What GOP’s European abortion example looks like in France

French law bans elective abortions after the first trimester but includes sweeping exceptions

By Ariel Cohen
July 3, 2024

PARIS — Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, Republicans on Capitol Hill and conservative justices have regularly cited European laws barring abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy to argue for similar policy in the United States.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. both cited European abortion limits in their opinions in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. More recently, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has called for a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks of gestation, told reporters on Capitol Hill that a first-trimester abortion limit would put the U.S. in line with other peer nations.

“Forty-seven of 50 European nations have national limits on abortion between 12 and 15 weeks,” Graham said in April after former President Donald Trump said he would leave abortion policies to the states. “This is the civilized world’s position.”

Continued: https://rollcall.com/2024/07/03/what-gops-european-abortion-example-looks-like-in-france/

Trump’s latest claim? That he has moderate abortion views – but don’t be fooled

This week in patriarchy: Trump is walking a tricky tightrope trying to appeal to his evangelical base and moderate voters. His solution? A bunch of contradictory nonsense

Arwa Mahdawi
Sat 13 Apr 2024

Trump’s abortion conundrum
In recent years, Donald Trump has sold NFTs, sneakers, and bibles. Now the perennial marketer is busy selling a new and improved version of himself to voters. Meet Don 2.0: a reasonable man with moderate views on abortion.

Hang on a second, you might say. Trump? The guy who, in 2016, said “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who get abortions? The guy who can’t stop bragging about how he is responsible for overturning Roe v Wade because he filled the supreme court with conservative justices? The guy who, just a few weeks ago, was pondering a 15-week national abortion ban? That guy has now moderated his views on abortion.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/13/donald-trump-abortion-rights-views

13.04.2024

national abortion ban

Roe v. Wade

United States

Politics

Florida abortion providers brace for six-week ban: ‘Where are these 80,000 patients gonna go?’

In separate decision, state supreme court agrees to allow voters to decide on enshrining rights in constitution in November

Carter Sherman
Tue 2 Apr 2024

Florida, the last bastion of abortion access in the south-eastern United States, will ban abortion past six weeks of pregnancy starting next month, leaving abortion providers and their supporters in the state and across the country scrambling to deal with the fallout for patients.

On Monday, the Florida state supreme court upheld a 15-week abortion ban, a move that removed the barriers for a separate, six-week ban that takes effect on 1 May. In a separate ruling, the court also agreed to let Florida residents weigh in on the issue through a November ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution – a decision that opens a new front in an election that is already sure to be dominated by abortion politics.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/02/florida-abortion-ban-six-weeks

Florida Supreme Court approves abortion restriction — and ballot measure that would overturn it

The court paved the way for a six-week ban passed in 2023 to take effect.
By Mel Leonor Barclay, Shefali Luthra
April 1, 2024

The Florida Supreme Court struck down its state abortion protection — paving the way for a six-week ban passed in 2023 to take effect — but will allow voters to weigh in on whether they can amend the state’s constitution to explicitly enshrine abortion rights.

The court issued two separate rulings Monday: one upholding a 15-week abortion ban passed in 2022, and another approving an abortion rights ballot measure to go before voters this November. The measure — which will need the backing of 60 percent of voters to pass, the highest threshold in the country — would amend Florida’s constitution to explicitly guarantee abortion rights in the state to the point of fetal viability, which is determined by physicians but is usually around 22 to 25 weeks of pregnancy.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2024/04/florida-abortion-ban-ballot-measure/

Florida Supreme Court Rules on Abortion

The Court allows 6-week ban & for voters to decide in November

JESSICA VALENTI
APR 01, 2024

The Florida Supreme Court came down with two abortion rulings today, one good and one very, very bad.

The Ron DeSantis-packed Court ruled that privacy protections in the Florida constitution don’t apply to abortion—undoing decades of precedent. A response to a challenge against the state’s 15-week ban, this decision means that a newer, 6-week ban—one that DeSantis signed into law last April—will go automatically into effect within 30 days. As we know, a 6-week ban in practice is not that different from a total ban.

