Protesters and clinic escorts gathered outside EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville last year before abortion was banned in Kentucky. (Photo by Deborah Yetter)
LaDonna Prince’s new reproductive care clinic in Illinois was supposed to be open more than a year ago.
Prince and her staff were prepared for Indiana to ban abortion, and started trying to move operations to Danville, Illinois, in 2023. It’s about 90 minutes across the border from her old clinic in Indianapolis, which provided abortion care for more than 40 years before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and allowed states to regulate abortion access. Today, 12 states — including Indiana — have a near-total ban on abortion, and four states have a six-week ban, before many people know they are pregnant.
Now that abortion access nationwide may be threatened by the second administration of President-elect Donald Trump and Republican-controlled chambers of Congress, Prince is determined to open the clinic at the beginning of 2025.
“It’s scary, to be honest with you,” Prince said during a press conference in early December. “It’s just really frightening.”
Prince’s clinic, Affirmative Care Solutions, is one of a few independent clinics in the country that will open while many others have closed their doors for various reasons. According to a new report released by the Abortion Care Network, 76 brick-and-mortar independent abortion clinics closed between 2022 and 2024, 11 of those in 2024 alone.
The report also showed that 70% of the closures in that two-year period were in the South or Midwest. Besides those forced out because of a statewide ban, the report said staffing issues and lack of funding have been the driving factors for others to close their doors.
That lack of funding is widespread for abortion care. Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country have reported a downturn in donations and cuts in state funding that have put them in precarious positions. The Abortion Care Network reported in August that their donations decreased by one-third. The Network provides grants for infrastructure projects that help keep clinics afloat, such as building repairs, supplies, equipment and security.
Approximately 58% of all abortions in the United States take place at independent clinics rather than a Planned Parenthood affiliate or a hospital, the report said, and more than 60% of clinics that provide abortions after the first trimester are independent. The only clinics in the country that provide terminations after 26 weeks are independent as well. The vast majority of abortions take place in the first trimester, but third trimester care is sometimes necessary.
Kentucky clinic co-owner tries to keep pieces together to quickly open again
While Illinois has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the country, Prince quickly met resistance from the local government, including the mayor, who cast a tie-breaking vote to pass a city ordinance meant to block the clinic from providing abortion services in Danville. Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. told local news outlet WCIA at the time that the ordinance was in response to the clinic moving in, saying, “This is not any kind of comprehensive health for women. This is literally just an abortion clinic.”
The ordinance is unenforceable because of state law, Prince said, but that hasn’t changed the attitude among local government officials. All of that preceded an attack on the clinic by a 73-year-old man who crashed his truck into the building and tried to set it on fire as it was under renovation in May 2023, causing more than $500,000 in damages and further delaying the clinic’s opening.
Earlier this month, Prince tried to hire a plumber, only to have him tell her he wouldn’t do any work for her because he didn’t believe in abortion.
“It’s not easy to find people who are even willing to do the work, and it’s a business that’s not even open yet,” she said.
The Abortion Care Network provides grant funding for infrastructure needs at independent abortion clinics, and in the report, the organization laments all of the recent clinic closures — because once a clinic closes, it is often exceedingly difficult to reopen, even in a state with laws that allow broad access.
For that reason, at least one independent clinic in a state with a near-total abortion ban is trying to retain its existing infrastructure so that opening would be easier if abortion becomes legal again. Ona Marshall, co-owner of EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville, Kentucky, said the center provided medication and procedural abortion care for 43 years before it was forced to close, and it provided the vast majority of abortions in the state.
Marshall cited a new lawsuit filed in Kentucky in November seeking to overturn the state’s ban, saying that was good news that could ultimately allow the clinic to reopen someday, but those court proceedings can take years. In the meantime, she is trying to keep the pieces of the clinic together to be able to quickly open again if that day comes.
“Once you give up a license in a hostile state, depending on whether there’s an anti-abortion governor, they may deny you a license for no valid reason, which requires months of additional court challenges with no guarantee of winning,” Marshall said during the press conference. “You are taking a large personal and financial risk in a highly unstable and politically charged environment, so it’s just critical to try to keep as many clinics open as possible.”
Tabitha Crowe’s first child was due in February 2025, but she had a miscarriage in August. (Courtesy of Tabitha Crowe)
Editor’s Note: This is the sixth installment of an occasional States Newsroom series called When and Where: Abortion Access in America, profiling individuals who have needed abortion care in the U.S. before and after Dobbs. The first installment can be found here, the second installment is here, the third is here, the fourth is here, and the fifth is here.
By Sofia Resnick
Tabitha Crowe said she woke up around 4 a.m. one Thursday in August covered in blood. She was visiting her parents in southern Louisiana when she started miscarrying her first pregnancy. She said her mom and dad drove her to a nearby hospital while she fought dizziness from the blood loss in their back seat.
“I didn’t even know I could bleed that much,” Crowe told States Newsroom.
Over the course of the next few days, Crowe said she passed baseball-sized blood clots and experienced extreme pain and dizziness in two different hospitals, while never being offered a common miscarriage procedure, even after she requested it.
An estimated 10 to 20% of known pregnancies in the U.S. end in miscarriage. In about 80% of miscarriages, women are able to expel the pregnancy tissue naturally over a period of one to eight weeks, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. When intervention is necessary in the first trimester, ACOG recommends abortion medications or procedures such as vacuum aspiration or dilation and curettage (D&C). Later in pregnancy, recommended termination procedures include dilation and evacuation (D&E), which has a high safety record but is condemned by anti-abortion groups and banned in some states.
But increasingly, women say they are being denied routine miscarriage care in states like Louisiana, where doctors face imprisonment if they perform an abortion unless a woman is at risk of dying, and where common miscarriage drugs are now more difficult to access. Doctors in Louisiana and Texas have also reported a rise in patients whose pregnancies are no longer viable receiving more risky and invasive terminations, such as Cesarean sections and inductions, in lieu of abortion procedures. It’s a change in practice some doctors involved in the anti-abortion movement endorse.
And in cases like Crowe’s — where death might not be imminent but failing to intervene could increase the risk for infection or other issues — some doctors are telling patients to finish their miscarriages at home.
“I think they were waiting for me to get in bad enough health,” said Crowe, who attributes her experience to Louisiana’s abortion ban, though she said no medical staff mentioned the law or responded to her requests for a D&C.
But waiting for patients’ conditions to worsen can sometimes be fatal, according to an ongoing investigation by ProPublica, which has reported on five deaths linked to abortion bans, most recently a young mom in Texas who spent hours in the ER but was never offered a D&C that could have saved her life.
As stories emerge linking abortion bans to adverse health effects, some state health departments are working to make these stories harder to learn about.
In Georgia, officials recently dismissed all 32 members of the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee following ProPublica’s reporting that the committee linked two women’s deaths to Georgia’s six-week abortion ban. The state said it would reset the committee through a new application process and is considering measures to ensure patient confidentiality.
In Texas, ProPublica reported that at least three women have died because of delays in care caused by the state’s abortion bans. Despite these reported deaths, Texas’ Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee said it wouldn’t examine any pregnancy-related deaths from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after the state’s near-total abortion ban took effect, according to the Washington Post.
Idaho, shortly after banning abortion, disbanded its Maternal Mortality Review Committee in 2023 after members recommended expanding Medicaid. The recently re-established committee is now backlogged and focused on publishing 2023 data in January before tackling 2022 data. The committee’s last report, based on 2021 data, showed the state’s maternal mortality rate had doubled in recent years and most of the deaths were preventable.
Crowe said her experience has moved her to speak out for better reproductive health care.
“You go to a hospital, you expect care, you expect some type of answers on what’s going on,” said Tabitha Crowe, who said she was not offered a common miscarriage treatment at two Louisiana hospitals in August. “I didn’t get that.” (Courtesy of Tabitha Crowe)
“For me to have a miscarriage for the first time, it’s already a very scary process,” said Crowe, who said she eventually got the care she needed outside of Louisiana. “You go to a hospital, you expect care, you expect some type of answers on what’s going on. And I didn’t get that.”
‘I had a sense it was because of the abortion laws’
Crowe and her husband, Noah Holesha, live on the Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle. Crowe said her husband is in the Army and she was medically discharged from the military in 2023 and now works as a caretaker. The two married in 2022 and were expecting their first baby in February.
But on the way to LSU Health Lallie Kemp Medical Center in Independence, Louisiana, on Aug. 8, Crowe said she felt she would never get to meet this baby. Two weeks earlier, her 10-week-old fetus only measured 6 weeks. Now in the emergency room, Crowe said medical staff gave her pain medicine, cleared her blood clots, and discharged her to finish miscarrying naturally.
Two days later at her parents’ house, Crowe said she woke up with 10 out of 10 pain.
“I was in excruciating pain again, like screaming and crying pain,” she said.
She said her parents took her back to Lallie Kemp, where they transferred her to St. Tammany Parish Hospital Emergency Department in Covington, about a 45-minute drive, because it was the nearest hospital with a dedicated OB-GYN unit.
“Lallie Kemp Medical Center complies with federal patient privacy laws and therefore cannot discuss specific patients’ care,” Dr. Matloob Rehman, the hospital’s medical director, said in an email. “Lallie Kemp is a small, rural hospital without a full complement of specialists, including obstetrical surgery. If a patient is in need of such care, it is Lallie Kemp’s practice to refer or transfer the patient to a hospital that can provide such services.”
At St. Tammany, Crowe said she spent the day receiving pain medicine and transvaginal ultrasounds and having her vaginal canal cleared of clots. Medical records Crowe shared with States Newsroom indicate she was given misoprostol to evacuate her uterus, which Crowe said she was not aware of. She said the ultrasounds were still showing she had not completed the miscarriage. Crowe’s cousin had recently miscarried, so she and her family knew to ask for a D&C.
“They did ultrasounds and all that, but they didn’t help make sure that the miscarriage was completing,” Crowe said. “We kept telling them, ‘Hey, can y’all just do this D&C, so like we can be done with this pain?’ They wouldn’t answer.”
Crowe’s sister, a nurse in Texas, where abortion is also banned, suggested in a text that maybe it was because of Louisiana’s abortion ban that she wasn’t being offered a D&C.
“I had a sense it was because of the abortion laws, because by the time they did the canal sweep of blood clots, they didn’t even want to listen that I was in pain anymore. They were like, brushing it off, like, you’ll be fine,” Crowe said. “Even if them not doing it was wasn’t because of the abortion laws, I still didn’t get the treatment that I needed.”
Crowe said she was still dizzy and in pain when St. Tammany released her late on Aug. 10. Her St. Tammany hospital medical records say her miscarriage was completed at St. Tammany, which Crowe disputes. Medical records from the hospital in Florida, where she received the D&C, say the patient had an “incomplete miscarriage with evidence of retained POC [products of conception] on TVUS [transvaginal ultrasound], continued bleeding and anemia.”
The St. Tammany Health System Communications Department declined to comment on Crowe’s account, citing patient confidentiality, and said in a statement: “At St. Tammany Health System, we place our patients and their families’ wellbeing first. Patient privacy rights are established by the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In compliance with this act, we are not at liberty to provide information or comment.”
Crowe decided to drive the four hours back to Florida. She said her pain had ebbed, but soon after she got home, her husband rushed her to Eglin Air Force Base emergency department, where she said she received a D&C the following day.
The Eglin hospital did not respond to requests for comment.
Crowe said she was still dizzy in the weeks following, and she was confused and angry, believing — without confirmation — that she was denied health care she needed because of a new abortion law. She said she started reaching out to malpractice attorneys, reproductive rights groups, even President-elect Donald Trump.
“I sent everybody emails.” Crowe said. “I reached out to Congress. I reached out to the office of Trump. I reached out to lawyers. It wasn’t anger that I’ve lost the child — because I had a feeling I was going to lose the child — but it was the anger of they didn’t give their 100% care. I was getting in bad shape, health-wise, because of it.”
Louisiana abortion laws affect miscarriage care
Louisiana was one of the first states to ban abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. And it’s the first, followed by Texas, to reclassify two abortion and miscarriage medications — mifepristone and misoprostol — as controlled substances, even though they haven’t been shown to cause addiction or dependence. In late October, health care workers sued the state, arguing that the new law is unconstitutional and has added barriers to emergency care.
One of the legal advocacy groups representing plaintiffs in that case, Lift Louisiana, co-published a report with Physicians for Human Rights with detailed interviews from patients, doctors and clinicians of how the state’s abortion ban has changed reproductive health care in Louisiana. The report found that some OB-GYN practices are now deferring prenatal care until beyond the first trimester, when miscarriage care is more common. Some clinicians reported an increase in patient referrals from rural hospitals for routine care.
“To avoid the risk of criminal penalties under the bans, nearly every clinician relayed an account
in which they and/or their colleagues delayed abortion care until complications worsened to
the point where the patient’s life was irrefutably at risk,” the report reads.
Though she personally disagrees with abortion after the first trimester, Crowe said she now believes in abortion rights.
“Growing up, I was always pro-life, because I always wanted to have a kid and all that,” Crowe said. “I was also the type that’s like, I’m not going to judge you if you do. Now I’m like … the choice to have an abortion is important because some women … we need this procedure done to save our lives, too. My child was already lost; it lost its life. Because of the abortion laws, you’re keeping me from having my life. … I couldn’t grieve because I was in so much pain.”
Data from the organization #WeCount showed an average of about 130 orders for abortion medication being shipped to Wisconsin from providers in other states each month from last September to this June.
Donald Trump spoke at the March for Life rally in January 2019 during his first term as president. (Mark Wilson | Getty Images)
The 2024 election results created complicated new realities for reproductive rights in the U.S., with Americans even in a few red states overwhelmingly voting to protect the right to have an abortion while also overwhelmingly electing anti-abortion representatives in state houses, courts, Congress and the White House.
With a Republican trifecta coming to the nation’s capital in January, anti-abortion activist groups are planning for the first potentially friendly presidential administration since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated a 50-year federal right to terminate a pregnancy. They aim to end other federal and state protections while vastly expanding restrictions on reproductive health care.
