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Tag: Reproductive rights

  • Virginia lawmakers send reproductive rights amendment toward November vote – WTOP News

    Unlike two other civil rights-related constitutional amendments that passed with bipartisan support over the past year, Virginia’s reproductive rights measure has faced intense debate at every stage, with every Republican in the legislature opposing it. 

    This article was reprinted with permission from Virginia Mercury. 

    A proposal allowing mid-decade redistricting of Virginia’s congressional maps that cleared the legislature last week may dominate debate heading into a spring special referendum, but a constitutional amendment on reproductive rights is poised to ignite similar fervor as the November election approaches.

    Unlike two other civil rights-related constitutional amendments that passed with bipartisan support over the past year, Virginia’s reproductive rights measure has faced intense debate at every stage, with every Republican in the legislature opposing it.

    In defending her amendment for the final time, Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, emphasized that advancing the proposal would ultimately leave the decision to voters across the state.

    Ranging from fertility treatments to contraception access to the ability to obtain an abortion, “this amendment protects families’ entire scope of reproductive needs,” she said.

    Boysko and several other Democratic lawmakers have described how women in states with abortion bans have died amid pregnancy complications. Those states have also seen an exodus of OB-GYN physicians amid uncertainty of treating patients who need abortions or miscarriage management.

    Boysko grew tearful as she recounted stories and advocacy shared by constituents and people around the state.

    Relatedly, Sen. Emily Jordan, R-Isle of Wight, struck a somber tone as she noted that “this is a difficult topic for a lot of people.”

    On the opposite side of the chamber’s aisle — and in opposition to the amendment — Jordan unsuccessfully attempted to modify the proposal to explicitly spell out care for babies when born.

    A sticking point for some Republicans has been concern that the amendment could be interpreted to allow abortion up to the “moment of birth,”  though infanticide remains illegal under both state code and federal law.

    Sen. Tara Durant, R-Stafford, also attempted for the second legislative session in a row, to reiterate existing parental consent laws. Democrats and legal experts said it is unnecessary. Under Virginia law, minors are required to have parental or guardian consent for an abortion unless they petition a judge for authorization.

    On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, accused Republicans of employing delay tactics by pressing for their amendments to the amendment.

    “It is a delay tactic,” Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Rockbridge, said on Friday, as he urged lawmakers to re-draft the amendment. Doing so, however, would restart the two-year process.

    A sense of urgency

    While not entirely a partisan issue at the national level, the issue has increasingly fallen along party lines in states. That dynamic, Virginia Wesleyan University professor Leslie Caughell said, helps explain why Democrats are moving quickly while they hold legislative majorities.

    Though placing language in the Constitution is difficult, it is also harder to undo. With every other Southern state imposing deep restrictions or near-total bans, bolstering Virginia’s protections has become a priority for Democrats. Providers and abortion funds in Virginia have also seen a surge in out-of-state patients seeking care.

    “I think everything that happened in North Carolina made activists on this really uncomfortable,” Caughell said.

    In 2023, a member of the neighboring state’s legislature switched from Democrat to Republican, giving the GOP a veto-proof majority and paving the way for enactment of North Carolina’s current 12-week abortion limit.

    In Virginia, Republicans have also put forward a range of abortion restrictions, from near-total bans to a 15-week cap that lacked exceptions for fetal anomalies — which are often not detected until around or after 15 weeks.

    On other reproductive health issues, a right-to-contraception bill has twice been vetoed by former Gov. Glenn Youngkin — a point Boysko reiterated as the amendment advanced last week.

    ‘Yes’ and “No’ campaigns on the horizon

    Reproductive rights groups in Virginia, along with physicians and volunteers, have coordinated as part the national Reproductive Freedom for All effort. Last year, a $5 million investment supported targeted initiatives ranging from canvassing to digital advertising in states such as Virginia, where Abigail Spanberger was elected governor.

    Spanberger campaigned in part on supporting the amendment, though governors do not formally factor into its success or failure.

    “I look forward to spending ample time in advance of the 2026 elections campaigning to make sure that people understand the importance of this constitutional amendment,” she told The Mercury last summer.

    On the other side, SBA Pro-Life America supported Virginia-based anti-abortion groups last year through door-knocking efforts in key House of Delegates districts that were up for election.

    Democrats ultimately grew their majority by flipping additional seats.

    The abortion-opposing group “doesn’t have anything to share on the Virginia front at this time,” Communications Director Kelsey Pritchard said in an email, but the organization is monitoring Virginia among other states as it prepares to engage voters.

    Virginians for Reproductive Freedom — which includes organizations like Repro Rising and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia — will likely ramp up public engagement events and advertising as the November elections approach.

    Caughell said she is watching closely to see how Virginia’s constitutional amendment campaigns intersect with this year’s congressional midterm elections.

    The measures — which include redistricting, reproductive rights, same-sex marriage rights and voting rights — arrive at a moment when Democrats may have an advantage, she noted.

    Midterm elections are often a referendum on the party that controls the White House, Caughell said.

    With Republican President Donald Trump in the White House, GOP majorities in Congress, and federal funding fallouts affecting states, the amendments championed by Democrats could also help drive down-ballot votes.

    She also noted that abortion, as a distinct health care need, has become a more salient argument in recent years, alongside economic considerations and support for personal choice.

    “We’ve expanded the parameters of our understanding of who this issue directly affects,” Caughell said.

    Speaking with reporters outside the Senate chamber Friday, Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, emphasized that the work is not finished.

    “It’s our responsibility to go out there and tell the voters this is what this means and help everybody understand what they’re voting for,” she said.

    LaDawn Black

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  • Republican fury after FDA approves abortion pill: ‘Complete betrayal’

    Several Republican figures have spoken out against the Donald Trump administration’s approval of an abortion pill, with former Vice President Mike Pence calling it a “complete betrayal of the pro-life movement.”

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave the green light to a new generic version of mifepristone on Tuesday, Drugmaker Evita Solutions announced on its website.

    Pence is one of multiple conservatives who have criticized the move—he called on Trump to reverse the decision.

    Newsweek has contacted the FDA and Evita Solutions, via email, for comment.

    Why It Matters

    The decision has ignited intense backlash from Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion groups, highlighting the enduring divisiveness of abortion policy in the United States.

    It comes amid ongoing legal and political battles over reproductive rights and federal drug approval authority.

    Mifepristone, first approved in 2000, is used in combination with misoprostol for medication abortions, a method accounting for the majority of abortions nationwide.

    The FDA’s action not only stokes political tensions but also underscores the complexities of drug regulation where ideological and medical considerations intersect.

    What People Are Saying

    Pence, who has repeatedly criticized Trump in the aftermath of the January 6 riots, said in a post on X: “The Trump Administration’s approval of a generic chemical abortion drug is a complete betrayal of the pro-life movement that elected President Trump.

    “Earlier this year, I opposed RFK’s nomination because he was unfit for the role and particularly over the concern that he would expand access to abortion, as he has done today.

    “President Trump must immediately reverse this decision. RFK must resign and give President Trump the opportunity to appoint a new Secretary of HHS who will protect the sanctity of life. The fight for life continues.”

    Missouri Republican U.S. Senator Josh Hawley said on X: “This is shocking. FDA has just approved ANOTHER chemical abortion drug, when the evidence shows chemical abortion drugs are dangerous and even deadly for the mother. And of course 100% lethal to the child.

    “FDA had promised to do a top-to-bottom safety review of the chemical abortion drug, but instead they’ve just greenlighted new versions of it for distribution. I have lost confidence in the leadership at FDA.”

    Oklahoma Republican Congressman Josh Brecheen said: “The FDA just approved the generic counterpart for mifepristone, the abortion pill. Abortion is one of the defining evils of our time, and we must acknowledge that it is murder in every form. 1 in 10 women who take the abortion pill face serious complications, at a rate 22x higher than initially reported by the FDA. How can this be considered safe for unborn children or women?”

    Prominent anti-abortion activist Lila Rose said: “UNACCEPTABLE: The FDA just approved another generic of the abortion pill mifepristone. This drug starves babies and harms mothers! The FDA just said it would do a new serious safety study—so why approve a another generic now?  Robert Kennedy Jr. must reverse this decision!”

    Reproductive Freedom for All account posted on X: “The FDA approved a new generic version of mifepristone, a pill that has been safely and effectively used in abortion and miscarriage care for over two decades. Thank you to the civil servants who made this happen.”

    What To Know

    In a letter to Republican attorneys general last month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary pledged to conduct a full review of mifepristone, which was approved 25 years ago and has repeatedly been deemed safe and effective by FDA scientists.

    Generic approvals are usually considered routine. After the patent on the original drug expires, multiple drugmakers often enter the market with cheaper versions. To receive approval, companies must demonstrate that their product is chemically identical to the original. In most cases, such reviews are completed within 10 months.

    But Evita’s application took far longer. According to FDA filings, the company submitted its request four years ago. The FDA did not explain the delay.

    What Happens Next

    Approval of Evita’s pill is not expected to significantly alter access to mifepristone. The medication is typically prescribed with misoprostol, a second drug that causes the uterus to contract and empty. Together, the two drugs account for roughly two-thirds of U.S. abortions. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone and softens the cervix to prepare the body for expulsion.

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  • Missouri judge strikes down ballot summary for anti-abortion measure backed by Republican lawmakers

    JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Missouri judge has struck down a ballot summary for an anti-abortion amendment backed by Republican state lawmakers while concluding that it presented an unfair and insufficient description to voters.

    Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green ruled Friday that the ballot summary must be rewritten, but he rejected a request by abortion-rights advocates to block the proposed constitutional amendment from going to voters.

