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      Colorado governor issues executive order to protect abortion access

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      Colorado governor issues executive order to protect abortion accessJared Polis pledges that his state will not assist other states in criminal or civil investigations into abortions The Democratic governor of Colorado has mandated that his state will not cooperate with any investigations into abortions led by other states.Jared Polis signed an executive order on Wednesday pledging that the western US state will not assist other states in criminal or civil investigations used to prevent people from accessing abortions.The executive order adds protections for individuals and organizations that provide abortions, as well as for individuals obtaining an abortion, including people who have traveled from other states.“We are taking needed action to protect and defend individual freedom and protect the privacy of Coloradans,” said Polis in a statement obtained by the Colorado Sun.“This important step will ensure that Colorado’s thriving economy and workforce are not impacted based on personal health decisions that are wrongly being criminalized in other states.”Nearly two weeks after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, dissolving a nearly 50-year precedent of federal abortion protections, states have taken measures to protect reproductive rights for those living in the state or those traveling for reproductive healthcare services.In North Carolina, the Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, signed an executive order on Wednesday protecting abortion rights within the state. The order protects those who receive an abortion or medical providers who perform them from any penalties for providing, seeking or inquiring about reproductive healthcare, reported ABC News.Meanwhile, other states have taken steps to further criminalize and limit abortion access following the supreme court decision.In Mississippi, a state law taking effect on Thursday will ban most abortions throughout the state after a judge rejected an emergency request to block the anti-abortion trigger law.The state’s only abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, closed on Wednesday following the ruling.Similarly, a six-week abortion ban in Ohio will remain in place after the state’s supreme court refused to halt the ban while the court reviews lawsuit to overturn it, reported the Cincinnati Enquirer.“Ohioans are suffering in real time, and we have not yet seen the worst of this healthcare crisis,” said a group of Ohio’s abortion clinics in a statement. “All people deserve autonomy over their bodies and the power to make their own healthcare decisions.”TopicsColoradoAbortionRoe v WadeHealthUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      After the long wait, US parents seeking under-5s’ vaccine face yet more hurdles

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      After the long wait, US parents seeking under-5s’ vaccine face yet more hurdlesSome local officials are unsure of how to order Covid vaccines or when they will arrive, while others are aiming to ignore federal guidelines completely Ashley Comegys, a parent of two young children in Florida, was ecstatic when the Covid vaccines were authorized for children above the age of six months in the US. “We’ve been waiting for this for so long,” she said. “We can finally start to spread our wings again.”But then she learned that Florida had missed two deadlines to preorder vaccines and would not make them available through state and local health departments, delaying the rollout by several weeks and significantly limiting access.“Rage does not adequately describe how I felt that they were basically inhibiting me from being able to make a choice to protect my children,” Comegys said.Families with young kids encountered months of delays after the pediatric trials were expanded and regulators pushed back meetings in order to evaluate the data closely. Vaccines for adults were rolled out a year and a half ago.Now new challenges to vaccinating some of America’s youngest are cropping up.“I called probably 20 pharmacies and pediatricians in our area” – including across the state line, said Sheryl Peters, a parent of an 18-month-old and a four-year-old in Tennessee.Even after the vaccines were authorized for this age group, her local health officials didn’t know when they would arrive, and they directed her to the state health department, who told her it would be a few weeks, she said. She was crying on the phone, begging for help, but “nobody knew anything,” she said. “It was so, so disorganized.”-While Tennessee did pre-order vaccines, the rollout has been slow and complicated. And the confusion could deepen.Four Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are petitioning the governor, Bill Lee, to ignore the federal recommendations on vaccinating children under five and to ban state health departments from “distributing, promoting or recommending” the vaccines, creating uncertainty in the state’s approach to vaccinating some of its youngest residents.Tennessee stopped all vaccination outreach to teens – not just around the Covid vaccines – in 2021.The actions by leaders in states like Florida and Tennessee may contribute to existing hesitancy some families feel toward the vaccines, as well as hampering efforts to vaccinate children across the states – particularly those who have been marginalized in the health system, who are also at higher risk of getting sick.