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Even though abortion is legal in Ohio, accessing abortion care can be burdensome. Northwest and Southeast Ohio don’t have any surgical abortion centers — meaning folks in those corners of the state have to travel far distances, sometimes even going out-of-state, to receive abortion care. There were 18,488 abortions performed in Ohio in 2022, a 27.4% decrease compared to 2012, according to Abortion Forward. Of those abortions, 1,287 were people who came to Ohio from a different state, according to Abortion Forward. (Henry, 8/16)

Clinics in Washington and Chicago are reporting increases in patients from Florida and elsewhere in the Southeast. But it’s not easy to travel, and some women are finding ways to work around the law. (Colombini, 8/15)

Advocates for abortion access say compounding crises of abortion bans, rising economic costs and systemic health care issues are beginning to cause significant funding challenges and potential disruptions to reproductive care of all kinds. Several people described it as a “perfect storm” of problems with the U.S. health care system, particularly post-pandemic, and the rise of abortion bans and other reproductive care restrictions in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022. (Moseley-Morris and Resnick, 8/15)

With former President Donald Trump open to restricting access to a major abortion pill physicians are steeling themselves if he wins for the possible end of legal telehealth abortion — a method that has allowed thousands of patients to circumvent state bans over the past two years. (Luthra, 8/15)

Iowa abortion providers opted to dismiss their lawsuit against the state Thursday, forgoing a continued legal battle after the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the state’s strict abortion law and reiterated that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in the state. Iowa’s law prohibiting most abortions after about six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant, went into effect on July 29. Abortion had been legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. (Fingerhut, 8/15)

Emergency contraception tablets are now available at the Polk County Health Department (PCHD) for free and without question. Why it matters: Iowa enacted one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation last month. PCHD's new program provides recipients with a levonorgestrel tablet, similar to Plan B, which is used to prevent pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. (Clayworth, 8/14)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Inside Conservative Activist Leonard Leo’s Long Campaign To Gut Planned Parenthood

A federal lawsuit in Texas against Planned Parenthood has a web of ties to conservative activist Leonard Leo, whose decades-long effort to steer the U.S. court system to the right overturned Roe v. Wade, yielding the biggest rollback of reproductive health access in half a century. (Pradhan, 8/16)

The day before nearly 190 people gathered on the North Carolina A&T State University campus in Greensboro last week to take a deep dive into how to normalize breastfeeding in Black communities, nine students took part in a “white coat” ceremony. They’re part of a cohort who will join more than 40 other people who have trained at what organizers say is the first lactation training program to be held at a public historically Black college or university in the U.S. (Fernandez, 8/15)