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Day 19: Reproductive rights in the headlines

Today in the Nerdland Scholar Challenge, we review some of the latest news about reproductive rights.

This week, we’ve been focused on selected history around reproductive rights. Today, get up to speed on current news with our five fast facts:

"With no debate, the Louisiana House has backed new abortion regulations to require doctors performing the procedure to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Critics say that would shut down three of Louisiana's five abortion clinics, leaving two in the Shreveport area."'

"Less than a week after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld two provisions of Texas’s law restricting abortions – including one that has closed a third of the state’s clinics – attorneys for two of the closed clinics are trying a new tactic. They have filed a new federal lawsuit on behalf of Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen and Reproductive Health Services in El Paso, saying the law is unconstitutional as applied to them."'

"Judging by the direction of questions at oral argument at the Supreme Court [last Tuesday], the closely watched contraceptive cases – Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, who are suing the government over regulations in the Affordable Care Act – are likely to divide along traditional partisan lines, with Justice Anthony Kennedy providing the tie-breaking vote."'

"A federal district court judge in Arizona has ruled that the state’s restrictions on medication abortion – which effectively take it off the table as an option – can go forward pending further litigation. That follows an appeals court in Texas last week, which upheld similar restrictions in Texas."'

"Thanks to a law passed last year, California is actually adding abortion providers – nearly fifty nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and physicians’ assistants, trained to provide aspiration abortions in the first trimester –with more to come."'