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      ‘Abortion returns to the states’: US attorneys general react to Roe v Wade ruling

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      ‘Abortion returns to the states’: US attorneys general react to Roe v Wade rulingThose in more progressive states assured people that abortion is still legal while Republicans framed it as a celebratory occasion The US supreme court has ruled that the constitution does not protect the right to an abortion, opening the door for states to ban or severely restrict abortion access. In several states, abortion becomes immediately illegal, while other states have already taken steps to ban abortion.The people who will enforce these anti-abortion laws are attorneys general, the top legal authority for each state. Within hours of the supreme court overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision, nearly every state’s attorney general released a statement.In more progressive states, attorneys general assured people that abortion is still legal in their state – for those living there and those who don’t. New York attorney general Leticia James said, “Regardless of the situation at the national level, New York will always be a safe haven for anyone seeking an abortion.”Biden condemns US supreme court’s ‘tragic error’ of overturning Roe v WadeRead moreMeanwhile, several Republican attorneys general framed the decisions as a historic and celebratory occasion. “None of us thought today would come in our lifetimes,” said Arkansas attorney general Leslie Rutledge. Alabama’s Steve Marshall said, “Today is a truly historic day.” Kentucky’s Daniel Cameron said, “We are entering a new era. No longer will unelected judges make abortion policy for the commonwealth.”Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general, made clear the ramifications: “Today, the question of abortion returns to the states. And in Texas, that question has already been answered: abortion is illegal here.”Louisiana state attorney general Jeff Landry further stoked anxieties that the US is hurtling toward a theocracy: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad. Today, along with millions across Louisiana and America, I rejoice with my departed Mom and the unborn children with her in Heaven!”Below is an excerpt of the response from every state attorney general, either on their official website, via Twitter or in a public statement. Some attorney generals had not released a public statement as of Friday 5.30pm ET.TopicsUS supreme courtAbortionLaw (US)Roe v WadeUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden warns women’s lives in danger after supreme court overturns Roe v Wade – live

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      President Joe Biden has decried the supreme court’s decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, warning that it risks the health of women nationwide.“The court has done what it has never done done before: expressly take away a constitutional right that is so fundamental to so many Americans,” Biden said in a speech from the White House. “It’s a sad day for the court and for the country.”01:29“Now with Roe gone, let’s be very clear, the health and life of women in this nation are now at risk.”Amanda Gorman, first national youth poet laureate, wrote this in reaction to today’s ruling: We will not be delayed.We will not be masqueradeTo the tale of a handmade.We will not let Roe v. Wade slowly fade.Because when we show up today,We’re already standing upWith the tomorrow we made.Let’s get to work: https://t.co/BNVLVLM6Ji— Amanda Gorman (@TheAmandaGorman) June 24, 2022
      Lisa Murkowski, one of two Senate Republicans who supports abortion rights, said she would “work with a broader group” to restore rights. The Alaska senator said: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I am continuing to work with a broader group to restore women’s freedom to control their own health decisions wherever they live. Legislation to accomplish that must be a priority.But the sentiment is unlikely to get her very far. Encoding abortion protections will require support from all the Senate Democrats and 10 Republicans. Dozens of elected prosecutors across the US have signed a letter pledging not to prosecute abortions, including officials in states with “trigger laws” that are in the process of banning abortion. DAs pledging not to prosecute abortion in states with trigger laws + bans include officials in St Louis, MO; Jefferson Co in Alabama; Dallas, Travis, Bexar, Nueces, Fort Bend counties in Texas; Genesee, Hinds, Washtenaw, Ingham, Marquette counties in Mich; and Hinds County, Miss pic.twitter.com/vGkUKnGJnG— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) June 24, 2022
      A total of 83 district attorneys and state attorneys general agreed to the commitment, saying they were united in their belief that “prosecutors have a responsibility to refrain from using limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions”, adding, “As such, we decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions and commit to exercise our well settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions.”In addition to commitments from officials in blue states that have laws defending abortion rights, the signatories include local district attorneys in Missouri, Texas, Michigan and Mississippi. Even with Roe in effect, prosecutors across the US have brought criminal charges against people for pregnancy loss and other outcomes, and advocates say this kind of criminalization will significantly escalate with the Roe decision overturned. She was jailed for losing a pregnancy. Her nightmare could become more commonRead moreWhere are abortions now banned?In nine states, bans on abortion took effect today, following the ruling. These states include: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin. In other states, bans on abortions in most cases will take effect in 30 days. And in some others, legislatures and legal bodies will determine how to proceed – convening to legislate new restrictions, or provide guidance on previously unenforceable abortion restrictions. Abortion deserts: America’s new geography of access to care – mappedRead moreIn a letter to Democratic colleagues, House speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that Thomas’ concurring opinion was “of special concern”. She also said that when it comes to gun control and abortion access, “It is clear that the path forward will depend on the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.”“The contrast between our parties could not be clearer: while Democrats are the party of freedom and safety, Republicans are the party of punishment and control,” she said. “We must ‘Remember in November’ that the rights of women, and indeed all Americans, are on the ballot.”The repercussions from the supreme court’s ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion continue to be felt across the country. Here is what has happened today so far:
      President Joe Biden condemned the ruling, calling it “a sad day for the court and for the country”.
