Democrats pick up support of two Republicans to repeal 1864 law reinstated three weeks ago as governor is expected to ratify repeal
Arizona lawmakers are poised to repeal the state’s 160-year-old statue banning nearly all abortions.
The 1864 law, which was reinstated by the state’s supreme court three weeks ago, made abortion a central focus in the battleground state and galvanized Democrats seeking to enshrine abortion rights.
Continue reading...Time magazine called the ex-president’s plans ‘an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world’
Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.
In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to hinting he may let states monitor pregnant women to enforce abortion laws.
Continue reading...After decrying state supreme court ruling on ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, lawmakers ensure its potential to take effect
After days of nationwide debate over the Arizona supreme court’s recent decision to uphold a near-total abortion ban from the 19th century, Arizona’s Republican-controlled statehouse has again quashed an effort to repeal the ban.
Republicans, who hold a one-seat majority in both the Arizona house and senate, on Wednesday shot down a procedural measure in the statehouse that would have enabled the chamber to vote on a bill to repeal the ban. Just one Republican, the representative Matt Gress, voted with the house’s 29 Democrats, but the 30-30 split was not enough to move forward.
Continue reading...Opposition parties say women’s rights dealt blow after package approved by Georgia Meloni’s cabinet
Italian opposition parties have said women’s rights in Italy have been dealt a “heavy” blow after parliament passed a measure by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government allowing anti-abortion activists to enter abortion consultation clinics.
The measure forms part of a package of initiatives approved by Meloni’s cabinet that will be funded by the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund, of which Italy is the biggest beneficiary, and was put to the lower house in a confidence vote on Tuesday. The package of measures is expected to comfortably pass in the senate, too.
Continue reading...Chance Brannon firebombed a Planned Parenthood clinic in 2022 and had plans to attack a power station and a Pride celebration
A former US marine was sentenced on Monday to nine years in prison for firebombing a southern California Planned Parenthood clinic in 2022, federal prosecutors said.
Chance Brannon, 24, pleaded guilty in November to four felony counts, including malicious destruction of property by fire as well as explosives and intentional damage to a reproductive health services facility.
Continue reading...Most cases of abortion are illegal in Germany, which report is expected to say is not compatible with international standards
Abortions in Germany should be legalised within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a government-appointed commission is expected to recommend on Monday.
While abortion is rarely punished, it remains illegal in Germany, except for specific circumstances including when a woman’s life is in danger, or she is a victim of rape, while the prerequisite for any termination is a consultation with a state-recognised body.
Continue reading...Focus on reproductive rights has yielded big wins and Democrats hope threat of more Republican bans will mobilize voters
Kamala Harris’s Friday visit to Arizona was planned before the state’s top court upheld a 160-year-old law that bans almost all abortions. But the news galvanized the vice-president’s message, one that has already yielded stunning victories for liberals since Roe v Wade fell nearly two years ago.
That message is simple: abortion bans happen when Republicans are in charge.
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.
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A vote to amend Fisa’s section 702 to prohibit warrantless surveillance in the House has failed.
The amendment, introduced by Arizona Republican representative Andy Biggs, failed after the yays and nays votes tied at 212-212.
Continue reading...Democrats stymied after state supreme court rules that 1864 law with no exceptions for rape or incest can go into effect
Arizona’s state Republican leadership halted an effort by Democrats on Wednesday to repeal an 1864 law banning almost all abortions, which the state supreme court this week ruled could go into effect.
The move came after Republican lawmakers in the state had denounced the court’s decision, including some who previously expressed support for the law. Donald Trump and other high-profile Republicans, such as the Senate candidate Kari Lake, had also declared their opposition to the ruling with Lake urging lawmakers to “come up with an immediate commonsense solution that Arizonans can support”.
Continue reading...Former president says Arizona abortion ban went too far as Democrats note he appointed justices who ended Roe
The Arizona supreme court decision upended Donald Trump’s gambit on abortion, a day after the former president sought to neutralize the political issue by declining to support a national abortion ban.
Trump had hoped that his announcement on Monday would keep abortion rights mostly out of the conversation ahead of the November elections, but Tuesday’s ruling showed just how difficult it will be to do that, the Washington Post’s Dan Balz writes.
All abortion politics are national, not local. Abortion developments – new laws, new restrictions, new stories of women caught up in heart-wrenching and sometimes life-threatening decisions – are no longer confined to the geography where they take place. They are instantly part of the larger debate.
There is no safe harbor for Trump and the Republicans at this point. The abortion issue is no less complex and no less difficult for many Americans than it was while Roe was in force. But politically the winds have shifted, and done so dramatically.
Continue reading...The relatives of slain civil rights leader will visit Tennessee city to bring attention to erosion of civil rights in US
Relatives of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr are making a rare trip to Memphis on Thursday on the anniversary of his assassination, to speak on the rising threat of political violence, especially in an election year.
Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of the late King, will pay tribute to his father’s legacy, 56 years after the assassination in the Tennessee city.
