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      ‘We’re not done’: abortion opponents hold first March for Life since fall of Roe

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      ‘We’re not done’: abortion opponents hold first March for Life since fall of Roe Anti-abortion activists descend on Washington for annual march and commit to continue fighting to limit reproductive rights Thousands of abortion opponents descended on Washington DC for the annual March for Life on Friday, the first time since achieving its foundational objective: persuading the supreme court to overturn Roe v Wade.Every year since the landmark 1973 decision, anti-abortion activists have come to the nation’s capital to march, plead and pray for a post-Roe America where abortion wasn’t just banned but was “unthinkable”.A half-century later, they gathered again on the National Mall in Washington, this time to celebrate movement’s greatest victory. But they also came with a new mission to fighting the battles now playing out in their states.People in abortion-restrictive US states economically disempowered – studyRead more“While the march began as a response to Roe, we don’t end as a response to Roe being overturned,” Jeanne Mancini, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, told a jubilant crowd. “Why? Because we’re not yet done.”Since Roe fell, movement leaders have urged Republicans to use their new House majority to pass federal restrictions on abortion, while they press for new bans and restraints at the state level. On Friday, they warned activists against complacency, with one speaker acknowledging that the decision had ushered in “challenging times of unrest and new threats to human life” as a reinvigorated reproductive rights movement pushes back.“This is not the end of our journey,” the Mississippi attorney general, Lynn Fitch, whose office brought the supreme court case – Dobbs v Mississippi – that overturned Roe, said from the stage before the march. “It is our charge today, in this new Dobbs era, to channel that same determination and hope and prayer that has led you to these streets for 50 years.”From the White House, Joe Biden marked the occasion with a vow to protect abortion access and a proclamation recognizing the 50th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, which falls on Sunday 22 January.“Never before has the court taken away a right so fundamental to Americans,” Biden said in the statement. “In doing so, it put the health and lives of women across this nation at risk.”He called on Congress to codify abortion rights and pledged to continue to use his limited executive authority to protect access wherever possible.In the seven months since the supreme court ended the federal protections guaranteed by Roe, abortion access in America has become a patchwork of state-by-state policies. More than a dozen states have enacted sweeping bans on abortion, while several more aim to take similar actions when state legislatures reconvene this year. Pending legal challenges have added to the uncertainty.Their efforts to advance new measures at the state level have been met with fierce opposition from abortion rights advocates. Initiatives have sprung up to help women seeking abortions travel to states where it remains legal or to access abortion pills. At the ballot box, abortion opponents have suffered a string of significant and unexpected defeats, including in conservative states like Kansas and Kentucky, while several Republican candidates who supported abortion bans without exceptions lost high-profile races in the 2022 midterm elections.But at Friday’s march, the mood was undeniably joyful. Busloads of high school students, a hallmark of the event, carried signs proclaiming: “I am the post-Roe generation.” They marched alongside seasoned activists exulting in a victory that had once seemed unimaginable.“We did it,” the Rev Lalita Smith said, recounting her “exuberance” when the Dobbs decision was handed down. “But in doing so, we brought more battles to the forefront because now every state has a right to decide what their position is going to be.” Activists from states where abortion remains legal said they were working toward a more complicated goal that required changing not only the laws, but hearts and minds, too.“If anything, the pro-life movement is more important than ever before because now it’s up to the states,” said Katie, a 19-year-old college student from Massachusetts who preferred not to give her last name.The theme of this year’s gathering was “Next Steps: Marching Forward into a Post-Roe America”, a recognition that the fight to end abortion in America has moved to Congress and all 50 state legislatures. To further underscore the shift, the march charted a slightly different course. Instead of finishing at the foot of the supreme court, they concluded at a spot located between the court building and the US Capitol.Congresswoman shares story of stillborn son with US HouseRead moreAt the rally, the speakers presented a united front, committed to the march’s overarching vision to end abortion. But the post-Roe landscape has exposed fault lines in the anti-abortion movement as Republicans, elected officials and activists press ahead with varying demands, tactics and approaches.“What is the most ambitious we can be?” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), a leading anti-abortion group, told reporters this week.Dannenfelser said she would like to see Congress enact a “federal minimum standard” that would ban abortions after a certain point early in a pregnancy, though she was clear-eyed that the prospects of such action were dim as long as Democrats held the Senate and the White House.The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, welcomed the marchers to Washington, pledging: “You now have a Congress that is standing up for life.”Addressing the crowd, Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, touted a pair of anti-abortion measures that passed the chamber earlier this month, among the first actions taken by the new Republican majority. “That’s what difference elections make,” he declared.Speaking next, the Republican congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, co-chair of the congressional pro-life caucus, said the House would soon take up a third measure that would block federal funding for abortion, known as the Hyde Amendment.The gathering also drew opposition. On Thursday, the abortion rights group Catholics for Choice unfurled large banners from the rooftop of a Planned Parenthood in Washington, as anti-abortion activists demonstrated below. One read: “Most people of faith support legal abortion”. On Friday, abortion rights activists disrupted a prayer service organized by the March for Life.