‘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...It follows party criticism of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price for condemning later term abortions, though opposition leader did not name names
Peter Dutton has blasted Coalition MPs for fuelling a federal debate on abortion laws, declaring there would be no change to policy if he wins government and they must show more “discipline” on the topic.
Dutton told MPs in his private weekly party-room address on Tuesday morning that the 11th-hour emergence of the issue during the recent Queensland state election campaign may have cost the Liberal National party votes.
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Continue reading...Demonstrators from Texas to Connecticut and Washington DC carried signs and chanted: ‘We won’t go back!’
Thousands of women rallied Saturday in the nation’s capital and elsewhere in support of abortion rights and other feminist causes ahead of Tuesday’s election.
Demonstrators carried posters and signs through city streets, chanting slogans such as: “We won’t go back!” Some men joined with them. Speakers urged people to vote in the election – not only for president but also on down-ballot issues such as abortion-rights amendments that are going before voters in various states.
Continue reading...Upper house president Terry Stephens says of ‘highest concern’ is suggestion Howe attempted to ‘improperly influence the free performance’ of MLCs’ duties
The anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe has been banned from South Australia’s upper house after its president revealed in parliament that he had received several complaints from MLCs alleging she had used “insults and threatening and intimidating tactics” towards politicians during a debate about the state’s controversial “forced birth” legislation.
The legislation, if passed, would have meant any South Australian seeking an abortion after 27 weeks and six days, would instead be induced, give birth, then either keep or adopt out the child.
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Continue reading...Anthony Albanese to launch schemes in NSW and Victoria today; Domain says rate of price increases is cooling. Follow today’s news headlines live
Bowen derides Coalition’s ‘nuclear fantasy’
Chris Bowen, minister for climate change and energy, is speaking on ABC Radio National this morning.
If I was the energy minister of another country, I would consider the opportunities that I had in that country – but a country saying to Australia, with our excellent renewable resources, that we should go down the nuclear road when we have no nuclear industry, no nuclear expertise of the scale that we would need for a nuclear power industry, is like us going to Finland or Scandinavia and saying, ‘Listen, we know [you have] a lot of snow, but you should really try beach surfing.’ It just doesn’t make any sense.
We have to play to our strengths in Australia, and we have the best renewable resources in the world, and the opposition wants to stop us using them, and in turn, keep coal in the system for longer. They’re quite explicit about that while we wait for this nuclear fantasy to come on board. That would be terrible for emissions and fatal for energy reliability.
Continue reading...Legendary singer-songwriter tells Rolling Stone new song was inspired by battle to reinstate federal abortion rights
Stevie Nicks thrust herself into the ongoing fight for access to abortion in the US because she had “been there, done that”, the legendary singer-songwriter says in a new interview.
“I tell a good story,” Nicks remarked in an interview conducted by CBS News Sunday Morning, a clip of which was circulated by the network in advance.“So maybe I should try to do something.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Conservative forces pose ‘genuine threats to the protections women have fought for and won’, Victoria’s premier says
Jacinta Allan is warning that the battle for abortion rights must continue as conservative forces pose “real and genuine threats to the protections women have fought for and won” amid “frightening” debate in South Australia and Queensland.
Victoria’s Labor premier made her strongest comments to date on abortion in an interview with Guardian Australia, just days before Queenslanders go to the polls in an election that has become dominated by the issue.
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Continue reading...‘Service deserts’ affect those in high-disadvantage regional districts most, Women’s Health Victoria study says
Seven out of 10 Victorian local government areas have no surgical abortion provider and one in five have no medical abortion provider, a new report shows.
The Realising Access report released on Thursday by the not-for-profit Women’s Health Victoria also found “service deserts” most profoundly affect women in high-disadvantage regional areas. Women in such areas are 300% more likely to seek abortion services later than nine weeks, meaning they require a surgical abortion for which there are even fewer providers.
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Continue reading...Shadow Indigenous Australians spokesperson says she ‘cannot agree’ with later term abortions, sparking rebuke from Sussan Ley, Jane Hume and Bridget McKenzie
Senior Coalition women have rebuked Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s comments about abortion, saying the Liberal party had “no interest in unwinding women’s reproductive rights” and saying it was an issue advanced by “fringe” politicians.
Even staunchly “pro-life” colleagues of the senator would not back her comments on Wednesday, with Queensland’s Matt Canavan saying it would not be helpful to discuss abortion in the lead-up to the federal election, and calling to “turn the temperature down” on the debate.
