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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 Roe, are Republicans willing to expand the social safety net?

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      After Roe, are Republicans willing to expand the social safety net?The party has shown little enthusiasm to help those affected by unplanned pregnancies – is anything likely to change? Republicans across the United States cast the supreme court’s decision last month that allowed states to ban abortion as a victory for “life”. Left unsaid was the quality of life that families and mothers set to be left dealing with unplanned pregnancies might have.For years, the Republican party has pushed to ban a procedure that is mostly sought out by people who are poor, while showing much less enthusiasm for efforts to permanently expand the country’s social safety net. Critics have labeled the party’s stance as caring a lot politically about unborn fetuses, but losing interest in them when they are born as American citizens.I read the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling to see what we lost. Everyone should | Francine ProseRead moreTwenty-six states are now expected to ban abortion entirely following the supreme court’s ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and following November’s midterm elections, Republicans could gain control of one or both houses of Congress, and make gains in state legislatures.That dynamic could now give many more Americans a close-up look at what the party’s policies mean for women and families dealing with any wave of unplanned pregnancies, and there are signs Republicans are worried about what they will see.“Over the years, we have written on federal policies that we consider ‘pro-life’ that support pregnant women, not just policies that restrict abortion. This line of thinking is no longer a luxury of thought for pro-lifers like us. It is an obligation of pro-life advocacy in the future as we enter what will be a dynamic, uncertain, and uneven state landscape for years to come,” Republican operatives Mark Rodgers and Kiki Bradley wrote in the National Review last month, in an essay calling for the party to get behind policies like paid family leave and tax credits for families with children.“A number of leaders understand that our expressions of concern for life would ring hollow without our movement’s advocacy of a support system for pregnant women and their babies.”Already, there are signs of some Republican lawmakers moving to address these concerns. Republicans senators have proposed two bills expanding aspects of the government social safety net, and lawmakers may end up considering them before the year is out and the new Congress convenes in 2023.“There’s certainly, I think, at least at the intellectual level, a recognition that we need to be approaching these issues in a fresh way,” said Brad Wilcox, a University of Virginia professor affiliated with the Institute for Family Studies and the American Enterprise Institute, both right-leaning thinktanks.Yet opponents of the supreme court’s decision in Dobbs can’t help but contrast the fervency within the party for outlawing abortion with their relative historic coolness towards programs that could help people affected by the bans.“Republicans claim to be for small government – but where it comes to abortion they are for big government. Traditional views about women – and disrespect for poor women – may blind Republicans to these contradictions,” said Reva Siegel, a Yale Law School professor who wrote a brief unsuccessfully urging the supreme court to overturn the Mississippi law at issue in the Dobbs case.“The Republican party now has its chance to show the nation what pro-life means. In many states now banning abortion, its policies are more concerned with control than care. I hope the party can change course, but I have yet to see a Republican jurisdiction that has developed a philosophy of social services even remotely appropriate to accompany laws requiring pregnant women to give birth.”The downfall of national abortion rights in America comes as the US remains an outlier among its wealthy peers in terms of social services. It famously has no national health insurance program, and is the only wealthy country not to offer paid family leave, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.Data shows that women who seek abortions tend to be the ones who could stand to benefit the most from social services. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 75 percent of American abortion patients are poor and 60 percent already have a child.State bans already on the books could lead to an additional 75,000 birth per-year, Caitlin Knowles Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College, predicted, and the costs of an unplanned pregnancy have been shown to be substantial. A University of California, San Francisco study found that women who wanted an abortion but could not get one saw their household poverty rates increase for at least four years as compared to women who were able to access the procedure, and also struggled to pay for necessities like food and transportation for years after.America is also a uniquely deadly place to give birth. The Commonwealth Fund found that in 2018, the United States’s ratio of deaths for live birth was more than twice that of most other wealthy countries.Meanwhile, 12 states still have not expanded Medicaid health insurance coverage for poor people offered under the Affordable Care Act, and of these, only Kansas and North Carolina are among those not immediately banning abortion.At the state level, there have been moves by lawmakers to address these disparities. The Republican-led legislatures in Georgia, Tennessee and Texas, for instance, have pushed to expand Medicaid coverage to women after they gave birth, even as they’ve