Florida Supreme Court Will Decide If 15-Week Abortion Ban Is Constitutional

Politico: Florida Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Challenge To 15 Week Abortion Law 
The Florida Supreme Court has agreed to take up a legal challenge to Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which was one of the most controversial measures passed during the 2022 legislative session. The case the high court agreed to take up centers on a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and a handful of abortion providers challenging the recently-passed law. They argued that the Florida Constitution protects the right to an abortion. (Dixon, 1/23)

Abortion updates from New Mexico, Connecticut, Utah, Maine, and Montana —

AP: New Mexico AG Seeks To Codify Abortion Rights, Nullify Bans
New Mexico’s top prosecutor on Monday asked the state Supreme Court to nullify abortion ordinances that local elected officials have passed in conservative reaches of the Democratic-led state. Attorney General Raúl Torrez urged the court to intervene against recent ordinances he said overstep local government authority to regulate health care access, and violate state constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process. (Bryan and Lee, 1/24)

The CT Mirror: Lamont Proposes Allowing CT Pharmacists To Prescribe Birth Control
Connecticut would join the growing list of states that allow pharmacists to prescribe hormonal contraceptive pills under a proposal Gov. Ned Lamont announced Monday on the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The legislative proposal came on the first anniversary of the landmark abortion-rights ruling since it was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, returning control over access to abortion to the states. (Pazniokas, 1/23)

Salt Lake Tribune: ‘Expression Of Unchecked Power’: Court May Be Forced To Reconsider Hold On Utah’s Abortion Ban Soon
Republicans in the Legislature are one step closer to ending a hold placed on their abortion trigger law in district court after the Utah House voted to change the rules regarding when a judge can issue an injunction. The joint resolution, introduced by Rep. Brady Brammer, R-Pleasant Grove, aims to retroactively eliminate a judge’s ability to grant a preliminary injunction unless a case has a “substantial likelihood” of success. (Anderson Stern, 1/23)

Bangor Daily News: Janet Mills Said She Didn't Want Abortion Law Changes, Then Proposed Them
Both the Democratic governor and former Gov. Paul LePage were quizzed often on the first subject after the U.S. Supreme Court’s summer decision to overturn federal abortion rights. But it was LePage, an anti-abortion Republican, who created the most memorable exchanges, including when he vowed to veto a 15-week ban if his party brought one to him. (Shepherd and Marino Jr., 1/23)

KHN: As States Seek To Limit Abortions, Montana Wants To Redefine What Is Medically Necessary 
Montana’s conservative leaders, stymied by the courts from passing laws that impose significant statewide abortion restrictions, seek to tighten the state’s Medicaid rules to make it more difficult for low-income women to receive abortions. The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services is proposing to define when an abortion is medically necessary, limit who can perform such services, and require preauthorization for most cases. (Houghton, 1/24)

CNN: Justice Department To Monitor New Anti-Abortion Bills In State Legislatures 
Upcoming state-level pushes to further restrict abortion access will be on the radar of the US Justice Department, top DOJ officials said Monday as they touted the work the Biden administration has sought to do to shore up abortion access in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade reversal last year. “We’ve obviously been very active in monitoring what’s happening in the states and locally, and given that most state legislatures now are coming back into session, we’ll be continuing to do so and looking at any laws that may get passed that infringe on federal protections,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who leads a department task force on reproductive rights that was launched after the Supreme Court’s decision. (Sneed, 1/23)

From Oregon, Missouri, Idaho, and elsewhere —

AP: Oregon Launches Abortion Hotline Offering Free Legal Advice 
Oregon is launching a new abortion hotline offering free legal advice to callers, moving to further defend abortion access after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer and eliminated federal protections for the procedure. The state’s Department of Justice announced the initiative Monday. It is modeled on similar hotlines launched by the attorneys general of New York and Delaware, as states where abortion remains legal have seen an increase in the number of patients traveling from areas where the procedure has been banned or restricted. (Rush, 1/24)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Metro East Center Served More Than 5,000 Abortion Patients In First Year, Report Says
A year ago, on what was the 49th anniversary of the historic Roe v. Wade decision, the two abortion providers in the Metro East announced an initiative to assist patients forced to travel long distances because of increasingly restrictive policies in their own states. The new Regional Logistics Center would help patients cover costs for child care, travel and missing work, Planned Parenthood and the Hope Clinic said. (Munz, 1/20)

ABC News: Idaho Woman Shares 19-Day Miscarriage On TikTok, Says State's Abortion Laws Prevented Her From Getting Care 
An Idaho woman who documented her 19-day miscarriage on social media said it was days before she could receive care due to the state's strict abortion laws. Carmen Broesder, 35, from Nampa -- 20 miles west of Boise -- a mother-of-one was just six weeks pregnant when she began miscarrying on Dec. 8. However, she said it took eight days before she was given any medicine to manage her pain and to expel embryonic tissue, and several more days for the miscarriage to end. (Kekatos, 1/21)

KHN: Watch: Fifty Years After ‘Roe,’ Abortion Rights Battle Shifts To The States
Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, granting federal constitutional protection for the right to seek an abortion. Last year, a very different Supreme Court overturned Roe, erasing that federal right for women across the United States and, instead, giving individual states broad authority to regulate and restrict abortion within their borders. In this report co-produced by PBS NewsHour, KHN senior correspondent Sarah Varney joins “PBS News Weekend” anchor John Yang to discuss how abortion opponents and supporters are taking their campaigns to the states, the impact of abortion bans on medical care for women, and the emerging conflicts over medication abortion pills. (Varney, 1/24)