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      California’s attorney general readies the fight against Trump’s extreme agenda: ‘We’re prepared’

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      California was considered a leader in fighting the most extreme policies of Donald Trump’s first administration, and after the Republican’s decisive win this week, officials in the Golden state say they are more prepared to resist Trump’s expected agenda for his second term.Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, will be a crucial figure in that effort, tasked with spearheading litigation and defending vulnerable Californians’ rights in the courtroom. It’s a tall order as the president-elect has promised policies that could threaten the state’s immigrant population, LGBTQ+ residents, climate initiatives, gun safety measures, healthcare programs and abortion rights.But Bonta, in an interview with the Guardian on Thursday, said his office was ready on every front.“I know a lot of people are anxious and worried, concerned, fearful, angry, sad,” said the Democrat, who now occupies the seat previously held by Kamala Harris. “I’m not happy with the results, but I’m energized and ready to fight … I’m ready to do my job and lean in hard and punch back and push back and fight back against any attacks from the Trump administration on California’s ongoing progress.”Bonta’s efforts could have a significant impact in the most populous and diverse state in the US, home to the fifth largest economy in the world and considered a leader on progressive policies.In Trump’s first term, Bonta recalled, California successfully fought Trump’s “public charge” rule, which sought to block green cards for immigrants who accessed certain benefits, such as food stamps. The state also sued to prevent Trump from denying funds to sanctuary cities, and helped stop the former president’s effort to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), a program that protects immigrants who entered the US unauthorized as children.“Trump has a very difficult time resisting the temptation to violate the law,” said Bonta, saying he expected the president-elect to once again use executive action to make changes that require congressional action. “If he wanted to take a blowtorch to the Affordable Care Act and end it on day one by executive order … he can’t do it.” Trump recently said he had “concepts of a plan” to replace the popular Obama-era program that expanded healthcare coverage, and his victory has raised alarms among public health advocates.Bonta said he had been in discussion with attorneys general across the US – sharing briefs, memos and knowledge from their fights during Trump’s first term – and they were primed to coordinate lawsuits as needed: “It’s all hands on deck, use every tool that you have. Litigation will certainly be one of the most potent and powerful ones.“We’ve been preparing for months, in some cases years,” he continued. After Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, his staff wrote a legal brief to challenge a national abortion ban, a draft he has ready, if necessary. His staff has also monitored comments by Trump’s inner circle and reviewed Project 2025, the rightwing blueprint for his second term drafted by Trump’s allies.“We’ve got a lot in our back pocket ready to drop,” he said. “In some [cases], the whole strategy is thought through – the court we file in, when we file it, based on what action the Trump administration takes. We’ve just gotta dot the Is and cross the Ts and press print. But we are very far along, very advanced in our preparation.”Trump has threatened unprecedented mass deportations, an agenda that was partially thwarted in his first term by California and other blue states that passed sanctuary laws limiting local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration agents. California Democrats will face pressure from immigrant rights’ groups to expand those sanctuary policies, which advocates say are not currently the strongest in the nation. California prisons, for example, continue to coordinate with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which helps drive deportations, but Gavin Newsom, the state governor, has previously vetoed efforts to prevent cooperation with Ice.Bonta said officials should be exploring ways to “reinforce and strengthen” the existing sanctuary law, though he didn’t offer specifics.Newsom has called a special legislative session in December for lawmakers to discuss ways to “Trump-proof” state laws, and immigration will probably be a priority.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The federal government can’t conscript or commandeer state or local resources or law enforcement agencies to do their job [of immigration enforcement],” Bonta said, describing the current sanctuary policies. “There could be some additions that could help make that stronger.”He said he would be looking for ways to ensure the sanctuary law is properly followed and implemented across the state. Advocates are also bracing for rightwing pro-Trump sheriffs in conservative counties to potentially violate California’s sanctuary rules. Bonta said he would respond if that happens: “They are law enforcement officers. They need to enforce the law. They can’t pick and choose the laws they want to enforce … if they’re going to politicize it and break the law, then we’ll be there to hold them accountable.”Trump has also promised a major rollback of LGBTQ+ rights and some of his campaign ads have spread significant misinformation about the rights of transgender Americans, particularly around healthcare and sports. He has pledged to revoke funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to youth, punish schools that affirm trans youth and push a law stating the government doesn’t legally recognize trans people.California was the first state in 2022 to establish itself as a sanctuary for trans kids seeking healthcare, and Bonta’s office successfully sued a local school district over its policy that would have required schools to out trans and gender non-conforming students to their parents.“We’ve been fighting on so many fronts against the attacks on our transgender kids, whether fighting for them to be able to play sports … or use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity, or be able to go to a doctor’s office and have gender-affirming care,” he said. “We will continue … The courts are a good place to find relief when you target and single out someone based on their protected class.”Bonta advocated for Harris during the election and was hoping he would not need to stand up to the federal government. “I didn’t want this outcome,” he said. “I was working to have a different outcome, but I couldn’t guarantee [it] … so we needed to be prepared for the possibility of [Trump]. Unfortunately, this outcome is here. Fortunately, though, we’re ready for it, because we prepared.”Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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      ‘This victory is a mandate’: rightwing groups ready with policy proposals for new Trump administration

