Opponents of abortion are increasingly focusing on restricting access to pills, which are the most common way to end a pregnancy in the U.S.
This month, the Texas attorney general's office filed a lawsuit against a New York doctor, saying she violated Texas law by prescribing abortion pills to a patient there via telemedicine. The suit represents the first lawsuit of its kind and could lead to a legal test for the New York law designed to protect providers there who prescribe the drugs to patients in states with abortion bans.
Anti-abortion officials are taking other steps, too, through legislation and lawsuits.
Abortion rights advocates are also concerned that President-elect Donald Trump's administration could take action to restrict access if it chose to.
Pill prescribing has already withstood one key effort to block it. The U.S. Supreme Court this year ruled that a group of anti-abortion physicians and organizations that represent them lacked the legal standing to force the undoing of federal approvals for mifepristone.
The state attorneys general from Kansas, Missouri, and Idaho responded in October with a legal filing contending that they can make such an argument. Instead of focusing on the drug’s initial approval in 2000, they’re looking at later changes from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that allow its use for the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and telemedicine prescriptions.
There hasn't yet been a ruling on their case. When there is, it will likely be appealed to a higher court.