Category Archives: Roe v Wade

Trump boasts ‘We broke Roe v Wade’ as abortion dogs GOP election hopes

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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.

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Kamala Harris blames Donald Trump for Arizona abortion-ban debacle in speech

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‘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.

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US health secretary on Alabama’s IVF ruling: ‘Pandora’s box was opened’ after fall of Roe

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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.

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US Senate attempt to protect IVF access blocked by Mississippi Republican

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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.

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Biden abortion ad marks campaign shift to emphasize reproductive rights

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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.

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‘We don’t want to be the bad guys’: anti-abortion marchers seek post-Roe stance

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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.

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Texas can ban emergency abortions despite federal guidance, court rules

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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.

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States to award anti-abortion centers roughly $250m in post-Roe surge

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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.

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Texas attorney general says he will sue doctor who gives abortion to Kate Cox

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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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‘Abortion is a winning issue’: rights victories in 2023 US elections raise hopes for 2024

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Democrats will almost certainly use the issue to buoy their party in races, while Republican voters may be abandoning their party over it

More than a year after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, handing states the power to decide if and how to ban abortion, voters have again overwhelmingly rejected attempts to curtail access to the procedure. A string of successes for abortion rights groups on Tuesday are raising hopes among Democrats that, despite recent dismal polls, the issue will lift their odds in 2024.

In Ohio, the only state to hold an abortion-related ballot referendum in 2023, more than 56% of voters agreed to enshrine the right to the procedure into the state constitution. In Virginia, Democrats won back full control of the state legislature after Republicans campaigned on the promise of a “sensible limit” that would ban most abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy. In Kentucky, the incumbent Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, bested his anti-abortion Republican opponent. And in Pennsylvania, in a race dominated by talk of abortion, Democrats won a seat on the state supreme court.

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Abortion is still under threat by dark money groups that helped overturn Roe

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An Ohio election ballot, if passed, would safeguard abortion access – but groups tied to anti-abortion figures like Leonard Leo are trying to influence the outcome

The fight for abortion access in the US continues to be threatened by the same dark-money, anti-abortion operatives that helped overturn Roe v Wade. Chief among them is the Leonard Leo-affiliated group Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA-PLA) and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

One of the fiercest fights is currently focused on an amendment at the center of a November Ohio election ballot, that, if passed, would safeguard abortion access by enshrining reproductive rights in the state’s constitution.

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Ohio abortion rights activists suffer blow in suit over referendum language

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A fetus will now be referred to as an ‘unborn child’ on a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution

In this year’s only opportunity for US voters to directly weigh in on the right to abortion, an upcoming ballot referendum in Ohio will include language that describes a fetus as an “unborn child”, in a disappointing loss for abortion rights activists in the state who had sued to stop voters from seeing language they say is misleading.

Ohioans are set to vote on 7 November on a referendum to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution. The outcome of the vote could not only determine the future of Ohio’s six-week abortion ban, which is currently frozen pending litigation, but also for the midwest writ large. The state has become one of the few in the region to still permit abortions since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year.

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Ohio Republicans accused of trying to mislead voters with abortion ballot wording

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New lawsuit accuses ballot board of presenting voters with a confusing summary on November ballot about access to abortion

Abortion rights advocates in Ohio filed a lawsuit on Monday, claiming that state Republican leaders are trying to confuse voters on a ballot measure about access to reproductive healthcare.

Last week, the Ohio ballot board – led by the Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose – approved the wording of Issue 1, a November ballot measure that will ask voters if the state constitution should guarantee a right to abortion, contraception, fertility treatment and miscarriage care.

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Texas carves out narrow exception to abortion ban in new Republican strategy

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Law allows for termination if patient’s water breaks too early or in cases of ectopic pregnancy, but critics say it is not enough

A Texas law about to take effect on Friday carves out exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.

In June, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, quietly signed HB 3058, allowing doctors to provide abortion care when a patient’s water breaks too early for the fetus to survive, or when a patient is suffering from an ectopic pregnancy.