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      As Donald Trump prepares to move back into the White House, he’ll have a host of rightwing groups trying to influence his staffing choices and policy proposals, including the group behind Project 2025, despite Trump’s insistence they won’t be involved.Democrats repeatedly ran attacks on Trump over Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that its writers want to guide a second Trump administration. Trump tried to distance himself from it and from the group behind it, the Heritage Foundation, one of DC’s biggest thinktanks.The Heritage president, Kevin Roberts, congratulated Trump on his “hard-fought victory” that came despite the “sham” indictments and against a “relentless leftwing machine”.“The entire conservative movement stands united behind him as he prepares to secure our wide-open border, restore the rule of law, put parents back in charge of their children’s education, restore America to its proper place as a leader in manufacturing, put families and children first, and dismantle the deep state,” Roberts said.Other groups, namely the America First Policy Institute, have avoided the limelight that backfired on Project 2025 and instead worked behind the scenes to ally themselves with Trump and seek to influence his administration. Trump named Linda McMahon, the chair of the institute’s board, as a co-chair of his transition team, giving the America First Policy Institute a critical role.The institute, started in 2021 and stacked with Trump allies, said in a tweet that it “stands ready to support bold governance that puts Americans first”. It also shared a video clip with the former acting United States attorney general Matt Whitaker talking about deportations and sanctuary cities, key alignments with Trump’s policy goals.“This victory is a mandate to restore our nation to a place of safety, opportunity, and prosperity rooted in freedom,” the America First Policy Institute said. “Together, we’ll secure borders, strengthen the economy, & uphold the freedoms that define us – for a stronger future.”The institute has held trainings for people that could serve in the Trump White House and has a lengthy agenda published online, complete with plans for immigration, education, energy and elections. The New York Times recently reported that the group has “installed itself as the Trump campaign’s primary partner in making concrete plans to wield power again”.The heads of both the America First Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation have roots in the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a state-based conservative thinktank. Brooke Rollins, CEO of the America First Policy Institute, ran the Texas foundation for 15 years, and Roberts was the foundation’s CEO before he was tapped by Heritage.Another organization, America First Legal, is headed by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller. It has been filing lawsuits that boost Trump and other conservatives on issues like election fraud, diversity programs, public records disputes and government overreach. Miller could return to the Trump administration, but it’s likely the group will remain an outside rightwing legal monitor to help the incoming president.What could Trump’s policies be?Project 2025’s sprawling “mandate for leadership” details in 900-plus pages how each government agency could be altered under a conservative president. The project includes a database of potential hires and a training program for those who could staff a Trump administration, though Trump’s team has said none of the people associated with Heritage’s staffing suggestions would be hired. That would be a feat, given the extensive reach the project had – it was signed on to by more than 100 conservative groups, and many of those who wrote chapters or otherwise contributed had played some kind of role in the previous Trump administration.The project’s biggest suggestion is to designate exponentially more federal government employees as political appointees rather than non-partisan civil servants. It also wants to downsize the government. Trump’s plan also involves downsizing the federal government, something he tried to start implementing near the end of his first term.The project suggests many ways to restrict immigration, both through beefed-up border security and through limiting legal immigration programs for groups like students and low-skilled workers. That’s another pillar for Trump, who made mass deportations a central theme of his campaign.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn education, the project wants to get rid of the Department of Education and increase the use of vouchers that use public money for private schools – both of which Trump has suggested as well. Conservatives have sought the dismantling of the department for decades, so far without success.Most chapters of Project 2025 mention discarding any programs that promote LGBTQ+ rights and diversity. Trump has railed against these ideals on the campaign trail, promising to root out trans women from sports and in schools.Abortion access is one area where Trump and the project could differ, though Trump’s plans for abortion have been muddled. The project wants to end federal approval of abortion pills, track abortion data and root out anything that is seen as promoting abortion as healthcare. It doesn’t call for a direct ban on the procedure, and Trump has said he wouldn’t approve of one either, but many of these policies would make access significantly more difficult.The America First Policy Institute suggests many of the same policies, though it wants to go further than Project 2025 with federal employees, the New York Times notes, by making most federal workers at-will employees who would not receive civil service protections.Other ideas the institute has pushed include, according to the Times, “halting federal funding for Planned Parenthood and for mandatory ultrasounds before abortions, including those carried out with medication. It seeks to make concealed weapons permits reciprocal in all 50 states, increase petroleum production, remove the United States from the Paris Agreement, impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients and establish legally only two genders.”A policy agenda pamphlet from the institute starts by discussing the Christian foundations of the US and imploring Christians to get involved in the government “before it’s too late”. The policy agenda for the pamphlet was written “through the lens of their biblical foundations and applications to provide Christians more information on the issues and solutions needed for the restoration of the nation”. More

