Abortion

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Kansas Abortion Vote Tests Political Energy in Post-Roe America

      by

      On Tuesday, Kansans will decide whether to pass a constitutional amendment that could lead to far-reaching abortion restrictions or an outright ban on the procedure.OLATHE, Kan. — In the final days before Kansans decide whether to remove abortion rights protections from their State Constitution, the politically competitive Kansas City suburbs have become hotbeds of activism.In neighborhoods where yard signs often tout high school sports teams, dueling abortion-related messages now also dot front lawns. A cafe known for its chocolates and cheese pie has become a haven for abortion rights advocates and a source of ire for opponents. Signs have been stolen, a Catholic church was vandalized earlier this month and tension is palpable on the cusp of the first major vote on the abortion issue since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June.“I’m really sad that that happened,” said Leslie Schmitz, 54, of Olathe, speaking of the abortion access landscape. “And mad. Sad and mad.”There may be no greater motivator in modern American politics than anger. And for months, Republican voters enraged by the Biden administration have been explosively energized about this year’s elections. Democrats, meanwhile, have confronted erosion with their base and significant challenges with independent voters.But interviews with more than 40 voters in populous Johnson County, Kan., this week show that after the fall of Roe, Republicans no longer have a monopoly on fury — especially in states where abortion rights are clearly on the ballot and particularly in the battleground suburbs.“I feel pretty strongly about this,” said Chris Price, 46, a political independent who said he voted for Mitt Romney for president in 2012 before backing Democrats when Donald J. Trump was on the ballot. “The candidates that would support an abortion ban, I would not be supporting at all. Period.”Chris Price outside a Johnson County early-voting location in Overland Park, Kan.Chase Castor for The New York TimesNatalie Roberts-Wilner, an early voter, outside her home in Merriam, Kan.Chase Castor for The New York TimesAsked if threats to abortion rights had affected how motivated she felt about engaging in the midterm elections this fall, Natalie Roberts-Wilner, a Democrat from Merriam, Kan., added, “Yes. Yes. Yes. Definitely.”On Tuesday, Kansans will vote on a constitutional amendment that, if it passes, could give the Republican-dominated Legislature the ability to push new abortion restrictions or to outlaw the procedure entirely. Nearby states including Missouri — which is separated from some competitive Kansas suburbs by State Line Road, a thoroughfare dotted with abortion-related yard signs — have already enacted near-total bans.The vote is open to unaffiliated Kansans as well as partisans. And whatever the outcome, activists on both sides caution against drawing sweeping national conclusions from an August ballot question, given complex crosscurrents at play.Read More on Abortion Issues in AmericaA National Pattern: A Times analysis shows that states with abortion bans have among the nation’s weakest social services for women and children.A Doctor Speaks Out: Dr. Caitlin Bernard, who was catapulted into the national spotlight for providing an abortion to a 10-year-old, spoke of the challenges doctors face in post-Roe America.Rifts Among Conservatives: An effort in Indiana to pass an abortion ban has exposed clashing views among Republicans on how to legislate in a post-Roe world.The First Post-Roe Vote: In Kansas, voters will soon decide whether to remove protections of abortion rights from their State Constitution, providing the first electoral test since the end of Roe.The amendment language itself has been criticized as confusing, and in an overwhelmingly Republican state, Democrats and unaffiliated voters are less accustomed to voting on Primary Day. On the other hand, a few voters said they would vote no on the amendment but could back Republicans in November — a sign that some who support abortion rights still weigh other political issues more heavily in elections. And nationally, a Washington Post-Schar School poll released on Friday found that Republicans and abortion opponents were more likely to vote in November.But there is no question that the abortion debate in the state’s most populous county — located in the Third District of Kansas, one of the nation’s most competitive congressional seats — offers the first significant national test of how the issue is resonating in suburban swing territory.Like other highly educated, moderate areas — from suburban Philadelphia to Orange County, Calif. — the Third District is home to a substantial number of center-right voters who, like Mr. Price, were comfortable with Mr. Romney in 2012. But they embraced Democrats in the 2018 midterms, including Gov. Laura Kelly and Representative Sharice Davids, and many have recoiled