“These extremists lied, cheated and stole seats on the supreme court in order to overturn Roe,” Mini Timmaraju, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said in a statement. “It’s never been clearer that they are the minority: that’s why they had to cheat to win, and that’s why they were defeated handily in the midterm elections.”The anti-abortion movement just had a mask-off moment in Alabama | Moira Donegan Read morePublic opinion polls since the Dobbs ruling in June have repeatedly found that a majority of Americans support access to legal abortion. A Pew poll conducted in July found that nearly six in 10 Americans disagreed with the supreme court’s decision eliminating a constitutional right to abortion, while just four in 10 approved of it. Public support for abortion has largely remained unchanged, even as the partisan divide on the issue has deepened.On Sunday reproductive rights activists will commemorate what has now become a bitter milestone, the 50th anniversary of the Roe decision, with rallies in state capitals around the country. The events are being held under the banner: “Bigger than Roe” and organizers say they hope to build on their successes in the 2022 midterms.Vice-President Kamala Harris will mark the anniversary on Sunday with a speech in Florida, where she will rally reproductive rights supporters to fight state-level efforts to ban abortion while calling on Congress to enact federal protections.In Florida, Democrats are bracing for new attempts to restrict abortion after Governor Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, signed into law a bill banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.Dannenfelser, the SBA president, said Florida was a model for what is possible across the country as a new generation of emboldened abortion opponents take charge.“This year, we march with fresh resolve as a brand-new pro-life movement,” she said, adding: “We’re more expectant than ever that we will make new gains for women and children.”TopicsAbortionRoe v WadeRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans Under Pressure as Anti-Abortion Activists Call for a National Ban

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      Activists are pushing for tougher abortion restrictions, while politicians fear turning off swing voters who don’t support strict limits like a national ban.For decades, opposition to abortion was a crucial but relatively clear-cut litmus test for Republican candidates: support overturning a constitutional right to an abortion, back anti-abortion judges and vote against taxpayer funding for the procedure.But now, six months after the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion rights, the test has grown a whole lot harder — and potentially more politically treacherous.Even after a backlash in support of abortion rights cost Republicans key seats in the midterm elections, a restive socially conservative wing is pushing the party’s lawmakers to embrace deeper restrictions. That effort is likely to be on stark display on Friday in Washington, when anti-abortion activists gather for what is expected to be a lower-key version of their annual march. Historically, the event attracted top Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and former Speaker Paul Ryan. This year, the list of speakers circulated in advance included two lawmakers: Representative Steve Scalise, the Republican majority leader, and Representative Chris Smith, one of the leaders of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus.These activists and their allies are pressuring potential Republican presidential contenders to call for a national ban. Raising the stakes nearly two years before the 2024 contest, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, one of the most powerful anti-abortion groups, said that any candidate who does not support federal restrictions should be “disqualified” from winning the party’s nomination.But some Republican strategists worry that such a position could repel general-election swing voters, who polls show are turned off by the idea of a national ban.Other conservative activists are pushing for a new series of litmus tests that include restrictions on medication abortion, protections for so-called crisis pregnancy centers that discourage women from having abortions, and promises of fiercely anti-abortion appointees to run the Justice Department and the Food and Drug Administration.For Republican politicians, these activists are forcing the question of what, exactly, it means to be “pro-life” in a post-Roe v. Wade era.In Grand Rapids, Mich., last November, opponents rallied against Proposition 3, a ballot measure that sought to protect abortion rights. Democratic candidates, who supported Proposition 3, did well in the election.Brittany Greeson for The New York Times“This is coming. The pro-life movement is not going to be happy or thanking a candidate simply for saying they are pro-life,” said Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, an anti-abortion group. “We’re in a position where we’re going to get down to the various candidates on how far they are going to go to protect women and children.”Some Republican officials and strategists argue that pitched debates over abortion rights in the midterms — and the party’s inability to quickly adopt a unified message on the issue — contributed to the G.O.P.’s weaker-than-expected performance in battleground states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona.More on Abortion Issues in AmericaAt a Crossroads: As the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling approaches, anti-abortion activists who fought to have the decision overturned are split about what they should focus on next.In Congress: Republicans used their new power in the House to push through legislation that could subject doctors who perform abortions to criminal penalties.Morning-After Pills: The Food and Drug Administration revised its guidance on the most commonly used emergency contraceptives, making clear they are not abortion pills.Abortion Pills: In a move that could significantly expand access to medication abortions, the F.D.A. moved to allow retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills in the United States.This view is shared by former President Donald J. Trump, who distanced himself this month from a social conservative wing that has been a pillar of his base when he blamed the “abortion issue” for the party’s loss of “large numbers of voters” in November.The comments set off an instant backlash from loyal supporters who once lauded him as the most anti-abortion president in history. Ms. Hawkins described Mr. Trump as “listening to swamp consultants.” The remarks also prompted ridicule from some Republican strategists who noted that Mr. Trump was often a liability in major races last year.Some potential 2024 candidates have begun tussling over the issue as they try to position themselves as the conservative movement’s next standard-bearer. Mr. Trump’s comments drew a rebuke from his former vice president, Mike Pence, who retweeted a statement from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America urging the former president and his possible rivals to embrace an “ambitious consensus pro-life position.”