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      in Elections

      On the Ballot, Abortion Rights Proved More Popular Than Kamala Harris

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      In states like Arizona and Nevada, some voters split their tickets, supporting abortion rights measures while also backing Donald Trump.Democrats headed into the election hoping that abortion rights initiatives would drive support for Kamala Harris in states where the measures appeared on the ballot, including two presidential swing states, Arizona and Nevada.But while the ballot measures, broadly put, performed well on Tuesday, succeeding in seven out of 10 states, Ms. Harris and other Democrats underperformed them across the map.In both Arizona and Nevada, more than 60 percent of voters approved measures to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitutions, though more votes remained to be counted on Thursday. But Donald J. Trump appeared on track to win both states, according to New York Times estimates. Abortion rights initiatives also passed in Missouri and Montana, two states Mr. Trump won easily.Even as a growing share of women said abortion access was central to their vote, pre-election polling suggested that it wasn’t voters’ top concern overall. Fifteen percent of likely voters in an October national New York Times/Siena College poll said abortion was the most important issue in their vote for president, but roughly twice as many listed the economy, or inflation.The voters who cited abortion as their top concern favored Ms. Harris, 88 percent to 11 percent, and the voters who prioritized economic issues favored Mr. Trump, 72 percent to 24 percent.In states where the ballot measures passed but Mr. Trump won or was leading, voters had, in effect, split their tickets, supporting abortion rights in their states while also backing a candidate who took credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, which had established a nationwide right to abortion. Ms. Harris had made protecting abortion rights a central theme of her campaign.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Today is a day of despair for America. We are plunged into an anticipatory grief | Moira Donegan