from Mr. Trump. Whether those voters remain in the Democratic fold this year, with Mr. Trump out of office, has been an open question in American politics. Democrats are betting that outrage over far-reaching abortion restrictions will help the party hang onto at least some of those moderates, despite the extraordinary political headwinds they face. Republicans insist that anger around inflation — and fear of a recession — will crowd out other concerns for a broad swath of voters. (In polls, far more Americans cite inflation or the economy as the biggest problem facing the country than they do abortion.)Silvana Botero, a patron at André’s, in Overland Park, Kan.Chase Castor for The New York TimesMelissa Moore at a voting location in Olathe, Kan.Chase Castor for The New York TimesThe Tuesday vote will offer an early snapshot of attitudes and energy around abortion, if not a definitive predictor of how those voters will behave in the fall.“How much of a motivator is it really?” said Dan Sena, a Democratic strategist who guided the House takeover in 2018, of abortion rights, adding that there had recently been signs of improvement for Democrats in some suburban districts. “How does it actually, when it’s by itself, move women, move portions of the electorate? And this will really give us insight and the opportunity to get an answer to that.”Limited public polling has shown a fairly close if unpredictable race.“It appears that the ‘Yes’ vote still has the lead, but that has narrowed,” said Mike Kuckelman, the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party. Citing the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that handed control over abortion rights to the states, he continued, “A lot of that is because, I think, the Dobbs decision has incited the pro-choice forces to come out.”The Kansas City Star reported on Thursday that there had been an increase, so far, of about 246 percent in early in-person votes compared with during the 2018 midterm primary elections. Several voting stations in both moderate and more conservative parts of Johnson County this week were bustling all day, including in a rainstorm and in the baking heat. And on Friday, Scott Schwab, the Republican secretary of state, predicted that around 36 percent of Kansas voters would participate in the 2022 primary election, slightly up from the primary in 2020. His office said that the constitutional amendment “has increased voter interest in the election.”“I’ve talked to many people that said, ‘I’ve not previously been involved but going to vote,’” Mr. Kuckelman said.Other Republicans said that the abortion amendment and overturning of Roe did not affect their commitment to voting in other races this year — that they have long been highly engaged.“No more energized,” said John Morrill, 58, of Overland Park, who supports the amendment. “I was already very energized.”At the Olathe site, which drew more conservative voters on Thursday, Melissa Moore said she was voting for the amendment because of her deeply held beliefs opposing abortion. “I understand women saying, ‘I need to control my own body,’ but once you have another body in there, that’s their body,” Ms. Moore said. But asked how the intense national focus on abortion affected how she thought about voting, she replied, “I tend to always be energized.”A few others at the early-voting site in Olathe indicated that they were voting against the amendment and were inclined to back Democrats this fall. But they spoke in hushed tones and declined to give full names, citing concerns about professional backlash, in an illustration of how fraught the environment has become.Andre’s Rivaz, a Swiss cafe in Overland Park, Kan., has encouraged patrons to vote.Chase Castor for The New York TimesCloser to the Missouri border, patrons at André’s, an upscale Swiss cafe, felt freer to openly express their opposition to the amendment. The restaurant and shop stoked controversy earlier this summer when employees wore “Vote No” stickers or buttons and encouraged patrons to vote, but several lunchtime visitors made clear that they shared those views.“We just want to make sure people have rights to make choices,” said Silvana Botero, 45, who said that she and a group of about 20 friends were all voting no and that she felt more enthusiastic about voting in November, too.At a voting site nearby, Shelly Schneider, a 66-year-old Republican, was more politically conflicted. Ms. Schneider opposed the amendment but planned to back some Republicans in November. Still, she was open to Ms. Kelly, the Democratic governor, especially if the amendment succeeded. Approval of the amendment, she acknowledged, could open the way for potentially far-reaching action from the Legislature.“I think Laura Kelly is kind of a hedge against anything that might pass,” she said. “She might provide some common sense there.”Mitch Smith contributed reporting. More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Yes, Republicans really did try to make abortion punishable by death | Arwa Mahdawi