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Continue reading...Study shows roughly 247 more infant deaths per month than expected in 18 months after supreme court’s decision
In the 18 months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, leading more than a dozen states to implement near-total abortion bans, hundreds more babies died than expected, new research has found.
The research, which was conducted by researchers from the Ohio State University and published Monday in Jama Pediatrics, compared data on infant mortality from the months before Roe’s downfall with data from afterward. Overall infant mortality, the researchers found, rose by 7%.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Queensland LNP leader faced questions at leaders’ debate after saying in 2023 he would allow MPs a conscience vote on changes to legislation
Queensland’s opposition leader, David Crisafulli, told a live audience last year “I don’t believe in late-term abortions” and promised MPs a conscience vote on the issue – answering questions he has refused to respond to more than 132 times during the state election campaign.
The Liberal National party leader has been dogged by the issue for weeks, refusing to declare his hand on a bill which will be introduced by Katter’s Australian party next parliament, including whether he would vote for it or grant other MPs a conscience vote.
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Continue reading...David Crisafulli pledges minimum isolation periods for youths who attack staff despite evidence of dangers of solitary confinement
The Liberal National party leader, David Crisafulli, has promised to introduce “mandatory isolation periods” for children who assault workers in youth detention, as the Queensland opposition formally launched its state election campaign on Sunday.
Speaking to a crowd of LNP candidates and party faithful in Ipswich, Crisafulli focused much of his remarks on what he has dubbed the state’s “youth crime crisis”.
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Continue reading...Thousands of supporters, including Usher, rally in battleground Georgia, as campaign focuses on early votes
Kamala Harris highlighted the threat to women’s reproductive rights and Donald Trump’s apparent exhaustion at a rally Saturday in south Atlanta, continuing a full-court press for votes in Georgia as early voting breaks records here.
The race continues to appear close in Georgia, with polls suggesting the Republican nominee holds a one-point lead in the state. Trump has made multiple appearances in Georgia and has a rally with Turning Point Action planned in Gwinnett county, outside Atlanta, next week.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Robbie Katter says he will immediately sponsor a bill to amend the current legislation if the LNP is elected this month
The Queensland crossbencher Robbie Katter says he will consider forcing a vote to recriminalise abortion if the Liberal National party wins government at this month’s state election.
Katter says he will table legislation to wind back current laws with one option a “clean repeal” of Labor’s 2018 Termination of Pregnancy Act, a move that would return abortion to the 1899 criminal code.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Billionaire launches $250m fund to address problem as she warns of growth of ‘maternity care deserts’
Women’s health is being neglected worldwide with “maternity care deserts” more common, millions denied abortions and maternal death rates surging, Melinda French Gates has warned as she launches a $250m (£190m) fund to improve women’s physical and mental health globally.
Despite advances in medicine, women experience “unacceptable” inequities across all aspects of their health, spend more years living with ill health and still face barriers to accessing basic care. Women in rich and poor nations are affected and more than 700 are dying in childbirth each day, French Gates said.
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...A judge in Georgia struck down the state’s ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy
Donald Trump has been taunting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for not rushing to the areas affected by Hurricane Helene and the storm’s aftermath.
Harris has returning early to Washington DC from election campaigning out west, as the Democratic party’s nominee for president since Biden, the sitting president, quit his race for re-election in July.
Continue reading...Fulton county judge issues order that abortions must be regulated as they were before law took effect in 2022
A Georgia judge on Monday struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban, ruling that the ban is unconstitutional and blocking it from being enforced.
In a 26-page opinion, the Fulton county superior judge Robert McBurney ruled that the state’s abortion laws must revert to what they were before the six-week ban – known as the Life Act – was passed in 2019. The ban was blocked as long as Roe v Wade was the law of the land, but went into effect after the US supreme court overturned Roe in 2022.
Continue reading...Florida voters report law enforcement personnel visits that appear to be part of drive to block passage of Amendment 4
Ron DeSantis is making a concerted effort to maintain draconian limits on abortion access in Florida that have led to accusations the rightwing Republican governor is conducting a “state-sponsored intimidation campaign” against abortion rights and trampling on civil liberties in the state.
A near total ban on abortions after the first six weeks of pregnancy took effect in Florida in May after the state supreme court ruled that the right to an abortion was no longer covered by the privacy clause in the Florida constitution.
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