“Departments of health, by and large, assist people who don’t have insurance or are on Medicaid or don’t have access to healthcare or live in rural areas where there are no providers,” said Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician and Tennessee’s former top vaccines official who was fired in July 2021 after promoting vaccines. She was “absolutely furious” to read the lawmakers’ request for a ban.“For an elected body and a governor in a state who has continued to beat the drum of everybody can make their own choice, whether it’s about wearing a mask or gathering in a church or getting a vaccine, to decide for these parents that they are no longer going to have access to these vaccines is really antithetical to everything that they have been preaching,” Fiscus said.“Everything has always been, ‘It’s your choice. You don’t have to quarantine or isolate – it’s your choice. You don’t have to wear a mask – it’s your choice. You don’t have to stay away – it’s your choice.’ But when it comes to getting a vaccine that can actually save lives and prevent hospitalization, then they’re going to make the decision to take that choice away from you.”That’s been one of the hardest parts about this process for Comegys.“If you don’t want to get vaccinated, if you don’t want to mask, OK,” she said. “You can choose that. But why do you then get to make that choice for my family and the way that we want to protect our kids? It doesn’t feel fair.”Some officials continue to spread the narrative that kids aren’t affected by Covid, Fiscus said, even after more than 440 deaths and thousands of hospitalizations among children under five.In March, Florida’s department of health recommended against Covid vaccines for all healthy children. Florida is “affirmatively against the Covid vaccine for young kids”, DeSantis said at a press conference on 16 June, despite ample evidence of the vaccines’ safety and efficacy.The Biden administration soon announced that Florida “reversed course” and would allow doctors to order vaccines directly. State officials disputed the idea of a pivot, saying doctors were already allowed to order the vaccines on their own, but doctors pointed out that the portal to do so was not in place until after the initial shipments had already gone out to every other state.“The state of Florida intentionally missed multiple deadlines to order vaccines to protect its youngest kids,” said Dr Ashish K Jha, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator.With the delays and the confusion, many doctors and health systems haven’t received doses yet.Only federally qualified health centers and pharmacies participating in the national pharmacy program could order vaccines directly in Florida. But most pharmacies can only vaccinate kids three and older, leaving significant access gaps for younger children. (CVS can administer the vaccine to kids as young as 18 months through its Minute Clinic.) And some opted out entirely, with the grocery chain Publix announcing it will not offer the vaccine to children under five through its pharmacies.In Tennessee, Lee has not yet signaled whether he is considering limiting the vaccines. And even if vaccinations and information isn’t limited in Tennessee, the lawmakers’ request could add to hesitancy around the vaccines.“That seems to be their goal, to continue to spread vaccine misinformation and disinformation and to continue to erode confidence around these vaccines,” Fiscus said.In Florida, vaccinations will probably stall amid the message that Covid vaccines for kids aren’t recommended and the confusion around how to find them, especially because Florida isn’t offering the pediatric vaccines at state and local health departments and because pharmacies usually only vaccinate kids above the age of three.“I genuinely don’t know, if you have a child under three, where you will go for that here if your pediatrician’s not getting it,” Comegys said. “Unless you’re on top of it, it’s going to be really hard to find.”Many pediatricians in her area are short-staffed and aren’t able to reach out to families to let them know the vaccines have been authorized and how to get them.Her pediatrician was able to place an order for the under-five vaccines a week ago, but it’s going to take several weeks before they arrive. Her two children were placed on the waitlist.It’s been difficult to know the vaccines are rolling out in other states while her family still can’t access them, Comegys said. “The fact that it is available, and I can’t access it – that’s where I get really angry and really upset.”Families that want to vaccinate their kids are eager to get the shots as soon as possible, as the US faces another potential wave from the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, and with the return to school rapidly approaching.But many families feel like they put their lives on hold while much of the rest of the world moved on. Peters had a family cruise planned for May that they canceled because the shots weren’t available yet, while Comegys is canceling a vacation planned for July.“The finish line has been so close,” Comegys said. “And then to hear, ‘Oh no, it’s going to be another couple of weeks or a couple of months.’ I’m so angry. We’re so close, and now you’re not going to let me get there.”TopicsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationFloridaParents and parentingUS politicsHealthFamilynewsReuse this content More

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      California to vote on adding abortion rights protection to state constitution

