Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has signed into law the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

Gordon, a Republican, signed the bill Friday night while allowing a separate measure restricting abortion to become law without his signature.

The pills are already banned in 13 states that have blanket bans on all forms of abortion, and 15 states already have limited access to abortion pills. Until now, however, no state had passed a law specifically prohibiting such pills, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

A group seeking to open an abortion and women’s health clinic in Casper said it was evaluating legal options.

“We are dismayed and outraged that these laws would eradicate access to basic health care, including safe, effective medication abortion,” Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement Saturday.

The clinic, which a firebombing prevented from opening last year, is one of two nonprofits suing to block an earlier Wyoming abortion ban. No arrests in the arson have been made, and organizers say the clinic is now tentatively scheduled to open in April, depending on abortion’s legal status in Wyoming then.

Currently Wyoming has only one abortion provider, a physician in Jackson who performs only medication abortions.

The Republican governor’s decision on the two measures comes after the issue of access to abortion pills took center stage this week in a Texas court. A federal judge there raised questions about a Christian group’s effort to overturn the decades-old U.S. approval of a leading abortion drug, mifepristone.

Medication abortions became the preferred method for ending pregnancy in the U.S. even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that protected the right to abortion for nearly five decades. A two-pill combination of mifepristone and another drug is the most common form of abortion in the U.S.

A sexual assault survivor chooses sterilization so that if she is ever attacked again, she won’t be forced to give birth to a rapist’s baby. An obstetrician delays inducing a miscarriage until a woman with severe pregnancy complications seems “sick enough.” A lupus patient must stop taking medication that controls her illness because it can also cause miscarriages.

Abortion restrictions in a number of states and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade are having profound repercussions in reproductive medicine as well as in other areas of medical care.

“For physicians and patients alike, this is a frightening and fraught time, with new, unprecedented concerns about data privacy, access to contraception, and even when to begin lifesaving care,” said Dr. Jack Resneck, president of the American Medical Association.

Even in medical emergencies, doctors are sometimes declining immediate treatment. In the past week, an Ohio abortion clinic received calls from two women with ectopic pregnancies — when an embryo grows outside the uterus and can’t be saved — who said their doctors wouldn’t treat them. Ectopic pregnancies often become life-threatening emergencies and abortion clinics aren’t set up to treat them.

Nine health care workers who sued Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills over the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate have until Money to reveal their identities.

The workers have so far remained anonymous, but on Thursday, a federal appeals court in Boston rejected a motion by the workers and gave them until Friday to file an amended complaint with their names, the Portland Press-Herald reported.

The plaintiffs were later given an extension until Monday.

Attorneys for Liberty Counsel, a law firm representing the health care workers, said in a court filing Friday that the one-day extension is needed to give lawyers time to speak with each plaintiff about whether they want to move forward with the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs filed their complaint in federal court last August, before the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers at Maine care facilities went into effect on Oct. 20, 2021.

In the complaint the workers argued that it was their religious right to refuse the vaccine over their belief that fetal stem cells from abortions are used to develop the vaccines.

Maine’s vaccine mandate does not allow for religious exemptions.

The lawsuit prompted several Maine newspapers, including the Portland Press Herald, to intervene in an effort to force the plaintiffs to be identified.

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled for doctors who face criminal charges for overprescribing powerful pain medication in a case arising from the opioid addiction crisis.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court that prosecutors must prove that doctors knew they were illegally prescribing powerful pain drugs in violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act.

The ruling came as the U.S. has been seeing record numbers of drug overdose deaths, many from the highly lethal opioid fentanyl.

Evaluating the convictions of two doctors who are each facing more than two decades in prison, the justices ruled on a subject on which advocates for patients and doctors had urged the court to distinguish between criminal behavior and medical errors made in good faith.

It did so in the ruling. Prosecutors, Breyer wrote, “must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knowingly or intentionally acted in an unauthorized manner.” The justices ruled unanimously for the doctors, though only six endorsed Breyer’s standard for conviction.

Fear of aggressive prosecution already has led doctors to avoid prescribing opioids “against their best medical judgment,” the National Pain Advocacy Center told the court in a written filing.

But the justices did not throw out the convictions of two doctors whose appeal was heard in February. Instead, it ordered federal appeals courts to take a new look at their cases.

The court ruled on appeals from Xiulu Ruan of Mobile, Alabama, and Shakeel Kahn, who practiced medicine in Ft. Mohave, Arizona, and Casper, Wyoming.

