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A controversial military policy that allows service members to be reimbursed for travel if they or a family member have to go out of state for reproductive health care — including abortions — was used just 12 times from June to December last year, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin instituted the policy after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 to ensure that troops who were assigned to states where abortions or other types of health care such as IVF treatment were no longer provided could still access those services. (Copp, 3/26)

A U.S. judge has awarded the reproductive rights advocate National Abortion Federation nearly $700,000 more in legal fees in a long battle over an activist’s secretly recorded videos, bringing the money recouped by the group so far to at least $7 million. ... An attorney for the abortion rights federation in a statement said the "defendants in this case violated their legal obligations and must be held accountable for putting abortion providers’ safety at risk." (Scarcella, 3/26)

An Alabama Democrat who campaigned aggressively on abortion access won a special election in the state Legislature on Tuesday, sending a message that abortion remains a winning issue for Democrats, even in the deep South. Marilyn Lands, ... a mental health professional, centered her bid on reproductive rights and criticized the state’s near-total abortion ban along with a recent state Supreme Court ruling that temporarily banned in vitro fertilization. (Crampton, 3/26)

epublican legislators gave final approval Tuesday to a bill that would require Kansas abortion providers to ask their patients why they want to terminate their pregnancies and then report the answers to the state. The Senate approved the bill 27-13 after the House approved it earlier this month, sending the measure to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. She is a strong abortion rights supporter and is expected to veto the bill, but supporters appear to have exactly the two-thirds majorities in both chambers they would need to override a veto. (3/26)

The Iowa attorney general’s office said it is still working on an audit of its victim services that has held up emergency contraception funding for victims of sexual assault despite having a completed draft in hand. Attorney General Brenna Bird, a Republican, paused the funding while awaiting the results of the audit to decide whether to continue those payments. Her office said the audit, which Bird announced when she took office 14 months ago, is in its “final stages” and a report would be released soon. (Fingerhut, 3/26)

Aftyn Behn hoped that this would be the year the Tennessee legislature was free of bills related to the anti-abortion movement. Since it is now illegal to terminate pregnancies in the state, the Democrat figured her Republican counterparts in the Tennessee House would concentrate their efforts on causes other than restricting reproductive rights. But she was mistaken: The House on March 18 passed the “Baby Olivia Act,” which gives public schools the greenlight to screen a fetal development video produced by a controversial anti-abortion group. (Nittle, 3/26)