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      California to vote on adding abortion rights protection to state constitutionThe amendment added to this year’s ballot is part of Democrats’ aggressive strategy to expand access to abortion California voters will decide in November whether to guarantee the right to an abortion in their state constitution, a question sure to boost turnout on both sides of the debate during a pivotal midterm election year as Democrats try to keep control of Congress after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade.The court’s ruling on Friday gives states the authority to decide whether to allow abortion. California is controlled by Democrats who support abortion rights, so access to the procedure won’t be threatened anytime soon.But the legal right to an abortion in California is based upon the “right to privacy” in the state constitution. The supreme court’s ruling declared that a right to privacy does not guarantee the right to an abortion. California Democrats fear this ruling could leave the state’s abortion laws vulnerable to challenge in state courts.California abortion clinics braced for out-of-state surge as bans kick inRead moreTo fix that, California lawmakers on Monday agreed to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot this year that would leave no doubt about the status of abortion in California.The amendment would declare that the state “shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives”.California joins Vermont in trying to protect abortion in its state constitution. The Vermont proposal, also on the ballot this November, does not include the word “abortion” but would protect “personal reproductive autonomy” – although there is an exception “justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means”.Meanwhile, four conservative states – Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia – have constitutions that say a right to an abortion is not protected, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights group.The amendment in California is part of Democrats’ aggressive strategy to expand access to abortion in response to the US supreme court’s ruling. Last week, Gavin Newsom signed a law aimed at shielding California abortion providers and volunteers from lawsuits in other states – a law aimed at blunting a Texas law that allows private citizens to sue people who help women in that state get an abortion.California’s massive budget includes more than $200m to expand access to abortion in the state. The money would help pay for abortions for women who can’t afford them, scholarships for abortion providers and a new website listing all of the state’s abortion services in one place.The budget also includes $20m to help women pay for the logistics of an abortion, including travel, lodging and child care. But the Newsom administration says the money can’t be used to help women from other states where abortion is illegal or severely restricted come to California to get the procedure.A dozen other bills are pending that would support those seeking and providing abortions such as allowing some nurse practitioners perform abortions without the supervision of a doctor and block disclosure of abortion-related medical records to out-of-state entities.TopicsCaliforniaAbortionRoe v WadeHealthUS politicsLaw (US)newsReuse this content More

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      Louisiana judge blocks abortion ban amid uproar after Roe v Wade ruling

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      Louisiana judge blocks abortion ban amid uproar after Roe v Wade rulingState temporarily blocked from enforcing ban as other US states pass ‘trigger laws’ designed to severely curtail access to abortion A Louisiana judge on Monday temporarily stopped the state from enforcing Republican-backed laws banning abortion, set to take effect after the US supreme court ended the constitutional right to the procedure last week.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls for supreme court justices to be impeachedRead moreLouisiana is one of 13 states which passed “trigger laws”, to ban or severely restrict abortions once the supreme court overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that recognized a right to the procedure. It did so on Friday, stoking uproar among progressives and protests and counter-protests on the streets of major cities.In New Orleans on Monday, an Orleans Parish civil district court judge, Robin Giarrusso, issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the state ban.The case before Judge Giarruso, a Democrat, was brought by Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, one of three abortion clinics in Louisiana.“We’re going to do what we can,” Kathaleen Pittman, administrator of Hope Medical Group, told the Associated Press. “It could all come to a screeching halt.”The Louisiana lawsuit is one of several challenging Republican-backed abortion laws under state constitutions.In Utah, a branch of Planned Parenthood sued on Saturday over a trigger ban. In Ohio, abortion rights advocates plan to challenge a ban on abortions after six weeks that took effect on Friday. A Florida ban on abortions after 15 weeks is also the subject of a request for a temporary block.In Arizona, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and an abortion-rights group filed an emergency motion on Saturday, seeking to block a 2021 law they worry can be used to halt all abortions.On the national stage on Monday, a group of 22 attorneys general issued a statement promising to “leverage our collective resources” to help women in states where abortions are banned.A statement said: “Abortion care is healthcare. Period.”The statement was signed by the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.They said: “We stand together, as our states’ chief law officers, to proudly say that we will not back down in the fight to protect the rights of pregnant people in our states and across the country.