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Planned Parenthood’s political arm announced a $5 million investment Thursday in North Carolina’s battleground races as Democrats fight to preserve the governor’s veto power in one of the last abortion access points in the Southeast. Just 32 days from Election Day, with absentee voting now underway, Planned Parenthood Votes and Planned Parenthood Action PAC North Carolina are targeting 14 legislative swing districts with ads, mailings, phone banks and canvassing. The investment is part of an existing $50 million national campaign to protect reproductive rights in nine target states — the largest-ever electoral program in its history. (Schoenbaum, 10/6)

The Idaho Supreme Court heard arguments in lawsuits over three of Idaho’s abortion laws on Thursday, sharply questioning attorneys about the value placed on a pregnant woman’s health, the state’s interest in ensuring that pregnancies are carried to term and Idaho’s long history of anti-abortion laws. (Boone, 10/6)

Kentucky’s sweeping abortion ban was challenged Thursday by three Jewish women who brought a lawsuit arguing that it violates their religious rights under the state’s constitution. The legal challenge, filed in state court in Louisville, says the state’s Republican-dominated legislature “imposed sectarian theology” by prohibiting nearly all abortions. The lawsuit bears similarities to legal challenges to abortion bans in at least two other states. (Schreiner, 10/6)

The move, a direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, was made to ensure students' access to abortion health services no matter what the future holds, Marina Catallozzi, Barnard's chief health officer, and Leslie Grinage, the dean of the college, said in a statement announcing the move. (Diaz, 10/7)

In the post-Roe landscape, advocates for abortion rights are pinning hopes on telehealth as one way to provide access in states with newly imposed limits. (Pasricha, 10/7)

When Linda Prine learned she was pregnant in 1970, she was a first-year college student in Wisconsin, where abortion was largely illegal. The doctor who gave her the news saw the look on Prine’s face and handed her a slip of paper with a phone number. Prine waited until other students in her dorm left for class to call from a phone in the hallway. The woman she spoke to gave her the names of psychiatrists and told her to persuade them that she would be suicidal if she were to have a baby. Prine followed the instructions and was able to get an appointment for an abortion at the university hospital. (Bazelon, 10/4)

KHN: Abortion Bans Skirt A Medical Reality: For Many Teens, Childbirth Is A Dangerous Undertaking 

Maryanna’s eyes widened as the waitress delivered dessert, a plate-sized chocolate chip cookie topped with hot fudge and ice cream. Sitting in a booth at a Cheddar’s in Little Rock, Maryanna, 16, wasn’t sure of the last time she’d been to a sit-down restaurant. With two children — a daughter she birthed at 14 and a 4-month-old son — and sharing rent with her mother and sister for a cramped apartment with a dwindling number of working lights, Maryanna rarely got out, let alone to devour a Cheddar’s Legendary Monster Cookie. (Varney, 10/7)

Young women are more likely to identify as liberal now than at any time in the past two decades, a trend that puts them squarely at odds with young men. Forty-four percent of young women counted themselves liberal in 2021, compared to 25 percent of young men, according to Gallup Poll data analyzed by the Survey Center on American Life. The gender gap is the largest recorded in 24 years of polling. The finding culminates years of rising liberalism among women ages 18 to 29, without any increase among their male peers. (De Vise, 10/6)