PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Planned Parenthood has resumed offering abortions in Wisconsin at clinics in Madison and Milwaukee.

Indiana’s near-total abortion ban is set to take effect within days after the Indiana Supreme Court denied a rehearing in the case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

A man who set a fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Illinois has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Planned Parenthood has managed to stay open in Texas despite the state’s best efforts to shut it down. But a lawsuit in front of a conservative judge poses an existential threat.

Indiana’s six abortion clinics have stopped providing abortions ahead of the state’s near-total abortion ban officially taking effect and as a petition is pending before the state’s high court asking it to keep the ban on hold while legal action continues.

The Republican-controlled Legislature in Iowa will aim to enact a ban on abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy during a rare special session that starts Tuesday.

A judge has ruled that a lawsuit seeking to repeal Wisconsin's 174-year-old abortion ban can continue.

Transgender minors and some adults soon will be banned from accessing puberty blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgeries under a bill signed by Missouri’s Republican governor.

A judge has put a temporary halt to South Carolina’s new law banning most abortions around six weeks of pregnancy until the state Supreme Court can review the measure.

A Utah judge has ruled that the state law banning abortion clinics cannot take effect on Wednesday as scheduled amid a lawsuit filed by the state’s largest abortion provider.

Lawyers for anti-abortion doctors are urging the Supreme Court to allow restrictions to take effect on a drug used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, while a lawsuit continues.

Vice President Kamala Harris is urging Americans to take action during “a critical point in our nation’s history” as thousands of people protested new limits to abortion rights in demonstrations across the country.

Planned Parenthood and ACLU of Utah filed a lawsuit Monday challenging a new Utah law that would ban abortion clinics in the deeply conservative state.

Hundreds of women are traveling weekly to the southern tip of Illinois to secure an abortion.

The decision by Utah’s Republican governor to sign into law a ban on abortions clinics is raising concerns about how already overburdened hospitals will accommodate becoming the only place for legal abortions in the state.

Davis, who is best known for her 13-hour filibuster to block a 2013 abortion bill, joins the group at a low point for reproductive rights in Texas.

A central Illinois man has been charged with setting fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic earlier this month.

Documents show that top Tennessee health officials attempted to oust Planned Parenthood from a program designed to prevent and treat HIV before deciding to forgo federal funding for it.

An Arizona court ruled abortion doctors can’t be prosecuted under a pre-statehood law that criminalizes nearly all abortions yet was barred from being enforced for decades.

A Planned Parenthood affiliate says it has started teleconferences with off-site doctors for patients seeking medication abortions at one of its Kansas clinics.

The Bexar County Commissioners Court passed a resolution Tuesday aimed at limiting local enforcement of the state’s anti-abortion laws.

Arizona’s attorney general has agreed not to enforce a near-total ban on abortions at least until next year.

Free vasectomies will be available next month at three Planned Parenthood clinics in Missouri amid a surge in demand for the procedure after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Legal abortions that restarted in Arizona this week after a court blocked enforcement of a pre-statehood ban will be able to continue for at least five weeks while an appeals court considers the case.

Supporters of abortion rights are suing to keep an old Arizona law that criminalizes nearly all abortions from being enforced.

Planned Parenthood officials have announced plans for a mobile abortion clinic, a 37-foot RV that will stay in Illinois but travel close to the borders of adjoining states that have banned abortions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year.

An Arizona judge has refused to suspend her order that allowed enforcement of a pre-statehood law making it a crime to provide an abortion.

Women seeking abortions across Arizona were forced to find alternatives beyond the state’s borders after a court ruling last week cleared the way for prosecutors to charge doctors and others who help a woman end a pregnancy unless her life is in danger.

The former president of Planned Parenthood on the end of Roe v. Wade and the fight for gender equity.

California has launched a publicly funded website to promote the state's abortion services.

Hospitals and abortion clinics in Indiana are preparing for the state's abortion ban to go into effect on Sept. 15.

Planned Parenthood Arizona has joined several other providers and restarted abortion care in the state, although it may only be temporary.

