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      The supreme court is signalling that it’s ready to end Roe v Wade | Moira Donegan

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      The supreme court is signalling that it’s ready to end Roe v WadeMoira DoneganPredictions that the court would keep abortion as a constitutional right are starting to look incredibly optimistic It went worse than had been expected, and expectations were already low. As the supreme court prepared to hear oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a lawsuit over a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi that constitutes the most serious challenge to Roe v Wade in a generation, many court watchers predicted a massive rollback of abortion rights. But the line among reasonable pundits was that the court, fearing censure from a largely pro-choice American public, would attempt to have its cake and eat it too – allowing states to impose abortion bans earlier in pregnancy, but keeping abortion as a constitutional right intact.The most convincing version of this argument came from Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who predicted that the court, like it did in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v Casey, might weaken the abortion right without abandoning it entirely. In Casey, the supreme court lessened the standard of scrutiny applied to state abortion restrictions – from a robust “strict scrutiny” standard to a more malleable “undue burden” standard – and affirmed that states could ban abortions outright after fetal viability, the point of gestation at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, usually at about 24 weeks.Stern, like many others, predicted that the court might impose an even more deferential legal test on abortion restrictions – “rational basis review” – and eliminate the viability standard. The result would be that states could ban and restrict abortions more easily, even before viability, but they would still not be allowed to ban abortions entirely. “The court could move back the point at which states can prohibit abortion outright from 24 weeks to 15 or perhaps 12, the end of the first trimester,” Stern wrote. “A diminished right to abortion would survive, battered but extant.”And yet the end of the viability standard would still have been practically disastrous for abortion access on the ground, as well as for women’s freedom and dignity. This much was elegantly explained by New York’s Irin Carmon, who wrote that attacks from conservatives over the past 30 years have increased the abortion right’s legal reliance on the viability standard, even as developments in pre- and neo-natal care have pushed viability itself earlier in pregnancy. “If a ban on abortion at 15 weeks is allowed for whatever reason, why not draw the line at six?” Carmon asked.Getting rid of the viability standard, but still leaving the right to abortion technically intact, would in practice invite an anarchic scramble, as conservative states rushed to ban abortion as early as possible and push the limit back sooner and sooner in pregnancy. Julie Rickelman, a longtime abortion rights advocate and the lawyer representing Mississippi’s lone abortion clinic in the Dobbs case, put it bluntly: if viability goes, Roe is effectively no longer good law. “If the court upholds this law, it will be discarding the viability line and overruling Roe,” she told Carmon. “That is the key line in the law that has protected people’s access to abortion.”In other words, the best-case scenario was legal chaos, misogynist lawmaking, a diminished right to bodily autonomy for women, and millions more people subject to forced pregnancy.But even these predictions – which pass for “optimism” among legal observers now that the supreme court is held in the chokehold of a conservative supermajority – proved too rosy. At oral arguments in Dobbs on Wednesday, five of the court’s six conservatives showed little interest in maintaining Roe while getting rid of viability. Instead, they were focused on eliminating Roe, and the abortion right, entirely. By the end, it seemed likely that conservatives have a crucial five votes to rule that the constitution does not protect the right to end a pregnancy: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.The lone exception among the conservatives was Chief Justice John Roberts, who seemed almost desperate to direct attention to the viability line. Over the course of arguments, Roberts repeatedly returned to the viability question, emphasizing that it was rejected as a possible standard in the initial 1973 Roe decision and only adopted later, in Casey. But none of the other conservatives took the bait.The two “swing” votes – if such an extremely and committedly conservative court can be said to have such a thing – are Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. In a display of the impotence that has marked his career as chief justice, Roberts was unable to persuade either of them to take up his apparently preferred proposition of maintaining a shell of Roe while gutting the viability standard.Instead, Kavanaugh spent much of his speaking time assuring his colleagues that they need not be bound by Roe’s precedent, listing a long litany of cases in which the supreme court reversed its own prior decisions. Barrett, meanwhile, emphasized the availability of adoption as a supposedly adequate alternative to abortion, at one point asserting that so-called “safe haven” laws, which allow birth mothers to surrender their parental rights and leave their infants in the care of others without punishment immediately after they give birth, offer an adequate remedy for pregnant women who cannot or do not wish to become parents. The idea was that if a woman is pregnant and does not want to be, an acceptable outcome would be for her to gestate and birth a child, and then simply give it away.The hardest-line conservatives, meanwhile, offered even more grim and ominous assessments of abortion as a matter of law, and their sadistic and extremist views give some indication of where the court may be heading in future cases. Both Alito and Thomas referred repeatedly to abortion as “taking a life”, and indicated that they would be open to recognizing fetal personhood. Until now, post-viability abortion bans have rested on the legal idea that the state has an interest in protecting fetal life that overrides a woman’s interest in controlling her own body after that point. But Alito and Thomas suggested that they think that interest belongs not only to the state, but to the fetus itself, and that this interest begins very early. “The fetus has an interest in having a life,” Alito said at one point. “That doesn’t change from the point before viability and after viability.”The suggestion that a fetus might have interests in its own right – interests that can be seen as equal or greater than the interests of the woman carrying it – is a dramatic step in anti-choice jurisprudence, one with dramatic implications for women’s healthcare, freedoms, and access to public life. After Wednesday’s oral arguments, it seems certain that Roe v Wade will soon be overturned. For this court, that’s just the beginning.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS supreme courtAbortionLaw (US)WomencommentReuse this content More

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      Abortion rights advocates vow to fight on after supreme court hearing

