Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaiʻi, Alaska, Indiana, and Kentucky v. State of Alaska et al.

On June 11, 2026, Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaiʻi, Alaska, Indiana, and Kentucky (PPGNHAIK) filed a lawsuit in Alaska Superior Court challenging Alaska’s unconstitutional ban on direct-to-patient telehealth abortion. This ban forces Alaskans seeking a medication abortion to travel to one of only two health centers, in Anchorage and Fairbanks, to receive abortion medication, even though doing so is typically not medically necessary. These travel distances—which are sometimes hundreds of miles—delay and in some cases prevent access to care. More than 60,000 Alaskans live off the road system and can only travel by plane to reach Anchorage or Fairbanks, and only when weather permits. Many of those who do live on the road system still must drive hundreds of miles round-trip to reach one of these two health centers. Not only is it time-consuming and expensive to travel these distances, but such travel often carries other costs, such as lost wages due to missed work and childcare costs, which themselves burden, delay, and in some cases prevent patients from accessing abortion care altogether.

The ban is wholly medically unnecessary; direct-to-patient telehealth abortion has been repeatedly proven as a safe and effective tool for delivering care, and today more than 1 in 4 people in the U.S. who have an abortion do so using this model. Because this telehealth ban severely restricts access for no medical reason, it violates the Alaska Constitution, which protects the fundamental right to abortion.

PPGNHAIK is represented by attorneys from Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Alaska, and the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.