An added layer of restriction for abortions in Texas. The ‘trigger law’ goes into effect today, making it a felony to provide the service.

Last May, Lubbock became the biggest city in Texas to ban abortion within city limits. Now, with abortion outlawed throughout the Lone Star State, the fight over reproductive rights is taking a new turn.

The nation's leading abortion rights advocacy organization, Planned Parenthood, plans to spend a record $50 million ahead of November’s midterm elections.

North Dakota’s only abortion clinic is preparing for what could be its final day of performing procedures.

Some clinics are relocating to “haven states” where abortion will continue to be legal. Others are investing in sexual and reproductive health efforts beyond abortion access.

The implications of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade are reverberating nationwide as states reemerge as the new battlefields for abortion rights.

Democrats and their aligned groups raised more than $80 million in the week after the Supreme Court stripped away a woman’s constitutional right to have an abortion.

California voters will decide in November whether to guarantee the right to an abortion in their state constitution.

The fall of Roe v. Wade shifted the battleground over abortion to courthouses around the country, as abortion foes looked to quickly enact statewide bans and the other side sought to buy more time.

In 2016, the Supreme Court blocked onerous regulations that had shuttered half of Texas’ abortion providers. On Friday, the court’s new conservative majority cited that case in overturning the constitutional protection for abortion.

Roe v. Wade is officially overturned. The Supreme Court ruling is already impacting Texas abortion clinics.

Paxton and some anti-abortion activists are arguing that state laws that banned abortion before Roe v. Wade — and were never repealed — could now be in effect in Texas.

Republican legislators in Wisconsin have quickly adjourned a special session that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers called to repeal the state's dormant abortion ban without taking any action.

Abortion providers are bracing for the final days of the U.S. Supreme Court’s guarantee of a right to an abortion.

As new abortion restrictions are imposed in some parts of the U.S., states with more liberal leadership have been passing laws to let a wider range of medical providers to do the procedures.

About 400 workers at Planned Parenthood offices in five Midwestern states plan to unionize.

A judge has suspended Michigan’s dormant ban on abortion, saying it likely violates the state constitution.

After a Supreme Court document leak shook the nation, fears are mounting about potential reversals of other decisions by the high court.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a new Republican-backed law in Kentucky that led the state's two remaining abortion clinics to halt the procedure.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has sued to protect abortion rights, asking a court to recognize a right to abortion under the state constitution.

The Oklahoma House has given final legislative approval to a bill that would make performing an abortion a felony.

A new report shows over half of U.S. abortions are now done with pills rather than surgery.

An appellate court has heard arguments in Planned Parenthood’s challenge to South Carolina’s new abortion law, with attorneys for the state arguing the nonprofit doesn’t have legal standing to bring the case.

The decision, hailed by abortion opponents as a victory, is another indication of how legal protections for abortion have been gutted in Texas.

Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to claw back Medicaid payments made during the three years that Planned Parenthood was fighting in court to remain as a qualified health care provider.

A Texas judge has ruled the enforcement scheme behind the nation’s strictest abortion law is unconstitutional in a narrow ruling that still leaves a near-total ban on abortions in place.

A new government report suggests U.S. abortions may be inching up after a long decline.

For two months, providers have had to work in a sort of limbo as they wait to see if the new law passes the Supreme Court's review.

COVID-19 and state abortion restrictions like a near-ban that took effect in Texas in September have people with unwanted pregnancies increasingly considering getting abortion pills by mail.

A conservative Christian university in Alabama has withdrawn an invitation for Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham to speak during inaugural activities for its new president.

The Biden administration is reversing a ban on abortion referrals by federally funded family planning clinics.

A panel of five judges indefinitely blocked the lawsuits last week upon the request of an anti-abortion group.

Abortion providers in Texas say they have seen a sharp drop in patients in the two weeks since the nation’s strictest abortion law took effect.

Abortion providers in Texas say they have seen a sharp drop in patients in the two weeks since the nation’s strictest abortion law took effect.

Current Texas abortion laws say women have to make a decision within the first six weeks of their pregnancies, a time when many do not even know they are pregnant.