    The judge said the summary prepared by Republican lawmakers failed to inform voters that the new measure would repeal an abortion-rights amendment adopted by voters last year. He directed the secretary of state’s office to write a new summary.

    The ruling marks the latest in a series of twists and turns in Missouri’s abortion policies over the past three years.

    When the U.S. Supreme Court ended a nationwide right to abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, that triggered a Missouri law to take effect banning abortions “except in cases of medical emergency.” But abortion-rights activists then gathered initiative petition signatures to put their own measure on the ballot.

    Last November, Missouri voters narrowly approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to abortion until fetal viability, generally considered sometime past 21 weeks of pregnancy. That measure, known as Amendment 3, also allows later abortions to protect the life or health of pregnant women and creates a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” that includes birth control, prenatal and postpartum care and “respectful birthing conditions.”

    In May, the Republican-led Legislature shut down Democratic opposition and approved a new referendum that would repeal Amendment 3 and instead allow abortions only for a medical emergency or fetal anomaly, or in cases of rape or incest up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. That proposed amendment also would prohibit gender transition surgeries, hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors, which already are barred under state law.

    Abortion-rights advocates had argued in a lawsuit that the entire measure should be stricken, alleging that the combination of abortion and transgender policies violated a constitutional requirement that amendments contain only one subject. But Green agreed with Republican lawmakers that both topics fit under the measure’s title of “reproductive health care.”

    The court order provided both sides an opportunity to claim victory.

    Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s office said in a statement that the court upheld “the central constitutional issues.”

    Tori Schafer, director of policy and campaigns at the ACLU of Missouri, said abortion-rights advocates are “pleased that the judge saw through the legislature’s deceitful language” in the ballot summary.

    Both the attorney general’s office and Republican state Rep. Brian Seitz, who championed the latest measure, said they are confident in Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins’ ability to revise the ballot summary.

    If it’s a simple wording change, “I think we would be fine with that, because we do want the Missouri voters to know what they are voting on,” Seitz said Friday.

    The proposed amendment will appear on the November 2026 ballot, unless Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe schedules the vote for sooner. The new measure is slated to be listed as Amendment 3 — the same number as the original abortion amendment.

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  • The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It?

    Bi understood how far-fetched her allegations sounded. “If it were not for all the hard evidence, it’s too shocking to believe [Rebecca Smith] did what she did to kill my son,” Bi wrote on Facebook, using Smith’s real name. Perhaps a kind friend could have suggested to Bi that there were other explanations. Instead, Bi had a set of legal adversaries and a supportive echo chamber. On Facebook, GCs and IPs alike expressed sympathy for Bi’s tragic posts: Everyone knew bad surrogates existed, and based on Bi’s claims, it sounded like Smith was one. Aimee Eyvazzadeh, a Bay Area fertility doctor and influencer, called Smith “a criminal” and “a psycho.” Bi’s $1,275-an-hour lawyer, Elizabeth Sperling, wondered whether digging through social media posts might show Smith engaging in “strenuous activity” that could explain the death.

    Bi’s husband focused on stabilizing the family, a move he credits with saving their marriage. He blamed the hospital, not Smith, but told me that the litigation is “her grieving process.” He tried to stay out of the legal stuff so that Bi couldn’t blame him too.

    Smith had planned to go back to work shortly after giving birth. Instead, she couldn’t stop bleeding. Even though SAI had determined she hadn’t breached the contract, the escrow stopped paying, leaving Smith reliant on disability benefits as she faced an increasing pile of terrifying bills.

    When Smith was finally cleared to return to work, a month after Leon died, Bi emailed Smith’s HR department to ask about her health plan. Bi also reported Smith to a federal agency, claiming that Smith was committing fraud. The stress on Smith was already high: Her supervisor at work had found her crying on and off for a day.

    Smith hadn’t heard from Bi since her terse reply to the condolence email. Then, Bi texted her a screenshot of a Facebook post about another GC who’d had an abruption at almost 32 weeks—but that GC had called 911 and the baby had lived.

    Next, Bi iMessaged a photo of Leon’s corpse to Smith’s 7-year-old son’s iPad.

    In the months after Leon died, Bi:

    Called the FBI 12 times. Reported Smith, SAI, the hospital, and Clarity escrow to more than a dozen state and federal regulators and numerous professional organizations. Launched a new round of her $30 million venture fund, backed by Marc Andreessen and David Sacks, President Trump’s “AI and crypto czar,” on Leon’s due date. Posted Leon’s ChatGPT-written endorsement from heaven, offering his “eternal blessings” for her work. Created TikToks, Instagram Reels, Facebook posts, X threads, LinkedIn Updates, and a website for her advocacy. Posted links disclosing Smith’s full name, photo, address, employer, mortgage license number, and son’s first name to her website. Asked her husband, again and again, how it was possible that Smith had carried her son but felt “nothing” about his death.

    Baby Leon’s empty crib.

    Courtesy of Cindy Bi

    Bi has abandonment issues that she traces back to her twenties, when her father divorced her mom for the mistress who’d conceived his long-awaited son. She got on lithium for her bipolar disorder in early 2021 and began looking for surrogates as soon as she stopped feeling “sedated.” I spoke to the therapist Bi hired to consult with her and Valdeiglesias. She told me that, of the 792 intended parents she has evaluated for surrogacy or gamete donation in the last decade, she has declined to recommend only about a dozen. “I’m not gatekeeping,” she said. When it comes to serious mental illness, she added, it’s up to them to disclose. One of Bi’s fertility doctors, meanwhile, told me it’s not his place to scrutinize intended parents. He defers to the recommendation of the psychological interviewer.

    If an intended parent gets turned down, they can usually find another therapist, another clinic, another agency. But without anyone questioning her plans, Bi seemed betrayed by the challenges of third-party reproduction. “Surrogacy is supposed to be the safest route,” she wrote on Instagram. It wasn’t just Leon’s death that pushed Bi into her spiral of legal action and social media posts. It was the apparent lack of control of having her child inside another woman’s body—the most basic fact of surrogacy.

    Emi Nietfeld

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  • Abortion group asks judge to toss out lawsuit

    Abortion group asks judge to toss out lawsuit

    BOSTON — An abortion rights group is asking a federal judge to toss out a lawsuit against them and Gov. Maura Healey by anti-abortion groups in response to a state-funded campaign targeting pregnancy ‘crisis’ center operators.

    In a motion to dismiss filed in U.S. District Court in Boston on Tuesday, lawyers for the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation argue that the plaintiffs “lack standing” to file the lawsuit and blasted the legal challenge as an attempt to “silence” their advocacy work.

    “Contrary to the allegations in the complaint, this case is not about any wrongful deprivation of the First Amendment or other constitutional rights …” lawyers for the foundation wrote in a court filing. “Instead, it is a blatant attempt to enlist this court’s assistance in its effort to silence Reproductive Equity Now Foundation and its president Rebecca Hart Holder, by enjoining them from exercising their constitutional rights.”

    The lawsuit, filed in August by the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center on behalf of Your Options Medical Center and others, alleges that the state and Equity Now violated their constitutional rights with a “campaign of harassment, suppression, and threats” against the Revere-based facility and other pregnancy centers.

    At issue is a taxpayer-funded education campaign by the state Department of Health warning the public to avoid pregnancy crisis centers, which have emerged as the latest battleground in abortion access following the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning federal protections.

    The $1 million campaign, which began earlier this year, has blanketed social media platforms, billboards and radio, with ads emblazoned on MBTA buses, trains and depots.

    The plaintiffs allege the campaign has forced them “to operate in a culture of fear and harassment” and that they continue to face “unprecedented investigations, including unnecessary subpoenas,” despite a prior state investigation clearing the operators of any wrongdoing.

    But lawyers for Holder and Equity Now argue in court filings that the public education campaign hasn’t deprived the pregnancy centers of their free speech rights or interfered with their operations.

    “To be clear, the public has not been prevented from seeking out and receiving YOM’s services, and YOM has not been prevented from expressing its viewpoints or fulfilling its mission consistent with those viewpoints,” they wrote.

    The plaintiffs “utterly failed to allege facts that plausibly demonstrate this is one of those rare instances in which the conduct of private parties constitutes state action,” they added.

    Hart-Holder calls the lawsuit “an attempt to silence our organization and prevent us from exercising our First Amendment protected right to free speech.”

    “We will not be intimidated by this lawsuit, and we will always fight for New England patients and their ability to access the reproductive health care that is right for them,” she said in a statement.

    Pregnancy crisis centers have emerged as the latest battleground in abortion access following the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning federal protections.

    The centers, which advertise free services and counseling for women struggling with unplanned pregnancies, have proliferated in the wake of the high court’s decision overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

    But Healey and women’s reproductive rights groups claim the facilities are funded by anti-abortion groups with the intention of blocking women from getting abortions.

    In June, the state Department of Public Health partnered with the advocacy groups on a new campaign to educate the public about the “dangers and potential harm” of anti-abortion centers that advocates say are providing misleading information to women.

    The $1 million taxpayer-funded public campaign features ads on social media platforms, billboards, radio and transit warning women about the pregnancy crisis centers.

    Some communities have moved to limit or ban the centers amid complaints that they are using deceptive advertising and providing misinformation.

    But anti-abortion groups say the centers are providing options to women other than abortions and being unfairly targeted by a “smear campaign” by proponents of the procedure.

    The Pregnancy Care Alliance of Massachusetts said the network of pregnancy care centers in the state “provides millions of dollars in no-cost support and care for thousands of women annually who face planned and unplanned pregnancies.”