      by

      Yes, Republicans really did try to make abortion punishable by deathArwa MahdawiA bill introduced in the North Carolina legislature last year was largely performative but was part of the right’s strategy to make the unthinkable mainstream Sign up for the Week in Patriarchy, a newsletter​ on feminism and sexism sent every Saturday.Anti-abortion zealots want to legalize murderIs it legal to kill someone who is about to have an abortion? I know that sounds like a ridiculous question, but some people on the far right would like it to be. Social media was recently awash with outrage over a bill introduced by North Carolina state legislators that would legalize violence against anyone undergoing or performing an abortion. North Carolina House Bill (HB) 158, sponsored by a Republican state representative, Larry Pittman, proposed that abortion be considered first-degree murder and would allowed civilians to use deadly force to prevent someone from ending a pregnancy.While this is clearly terrifying, it should be noted that a lot of discussion circulating about the bill online wasn’t accurate: the outrage was sparked by a somewhat misleading post that made it look like the bill was actively being considered. In fact, however, HB 158 was introduced in February 2021 and didn’t advance out of committee. An AFP fact check also notes that it received little support from legislators.Still, even though the bill was largely performative, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken seriously. The far right constantly introduce extreme bills like this into state legislatures with the full knowledge that there is zero chance they will pass. It’s part of a broader strategy to further their agenda that can be summed up as exhaust and inure. Exhaust: the more they overwhelm legislatures with extreme legislation, the harder it becomes for liberals to fight them. It becomes a game of “Whac-a-Mole”. Inure: proposing extreme ideas like this via legislation helps gradually desensitize people and shifts the Overton window to the right; step by step the unthinkable becomes mainstream.All this isn’t just my personal opinion, by the way: it’s extracted from a playbook written by Christian nationalists. A few years ago a researcher called Frederick Clarkson uncovered an initiative from a coalition of far-right Christian groups called Project Blitz that gave their supporters detailed instructions on how to codify their views into law and gradually destroy the division between church and state. I highly recommend reading Clarkson’s writings on Project Blitz: they are essential for understanding the current moment. As Clarkson said when he first found the playbook: “It’s very rare that you come across a major primary source document that changes the way you view everything, and this is one of those times. This is a 116-page strategy manual hidden away on a website explaining at least what a section of the religious right are doing in the United States.”Bills like the one in North Carolina, it can’t be stressed enough, are not just frivolous one-offs by extremists. They’re part of a coordinated – and highly effective – strategy to consolidate power by the right. Democrats should really be paying more attention to these tactics and learning from them. So many centrists are afraid that suggesting things like free healthcare will make them look like radicals hellbent on bringing communism to America. You think the right care about looking “radical”? Of course not. They care about power. And they’re very good at doing whatever it takes to get it.South Carolina bill outlaws websites explaining how to get an abortionWant another example of that “Whac-a-Mole” strategy in action? South Carolina state senators recently introduced legislation that would make it illegal to host a website or “[provide] an internet service” with information that is “reasonably likely to be used for an abortion”. This is incredibly far-reaching language that means even news stories related to reproductive rights could be censored. This bill is unconstitutional and it’s not clear that it will be law anytime soon. But, again, that doesn’t make it any less worrying. As one expert told the Washington Post: “These are not going to be one-offs. These are going to be laws that spread like wildfire through states that have shown hostility to abortion.”A 99-year-old’s dying wish was for a giant penis statue over her graveI would describe this as a snippet of much-needed light news, but there is nothing light about the penis and testicles that now sit on top of Catarina Orduña Pérez’s grave: they weigh nearly 600 pounds. The statue is also five-a-half-foot tall. “She told me that [the statue] was her desire so that no one would forget her and that everything we loved about her would be remembered more easily,” Pérez’s grandson told Vice. A legend.Shireen Abu Akleh’s family demand US actionIt has been over two months now since the Palestinian American journalist was killed while covering a military raid in the occupied West Bank. A UN rights body investigation found that the shot that killed Abu Akleh came from Israeli security forces, echoing eyewitness accounts of the shooting and analysis by other rights groups. Still, the US seems to have no desire to ensure there is accountability for her death; the journalist’s family travelled to Washington to beg the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to do something this week and he fobbed them off. If Abu Akleh had been murdered in Ukraine by Russian forces, I think the US response would be rather different. When journalists are killed by US allies (Jamal Khashoggi comes to mind), the US seems to rather relax its concerns about things like human rights and accountability.‘I will never regret the time I spent with my children, but society is punishing me for it in my 60s’“Precarity can happen so easily to anyone,” writes Louise Ihlein in a powerful piece in the Guardian. “[B]ut it happens a lot to women who have spent their lives caring for others.”Being a woman in Afghanistan has become ‘death in slow motion’A chilling new report released by Amnesty International documents how the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan have been “decimated by the Taliban” in less than a year. Child marriage has surged and safeguards protecting women have collapsed.Lebanese politician says used condoms were left in her office by male colleaguesAmnesty International has condemned the sexist harassment of a newly elected female MP in Lebanon, Cynthia Zarazir. The legislator spoke out on Twitter about being catcalled and bullied, saying her colleagues gave her a filthy office full of pornographic magazines and condoms. “If this is how they treat an elected fellow MP, how will they deal with those who are voiceless?” she tweeted.The week in pawtriarchyA group of roaming macaque monkeys have been terrorizing a southern Japanese city in recent weeks, attacking more than 50 individuals. Most of the victims have been children and women (who knew macaques could be so misogynistic?!) but it seems attacks on men are on the rise. “I have never seen anything like this my entire life,” one city official said. Like many other things unfolding right now, the wild monkey attacks are unprecedented. What I would give to live in precedented times.Arwa Mahdawi’s new book, Strong Female Lead, is available for orderTopicsAbortionThe Week in PatriarchyUS politicsRoe v WadecommentReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘What about my life?’ West Virginia girl, 12, speaks out against anti-abortion bill

