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A widely anticipated legal battle over whether federal policies supersede state laws began Wednesday with a pair of lawsuits seeking to stop restrictions on abortion pills in two states. The challenges — targeting laws in North Carolina and West Virginia that block patients from receiving abortion pills by mail or from retail pharmacies or ban the use of the pills entirely — will likely have national implications, as more than a dozen states have imposed laws limiting how, when and where patients can obtain abortion pills. (Ollstein and Gardner, 1/25)

The cases were brought by a North Carolina physician who prescribes the pill, mifepristone, and GenBioPro, which makes a generic version of the drug and sued in West Virginia. While the federal court lawsuits target specific state laws, they represent key legal tests that could eventually determine access to abortion for millions of women. Medication recently overtook in-clinic procedures as the most common form of abortion in the U.S. (Perrone, 1/25)

Of the three cases, the third — Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration — could have the broadest impact. In November, conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom challenged the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, citing concerns about its safety. ADF is seeking an emergency ruling to pull approval of the drug nationwide. “If the FDA were forced to withdraw its approval that would mean that mifepristone would be taken off the shelves nationwide and would therefore decimate access to abortion to people across the country regardless of where they live or the laws of their state,” said Jennifer Dalven, director of the reproductive freedom project at the American Civil Liberties Union, speaking in a press call last week. (Raman, 1/25)

Abortion rights proposals have been front and center in Olympia, Washington, this week as state lawmakers heard hours of public testimony on seven proposals that would reinforce abortion access. The emphasis on four legislative committees hearing testimony on abortion bills Tuesday was intended to demonstrate majority Democrats’ support for abortion rights following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, The Seattle Times reported. (1/26)

For the fourth consecutive year, the Rhode Island General Assembly’s legislative session saw the proposal of the Equality in Abortion Coverage Act, which would ensure that individuals on Medicaid or state employee health insurance plans receive coverage for abortion procedures. State Sen. Bridget Valverde, D-East Greenwich, has introduced the bill in the state Senate annually since 2020, failing to get the bill to the governor’s desk each time. (Sarig, 1/26)

In 10 weeks, Wisconsin will hold an election that carries bigger policy stakes than any other contest in America in 2023. The April race, for a seat on the state’s evenly divided Supreme Court, will determine the fate of abortion rights, gerrymandered legislative maps and the Wisconsin governor’s appointment powers — and perhaps even influence the state’s 2024 presidential election. (Epstein, 1/25)

Nurses at the low-slung maze-like student health complex at the University of California, Santa Barbara work year-round to make sure the shelves of their in-house pharmacy remain stocked with antivirals, painkillers and antibiotics for the tens of thousands of students they serve. This month, they were required to have two more drugs on hand: mifepristone and misoprostol — the regimen that induces an abortion. (Ollstein, 1/25)

House Democrats today are set to introduce a largely symbolic bill that would lift longstanding government restrictions on the use of federal funds to cover abortions. ... If enacted, "low income people, who are primarily Black and brown, would have the same access to the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion care," Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chair of the House Pro-Choice Caucus and and lead lawmaker introducing the bill, told Axios. (Gonzalez, 1/26)

A man accused of firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Peoria, Ill., earlier this month told investigators that he had done so after recalling an abortion a former girlfriend once had against his wishes, adding that he hoped the fire would delay others in having abortions, according to federal authorities. (Ripka, 1/25)

Despite all the headlines about the procedure, many Americans do not know basic facts about abortions or who gets them, according to a new NPR/Ipsos poll. Take the quiz below — it has the same questions as the poll — and test your own knowledge. Then, read on to understand more about how the facts connect to the abortion debate. (Benshoff and Hurt, 1/26)