressives, is likely to embolden some Democrats to forge ahead with ambitious policy proposals such as expanding Medicare, the federal insurance program for people age 65 and older, to cover all Americans. Their plan is to be positioned as the party that prioritizes lowering healthcare costs for the 2028 presidential election.
Party leaders, though, will need buy-in from Trump to advance any healthcare agenda. While he has veto power, he may be interested in brokering legislative deals as he seeks to cement his legacy and deflect fallout from investigations into his administration’s handling of the war against Iran, mass deportations, contracting scandals, and other controversies.
Democrats were projected to win at least 237 of 435 seats in the House and at least 54 Senate seats as of Wednesday afternoon, according to The Associated Press. Several key races remained unresolved, including Senate contests in Alaska and Mississippi.
As election results continued coming out into early-morning Wednesday, Trump said in a phone interview with Politico that he had spoken with Democratic Party leaders and that voters had sent a message he must work with them “to make sure things go well for our country.”
“I don’t want to just be sitting there for two years vetoing everything,” Trump said. “They want to see things happen, too.”
But how Trump’s new conciliatory position plays out in undoing GOP-led changes, such as new work requirements for many adults enrolled in Medicaid, the state-federal program for low-income and disabled people, remains to be seen. Republicans touted their overhaul of Medicaid and other changes to health programs wrought by their One Big Beautiful Bill Act as signature achievements in midterm campaigns.
Democrats, however, will have to carefully balance their policy moves against their desire to investigate a host of concerns surrounding the nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has dismantled U.S. vaccine recommendations, gutted the staff of federal health agencies, and cut public health funding.
“Democrats will put forward an expansive healthcare agenda, including reversal of cuts to Medicaid and the ACA, but achieving all of that will be impossible with President Trump still in the White House,” said Larry Levitt, an executive vice president at KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.
New Year, New Congress, New Majority
An early order of business for Democrats in 2027 will likely be a legislative push to restore enhanced subsidies that reduced the price millions of people paid for Obamacare health plans. The larger subsidies were created during the covid-19 pandemic, as part of economic relief programs, but ended last year after Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress declined to extend them.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the current Democratic House leader widely expected to become speaker of the House, told CNN on Wednesday that the party should bring back the subsidies to help struggling families.
“My guess is it would be rolled into a broader budget negotiation or package that may or may not involve other healthcare priorities, like restoring Medicaid cuts or other things that are priorities for Democrats,” said Sabrina Corlette, a co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University.
If they act decisively, said Leslie Dach, who chairs the Democratic-aligned advocacy group Protect Our Care, Democrats could both renew the ACA’s expired subsidies and extend the enrollment period for 2027 coverage, which ends in most states on Jan. 15, shortly after the new Congress is scheduled to be sworn in.
They would need to act within days of assuming control, Dach said.
“Congress will be sworn in during open enrollment, at a time when people will be having to make difficult and horrific choices about their healthcare, given the further increases in premiums due to the Republicans,” he said.
Premiums for Affordable Care Act benchmark plans are set to increase by an average of 13% for 2027, according to KFF researchers.
With Congress likely to pass another short-term government funding bill in December, the stage will be set for incoming lawmakers to also fight a battle over Medicaid spending cuts in the spring, said Rodney Whitlock, a healthcare consultant who previously worked for Republicans in Congress.
Democrats — many of whom put healthcare affordability at the center of their election campaigns — are now well positioned to place that issue at the center of negotiations with Trump over federal spending.
“If you’ve got the opportunity for a battle in March over fiscal year funding — and Democrats picking and choosing what they want to make this first battle about with a unified, controlled Congress with the president — damn, doesn’t it scream healthcare?” Whitlock said. “Doesn’t it scream repeal or delay all the Medicaid cuts?”
Allison Orris, a partner at Manatt, advised clients before Election Day not to count on anything changing — even with Democrats in control.
“The White House ultimately will have to sign any legislation, and HR 1 was a signature accomplishment. It will cost money to undo or even just delay changes that were enacted in 2025,” she said, referring to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
What Else Could Happen?
Trump is likely to continue leaning heavily into executive actions to shape health policy from the White House. Democrats, meanwhile, will use their control of Congress to exercise oversight of the Trump administration and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, has promised the party will “hold the crooks accountable” by pursuing aggressive oversight of the Trump administration. Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform put out a report in June previewing investigations they may launch.