declined to take part in the program’s expansion. South Carolina and Georgia recently enacted legislation giving state employees paid parental leave.But much of the most powerful social welfare legislation comes from Congress, where progress has been uneven. In 2021, Democrats pushed through a massive spending package that included a provision sending monthly checks to almost all families with children, which was credited with slashing child poverty.President Joe Biden proposed continuing it in his massive Build Back Better proposal to revamp social services and fight climate change, but the package won no Republican support and died amid infighting with Democrats.Samuel Hammond, director of social policy at the Niskanen Center, said Republicans will now be under pressure to pass legislation to aid families and children by the same groups that wanted them to overturn the 49-year old Roe v Wade ruling that allowed abortion nationwide: social conservatives.“The kind of bargain they had was we will pass our tax cuts and deregulations and you will get conservative court justices,” Hammond said. “And now that Roe has been repealed, you can’t put Amy Coney Barrett on the court twice.”In the past weeks, Senate Republicans have announced legislation to expand aid to families, casting their proposals as “pro-life” responses to the end of Roe. Florida’s Marco Rubio has published a plan that would allow families to pull from their social security benefits to fund paid family leave, expand a tax credit meant to help families with children, while also allowing religious groups to play a greater role in federal social service programs.In a press release filled with endorsements from anti-abortion groups, three senators announced a bill that would give families $350 each month for a young child and $250 for a child attending school. The proposal is similar to the child tax credit that Biden unsuccessfully tried to extend, but requires families to earn a certain amount to be eligible and, Hammond said, would be less effective at slashing poverty.“You want to make sure you’re supporting families that are making some effort to support themselves,” Wilcox said.“You don’t want to be promoting policies that lock in support for a model of family life that is detached from work and from marriage, which are of course two of the key avenues for economic progress even in the 21st century.”While the Democratic-led Congress has been deadlocked over social policy for months, Hammond predicted the proposal from the three Republican lawmakers could be worked into a larger tax bill that has to be passed by the year end, giving Republicans an opportunity to show that they want to help families.“Where they’ve always pulled their punches is on these more proactive social policies,” Hammond said. “I think this is now the window for the Republicans to put their stamp on a major extension to the child credit in a way that’s more generous to parents and make good on this outreach to parents and this Christian conservative minority.”TopicsRoe v WadeAbortionUS politicsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Women’s rights have suffered a grim setback. But history is still on our side | Rebecca Solnit

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      Women’s rights have suffered a grim setback. But history is still on our sideRebecca SolnitYou can take away a right through legal means, but it is harder to take away the belief in that right. The uproar over the court’s hideous abortion decision is a reminder of how unpopular it is As it happened, I was in Edinburgh the day Roe v Wade was overturned, and the next day I caught a train back to London and did what I usually do when I get anywhere near King’s Cross station. I took the short walk to the old St Pancras churchyard to visit the tombstone of the great feminist ancestor Mary Wollstonecraft, author of that first great feminist manifesto A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. To be there that day was to remember that feminism did not start recently – Wollstonecraft died in 1797 – and it did not stop on 24 June.The Roe ruling is not about states’ rights. It’s about power and control | Derecka PurnellRead moreWomen in the US gained this right less than half a century ago – a short time when the view is from Wollstonecraft’s memorial. I have regularly heard the opinions in recent decades that feminism failed or achieved nothing or is over, which seems ignorant of how utterly different the world (or most of it) is now for women than it was that half century ago and more. I say world, because it’s important to remember that feminism is a global movement and Roe v Wade and its reversal were only national decisions.Ireland in 2018, Argentina in 2020, Mexico in 2021 and Colombia in 2022 have all legalized abortion. So many things have changed in the last half century for women in so many countries that it would be hard to itemize them all; suffice to say that the status of women has been radically altered for the better, overall, in this span of time. Feminism is a human rights movement that endeavors to change things that are not just centuries, but in many cases millennia old, and that it is far from done and faces setbacks and resistance is neither shocking nor reason to stop.Wollstonecraft did not even dream of votes for women – most men in the Britain of her time didn’t have voting rights either – or of many other rights we now consider ordinary, but you don’t have to go back to the eighteenth century to encounter radical inequality on the basis of gender. It was everywhere in large and small ways into recent decades – and culturally still persists in the widespread attempts to control and contain women and the prejudices women still encounter about their intellectual competence, sexuality, and equality.Half a century ago it was legal in the US to fire