Ruan is serving a 21-year federal prison term. Kahn is in prison for up to 25 years. They will get another chance to argue that their convictions should be overturned.

Ruan and a partner, James Couch, were convicted of overprescribing medications at their Physicians Pain Specialists of Alabama clinic and a pharmacy.

Kahn was convicted of conspiracy to unlawfully distribute and dispense controlled substances resulting in death, including oxycodone, an opioid pain reliever, and fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

Jessica Burch, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, was a patient of Kahn’s who died from an overdose in 2015.

Tennessee and South Carolina are joining five other states in extending health care coverage to women with low-to-modest incomes for a full year after childbirth, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced on Friday.

The expansion of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program comes as the U.S. Supreme Court could be poised to overturn women’s constitutional right to abortion. That could make the coverage more urgently needed than ever if more women, especially older women or those in poorer health, end up carrying pregnancies to term. In Tennessee, a trigger law would outlaw abortion in the state if Roe v. Wade were overturned. South Carolina has a law banning abortions after six weeks.

States are currently required to provide 60 days of coverage after childbirth, but medical experts say women can die from pregnancy-related conditions up to a year after giving birth and that most pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. Maternal mortality is particularly serious for Black women, whose pregnancy-related death rate is three times that of white women.

Asked about the effect of an abortion ban on Tennessee women at a Thursday news conference, Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who opposes abortion, pointed to the extension.

“It’s important that we recognize that women in crisis need support and assistance through this process. For example, that’s why we’ve expanded our postpartum coverage for women in TennCare,” Lee said.

TennCare is Tennessee’s version of Medicaid, the federal-state program covering about one in five Americans, from many newborns, to low-income adults and frail nursing home residents. The program pays for about four out of every 10 births in the United States.

About 700 U.S. women die annually because of pregnancy-related problems, a little over half after the woman has given birth, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 12% of maternal deaths occur 43 to 365 days after delivery.

The expanded coverage is made possible by a provision in the COVID-19 relief bill that will expire after five years unless Congress reapproves it or makes it permanent.

A federal appeals court has ruled that Tyson Foods can’t claim it was operating under the direction of the federal government when it tried to keep its processing plants open as the coronavirus spread rapidly within them during the early days of the pandemic.

So the Des Moines Register reports that a lawsuit filed by several families of four workers who died after contracting COVID-19 while working at Tyson’s pork processing plant in Waterloo will be heard in state court. The families allege that Tyson’s actions contributed to the deaths.

Tyson had sought to move the case to federal court because it said federal officials wanted it to keep its plants running. The company cited an executive order former President Donald Trump signed that designated meat processors as essential infrastructure.

“The fact that an entity — such as a meat processor — is subject to pervasive federal regulation alone is not sufficient to confer federal jurisdiction,” Judge Jane Kelly wrote in the decision.

The court also noted that Trump’s order was signed in late April 2020 after many of its workers were infected. More than 1,000 Tyson workers at the Waterloo plant tested positive for the virus that spring and at least six died.

Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said the Springdale, Arkansas-based company is disappointed in the court ruling, but he defended the steps Tyson took to keep workers safe during the pandemic.

“We’re saddened by the loss of any of our team members to COVID-19 and are committed to protecting the health and safety of our people,” Mickelson said. “We’ve implemented a host of protective measures in our facilities and in 2021 required all of our U.S. team members to be vaccinated.”

Medical providers and Montana residents with compromised immune systems are challenging a state law that prevents employers from mandating vaccines for employees.

They argue the law passed by the 2021 Legislature violates federal requirements for safe workplaces and reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities, and want a federal judge to rule it doesn’t apply to hospitals and other medical providers.

The Montana Medical Association, private physician groups, a Missoula hospital and seven individuals filed the complaint in U.S. District Court in Missoula on Wednesday.

Montana’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a law that said requiring vaccines as a condition of employment is discriminatory and violates the state’s human rights laws. Montana is the only state with such a law.

The complaint argues the new law prevents medical providers from taking steps to protect employees and patients who have compromised immune systems and also violates Occupational Safety and Health Act provisions that require employers to provide workplaces free from hazards.

It also argues the law violates the right to a clean and healthful environment under the Montana constitution.

The complaint names Attorney General Austin Knudsen and Commissioner of Labor and Industry Laurie Esau as defendants. Their offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.