Justice Neil Gorsuch took 10 minutes to approve Dobbs abortion opinion – report

The conservative supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch took just 10 minutes to approve without changes a 98-page draft of the opinion that would remove the federal right to abortion that had been guaranteed for nearly 50 years, the New York Times reported.

According to the paper, Samuel Alito, the author of the opinion in Dobbs v Jackson, the case that struck down Roe v Wade, from 1973, circulated his draft at 11.16am on 10 February 2022.

The Guy Who Destroyed Roe Really Wants You To Forget All About That

Fully contradicting one of the most consequential outcomes of his entire presidency, Donald Trump reportedly believes that he can run as a “moderate” on abortion in 2024.

And Hillary Clinton herself is in disbelief.

“He thinks women are going to fall for this?” the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee wondered aloud Wednesday, in response to a Rolling Stone report describing Trump’s apparent plan to pull the mother of all flip-flops.

CNN Releases Audio Of Mike Johnson Calling Abortion An ‘American Holocaust’

CNN on Tuesday aired interview clips from last year of House Speaker Mike Johnson calling abortion a “holocaust,” the latest example of the Louisiana Republican’s extreme views on reproductive rights.

The network’s investigation team, “KFile,” said it had reviewed more than 100 clips of interviews, speeches and public commentary by the recently elected speaker. In one of them, Johnson was featured on the Vince Conglianese Show in May 2022, where he said that abortion “is truly an American holocaust.”

Anti-abortion groups confident Johnson will deliver despite Fox interview

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s anti-abortion bona fides are undisputed, but Thursday night he downplayed the chance of action on a federal abortion ban during an interview with Sean Hannity, asserting there are more pressing issues facing his caucus.

“There is no national consensus” on abortion, he said in his first prime-time interview.

It was a stark turn for a congressman who has pushed several bills to restrict abortion nationwide and indicative of the competing pressures of his new role — including keeping control of the House.

Argentina Senate rejects bill legalizing abortion

Argentina’s Senate Thursday morning rejected a measure to legalize abortion up to 14 weeks. The final vote, 38 to 31 with two abstentions, deals a heavy blow to a grassroots movement that has long tried to legalize abortion.

About 60 percent of residents supported the measure to legalize abortion countrywide, according to Argentina’s Amnesty International director Mariela Belski.

Britain’s Theresa May refuses to relax Northern Ireland abortion rules

British Prime Minister Theresa May faces a showdown with ministers and lawmakers in her Conservative party after refusing to back reform of Northern Ireland’s highly restrictive abortion rules after neighboring Ireland’s vote to liberalize its laws.

Voters in Ireland, a once deeply Catholic nation, backed the change by two-to-one, a far higher margin than any opinion poll in the run up to the vote had predicted.

The UN Just Called Out New York for Its Dangerous Anti-Abortion Policy

On Tuesday, the United Nations took a rare step and weighed in on a reproductive rights bill currently languishing in the New York state Senate and urged legislators to pass the legislation before the session ends tomorrow.

The bill, called the Reproductive Health Act, would remove language from New York law that makes getting an abortion after 24 weeks a criminal act—even when the pregnancy is a threat to the woman’s health or when the fetus is not viable—and another statute that criminalizes self-induced abortion. The two statutes in question, which have been on the books since before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, make New York one of only a handful of states that explicitly make it illegal for a woman to end her own pregnancy.

Texas wants to criminalize helping people get abortions

Texas has advanced an omnibus anti-abortion bill that, among other things, lays the groundwork for criminalizing people who help women obtain abortion care.

Last week, the Texas Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor (22 to 9) to accept House amendments to SB8, the most stringent anti-choice bill to come out of the Lone Star state since 2013 (that year, Texas passed HB2, a notoriously restrictive abortion law that was later struck down by the Supreme Court in 2016). It is currently with Governor Greg Abbott (R), who is expected to sign it; pending approval, the law will take effect September 1.

The CPC's bringing back the abortion debate — bet on it

Justin Trudeau must have slept like a baby last night. 2019 is no longer the year of living dangerously as far as the Conservative threat to his regency is concerned.

Not only did the social conservatives retain control of the Harper Party, but in Andrew Scheer, the former PM (still thought to be a behind-the-scenes puppet-master by some) likely got the candidate he wanted. At the very least, he did not get an uppity progressive like Michael Chong — who defied him in the days of Harper’s flat-out authoritarianism — or the weak tea of an Erin O’Toole.

Why It’s Become So Hard to Get an Abortion

At a town-hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, last March, Donald Trump was prompted for his views about abortion. He’d been pro-choice once, but as a Presidential candidate he was an eager, if ill-informed, pro-lifer. Much of his answer took the form of free-floating clauses, like dialogue from a bad experimental play, which made his actual positions challenging to parse. But Trump did manage to make one point clearly, and to repeat it. When the interviewer, Chris Matthews, of MSNBC, asked whether women who’d had abortions should be punished, Trump answered in the affirmative.

Politically speaking, this was not good. In recent years, the anti-abortion movement has tried hard to show that it cares as much about women as it does about fetuses. Right-to-life groups criticized Trump’s wayward messaging, and, later that day, his campaign issued a statement explaining that it was actually doctors who ought to be punished if abortion were made illegal again: “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb.”