    The alliance has accused Healey and other state leaders of “furthering their extreme abortion agenda by using a taxpayer-funded campaign to discredit our centers.”

    “Our pregnancy resource centers are paying close attention to the case and look forward to learning the outcome, since a decision will directly impact our service to women and communities across the state,” the alliance said in a statement.

    The conservative American Center for Law and Justice, which has helped former President Donald Trump fight his legal battles, is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. It argues that the campaign targeting pregnancy centers is part of a strategy to “silence the anti-abortion movement.”

    Healey, who is being represented by the Attorney General’s office, hasn’t formally responded to the lawsuit’s claims but was granted an extension this week to file her response until Dec. 13, according to federal court filings.

    Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.

    By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter

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  • Abortion-rights groups are courting Latino voters in Arizona and Florida

    Abortion-rights groups are courting Latino voters in Arizona and Florida

    PHOENIX (AP) — When Lesley Chavez found out she was pregnant at age 16, she saw her daughter as a blessing from God and never considered an abortion, a view reinforced by her devout Christian mother. If she could have voted at the time, Chavez would have opposed expanding abortion access.

    But 10 years later — as she and other Arizona residents braced for a possible ban on nearly all abortions — Chavez drove over 300 miles (480 kilometers) to California to help a friend get one. That experience with someone she knew who was struggling financially and couldn’t support another child was the final push that changed Chavez’s stance on the issue.

    “I just kind of felt like, dang, if I didn’t have nobody, I would want someone like me to be there. I would want someone that’s not going to judge me and actually help,” she said.

    Now, she helps deliver that message to other Latinos in Arizona, one of nine states that is considering constitutional amendments to enshrine abortion rights.

    As abortion-rights groups court Latino voters through door-knocking and Spanish-language ads, they say the fast-growing group could determine the outcome of abortion ballot measures across the U.S., particularly in states such as Arizona and Florida with large Latino populations.

    Like other Americans, Latinos have an array of personal feelings and connections to the issue that can be impacted by religion, culture, country of origin and other things, organizers say. But their views are often misunderstood and oversimplified by people who assume they are all Catholic and, therefore, anti-abortion, said Natasha Sutherland, communications director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, which is behind an abortion measure in that state.

    A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about two-thirds of Hispanic Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. About 4 in 10 U.S. Hispanics identify as Catholic, about one-third as Protestant or “other Christian,” and about one-quarter as religiously unaffiliated.

    Efforts to reach Latino voters often hinge on one-on-one conversations — “old-school, boots on the ground organizing,” said Alex Berrios, co-founder of the grassroots Florida group Mi Vecino, or “my neighbor.”

    Overall, about 14.7% of eligible voters, or 36.2 million people, are Latino, according to the Pew Research Center.

    In Florida, 18% of registered voters are Hispanic, or 2.4 million people, according to an October 2023 analysis by the nonpartisan Latino advocacy organization NALEO Educational Fund. More than 855,000 Latinos are expected to cast ballots in Arizona for the November election, making up about 1 in 4 Arizona voters, according to NALEO.

    As a lead canvasser for the grassroots Arizona group Poder in Action, Chavez has knocked on the doors of ambivalent Latino voters, persuading them to support a measure that would guarantee access to abortion until fetal viability, a term used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. It’s generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks.

    Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, moved the measure to the top of its canvassing script because voters kept bringing up the issue. LUCHA campaigns to low-income Latino, Black and Indigenous voters.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    “People initiated the conversation like, ‘Oh yeah I just heard on the news what happened with the 1800 abortion ban,’” Abril Gallardo, chief of staff for LUCHA, said, referring to the 1864 abortion ban that the Arizona Supreme Court signaled in April the state could enforce but that lawmakers later repealed.

    Another group, Mi Familia Vota, has put $200,000 toward its efforts to mobilize Latino voters to support the measure.

    The official campaign against the proposal— It Goes Too Far — has enlisted Hispanic volunteers in its effort to sway voters.

    Abortion is one of the most important issues in the upcoming election to about 4 in 10 Hispanic voters, below the economy, crime, and health care, and about on par with immigration, according to the AP-NORC poll.

    In Florida, abortion is illegal after the first six weeks of pregnancy. The November ballot measure would legalize abortion until fetal viability.

    “The Latino community is a huge part of any campaign in Florida,” Sutherland said. “We can’t win this without Latinos, so Latino outreach is essential.”

    Sutherland said her group uses bilingual phone banking and canvassing efforts, hosted a bilingual campaign launch rally, hired a Latino outreach manager and holds weekly Spanish-language meetings to discuss strategy.

    The opposing campaign has ads in Spanish and has a Spanish version of its website called “Vota No En La 4.”

    Berrios’ group, Mi Vecino, has focused on Florida’s 9th Congressional District, which includes Osceola County and Orlando and was the first majority Hispanic district to meet the signature requirement for putting abortion rights on the ballot. Berrios tells supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that they can vote for him and for abortion rights.

    “We saw a need for a culturally competent nonpartisan effort to engage and educate Hispanic voters on reproductive freedom,” Berrios said.

    For Latino men especially, it has been helpful to include messaging about limiting government decisions in family and health care decisions, several Florida organizers said.

    “You need to have conversations that are tailored to the person in front of you. For folks in Florida, for example, who escaped communism in their own countries, they’re really moved by things having to do with freedom and the power to determine the conditions of their own lives. We try to be as nuanced as possible,” said Lupe Rodriguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice.

    Rocio Garcia, an assistant professor of sociology at Arizona State University, said that over time, Latinas, including those who are Catholic, have swung toward supporting abortion access, even if they would not get an abortion themselves.

    Alyssa Sanchez, a 23-year-old Mexican American who is Catholic, plans to vote for Arizona’s measure. Her family members have been supportive of the issue as long as she could remember.

    “You do still have to take Bibles, sayings, everything about the Catholic religion to your own interpretation,” said Sanchez, a lifelong Arizona resident. “And then battling that thought it just comes down to, I believe in people’s choice to their own bodies stronger than I believe in anything else.”

    Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, vice president for health justice at the National Partnership for Women & Families, said abortion-rights supporters cannot afford to assume Latino voters do not support abortion rights, especially in majority-Republican Florida, which requires 60% voter support to pass a constitutional amendment.

    “If you’re going to approach any voter with false assumptions, you’re not going to be able to connect,” she said.

    ___

    Fernando reported from Chicago.

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  • Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban is officially off the books

    Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban is officially off the books

    PHOENIX — Arizona’s Civil War-era ban on nearly all abortions officially is being repealed Saturday.

    The western swing state has been whipsawed over recent months, starting with the Arizona Supreme Court deciding in April to let the state enforce the long-dormant 1864 law that criminalized all abortions except when a woman’s life was jeopardized. Then state lawmakers voted on a bill to repeal that law once and for all.

    Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed the bill in May, declaring it was just the beginning of a fight to protect reproductive health care in Arizona.

    “I will continue doing everything in my power to protect reproductive freedoms, because I trust women to make the decisions that are best for them, and know politicians do not belong in the doctor’s office,” Hobbs said in a statement.

    Abortion has sharply defined Arizona’s political arena since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. As the November general election approaches, the issue remains a focus of Democratic campaigns, and it will be up to Arizona voters to decide whether to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution.

    It was after the state Supreme Court cleared the way for enforcement that Hobbs urged the state Legislature to take imminent action to undo the ban before it went into effect. Republican lawmakers, who hold a narrow majority in both chambers, derailed discussions about repealing the ban. At one point, the roadblocks resulted in chants of “Shame! Shame!” by outraged Democratic colleagues.

    Emotions on the House floor and in the gallery ran high as House Democrats were able to garner the support of three Republicans to pass the repeal legislation two weeks later, sending the measure to the Senate for consideration. Two GOP senators joined with Democrats a week later to grant final approval.

    Democrats were advocating for the repeal long before the Supreme Court issued its ruling. Even Hobbs called for action in her January State of the State address.

    The battle in Arizona made national headlines again when Democratic state Sen. Eva Burch told fellow lawmakers in a floor speech in March that she was going to get an abortion because her pregnancy was no longer viable. She said in an interview that it was her chance to highlight that the laws passed by legislators in Arizona “actually do impact people in practice and not just in theory.”

    In the weeks between the high court’s decision and Hobbs signing the repeal into law, Arizonans were in a state of confusion about whether the near-total ban would end up taking effect before the repeal was implemented.

    A court order put the ban on hold, but questions lingered about whether doctors in the state could perform the procedure. California Gov. Gavin Newsom weighed in on the issue in late May, signing legislation allowing Arizona doctors to receive temporary, emergency licenses to perform abortions in California.

    With the territorial ban no longer in play, Arizona law allows abortions until 15 weeks. After that, there is an exception to save the life of the mother, but missing are exceptions for cases of rape or incest after the 15-week mark.

    Arizona requires those seeking an abortion prior to the 15-week mark to have an ultrasound at least 24 hours before the procedure and to be given the opportunity to view it. Minors must have either parental consent or authorization from a state judge, except in cases of incest or when their life is at risk.

    Abortion medication can only be provided through a qualified physician, and only licensed physicians can perform surgical abortions. Abortion providers and clinics also must record and report certain information about the abortions they perform to the department of health services.

    Voters will have the ultimate say on whether to add the right to an abortion to the state constitution when they cast their ballots in the general election.

    Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition leading the ballot measure campaign, was successful in securing the measure’s spot on the ballot. The Arizona Secretary of State verified 577,971 signatures that were collected as part of the citizen-led campaign, well over the 383,923 required from registered voters.

