Abortion

With Missouri potentially on the verge of becoming the only state without a clinic that performs abortions, Democrats in Congress are holding a hearing Thursday to look into the regulation of clinics by state officials.

On a recent, cloudy fall afternoon, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin stood outside the governor's mansion in Frankfort, flanked by a couple dozen activists in blue T-shirts, holding signs that read, "I Vote Pro-Life."

"It took me a while to figure out why I keep seeing these blue T-shirts," Bevin joked as he turned to the volunteers. "I wasn't sure who you were, but I'm just grateful to you."

These activists have been door-knocking across Kentucky on Bevin's behalf, to reach 200,000 voters before the election on Nov. 5.

The Dayton area's last abortion clinic is trying to avoid closure by pursuing a new state license and intervention by a federal court after the Ohio Supreme Court again refused to hear its appeal. 

With abortion-rights activists playing defense from statehouses to the Supreme Court, Planned Parenthood is unveiling a new campaign push focused on the 2020 elections.

The organization is announcing its largest electoral effort yet — with plans to spend at least $45 million backing candidates in local, state and national races who support abortion rights.

The Trump administration is calling on U.N. member nations to oppose efforts to promote access to abortion internationally, a move immediately criticized by reproductive rights groups seeking greater access to the services globally.

The Ohio Supreme Court won't hear a Dayton abortion clinic's challenge of the state's increasingly stringent operational rules, placing the facility's future in question. 

Updated at 5:37 p.m. ET

Planned Parenthood is leaving the federal Title X family planning program rather than comply with new Trump administration rules regarding abortion counseling.

The new rules, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year, prohibit Title X grantees from providing or referring patients for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency.

Updated at 5:41 p.m. ET

Planned Parenthood says it will formally withdraw from the nation's family planning program for low-income people within days, unless a federal court intervenes.

Updated at 5:35 a.m. ET

An Arkansas federal judge has temporarily blocked three new abortion restrictions, including a requirement that physicians providing the procedure be board-certified — a move that would likely have caused the closure of the state's only surgical abortion clinic.

Updated at 6:38 p.m. ET

The Trump administration is giving Title X recipients more time to comply with new regulations that prohibit organizations that receive federal grants from referring patients for abortion.

Under the new rules, any organization that provides or refers patients for abortions is ineligible for Title X funding.

Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide have stopped using federal Title X family planning funds, according to the organization. The decision comes after the Trump administration announced this week that it has started enforcing regulations that prohibit Title X grant recipients from counseling patients about abortion.

A federal judge in Cincinnati has temporarily blocked Ohio's so-called "Heart Beat Bill" which bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected.  

The American Medical Association is suing North Dakota to block two abortion-related laws, the latest signal the doctors' group is shifting to a more aggressive stance as the Trump administration and state conservatives ratchet up efforts to eliminate legal abortion.

The group, which represents all types of physicians, has tended to stay on the sidelines of many controversial political issues, and until recently has done so concerning abortion and contraception. Instead, it has focused on legislation that affects the practice and finances of large swaths of its membership.

Editor's note: This is an updated version of a story that was published on June 27, 2019.

At a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly this week, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar stated that abortion is not an international human right.

He criticized any efforts to "promote practices like abortion in circumstances that do not enjoy international consensus."

The Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by the Women's Med Center in Dayton. 

Three-quarters of Americans say they want to keep in place the landmark Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade, that made abortion legal in the United States, but a strong majority would like to see restrictions on abortion rights, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll.

Updated at 2:10 p.m. ET

The Supreme Court is leaving in place part of an Indiana law that mandates that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated.

The court did not take up a second part of the law that banned abortions because of fetal abnormality, the fetus's race, sex or ancestry. A lower court struck down that part of the law in addition to the burial provision. The Supreme Court, though, said it will wait for other lower court rulings before weighing in on the fetal characteristics provision.