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      Abortion rights advocates vow to fight on after supreme court hearingLeaders say they will look to statehouses and lower courts if justices allow undermining of Roe v Wade In the wake of Wednesday’s supreme court hearing in which a majority of justices appeared willing to significantly curb abortion rights, reproductive rights advocates said they would continue to fight in statehouses and lower courts for the right to choose.The supreme court heard oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, widely regarded as the most important abortion rights case in nearly five decades.The case before the court pits Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s last abortion clinic, also known as the “Pink House”, against the state health director, Dr Thomas Dobbs. A decision is expected in June 2022.Conservative US supreme court justices signal support for restricting abortion in pivotal caseRead moreMississippi intends to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a move blocked so far by lower courts.While a significant blow to abortion rights is far from a foregone conclusion, questions from the supreme court’s conservative justices on Wednesday appeared to show a willingness to allow restrictions on abortion at 15 weeks and perhaps earlier in a pregnancy.The case also requests the court overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 supreme court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion and is the only safeguard for such rights in dozens of conservative US states.Under present law, pregnant people have a right to terminate a pregnancy up to the point a fetus can survive outside the womb, widely regarded as 24 weeks gestation. A full-term pregnancy is considered 39 weeks gestation.In a consensus shared across the political spectrum, at least five justices appeared divided over whether to significantly curb or overturn Roe v Wade.Six of the nine justices lean to the right, with three of them nominated by Donald Trump during his one-term presidency. “Congress could fix the issue right now,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), the organization that represented abortion providers in the supreme court on Wednesday.Although abortion was legalized in 1973 and has been relied upon by women nationally since then, Congress has never affirmed the right to abortion in legislation. That left the Roe v Wade precedent as the principle protection of the option for termination, while anti-abortion campaigners have brought many legal challenges and also pushed laws undermining access to the procedure.“All these bans and undue burdens in abortion care would be addressed by the Women’s Health Protection Act,” Northup said, referring to a bill recently passed by the US House of Representatives. “That would make sure women can access abortion without unnecessary bans.”Thus far, the bill has been viewed as highly unlikely to pass into law because it would need to overcome the Senate filibuster rule, requiring a 60-vote majority in the evenly divided chamber, where the Republicans would oppose it.Joe Biden said on Wednesday: “I support Roe v Wade. I think it’s a rational position to take.”Julie Rikelman, CRR’s litigation director, who argued before the justices, said campaigners would continue to fight if the supreme court went against reproductive choice. “We will continue to make every argument we can in the federal courts, we will continue to litigate in the state courts … we will not stop fighting, because it is just too important,” Rikelman said.Shannon Brewer, the director of the Pink House, said the coming months would be tough, with her providers “sitting and waiting and twiddling our thumbs” in anticipation of a decision.“It was a difficult day for everybody [but] I listened to the arguments and I think they did a great job at representing women today,” Brewer said.Following what was widely viewed as a hearing favorable to anti-abortion forces, conservatives chimed in.“What we want to see is the court do the right thing and overturn Roe,” said Chip Roy, a Republican US representative from Texas. He decried fears over a threat to choice as a “wailing and gnashing of teeth from the left”.Sam Brownback, the former US ambassador at large for international religious freedom under Trump, said it was time to overturn Roe “and let states address the issue”.Overturning Roe v Wade would effectively return the issue to be decided at state level, where swaths of the south and midwest would be “certain or likely” to ban most abortion. Already, several states have banned abortion at six weeks, though all those laws have been blocked by courts, with the prominent exception of Texas.Some reproductive rights advocates remained optimistic.Schaunta James-Boyd, co-executive director of Trust Women, an organization dedicated to providing abortions in underserved states, said her group “look[s] forward to a positive outcome later in 2022”.The pressure to legislate an affirmative right to abortion in states not openly hostile is likely to increase as a supreme court decision nears. While 26 states are “certain or likely” to outlaw abortion if Roe v Wade were overturned, states such as New York and Illinois have worked to protect abortion rights. Polling shows about six in 10 Americans believe abortion should be legal in “all or most” circumstances.Meanwhile, the House speaker and California Democrat Nancy Pelosi said: “The House is committed to defending women’s health freedoms and to enshrining into law our House-passed Women’s Health Protection Act, led by Congresswoman Judy Chu, to protect reproductive health care for all women across America.”She added that the supreme court “has the opportunity and responsibility to honor the constitution, the law and this basic truth: every woman has the constitutional right to basic reproductive healthcare”.TopicsAbortionHealthGenderUS politicsUS supreme courtLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Supreme Court's Abortion Decision Could Spill Into Midterm Elections

