Federal abortion bill expands liability, creates 24-hour delay, mandatory ultrasound
H.R. 797 — Ultrasounds Save Lives Act of 2025 · Filed by Mary Miller (R-IL) · 12 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 28, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill requires abortion providers to perform an ultrasound, share results with the patient, and obtain a signed informed-consent form at least 24 hours before an abortion, disclosing gestational age, medical risks, and fetal developmental characteristics. Violations trigger civil penalties of $100,000–$250,000 per violation (enforced by the Attorney General) and a private right of action allowing patients to sue for damages, statutory penalties (3× abortion cost), punitive damages, and attorney's fees.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a federal informed-consent mandate with mandatory ultrasound, 24-hour waiting period, and dual enforcement (government civil action + private right of action with treble damages). It is not primarily a disclosure bill—it is a liability-expansion bill that uses disclosure as the trigger for civil and punitive exposure.
What the text implies
- The private right of action with treble damages and punitive liability may incentivize litigation against providers even for technical or good-faith compliance disputes, potentially increasing malpractice insurance costs and reducing provider supply in certain markets.
- The 24-hour waiting period, combined with mandatory ultrasound, may disproportionately burden patients with limited mobility, time off work, or geographic distance to providers, effectively creating access barriers that vary by socioeconomic status and region.
- The bill defines 'unborn child' as beginning at fertilization, which may create downstream legal and regulatory conflicts with state laws, FDA guidance, and medical practice standards regarding medication abortion and emergency contraception.
- Mandatory ultrasound and disclosure of 'major developmental characteristics' (heartbeat, pain response, organ development) at all gestational ages may be medically inaccurate or misleading at early gestations, creating liability exposure for providers who comply literally with the statute.
- The bill preempts only less-restrictive state law, meaning states may layer additional requirements (longer waiting periods, parental consent, additional disclosures), creating a patchwork of federal-plus-state mandates that further fragment access.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill expands informed-consent disclosure requirements, which may benefit patients seeking comprehensive medical information before a procedure. However, it also creates a private right of action with treble damages and punitive liability, shifting enforcement partly to litigation—a mechanism that may chill provider conduct, reduce access in some regions, and impose costs on patients through reduced provider availability or higher fees. The 24-hour waiting period and mandatory ultrasound may
Who stands to gain
- medical malpractice insurers (increased litigation and claims)
- litigation-focused law firms (private right of action creates fee-generating cases)
- ultrasound equipment manufacturers (mandatory ultrasound requirement)
Named in the bill
U.S. Attorney General, abortion providers, state medical licensing authorities, federal district courts, ultrasound equipment manufacturers
Where it stands
12 cosponsors: 12 Republicans.
- Jan 28, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 28, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $216,377 in lobbying spend. A filing names 101 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Mary Miller, the sponsor, reported $145,130 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Associated General Contractors of America — $216,377 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (8,586 characters) on Aug 14, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal abortion bill expands liability, creates 24-hour delay, mandatory ultrasound” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr797 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.