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A federal judge on Wednesday scheduled a hearing for Oct. 1 to consider temporarily blocking Texas’ near-total abortion ban, following an emergency request from the Biden administration. The Justice Department requested the temporary restraining order late Tuesday as part of its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas aiming to overturn the law. (Oxner, 9/15)

Women driving hundreds of miles alone for an abortion, clinics overwhelmed with out-of-state patients, providers facing "relentless harassment" from "emboldened vigilante activities," those are some of the impacts detailed by the federal government in new court documents since the most restrictive abortion law went into effect in Texas earlier this month. Nearly a week after announcing a lawsuit against the state, the U.S. Department of Justice filed for an immediate injunction Tuesday to halt the enforcement of the law, known as SB8, which bars physicians from providing abortions once they detect a so-called fetal heartbeat -- technically the flutter of electrical activity within the cells in an embryo. That can be seen on an ultrasound as early as six weeks into a pregnancy -- before many women even know they're pregnant. (Deliso, 9/15)

One Texas woman traveled nearly 1,000 miles to Colorado for an abortion. Others are driving four hours to New Mexico. And in Houston, clinics that typically perform more than 100 abortions in a week are down to a few a day. Two weeks after the nation’s strictest abortion law took effect in Texas, new court filings showed the deepening and swift impact of the state’s near-total ban on abortion. A federal judge on Wednesday set an Oct. 1 hearing over the Biden administration’s efforts to block the law known as Senate Bill 8. One network of clinics in Texas, which performed more than 9,000 abortions in 2020, said it has so far turned away more than 100 patients. (Weber, 9/15)

Each morning, Brenna McCaffrey, a Ph.D. student at City University of New York, checks her TikTok inbox, where people send messages about videos she makes about self-managed abortions. In the past two months, she says, 60% of the dozens of messages have been from people in Texas asking for more resources about how to manage a medication abortion at home. In her most recent video, McCaffrey, who studies medical anthropology, explains an illustrated graphic that details the process of properly taking the abortion-inducing medications. Other videos have specifically discussed where Texas women can find the pills, which are widely available online and in pharmacies across the border in Mexico. (O'Hanlon, 9/15)

The City Council in Portland, Oregon, has scrapped a plan to boycott Texas businesses because of a new law that prohibits most abortions there, deciding Wednesday to instead set aside $200,000 to fund reproductive care. The liberal Pacific Northwest city made headlines earlier this month when Mayor Ted Wheeler announced plans to ban city business with the Lone Star State. However the proposal was abandoned due to concerns that it could be “punitive to Texans who, are in fact, the most affected” by the abortion law. (Cline, 9/15)

Montana lawmakers are studying Medicaid coverage of abortion after a session of passing several bills to restrict access to the service. A proposal to create a politically appointed panel to decide who gets Medicaid coverage for abortions was met with bipartisan pushback last session. Republican lawmakers compromised and changed the proposal to a study of the issue over the next two years instead. (Ragar, 9/15)

South Dakota has enlisted one of former President Donald Trump’s lead attorneys to help in its attempt to lift a decade-old injunction that nullified part of a state law requiring women to consult with a crisis pregnancy center before having an abortion, the governor and attorney general said Wednesday. Jay Sekulow, who was one of President Donald Trump’s lead attorneys during his impeachment trial last year, will offer the services of his firm, the American Center for Law and Justice, for free, the governor’s and attorney general’s offices said. The nonprofit Christian legal advocacy group is based in Washington, D.C. (9/15)

When the U.S. Supreme Court this month declined to block a restrictive Texas law banning abortion after about six weeks into a pregnancy, abortion rights campaigners across Europe watched with dismay. Anti-abortion campaigners, however, were taking notes. Abortion is available on demand to more than 95 percent of girls and women of reproductive age in Europe, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights — from Greece to the United Kingdom, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks and beyond in rare cases. France moved last week to offer free contraception to girls and women under 25, in a sign of the continent’s generally liberal approach. (Smith, 9/16)

Wading into an issue splitting the U.S. Catholic Church, Pope Francis on Wednesday said the decision about granting Communion to politicians who support abortion rights should be made from a pastoral point of view, not a political one. Francis did not take a direct stance on the raging debate over whether President Biden should be denied the sacred rite because of an abortion stance that goes against church doctrine. But the pope advised that bishops should be “pastors, and not go condemning.” “God’s style is closeness, compassion and tenderness,” Francis said. (Harlan and Boorstein, 9/15)