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A state district judge on Wednesday morning will hear arguments from abortion providers challenging Texas’ restrictive abortion law in what could be the first court hearing over the statute’s constitutionality. David Peeples, a retired state magistrate judge, will preside over the hearing, which starts at 9 a.m. and is expected to last all day. Peeples will hear over a dozen cases filed in state court challenging Texas’ law, which effectively bans abortions after about six weeks. (Oxner, 11/10)

A group of 20 Democratic state attorneys general have urged a federal appeals court to uphold a lower court ruling striking down several restrictions on abortion in Indiana, including a ban on prescribing medication via telemedicine to induce abortion. The states, including Illinois, California, New York and Massachusetts, said in an amicus brief filed Monday with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker in Indianapolis properly considered the burdens placed on women, especially low-income ones, by the restrictions. (Pierson, 11/9)

With abortion rights on the line nationally and in more than half of states, Massachusetts’ leading reproductive rights advocacy organization will announce Wednesday it’s reconstituting and expanding its reach in New England. NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, one of the organizations that successfully pushed for the state law that expanded abortion rights last year, is being renamed Reproductive Equity Now after a break with its national organization. (Ebbert, 11/10)

One company in Alabama, however, hinges its objection on different grounds — religion. FabArc, a steel fabricator based in Oxford, Alabama, with more than 100 workers, filed a petition in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Nov. 8 that argues the mandate violates the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by requiring employers to comply with a standard they find objectional on religious grounds. ... FabArc’s president and majority shareholder, Tony Pugh, is opposed to vaccines “produced in connection with aborted fetal cell lines,” attorneys representing FabArc said in a news release. Scientists, however, have said none of the coronavirus vaccines contain aborted fetal cells. (Fowler, 11/9)

"Saturday Night Live"'s Cecily Strong dressed as a clown this weekend to talk about abortion.In the show's Weekend Update segment, the actress explained the clown costume was to make the topic a little more palatable for the audience. She was introduced in light of a controversial Texas law currently being argued in the US Supreme Court.