“While the US supreme court’s decision reverses nearly half a century of legal precedent and undermines the rights of people across the United States, we’re joining together to reaffirm our commitment to supporting and expanding access to abortion care nationwide.”The statement added: “Ultimately, what harms people in some states harms us all. The future and wellbeing of our nation is intrinsically tied to the ability of our residents to exercise their fundamental rights.“… If you seek access to abortion and reproductive healthcare, we’re committed to using the full force of the law to … fight for your rights and stand up for our laws.“We will support our partners and service providers. We will take on those who seek to control your bodies and leverage our collective resources – thousands of lawyers and dedicated public servants across our states. Together, we will persist.”02:03As of Saturday, abortion services had stopped in at least 11 states. Speaking to the Associated Press, Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said the group was looking at “all options” to protect access.But lawsuits may only buy time. Even if courts block restrictions, lawmakers could address any cited flaws.That is likely to be the case in Louisiana. The plaintiffs in the suit there do not deny that the state can ban abortion. Instead, they contend Louisiana has multiple and conflicting trigger mechanisms in law.The suit says the trigger laws, the first of which was passed in 2006, make it impossible to tell when they are in effect, if one or all are in force and what conduct is prohibited. The lawsuit contends that such vagueness has resulted in state and local officials issuing conflicting statements about whether the trigger bans are in effect.Judge Giarruso wrote: “Each of the three trigger bans excepts different conduct, making it impossible to know what abortion care is illegal and what is allowed, including what care can be provided to save a woman’s life or end a medically futile pregnancy.”Giarruso scheduled an 8 July hearing to decide whether to further block enforcement of the ban. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit on behalf of the clinic, said abortion care was resuming in Louisiana.The Republican state attorney general, Jeff Landry, did not immediately comment. On Friday, he said those who challenged state bans would be “in for a rough fight”.Prosecutors in some Democratic-led cities in Republican-led states have indicated they will not enforce abortion bans.The New Orleans district attorney, Jason Williams, said he would not criminalize abortions and that the overturning of Roe v Wade “is a cruel and irresponsible stripping of a woman’s agency”.‘A matter of life and death’: maternal mortality rate will rise without Roe, experts warnRead moreCondemning leaders for not focusing on issues such as lifting children out of poverty, he added: “It would not be wise or prudent to shift our priority from tackling senseless violence happening in our city to investigating the choices women make with regard to their own body.”On Monday, in light of moves by Cincinnati city leaders to support abortion access, Joseph Deters, the Republican county prosecutor, said: “I have repeatedly stated it is dangerous when prosecutors pick and choose what laws they want to enforce. When prosecutors do not follow their oath, it will promote lawlessness and challenge the basic structures of separation of powers.”Regarding the Louisiana case, Nancy Northup, chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said: “A public health emergency is about to engulf the nation. We will be fighting to restore access in Louisiana and other states for as long as we can.“Every day that a clinic is open and providing abortion services can make a difference in a person’s life.”TopicsRoe v WadeLouisianaAbortionWomenHealthUS politicsUS supreme courtnewsReuse this content More

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      Many US companies move to pay travel costs for employees seeking abortions

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      Many US companies move to pay travel costs for employees seeking abortionsTech firms and banks, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, add ‘critical healthcare’ package Many US corporate giants have moved swiftly to provide support and financial assistance to employees seeking abortions in states that outlawed the procedure following the US supreme court’s decision on Friday to overturn its landmark Roe v Wade ruling.With potentially millions of women soon looking to cross state lines for the procedure, many employers have added “critical healthcare” packages to employees benefit packages.The measures reflect, in some cases, elevated responsibility that businesses now feel to respond to pressure from investors, customers and employees at a time when corporate values do not conform with the legislatures of states in which they or their employees are based.Many banks and tech firms have announced they will cover travel expenses for US workers in need of abortions as part of their medical benefits. After the reversal was announced Friday, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs joined Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase in offering travel benefits.