Category Archives: Roe v Wade

Schumer announces Senate abortion rights vote: ‘America will be watching’ – as it happened

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Numbers are growing and tempers are fraying outside the supreme court. My colleague David Smith has just sent this video of protestors on both sides of the abortion rights debate facing off:

Celebrities are sharing their abortion stories as the backlash to the supreme court’s draft ruling removing women’s rights to the procedure grows. My colleague Lizzy Davies has this report:

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Biden condemns efforts of extremist ‘Maga crowd’ to overturn Roe v Wade abortion protections – as it happened

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The judge overseeing the federal civil rights cases of four former Minneapolis police officers in the killing of George Floyd said Wednesday that he has accepted the terms of Derek Chauvin’s plea agreement and will sentence him to 20 to 25 years in prison.

When the white former office is sentenced he will serve the term concurrently with the state criminal sentence he is currently serving (and appealing), of 22.5 years, following his conviction last spring for the May 2020 murder of Floyd, a Black father who had moved from Houston to Minneapolis to start a new chapter after being released from prison.

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Biden ‘not prepared’ to support ending Senate filibuster to pass abortion rights law – live

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Notre Dame Law School professor Richard W Garnett, a supreme court expert who clerked for the late chief justice William Rehnquist during the 1996-97 term, says the leaking of the draft document represents a “gross betrayal of trust”.

In a statement to the Guardian, Garnett said:

Most court-watchers have been expecting that, in the pending Dobbs case, a majority of the justices will vote to uphold Mississippi’s abortion regulation and to squarely overrule the earlier Roe and Casey decisions. And, it is unlikely that any observers or commentators familiar with the case are actually surprised by the possibility that Justice Alito has drafted a majority opinion stating that those decisions were ‘egregiously wrong’.

In any event, however, for an employee or member of the Court to intentionally leak a draft opinion would be a gross betrayal of trust, particularly if the leak were an effort to advance partisan aims or to undermine the Court’s work and legitimacy.

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Erosion of abortion rights gathers pace around the world as US signals new era

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A leaked supreme court draft ruling shows the US is set to end 50 years of a woman’s right to choose. Elsewhere, the battle still rages

In 2022, abortion remains one of the most controversial and bitterly contested ethical and political battlegrounds. It is illegal for women to terminate their pregnancies in any circumstance in 24 countries, with a further 37 restricting access in any case except when the mother’s life is in danger.

As a leaked document signals that the US supreme court is poised to strike down the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v Wade, millions of American women face losing their access to legal abortions, joining millions more living in those countries rejecting a woman’s right to choose.

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‘An abomination’: how campaigners reacted to report on US supreme court’s draft decision on Roe v Wade

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Leaked initial draft majority opinion suggests court is poised to overturn ruling that legalised abortion across US

A leaked initial draft majority opinion suggests the US supreme court is poised to overturn the Roe v Wade decision that legalised abortion nationwide, Politico reported on Monday.

The unprecedented leak stunned Washington. It holds the potential to reshape the political landscape ahead of US midterm elections in November. Following is some reaction to the report:

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Supreme court voted to overturn Roe v Wade abortion law, leaked draft opinion reportedly shows

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In an unprecedented revelation, a document written by Justice Samuel Alito says ‘Roe was egregiously wrong from the start’

The US supreme court has provisionally voted to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that legalised abortion nationwide in America, according to a draft opinion reported on by Politico.

In what appeared to be a stunning and unprecedented leak, Politico said on Monday evening it had obtained an initial majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and circulated in the court on 10 February.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson says Roe v Wade ‘the settled law of the supreme court’ – as it happened

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Asked about her views of the second amendment’s right to bear arms, Jackson said that the supreme court had already established it as a “fundamental right.”

“There is precedent in the supreme court related to various rights that the court has recognized as fundamental,” she told Grassley. She added: “The court has said that the 14th amendment substantive due process clause does support some fundamental rights, but only things that are implicit in the ordered concept of liberty or deeply rooted in the history and traditions of this country, the kinds of rights that relate to personal individual autonomy.”