Specifically, Democrats want to zero in on clandestine drug-pricing deals Trump has made with pharmaceutical companies in return for relief from certain tariffs. No contracts or paperwork on the agreements have been made public. They also claim he benefited from stock prices that rose when companies received exemptions from price negotiation in Medicare under the 2025 GOP tax and spending law.
By taking control of congressional committees, Democrats will gain subpoena power, an important investigatory tool. But it’s unclear whether they can successfully pry documents from the government or companies because the Department of Justice, under Trump, is largely in charge of enforcing subpoenas. Nevertheless, subpoenas are likely to be issued regarding investigations into tariffs Trump has imposed and threatened to impose on prescription drugs.
Democratic congressional leaders will also be able to file lawsuits against the Trump administration to challenge the White House’s actions.
Democrats also have telegraphed plans to probe scientific decision-making around such controversial issues as allowing more sales of flavored vapes and White House promotion of the herbicide glyphosate — and any connections these actions have had to political contributions from companies.
Other industry oversight by Democrats would likely focus on preauthorization denials by insurance companies; scrutiny of Medicare Advantage, an alternative program to traditional Medicare run by commercial insurers; and the use of artificial intelligence in medical decision-making.
Also looming is a wider discussion of universal health coverage, including partial steps such as expanding traditional Medicare benefits to include dental and hearing care and lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 60 or younger.
Expanding the program to cover all Americans faces formidable challenges, even if Trump were open to it. Much of the nation’s healthcare industry — including doctors, hospitals, and insurers — would surely fight any legislative effort, and Democrats have never seriously grappled with the enormous implications of such a proposal for the federal budget, taxes, medical care, and broader society.
Other possible initiatives include implementing a federal solution to address the 10 states that have opted not to fully expand Medicaid to cover lower-income adults, as well as allowing children to remain on their parents’ health insurance policies beyond age 26.
Because the new Congress is not set to be sworn in until January, a lame-duck session through year’s end, for which Republicans retain the majority, will focus on funding the federal government and addressing some health programs set to expire.
One major move Congress is expected to make soon: a confirmation vote for Heidi Overton to lead the Food and Drug Administration, which has been without a top leader since May. Her confirmation is not guaranteed, however, with Democrats uniformly in opposition.
A handful of Republicans have questioned whether she will sufficiently restrict access to medication abortion, while some more moderate Republicans have expressed concerns, too — including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who questioned whether Overton supports the administration’s changes to vaccine recommendations.
Cassidy lost his seat after Trump endorsed a Republican primary challenger, Rep. Julia Letlow, who narrowly won election to the Senate on Tuesday.
Other issues enjoy bipartisan support, such as preventing cuts to Medicare payments to doctors, scheduled to begin Jan. 1, and making fixes to the No Surprises Act, a federal law that took effect in 2022 to protect consumers with private insurance from unexpected, out-of-network charges. But movement would be a long shot.
“Everyone gets hyped up for lame ducks, and they’re always a disappointment,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, an economist and the president of the conservative-leaning American Action Forum.
But come January, Washington will need to find a way to work together to make healthcare more affordable — or risk ire from voters who have consistently ranked it as one of their top issues in recent elections, noted Matt Hogan, a partner at Impact Research, a Democratic polling firm.
When put together, healthcare and prescription drug prices are the top cost concern for voters older than 50, he noted.
Reining in prescription drug prices could be an area with bipartisan support — including from Trump, who claimed ahead of the midterms that lowering some drug prices was one of his administration’s greatest achievements. Both parties have proposed limits on pharmacy benefit managers, which negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurers and employers; patent restrictions for certain drugs; and the benchmarking of U.S. drug prices against the prices other countries pay.
“This is the third-straight election that’s really been focused on affordability,” Hogan said. “If members of Congress haven’t got the message yet, I expect them to now.”
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. Learn more about KFF.
The report highlighted that while healthcare cost growth is slowing, it remains well above India's projected inflation rate of 4 per cent.
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In the summer of 2022, Allison Mertzman and her wife, Leanne, asked their fertility clinic to destroy their embryos.
The married couple were living in California but storing their nine embryos for $3,000 per year at the clinic in Michigan, where Mertzman had resided before. After having two daughters through in vitro fertilization, the couple had decided they wanted more children. But Mertzman was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021, and the women were waiting for a better time for implantation.