“Well said,” added Mr. Pence, who has cast himself as a true champion of the cause as he promotes the Supreme Court’s ruling in appearances at “crisis pregnancy centers” and movement galas.A spokesman for Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota has accused Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida of “hiding” behind his state’s ban on abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy, while Ms. Noem has promoted her “aggressive” record on abortion restrictions.“Talking about situations and making statements is incredibly important, but also taking action and governing and bringing policies that protect life are even more important,” she said recently on CBS News..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.And Mr. DeSantis, who shied away from addressing abortion for most of the fall campaign, has said he is “willing to sign great life legislation” and has not ruled out support for a six-week ban.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed a bill last year for a ban on abortions after 15 weeks, and he has said he would consider a six-week ban.John Raoux/Associated PressStill, it remains unclear what, exactly, is the new standard for being anti-abortion — even among those pushing for more restrictions. Is it enough to seek to ban abortions after 15 weeks? Or should the bar be roughly six weeks, like the measure that Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia signed into law? Should Republicans support exceptions for rape, incest and health of the mother — which Mr. Trump backs — or none at all? And how do you define health anyhow? Do psychiatric crises count?As some Republican-dominated statehouses prepare to further limit abortion, future presidential candidates are also likely to be asked about restrictive measures being proposed, including prosecuting those seeking abortion care in states where it is banned, targeting allies who help women travel across state lines for the procedure, criminalizing the mailing of abortion medication, and granting fetuses the same legal rights as people through fetal personhood bills.“Conservatives will not allow a Republican to be elected as their candidate that’s not pro-life,” said Penny Nance, the chief executive of Concerned Women for America, a group that argues that life begins at conception.Asked how conservatives now defined “pro-life” credentials — in terms of embracing abortion restrictions after a certain pregnancy threshold, simply looking for candidates who seemed to be fighters on the issue, or something else — Ms. Nance replied, “I think we’ll grapple with that.”Several activists have suggested that they expect this grappling to unfold in the context of a presidential primary campaign, as possible candidates race to demonstrate their anti-abortion bona fides.Democrats are avidly watching from the sidelines, keeping close tabs on the abortion stances of potential 2024 rivals. Their hope is that Republicans adopt positions that might be popular with their base but that will cost them the moderate suburbanites who are critical in the general election. Polling conducted by some Democratic strategists during the midterms found that voters strongly rejected any discussion of a national abortion ban.“They’re going to go for a national ban,” Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic strategist and pollster, said in an interview around Election Day. “That is the most mobilizing statement, the most persuasive.”She added, “And their candidate is going to be pushed into saying it.”Still, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, it remains an open question whether social conservatives hold the same king-making power in the primary as they did in 2016, or if they may be forced to accept a candidate who doesn’t go as far on their top issues as they would prefer.Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota has promoted her “aggressive” record on abortion restrictions.Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressThe party remains divided over whether to support any national restrictions. In the House, the new Republican majority opened the session with a package of abortion legislation that did not include a national ban. Because Democrats control the Senate, none of the measures are expected to become law.“A great many Republicans still think the victory in Dobbs was pushing this down to the states,” Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and longtime adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell, said when asked for his thoughts on the relatively limited action on Capitol Hill. “It is contradictory to simultaneously believe that and then push for a national regime on it.”Mr. Jennings said he thought restricting abortion access after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions, was smart politics, a proposal that candidates could endorse for the states.But when Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina put forward that position in the form of a federal ban before the midterms, the proposal earned a backlash among some Republicans who viewed it, and its timing, as politically foolhardy.Still, in the final weeks of the midterms, many Republicans embraced a central message: a 15-week limit with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. They sought to push Democrats to define their own limits on gestational age — and falsely accused them of supporting “abortion until birth” if they refused. Nearly all Democrats support federal legislation that would reinstate a version of the standard set by Roe: permitting abortion until fetal viability, roughly 23 weeks, and after that point only if the pregnancy poses a risk to the mother’s health.Robert Blizzard, a veteran Republican pollster, noted that several Republican candidates who generally opposed abortion rights won major statewide races in places including Florida, Georgia and Iowa. But elsewhere, for candidates without clearly defined personal brands, he said, “voters can use the abortion issue as a test of how compassionate they are, and how pragmatic they are, in order to solve problems and get things done.”“There were some candidates we had running, specifically in statewide races, that just could never get past the favorability” issue with independent voters, he added.Mr. Blizzard emphasized that it was impossible to know what issues would motivate voters in the 2024 general election. But there is little doubt, he said, that Democrats will continue to use the abortion issue against Republicans — and that in the midterms they often did so effectively.“Every metric you would look at indicates that that energizes the left and energizes the Democratic base, which it certainly did,” he said. “In some cases, where we made the fight over other issues — whether the economy, inflation, the border, whatever else was going on in a particular state or district — we did, I think, well. But in places where we were not able to change the narrative of a race, we didn’t do well.”“In terms of going forward,” he went on, describing the political uncertainties surrounding the issue, “I don’t think anyone has a really solid answer for it.” More

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      Can Trump Count on Evangelicals in 2024? Some Leaders Are Wavering.

