Encouraged by six victories — and zero defeats — in this month’s midterm elections, abortion rights advocates are considering another round of ballot measures in 2024 that would enshrine reproductive freedom in state constitutions. This time, they’re mostly aiming at states with tight abortion restrictions already on the books, hoping to outflank anti-abortion state lawmakers and courts that are out of step with most residents.
...reproductive rights
Tomorrow is Election Day, and while North Carolina is not a referendum state in which citizens can place initiatives on the ballot, for better or worse, this year’s vote will serve – at least effectively – as a referendum on the future of a fundamental and long-established constitutional right for women in several U.S. states. As Policy Watch Lynn Bonner reported last week, North Carolina has become a sanctuary state for people seeking abortion care.
...As an ad guy I’m used to working on tightly choreographed brand campaigns, so I get frustrated with the communications efforts of the Democratic Party. And I’m not just talking about the annoying daily flood of emails from congressional candidates 10 states away pleading for a few dollars “to help me meet my urgent fund-raising goal by midnight tonight.”
...A lot has happened since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. Republican-led states have made moves to revive previous abortion restrictions or enact new and sweeping ones. Democratic-led states have rushed to enshrine the right in state law.
...WASHINGTON — Republicans, hoping to flip control of Congress in the November elections, appear to have decided against campaigning on a unified abortion platform that would specify exactly what conservatives plan to do if given control of the U.S. House and Senate. Yet Republicans in Congress have written dozens of proposals that, if passed, would restrict abortion nationwide.
...WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday began wading through the dozens of state laws that have taken effect in the two weeks since the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to an abortion, and heard from witnesses who said the effect on Black patients will be especially harsh. “People of color, specifically Black people, will feel the impact of the court's decision in Dobbs more than any other racial group,” said Khiara M. Bridges, professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law, referring to the decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
...WASHINGTON — Frustrated abortion rights advocates are imploring President Joe Biden to make sweeping moves to protect abortion access, saying now is the time for Democrats to be bold as Republican-led states rapidly implement restrictions and outright bans. Stymied in the U.S. Senate by the filibuster, congressional Democrats are highly unlikely to approve legislation that would enshrine Roe v. Wade in federal law.
...The United States of America is no longer a free country. Women are no longer full citizens with equal rights. The theocracy also known as the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that our bodies don’t belong to us. Anyone who is or can become pregnant will be a ward of the state, captive of a misogynist minority.
...Some say NC is a state in which reproductive freedom is implied in its constitution If the federal right to abortion is erased by the U.S. Supreme Court in a few weeks as expected, the legal spotlight will shift immediately to state courts, where experts say judges in some conservative states could surprise everyone and uphold the right to abortion.
...Sexual violence survivor details some of the horrors that await if the Supreme Court ends abortion rights When I was raped in 2016, one of my attackers reached inside me and pulled out my NuvaRring, an internal birth control device, and asked me what it was. When I told him, he cast it aside where it was lost until police retrieved it a couple days later.
...A U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a nearly 50-year-old right to abortion would lead to strict restrictions or bans by states across nearly half the country almost immediately. The court is poised to overturn the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, as well as a subsequent ruling on fetal viability, according to an initial draft of a majority opinion in a pending abortion case published Monday by Politico.
...The internet has exploded over the last 36 hours in the aftermath of Monday night’s extraordinary leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Mississippi abortion case (Dobbs v. Jackson) that reverses the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which established the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability.
...WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats on Tuesday pledged a new vote codifying the right to an abortion after publication of a draft court ruling that showed the Supreme Court on track to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision. Democrats, who likely won’t have the votes to advance that bill, also predicted that abortion will emerge as a major issue in the upcoming midterm elections for members of Congress.
...WASHINGTON — Abortion access throughout the country could soon depend on a patchwork of state laws if a U.S. Supreme Court dominated by conservatives overturns the constitutional right it established nearly 50 years ago. The court’s decision on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban is expected sometime within the next two months. But state legislatures have been racing to prepare for the expected landmark ruling by shepherding new, vastly different pieces of legislation to their governors.
...GREENSBORO — On this Saturday, two groups of people stand watch in the 20-space parking lot of a Japanese steakhouse, each staking out their own territory. When a car pulls in, often with a woman driving, each group springs to action. Those wearing rainbow-colored vests motion in the direction of the abortion clinic, guiding drivers to the proper place to park. Others, dressed in navy "Sidewalk for Life" hoodies, wave, smile and put their hands in a praying position.
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