Continue reading...MPs due to have free vote on proposal but some in party have privately expressed concerns it goes too far
Senior Labour figures want to water down proposed legislation to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales ahead of a historic Commons debate on the issue.
Later this spring, MPs are due to have a free vote on a proposal by the Labour MP Diana Johnson to abolish the criminal offence associated with a woman ending her own pregnancy.
Continue reading...Lords back amendments saying bill must comply with international law, on classifying Rwanda as a safe country and independent monitoring
Yesterday I covered quite a lot of comment on the Rachel Reeves’ Mais lecture based on a three-page press release sent out by Labour with advance extracts. The full speech runs to 8,000 words and it is certainly worth a read. Here is some commentary published after the full text was made public.
Paul Mason, the former economics journalist who is now an active Labour supporter, says in a blog for the Spectator that Reeves is proposing an approach that should make it easier for the government to justify capital investment. He explains:
Reeves effectively offered markets a trade-off. She set out the same broad fiscal rule as the government: debt falling at the end of five years and a deficit moving towards primary balance. She will make it law that any fiscal decision by government will be subject to an independent forecast of its effects by the OBR. But, she said: “I will also ask the OBR to report on the long-term impact of capital spending decisions. And as Chancellor I will report on wider measures of public sector assets and liabilities at fiscal events, showing how the health of the public balance sheet is bolstered by good investment decisions.”
Why is this so big? Because the OBR does not currently model the ‘long-term impact of capital spending decisions’. It believes that £1 billion of new capital investment produces £1 billion of growth in the first year, tapering to nothing by year five. Furthermore, since 2019 it has repeatedly expressed scepticism that a sustained programme of public investment can produce a permanent uplift in the UK’s output potential.
George Eaton at the New Statesman says the Reeves speech contained Reeves’ “most explicit repudiation yet of the model pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments”. He says:
In her 8,000-word Mais Lecture, delivered last night at City University, the shadow chancellor offered her most explicit repudiation yet of the model pursued by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments. Though she praised New Labour’s record on public service investment and poverty reduction, Reeves warned that the project failed to recognise that “globalisation and new technologies could widen as well as diminish inequality, disempower people as much as liberate them, displace as well as create good work”.
She added that the labour market “remained characterised by too much insecurity” and that “key weaknesses on productivity and regional inequality” persisted. This is not merely an abstract critique – it leads Reeves and Keir Starmer to embrace radically different economic prescriptions.
Mais lecture is the most intellectually wide-ranging speech Rachel Reeves has given. Worth reading for takes on Lawson, austerity, New Labour, link between dynamism & worker-security, and how geo-politics changes our national growth story (& more besides)
Continue reading...Eva Burch, a Democrat, gave 10-minute speech on floor of state senate on Monday about state’s ‘coercive’ maze of restrictions
When Eva Burch learned that her pregnancy was not progressing and decided to have an abortion, Burch and her husband quickly made another decision: Burch, who is a Democratic state senator in Arizona, was going to speak up about it – from the floor of the state senate.
On Monday, as her voice shook and a group of women surrounded her, Burch gave a 10-minute-long speech about her decision and the struggle to navigate Arizona’s “coercive” maze of abortion restrictions. With her speech, Burch joined the ranks of women who have spoken out since the fall of Roe v Wade about their battles to get abortions even for nonviable pregnancies.
Continue reading...Amanda Zurawski, who nearly died waiting for procedure, says Trump will inflict ‘chaos’ in remarks released by Biden camp
After Donald Trump voiced support for a 15-week national abortion ban, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign released an angry response from a Texas woman who nearly died due to that state’s anti-abortion measures, enduring a “nightmare” she said Trump created.
“My family has been forever altered by the nightmare that Donald Trump created by overturning Roe,” Amanda Zurawski said.
Continue reading...US president makes last State of the Union address of this presidential term, with much at stake as he heads into re-election fight against Trump
For some reason, expelled former Republican congressman George Santos has returned to watch the State of the Union from the House floor:
Axios reports he wanted to hang out with the lawmakers who voted to remove him from office last year for being a big-time liar:
Continue reading...Speaker says parliament will not consider updating country’s draconian abortion policies until mid-April
Women’s groups and opposition politicians have taken aim at Poland’s parliamentary speaker, accusing him of betrayal and seeking to “freeze” the issue of abortion, after he said parliament would not consider legislation to tackle the country’s near-total ban on abortion until mid-April.
“We feel disappointed and betrayed,” said Dominika Ćwiek from Legal Abortion, one of the groups that has been at the forefront of the battle against the country’s draconian abortion policies. “The rights of Polish women are being treated as a side issue.”
Continue reading...Eiffel Tower lit up to mark change, seen as way of protecting law that decriminalised abortion in 1975
The French parliament has enshrined abortion as a constitutional right at a historic joint session at the Palace of Versailles.
Out of 925 MPs and senators eligible to vote, 780 supported the amendment, which will give women the “guaranteed freedom” to choose an abortion.
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