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      Both sides anticipate that a Supreme Court decision scaling back abortion rights would roil next year’s elections, with Democrats sensing an advantage.WASHINGTON — A Supreme Court ruling to weaken or overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in the middle of next year’s midterm election campaign would immediately elevate abortion rights into a defining issue and most likely reinvigorate efforts to overhaul the court itself.Even as the justices weigh the case of the Mississippi law barring most abortions after 15 weeks, the political clash is already intensifying, with Democrats warning supporters that the court is poised to reverse access to abortion 50 years after it was recognized as a constitutional right.“What is fundamentally at stake is that every woman in our country should be able to make her own health care decisions and chart her own destiny and have the full independence to do that,” said Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, who is seeking re-election in a race with significant implications for control of the Senate.As the court heard arguments in the Mississippi case on Wednesday, it appeared that the six conservative justices were likely to uphold the state’s law despite the precedent set in 1973 by Roe, which held that states could not bar abortion before fetal viability, now judged to be around 22 to 24 weeks.Several of the justices suggested that they were willing to go another step and overturn Roe entirely, leaving states free to impose whatever bans or restrictions they choose. The court is likely to release its decision in the case at the end of its term in June or early July, just as campaigning in the midterms is getting into full swing.While the subject of abortion and the Supreme Court has traditionally been seen as more of an energizing issue for Republican and evangelical voters, Democrats say that situation could be reversed should the court undermine Roe, raising the possibility that abortion could be banned or severely limited in many states.That outcome, Democrats said, would transform the long fight over abortion rights from theory to reality and give new resonance to their arguments that a Democratic Congress is needed to protect access to the procedure and seat judges who are not hostile to abortion rights.Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and fellow Democrats have repeatedly criticized state Republicans for cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood and instituting new abortion restrictions.Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times“There is no question that should the decision be one that would overturn Roe v. Wade, it will certainly motivate our base,” said Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Quite frankly, we know that a majority of the people in this country continue to believe it should be the law of the land.”“It will be an incredibly powerful issue,” Mr. Peters said.Republicans see advantages as well, saying it will validate their decades-long push to limit if not outlaw abortion and show that they should not back away from their efforts when they are succeeding.“Today is our day,” Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, told abortion opponents outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday. “This is what we’ve been working for.”Aware that a decision undermining abortion access has political risks for them as well, Republicans say the fight will be just part of their 2022 message as they seek to tie Democrats to inflation, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and other subjects where they see a greater edge.“There’s a lot of issues out there,” said Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, suggesting the significance of abortion will vary from state to state. “Everybody’s going to take a position.”But it was quickly clear that some Republicans would embrace the drive against Roe.“I’m pro-life. I’m anti-Roe v. Wade,” Senator John Kennedy, the Louisiana Republican who is seeking a second term next year, said in a fund-raising appeal sent hours after the court debate. “There is not much else I can say other than that.”In addition to the congressional elections, how the justices dispose of the case holds potentially grave implications for the court itself. The stature and credibility of the court were prominent subtexts of Wednesday’s arguments, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointedly asking how the court would “survive the stench” of overturning Roe in what many would see as a blatantly political act.Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, in September. “Today is our day,” he told abortion opponents outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAfter Senate Republicans in 2016 blocked President Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court vacancy with almost a year left in his term, progressives began calling for adding seats to the court or setting term limits on the now-lifetime appointments to offset what they saw as an unfair advantage seized by Republicans. Then, when Republicans seated Justice Amy Coney Barrett just days before the 2020 election, those calls intensified.However, President Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been lukewarm to the idea of tinkering with the court, and a commission he formed to study the idea is not expected to embrace significant changes.Understand the Supreme Court’s Momentous TermCard 1 of 5Mississippi abortion law. More

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      in US Politics

      Kavanaugh signals support for curbing abortion rights as supreme court hears arguments on Mississippi case – live

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      Key events

      Show

      3.31pm EST

      15:31

      Stacey Abrams announces that she is running for governor of Georgia

      1.52pm EST

      13:52

      First confirmed case of Omicron Covid variant in US

      1.39pm EST

      13:39

      Biden reiterates support for the right to abortion in US

      11.40am EST

      11:40

      Kavanaugh signals support for curbing abortion rights

      10.01am EST

      10:01

      Republicans threaten government shutdown over vaccine mandate

      9.10am EST

      09:10

      Good morning…

      Live feed

      Show

      Show key events only

      4.48pm EST

      16:48

      While House Republicans aren’t doing much when it comes to admonishing far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert for her Islamophobic comments about congresswoman Ilhan Omar, House progressives will be pushing Democrat leaders for action:

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      House progressives plan to ratchet up calls to strip Lauren Boebert from her committee spots bc of her comments on Ilhan Omar — and will soon go public with a letter to that effect, per two sourcesDem leaders have not made a decision yet on how to proceed.

      December 1, 2021

      4.18pm EST

      16:18

      House Republicans went full high school drama yesterday on Twitter, with Majorie Taylor Greene calling Nancy Mace “trash” and Mace calling Greene “batshit crazy” via emojis.
      This comes because far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert made Islamophobic remarks about Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has since received death threats related to these remarks. Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger called Boebert “trash”, and called out House minority leader Kevin McCarthy for his silence on her remarks.
      It appears McCarthy has finally weighed in – but not directly about the bigoted bullying. Instead, he’s just telling everyone in his party to behave.

      Andrew Solender
      (@AndrewSolender)
      GOP Rep. Don Bacon paraphrases McCarthy’s message on GOP infighting this AM: “Stop it. Quit acting like you’re in high school.”If McCarthy’s private talks w/ MTG don’t work, “at some point, the conference as a whole is gonna be frustrated, speak up… I know that’s bubbling.”

      December 1, 2021

      Andrew Solender
      (@AndrewSolender)
      “I’m not here to be a burden, but at some point you have to defend yourself too” – Bacon on attacks from MTG & co.“We’re not here to get the most clicks, to be TV celebrities. We’re here to govern, and you don’t do that by calling each other names, tearing each other apart.”

      December 1, 2021

      Updated
      at 4.19pm EST

      3.31pm EST

      15:31

      Stacey Abrams announces that she is running for governor of Georgia

      Democrat Stacey Abrams, who many have credited for being among those who helped turn Georgia blue in 2020, has announced that she will be running for governor once again.
      “If our Georgia is going to move to its next and greatest chapter, we are going to need leadership,” Abrams said in her announcement video. “Leadership that knows how to do the job. Leadership that doesn’t take credit without also taking responsibility. Leadership that works hard. Leadership that measures progress not by stats but by our ability for everyone to move up and thrive. Leadership that understands the true pain folks are feeling and has real plans. That’s the job of governor.”

      Stacey Abrams
      (@staceyabrams)
      I’m running for Governor because opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by zip code, background or access to power. #gapolBe a founding donor to my campaign:https://t.co/gk2lmBINfW pic.twitter.com/z14wUlo8ls

      December 1, 2021

      Updated
      at 3.33pm EST

      3.24pm EST

      15:24

      More on government funding, the continuing resolution and a possible government shutdown: House majority leader Steny Hoyer, who told reporters yesterday that he planned to pass a CR in the House today, now doesn’t think it’s possible.

      Chad Pergram
      (@ChadPergram)
      From colleague Jason Donner. Hoyer when asked if they could pass the CR to avoid a gov’t shutdown today: “I don’t think so.”

      December 1, 2021

      Chad Pergram
      (@ChadPergram)
      Hoyer on an interim spending bill to avert a shutdown. Says “Schumer and McConnell are negotiating.” He adds “It’s incomprehensible today that we can’t pass a simple CR.”

