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      Demonstrators across the US protest expected reversal of Roe v Wade

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      Demonstrators across the US protest expected reversal of Roe v WadeBans Off Our Bodies marches follow the Senate’s failure to pass legislation protecting the right to an abortion With the US supreme court apparently poised to overturn the 1973 landmark decision which made abortion legal, hundreds of thousands of people across America are planning to take to the streets to protest the looming decision.A coalition of groups such as Planned Parenthood, UltraViolet, MoveOn and the Women’s March are organizing Saturday’s demonstrations, whose rallying cry is “Bans Off Our Bodies”. More than 370 protests are planned, including in Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.The demonstrations come after the leak on 2 May of a draft opinion showing five conservatives on the nine-justice supreme court had voted to reverse their predecessors’ ruling in Roe v Wade nearly 50 years ago.How soon could US states outlaw abortions if Roe v Wade is overturned?Read moreUnless the provisional ruling is changed substantially before becoming final, abortion would be outlawed essentially immediately in more than half of US states. People in those 26 states hostile to abortion would be forced to either travel hundreds of miles to a clinic in a state where terminating a pregnancy is legal or seek to self-administer an abortion through medication from grassroots or illicit groups.While conservatives have celebrated the leak ruling, liberals have objected vociferously, gathering outside the supreme court building in Washington DC as well as the homes of some of the conservative justices to signal their displeasure.The activists championing DIY abortions for a post-Roe v Wade worldRead moreThose rallies – generally peaceful – have been relatively small, while Saturday’s planned events will almost certainly be compared to the 2017 Women’s March the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, which drew an estimated 3 million to 4 million participants across the US.The “Bans Off Our Bodies” gatherings will take place three days after Democrats in the US Senate on Wednesday made a largely symbolic effort to advance legislation that would codify the right to an abortion into federal law. All 50 Republicans and one conservative-aligned Democrat – West Virginia’s Joe Manchin – voted against the measure, leaving it well short of the 60 votes necessary for it to advance.TopicsProtestRoe v WadeUS politicsAbortionnewsReuse this content More

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      How Overturning Roe Could Backfire for Republicans

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      The party was making headway with suburban women on crime, schools and inflation. Now the abortion debate is front and center.ATLANTA — For months, Republicans have been poised to make inroads in the diverse and economically comfortable suburbs of cities like Atlanta. The moderate communities here swung toward Democrats in recent years, led by women appalled by Donald J. Trump. But lately, rampant inflation and rising crime have taken a political toll on President Biden and his party.Sandra Sloan, 82, is the kind of voter Republicans are counting on to help them reclaim this contested section of a newly purple state. Yet Ms. Sloan, a retired high school teacher who lives in Atlanta’s upscale Buckhead neighborhood, is uneasy about the party for one main reason.“I am a Republican, but I still believe that it’s a woman’s right to choose,” Ms. Sloan said.Ms. Sloan said she had followed the news recently about a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion striking down Roe v. Wade, as well as the passage of anti-abortion legislation in states like Texas and Oklahoma. She said she was not sure how she would ultimately vote in the fall, but abortion rights would be a factor.“We still don’t know, after the draft, when it’s finished what it will say,” Ms. Sloan said. “But leaving it to just men — I’m sorry, no.”It is voters like Ms. Sloan, in communities like Buckhead, who may represent the greatest challenge for Republicans in a renewed national debate over the rights of women to legally terminate a pregnancy.“I am a Republican, but I still believe that it’s a woman’s right to choose,” Sandra Sloan, a resident of Atlanta, said.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesShould the Supreme Court strike down Roe in the sweeping manner of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s draft opinion, it would unleash a ferocious state-by-state battle over abortion regulations — and introduce a powerful new issue into the calculus of voters who might otherwise be inclined to treat the midterm election as an up-or-down vote on Mr. Biden’s performance in the presidency. Moderate women who have tilted back toward the Republicans might now have second thoughts; young people who feel let down by Mr. Biden could well find motivation to vote Democratic out of a feeling of fear and indignation about the Supreme Court.The urgency of the abortion issue could be particularly intense in Georgia, where state lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, knowing at the time that existing Supreme Court precedent would forbid the law from going into effect. If that precedent is overturned, then Georgia voters could find themselves living under one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country.National Democrats have indicated they intend to campaign on the issue ahead of the midterms in November. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats voted to provide a broad guarantee of abortion rights nationwide, though they knew the bill lacked enough support to overcome Republican opposition.Many Republicans, however, are hesitant to discuss abortion outright. On the campaign trail, Republican candidates have been encouraged by party leaders to focus on the economy, crime and the border, according to a memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee obtained by Axios.From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Gail Collins: The push to restrict women’s reproductive rights is about punishing women who want to have sex for pleasure.Jamelle Bouie: The logic of the draft ruling is an argument that could sweep more than just abortion rights out of the circle of constitutional protection.Matthew Walther, Editor of a Catholic Literary Journal: Those who oppose abortion should not discount the possibility that its proscription will have some regrettable consequences. Even so, it will be worth it.Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan: If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan. I have a moral obligation to stand up for the rights of the women of the state I represent.State Senator Jen Jordan, a Democrat running for attorney general of Georgia, said she expected the abortion rights issue to eclipse other concerns as a top consideration for voters.Previously, Ms. Jordan said she had been campaigning on issues related to the cost of living, vowing to crack down on price gouging. The leaked Supreme Court opinion “completely changed the conversation,” she said.“I think fundamental rights is a little bit above the day-to-day economic issues that have been batted around,” Ms. Jordan said.In closely divided states and congressional districts around the country, many moderate voters suddenly find themselves choosing between a Democratic Party that has disappointed them since taking power in 2021, and a Republican Party newly emboldened to enact a right-wing social agenda that makes many voters deeply uneasy.That could create a major challenge for Republicans in their efforts to win back the centrist and center-right communities that shunned them during the Trump years and turned America’s suburbs — from areas near Atlanta and Philadelphia to Minneapolis and Salt Lake City — into at least a temporary political desert for the party. That exodus was particularly pronounced among centrist and even Republican-leaning white women, a constituency that tends to favor abortion rights with modest limitations.Should the Supreme Court strike down Roe v. Wade, it would unleash a ferocious state-by-state battle over abortion regulations.