Continued: https://jessica.substack.com/p/breaking-florida-supreme-court-rules

USA – Fifteen-Week Abortion Bans Are No Compromise The GOP is haggling over when to ban abortion. So are some Democrats.

By Irin Carmon
Oct 5, 2023

The mainline anti-abortion movement has a problem it thinks a 15-week abortion ban can solve. Accomplishing its cherished dream of overturning Roe v. Wade has come at a cost. Many Republicans are squirming away from the anti-abortion cause as politically toxic, to the point that presidential front-runner Donald Trump seems to think he can blow off the movement entirely. Meanwhile, right-wing activists are fretting that abortion is still too accessible, with patients circumventing state bans via interstate travel or abortion pills by mail. New Guttmacher data even suggest the absolute number of legal abortions went up in the first half of this year.

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/abortion-bans-15-week-debate-republicans-democrats.html

USA – Abortion was a 50/50 issue. Now, it’s Republican quicksand.

Six in 10 voters support legal abortion in most cases. Just over a third want it to be entirely or mostly illegal.

By STEVEN SHEPARD
April 8, 2023

Conservatives are finding out the hard way that abortion isn’t a 50-50 issue anymore.

Janet Protasiewicz’s 11-point blowout victory this week for a state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin was just the latest example of voters who support abortion rights outnumbering — and outvoting — their opponents. There was little polling in Tuesday’s race, but in a 2022 midterm exit poll of the state, a combined 63 percent of Wisconsin voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while only 34 percent thought it should be illegal in all or most cases.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/08/republican-party-abortion-trap-00091088

08.04.2023

Republicans won’t stop until abortion is banned across America. And it could be

It is time for liberal Americans, and all American women, to face this reality: there will soon be no safe states

Moira Donegan
Thu 15 Sep 2022

Republicans want to ban abortion nationwide, and they have the nerve to claim that this is a compromise. This week, Senator Lindsay Graham, of South Carolina, introduced a bill to ban all abortions everywhere in the United States at 15 weeks. Abortion is already banned before 15 weeks in 15 states.

It is banned outright in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. Indiana’s ban on abortion went into effect just this Wednesday. It is banned at six weeks – in practice a total ban – in Georgia and Ohio. West Virginia passed an abortion ban, too. It won’t be the last.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/15/republicans-wont-stop-until-abortion-is-banned-across-america-and-it-could-be

15.09.2022

national abortion ban

USA – The next frontier for the antiabortion movement: A nationwide ban

Advocates and some GOP lawmakers have started mobilizing around potential federal legislation to outlaw abortion after six weeks of pregnancy

By Caroline Kitchener
May 2, 2022

Leading antiabortion groups and their allies in Congress have been meeting behind the scenes to plan a national strategy that would kick in if the Supreme Court rolls back abortion rights this summer, including a push for a strict nationwide ban on the procedure if Republicans retake power in Washington.

The effort, activists say, is designed to bring a fight that has been playing out largely in the courts and state legislatures to the national political stage — rallying conservatives around the issue in the midterms and pressuring potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates to take a stand.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ban-roe-supreme-court-mississippi/

If Roe v. Wade Is Overturned, What’s Next?

After building toward such a moment for half a century, pro-life legal efforts aren’t likely to stop there.

By Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker
April 17, 2022

In 2003, when the Supreme Court held, in Lawrence v. Texas, that criminalizing gay sex was unconstitutional, it insisted that the decision had nothing to do with marriage equality. In a scathing dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “Do not believe it.” Then, in 2013, when the Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, emphasizing the tradition of letting the states define marriage, Scalia issued another warning, saying that “no one should be fooled” into thinking that the Court would leave states free to exclude gay couples from that definition. He was finally proved right two years later, when the reasoning on dignity and equality developed in those earlier rulings led to the Court’s holding that the Constitution requires all states to recognize same-sex marriage.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/25/if-roe-v-wade-is-overturned-whats-next