The legal opinion said health care providers couldn’t refer patients to abortions outside of their state
The Democrat Party in Wisconsin and Iowa is urging voters to oppose abortion protections in the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court case
To increase turnout for George W. Bush, he placed initiatives to ban gay marriage in swing states. The Democratic Party has been trying to get voters to back a number of ballot measures in order to benefit from the backlash against the Supreme Court decision to allow legalized abortion last year.
“In 2024, voters will be deciding whether to elect people who want a national abortion ban,” said Ben Wikler, the Democratic Party chair in the state. The fury that Wisconsin feels now will be felt by Republicans across the country.
Democratic leaders in many states with abortion protections insisted the Texas court decision would not affect access to mifepristone, though it remains unclear how providers will interpret the opposing rulings.
Activists are also expecting Republicans to try get an abortion proposition on the ballot in Iowa, where state legislators are advancing a proposition that would impose new restrictions.
And they’ll do it, they say, by tapping into what they think is a more widely resonant argument about bringing people together to push back on government overreach and stripping them of their rights.
The two national nonpartisan groups are organizing the ballot proposition campaigns in 2022, as well as the ones taking shape for 2024, both in line with that. The Wisconsin Supreme Court race has become a topic of radio ads by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The legislature in New York has already put a measure on the ballot for next year because six Republican congressmen who represent congressional districts where Biden won are top targets for the party nationally. Maryland legislators decided to put their own proposal on the ballot.
Hochul, a Democrat who convened a special session of the state legislature last year after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, said that even though abortion rights didn’t appear to move many voters in her very blue state last year, there’s still a need for abortion rights politicians to push for more.
Asked if Pritzker would be funding ballot proposition efforts in other states, a spokesperson for the billionaire governor pointed to his past financial support of the issue, including in last year’s ballot initiative in Michigan and in support of the Democrats’ preferred Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate.
According to Biden’s advisers, the vice president will lead the abortion issue while the president pushes to codify it during the reelection campaign.
Harris aides say she has been keeping tabs on the medication abortion case out of Texas, warning fellow Democrats about the consequences for other medications if this Food and Drug Administration approval is reversed, but has also been reaching out behind the scenes – checking with legislators who’ve protected abortion rights in their states and with Virginia state Sen. Aaron Rouse about how talking about abortion rights helped him win a January special election that flipped a seat.
Harris said that people around our country are concerned, afraid, confused, desperate, and feeling alone as she met with Iowa state legislators who support abortion rights
A Democrat who spoke a lot about abortion rights in her reelection last year argues that talk about how the GOP is being taken over by extremists is the way to appeal to Republican voters and independents.
“It is such a personal, emotional, important issue for people that my colleagues on the far right do not understand why it will continue to resonate,” Cortez Masto said.
Carolyn Ehrlich, senior political strategist of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the ballot proposition from last year are “a roadmap for protecting rights in states where the legislature is a roadblock to progress.”
I don’t believe we’re going to need to change anything to voters. What we need to do is communicate with voters where the parties are.
The candidates for public office next year will have no choice but to tell the truth on the record, or be held accountable, said Timmaraju.
During his time in office, Mike Pence advocated a ban on abortion. Other prospective candidates have stopped short of that while making announcements of their own: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has pushed a 15-week ban in his state – except in the case of rape, incest and the health of the mother – as he eyes a potential moderate lane in the race. Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has announced her candidacy, says she wouldn’t support a full federal ban but has expressed openness to the 15-week federal ban for most abortions introduced last year by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, though she hasn’t taken a firm position.
On Fox News, Scott said it was a terrible idea to allow the death penalty to be imposed on women if they choose to have an abortion. A spokesperson for Scott, whose travel schedule in recent months has looked like that of a likely presidential candidate, did not respond to a CNN interview request to elaborate.
167 House Republicans co-sponsored the Life at Birth Act in the last Congress, which gave full personhood rights to fertilized eggs. In state after state, lawmakers are doing just what the R.N.C. suggested and using every means at their disposal to force people to continue unwanted or unviable pregnancies. In Idaho, where almost all abortions are illegal, the legislature recently passed a law that will make it a crime for anyone to help a teen leave the state to get an abortion. The Senate of Texas just passed a bill that is intended to force prosecutors in left-leaning cities to prosecute people who violate the abortion law. South Carolina Republicans have proposed a law defining abortion as murder and making it grounds for the death penalty.