    If voters approve the measure, abortions would be allowed until fetal viability — the point at which a fetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks. It also would allow abortions after that time in cases where the mother’s physical or mental health is in jeopardy.

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  • Trump wants to make the GOP a ‘leader’ on IVF. Republicans’ actions make that a tough sell

    Trump wants to make the GOP a ‘leader’ on IVF. Republicans’ actions make that a tough sell

    Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s vow to promote in vitro fertilization by forcing health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for the treatments is at odds with the actions of much of his own party.Related video above: Former President Donald Trump holds town hall in battleground state of WisconsinYet his surprising announcement Thursday reveals the former president’s realization that GOP stances on abortion and reproductive rights could be huge liabilities for his chances of returning to the White House. Trump has quickly tried to reframe the narrative around those issues after Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race.Even before he made his coverage proposal, Trump had been promoting the idea that the Republican Party is a “leader” on IVF. That characterization is rejected by Democrats, who have seized on the common but expensive fertility treatment as another dimension of reproductive rights threatened by Republicans and a second Trump presidency.It’s not just political partisans.”Republicans are not leaders on IVF,” said Katie Watson, a medical ethics professor at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “Some of them have posed a threat to IVF, and they’re currently trying to figure out how to be anti-abortion and pro-IVF, and there are internal inconsistencies and struggles there. It appears that the Republicans are careening to remedy the political damage that resulted from their own choices.”Trump’s proposal, which he announced without providing details, illustrates how reproductive rights have become central in this year’s presidential race. It’s also the latest example of the former president attempting to appear moderate on the issue, despite repeatedly boasting about appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.Even as the Republican Party has attempted to create a national narrative that it’s receptive of in vitro fertilization, many Republicans have been left grappling with the innate tension between support for the procedure and for laws passed by their own party that grant legal personhood not only to fetuses but to any embryos that are destroyed in the IVF process.The messaging efforts also have been undercut by state lawmakers, Republican-dominated courts and anti-abortion leaders within the party’s ranks, as well as opposition to legislative attempts to protect IVF access.Ahead of the Republican National Convention in July, the Republican Party adopted a policy platform that supports states establishing fetal personhood through the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law to all American citizens. The platform also encourages supporting IVF but does not explain how the party plans to do so while also encouraging fetal personhood laws that would render the treatment illegal.In May, the Texas Republican Party’s platform committee narrowly rejected a proposal to classify embryos created through IVF as “human beings” and designate their destruction as “homicide.” A bill aimed at expanding IVF access, meanwhile, sailed through in California on Thursday, despite opposition from nearly all Republican lawmakers.Video below: A conversation with Elizabeth Carr, the first person born via IVF in the USSen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois who shared her own IVF journey on the Senate floor and co-sponsored a bill to protect the treatment, slammed Republicans for saying they support IVF in campaigning but not backing that up with their votes.She added that Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump “paved the way” for the fall of Roe v. Wade and the impact on reproductive rights, including access to IVF.”Republicans publicly claiming to be in support of IVF is absurd,” she told the AP.The issue burst onto the national political landscape in February after the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court granted frozen embryos the legal rights of children. That decision forced clinics in Alabama to pause their IVF treatments, devastating patients struggling to be parents. Soon after, and facing a national backlash, Alabama’s Republican governor signed legislation shielding doctors from legal liability so IVF procedures could continue.In the weeks after the Alabama ruling, congressional Republicans scrambled to address IVF. Many rushed to create a unified message of support despite histories of voting in favor of fetal personhood laws and arguing that life begins at conception, the same concept that upheld the Alabama decision.”The reality is you cannot protect IVF and champion fetal personhood — they are fundamentally incompatible — and the American people won’t be fooled by another one of Donald Trump’s lies,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat and co-sponsor of the Right to IVF bill, told The Associated Press.Republican Sens. Katie Britt and Ted Cruz introduced a bill this year to prohibit states from receiving Medicaid funding if they ban the procedure. But that came after Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have made IVF a federal right. All Republicans except Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against the measure.”It’s not easy for a Republican lawmaker to say they’re for IVF and actually mean it in a straightforward, tangible way without angering a lot of constituents,” said Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law.An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that more than 6 in 10 U.S. adults support protecting access to IVF, including more than half of Republicans, and only about 1 in 10 are opposed. But many anti-abortion groups and some lawmakers oppose the treatment, including several members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus who have objected to expanding IVF access for veterans.At least 23 bills aiming to establish fetal personhood have been introduced in 13 states so far this legislative session, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. This type of legislation, all proposed by Republican lawmakers, is based on the idea that life begins at fertilization and could imperil fertility treatments that involve the storage, transportation and destruction of embryos.Still, many GOP lawmakers have been vocal in their support for IVF. The issue is personal for Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who shared his daughter’s IVF experience. But even though Johnson said he fully supports IVF, he was not completely sold on Trump’s proposal due to its possible price tag. Other Republican lawmakers who responded publicly after Trump’s announcement expressed similar concerns. “I would need to see cost estimates, impacts on insurance rates, etc., before making any decisions or commitments to support any proposal,” Johnson said.Republican lawmakers have historically opposed federal funding to cover health care, including by repeatedly attempting to undo the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, and may be unlikely to support similar plans, including for IVF.Lack of health insurance coverage for fertility treatments has been a major barrier for those wanting to start or continue treatments. While coverage has been expanding in recent years, less than half of employers with 500 or more workers in the U.S. offered IVF coverage in 2023, according to the benefits consultant Mercer.Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of California faced criticism for supporting a GOP bill aiming to grant constitutional protection to embryos at “the moment of fertilization” after she publicly shared her own experience with IVF. Steel rescinded her co-sponsorship of the measure in March, two days after winning her primary, declaring she does not support federal restrictions on IVF.In a statement to the AP, she said Congress “must pass policies to support and expand access to IVF treatments.”Such flip-flopping from Republicans only provides fodder for Democrats, who say Trump and his party can’t be trusted to protect reproductive rights.Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, warned voters to “watch what they do, not what they say.” ___Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Tom Murphy in Indianapolis and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.

    CHICAGO —

    Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s vow to promote in vitro fertilization by forcing health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for the treatments is at odds with the actions of much of his own party.

    Related video above: Former President Donald Trump holds town hall in battleground state of Wisconsin

    Yet his surprising announcement Thursday reveals the former president’s realization that GOP stances on abortion and reproductive rights could be huge liabilities for his chances of returning to the White House. Trump has quickly tried to reframe the narrative around those issues after Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race.

    Even before he made his coverage proposal, Trump had been promoting the idea that the Republican Party is a “leader” on IVF. That characterization is rejected by Democrats, who have seized on the common but expensive fertility treatment as another dimension of reproductive rights threatened by Republicans and a second Trump presidency.

    It’s not just political partisans.

    “Republicans are not leaders on IVF,” said Katie Watson, a medical ethics professor at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “Some of them have posed a threat to IVF, and they’re currently trying to figure out how to be anti-abortion and pro-IVF, and there are internal inconsistencies and struggles there. It appears that the Republicans are careening to remedy the political damage that resulted from their own choices.”

    Trump’s proposal, which he announced without providing details, illustrates how reproductive rights have become central in this year’s presidential race. It’s also the latest example of the former president attempting to appear moderate on the issue, despite repeatedly boasting about appointing the three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion.

    Even as the Republican Party has attempted to create a national narrative that it’s receptive of in vitro fertilization, many Republicans have been left grappling with the innate tension between support for the procedure and for laws passed by their own party that grant legal personhood not only to fetuses but to any embryos that are destroyed in the IVF process.

    The messaging efforts also have been undercut by state lawmakers, Republican-dominated courts and anti-abortion leaders within the party’s ranks, as well as opposition to legislative attempts to protect IVF access.

    Ahead of the Republican National Convention in July, the Republican Party adopted a policy platform that supports states establishing fetal personhood through the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law to all American citizens. The platform also encourages supporting IVF but does not explain how the party plans to do so while also encouraging fetal personhood laws that would render the treatment illegal.

    In May, the Texas Republican Party’s platform committee narrowly rejected a proposal to classify embryos created through IVF as “human beings” and designate their destruction as “homicide.” A bill aimed at expanding IVF access, meanwhile, sailed through in California on Thursday, despite opposition from nearly all Republican lawmakers.

    Video below: A conversation with Elizabeth Carr, the first person born via IVF in the US

    Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois who shared her own IVF journey on the Senate floor and co-sponsored a bill to protect the treatment, slammed Republicans for saying they support IVF in campaigning but not backing that up with their votes.

    She added that Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump “paved the way” for the fall of Roe v. Wade and the impact on reproductive rights, including access to IVF.

    “Republicans publicly claiming to be in support of IVF is absurd,” she told the AP.

    The issue burst onto the national political landscape in February after the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court granted frozen embryos the legal rights of children. That decision forced clinics in Alabama to pause their IVF treatments, devastating patients struggling to be parents. Soon after, and facing a national backlash, Alabama’s Republican governor signed legislation shielding doctors from legal liability so IVF procedures could continue.

    In the weeks after the Alabama ruling, congressional Republicans scrambled to address IVF. Many rushed to create a unified message of support despite histories of voting in favor of fetal personhood laws and arguing that life begins at conception, the same concept that upheld the Alabama decision.

    “The reality is you cannot protect IVF and champion fetal personhood — they are fundamentally incompatible — and the American people won’t be fooled by another one of Donald Trump’s lies,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat and co-sponsor of the Right to IVF bill, told The Associated Press.

    Republican Sens. Katie Britt and Ted Cruz introduced a bill this year to prohibit states from receiving Medicaid funding if they ban the procedure. But that came after Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have made IVF a federal right. All Republicans except Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against the measure.