women because they were pregnant – it happened to Elizabeth Warren, then a young schoolteacher. The right to access birth control – for married couples – was only guaranteed by the 1965 Griswold decision this rogue supreme court may also be gunning for. The right of equal access to birth control for the unmarried was only settled in the supreme court in 1972. The 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act rendered illegal the discrimination by which unmarried women had trouble getting credit and loans while married women routinely required their husbands to cosign for them.Marriage in most parts of the world including North America and Europe was, until very recently, a relationship in which the husband gained control by law and custom over his wife’s body and nearly everything she did, said, and owned. Marital rape was hardly a concept until feminism made it one in the 1970s, and the UK and US only made it illegal in the early 1990s. The 17th-century English jurist Matthew Hale argued “the husband of a woman cannot himself be guilty of an actual rape upon his wife, on account of the matrimonial consent which she has given, and which she cannot retract”. That is, a woman having once consented could never thereafter say no, because she had consented to be owned. Incidentally, the current supreme court decision revoking reproductive rights repeatedly cites Hale, who is also well-known for sentencing two elderly widows to death for witchcraft in 1662.Wollstonecraft, who had participated in the French Revolution, wrote: “The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.” Contested, but hardly overcome for almost two more centuries. As coercive control and domestic violence, men still impose their expectation of dominance and punish independence, while rightwing Republicans seek to return women to inferior status under the law and in the culture, citing that ancient text the Bible as their authority.Their supreme court may go after marriage equality next. I have long thought that the marriage equality that means equal access to same-sex couples would be impossible, had marriage as an institution not been made over, thanks to feminism, as a freely negotiated relationship between equals. Equality between partners is threatening to the inequality inherent in traditional patriarchal marriage, which is why – along with homophobia, of course – they’re so hostile to it. And, of course, it too is new; a very different supreme court recognized this right in June of 2015, only seven years ago (and Switzerland and Chile only did so in 2021).The last decade has been a rollercoaster of gains and losses, and there is no neat way to add them up. The gains have been profound, but many of them have been subtle. Since about 2012, a new era of feminism opened up conversations – on social media, in traditional media, in politics and private – about violence against women and the many forms of inequality and oppression, legal and cultural, obvious and subtle. Recognition of the impact of violence against women expanded profoundly and brought on real results. The Me Too movement has been much derided as a celebrity circus but it was only one manifestation of a feminist surge begun five years earlier, and it helped lead to changes in US state and federal laws governing sexual harrassment and abuse, including a bill that passed the senate this February and the president signed into law in early March.This week’s sentencing of R Kelly to 30 years in prison and Ghislaine Maxwell to 20 are the consequence of a shift in who would be listened to and believed, which is to say who would be valued and whose rights would be defended. Of people being included in the conversations in the courts of law who had not before been heard there. Perpetrators who had gotten away with crimes for decades – Larry Nassar, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein among them – lost their impunity, and belated consequences came crashing down on them. But the fate of a handful of high-profile men is not what matters most, and punishment is not how we remake the world.The conversations are about violence and inequality, about the intersectionalities of race and gender, about the rethinking of gender beyond the simplest binaries, about what freedom could look like, what desire could be, what equality would mean. Just to have those conversations is liberatory. To see younger women reach beyond what my generation perceived and claimed is exhilarating. These conversations change us in ways the law cannot, make us understand ourselves and each other in new ways, reconceive race, gender, sexuality, and possibility.You can take away a right through legal means, but you cannot take away the belief in that right so easily. The supreme court’s Dred Scott and Plessy v Ferguson decisions in the 19th century did not convince Black people that they did not deserve to live as free and equal citizens; it merely prevented them from doing so in practical terms. Women in many US states have lost their access to abortion, but not their belief in their right to it. The uproar in response to the court’s decision is a reminder of how unpopular it is, and how hideously it will impact the ability of women to be free and equal under the law.It is a huge loss. It does not exactly return us to the world before Roe v Wade, because in both imaginative and practical terms US society is profoundly different. Women have far more equality under the law, in access to education, employment, and institutions of power, and to political representation. We have far more belief in those rights and a stronger vision of what equality looks like. That the status of women is so radically changed from where it was in, say, 1962, let alone 1797, is evidence that feminism is working. And the supreme court’s hideous decision confirms that there is still a lot of work to do.