The facilities had a responsibility to patients who needed other reproductive services, said Jeffrey Hons, CEO of Planned Parenthood of South Texas.

A state judge has shielded, for now, Texas abortion clinics from lawsuits by an anti-abortion group under a new state abortion law.

Senate Bill 8, which allows anyone to sue anyone who performs or aids in an abortion, marks an unprecedented change to who has standing to bring a lawsuit. The tactic is also an emerging trend in Republican-dominated states that may compromise constitutional rights, some legal experts said.

St. Mary’s University School of Law Professor Al Kauffman spoke with KSAT about the legalities of the state’s newest abortion law.

One abortion provider said it was “engulfed” in treating more than 100 patients at one clinic before the law took effect Wednesday.

The ruling is yet another blow to reproductive rights advocates after Texas passed a law this year that goes into effect Sept. 1 banning abortions as early as six weeks. That law is also currently being challenged in court.

The state’s “fetal heartbeat” law going into effect Sept. 1 is considered one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the nation.

A federal judge has blocked a new Indiana law that would require doctors to tell women undergoing drug-induced abortions about a disputed treatment for potentially stopping the abortion process.

A federal appeals court panel has blocked Missouri from enforcing a sweeping state abortion law that bans the procedures at or after eight weeks of pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood sued to block the "sanctuary city for the unborn" ordinance, passed by voters in May, but a federal judge said he didn't have jurisdiction to hear the case. The ordinance went into effect June 1.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas are suing over the West Texas city's “sanctuary city for the unborn” ordinance.

The Biden administration is beginning to undo a Trump-era ban on clinics referring women for abortions.

About 40% of all abortions in the U.S. are now done through medication — rather than surgery — and that option has become all the more pivotal during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Planned Parenthood cannot stop Texas officials from kicking it out of the state's Medicaid program, a state district judge ruled Wednesday. The decision is the latest in Texas officials’ years-long effort to cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood. A state district judge granted a temporary restraining order on Feb. 3, delaying the state from kicking Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid. The 2016 notice of termination never took effect, he said; Planned Parenthood has continued to treat Medicaid patients. Abbott, in a tweet deemed “false” by Politifact, has said “innocent lives will be saved” by ending taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood.

South Carolina Gov. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)COLUMBIA, S.C. – A new South Carolina law banning abortions will stay on hold following a judge's order on Friday to extend a temporary restraining order. Lewis initially suspended the “ South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act ” on its second day in effect, following a lawsuit from Planned Parenthood. Federal law supersedes state law. Planned Parenthood has indicated they plan to oppose McMaster's request to take part in the case, according to the governor's attorneys.

FILE - In this Nov. 5, 2020 file photo, the Supreme Court is seen in Washington. The Supreme Court will take up challenges to controversial Trump administration policies affecting family-planning clinics and immigrants, even though the Biden administration has announced it is reviewing them. Scott Applewhite)WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court said Monday it will take up challenges to controversial Trump administration policies affecting family-planning clinics and immigrants, even though the Biden administration has announced it is reviewing them. Last month, Biden also ordered a review of Trump's restrictions on family-planning clinics that caused Planned Parenthood to withdraw from the funding program, rather than stop abortion referrals. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the rule, in a lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore.

South Carolina Gov. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina’s new law banning most abortions was suspended by a federal judge Friday on its second day in effect. AdThe “ South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act " is similar to abortion restriction laws that a dozen states have previously passed. Federal law, which takes precedence over state law, currently allows abortion. AdPlanned Parenthood lawyers noted that South Carolina legislators this year did not change part of state law that said fetuses are considered viable in the 24th week of pregnancy.

South Carolina Gov. Planned Parenthood immediately sued, effectively preventing the new law from taking effect. The “South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act, is similar to abortion restriction laws that a dozen states have previously passed. Moments after the Thursday vote, Planned Parenthood announced that it was filing a lawsuit. The South Carolina law, like those of other states that are currently being challenged, is “blatantly unconstitutional,” said Jenny Black, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.

