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Minnesota is seeing a dramatic surge in patients coming here from other states to get abortions. Planned Parenthood officials have told Gov. Tim Walz they expect a surge to continue as more states move to restrict abortion access. "Since Roe was overturned a year and a half ago, Minnesota has become an island with access for abortion care," Minnesota Planned Parenthood CEO Ruth Richardson said Monday. Officials estimate that there has been a 25% increase in abortions in Minnesota in that time. (Murphy, 1/8)

More women on Monday joined a Tennessee lawsuit challenging the state’s broad abortion ban that went into effect shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The legal challenge is part of a handful of lawsuits filed across the U.S. in Republican-dominant states seeking clarity on the circumstances that qualify patients to legally receive an abortion. (Kruesi, 1/8)

Two Ohio lawmakers have introduced a bill that would change how Issue 1, regarding reproductive rights, including abortion, is implemented. The bill would make it so the Ohio General Assembly, not the courts, would have exclusive authority over implementing Issue 1, which covers reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one's own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion. (Sanderson, 1/4)

The Supreme Court is finding itself at the center of questions surrounding access to an abortion less than two years after the conservative majority said judges would no longer be the ultimate deciders of such policy.  The court will hear two cases on abortion this term, both dealing with a clash between federal law and the near-total abortion bans of red states. More cases are making their way through the legal system and likely will reach the Supreme Court. (Weixel, 1/9)

Pope Francis called Monday for a global ban on surrogate motherhood, equating it with child trafficking in remarks at a meeting with ambassadors to the Vatican and adding fuel to efforts in Italy to pass the West’s most restrictive law on a practice used by infertile and same-sex couples to become parents. “I deem deplorable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs,” Francis said in prepared remarks. “A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract. Consequently, I express my hope for an effort by the international community to prohibit this practice universally.” (Faiola and Pitrelli, 1/8)