Sign up for Executive Dysfunction, a weekly newsletter that highlights one under-the-radar story about how Trump is changing the law—or how the law is pushing back—and keeps you posted on the latest from Slate’s Jurisprudence team.

A reckoning around reproductive rights and the First Amendment is brewing for after the midterms. Last week, a large group of conservative states announced an effort to defend the constitutionality of South Dakota’s law prohibiting advertising any item “designed, adapted, or intended for producing an abortion.” Enforcement of the law has been blocked by a district court and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals while proceedings continue. Meanwhile, the 7th Circuit last week affirmed an earlier ruling blocking an Indiana law that made it a crime to aid a minor seeking an out-of-state abortion on similar grounds.

These are among many developments that point to an emerging trend: States that have found it impossible to enforce abortion laws are focusing instead on shutting down information about abortion, and are doing so in a way that might pose a back-door challenge to the shield laws that have made abortion pills available even in states where abortion is a crime.

Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, states that ban abortion have struggled to enforce their laws. Much of that reflects the availability of telemedicine services. In data published last June, the Society for Family Planning found that telehealth procedures have accounted for roughly 40 percent of the total in states where abortion is legal, and north of 97 percent of abortions in states that criminalize the procedure. The total number of procedures also appears to be on the rise. This state of affairs has been an endless source of rage for the leaders of conservative states, who fought for decades to end the right to choose abortion only to see abortion numbers increase.

The easiest solution for ban states would involve intervention by the Trump administration. Current Food and........

© Slate