Though many anti-abortion leaders are skeptical of President-elect Donald Trump’s commitment to their cause, they say they are willing to compromise to maintain influence in his administration. Some groups are strategizing how to end-run Trump’s campaign pledge not to enact any federal abortion bans — by heavily restricting medication abortion or trying to ban a common abortion procedure.
“I don’t think we have a champion here for pro-life causes,” said longtime anti-abortion organizer Rev. Patrick Mahoney. “What we have here is someone who will not work against us and try to crush us. We will not see pro-choice federal judges.”
The director of the Christian Defense Coalition and the chief strategy officer of Stanton Public Policy Center told States Newsroom that he is not a supporter of Trump and disagrees with his rhetoric on immigrants. But Mahoney said he is happy Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris lost. The vice president had vowed to try to restore federal abortion rights and throughout her career has advocated for reproductive rights. As California attorney general, she prosecuted anti-abortion activists charged with illegally recording abortion providers about a decade ago.
“We can have an opportunity now to begin the second phase after Roe was overturned,” Mahoney said. “We knew overturning Roe was only a starting line, not a finishing line.”
Live Action president Lila Rose was one of the few prominent anti-abortion leaders who called out Trump before the election, after he criticized Florida’s six-week abortion ban and vowed to veto a federal ban. In late August, Rose told Politico she would write in a presidential candidate and would encourage her millions of followers to do the same if Trump did not change course. On her podcast, the millennial activist recently revealed that she met with Trump and asked him to say he would vote against Florida’s abortion-rights amendment, which he did. Days before the election, Rose endorsed Trump on X.
Live Action did not respond to an interview request.
Another anti-abortion leader willing to compromise with the incoming president and Congress is Steven Aden, general counsel at Americans United for Life, the policy shop behind many state and federal abortion restrictions. Aden said he was disappointed the Republican Party removed from its platform a previous commitment to a federal ban.
However, he said his group was still able to inject critical language into the current platform that effectively supports states establishing fetal personhood through the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law. The platform also says Republicans “will oppose Late Term Abortion,” a political term used to refer to abortions in the second and third trimesters, the rarest but most restricted types of abortions in the U.S.
“We had direct input into the Trump campaign and framing the pro-life language in the party platform,” Aden told States Newsroom. “The platform language was much pared down, but we believe that the pro-life language preserves the essence of the party’s position on the pro-life issue, and we’re proud of that, and look forward to continuing to work with the incoming Trump administration.”
Federal reproductive rights protections in question
Early into his term, Democratic President Joe Biden began reversing blocks on federal funding domestically and globally for reproductive health organizations that also provide or refer for abortions. Leading up to and following the Dobbs decision, the Biden administration loosened restrictions to the medication abortion regimen, a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, which has become the most common way of terminating pregnancy in the U.S. during the first trimester. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed abortion medication to be obtained via telemedicine and dispensed directly at pharmacies.
Nearly half the country has partially or fully banned abortions. But abortion numbers have risen since before Dobbs, researchers have reported, attributing the increase in part to expanded access to telemedicine abortion and to more people using online abortion clinics that mail abortion drugs from states with so-called shield laws to those with bans.
Under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, regulations could include:
The FDA reinstating medication abortion restrictions, such as requiring multiple in-person appointments and revoking telemedicine. Or altogether revoking the 2000 approval of mifepristone.
Reversing guidelines that under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, emergency departments at hospitals enrolled in Medicare — even in states with abortion bans — must offer pregnant patients the medical treatment necessary to stabilize an “emergency medical condition.” This law is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit deferred by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year. In sharp contrast to the mainstream medical community, anti-abortion advocates argue these guidelines are unnecessary and would allow doctors to broadly interpret a health emergency to mean anything.
When asked about stories of alleged denied care, maternal deaths, and doctor confusion related to state abortion bans, Aden chalked up the problem to a misinterpretation of state laws, which he said should be clarified to address these problems, while noting several times, “I’m not a doctor.” Americans United for Life’s recommended health-exception language in part says abortion should be allowed “to preserve the life of a pregnant woman or to address a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
“That’s a health exception with teeth,” Aden said. “It doesn’t allow for a free-ranging, quote unquote, ‘mental health’ exception that would swallow the rule.”
Funding a study on the potential health effects of abortion pills in the water system from patients miscarrying in their toilets after taking medication abortion drugs. Anti-abortion leaders like Mahoney said they were disappointed with Trump’s pick for HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has previously said he supports abortion rights. But Mahoney said he’s hoping to appeal to Kennedy’s skepticism of FDA drug approvals. “How do chemical abortions being flushed down the drain affect our water supply? We’re definitely going to push hard on that,” Mahoney said.
Revoking a rule requiring health clinics that receive federal family planning Title X grants to offer referrals for abortion clinics, which is also the subject of an ongoing federal lawsuit. It is already prohibited to use federal funds for abortions unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or has become fatal. Activists also want to defund Planned Parenthood, the largest reproductive health center network, and extend tax credits to anti-abortion pregnancy centers.
Enforce part of the 19th century Comstock Act to prohibit the mailing of abortion-inducing drugs. Aden said enforcing this law would likely mean cracking down on online abortion clinics like Aid Access.
Revoke or refuse to enforce the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, enacted because of the sometimes-violent anti-abortion protests of the 1980s and 1990s. One of several activists sentenced to prison for staging a clinic blockade in Washington, D.C., Lauren Handy was also involved in obtaining aborted fetuses outside the same clinic. Trump had indicated he would potentially pardon Handy and fellow blockaders. Activists have said they will also ask the DOJ to investigate the doctor at the abortion clinic from where Handy obtained the fetuses, of whom she and other activists have accused, without evidence, of infanticide.
The U.S. Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs could:
The U.S. Agency for International Development could:
Reinstate the so-called Mexico City Policy, which barred federally funding international organizations that provide or refer for abortions.
As they brace for the potential impact of Dobbs without a federal safety net, reproductive justice activists are working to expand access and fight anti-abortion laws, while also protecting new state wins. The election results did not change the fact that most people want abortion access, said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, during a recent media press briefing organized by the progressive Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“Donald Trump won the election, but so did abortion, and people need to hold this incoming administration to its word that it would not restrict abortion,” Graves said. “We have to square the idea that millions of people in the United States voted for reproductive freedom … but they also will be experiencing a situation that will become even more dire, and that people will feel scared and hopeless in this period.”
Arguments for a national abortion ban
Aden said AUL would support a federal “dismemberment” bill, referring to a proposed ban on a common second-trimester abortion procedure known as dilation and evacuation, or D&E. This procedure involves dilating the cervix and removing the contents of the uterus, typically performed beginning around 12 weeks. It would be a way to effectively get a 12- or 15-week ban without calling it that.
Despite its safety and efficacy record, the D&E procedure has been banned in several states, over the objection of the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It’s part of an old anti-abortion playbook, which under Republican President George W. Bush resulted in a federal ban on another later abortion procedure — dilation and extraction, or D&X — by reframing it as “partial-birth” abortion, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2007’s Gonzales v. Carhart decision.
Abortion foes describe D&Es as a gruesome procedure, or as Aden puts it, “tearing 13-week-old humans apart limb from limb.” Anti-abortion doctors recommend more risky and invasive procedures like C-sections, even when the abortion is medically indicated.
If D&Es are banned, there would be fewer options for later abortions, which are sometimes necessary, said reproductive-health legal expert Rachel Rebouché, dean of Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia. She noted that some of the U.S. Supreme Court justices have indicated support for abortion restrictions for reasons of preserving fetal dignity rather than preserving maternal health.
“That litigation, from the anti-abortion perspective, depends on saying the fetus is a person with rights that attach at a certain point, if not from conception,” Rebouché told States Newsroom. “Dobbs opens the door wide open for those kinds of regulations. … But the question is, is there a role for the federal government to enact a nationwide ban that would curtail the rights of states that have not gone the way of Idaho or Texas or others?”
Aden said that for now AUL will be more focused on the incremental approach to abortion restrictions, as well as calling for expanded child and prenatal tax credits and other social supports. The attorney, who was 11 when Roe was decided in 1973, is expecting another half-century of litigation over abortion with the hopes that one day the U.S. Constitution gives personhood rights to the unborn, regardless of the stage of that pregnancy. Aden said a so-called Human Life Amendment is likely impossible in the near term, needing approval from two-thirds of both houses of Congress. He said U.S. culture is not there yet.
“It would require a cultural sea change in the way that the majority of Americans view human life in the womb,” Aden said. “That’s our second generational goal. Having won our first generational goal of overturning Roe, we’d love to see the day when every life is welcomed and protected in law. And if that’s through a constitutional amendment, then we’re here for that.”
Justice Jill Karofsky appeared immediately opposed to attorney Matthew Thome’s proposed interpretation Wisconsin's 1849 law with regard to abortion. (Screenshot via Wiseye)
Several of the Wisconsin Supreme Court liberal justices appeared opposed to the enforcement of a 174-year old law when it comes to abortion during oral arguments Monday in a high-profile case meant to clarify law in the state.
Wisconsin abortion law has been unsettled since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, sending decisions about abortion legality back to states. Health care providers in Wisconsin immediately ceased providing abortion care due to the state’s 1849 law. Attorney General Josh Kaul and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers filed a lawsuit challenging the statute in June 2022, arguing that it had been superseded by other laws passed by the state, including a ban on abortions after 20 weeks enacted in 2015, and could not be enforced as applied to abortions.
Access ceased for 15 months until a Dane County judge ruled in December 2023 that the law applies to feticide, not abortion, allowing providers to resume services. Sheboygan District Attorney Joel Urmanski, a defendant in the case, appealed the decision to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and Kaul also wanted a review of the decision from the Court. Milwaukee County DA John T. Chisholm and Dane County DA Ismael Ozanne are also defendants in the case, but both oppose enforcing the law.
The pre-Civil War Wisconsin statute states that any person “other than the mother, who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child is guilty of a Class H felony” and that any person who “intentionally destroys the life of an unborn quick child” is guilty of a Class E felony. It specifies that “unborn child” is defined as “a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive. It includes no exceptions for rape or incest or specific medical complications. The only exception for the law is the life of a mother.
Urmanski’s attorney, Matthew Thome, defended the enforcement of the statute Monday morning, saying lawmakers never repealed it. Republican lawmakers have proposed updates to the 1849 law in the last two years, including a 14-week abortion ban, but the proposals have failed to become law.
“Policymakers have not repealed it. Indeed, they have expressly declined to do so at multiple opportunities and until they do, it can be enforced,” Thome said.
He argued that the question over whether Wisconsinites would be “better served” by a different law is not for the Court to decide.
Justice Jill Karofsky appeared immediately opposed to Thome’s proposed interpretation of the law.
“Just to be clear, a 12-year-old girl, who was sexually assaulted by her father, and as a result became pregnant under your interpretation [of the law], she would be forced to carry her pregnancy to term, correct?” Karofsky asked.
“Under the policy choice the Legislature made…, that would be correct,” Thome said.
“So in that case, a child would be forced to deliver a baby,” Karofsky said.
Karofsky pushed the point, asking about the consequences of a victim of sexual assault seeking an abortion under the law if it were enforceable.
“How about a woman who is a college freshman here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison? If she is sexually assaulted and it’s charged as a third degree sexual assault… that would be intercourse without consent. If she became pregnant, as a result of the sexual assault, it would be illegal for her to obtain an abortion?” Karofsky said.
“Correct, it would be illegal for a doctor to provide an abortion to her in the state of Wisconsin,” Thome said.
Attorney Matthew Thome defended the enforcement of Wisconsin’s 1849 statute as an abortion ban Monday morning, saying lawmakers never repealed it. (Screenshot via WisEye)
“If her assaulter is charged…, he would be facing a 10-year maximum imprisonment because that would be a Class G felony,” Karofsky said. “In that case, the penalty for aborting, after a sexual assault, would be more severe than the penalty for the sexual assault.”
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that since the Dobbs decision more than 64,000 pregnancies have been cause by rape in states with abortion bans.
“I fear what you are asking this Court to do is to sign the death warrants of women and children and pregnant people in this state because under your interpretation they could all be denied life-saving medical care while the medical professionals who are charged with taking care of them are forced to sit idly by,” Karofsky said. “This is the world gone mad.”
Justices also asked about the web of laws passed in the state, and appeared to disagree with Thome’s argument that the 1849 law completely negates them.
“We have statute after statute that you are somehow asking us to just absolutely ignore in your interpretation,” Justice Rebecca Dallet said. “We have a statute that talks about when an abortion can be performed and that’s after 20 weeks. We have a 24-hour waiting period. We have informed consent provisions. We have a ban on what they label to be partial birth abortion.”
Dallet asked Thome how he reconciles the 1849 statute with the later statute passed in 2015 that prohibits abortion after 20 weeks and the other laws related to abortion.
“I fit those things together… because that statute doesn’t say you can have an abortion,” Thome said.
Justice Brian Hagedorn appeared to agree that the 1849 law applies to abortion, and said later laws don’t negate it.
“It’s a matter of straight reasonable statutory interpretation,” Hagedorn said. “The law’s still there. It’s still there. The judiciary doesn’t get to edit laws. The judiciary doesn’t get to rewrite them. We didn’t delete it. We prevented its enforcement now, it’s still there.”
Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Hannah Jurss, who represented Kaul, argued that there was an “implied repeal” of the 1849 law, when lawmakers passed other statutes regulating abortion access in the state.
“The standard implied repeal rule is it’s the earlier law that falls and there’s nothing in the text of the Wisconsin statutes… that would say disregard all of that, and instead in the event of Roe being overturned go back to 940.04, and we know state Legislatures knew how to do this because… a number of states enacted trigger bans,” Jurss said. “Wisconsin did not.”
Kaul said at a press conference following the arguments that the Legislature should take up some of the other laws related to abortion access in the state, no matter the outcome of the lawsuit.