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      The former president, who relied on evangelical voters in 2016, has accused Christian leaders of “disloyalty” and blamed them for Republicans’ disappointing midterm performance.On Sunday, the Rev. Robert Jeffress, a longtime supporter of Donald J. Trump who has yet to endorse his 2024 White House bid, shared the stage at his Dallas megachurch with one of the former president’s potential rivals next year: former Vice President Mike Pence.The next day, Mr. Trump lashed out at Pastor Jeffress and other evangelical leaders he spent years courting, accusing them of “disloyalty” and blaming them for the party’s disappointing performance in the 2022 midterm elections.While Pastor Jeffress shrugged off the criticism, others weren’t as eager to let it slide, instead suggesting that it was time for Mr. Trump to move out of the way for a new generation of Republican candidates.The clash highlighted one of the central tensions inside the Republican Party as it lurches toward an uncertain 2024 presidential primary: wavering support for Mr. Trump among the nation’s evangelical leaders, whose congregants have for decades been a key constituency for conservatives and who provided crucial backing to Mr. Trump in his ascent to the White House.If these leaders break with Mr. Trump — and if evangelical voters follow, which is by no means a certainty — the result will be a tectonic shift in Republican politics.“When I saw his statement, I thought, ‘You’re not going to gain any traction by throwing the most loyal base under the bus and shifting blame,’” said Bob Vander Plaats, an influential evangelical activist in Iowa and the chief executive of the Family Leader organization.Mr. Vander Plaats said that while evangelicals were grateful to Mr. Trump for his federal judicial appointments and for moving the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, many thought that his time as leader of the party has passed given how hardened many Americans’ views of him are. Asked whether Mr. Trump would command support among evangelical leaders as he did in the past, Mr. Vander Plaats, who has criticized Mr. Trump in the past, said, “No way.”Indeed, recent polls point to some Trump fatigue among Republican voters. But it is an open question whether evangelical voters will abandon him if prominent Christian ministers support other candidates. And Mr. Trump has previously had an ability to cleave various types of conservative voters from their longtime leaders, as he did during his unexpected Republican primary victory in 2016.In a New York Times/Siena College poll in October, before the midterm elections, nearly half of Republican voters said that they preferred someone other than Mr. Trump to be the party’s 2024 presidential nominee. But the same poll showed that 54 percent of evangelical voters said they planned to support him.President Donald J. Trump in 2017 with Robert Jeffress, an influential evangelical pastor and longtime Trump supporter. Mr. Jeffress has not endorsed Mr. Trump’s candidacy for president in 2024.Pool photo by Olivier DoulieryA spokesman for Mr. Trump declined to comment. Paula White, the televangelist who led Mr. Trump’s evangelical advisory board while he was president, could not be reached for comment.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.2023 Races: Governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia are among the races to watch this year.Democrats’ New Power: After winning trifectas in four state governments in the midterms, Democrats have a level of control in statehouses not seen since 2009.G.O.P. Debates: The Republican National Committee has asked several major TV networks to consider sponsoring debates, an intriguing show of détente toward the mainstream media and an early sign that the party is making plans for a contested 2024 presidential primary.An Important Election: The winner of a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April will determine who holds a 4-to-3 majority in a critical presidential battleground state.Since his first campaign, Mr. Trump has considered the evangelical movement a crucial piece of his constituency. He was helped by a relationship that his lawyer and fixer at the time, Michael D. Cohen, had with the Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr., then the president of Liberty University.Mr. Trump tapped Mr. Pence to be his running mate in 2016 in part to assure wary evangelicals that a New York businessman could be trusted to keep his campaign promises.Many evangelicals set aside their skepticism of Mr. Trump’s sometimes scandalous behavior and focused on a long list of policy pledges from the candidate, a thrice-married reality television star. In one memorable moment, Mr. Falwell celebrated his 2016 endorsement of Mr. Trump by posing for a picture with him in front of a Trump Tower office wall that included a framed copy of a 1990 Playboy cover featuring the brash real estate developer.The uneasy alliance between Mr. Trump and evangelical leaders showed signs of strain during an interview he gave with Real America’s Voice, a right-wing streaming and cable network..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Asked about Pastor Jeffress’s neutrality in the 2024 race, Mr. Trump said he did not care, then declared that it was “a sign of disloyalty.” The former president pointed to the Supreme Court ruling last year overturning the federal right to an abortion — a decision led by three of Mr. Trump’s appointees — and said he was “a little disappointed” in some evangelical leaders who “could have fought much harder” during the midterms.“A lot of them didn’t fight or weren’t really around to fight,” Mr. Trump said. “And it did energize the Democrats, but a lot of the people that wanted and fought for years to get it, they sort of — I don’t know — they weren’t there protesting and doing what they could have done.”Mr. Trump’s interviewer, David Brody, who is also a longtime commentator for the Christian Broadcasting Network, appeared to sense the potential effect Mr. Trump’s comments could have on evangelical voters. He told the former president that some anti-abortion activists had taken exception to being blamed for midterm losses.“Do you want to clear that up at all?” Mr. Brody asked.Mr. Trump doubled down.