USA – The Right’s War on Abortion Was Never About Legal Doctrine

The justices in the Dobbs majority promised to return abortion “to the people’s elected representatives.” For conservative activists, this was just the beginning.

BY PETER SHAMSHIRI 
MAY 30, 2023

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court’s conservatives tried to couch the decision in moderated, legalistic terms.  

In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the Court was simply returning the power to regulate abortion “to the people’s elected representatives.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed a platitude-ridden concurrence stating that “on the issue of abortion, the Constitution is neither pro-life nor pro-choice. The Constitution is neutral.” Both justices were making the same point. They were claiming that the decision did not speak to the propriety of abortion, but instead was a judgment only about the scope of the Constitution.

Continued: https://ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics/dobbs-opinion-never-about-legal-doctrine/


Abortion pill mifepristone is banned or restricted in some states despite Supreme Court ruling

THU, APR 27 2023
Spencer Kimball

The abortion pill mifepristone is either banned or restricted to varying degrees in 27 states despite a Supreme Court decision that — for now — maintains Food and Drug Administration regulations allowing easy access to the medication.

The Supreme Court, acting on an emergency basis, last week blocked lower federal court orders that had imposed severe restrictions on mifepristone even in some states where abortion remains legal.

Continued: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/27/supreme-court-abortion-pill-mifepristone-still-limited-in-some-states.html


USA – See where abortion access is banned — and where it’s still in limbo

By Priya Krishnakumar and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Wed August 31, 2022

Following the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which turned the issue of abortion access back to the states, nearly one-third of all US states have banned or severely restricted access to the procedure. At least seven states, including Alabama, Kentucky and Missouri, have banned abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Health care providers and abortion activists have continued to file legal challenges to stop bans in several states from being enacted. In South Carolina, a judge has temporarily blocked a six-week ban from going into effect, though the state's House recently passed a bill banning nearly all abortions. In North Dakota, a judge blocked the state's trigger ban the day before it was set to go into effect.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/31/us/abortion-access-restrictions-bans-us/index.html


The next big American showdown could be over abortion pills

Roe is about to be executed. A woman’s ability to obtain abortion pills should not, and does not, need to be.

April 17, 2022
By Jessica Levinson, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

Both sides of the abortion debate are preparing for a post-Roe v. Wade world. Just this past week, red states like Kentucky, Oklahoma and Florida have rushed to severely restrict access to abortion. This year alone no fewer than 30 states have made moves to ban or significantly limit abortions. The writing is on the wall, the ceiling and the floor: The U.S. Supreme Court is almost certain to find that there is no constitutionally protected right to abortion.

In States where abortion is illegal, the abortion pill may be an option. A recent change by the Federal Drug Administration allows women to obtain a prescription for abortion pills through a telehealth appointment. But this doesn’t necessarily mean women in states that outlaw or severely restrict abortion, at least those who cannot travel to another state, will be left without any access to abortion.

Continued: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/women-states-where-abortion-illegal-may-still-have-hope-n1294482


What U.S. abortion access looks like, in graphics

States are passing more abortion restrictions, which could reshape what abortion access looks like across the country.

July 25, 2021
By Chloe Atkins

The current landscape of abortion access in the United States came into focus in May after the Supreme Court decided to consider the legality of Mississippi's ban on nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mississippi’s restriction was the first to reach the court from a wave of state laws intended to strike down Roe v. Wade, the decision that established the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide.

The first major abortion case since the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett solidified a conservative majority comes as state legislatures around the country have brought a historic number of laws seeking to tighten abortion access.