South Carolina Rep. David Hiott, R-Pickens, says a prayer as the House votes on a bill that would ban most abortions in the state on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021 in Columbia, S.C. The “South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act,” like other similar laws currently being challenged, is “blatantly unconstitutional,” said Jenny Black, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. The Supreme Court has previously ruled that abortion is legal until a fetus is viable outside the womb — months after a heartbeat can be detected, Black noted. State bills to restrict or ban abortion “are plainly absurd,” Black said. The abortion ban would fall hardest on low-income women, who wouldn't be able to travel to a nearby state where abortion is still permitted, the suit says.

Greg Abbott to reverse a yearslong effort to boot Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program, saying it jeopardizes thousands of low-income Texans’ ability to access nonabortion health services. Their plea comes just days after a state district judge temporarily stopped the state from excluding Planned Parenthood from Medicaid, a government health insurance program for the poor. Planned Parenthood has donated fetal tissue for research, which is legal. State health officials granted a 30-day grace period that was slated to end Feb. 3. Escobar and the other congress members have asked Abbott to allow Planned Parenthood to remain as a provider.

Planned Parenthood on Wednesday said it filed an emergency lawsuit to stop Texas from kicking it out of Medicaid, in a last ditch effort to keep providing non-abortion services to some 8,000 low-income patients. AdIn Texas, Medicaid primarily provides health insurance for children, and those who have a disability, are pregnant or are parents. Planned Parenthood on Wednesday said it filed an emergency lawsuit to stop Texas from kicking it out of Medicaid, in a last ditch effort to keep providing non-abortion services to some 8,000 low-income patients. AdIn Texas, Medicaid primarily provides health insurance for children, and those disabled, pregnant or who are parents. A lower court blocked the state from removing Planned Parenthood from Medicaid in 2017.

Credit: Stephen Spillman for The Texas TribuneSign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday voided rulings from lower courts that upheld a ban on most abortions in Texas early in the coronavirus pandemic. The high court vacated two rulings from the lower U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that sided with Texas GOP officials arguing that Gov. The executive order ended over the summer, allowing abortions in the state to resume, but Planned Parenthood has said leaving the lower court rulings on the books would set harmful legal precedent for abortion rights advocates. Disclosure: Planned Parenthood has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.

Lisa, an anonymous HPV patient living in a Houston hotel to escape domestic abuse, navigates the uncertainties of Planned Parenthood being withdrawn from Medicaid coverage. The state’s health commission gave Planned Parenthood's Medicaid patients until Feb. 3 to find new doctors. Lisa is one of more than 8,000 Medicaid patients, many of them women of color, who were seen at Planned Parenthood clinics across Texas in 2019. A lower court blocked the state from cutting off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood in 2017, but the conservative 5th U.S. Greg Abbott, who pushed to expel Planned Parenthood from Medicaid, did not respond to a request for comment.

Thousands of low-income Medicaid recipients who rely on Planned Parenthood for non-abortion services like cancer screenings and birth control will have until Feb. 3 to find new health care providers, according to a letter sent from the state’s Health and Human Services Commission to the women’s health provider Monday. Texas has a shortage of Medicaid providers in part because of the low reimbursement rates, the organization said. The court case stemmed from a debunked video released in 2015 that suggested abortion providers at Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue for profit. Planned Parenthood has donated fetal tissue for research, which is legal. Disclosure: Planned Parenthood has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.

A nurse with a patient at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin. Planned Parenthood is asking Texas to delay kicking the women’s health provider out of Medicaid in an effort to secure medical coverage for more than 8,000 Medicaid patients who rely on the group. The allegations in the video, made by anti-abortion advocates, have been categorically denied by Planned Parenthood, and investigations into the video have been unable to prove any wrongdoing. Following last month’s ruling, Planned Parenthood said removing them from the Medicaid program was a “blatantly political attack” by the state of Texas. Disclosure: Planned Parenthood has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors.