“There are now relatively narrow majorities for Republicans in the state Legislature,” Kaul said. The Assembly is now a 54-45 Republican majority, while the Senate is an 18-15 Republican majority. “It is very clear that Wisconsinites overwhelmingly support having safe access to abortion in the state. For those legislators in these districts that are very moderate, where those districts could go either way, I think we ought to ask those folks, do they support some common sense changes that will protect access to abortion care in Wisconsin.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has also agreed to hear a second lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin against Urmanski, which asks the Court to find that the state Constitution’s right to equal protection grants a right to receive an abortion and a doctor’s right to provide one.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday will hear oral arguments in a high-profile case that could, at least partially, determine the future of abortion rights in the state.
The case was filed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul and Gov. Tony Evers in the days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022. It challenges the state’s 1849 abortion ban, which was believed for almost 18 months to ban most abortions in Wisconsin.
The case is perhaps the most high-profile litigation to reach the state Supreme Court since a redistricting case that resulted in the court’s now-liberal majority throwing out Republican-gerrymandered legislative districts. New districts implemented after that decision resulted last week in 10 additional Assembly seats and four additional state Senate seats for Democrats, though Republicans maintain majorities in both houses.
The arguments will focus on two issues: First, whether the 1849 law applies to consensual abortions. Second, whether the 1849 ban was “impliedly repealed” when the Legislature passed additional laws — while Roe was in effect — regulating abortion after fetal viability.
A Dane County judge ruled in late 2023 that the 1849 statute applied to feticide, not consensual abortions. That decision was appealed, resulting in Monday’s high court hearing.
Attorneys for Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski, who is one of the prosecutors named in the case and has said he would prosecute violations of the 1849 law, argued in briefs submitted to the court that Dane County Circuit Court Judge Diane Schlipper’s interpretation of the law was incorrect.
They argued the “plain meaning (of the law) prohibits consensual abortion.” The statute, in part, provides: “Any person, other than the mother, who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child is guilty of a Class H felony.”
Accordingly, attorneys for Urmanski argued, the law should apply to consensual abortions for three reasons.
“First, a doctor who performs an abortion is a person other than the mother of an unborn child,” they wrote.
“Second, ‘unborn child’ is defined in (the statute) as ‘a human being from the time of conception until it is born alive.’”
“Finally, a consensual abortion involves the intentional destruction of the life of the unborn child,” Urmanski’s lawyers continued.
“There really should be no dispute that a consensual abortion falls within the scope of the prohibition of (the 1849 ban),” they argued.
Lawyers for Urmanski also argued that the 1849 law was not repealed because it does not conflict with more recent abortion statutes and those laws did not “clearly indicate a legislative intent to repeal (the 1849 law).”
Attorneys for the state Department of Justice — and the district court’s ruling — relied heavily on a 1994 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision. In that case, a man was charged under a portion of the 1849 law “for destroying the life of his unborn quick child by violently assaulting his wife five days prior to her anticipated delivery date.” The man argued the statute applied to abortion, not feticide, but the state Supreme Court disagreed.
In that case, the court concluded that at least portions of the 19th-century law “is not an abortion statute. It makes no mention of an abortive type procedure. Rather, it proscribes the intentional criminal act of feticide: the intentional destruction of an unborn quick child presumably without the consent of the mother.”
“It is a feticide statute only,” the court wrote.
The precedent established in the 1994 case means the 1849 law cannot be applied to consensual abortions, attorneys for the state argued.
On the issue of whether the ban was “impliedly repealed,” the state points to two other cases, both from 1971. A “later-enacted law impliedly repeals an earlier law where an ‘irreconcilable’ conflict exists between the two laws — where the later-enacted statute ‘contains provisions so contrary to or irreconcilable with those of the earlier law that only one of the two statutes can stand in force,’” attorneys from DOJ argued, citing one of the two cases.
Additionally, a law is implied repealed “by the enactment of subsequent comprehensive legislation establishing elaborate inclusions and exclusions of the persons, things and relationships ordinarily associated with the subject,” the attorneys wrote, citing the second case.
Monday’s arguments mark the first of two high-profile abortion cases the court will hear this term. The second, filed by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, asks the court to declare that abortion access is a right protected by the state constitution.
The court has not scheduled oral arguments in the second case.
Forward is a look ahead at the week in Wisconsin government and politics from the Wisconsin Watch statehouse team.
Beyoncé takes part in a campaign rally focused on reproductive rights with the Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, at Shell Energy Stadium on Oct. 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris appeared alongside superstar performer Beyoncé on Friday night to encourage voter turnout and reinforce the differences between the two parties on reproductive rights, with just days to go before voting ends.
The rally at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, Texas, followed months of speculation about whether Beyoncé would support Vice President Harris publicly ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election. The two-hour event featured other celebrities, including Willie Nelson and Jessica Alba, as well as women detailing being denied medical care for pregnancy complications in Texas after its abortion ban went into effect.
Beyoncé, who has won more than 30 Grammy Awards as well as hundreds of others throughout her career, said casting a vote is “one of the most valuable tools” that Americans have to decide the future of the country.
“We are at the precipice of an incredible shift, the brink of history,” Beyoncé said, adding that she wasn’t speaking at the rally as a celebrity or a politician.
“I’m here as a mother,” she said. “A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in. A world where we have the freedom to control our bodies.”
‘Horrific reality’
Harris, who is locked in an extremely close race with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, said abortion bans and restrictions implemented during the last two years have been “devastating.”
“We see the horrific reality that women and families face every single day,” Harris said. “The stories are vivid, they are difficult to hear, they are difficult to tell.”
Harris said there are also many stories that women and their families won’t discuss in public about challenges they’ve faced with access to medical care during pregnancy complications.
“An untold number of women and the people who love them, who are silently suffering — women who are being made to feel as though they did something wrong, as though they are criminals, as though they are alone,” Harris said. “And to those women. I say — and I think I speak on behalf of all of us — we see you and we are here with you.”
Harris said if voters give Trump another four years in the Oval Office, he will likely nominate more justices to the Supreme Court, which she argued would have a negative impact on the country.
“If he were reelected, he’d probably get to appoint one, if not two, members to the United States Supreme Court,” Harris said. “At which point Donald Trump will have packed the court with five out of nine justices … who will sit for lifetime appointments; shaping your lives and the lives of generations to come.”
Texas is also where anti-abortion organizations decided to file a federal lawsuit in November 2022 challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of medication abortion.
The two-drug regimen, consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol, is currently approved for up to 10 weeks gestation and is used in about 63% of abortions nationwide, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute.
The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled earlier this year the organizations lacked standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place, but the justices didn’t address the merits of the anti-abortion groups’ arguments.
Speaking at ‘ground zero’
Harris told reporters on Friday before the rally began that Republican lawmakers in Texas have made the state “ground zero in this fundamental fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own body.”
Harris contended that access to reproductive rights, including abortion, is “not just a political debate” or “some theoretical concept.”
“Real harm has occurred in this country, real suffering has occurred,” Harris told reporters. “People die, and it is important to highlight this issue because this is among the most critical issues that the American people will address when they vote for who will be the next president of the United States.”
During Trump’s first term in office, he nominated three Supreme Court justices, who later joined with other conservatives to overturn the constitutional right to abortion established in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case.
The Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago sent “the authority to regulate abortion … to the people and their elected representatives.”
That has led to a hodgepodge of laws with 13 states banning abortion, six states restricting access between six and 12 weeks, five states setting a gestational limit between 15 and 22 weeks, 17 states restricting abortion access after viability and nine states not setting a gestational limit, according to KFF.
Polls find support for abortion access
Public support for abortion access has outpaced support for restricting access for decades, according to consistent polling from the Pew Research Center.
The most recent survey from May shows that about 63% of Americans want abortion to be legal in most or all cases, while 36% said they believe it should be illegal in most or all cases.
Additional surveying from Pew shows that 67% of Harris supporters believe abortion access is “very important — nearly double the share of Biden voters who said this four years ago, though somewhat lower than the share of midterm Democratic voters who said this in 2022 (74%).
“And about a third of Trump supporters (35%) now say abortion is very important to their vote — 11 points lower than in 2020.”
In addition to playing some role in the presidential election, voters in 10 states — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota — will weigh in on abortion access directly through ballot questions.
Congress could supersede any protections or restrictions on abortion access established within states, if the House and Senate ever agree on legislation and a future president signs it into law.
Republicans are slightly favored to gain control of the Senate for the next two years following the election, while control of the House is considered a toss-up, as is the presidential race.
Attorneys general from Idaho, Kansas and Missouri wrote in a 32-page brief that allowing the mailing of mifepristone “encouraged and enabled private parties to evade the states’ laws.” (Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images)
Missouri’s attorney general has renewed a push to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, arguing in a lawsuit filed this month that its availability hurt the state by decreasing teenage pregnancy.
The revised lawsuit was filed by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, alongside GOP attorneys general in Kansas and Idaho. It asks a judge in Texas to order the Federal Drug Administration to reinstate restrictions on mifepristone, one of two medications prescribed to induce chemical abortions.
The trio of attorneys general were forced to refile the litigation after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the original lawsuit after concluding the original plaintiffs — a group of anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations — did not have standing to sue because they couldn’t show they had been harmed.
In making the case that the states have standing this time, the attorneys general contend access to mifepristone has lowered “birth rates for teenaged mothers,” arguing it contributes to causing a population loss for the states along with “diminishment of political representation and loss of federal funds.”
“Younger women are more likely to navigate online abortion finders or websites ordering mail-order medication to self-manage abortions,” the filing argues.
Missouri’s teen pregnancy birth rate has steadily declined over the past several years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though it still remains among the highest in the country.
The lawsuit demands the federal government restore its previous restrictions on mifepristone by requiring three in-person doctor visits, reducing the gestational period during which the medication can be taken from 10 weeks to seven and rolling back recent federal policy that allowed for the mailing of mifepristone and allowed for prescriptions to be made online or through pharmacies.
In a statement to The Independent, Bailey framed the lawsuit as an attempt to ensure “long-standing safety requirements” for use of mifepristone are put back in place.
“We are moving forward undeterred for the safety of women across the country,” Bailey said.
Molly Meegan, chief legal officer and general counsel with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said the latest legal attempt to reduce access to mifepristone is based on “out-of-date and unscientific federal restrictions.”
“Science has conclusively demonstrated that mifepristone is safe and effective, including when used as directed through telehealth, and that patients of any age who become pregnant and need medication abortion can safely use the combination regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol,” she said in a statement. ”Imposing needless barriers on mifepristone will make it harder for people to access this needed care—which of course is the point—and worsen existing health disparities.”
Since the medication was approved for use 28 years ago, only 32 deaths have ever been reported associated with mifepristone, according to the FDA.
Bailey and his fellow GOP attorneys general, however, argue the drug is dangerous.
“The FDA has enabled online abortion providers to mail FDA-approved abortion drugs to women in states that regulate abortion — dispensing abortion drugs with no doctor care, no exam and no in-person follow-up care,” the attorneys general wrote in the amended lawsuit. “These dangerous drugs are now flooding states like Missouri and Idaho and sending women in these states to the emergency room.”
The filing also argues that the current regulations around mifepristone make it impossible to track and prevent medication abortions.
“All of this makes it difficult for state law enforcement to detect and deter state law violations and to give effect to state abortion laws,” the attorneys general wrote.
Lost revenue and fewer teen mothers
When the constitutional right to an abortion was overturned in June 2022, Missouri became the first state to enact a trigger law banning the procedure in all cases except for medical emergencies.
A decade ago, more than 5,000 abortions were performed in Missouri, according to data from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. By 2020, that number dropped to 167 due to a series of “targeted regulation of abortion providers” laws enacted by the legislature, including a mandatory 72-hour waiting period between the initial appointment and a surgical abortion and mandatory pelvic exams for medication abortions.
Between June 2022 and March 2024, only 64 abortions were performed in Missouri under the state’s emergency exemption, according to health department data.
In the six months after the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling, the number of self-managed medication abortions rose by more than 26,000 across the U.S. according to a study published in JAMA, the American Medical Association’s journal.
The attorneys general in their filing attempt to estimate how many people may have undergone medication abortions in each state, and how many may have been on Medicaid.
Between April 2018 and August 2023, there were 438 abortion complication reports — including 186 from medication abortions — filed with Missouri’s health department, according to the litigation.
Bailey’s office estimates that just shy of 400,000 women and girls of reproductive age are eligible for Missouri Medicaid, and that about 13% of those individuals are enrolled in Medicaid.
Bailey raised these data points in an attempt to estimate how much abortion medication costs the state, noting that under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, public hospitals must treat anyone who comes in for emergency care, regardless of their ability to pay.
“If a public hospital provides medical services for complications stemming from chemical abortions,” the filing reads, “and the state’s Medicaid program does not cover the full portion of the bill, the outstanding balance is a loss to the public hospital, which is itself an instrumentality of the state.”
The attorney general’s office also noted the “loss of potential population” that resulted from an increase in access to medication abortions among Missourians.
“Reflecting the ease of driving to another state to receive abortion drugs, it is estimated that just 2.4%of abortion-minded women were prevented from getting abortions in Missouri after Dobbs,” the attorneys general write in the filing.
Fewer abortions would have occurred, the attorneys general argue, if the FDA’s previous requirements were still in place.
Bailey made a similar argument last year while attempting to inflate the estimated cost of an abortion-rights ballot measure, saying it would cost the state $6.9 trillion in lost revenue. A judge rejected his claim.
The filing also pointed to a November 2023 study that found abortion bans didn’t result in an increase in teenage pregnancies that ended in births for those between the ages of 15 and 19.
The study attributed this in part to young people’s ability to find online abortion medication providers.
“This study thus suggests that remote dispensing of abortion drugs by mail, common carrier, and interactive computer service is depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers in Plaintiff States, even if other overall birth rates may have been lower than otherwise was projected,” the attorneys general wrote.
Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, are giving voters very different answers when it comes to any changes at the U.S. Supreme Court, shown here on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.
WASHINGTON — Democrats have increasingly cried out for new rules for the nation’s highest court, and the 2024 presidential election reflects a clear party divide over how Supreme Court justices should behave and whether they should remain on the bench for life.
The erasure of a nearly 50-year-old national right to abortion, the granting of wide latitude for former presidents to escape criminal accountability and several ethics scandals magnified these questions. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are giving voters very different answers.
Harris’ platform calls for “common-sense” reforms that include term limits for justices and an enforceable ethics code that mirrors the rules that apply to lower federal judges.