      by

      ‘What about my life?’ West Virginia girl, 12, speaks out against anti-abortion bill Plea by Addison Gardner during public hearing against bill that would prohibit procedure in nearly all cases goes viral00:56An impassioned plea from a 12-year-old girl has gone viral after she spoke to West Virginia Republican lawmakers during a public hearing for an abortion bill that would prohibit the procedure in nearly all cases.On Wednesday, Addison Gardner of Buffalo middle school in Kenova, West Virginia, was among several people who spoke out against a bill that would not only ban abortions in most cases but also allow for physicians who perform abortions to be prosecuted.Addressing the West Virginia house of delegates, Gardner, among about 90 other speakers, was given 45 seconds to plead her case.“My education is very important to me and I plan on doing great things in life. If a man decides that I’m an object and does unspeakable and tragic things to me, am I, a child, supposed to carry and birth another child?” Gardner said.She went on to add, “Am I to put my body through the physical trauma of pregnancy? Am I to suffer the mental implications, a child, who had no say in what was being done with my body? Some here say they are pro-life. What about my life? Does my life not matter to you?”As Gardner – a volleyball and track athlete at her middle school, spoke, she was looked on by Rita Ray, an 80-year-old woman who had an abortion in 1959, 14 years before terminations were deemed a constitutional right.In a photo captured by Kyle Vass, a journalist from the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, Ray can be seen smiling in the background as Gardner issued her impassioned plea.One user who tweeted the photo wrote, “Rita Ray, 80, who risked her life pre-Roe by getting an abortion from someone who wasn’t a healthcare provider, watches on as Addison Gardner, 12, contemplates her own future without access to legal abortion in WV.”Despite speeches from Gardner and other abortion rights activists, the house passed the bill by an overwhelming vote of 69 to 23. Shortly after Gardner delivered her address, house members adopted an amendment that would allow abortions in cases of rape or incest.However, the amendment, which passed narrowly with 46 to 43 votes, only allows for the procedure to be performed up to 14 weeks of pregnancy and only if the rape or incest is reported to the police.Unlike some other states which have “trigger bans” that would ban abortions within 30 days of Roe being overturned, West Virginia has a 150-year-old pre-Roe abortion ban that would come back into effect in the absence of Roe.Last week, Kanawha county circuit judge Tera Salango blocked the enforcement of the abortion ban and granted the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, the state’s only abortion clinic, the ability to continue performing the procedure.Salango said its patients, “especially those who are impregnated as a result of a rape or incest, are suffering irreparable harm”, the Associated Press reports.West Virginia’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, described the ruling as “a dark day for West Virginia”.The abortion bill moved to the West Virginia senate on Thursday and may be passed by the end of the week.TopicsWest VirginiaAbortionUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Indiana investigates abortion doctor who treated 10-year-old rape victim

