Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, signed a bill Monday that limits any opportunity for the state to safeguard unborn babies. The law, passed by the Democratic-majority legislature, prohibits any state or local government entity from taking action to protect unborn babies from abortion.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will no longer fund research using tissue from aborted babies, following a trajectory begun in September 2018. HHS announced last week it had discontinued a funding contract with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), for HIV research involving mice with humanized immune systems using aborted fetal tissue.

A St. Louis judge is considering whether to allow the last abortion facility in Missouri to remain open after a one-hour hearing on the matter Wednesday.

Pro-life lawmakers in the North Carolina House of Representatives failed to muster enough votes to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivor’s Protection Act on Wednesday. The measure would have created civil and criminal penalties for abortionists who fail to offer the same care to babies born alive after botched abortions as they would to other patients. Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed the bill on April 18, calling it “an unnecessary interference between doctors and their patients.”

The Maine Senate narrowly passed a bill Tuesday to legalize assisted suicide, just a day after the state House of Representatives passed the measure by a one-vote margin. The bill now goes to Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who has not taken a public position on the issue. If Mills signs the Maine Death with Dignity Act into law, her state will join seven others and the District of Columbia in legalizing the practice.

In a partial win for unborn babies, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week in favor of an Indiana law requiring abortion facilities to bury or cremate aborted babies’ bodies. But the justices let stand a lower court ruling that a Indiana law protecting babies from abortion on the basis of sex, race, or disability was unconstitutional.

A Missouri judge on Friday ordered that the state’s last remaining abortion center can continue operating just hours before the Planned Parenthood facility’s license was set to expire. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services had not renewed Planned Parenthood’s license due to concerns about failed abortions, compromised patient safety, and legal violations at the facility.