‘Make America pro-life again’ legislation includes banning abortion pills entirely and outlawing telehealth abortions
The anti-abortion movement is ready for its comeback in 2025.
With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, complete with a Republican-dominated Congress, anti-abortion groups are unfurling ambitious lists of policies they hope to see enacted under a sympathetic administration.
Continue reading...Second gentleman campaigns in Florida, attacking Donald Trump and Project 2025, despite state being reliably red
In terms of presidential elections at least, Florida has fallen a long way since its heady days as the ultimate swing state. Seven cycles on from the 537-vote cliffhanger in 2000 that was finally resolved when the US supreme court placed George Bush in the White House, Florida is so reliably red, and Donald Trump so confident of picking up its 30 electoral college votes, that he has barely campaigned here.
For the same reason, the Sunshine state has not featured on Kamala Harris’s schedule either. So some eyebrows were raised when second gentleman Doug Emhoff, the vice-president’s husband, rolled up on Wednesday to rally Democrats in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, on a break from stumping in the battleground states of the north-east.
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Continue reading...In her memoir, former first lady has voiced support for the procedure, the right to which was overturned by a court of her husband’s justices
The revelation on Wednesday evening that Melania Trump’s forthcoming memoir includes a full-throated defense of abortion rights, an issue her husband Donald Trump has repeatedly flip-flopped on during his presidential campaign, left people on both sides of the issue less than impressed.
“Restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same as denying her control over her own body,” Melania Trump wrote in her memoir. “I have carried this belief with me throughout my entire adult life.”
Continue reading...Officials class mifepristone and misoprostol as ‘controlled substances’ – which medics say could imperil women’s lives
Two common abortion pills are, as of Tuesday, classified as “controlled substances” in Louisiana, due to a first-of-its-kind law that medical professionals warn will endanger the lives of women by restricting medication used to treat postpartum hemorrhage and other conditions.
Louisiana, which already bans abortion, passed a law reclassifying mifepristone and misoprostol as schedule IV drugs – a designation typically reserved for drugs that carry a risk of abuse or dependence. People caught with the drugs without a valid prescription could face up to five years in prison, although pregnant women who procure it for their own use are exempted from punishment under the law.
Continue reading...Harris campaign seeks to press advantage on powerful motivator, especially in states with abortion on the ballot
As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump prepare to meet on the debate stage in Philadelphia, the battle over abortion rights has vaulted to the center of the 2024 presidential election campaign, the first since the supreme court’s decision overturning Roe v Wade.
At the party’s convention last month, Democrats spotlighted the harrowing stories of women placed in medical peril as a result of post-Roe abortion bans in their states. Last week, the Harris campaign launched a 50-stop “reproductive freedom” bus tour across several battleground states, kicking off in Trump’s “back yard”, miles from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in south Florida.
Continue reading...Biden and Harris give forceful campaign statements blaming Trump for ending right to abortion access
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris marked the second anniversary of the US supreme court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade with forceful campaign statements that laid the blame squarely on Donald Trump for ending the national right to abortion.
In a video released on Monday, Biden pledged to restore the right to an abortion and “protect American freedom” if he is re-elected.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. For the latest on abortion news in the US, read our coverage here.
Vice President Kamala Harris just took the stage to address a crowd at the University of Maryland, her first event of the day to mark the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision.
Maryland is a deep-blue state with an abortion referendum on the ballot and a surprisingly competitive Senate race that could help determine the balance of power in Congress. Ahead of Harris’s remarks, Maryland Democrats and reproductive rights leaders emphasized the stakes in November.
Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee for the state’s open seat, said Trump was “proud as a peacock” for setting in motion the fall of Roe, and warned that Republicans saw the state as an opportunity to win back control of the chamber.
Speaking before Harris, she said of Republicans: “Make no mistake about it. They would take the first opportunity to ban abortion nationwide.”
Alsobrooks faces Larry Hogan, the state’s former two-term Republican governor, who, in a sign of the fast-shifting politics of abortion, has recast himself as “pro-choice” and said he supports the state’s abortion referendum.
Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, urged voters who want to protect access to abortion to send Alsobrooks with him to the Senate.
“Larry Hogan’s undergoing some election year conversion like none other I’ve ever seen,” the senator said, pointing to Hogan’s record as governor, when he vetoed a law that would have expanded abortion access.
“A vote for Larry Hogan is a vote to put the Maga Republicans in charge of the United States Senate.”
In November, Maryland voters will decide whether to approve a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to abortion and “reproductive freedom,” in the state’s constitution. It is widely expected to pass because of broad support for protecting abortion access, which is legal in the state.
Trump has not denied, much less shown remorse, for his actions. Instead, he proudly takes credit for overturning Roe.
In a court of law, that would be called an admission. Some would say, a confession.
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Continue reading...Policies are ‘one-two punch’ for women caught in criminal justice system, report’s author says
The number of women on probation or parole who must seek permission to travel for an abortion more than doubled to 635,000 in two years since the supreme court overturned the federal right to abortion, a new report finds.
Fourteen states have near-total abortion bans and 21 restrict the procedure. Together with near ubiquitous travel restrictions imposed by probation and parole, more than half of women on probation or parole in the US must seek permission to travel before obtaining an abortion.
Continue reading...As expected, Right to Contraception act falls short of garnering the 60 votes Senate Democrats needed to advance the bill
Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a bill that would have recognized a legal right to contraception, weeks after Donald Trump made – and quickly walked back – comments indicating he was willing to restrict access to birth control.
