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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) says she will not vote for an ObamaCare repeal bill that defunds Planned Parenthood. In her address to Alaska's state legislature Wednesday, the moderate Republican offered her firmest commitment yet that she will not support defunding Planned Parenthood. "I, for one, do not believe that Planned Parenthood has any place in our deliberations on the Affordable Care Act," she said. (Hellmann, 2/23)

A new ordinance in St. Louis prohibits discrimination based on "reproductive health decisions," an effort by the heavily Democratic city to pre-empt a slew of anti-abortion measures advancing through Missouri's Republican-controlled Legislature. (Kull, 2/23)

A group of reproductive health experts has called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to loosen regulation of the "abortion pill" so women can get it by prescription in pharmacies without necessarily seeing a doctor. The commentary, in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, comes as the Trump administration, which has been hostile to abortion rights, prepares to appoint a new FDA commissioner. The FDA last year updated the prescribing information for the abortion pill, mifepristone, marketed as Mifeprex, to let women use it later in pregnancy, with two visits to the doctor rather than three. But special restrictions still prohibit the sale of the drug in pharmacies; it can only be dispensed in clinics, hospitals, and medical offices by health-care providers  who undergo a certification process. (McCullough, 2/23)