      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionRoe v WadeAbortioncommentReuse this content More

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      Biden urged to do more to defend abortion rights: ‘This is a five-alarm fire’

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      Biden urged to do more to defend abortion rights: ‘This is a five-alarm fire’ Furious Americans have taken to the streets, but many Democrats believe Biden has failed to capture the urgency and angerHigh above America’s capital, pro-choice activists scaled a construction crane, inching across its latticed steel arm, to affix a banner with a message for the president to see. It read: “BIDEN PROTECT ABORTION.”In the days since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion, legions of furious Americans have taken to the streets to protest a decision that was once unimaginable. But as a new reality takes shape, many are demanding the president and Democratic leaders do more to defend reproductive rights.Biden backs exception to Senate filibuster to protect abortion accessRead more“Is it that they can’t, or they won’t, go as far as they need to to stem the tide of the radical Republican agenda?” said Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, a progressive advocacy group that works to mobilize women of color.For many Democrats, the president has failed to capture the urgency and fear they feel as conservative states and courts rush to ban abortion. “Is this a five-alarm fire? Yes, absolutely,” Allison said, adding that Democrats must show voters they are prepared to “fight like hell”.In the week since the ruling was issued, Biden stepped up his rhetoric. During a meeting with Democratic governors, Biden said he “share[d] public outrage of this extremist court that’s committed to moving America backward.” He also endorsed a change to the Senate’s filibuster rule that would create an exception for abortion and other privacy rights potentially under threat by the conservative court.“Now we’re talking!” tweeted Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York, who has pushed Democrats to deliver a more aggressive response. “Use the bully pulpit. We need more.”With narrow majorities in Congress, Biden is under pressure to use the full force of his executive authority to protect reproductive rights.More than 20 Black Democratic congresswomen sent a letter to Biden asking him to immediately declare a public health emergency. “In this unprecedented moment, we must act urgently as if lives depend on it because they do,” the lawmakers wrote.Other proposals include expanding access to abortion medication, covering expenses for federal employees who have to travel out of state, ensuring women serving in the military can receive care regardless of where they are stationed and using federal lands to perform abortions in states where it is banned.Advertisement: What would the end of abortion rights in America mean for the world? Join our live discussion on Wednesday, 6 July, 3pm-4pm ET. Button says ‘book tickets here’Warning of potentially “dangerous ramifications,” the White House has so far resisted calls to open federal lands for abortion, led by Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and echoed on Friday by the governors of New York and New Mexico.“Do it anyway,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something, a progressive organisation that helps young people run for local and state office. “Show me you are willing to put some skin in the game.Democrats need to give voters concrete plans, she said. When Biden warns voters Republicans would ban abortion nationwide if they win control of Congress, they also need to hear him say he will not sign any restrictions they send to his desk, she added.In recent days, the justice department has said it would seek to protect any woman who travels out of state for an abortion while the health department said it is working to expand access to medication abortion.Biden has promised additional actions but has repeatedly said the only way to “truly” protect abortion access is to elect enough Democrats to codify Roe v Wade into federal law. “Vote, vote, vote. That’s how we’ll change it,” Biden said during a press conference in Madrid.But Democrats face a historically difficult election environment in the midterms this November, with inflation at a four-decade high and fears of a recession weighing down Biden’s approval rating. Yet there are early signs that the court’s ruling on abortion and the potential threat it poses to other rights such as same-sex marriage and contraception, is energizing Democrats’ demoralized base.The number of Americans who identified abortion as top concern more than doubled since December, particularly among Democrats, a new poll by the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research found. Meanwhile, public opinion polls show a shift toward Democrats in the wake of the court’s decision, which drew thousands of people to the streets. To successfully galvanize voters around the issue, Democrats must “connect the dots” by showing them that Republicans’ end goal is a total ban on abortion, said Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster who has surveyed voters’ views on the issue.