In that speech, I talked about my my parents growing up in Florida, attended and had to attend racially-segregated schools because by law when they were young, white children and black children were not allowed to go to school together.

And my reality, when I was born in 1970 and went to school in Miami, Florida was completely different. I went to a diverse public junior high school, high school elementary school. And the fact that we had come that far was to me a testament to the hope and the promise of this country, the greatness of America that in one generation – one generation – we could go from racially-segregated schools in Florida to have me sitting here as the first Floridian ever to be nominated to the supreme court of the United States. So yes, senator, that is my belief.

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Sarah Weddington, attorney who won Roe v Wade abortion case, dies aged 76

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Texan lawyer and Linda Coffee won landmark 1973 case, safeguarding right now under threat from US supreme court

Sarah Weddington, an attorney who argued and won the Roe v Wade supreme court case which established the right to abortion in the US, has died aged 76.

Susan Hays, a Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner, announced the news on Twitter on Sunday and the Dallas Morning News confirmed it.

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‘Historical accident’: how abortion came to focus white, evangelical anger

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A short history of the Rose decision’s emergence as a signature cause for the right

Public opinion on abortion in the US has changed little since 1973, when the supreme court in effect legalized the procedure nationally in its ruling on the case Roe v Wade. According to Gallup, which has the longest-running poll on the issue, about four in five Americans believe abortion should be legal, at least in some circumstances.

Yet the politics of abortion have opened deep divisions in the last five decades, which have only grown more profound in recent years of polarization. In 2021, state legislators have passed dozens of restrictions to abortion access, making it the most hostile year to abortion rights on record.

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Conservative US supreme court justices signal support for restricting abortion in pivotal case

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Case poses a direct threat to the legal underpinnings of the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion

Conservative justices in the US supreme court have signaled their support for curbing abortion access during oral arguments in the most important reproductive rights case in decades, threatening the future of abortion access across the country.

Campaigners have warned the case poses a direct threat to the legal underpinnings of Roe v Wade, a landmark 1973 decision that guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion. In their lines of questioning on Wednesday, liberal justices warned against abandoning important legal precedent, while conservatives argued for reviewing it.

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Jen Psaki mocks Texas governor’s pledge to ‘eliminate’ rape amid criticism of abortion ban – video

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White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked for her response to Texas governor Greg Abbott’s latest defense of the six-week abortion ban in his state. Abbott pledged to 'eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas' when he was asked why rape and incest victims should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term. Psaki said in response: 'If governor Abbott has a means of eliminating all rapists or all rape from the US then there’d be bipartisan support for that'. She went on to say that no leader in the history of the world has been able to eliminate rape and that is one of the many reasons that women in Texas should have access to safe abortions through their healthcare. 

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‘Roe v Wade is a husk’: anguish and anger in Texas after abortion ruling

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Climate of fear descends on state for clinic workers, patients and others after the supreme court’s conservative majority decision on Wednesday

Anti-abortion bounty hunters began calling Amy Hagstrom Miller’s chain of four independent abortion clinics in Texas just hours after the supreme court issued a two-paragraph order that effectively ended access to 85% of abortion services in the state.

Related: After the Texas abortion ban, clinics in nearby states brace for demand

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Most extreme abortion law in US takes effect in Texas – video

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The US state of Texas has enacted the strictest anti-abortion law in the country, banning all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy – before most women know they are pregnant. The law gives private citizens the power to sue abortion providers and anyone who 'aids or abets' an abortion after six weeks. Citizens who win such lawsuits would be entitled to at least $10,000. There is concern this will spur abortion ‘bounty hunters’

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Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment is a wake-up call for women voters | Cecile Richards

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It’s not only Roe v Wade on the line. Parental leave, affordable childcare, equal pay, the Affordable Care Act - all are under threat

The pandemic and its collateral economic crisis have illustrated like never before that women are the backbone of America. Before Covid-19, women made up more than half the workforce, nearly two-thirds of minimum-wage workers, and the majority of caregivers. One in three jobs held by women has been designated as essential. Right now, millions of women are pulling off an impossible balancing act: working while trying to keep their families safe and healthy during a terrifying time. Others have lost jobs, have had their wages or hours cut, and more than 800,000 women have left the workforce.

