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Porsha Ngumezi died after not receiving a standard D&C procedure following complications from a miscarriage. More than a dozen doctors said the 35-year-old’s death was preventable. (Presser and Surana, 11/25)

Arizona top officials certified the state’s election results Monday, including voters’ approval of a measure that expands abortion access from 15 weeks to the point of fetal viability. The victory for reproductive rights groups sets the stage for their next battle: challenging other laws on the books in Arizona they say are too restrictive. The 15-week cutoff, for example, allows exceptions only when the mother’s life is at risk. (Govindarao and Sandoval, 11/25)

Minnesota has some of the most accommodating laws granting access to abortion. A lawsuit filed late last week seeks to upend them. It was brought by a group of plaintiffs that includes women who have had abortions they say weren’t voluntary, anti-abortion organizations and “crisis pregnancy centers,” which counsel clients against having abortions. They argue that Minnesota’s process for abortion consent is too loose and that its legal protections for medical providers are too lenient. For decades, New Jersey-based attorney Harold Cassidy has brought lawsuits on behalf of people who he has said “regretted having abortions.” (Roth, Haecherl and Sepic, 11/25)

As one of the five employees who disperses financial assistance to abortion seekers through the New York Abortion Access Fund, Chelsea Williams-Diggs has witnessed firsthand the consequences of Florida’s strict anti-abortion laws. “It was a really big blow to our broader movement and to how we understand New York’s ecosystem as well,” she  told THE CITY last week. “After Florida enacted their six-week ban, which was in May of this past year, NYAAF immediately saw a spike — a huge increase in Floridians traveling to New York to access abortion care.” According to her data, the increase was around 460%. (Kahn, 11/25)

Supporting Amendment 3 was never an option for Justice Gatson. As the leader of the Reale Justice Network, a reproductive justice organization based in Kansas City, she had a simple explanation for her decision: the amendment didn’t go far enough in expanding abortion access. So when voters approved Amendment 3 — which lifts Missouri’s near-total abortion ban but allows legislators to regulate the procedure after viability — Gatson didn’t stand by. The day after the election, she was among a number of organizers and activists who released an accountability plan called “What’s Next.”  (Spoerre, 11/25)

It seemed only logical after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that abortion rates would go down and births would go up. Instead, the opposite happened: Abortions went up last year and the country’s fertility rate hit a historic low. More than 1 million abortions were recorded in the United States in 2023 — the highest in a decade, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion access. So far this year, abortion rates have remained about the same as in the last six months of 2023, preliminary data show. What happened to keep the abortion rates from falling? (Bendix, 11/26)

Leonard Leo may not be a household name, but odds are most people in the country know his signature achievement: Leo was a key architect of the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court that rolled back the federal right to an abortion. The conservative activist advised President-elect Donald Trump during his first term on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The three picks gave conservatives their 6-3 majority on the high court. And all of them voted to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision. (Inskeep and Manuel, 11/25)

Despite his campaign promises to leave the issue to the states, President-elect Donald Trump’s administration will shape the national landscape around abortion and reproductive health. “Maybe Trump thinks he’ll face less backlash if he lets these nationwide attacks on abortion play out in court rather than in his agencies — but if Trump’s DOJ stops defending mifepristone in court, he’s reneging on his promise to voters just the same,” said Julia Kaye, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. Those in the anti-abortion movement argue there are policy changes Trump can adopt that wouldn’t violate his campaign pledges. They’re calling for, at the least, the reversal of Biden-era moves and a return to certain anti-abortion policies pushed in his first term. (Sneed, 11/25)

With two months left before President Joe Biden leaves office, there are some areas where legal scholars and attorneys suggest the outgoing administration could still take action, even if the impact may be narrow or short-lived. (Luthra, 11/25)