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Abortion demonstrations expected across US to mark a year since Roe was overturned – live

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Campaigners set to hold events across the country on first anniversary of supreme court overturning constitutional right to abortion

Several reproductive rights organizations have announced their endorsement of the Biden-Harris administration in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

The organizations include Planned Parenthood, NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) Pro-Choice America , and EMILYs List, a political action committee dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women into office.

“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been committed to fighting back against the onslaught of attacks against our reproductive freedom. And we need them to continue this critical work.

Abortion is health care… We need leaders who are committed to protecting our freedoms, not taking them away. That is why we must re-elect President Biden and Vice President Harris: people we can trust to keep rebuilding a path forward, because we know the journey to rebuilding our rights will be met with challenges,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are the strongest advocates for reproductive freedom ever to occupy the White House, and NARAL Pro-Choice America proudly endorses their reelection. It’s as simple as this: Abortion matters to Americans. In elections since the Supreme Court took away our right to abortion, voters have mobilized in massive numbers to elect Democrats who will fight to restore it...”

EMILYs List president Laphonza Butler released the following statement:

“When the Dobbs decision ended a constitutional right for the first time in this country’s history, we were grateful to have leaders in the White House like President Biden and Vice President Harris, who have been vocal advocates for abortion rights across the government and across the country… For her work as a groundbreaker, tireless advocate for reproductive freedom, and inspiring change-maker, EMILYs List is thrilled to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for reelection.”

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The fight over US abortion rights in the year without Roe – photo essay

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A look back on the year since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade with the Dobbs decision, and the advocates who aren’t giving up

While the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade sent shockwaves around the country, many activists, physicians and advocacy groups closely engaged in the fight over abortion in the US were not surprised.

Since Roe’s establishment of the federal right to abortion in 1973, anti-abortion advocates and conservative lawmakers have been chipping away at it. Restrictions on abortion increased over the last decade, and by the mid-2010s, seven states had just one abortion clinic left. In Mississippi, where the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that ultimately ended Roe originated, the state’s one clinic did not provide abortions beyond 16 weeks of pregnancy, meaning many people already had to travel to find care.

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Republicans scramble to limit electoral backlash against abortion bans

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Supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade sparked a slew of state-level restrictions but anti-abortion stance has proved a vote-loser

In the months since the supreme court voted to overturn Roe v Wade last year, the effects of the court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization have become clear. Over a dozen states across the country have passed legislation limiting or outright banning access to abortions, severely restricting reproductive rights for millions of people and threatening to imprison abortion providers.

But as Republicans have pushed through these bills, voters have also taken every opportunity to rebuke them in elections – leading to defeats in midterms and emerging as one of the GOP’s largest vulnerabilities.

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Biden puts abortion rights at center of campaign on Roe reversal anniversary

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President announces executive order to boost access to contraception as Republicans call for national restrictions

Joe Biden on Friday put reproductive rights squarely in the middle of his 2024 re-election campaign as the US president hosted a rally based around defending abortion rights, notched three high-profile endorsements from groups dedicated to the issue, and announced an executive order aimed at boosting access to contraception.

The moves came in stark contrast to the Republican field of candidates, many of whom were attending the Faith & Freedom Coalition annual conference in Washington DC.

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Google earned $10m from ads misdirecting abortion seekers to ‘pregnancy crisis centers’

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Study finds the search giant has profited since Roe was overturned from anti-abortion groups buying misleading search terms

Google has made millions of dollars in the last two years from advertisements misdirecting users who were seeking abortion services to “pregnancy crisis centers” that do not actually provide care, according to a new study.

The tech giant has taken in an estimated $10m in two years from anti-choice organizations that pay to advertise such centers alongside legitimate results on the Google search page, according to a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit group that conducts misinformation research. Its study, published on Thursday, estimates that the search results have reached and potentially misled hundreds of thousands of users.

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Texas man kills girlfriend after she had an abortion in Colorado

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Gabriella Gonzalez, 26, was shot in the head in a parking lot by Harold Thompson, 22, shortly after she ‘shrugs off’ his chokehold

A 26-year-old woman from Texas was shot and killed by her boyfriend after getting an abortion in another state, Dallas police said.

He was jailed on a murder charge as of Friday.

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