When President Joe Biden announced his proposals for Supreme Court ethics reform roughly one week after dropping his bid for reelection, Harris issued a statement reinforcing the need to “restore confidence” in the court.
“That is why President Biden and I are calling on Congress to pass important reforms — from imposing term limits for Justices’ active service, to requiring Justices to comply with binding ethics rules just like every other federal judge. And finally, in our democracy, no one should be above the law. So we must also ensure that no former President has immunity for crimes committed while in the White House,” she said.
While Harris’ campaign did not provide additional details on her platform, Harris has a record of supporting such measures. As a senator in 2019, Harris co-sponsored a bill to enforce a uniform ethics code at every level of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court.
Trump position
When asked for comment about Trump’s stance on enforceable ethics rules or term limits at the Supreme Court, Trump campaign Senior Advisor Brian Hughes responded: “President Trump has said that, apart from matters of war and peace, the nomination of a Supreme Court justice is the most important decision an American President can make. As president, he appointed constitutionalist judges who interpret the law as written, and he will do so again when voters send him back to the White House.”
The former president has made his opposition to change known on social media.
Nearly two weeks before Biden’s speech in July to roll out his ideas for improving the court, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the “Radical Left Democrats are desperately trying to ‘Play the Ref’ by calling for an illegal and unConstitutional attack on our SACRED United States Supreme Court.”
“The reason that these Communists are so despondent is that their unLawful Witch Hunts are failing everywhere. The Democrats are attempting to interfere in the Presidential Election, and destroy our Justice System, by attacking their Political Opponent, ME, and our Honorable Supreme Court. We have to fight for our Fair and Independent Courts, and protect our Country. MAGA2024!” he continued, randomly capitalizing words as he often does.
The Republican National Committee stated in its platform that the party unequivocally opposes any changes to the number of Supreme Court justices.
“We will maintain the Supreme Court as it was always meant to be, at 9 Justices. We will not allow the Democrat Party to increase this number, as they would like to do, by 4, 6, 8, 10, and even 12 Justices. We will block them at every turn.”
At the Economic Club of Chicago on Oct. 15, Trump appeared to accuse Democrats of wanting to add up to 25 new justices to the Supreme Court bench.
Harris’ 2024 campaign position on the Supreme Court does not include a plan to change the number of justices. During her 2020 presidential run, Harris expressed an openness to expanding the court, according to Politico and other reports. Biden, at the time, remained opposed to changes, including justice term limits.
Immunity ruling
When Trump was charged with federal fraud and obstruction crimes for his attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results, he escalated his appeal for presidential immunity all the way to the Supreme Court.
On July 1, the justices issued a 6-3 opinion granting former presidents criminal immunity for “core constitutional” duties and presumptive immunity for actions on the “outer perimeter” of official duties, but none for unofficial, personal acts.
Two of the justices who joined the conservative majority ruling — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — were Trump appointees. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, also appointed during Trump’s time in the Oval Office, joined them, concurring in part.
Trump’s case was delayed for the better part of 2024, tied up in the high court process as he campaigned for a second presidency. The delay ultimately closed the door on a trial before November’s election.
The high-profile case not only highlighted the fact that Trump was being judged by his own appointees, but also that two other justices had been recently exposed in ethics scandals involving Republican donors and appearing to show support for Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election.
In April 2023, ProPublica uncovered that Justice Clarence Thomas had been accepting luxury travel and other big ticket gifts from Republican billionaire donor Harlan Crow.
In May of this year, the New York Times published photos of an upside-down American flag flying outside the home of Justice Samuel Alito following the violent riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The upside-down flag, a general symbol of protest, had been adopted by Trump supporters who believed the 2020 election was stolen.
All parties have denied any wrongdoing, and Alito declined to recuse himself from Trump’s 2020 election subversion case, and another case brought by a Jan. 6 defendant.
The call for a new ethics code
While the Thomas and Alito scandals attracted the most attention, observers of the court say many of the justices’ actions raise ethics questions.
Gabe Roth, founder of the nonpartisan nonprofit Fix the Court, said “no justice has totally behaved ethically.”
Roth cited transgressions by both conservative and liberal justices: socializing with litigants who argue before the court, the use of government resources to promote a personal book and instances of justices not recusing themselves from cases in which they appear to have a stake.
“It hasn’t been to the scale of the things that ProPublica uncovered, but no justice is fully pure when it comes to ethics issues, which is not to say that they’re all corrupt or they’re all compromised by any means. It’s just more, to me, a fact that the whole institution needs to focus more on ethical leadership,” Roth said.
ProPublica published numerous stories in 2023 detailing gifts Thomas never disclosed, as well as a luxury fishing expedition Alito took with a Republican billionaire who argued before the court.
The Supreme Court currently polices itself with its own code of conduct and maintains justices already follow rules that apply to lower federal judges.
Congressional Democrats have introduced several bills aiming to impose ethics rules on the justices and limit life-time appointments, for example to 18 years.
A bill led by Senate Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island passed the Democratic-led Senate Committee on the Judiciary in July 2023.
The legislation aimed to mandate an enforceable ethics code, tighten recusal and gift disclosure requirements, and establish a complaints process similar to that of the lower courts.
An attempt at unanimous consent passage on the Senate floor in June was blocked by Senate Judiciary’s top Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
“Let’s be clear, this is not about improving the court, this is about undermining the court,” Graham said on the floor.
Roth said no matter who wins the presidency and which party takes control of the Senate, the longtime fight for an ethics overhaul and term limits at the high court will continue — and that it shouldn’t be partisan.
“If they’re done right, it doesn’t favor one party or another or one ideology or another. It’s a bit weird that one side is saying they don’t love ethics right now,” Roth continued. “I don’t get it.”
Tony Wied yard signs in Green Bay. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
The race for Wisconsin’s open 8th Congressional District seat pits Democrat Kristin Lyerly, an OB-GYN, against Republican Tony Wied, a former gas station owner, and is testing the power of reproductive rights versus the influence of former President Donald Trump.
The 8th CD House seat is open this year after Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, who was first elected to the seat in 2016 and easily held it throughout his tenure, resigned from Congress in April. Voters on Election Day will see the candidates on ballots twice. A special election was called to happen concurrently with the general election to fill out the rest of the two-year term left open by Gallagher’s departure.
The district sits in the northeast part of the state encompassing the city of Green Bay and the rest of surrounding Brown County as well as Marinette, Oconto, Menonominee, Shawano, Waupaca, Outagamie, Calumet counties and part of Winnebago County.
Aaron Weinschenk, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, noted that most analyses of the makeup of the district indicate it leans solidly Republican. The last time a Democrat represented the district was from 2006 through 2010, when Democratic Rep. Steve Kagan held the seat.
“I think that because Democrats have won the seat some people see it as a possibility for Democrats, although I would be pretty surprised if the Democrats win it during this election cycle,” Weinschenk told the Examiner in an email.
Lyerly has brought reproductive rights to the center of the race, while Wied seeks to focus more on the economy and immigration
Weinschenk said the issues each candidate is focusing on make sense given that each is talking about subjects where the parties and their respective presidential candidates are perceived as having an advantage. According to September polling from Pew Research Center, Trump holds a 7-point advantage over Harris when it comes to immigration policy. Harris held an 11-point advantage on abortion policy.
“We live in an era where politics is highly nationalized (the correlation between vote share in House elections and presidential elections is incredibly high right now — higher than ever before),” Weinschenk wrote. “National forces seem to matter in lots of different down-ballot races these days (even state supreme court elections).”
Lyerly highlights reproductive health issues, tries to flip district
Even before launching her campaign for Congress, it was no secret Lyerly, an OB-GYN from De Pere, was passionate about reproductive health care.
After the U.S. Supreme Court returned abortion policymaking to individual states with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022, Lyerly moved her practice to Minnesota. She also joined a court case challenging the 1849 state law that ceased abortion services across Wisconsin for more than a year.
Democrats are hopeful that Lyerly’s background and dedication to the issue can help flip the district.
Chair of the Brown County Democratic Party Christy Welch said there is reason to believe the district will flip. Welch is also running in a competitive state legislative race against Republican Benjamin Franklin.
“It’s an open seat with a very strong candidate, who is an expert in an issue that is motivating a lot of voters right now in what’s sure to be a high turnout election. A lot of people are not happy with Republicans in general,” Welch said. “All that together could mean a flip.”
Lyerly said in a September interview with the Examiner that reproductive health is top of mind for voters this year, including in the district with a large Catholic population.
“As a doctor who has worked with people in this region, Catholics receive abortion care and use contraception at the same rate as everyone else. They just talk about it differently. You’re knocking on doors, and when you open that door and create that space to share that personal story, that’s when you really understand how much it means to people. I think it’s difficult on a macro level to understand the depth of importance that this issue has in this region. But when you’re actually talking with the people, not just young women — dads, young men, old men, old women… people understand,” Lyerly said. “The one fundamental thing that everybody wants is freedom, it all comes back to freedom.”
Dr. Kristin Lyerly announces her candidacy in Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District on April 4, 2024. | Photo via Kristin For Wisconsin. Used by permission
A recent poll conducted by University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation found that the majority of Wisconsinites oppose criminalizing abortion. According to the survey, 78% of Wisconsinites — including 57% of Republicans and 93% of Democrats — do not want abortion to be criminalized before fetal viability.
Lyerly spoke about a 70-year-old farm wife in Shawano who gave her a note describing her dislike for abortion and her desire to have eight children. But she was only able to have three due to health complications.
“She understood that pregnancy is hard. Reproductive health is hard and you can’t take abortion out of health care,” Lyerly said. “What we can do is we can educate, we can support. We can make sure people have access to health care.”
If she won the seat, Lyerly said she would “love” to work with Sen. Tammy Baldwin to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill that would create a federal protection for abortion similar to the one established under Roe v. Wade.
During an October debate, Wied avoided staking out a position on what Wisconsin abortion policy should be, and Lyerly seized the moment to highlight the answer as a “cop out.” Wied said he supports the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the decision about whether abortion should be restricted should remain up to individual states.
“We all know the person who pulls Tony Wied’s strings is proud of taking Roe v. Wade down,” Lyerly said, referring to Trump. The former president has bragged about the role he played in helping overturn Roe v. Wade, yet he has also been stepping back from some of that rhetoric as he tries to win over voters. Trump recently said that some state bans are “too tough.”
Asked to clarify, Wied refused to say what he thinks Wisconsin’s law should be. He also said Lyerly should run for the state Assembly if she wants to work on the issue.
“I’m running for the United States House of Representatives. Our job is to present spending bills and oversee the agencies at the federal level. I am not for continuing to add more power to the federal government… This is a state issue. It will continue to be a state issue,” Wied said.
Chair of the Door County Republican Party Stephanie Soucek said she doubts the issue will be enough to “move the needle” in the district this year, though she said that Democrats’ messaging about Wied’s views on the issue have included “hyperbolic, unfair accusations.” For example, she said the claims that Republicans are going to ban fertility treatments and contraception aren’t where most Republicans are.
“There are some people out there that are very single-issue voters,” Soucek said. “I think there’s enough stuff going on that is affecting people’s lives every day, so they’re seeing things and experiencing things that I think will override… the abortion issue. It’s just a matter of getting the message out there, and pushing back against some of those claims.”
Republicans focus on immigration, economy and Trump
From meeting the Republican former president at an April rally in Green Bay to propose his candidacy to clinching a public endorsement to coincide with his decision to run, to leaning heavily on being the only “Trump-endorsed” candidate in the primary, Wied has made former President Donald Trump central to his campaign.
Wied won a three-way primary in August against a current and a former state lawmaker to secure the Republican nomination. Wied’s campaign did not respond to an interview request from the Examiner.
Tony Wied, Republican candidate for Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District. (Photo courtesy campaign)
Trump’s influence on Wied’s campaign has been prominent as the political newcomer has focused on the economy and immigration as two of his top priorities throughout his campaign.
While Lyerly has focused heavily on reproductive health issues, Wied has highlighted the U.S.-Mexico border. He has said that immigration policy was better under Trump, and that he would support finishing Trump’s border wall. He said he also supports reimplementing the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court date
“I believe in legal immigration, but right now we have to close this border,” Wied said during the debate. “This administration, right now… is a tragedy.”
When it comes to the economy, Wied has said that he supports lowering taxes, including for businesses and wants to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which Democrats have complained unfairly benefited the rich. He has also said that government spending has led to inflation and he wants to work to decrease it.
“Inflation is really a tax and it’s a tax that affects the poor and the middle class,” Wied said.
When it comes to the congressional race, Soucek said Wied has been doing a good job articulating the Republican message on those two issues.
The county party, Soucek said, has been working to deliver a win for the Republican candidates up and down the ballot, including Wied and Trump, by knocking doors and making phone calls. She said that she thinks Wied has been focusing a little less on his Trump endorsement in the general election campaign.
“I think he felt it was going to be helpful to him in the primary. He definitely supports President Trump, but I think that was a strategy he felt would be beneficial to him… Obviously it seemed to work. Now, I think his approach has been, ‘We’re going to talk about all these issues that are impacting everyday Wisconsinites,’ and really, you know, broaden his message more,” Soucek said.
When it comes to the presidential election, she said that she also recognizes the responsibility that comes with Door County serving as a “bellwether” in the presidential election. The county has voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election since 1996.
“There’s just two very different paths and different views on America and where we should be going, and so for Republicans there are many different issues that we feel like if we don’t win …. it’s going to be hard to reverse… Look at illegal immigration and just over 10 million people and maybe more that have come across the border,” Soucek said.
Soucek said she is feeling “pretty good” about Wied keeping the seat in Republican hands. She noted that Republican candidates down ballot tend to outperform the top of the ticket, including when Gallagher won in the district.
“I’m not going to take anything for granted. We don’t want to assume anything, so we’re going to all continue to work hard for all of our candidates, but in our area, I do feel fairly confident that we’ll be able to get him across the finish line,” Soucek said.
Lyerly, however, is banking that Wied’s alignment with Trump won’t connect with voters in the district.