      December 1, 2021

      3.20pm EST

      15:20

      Whew, a lot happening today. Let’s hop back to Congress, where a handful of Republicans are threatening a government shutdown over the vaccine mandate for the private sector.
      To recap: In September, Joe Biden announced a federal mandate that all companies in the US with 100 employees or more must ensure either that their workers are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or that they test negative for the coronavirus at least once a week. The deadline for this is 4 January.
      Conservatives across the country have taken issue with this, ranging the gamut of being fully anti-vax to arguing that vaccinations are a deeply personal issue, one in which the government should not be involved. There have been several challenges in courts that have sided against the mandate – the White House has since been urging private companies to act on their own to set their own vaccine mandates, as many have already.
      On top of all this, the federal government runs out of funding on 3 December – yep, two days from now. Congress must pass a stopgap funding bill, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), to prevent a government shutdown that would put hundreds of thousands out of work right before the holidays.
      Since early November, some Republican senators have made it clear that they will not vote for any short-term funding of a federal government with a vaccine mandate. Other conservative members of Congress have since joined in.
      Here’s a quick update on the situation:

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      Here’s what Sen. Roger Marshall (one of a handful of conservatives who are threatening a brief government shutdown) want before agreeing to a quick vote on the continuing resolution. He told us he wants language in CR that would prohibit OSHA from enforcing vaccine mandate. BUT

      December 1, 2021

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      Marshall would be OK with a quick final passage vote if there’s an amendment to that effect with a 51-vote threshold. But Ds are likely to insist on a 60-vote threshold. So would he object to a quick vote to pass the funding bill if the amendment were set at a 60-vote threshold?

      December 1, 2021

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      “We’ll see,” he said. “There’s a long time between now and Friday. But at a minimum, I think at a minimum it deserves a 50-person vote.”At GOP lunch, a number of senators told Marshall and Lee that their goal won’t be achieved if there’s brief shutdown. So I asked him about that

      December 1, 2021

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      And he said: “Yeah, I think the folks back home want to know how hard we’re fighting for them, that the jobs back home are as important as keeping the federal government open. That’s the hypocrisy up here. It just seems like we have rules for back home that don’t apply here.”

      December 1, 2021

      Updated
      at 3.31pm EST

      2.59pm EST

      14:59

      The Guardian’s David Smith was out front of the supreme court during the oral arguments in the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
      Anti-abortion supporters waved models of fetuses and held prayer circles, while pro-choice advocates waved signs reading, “abortion is healthcare” and “protect abortion access”.
      Read more here:

      Updated
      at 3.04pm EST

      2.34pm EST

      14:34

      Joanna Walters

      Joe Biden smiled wryly earlier when asked by reporters whether he thought the former president, Donald Trump, put him at risk when Trump had received a positive coronavirus test just three days before the first presidential debate in the 2020 election campaign, according to a new book by former chief of staff Mark Meadows, which was reported exclusively by Guardian US this morning.
      “I don’t think about the former president,” Biden said. That was his only word on the topic.
      Top health official Anthony Fauci said a little later, at the White House briefing, that he had not been aware of that positive test for Trump at that time. Trump subsequently tested negative, according to the Meadows book, but shortly after revealed publicly that he had coronavirus, following which he was admitted to hospital.
      Speaking generally, Fauci said: “If you test positive, you should quarantine yourself.”
      Trump had not done that and had not only stood a few feet from Biden, in person and unmasked, for that first debate, but he continued to travel and hold events in close proximity to people.

      2.16pm EST

      14:16

      Joanna Walters

      Anthony Fauci is continuing to answer media questions at the White House. The top US public health official and chief medical adviser to Joe Biden, said that the molecular profile of the Omicron variant suggests it might be more transmissible than previous strains – and might have a higher risk of evading vaccine protection.
      He emphasized, however, that it is still too early to say what will happen in the pandemic with the emergence of the Omicron variant.
      Fauci urged those who have consistently adopted protection protocols, such as wearing a face mask in indoor settings with crowds, to continue to do so and said those who have stopped such practices should resume.
      Fauci said: “Do the things we have been saying every single day, not just for ourselves but internationally.”
      He said, however, that long term he believes there is “an end game” to the coronavirus pandemic.
      “There is no doubt that this will end, I promise you that, this will end,” he said.
      Fauci has now finished his section of the briefing and left the media room at the White House.

      Updated
      at 3.10pm EST

      2.06pm EST

      14:06

      Joanna Walters

      Anthony Fauci, the director of the national institute of allergies and infectious diseases and chief medical adviser to the US president, has taken the podium in the White House press briefing room.
      He has confirmed what we all just found out – the first case of the omicron strain of coronavirus has been identified in the US.
      “We knew it was just a matter of time,” Fauci said.
      The case was confirmed moments ago by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the federal health agency, and was identified in California.
      Fauci just said that the case was confirmed by the CDC and the California and the San Francisco health authorities.
      “This is the first case of Covid-19 caused by the omicron variant detected in the US,” said Fauci.
      He said the case involved an individual who returned to the US from South Africa on 22 November and tested positive for coronavirus on 29 November.
      Fauci added that the individual was fully vaccinated but to his knowledge had not received a booster shot. He said the patient has experienced mild symptoms.“We feel good that this patient had only mild symptoms and seems to be improving,” he said.
      He said the patient was isolating and those whom they had come into close contact with had been reached and tested and shown to be negative for coronavirus.
      Fauci reiterated that as many people as possible should get vaccinated and, if they have been vaccinated, get boosted if eligible.
      He told people not to wait to see if there will be a new vaccination designed to deal specifically with variants.
      “Right now I would not be waiting. If you are eligible … get boosted now.”
      It is not yet known for certain if the current vaccines combat omicron, Fauci said. Many experts are optimistic that they provide protection but confirmation of protection or the level of protection are awaited.