    “It’s not easy for a Republican lawmaker to say they’re for IVF and actually mean it in a straightforward, tangible way without angering a lot of constituents,” said Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law.

    An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that more than 6 in 10 U.S. adults support protecting access to IVF, including more than half of Republicans, and only about 1 in 10 are opposed. But many anti-abortion groups and some lawmakers oppose the treatment, including several members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus who have objected to expanding IVF access for veterans.

    At least 23 bills aiming to establish fetal personhood have been introduced in 13 states so far this legislative session, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

    This type of legislation, all proposed by Republican lawmakers, is based on the idea that life begins at fertilization and could imperil fertility treatments that involve the storage, transportation and destruction of embryos.

    Still, many GOP lawmakers have been vocal in their support for IVF. The issue is personal for Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, who shared his daughter’s IVF experience. But even though Johnson said he fully supports IVF, he was not completely sold on Trump’s proposal due to its possible price tag. Other Republican lawmakers who responded publicly after Trump’s announcement expressed similar concerns.

    “I would need to see cost estimates, impacts on insurance rates, etc., before making any decisions or commitments to support any proposal,” Johnson said.

    Republican lawmakers have historically opposed federal funding to cover health care, including by repeatedly attempting to undo the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, and may be unlikely to support similar plans, including for IVF.

    Lack of health insurance coverage for fertility treatments has been a major barrier for those wanting to start or continue treatments. While coverage has been expanding in recent years, less than half of employers with 500 or more workers in the U.S. offered IVF coverage in 2023, according to the benefits consultant Mercer.

    Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of California faced criticism for supporting a GOP bill aiming to grant constitutional protection to embryos at “the moment of fertilization” after she publicly shared her own experience with IVF. Steel rescinded her co-sponsorship of the measure in March, two days after winning her primary, declaring she does not support federal restrictions on IVF.

    In a statement to the AP, she said Congress “must pass policies to support and expand access to IVF treatments.”

    Such flip-flopping from Republicans only provides fodder for Democrats, who say Trump and his party can’t be trusted to protect reproductive rights.

    Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan, warned voters to “watch what they do, not what they say.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Tom Murphy in Indianapolis and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Utah’s near-total abortion ban to remain blocked until lower court assesses its constitutionality

    Utah’s near-total abortion ban to remain blocked until lower court assesses its constitutionality

    SALT LAKE CITY — A near-total abortion ban will remain on hold in Utah after the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the law should remain blocked until a lower court can assess its constitutionality.

    With the decision, abortion remains legal up to 18 weeks under another state law that has served as a fallback as abortion rights have been thrown into limbo.

    The panel wrote in its opinion that Planned Parenthood Association of Utah had legal standing to challenge the state’s abortion trigger law, and that a lower court acted within its purview when it initially blocked the ban.

    Their ruling only affects whether the restrictions remain on pause amid further legal proceedings and does not decide the final outcome of abortion policy in the state. The case will now be sent back to a lower court to determine whether the law is constitutional.

    The trigger law that remains on hold would prohibit abortions except in cases when the mother’s life is at risk or there is a fatal fetal abnormality. A separate state law passed this year also would allow abortions up to 15 weeks of pregnancy in cases of rape or incest.

    Utah lawmakers passed the trigger law — one of the most restrictive in the nation — in 2020 to automatically ban most abortions should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade. When Roe fell in June 2022, abortion rights advocates in Utah immediately challenged the law, and a district court judge put it on hold a few days later.

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court decision, most Republican-led states have implemented abortion bans or heavy restrictions. Currently, 14 states are enforcing bans at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions. Four more have bans that kick in after about six weeks of pregnancy — before many women realize they’re pregnant. Besides Utah’s, the only other ban currently on hold due to a court order is in neighboring Wyoming.

    When the U.S. Supreme Court determined there was no right to abortion in the federal Constitution, a key legal question became whether state constitutions have provisions that protect abortion access. State constitutions differ, and state courts have come to different conclusions. In April, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that an abortion ban adopted in 1864 could be enforced — but lawmakers quickly repealed it.

    Abortion figures to be a major issue in November’s elections, with abortion-related ballot measures going before voters in at least six states. In the seven statewide measures held since Roe was overturned, voters have sided with abortion rights advocates each time.

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  • Supreme Court Accidentally Leaks Its Opinion Apparently Overturning Idaho Emergency Abortion Ban

    Supreme Court Accidentally Leaks Its Opinion Apparently Overturning Idaho Emergency Abortion Ban

    The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday accidentally leaked its opinion in a case involving Idaho’s emergency abortion ban and it appears that the justices will be ruling against the state.

    In the drafted opinion on Moyle V. United States which appeared briefly on the high court’s website and was subsequently removed, the majority of justices sided with the decision to dismiss the case as “improvidently granted” or on the grounds that the court should not have taken it. They did not specify why.

    This determination would reinstate a lower court’s prior ruling that allowed hospitals in Idaho to perform emergency abortions despite the state’s near-total ban on the medical procedure. Per the opinion released on Wednesday, conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch voted against dismissing the case.

    According to reports, a spokeswoman for the court confirmed that the opinion was published before the final decision. Pending its final release, it could be subject to change. There are two more opinion days in this Supreme Court term.

    This is not the first mishap of its kind. A draft of the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade—which reversed the constitutional right to an abortion—was leaked to the media in May 2022.

    The nation’s highest court heard oral arguments in late April in the case involving Idaho’s abortion ban that challenges whether a federal law that enforces emergency stabilizing care, including abortions, overrides the state mandate that only permits these procedures if, without them, a person would die.

    At the core of the challenge brought forth by the Biden Administration is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. First passed in 1986, EMTALA requires all hospitals enrolled in Medicare to provide stabilizing care to patients having a medical emergency.

    If these facilities fail to abide by this requirement, they risk losing the ability to participate in Medicare and other state health programs and could have their provider agreements terminated.

    Idaho Solicitor General Joshua Turner argued that the state was within its jurisdiction to decide how to practice medicine and that each emergent situation would be evaluated and handled on a case-by-case basis.

    Sotomayor and Kagan challenged Turner’s assertions, questioning what would occur in a series of hypothetical patient cases they presented to Turner. Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Thomas appeared to favor siding with Turner’s arguments in tandem with their conservative counterparts.

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett — who has notably been a voice in opposition to abortion — seemed to contradict her usual stance in her line of questioning to Turner. Barrett challenged why the high-risk examples were not exempted under Idaho’s ban if they posed the possibility of death.

    Sotomayor took issue with Turner’s point that there was no objective standard to determining what to do in each situation, only a subjective one based on the physician’s good-faith decision. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that the case was not about Idaho’s overall ban but the state’s ability to criminalize essential care.

    Hospitals serve primary and maternity care providers for many, especially those living in the growing number of maternal healthcare deserts across the nation. Texas residents, in particular, face this barrier to care, with roughly 50 percent of the state’s 254 counties classified as maternal health deserts without OB-GYNS or birthing facilities as of last year.

    The decision of the nation’s highest court could affect a similar case brought forth by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against the BIdne Administration, which is currently pending in the courts. Paxton initiated the lawsuit, challenging the federal government’s ability to require hospitals to offer emergency abortions.

    Most recently, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Texas. If the ruling is challenged and goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, it will likely be heard in October 2025.

    The final opinion on the Idaho case could come out Thursday or Friday. If the court upholds its decision from the version released on Wednesday, the matter is expected to return to lower courts.

    Faith Bugenhagen

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  • The anti-abortion movement is making a big play to thwart citizen initiatives on reproductive rights

    The anti-abortion movement is making a big play to thwart citizen initiatives on reproductive rights

    CHICAGO — Reeling from a string of defeats, anti-abortion groups and their Republican allies in state governments are using an array of strategies to counter proposed ballot initiatives intended to protect reproductive rights or prevent voters from having a say in the fall elections.

    The tactics include attempts to get signatures removed from initiative petitions, legislative pushes for competing ballot measures that could confuse voters and monthslong delays caused by lawsuits over ballot initiative language. Abortion rights advocates say many of the strategies build off ones tested last year in Ohio, where voters eventually passed a constitutional amendment affirming reproductive rights.

    The strategies are being used in one form or another in at least seven states where initiatives aimed at codifying abortion and reproductive rights are proposed for the November ballot. The fights over planned statewide ballot initiatives are the latest sign of the deep divisions created by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two years ago to end a constitutional right to abortion.

    This past week, the court issued a ruling in another major abortion case, unanimously upholding access to a drug used in the majority of U.S. abortions, although fights over mifepristone remain active in many states.

    The stakes for the proposed ballot initiatives are high for both sides.

    Where Republicans control the legislature and enact strict abortion limits, a statewide citizens initiative is often the only avenue for protecting access to abortion and other reproductive rights. Voters have either enshrined abortion rights or turned back attempts to restrict it in all seven states where the question has been on the ballot since 2022.

    In South Dakota, lawmakers passed a bill allowing residents to withdraw their signatures on citizen-led petitions. This launched a comprehensive effort by anti-abortion groups to invalidate a proposed abortion rights ballot measure by encouraging endorsers to withdraw signatures.

    The South Dakota secretary of state in May labeled as a “scam” hundreds of phone calls from an anti-abortion group the office accused of “impersonating” government officials.

    “It appears that the calls are trying to pressure voters into asking that their name be removed from the Abortion Rights petitions,” the office said in a statement.

    Adam Weiland, co-founder of Dakotans for Health, the organization behind the proposed measure, said this is part of “an orchestrated, organized effort across states.”

