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Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Monday he will sue to challenge President Donald Trump's policy setting up new obstacles for women seeking abortions, calling it "a transparent attack on Planned Parenthood" that would severely impair access to many types of medical care, especially for low-income women in rural areas. It's the first of several legal challenges expected to be announced by Democratic-led states. A national organization representing publicly funded family planning providers said Monday it would file a separate lawsuit over the policy. (Johnson, 2/25)

“We stand united with Attorney General Ferguson and our state and legislative leaders against this blatant assault on women’s health,” Inslee said in a statement. “Washington has been, and will continue to be, a state that stands with women and their right to safe and legal abortion and reproductive care. We will never allow President Trump or anyone else in D.C. to take those rights away.” The rules announced by the Trump administration on Friday would cut off federal family planning funds under the Title X program from clinics that provide abortions or that refer patients for abortions, a way of partially defunding Planned Parenthood. (Sullivan, 2/25)

As a legal point, Ferguson said the rule—which would boot Planned Parenthood and any other clinic that offers abortions from the network and prohibits direct referrals for abortion—violates the Affordable Care Act's mandate against limiting what information clinicians can give to their patients. (Luthi, 2/25)

The new rule, announced Friday, would create obstacles for women, particularly low-income women, seeking abortions. It would bar organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, that receive federal Title X money from referring patients to abortion providers. Organizations that receive those funds would still be able to perform abortions, but would have to do them in physically separate facilities. Providers have long had to financially separate abortion services from other services they provide. (Gutman, 2/25)

Under a new rule proposed by the Trump administration, family-planning clinics that receive federal funds through Title X would be prevented from referring women to other providers for abortions. One organization that would be affected is Planned Parenthood, whose president, Dr. Leana Wen, talks to William Brangham about why the move would compromise patient health as well as medical ethics. (Brangham, 2/25)

The Trump administration intends to limit the Title X program that provides birth control and other reproductive health services. Under the new restrictions, any clinic accepting federal funds would be prevented from performing abortions -- or referring women to other providers for the procedure. (Brangham, 2/25)