      Updated
      at 3.05pm EST

      1.52pm EST

      13:52

      First confirmed case of Omicron Covid variant in US

      Joanna Walters

      The federal authorities have identified the first confirmed case of the Omicron coronavirus variant in the United States.
      We are awaiting a live briefing from the White House from Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to Joe Biden and the top infectious diseases public health official in the US, and press sec Jen Psaki. We’ll bring you that.
      But meanwhile, this news is breaking across various wires services and TV news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have the first confirmed US case of Omicron, identified in California.
      The dominant variant in the US at this point is still the Delta strain, which emerged and spread across the country from the summer.

      Updated
      at 3.08pm EST

      1.39pm EST

      13:39

      Biden reiterates support for the right to abortion in US

      Joanna Walters

      Joe Biden gave a simple endorsement of reproductive rights in America moments ago as he remarked after the high-stakes hearing at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, earlier today. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Catastrophic implications’: UN health expert condemns US over threat to abortion rights

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      Abortion‘Catastrophic implications’: UN health expert condemns US over threat to abortion rightsSpecial rapporteur Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng argues in brief filed in a US court that overturning abortion rights would violate international human rights treaties ratified by the US Jessica Glenza@JessicaGlenzaMon 8 Nov 2021 05.00 ESTLast modified on Mon 8 Nov 2021 12.50 ESTThe United Nations special rapporteur on the right to health has called on the US supreme court to uphold the right to abortion in America or risk undermining international human rights law and threatening that right elsewhere in the world.The special rapporteur, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, is one of just a handful of global observers whose mandate is to travel the world defending human rights.Mofokeng has argued in a brief filed in a US court that overturning abortion rights would violate international human rights treaties ratified by the US, including the convention against torture, should women be forced to carry pregnancies to term.In an interview, Mofokeng told the Guardian she could have filed a brief on abortion rights, “in any other court, in any other abortion case,” globally. However, she chose the US courts because of the direct threat posed to abortion rights in the supreme court’s upcoming session.“We have this joke among us that when the US sneezes the rest of the world catches a [cold],” said Mofokeng. “So we know that politically that what happens in the United States… does have an impact in precedents elsewhere in the world.”Mofokeng’s brief was filed ahead of oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case advocates fear will undermine abortion rights nationally. Dobbs poses a direct threat to Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 case that established a Constitutional right to abortion based in privacy.Roe invalidated dozens of state abortion bans and restrictions, and allowed people to terminate a pregnancy up to the point a fetus can survive outside the womb, generally understood to be about 24 weeks gestation. A full term pregnancy is 39 weeks.“If that gets overturned, it has catastrophic implications, not just for the US,” said Mofokeng, who said she feared overturning Roe would embolden global attacks on reproductive rights.Mofokeng is also a practicing doctor and well-known sex-positive author in South Africa. Most often, she goes by “Dr T”, an informal title which underscores the empathy in her academic analysis. Her most recent UN report outlined the challenges Covid-19 posed to reproductive rights, and how colonialism continues to affect global policies on reproduction, from sterilization to abortion bans.“It means that even those people who are conservative, who are anti-rights, in any country in the world, will actually now start referencing the US court as an example of jurisprudence that should be followed,” said Mofokeng. “And this is why this is so dangerous”.In Dobbs, the court will consider whether Mississippi can ban abortion at 15 weeks gestation. For the court to uphold Mississippi’s law, it would require the court to rewrite standards that determine whether abortion restrictions are constitutional. Advocates fear that could once again allow states to severely restrict or ban abortion.A majority of the court’s nine justices would need to agree to rewrite such standards. Conservative justices hold a 6-3 supermajority on the court. Many observers view the court’s decision to take the Mississippi case as an ominous sign. About six in 10 Americans believe abortion should be legal in “all or most cases”.“If Roe … [were] overturned, many US states will implement bans or near-bans on abortion access that will make individual state laws irreconcilable with international human rights law,” the brief argued. “This would cause irreparable harm to women and girls in violation of the United States’ obligations under the human rights treaties it has signed and ratified.”While the US has not ratified several United Nations treaties, it has ratified the convention against torture, which Mofokeng’s brief argued would be violated if states were allowed to ban abortion.“The denial of safe abortions and subjecting women and girls to humiliating and judgmental attitudes in such contexts of extreme vulnerability and where timely health care is essential amount to torture or ill treatment,” Mofokeng’s brief said, citing a 2016 report by the rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.Conversely, Mofokeng’s brief argued, contrary to Mississippi’s assertions, that “the right to life emanating from human rights treaties does not apply prenatally,” and that the “overwhelming trend for the past half-century has been toward the liberalization of abortion laws worldwide”.Further, since the court has accepted the Dobbs case, it also allowed a six-week abortion ban to go into effect in Texas in September, effectively allowing the nation’s second largest state to nullify Roe within its borders. Experts estimate that if Roe were overturned, roughly two dozen US states mostly in the south and midwest would immediately ban abortion.Such bans would have immediate and direct consequences for women and people seeking abortions.In one recent analysis, the Guttmacher Institute found 26 states are certain or likely to outlaw abortion should Roe be overturned. In just one example, that would require a woman seeking a legal abortion in Louisiana to travel to Kansas to access care.“The rise in global anti-gender and anti-women’s rights is such that people will grasp at anything that seems to make their case solid,” said Mofokeng. And, she said, the case before the supreme court now relies on “non-medical, non-scientific” misinformation.“It means we have a risk of now having global jurisprudence – or at least influences in the global world – using jurisprudence that’s ill-informed. And that’s very dangerous,” said Mofokeng. “To undo the court’s decisions takes decades, sometimes a lifetime – and that’s why it’s dangerous.”TopicsAbortionUnited NationsHealthUS politicsUS supreme courtfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Biden and the Democrats Are on the Verge of … Something