“We will continue to provide benefits that support our colleagues’ family planning choices wherever we are legally permitted to do so,” Citi’s head of human resources, Sara Wechter, wrote in a memo to employees on Friday.Tech firms, also, have moved to accommodate employees needs. Microsoft extended its financial support for “critical healthcare” after the draft version of the supreme court opinion overturning Roe was first leaked.Apple has said the existing benefits package allows employees to travel out of state for medical care, and Facebook parent Meta has said it will offer travel expense reimbursement “to the extent permitted by law”.In entertainment, Disney, Condé Nast, Warner Bros Discovery and Netflix are among those who have said they will offer travel reimbursements.While large companies can mitigate the supreme court ruling, the measures may not address the concerns of employees at firms that have in recent years located to low-tax states that have either enacted restrictions or essentially banned access to abortion.Texas, for instance, has been aggressively selling itself as a tax- and regulation-lite home to giants such as Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and Tesla. Facebook, Amazon and Apple all have all grown their presence there.But the commitment of Texas, like Missouri, to a near-total ban on abortion could now clash with those companies’ stated values and harm the state’s ability to attract new business, employees and investment.Earlier this year, Texas state representative Briscoe Cain sent a cease-and-desist letter to Citigroup, saying he would propose legislation barring localities in the state from doing business with any company that provides travel benefits for employees seeking abortions.The St Louis mayor, Tishaura Jones, said in a post to Twitter that she believes abortion bans at the state level are going to make it harder to attract businesses. Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas said one business has already backed out of setting up in the city.But many large companies have stayed silent, including McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, General Motors, and Arkansas-based Walmart – the largest employer in the US with dozens of stores in states that have enacted abortion bans.The Business Roundtable, an organization that represents some of the nation’s most powerful companies, has said it “does not have a position on the merits of the case”.Perhaps a more pressing concern is that for millions of people not employed by a large international or national company, abortion restrictions present a more onerous challenge.According to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, abortion bans and restrictions don’t reduce unintended pregnancy or demand for abortion. Rather, they impose significant hurdles to obtaining care, causing stress for people in need of abortion and leading some to experience forced pregnancy and all its troubling consequences. “Evidence also shows the disproportionate and unequal impact abortion restrictions have on people who are already marginalized and oppressed – including Black and Brown communities, other people of color, people with low incomes, young people, LGBTQ communities, immigrants and people with disabilities,” institute president said in a statement Dr Herminia Palacio.In response, regional governments and community organizations have started outreach efforts to help anyone in need of the procedure. Baltimore’s mayor, Brandon Scott, has announced that the city will provide $300,000 in grants to organizations that offer abortion and family planning.Some left-leaning states have seen abortion procedures increase as surrounding states tightened access even before Roe fell. In Illinois, abortion increased by a quarter between 2017 and 2020. Guttmacher said in response “local and national abortion funds increased their capacity and helped even more people pay for their abortions”.But with an increasingly fragmented and increasingly polarized abortion landscape, many companies are likely to find themselves forced to respond to both pro-choice and abortion activists while pledging to promote women’s equality and workplace advancement.The issue of freedom to travel to other states for an abortion procedure issue has one notable, anti-Roe supporter. In his concurring opinion released Friday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said it would be unconstitutional for a state to impose travel restrictions. “In my view, the answer is no, based on the constitutional right to interstate travel,” Kavanaugh wrote.TopicsUS politicsAbortionRoe v WadeHealthCitigroupBank of AmericaGoldman SachsnewsReuse this content More

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      Protests continue across US to voice anger over supreme court ruling