“My opponent is an extremist. He is not someone who is independent, and in fact, if you look at his yard signs, they don’t even lead with his name,” Lyerly told the Examiner. Some of Wied’s yard signs feature his Trump endorsement above his name. “That is not what the people of this region want. They want a moderate.”
In recent weeks, Lyerly has sought to emphasize that she is an “independent thinker.”
In a recent campaign ad, Lyerly led with her support for reproductive health care access and Wied’s openness to allowing states to decide to implement bans, and then said she would also work to “secure our border,” ban price gouging and protect Second Amendment rights.
Lyerly has said the bipartisan border security bill, which failed to advance out of the Senate after Trump urged Republicans to kill it, would have started to solve some of the problems with immigration as it would have funded 1,500 new personnel in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and created a more efficient path to citizenship for some. She has said she would work in Congress to help stop fentanyl from coming into the country. During the debate, Wied said the bipartisan immigration bill “didn’t go far enough.”
When it comes to addressing the economy, Lyerly has said she supports expanding the child tax credit, lowering taxes on the middle class and raising taxes for more wealthy Americans.
“It’s easy to pigeonhole me, as an OB-GYN doctor, as someone who only cares about reproductive rights, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Lyerly said.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was issued electronically, is seen on June 24, 2022 in Washington, D.C. The court’s decision overturned the landmark Roe v Wade case and erases a federal right to an abortion. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.
WASHINGTON — This year’s election marks the first time voters are casting ballots for president since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion and made reproductive rights a pivotal issue for many voters.
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump have spoken about reproductive rights and abortion access numerous times during the last few months.
Trump’s stance has evolved during his bid for the White House. He now contends he wouldn’t sign legislation implementing nationwide abortion restrictions and wants regulation left up to the states.
Harris has consistently said a nationwide law guaranteeing access would ensure the choice is left up to women, not politicians.
“I pledge to you, when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade, as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law,” Harris said during the September presidential debate.
Trump patted himself on the back during the same debate for nominating three justices to the Supreme Court who later ruled with their conservative colleagues that the Constitution didn’t provide the privacy rights that two former high court rulings said insulated women’s choices about abortion.
“I did something that nobody thought was possible,” Trump said about nominating the three justices. “The states are now voting. What she says is an absolute lie. And as far as the abortion ban, no, I’m not in favor of (an) abortion ban. But it doesn’t matter because this issue has now been taken over by the states.”
Harris had just said that Trump would sign a nationwide abortion ban if elected and cited Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump administration released by the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. Trump and his campaign have repeatedly tried to distance themselves from the document and many of its proposals.
Many politicians have misrepresented the Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago as sending abortion regulation back to the states. What the conservative justices wrote was that ending Roe v. Wade meant the “authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
That, of course, includes Congress and the president.
Trump position varies
Trump’s stance on abortion hasn’t always been linear or consistent. He told Republicans earlier this year that they should avoid discussing the topic in order to win elections, while also courting organizations that view him as one avenue to ending abortion outright.
Trump got himself into hot water with several anti-abortion organizations and conservative Republicans in April when he announced he didn’t want Congress to take action on a nationwide law.
Trump had previously said he would support a 16-week nationwide ban. He reiterated in his April announcement that he supported exceptions to state abortion bans in cases of rape, incest and the life of the pregnant patient.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser released a statement following Trump’s April announcement that she was “deeply disappointed.”
“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy,” Dannenfelser wrote. “If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights.”
About a month later, in May, Trump, Dannenfelser, President of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham had a “terrific meeting,” according to a statement released afterward.
Then, this summer, Trump muddied the waters on his abortion stance yet more, when he spoke to an organization in June that describes abortion as the “greatest atrocity facing” the United States that should be “eradicated entirely.”
“These are going to be your years because you’re going to make a comeback like just about no other group,” Trump said to The Danbury Institute’s inaugural Life & Liberty Forum. “I know what’s happening. I know where you’re coming from and where you’re going. And I’ll be with you side by side.”
Then, most recently, Trump posted on social media during the vice presidential debate in early October that he would veto any nationwide abortion restrictions.
Trump wrote in all capital letters that he “would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it, because it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters (the will of the people!).”
Trump added that he didn’t support access to abortion during the seventh, eight or ninth months of pregnancy, nor did he support killing babies, which is already illegal.
During 2021, about 93% of abortions took place within the first 13 weeks of gestation, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by the Pew Research Center.
Another 6% of abortions took place between 14 and 20 weeks with the remaining 1% taking place after 21 weeks gestation, according to the data.
“Almost half of individuals who obtained an abortion after 20 weeks did not suspect they were pregnant until later in pregnancy, and other barriers to care included lack of information about where to access an abortion, transportation difficulties, lack of insurance coverage and inability to pay for the procedure,” according to analysis from KFF Health.
Harris position
Harris has repeatedly criticized Trump for celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to end Roe v. Wade and said during the presidential debate that state restrictions have harmed women in innumerable ways.
“Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest,” Harris said. “Understand what that means — a survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral.
“And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.”
Harris has called for Democrats to eliminate the Senate’s legislative filibuster to ease the passage of a bill that would restore nationwide abortion protections.
That Senate rule requires at least 60 lawmakers vote to advance legislation before that bill can move on to a simple majority passage vote. It is different than the so-called talking filibuster, when one senator, or a group of like-minded lawmakers, talk on the floor for hours to delay a vote.
Democrats would have to maintain their majority in the Senate against long odds to actually carve out an exception to the legislative filibuster, in order to pass a bill restoring Roe v. Wade. Democrats would also need to regain control of the House of Representatives.
A divided Congress, or a few Democrats objecting to rule changes in the Senate, would hinder Harris’ efforts to sign nationwide abortion protections.
Democrats tried to pass legislation through the Senate that would have provided nationwide protections for abortion when they had unified control of government in 2022, but were blocked by the filibuster.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Arizona independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema later introduced a bipartisan bill that would have had a similar result, but it wasn’t scheduled for a floor vote.
The legislation of two years ago likely would again fail to advance if Democrats sweep in the November elections, unless they carved out an exception in the Senate filibuster.
Swing state voters
Harris’ and Trump’s stance on abortion access will likely play a role in determining which candidate wins the Electoral College in crucial swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Democrats are optimistic that abortion access ballot questions in 10 states will bolster Harris’ chances through increased voter turnout and higher spending by reproductive rights organizations.
While many of the referendums are in solidly blue or red states, the proposals in Arizona and Florida could affect turnout and motivation.
Louis Jacobson, senior columnist at Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, wrote earlier this month that a key question on Election Day will be whether “abortion-rights advocates extend their perfect 7-for-7 record since Roe v. Wade was overturned.”
Voters will decide on numerous other ballot questions as well, including recreational cannabis, increases in the minimum wage and ranked-choice voting.
In an earlier post about the abortion ballot questions, Jacobson and Samantha Putterman wrote that “(e)very post-Roe measure has been on the ballot during a relatively low turnout election—either the November midterm, a primary ballot, or an off-year election.”
“Any measure that makes the ballot in 2024 will face voters in November of a presidential year, when turnout is far higher,” they wrote. “This has the potential to hurt abortion rights backers, because moderate and liberal voters have recently flexed their electoral muscles more when turnout is low.”
Public opinion polls conducted by the Pew Research Center for the past three decades have consistently shown support for keeping abortion legal outpacing support for making the procedure illegal in most or all cases.
The 2024 survey showed that 63% of people want abortion legal in most or all cases while 36% believe it should be illegal in all or most cases.
People attend a "Fight4Her" pro-choice rally in front of the White House at Lafayette Square on March 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Astrid Riecken/Getty Images)
We knew what would happen when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
We knew women would be denied access to abortion in many states, including here in Wisconsin. We knew patients would be forced to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to get care. We knew there would be people who would be forced to stay pregnant against their will. We knew doctors would be put in impossible positions, knowing they had the skill and knowledge to help their patients but fearing incarceration and the loss of their careers due to state laws.
In Wisconsin, abortion was suspended immediately after Roe was overturned due to an 1849 law that prosecutors threatened to use to ban abortion in the state. This forced 9 in 10 people to travel out of state for care, putting people’s health and lives at risk. Fortunately, 15 months later, after thousands of Wisconsin women were denied care, a Dane County judge ruled that Wisconsin’s pre-Roe statute does not ban abortion. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has resumed providing abortion care, but women’s health has suffered, confusion remains, and the threats to reproductive care and freedom continue in the Legislature, Congress and the courts.
Today, 21 states have banned abortion, and 29 million women and people across the gender spectrum who are of reproductive age are living under those bans. That number includes 44% of all women of reproductive age, and 55% of Black women.
And we knew women would die because of these bans. We didn’t know how many, or where, or who they would be. But now we have names. Two women — both Black women, both mothers — in Georgia died in 2022, in the first months without a federal constitutional right to abortion. According to Georgia’s Department of Public Health maternal mortality review committee, Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died preventable deaths, as a direct result of Georgia’s abortion ban.
Women and families have been telling their stories everywhere anyone will pay attention — on social media, on national television, in local newspapers. They are telling the world that abortion is essential health care, that women, trans and nonbinary people are suffering under these bans. They’re reminding us that access to sexual and reproductive health care is not a luxury to be awarded to the few: it is essential if we call ourselves a free country.
The stories are piling up, some of them heartbreaking, some of them enraging, some of them achingly familiar to our own experiences or those of people we love. After all, one in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime, which means weallknow someone who has had an abortion, whether they’ve shared that story or not.
And we know what will happen if politicians against reproductive freedom take power this election. We know because they’ve already shown us what they will do, and they continue to pursue additional restrictions on our freedom to access needed information and health care.
Our democracy and basic human rights are on the ballot in November. What we can do is vote.
We can elect leaders who will protect our right to make our own decisions about our bodies. Because there is no politician, of any party, who is more qualified, at any point in pregnancy, to make decisions about your pregnancy than you and your doctor.
And people know this. Nearly 80% of Americans believe the decision whether to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor, rather than regulated by law.
Every ballot cast in every election is a nudge toward a different future. Those nudges, taken together, determine the path our country will follow. The moral arc of the universe only bends toward justice and freedom if we all pull together.
So fight for the future you want, the future we all deserve. Vote for freedom.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, answers questions at a Univision town hall on Oct. 10, 2024, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Felipe Cuevas/TelevisaUnivision)
Vice President Kamala Harris fielded a series of questions from undecided Latino voters on Thursday during an emotional town hall in Las Vegas hosted by Univision.
Harris continues to court this key voting bloc as Election Day rapidly approaches and she and former President Donald Trump vie for the Oval Office in an extremely close race.
Thursday’s town hall — featuring questions on subjects ranging from immigration and health care, to abortion and the economy — came as the Harris campaign launched the “Hombres con Harris” initiative this week to mobilize Latino men in battleground states.
Trump’s town hall with Univision was postponed to next week due to Hurricane Milton.
A ‘broken’ immigration system
Harris heard from one audience member who said her mother died six weeks ago without being able to obtain legal status and could not get the medical care she needed.
The veep expressed her sympathy and pointed to the country’s “broken immigration system.”
“The reality is that in terms of having access to health care, had your mother been able to gain citizenship, she would have been entitled to health care that may have alleviated her suffering and yours,” she said.
Harris also mentioned her own mother and her immigration to the United States, saying: “I know what it is like to have a hardworking mother who loves you and to lose that, but I know that her spirit is alive.” Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan, emigrated from India and was a cancer researcher.
During the town hall, Harris also repeated her vow she would, if elected, bring back and sign into law a major bipartisan border security bill, while blaming its legislative failure on Trump.
She also said she will “do the work of focusing on what we must do to have an orderly and humane pathway to earn citizenship for hardworking people.”
Harris was also asked about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that is currently under threat and designed to protect children — also known as Dreamers — who were brought into the country illegally from deportation.
“I just think it’s important that we recognize who this population of young people are and agree that they have been so productive, they are prepared to do what is necessary by law, and I think it should compel us to agree they should not have to live in fear, but should have an ability to be on a pathway to earn their citizenship,” she said.
“So, it is one of my priorities, and I’ve worked on this in terms of Dreamers for many, many years, and I’ll continue to fight for them.”
Health care, abortion access and the economy
Harris said she firmly and deeply believes “access to health care is a right and should be a right, and not just a privilege of those who can afford it or have access to it easily” when asked how she plans to improve the health care system.
She also echoed her commitment to reproductive rights, saying if elected, she will “probably sign back into law the protections of Roe v. Wade, which basically just says it’s the person’s decision, not the government’s decision.”
Harris also touched on the broad Medicare plan she unveiled earlier this week that would strengthen the insurance program’s coverage to include long-term care for seniors in their homes.
The plan focuses on the “sandwich generation,” which refers to Americans who are raising their children while also caring for their aging parents.
Asked about how she would help the middle class, Harris highlighted her economic plan, including $6,000 in tax relief for new parents for the first year of their child’s life, as much as $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers and an up to $50,000 tax break for first-time small businesses.
Last month, Trump pledged to carry out the “largest deportation in the history of our country” if elected — noting that Aurora would be one of the two places he’d start with.
The other, Trump said back in September, would be Springfield, Ohio — the center of false claims he’s made surrounding legal Haitian migrants.
Trump is set to hold several other rallies this weekend, including in: Reno, Nevada, later on Friday; Coachella, California, on Saturday; and Prescott Valley, Arizona, on Sunday.
Medication abortion has become the most common method of abortion since the 2022 Dobbs decision ended the federal right to abortion. (Getty Images)
Researchers whose anti-abortion-funded studies were used to argue for restrictions on medication abortion — and then were retracted on methodological grounds — are now taking legal action against academic publisher Sage, which pulled their papers in February.
Represented by conservative law firms Consovoy McCarthy and Alliance Defending Freedom, the latter of which sued the Food and Drug Administration over abortion drugs in 2022, the researchers claim Sage’s retractions were unjustified and politically motivated and have led to “enormous and incalculable harm” to their reputations. They asked the Ventura County Superior Court in California to compel Sage to arbitrate with the researchers.
