On Wednesday, an Idaho woman prosecuted for terminating her pregnancy with an abortion pill filed a lawsuit against the state, challenging the constitutionality of their late-term abortion ban. A law passed last year bans abortions after 20 weeks based on the medically-questionable notion that fetuses can feel pain at that stage.

Today, the Washington Post reports that this case, with the host of constitutional and medical questions it raises, may be headed to the Supreme Court. It’s an unusual case because it’s being brought by an individual, Jennie Linn McCormack, and not one of the major groups that usually fight these issues in court:

The reproductive health community has been hesitant to take on the late-term bans. Advocates widely believe that such bans violate constitutional protections for abortion. But there’s concern that the sitting high court won’t be an ally on the issue. Advocates view some recent decisions, particularly a 2003 ruling that upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, as a sign that the Supreme Court could use a new case to further restrict women’s access to abortion.

It’s telling, then, that none of the major groups that tend to litigate on abortion issues — such as the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood — are involved in the Idaho lawsuit.

McCormack describes herself as a mother of three who ordered medication to induce an abortion over the Internet because a doctor’s services weren’t available in southeast Idaho. McCormack, unmarried and unemployed, was trying to support three children on $200 to $250 a month and didn’t have the money to travel out of state for a legal abortion. The state’s case against McCormack was dismissed due to lack of evidence.

Idaho is one of six states that has passed late-term abortion bans on the basis of fetal pain in the last two years. Until now, none of them have been challenged in court. A recent study by Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that fetuses can’t feel pain before 24 weeks — and probably don’t feel it after that either.

The Court may decide that McCormack does not have the legal standing to bring the case. But experts say the case is significant because, in addition to the fetal pain argument, it touches on recent changes in abortion methods. Arthur Caplan, a professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, explains that “the future of abortion is pharmaceuticals, not surgical procedures.” The abortion medication RU486 has been legally available in the U.S. since 2000 and now accounts for a quarter of abortions before nine weeks.

With last year’s landmark health care reform legislation likely to survive a Supreme Court challenge, opponents are taking their fight to individual states.

In Ohio, conservatives have secured a spot on the November ballot for Issue 3, a proposed constitutional amendment to challenge the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance. If enacted, the law could have a number of disastrous unintended consequences, such as threatening immunizations for poor students and university health insurance. Law professors at Ohio’s Case Western Reserve University detailed the threat at a press conference yesterday:

Liberal advocacy group Innovation Ohio enlisted the help of two Case Western Reserve University law professors to analyze Issue 3, which aims to cancel out the 2010 federal law in Ohio by preventing residents from being forced to buy health insurance.

It is questionable whether the constitutional amendment could even do that. But the professors said that Issue 3 would threaten a host of health-care-related laws that might need to be changed down the line. [...]

They cited other laws and rules that could be affected: COBRA, which lets employees temporarily buy health insurance through their employers after leaving a job; child-support enforcement orders requiring parents to buy health coverage for their children; immunizations that schools must buy for needy students; and university rules mandating that students buy health insurance as a condition of attendance.

The progressive think tank Innovation Ohio, which participated in yesterday’s news conference, called the proposed amendment an “unmitigated disaster” for the state’s health care laws. “It is literally not a law we can live with,” said Communications Director Dale Butland.

As conservatives grasp for any possible way to undermine the Affordable Care Act, it is likely we will see ballot challenges like this one pop up in other states as well. Unfortunately, the result of these misguided ventures will almost certainly be more unintended consequences to state health care laws and an overall decrease in people’s health care.

The New York Times reports today on a tragic story that illustrates the hurdles undocumented immigrants face trying to receive basic health care, as well as the inadequacies of an American health care system that forces many of our sickest residents to go to the emergency room as a last resort.

At a health care clinic in Atlanta, a dozen immigrants suffering from renal failure and in need of dialysis treatments were refused care yesterday. The clinic, operated by Fresenius Medical Care, turned the immigrants away and told them to go to the emergency room when they became sick enough that federal law requires them to be treated.

Twenty-two dialysis patients, many of them undocumented immigrants, find themselves in this life-threatening situation after the major public hospital in the region, Grady Memorial, was forced to shut down its outpatient dialysis clinic and outsource patients to private clinics operated by Fresenius. One of the immigrants interviewed by the Times, Bineet Kaur, explained that he feels like he is “dying” while waiting to be sick enough to go to the emergency room:

Rather than receiving dialysis three times a week, as is standard protocol for cleansing their blood of toxins, they must wait until they are in sufficiently serious jeopardy to trigger the federal law that requires hospital care.

Dialysis patients said that [waiting for the emergency room] typically means placing themselves at risk of serious impairment or death. “Trust me, it is just like dying,” said Bineet Kaur, 28, an illegal immigrant from India who was turned away on Thursday morning from the clinic, operated by Fresenius Medical Care. “You are almost unconscious, you know. Even if you are talking, your brain is not working. Sometimes you have to be hospitalized for days or weeks.”