    “The people want to vote on this issue, and they don’t want that to happen,” he said of anti-abortion groups. “They’re using everything they can to prevent a vote on this issue.”

    An Arkansas “Decline to Sign” campaign escalated this month after a conservative advocacy group published the names of the paid canvassers for an abortion rights ballot measure effort. Arkansans for Limited Government, the group behind the ballot measure effort, denounced the move as an intimidation tactic.

    In Missouri, Republicans and anti-abortion groups have opposed efforts to restore abortion rights through a constitutional amendment at every step in the process.

    Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey stonewalled the abortion-rights campaign for months last year. Then the secretary of state, Republican Jay Ashcroft, tried to describe the proposal to voters as allowing “dangerous and unregulated abortions until live birth.” A state appeals court last year ruled that Ashcroft’s wording was politically partisan and tossed it.

    But Ashcroft’s actions and the legal battle cost the abortion-rights campaign several months, blocking its supporters from collecting thousands of voter signatures needed to put the amendment on the ballot.

    Once the legal battles were settled, abortion opponents launched a “decline to sign” campaign aimed at thwarting the abortion-rights campaigns’ signature-collecting efforts. At one point, voters were sent texts falsely accusing petitioners of trying to steal people’s personal data.

    Republican lawmakers sought to advance another ballot measure to raise the threshold for amending the Missouri Constitution, partly in hopes of making it harder to enact the abortion-rights proposal.

    Both anti-abortion efforts failed, and the abortion-rights campaign in May turned in more than double the required number of voter signatures. Now it’ i up to Ashcroft’s office to verify the signatures and qualify it for the ballot.

    Meanwhile, opposition groups in Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Nebraska have tried to create their own ballot amendments to codify existing abortion restrictions, though these efforts failed to gather enough signatures in Florida and Colorado.

    Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland who served as a consultant to the Issue 1 campaign that codified abortion rights in Ohio, said she had warned about the possibility of competing ballot measures that could confuse voters.

    While attempts to keep abortion off the ballot follow a similar blueprint to what she saw in Ohio last year, Hill said she is closely watching new efforts across the country.

    “The anti-abortion side is still trying to figure out what the formula is to defeat these ballot measures,” Hill said.

    A strategy document leaked last month shows Arizona Republicans considering several competing measures to enshrine abortion restrictions into the state constitution. Possible petition names include the “Protecting Pregnant Women and Safe Abortions Act,” the “Arizona Abortion and Reproductive Care Act” or the “Arizona Abortion Protection Act.”

    The document explicitly details how the alternative measures could undercut a proposal from reproductive rights groups aiming to codify abortion rights through viability, usually around 23 weeks to 24 weeks into pregnancy.

    “This leaked document showed a plan to confuse voters through one or multiple competing ballot measures with similar titles,” said Cheryl Bruce, campaign manager for Arizona for Abortion Access.

    In Nebraska, anti-abortion groups are countering a planned ballot initiative to protect reproductive rights with two of their own.

    Allie Berry, campaign manager of the Nebraska Protect Our Rights campaign, which is intended to protect reproductive rights, said the competing measures are designed to deceive and confuse voters. She said the campaign is working to educate voters on the differences between each of the initiatives.

    “If you’re having to resort to deception and confusion, it shows that they realize that most Nebraskans want to protect abortion rights,” she said.

    One counter initiative launched by anti-abortion activists in May seeks to ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Called “Now Choose Life,” the petition would grant embryos “personhood.”

    Another launched in March would not go that far but instead seeks to codify the state’s existing 12-week abortion ban into the state constitution while giving lawmakers the ability to pass further restrictions in the future.

    The petition, called Protect Women and Children, has been endorsed by the national anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and others in the state.

    Sandy Danek, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, called the petition a “reasonable alternative measure.” She said as “as time goes on and we continue to educate,” the organization will aim to restrict abortion further.

    “I see this as an incremental process that we’ve been working on for 50 years,” she said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • U.S Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Abortion Pill, Allows it to Stay on the Market

    U.S Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Abortion Pill, Allows it to Stay on the Market

    On Thursday, the U.S Supreme Court rejected a challenge to restricting access to the abortion drug, Mifepristone, effectively shutting down a plea by a group of physicians with anti-abortion views to block circulation of the widely-used pill.

    The court ruled unanimously that medical professionals from the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine — the lead plaintiff in the case — did not have legal standing to request the reversal of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s long-standing approval of the drug or call for additional restrictions on its usage.

    The decision will keep the medication available in states where abortion is legal. Notably, per Texas’s near-total ban on abortion, it will not be available in state Texas to residents.

    Mifepristone will remain accessible via telehealth services, can continue to be distributed by mail and it will not be illegal to take the two-step regimen — misoprostol is the accompanying drug — after the seventh week of pregnancy. The regulated usage protocol will stay the same.

    However, the case will be sent back to the district court, and litigation is likely to continue. U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk initially ruled to revoke the FDA’s approval of Mifepristone and place additional restrictions on the pill.

    “They are sending this decision back to the lower courts,” Dr. Bhavik Kumar, medical director of primary and trans care at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, said. “So, it remains unknown exactly what that means and what that outcome will be.”

    Kumar referred to Thursday’s decision as a “frustrating win.” He said medical professionals, abortion advocates and legal experts have known from the start of this case that the plaintiffs had no legal standing.

    According to Kumar, the group of physicians were able to “cherry-pick” their way through the lower courts to get the matter before the country’s highest court, “We shouldn’t even be here right now,” he said.

    Legal experts questioned what the decision could also mean for other medications on the market. Protect Our Care, a health care advocacy group, noted that the choice could have thrown the entire U.S. drug approval process into chaos.

    Amy O’Donnell, communications director with Texas Alliance For Life, said the pro-life organization expected Thursday’s ruling after the justices discussed legal standing during a March hearing.

    Despite not being surprised by it, O’Donnell noted that it was disappointing and put the health, lives and future fertility of women and girls in the country at risk.

    “This is not the end of the conversation. There are other avenues for us to seek a reversal of those lax guidelines,” O’Donnell said. “We — the pro-life community — can petition to the executive branch. We can seek other ways to go about what the physicians and organizations, in this case, were trying to achieve.”

    O’Donnell and other pro-life advocates take issue with what they refer to as an increased risk of complications linked to medical abortions compared to those associated with surgical abortions.

    Medical professionals often reject this claim and cite the FDA’s 24-year-old approval of Mifepristone.

    “It has been proven safe and effective,” Kumar said. “Over 5 million people have used it, and medical abortions account for 63 percent of all abortions in the United States.”

    Although some in the reproductive rights community view Thursday’s decision as a small reprieve from the ongoing attacks on reproductive health care, many are awaiting the highest court’s next ruling on a case out of Idaho.

    The case challenges whether a federal law — the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor — that requires emergency stabilizing care, including abortions, overrides Idaho state mandate that only permits these procedures if, without them, a person could die.

    Justices heard oral arguments in the case in late April, and a ruling on the matter is pending.

    Faith Bugenhagen

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  • New campaign targets anti-abortion clinics

    New campaign targets anti-abortion clinics

    BOSTON — Beacon Hill leaders have rolled out a new public education campaign taking aim at pregnancy crisis centers, which have emerged as the latest battleground in abortion access following the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling overturning federal protections.

    The state Department of Public Health said Monday that it has partnered with the advocacy group Reproductive Equity Now Foundation on a new campaign to educate the public about the “dangers and potential harm” of anti-abortion centers that advocates say are providing misleading information to women.

    The campaign, which is funded by $1 million carved out in a fiscal 2023 supplemental budget, will appear on social media platforms, billboards, radio and transit, officials said.

    Gov. Maura Healey, who approved the funding, said the goal is to help protect access to “safe and legal” abortions. She said crisis pregnancy centers outnumber women’s reproductive health clinics by more than 2-1 and use “deceptive and dangerous tactics.”

    “This campaign is an important way to provide accurate information so residents can make informed decisions about reproductive care that are right for them,” Healey said in remarks Monday.

    The centers, which advertise free services and counseling for women struggling with unplanned pregnancies, have proliferated in the wake of the high court’s 2022 decision overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

    But women’s reproductive rights groups argue the facilities are funded by anti-abortion groups with the sole intention of blocking women from getting abortions.

    Some communities have moved to limit or ban the centers amid complaints that they are using deceptive advertising and providing misinformation.

    “Information is power, and today, Massachusetts is putting power in the hands of our communities by alerting them to the dangers of deceptive anti-abortion centers,” Rebecca Hart Holder, the foundation’s president, said in a statement. “Together, we can combat anti-abortion centers’ predatory practices and ensure every person in Massachusetts has access to the health care they want and need, without deception or delay.”

    Despite the claims by Healey and other state leaders, anti-abortion groups say the centers are providing options to women other than abortions and being unfairly targeted by a “smear campaign” by proponents of the procedure.

    The conservative Massachusetts Family institute says it has documented acts of vandalism and intimidation at pregnancy centers across the state.

    The Pregnancy Care Alliance of Massachusetts said the network of pregnancy care centers in the state “provides millions of dollars in no-cost support and care for thousands of women annually who face planned and unplanned pregnancies, with services ranging from pregnancy confirmation services, parenting education, and community referrals to material goods like diapers and formula.”

    The group accused Healey and other state leaders of “furthering their extreme abortion agenda by using a taxpayer-funded campaign to discredit our centers.”

    “This politically motivated campaign will negatively impact women the most, specifically the many women who want to parent and rely on the free assistance we provide,” the group said in a statement.

    Abortion is legal in Massachusetts under a 2020 law, but advocates say the state has become a destination for women coming from other states that banned the procedure or tightened their laws following the Supreme Court’s ruling.