Continued: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/what-u-s-abortion-access-looks-graphics-n1274859


The nefarious network of state bills trying to kill ‘Roe’ once and for all

By Ray Levy Uyeda
Feb. 22, 2021

Last year, as Maggie, a 30-something Brooklynite, navigated the coronavirus pandemic, she learned that she would have to navigate another, more personal challenge at the same time: getting an abortion. For Maggie (who declined to provide her last name for privacy reasons), finding a compassionate abortion fund to help walk her through her options wasn't difficult, and she could easily pay the out-of-pocket cost for the abortion pill. Her partner of 11 years was supportive of her decision. In the end, accessing her abortion was so easy that it actually reminded her of all the ways politicians attempt to restrict abortion access — and how many other people who might need abortion care live in states where things aren't as smooth as they are in New York.

Continued: https://www.mic.com/p/the-nefarious-network-of-state-bills-trying-to-kill-roe-once-for-all-62348743


USA – Dismantling the RNC’s Legacy of Hostility To Abortion Access

This week, the Republican National Convention has featured graphic and deceptive rails against abortion—the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that Trump has made mainstream over the last few years.

8/27/2020
by ANDREA MILLER

This brand of over-the-top opposition to abortion (Abby Johnson promised “the most provocative, impassioned, memorable” anti-abortion speech in history) may seem like a departure from the genteel conservatism of past conventions.

But, in reality, nearly 40 years of GOP opposition to abortion and the party’s failure to respect the importance of making fundamental decisions about our reproductive lives has led us to this point.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2020/08/27/republican-national-convention-abortion-dismantling-the-rnc-legacy-of-hostility-to-abortion-access/


USA – There Was Finally A Debate Question About Abortion Last Night

There Was Finally A Debate Question About Abortion Last Night

Natalie Gontcharova
Last Updated October 16, 2019

With hundreds of new abortion restrictions introduced this year in state legislatures, constant court battles over extreme abortion bans, and Roe v. Wade hanging in the balance, it was long overdue that a Democratic debate would address reproductive rights. Last night during the fourth Democratic presidential primary debate, it finally happened, and (unsurprisingly) it took a female moderator to get the ball rolling: CNN’s Erin Burnett asked Sen. Kamala Harris what she would do to keep states from enacting laws like the one in Ohio banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, a time when most women don’t even know they’re pregnant. This also gave the other candidates an opportunity to discuss their own proposals.

Continued: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/10/8581810/democratic-candidates-abortion-rights-debate


USA – Unprecedented Wave of Abortion Bans is an Urgent Call to Action

Unprecedented Wave of Abortion Bans is an Urgent Call to Action

Elizabeth Nash, Guttmacher Institute
First published online: May 22, 2019

2019 has become the year when antiabortion politicians make clear that their ultimate agenda is banning abortion outright, at any stage in pregnancy and for any reason.

For years, antiabortion efforts have publicly focused on more incremental or administrative measures, such as targeted regulation of abortion providers (TRAP) laws that severely undermine access but are designed not to appear as a frontal assaults on abortion rights.

Now, abortion opponents have dropped all pretenses. With a conservative U.S. Supreme Court poised to gut or overturn Roe v. Wade, radical and expansive abortion bans are being enacted as part of a long-term strategy to advance these cases to the Supreme Court.

Continued: https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2019/05/unprecedented-wave-abortion-bans-urgent-call-action


USA – At least 20 abortion cases are in the pipeline to the Supreme Court. Any one could gut Roe v. Wade.

At least 20 abortion cases are in the pipeline to the Supreme Court. Any one could gut Roe v. Wade.
Today’s emotional rhetoric has parallels to another politically volatile period in the early 1990s.

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
February 15, 2019

The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 vote this month to block a restrictive Louisiana abortion law from taking effect provided some measure of consolation to reproductive rights advocates who feared the court’s new conservative majority would act immediately to restrict access to the procedure.

But that relief is likely to be short lived. In the pipeline are at least 20 lawsuits, in various stages of judicial review, that have the potential to be decided in ways that could significantly change the rights laid out in the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, and refined almost two decades later in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The 1992 decision said a state may place restrictions on abortion as long as it does not create an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to abortion.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/02/15/least-abortion-cases-are-steps-us-supreme-court-any-one-could-gut-roe-v-wade/