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      A Secret Service agent gestures as Marine One takes off.Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesGail Collins: Hey, Bret, the holiday season is almost upon us — if you presume we start off with Halloween, which is one of my favorites. Are you going to be dressing up as any famous person for parties?Bret Stephens: Well, I once went to a Halloween bash dressed as Picasso’s Blue Period — I’ll leave the details of the costume to your imagination — but that was in high school. I guess I could go as Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” assuming you showed up as Kevin McCarthy.I’m referring, of course, to the House minority leader’s latest effort to make Liz Cheney’s life as unpleasant as possible.Gail: Yeah, the House Republicans are certainly going out of their way to try to torture her. I guess they’re shocked by her desire to actually investigate the folks who tried to attack the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6. Who’d have thought a member of their party would be so picky?Now she’s got a Trump-backed primary challenger. What do you think her prospects for political survival are at this point?Bret: My knowledge of Wyoming politics is, um, not great. But I’m guessing that Cheney’s re-election chances aren’t great, either. I think that, at best, she can lay down a marker for the future, proving that at least some Republicans refused to participate in the cult of Il Duce wannabes. Good for her, but what America really needs is another party that stands for classically liberal values like free speech, free markets and free societies.Gail: Bret, are you talking about a … third party? That would certainly give us opportunities for a lot of vigorous arguing.Bret: Well, the third party I have in mind would probably do more to split Republicans than Democrats, so maybe you might warm to it. I just want to wrest a remnant of thoughtful conservatism out of the maw of Trumpism. The alternative is that Donald Trump and his minions become the default every time Democrats stumble.Gail: People need to feel they’re voting for the best real option, not just registering their alienation. The problem with third parties is that terrible accidents can happen. Ralph Nader’s run in 2000 took the election away from Al Gore and gave it to George W. Bush. Which was not his intention, although possibly something you appreciated.Bret: Just as you no doubt appreciated Ross Perot taking a few million votes from George H.W. Bush in 1992.In the meantime, Gail, how are you feeling about the leaner Joe Biden — the one who looks like he went on the budgetary equivalent of the Jenny Craig diet by shedding about $1.6 trillion?Gail: About Bidenism-lite — you mean the new Sinema-Manchin version? I can see how Biden had to do something to get those two onboard, but the idea that Joe Manchin, servant of the coal industry, was dictating compromises on climate change, and the utterly compromised Kyrsten Sinema was torpedoing tax rate increases for corporations and the wealthy, is deeply depressing.Bret: The good news from your point of view is that the downsized plan appears to keep universal preschool education and national child care. The good news from my point of view is that it costs less and corporate taxes may not be raised. Democrats may also come to appreciate that getting rid of some of the climate provisions to force companies to move to clean energy sources may not be the worst thing, politically speaking, when energy prices are already going up, up, up.Gail: Well, politically speaking, you do have a point about the climate provisions’ chances. We’ll survive, but it’s going to leave future generations stuck with the weather that comes with global warming.Bret: There’s no good climate solution unless China and India step up. The best thing the United States can probably do right now is invest more in natural gas, which is much cleaner than coal and much more reliable than wind or solar.On the whole, I think the slimmed-down Biden package thing could be a winner all around. Here I return to my basic principle that the No. 1 priority is to keep Trump from ever returning to the White House, which first requires some legislative victories that are popular with the public.Gail: It’s a wonder what Trump has done to rational Republicans. If I’d showed you the Biden agenda 10 years ago, don’t imagine you’d have seen it as something you’d be rooting for in 2021.Bret: The things I never imagined a decade ago that I’d someday be rooting for could probably fill a book, starting with my vote for Hillary Clinton. Also didn’t imagine I’d be agreeing with a dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor while worrying about a Supreme Court over-dominated by conservative justices.Gail: Do you think that Texas abortion law is going to last long? I’m hoping the Supreme Court, even in its current conservative condition, is going to be appalled by the part that has the general public doing the enforcement. Via do-it-yourself lawsuits against the abortion providers and anyone who helps them, down to drivers who bring the patients to clinics.I hear this kind of thing is a new conservative trend. Care to explain?Bret: There are two abortion laws at issue here. There’s the case out of Texas, regarding Senate Bill 8, which bans virtually all abortions after six weeks or so and delegates enforcement to private citizens rather than state officials. The bill was written that way because it was an attempt to get around judicial review, which typically requires a state official to be a defendant.Gail: I keep envisioning folks running into family planning clinics screaming “citizen’s arrest!”Bret: The court made a bad mistake by failing twice to enjoin the Texas law. But I’m betting it will still overturn it because the alternative is a license to vigilantes everywhere to deny people their constitutional rights, which could also include “conservative” rights like the right to bear arms — in a blue state.But then there’s another abortion case out of Mississippi, based on a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks. That’s a more clear challenge to Roe v. Wade, and it’s the one we should be really thinking about.Gail: You know, Texas politicians are great at doing spectacularly awful things that make headlines. But meanwhile, Mississippi always seems to be able to be much worse without anybody noticing.Bret: The conservatives on the court will do themselves and their cause irreparable harm if they uphold the Mississippi law and overturn Roe. There will be a renewed push to pack the court with new justices. It will turn access to abortion into a real force for Democrats in purple states and help them in the midterms. It will probably push Stephen Breyer to retire now to ensure he can be succeeded by a liberal justice. It will do a lot to help the Democratic ticket in 2024. And it will push Congress to seek legislative means to curb the court’s authority.Overturning Roe might wind up being conservatism’s biggest Pyrrhic victory since Richard Nixon’s re-election.Gail: Hey, we’ve been agreeing for a while now. Let’s get back to Biden. How did you like his town hall the other night?Bret: I felt like I was holding my breath half the time, hoping he’d be able to complete his sentences. Most of the time he did. But some of the lapses — like declaring that it was U.S. policy to come to Taiwan’s defense in case of attack, when it isn’t — were disturbing because they’re potentially so consequential.Gail: He did seem a bit lost toward the beginning, standing there with his fists clenched — he looked as if he was holding invisible ski poles. And he’s never going to be a wowser as a public speaker.But for the most part his answers all made sense, he was personable with the crowd, and, given the crazy scene he’s dealing with in Washington, I thought overall he made a good impression.Bret: The line that I keep hearing from people who have known Biden over the years is that he’s “lost a step.” The same could probably have been said about Ronald Reagan in his second term, and he still managed to have real successes, like comprehensive immigration reform, a major tax reform, better ties with the Soviet Union and the “Tear Down This Wall” speech in 1987, just two years before the Berlin Wall fell.Biden’s performance is still much preferable to Trump’s, who kept his step but lost his mind. Even so, it worries me. Voters notice, even if much of the press is too polite to mention it.Gail: Reagan’s second term was really scary. If Biden runs again, we’ll all have good reason to debate whether he’s too age-limited. But right now, he seems to be well in control, even if you don’t like all his policy choices.Love your Trump line, by the way.Bret: Thank you. And that reminds me: Please be sure to read The Times’s Book Review section celebrating its 125 birthday. My favorite feature is a sampling of letters to the editor, including one reader’s criticism of Henry James’s prose: “By bad,” the reader wrote, “I mean unnatural, impossible, overdrawn as to the characters, and written in a style which is positively irritating.”Gives me hope, Gail.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      How America’s broken democracy led to our abortion crisis | Meaghan Winter

