Welcome to Gavel Drop, our roundup of legal news, headlines, and head-shaking moments in the courts.

This tough but important read from an Indiana OB-GYN details how the state’s repressive new anti-choice law—which punishes doctors if they perform an abortion based on a fetus’ race, sex, or diagnosis of disability—will make her patients suffer.

In response to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signing the most oppressive anti-abortion law in Indiana’s history, women in the state have started keeping Pence apprised of their menstrual cycles. Check out the Periods for Pence Facebook group if you need the governor to answer questions about your body.

In this must-read article, Dr. Leah Torres describes how Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) has decided to force her to perform a medical procedure that is not even part of the standard of care for pregnant patients and thus arguably medical malpractice. But if she doesn’t perform that procedure, she will be breaking the law.

Adam Liptak has this great piece on the Supreme Court’s shifting power dynamic as it settles into completing the term with only eight members.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in Missouri have already been cleared of any allegations they were selling fetal tissue, but Senate Republicans in the state want to try and hold local Planned Parenthood officials in contempt regardless.

Republicans in Nebraska must be feeling left out because they, too, are pushing for further investigation of Planned Parenthood.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) has asked his state’s court of appeals to overturn a lower court ruling stopping his administration from closing a Lexington abortion clinic on the grounds it was operating without the proper licensing.

Garrett Epps has a long but captivating read on the history of religious free exercise rights in this country.

Tennessee lawyers are still wrangling over the legality of a 2014 ballot measure that added language explicitly removing any protection for abortion rights to the state constitution.

After pressure from anti-choice lawmakers, the Arkansas Medical Board voted to start using the terms “unborn child” and “unborn human individual” instead of “fetus” when implementing anti-choice regulations.

The Republican obstruction over Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is just the tip of the iceberg. Look at what’s happening with Texas courts.

A Pennsylvania lawmaker is looking into possible RICO charges against Catholic officials in the state for decades of covering up sex abuse in their ranks.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development released new guidance stating that blanket housing policies refusing to rent to people with criminal records could amount to housing discrimination.

The Supreme Court will hear a case next term on whether racist comments made by a juror are reason to break the secrecy in jury deliberations and can be used to challenge a criminal conviction. Maybe we’ll even have a ninth justice by then.

Speaking of the Supreme Court, Justice Elena Kagan told law students at New York University recently that the eight members are “working really hard” to reach consensus on the cases left before them, since a ninth justice may not be joining them on the bench anytime soon. 

In the alternate reality in which most conservatives seem to exist, Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) should be the Supreme Court nominee to replace Antonin Scalia.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that a school guidance counselor who helped a 15-year-old girl get judicial approval for an abortion without telling her parents shouldn’t have lost her job for doing so.

The conservative obsession with undoing the Indian Child Welfare Act continues.

Finally, would it surprise you to hear that a religious anti-vaccination researcher taught David Daleiden about various aspects of the biomedical field as part of Daleiden’s plan to take down Planned Parenthood by falsely accusing the reproductive health-care provider of selling fetal tissue?