Arkansas law will force doctors to investigate abortion patients

A new law in Arkansas will force doctors to investigate their patients’ medical records before providing them with a legal abortion — and represents the first provision of its kind across the country.

Signed into law by Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) on Wednesday, HB 1434 is broadly focused on policing the reasons that people may seek abortion care.

Iowa lawmaker embraces forcing women to carry dead fetuses to term

Iowa House Republicans advanced an unconstitutional ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy on Wednesday, sending it from the Human Resources Committee to the full House on a 11 to 8 vote. All seven Democrats and one Republican voted no. This legislation replaced their original attempt to ban abortions after just six weeks.

But a question by a Democrat on the committee revealed just how little the measure’s manager understood about the possible ramifications of her legislation — and how little concern she has for the women who face tough choices about whether to terminate a pregnancy even in the most difficult situations.

Iowa GOP abortion bill will grant parents of unmarried women rights to control adult daughters’ bodies

An anti-abortion bill being offered by Republicans in Iowa would effectively ban all abortions and give parents rights over the bodies of unmarried adult daughters.

A state House panel on Wednesday voted to send SF 471 — the so-called “personhood” bill — to the full committee. The bill states that life begins at conception, giving fetuses the same rights as people.

Why It’s Become So Hard to Get an Abortion

At a town-hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, last March, Donald Trump was prompted for his views about abortion. He’d been pro-choice once, but as a Presidential candidate he was an eager, if ill-informed, pro-lifer. Much of his answer took the form of free-floating clauses, like dialogue from a bad experimental play, which made his actual positions challenging to parse. But Trump did manage to make one point clearly, and to repeat it. When the interviewer, Chris Matthews, of MSNBC, asked whether women who’d had abortions should be punished, Trump answered in the affirmative.

Politically speaking, this was not good. In recent years, the anti-abortion movement has tried hard to show that it cares as much about women as it does about fetuses. Right-to-life groups criticized Trump’s wayward messaging, and, later that day, his campaign issued a statement explaining that it was actually doctors who ought to be punished if abortion were made illegal again: “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb.”

Texas Senate Passes Bill Allowing OBs To Keep Info From Pregnant Women

The Texas Senate passed a controversial bill on Tuesday that critics argue would empower doctors to lie to pregnant women.

Senate Bill 25, which will now be sent to the Texas House, prevents parents from suing their medical provider if their baby is born with disabilities, even if that doctor discovered the condition during routine prenatal testing and failed to inform the parents.

Can a Feminist Be Pro-Life?

Is there such a thing as pro-life feminism? In January, New Wave Feminists, an anti-choice organization, was briefly listed as a sponsor on the website of the Women’s March on Washington. “Intersectional feminism is the future of feminism and of this movement,” said Bob Bland, one of the event’s co-chairs. “We must not just talk about feminism as one issue, like access to reproductive care.” Leaving aside the question of whether Bland understands what intersectionality means—pro-life is a political stance, not an identity or a social position—can feminism, a social-justice movement for women’s equality and human rights, encompass the belief that women should carry to term every fertilized egg, no matter the consequences?

Myth of the “unbortion”: Anti-choice legislators push the lie that “abortion reversal” is possible

Make no mistake: There is no idea too ridiculous for anti-choice legislators, if they think there’s a chance to inject unnecessary confusion and misery into women’s lives. That’s why the Indiana legislature is considering a bill that would require doctors to tell women seeking abortion that they can — in a lie that begs you to laugh aloud at its silliness — “reverse” an abortion. Two other states, North Carolina and Utah, are considering similar bills.

These bills are based on model legislation created by Americans United for Life, which is the same organization behind the anti-science, anti-abortion law in Texas that was recently overturned by the Supreme Court.

GOP Congressman introduces federal ‘heartbeat bill’ to effectively ban all abortions in the US

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) Thursday introduced a bill that would implement a nationwide abortion ban, modeling it after the “heartbeat bills” already found unconstitutional in federal court.

Under HR 490, an abortion provider who performs an abortion without “determining … whether the fetus has a detectable heartbeat,” “informing the mother of the results of that determination,: or “after determining … that the fetus has a detectable heartbeat,” will face fines and up to five years in federal prison.

19 States Passed 60 New Abortion Restrictions in 2016

More than 60 new restrictions on access to abortion were passed by 19 states in 2016, according a year-end report from the Center for Reproductive Rights. The regulations run the gamut from attempts to ban abortion altogether, to excessive paperwork requirements for providers and measures that would restrict the donation of aborted fetal tissue for medical research.

In sum, 2016 was a just another normal year for advocates who have battled to protect women’s reproductive autonomy. Notably, however, state or federal courts ultimately blocked many of the onerous provisions, a circumstance that underscores how important the judiciary is in protecting women’s rights.

The Man Behind Ohio’s ‘Heartbeat’ Abortion Ban Was Accused Of Domestic Violence In 2011

WASHINGTON ― The Ohio Republican behind the most extreme abortion restriction in the country, which was passed by the State House and Senate Tuesday night, was accused of domestic violence by his wife in 2011.

State Sen. Kris Jordan (R), the lawmaker who introduced Ohio’s ‘heartbeat’ abortion ban, had to answer to deputies after his wife called 911 to report that her husband was “pushing her around and throwing things,” according to The Columbus Dispatch. Deputies drove to the senator’s home, where he told them the domestic dispute was “90 percent emotion.”