Opinion: This law from the 1870s could imperil abortion in blue states

Opinion by Mary Ziegler
Fri January 27, 2023

Since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June, promising strategies have emerged to protect abortion rights in individual states. Some have begun to pass ballot initiatives to preserve or create state constitutional protection. Others have looked to legislatures to shield doctors and those who help people seeking abortion from potential consequences in conservative states.

These wins are hardly a silver bullet: not all states allow ballot initiatives and there are any number of states where majorities of voters seem to support abortion rights but are governed by legislators who want to ban the procedure—a result of deep partisan divides, gerrymandering and limits on access to the vote.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/27/opinions/abortion-at-risk-in-blue-states-ziegler-ctrp/index.html

27.01.2023

Featured

Opinion

abortion pills

Alliance Defending Freedom

Abortion rights leaders set focus on access, medication — and the long fight ahead

The presidents of Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America both say that they’re alarmed at attempts to decrease access to medication abortion and that they see young people as key to their ability to change policy in the long term.

Grace Panetta, Political reporter
January 23, 2023

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Two of the most prominent leaders in the abortion rights movement told The 19th they’re preparing to tackle future abortion bans and restrictions at the state level, efforts to undermine medication abortion and abortion access deserts as the United States enters its first full year without Roe v. Wade.

Lawmakers, officials and leading abortion rights advocates gathered in Tallahassee for a speech by Vice President Kamala Harris and an accompanying rally hosted by Planned Parenthood on Sunday. They were marking the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe decision that established a federal right to abortion — one that was struck down last June. Advocates said the speech’s location in Florida’s capital drew attention to Republican lawmakers’ plans to pass additional abortion restrictions in their 2023 legislative session.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2023/01/abortion-leaders-focus-medication-access-policy/

Roe Was Never Roe After All

The landmark decision never gave women the rights that people wanted to believe it did.

By Mary Ziegler
JANUARY 21, 2023

Tomorrow will mark 50 years since Roe v. Wade was decided, but the landmark ruling did not make it to its semicentennial, having been overturned by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last summer. Many people viewed this as the end of abortion rights in America. But that’s not what it was. Both practically and theoretically, Roe was never the guarantor of those rights that people believed it to be.

The “Roe” that has occupied the center of the abortion debate for decades bears only a passing resemblance to anything the Supreme Court said in 1973. Roe has become much more than a legal text; it’s a cultural symbol created not only by judges but by voters, politicians, and grassroots movements. And the history of America’s fixation on Roe is a story not just about the power of the Supreme Court, but about how the Court alone does not—and should not—dictate what the Constitution says.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/roe-50-anniversary-abortion-casey/672794/

21.01.2023

Featured

Opinion

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Justice Harry Blackmun

Mary Ziegler

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

‘We need to dream bigger’: As Roe v Wade marks 50th anniversary, advocates push further

Christine Fernando, USA TODAY
Jan 19, 2023

Each year since 1973, abortion rights activists have gathered on Jan. 22 for “Roe v. Wade Day” to celebrate the Supreme Court decision that granted a constitutional right to abortion.

But now, 50 years after the decision, Roe v. Wade Day will be different: Sunday will also mark the first anniversary of Roe since the ruling was overturned.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/01/19/roe-v-wade-50th-anniversary-abortion-access-womens-march/11030965002/

The U.S. faces ‘unprecedented uncertainty’ regarding abortion law, legal scholar says

Fresh Air | By Terry Gross
January 17, 2023

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization struck down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that guaranteed the right to an abortion.

Without Roe, the Court's decision left it up to the states to decide on the legality of abortion and the restrictions surrounding it. Legal scholar Mary Ziegler chronicles the legal, political and cultural debate around abortion in the new book, Roe: The History of a National Obsession. She says the battle over abortion rights is far from over.

Continued: https://www.wglt.org/2023-01-17/the-u-s-faces-unprecedented-uncertainty-regarding-abortion-law-legal-scholar-says

17.01.2023

Roe: The History of a National Obsession

TEXAS LAWMAKERS PLAN TO FURTHER DECIMATE ABORTION RIGHTS IN UPCOMING LEGISLATIVE SESSION

All Texas clinics have halted abortion care, but the anti-abortion movement says its work isn’t over.

Mary Tuma
December 26 2022

MONTHS BEFORE THE U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated nearly 50 years of abortion rights by overturning Roe v. Wade, Texans were already living in a grim post-Roe world. Senate Bill 8 — in effect since September 2021 due to the Supreme Court’s refusal to block the measure — barred abortion care once embryonic cardiac activity is detected, typically at six weeks of pregnancy. Then considered the most restrictive abortion law in the country, SB 8 halted the overwhelming majority of care in the nation’s second most populous state. The draconian law carried no exception for rape, incest, or severe fetal abnormality.

Next came the high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck the final blow to abortion rights in Texas by allowing a full “trigger” ban to take effect. Performing an abortion in Texas is now a felony punishable by up to life in prison. Adding to the reproductive health crisis, state officials sought to push criminal enforcement of a 1925 pre-Roe ban. Today, all 23 abortion clinics in Texas have stopped providing abortion care at any stage, the most of any state in the nation.

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2022/12/26/texas-abortion-legislative-session/

USA – The Fight Over Abortion Is Far From Over. Here’s What Will Happen in 2023.

2023 is going to be a big year for anti-abortion policy: Anti-abortion activists could even harness a 19th-century law to curtail talking about abortion.

By Carter Sherman
December 26, 2022

If this is the year that Roe v. Wade fell, 2023 will be the year that kicks off what promises to be a years-long, state-by-state brawl between Americans who believe abortion is essential to freedom and Americans who believe the procedure is murder.

Come January, state legislatures across the country will open for business. Conservative lawmakers will try to narrow the last few avenues to abortion available in red states. Abortion rights activists, buoyed by their victories in the midterms, will push for more ballot measures. Many of these legislative and political showdowns will likely end up in the courts.

Continued: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkg9p7/abortion

USA – The next abortion fight could be over wastewater regulation

Abortion opponents plan to use environmental laws to curb access to pills used to terminate an early pregnancy

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN
11/23/2022

Abortion opponents and their allies in elected office are seizing on an unusual strategy after suffering a wave of election defeats — using environmental laws to try to block the distribution of abortion pills.

The new approach comes as the pills mifepristone and misoprostol, which people can take at home during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, have become the most common method of abortion in the U.S. and virtually the only option for millions of people in states with laws that have forced clinics to close since the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/23/abortion-pills-opponents-environmental-laws-00070603

USA – Doctors who would like to defy abortion laws say it’s too risky

November 22, 2022
Selena Simmons-Duffin

Doctors in states with abortion bans can face prison time and lose their licenses if they violate the laws. Some are calling on doctors to openly defy the bans.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: It's been five months since Roe v. Wade was overturned, and now 13 states have laws banning abortion with limited exceptions for medical emergencies. Doctors who violate these laws could face felony charges, prison time and the loss of their medical license. Surveys, news reports and court affidavits show the fear of these laws has caused some doctors to delay or deny abortions, including in emergencies. Some doctors are asking themselves a tough question - when they are forced to choose between their ethical obligations to patients and the law, should they defy the law? NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin reports.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/22/1138558392/doctors-who-would-like-to-defy-abortion-laws-say-its-too-risky

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