“It’s sort of what I explained to you,” he said. “I just didn’t see them fighting during this last election — fighting for victory for people that were on the same side as all of us.” He added, “The only rallies were the rallies I gave.”In reality, Mr. Trump, a former Democrat who once called himself supportive of abortion rights, has often been uncomfortable discussing the issue, going back to his 2016 campaign. He privately viewed the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade as problematic for Republicans, and he rarely spoke about abortion during his 2022 campaign rallies.Mr. Vander Plaats suggested that Republicans’ failure to win control of the Senate in November was due in part to Mr. Trump’s support for candidates like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, who did not make abortion a central focus of his candidacy.“Having an instinct to go after a very loyal base that you’re going to need in the Iowa caucuses, in the Republican primary, that’s just a bad instinct or it’s really bad advice,” Mr. Vander Plaats said, adding that “it’s time to turn the page” and put Mr. Trump’s movement behind another candidate.Mr. Trump’s political future may be complicated by multiple investigations into his conduct, both before he was a candidate in 2016 and his efforts to thwart the peaceful transfer of power after he lost in November 2020. Even if those investigations close without actions being taken against him, evangelical leaders and voters may have several other Republican options. One of them is Mr. Pence, a longtime evangelical who has visited churches in various states and has been outspoken in support of the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling. Another is Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state and C.I.A. director under Mr. Trump. There is also Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who a number of donors are hoping will enter the race.Marc Short, a top adviser to Mr. Pence and his former chief of staff, suggested that faith leaders recognized that the former vice president “is one of them.” He said that Mr. Trump “confuses their appreciation for what he did” in office with “their commitment to Christ and their congregations, first and foremost.”Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a conservative advocacy group, said Mr. Trump was right to be frustrated about the political response from conservatives after the Supreme Court’s decision in the abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Democrats had a plan to attack Republicans over the ruling, Mr. Reed said, while Republicans struggled to mount a political defense.Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said that on abortion, Republicans must “have a plan, get on offense and portray the Democrats as the extremists.”Nicole Craine for The New York Times“Too many Republican candidates tried to stick their heads in the sand, ignore the Dobbs decision and talk singularly about inflation and gas prices, with predictable results,” Mr. Reed said.“Trump is correct that if the party is going to succeed in 2024 and beyond, it has to own this,” he added. “We’ve got to have a plan, get on offense and portray the Democrats as the extremists.”Pastor Jeffress said in an interview that he did not view Mr. Trump’s comments as a personal attack. The pastor of a 16,000-member church, Pastor Jeffress was one of the few political veterans who anticipated the sea change in conservative politics six years ago and was one of Mr. Trump’s early, prominent endorsers.But, even now, he is hedging his bets in his neutrality.After telling Newsweek in November that he was withholding an endorsement because “the Republican Party is headed toward a civil war that I have no desire or need to be part of,” Pastor Jeffress said on Wednesday that he had not endorsed a 2024 candidate in part because Mr. Trump had not asked.Pastor Jeffress predicted that evangelicals would eventually coalesce around Mr. Trump, who, he said, “is most likely going to be the 2024 nominee.”“I just don’t see the need for an endorsement right now — not because of any lack of enthusiasm for President Trump, but I think keeping my powder dry might be the best thing for the president,” Pastor Jeffress said. “Timing is everything, and I think it might be a little early to do that.” More

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      New York City to provide free abortion pills at four clinics

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      New York City to provide free abortion pills at four clinicsBronx clinic will be first of four free clinics to offer free abortion pills, followed by facilities in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, has announced free abortion pills will be provided at four public clinics across the city, making its health department the first in the nation to offer free medication abortion.Abortion pills are used in more than 50% of all US abortions, but most are given in a hospital where patients and their insurance are billed. Unlike hospitals, these clinics primarily target those on lower incomes and the uninsured. They are free to access.The news comes after the conservative-majority US supreme court voted last year to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion. Since the ruling, getting an abortion in America has become more difficult as many Republican-dominated states have limited or banned abortion. Abortion pills can be taken up to 11 weeks of pregnancy and the earlier they are taken, the more effective they are.In a speech on women’s health on Wednesday, Adams said: “For too long, health and healthcare has been centered around men. If men had periods, pap smears and menopause, they would get a paid vacation, and if men could get pregnant, we wouldn’t see Congress trying to pass laws restricting abortion.”On Wednesday, a Bronx clinic will be the first of the four free clinics to offer free abortion pills. The pills will be made available at three more clinics in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens and the rollout will take up to a year due to federally mandated training for the healthcare workers, according to health commissioner, Dr Ashwin Vasan.In New York, abortion is legal but it is now in effect banned in at least 13 states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.TopicsNew YorkEric AdamsUS politicsAbortionRoe v WadenewsReuse this content More

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      Does the War Over Abortion Have a Future?