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      Protests continue across US to voice anger over supreme court ruling In New York, thousands gathered downtown to celebrate Pride and give voice to anger after decision that overturned abortion rightsProtests over a US supreme court decision that overturned abortion rights continued across the country this weekend. In New York, thousands marched to voice their anger at the ruling that came at the end of a dizzying week around not just reproductive rights but also gun carry laws and the US Capitol attack.US supreme court overturns abortion rights, upending Roe v WadeRead more“Not your uterus, not your choice,” many shouted as the demonstrations progressed in Washington DC., New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta and Austin.In Providence, Rhode Island, tempers flared so much that an off-duty police officer was accused of punching a woman at an abortion protest. Jennifer Rourke, a state senate candidate, told the Providence Journal she was punched in the face by Jeann Lugo, who had been running for the GOP nomination for a Rhode Island state senate seat but dropped out the race.Lugo said he was “not going to deny” the punching allegation but added that “everything happened very fast”. For the most part, protests across the US have been peaceful.In New York, they fell across Pride weekend honoring the achievements of the LGBTQ community, with thousands gathering downtown to simultaneously celebrate and give voice to anger. Marchers said in some cases they were both shell-shocked by the supreme court decision and happy to be celebrating, gender identities and sexual orientations that some like the court’s conservative justices might find contrary.“It’s a similar feeling to when Trump got elected,” said film editor Oriana Soddu. Soddu said she knew the stripping of nationwide abortion rights was coming after the 2 May leak of a draft ruling saying so, but “for it to actually happen is still a shock”.The anger, Soddu said, was toward the political system itself. “The Republicans clearly have a very strong agenda and we’ve let this happen,” she said. “My fear is they’re going to go after gay marriage” next.The crowds that gathered in New York’s Washington Square on Saturday were, for the most part, there to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the New York City Dyke March. Organizers billed the march as a “celebration of our beautiful and diverse dyke lives” that also doubled as a protest of discrimination, harassment, and violence against lesbians, but it also energized a pro-abortion rights demonstration.“It’s been different to realize that in the eyes of the constitution and the court you’re not really a person and you don’t have autonomy over yourself,” said longtime American activist and socialist organizer Leslie Cagan. “A lot of good things have come for virtually every community that has struggled for a modicum of rights, and now it’s all hanging by a thread.”“I hope that those people and those communities are beginning to get it that if we don’t work together and get beyond the rhetoric of solidarity in which everybody does their own thing, none of our people are going to win,” Cagan added. “We haven’t been collectively tuned in to how big and dangerous the power against us is.”Cindy Greenberg, also marching Saturday, said she thought those forces were really not committed to the notion of a democracy.“It feels like when Trump was elected,” Greenberg said. “This whole period of time has shown that they’re not. This week has been extraordinary – it shown us that they’re willing to sell all of us down the river.”Abortion banned in multiple US states just hours after Roe v Wade overturnedRead moreLisa Ann Markuson said she came with her typewriter to write poems for protesters gathered in the park in part because having a normal Pride party day felt strange. “It’s not, ‘Yay, we’re cool, we’re queer!’ It felt farcical to come out here and party like it’s 2008 because it isn’t. People want to set something on fire, but there’s also a sense of apathy and alienation.“America is supposed to be about freedom but [what] is this? Corporations have freedom and people are supposed to think they have freedom because they have a lot of consumer choices.”Mel Melendes said that being proud and protesting were one and the same. “I’m proud to be here because the louder we express ourselves the more you shine light on what’s wrong.” Added Elisa Buttafuoco: “If we weren’t fighting we wouldn’t be ourselves, we wouldn’t be the queer community. Queer rights is abortion rights is trans rights. It’s all interwoven.”Some on the march wondered if the protest would go the same way if the decision to lift abortion protections primarily affected the queer community.“As a minority community it feels like we’re protesting for everything,” said Afrah Boateng. “It feels like there is something to protest every year around Pride. Today it’s for straight families and straight women. But I guess Pride started as protest, so it’s built in.”According to a CBS poll published Sunday, most disapprove of overturning the nationwide abortion rights established by the landmark Roe v Wade case, including two-thirds of women. By more than a 20-point margin, Americans call it a step backward for the US.Younger people are especially likely to disapprove; most moderates disapprove along with nine in 10 liberals; two-thirds of Hispanic Americans disapprove, three-fourths of Black Americans and just over half of White Americans disapprove.The three-fourths of conservatives who do support the ruling said they felt hopeful and happy.TopicsRoe v WadeAbortionUS politicsHealthNew YorknewsReuse this content More

