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In the presidential debate Wednesday night, Donald J. Trump expounded on pregnancy and abortion, asserting that under current abortion law, “You can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day.” Doctors say the scenario Mr. Trump described does not occur. “That is not happening in the United States,” said Dr. Aaron B. Caughey, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health and Science University. “It is, of course, such an absurd thing to say,” he said. (Belluck, 10/20)

A federal judge on Thursday sided with women's health provider Planned Parenthood in a lawsuit aiming to block a Mississippi law that barred medical providers that perform abortions from participating in the state's Medicaid program. (Skinner, 10/21)

Health officials are trying to rebuild [Texas’s] women’s health program, a complicated project launched after Texas in 2011 cut funds for family planning that had been going to Planned Parenthood and other clinics affiliated — even loosely — with abortion providers. As part of the new program, the state is trying to bolster low-income women’s access to birth control to curb unintended pregnancies. Nationally, about half of pregnancies are unintended. And Texas is one of nearly two dozen states changing their Medicaid programs, the federal-state insurance plan for low-income people, to pay hospitals for inserting an IUD or contraceptive implant in the delivery room. (Luthra, 10/21)

Nurse practitioner Kim Hamm talked in soothing tones to her 14-year-old patient as she inserted a form of long-acting contraception beneath the skin of the girl’s upper arm. ... Hamm works at the Gaston County Teen Wellness Center, in Gastonia, N.C., which provides counseling, education and medical care. The teenager had already talked through her birth control options with another health care provider and chosen the implant — a flexible rod, about the size of a matchstick, that slowly releases low levels of hormones to prevent pregnancy. (Tomsic, 10/21)