      by

      Indiana investigates abortion doctor who treated 10-year-old rape victim State attorney general notifies Dr Caitlin Bernard and claims ‘she used a 10-year-old girl to push her political ideology’ The Indiana state attorney general has launched an investigation into the doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim.According to Kathleen DeLaney, a lawyer acting for the doctor, Caitlin Bernard, a notice from the Indiana attorney general, Todd Rokita, regarding his investigation arrived on Tuesday.Daughter of doctor who gave 10-year-old an abortion faced kidnapping threatRead more“We are in the process of reviewing this information. It’s unclear to us what is the nature of the investigation and what authority he has to investigate Dr Bernard,” DeLaney told CNN. The Guardian has contacted DeLaney for additional comments.On 2 July, Bernard reported a 30 June medication abortion for her 10-year-old patient, who had been obliged to travel to the state from Ohio, after that state followed the US supreme court’s overturning a few days earlier of the federal right to an abortion and banned the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy.According to reports reviewed by the Indianapolis Star and WXIN-TV of Indianapolis, Bernard’s reporting of her treatment to the health authorities came within the three-day requirement set by state law for individuals aged below 16 who undergo an abortion. The reports added that the patient who sought the abortion had become pregnant as the result of sexual abuse.A 27-year-old man has since been charged in Columbus, Ohio, in connection with abuse of the girl.Since the abortion, Bernard became the center of a political firestorm from rightwing media outlets and Republican politicians after Joe Biden expressed sympathy for the girl when he signed an executive order earlier this month aimed at safeguarding abortion access after the supreme court’s action in upending the historic 1973 abortion case Roe v Wade.According to DeLaney, Bernard is considering taking legal action against “those who have smeared my client”, including Rokita, who previously said that he would investigate whether she violated abortion reporting or child abuse notification laws.In a statement to the Guardian on Wednesday, Rokita said: “The baseless defamation claim and other accusations are really just attempts to distract, intimidate and obstruct my office’s monumental progress to save lives. It will take a lot more than that to intimidate us.“The doctor alone brought this case to the press. She used a 10-year-old girl – a child rape victim’s personal trauma – to push her political ideology. She was aided and abetted by a fake news media who conveniently misquoted my words to try to give abortionists and their readership numbers an extra boost.”Rokita added: “My heart breaks for this little girl.”According to Indiana University Health, where Bernard practices as an obstetrician-gynecologist, “IU Health conducted an investigation with the full cooperation of Dr Bernard and other IU Health team members. IU Health’s investigation found Dr Bernard in compliance with privacy laws.”Pregnancy termination forms that Bernard filed with the Indiana department of health, which Indy Star obtained and reviewed, showed that Bernard indicated the girl was six weeks pregnant at the time of her abortion and that Bernard did not know the age of the person who impregnated her.Bernard’s attorney said that she “took every appropriate and proper action in accordance with the law and both her medical and ethical training as a physician”.Meanwhile, a Wyoming judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked that state’s abortion ban on the day it took effect, siding with a firebombed women’s health clinic and others who argued the ban would violate the state constitution and harm healthcare workers and their patients.And lawmakers in West Virginia debated an abortion ban, drawing an at times raucous crowd of hundreds to the state capitol, where dozens spoke against the bill on the house floor.Wyoming’s court action puts it among several states including Kentucky, Louisiana and Utah where judges have temporarily blocked implementation of “trigger laws” while lawsuits play out.Such trigger laws are designed to automatically implement pre-prepared abortion ban laws after Roe was felled and the power over the right to abortion was returned from the federal government to the states.Later on Wednesday, a North Dakota judge blocked a trigger law there that was set to outlaw abortion in the state starting on Thursday.The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsIndianaUS politicsAbortionRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Can Democrats Avoid a Midterm Wipeout?