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesChristine Matthews, a pollster who has studied the abortion issue and worked in the past for Republicans, said she expected abortion rights to become a top concern of the 2022 elections. But she said it was too soon to gauge how voters would prioritize abortion rights as an issue relative to other close-to-home considerations, like the cost and availability of consumer goods.“We’ve never been in a situation like this,” Ms. Matthews said, adding, “We are in a situation where abortion rights are now being threatened in a way they haven’t been in nearly 50 years.”Voters, she added, were likely to see six-week abortion bans like Georgia’s as “well outside the mainstream.”National Republicans have attempted to mute the political impact of Roe by urging their candidates to focus on unpopular elements of the Democratic Party’s position on abortion, shifting the focus from the hard-line views of the right and making Democrats defend their opposition to most limits on abortion. In Washington, Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, acknowledged it was possible that Republicans might seek to ban abortion at the federal level but stopped well short of pledging to do so.Some Republicans have been far less guarded about their intentions on abortion regulation. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a conservative Republican who signed the six-week ban, is facing a primary challenge from a former senator, David Perdue, who is demanding that Mr. Kemp call a special session of the state legislature to outlaw abortion altogether.Other swing states have passed strict abortion laws, including a 15-week ban in Arizona, and Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin have introduced a measure to ban the procedure after six weeks. The most extreme restrictions have been proposed in deeply conservative states like Louisiana, where legislators debated a bill that would have classified abortion as a form of homicide, and would have made it possible to bring criminal charges against women who end their pregnancies. Lawmakers scrapped the bill on Thursday before it reached a vote.Many moderate voters find themselves choosing between a Democratic Party that has disappointed them, and a Republican Party newly emboldened to enact a right-wing social agenda that makes many voters uneasy.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesIn Wisconsin, where the offices of an anti-abortion group were set on fire on Sunday, Republicans are defending a Senate seat and seeking to defeat Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. A crackdown on abortion could alienate some of the moderate voters who would otherwise be reliable Republican votes. The state already has a dormant law, enacted in 1849, that bans abortion in nearly all cases. The current Republican front-runner for governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, has said she totally opposes abortion.Plenty of voters feel more conflicted. Nancy Turtenwald, 64, of West Allis, Wis., an inner-ring suburb of Milwaukee, said she had voted Republican her entire life but also supported abortion rights. Ms. Turtenwald said she would prefer that abortion not be the main issue in the country’s political discourse, citing access to health care, the cost of gas and housing, and the availability of baby formula as more important issues.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More

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      Kathy Barnette’s Star Rises in Pennsylvania Senate Race

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      Trump says she can’t win in November, but Kathy Barnette presses toward Tuesday’s voting. “They’re coming out with long knives at this point,” she said.SOUTHAMPTON, Pa. — Kathy Barnette’s opposition to abortion could not be more personal.Her mother was raped and gave birth to her at age 12. “It wasn’t a choice. It was a life. My life,” an emotional campaign video starts.Ms. Barnette — a hard-right conservative locked in a seven-way Republican primary for an open Pennsylvania Senate seat — is suddenly surging in the polls, statistically tied for first place with two ultrarich men. And one of them has the lone thing more valuable than money or name recognition in a G.O.P. primary: a Trump endorsement.As the election approaches on Tuesday, Ms. Barnette, 50, a Black mother of two who has never held office and whose life story has moved many white anti-abortion conservatives, poses a late threat to the two presumptive favorites, David McCormick, a retired hedge fund manager, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, a television celebrity endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump.Ms. Barnette, who has publicly espoused homophobic and anti-Muslim views, has been propelled mainly by her strong debate performances and her rags-to-riches story. Not even the news on Thursday that Mr. Trump had questioned elements of her past and declared that only Dr. Oz could defeat Democrats in November seemed to bother her.Hours after Mr. Trump’s statement, Ms. Barnette spoke at a Republican Party dinner.“They’re coming out with long knives at this point,” she told the audience in Southampton, about a half-hour drive north of Philadelphia. “Right? And I had the best day of my life today.”Later, talking to reporters who were mainly barred from the event, she said she interpreted Mr. Trump’s comments as “favorable.” The former president had said that she would “never be able to win” the general election in November, but that she had a “wonderful future” in the Republican Party.“We know that President Trump does not mince words,” she said. “I think that letter was favorable. And I look forward to working with the president.”In campaign videos and in front of voters, she explains that she spent at least part of her childhood living on a pig farm in southern Alabama, in the “one stop sign” town of Nichburg, in a house without insulation, running water or an indoor toilet.“But this country allowed me to be able to create a different narrative for myself,” she told Republicans at a campaign forum on Wednesday held by a group that is dissatisfied with Pennsylvania’s mainstream G.O.P. and hopes to elect a slate of more conservative candidates to the state committee.“But that country is about to come to a close,” she warned in a singsong stump speech that blended the confidence of the pulpit and the intimacy of the confessional. “So we need good people now to stand up and begin to fight for the greatest nation that has ever existed.”From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Gail Collins: The push to restrict women’s reproductive rights is about punishing women who want to have sex for pleasure.Jamelle Bouie: The logic of the draft ruling is an argument that could sweep more than just abortion rights out of the circle of constitutional protection.Matthew Walther, Editor of a Catholic Literary Journal: Those who oppose abortion should not discount the possibility that its proscription will have some regrettable consequences. Even so, it will be worth it.Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan: If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan. I have a moral obligation to stand up for the rights of the women of the state I represent.Her vision of what that might look like is unambiguous.She opposes gun control and abortion rights and proposes limiting the federal government’s involvement in the health care industry. She has ridiculed the Muslim faith in online posts and promotes Mr. Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen. In a 2010 essay, published online by the Canada Free Press, she argued that the gay rights movement — which she called “immoral and perverse” — sought “domination” and should be thwarted, citing the Bible as justification.“Make no mistake about it, homosexuality is a targeted group in the Bible, right along with cheats, drunkards, liars, foul-mouths, extortionists, robbers, and any other habitual sin,” she wrote.In an interview, she said she had no plan to move toward the center if she wins next week.Voters listen to Ms. Barnette at the Newtown forum.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesAnd to the line of people who hovered nearby at campaign events on Wednesday and Thursday hoping to snap a selfie with Ms. Barnette, her outspokenness and her life story were primary selling points.“She’s authentic,” said Dr. Anthony Mannarino, an eye surgeon who said his parents moved to the United States from Italy when he was 2, and neither of them had any formal education beyond the fifth grade.“It doesn’t look like she drove up from out of town to take a Senate seat,” Dr. Mannarino added, taking a swipe at Dr. Oz and Mr. McCormick, both of whom moved back to Pennsylvania relatively recently from out of state. Ms. Barnette refers to them as carpetbaggers.“I want a regular person,” Dr. Mannarino said. “I want somebody who knows how much a hamburger costs and fills their own gas tank.”Ms. Barnette, the author of “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America,” left Alabama after graduating from college, and has been living in Pennsylvania for eight years, according to her campaign manager.She and her husband, Carl, own a four-bedroom home in Huntingdon Valley, a Philadelphia suburb, according to property records. For six years, she said, she home-schooled her son and daughter while appearing as a conservative commentator on “Fox & Friends.”“She’s a new face in government,” said Conrad J. Kraus, a real estate broker and builder who lives around the corner from Ms. Barnette and handed out fliers advertising a neighborhood open house for the candidate on Sunday. A Trump flag hangs on his tree. A doormat reading “Don’t Blame This Family. We Voted for Trump,” welcomes visitors.“A fresh face,” he said on Thursday, predicting a win. “I like that.”The Barnettes have also owned property in Texas, property records show, and her book biography on Amazon indicates that she has lived in Virginia.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More

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      For Democratic Female Governors, the Roe Leak Alters the Midterm Calculus

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      Every female governor’s seat is up for election this year. All nine of them.The three Republicans are likely to sail to re-election. It’s a different story on the Democratic side, where most of the women rode in on the 2018 wave, flipping Republican seats.That year, Laura Kelly of Kansas campaigned on education, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan pledged to “fix the damn roads.” Janet Mills of Maine, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Kate Brown of Oregon benefited, in an especially favorable climate, from running in states that lean toward Democrats.In 2022, however, everything has changed for Democrats — and one big issue has become a five-alarm fire for the party.As the Supreme Court stands poised to overturn Roe v. Wade and throw regulations on abortion to the states, governors are set to be on the front lines of the political clashes that would follow.The end of Roe would also put Democratic female governors in a position both powerful and precarious: unique messengers on an urgent issue for the party, who hold more real ability to effect change than their counterparts in a gridlocked Congress — and who must balance a range of other priorities for voters in a challenging election year.Democrats and their allies believe that focusing on abortion will resonate from red states like Kansas to blue states like Oregon, even if candidates tailor their messaging to their states.“We’re moving into a completely new world,” Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood and the daughter of former Gov. Ann Richards of Texas, told me recently.While polling has tended to show abortion relatively low on the list of voters’ priorities, supporters of abortion rights argue that this conventional wisdom should be tossed out the window. Those polling questions, they say, were asked when the idea of losing the constitutional right to abortion was only theoretical.“The fundamental issue that gets lost in reporting isn’t how voters feel about abortion personally,” Richards said. “The question is, who do they want in charge of making decisions about pregnancy?”More effective messengersOn both sides of the aisle, strategists often prefer women to carry out messaging on abortion.Kelly Dittmar, a professor at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said that when she interviewed women in Congress, she found that both Republicans and Democrats saw themselves as the best messengers, leveraging their identities as women and mothers.Republicans in particular sometimes find that it is more effective to have women affirm that they oppose abortion.Women have delivered both parties big victories in recent years: Female Democratic candidates helped take back the House for their party in 2018, and Republican women recovered many of those losses in 2020.“In some ways, it’s because women are really good candidates that they’re in the most competitive races, particularly the incumbents,” Dittmar said of the 2022 governor contests. “They’re there because they won races that people didn’t think they could win, like Kansas and even Michigan.”From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Gail Collins: The push to restrict women’s reproductive rights is about punishing women who want to have sex for pleasure.Jamelle Bouie: The logic of the draft ruling is an argument that could sweep more than just abortion rights out of the circle of constitutional protection.Matthew Walther, Editor of a Catholic Literary Journal: Those who oppose abortion should not discount the possibility that its proscription will have some regrettable consequences. Even so, it will be worth it.Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan: If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan. I have a moral obligation to stand up for the rights of the women of the state I represent.Male Republican candidates, especially those in battleground states, face greater risks when talking about abortion.Holly Richardson, a Republican former state representative in Utah who described herself as “pro-life” and supports access to contraception and sex education, said she had been “a little horrified” by what Republicans in other states have said about abortion.“We need to decrease the perceptive need for abortion, and we do that by supporting women,” she said.The nation’s Republican female governors — Kay Ivey of Alabama, Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Kim Reynolds of Iowa — oversee solidly red states, and have long campaigned against abortion. That might not shift much, even if Roe is overturned.