      Donald Trump, who as president installed three of the justices that voted to strike down Roe v Wade, reportedly doesn’t think the ruling is a good idea.
      States nationwide are scrambling to react to the decision, with many Republican-led governments moving to ban abortion immediately.
      West coast governors pledged their states would be havens for abortion access.
      A Republican senator said she was duped by two of the supreme court justices who she supported while insisting they would respect Roe v Wade.
      Protesters are gathering at the supreme court building in Washington DC.
      Among the conservative justices, there was a slight difference of opinion in how far the abortion ruling should go.
      Congress approved the bipartisan gun control compromise, sending the bill to Biden for his signature.
      The US politics blog is now in the hands of Maanvi Singh on the west coast, who will take you through the final hours of a day with massive consequences for the country.Dubbing it the “West Coast Offense”, the Democratic governors of California, Oregon and Washington have announced a push to preserve abortion access for their residents and people who come from neighboring states to seek the procedure.The Supreme Court has stripped women of their liberty and let red states replace it with mandated birth.This is an attack on American freedom.CA, OR and WA are creating the West Coast offensive. A road map for other states to stand up for women.Time to fight like hell. pic.twitter.com/jBrJcTQVa8— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) June 24, 2022
      The three governors have been vocal about the issue ever since the leak of the supreme court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade. In 2021, California governor Gavin Newsom signed new laws protecting abortion providers and patients in the country’s most-populous state:Governor vows to make California a ‘reproductive freedom state’Read moreIn the end, there weren’t enough of them to stop the court’s conservative majority from overturning Roe v Wade, but the dissenting opinion from the court’s three liberal justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan acts as a requiem of sorts for the 49-year-old constitutional right to abortion, now overturned:Earlier this Term, this court signaled that Mississippi’s stratagem would succeed. Texas was one of the fistful of states to have recently banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. It added to that “flagrantly unconstitutional” restriction an unprecedented scheme to “evade judicial scrutiny.” And five justices acceded to that cynical maneuver. They let Texas defy this court’s constitutional rulings, nullifying Roe and Casey ahead of schedule in the Nation’s second largest state.And now the other shoe drops, courtesy of that same five-person majority. (We believe that the chief justice’s opinion is wrong too, but no one should think that there is not a large difference between upholding a 15-week ban on the grounds he does and allowing states to prohibit abortion from the time of conception.) Now a new and bare majority of this court – acting at practically the first moment possible – overrules Roe and Casey. It converts a series of dissenting opinions expressing antipathy toward Roe and Casey into a decision greenlighting even total abortion bans. It eliminates a 50-year-old constitutional right that safeguards women’s freedom and equal station. It breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law. In doing all of that, it places in jeopardy other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. And finally, it undermines the court’s legitimacy.‘Fewer rights than their grandmothers’: read three justices’ searing abortion dissent | Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena KaganRead moreKevin McCarthy, leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, has cheered the supreme court’s ruling, calling it “the most important pro-life ruling in American history”..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The people have won a victory. The right to life has been vindicated. The voiceless will finally have a voice. This great nation can now live up to its core principle that all are created equal. Not born equal. Created equal.Republicans are viewed as favorites to take control of the House following this year’s midterm elections, and McCarthy would be a top contender for the job of speaker. In his speech, he alluded to what his priorities might be, should the GOP ascend to the majority. .