Democrats believe abortion will motivate voters in 2024. Will it be enough?

The Biden campaign is betting big on abortion rights as a major driver in this year's presidential election

By COLLEEN LONG and CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press
January 21, 2024

WASHINGTON -- When Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said recently that he was “proud” to have a hand in overturning the abortion protections enshrined in Roe v. Wade, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake took it as a political gift, thinking to herself, “Oh my God, we just won the election.”

It may not be that simple, but as the 2024 race heats up, President Joe Biden's campaign is betting big on abortion rights as a major driver for Democrats in the election. Republicans are still trying to figure out how to talk about the issue, if at all, and avoid a political backlash.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/democrats-abortion-motivate-voters-2024-106547428


State Democrats are leading on abortion policy. D.C. Democrats don’t want to get left behind.

Democrats in Washington want to show voters they're working on abortion rights ahead of the 2024 election, with most of the action in the states.

Jan. 18, 2024
By Julie Tsirkin and Kate Santaliz

WASHINGTON — After several successful state efforts to codify abortion access, Democrats are marking the 51st anniversary of the defunct Roe v. Wade ruling with an all-out reproductive freedom campaign — in an election year when abortion rights could once again help determine the balance of power in Washington.

Senate Democrats held a briefing on abortion access Wednesday focusing on the impact of state abortion bans. More than half of the Democratic caucus, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, heard from and questioned medical professionals and experts.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/state-democrats-are-leading-abortion-policy-dc-democrats-dont-want-get-rcna128932


A year since Dobbs, these are the many ways states are protecting abortion

June 23, 2023
By Nicole Nixon, Scott Maucione, Rick Pluta, Bente Birkeland, Mawa Iqbal, Dirk VanderHart, Dana Ferguson, Molly Ingram

In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, 14 states have banned most abortions, but even more have moved to protect abortion rights in various ways.

Eleven states have passed so-called "shield laws," which can safeguard providers and patients against prosecution from other states. And at least 15 municipalities and six state governments allocated nearly $208 million to pay for contraception, abortion and support services according to data provided to NPR by the National Institute for Reproductive Health.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/06/23/1183646356/dobbs-roe-abortion-protections-illinois-maryland-michigan-colorado-minnesota


Democratic Lawmakers Blast Abortion Pill Ruling In Scathing Letter

Nearly 600 legislators from 49 states signed the letter attacking the "dangerous" ruling by a Trump-appointed judge to revoke FDA approval of mifepristone.

By Kevin Robillard
Apr 14, 2023

Nearly 600 Democratic state legislators have signed on to a letter protesting a federal judge’s ruling revoking FDA approval of mifepristone, saying the “health and wellbeing of our constituents that we were put into office to protect is at grave risk.”

The 588 legislators [now 621] who signed come from every state except North Dakota, a sign of how the party views promoting access to mifepristone, one of the two drugs involved in medication abortion, and defending the Food and Drug Administration from political interference as a winning issue even in conservative areas.

Continued: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democratic-lawmakers-abortion-pill-ruling-letter_n_64393cb0e4b0ac40918ac299


‘THE central issue’: How the fall of Roe v. Wade shook the 2022 election

More than 50 Democratic and Republican elected officials, campaign aides and consultants took POLITICO inside the first campaign after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling.

By ELENA SCHNEIDER and HOLLY OTTERBEIN
12/19/2022

On May 4, less than 48 hours after a draft opinion was published showing the Supreme Court was poised to end the federal right to abortion, a group of eight strangers gathered around a conference table in the Detroit suburbs to talk about the news.

They were all white women, mostly in their 30s to 50s and without college degrees. Their home county, Macomb, had voted for President Barack Obama twice and President Donald Trump twice. In the upcoming gubernatorial race, they were undecided, frustrated by how Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer had handled the pandemic.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/19/dobbs-2022-election-abortion-00074426


Opinion: The conflicts in a post-Roe America are just beginning

Fri October 28, 2022
CNN

More than four months after the Supreme
Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health overturned Roe v. Wade,
undoing nearly five decades of federally-guaranteed legal abortion access,
Americans across the country are still wrestling with the consequences of the
decision.

How are Americans learning to live in this widely anticipated, but still-unprecedented, reality? CNN Opinion asked experts to share their thoughts on what a post-Roe America means – for the midterm elections and far beyond them.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/opinions/abortion-post-roe-america-midterms-roundup


“Chaos” for patients and providers after US abortion ruling

Susan Jaffe
July 09, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01268-5
The Lancet - WORLD REPORT| VOLUME 400, ISSUE 10346, P85-86, JULY 09, 2022

The US Supreme Court's bombshell decision overturning Roe v Wade on June 24, 2022, assures Americans that each state can choose whether and under what conditions its residents have a right to a safe and legal abortion. So far, the result is an incoherent and volatile jumble: 16 states have severely restricted or banned the procedure and bans in ten more states are likely to take effect in a matter of weeks. Providers who violate the laws can face as much as 10 years in prison. However, in 22 Democrat-led states and the District of Columbia, abortion access is protected. Several claim to be abortion sanctuaries as they prepare for an influx of health-care refugees who can afford to travel for an abortion no longer available at home.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01268-5/fulltext


Can Michiganders obtain abortion pills in Canada? Governor seeks clarification.

Jul. 07, 2022
By Danielle Salisbury

Furthering her efforts to secure comprehensive reproductive health care for Michiganders, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is asking for clarity on the rights of residents to cross the U.S. border to obtain care or prescription medication, including abortion pills.

Current rules on importing drugs, including those that may be used for medication abortion, are complex and not well-understood by the public, Whitmer wrote in a letter to the secretaries of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2022/07/can-michiganders-obtain-abortion-pills-in-canada-governor-seeks-clarification.html


USA – ‘This is not hopeless’: the progressive prosecutors who vow not to enforce abortion bans

The end of Roe could usher in a complex legal landscape with different enforcement regimes in different states, and even within them

Poppy Noor
Tue 14 Jun 2022

Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, never thought she would have an abortion. But after finding herself pregnant with triplets in 2002, she faced an unenviable choice: abort one, or miscarry all three. “I took my doctor’s advice, which I should have been able to do,” she says in a phone interview. Nessel plans to protect that same right for residents of her state if Roe v Wade is overturned this summer, as a leaked supreme court draft opinion indicates is all but certain.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/14/progressive-prosecutors-refuse-abortion-bans-states


I’m an ob-gyn. Michigan isn’t ready for what will happen if Roe is overturned.

Lisa Harris
June 3, 2022

I’ve been an obstetrician-gynecologist for 24 years, caring for women giving birth, experiencing miscarriage, and deciding to have abortions. Most patients I see have experienced some or all of these events, at different times in their life.

Since abortion is so politicized and stigmatized, it’s often hard to see that it usually coexists alongside birth and miscarriage in many women’s lives, and in the medical practices of their doctors.

Continued: https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2022/06/03/abortion-opinion-not-roe-wade-obgyn/9964313002/