DENVER – Federal prosecutors said Wednesday they will not seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing three people and injuring nine others at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado in 2015. The move comes about a year after Dear was charged in federal court after his prosecution in state court stalled. The decision not to seek the death penalty follows the resumption of federal executions under the Trump administration and as the Justice Department continues to seek the death penalty in other cases in the administration's waning days. The death penalty has usually been taken off the table in cases in which mental illness is a factor, such as in the Unabomber case, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Prosecutors who are not seeking to pursue the death penalty for political reasons need to consider whether they are likely to succeed in convincing a jury to impose the death penalty in expensive and complicated death penalty cases prone to appeals, he said.

While it expressly reversed decisions in Texas and Louisiana, it also affects Mississippi, which is under 5th Circuit jurisdiction. Opponents of legal abortion have long sought to deny federal Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reverses an earlier ruling by a three-judge appellate panel that blocked Texas from enforcing its ban on Medicaid funding of Planned Parenthood. It also expressly reversed a ruling in a separate case blocking Louisiana from banning Planned Parenthood funding. Investigations by 13 states into those videos have concluded without criminal charges, and Planned Parenthood officials have denied any wrongdoing.

A vast swath of West Texas has been without an abortion clinic for more than six years. That law led to the closure of more than half the state’s 41 abortion clinics before the Supreme Court struck down key provisions in 2016. Women in Lubbock faced a 310-mile (500-kilometer) drive to the nearest abortion clinic in Fort Worth. Texas is one of several red states where Planned Parenthood has sought to expand abortion access. Missouri, for example, bars the use of telemedicine for abortion services, a policy that has sharply limited the number of medication abortions.

Today is Friday, Oct. 16, the 290th day of 2020. On Oct. 16, 1962, the Cuban missile crisis began as President John F. Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba. In 1859, radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 men in a raid on Harpers Ferry in western Virginia. In 1901, Booker T. Washington dined at the White House as the guest of President Theodore Roosevelt, whose invitation to the Black educator sparked controversy. In 1995, a vast throng of Black men gathered in Washington, D.C. for the “Million Man March” led by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

WASHINGTON – The nation's largest doctors' group on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to strike down a Trump administration rule that's had a far-reaching impact on family planning by prohibiting taxpayer-funded clinics from referring women for abortions. But the changes to Title X, as the federal family planning program is known, are already in effect — and getting much less attention. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden promises to rescind the Trump administration's family planning rule and also supports allowing federal programs to pay for abortions. But the AMA says regardless of who wins the election, it believes the Supreme Court should address the issue and overturn the Trump administration rule. “We can't afford to walk away from that progress.”Joining the AMA's petition are the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, and Essential Access Health, which administers the Title X family planning program in California.

Greg Abbott used the pandemic as a guise to limit access to abortion. Greg Abbott of using the coronavirus pandemic as a guise to end abortion access in Texas. During the month-long period when Texas was shut down, top state officials and the courts effectively banned nearly all abortions. Circuit Court of Appeals largely sided with state officials throughout the legal back and forth. In the initial weeks of the pandemic, a number of states including Texas tried to ban abortions as part of emergency orders.

WASHINGTON A federal judge in Baltimore on Friday struck down a Trump administration rule that abortion rights advocates called a maneuver to restrict access but officials defended as merely following the law. The judge's ruling means insurers can continue to make the charge for abortion coverage a line item on their monthly bill, or just give policyholders notice that it's included. Abortion opponents cried foul, saying separate bills should be mandatory because that would clearly reflect the intent of the law. The Trump administration, which takes its lead on social issues from religious conservatives, agreed. They argued that the requirement to send separate bills could prompt insurers to drop coverage for abortions and would create confusion for policyholders.

(Al Drago/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON Building ramparts of secrecy around a $600 billion-plus coronavirus aid program for small businesses, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has moved from delay to denial in refusing outright to disclose the recipients of taxpayer-funded loans. About 10 weeks after the program was launched, the SBA says it has processed 4.5 million loans worth $511 billion. While the SBA administers the program, Mnuchins Treasury Department has ultimate control over it. We believe that thats proprietary information, and in many cases, for sole proprietors and small businesses, is confidential information, Mnuchin said during the hearing by the Senate Small Business Committee. Praise for the small-business loan program flowed to Mnuchin and Carranza at the hearing from senators from both parties, who cited the positive economic impact across the country.