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      OpinionUS politicsHow America’s broken democracy led to our abortion crisis Meaghan WinterThe majority of Americans support legal abortion. Redistricting has allowed extremism to flourish without fear of repercussion Mon 25 Oct 2021 06.29 EDTLast modified on Mon 25 Oct 2021 14.28 EDTAmerica is at a crossroads when it comes to abortion. In 2021, state legislatures have passed an unprecedented 106 anti-abortion bills. State lawmakers in five states are preparing legislation similar to Texas’s SB 8, an effective total abortion ban that enshrines a new kind of vigilantism directed at medical providers and private citizens.In this dangerous moment, supporters of legal abortion must understand that raising our voices is not going to change anything unless we also push for major, immediate democratic reforms including ending the filibuster, enshrining federal voting rights, expanding the supreme court and establishing fair redistricting.I understand why those goals may simultaneously seem too wonky to follow and too ambitious to achieve. But we cannot fight for abortion rights without first repairing our democracy, because we will continue to lose.The conservative movement and its ideological and corporate patrons have locked in structural power at nearly every level of government, and our lawmakers don’t need to be responsive to public opinion or even long-enshrined civil and human rights. If we’re going to have any chance of protecting ourselves and each other, on numerous urgent fronts, we need to agitate for immediate, ambitious democratic reforms that will ensure that our courts uphold our rights, and our elected officials are responsive to the will of the people. Otherwise, our rallies are collective screams into the void.Many abortion rights supporters have moved away from calling themselves “pro-choice” and instead have embraced the reproductive justice model, which defines itself as a movement to ensure the human right to bodily autonomy and to parent or not parent in a safe and sustainable community. Current threats to our democracy make crystal clear that the struggles for reproductive freedom, voting rights and economic, racial and climate justice are inextricably linked.When I first began reporting on abortion, in 2013, when I’d ask abortion rights advocates why extreme anti-abortion state lawmakers seemed unafraid of running afoul of the majority of the American public, which supports legal abortion, they would answer, “gerrymandering”.As I soon learned, because Republicans have gerrymandered districts in states across the nation, it no longer matters whether their policies defy most voters’ beliefs and needs, because incumbents’ seats are safe almost no matter what.What we’re seeing now accelerated after the 2010 election, which had existential ramifications for our democracy only now becoming visible. Ahead of that election, during an all-important redistricting year, the Republican party and conservative and corporate donors heavily invested in state-level elections so that they could gerrymander and give themselves a competitive advantage for a decade. It worked. They flipped legislative chambers across the country, and states started ramping up their envelope-pushing anti-abortion bills, as well as voting restrictions designed to make it more difficult for voters to throw them out of office.In 2020, Democrats failed to flip a single state-level chamber. Republicans now control 30 legislatures during yet another redistricting year, jeopardizing any chance of a progressive agenda in many states as well as Democratic control of Congress next year.As states begin passing ever more extreme abortion restrictions and even bans, there’s little reason to believe that the courts will stop them unless Congress gets serious about reforming the court system.During the Trump administration, Republicans installed an unprecedented number of federal judges, many of them open ideologues with little experience on the bench, reshaping the judiciary for a generation. And, in case you’ve forgotten, McConnell blocked Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, changed the Senate rules for confirming justices to push through Neil Gorsuch, ushered through the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh despite credible accusations of sexual assault against him, and rushed through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett while voting in the 2020 election had already begun.The radical takeover of the courts was not a random fluke but the result of careful plotting and hundreds of millions of dollars investment by rightwing ideologues and billionaires – the same kind of long-term strategizing to change the rules of the game their allies used to gerrymander states and congressional districts.In other words, the same movement of extreme, partisan donors and strategists behind the ever-more radical state laws has also installed federal judges and supreme court justices who are poised to uphold those laws. The issue isn’t whether expanding the supreme court will throw into doubt the court’s legitimacy. The supreme court is already partisan and ideological and therefore illegitimate. What’s needed now is a major and swift corrective.That brings us to Congress. What about a federal law enshrining abortion rights? To achieve that – and so much more, including expanding the supreme court – Congress needs to end the filibuster, the rule that requires 60 members of the Senate to pass legislation instead of 50. Our current Senate delivers nothing close to fair representation, which, as I write this, is on painful display as Republicans have filibustered yet another urgently needed voting rights bill, while two Democratic senators representing small states have killed provisions in the Build Back Better package that are “pro-life” in the most literal sense – in support of healthcare and a viable planet. To have any chance of achieving reproductive justice in this country, we need to agitate for our members of Congress to end the filibuster now.It’s time to re-examine what we consider pragmatic. Sticking with the status quo means surrendering to the profound irony that a movement that branded itself as “pro-life” has helped usher in a ruling class committed not only to stripping away the social safety net but also doubling down on fossil fuels and imperiling the very existence of life on Earth.Trying to advocate for reproductive justice without also demanding that our lawmakers immediately reform our voting laws, Congress and the courts that have been rigged by corporate and authoritarian interest groups isn’t practical or hopeful – it’s misguided if not delusional. Instead, supporters of abortion rights must join the chorus calling to end the filibuster and expand the supreme court.
      Meaghan Winter is a freelance magazine writer and author of the book All Politics is Local: Why Progressives Must Fight for the States
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      The courts have a new chance to block Texas’s abortion law. They must take it | Laurence Tribe, Erwin Chemerinsky, Jeffrey Abramson and Dennis Aftergut