“Being against abortion is potentially for some voters not an indictment,” she said. “But wanting to make it illegal and trying to make it illegal is – and that’s where the debate needs to go.”This week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to Democrats outlining potential votes the caucus could take. They include protecting personal data stored on reproductive health apps from “sinister” prosecutors who might use it to target women who have abortions; ensuring the right to travel between states; and enshrining the right to an abortion into federal law, a version of which has already passed the House but has no path forward in the Senate.Much of the fight has now shifted to the state and local level, where Democrats are vowing to use their power to expand access or, where they can, block new restrictions.Across the country, Democratic governors and attorneys generals are vowing to protect abortion access. Governors in states like California and Illinois want to become havens for women seeking abortions in states where it’s banned.Progressive local prosecutors and officials in conservative states say they will not enforce strict abortion laws against patients or providers. Some liberal-run cities are considering plans to set up funds for women who have to go out of state for an abortion.Meanwhile, activists have declared a “summer of rage”, vowing to keep marching and resisting until a national right to abortion is restored.But cracks are also in display in the party.Many progressives remain furious with party leaders for backing Texas congressman Henry Cuellar, the lone House Democrat to oppose abortion, over his progressive, pro-choice challenger, Jessica Cisneros. Cuellar won the primary by fewer than 300 votes.They are also mobilizing to stop Biden from nominating an anti-abortion Republican attorney for federal judgeship in Kentucky, which was reported by the Courier Journal.Democrats increasingly believe the problem is the supreme court itself. A number of Democratic lawmakers have backed efforts to expand the number of justices on the court or impose term limits. Some lawmakers are calling for Congress to investigate – or even impeach– justices who signaled during their Senate confirmation hearings they would respect precedent but then voted to overturn Roe.Biden has mostly resisted those calls. But as long as there remains a 6-3 conservative majority of justices on the court, little else will change, said Christopher Kang, cofounder and general counsel of Demand Justice, a liberal group that advocates for expanding the supreme court.“Having spent 50 years wresting a supermajority of power on the court, they’re not likely to give that away,” he said. “Unless you have a balanced supreme court, none of these other reforms will get a fair shot.”TopicsJoe BidenThe ObserverUS politicsAbortionRoe v WadenewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden predicts states will try to arrest women who travel for abortions – video

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      Joe Biden said on Friday that some US states would try to arrest women for crossing state lines to get abortions after the supreme court overturned the constitutional right to the procedures nationwide. Speaking virtually with Democratic governors to discuss efforts to protect access to reproductive healthcare, Biden added the federal government would protect women seeking medication in states where it had been banned as well as those who need to cross state lines to get the procedure More

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      Biden calls court’s Roe ruling ‘tragic reversal’ during meeting with Democratic governors – as it happened

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      Opening the meeting with Democratic governors, Biden called the court’s ruling on abortion a “tragic reversal”. “I share the public outrage of this extremist court that is committed to moving America backwards,” Biden said. He vowed to fight to protect women’s rights: “This is not over.”He pointed to two steps the administration has taken to increase the availability of medication abortion and protect women who travel out-of-state for an abortion. He also warned that if Republicans won control of Congress they would try to pass a nationwide ban on abortion. Per the White House, the Democratic governors participating in Friday’s meeting are: Ned Lamont, Governor of ConnecticutKathy Hochul, Governor of New YorkMichelle Lujan Grisham, Governor of New MexicoJB Pritzker, Governor of IllinoisJay Inslee, Governor of WashingtonKate Brown, Governor or OregonRoy Cooper, Governor of North CarolinaJared Polis, Governor of ColoradoDan McKee, Governor of Rhode IslandThis afternoon Joe Biden met with a group of Democratic governors to highlight their efforts to protect abortion. During the meeting, Biden called the supreme court’s ruling a “tragic reversal” and again vowed that the federal government was exploring more actions it could take to help women access reproductive care.