      by

      This article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Wednesdays.It is one of the most enduring trends in American politics that the president’s party tends to fare poorly during midterm elections. And in 2022, that trend was supposed to reassert itself with a vengeance: As inflation climbs at its fastest pace in four decades, Joe Biden’s approval rating has plunged to the lowest of any elected president at this point in his presidency since the end of World War II, according to FiveThirtyEight.But despite those grim conditions, the midterms could be surprisingly competitive: In a July poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, 41 percent of registered voters said they preferred Democrats to control Congress, compared with 40 percent who preferred Republicans.Here’s what people are saying about the state of the races, whether Democrats stand a chance of keeping one or both of their majorities in Congress, and what could change the forecast between now and November.Why the races look closer than expectedIf the Times/Siena polling made one thing clear, it’s that voters are not pleased with the way the country is being run. Even as the unemployment rate hovers around a 50-year low, Americans are deeply anxious about the economy: Just 10 percent of registered voters rated it as “good” or “excellent.” More broadly, political malaise seems the order of the day: A majority of respondents said the nation was too divided to solve its challenges, and just 13 percent said the country was heading in the right direction.But there are a few factors insulating Democrats from all this negative sentiment.As The Times’s chief political analyst, Nate Cohn, explains, recent news is actually helping Democrats in some ways: This summer, the Supreme Court has handed the right significant victories on abortion, climate policy, religious rights and gun laws, galvanizing voters who lean Democratic on those issues and shifting the national political discourse away from the Republican Party’s preferred turf of immigration, crime and school curriculums. Recent mass shootings have also played a role in this shift.In the past several years, the Republican Party has made inroads with less affluent, less educated voters while shedding support among higher-income, higher-educated voters. As a result, the electoral playing field has become less tilted toward Republicans, according to Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard who focuses on redistricting and demographic trends. While “the conventional wisdom has it that Democrats are disadvantaged in redistricting because of their inefficient over-concentration in cities,” he told Thomas B. Edsall, a contributing writer for Times Opinion, “the Trump era seems to have changed the country’s political geography in ways that are beneficial to Democrats.”Republicans are also reconfiguring their relationship with Donald Trump, whose grip on the party isn’t as strong as it once was, particularly as the fallout from the House Jan. 6 investigation compounds. According to the Times/Siena College poll, nearly half of Republican primary voters would prefer someone other than Trump for president in 2024. As Jake Lahut reports for Insider, that fault line has created potential pitfalls for Trump-backed Senate candidates, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia, who have won their primaries but have struggled to break away in general election matchups against their Democratic opponents.The odds: According to Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, Republicans have roughly the same chance of reclaiming a Senate majority as Democrats do of retaining theirs. In the House, though, Republicans are still heavily favored. Why? House candidates are both more numerous and more anonymous than Senate candidates, Silver explains, so voters’ feelings about the national political environment tend to be determinative.As The Times’s David Leonhardt wrote this month, “If Democrats keep the Senate without the House, they still would not be able to pass legislation without Republican support.” But, he added: “Senate control nonetheless matters. It would allow President Biden to appoint judges, Cabinet secretaries and other top officials without any Republican support, because only the Senate needs to confirm nominees.”The abortion factorBecause the Supreme Court returned the power to regulate abortions to the states last month, abortion will be a live issue this midterm season in a way it hasn’t been for many decades. Five states will have ballot measures asking voters whether to amend their constitutions to either enshrine or proscribe the right to abortion. And in other states, the issue has raised the stakes in competitive races for the legislature and