“Where the messaging might change more is on the Democratic side,” Dittmar said. “Because they’re saying, ‘Now we have to hold the line.’”From Michigan to OklahomaAmong Democratic female governors, there’s virtually no debate about whether women should have access to an abortion.In a guest essay for The New York Times, Governor Whitmer highlighted a lawsuit she filed last month asking the Michigan Supreme Court to examine whether the state’s Constitution included the right to abortion access. She wrote that the suit could “offer a course of action” for other politicians to follow.Other Democrats, perhaps recognizing that the party has few legislative or judicial options nationally, have stuck to broader pledges to try to protect abortion rights.Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, recently promised attendees at an Emily’s List gala that “we will fight every day from now to Election Day and beyond, because this is a fight for who we are.”In red states, Democratic candidates for governor are walking a finer line.In Kansas, Laura Kelly has reiterated her support for abortion rights, but she has so far focused more on education and taxes, issues that helped her win in 2018.Joy Hofmeister, a Democrat running for governor of Oklahoma who left the Republican Party last year, described herself as “pro-life,” but said she believed women should make choices about their reproductive health with their doctor.She avoided taking a position on Roe v. Wade specifically, saying that the Supreme Court would not “be calling to ask my opinion.”Hofmeister, who serves as the superintendent of public instruction in Oklahoma, criticized Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, for signing into law some of the most restrictive legislation on abortion in the country, a measure prohibiting the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy and requiring enforcement from civilians rather than government officials.“Governor Stitt is leading us down a path where miscarriage bounty hunters could swipe a woman’s private health information for a $10,000 reward, or abortion is criminalized with up to 10 years in prison for physicians,” Hofmeister said. “This is extremism.”Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas is running for re-election in a state that Donald Trump won in 2020 by nearly 15 percentage points.Evert Nelson/The Topeka Capital-Journal, via Associated PressThe midterm mathKathy Hochul of New York is the only Democratic female governor all but guaranteed to remain in office next year. Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon will not run again because of term limits, and the rest are likely to face respectable challengers.The most vulnerable is undoubtedly Kelly of Kansas, who represents the most Republican-leaning state of the group.Based on the 2020 presidential results, Whitmer should be the next most vulnerable female governor, after President Biden won the state by less than three percentage points. But Republicans have struggled to find a candidate to take on Whitmer — and her $10 million war chest.In Maine, Mills faces a tougher fight against a Republican former governor, Paul LePage. And in New Mexico, Lujan Grisham should be safe unless there’s a huge Republican wave.In several other states, women in both parties are challenging male governors. The outcomes of all these races will determine whether, in the year that a landmark ruling on abortion rights is set to be overturned, the ranks of female governors may shrink — or even make it to the double digits.What to readFederal prosecutors are said to have begun a grand jury investigation into whether classified White House documents that ended up at Donald Trump’s Florida home were mishandled.The House committee investigating the Capitol riot issued subpoenas to five Republican members of Congress, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader.In anticipation of Roe v. Wade being overturned, California is gearing up to become the nation’s abortion provider.FrameworkJosh Shapiro is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor in Pennsylvania, and looking ahead to the general election.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesShapiro campaign: Beware of DougJosh Shapiro, the Democratic attorney general of Pennsylvania, is employing a familiar but risky tactic in that state’s governor’s race: He’s paying for a TV ad that appears intended to help one of his opponents in the Republican primary.The opponent, a QAnon-linked retired military officer and state senator, Doug Mastriano, is leading the nine-person field by about 10 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls in the race. Mastriano’s rise has alarmed many Republicans in and outside the state.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More

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      The Looming End to Abortion Rights Gives Liberal Democrats a Spark

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      The progressive wing of the Democratic Party appeared to be flagging until a draft Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked — and shook the political world.The Democratic primary in North Carolina’s first congressional district had been a low-key affair, despite a new Republican-drawn map that will make the longtime stronghold for Black Democrats a key battleground in the fall.Then the Supreme Court’s draft decision that would overturn the constitutional right to an abortion was leaked, thrusting a searing issue to the forefront of the contest. Now, voters in North Carolina’s northeast will choose sides on Tuesday in a proxy war between Erica Smith, a progressive champion of abortion rights with a wrenching personal story, and Donald Davis, a more conservative state senator with the backing of the establishment who has a record of votes against abortion rights.“There’s a political imperative for Democrats to have pro-choice nominees this cycle,” said Ms. Smith, a pastor and former state senator who was once given a choice between ending a pregnancy or risking her own life to deliver a dangerously premature baby. She chose to give birth, only to lose the child tragically five years later, but said she would never take that choice away from a woman in her circumstances.Around the country — from South Texas to Chicago, Pittsburgh to New York — the looming loss of abortion rights has re-energized the Democratic Party’s left flank, which had absorbed a series of legislative and political blows and appeared to be divided and flagging. It has also dramatized the generational and ideological divide in the Democratic Party, between a nearly extinct older wing that opposes abortion rights and younger progressives who support them.President Biden and Democrats in Congress have told voters that the demise of Roe means that they must elect more “pro-choice” candidates, even as the party quietly backs some Democrats who are not.The growing intensity behind the issue has put some conservative-leaning Democrats on the defensive. Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, the only House Democrat to vote against legislation to ensure abortion rights nationwide, insisted in an ad before his May 24 runoff with Jessica Cisneros, a progressive candidate, that he “opposes a ban on abortion.”Candidates on the left say the potential demise of Roe shows that it’s time for Democrats to fight back.“We need advocates. We need people who are going to work to change hearts and minds,” said Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who, at 25 years old, is battling an established state senator 20 years his senior, Randolph Bracy, for the Orlando House seat that Representative Val Demings is leaving to run for the Senate.Kina Collins, who is challenging longtime Representative Danny Davis of Chicago from the left, said, “We came in saying generational change is needed,” adding, “We need fighters.”But the youthful candidates of the left will have a challenge exciting voters who feel as demoralized by the Democrats’ failure to protect abortion rights as they are angry at Republicans who engineered the gutting of Roe v. Wade.From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Gail Collins: The push to restrict women’s reproductive rights is about punishing women who want to have sex for pleasure.Jamelle Bouie: The logic of the draft ruling is an argument that could sweep more than just abortion rights out of the circle of constitutional protection.Matthew Walther, Editor of a Catholic Literary Journal: Those who oppose abortion should not discount the possibility that its proscription will have some regrettable consequences. Even so, it will be worth it.Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan: If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan. I have a moral obligation to stand up for the rights of the women of the state I represent.Summer Lee, a candidate for an open House seat in the Pittsburgh area, pressed the point that in states like Pennsylvania the future of abortion rights will depend on governors, and “the only way we’re going to win the governor’s seat in November is if, in crucial Democratic counties like this one, we put forth inspiring and reflective candidates that can expand our electorate up and down the ballot to turn out voters.”There is little doubt that the draft Supreme Court decision that would end the 50-year-old constitutional right to control a pregnancy has presented Democrats with a political opportunity in an otherwise bleak political landscape. Republicans insist that after an initial burst of concern the midterms will revert to a referendum on the Democrats’ handling of pocketbook issues like inflation and crime.But the final high court ruling is expected in June or July, another jolt to the body politic, and regardless of how far it goes, it is likely to prompt a cascade of actions at the state level to roll back abortion rights.Jessica Cisneros, a progressive candidate from Texas who is challenging the last anti-abortion Democrat in the House, has retooled her closing argument around abortion rights.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesWomen would be confronted with the immediate loss of access that would ripple across the nation, said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who has been studying what she calls a “game-changing” political event.“It’s not going to die down,” she said.And while Republican consultants in Washington are telling their candidates to lay low on the issue, some of the candidates have different ideas. Three contenders for attorney general in Michigan suggested at a forum that the right to contraception established by the Supreme Court in 1965 should be decided on a state-by-state basis, assertions that Dana Nessel, Michigan’s Democratic attorney general, latched onto in her re-election bid.Yadira Caraveo, a pediatrician and Democratic state lawmaker in Colorado running for an open House seat, is already being attacked by a would-be Republican challenger, Lori Saine, who is proclaiming herself as “strongly pro-life” and seeking to “confront and expose these radical pro-abortion Democrats.”“They’ve already shown they can’t keep away from these issues,” Ms. Caraveo said, adding, “I want to focus on the issues that matter to people, like access to medical care and costs that are rising for families every day.”For liberal candidates in primary contests, the timing of the leak is fortuitous. Their calls for a more confrontational Democratic Party are meshing with the inescapable news of the looming end to Roe v. Wade and the Democratic establishment’s futile efforts to stop it.That is especially true for women of childbearing age. This week, five Democratic candidates squared off at a debate ahead of Tuesday’s primary for the House seat in Pittsburgh. Ms. Lee, the candidate aligned with the House Progressive Caucus, was the only woman on the stage. After one of her male rivals worried aloud about a post-Roe world for his daughters, she made it personal. She was the only one in the race directly impacted.“Your daughters, your sisters, your wives can speak for themselves,” she said.Ms. Cisneros, the liberal insurgent in South Texas challenging the last Democratic abortion rights opponent in the House, Mr. Cuellar, appeared to have a steep uphill battle in March after she came in second in the initial balloting, with Mr. Cuellar’s seasoned machine ready to bring out its voters for what is expected to be a low-turnout runoff on May 24.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More

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      Abortion Is Already Animating the Senate Race in Georgia

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      ATLANTA — Democrats are painting a future with limited abortion access as a Republican-manufactured problem, underlined by the Senate’s failure to advance a bill to codify the terms of Roe v. Wade.Georgia Republicans have made the issue their latest line of attack, focusing their fire on freshman Senator Raphael D. Warnock, a Democrat and self-proclaimed “pro-choice pastor.”Legislation that would outlaw abortion after six weeks of pregnancy is almost certain to become law in Georgia if Roe v. Wade is overturned.Mr. Warnock joined his party’s push against abortion restrictions, voting on Wednesday to advance the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have preserved abortion access nationwide. But he is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in upcoming midterm elections, and the Georgia G.O.P. has already seized on his support for the bill, aiming to bolster the argument that he is a “radical” politician who is out of touch with moderate Georgia voters.Republican National Committee spokesman Garrison Douglas called the senator’s vote “disgusting,” adding, “Raphael Warnock’s vote today proves that there is no limit to how far he will go to support Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer’s radical agenda.”The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List also issued a statement attacking the senator, calling him “an extremist.”“Our field team is visiting hundreds of thousands of Georgia voters to educate them about Warnock’s record and ensure he is held accountable on election night,” the group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in the statement.Mr. Warnock has made his support for abortion access clear since his first campaign, saying that he believes that abortion is a decision a mother and doctor should make. Conservatives in Georgia and beyond have condemned his position, saying he cannot be in favor of abortion and also claim to be a religious leader as senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. In 2020, more than two dozen church leaders in the state, a majority of whom were also Black, issued a public statement condemning his stance and asking him to reconsider.The G.O.P. front-runner for Senate, former University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker, has taken a staunchly anti-abortion stance, saying he believes the procedure should be illegal even in cases of rape or incest. In a survey that he filled out for the anti-abortion group Georgia Life Alliance, he said he would “vote for any legislation which protects the sanctity of human life, even if it is not perfect.”State Democrats have amplified Mr. Walker’s stance and that of Republicans up and down the G.O.P. ticket ahead of the May 24 primary elections, saying their anti-abortion rhetoric will only alienate Georgia voters. A poll conducted in January by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that more than two-thirds of Georgians support abortion access. More

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      Democrats lose Senate vote to codify abortion rights