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As encouraging as today’s decision is, our work is far from done. America remains one of only seven countries on earth that allows elective abortions in the third trimester, including China and North Korea. This is radical – but House Democrats continue to support it against the wishes of the American people. This Congress, every House Democrat has voted for extreme policies like taxpayer-funded abortion, on demand, until the point of birth. But Democrats’ radical agenda does not have Americans’ support.The largest association of African American physicians in the United States has warned that the supreme court’s decision to overturn abortion rights will harm racial minorities, particularly Black women. In a statement, president of the National Medical Association Rachel Villanueva said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This decision is unconstitutional, dangerous and discriminatory. It will not stop abortions from being performed, it will unfortunately only make the procedure more dangerous. Women of color, poor women and other disadvantaged individuals who don’t have the resources to travel to obtain the medical care they need will be disproportionately impacted. At a time when maternal mortality rates are worsening, particularly for Black women, it is deeply disappointing that our institutions are actively harming — not helping — women’s health. Abortion is part of total health care for a woman. Doctors should be able to provide medical care based on scientific fact and evidence-based medicine, and free from any political interference. The entire medical community should be gravely concerned about the precedent this decision sets.According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2019, the most recent year available, Black women have the highest rates of abortion with 23.8 per 1,000 people. Hispanic women had 11.7 abortions per 1,000 people, while for white women, the ratio was 6.6.Will the supreme court’s conservative justices stop with Roe v Wade? As Joan E Greve reports, today’s decision in the Dobbs case contains signs that the Republican-appointed majority would like to go after other rights the court has established, such as same-sex marriage and access to contraception:Many Americans reacted to the supreme court’s decision to reverse Roe v Wade and remove federal abortion rights in the US with shock, but many also asked a terrified question: what might be next?The conservative justice Clarence Thomas appeared to offer a preview of the court’s potential future rulings, suggesting the rightwing-controlled court may return to the issues of contraception access and marriage equality, threatening LGBTQ rights.“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion to the ruling on Roe.Contraception, gay marriage: Clarence Thomas signals new targets for supreme courtRead moreThe House of Representatives has passed the bipartisan gun control measure that the Senate approved yesterday. It now awaits action from President Joe Biden, who said he will sign it.234-193, House sends guns package to Biden’s desk. 14 Rs broke with their leadership: Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Tom Rice, John Katko, Maria Salazar, Chris Jacobs, Brian Fitzpatrick, Peter Meijer and Fred Upton; and Steve Chabot, Mike Turner, David Joyce and Anthony Gonzalez— Manu Raju (@mkraju) June 24, 2022
      While the bill tightens gun access for some Americans and funds mental health services, it is being passed just a day after a supreme court ruling that expanded the right to carry a concealed weapon nationwide.US supreme court overturns New York handgun law in bitter blow to gun-control pushRead moreMedical experts have also decried the Dobbs opinion as threatening the health and autonomy of patients nationwide.The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement condemning the supreme court opinion from its president, Iffath A Hoskins, MD, FACOG, reading in part: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Today’s decision is a direct blow to bodily autonomy, reproductive health, patient safety and health equity in the United States.
      Reversing the constitutional protection for safe, legal abortion established by the Supreme Court nearly fifty years ago exposes pregnant people to arbitrary, state-based restrictions, regulations, and bans that will leave many people unable to access needed medical care.
      The restrictions put forth are not based on science nor medicine; they allow unrelated third parties to make decisions that rightfully and ethically should be made only by individuals and their physicians.
      ACOG condemns this devastating decision, which will allow state governments to prevent women from living with autonomy over their bodies and their decisions. The American Medical Association also released a statement denouncing the Dobbs opinion, with its president Jack Resneck Jr MD, writing: .css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The American Medical Association is deeply disturbed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nearly a half century of precedent protecting patients’ right to critical reproductive health care—representing an egregious allowance of government intrusion into the medical examination room, a direct attack on the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship, and a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services.
