Weeks after Montana Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s son called on him to veto a bill to ban gender-affirming healthcare for minors, the governor signed the legislation into law Friday, making Montana the 11th state in the past three months to enact full or partial bans on transition surgery, hormonal treatment, and puberty blockers for youths. Gianforte’s son, David, is nonbinary and uses he and… Source Source / Read More: Montana Gov. Signs Gender-Affirming Care Ban, Ignoring a Plea From His Own Son
Montana
Montana Schools Struggle With Lead in Water While Awaiting Federal Relief
Philipsburg, Montana — On a recent day in this 19th-century mining town turned tourist hot spot, students made their way into the Granite High School lobby and past a new filtered water bottle fill station. Water samples taken from the drinking fountain the station replaced had a lead concentration of 10 parts per billion — twice Montana’s legal limit for schools of 5 parts per billion for the… Source Source / Read More: Montana Schools Struggle With Lead in Water While Awaiting Federal Relief
Red States Plot Use of Vigilantes to Restrict Abortion Seekers’ Travel
Following President Joe Biden’s Friday executive order protecting abortion rights, a Planned Parenthood of Montana spokesperson tells Truthout the organization will not reverse its decision to discontinue providing medication abortion to patients traveling from states where abortion has been banned after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. The organization, which operates five clinics in the state, had previously cited legal concerns about patients potentially traveling with abortion pills provided by Planned Parenthood of Montana clinics back home to states that have banned abortion, and then taking the pills there. The organization, however, is continuing to provide such patients…
Montana Abortion Clinics Restrict Pill Access for Out-of-State Patients
Missoula, Montana — The four states bordering Montana have “trigger laws” in effect or pending now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ended federal protections for abortion, making conservative Big Sky Country an unlikely haven for women seeking to end their pregnancies. But Montana’s potential to become an abortion refuge has been diminished — not by the lawmakers and governor whose attempts to restrict abortions have been stymied by the state constitution’s right to privacy, but by the operators of at least four of the state’s five clinics, which are preemptively limiting who can receive abortion pills. Officials from Planned…