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      In decades past, as the calendar turned to January, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade would come into view. Abortion opponents would be planning to acknowledge the date with the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. Supporters of abortion rights would schedule seminars or meet for quiet conversations about whether and when the Supreme Court might actually go so far as to repudiate the decision it issued 50 years ago on Jan. 22, 1973.There will, of course, be no Roe to march against this year, the right to abortion having died a constitutional death in June at the hands of five Supreme Court justices. There has been ample commentary on how anger at the court for its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization helped to block the predicted “red wave” in the midterm elections. Not only did Dobbs-motivated voters enable the Democrats to hold the Senate, but they also, given the chance to express themselves directly, accounted for abortion rights victories in all six states with an abortion-related question on the ballot (California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont).But the justifiable focus on the role of abortion in the country’s politics has crowded out much talk about what this unexpected political turn actually means for the future of abortion. There is a case to be made, it seems to me, that abortion access has won the culture war.I know that might sound wildly premature, even fanciful: Abortion access has vanished across the South in the wake of the Dobbs decision, and anyone anywhere in the world remains free to pursue Texas women seeking abortions, along with anyone who helps them, for a minimum $10,000 bounty under the state’s S.B. 8 vigilante law. The picture is bleak indeed. But it’s when it appears that things couldn’t get worse that weakness can become strength.Consider that as the midterms approached, Republican candidates for whom taking an extreme anti-abortion position had been as natural as breathing started scrambling for cover, blurring their positions and scrubbing their websites, as Blake Masters did to no avail in his campaign for an Arizona seat in the U.S. Senate. (Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, held to his extreme no-exceptions position, and that didn’t help either.)The full dimension of the post-Dobbs world will come into ever clearer view, as news accounts mount up of what happens when women whose wanted pregnancies have gone drastically wrong are denied the prompt terminations that barely seven months ago would have been the obvious treatment. People who have regarded abortion as something that befalls wayward teenagers will come to realize that abortion care is — or was — an ordinary and necessary part of medical care. And while all the justices in the Dobbs majority were raised in the Catholic church, nearly two-thirds of American Catholics believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.In suggesting that abortion has won its corner of the culture wars, I don’t mean that those wars are over in general or that the road ahead for abortion access is easy. Trans teenagers and their struggle to find a place in the world will continue to be fodder for cynical politicians. School boards taken over by conservative activists will continue to vet reading lists for any hint that the country’s past was less than perfect. Those Supreme Court justices who remain unreconciled to marriage equality will keep looking for ways to enable self-described Christians to avoid treating same-sex couples equally in the marketplace for goods and services. Texas voters just re-elected Greg Abbott as their governor, and the Texas Legislature is not about to repeal S.B. 8.What I mean is that the polarity has shifted. The anti-abortion position that was so convenient for Republican politicians for so long is, with surprising speed, coming to seem like an encumbrance. The once-comfortable family-values rhetoric no longer provides cover for the extremism that the Dobbs decision has made visible. Yes, the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives this week passed two anti-abortion measures, both recognized as dead on arrival. The important point about this bit of legislative theater was the label a conservative South Carolina Republican, Representative Nancy Mace, affixed to it: “tone-deaf.” Even so, she voted for the two bills.In a recent article published by ProPublica, Richard Briggs, a Tennessee state senator and cardiac surgeon who co-sponsored the state’s exceptionally strict abortion ban in 2019, now says he had assumed the law would never actually take effect and believes it is too harsh “because the medical issues are a lot more complex.” Not incidentally, 80 percent of Tennessee voters believe that abortion should be legal at least under some circumstances.Abortion is surely not going away as an issue in politics. But it will be just that: an issue, like food safety, reliable public transit, affordable housing and adequate energy supplies. All these, and countless others, are issues in politics, too. We need these things, and if the government won’t provide them, we assume at least that the government won’t stand in the way of our getting them.Democrats played defense on abortion for so long (remember the apologetic Clinton-era mantra “safe, legal and rare”?) that defense became part of the Democratic DNA. What this posture ultimately led to was Dobbs. And now the midterm elections have made Dobbs not an end point but an opportunity, a gift, albeit an unwelcome one, in the form of a national admonition on what extremism looks like.The decision and its aftermath have freed people to acknowledge — or even shocked them into realizing for the first time — that a civilized country requires access to abortion. It is possible, and I’ll even be bold enough to say that it is probable, that in Roe v. Wade’s constitutional death lies the political resurrection of the right to abortion.Linda Greenhouse, the recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008 and was a contributing Opinion writer from 2009 to 2021.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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      A Colossal Off-Year Election in Wisconsin