      Speaking from the White House, Biden said the administration had already taken steps to protect women. He said the Justice Department would defend anyone who travels to another state to have abortion and said the Department of Health and Human Services was working to make abortion medications more available. “This is not over,” he promised.
      Biden acknowledged that Democrats do not have enough votes in the Senate to change the filibuster rules to pass a bill protecting abortion and other privacy rates. He urged Americans to vote for pro-choice candidates, noting that two more Democratic senators would likely be enough to carve out an exception in the filibuster to pass abortion rights.
      The governors of New York and New Mexico urged Biden to consider using federal lands in states where abortion is banned or severely restricted to provide reproductive care. The White House has so far dismissed the suggestion as “well intentioned” but impractically and potentially risky.
      Biden also warned that if Republicans win control of Congress they will seek to ban abortion nationwide.
      Biden also announced that he will award the presidential medal of freedom to 17 people, including actor Denzel Washington, gymnast Simone Biles and the late Arizona senator, John McCain.
      That’s all from us this week. But for more, we invite you to listen to the latest episode of Politics Weekly America. This week, columnists Jonathan Freedland and Jill Filipovic discuss “whether it’s still possible for a deeply divided court of nine judges, a group that now has a 6-3 conservative majority, to keep the promise to the American people of ‘equal protection’, and what happens if it can’t.”Politics Weekly AmericaAmericans lose faith in the US supreme court: Politics Weekly AmericaSorry your browser does not support audio – but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp300:00:0000:25:01Biden concluded the public portion of the meeting, but asked the governors to stick around so they could discuss ways in which the federal government might act to protect abortion access. During a press conference yesterday, Biden suggested that he might unveil a series of new actions but there was no such announcement. Speaking first, New York governor Kathy Hochul, said her state is acting quickly to shore up women’s reproductive rights in its constitution and protect access to contraception and other rights. “This is frightening time for women all across our nation, a lot of fear and anxiety out there,” she said. Hochul also pushed Biden to use federal lands for abortion services – a suggestion that the White House has so far dismissed as “well-intentioned” but potentially risky.Next we’re hearing from North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper, a Democratic in a Republican-leaning state. “This democratic governor is going to hold the line to protect women’s reproductive freedom in our state,” he said. But he said he needs more Democrats in the state legislature to help sustain his vetos of Republican bills that seek to ban or severely restrict abortions.Already he said North Carolina is seeing an influx of patients from other states with bans and tighter restrictions. “We are in fact that brick wall against this horrific supreme court decision,” said Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico said. She outlined the ways New Mexico was preparing to be a haven for women coming from neighboring states that have already outlawed abortions. She also pressed Biden to do more at the federal level to protect abortion access, such as setting up abortion clinics on tribal lands, should a tribe want to open private clinics for non-Native Americans to receive care. Opening the meeting with Democratic governors, Biden called the court’s ruling on abortion a “tragic reversal”. “I share the public outrage of this extremist court that is committed to moving America backwards,” Biden said. He vowed to fight to protect women’s rights: “This is not over.”He pointed to two steps the administration has taken to increase the availability of medication abortion and protect women who travel out-of-state for an abortion. He also warned that if Republicans won control of Congress they would try to pass a nationwide ban on abortion. Per the White House, the Democratic governors participating in Friday’s meeting are: Ned Lamont, Governor of ConnecticutKathy Hochul, Governor of New YorkMichelle Lujan Grisham, Governor of New MexicoJB Pritzker, Governor of IllinoisJay Inslee, Governor of WashingtonKate Brown, Governor or OregonRoy Cooper, Governor of North CarolinaJared Polis, Governor of ColoradoDan McKee, Governor of Rhode IslandAs we await Biden’s appearance with Democratic governors, the White House announced that the president will travel to Cleveland, Ohio next week. There he will speak about his “economic agenda and building the economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” the White House said in a statement. In what has become something of a pattern for Republicans, an