State Abortion Battle Lines Deepen With Legislation, Court Cases

AP: Noem's Appeal Of Abortion Pills Order Put On Hold
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered that a case between Planned Parenthood and the state of South Dakota be put on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a decision in a separate case that could overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide. The South Dakota lawsuit is over a rule pushed by Republican Gov. Kristi Noem that would require abortion-seekers to make three separate visits to a doctor to take abortion pills. Planned Parenthood, which operates the state’s only clinic that regularly provides abortions, asserted that the rule would have ended its ability to provide medicine-induced abortions. (5/10)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri Senate Committee Advances Resolution To Trigger Abortion Ban When Roe Is Overturned 
A Senate committee on Tuesday advanced legislation to trigger Missouri’s near-total abortion ban if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. With little discussion, the Senate Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions and Ethics Committee voted 4-2 to approve the measure, sponsored by Sen. Justin Brown, R-Rolla, sending it to the Senate floor. The effort is connected to a provision contained in Missouri’s 2019 anti-abortion law. That measure would outlaw all abortions, except in medical emergencies, if the high court strikes Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case establishing a constitutional right to an abortion. (Suntrup, 5/11)

AP: NY To Send $35M To Abortion Providers Amid Worry Over Roe
New York will give abortion providers $35 million to expand services and boost security in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court possibly overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday. The Democrat said the state must get ready for a potential influx of out-of-state patients seeking abortions from the roughly half of U.S. states that are expected to ban or greatly restrict abortion if Roe is overturned. (Villeneuve, 5/10)

In updates from Wisconsin —

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Group Claims Responsibility For Attack On Anti-Abortion Group In Madison, Warns Of More Violence 
An organization calling itself “Jane’s Revenge” has claimed responsibility for setting fire to the Madison headquarters of a statewide anti-abortion group and warns of more violence to come if similar organizations don’t disband nationwide. The group’s “first communiqué” was shared anonymously with an investigative reporter for the online news site Bellingcat, who posted a series of tweets describing it early Tuesday morning. “This was only a warning,” the group states. “We demand the disbanding of all anti-choice establishments, fake clinics and violent anti-choice groups within the next 30 days.” (Rickert, 5/10)

USA Today: Wisconsin Abortion Law's 'Lifesaving' Exception Vague, Doctors Say
The abortion law that would go into effect in Wisconsin if Roe v. Wade is overturned dates to 1849. It is a ban with just one exception: the procedure can be performed if a doctor decides it "is necessary, or is advised by 2 other physicians as necessary, to save the life of the mother." Some state abortion laws have historically made exceptions for broader circumstances, like pregnancies that were a result of rape or incest, but terminating a pregnancy to save a patient's life has become a last hold-over in states that have enacted increasingly restrictive rules on the procedure. (Heim, 5/10)

From Michigan and Texas —

Axios: SCOTUS Abortion Ruling Would Endanger Black Women In Michigan 
Black women in Michigan already dealing with across-the-board health care inequities would especially suffer if Roe v. Wade is struck down, health care experts say. ... "The disproportionate effect on Black women is due to their disproportionately higher risk of dying if they stay pregnant," Amanda Stevenson, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder, tells Axios. (Guillen and Frank, 5/11)

KHN: 1931 State Law Makes Abortion A Felony If ‘Roe’ Falls, Warns Michigan Attorney General
When Stephanie Mejia Arciñiega drove her friend to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Ann Arbor, Michigan, they were surrounded by anti-abortion protesters as soon as they tried to park. “They come up to your car super fast,” Mejia Arciñiega said. “You don’t want to run their feet over, so we had to stop and be like, ‘OK, no thank you.’ But then they started throwing a bunch of papers and resources at us. We tried to go inside, but we couldn’t.” (Wells, 5/11)

Houston Chronicle: Hidalgo, Dem Commissioners Pass Resolution In Support Of Abortion Rights
Harris County Commissioners Court on Tuesday approved a nonbinding resolution calling on Congress to take immediate action to protection abortion rights, despite opposition from the court’s two Republican members. The measure was passed in response to a leaked draft opinion written by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito indicating Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that guarantees the right to abortion, is likely to be overturned. (Rice, 5/10)

The Washington Post: The Border-Town Provider Trying To Save Abortion For Texas Women
Franz Theard plies his trade in the sunniest of shadow worlds. His innocuously named Women’s Reproductive Clinic of New Mexico is hidden in plain sight, down a slope in a strip mall, neighboring a Subway and a State Farm office, in a border town of a border town. It’s less than a mile from the Texas state line, amid the sprawl of El Paso, which is itself a crossing to Ciudad Juárez in old Mexico, as folks here call it, surrounded by fireworks stores and delicious tacos and the desert beyond.Here, this 73-year-old Haitian American OB/GYN and abortion provider sits in windowless exam rooms, handing patients pills to end their pregnancies, skirting Texas law by a trick of New Mexico geography. (And, if the protesters stationed outside during all business hours are to be believed, charting his path to hell.) He is alone on the southern edge of America, at the westernmost corner of the country’s second biggest state. And if Roe v. Wade is overturned, Theard soon may be one of the only abortion providers in the western United States. (Yuan, 5/10)

How other nations are faring with abortion rights —

WLRN 91.3 FM: The U.S. Abortion Rights Movement Is Battered. What Can It Learn From Latin America's? 
With the U.S. Supreme Court apparently poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, it’s obvious abortion rights are under siege in America. In Latin America, however, abortion rights movements are scoring one victory after another. In fact, the next one may well be in a country where it was once least expected. This year, abortion rights advocates marching in Chile succeeded in getting generally legalized abortion written into the draft of the country's new constitution. Chileans will vote to ratify or reject the new charter in the fall. (Padgett, 5/10)

AP: El Salvador Gives Woman Accused Of Abortion 30 Years Prison 
A court in El Salvador has sentenced a woman who suffered an obstetric emergency that ended her pregnancy to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide, according to a nongovernmental organization assisting in her defense. The Citizen Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion said Tuesday in a statement that a woman they identified only as “Esme” was sentenced Monday. The woman had already been in pre-trial detention for two years following her arrest when she sought medical care in a public hospital. (5/10)