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A federal judge on Friday will consider whether Texas can leave in place the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., which since September has banned most abortions and sent women racing to get care beyond the borders of the nation’s second-largest state. A lawsuit filed by the Biden administration seeks to land the first legal blow against the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8, which thus far has withstood an early wave of challenges — including the U.S. Supreme Court allowing it to remain in force. (Weber, 10/1)

A judge granted Thursday evening a temporary restraining order delaying the implementation of three laws restricting abortion access in Montana, hours before the laws were set to go into effect. District Court Judge Michael Moses issued the temporary restraining order to remain in effect for 10 days or until Moses rules on a preliminary injunction requested by Planned Parenthood of Montana. The laws would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, restrict access to abortion pills and require abortion providers to ask patients if they would like to view an ultrasound. (Samuels, 10/1)

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Thursday defended the Supreme Court’s actions in letting a controversial and restrictive Texas abortion law go into effect, and said criticism of the court’s recent decisions in emergency cases was an attempt to intimidate the justices. In a speech at the University of Notre Dame, the veteran conservative justice lambasted the use of the term “shadow docket” to describe the emergency applications that come before the court, a process in place for years but which has increased in frequency. (Barnes and Berardino, 9/30)

Justice Samuel Alito leapt into a political fray over the Supreme Court on Thursday, lashing back at critics who have accused the justices of increasingly issuing momentous decisions on its emergency docket without the benefit of a full briefing or oral arguments. Alito said complaints about the court’s “shadow docket” are misplaced and intended to conjure up images of justices conspiring to advance their ideological agendas under the cover of darkness. (Gerstein, 9/30)

Three members of Congress on Thursday shared their personal and, at times, painful stories of abortion, in an emotional hearing that came amid an intensifying battle over a Texas law that is the most restrictive in the nation. Two of the lawmakers said they were teenagers when they decided to terminate their pregnancies. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) described her decision in the mid-1960s to have a “back-alley abortion” in Mexico at age 16, describing herself as “one of the lucky ones” because many other women and girls at the time died of unsafe abortions. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said she decided to have an abortion after she was raped at age 17 by a man she met on a church trip. (Sonmez, 9/30)

Representative Cori Bush, a Democrat from Missouri, is known on Capitol Hill as a nurse, a pastor, a Black Lives Matter activist and a member of a “squad” of progressive women lawmakers. On Thursday, she told a House panel that she is also a rape survivor who had an abortion after she was attacked on a church trip when she was 17. Ms. Bush said she is no longer ashamed. “In the summer of 1994,” she declared, “I was raped, I became pregnant and I chose to have an abortion.” (Stolberg, 9/30

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash, testified that after a high-risk pregnancy, she was unprepared to have another child. But, even after taking birth control "religiously," she became pregnant. After consulting with her husband and doctors, she chose to have an abortion. Until two years ago, she never talked about it -- even with her mother, Jayapal said. (Donaldson, 9/30)

The Belgian government will provide funding for women in Poland to access abortions abroad that are not permitted under one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws. The move comes amid ongoing disputes between Poland and the European Union over human rights and the independence of Poland’s judiciary. Abortion restrictions in Poland lie squarely at the intersection of those issues. (Parker, 9/30)

For decades, Chinese authorities imposed strict limits on families that forced millions of women to abort pregnancies deemed illegal by the state. That harsh practice has become less common since China relaxed its one-child policy in 2015. So when news emerged this week that the government wants to reduce abortions for "non-medical reasons," the backlash was swift and furious. (Yeung and Gan, 10/1)

A coalition of women’s groups plans to take to the streets in 660 communities nationwide on Saturday to rally for the right to an abortion, two days before the Supreme Court reconvenes in a session widely expected to overturn it. “It’s a break-glass moment for us,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March, which is leading the mobilization with numerous reproductive rights organizations. (Ebbert, 10/1)