HR2497-119

What This Bill Does

The Abortion Care Awareness Act adds a Public Health Service Act campaign requirement. HHS must carry out a coordinated national campaign explaining where and how to access abortion and related health services, including medication abortion with mifepristone and misoprostol, through in-person care and telehealth where lawful. The campaign must cover legality and availability, medically accurate information, patients' rights to travel across state lines for care, organizations that help with travel, how to distinguish crisis pregnancy centers from providers, how to identify abortion disinformation, and how to protect sensitive health information from misuse or surveillance. HHS must post the information online, design the campaign for underserved communities including people of color, immigrants, disabled people, limited-English-proficient people, low-income people, young people, LGBTQI+ people, rural residents, Tribal land residents, and Indian Health Service patients, avoid misinformation and abstinence-only material, avoid collecting personal visitor data, and consult health professionals, reproductive-rights nonprofits, public health departments, and nonprofit colleges.

Who Benefits and How

Patients seeking abortion care benefit from a federal source explaining lawful in-person, telehealth, and medication-abortion access. Underserved patients benefit because the campaign must be culturally competent and accessible for communities of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, limited-English-proficient people, rural residents, LGBTQI+ people, and Tribal land residents. Reproductive rights nonprofits benefit from consultation duties and federal education about travel support, misinformation, and crisis pregnancy centers. Medication-abortion patients benefit from information about mifepristone, misoprostol, legality, availability, and privacy protection.

Who Bears the Burden and How

HHS public health staff must design, publish, and maintain a national campaign while avoiding personal-data collection from campaign resources. Crisis pregnancy centers face federal messaging that teaches patients how to identify misleading reproductive-health claims. Abortion disinformation campaigns face public counter-messaging from HHS about medication abortion and related health services. State public health departments and nonprofit colleges may spend time consulting on campaign design and outreach.

Key Provisions

• Requires HHS to run a national campaign on abortion access, medication abortion, legality, telehealth, interstate travel, misinformation, and privacy.
• Directs HHS to post campaign information on its website and make it culturally competent and accessible to underserved communities.
• Bars HHS from promoting abortion misinformation, abortion reversal claims, abstinence-only programs, or collecting visitor personal information.
• Requires consultation with reproductive-health professionals, reproductive-rights nonprofits, public health departments, and nonprofit institutions of higher education.