The abortion care we provide would not be possible in the Midwest and South without a strong commitment to ambitious litigation. Because much of our work has been in states with significant regulations on abortion and continuous attacks from anti-abortion lawmakers, and because we continue to serve those communities, we work closely with national- and state-level movement coalitions and with other abortion providers, funds, and allies as co-plaintiffs in litigation. In our lawsuits, we have been represented by both the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and The Lawyering Project (TLP).
Active litigation: As of spring 2026, we are currently litigating Whole Woman’s Health Alliance et al v FDA in Virginia. In May 2023, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Virginia on behalf of Whole Woman’s Health Alliance and other independent abortion providers in Virginia, Montana, and Kansas. The lawsuit challenges the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for the abortion medication mifepristone, which is part of a two-pill regimen for medication abortion first approved in 2000. The lawsuit seeks to eliminate the REMS—a unique set of restrictions that limit the number of providers who prescribe mifepristone and pharmacies that dispense it, and impede patient access to time-sensitive abortion care. In August 2023, the federal court denied the Center’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have barred the FDA from reinstating significant restrictions on mifepristone in Virginia, Montana and Kansas as the result of orders issued in a separate case. In its ruling in WWHA v. FDA, the district court acknowledged the safety and importance of mifepristone. The Center and the FDA have now filed cross-motions for summary judgment. As of May 2026, this summary judgment is still pending.
In addition, WWHA is prepared to join the fight against potential anti-abortion attempts to limit access, including the use of the Comstock Act.
Below is an overview of some of our previous court cases.
In 2021, abortion providers including Whole Woman’s Health challenged Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. The law banned most abortions after approximately six weeks of pregnancy — before many people know they are pregnant — and allowed private citizens, rather than state officials, to enforce the ban through lawsuits against anyone who performed or assisted with an abortion. Successful plaintiffs could receive at least $10,000 in damages. The law included no exceptions for rape or incest.
The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court as Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson and was argued by lawyers from the Center for Reproductive Rights. In a procedural ruling issued in December 2021, the Court declined to block the law while litigation continued. Although the Court allowed a narrow portion of the lawsuit to proceed against certain state licensing officials, it ruled that most defendants — including Texas judges, court clerks, and the attorney general — could not be sued in federal court.
As a result, SB 8 remained in effect, sharply restricting abortion access in Texas. The case became nationally significant not only because of its impact on reproductive healthcare, but also because it raised broader questions about whether states could shield controversial laws from constitutional review by outsourcing enforcement to private citizens.
In December 2016, Whole Woman’s Health Alliance together with Whole Woman’s Health and other Texas abortion providers, filed a lawsuit challenging a Texas law which specified the methods for the treatment and disposition of embryonic and fetal tissue. An injunction stopping the enforcement of the law was immediately issued. In a victory for WWHA and the other providers, this decision was reiterated by the District Court in September 2018, where the judge ruled that the law imposed a significant burden on women seeking abortions and was thus unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Texas appealed, and the case reached the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. While the appeal was pending, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the federal constitutional right to abortion. In light of Dobbs, the Fifth Circuit vacated the district court’s injunction and remanded the case for further proceedings, reasoning that the Constitution no longer prohibited states from regulating or banning abortion.
Because the plaintiffs’ constitutional claim was fundamentally tied to pre-Dobbs abortion rights doctrines, they later agreed to dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning they could challenge similar laws again under different legal theories in the future.
In 2017, abortion providers including Whole Woman’s Health Alliance and others, sued the State of Texas to challenge a Texas law (part of SB 8) that effectively banned the most common method of second-trimester abortion, known as D&E. Under the law, doctors were required to perform an extra step to cause fetal death before performing the D&E procedure, even if medically unnecessary. The providers maintained that this extra step was unsafe, medically unnecessary, and made abortion much harder to obtain. Texas defended the law, claiming that the additional requirement was a legal regulation, not an undue burden. The judge agreed with the abortion providers and said the law placed an undue burden on women seeking a second-trimester abortion, so he blocked enforcement of the law.
The Fifth Circuit eventually reversed that decision and upheld the law. In effect, the appeals court allowed Texas to enforce the requirement that doctors cause fetal death before the standard D&E procedure.