      States that end legal abortion will not end abortion —they will end safe abortion, risking [devastating] consequences, including patients’ lives. More

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      Protests break out outside US supreme court after ruling overturns abortion rights – video

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      The US supreme court has struck down the nationwide right to abortion that was established by the Roe v Wade decision. The result is expected to send hundreds of thousands of people in 26 states hostile to abortion elsewhere to terminate a pregnancy. More than half of US states will outlaw abortion as soon as is feasible.
      A draft opinion leaked last month showed the court was prepared to overturn the 1973 landmark decision 

      US supreme court overturns abortion rights, upending Roe v Wade 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

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      How Americans lost their right to abortions: a victory for conservatives, 50 years in the making

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      How Americans lost their right to abortions: a victory for conservatives, 50 years in the making Why, and how, a decision opposed by a majority of Americans came about has everything to do with political power, experts sayThe short version of how Americans lost their right to terminate a pregnancy might be summed up in one name: Trump.The real estate tycoon and reality-TV star first shocked the world by winning the US presidency, then rewarded his base by confirming three supreme court justices to a nine-member bench, thus rebalancing the court to lean conservative for a generation to come.That short road led to Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an opinion released this week in which supreme court justices voted to overturn the landmark case Roe v Wade, which in 1973 granted a constitutional right to abortion.The end of federal protection for abortion is expected to lead to 26 states banning the procedure immediately or as soon as practicable, affecting tens of millions of US women and people who can become pregnant.The decision comes even though about 85% of Americans favor legal abortion in at least some circumstances. Why, and how, a decision opposed by a majority of Americans came about has everything to do with political power, experts said.The anti-abortion movement is “the best organized faction in American politics”, said Frederick Clarkson, an expert on the Christian right and a senior research analyst at Political Research Associate, a progressive thinktank in Massachusetts.“They understand they’re a minority of the population, of the electorate, and certainly a minority set of views on reproductive rights issues,” he said. “But because they know that, they’ve found effective ways of maximizing their political clout by being better organized than numerically greater factions who are less well organized.”Put another way, he said, the anti-abortion movement “mastered the tools of democracy to achieve undemocratic outcomes”.The currents that led to the Dobbs decision are among the most powerful in American politics today. Over decades, a religious movement prevailed by harnessing the forces of polarization, the erosion of constitutional norms and the manipulation of US democracy, scholars said.“It’s not like we’ve had this slow erosion of abortion rights,” said Neil Siegel, an expert in constitutional law and professor at Duke University who clerked for former liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Instead, justices issued an opinion that “is utterly dismissive of what has been constitutional law for literally five decades”, and was “repeatedly affirmed by justices appointed by both parties”.The conservative-leaning court will shatter one more constitutional norm, issuing a once-in-a-lifetime reversal, after another event without modern precedent: the leak of a supreme court draft opinion. Even before Dobbs was released, the leak spelled out the doom of Roe v Wade.“The court is not the institution I served,” said Siegel.Today, abortion is among the most partisan issues in the US, with Republicans and the anti-abortion movement so closely aligned there is little daylight between them. In the 1970s, however, abortion was seen as a “Catholic issue”, with both pro-choice Republicans and anti-abortion Democrats in Congress. The supreme court voted in favor of Roe v Wade by a 7-2 margin.Some of this transformation reflects “deliberate changes by the anti-abortion movement, some of it is structural changes to US democracy, and some of it is just luck,” said Mary Ziegler, visiting professor at Harvard and a professor of constitutional law at the University of California Davis.Contrary to popular belief, there was no immediate political backlash to Roe v Wade. In the years that followed, important bills banned the federal government from paying for abortions, but a constitutional amendment to outright ban the procedure failed.It wasn’t until the late 1970s that Republican strategists, such as Paul Weyrich, saw abortion as an issue that might unlock the votes of millions of white evangelical Christians, alongside opposition to women’s rights and to desegregation court rulings. The plan worked: Catholics and white evangelical Protestants were brought into uneasy alliance with Republicans.