“Sage punished these highly respected and credentialed scientists simply because they believe in preserving life from conception to natural death. These actions have caused irreparable harm to the authors of these articles, and we are urging Sage to come to the arbitration table — as it is legally bound to do — rescind the retractions and remedy the reputational damage the researchers have suffered at the hands of abortion lobbyists,” said ADF senior counsel Phil Sechler in the recent announcement.
A representative for Sage declined to comment on the pending litigation.
A representative for the anti-abortion think tank Charlotte Lozier Institute, which employs the petitioning researchers, declined to comment. The nonprofit serves as the research arm of the influential Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which works to elect federal and state anti-abortion lawmakers.
The three studies at the center of the dispute were published in the journal “Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology,” between 2019 and 2022. Two of them featured prominently in a federal lawsuit aimed at restricting abortion pills, which the U.S. Supreme Court rejected this summer but continues to make its way through the lower courts.
States Newsroom was the first to report last year that Sage had opened an investigation after pharmaceutical sciences professor Chris Adkins contacted the journal with concerns that the researchers had misrepresented their findings. In the 2021 paper, the researchers looked at Medicaid data in 17 states between 1999 and 2015 and tracked patients who had had a procedural or a medication abortion and counted each time they went to an emergency department in the 30 days following those abortions. Their finding that emergency room visits within 30 days following a medication abortion increased 500% from 2002 to 2015 was frequently cited by plaintiffs and judges in the FDA case and used to conclude that the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone is dangerous. But Adkins and other public health experts told States Newsroom that the researchers inflated their findings, and appeared to conflate all emergency department visits with adverse events.
These concerns prompted Sage to re-examine the peer review process and to identify that one of the initial peer reviewers was an associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute. The publisher then enlisted a statistician and two reproductive health experts to newly peer review all three articles.
“Following Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, we made this decision with the journal’s editor because of undeclared conflicts of interest and after expert reviewers found that the studies demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor that invalidates or renders unreliable the authors’ conclusions,” Sage said announcing the retractions, which notes that the experts found that the papers had “fundamental problems with the study design and methodology,” “unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions,” “material errors in the authors’ analysis of the data,” and “misleading presentations of the data.”
In a petition to compel arbitration filed late last week, the studies’ lead author James Studnicki and nine co-authors argue that Sage has delayed arbitration in violation of California contract law. They say they’ve had difficulty publishing new research since the retractions. As examples, the petition notes that in March a free online archive and distribution server for unpublished, non-peer-reviewed manuscripts refused to post one of the petitioners’ manuscripts and that in April a journal rejected the same manuscript, “citing similar pretextual reasons that HSRME used in its retraction.”
“These rejections are just the tip of the iceberg but reveal the enormous and incalculable harm that Sage’s retraction has inflicted on the Authors’ reputations and their ability to publish research and scholarship,” reads the court petition. “As scientists, the Authors’ credibility is their lifeblood, but Sage has destroyed the Authors’ hard-earned professional reputations.”
Studnicki, Charlotte Lozier’s vice president and director of data analytics, was on the editorial board of “Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology” until last fall, but the journal’s editor-in-chief dismissed him after the journal and Sage decided to retract the papers. The blog Retraction Watch reports that the journal is no longer accepting new submissions.
Medication abortion has become the most common method since the 2022 Dobbs decision ended the federal right to abortion.
Despite claims by the Charlotte Lozier Institute that medication abortion is unsafe, when administered at 9 weeks gestation or less, the FDA-approved regimen has a more than 99% completion rate, a 0.4% risk of major complications, and around 30 reported associated deaths over 22 years. Common symptoms include heavy bleeding and cramping, diarrhea, and nausea, and sometimes medical intervention is necessary to avoid infection. ProPublica recently reported on two women in Georgia who suffered rare complications of medication abortion, but whose deaths were ruled preventable and were attributed to the state’s near-total abortion ban.
The Republican vice presidential candidate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, participate in a debate at the CBS Broadcast Center on Oct. 1, 2024 in New York City. (Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images)
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Republican Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance squared off Tuesday night in a vice presidential debate that marked the last scheduled in-person meeting for the campaigns as Americans decide the country’s next chapter.
Meeting for the first time, Walz and Vance engaged in a policy-heavy, nearly two-hour back-and-forth hosted by CBS News at its studios in New York City. The debate was moderated by Norah O’Donnell, host of the “CBS Evening News,” and Margaret Brennan, who anchors the network’s Sunday political show “Face the Nation.”
The vice presidential candidates emphasized their modest upbringings and laid out their visions to lower high living costs, address charged issues like reproductive rights, immigration and gun violence, and navigate a quickly worsening conflict in the Middle East.
And, with the presidential contest marking the first since the violent aftermath of the 2020 election, and Trump’s continued false claims that he won, the moderators pressed the men on whether voters would see a peaceful transfer of power, no matter the winner. Vance would not provide a direct answer whether he would have certified the 2020 vote.
Walz is a second-term governor who previously served six terms in the U.S. House. Prior to his election, Walz worked as a public school teacher and football coach while also enlisted in the Minnesota Army National Guard for 24 years.
Vance served in the U.S. Marines for four years before earning his Yale law degree and becoming a venture capitalist and bestselling memoirist. He was first elected to public office in late 2022 to serve as Ohio’s junior U.S. senator.
The mostly amicable debate, with some moments of tension, was a noticeable departure from the bitter polarization on display daily during the presidential campaign. Walz and Vance shook hands and lingered onstage afterward chatting and introducing each other to their wives.
The presidential nominees, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, met on the debate stage last month in a more acrimonious exchange during which the former president falsely claimed immigrants were eating pets in Ohio and Harris ripped into him for his remarks on race and abortion.
Trump has refused to debate again. Following the Vance-Walz exchange, the Harris campaign renewed its offer for another presidential meetup offered by CNN in Atlanta later this month.
Growing Middle East conflict
Answering the first question from the moderators Tuesday night, Walz and Vance sparred over which administration, if elected, would best quell signs of a widening war in the Middle East.
Tensions in the region escalated earlier Tuesday when Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, according to the Pentagon.
Walz accused Trump of being “fickle” on foreign policy and said the world is worse off since Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal. Walz argued for “steady leadership.”
“You saw it experienced today where, along with our Israeli partners and our coalition, [we were] able to stop the incoming attack,” Walz said.
“It’s clear, and the world saw it on that debate stage a few weeks ago, a nearly 80-year-old Donald Trump talking about crowd sizes is not what we need in this moment,” the governor continued.
Vance maintained that Trump headed off heated global conflict by invoking fear.
“We have to remember that as much as Governor Waltz just accused Donald Trump of being an agent of chaos, Donald Trump actually delivered stability in the world, and he did it by establishing effective deterrence,” Vance said. “People were afraid of stepping out of line.”
The barrage in the Middle East followed Israel’s ground incursion into Southern Lebanon and its recent assassination in Beirut of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iranian proxy militant group Hezbollah.
While Israel intercepted the majority of the rockets Tuesday, U.S. Navy destroyers in the Middle East fired roughly a dozen interceptors at incoming Iranian missiles, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said.
The Biden administration promised “severe consequences,” though it has not provided details. Harris said late Tuesday that Iran poses a “destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East” and her commitment to Israel is “unwavering.”
Despite a visit to Washington less than a week ago from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the CBS moderators did not ask about the ongoing war in Ukraine, and neither candidate brought up the costly and ongoing fight against Russia’s continued invasion.
2020 election
Vance and Walz sparred over how Trump handled his loss in the 2020 presidential election and his actions leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol following a rally that Trump hosted.
Walz said while he and Vance found some areas of common ground at other points during the debate, the two were “miles apart” on Trump’s actions following the 2020 election.
“This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen, and it manifested itself because of Donald Trump’s inability to say – he is still saying he didn’t lose the election,” Walz said.
Vance didn’t directly answer whether he would have certified the electoral count for President Joe Biden had he been a member of Congress at the time, to Walz’s dismay.
“I’m pretty shocked by this,” Walz said. “He lost the election. This is not a debate.”
Walz said he was concerned that Vance wouldn’t follow the example set by former Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to go along with a scheme to recognize fake slates of electors and deny Biden the presidency.
Vance tried to pivot to Harris’ actions following the COVID-19 pandemic and whether she “censored Americans from speaking their mind” before saying that both he and Trump “think that there were problems in 2020.”
There was no evidence of widespread voter fraud during the last presidential election, during which Trump lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College.
Walz also criticized Trump and Vance for using the same narrative ahead of this November’s elections, saying they were “already laying the groundwork for people not accepting” the results should Trump lose.
Taxes and tariffs
Both Harris and Trump have released economic plans that would add trillions to the national deficit — though analysis after analysis shows Trump’s proposals outpacing Harris’ by at least a few trillion.
Harris and Walz are running on an “opportunity economy” theme that would permanently expand the Child Tax Credit, including giving $6,000 to new parents, and provide tax credits and deductions to first-time homebuyers and entrepreneurs.
Harris, following Biden’s earlier budget proposal, has said she would impose a minimum tax on high-wealth individuals, but vowed steeper levies on long-term capital gains.
Trump has promised to fund the Treasury’s coffers with money raised by taxing imported goods. Largely he wants to extend his signature 2017 tax law and permanently lower the corporate tax rate.
When asked by the moderators how the candidates could accomplish those goals without ballooning the national debt, both Vance and Walz sidestepped directly answering the question. Rather they touted Trump and Biden administration policies and then went on the attack.
“Donald Trump made a promise, and I’ll give you this: He kept it. He took folks to Mar-a-Lago [and] said, ‘You’re rich as hell. I’m gonna give you a tax cut,’” Walz said, adding that Trump’s tariff plan would be “destabilizing” for the economy.
Economists warn that Trump’s plan to slap tariffs on imports across the board — as high as 60% on Chinese imports and 100% to 200% on cars and John Deere tractors manufactured in Mexico — could cause consumer prices to increase and invite retaliation.
But Vance said he wanted to “defend my running mate” on the issue.
“We’re going to be taking in a lot of money by penalizing companies for shipping jobs overseas and penalizing countries who employ slave laborers and then ship their products back into our country and undercut the wages of American workers. It’s the heart of the Donald Trump economic plan,” the senator said.
High costs and housing
Both candidates spent significant time addressing housing and child care costs.
Walz touted Harris’ “bold forward plan” that calls for construction of 3 million new homes and “down payment assistance on the front end to get you in a house.”
“A house is much more than just an asset to be traded somewhere. It’s foundational to where you’re at,” Walz said.
Vance said some of Walz’s ideas on housing were “halfway decent.”
One of the central pillars of Trump and Vance’s housing plans is to turn over federal lands to private hands for development.
“We have a lot of federal lands that aren’t being used for anything. They’re not being used for national parks. They’re not being used, and they could be places where we build a lot of housing,” Vance said.
On child care, Walz pledged a paid federal family and medical leave mandate as a priority for the Harris campaign, and advocated a parallel workforce development program for the care professions.
“We have to make it easier for folks to be able to get into that business, and then to make sure that folks are able to pay for that,” Walz said.
The dual goals, he said, “will enhance our workforce, enhance our families, and make it easier to have the children that you want.”
Vance said he sees an opportunity for a “bipartisan solution” to the high cost of child care, though he stopped short of agreeing with a federal paid leave law.
Instead he proposed expanding the potential recipients for federal child care grants.
“These programs only go to one kind of child care model. Let’s say you’d like your church maybe to help you out with child care. Maybe you live in a rural area or an urban area, and you’d like to get together with families in your neighborhood to provide child care and the way that makes the most sense. You don’t get access to any of these federal monies,” Vance said.
Immigration, again
Vance also repeatedly connected the housing shortage and high costs to immigration — the central issue for Trump’s campaign and a common answer from him for several of the nation’s woes.
The Ohio senator said housing is “totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes.”
“The people that I’m most worried about in Springfield, Ohio, are the American citizens who have had their lives destroyed by Kamala Harris’ open border,” Vance said, referring to the town where he and Trump falsely claimed over and over that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating pets.
Debate moderator Brennan pressed Vance on his claim: “Senator on that point, I’d like for you to clarify. There are many contributing factors to high housing costs. What evidence do you have that migrants are part of this problem?”
Vance said he would share on social media following the debate a Federal Reserve study that supported his claim.
Reproductive rights
Access to abortion and fertility treatments was one of the more contentious areas of disagreement, though neither candidate trod new ground for their party.
Vance maintained the Trump stance that abortion laws should be set by voters or state lawmakers, while Walz said women and their doctors are best suited to make those decisions.
Vance told a story about a woman he grew up with having an abortion, then telling him a few years ago that “she felt like if she hadn’t had that abortion, that it would have destroyed her life because she was in an abusive relationship.”
“And I think that what I take from that, as a Republican who proudly wants to protect innocent life in this country, who proudly wants to protect the vulnerable, is that my party, we’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue, where they frankly, just don’t trust us,” Vance said. “And I think that’s one of the things that Donald Trump, and I are endeavoring to do.”
Walz rejected Vance’s position that state lawmakers should determine women’s access to the full slate of reproductive decisions, including fertility treatments.
Walz referenced some of the stories women have told in the last two years about being denied medical care for miscarriages or other dangerous pregnancy complications because of vaguely written state laws that banned or significantly restricted access to abortion.
“This is a very simple proposition: These are women’s decisions to make about their health care,” Walz said, later adding that people should “just mind their own business on this.”
Gun violence
The two vice presidential candidates had one of the more genuine exchanges of the debate after the moderators asked them about solutions for gun violence.
Vance conceded that he and Walz both want to reduce the number of people killed by guns every year, but said the solution should center around addressing illegal guns, including those used in drug trafficking, and through changing how schools are designed.
“Unfortunately, I think that we have to increase security in our schools. We have to make the doors lock better. We have to make the door stronger. We’ve got to make the windows stronger,” Vance said. “And of course, we’ve got to increase school resource officers, because the idea that we can magically wave a wand and take guns out of the hands of bad guys, it just doesn’t fit with recent experience.”
Walz said school shootings are every parent’s “worst nightmare” before telling a story about how his son witnessed a shooting at a community center while playing volleyball.
“Those things don’t leave you,” Walz said, before talking about meeting with parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, when he was a member of Congress.
