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Indiana and West Virginia, two states that recently banned nearly all abortions, received federal approval this month to offer women Medicaid-funded health care during their pregnancy and for 12 months after they give birth. They join 23 other states and the District of Columbia that already have extended postpartum Medicaid coverage from two months to a full year after childbirth. Eight additional states — Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont — have applications pending. (Vestal, 9/20)

An Ohio judge is extending his temporary halt of the state’s six-week abortion ban, according to a group involved in the case. At a status conference Monday, Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Christian Jenkins said he is extending the temporary restraining order against Ohio’s heartbeat bill until at least Oct. 12, a spokesperson from the ACLU of Ohio told NBC4. Jenkins will determine whether to issue a preliminary injunction against the six-week ban on Friday, Oct. 7. (Walsh, 9/20)

The top Democrat in the Missouri House filed legislation Tuesday to repeal the law that triggered the state’s near-total abortion ban after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The measure, sponsored by House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, is almost certainly dead on arrival during Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s special session on tax relief. (Suntrup, 9/20)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) created new headaches for Republicans on Tuesday with his claim that abortion is “not a states’ rights issue,” keeping the debate in the headlines and undercutting the party’s messaging heading into November’s midterms.  (Weaver, 9/20)

A faction of self-proclaimed “abolitionists” are seeking to make abortion laws more restrictive and the consequences of having the procedure more punitive than ever before. Emboldened by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, they say they will not be satisfied until fetuses are given the same protections as all US citizens — meaning that if abortion is illegal, then criminal statutes should be applied accordingly. While major national anti-abortion groups say they do not support criminalizing women, the idea is gaining traction with certain conservative lawmakers. And the activists and politicians leading the charge are nearly always men, CNN found. (Ellis and Hicken, 9/21)

Democrats have been on a voter registration tear since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. There’s just one problem for them — they are digging out from under major Republican gains in the previous 18 months. For most of the two years leading up to the midterm election, Republicans rather than Democrats were making voter registration gains in key states, a POLITICO analysis of state voter data shows — a signal of GOP momentum heading into a classic backlash election against Democratic control of Washington. (Piper, 20)

Only a handful of Georgians — 5% — listed abortion as their top issue in the election. And more than half of likely voters indicated that the political divide over abortion won‘t influence their decisions to cast their ballots in November. But the poll also indicated that nearly half of respondents said they’re more likely to vote for a candidate who wants to protect access to abortion. That includes about half of women and 90% of Democrats. (McCaffrey and Bluestein, 9/21)

President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday blasted a reported comment from Michigan Republican attorney general nominee Matt DePerno likening Plan B to the drug fentanyl, saying he and other GOP officials want to "ban contraception" in the U.S. (Spangler and Boucher, 9/20)

The second drug, misoprostol, can also safely end a pregnancy on its own. That method has long been considered a significantly less effective alternative to the FDA-approved protocol. But a growing body of research has begun to challenge the conventional thinking. In situations where people use pills to end a pregnancy at home, studies have found far higher rates of success for misoprostol-only abortions than were found in clinical settings. One recent study in Nigeria and Argentina showed misoprostol-only abortion to be 99 percent effective. (Adams, 9/19)