“Back in the 70s and 80s, when the anti-abortion movement was maturing, I remember events where you would see one Catholic bishop sitting on stage uncomfortably with evangelicals,” said Clarkson.It would be decades before evangelical Christians and Catholics entirely fused their modern agenda, with abortion, gay marriage and religious freedom as top issues. Nevertheless, the new alliance soon produced a “moral majority” that buoyed Ronald Reagan’s campaign. Like Trump, Reagan initially supported “liberalized” abortion law, before he later promised to oppose abortion as president.This political realignment was helped along by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which constitutional scholars argued forced segregationist southern Democrats into real competition with Republicans for the first time.“You don’t understand reproductive politics in this country if you don’t understand racial politics in this country,” said Loretta Ross, founder of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, a reproductive rights organizer in Georgia.“I believe the current restrictions on abortion, birth control and sex education are all designed to compel white women to have more babies,” said Ross. “I’m not convinced they want more brown or Black babies,” even though brown and Black women would be disproportionately affected by abortion bans, she said.This political realignment also brought Republicans distinct structural advantages based on the architecture of the US constitution – a force Siegel describes as “rural favoritism”.The two-chamber Congress is made up of the House of Representatives, whose seats are based on population, and the Senate, which grants each state two votes no matter the population. “The constitution has always disproportionately favored rural voters, but it didn’t always favor one party,” said Siegel.As Republican senators began to represent more white, Christian and rural voters, however, they also gained advantage of a feature baked into the US constitution. Today, Republicans collectively represent 41.5 million fewer Americans than Democrats, even though the Senate is evenly split. As a result, the new conservative-leaning court was confirmed by a body which represents a minority of voters.“That is reflective of minority rule,” said Siegel.Republican strategists’ appeal to socially conservative voters also began to substantially redefine what it meant to be Republican.“The party professionals and establishment Republicans thought they could control them,” said Clarkson. “They were wrong: they became the party.”The new anti-abortion arrivals pushed for more power, working “to exercise more influence over the composition of the GOP to ensure the nominees would be ideologically pure enough”, Clarkson said.Demography added urgency to the anti-abortion cause, Siegel said. The Republican party is overwhelmingly white and Christian, but the size of its base is threatened by rapidly changing US demographics as America grows more racially diverse and less religious. White Americans are predicted to be a minority by 2045.That has pushed Republicans to practice “existential politics”, made each election cycle feel more critical than the last and forced the parties further apart, said Siegel. At the same time, partisan redistricting, known as gerrymandering, has allowed more extreme candidates to win uncompetitive districts, exacerbating polarization.In the case of Dobbs, power and luck collided when the base elected Trump, a man who once professed to be pro-choice, won the election even as he lost the popular vote and was then offered the rare opportunity to confirm three new justices to the court.The forces behind Dobbs also show how especially American values – autonomy, liberty and self-determination – will be redefined in a new supreme court era.“There’s mutual animosity between members of the two parties, but there is more of an asymmetry in terms of how far to the right the Republican party has moved, and willingness to break norms for short-term partisan advantage,” said Siegel. “Or, in the case of the supreme court, for long-term partisan advantage.”
      This article was amended on 24 June 2022 to clarify Frederick Clarkson’s biography.
      TopicsRoe v WadeAbortionUS supreme courtLaw (US)US politicsRepublicansanalysisReuse this content More

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      The supreme court just overturned Roe v Wade – what happens next?