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      Today is a day of despair, and it would be futile to tell those who fear and grieve for what is to come in America that they will be OK. It would also be dishonest: many of us, in truth, will not be OK.Donald Trump appears to have decisively won the American election. He and his Republican allies have promised mass deportations that will ruin lives and sunder families; they have threatened to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and appoint the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr to a position of authority on public health. They have pledged vast cuts to social security and Medicare, the persecution of dissidents and violent suppression of Trump’s political enemies. There will almost certainly be a nationwide abortion ban and this will further degrade women’s citizenship, rob them of their dignity, steal their dreams and ruin their health.For those of us aware of what Trump is capable of, this morning has plunged us into a cold kind of anticipatory grief. There are people in America who are reading the news with worry, who are bracing themselves for crackdowns and unrest, and who will, inevitably, be confirmed in their anxiety; who will discover that they have even more to fear from the coming administration than they now know. I’m thinking of all the ordinary Americans who are alive now, thriving or struggling in this declining country, who will have their lives destroyed or cut short by what is coming.For many, Trump’s victory will remind them of nothing so much as his 2016 upset over Hillary Clinton. Once again, his vulgarity, corruption, pettiness, narcissism and bigotry have been rewarded, at our expense; once again, the nation will be plunged into chaos as his vanity, greed, incompetence and anger take precedence over the national interest; once again, a violently and grossly misogynist man has been elevated to a position of superlative power over a flawed but competent, hardworking woman.But 2024 is not 2016. It is worse. In his first term, Trump’s incompetence was often an impediment to the worst of his agenda; no longer. Institutions, both in the government and in civil society, worked to slow or resist his program; now, many of them seem all too willing to participate, with universities and NGOs eager to launder Trumpism into respectability and the billionaire-controlled media eager to cut deals, suppress unfavorable coverage and minimize his misdeeds. And if in his first term Trump’s impulses were sometimes mitigated by moderates and institutionalists in his administration, by now those people have all been purged. He is surrounded by incels, bigots, conspiracists and sadists, and they are much better prepared to use the organs of the state to pursue their hateful aims. Trump himself even has the promise of broad criminal immunity, a recent gift from the supreme court that will enable his authoritarianisms in ways we cannot yet anticipate.But Trump’s victory, and his return to the White House, will not only be a catastrophe because of what they will mean for America’s future. They are also a horror for what they will do to our past. The last eight years, four under Trump’s governance and four under what American politics has become due to his influence, have prompted tremendous struggle and suffering. The groups he disparages – from immigrants, to women, to disabled people, to those from “shithole countries” – will be humiliated again by his return and betrayed by the countrymen who refused to vindicate their dignity with a vote against him. The people who have been harassed and threatened and attacked by his supporters have now seen their countrymen treat the violence that has been done to them with what they will read as indifference at best, and approval at worst.The historically marginalized among us – those who are Black, or trans, or female – have struggled to make their worthiness and citizenship meaningful in spite of the hatred and hierarchy that Trump has championed. This was the aim of the Women’s Marches, of #MeToo, of Black Lives Matter, which were in part rebukes to Trumpism, and symptoms of the desire for a different America, one that is less cruel to its citizens and more worthy of its stated ideals of liberty and justice for all. They dreamed of turning this country into a free nation of equals; instead, they must now settle for the smaller dream of keeping themselves safe from the worst of what is to come. Trump’s return to the presidency makes these bygone years of activism seem, in retrospect, like a humiliating exercise in futility.Does America deserve Trump? In the years since he rose to power, one theory posits that he is merely the manifestation of the nation’s unexorcised demons – a vestige of the racism that allowed this country to build its economy off the backs of the enslaved, of the casual relationship to violence that allowed it to build its territory and its global hegemony through violent conquest and coercion, of the grubby love of money and shameless disregard for principle that have always motivated our rapacious economy. In this version of the story, Trump is not merely a morbid symptom, but something like America’s comeuppance, a punishment for our sins. Living under his rule takes on the grim appropriateness of one of those ironic punishments in the underworlds of classical mythology, or in the hell of Dante’s Inferno. It is a feature of this horror that those who suffer most under his rule are usually those who are least culpable for these trespasses. Because we never really atoned – not for slavery, not for empire, not for the slaughter and dispossession of Indigenous Americans or the war and exploitation of foreign countries – this is what we now must endure: a figure who brings these cruelties home and who mocks our self-flattering delusion that we ever were, ever could have been, anything else.And yet there remain so many Americans who hope for this country to be something else, if only because they will not survive it otherwise. In the coming days, those who tried to prevent this outcome will turn on one another. Liberals and leftists will point fingers; various Harris campaign staffers will be named responsible for failed strategies in this or that state; someone will make a racist bid to scapegoat Arab Americans and the Uncommitted movement; and many people, smug and insulated from the worst of what is to come, will say that the Democratic party spent too much time campaigning on abortion rights issues.There is plenty of blame to go around. But for the most part, this finger-pointing will be a distraction, a way of putting off the confrontation with what is coming. Instead, I hope that we can turn our attention to the most vulnerable among us: those Trump has antagonized and ridiculed, those who are less safe today than they hoped they might be yesterday. It is those targeted groups who need us, our solidarity and careful attention. In turning to them, we can keep alive in ourselves some small part of the America that Donald Trump seeks to destroy.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      in Elections