Reply to the Florida Attorney General’s Letter to the Attorney General of a Law Enforcement Action Concerning Idaho’s Near-Total Abortion Ban
Dannenfelser warned that this applies to candidates for other offices. And, she said, she wants candidates speaking loudly and clearly about more restrictions they’d support rather than trying to avoid the issue. To do otherwise, she said, would be an “ostrich strategy.”
In Florida, which already has a 15-week abortion ban, Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to soon sign a law banning almost all abortions at six weeks. This isn’t something Florida voters want — polls show a majority of them support abortion rights — but it’s a virtual prerequisite for his likely presidential campaign.
Two days after being hit with a lawsuit over a legal opinion that said Idaho’s abortion ban prohibits medical providers from referring patients out-of-state for abortion services, the state’s attorney general said Friday that he is rescinding the analysis.
Ral Labrador said that a letter from his office was misinterpreted as law enforcement guidance.
He stated in the letter to the lawmaker that the document had not been published by the Attorney General’s office.
Labrador’s initial letter to Crane last month said that the state’s near-total abortion ban “prohibits an Idaho medical provider from either referring a woman across state lines to access abortion services or prescribing abortion pills for the woman to pick up across state lines.”
Friday’s letter injects fresh uncertainty into whether the lawsuit filed on Tuesday by Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky and two doctors in Idaho will continue.
The lawyer told Winmill he wasn’t going to withdraw his request for a temporary restraining order, which would prevent the state from enforcing the guidance for a short period of time before hearings are held.
The judge was told by Brian Church that the attorney general’s new letter made it seem like his March 27 letter hadn’t been written.
“I mean, Mr. Church was pretty careful in what he could say and what he couldn’t say. He didn’t say if your clients keep making referrals, you don’t have to worry about enforcement action. He didn’t say that,” said Peter Neiman, one of the attorneys representing Planned Parenthood and the two doctors.
Perhaps we reach a point where the emergency is over. He said that right now he has a situation where he has doctors who are not sure if they can do a complete and accurate job of telling patients what their options are without facing personal risk.
ABJM, FDA, and the U.S. Supreme Court: How Do Anti-Abortion Activists Want to Affect the Court System?
Lawyers for the suit argue that Labrador’s interpretation of the state’s abortion ban is a violation of the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees.
The plaintiffs will now decide whether they want to continue seeking emergency relief from the court or to let the lawsuit play out on a normal timeline, with their decision on that likely to be made in the coming weeks.
In one case, filed by anti-abortion activists in Texas, a judge said the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone – one of the drugs used to terminate a pregnancy – should be halted. The case is under way after the court paused it for a week so that it could be appealed.
In the Texas case, the plaintiffs wanted a single judge in one district to make a decision that would affect millions of people in all 50 states, according to Nessel. “And that’s incredibly scary.”
The decision came three weeks after Kacsmaryk held a hearing in Amarillo that had room for a small group of people. No recording or public livestreaming was permitted.
Washington, the state where the lawsuit was filed, is covered by the 9th Circuit. But it’s unclear if the ruling from Rice will be appealed. The decision out of Washington was still being reviewed by the Justice Department. A so-called circuit split would increase the odds that the Supreme Court would intervene. The Supreme Court may have no choice but to act because of the conflicting impact of the two district court rulings.
The Supreme Court rulings on medication abortion are likely to lead to confusion and confusion for doctors and patients – the case of Misoprostol
Abortion providers nationwide say that they will use another medication regimen for abortion, and that it will be Misoprostol alone. In the United States, off-label use of msoprostol is popular for other women’s health reasons.
Research suggests the single-drug regimen is somewhat less effective and often causes additional side effects. The method has been used internationally for decades and it can be used at the appropriate dose according to the World Health Organization.
The reproductive rights legal advocacy group believes that the decision will mean uncertainty and confusion for doctors and patients. If/When/How.
She said that people who are seeking an abortion with pills will find it hard to do so in the time period as providers work out what they will be able to do. The crisis of access was already begun in June of 2022, with the Supreme Court decision last year.
More people will look to induce their own abortions without supervision by using medication obtained online, or in other countries. She is worried about the risk of increased scrutiny of patients seeking medical care for emergency complications from abortions or cases of miscarrying.
She is worried that the ruling will cause confusion and make people think healthcare providers have to turn in patients suspected of inducing an abortion.
That could translate into misunderstandings and lead to thecriminalization of people who end their pregnancies, according to Diaz-Tello.
Within less than an hour, two major rulings came down in separate, closely watched cases concerning medication abortion – in lawsuits that are completely at odds with each other.
Allen says the FDA could decide to issue guidance for prescribers about how to interpret the rulings. She says a conflict between the federal courts might end up before the Supreme Court.
