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A2217 expands abortion procedures to physician assistants and midwives under altered licensing standards; the American Council urges its defeat.
OUR POSITIONA2217 would make significant changes to who may perform abortions in New Jersey and under what facility conditions. The American Council opposes this bill and urges every member of the Assembly Health Committee and the full Assembly to vote against it.
On provider authority: the bill would add performing aspiration abortions to the list of procedures physician assistants may perform when directed or delegated by a supervising physician (Fact 10), and would add authority for physician assistants to order, prescribe, dispense, and administer medication abortions (Fact 12). It would also authorize certified nurse midwives and certified midwives to perform aspiration abortions including administration of moderate sedation (Fact 13), authorize prescribing-certified nurse midwives to order, prescribe, dispense, and administer medication abortions (Fact 14), and allow certified nurse midwives or certified midwives without prescribing authority to provide medication abortions under a physician's standing order (Fact 15). The American Council believes the deliberate, irreversible nature of abortion demands the highest standard of physician-led care, and expanding these procedures across a wider provider class moves in the wrong direction.
On facility standards: the bill would establish that early aspiration abortions and related procedures not requiring general anesthesia shall not be classified as either major or minor surgery (Fact 3), would relieve abortion facilities from the requirement to hold ambulatory surgical facility or surgical practice licensure for procedures not requiring general anesthesia or an operating room (Fact 5), and would exempt private professional offices from ambulatory care facility or surgical practice licensure solely because early aspiration abortions or medication abortions are performed there (Fact 6). In our view, reducing the regulatory classification of these procedures does not make them safer for the women who undergo them. Licensing standards exist to protect patients, and carving abortion services out from those standards treats the elimination of oversight as a public good rather than a public risk.
The bill's own findings frame existing health and safety regulations as medically unnecessary TRAP laws whose removal serves the state's interest (Fact 1). The American Council respectfully but firmly disagrees. Standards of care, facility requirements, and credentialing structures exist to protect vulnerable people at a moment of profound consequence. We do not accept the premise that removing them advances the common good, and we urge the legislature to reject the bill on those grounds as well.
New Jersey residents who share the American Council's conviction that every human life deserves protection, and that sound medical oversight serves rather than burdens patients, should contact their Assembly representatives today and ask them to vote no on A2217.
A2217 was introduced on January 13, 2026, and referred to the Assembly Health Committee, where it currently sits without a scheduled hearing as of the available record. The bill carries the posture of a codification measure, meaning its sponsors frame it as locking into statute regulatory expansions already advanced through administrative action, which can accelerate committee support in chambers where the underlying policy has prior backing. The New Jersey legislature operates on a two-year session calendar, so the bill retains full eligibility to advance through the current session without reintroduction. Constituent contact directed at Assembly Health Committee members is most consequential now, before a committee vote is scheduled.