H.R. 12: Women’s Health Protection Act of 2025

H.R. 12, the Women's Health Protection Act of 2025, would create a federal right to abortion before viability, plus a right to abortion after viability when a provider decides it's necessary to protect the patient's life or health. States could no longer enforce pre-viability bans or abortion-specific rules stricter than what comparable medical care faces.

The reach goes past outright bans. The bill would knock out medically unnecessary in-person visit requirements, telemedicine limits that don't apply to similar care, staffing and facility rules aimed only at abortion clinics, and requirements to hand patients medically inaccurate information.

It also protects your right to travel to another state for care, and protects the friend, relative, or group that helps you get there. The bill's findings say travel time to a clinic has quadrupled since Dobbs, and that an estimated 171,000 people crossed state lines for care in the first year after the ruling, more than double the 2019 figure.

States wouldn't have an easy defense. To keep a challenged restriction, a state would have to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the rule is essential to patient safety and that no less restrictive option exists.

H.R. 12 would override conflicting state and federal laws, with carveouts for things like insurance coverage rules and clinic-entrance protections. The U.S. attorney general, patients, and providers could sue in federal court to block violations, and prevailing plaintiffs could recover attorney's fees.