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      The Guardian view on overturning Roe v Wade: anti-abortionists reign supreme | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on overturning Roe v Wade: anti-abortionists reign supremeEditorialThe removal of women’s constitutional right to abortion will deepen hardship and division in the US The decision, when it came on Friday, was not a surprise. Even before the dramatic leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion last month, it was widely predicted that the US supreme court would grab the opportunity presented by the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case to rescind the decision made in 1973 in Roe v Wade. This, after all, was the purpose of President Trump’s three supreme court selections – and the culmination of a decades-long campaign by anti-abortionists to return to states the authority to ban the procedure. But the announcement still came as a shock. The US’s global influence means that the decision to remove a woman’s constitutional right to abortion there reverberates far beyond its shores.The speed with which multiple US states reacted is disturbing; already, abortion has been outlawed in 10, with 11 more expected to follow shortly. While all women should be entitled to control their own lives and bodies, there are instances when denying this is particularly cruel. Americans who oppose forced pregnancy and birth now face the horror of rape and incest victims, including children, being compelled to become mothers. The US is exceptional in its lack of federal maternity provisions; children as well as parents will suffer the consequences of unwanted additions to their families, with poor and black people the worst affected.Early signs are that the most extreme Republican legislatures could try to block girls and women from travelling out of state for treatment, and impose further restrictions on care delivered remotely including medication sent by mail. The potential for personal data stored online, including on menstrual apps, to be used against women is causing justified alarm. Having relied on Roe v Wade to protect access to abortion for half a century, politicians can no longer do so. Abortion is now set to become a key issue in this autumn’s midterms.How this pans out will depend on public opinion; polling data suggest that 85% of Americans support legal abortion in some circumstances, and Democrats hope that this could work to their advantage. But the anti-abortion right is a formidable force. With hindsight, President Obama’s decision not to codify Roe v Wade into federal law, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s choice not to retire when he could have nominated a replacement, look like disastrous errors.The three liberal justices who dissented said they did so with sorrow for “many millions of American women” and also for the court itself. With this decision, it has chosen to reopen deep wounds. The 14th amendment on which Roe v Wade rested granted rights to former slaves, and is the basis for other crucial decisions including on same-sex marriage. By dismissing Roe v Wade in the way that they did, and against the wishes of Chief Justice John Roberts (who argued to retain it, while allowing Mississippi’s 15-week rule to stand), the court’s hard-right wing has seized control.Unprecedented division, and greatly increased hardship and risk for those denied safe healthcare, will be the outcome. While there is reassurance in noting moves elsewhere towards liberalisation, US anti-abortionists are far from unique, as tightened restrictions in Poland and the situation in Northern Ireland show. It is too soon to say whether Trump’s justices and their backers have overreached from an electoral perspective. If there is an early lesson to be drawn, it is that once gained, women’s rights must be constantly defended.TopicsRoe v WadeOpinionUS supreme courtAbortionLaw (US)WomenHealthRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More

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      Roe v Wade has been overturned. Here’s what this will mean | Moira Donegan

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      Roe v Wade has been overturned. Here’s what this will meanMoira DoneganMillions of women are now less free than men, in the functioning of their own bodies and in the paths of their own lives The story is not about the supreme court. Today, the sword that has long been hanging over American women’s heads finally fell: the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, ending the nationwide right to an abortion. This has long been expected, and long dreaded, by those in the reproductive rights movement, and it has long been denied by those who wished to downplay the court’s extremist lurch. The coming hours will be consumed with finger pointing and recriminations. But the story is not about who was right and who was wrong.Nor is the story about the US judiciary’s crumbling legitimacy, or the supreme court’s fractious internal politics. In the coming days, our attention will be called to the justices themselves – to their feelings, to their careers, to their safety. We will be distracted by the stench of partisanship and scandal that emanates from the shadowy halls of One First Street; by the justices’ grievance-airing and petty backbiting in public; or by their vengeful paranoid investigation into the leak of a draft of Samuel Alito’s opinion some weeks ago. We will be scolded not to protest outside their houses, and we will be prevented, by high fences and heavy gates and the presence of armed cops, from protesting outside the court itself. But the story is not about the supreme court.The story is not about the Democratic politicians, whose leadership on abortion rights has been tepid at best, and negligent at worst, since the 1990s. In the coming days, people who have voted to uphold the Hyde Amendment, a provision that has banned federal funding of abortion since 1976 – effectively limiting