the governor’s mansion.There are two ways abortion’s centrality could help Democrats in November, Ed Kilgore argues in New York magazine. “The first and most obvious is that it could keep in the Democratic ranks a significant number of suburban swing voters who voted for the Donkey Party in 2018 and 2020 but who might swing back to the G.O.P. without Trump totally dominating the landscape and with economic issues in the forefront,” he writes. “The second possible effect is to boost the turnout rates of certain pro-Democratic groups of voters who often skip non-presidential elections.”Mainstream Democrats have historically treated abortion as a divisive issue best left on the periphery of their campaign strategy. (Biden himself did not utter the word “abortion” until more than a year into his presidency.) But this election season, some Democrats are actively campaigning on the issue, wagering that the Supreme Court’s abrogation of the constitutional right to abortion could prompt a backlash from voters. In Georgia, for example, Stacey Abrams, the state’s Democratic nominee for governor, has started making direct appeals to swing voters and portraying her opponent, the incumbent governor, Brian Kemp, as the mind behind one of the nation’s most extreme abortion laws, which bans abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy.Similarly, Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat who is up for re-election in “notoriously swingy” New Hampshire, has leaned into the issue. “I will fight and never back down,” she said in a June television ad raising the possibility of a national abortion ban. “Protecting our personal freedoms isn’t just what’s right for New Hampshire. It’s what makes us New Hampshire.”Whether this strategy will end up redounding to the Democrats’ benefit remains an open question. Since the court overruled Roe v. Wade, most polls have shown approximately a three-point shift in the Democrats’ direction on the generic ballot, which asks whether voters would prefer Democrats or Republicans to control Congress, compared with surveys by the same pollsters before the decision came down.But some are skeptical that the shift will endure through November or prove significant enough to turn the electoral tide. “Does it have an effect? Absolutely,” Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist, told The Times. “Does it fundamentally change the landscape? No. Not in an off-year election, when your president’s approval rating is below 40 percent and gas is $5 a gallon.”What to watchInflation: According to the Times/Siena College poll, 78 percent of voters say inflation will be “extremely important” when they head to the polls. “It’s a very negative thing politically for the Democrats,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University and a former economic adviser for the Obama administration. “My guess is that the negative views about inflation are so deeply baked in that nothing can change in the next few months to change them.”Unless, of course, they get worse: Republicans are seizing on fears of rising prices in campaign ads, which economists warn could push prices even higher by entrenching inflationary expectations.A surprise announcement from Trump: “Should former President Trump decide, against the advice of nearly every Republican strategist alive, to announce his candidacy before the midterm elections in November, he might energize Democratic voters enough to minimize their losses at the margins,” Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report writes. “I am not sure it would save one or both majorities, but it certainly has the potential to have a greater impact than abortion, guns, and Jan. 6 combined.”Another polling failure: As this newsletter has explored, the polling profession has been in something of a state of crisis since the 2016 election. Pollsters are having a harder and harder time reaching working-class voters, who have been trending Republican, and so polls have routinely overestimated Democratic support. As Cohn writes, “It’s hard not to wonder whether the good news for Democrats might simply be a harbinger of yet another high-profile misfire.”Do you have a point of view we missed? Email us at debatable@nytimes.com. Please note your name, age and location in your response, which may be included in the next newsletter.READ MORE“This election could answer the biggest midterm question: Abortion or the economy?” [Politico]“Where the Midterms Could Most Affect Abortion Access” [FiveThirtyEight]“Could the Midterms Be Tighter Than Expected?” [The New York Times]“Democrats’ Risky Bet: Aid G.O.P. Extremists in Spring, Hoping to Beat Them in Fall” [The New York Times]“Sorry, Democrats. Don’t get your hopes up for the midterms.” [The Washington Post] More