Then, in June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion triggered laws in several states establishing “fetal personhood,” or legal rights for embryos beginning at fertilization. The couple wondered: If their frozen embryos were damaged while being moved across states with personhood laws, perhaps because of failed temperature controls, what would the legal ramifications be?
For the then-37-year-old Mertzman and her wife, state abortion and fetal personhood laws had a chilling effect: They chose not to take the risk.
“I was strong-armed into destroying my embryos,” Mertzman said. “I wasn’t ready to implant them for multiple reasons, but overturning Roe v. Wade was the tipping point.”
The laws aren’t just triggering confusion and anguish among IVF patients like Mertzman; they’ve also left clinicians who are tasked with making, storing, testing, and discarding embryos afraid they could face liability.
Fertility doctors worry that the new abortion laws will criminalize standard fertility care and expose them to felony charges or wrongful death lawsuits that are not covered by medical malpractice insurance policies.
Doctors who provide or assist with illegal abortions in states that have bans, such as Texas and Alabama, already face civil penalties of $100,000 or more, revocation of their medical licenses, or prison, including a potential life sentence. Thirteen states have total or near-total abortion bans.
At least 24 states have put some form of fetal personhood language directly into their abortion restrictions or broader civil or criminal statutes. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Missouri have some of the most sweeping fetal personhood laws related to pregnancy and embryos. In Louisiana, IVF embryos cannot be intentionally destroyed.
Allison Mertzman (left) and her wife, Leanne, wanted more children after having two daughters through in vitro fertilization. But when several states established legal rights for embryos beginning at fertilization, they chose to stop pursuing IVF. (The Mertzman family)
“I think when you have states define personhood at any stage of pregnancy, it opens the door for liability,” said Jessica Waters, a senior scholar in residence at American University. “We’re seeing states try to even criminally charge doctors from other states, so it’s not so far a reach that we will see IVF doctors have liability.”
Waters said standard IVF practices, such as discarding abnormal embryos, or mechanical errors that occur when flash-freezing embryos could also result in lawsuits under wrongful death statutes. These are all “real possibilities,” Waters said.
She said she hopes to see more efforts by states and the federal government to protect IVF doctors from these laws.
“Trump declared himself an IVF president, but under his watch in post-Dobbs, what we’re seeing is a climate where people engaged in reproductive healthcare can’t do their jobs,” Waters said. “I think it really interferes with the good practice of medicine.”
When asked for comment about a lack of prosecutorial safeguards for IVF doctors, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales touted President Donald Trump’s efforts to make IVF more available and less costly. Trump this year proposed a rule that would allow employers to voluntarily expand coverage of fertility benefits, including IVF treatments.
“No president has done more to help Americans struggling to start families than President Trump, whose administration has created a new fertility benefit option and slashed the cost of fertility drugs,” Wales said. “The administration will continue to explore additional policies to build on these historic successes.”
Legal Risks for IVF Doctors
In the meantime, the state laws are prompting doctors to seek more legal consultations, a costly step that can add to their financial pressures.
IVF clinics may also face surging insurance premiums and legal compliance costs in the most restrictive states, said Benjamin McMichael, a professor focused on healthcare law at the University of Alabama.
“We have gone from ‘Embryos are property’ to ‘Embryos are people,’” McMichael said. “And that could change the nature of underlying tort damages, because, certainly, the average person is worth more than property.”
For anti-abortion activists, the difference between an embryo and a person is negligible.
“Personhood laws ensure that there are no arbitrary distinctions about which human lives are acceptable or unacceptable,” said Emma Waters, a senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, which has helped craft fetal personhood laws. “They underscore that the human embryos we create have a right to life.”
Alabama is the only state that gives broad civil and criminal immunity to doctors and allied professionals providing IVF care. Last year, Louisiana enacted legislation protecting clinicians providing IVF care from criminal liability.
That still wasn’t enough to calm Nicole Ulrich’s nerves. Ulrich, director of advocacy at the Fertility Institute of New Orleans, said she avoids even discussing the option of destroying embryos with patients, because Louisiana forbids intentionally destroying embryos left over from IVF treatment.
“My concern is being charged with murder or manslaughter,” Ulrich said. “The new law protects you but is not foolproof or ironclad. It still makes everyone a little nervous.”
She said she explains to patients at the outset that her clinic is not set up for long-term storage. Once embryos are out of state, patients can discuss with their transfer company what to do with embryos.
