Revealed: Ginni Thomas’s links to anti-abortion groups who lobbied to overturn Roe

Analysis of ‘amicus briefs’ shows how closely Clarence Thomas’s wife was entwined with rightwing effort to reverse 1973 ruling

Ed Pilkington in New York
Fri 9 Sep 2022

Ginni Thomas, the self-styled “culture warrior” and extreme rightwing activist, has links to more than half of the anti-abortion groups and individuals who lobbied her husband Clarence Thomas and his fellow US supreme court justices ahead of their historic decision to eradicate a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

A new analysis of the written legal arguments, or “amicus briefs”, used to lobby the justices as they deliberated over abortion underlines the extent to which Clarence Thomas’s wife was intertwined with this vast pressure campaign.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/09/ginni-thomas-abortion-roe-v-wade-supreme-court

Biden leans into abortion rights in speech to Democratic activists

The president's remarks about abortion came as he works through refining a midterm stump speech full of increasingly sharp-edged digs at the GOP.

By OLIVIA OLANDER and CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO
Sept 8, 2022

President Joe Biden escalated his attacks on Republicans over abortion rights in a speech to Democratic activists late Thursday, addressing the specifics of what he contends his opponents want: an expansion of abortion bans before many women know they’re pregnant, and an attempt to pass a national ban, which he pledged to veto.

Leaning into the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights this summer, the president suggested there would be a surge of voter activity in the fall midterm elections pushing back against the high court’s decision. Biden reiterated that abortion could be just the start of Republican attempts to dial back rights, including contraception and same-sex marriage.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/08/biden-leans-into-abortion-rights-00055819

08.09.2022

Why restricting access to abortion damages women’s health

The PLOS Medicine Editors
Published: July 26, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004075

In late June, the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned by the United States Supreme Court, a decision, decried by human rights experts at the United Nations [1], that leaves many women and girls without the right to obtain abortion care that was established nearly 50 years ago. The consequences of limited or nonextant access to safe abortion services in the US remain to be seen; however, information gleaned from abortion-related policies worldwide provides insight into the likely health effects of this abrupt reversal in abortion policy. The US Supreme Court’s decision should serve to amplify the global call for strategies to mitigate the inevitable repercussions for women’s health.

Continued: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004075

The inside story of how John Roberts failed to save abortion rights

Joan Biskupic, CNN legal analyst & Supreme Court biographer
Tue July 26, 2022

Chief Justice John Roberts privately lobbied fellow conservatives to save the constitutional right to abortion down to the bitter end, but May's unprecedented leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade made the effort all but impossible.

It appears unlikely that Roberts' best prospect -- Justice Brett Kavanaugh -- was ever close to switching his earlier vote, despite Roberts' attempts that continued through the final weeks of the session.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/26/politics/supreme-court-john-roberts-abortion-dobbs/index.html

The Supreme Court is unscientific and medically negligent

Robert Pearl
July 25, 2022

A pair of Supreme Court rulings in June — one on gun rights, the other on abortion — have elicited strong, partisan reactions.

In recent weeks, critics have called out inconsistencies in the court’s decisions: One ruling restricts the ability of states to regulate guns while the other expands the right of states to regulate abortions. The result, opponents say, is that Americans are free to carry guns but forced to carry babies.

Continued: https://thefulcrum.us/Government/Judicial/supreme-court-decisions

25.07.2022

Justice Stephen Breyer

How the Supreme Court recalibrated the abortion debate in just 3 words

By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN
Sun July 17, 2022

It's not just that US Supreme Court majorities upheld Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban and overturned Roe v. Wade. The opinion also skewed the crux of the conversation going forward -- with just three words.

"Unborn human being" is the term Associate Justice Samuel Alito adopted from the Mississippi statute, thereby replacing the key phrase in the landmark 1973 Roe ruling that spelled out a constitutional right to abortion: "potential life."

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/17/us/abortion-religion-dobbs-roe/index.html

US abortion debate: Rights experts urge lawmakers to adhere to women’s convention

1 July 2022
United Nations

A week since the US Supreme Court overturned a landmark, 50-year-old judgement guaranteeing access to abortion, top UN-appointed independent experts urged United States lawmakers on Friday to adhere to international law that protects women’s right to sexual and reproductive health.

The UN women’s rights committee said that the US is one of only seven countries throughout the world that is not party to the international convention that protects women’s human rights, including their right to sexual and reproductive health.

Continued: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1121862

01.07.2022

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

The Supreme Court has undermined U.S. credibility on human right

By Josh Rogin
June 29, 2022

For decades, the United States has been a world leader in promoting reproductive rights and women’s rights. But now, by overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court has struck a severe blow to American credibility in this role. And that, in turn, undermines U.S. international advocacy on these issues, which could result in a cascade of negative consequences around the world.

Last week’s Supreme Court decision on
abortion triggered a deluge of criticism from world leaders, protests at U.S.
embassies abroad and general embarrassment for President Biden, who is
traveling in Europe. Over the longer term, international erosion of faith in
the United States’ commitment to reproductive rights and the effects of changes
in U.S. law could do real harm, according to foreign officials, lawmakers and
leaders of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) I’ve spoken with.

Unblocked: https://wapo.st/3ImcYTL

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/29/supreme-court-undermined-us-credibility-human-rights-women-abortion/

29.06.2022

Global Gag Rule

Human Rights Watch

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Jeanne Shaheen

Joe Biden

Josh Rogin

Karla Berdichevsky Feldman

Macarena Saez

Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins

PAI

Roe v. Wade

U.S. Supreme Court

Some states move quickly to ban abortion after Supreme Court ruling

By Tierney Sneed, CNN
Sat June 25, 2022

Now that the Supreme Court has given the green light for lawmakers to prohibit abortion, several states, most of them Republican-led, have taken quick steps to do so. At least 10 states have effectively banned abortion since Friday's ruling.

In all, 26 states have laws that indicate they could outlaw or set extreme limits on abortions, effectively banning abortion in those states, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/24/politics/abortion-ban-states-move-quickly/index.html

25.06.2022

Some states move quickly to ban abortion after Supreme Court ruling

By Tierney Sneed, CNN
Fri June 24, 2022

Now that the Supreme Court has given the green light for lawmakers to prohibit abortion, several states, most of them Republican-led, have taken quick steps to do so. In at least seven states, state officials say that abortion bans can now be enforced.

Three states -- Kentucky, Louisiana and South Dakota -- have so-called "trigger bans" that went into effect automatically with the Supreme Court's reversal Friday of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that had established a constitutional right to an abortion. Ten other states have trigger bans with implementation mechanisms that occur after a set period or after a step taken by a state government entity.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/24/politics/abortion-ban-states-move-quickly/index.html

24.06.2022