Harris was strongest at debate when talking about abortion while Trump relied on tired old lies

Carter Sherman
Wed 11 Sep 2024

Throughout his 2024 campaign for president, Donald Trump has avoided giving straight, consistent or accurate answers to questions about abortion – and in his first debate appearance against Kamala Harris, Trump kept up that streak.

Moderators introduced abortion, one of the biggest issues in the election, by asking about the most recent example of Trump’s incoherence on the topic: his position on a Florida ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution. Over the last few weeks, Trump initially suggested that he would vote in favor of the measure – which would restore abortion rights in a state that has banned the procedure past six weeks of pregnancy – before quickly backtracking amid outrage from his anti-abortion base.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/11/abortion-harris-trump-debate

11.09.2024

News

abortion in presidential debate

USA – Anti-abortion groups warn Trump’s row back on position risks losing votes

Republican candidate’s comments seen by Democrats as hypocritical ‘sadden’ anti-abortion activists

Carter Sherman
Fri 30 Aug 2024

Over the last two weeks, Donald Trump has publicly backed away from multiple anti-abortion positions – a move that Democrats see as hypocritical and that, anti-abortion activists warn, risks alienating voters who have long stood by him.

On Thursday, Trump said that, if elected, he would make the government or insurance companies cover in vitro fertilization – a type of fertility assistance that some in the anti-abortion movement want to see curtailed. Trump also seemed to indicate that he planned to vote in favor of a ballot measure to restore abortion access in Florida, which currently bans abortion past six weeks of pregnancy. “I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” Trump told NBC News in an interview.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/30/trump-ivf-anti-abortion-groups

USA – Where Will Abortion Rights Land?

Post-Roe voting might bring America to a new consensus — but only if the voters keep getting their say.

By Kate Zernike
Dec. 17, 2023

As long as the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was the law of the land, conservatives complained that it had squelched the democratic process — that unelected men in black robes had handed down a national edict rather than letting the American people sort out a consensus.

Celebrating Roe’s reversal in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, they declared that democracy would finally be allowed to take over and settle the question of abortion once and for all. “Now the American people get their voice back,” Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said. While the court in Roe had “inflamed debate and deepened division,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the majority in Dobbs, “the people and their elected representatives” would reach the “national settlement” that had eluded the country for so long.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/17/us/where-will-abortion-rights-land.html

17.12.2023

Commentary

ballot initiatives on abortion

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

How abortion became an ‘Achilles heel’ for US Republicans

Polls and past election results show abortion issues hurt Republicans at the ballot, which may affect the 2024 race.

By Ali Harb
23 Jun 2023

Washington, DC – Be careful what you wish for, the old adage goes.

One year after conservatives in the United States fulfilled their decades-long goal of overturning the constitutional right to abortion, Republican politicians are facing setbacks over the issue.

Abortion bans and restrictions are not popular among Americans, and those championing them are paying electorally.

Continued: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/23/how-abortion-became-an-achilles-heel-for-us-republicans

23.06.2023

Commentary

Glenn Altschuler

PerryUndem

public support for abortion

Dobbs Turned Abortion Into A Huge Liability For Republicans

Support for abortion rights is higher than it's been in decades.

By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux
JUN. 22, 2023

When Theresa M. started attending a support group for breast cancer survivors, she didn’t expect political issues like abortion to be a part of the conversation. But since last summer, when her home state of Florida — freed from the requirements of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court — began imposing new abortion restrictions, younger women who were newly diagnosed with breast cancer started to voice concerns. “They worry if you find out you’re pregnant, you might have to stop your cancer treatment,” said Theresa, who is 58 and asked that her full name be withheld for personal reasons. “For some kinds of cancer, that’s a death sentence. But not an immediate death sentence, so you don’t get an abortion.”

Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dobbs-abortion-opinion-liability-republicans/

22.06.2023

Commentary

Gallup poll on abortion

public opinion on abortion

public support for abortion

What Ireland’s Past Can Tell Us About A Post-Roe America

By Monica Potts
JUN. 8, 2022

Before 2018, most women in the Republic of Ireland were able to get abortions only if they traveled to a clinic in England or Wales or had a self-managed abortion at home, but figuring out how to do either of those options was difficult.