“We understand that the Second Amendment is there, but our first responsibility is to our kids to figure this out,” Walz said. “In Minnesota, we’ve enacted enhanced red flag laws, enhanced background checks.”
Walz said he absolutely believes Vance hates it when children die from gun violence, but added that’s “not far enough when we know they’re things that work.”
“No one’s trying to scaremonger and say, ‘We’re taking your guns,” Walz said. “But I ask all of you out there, ‘Do you want your schools hardened to look like a fort?’ … when we know there’s countries around the world that their children aren’t practicing these types of drills.”
Vance expressed sympathy that Walz’s son had witnessed a shooting and thanked him for bringing up Finland as an example of a country with a high rate of gun ownership that doesn’t have school shootings.
“I do think it illustrates some of the, frankly, weird differences between our own country’s gun violence problem and Finland,” Vance said, before mentioning higher rates of substance abuse and mental health issues within the United States.
“I don’t think it’s the whole reason why we have such a bad gun violence problem, but I do think it’s a big piece of it,” Vance said.
Hurricane Helene response, climate change
The two candidates expressed dismay about the destruction stemming from Hurricane Helene in states in the Southeast, but disagreed about how best to address climate change.
Vance said “a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns,” before criticizing how Democrats have drafted climate change laws.
“This idea that carbon emissions drive all the climate change; well let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of arguments,” Vance said. “Well, if you believe that, what would you want to do? The answer is that you’d want to restore as much American manufacturing as possible, and you’d want to produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.”
Walz said that Biden and Harris have worked with Congress to enact legislation addressing climate change that also created jobs.
“We are producing more natural gas and more oil at any time than we ever have. We’re also producing more clean energy,” Walz said. “Reducing our impact is absolutely critical, but this is not a false choice. You can do that at the same time you’re creating the jobs that we’re seeing all across the country.”
Walz also said that farmers in Minnesota know climate change is real because some years they experience significant drought and other years they’re inundated with too much rain for their crops to handle.
“They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods back-to-back,” Walz said. “But what they’re doing is adapting, and this has allowed them to tell me, ‘Look, I harvest corn, I harvest soybeans, and I harvest wind.’”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022 ended federal abortion rights. (Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)
Editor’s note: This five-day series explores the priorities of voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as they consider the upcoming presidential election. With the outcome expected to be close, these “swing states” may decide the future of the country.
7 States + 5 Issues That Will Swing the 2024 Election
Dr. Kristin Lyerly’s placenta detached from her uterus when she was 17 weeks pregnant with her fourth son in 2007. Her doctor in Madison, Wisconsin, gave the devastated recent medical school graduate one option: to deliver and bury her dead child. But she requested a dilation and evacuation abortion procedure, knowing it would be less invasive and risky than being induced. And she couldn’t fathom the agony of holding her tiny dead baby.
But Lyerly’s doctor declined, giving her a direct window into the many ways Americans lack real choice when it comes to their reproductive health decisions. At the time of this miscarriage, Lyerly was getting a master’s degree in public health before beginning her residency. She was able to get a D&E at the same hospital by a different doctor. As an OB-GYN, she soon would learn how much abortion is stigmatized and limited throughout the country, but also regularly sought after and sometimes medically necessary, including among her many conservative Catholic patients in northeastern Wisconsin.
And then, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, prompting states such as Wisconsin to resurrect dormant abortion bans from the 19th and 20th centuries. Lyerly’s job changed overnight. She stopped working as an OB-GYN in Sheboygan and moved her practice to Minnesota. She became a plaintiff in a lawsuit over an 1849 Wisconsin feticide law being interpreted as an abortion ban, which has since been blocked.
When a congressional seat opened up in a competitive Wisconsin district this year, the 54-year-old mother of four joined the post-Dobbs wave of women running for office to restore reproductive rights, which this election cycle includes another OB-GYN and a patient denied abortion care. Lyerly’s decision to run is emblematic of the nationwide backlash against the Dobbs decision, which altered the reproductive health care landscape, with providers, patients and advocates turning to the ballot box to change the laws to restore and broaden access.
Wisconsin is among seven swing states expected to determine the country’s next president and federal leaders. And in many ways they’re being viewed as referendums on how much the right to have an abortion can move the needle in a tight presidential election.
“What we’ve seen in every election since the Dobbs decision is that abortion is at top of mind for voters — and it’s not just helping voters decide who or what to vote for. It’s actually a turnout driver,” said Ryan Stitzlein, vice president of political and government relations at national lobbying group Reproductive Freedom for All. The group is investing in down-ballot races in conservative districts such as Lyerly’s, buoyed by cash and momentum from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ reproductive-rights-focused campaign.
Anti-abortion money is also flowing through the swing states, led by lobbying groups Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Women Speak Out PAC. Some of their messaging, adopted by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and many GOP candidates, often paints Democrats as champions of infanticide, focusing on the rarest and most controversial type of abortions, those performed in the third trimester.
But aside from that rhetoric, many Republican candidates have been quiet on an issue that for years motivated their staunchest supporters.
SBA Pro-Life America declined an interview for this story but shared a press release outlining the organization’s strategy trying to reach 10 million voters in Montana, Ohio and all of the battleground states except for Nevada. The group endorsed 28 House candidates total this cycle, and a fifth of them are in North Carolina. One of North Carolina’s endorsed candidates in a toss-up race is Republican GOP challenger Laurie Buckhout, who does not mention her abortion stance on her campaign website, and did not return a request for comment.
“Our field team is talking to persuadable and low propensity pro-life voters to urge them to cast their votes against the party that endorses abortion in the seventh, eighth and ninth months,” said SBA’s national field team director Patricia Miles in the press statement.
But throughout this election cycle, polls in the swing states have shown bipartisan support for abortion rights, especially when voters are educated about what abortion bans do. Voters in more than half of the states expected to determine the presidential winner have, to varying degrees, lost access to abortion. And abortion-rights activists across these states told States Newsroom they are determined to protect that access, or to get it back.
Arizona sees backlash after GOP upholds Civil War-era abortion ban
In Arizona, the Dobbs decision resurrected a Civil War-era ban that allowed abortions only to save a pregnant patient’s life.
Legislators repealed the law, but abortion-rights supporters fought for more certainty. This fall, Arizonans will vote on a proposed ballot measure that would protect access until fetal viability, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Now, two of the judges who upheld the abortion ban — Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn King — are up for reelection, in races infused with national cash by groups such as RFA and Planned Parenthood. Also on the ballot is Proposition 137, which would give lifetime appointments to state judges. The Republican-initiated measure has garnered controversy in part because it is retroactive to this year’s election, so if approved, any retention bids would be nullified even if the majority votes to unseat the judge.
Ballot organizers turned in more than 800,000 signatures, double the required number, and overcame opponents’ legal challenges to qualify the abortion-rights ballot measure, Proposition 139. Abortion is legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy, but there are many state restrictions that the Arizona Abortion Access Act would eliminate, such as a ban on any abortions sought for fetal genetic abnormalities and a blocked law from 2021 granting personhood status to fertilized eggs.
Recent deaths reignite controversy over Georgia’s abortion ban
This month, ProPublica reported on the deaths in 2022 of two Georgia women who suffered rare complications after they obtained mifepristone and misoprostol for early-term medication abortions. Both were trying to navigate a new state law that banned abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy and threatened medical providers with up to a decade in prison.
In one case, doctors at an Atlanta-area hospital refused for 20 hours to perform a routine dilation and curettage, a D&C, to clear the patient’s uterus when her body hadn’t expelled all the fetal tissue. In the other, a woman who had ordered the pills online suffered days of pain at home, fearful of seeking medical care. Both women left children behind.
Georgia’s law permits abortion if the patient’s life is at risk, but medical providers have said the law’s language is unclear, tying their hands and threatening the health of patients who have high-risk pregnancies.
Their cases, which a state medical review committee found to be “preventable,” have galvanized activists in the state.
Harris spoke at length about the women, Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, at a recent campaign event in Atlanta. She blamed their deaths on Georgia’s law, calling it “the Trump abortion ban,” because the former president appointed three justices he’d promised would overturn Roe v. Wade.
“This is a health care crisis, and Donald Trump is the architect of this crisis,” Harris said. “Understand what a law like this means: Doctors have to wait until the patient is at death’s door before they take action. … You’re saying that good policy, logical policy, moral policy, humane policy is about saying that a health care provider will only start providing that care when you’re about to die?”
Trump has not commented on the deaths. He has repeatedly said this year that abortion access should be left to the states. He has dismissed the idea of a federal abortion ban, but during the presidential debate, he refused to say whether he would veto such legislation.
At a recent rally in North Carolina, Trump addressed “our great women” (a demographic he’s trailing among), saying, “you will no longer be thinking about abortion, because it is now where it always had to be, with the states, and with the vote of the people.”
Abortion was a driving concern in this spring’s qualifying process for Georgia’s 2024 legislative elections — the first opportunity for aspiring state lawmakers to jump on the ballot in response to their state’s severe abortion restrictions.
Melita Easters, the executive director and founding chair of Georgia WIN List, which endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights, was already calling this year’s general election “Roevember” back when President Joe Biden was still the party’s nominee.
But Easters told States Newsroom that having Harris on the ticket instead has elevated the issue of reproductive freedom even more and “has breathed new life into down-ballot campaigns.” Easters said she is especially encouraged after a Democratic state House candidate in Alabama who ran on abortion rights flipped a Huntsville seat during a special election in March.
Michigan Democrats continue betting on abortion after 2022 successes
Michigan was one of the earliest states post-Dobbs to show that abortion rights could be a strong election-winning issue.
Months after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Michiganders overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to protect abortion rights in the state constitution; reelected Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who vowed to prioritize reproductive freedom; and voted for Democratic majorities in both chambers, giving the party a legislative trifecta for the first time in 40 years. In 2023, the legislature repealed a 1931 abortion ban that was still on the books and passed the Reproductive Health Act, expanding abortion access in the state.
This year, state and national abortion-rights groups have campaigned in toss-up congressional districts across Michigan, warning that a federal ban would supersede the state’s protections.
State judicial races, meanwhile, have attracted millions of dollars, as they could determine partisan control of the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrats secured a slim 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court in 2020 after Republican-nominated justices controlled the court for most of the last few decades.
Nevada reproductive rights activists hope ballot initiative improves turnout
In Nevada, abortion remains legal through 24 weeks and beyond for specific health reasons. In 2023, the state’s Democratic-led legislature passed a law shielding patients and providers from out-of-state investigations related to abortion care; it was signed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.
Seeking to cement these rights in the state constitution, reproductive health advocates mobilized a ballot initiative campaign, which they hope will drive voter turnout that would affect the presidential and down-ballot races. Constitutional amendments proposed through an initiative petition must be passed by voters twice, so if voters approve Question 6 in November, they will have to approve it again in 2026.
In North Carolina many Democrats are campaigning in opposition to a 12-week abortion ban that the Republican-majority legislature passed last year after overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.
In a high-profile race for governor, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein faces Republican opponent Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has previously said he believes “there is no compromise on abortion,” according to NC Newsline. The lieutenant governor is now facing calls to withdraw from the race over comments made on a pornography website years ago, and Stein has started racking up endorsements from prominent state Republicans.
Iliana Santillan, a political organizer who supports abortion rights, has focused on mobilizing Latinos, a growing voting bloc in the state. The executive director of progressive nonprofit El Pueblo and its political sister group La Fuerza NC told States Newsroom she’s talked to many young women motivated to secure their own reproductive rights, including her college-age daughter. She said the Latinx community faces additional reproductive care barriers such as language and transportation, with undocumented immigrants scared to cross state lines without a driver’s license.
Santillan also said there’s a misconception that all Latinos are against abortion because they’re Catholic, when in reality opposition to abortion skews among older voters.
“With older folks, the messaging that we’ve tested that has worked is: ‘We don’t want politicians to have a say in what we do with our bodies,’” Santillan said.
Motivated voters in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, with its 19 electoral votes, is the largest swing state and considered essential to win the White House.
In a poll conducted this month by Spotlight PA and MassINC Polling Group, abortion ranked as the fifth most-important concern in the presidential race for likely voters, with 49% naming it as among their top issues.
The issue is far more important to Democrats, however, with 85% calling it a top issue compared with 17% of Republicans. Among those who aren’t registered with either major party, 49% called it a top issue.
In 2022, voters surprised pundits by sending enough Democrats to the state House to flip it blue. Voters were responding to the Dobbs decision, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro told Pennsylvania Capital-Star at a recent Harris campaign event.
Shapiro also won in 2022, and so far his administration has supported over-the-counter birth control pills and ended the state’s contract with a network of anti-abortion counseling centers. He said his administration would not defend a current state law that prohibits state Medicaid funding from being used for abortions.
Abortion isn’t protected under Pennsylvania’s state constitution, but it remains legal up to 24 weeks’ gestation, and clinics there have seen an influx of out-of-state patients.
Wisconsin abortion services resume
After more than a year without abortion access, reproductive health clinics in Wisconsin resumed abortion services in September 2023, shortly after a judge ruled that the 1849 state law that had widely been interpreted as an abortion ban, applied to feticide and not abortion. A state Supreme Court race a few months earlier saw Justice Janet Protasiewicz win in a landslide after campaigning on reproductive freedom.
Seven months later when Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher announced his resignation, Lyerly threw her hat in the ring, running as the only Democrat in the 8th District. She now faces businessman Tony Wied. Although in the past it was considered a swing district, it has leaned conservative in recent election cycles. With the redrawn maps and national support, Lyerly said it’s a competitive race.
“We have the potential to really fix, not just reproductive health care, but health care,” Lyerly told States Newsroom. “Bring the stories of our patients forward and help our colleagues understand, build those coalitions and help to gain consensus that’s going to drive forward health care reform in this country.”
Wied’s campaign website does not mention abortion or his policy proposals related to health care, though the words “Trump-endorsed” appear prominently and abundantly throughout the site. Wied hasn’t said much about the issue beyond it should be a state issue, but the two are scheduled to debate this Friday night. His campaign declined an interview.