On the Supreme Court Decision to Sufficiently Restrict the Use of Mifepristone, an Anti-Abelian Treatment Drug
There were five deaths associated with mifepristone use for every 1 million people in the US who have used the drug since its approval in 2000, according to the US Food and Drug Administration as of last summer. That’s a death rate of 0.0005%.
Comparatively, the risk of death by penicillin — a common antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections like pneumonia — is four times greater than it is for mifepristone, according to a study on life-threatening allergic reactions. According to the FDA, a study shows that the risk of death by taking Viagra is nearly 10 times greater.
Whereas Kacsmaryk had been asked by the challengers in Texas to block medication abortion, US District Judge Thomas Owen Rice, who sits in Spokane, Washington, was considering whether abortion pills should be easier to obtain.
Both cases emerge from a political environment that was unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade reversal and a willingness to push the legal envelope that the Supreme Court ruling created. Friday night’s decisions could cause the abortion issue to go back to the Supreme Court.
The Justice Department, joined by the drug manufacturer, immediately said it would take after Kacsmaryk stopped his ruling for seven days. Joe Biden slammed the decision, calling it an unprecedented step in taking away basic freedoms from women and put their health at risk, and warned that the Food and Drug Administration’s mission might be undermined by political, ideological attacks.
Kacsmaryk was documented by a Washington Post profile as an anti- abortion activist before being appointed to the federal bench.
He said the FDA’s refusal to impose certain restrictions on the drug’s use “resulted in many deaths and many more severe or life-threatening adverse reactions.”
The numbers would likely be considerably lower if the FDA had not relented to the pressure to increase access to chemical abortion.
“The court’s disregard for well-established scientific facts in favor of speculative allegations and ideological assertions will cause harm to our patients and undermines the health of the nation,” the AMA president said.
He explained the reason why the preliminary injunction was justified, saying that the embryos had their own rights that could be part of the analysis. That assertion goes farther than what the Supreme Court said in its June ruling, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.
“Parenthetically, said ‘individual justice’ and ‘irreparable injury’ analysis also arguably applies to the unborn humans extinguished by mifepristone — especially in the post-Dobbs era,” Kacsmaryk said Friday.
The blue states asked Rice to remove REMS because they argued that the FDA had imposed restrictions on the drug that were unnecessary.
While Rice is rejecting that bid for now, he granted a request the states also made that the FDA be ordered to keep the drugs on the market. The ruling only applies to 17 states and the District of Columbia.
“I’m not sure whether there’s a direct conflict yet and with the Washington state decision just because I haven’t read it yet, but there may not be a direct conflict,” Erik Baptist, who is an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, said. It is not necessary to make a conclusion if there is a direct conflict, but it may be in the Supreme Court’s best interest.
Democrats and abortion advocates criticized the Amarillo-based Texas court and judge who were asked to remove him because of his opposition to abortion rights.
The ruling should make it clear that the GOP extremists want nothing but a ban on abortions worldwide, Mini Timmaraju said.
Ellen Rosenblum, the Democratic attorney general of Oregon, said her office was reviewing the orders but made clear this new front in the legal and political fight over abortion was only just taking shape.
“Don’t be too distracted by the breaking news out of Texas – we got a BIG WIN in the case led by Oregon and Washington (and joined by 16 other states),” Rosenblum tweeted. “The federal judge in the eastern district of Washington JUST granted our request to preserve access to Mifepristone pending the outcome of our case.”
“Our state is taking a step forward to a better and brighter future where our rights and freedoms will be protected,” Protasiewicz said in her victory speech this week.
What Do Conservatives Really Think About The Supreme Court Decision That Overturned the Right to Abortion? Comment on Biden on CNN’s Anderson Cooper
If Biden does not take a hard line, there could be a row with his own party. His response late Friday was fiery and he promised to fight the ruling. Biden did not suggest that he would tell the FDA to ignore it, even though he derided it as the next big step toward a national ban on abortion.
“I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling,” New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told CNN’s Anderson Cooper shortly after it was issued. The courts are engaged in an unprecedented erosion of their legitimacy.
The ruling that overturned the right to abortion, called Dobbs, could cause Republicans to get along less with one another.
Donald Trump, a leading candidate for the GOP nomination, has not commented on abortion issues. Earlier this year, Trump appeared to blame abortion opponents for the GOP’s weak midterm showing, as he said people that pushed so hard for decades against abortion got their wish from the US Supreme Court.
Now, though, the measure passed by nearly 57% of voters could be undercut by reduced access to a medication abortion pill, which is used in more than half of US abortions.