In June 2018, WWHA filed a lawsuit against a comprehensive list of regulations targeted at abortion providers. These laws include a telemedicine ban, in-person examination and counseling requirements, as well as an ultrasound requirement, and required physical plant specifications. The District Court ruled that the licensing law violated a patient’s due process and equal protection rights, as well as imposed a substantial burden to women seeing abortion care. The State appealed and arguments were heard in March 2021. The second phase of the trial took place on June 23-26, 2021, where additional arguments against regulations targeting abortion providers were heard. On August 10, 2021, the District Court struck down many of the regulations on the grounds that each violated the 14th Amendment including the telemedicine ban, the physician-only ban to medication abortions and mandatory disclosure requirements. On September 10, 2021, the Seventh Circuit ordered that several of the laws remain in place while the appeal on the merits moves forward. On January 13, 2022, the Court ruled to postpone its decision pending the U.S. Supreme Court’s resolution of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (U.S. Supreme Court): At the U.S. Supreme Court on June 27, 2016, a landmark victory was delivered in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. WWH challenged a 2013 Texas law requiring all abortion providers in the state to obtain local hospital admitting privileges–a requirement tht caused providers across the state to be shuttered. The Supreme Court struck down the law as unconstitutional and protected the constitutional right to choose abortion as well as affirmed the undue burden test under which all state regulations limiting women’s fundamental right to choose abortion must be evaluated. Learn more about our historic Supreme Court win on the Center for Reproductive Rights website.
In Virginia, our litigation challenge in Falls Church, Whole Woman’s Health et al vs Herring, in conjunction with advocacy efforts with the Commonwealth’s legislature, resulted in the enactment of the Reproductive Health Protection Act in July 2020 and the repeal of a wide variety of regulations targeting abortion providers and placing an unnecessary burden on woman’s access to abortion care. This includes the 24-hour waiting period, physician-only requirement and required ultrasound.
In Indiana in 2024, WWHA challenged the State’s denial of a license to our South Bend clinic all the way to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, where it ruled in a unanimous decision to uphold the District Court’s decision ordering the State to issue a license or treat the facility as if it had one.
In Indiana in 2021, WWHA challenged several abortion restrictions enacted by the state of Indiana during its recent legislation session. These regulations include forcing healthcare providers to share false and misleading information with their patients about “reversing” a medication abortion and a ban on the use of telemedicine to obtain a medication abortion. The Judge subsequently decided to hear arguments only on the “Abortion Reversal Disclosure Requirement” as the other two regulations are being contested in our other Indiana case (WWHA v. Rokita). On June 30, 2021, the Court granted WWHA’s request for a preliminary injunction and blocked the enforcement of the Required Disclosure ruling that there was no evidence to show that it was not “truthful and not misleading and (was) not a reasonable regulation of the practice of medicine.”
Whole Woman’s Health, et al. v. Austin Reeve Jackson, et al. challenged Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), a law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and allowing private citizens to enforce the ban through lawsuits. Filed in July 2021 by abortion providers, advocates, and clergy, the case argued that SB 8 was unconstitutional under longstanding Supreme Court precedent protecting abortion rights. Efforts to block the law before it took effect were unsuccessful. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene early, citing procedural complexities, allowing SB 8 to take effect on September 1, 2021 and sharply limiting abortion access in Texas. Although a federal district court briefly blocked the law, the Fifth Circuit quickly reinstated it. The case continued through multiple courts, including parallel challenges by the U.S. Department of Justice. Ultimately, courts ruled that most state officials could not be sued to stop enforcement, due to the law’s unusual reliance on private citizens. This procedural structure made it extremely difficult to challenge SB 8 in court, allowing it to remain in effect.dion content
Whole Woman’s Health, et al. v. Paxton: WWH filed a suit in July 2017 challenging a Texas law which banned the use of dilation and evacuation after approximately 15 weeks of pregnancy. This procedure, known as a D&E, is the most common practice among physicians and is backed by medical science as being the safest and preferable standard of care for abortions after 15 weeks. A District Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional as it placed an undue burden on all patients. The State appealed and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals postponed a decision until the U.S. Supreme Court resolved June Medical Services v. Gee. Despite the Fifth Circuit denying the State’s request to lift the injunction in 2019, a year later the Court decided to rehear the case before its entire panel of judges on January 21, 2021. On August 18, 2021, the Fifth Circuit dealt a major blow to abortion access, allowing Texas to criminalize the D&E procedure for abortion. They were the first federal court in the U.S. to uphold a ban on this procedure.