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      Democrats lose Senate vote to codify abortion rightsFinal tally was 49-51, with all Republicans and one conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin, voting against the measure The US Senate on Wednesday failed to advance legislation that would codify the right to an abortion into federal law, after it was blocked by Republicans.It was a largely symbolic vote by Democrats to mobilize Americans around the issue ahead of a likely supreme court decision striking down the protections enshrined by Roe v Wade. Pro-choice states rush to pledge legal shield for out-of-state abortionsRead moreThe Senate roll call was a stark reflection of the partisan divide over abortion rights, with all Republicans and one conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin of Virginia, voting against the measure. The final tally was 49-51, well short of the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.Kamala Harris, the first woman and woman of color to serve as vice-president, presided over the vote.“Sadly the Senate failed to stand in defense of a women’s right to make decisions about her own body,” Harris told reporters, after stepping off the dais. Pointing to the onslaught of laws restricting abortion access in Republican-led states, she said “the priority should be to elect pro-choice leaders at the local, the state and the federal level”.Democrats moved quickly to hold the doomed vote after a leak last week of a draft opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito in February and confirmed as authentic, indicated that the court’s conservative majority had privately voted to strike down Roe and subsequent rulings. The extraordinary disclosure ignited protests around the country, pushing reproductive rights to the center of the political debate six months before the congressional midterms. A final ruling from the court is expected this summer.Ahead of the vote, a group of House Democratic women marched across the Capitol to protest against the end of Roe, chanting: “My body, my decision.”Democrats, under intensifying pressure to act, saw a political opportunity in forcing Republicans to vote against a bill protecting abortion at a moment when the threat to access is urgent and polls show a majority of Americans want the procedure to remain legal in all or some cases.They hope to use the Republican blockade as a data point in their midterm message to voters: that the GOP has become a party of “ultra-Maga” extremists, on the cusp of fulfilling a decades-long goal to strip women of their reproductive rights.It is an issue Democrats hope will energize young voters disenchanted by the Biden administration and persuade Republican-leaning suburban women to back them again this cycle.“If we do not take a stand now to protect a woman’s right to choose, then mark my words, it will be open season, open season on our God-given freedoms,” the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a floor speech ahead of the vote. He called “one of the most consequential we will take in decades”.If passed, the bill would have codified Roe v Wade into federal law, ensuring the right of healthcare providers to perform abortions and the right of patients to receive them. But it would also go further, in some cases invalidating state-level restrictions on abortion access enacted after the Roe decision in 1973.As such, Republicans cast the bill as a “radical” attempt to expand reproductive rights that goes far beyond Roe and would legalize “abortion on demand”.“We will stand with the American people, stand with innocent life, and block the Democrats’ extreme bill,” the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Wednesday.Republicans are betting the economy will take precedence over abortion this November. Polling shows Republicans are well positioned to make significant gains in the midterm elections, buoyed by historical headwinds, discontent with the party in power and widespread concern over the rising cost of gas, food and rent.But there are signs that Republicans do worry about a potential political backlash if Roe is overturned and states move swiftly to outlaw abortion, as many are preparing to do.A day ahead of the vote, McConnell sought to tamp down conservative calls for a nationwide ban on abortion if they take control of the chamber in November, telling reporters: “Historically, there have been abortion votes on the floor of the Senate. None of them have achieved 60 votes.”The two Senate Republicans who support abortion rights, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, opposed the bill, instead urging support for an alternative measure that they say is tailored to reflect the landscape of abortion rights. But many Democrats see their proposal, which is not expected to receive a vote, as too weak.“Unlike some far-left activists, Senator Murkowski and I want the law today to be the law tomorrow,” Collins said on Wednesday, objecting to the lack of protections for religious exemptions in the Democrats’ bill.0In a dramatic shift, one of the only other Democrats in Congress with conservative views on abortion rights, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, said he would support the measure and voted in favor of advancing it. In a statement citing the leaked supreme court ruling, Casey said the “circumstances around the entire debate on abortion” had changed since the last time the Senate voted on the measure.Without a clear legislative path forward, Democrats are turning to the fall elections, urging Americans to elect them as the “last lines of defense” against the end of Roe.Abortion is also likely to be a major issue in races for governor and state offices, as the battle lines shift to the states.The show vote on Wednesday only intensified calls from progressives and abortion rights groups for Democrats to eliminate the filibuster. The long-simmering debate has divided the party, which does not have enough votes to end the rule. It has also energized efforts to reform the supreme court, including controversial proposals such as expanding the number of justices on the bench or imposing term limits.TopicsUS SenateAbortionRoe v WadeUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Democrats lose Senate vote to codify abortion rights 49-51 – as it happened

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      Senators have voted 51-49 to reject Democrat-sponsored legislation enshrining abortion rights into federal law.The defeat of the Women’s Health Protection Act, introduced after a leaked supreme court draft ruling last week jeopardized almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections, was expected.The West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin announced this morning he would join Republicans in voting against the measure, leaving it no chance of achieving a majority. The backing of at least 60 senators would have been needed for it to pass. But Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer insisted on pressing ahead with the doomed vote in order to put Republican senators on record.Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to see the supreme court overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, and Democrats see the issue as a vote-winner ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections. In comments before the symbolic vote, Schumer said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party, the Maga Republican party, will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.We’re ending the live US politics blog now, but look out shortly for the Guardian’s full coverage of Wednesday’s historic vote in which Democrats’ efforts to enshrine abortion rights into federal law fell well short in the US Senate.The day was dominated by the vote on the women’s health protection act, which Democrats knew was doomed to failure, but which they hope can now be used against Republicans who went on record to defeat the legislation.Here are the day’s highlights:
      Senators voted 51-49 to reject the women’s health protection act, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans.
      Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to abortion rights but promoting instead more restrictive legislation.
      Arizona ended an eight-year death penalty hiatus when it executed convicted murderer Clarence Dixon by lethal injection.
      A New York district judge said he would lift a civil contempt order against Donald Trump for failing to cooperate with a criminal investigation into his business activities if the former president paid $110,000 and met other obligations.
      Joe Biden hailed American farmers as the “backbone of freedom” during a speech in Illinois and announced measures to support the agriculture industry and reduce food prices.
      A judge in Florida struck down new congressional districts drawn by the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, saying they made it harder for Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.
      A reminder you can follow developments in the Ukraine war in our live 24-hour news blog here.Democrats criticize Republican Senators after doomed vote on abortion After leaving the chamber, the vice president, Kamala Harris, told reporters that the Senate is “not where the majority of Americans are on this issue”. “This vote clearly suggests that the Senate is not where the majority of Americans are on this issue,” ⁦@VP⁩ Harris says after presiding over the failed vote on abortion rights. pic.twitter.com/BrEmO7yqvt— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) May 11, 2022
      A number of Senators from the Democrats also quickly reacted after the expected failure to advance their legislation to protect abortion.Ron Wyden, from Oregon, said the vote was a “punch in the gut” for those who “believe in liberty, privacy and equal rights. Now Americans know which side every Senator stands on.”Angus King, of Maine, said women across the country are worried the Supreme Court “may take away their basic right to make decisions about their own body,” adding “we cannot move backwards”. Senators have voted 51-49 to reject Democrat-sponsored legislation enshrining abortion rights into federal law.The defeat of the Women’s Health Protection Act, introduced after a leaked supreme court draft ruling last week jeopardized almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections, was expected.The West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin announced this morning he would join Republicans in voting against the measure, leaving it no chance of achieving a majority. The backing of at least 60 senators would have been needed for it to pass. But Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer insisted on pressing ahead with the doomed vote in order to put Republican senators on record.Polls have shown that an overwhelming majority of voters don’t want to see the supreme court overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, and Democrats see the issue as a vote-winner ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections. In comments before the symbolic vote, Schumer said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Every American will see how they voted. And I believe the Republican party, the Maga Republican party, will suffer the consequences electorally when the American people see that.Vice-President Kamala Harris has called the vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act and senators have begun voting. 60 Senate votes are needed for it to pass. Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski has issued a statement insisting that “I strongly support women’s reproductive freedoms, including the right to abortion”.But she says she also “believes in limited government” and won’t be voting for the Women’s Health Protection Act in the imminent US Senate vote.Murkowski’s statement follows an earlier joint release with Maine Republican Susan Collins, in which they promoted their own reproductive rights act as an alternative.In her new statement, Murkowski says:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The legislation before the Senate today goes well beyond the precedent established in Roe and Casey. It does not include the Hyde amendment, which prohibits taxpayer dollars from being spent on abortions – and has been the law almost as long as Roe.
      It does not include conscience protections for healthcare providers that refuse to perform abortions based on religious beliefs. It explicitly overrides the religious freedom restoration act for the first time. It also allows late-term abortions without any notable restrictions.
      Instead of taking yet another failed vote on a wholly partisan measure, I urge Democrats and Republicans alike to recognize that what Senator Collins and I have offered is in line with the views of a strong majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose but believe that legal abortion should include reasonable limitations. The Senate is edging ever closer to the abortion rights vote. Members are currently finishing a vote on confirming Joe Biden’s pick Alvaro Bedoya to the federal trade commission, and will turn their attention to the Women’s Health Protection Act next, according to C-Span.Joe Biden has just wrapped up an address to agricultural workers in Kankakee, Illinois, in which he promised support for farmers and new measures to make food prices more affordable.The president hailed farmers as “the backbone of the country” and “the backbone of freedom” as he blamed soaring inflation and high prices on Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}You feed America. You got us through a pandemic and you’re literally the backbone of our country. But you’re also feeding the world. And we’re seeing Putin’s war in Ukraine, you’re like the backbone of freedom.
      America’s fighting on two fronts. At home, inflation and rising prices. Abroad, it’s helping Ukrainians defend democracy, and feeding those who are left hungry around the world because Russian atrocities exist.