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      The supreme court just overturned Roe v Wade – what happens next?Court’s move will allow more than half of states to ban abortion, with an immediate impact on tens of millions of Americans01:39The supreme court just overturned the landmark Roe v Wade case, which granted women in the US the right to terminate a pregnancy. A reversal of this magnitude is almost unprecedented, particularly on a case decided nearly 50 years ago.The extraordinarily rare move will allow more than half of states to ban abortion, with an immediate and enduring impact on tens of millions of Americans.Roe v Wade overturned as supreme court strikes down federal right to abortion – liveRead moreWhat happened?The court decided there is no constitutional right to abortion in a case called Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In reaching that decision, the conservative-majority court overturned Roe v Wade, from 1973.Historically, the court has overturned cases to grant more rights. The court has done the opposite here, and its decision will restrict a constitutional right generations of Americans have grown up taking for granted.As a result of the reversal, states will again be permitted to ban or severely restrict abortion, changes that will indelibly alter the national understanding of liberty, self-determination and personal autonomy.Where will this happen?Twenty-six states are expected to do so immediately, or as soon as practicable. This will make abortion illegal across most of the south and midwest.In these states, women and other people who can become pregnant will need to either travel hundreds of miles to reach an abortion provider or self-manage abortions at home through medication or other means.However, anti-abortion laws are not national. The US will have a patchwork of laws, including restrictions and protections, because some Democratic-led states such as California and New York expanded reproductive rights in the run-up to the decision.Even so, new abortion bans will make the US one of just four nations to roll back abortion rights since 1994, and by far the wealthiest and most influential nation to do so. The other three nations to curtail abortion rights are Poland, El Salvador and Nicaragua, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. More than half (58%) of all US women of reproductive age – or 40 million people – live in states hostile to abortion.When will this happen?Across most states, this will happen quickly. Thirteen states have abortion bans “triggered” by a reversal of Roe v Wade, though the laws vary in their enforcement dates. Louisiana, for example, has a trigger law that is supposed to take effect immediately. Idaho has a trigger ban that goes into effect in 30 days.Other states have abortion bans that pre-date the Roe decision, but have been unenforceable in the last five decades. Michigan has a pre-Roe ban that is currently the subject of a court challenge.A final group of states intends to ban abortion very early in pregnancy, often before women know they are pregnant. One such state is Georgia, where abortion will be banned at six weeks. Several states, such as Texas, have multiple bans in place.In many cases, court challenges under state constitutions are likely, and experts believe there will be chaos for days or weeks as states implement bans.Can the federal government stop this?The most effective protection against state abortion bans is a federal law, which would precede the states. Public opinion favors such statute – 85% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances.Such a law would need the majority support of the House of Representatives, a 60-vote majority in the Senate, and a signature from Joe Biden to pass. A majority of members of the House of Representatives support an abortion rights statute, as does the White House.However, Republicans are almost certain to block abortion rights laws in the Senate, which is evenly split with Democrats. One Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has repeatedly crossed party lines to vote against abortion rights. That leaves just 49 Democrats, far short of the support needed to pass such a measure.To overcome the evenly split Senate, Democrats would need to win landslide victories in the upcoming midterm elections. However, despite the fact that popular opinion favors abortion rights, it is unclear how the midterms could be swayed by the issue.And, regardless of the outcome of the next election, Dobbs will forever change life in the US. The lives of individuals will be irrevocably altered as people are denied reproductive healthcare, face long journeys or are forced to give birth.TopicsRoe v WadeUS supreme courtAbortionWomenUS politicsLaw (US)HealthexplainersReuse this content More

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      The US supreme court voted in favour of … people getting shot | Hamilton Nolan

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      The US supreme court voted in favour of … people getting shotHamilton NolanThe supreme court think that restrictions on handguns are grotesquely exceeding their powers. But outlawing abortion? Totally fine The US supreme court on Thursday voted 6-3 in favor of more people getting shot. More formally, they voted to strike down a New York law that restricted the ability of people to carry guns outside of their homes. Experts say it is the most consequential second amendment ruling in more than a decade, and it will make it much harder for states and cities to prevent their citizens from roaming around town armed and ready for shootouts like so many cowboys in Deadwood. One thing that is safe to say is that, as a result of this decision, more Americans will die violent deaths – with freedom!To dissect this ruling as a matter of legal theory is a waste of time. It’s all pretext. All you need to know about the legal theories at work in the current supreme court is that if states want to restrict your ability to carry a handgun, they are grotesquely exceeding their powers, but if states want to outlaw abortion, well, it is only fair that states have that power.To portray any of this as the outcome of a coherent, good-faith