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      OpinionUS supreme courtThe courts have a new chance to block Texas’s abortion law. They must take itLaurence H Tribe, Erwin Chemerinsky, Jeffrey Abramson and Dennis AftergutSB 8 not only stripped Texan women of their rights under Roe v Wade, it made a mockery of the US constitution and the supremacy of the federal courts Sun 17 Oct 2021 06.24 EDTLast modified on Sun 17 Oct 2021 06.25 EDTSadly, predictably and appallingly, on October 14, a three judge panel of the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit has allowed Texas’s “Bounty-Hunter” anti-abortion law to go back into effect while the court considers the case on the merits. Every day that the fifth circuit panel’s unlawful order keeps the statute in operation brings irreversible injury to women in Texas. US Attorney General Merrick Garland has properly decided to seek emergency relief from the US supreme court.The justice department is right to accuse the State of Texas of seeking to destroy not only abortion rights but also the foundation of our constitutional Republic. In a nation whose history is fraught with battles between states’ rights and national sovereignty, the case of United States v Texas raises issues basic to our national compact.Texas set the current controversy in motion by passing SB8, an anti-abortion law that legislators knew was unconstitutional. In doing so, they violated what Chief Justice Marshall explained two centuries ago was the bedrock of our young nation’s rule of law – that our constitution reigns supreme.“Senate bill 8 (SB8) flouts that principle,” Monday’s DoJ brief in the fifth circuit reads. The law does that “by blatantly violating constitutional rights and severely constraining judicial review of its unconstitutional restrictions.” That “sets this case apart.”Put bluntly, Texas has sought not only to virtually eliminate women’s rights under Roe v Wade, but also to reduce our Constitution’s supremacy to a relic. Those twin dangers are why the stakes are high in the suit by the United States to enjoin the Texas anti-abortion statute. And that’s why the October 14 Fifth Circuit order keeping the law in effect is so troubling.This case stands on a very different footing from the one that a conservative 5-4 supreme court rejected on September 1 on procedural grounds. With the United States now suing, there is plenty of precedent for the federal government to come into court challenging a state law before it is enforced, and a state cannot hide behind sovereign immunity as a defense. The cases that the fifth circuit cited on Friday as reasons for refusing to block SB8 were entirely inapplicable because they have no relevance to a suit brought by the United States to force a recalcitrant state to obey the constitution. Texas’s reason for not arguing SB8’s constitutionality is obvious. The supreme court has affirmed many times since Roe v Wade in 1973 that states cannot prohibit abortions before the fetus is viable and capable of surviving outside the womb. Viability occurs at about the 24th week of pregnancy.Nonetheless, Texas’s law makes all abortions illegal, without exceptions for rape or incest, once fetal cardiac activity can be detected – usually around six weeks after a woman’s last menstrual period.The fact that the law is enforced by vigilantes’ private civil suits rather than by government prosecutions only aggravates its unconstitutionality. It is a Texas law that opens Texas courts to these bounty-hunting lawsuits. Since 1948, it has been settled law that individuals may not use state courts to deprive others of constitutional rights.On Wednesday, 6 October, in a 113-page opinion, with some of the strongest language ever heard from a federal judge, US district court Judge Robert Pitman blocked Texas from enforcing this near-total ban on abortions. Judge Pitman’s opinion explained that Texas concocted a transparent “scheme” to “end run” the constitution. The court laid out the elaborate “machinations” Texas devised to avoid a court doing anything about a clearly unconstitutional law.Judge Pitman also documented cases of women – sometimes minors – suffering “grievous wrong”, as they are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies or travel, if they can afford it, to another state to access their constitutional rights: “The court can only speculate as to the hardships” these women have “had to endure”.Having temporarily reinstated SB 8, the Fifth Circuit noted that it will expedite review of the merits of Judge Pitman’s decision. That could affect the supreme court’s consideration of emergency relief to the United States. Whether now or later, this case will land on the court’s docket. Even justices who disagree with Roe v Wade should recognize the dire implications of letting any state deliberately design a blatantly unconstitutional statute in such a way that no court can block its enforcement until it’s too late to prevent the statute from doing irreparable harm by deterring people from exercising their rights.In the 1950s, states tried to disregard supreme court decisions interpreting the constitution when they engaged in a concerted effort to thwart desegregation orders. Then, too, the United States government interceded against the states. When the Arkansas governor Orval Faubus attempted to block desegregation, the supreme court, in Cooper v Aaron, unanimously and emphatically reaffirmed the supremacy of the constitution and federal law.The court declared: “No state legislator or executive or judicial officer can war against the constitution without violating his undertaking to support it.” All nine justices joined in declaring: “If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery.”That would be the result if Texas could destroy the constitutional rights of women before any court could enjoin its devious scheme. To ensure the constitution remains the supreme law of the land, and to protect all rights it guarantees, the fifth circuit and the supreme court must uphold Judge Pitman’s injunction.
      Laurence H Tribe is the Carl M Loeb University Professor emeritus and a professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School. Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Jeffrey Abramson is Professor of Law and Government at the University of Texas, Austin. Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor
      TopicsUS supreme courtOpinionUS politicsLaw (US)AbortioncommentReuse this content More