    State leaders took steps to shield providers and patients from potential lawsuits filed by groups of other states where abortion is now restricted.

    But advocates are pressuring the state to intervene to prevent crisis pregnancy centers from proliferating as more women come to Massachusetts seeking abortions. They’ve been pushing for funding for the public education campaign for several years.

    In 2022, then-Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed $1 million for the campaign from the economic development bill shortly before he left office. Baker said the spending was unnecessary because the state already posts public information about legitimate family planning services operating in the state.

    His rejection of the proposal prompted terse statements from women’s reproductive advocacy groups, which accused the pro-choice Republican of being “wildly out of touch” with his constituents, while it was praised by anti-abortion groups, which say the pregnancy centers are being unfairly targeted.

    Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.

    By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter

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  • Washington Senator Murray Leads Debate on Reproductive Rights – KXL

    Washington Senator Murray Leads Debate on Reproductive Rights – KXL

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Washington state U.S. Senator Patty Murray says, since the Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion,  “In America, more than a third of women of reproductive age live in states where they essentially do not have the choice to end a pregnancy.”   That’s meant, “Children can’t get abortion care after being raped. Some kids may be able to get across state lines to get the care they need. Other children have been forced into motherhood.  One teenager delivered a baby while clutching a teddy bear.”

    Republican Louisiana, Senator and Dr. Bill Cassidy argued, “Scientifically and morally, there is no difference in the value of a child whether she is in her mother’s arms or whether she is in her mother’s womb.”

    Others testified, including an abortion survivor.  “I am Melissa Oden, the survivor of a failed saline infusion abortion.”

    A woman who had to leave her state. “I was shocked. I couldn’t get an abortion in Texas. No one could see me.”

    And doctors. “Our job as physicians is to take all of the information that a patient provides us and give them the option to decide what is best for themselves and for their bodies. “

    More about:

    Annette Newell

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  • Healey pushes for federal contraception protections

    Healey pushes for federal contraception protections

    BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey is leading a group of Democratic chief executives in urging Congress to approve a bill that would protect access to contraception.

    The Right to Contraception Act, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., would guarantee the legal right for individuals to get and use contraception and for health care providers to provide contraception, information, referrals and services related to contraception.

    Democrats are leaning into efforts to protect access to birth control as part of their election year push on reproductive rights, warning that Republicans in Congress and former President Donald Trump will seek to set new nationwide restrictions on contraception, if Trump is elected in November.

    On Monday, Healey joined Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker in calling on lawmakers to approve the plan, and blasting Republicans for opposing the proposed changes.

    “This legislation would safeguard the fundamental right to contraception,” Healey said in remarks during a live streamed briefing on Monday, sponsored by groups pushing for the bill’s passage.

    “It’s so important, especially at this time where reproductive rights as we’ve seen are under assault across this country,” she said.

    Healey cited comments by Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, suggesting that he is in favor of national restrictions on contraception.

    “I think all we have to do is look at his track record as president to know what he will do if he’s elected again,” Healey said.

    Trump said in a recent TV interview that he would leave contraception policy to the states but supports efforts to limit access. He later quickly backtracked on social media, saying he has “never and never will advocate imposing restrictions on birth control or other contraceptives.”

    But Democrats see the issue of birth control and abortion access as a wedge that could help incumbent President Joe Biden win his reelection bid in November and possibly help them take over control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced over the weekend that the Democratic-controlled chamber will be taking up the bill during Wednesday’s session.

    “There’s no question in the American people’s minds that Republicans have brought our country to this point,” Schumer said in a statement.

    “And as Donald Trump reminded us recently, he is ‘proudly the person responsible’ for the annihilation of Roe v. Wade and the grotesque reversal of women’s personal freedoms,” said Schumer.

    Republicans and even many anti-abortion groups say they are neutral on birth control and argue there’s no access problem. GOP lawmakers have accused Democrats of using the issue for political gain.

    The proposal set to be taken up by the Senate would prohibit the federal government and any state from administering or enforcing any law, rule or regulation to prohibit or restrict the sale or use of contraception.

    It would also allow the U.S. Department of Justice, health care providers and individuals harmed by restrictions on contraception to go to court to enforce those rights.

    While the measure could pass with Democrats holding a slim majority in the Senate, it faces an uncertain path in the GOP controlled House of Representatives.

    Polls have consistently shown that there is broad bipartisan support for birth control. A 2023 Gallup poll looking at the values and beliefs of Americans found that 88% of them believed birth control was morally acceptable.

    By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter

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  • During Tampa visit, Biden pins Florida’s six-week abortion ban on Trump

    During Tampa visit, Biden pins Florida’s six-week abortion ban on Trump

    Photo by Mitch Perry

    President Joe Biden at the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough Community College in Tampa on April 23, 2024

    President Joe Biden came to Tampa on Tuesday to speak about abortion rights, eight days before the state of Florida will enact a rigid ban on most abortions in the state after six weeks of pregnancy — though his main topic was former President Donald Trump.

    “Let’s be real clear, there’s one person responsible for this nightmare, and he acknowledges and brags about it — Donald Trump,” Biden said to boos from the crowd who gathered in a gymnasium on the Dale Mabry campus of Hillsborough Community College. “Well, now Trump says the law is ‘working the way that it’s supposed to.’”

    Biden continued the verbal assault on the former president and mocked Trump during one part of his speech.

    “He described the Dobbs decision as a miracle,” Biden said of Trump. “Maybe it comes from that Bible he’s trying to sell.”

    In fact, “Next week one of the nation’s most extreme anti-abortion law is going to take effect here in Florida,” Biden said. “It criminalizes reproductive healthcare before a woman even knows that they are pregnant,” he added, saying it will impact millions of women in the state.

    Biden then discussed the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision which overturned the 1973 ruling legalizing a women’s federal right to abortion, and directly placed the blame for that major policy change to Trump, his likely opponent in a rematch of the 2020 election this November.

    Biden mentioned that abortion rights measures have been successful in both blue and red states across the country the past two years since Roe was overturned, and he predicted that Florida will do the same when it votes on its abortion rights measure this fall.

    “This November, you can add Florida to that list,” Biden said to loud cheers. “Are you ready to do that? You’ve gotta show up to vote.”

    “Don’t mess with the women of America!” Biden then declared to the loudest cheers of the afternoon.

    He repeatedly said in his brief speech (it lasted about 13 minutes) that the voters will hold Trump accountable for the U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade court case.

    Biden also promised that if he was re-elected, he and Vice President Kamala Harris would make Roe v. Wade “the law of the land again.” However, such a law would need to get 60 votes in the U.S. Senate.

    The president’s visit to Florida is the first time he has come to the Sunshine State — formerly a swing state — this year, but the state has moved into red territory in recent years. Biden lost to Trump by 3.3 percentage points in 2020, and recent polls show the gap has increased between the two presumptive major party nominees this year.

    Trump leads Biden by 8 percentage points, according to a Florida Atlantic University Political Communication and Public Opinion Research Lab survey released last week. Trump leads Biden by 11 points in an Emerson College Polling survey released on April 11, and Trump leads Biden by 6 percentage points in an WMNF/St. Pete Polls survey released last month.

    Former Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, a Democrat, says he believes that the issue of reproductive rights is so important that he believes some Republican voters would cross over and vote for Democratic candidates in November in Florida.

    “I think an attack on women’s rights by a presidential candidate will move significant numbers of women to the Democratic column,” he says. “That may be a one-time occurrence, but I think that in this particular case, what they have done is so egregious and so offensive to many women, that it’s enough to move them in this election, at this time, to vote for Joe Biden.”

    Florida Republicans disagree.

    “Floridians top issues are immigration, the economy and inflation, in all three areas Joe Biden has failed,” said Republican Party of Florida Chair Evan Power. “Instead of coming to talk to Floridians about manufactured issues, he should get to work solving the real issues that he has failed to lead on. We also welcome him to learn from the successes that has made Florida a beacon of freedom for the rest of the country.”

    “Any day that Joe Biden visits Florida is a great day for Florida Republicans,” said U.S. GOP Sen. Rick Scott in a statement. “Floridians are abandoning Joe Biden and the Democrats in droves because their disastrous policies are destroying our country.”

    Both Republicans noted the considerable lead that the GOP has over Democrats in registered voters, which now is at more than 892,000 as of March 31, according to Florida Division of Elections records.

    Biden took one shot at Scott in the speech, noting how former Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is likely to face Scott in November.

    “Debbie’s running against Rick Scott,” Biden said. “He wants to sunset Social Security. I think the voters are going to sunset Rick Scott.”

    Retired University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus says what Florida Democrats really need from the national Democratic Party and its associated political action committees is money to support down-the-ballot candidates.

    “Florida Democrats have made it clear that they need money, and part of the reason that they say they lost so badly in 2022 was that the money from the national Democratic deep pockets and coffers dried up and they weren’t able to do any kind of grassroots work,” she told the Phoenix on Monday.

    “What I’ve been saying is the winnable needs to include money to help Dems get back on their feet by winning some state legislative and congressional races, and him coming here is step number one to proving that it’s winnable, if he’s going to take his time and come here, but step two is follow up which is okay, we’re going to get some money into Florida and try to help the party because short of that, it’s just words,” MacManus added.

    Meanwhile Tuesday, there were organized protests regarding the president’s policies regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict, but they were positioned well outside of the footprint where Biden was speaking.

    According to a press pool report, on the way from the airport to the campus, there were people holding signs saying “Kennedy 2024” and another group holding a pro-Trump sign and one that said, “Biden Bad.”

    Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

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    Michael Moline, Florida Phoenix

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  • Abortion returns to the spotlight in Italy 46 years after it was legalized

    Abortion returns to the spotlight in Italy 46 years after it was legalized

    ROME — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right-led government wants to allow anti-abortion groups access to women considering ending their pregnancies, reviving tensions around abortion in Italy 46 years after it was legalized in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

    The Senate on Tuesday was voting on legislation tied to European Union COVID-19 recovery funds that includes an amendment sponsored by Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party. The text, already passed by the lower Chamber of Deputies, allows regions to permit groups “with a qualified experience supporting motherhood” to have access to public support centers where women considering abortions go to receive counseling.

    For the right, the amendment merely fulfills the original intent of the 1978 law legalizing abortion, known as Law 194, which includes provisions to prevent the procedure and support motherhood.

    For the left-wing opposition, the amendment marks a chipping away of abortion rights that opponents warned would follow Meloni’s 2022 election.

    “The government should realize that they keep saying they absolutely do not want to boycott or touch Law 194, but the truth is that the right-wing opposes women’s reproductive autonomy, fears women’s choices regarding motherhood, sexuality, and abortion,” Cecilia D’Elia, a Democratic Party senator, said at a protest this week against the legislation.

    Under the 1978 law, Italy allows abortion on request in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, or later if a woman’s health or life is endangered. It provides for publicly funded counseling centers to advise pregnant women of their rights and services offered if they want to terminate the pregnancies.

    But easy access to abortion isn’t always guaranteed. The law allows health care personnel to register as conscientious objectors and refuse to perform abortions, and many have, meaning women sometimes have to travel far to have the procedure.

    Meloni, who campaigned on a slogan of “God, fatherland and family,” has insisted she won’t roll back the 1978 law and merely wants to implement it fully. But she has also prioritized encouraging women to have babies to reverse Italy’s demographic crisis.

    Italy’s birthrate, already one of the lowest in the world, has been falling steadily for about 15 years and reached a record low last year with 379,000 babies born. Meloni’s conservative forces, backed strongly by the Vatican, have mounted a campaign to encourage at least 500,000 births annually by 2033, a rate that demographers say is necessary to prevent the economy from collapsing under the weight of Italy’s aging population.

    Meloni has called the left-wing opposition to the proposed amendment “fake news,” recalling that Law 194 provides for measures to prevent abortions, which would include counselling pregnant women about alternatives. The amendment specifically allows anti-abortion groups, or groups “supporting motherhood,” to be among the volunteer groups that can work in the counseling centers.

    “I think we have to guarantee a free choice,” Meloni said recently. “And to guarantee a free choice you have to have all information and opportunities available. And that’s what the Law 194 provides.”

    The new tensions over abortion in Italy come against the backdrop of developments elsewhere in Europe going somewhat in the opposite direction. France marked International Women’s Day by inscribing the guaranteed right to abortion into its constitution. Last year, overwhelmingly Catholic Malta voted to ease the strictest abortion laws in the EU. Polish lawmakers moved forward with proposals to lift a near-total ban on abortion enacted by the country’s previous right-wing government.

    At the same time, Italy’s left fears the country might go the way of the U.S., where states are restricting access after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down landmark legislation that had guaranteed access to abortion nationwide.

    Elly Schlein, head of Italy’s opposition Democratic Party, told a conference on women Tuesday that the country needs to establish an obligatory percentage of doctors willing to perform abortions in public hospitals, “otherwise these rights remain on paper only.”

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  • ‘In 24 Hours, You’ll Have Your Pills’: American Women Are Traveling to Mexico for Abortions

    ‘In 24 Hours, You’ll Have Your Pills’: American Women Are Traveling to Mexico for Abortions

    Together with Floridians Protecting Freedom, Hochkammer and her team are calling for an amendment that would make it unconstitutional to pass legislation limiting access to abortion prior to viability or when necessary for a patient’s health. A total of 890,000 signatures are needed to get this initiative on the November 2024 general election ballot.

    “The initiative we’ve proposed is supported by 70 percent of Floridians and more than 60 percent of Republicans support it; even 57 percent of people who self-identify as Trump supporters agree with what the initiative’s language,” she explains. These numbers are consistent with polls that say more than half of Americans approve of access to abortion in all or most cases.

    Florida, which has banned abortions after 15 weeks, is one of 21 states that have introduced restrictions on abortion rights since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Some of Florida’s neighbors have gone even further: In Mississippi and Alabama, abortion has been banned almost completely, and in Georgia, women can only get abortions during the first six weeks of pregnancy.

    Other organizations, however, are more pessimistic about abortion rights in Florida and expect that they will soon be even further limited. In April 2023 Governor Ron DeSantis signed a six-week ban that had been passed by the state legislature. (That legislation is on hold pending a legal challenge to the state’s current 15-week ban that is before the Florida supreme court.)

    Since Dobbs, pro-choice organizations have been leading efforts around abortion access. Kamila Przytuła is the director of Women Emergency Network (WEN), which has, since 1989, been providing support for women seeking abortions through private donations.

    “An abortion can cost between $500 to $1,000 if performed out of state. For some women, that can mean having to choose whether to pay their utilities or buy food,” explains Przytuła. WEN works in conjunction with other organizations that receive cases from clinics and collectively cover a portion of the abortion costs. “That has allowed us to be able to help every person who has approached us seeking assistance,” she says.

    According to statistics published by the Guttmacher Institute, nearly one in five abortion patients in the United States traveled to another state to access an abortion during the first half of 2023. That figure is double what it was in 2020.

    Abortion bans especially impact young, Black, and migrant women—the main populations that contact WEN. Przytuła recalls once case among the many she has been involved with: a Central American woman, who is illiterate and HIV positive. WEN provided financial support for an abortion.

    “She was in a very vulnerable situation, we learned about her case through the clinic that was treating her. A few months earlier she had migrated north to Miami with her uncle, who could not have known she was pregnant.” She was transported and treated at a clinic in Miami.

    She is one of 600 Florida women who the organization has helped to get abortions, one of the millions of women in the state who face some of America’s most extreme abortion restrictions forcing many into secrecy.

    This story was produced with the support of the International Women’s Media Foundation as part of its Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, and Justice in the Americas initiative. It originally appeared on WIRED en Español. It was translated by John Newton.

    Carmen Valeria Escobar

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  • The Real Reason Some Abortion Pill Patients Go to the ER

    The Real Reason Some Abortion Pill Patients Go to the ER

    Today the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in a consequential case that threatens to curb access to medication abortion across the country.

    A central issue in the case is the safety of the drug mifepristone, the first in a two-pill regimen used to induce an abortion. The drug blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy and has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration since 2000.

    That FDA approval is being challenged by a coalition of antiabortion doctors and activists, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which is asking for the pill to be removed from the market. The group has alleged that mifepristone is dangerous to patients, citing a 2021 study that found higher rates of emergency room visits following medication abortion. However, that study was retracted in February after an independent review found problems with how the authors analyzed and presented the data.

    During Tuesday’s arguments, a major line of questioning from justices was about ER visits following mifepristone use and whether the FDA’s loosening of regulations on the drug in recent years has resulted in an increase in these visits.

    “I think ER visits are definitely the wrong measure when looking at safety,” says Michael Belmonte, an ob-gyn and fellow at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “It’s important to recognize that the vast majority of people that go to the emergency room are going just for reassurance rather than a true safety concern.”

    Belmonte says the more important measure is serious adverse events, which are extremely rare with medication abortion. “Adverse events happen with any medication or procedure and, quite frankly, the adverse events that occur with these medications are extremely rare in comparison to things that we use every day,” he says.

    Significant adverse events include hospital admission, blood transfusion, infection, and death. A 2013 peer-reviewed study found that, among 233,805 medication abortions provided in 2009 and 2010, these significant adverse events or outcomes were reported in 1,530 cases, less than 1 percent.

    “Many women might go [to the ER] because they’re experiencing heavy bleeding, which mimics a miscarriage, and they might just need to know whether or not they’re having a complication,” said US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who is defending the FDA, in oral arguments on Tuesday.

    Belmonte says it’s worth noting that the abortion pill regimen is meant to cause bleeding and cramping. While those effects may be troubling to some patients, it’s a function of the medication and a sign that it’s working. “Mifepristone really just prepares the uterus for evacuation, and so, inherently, mifepristone alone doesn’t tend to cause any bleeding, cramping, or other side effects,” he says. Misoprostol, the second drug used in a medication abortion, is what causes bleeding and cramping.

    Ushma Upadhyay, a public health social scientist at the UC San Francisco who studies medication abortion, says many patients who visit an emergency department after a medication abortion are alarmed by the bleeding the medication causes, but that doesn’t mean they’re experiencing a serious adverse event. “When people have a medication abortion they’re experiencing it alone, and they don’t have a provider with them to ask questions,” she says. “People are going to the ER to understand whether the bleeding that they’re experiencing is normal and to assess whether the medications worked.”

    Emily Mullin

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  • Kamala Harris Tours Abortion Clinic

    Kamala Harris Tours Abortion Clinic

    Kamala Harris toured a Planned Parenthood that offers abortion services, the first vice president to do so, where she delivered a speech defending reproductive rights. What do you think?

    “Probably good for her to have feelers out for other jobs.”

    Sid Barrera, Trinket Designer

    Men Explain How They Think An Abortion Works

    “So that’s why there were a bunch of reporters at my abortion.”

    Mari Mahoney, Fantasy Historian

    “It was pretty cool of her to sign my fetus.”

    Becky Murillo, Word Approver

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