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Texas and Ohio have included abortions among the nonessential surgeries and medical procedures that they are requiring to be delayed, setting off a new front in the fight over abortion rights in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Both states said they were trying to preserve extremely precious protective equipment for health care workers and to make space for a potential flood of coronavirus patients. But abortion rights activists said that abortions should be counted as essential and that people could not wait for the procedure until the pandemic was over. (Tavernise, 3/23)

NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio Executive Director Kellie Copeland accused officials of "exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to further their agenda to close Ohio's abortion clinics." "Abortion care is a time-sensitive medical situation that cannot be significantly delayed without profound consequences," she said, adding: "Ohio's elected officials should not stand between patients and their doctors." (Smith, 3/23)

Texas’s attorney general said Monday health care providers can no longer perform surgical abortions because medical resources should be preserved for coronavirus patients. Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said abortion providers are subject to an executive order issued over the weekend requiring health care facilities to postpone all surgeries that aren’t “immediately medically necessary.” “No one is exempt from the governor’s executive order on medically unnecessary surgeries and procedures, including abortion providers,” Paxton said in a statement Monday. (Hellmann, 3/23)

Ohio’s attorney general has ordered clinics to halt many abortions under a new statewide measure to conserve health-care resources amid the coronavirus pandemic, going against the urgings of many medical professionals. Officials in Washington state and Massachusetts have clarified that similar orders pausing elective surgeries do not apply to abortions, and several national medical associations earlier this week advised against canceling or delaying the procedures — a key part of “comprehensive health care,” they said — because of the coronavirus outbreak. (Knowles, 3/21)