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All six women in the Utah Senate walked out in protest and refused to vote before the chamber passed a bill mandating that a woman be shown an ultrasound before receiving an abortion. Republican Sen. Deidre Henderson said the walkout late Tuesday was a spontaneous decision to underscore concerns about the “invasive nature" of the bill. (3/11)

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) on Wednesday signed emergency legislation banning kits used to make untraceable “ghost guns” after the number of home-built firearms seized by police in the city spiked last year. The D.C. Council swiftly passed the bill in a unanimous vote last week. It came after authorities learned that ghost guns were used in four recent fatal shootings, and another was fired at two reserve officers in what the police chief called an assassination attempt. (Hermann, 3/11)

A federal appeals-court case heard Wednesday in Ohio could help shape a contentious question in abortion law: Should a woman be allowed to terminate a pregnancy because of the fetus’s disability, race or gender? The full Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering the validity of an Ohio law that makes it illegal for a physician to perform an abortion on a woman whose motivation is fear that the fetus has Down syndrome. Abortion opponents say the case is winnable in one of the nation’s most conservative legal venues and could send the issue to the Supreme Court. (Gershman, 3/11)

It was an unusually hot Monday in March and the cherry blossoms had already bloomed in Washington, D.C. A group of protesters, advocates and a few politicians had gathered at the bottom of the steps of the Capitol building, as a man was finishing a speech about disability civil rights, asking Congress to pass a law -- the Americans with Disability Act. The moment the speech finished, March 12, 1990, protesters -- some sitting in wheelchairs and others leaning on crutches -- abandoned their assistive devices and began climbing the 78 marble steps up the Capitol's West Front. (Lantry, 3/12)

Kaiser Health News: Tampons, Pads And Politics Mesh In New Push For Access To Menstrual Supplies

Geoff Davis’ gray Kia sedan is chock-full of tampons and maxi pads.Davis, 50, volunteers as executive director of Period Kits, a Colorado nonprofit that provides a three-month bag of tampons and pads to people in need. On lunch breaks from his full-time job in community relations or on weekends, he heads out to a food bank in Boulder or Civic Center Park in Denver to deliver free menstrual supplies to women experiencing homelessness or extreme poverty. (Ruder, 3/12)