As expected, the Right to Contraception act fell short of garnering the 60 votes Senate Democrats needed to advance the bill. Before the vote, Democrats in effect acknowledged that they were daring Republicans to go on the record opposing the right to something that almost all American women use at some point in their lifetime.
Continue reading...Nearly double number of signatures needed turned in to get measure to enshrine abortion rights in constitution on ballot
Activists in Nevada, a key state in the upcoming US presidential elections, announced on Monday afternoon that they had turned in nearly double the number of signatures they need to get an abortion-related measure on the November ballot.
Nevada currently allows abortions up until fetal viability, or the point at which an infant can survive outside the womb, which is generally pegged to around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Continue reading...Supporters gather enough valid signatures to put measure – that would enshrine abortion rights into constitution – on to ballot
Voters in Colorado will have a say on abortion rights this fall after supporters collected enough valid signatures to put a measure on the ballot, part of a national push to pose abortion rights questions to voters since the US supreme court removed the nationwide right to abortion.
The Colorado measure officially made the ballot on Friday and would enshrine abortion rights into the constitution in a state which already allows abortion at all stages of pregnancy despite the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.
Continue reading...Republican presumptive nominee struggles to articulate position on divisive issue after meeting with House speaker
Facing the press alongside the House speaker, fellow Republican Mike Johnson, Donald Trump bragged: “We broke Roe v Wade.”
The former president made the stark admission about his dominant role in attacks on abortion rights at the end of a week in which the rightwing Arizona state supreme court ruled that an 1864 law imposing a near-total ban could go back into effect.
Continue reading...‘They’ve turned the clock to the 1800s’, said the US vice-president as she excoriated ex-president as ‘architect of healthcare crisis’
Kamala Harris pinned the blame for Arizona’s abortion ban squarely on Donald Trump, who she described as the “architect of this healthcare crisis” in a speech at a campaign event in Tucson on Friday.
The state was left reeling after the Arizona supreme court ruled earlier this week that a civil war-era law banning abortion in the state with almost no exceptions is now enforceable.
Continue reading...Xavier Becerra says US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if it hopes to avoid further restrictions
The health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said the US must provide federal protections for reproductive rights if Americans hope to avoid further restrictions on in vitro fertilization, contraception and abortion in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.
Becerra’s comments come in the wake of an Alabama supreme court decision that gave embryos the rights of “extrauterine children” and forced three of the state’s largest fertility clinics to stop services for fear of litigation and prosecution. The fallout from the decision prompted the Alabama legislature to hastily sign new legislation that will give IVF providers with immunity from civil and criminal suits, which the governor signed into law on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith rejects Access to Family Building Act, saying bill is ‘vast overreach full of poison pills’
Senate Democrats’ attempts to move forward a bill that would have granted Americans federal protections for in vitro fertilization access have failed.
The bill, sponsored by the Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth, came after a recent Alabama supreme court ruling that declared frozen embryos are children and led to the closure of multiple infertility clinics across the state.
Continue reading...Campaign ad, titled Forced, is designed to tie Donald Trump directly to the abortion issue
The Biden re-election campaign rolled out a new campaign ad Sunday, signaling a shift in emphasis to reproductive rights that the White House hopes will carry and define Democrats through the 2024 election cycle.
The campaign ad, titled Forced, is designed to tie Donald Trump directly to the abortion issue almost 18 months after his nominees to the supreme court helped to overturn a constitutional right to abortion enshrined in Roe v Wade, which would have turned 51 this week.
Continue reading...On the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, a sparse crowd of activists brave snow on March for Life in Washington DC
While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are planning a cascade of ads and events to coincide with the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, hundreds of anti-abortion activists gathered on the National Mall in Washington DC on Friday in hopes of re-energizing a movement that has repeatedly stumbled since Roe’s overturning.
Originally organized around the goal of overturning the Roe precedent that established federal abortion rights, the March for Life has seen what was once its greatest victory become a political liability. In the 18 months since Roe’s demise, abortion rights supporters have trounced anti-abortion activists in state-level ballot referendums. Yet the march’s message was largely similar to past years: speakers and attendees alike talked about the need to make abortion “unthinkable” rather than just illegal – with scant details on how to make that happen.
Continue reading...The ruling by a unanimous panel of fifth US circuit court of appeals comes amid a wave of lawsuits focusing on abortion exceptions
The US government cannot enforce federal guidance in Texas requiring emergency room doctors to perform abortions if necessary to stabilize emergency room patients, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday, siding with the state in a lawsuit accusing Joe Biden’s administration of overstepping its authority.
The ruling by a unanimous panel of the fifth US circuit court of appeals comes amid a wave of lawsuits focusing on when abortions can be provided in states whose abortion bans have exceptions for medical emergencies.
Continue reading...At least 16 states will fund largely unregulated facilities that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies
In the months since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, at least 16 states have agreed to funnel more than $250m in taxpayer dollars towards anti-abortion facilities and programs that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies.
Much of that money is set to go to anti-abortion counseling centers, or crisis pregnancy centers, according to data provided by the Guttmacher Institute and Equity Forward, organizations that support abortion rights. It has been paid out throughout 2023 and will stretch into 2025.
Continue reading...Ken Paxton issues threat after judge ruled this week that Cox, a pregnant woman with a lethal fetal diagnosis, can get an abortion
The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has threatened to prosecute any doctor who provides an abortion to Kate Cox, a woman with a non-viable pregnancy, advising hospitals to ignore a court order issued on Thursday allowing her to get the procedure.
The rightwing Paxton issued the warning to three Houston-area hospitals after a Texas judge ruled this week that Cox, a pregnant woman with a lethal fetal diagnosis, may obtain an abortion under the narrow medical exceptions offered by the state bans.
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