Currently the only OB-GYNs who serve in Congress oppose abortion. If Lyerly wins in November, she would not only change that (potentially alongside Minnesota Sen. Kelly Morrison) but also could help flip party control in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Most Wisconsin voters oppose criminalizing abortion before fetal viability, according to a poll this year by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation.
Patricia McFarland, 76, knows what it’s like to live without abortion access. For more than 50 years, the retired college teacher kept her pre-Roe abortion a secret, having grown up in a conservative Irish Catholic family like many of her suburban Milwaukee neighbors.
McFarland told States Newsroom she has been politically active most of her life, but the Dobbs ruling dredged up the physical and emotional trauma from the illegal procedure she had alone in Mexico City. Now, McFarland rarely leaves home without her “Roe Roe Roe Your Vote” button, engaging anyone who will talk to her about the dangers of criminalizing pregnancy.
The mother and grandmother said she’s been canvassing and doing informational sessions with her activist group the PERSISTers, as well as the League of Women Voters. As she has warned fellow Wisconsities about the federal power over their reproductive freedom, she said the enthusiasm for abortion rights in her state is palpable.
“For women my age,” McFarland said, “we don’t want our grandchildren to lose their ability to decide when to become a mother.”
Georgia Recorder’s Jill Nolin contributed to this report.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford speaks with reporters outside the U.S. Capitol about border policy negotiations on Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats attempted to pass a resolution Tuesday addressing abortion access in emergency medical situations, but Republicans blocked it from moving forward.
The floor action followed months of unsuccessful attempts by congressional Democrats to approve legislation on various reproductive rights, including access to birth control and in vitro fertilization.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Tuesday she introduced the resolution to clarify what Congress’ objective was several decades ago when lawmakers approved the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA.
“We want to make it clear that Congress’s intent is that women can get life-saving care when they go to an emergency room anywhere in this country,” Murray said.
Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford blocked Murray’s unanimous consent request to approve the resolution, saying that doctors in emergency departments are able to act in cases of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy and life-threatening situations.
“This is a false claim that somehow what happened in the Dobbs decision and what’s happening in states is limiting that,” Lankford said. “It’s actually the political rhetoric that’s making people afraid.”
Lankford objected to another of Murray’s unanimous consent requests in March, blocking approval of legislation that would have expanded access to in vitro fertilization for military members and veterans.
No recorded vote
Unanimous consent is the fastest way to approve legislative items in the Senate. Under the process, any one senator can ask to approve a bill or resolution and any one senator can object. There is no recorded vote that puts all senators on the record.
Murray’s two-page resolution, which had the backing of 40 cosponsors, would have expressed “the sense of the Senate that every person has the basic right to emergency health care, including abortion care.”
The resolution also expressed that “State laws that purport to ban and restrict abortion in emergency circumstances force medical providers to decide between withholding necessary, stabilizing medical care from a patient experiencing a medical emergency or facing criminal prosecution, and put the lives, health, and futures of patients at risk.”
This resolution wouldn’t have actually changed the text of EMTALA.
The 1986 law states that hospital emergency departments must treat or transfer patients who have emergency medical conditions, regardless of their health insurance status or ability to pay.
It defines an emergency medical condition as something that could result in the health of the patient being in “serious jeopardy,” such as the patient “experiencing serious impairment to bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.”
Dobbs decision
The federal law has been the center of political and legal debate since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion two years ago in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.
The Biden administration issued a public letter shortly afterward saying EMTALA protected doctors and other qualified health care providers who ended a pregnancy to stabilize the patient if their life or health was at risk.
Republican attorneys general in several states challenged that view of the law and the U.S. Department of Justice later sued Idaho over its abortion law.
That case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, but the justices ultimately decided to send it back to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The high court said it should have waited to hear the case until after the lower court ruled.
At the center of the disagreement between Republican state attorneys general and the Biden administration is that the federal law applies when a pregnant patient’s life or health is at risk; many of the conservative state laws only allow abortions after a certain gestational age when a woman’s life is at risk.
Exactly when a woman’s life becomes at risk due to pregnancy complications has led to dozens of stories from women throughout the country, who say they had to wait for treatment until their health deteriorated further.
Analysis from the Associated Press released in August found that more than 100 women experiencing medical distress during pregnancy were turned away from hospitals or negligently treated during the last two years.
ProPublica recently obtained reports “that confirm that at least two women have already died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state.”
‘This cruelty is unforgivable and unacceptable’
The Senate resolution that Republicans rejected Tuesday is nearly identical to one House Democrats introduced earlier this month.
Murray said ahead of her UC request that women and their families will not forget about being denied medical care due to Republican state restrictions on abortion access.
“No woman is ever going to forget when she was sent off to miscarry alone after her doctor said, ‘Look, I know your life is in danger, but I’m not sure I’m allowed to save you right now,’” Murray said. “No husband is going to forget calling 911 in a panic after finding his wife bloody and unconscious. No child is going to forget, for a single day of their life, the mother that was taken from them by Republican abortion bans.
“This cruelty is unforgivable and unacceptable. Democrats will not let it become settled status quo.”
Vice President Kamala Harris departs Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport aboard Air Force 2, after speaking at a campaign rally inside West Allis Central High School on July 23, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Tuesday during a radio interview that she supports changing a Senate procedure in order to codify the right to an abortion.
Vice President Harris said she is in favor of ending the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, known as the filibuster, to advance abortion rights legislation. But that task would hinge on Democrats agreeing to do so and holding on to majority control in the Senate, a difficult feat this November as Republicans appear potentially poised to take back the upper chamber.
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do,” she said during an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.
Harris in 2022 said she would cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of abortion rights in her role as vice president. She has often pledged to sign into law a codification of Roe v. Wade, the constitutional right to an abortion struck down by the conservative U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in August that Democrats would talk about rules changes to codify abortion rights, NBC reported.
Trump in Pennsylvania
At a Monday rally in Pennsylvania, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump referred to himself as a “protector” of women. Trump said women no longer needed to think about abortion and it is “now where it always had to be, with the states.”
“All they want to do is talk about abortion,” the former president said at the rally, referring to Democrats. “It really no longer pertains because we’ve done something on abortion that no one thought was possible.”
Trump has called for Senate Republicans to dismantle the filibuster, but GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other Republican leaders like No. 2 Sen. John Thune of South Dakota have vowed to keep the procedure in place.
Current Senate projections indicate Republicans are likely to gain control of the Senate. Republicans are also expected to pick up a seat in West Virginia, and only need to hold on to seats in Florida, Texas and Nebraska.
Democrats will need to secure wins in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Additionally, Senate Democrats would need to break a possible 50-50 tie through a Democratic presidency — if they want to remain the majority party and change the filibuster.
If Harris wins, and Democrats hold 50 seats in the Senate, then Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the vice presidential nominee, would be the tie-breaking vote.
During a Tuesday Senate press conference on abortion, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said she was supportive of Harris’ stance and that it would be a carve-out of the filibuster, rather than an elimination of it.
“What we are talking about is a simple procedure to allow, whenever rights are taken away from someone, that the U.S. Senate can, without being blocked by a filibuster, be able to restore those rights,” she said.
Harris, Trump and the economy
The Harris campaign hosted a Tuesday press call with business owner and “Shark Tank” investor Mark Cuban, to advocate for Harris’ economic policies.
Polls have found that voters view Trump as better for the economy. Pew Research found that Trump’s key advantage is the economy, with 55% of voters viewing the former president as making good economic decisions, and 45% of voters viewing Harris as making good decisions about the economy.
“In a nutshell, the vice president and her team thinks through her policies,” Cuban said. “She doesn’t just off the top of her head say what she thinks the crowd wants to hear, like the Republican nominee.”
Battleground states still the favorite spot
The candidates will continue to campaign and travel, especially around battleground states this week.
Trump is scheduled Tuesday to visit Savannah, Georgia, where he will give an afternoon campaign speech about lowering taxes for business owners.
Walz is scheduled to head back to his home state of Minnesota Tuesday for a campaign reception there.
Harris is heading to Pennsylvania Wednesday for a campaign rally and then she’ll travel to Arizona on Friday and Nevada on Sunday.
Trump is stopping in Mint Hill, North Carolina, on Wednesday to give remarks about the importance of making goods in the U.S. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, will travel to Traverse City, Michigan, on Wednesday to rally supporters.
Vance on Thursday will give a campaign speech on the economy in Macon, Georgia, and then host a voter mobilization drive in Flowery Branch, Georgia.
On Friday, Trump is scheduled to rally supporters in Walker, Michigan and in the evening hold a town hall in Warren, Michigan.
Absentee ballots are prepared to be mailed at the Wake County Board of Elections on Sept. 17, 2024 in Raleigh, North Carolina. North Carolina will send out absentee ballots to military and overseas citizens by Sept. 20. Other absentee ballots will be sent by Sept. 24 to voters who requested ballots by mail. Early voting begins Oct. 17. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — With seven weeks until Election Day, the campaign machines for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump appealed to coveted voters in the battleground states with events and rallies targeting the Black and Gen Z populations, rural voters and conservative Christians.
The Trump campaign set its eyes on Michigan Tuesday, as the former president geared up for an evening town hall in Flint — his first event since a second apparent assassination attempt on his life Sunday, this time at his Florida golf course.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, spoke Tuesday afternoon at a rally in a barn in Sparta, just north of Grand Rapids, where he once again talked about a population of migrants from Haiti who live in Springfield, Ohio. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are living legally in the U.S. under temporary protected status.
The migrants “primarily from Hatia have been dropped into Springfield,” Vance said, mispronouncing the name of the Caribbean nation.
Trump and Vance continue to face severe scrutiny for peddling lies that Haitian migrants in the town had been eating pet cats and dogs. Trump hurled the accusation during last Tuesday’s ABC News debate hosted that drew 67 million viewers.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday ordered state police to sweep Springfield schools that have been repeated targets of bomb threats since the town was thrust into the national spotlight.
Campaigns seek media attention
Vance took several questions from local Michigan reporters Tuesday and said he did so to distinguish himself from Harris, whom he accused of fearing the “friendly American press corps.”
Vance made the comment less than an hour before Harris sat down for a public discussion with a three-member panel from the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. Trump’s interview with the association in July became notorious after he said Harris “happened to turn Black” during her political career.
Both campaigns have been seeking news media exposure.
Harris sat for a one-on-one with Philadelphia’s ABC affiliate Friday. That same day, Trump hosted a press conference at his Trump National Golf Course in Los Angeles.
Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, hit central Georgia Tuesday, where he recorded an interview with a local news anchor in Macon for WMAZ-TV and spoke to staff at one of the campaign’s field offices.
The Harris-Walz operation in Georgia includes 28 offices and over 200 staff, according to the campaign.
Fried chicken biscuit and tax breaks
Walz stopped at the long-established H&H Soul Food Restaurant in Macon, where he ordered a biscuit with fried chicken, bacon jam and pimento cheese, according to reporters traveling with him.
Walz took the opportunity at the eatery to plug Harris’ platform to simplify taxes for small businesses and give a $50,000 tax deduction for start-up costs.
He also attended campaign events in Atlanta before traveling to a rally Tuesday night in Asheville, North Carolina.
Earlier Tuesday, the Harris campaign released a statement in reaction to a ProPublica report about 28-year-old Amber Nicole Thurman, who died in Georgia because she was denied urgent care under the state’s strict abortion ban.
“This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” Harris said in the statement. “This is exactly what we feared when Roe was struck down.”
When asked earlier Tuesday about the ProPublica report, Vance said he’d “like to learn a little bit more” about Thurman’s death.
“I’ve never spoken to a single pro-life person who doesn’t believe in exceptions to cover this exact scenario,” Vance told a local Michigan reporter.
Six states have abortion bans in effect that have no health exceptions, according to KFF Health News’ abortion law tracker.
On Monday evening, Vance told an audience at the Georgia Faith and Freedom Victory Dinner in Atlanta that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 decision to overturn Roe, which established federal abortion rights, was a “victory.”
“I stand here as the vice presidential nominee saying the Republican Party is proud to be the pro-life and the pro-family party,” Vance said before promising that a second Trump presidency would usher in investments in fertility treatments, prenatal care, maternal health and newborn expenses.
Trump spent Monday night plugging his new cryptocurrency venture alongside his sons in an interview on the social media platform X. The Trump family unveiled a crypto business Monday under the name World Liberty Financial.
Youth voters
The Harris campaign marked National Voter Registration Day Tuesday with what it’s calling an “all-hands-on-deck mobilization” to reach young voters.
The campaign plans to deputize celebrities, influencers and organizers to college campuses, basketball tournaments and “bracelet-making events” — in an apparent nod to Swiftie friendship bracelets following the pop star’s Harris endorsement last week.
Organizers anticipate a “targeted presence” at Historically Black Colleges and Universities as well as Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
Pop star Billie Eilish and her songwriter brother Fineas O’Connell endorsed the vice president Tuesday on social media and urged their followers to visit the Democratic Party’s IWillVote.com platform.
Among the other celebrities being deployed by the campaign to reach university students: actress Jane Fonda and celebrity scientist Bill Nye.
East Coast stops
The campaigns continue at full speed Wednesday, and the candidates and their surrogates will make stops up and down the eastern U.S.
Harris will deliver remarks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Leadership conference in Washington, D.C.
Trump will host an evening rally in Uniondale, New York
Vance will deliver remarks during the afternoon in Raleigh, North Carolina
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will deliver remarks at campaign events in New York City
U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, a Republican who represents southeastern Wisconsin, has not said he supports “surveillance of pregnancies.”
The surveillance claim was part of a Sept. 3, 2024, attack ad on Steil about abortion. The ad was from Democrat Peter Barca, who is running against Steil in the Nov. 5 election.
Barca’s spokesperson cited no evidence to back the claim, only Steil’s endorsement of former President Donald Trump and Trump’s statement that states should decide whether to monitor pregnancies.
Steil’s spokesperson said he doesn’t support “any such type of surveillance including pregnancy surveillance, whatever that term means.”
A policy initiative with contributions from many former Trump administration officials, Project 2025, calls for the federal Health and Human Services Department to “ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place” and “ensure that statistics are separated by category,” including spontaneous miscarriage.
Trump has distanced himself from the plan.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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