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Legislative districts across the state were reshaped through a new redistricting process, adding a huge element of suspense to the 2023 races. (Dorman, 10/29)

Door-knocking in this rural neighborhood 30 miles south of Richmond, state House candidate Kim Pope Adams encounters a voter who wastes no time getting to the point. “I’m not voting for you. I can’t — you’re a little too liberal for me actually,” the voter, U.J. Severin, 61, said, listing out concerns about public safety and stewardship of public dollars. But, Severin said, she also isn’t voting for Adams’ opponent, Republican Kim Taylor, “because of her abortion stance.” (Barclay, 10/27)

The inflammatory language targeting a reproductive rights measure on Ohio’s fall ballot is the type of messaging that is common in the closing weeks of a highly contested initiative campaign — warning of “abortion on demand” or “dismemberment of fully conscious children” if voters approve it. Only the messaging is being promoted on the official government website of the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate. And because the source is a government website, the messaging is being prioritized in online searches for information about Issue 1, the question going before Ohio voters Nov. 7. (Smyth and Fernando, 10/27)

Students hoping to get others to vote “no” on an upcoming Ohio amendment to ensure abortion rights took the soft approach at a recent event at the University of Cincinnati. The signs in their booth were alarmist — “Late-Term Abortion is on the Ballot” — but the young “Students for Life” advocates opted for a moderate appeal as they stopped students hurrying back and forth to class. (Gowen, 10/29)

The rate of pregnancy-related deaths in Texas decreased from 2013 to 2019, according to an updated report released Wednesday by the state health department, but Black patients continued to die during or after their pregnancies at higher rates than other racial groups. The newly published findings expand on a preliminary analysis of 2019 pregnancy-related deaths, published last year by the Texas Department of State Health Services amid controversy over the state’s decision to delay its release. (Gill, 10/27)

California hospitals and clinics were slow to carry out mandated training intended to combat unconscious bias among workers who care for pregnant patients, the state Department of Justice found in a newly released investigation. Less than 17% of facilities that provided information to the state agency had initiated “implicit bias training” in the year after California started requiring it for pregnancy and childbirth professionals, according to the report unveiled Friday by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta. (Alpert Reyes, 10/27)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Dads Drive Growth In California’s Paid Family Leave Program

In a sign of growing domestic equality, more new dads are claiming paid family leave to bond with their babies and support their partners during the first weeks of parenthood. In California, which has one of the nation’s oldest programs, men filed 44% of bonding claims last year, up from 31% a decade prior, according to state statistics. About 119,300 California men took paid family leave for bonding in the state’s fiscal year that ended at the end of June, up by 19%, or nearly 20,000, from 2020, according to California’s Employment Development Department. The number of women taking state leave for bonding has held relatively steady at roughly 150,000 since 2019. (Reese, 10/30)