Information on abortion was censored in the first years of the ban, which took effect in 19831. Certain books were prohibited, and even the Irish edition of Cosmopolitan magazine had blank pages instead of adverts for British clinics. Meanwhile, those who sought abortions faced isolation, stigma and limited help from medical professionals. And for the few who were able to overcome those barriers and somehow reach one of the feminist networks that could help with information, logistics and fundraising, they still might pay hundreds of pounds or more for the procedure, transportation, meals and a hotel.

Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-irelands-past-can-tell-us-about-a-post-roe-america/

Why the Republican offensive on abortion is escalating

Ronald Brownstein
Tue April 19, 2022

(CNN) When three red states finalized severe restrictions on abortion over consecutive days last week, they highlighted the GOP's rising militancy on the issue -- and the political and legal calculations underpinning it.

Separate actions last week in Oklahoma, Florida and Kentucky made clear the red state drive to retrench, or eliminate, access to abortion is escalating as the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority nears a decision, expected in late June, in which it is widely anticipated to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a nationwide right to abortion.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/abortion-laws-red-states-republicans/index.html

With Roe endangered, Democrats divide on saying the word ‘abortion’

By Caroline Kitchener
April 2, 2022

After Texas passed its restrictive abortion law last fall, Democrats started talking more about abortion than they had in decades.

House Democrats coalesced around a bill to turn into law the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing most abortions, Roe v. Wade, voicing their support for the landmark precedent in tweets and public statements. A few days later, three congresswomen shared their abortion stories on the House floor. And when he delivered his State of the Union address in March, President Biden became the first Democratic president since Roe to use that platform to call for action on abortion rights.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/02/abortion-rhetoric-roe/

USA – The Last Decade Was Disastrous For Abortion Rights. Advocates Are Trying To Figure Out What’s Next.

The Last Decade Was Disastrous For Abortion Rights. Advocates Are Trying To Figure Out What’s Next.
This year, the battle over abortion rights reached a fever pitch. That’s what this entire decade was building toward.

Ema O'Connor BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on December 17, 2019

As the decade draws to a close, the national right to abortion is in the most vulnerable place it’s been in decades.

Since 2010, hundreds of laws restricting abortion access have been enacted all over the country, making the procedure less attainable and forcing abortion clinics to close. The US has gone from having around 1,720 facilities that perform abortions in 2011 to 1,587 in 2017 (the last year reproductive rights group Guttmacher Institute surveyed). As of this year, there are six states with only one abortion clinic left. Twenty-five abortion bans were signed into law in 2019 alone, leading to nationwide protests. Though all, so far, have been blocked by the courts, a major fight over abortion rights at the Supreme Court is yet to come.

Continued: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emaoconnor/abortion-rights-decade-bans-trump-kavanaugh-planned

17.12.2019

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health

Affordable Care Act

Alexis McGill Johnson

All Above All

Americans United for Life

anti-choice legislation

anti-choice restrictions

Brett Kavanaugh

Cecile Richards

Center for Reproductive Rights

Naral Pro-Choice America

National Right to Life Commission

PerryUndem

Planned Parenthood

pro-choice legislation

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers

undue burden standard

vaginal ultrasound

Wendy Davis

Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt

USA – The Last Abortion Clinic in West Virginia

The Last Abortion Clinic in West Virginia

Esther Wang
Nov 18, 2019

The Women’s Health Center in Charleston, West Virginia is an unassuming, single-story beige brick building in a shabby neighborhood, just steps from the train tracks and a crisis pregnancy center, a shuttered vape shop, and a row of small homes surrounded by chainlink fences. I visited the center, the last abortion clinic in the state, on a Wednesday in June, one of the two days each week that the clinic performs abortions. Christopher McComas, 52, stood by the entrance to the clinic’s parking lot, equipped with a cell phone that he trained at everyone who approached the clinic.

“Hey brother, can I talk to you for a second? Please, for a second? Do you think it’s going to be a boy or a girl? Does it have blue eyes, or maybe brown eyes?” McComas yelled at one couple, a tall photo of a blood-covered fetus propped up by his side. “God loves you, please don’t do this ma’am! I beg you not to do this! It could be a boy or a girl,” he continued to yell at the couple as they entered the clinic, shielded by a large umbrella held by a clinic escort. “It could have brown hair!”

Continued: https://jezebel.com/the-last-abortion-clinic-in-west-virginia-1838886688

18.11.2019