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The U.S. Supreme Court denied on Thursday abortion providers’ latest request to intervene in the ongoing legal challenge against Texas’ restrictive abortion law, cutting off one of their few remaining paths to a speedy victory. The case is currently before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which sent the case to the Texas Supreme Court. That is expected to add months to the legal proceedings. Abortion providers were hoping the U.S. Supreme Court would direct the 5th Circuit to send the case to federal district court, where a judge previously blocked the law. (Klibanoff, 1/20)

This is the third time the court has ducked dealing with the law, known as SB 8, which is aimed at skirting enforcement of the right to abortion. Last month, the high court, in a fractured ruling, sent the case back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, with a single tenuous route to challenging the law. The Fifth Circuit, however, sent the case to the state supreme court, in an apparent attempt to delay further while the U.S. Supreme Court determines whether to reverse its 50-year-old abortion precedent, Roe v. Wade. Indeed, at oral argument, Appeals Court Judge Edith Jones openly opined that perhaps the appeals court should "just sit on this until the end of June" when the Supreme Court will have rendered its decision in a case from Mississippi challenging Roe. That prompted abortion rights groups to file an emergency request with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the court to command action by the Fifth Circuit, and to send the case back to the original federal judge who blocked the Texas law from going into effect. (Totenberg, 1/20)

The largest anti-abortion rally in the U.S. returns Friday with thousands of expected protesters in Washington who feel within reach of their goal for the last 49 years: a sweeping rollback of abortion rights. “My hopes have been dashed many times, but I have never felt like this,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life. (Weber and Pettus, 1/21)

Each year in late January, activists from around the country who want abortion to be illegal come to Washington, D.C., to march, often in bracingly cold temperatures, to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. Organizers of this year's March for Life hope it will be the final year before the Court reverses itself, and overturns decades of precedent on abortion rights. "This could be the decision of a generation," said activist Kristen Waggoner, who is scheduled to speak at the march on Friday. "My hope is that the United States Supreme Court has the courage to do what it ought." (McMannon, 1/20)

KHN: Fast-Tracked Ruling On Abortion Won’t Wait For ‘Hearts And Minds’ To Change

When he was running for president in 1999, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, famously fended off the strong anti-abortion wing of his party by suggesting the country ought not consider banning abortion until public opinion shifted further in that direction. “Laws are changed as minds are persuaded,” he said. Bush was no moderate on the abortion issue. As president he signed several pieces of anti-abortion legislation, including the first federal ban on a specific abortion procedure, and used his authority to severely limit federally funded research on embryonic stem cells. (Rovner, 1/21)

KHN: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Roe V. Wade’s (Possibly Last) Anniversary 

Jan. 22 is the 49th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark abortion ruling, Roe v. Wade, and could well be its last. The conservative supermajority on the court seems poised to allow states to severely restrict or even ban the procedure. Also this week, the Biden administration celebrates its anniversary. And while President Joe Biden has accomplished a lot in his first 365 days in office, such as expanding health insurance coverage and implementing a congressional ban on “surprise” medical bills, a big part of his health agenda remains mired in Congress. (1/20)

The Montana Supreme Court should overturn its 1999 landmark decision that found the state constitution’s right to privacy protects access to abortion, the Montana Department of Justice argues in new court filings. The justice department has appealed to the high court a Yellowstone County District Court judge’s preliminary injunction halting several new laws restricting abortion from taking effect. On Wednesday, Attorney General Austin Knudsen filed the department’s opening brief, which among its arguments calls for overturning the 1999 case Armstrong v. State and accuses Supreme Court justices at the time of “judicial activism.” (Kuglin, 1/20)

Montana’s attorney general is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn a 1999 opinion that found the state constitution’s right to privacy guarantees a woman’s access to an abortion — the opinion Planned Parenthood is using to challenge three new abortion laws. Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s brief, filed Wednesday, also asks justices to vacate a preliminary injunction that prevented the new abortion laws from taking effect. (Hanson, 1/21)

Despite fierce objections from Democrats who argued the proposal is unconstitutional, a Florida House panel on Wednesday approved a controversial bill that would prohibit doctors from performing abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The proposal, approved by the House Professions and Public Health Subcommittee in a 12-6 vote Wednesday, closely resembles a Mississippi abortion law that is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. The court heard arguments in the case last month. (Dailey, 1/20)

Now, as Mississippi awaits a United States Supreme Court ruling looking at a state law making abortion illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a decision that has the potential to overturn Roe v. Wade, many say a robust discussion about the state of Mississippi’s sex education should be had. If abortion access is further restricted in Mississippi, experts say it will cause unwanted teen pregnancies to rise, leading to young women not finishing their education, continued poverty cycles and more tax dollars spent. Better sex education, they say, is one way to prevent the inevitable domino effect. (Haselhorst, 1/20)

Judith Arcana was 27 and recently separated from her husband when she began driving women surreptitiously for safe — but illegal — abortions. The year was 1970, she was an out-of-work teacher on the South Side of Chicago, and she was spending her days counseling women in need.“I don’t think we were crazy,” said Arcana, now 78. “I don’t think we were stupid. I think that we had found something that was so important, so useful in the lives of women and girls.” “We were radicalized in the arena of women’s bodies,” she said. “We knew that what we were doing was good work in the world. And we knew that it was illegal.” (Sperling, 1/20)