the constitutional right to an abortion to only those Americans wealthy enough to afford one – will tell us how terrible this is. They will issue statements talking about their outrage; they will make platitude-filled speeches about the worth and dignity of American women. They will not mention their own inaction, persisting for decades in the face of mounting and well-funded rightwing threats to Roe. They will not mention that they did nothing as all that worth and dignity of American women hung in the balance; they will not mention that most of them still, even now, oppose doing the only thing that could possibly restore reproductive freedom: expanding the number of justices on the courts. But the cowardice, hypocrisy, and historic moral failure of national Democrats is not the story. And certainly, the story is nothing so vulgar as what this withdrawal of human rights might mean for that party’s midterm election prospects.The story is not, even, about the legal chaos that will now follow. It is not about the fact that in 13 states, today’s order has made all abortion immediately illegal, the consummation of sexist ambitions that had long been enshrined in so-called trigger laws, provisions that have been on the books for years and decades that ban abortion upon the court’s reversal of Roe – misogyny lying in wait. Nor is the story about the other 13 states that will almost certainly ban abortion now, too, meaning that the procedure will be illegal in 26 of the nation’s 50 states within weeks.The story is not about how legislatures, lawyers and judges will handle these laws; it is not about whether they will allow merciful exemptions for rape or incest (they won’t) or impose draconian measures that aim to extend the cruelty of state bans beyond their borders to target abortion doctors, funders, and supporters in blue states (they will).The story is not about the cop who will charge the first doctor or the first patient with murder – that’s already happening, anyway. The story is not about the anti-choice activists, sneering in their triumph, who will say that they only want the best for women, and that women can’t be trusted to know what’s best for themselves. The story is not about the women who will be imprisoned or committed at the behest of these activists, or the desperate pregnant people, with nowhere to turn, who will be ensnared by them into deceitful crisis pregnancy centers or exploitative “maternity ranches”.The real story is not about the media who will churn out the think pieces, and the crass, enabling both-sidesism, and the insulting false equivalences and calls for unity. It is not about the pundits who will scold feminists that really, it is the overzealous abortion rights movement that is to blame; that really, women must learn to compromise with the forces that would keep them unequal, bound to lives that are smaller, more brutal, and more desperate. The story is not, even, about those other rights – the rights to parent, and to marry, and to access birth control – that a cruel and emboldened right will come for next.The real story is the women. The real story is the student whose appointment is scheduled for tomorrow, who will get a call from the clinic sometime in the next hours telling her that no, they are sorry, they cannot give her an abortion after all. The real story is the woman waiting tables, who feels so sick and exhausted these past few weeks that she can barely make it through her shifts, who will soon be calling clinics in other states, hearing that they’re all booked for weeks, and will be asking friends for money to help cover the gas, or the plane, or the time off that she can’t afford. The real story is the abortion provider, already exhausted and heartbroken from years of politicians playing politics with her patients’ rights, who will wonder whether she can keep her clinic open for its other services any more, and conclude that she can’t. The real story is the mom of two, squinting at her phone as she tries to comfort a screaming toddler, trying to figure out what she will have to give up in order to keep living the life she wants, with the family she already has.The real story is about thousands of these women, not just now but for decades to come – the women , whose lives will be made smaller and less dignified by unplanned and unchosen pregnancies, the women whose health will be endangered by the long and grueling physical process of pregnancy; the women, and others, who will have to forgo dreams, end educations, curtail careers, stretch their finances beyond the breaking point, and subvert their own wills to someone else’s.The real story is in the counterfactuals – the books that will go unwritten, the trips untaken, the hopes not pursued, and jokes not told, and the friends not met, because the people who could have lived the full, expansive, diverse lives that abortions would allow will instead be forced to live other lives, lives that are lesser precisely because they are not chosen.The real story is the millions of women, and others, who now know that they are less free than men are – less free in the functioning of their own bodies, less free in the paths of their own lives, less free in the formation of their own families.The real story is not this order; the real story is these people’s unfreedom – the pain it will inflict and the joy it will steal. The real story is women, and the real story is the impossible question: how can we ever grieve enough for them?TopicsAbortionOpinionUS supreme courtLaw (US)US politicsWomenHealthcommentReuse this content More