      Florida’s Abortion Rights Ballot Measure Fails, Keeping Six-Week Ban in Place

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      A ballot measure that would have enshrined abortion rights in the Florida Constitution failed, according to The Associated Press, delivering a major defeat to proponents who had hoped to restore broad access to the procedure in the nation’s third-largest state.The measure, known as Amendment 4, won 57 percent of the vote, falling short of the 60 percent required for passage. It would have allowed abortions “before viability,” usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Florida bans most abortions after six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.The defeat, while not unexpected, halted what had been an unbroken winning streak for abortion rights groups on ballot measures since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Voters sided with abortion rights in all seven states that had ballot questions on the issue before this year, in states as different as Kansas and California. But the highest vote that any of those earlier measures won in red states was 59 percent, just under what Florida, with its higher threshold, needed to pass.The Florida measure’s failure is a political victory for Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, who had become the face of a well-funded and well-organized opposition campaign. He spent much of his political capital, and considerable state resources, to defeat it. Another ballot measure that Mr. DeSantis and his allies strongly opposed, which would have legalized marijuana in the state, was also defeated.Mr. DeSantis and Republican lawmakers enacted a 15-week abortion ban in 2022 and the six-week ban in 2023. Florida had previously allowed abortions up to 24 weeks and had been a destination for women in other Southern states with stricter laws.Organizers of the Yes on 4 campaign raised more than $100 million to get the measure on the ballot and campaign for it, knowing it would be a difficult battle. Though similar measures have passed in other conservative states, Florida’s 60 percent threshold is higher. Going into Election Day, polls showed support hovering around 60 percent.The nonpartisan Yes on 4 campaign knew that it would need support from Democrats, Republicans and voters with no party affiliation. Organizers hoped that enough Republican-leaning voters would vote yes even if they also supported anti-abortion candidates.Former President Donald J. Trump, a Florida resident, had opposed Amendment 4, after initially suggesting that he might support it.Eric Adelson More

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      in Elections

      New Yorkers Pass an Equal Rights Amendment Tied to Abortion Access

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      A ballot measure in New York designed to safeguard protections for abortion and for those most vulnerable to discrimination was passed on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.The measure, known as Proposition 1 and the Equal Rights Amendment, was intended to codify abortion rights in the State Constitution by including “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes and reproductive health care and autonomy” as a protected class.The amendment bars discrimination based on an expanded set of conditions, adding ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy. The State Constitution had only prohibited unequal treatment based on race, color, creed and religion.The measure was fiercely opposed by Republicans and anti-abortion activists including a Schlitz beer scion, who spent $6.5 million to defeat it. It was also opposed by the New York State Sheriffs’ Association, which warned that its protections against gender discrimination could create challenges for law enforcement.Democrats had hoped that the ballot initiative would help boost turnout by energizing voters who care about abortion rights. Public sentiment in New York appeared to be on the ballot’s side: A recent Siena College poll shows that some 69 percent of New Yorkers approve of the amendment.Republicans blanketed the airwaves with messaging against the proposal.Some of the most heated attacks centered on the protections the amendment would offer to transgender people — particularly transgender girls, who many Republicans believe should not be allowed to play on sports teams with cisgender girls.Much like abortion, protections for transgender people already exist in New York State law. The purpose of the amendment is to make it harder for any future legislature to make laws that would erode those protections.But opponents said the initiative would go further, claiming that it would allow children to obtain gender-affirming care without parental involvement and extend voting rights to undocumented immigrants. Neither is true, according to the New York City Bar Association. More

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      in US Politics

      ‘If Harris wins, it’s because of abortion’: election tests fallout from Roe reversal