Utah lawmaker has apologized for a bizarre comment that suggested women could do more to prevent pregnancies resulting from rape. (See: Todd Akin.)According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Utah state representative, Karianne Lisonbee, said during a press conference that she had received messages urging lawmakers should also hold men accountable for unwanted pregnancies in the wake of the supreme court’s ruling on Roe. “I got a text message today saying I should seek to control men’s ejaculations and not women’s pregnancies,” Lisonbee reportedly said. She added: “I do trust women enough to control when they allow a man to ejaculate inside of them and to control that intake of semen.”In a statement to the paper, she clarified her remarks and pointed to her efforts to expand protections for victims of sexual assault. “Women do not have a choice when they are raped and have protections under Utah’s trigger law,” she told the Tribune. “The political and social divide in America seems to be expanding at an ever-faster pace. I am committed to ongoing respectful and civil engagement. I can always do better and will continue to try.”Utah Republican apologises for saying women can control ‘intake of semen’Read moreHere are the other names of individuals who will receive the presidential medal of freedom next week. Julieta García, the former president of The University of Texas at Brownsville and the first Hispanic woman to serve as a college president Father Alexander Karloutsos, the former Vicar General of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.Sandra Lindsay, a New York critical care nurse who was the first American to receive a COVID-19 vaccine outside of clinical trial. Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming who advocated for campaign finance reform, responsible governance, and marriage equality.Wilma Vaught, one of the most decorated women in the history of the US military.Raúl Yzaguirre, a civil rights advocate who served as CEO and president of National Council of La RazaGymnast Simon Biles, actor Denzel Washington, the late Apple founder, Steve Jobs, soccer player Megan Rapinoe, the late Arizona senator John McCain, and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords are among the 17 people who will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom this month.It is the nation’s highest civil honor, presented by the president to individuals who have “demonstrate[d] the power of possibilities and embody the soul of the nation – hard work, perseverance, and faith,” the White House said in a press release.Biden will present the awards during a ceremony at the White House on 7 July. Recipients also include barrier-breaking activists and lawmakers such as Sister Simone Campbell, a Catholic social justice advocate, Fred Gray, one of the first black members of the Alabama State legislature, Diane Nash, a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Richard Trumka, the late leader of the AFL-CIO, and Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father who rose to prominence when he challenged Trump’s commitment to the Constitution. Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney is in the fight of her political life as she tries to keep her seat while leading the charge against her party’s most popular figure, Donald Trump. Last night she participated in a debate against her opponent, the one-time Trump critic turned loyalist Harriet Hageman. Here’s Martin Pengelly’s write up of the event. More

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      Americans lose faith in the US supreme court: Politics Weekly America – podcast

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      The US supreme court has struck down the constitutional right to an abortion, one of several landmark decisions that will affect the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come.
      Jonathan Freedland and Jill Filipovic discuss whether it’s still possible for a deeply divided court of nine judges, a group that now has a 6-3 conservative majority, to keep the promise to the American people of ‘equal protection’, and what happens if it can’t

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      Joe Biden says he supports overriding filibuster to protect abortion rights – video

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      The US president has said he would support changing the Senate filibuster rules to codify abortion rights nationally, calling the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade ‘destabilising’. ‘We have to codify Roe v Wade in the law and the way to do that is to make sure Congress votes to do that. And if the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights … we should require an exception to the filibuster for this action,’ Biden said. He added he would meet with a group of governors on Friday to discuss abortion rights

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      Biden backs exception to Senate filibuster to protect abortion access More