The rights of abortion won big again in the elections in the near future

The Virginia House of Delegates: What Do Congressional Democrat Candidates Stand Up About Prohibiting Abortion after the Supreme Court Decision?

Virginia Democrats have maintained their control of the state Senate and flipped the state House, consolidating their grip on the state legislature in what will remain divided government.

The entire 140-seat legislature was up for grabs. The elections received significant national attention, with prominent Democrats like President Biden and former President Barack Obama boosting their party with emails and robocalls.

Virginia is the only place in the South that does not restrict abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. Currently, abortion is legal until 26 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy. With incoming majorities in both chambers, that law seems poised to remain intact.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin has supported a proposal to ban most abortions after 15 weeks, with some exceptions, and heavily campaigned with Republicans to try to win a trifecta government in Richmond, Va.

Don Scott, the minority leader of House Democrats, said in an interview that Democrats have the message, the candidates, and the time to stop the extreme Republicans’ agenda.

The speaker of the house will be chosen on Saturday. He would be the first Black speaker in the Virginia House of Delegates if elected.

What is the first state that can go on offense, and what is it like to be red? How Michigan Democrats celebrated Proposal 3 after a special election

A year ago, Michigan Democrats celebrated the same kind of victory Ohio notched this week. Michigan voters overwhelmingly passed Proposal 3, a ballot measure proponents said would “#RestoreRoe” by creating a “new individual right to reproductive freedom” in the state constitution.

Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which advocates for ballot measures to advance progressive policies, said the amendment’s passage represents voters in a red state — with a Republican governor and legislature — passing abortion protections.

Hall says that Ohio is the first state that can say, “We can go on offense, and we can win.” An inspiring example that shines a light on the path for other red states is what that is.

The vote in Ohio followed a special election in August, where Republican lawmakers put a question on the ballot that would have made it more difficult to amend the state constitution. The proposal was rejected by Ohio voters in larger-than- expected numbers.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, won re-election after facing a challenge from the state’s Republican attorney general, Daniel Cameron, who opposes abortion rights and has defended Kentucky’s strict abortion laws in court.

A young woman talked about her experience as a rape victim in an emotional ad released by Beshear’s campaign. She pointed out that Kentucky’s abortion law contains no rape or incest exceptions, saying, “Anyone who believes there should be no exceptions for rape and incest could never understand what it’s like to stand in my shoes.”

Last year, Kentucky voters turned down an initiative that would have made it harder to vote for people who supported abortion rights.

The incumbent Republican Gov. of Mississippi won a second term. A relative of Elvis Presley was the Democrat’s opponent.

With the fight over abortion policy playing out in state legislatures and courts, abortion rights advocates have been paying more attention to state Supreme Court races.

McCaffery won an open seat on the state Supreme Court after the American Civil Liberties Union invested in digital ads for him. The state has a Democratic governor, but groups supporting abortion rights say they want to shore up access for the future.

The director of the Right to Life of Michigan says that they need to change the culture inMichigan after a majority of voters voted against the Reproductive Health Act. “To really look at: what is abortion? And how do we prevent abortion?”

The ban on Medicaid and the delay in returning to the clinic have been criticized by doctors as disproportionate to the plight of low-income people.

The late night voting marathon that was settled in the Michigan House of Representatives last week didn’t mean either measure passed. The Medicaid ban is still in place.

Did Medicaid Covering of Procedural Abortion Really Save a Woman, But It Can’t Be Paid For Another’s Life: An Issue Advocated by Sherry Whitsett

“Saying it’s a mix of emotions is really underselling it,” said Democratic State Representative and Speaker Pro Tempore Laurie Pohutsky, one of the key sponsors of the legislation.

Just before midnight, Democrats emerged with part of the Reproductive Health Act intact: a measure removing a requirement that clinics performing 120 or more procedural abortion be licensed as surgery centers passed. So did a bill allowing private health insurance to cover abortion care in their regular plans, meaning policy holders would no longer have to purchase an additional, elective abortion rider. The Democrats had long been against that provision because it required women to purchase their own rape insurance.

For weeks, Whitsett has been the target of a public pressure campaign from progressive groups like Planned Parenthood of Michigan and the ACLU of Michigan, which warned this week that Whitsett’s “actions will perpetuate the harm being done to her constituents and communities across the state and are a direct affront to the change voters demanded when they passed Proposal 3, including by a margin of 71.2 to 28.8 in Wayne County which encompasses Whitsett’s district.”

“Even the people who support abortion, don’t want to pay for another person’s abortion with their tax dollars through Medicaid,” she says. It is the same with informed consent, including the waiting period. It had huge support from voters, including voters who support abortion and supported Prop 3.”

The Hyde Amendment, a federal law that passed in 1976, prohibits federal dollars from being used for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or when a mother’s life is threatened. Seventeen states, though, allow their Medicaid programs to cover abortions using state funds.

Then, in October, Democrats in the Senate dropped Medicaid coverage for abortions from their version of the legislation. There were also Democrats who had voiced their own concerns about Medicaid funding for abortion.

“There were, unfortunately, House members as well that had issues with Medicaid funding,” Pohutsky said at the time. Again, I understand that it’s disappointing. There’s no denying that. I think it’s wrong to say this is one member who had an issue.

Pohutsky said there was a lot of outreach both to constituents and her fellow legislators to educate them on the proposed changes. We weren’t able to get everyone on board.

The strategy that seems to have been effective is the separation of abortion rights, which voters support and commonsense abortion restrictions.

Her organization worked with the Michigan Coalition to Protect a Woman’s Right to Know, a group of more than 10 statewide organizations that oppose abortion rights..

They publicized polling results they say showed that even voters who supported Proposal 3, also supported some abortion restrictions. (Abortion advocates say the language used in that polling, however, distorted what the Reproductive Health Act would actually do.)

Democrats thought they could pass the rest of the legislation, which included removing the waiting period, if they let go of Medicaid funding for abortion.

Some abortion providers claim the legislature created two separate tiers of abortion access for patients with private insurance and those on Medicaid.

House Speaker Pro Tempore Laurie Pohutsky said she hopes abortion advocates outside the legislature will take up the fight next, by challenging the remaining abortion restrictions in court.

That’s something that may be considered by the organization according to Ashlea Phenicie. “Planned Parenthood believes that these restrictions are unconstitutional and is exploring every tool in our toolbox to remove those barriers to care”

A Two-Year-Old Transgender State Senator Who Voted for Virginia During the ‘Grand Unification War’

Two years ago, Glenn Youngkin’s victorious Republican campaign for governor in Virginia had some Democrats worried that their lock on the suburban sprawl outside the nation’s capital wasn’t as tight as they had thought. Those same suburbs on Tuesday made Danica Roem, a Democrat, the first transgender state senator in the South, while helping Democrats seize a majority in the Virginia General Assembly and hold control of the State Senate.

The victory of Mr. Youngkin may have been related to the fact that parents in the suburbs began to worry about school closings and focus more on education.

She said that many parents recoiled from the Republican attempts to ban books with certain L.B.T.Q. themes and more generally inject socially conservative views into the school system.