legal theory would actually make us all dumber. Come on. This is the political outcome of a decades-long political effort by rightwing extremists to influence American law and culture through the courts, since a functional democracy might prevent them from doing so legislatively. (Preventing America from having a functional democracy that would accurately represent the will of the majority of the population, by the way, is part of this very same effort.) Even those pretending that there is a true legal philosophy at play here have to struggle to keep a straight face. “The test is, uh, if we had a seance, can we imagine that a powder-wig-wearing slaveholder with wooden teeth would have imagined this same exact law, word for word, in 1776?”Come on.The discussion we need to have about the US supreme court is: what are we planning to do about their power? Because if there is no coherent plan advanced, the default outcome could well be 20 more years of a tiny unaccountable cabal of religious fundamentalists dismantling the entire progressive agenda that was won in the second half of the 20th century. That is not acceptable. The court is now fully in control of people who believe they are on a mission from God to drag America back to the good old days of 1885, when corporations were free to whip who they wanted and noble American men wore six shooters everywhere and women stayed home and had babies whether they liked it or not. It is, I’m very sorry to say, the Democratic party that is going to be responsible for seeing to it that this doesn’t happen. On one side, we have hundreds of millions of Americans who would like to enjoy basic bodily autonomy and rights and not be shot or get cancer from toxic corporate waste. On the other side, we have a half-dozen white Catholic Ivy League Republicans who wear weird robes to work and fully intend to see to it that those hundreds of millions of Americans do not have any of those things. And it’s up to the Democratic party to decide which side they will disappoint.Five of the six current rightwing supreme court justices were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. The Republican senators who vote to confirm them represent a minority of the population. One of the justices, Neil Gorsuch, sits in a seat that was outright stolen, when Mitch McConnell prevented Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland from proceeding as usual; another justice, Amy Coney Barrett, sits in a seat that she was confirmed for when McConnell reversed that principle and rushed her through before Donald Trump lost his presidency. All in all, we are talking about a wildly unrepresentative group of elitist fringe lunatics, installed in power by the exact opposite of democratic will, accountable only to an imaginary God who instructs them to scrap basic gun control laws in the wake of horrific mass shootings of children, while calling themselves “pro-life”. This is not a foundation strong enough to support a modern nation. Anyone who is not prepared to talk about structural reform should give up their position in public life.We are well beyond the point at which the typical Democratic “Get out and vote!” messages are anything other than insulting to everyone’s intelligence. Republicans may be greed-driven bigots, but they are also savvy political realists. They have systematically nurtured a caste of preprogrammed ultra-conservative judges, and they have installed them in positions of power through the most ruthless means possible. Today’s supreme court is the highest expression of this 40-year project. Now, those who have pursued this project are coming for their payoff – the end of gun control, the end of legal abortion, the end of voting rights laws, the end of labor rights, the end of corporate regulations of all kinds. If a classroom full of murdered elementary school children is not enough to sway these high priests from their bizarre and dangerous convictions about how America should run, it is time to get more radical about reining this whole thing in.Adding justices to the supreme court should right now, today, be an urgent mainstream position of the Democratic party. So too should term limits for supreme court justices. These are just basic starting points. These should be accepted as common sense, in the same way that ending the filibuster has slowly come to be. Only bad things will happen, if we do not do these things. Further, more sweeping structural reforms that might have stopped us from finding ourselves in this position in the first place – campaign finance reform, ending gerrymandering, doing away with the electoral college – are equally necessary, but court-specific measures can be done faster. It is hard, I admit, to imagine that our current geriatric, procedure-addicted Democratic party leadership will be able to find it within themselves to propose solutions that are anywhere near adequate to the problem at hand. But conventional wisdom now has to place on all of them the burden of the situation we face: if they are not ready to do the things that would actually fix the problem, no matter how radical those things may be, they are effectively in favor of the problem itself. It is Republican zealots who will end gun control and abortion rights, but every single Democratic senator who decided that packing the court was simply too extreme will have had a hand in helping them, through their utter futility.One of the greatest underlying flaws of the American power structure is that the people who are in control are never forced to feel the consequences of their own decisions. The supreme court, and the United States Congress, are surrounded by fences and armed guards. When a single mentally ill person went to Brett Kavanaugh’s neighborhood with a gun earlier this month, Congress tripped over itself rushing to pass a bill to further protect judges from threats. Yet the same group of delicate souls is now making the country less safe for everyone else. If the members of the US supreme court want to drag America towards dystopia, fine. Let them walk the gun-filled streets with the rest of us.
      Hamilton Nolan is a writer based in New York
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