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      Lauren Justice for The New York TimesConservatives have controlled the court since 2008. Though the court upheld Wisconsin’s 2020 election results, last year it ruled drop boxes illegal, allowed a purge of the voter rolls to take place and installed redistricting maps drawn by Republican legislators despite the objections of Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. More

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      Finally, some modest good news for abortion rights in America | Moira Donegan

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      Finally, some modest good news for abortion rights in AmericaMoira DoneganThe Biden administration made two moves to protect medication abortion There have been so few victories for the pro-choice movement over the past year that women’s rights advocates can be forgiven for taking pleasure in two moves that the Biden administration made this week.The first, from the Department of Justice (DoJ), was a statement meant to push back against a legal absurdity that is gaining popularity on the anti-choice right: the idea that the 1873 Comstock Act, an archaic anti-obscenity law, prohibits the sending of abortion medication through the mail. The second was a move by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medication abortions, to be distributed at retail pharmacies, rather than exclusively from doctors.Neither move by the Biden administration is likely to significantly improve abortion access, especially not for the millions of women living in the 13 states that have banned abortion outright, or the five that have severely limited the procedure, since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last summer in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health. But the rule changes show a new willingness by the Biden administration to make at least some tepid and belated efforts to expand women’s rights as the crises created by Dobbs continue to worsen.The FDA’s move, frankly, is especially overdue. Since mifepristone, a medication that blocks the pregnancy hormone progesterone, was finally approved by the agency for use in America in 2000 (it had been in use in Europe since the 1980s), the drug has been subject to intense, labyrinthine and medically unnecessary bureaucratic restrictions.For years, doctors who want to provide abortions have had to stock mifepristone themselves. Unlike other drugs – including misoprostol, the other medication used in abortions – it had to be given out directly by the prescribing physician. Until the pandemic, the pill had to be administered by abortion providers in person, and could not be distributed remotely – a rule that was temporarily suspended during coronavirus lockdowns, and quietly lifted permanently by the FDA in December 2021. The new rule will allow mifepristone to be distributed by regular pharmacies, with a regular prescription.But the FDA’s new guidance still maintains distinctions around mifepristone that mark it as distinct from other medications – distinctions that have nothing to do with the safety or efficacy of the drug, which have long been proven, and everything to do with the politics and stigma surrounding abortion. Some restrictions have been left in place.Not all healthcare providers, for instance, can prescribe mifepristone: those that do must first prove to agency satisfaction that they are competent to perform abortions. Patients, too, must still sign a consent form, something not required of other medicines. And there are new obligations for the pharmacies that want to distribute the drug. Each pharmacy must appoint and train a compliance officer who is in charge of ensuring that all the rules surrounding mifepristone are followed, for example; steps must be taken to conceal the names of prescribing doctors, including from internal company databases, to protect them from violence and harassment.The move does seem likely to marginally expand access to abortion pills, at least in Democratic-led states. On Thursday, CVS and Walgreens indicated that they would begin distributing mifepristone. The change is a small and important step toward removing the needless and bigoted bureaucratic obstacles that both stigmatize abortion care and place it out of reach, and towards placing these medications where they belong: over the counter.But it’s still unclear how the FDA rule change will affect the biggest battles over medication abortion – the ones playing out in the courts. Since the Dobbs decision, demand for the pills has exploded, and a growing number of abortion providers have set up online operations – based both overseas and in the more robustly protective Democratic states – that send abortion medications through the mail.These prescribers have opened a new era of abortion access in which abortion pills have become widely available even in states with strict bans, and women with internet connections, mailing addresses and a little bit of experience in covering up their digital tracks have found themselves able to terminate unwanted pregnancies safely, even in defiance of misogynist local laws. The anti-choice movement has succeeded in shuttering clinics across the south and midwest, but they haven’t managed to shut down the internet.Enter the Comstock Act, a long-obscure federal law which has enjoyed a revival in anti-choice legal thinking since Dobbs. Passed in 1878, in the midst of a misogynist moral panic, the Comstock Act prohibits the mailing of “obscene” materials, including any “article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion”. The first arrests under the act were meant to suppress the distribution of a feminist pro-contraception tract.The act has been largely defunct since the establishment of a right to contraception – and