    • 213 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      If you have a miscarriage in Republican America, your health is now at risk | Moira Donegan

      by

      If you have a miscarriage in Republican America, your health is now at riskMoira DoneganThe supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe has created a vast new public health crisis, as abortion bans complicate once-standard care for pregnant women The worst-case scenarios arrived with alarming speed. In the weeks since the US supreme court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, the case that overturned Roe v Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, American women have faced a radical reordering of their lives. A right essential to their dignity and self-determination has been stripped away after nearly 50 years – and with it, the gains women have made in professional, political and social life are newly and gravely endangered. But in addition to this moral and civic crisis, the supreme court’s decision has also created a vast and acute new public health crisis, as abortion bans complicate once-standard care for pregnant women – and place the health of even those who are not pregnant into new and arbitrary danger.From natural birth to caesarean: women must be given unbiased information | Kara ThompsonRead moreTopicsUS politicsOpinionAbortionWomen’s healthHealthHealth policyRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Stacey Abrams Aims to Put Abortion at Center of Georgia Governor Race

      by

      ATLANTA — Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, is racing to turn abortion rights supporters’ frustrations and fears into electoral gains for her party after a court ruling reinstated the state’s six-week ban on the procedure.Immediately after the ruling from a federal appeals court, which put into effect a 2019 law prohibiting most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, Ms. Abrams’s campaign released an advertisement on Thursday morning calling the law — and Gov. Brian Kemp’s support for it — “extreme” and hinting that the governor could move to ban exceptions for rape or incest.And in an impassioned news conference late Wednesday afternoon, Ms. Abrams, flanked by more than two dozen state Democratic leaders, underlined the stakes for women in Georgia, with a specific message for those still unsure whether they would cast their vote for her in November.“Georgia is part of a nation that faces economic vicissitudes — things go up, things go down,” she said. “But this law is permanent.”She added that she would ask the state’s scores of moderate Republican and independent voters, who may be disillusioned with Democratic leadership in Washington, to “balance whether your immediate concerns about money outweigh your concerns about your constitutional protected rights.”Read More on Abortion Issues in AmericaMedication Abortion on Campus: Some students want colleges to provide the abortion pill. But even in states that protect abortion rights, schools are proceeding with caution.In Ohio: The case of a 10-year-old rape victim who was forced to travel out of state to terminate her pregnancy has become the focus of a heated debate over what new abortion bans mean for the lives of the youngest patients and their bodies.Medical Exceptions: Of the 13 states with trigger abortion bans, all make exceptions for abortions to save the life of the mother. But what defines a medical emergency?Hurdles to Miscarriage Care: Since the reversal of Roe, some patients have had trouble obtaining miscarriage treatments, which are identical to those for abortions.Ms. Abrams’s comments represented something of a bet: that for Democrats, it is better to focus on subjects on which the party’s positions poll better, like abortion, than on economic issues, on which voters tend to favor Republicans. Polls have consistently shown that inflation and other economic issues are voters’ top concerns ahead of the November midterm elections.Ms. Abrams’s remarks also signaled a shift in her campaign message. While she has previously called for expanded abortion access in Georgia and criticized state Republicans, she is now making direct appeals to on-the-fence voters on the issue and portraying her opponent, Mr. Kemp, as the architect of one of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws.Ms. Abrams has sought to make abortion access one of the clearest dividing issues between her and Mr. Kemp. Days after a draft ruling revealing the Supreme Court’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade leaked, her campaign redirected its fund-raising efforts to organizations that provide abortion care.Several candidates on the state Democratic ticket have also pledged to use all levers of their power to oppose the law if elected, including the Democratic nominee for attorney general, Jen Jordan, who vowed not to prosecute abortion-related cases while in office.Mr. Kemp, who has generally led Ms. Abrams in limited polling of the race, has not widely discussed abortion. In the weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, his campaign focused instead on Ms. Abrams’s support for efforts to overhaul policing, aiming to tie her to the movement to defund the police, which she does not support.When asked for comment on Ms. Abrams’s remarks on Wednesday, Mr. Kemp’s campaign pointed to an official statement from his office, in which he said the federal court ruling “affirms our promise to protect life at all stages.”Ms. Abrams’s campaign views the next few weeks as pivotal in its effort to tell more voters about Georgia’s newly reinstated abortion law and its implications.In a memo released Thursday, Lauren Groh-Wargo, Ms. Abrams’s campaign manager, shared internal polling showing that over half of voters in Georgia opposed additional abortion restrictions, along with more than 60 percent of independent voters.“While Abrams will protect women and abortion rights as the next governor, Kemp will continue his crusade against women — including victims of rape and incest and those whose health is at risk,” Ms. Groh-Wargo wrote. More