Justice Department's warning to states over abortion pill bans points to legal fight ahead
CBSN
Washington — With the Justice Department's recent warning to states not to ban a federally approved drug that induces an abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration signaled that medication abortion may be the next front in the fight to preserve abortion rights in states that are curtailing access.
Twenty-two years ago, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug mifepristone — taken together with a second medicine — for use in terminating a pregnancy through 10 weeks gestation. Last December, the agency lifted a requirement that the medication be dispensed in-person, allowing it to be prescribed by a provider through a telemedicine appointment and sent to the patient by mail.
But the high court's ruling ending the constitutional right to an abortion late last month has put the issue of abortion access in the hands of statewide elected officials and cleared the way for Republican-led legislatures to enact a flurry of new limits, including bans on all forms of abortion and restrictions on medication abortion.
Earlier this week, Rev. Greg Lewis, an assistant pastor at St. Gabriel's Church of God In Christ in Milwaukee, physically carried one of his parishioners to the polls inside the city's Midtown early voting center to cast a ballot in Wisconsin's upcoming Democratic primary. Supported by crutches and the pastor himself, the disabled man was one of many residents Lewis has helped vote this cycle.
Around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed when a cargo ship lost power and crashed into it. Officials were able to prevent cars from driving onto the bridge just before the accident, but eight construction workers remained on the structure and plummeted into the river below. Here's how the events unfolded.