a right to privacy – in the 1965 supreme court ruling in Griswold v Connecticut. Recently, however, anti-choice forces have argued in court – repeatedly and aggressively – that since Roe has been overruled, Comstock applies, and sending abortion pills through the mail is once again illegal.On Tuesday, the DoJ disagreed, publishing a legal memo arguing that the drugs can be legally sent through the mail, including to states with abortion bans – that is, so long as the sender believes that the recipient will use them in accordance with local law. The DoJ opinion clears the US Postal Service to keep delivering the packages – and provides a bit of legal cover and plausible deniability to those who send abortion medications into conservative states.Will it hold up in court? Who knows. The memo issues one interpretation of current law, but the federal courts, packed with conservative ideologues and mealy-mouthed centrists who view hostility to women’s rights as a marker of their seriousness, might disagree.Still, the moves are encouraging signs from the Biden administration, whose response to Dobbs, and to the mounting civil rights and public health crises that it has unleashed, has tended to vacillate between incompetence, indifference and outright contempt. The Democratic party has long treated the left, and feminism in particular, as an annoying younger sibling that it needs to keep in line.But the midterms should have broken this spell: the Democrats performed much better than expected, and abortion was a big part of why. The elections should put to bed forever the dusty centrist conventional wisdom that support for abortion rights is electorally damaging to the Democrats – quite the opposite has proved to be the case. Hopefully, the Biden administration is listening.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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      Trump blaming abortion for midterms flop shows ‘ship is sinking’, insider says

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      Trump blaming abortion for midterms flop shows ‘ship is sinking’, insider saysEx-president says ‘it wasn’t my fault’ Republicans fared poorly in 2022 but political wisdom of citing key rightwing issue questioned Donald Trump’s recent comments about abortion as a political issue show the former president has lost his ability to read Republican voters, a veteran Trump campaign insider said.Trump seems to have a large war chest – but is he struggling to raise money?Read moreIn messages seen by the Guardian, the operative said: “Trump has no political skills left. His team is a joke. The ship is sinking.”Trump kicked off his latest scrap with his own party on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, saying: “It wasn’t my fault that the Republicans didn’t live up to expectations in the midterms.”On the contrary, most observers suggest Trump’s refusal to admit defeat in 2020 and endorsement of backers of his election fraud lie contributed to Republican disappointments in November, including barely scraping a House majority, failing to take the Senate and losing key races in battleground states.Trump said: “It was the ‘abortion issue’, poorly handled by many Republicans, especially those that firmly insisted on no exceptions, even in the case of rape, incest, or life of the mother, that lost large numbers of voters.”In this instance, most observers would agree. It is generally held that Dobbs v Jackson, the supreme court ruling handed down in June which ended federal abortion rights, had a tangible effect at the ballot box.Trump also complained that “people that pushed so hard, for decades, against abortion, got their wish from the US supreme court and just plain disappeared, not to be seen again”, and said the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, had been “stupid” in how he spent campaign cash.The comments prompted criticism from the political right.The Fox News contributor Ben Domenech said it was “hard to express how many false things Trump says in this one ‘truth’”.He listed stringently anti-abortion Republicans who won, contested Trump’s claim that candidates supported no-exception bans and said Trump should have spent his own money to boost candidates such as Kari Lake, the election denier defeated for governor in Arizona.Pointing to a 2024 primary in which Trump is the only declared candidate but has slipped in polling, in part due to legal exposure for election subversion and his business affairs, Domenech added: “Trump betraying the pro-life cause on Dobbs has been telegraphed for a long time and is a huge opening to bash him in the 2024 stakes which I expect several candidates to seize.“Finally, think how stupid it is for Trump to run left on the pro-life issue. This is the biggest win of his presidency. Huge vested goodwill from pro-lifers. And what does he do? Call them quislings and say they’re too radical! Very dumb.”Trump appointed three hardline conservatives to the court which ended abortion rights. But his own views have long been questioned and even in 2016, in his successful run for the White House, he struggled to follow a consistent line.Trump dodges question over whether any past partners had abortionsRead moreBack then, Trump was asked – by a New York Times reporter – if “when he was a swinging bachelor in Manhattan, was he ever involved with anyone who had an abortion?”Trump said: “Such an interesting question. So what’s your next question?”Six years later, the messages from the veteran operative about Trump’s abortion remarks pointed to a widening perception that the ex-president’s 2024 candidacy is in danger of falling apart a year before the primary.Last month, after New York Magazine portrayed a “sad, lonely, thirsty, broken, basically pretend run for re-election”, Trump disputed the reporting and called the reporter, Olivia Nuzzi, “a shaky and unattractive wack job”.The Trump insider said Nuzzi’s piece contained “some accurate stuff”.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022AbortionReproductive rightsnewsReuse this content More