“These patients are left in a very dangerous situation,” Dorothy Leone-Glasser, president of the nonprofit Advocates for Responsible Care, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We’re asking them to decide, ‘When do you think you’re critical enough to go to the ER?’”

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid, and anti-immigrant lawmakers have made it even harder for them to have access to insurance. An effort to add legal immigrant children to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program was blocked in the Senate in 2007, and lawmakers added language to ensure that illegal immigrants were excluded. As a result, immigrants are much more likely than other families to be uninsured, which drives up health care costs when they are ultimately forced to show up in emergency rooms to get care.

In April, conservatives in Congress brought the nation to the brink of a government shutdown in an attempt to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood. Though the effort was defeated, some in Congress aren’t ready to throw in the towel.

One such member is ardent anti-abortion congressman Steve King (R-IA). ThinkProgress spoke with King about funding for Planned Parenthood at last month’s Ames Straw Poll.

King said that he still wants to strip Planned Parenthood funding, despite the fact that federal law already prohibits taxpayer money being used to pay for abortions, because “money is fungible.” We asked King if, by his logic, he would therefore like to see money stripped from hospitals that provide abortion as well. King entertained the idea – “Maybe. I’d want to look at the case.” – before telling us that Planned Parenthood is currently breaking federal law.

KING: That’s one of the things that Planned Parenthood’s pioneering, there are Skype global abortions. And I offered the amendment that blocks all funding to that. I don’t think that any taxpayer should be compelled to fund anything that has to do with abortion, and I don’t think we should have federal funds going to any organization that provides abortion services or counseling.

KEYES: What about hospitals that provide abortion? Would you like to see the money stripped away from them, for instance?

KING: Maybe. I’d want to look at the case. I think it’s immoral for us to compel pro-life America to fund pro-abortion America.

KEYES: So just to clarify, Planned Parenthood, are they breaking federal law here or just switching money?

KING: They’re breaking federal law here and if these reports come through, we could just shut that off so I don’t know if that’s going to be the case anymore.

Watch it:

Earlier this year, King called Planned Parenthood – an organization that provides such services as breast cancer exams, STI testing, and cervical cancer screening – “ghoulish and ghastly and gruesome.“

9/11 firefighters face greater cancer risk: A new study says that firefighers who worked in the wreckage of the September 11th attacks were 19 percent more likely to develop cancer than those who did not, “the strongest evidence to date of a possible link between work at ground zero and cancer.” The report studied almost 10,000 New York City firefighters in the seven years after Sept. 11. Cancer is not currently on the list of illnesses covered by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. [New York Times]

Atlanta clinic refuses to treat dying immigrants: A dozen immigrants suffering from renal failure were denied treatment at an Atlantic clinic yesterday after negotiations broke down between Atlanta’s public hospital and the world’s largest dialysis provider. The patients were advised to wait until their condition deteriorated enough that they could be admitted in an emergency room. [New York Times]

Sibelius ‘eager’ to work with states on Medicaid: In Alaska yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she is “eager” to work with states to find ways of reducing Medicaid costs, often a top expenditure and strain on state budgets. Sibelius said her office is working with states one-on-one and educating them about flexibility already built in to the law. [AP]

New Jersey not staffed to handle a crisis: A new report finds that New Jersey, which was closely tied to the September 11 attacks, does not have enough trained health care professionals to handle a major disaster. The authors of the report said they are worried about budget cuts to public health agencies over the last few years and pointed out, “there are fewer people in public health departments in New Jersey now than there were in 9/11.” [NJ.com]

GOP congressman tells supercommittee to ax IPAB: In a letter to members of the deficit-cutting supercommittee, Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) said the group should repeal the Independent Payments Advisory Board (IPAB), one of the health care reform law’s chief cost control measures. Roe has been one of the fiercest critics of IPAB, a 15-member board with the power to cut Medicare payments. [Healthwatch]

California raids prescription mills: On Thursday federal and local authorities raided four medical clinics in the San Fernando Valley suspected of illegally selling prescription drugs. They closed the clinics and arrested the manager of two of them, who was found with $300,000 in cash and another $300,000 worth of the painkiller OxyContin. [Los Angeles Times]

Disabled Texans face service cuts: At least 12,000 disabled Texans face major service cuts as a result of the draconian budget GOP lawmakers passed in May. The state’s Department of Aging and Disability Services, which enrolls nearly 48,000 people, was directed to find $31 million in savings, forcing it to cap services for people enrolled in four disability programs. [Texas Tribune]

CDC says vaccination rates are rising: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a new report that young children are getting vaccinated at increasingly high rates. Immunization rates among 19-to-35-month-olds for most vaccine-preventable diseases are are “increasing or being sustained at high levels. [Healthwatch]