      American farmers understand Putin’s war has has has cut off critical sources of food.On Tuesday, at the White House, Biden insisted that tackling inflation was “my top priority”. Despite a small lift this morning with news that inflation had slowed for the first time since August, it remains at a near 40-year high and is likely to remain uppermost on voters’ minds as November’s midterm elections approach.Biden laid out measures he was taking to “lower costs on farmers”, including doubling an investment in fertilizer production to $500m, and looking at extending crop insurance protection “to give financial security to farmers”.By protecting farmers, Biden said, food prices could stabilize and fall.“Every little bit matters,” he said as he went back over previous initiatives to tackle high prices, including issuing a summer waiver for ethanol-rich fuel which he said would reduce gas prices.The AAA, however, was reporting on Wednesday a new record high national average for a gallon of unleaded gasoline at $4.40. The White House released a fact sheet setting out Biden’s proposals to “make food more affordable, and lower costs for farmers”.Arizona ended an eight-year hiatus on executions Wednesday when it put to death a man convicted of killing a college student in 1978. The state halted the death penalty in 2014 following an execution critics say was botched, and difficulties in finding lethal injection drugs, Reuters reported.Clarence Dixon, 66, died by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of 21-year-old Arizona state university student Deana Bowdoin, making him the sixth person to be executed in the US in 2022. Dixon’s death was announced late Wednesday morning by Frank Strada, a deputy director with Arizona department of corrections.Dixon’s death appeared to go smoothly, said Troy Hayden, an anchor for the Fox10 TV news program who witnessed the execution.“Once the drugs started flowing, he went to sleep almost immediately,” Hayden said.Dixon’s lawyers asked to postpone his execution, but judges rejected his argument that he wasn’t mentally fit to be executed and didn’t have a rational understanding of why the state wanted to execute him. The US supreme court rejected a last-minute delay of Dixon’s execution less than an hour before the execution began. In another Arizona death penalty case, the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington reported last week that Frank Atwood, convicted for murdering an eight-year-old girl, has two weeks to decide whether to be executed with cyanide gas, the poison known as Zyklon B used by the Nazis to murder millions of people in Auschwitz and other extermination camps, or lethal injection.Atwood’s execution is set for 8 June.Last month, the Texas court of criminal appeals issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, a Mexican-American woman set to be judicially killed for the death of her two-year-old daughter Mariah. A state judge struck down new congressional districts in north Florida on Wednesday, saying that the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, who drew the lines, made it harder for Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice.“I am finding the enacted map is unconstitutional because it diminishes African Americans’ ability to elect candidates of their choice,” circuit judge Lane Smith said on Wednesday, according to the Tributary. Lawyers for the state of Florida are expected to immediately appeal the ruling, and the Florida supreme court shaped by DeSantis could ultimately decide the case.The decision dealt specifically with DeSantis’ decision to dismantle Florida’s fifth congressional district, which stretched from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, was 46% Black, and is currently represented by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat. DeSantis’ new district chopped the district up into four districts where Republican candidates would be favored to win.A coalition of civic action groups and Florida voters immediately challenged the map, saying that they violated a provision in Florida’s constitution that says new districts can’t “diminish” the ability of minority voters to elect the candidate of their choosing. Last month, plaintiffs asked the court to block the districts in northern Florida specifically from taking effect for the 2022 election. Smith ordered the state to adopt a map that maintained a 5th congressional district stretching from Jacksonville to Tallahasee, according to the Tributary.The Florida map is one of the most aggressively gerrymandered maps in the US. Republicans currently have a 16-11 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation, but DeSantis’ plan would add an additional four GOP-friendly seats, increasing that advantage to 20-8 (Florida is gaining an additional US House seat because of population growth). It’s an effort that’s seen as a critical part of Republican efforts to retake control of the US House in the midterm elections.In a separate court on Tuesday, DeSantis, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, won the opening legal round of his fight with Disney over the state’s “don’t say gay” bill that bans classroom discussions of sexual preference and gender identity issues.Three central Florida taxpayers alleged state laws were broken when DeSantis signed a new law dissolving Disney’s self-governing status, which critics said was in retaliation for the company attacking the “don’t say gay” law.But district court judge Cecilia Altonaga threw out the lawsuit, partly because the plaintiffs aren’t personally harmed, the Orlando Sentinel reports.The supreme court’s upcoming decision to reverse Roe v Wade (an early draft of which was leaked last week) doesn’t ban abortions. It leaves the issue to the states. As a result, it will put another large brick in the growing wall separating blue and red America.The second American civil war is already occurring, but it is less of a war than a kind of benign separation analogous to unhappily married people who don’t want to go through the trauma of a formal divorce.One America is largely urban, racially and ethnically diverse, and young. The other is largely rural or exurban, white and older.The split is accelerating. Red zip codes are getting redder and blue zip codes bluer. Of 3,143 counties, the number of super landslide counties – where a presidential candidate won at least 80% of the vote – jumped from 6% in 2004 to 22% in 2020.Surveys show Americans find it increasingly important to live around people who share their political values. Animosity toward those in the opposing party is higher than at any time in living memory. Forty-two per cent of registered voters believe Americans in the other party are “downright evil”.Almost 40% would be upset at the prospect of their child marrying someone from the opposite party. Even before the 2020 election, when asked if violence would be justified if the other party won the election, 18.3% of Democrats and 13.8% of Republicans responded in the affirmative.Increasingly, each America is running under different laws.The second American civil war is already happening | Robert ReichRead moreGood news, of a sort, for Donald Trump out of New York, where a judge has said the former president must pay the state attorney general $110,000 and meet other conditions to purge a contempt of court order, but also that the fine will not grow by $10,000 a day, as it had been doing.The New York attorney general, Letitia James, says her civil investigation of the Trump Organization has found evidence of fraudulent behaviour in tax filings. Trump says the investigation is a politically motivated witch hunt.The judge in the contempt case, Arthur Engoron, said the daily fine on Trump stopped accruing on Friday, when the former president filed affidavits about his search for requested information – and his inability to find four phones which investigators would like to look at. Engoron said the contempt order could be restored if certain conditions are not met.Here’s our report on Trump’s phones, from yesterday:Trump tells court he lost phones linked to alleged fraud by his companyRead more More