This crisis is disproportionately burdening women, especially women of color. They need immediate relief, but instead of solving this crisis, Donald Trump and Senate Republicans have focused on one thing: pushing through a supreme court nominee who wants to take away healthcare for millions and strip away rights women have had for decades. And they’re doing it against the will of the majority of Americans, who believe that voters should decide who makes the next appointment to the court.

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Roe v Wade plaintiff admits abortion rights reversal ‘was all an act’ in new film

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Norma McCorvey, known as Jane Roe, reveals she was paid by evangelical Christian groups to take anti-abortion stance

Norma McCorvey, most notable for being the plaintiff known as Jane Roe in the 1973 landmark supreme court case Roe v Wade that led to abortion becoming legal in the United States, made a stunning admission just before her death in 2017, it has emerged.

“This is my deathbed confession,” she explained.

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More than 200 members of Congress urge US supreme court to reconsider Roe v Wade

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Appeal in an amicus brief in a Louisiana case was signed by 205 Republicans and two Democrats

More than two hundred members of Congress have urged the US supreme court to reconsider the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling which legalized abortion nationwide.

The appeal came in an amicus brief in a Louisiana case, and was signed by 205 Republicans and two Democrats, and calls on the high court to revisit the ruling, which affirmed that access to safe abortion is a constitutional right.

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Who is trying to ban abortion in the US? – podcast

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Alabama is one of 15 states to recently pass an abortion ban. Although none of the bans are currently in effect, the aim is to place pressure on Roe v Wade, the court decision that enshrined a woman’s legal right to an abortion. The Guardian’s US health reporter, Jessica Glenza, discusses her meeting with Janet Porter, the religious extremist who inspired the anti-abortion laws. And: Serena Daniari on trans women finding their voices

Janet Porter believes life begins at conception and has spent the last 10 years lobbying on the fringes of the US abortion debate. Many on the left and right despise her, but in Donald Trump’s US, she has just had one of the biggest victories of her life. Porter successfully lobbied Ohio’s legislature to pass one of the strictest abortion bans in the world in April – the “heartbeat bill” would make the procedure illegal about six weeks into pregnancy. Alabama followed in May with an even more restrictive version, outlawing abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with no exceptions for those resulting from rape or incest. Six-week bans have been introduced in 15 states, although none are currently in effect.

Jessica Glenza, the Guardian’s US health reporter, tells Anushka Asthana about her meeting with Porter. With the recent appointment of two Trump-nominated supreme court justices and a growing number of anti-abortion federal judges, the ultimate aim of anti-abortion activists and lawmakers is to mount a challenge to Roe v Wade, the 1973 court decision that legalised abortion in the US.

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Alabama: Republican state passes near-total ban on abortion – video report

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Alabama has passed a near-total ban on abortion, making it a crime to terminate pregnancy at any stage. The abortion ban is the strictest in the US and allows an exception only when the pregnant woman’s health is at serious risk. The bill was passed by 25 votes to six and also contains no exception for rape or incest. If the procedure was to take place the doctor could be punished with 10 to 99 years in prison; the woman who had the abortion would not face criminal charges 

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Alabama abortion ban: Republican senate passes most restrictive law in US

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Law bans abortion except if there is a ‘serious health risk’ to the mother, with no exceptions for rape and incest

Alabama’s Republican-controlled state senate passed a bill Tuesday to outlaw abortion, making it a crime to perform the procedure at any stage of pregnancy.

The strictest-in-the-nation abortion ban allows an exception only when the woman’s health is at serious risk, and sets up a legal battle that supporters hope will lead to the supreme court overturning its landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

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