Some doctors who try to navigate this legal landscape differently fear the consequences. Damla Karsan, founder of Comprehensive Women’s Healthcare in Houston, said performing or aiding an abortion is almost always illegal in Texas. Yet she tries to stay true to the oath she took when she became a physician to help the sick and do no harm.
“I’ve helped multiple patients find care out of state,” Karsan said.
IVF doctors are seeing the changes at their practices. Clinicians say they spend more time counseling patients and answering their questions than before the Dobbs decision took effect.
Patients want to know whether they can limit the number of eggs they make and fertilize during IVF, to limit their liability risk, said Karenne Fru, the founder and medical director at Muna Fertility in Georgia. They want to know whether they are liable if an embryo doesn’t survive the freezing or storage process. They ask what will happen if pre-implantation genetic testing damages their embryos, whether they can transfer multiple embryos all at once, and how to handle miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.
All the questions are “burdening my staff and myself,” and then some patients decide not to do IVF, Fru said.
But Fru said she makes some adjustments in certain IVF protocols to accommodate patient fears. Sometimes she can stop stimulating a woman’s egg production a day or two earlier than usual, to limit the number of mature eggs they make by 30% — “to optimize outcome but limit risk,” she said.
Patients’ Emotional, Psychological Fallout
When insurance companies and physicians are confused over whether procedures are legal, it can result in delays of necessary or emergency medical treatment and mental anguish for patients. The Heritage Foundation’s Emma Waters said she is “deeply grieved” that women have been made to feel they won’t receive proper medical care because of abortion laws.
Julie Cohen, a senior program manager at the Jewish Fertility Foundation in Birmingham, Alabama, found out eight weeks into her pregnancy in July 2022 that her “baby girl” had lethal anomalies. But at the appointment to sign paperwork for the hospital procedure to deliver her, Cohen said, her insurance company informed her it wouldn’t cover it and she might owe an estimated $20,000. The company thought it wasn’t legal under the state’s abortion ban, despite the state allowing the procedure for lethal fetal anomalies, Cohen said.
The company eventually reversed its denial, but “it was absolute agony to wait,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine what it could be like if someone didn’t have the resources or connections I had.” She was expecting a son by surrogacy this fall.
Lauren Hock had pursued IVF just as Alabama’s abortion and fetal personhood laws unfolded. Her first appointment at the fertility clinic was in June 2022, days after the Dobbs decision. She gave birth to a son in December 2023, two months before Alabama enacted its personhood law.
Lauren Hock had pursued IVF just as Alabama’s abortion and fetal personhood laws unfolded. She gave birth to a son in December 2023, two months before Alabama enacted its “fetal personhood” law. (Dakota Argo)
Then, in August 2025, the 34-year-old accountant was 14 weeks pregnant, again by IVF, when she started to hemorrhage. If the situation became life-threatening, her doctor told her, the state’s abortion ban meant the hospital would have to approve a procedure to end the pregnancy.
Four weeks later, she began hemorrhaging again. This time, the fetus died. So Hock’s doctors no longer needed permission for the procedure.
“People are failing to understand how dire these situations can be and how personal, high-stress, and emotional they could be,” Hock said. “I would have done anything to save my baby at that point, but I also could have lost my life with my baby’s life.”
Hock tried again, because she wanted a larger family. She is expecting her second child by IVF in March.
But the laws are making some women rethink their reproductive choices.
“More and more patients are coming to me scared and need help with decision-making,” said Lauren Berman, a clinical psychologist in Atlanta and a former committee chair with the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. “They wonder if they should move, get pregnant, or even have children after all.”
The new laws have also led many doctors to leave states with the strictest abortion and personhood laws.
According to a study published last year, after the Dobbs decision the number of OB-GYNs in the most restrictive states significantly decreased compared with states with no abortion restrictions.
With the Trump administration attacking nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, Mertzman and her wife feared that their parental rights were also at stake. LGBTQ+ parents face significant legal hurdles and varying state laws for establishing parentage through assisted reproduction, said Sonia Suter, the Kahan Family Research professor at the George Washington University Law School.
“In this environment where there’s a lot of antipathy towards nontraditional families, any LGBTQ+ family has legitimate concerns,” Suter said.
Mertzman said she doesn’t regret her decision to have her embryos destroyed.
“I think there were parts I grieved,” she said, “but in the current day and age, I’m confident we made the right choice.”
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The proposed amendment aims to facilitate smoother import operations, improve logistics efficiency and strengthen the supply chain for healthcare products, the Union Health Ministry said.
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