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The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will hear its first abortion case with a newly fortified 6-3 conservative majority, taking up a procedural question of who has the power to defend state abortion restrictions in court. The justices agreed to hear the Kentucky attorney general’s bid to intervene in a lawsuit over a state abortion ban that the governor refused to defend. However, the court refused the Kentucky attorney general’s request to consider whether a lower court decision striking down the ban should be thrown out. (Miranda Ollstein, 3/29)

Cameron, a Republican who opposes abortion, on Monday praised the decision in a news release, saying "we look forward to making our case before the Supreme Court." "I promised Kentuckians that I would defend our laws all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and that's what we've done," he said. But opponents of the abortion law, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which had challenged it, denounced it as a last-minute effort to "jump into the case." (Yetter, 3/29)

The Court’s limited action on EMW, in other words, combined with its non-action in Dobbs, suggests that the justices may be taking a fairly cautious approach to abortion. The Court still has a 6-3 conservative majority. And the Court did take a swipe at abortion rights last December. So the long-term future of Roe v. Wade still looks quite grim. (Millhiser, 3/29)

The Texas Senate gave initial approval Monday to a half-dozen bills that would restrict access to abortion, including a priority measure that could ban abortions before many women know they are pregnant. The measures are among the earliest bills to be debated by the full Senate — whose presiding officer, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, has given two abortion proposals top billing this session. Each piece of legislation must be voted on again in the upper chamber and then go through a similar process in the House before becoming law. (Najmabadi, 3/29)

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee passed three abortion measures along party-line votes on Monday. House Bill 1102 would classify abortion as unprofessional conduct, subjecting a physician who performs one to at least a one-year medical license suspension. (Hoberock, 3/29)

Janice Steenbeke, of Boscawen, fears a bill passed in late February by the N.H. House, dubbed the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act,” might take those limited minutes away from other families dealing with a similar loss. The bill, HB 233, requires that health care providers take “all medically appropriate and reasonable actions to the preserve the life and health” of a newborn infant. Proponents of the bill argue it respects the life of infants, especially those who are born via late-term abortions. Critics fear this legislation would interfere with the grieving process for families of fatally ill newborns. (Rosenbluth, 3/29)