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      Leslie Lemus’s top issue in the 2024 election is probably the economy. But she has a close second: “Them fucking with abortion.”Really, for the 26-year-old Arizona native, the two issues are one and the same. On Monday, she got an abortion at Camelback Family Planning, one of the last abortion clinics in Arizona, in large part because Lemus feels like she can’t financially care for a child right now.“I look at the world and it’s not very pretty. I’m not ready for that yet, to bring a child into the world right now, where the economy is not OK,” said Lemus, who said she lived paycheck to paycheck. Some months, she has to choose between making her car payments and paying off her credit card debt. “Everybody’s struggling left and right.”View image in fullscreenLemus is registered to vote in Maricopa county, which is home to 60% of the Arizona electorate and may determine whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the valuable swing state. Harris has made access to reproductive rights a key part of her policy platform – particularly as a contrast to Trump, who appointed three of the US supreme court justices who overturned Roe v Wade and who has toggled between branding himself as a champion of reproductive rights and as “the most pro-life president”.Lemus is a passionate supporter of Harris, who she calls “my homegirl”.Majorities of Americans have backed abortion access and Roe v Wade for decades, but it was rarely their top issue in the voting booth. Now that the US supreme court has overturned Roe, permitting more than a dozen states to ban almost all abortions and several more to ban it at six, 12, or – as in Arizona – 15 weeks, abortion may become the deciding issue of the 2024 election. It is now the most important issue for women under 45, like Lemus.“If Harris wins the election, it will be because of abortion and women voting for her in large part because of that issue,” said Tresa Undem, a pollster who’s been surveying people about abortion for more than two decades.On Monday, Camelback had about 40 patients to see; at least one had traveled in from Texas, which bans almost all abortions. Visitors to the lobby were greeted by a sign urging them to register to vote while they waited for their abortion. The sign advised: “The health of our democracy is in our hands.”‘That gives me hope’On Tuesday, Arizona will become one of 10 states where voters will decide whether to amend their state constitutions to add or expand abortion protections. (In one of those states, Nebraska, voters will vote on both a ballot measure that could expand abortion rights and on the nation’s sole anti-abortion measure.) Five of those states, including Arizona, have some kind of abortion ban on the books. If any of the measures supporting abortion rights pass, it would be the first time that a state has overturned a post-Roe v Wade ban.Democrats have long hoped these measures would boost turnout among their base, but the rosy polling for the measures in steadfastly red states indicates that a significant swath of voters are essentially splitting their votes by supporting both abortion rights and Republicans, the party that helped engineer Roe’s downfall. Although the measure looks likely to pass in Arizona, for example, polling suggests that Trump will win the state.View image in fullscreenJulio Morera helped collect signatures at the Arizona state fair in order to get the measure on the ballot. His group’s booth, he recalled, was set up next to a man who was hawking rightwing memorabilia adorned with eagles, guns and the slogan “Don’t Tread On Me”. When asked to sign the petition, the man demurred. “I got customers to think about,” he said.But at the very end of the fair, Morera said, the man added his signature.“That gives me hope that this is gonna pass,” Morera said. “There are quite a few people that may not be Democrats or left-leaning who would support this access to abortion.”A vote for Trump, however, may ultimately cancel out a vote for a ballot measure. If Trump wins the presidency, he will be able to skirt Congress and use a 19th-century anti-vice law known as the Comstock Act to ban the mailing of all abortion-related materials – which would result in a de facto national abortion ban and render these measures’ successes moot.Project 2025, an influential policy playbook for the next conservative administration, suggests using the Comstock Act to at least ban the mailing of abortion pills, which account for roughly two-thirds of US abortions. It also suggests rolling back privacy protections for abortion patients and reshaping the nation’s largest family planning program, which would curtail access to contraception, among a bevy of other anti-abortion policies.Harris, meanwhile, has forcefully defended abortion rights. “Over these past two years, the impact of Trump abortion bans has been devastating,” she told a rally in Texas in October. “We see the horrific reality that women and families face every single day.”For Lemus, abortion bans all come down to one thing: “Men being in control of women.”View image in fullscreenThe economy was not the only reason that Lemus sought an abortion on Monday. She is also worried about the mental toll of having a child. At 18, Lemus gave birth to a son who was born prematurely and died just a month after birth.“I was there with all the medical stuff, seeing my child in the incubator until he passed away,” she said quietly. Eight years later, Lemus is not ready to have another one.“We fought so hard to have choices,” she said. “Why do they feel like we can’t have a choice?”Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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