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News This Week: 7/18 - 7/24

On Thursday, the state of Mississippi asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in its opening brief in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – the Center’s case challenging the state’s unconstitutional ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.  

• In the alarming brief, the state calls Roe and other landmark abortion decisions “unprincipled” and claims they have “poisoned our national discourse.” You can read the Center’s full statement on the brief here. 
• Amicus briefs in support of the state are due next week, on July 29.

This week, a major abortion restriction signed into law earlier this year was blocked in court. 

• On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Arkansas’s new near-total ban on abortion, which was set to go into effect next week. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker wrote that the law is “categorically unconstitutional” and is an “imminent threat to [pregnant people’s] constitutional rights.” 

This month, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals announced they will not issue a decision in the Center’s case challenging South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban until after the Supreme Court decides Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, likely next spring.  

• The law will remain blocked in the interim.  

Coming Up

Comments due for federal rule change on abortion coverage (JULY 28) 

• On July 1, the Biden administration announced a proposed rule repealing the Trump administration’s onerous regulation that would have forced insurance companies that offer plans with abortion coverage on the ACA marketplaces to send patients two separate bills per month—one for abortion coverage and one for the rest of the patient’s insurance premium.  
• The regulation’s goal was to stigmatize and eliminate access to abortion by making it more difficult for people to get health coverage of abortion through plans sold on the ACA marketplaces.  
• Comments are due on the proposed rule change by July 28.  

Did You Know?