Biden warns women’s lives in danger after supreme court overturns Roe v Wade – live | US politics

Afternoon summary

Dubbing it the “West Coast Offense”, the Democratic governors of California, Oregon and Washington have announced a push to preserve abortion access for their residents and people who come from neighboring states to seek the procedure.

The three governors have been vocal about the issue ever since the leak of the supreme court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade. In 2021, California governor Gavin Newsom signed new laws protecting abortion providers and patients in the country’s most-populous state:

In the end, there weren’t enough of them to stop the court’s conservative majority from overturning Roe v Wade, but the dissenting opinion from the court’s three liberal justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan acts as a requiem of sorts for the 49-year-old constitutional right to abortion, now overturned:

Earlier this Term, this court signaled that Mississippi’s stratagem would succeed. Texas was one of the fistful of states to have recently banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. It added to that “flagrantly unconstitutional” restriction an unprecedented scheme to “evade judicial scrutiny.” And five justices acceded to that cynical maneuver. They let Texas defy this court’s constitutional rulings, nullifying Roe and Casey ahead of schedule in the Nation’s second largest state.

And now the other shoe drops, courtesy of that same five-person majority. (We believe that the chief justice’s opinion is wrong too, but no one should think that there is not a large difference between upholding a 15-week ban on the grounds he does and allowing states to prohibit abortion from the time of conception.) Now a new and bare majority of this court – acting at practically the first moment possible – overrules Roe and Casey. It converts a series of dissenting opinions expressing antipathy toward Roe and Casey into a decision greenlighting even total abortion bans. It eliminates a 50-year-old constitutional right that safeguards women’s freedom and equal station. It breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law. In doing all of that, it places in jeopardy other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. And finally, it undermines the court’s legitimacy.

Kevin McCarthy, leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, has cheered the supreme court’s ruling, calling it “the most important pro-life ruling in American history”.

The people have won a victory. The right to life has been vindicated. The voiceless will finally have a voice. This great nation can now live up to its core principle that all are created equal. Not born equal. Created equal.

Republicans are viewed as favorites to take control of the House following this year’s midterm elections, and McCarthy would be a top contender for the job of speaker. In his speech, he alluded to what his priorities might be, should the GOP ascend to the majority.

As encouraging as today’s decision is, our work is far from done. America remains one of only seven countries on earth that allows elective abortions in the third trimester, including China and North Korea. This is radical – but House Democrats continue to support it against the wishes of the American people. This Congress, every House Democrat has voted for extreme policies like taxpayer-funded abortion, on demand, until the point of birth. But Democrats’ radical agenda does not have Americans’ support.

The largest association of African American physicians in the United States has warned that the supreme court’s decision to overturn abortion rights will harm racial minorities, particularly Black women.

In a statement, president of the National Medical Association Rachel Villanueva said:

This decision is unconstitutional, dangerous and discriminatory. It will not stop abortions from being performed, it will unfortunately only make the procedure more dangerous. Women of color, poor women and other disadvantaged individuals who don’t have the resources to travel to obtain the medical care they need will be disproportionately impacted. At a time when maternal mortality rates are worsening, particularly for Black women, it is deeply disappointing that our institutions are actively harming — not helping — women’s health. Abortion is part of total health care for a woman. Doctors should be able to provide medical care based on scientific fact and evidence-based medicine, and free from any political interference. The entire medical community should be gravely concerned about the precedent this decision sets.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2019, the most recent year available, Black women have the highest rates of abortion with 23.8 per 1,000 people. Hispanic women had 11.7 abortions per 1,000 people, while for white women, the ratio was 6.6.

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Medical experts have also decried the Dobbs opinion as threatening the health and autonomy of patients nationwide.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement condemning the supreme court opinion from its president, Iffath A Hoskins, MD, FACOG, reading in part:

Today’s decision is a direct blow to bodily autonomy, reproductive health, patient safety and health equity in the United States.

Reversing the constitutional protection for safe, legal abortion established by the Supreme Court nearly fifty years ago exposes pregnant people to arbitrary, state-based restrictions, regulations, and bans that will leave many people unable to access needed medical care.

The restrictions put forth are not based on science nor medicine; they allow unrelated third parties to make decisions that rightfully and ethically should be made only by individuals and their physicians.

ACOG condemns this devastating decision, which will allow state governments to prevent women from living with autonomy over their bodies and their decisions.

The American Medical Association also released a statement denouncing the Dobbs opinion, with its president Jack Resneck Jr MD, writing:

The American Medical Association is deeply disturbed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn nearly a half century of precedent protecting patients’ right to critical reproductive health care—representing an egregious allowance of government intrusion into the medical examination room, a direct attack on the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship, and a brazen violation of patients’ rights to evidence-based reproductive health services.

States that end legal abortion will not end abortion —they will end safe abortion, risking [devastating] consequences, including patients’ lives.

Nina Lakhani

The day so far

Today’s abortion ruling might not have happened without Donald Trump. During his time in office, the Republican president appointed three of the conservative justices who voted to overturn Roe v Wade.

But as the New York Times reports, Trump is apparently not a fan of what the justices have handed down. Ever since a draft opinion of the court’s decision leaked last month, he’s worried about what it will mean for the support of voters who were decisive in his election loss in 2020, and who he would need to turn to should he run again in 2024.

From the report:

Privately, Mr. Trump has told people repeatedly that he believes it will be “bad for Republicans.”

The decision, Mr. Trump has told friends and advisers, will anger suburban women, a group who helped tilt the 2020 presidential race to Joseph R. Biden Jr., and will lead to a backlash against Republicans in the November midterm elections.

His advisers had encouraged Mr. Trump to keep quiet about the issue until a ruling was issued, in part to ensure he was not accused of trying to influence the decision. Still, the contrast between Mr. Trump and conservatives who have heralded the decision and who worked in his administration, such as former Vice President Mike Pence, has been striking. On Friday morning, Mr. Pence issued a statement saying, “Life won,” as he called for abortion opponents to keep fighting “in every state in the land.”

A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his private remarks, or his view of the ruling. But in an interview that Fox News published after the decision on Friday, Mr. Trump, asked about his role, said, “God made the decision.” He said the decision was “following the Constitution, and giving rights back when they should have been given long ago.”

“I think, in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody,” Mr. Trump told Fox News.

Biden closed his speech by denouncing the supreme court’s conservative majority and appealing for his supporters to act at the ballot box.

The conservative majority of the supreme court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country. It made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world. But this decision must not be the final word. My administration will use all of its appropriate lawful powers. Congress must act. But with your vote, you can act. You can have the final word. This is not over.

It remains to be seen how much the ruling will animate voters, particularly Democrats, in the upcoming midterm elections:

Biden has vowed to do whatever his administration can to allow people to access abortions where the procedure is legal, and warned states against effort to hinder people seeking reproductive health care.

I will do all in my power to protect a woman’s right in states where they will face the consequences of today’s decision. Now, the court’s decision casts a dark shadow over large swaths of the land, many states in this country still recognize a woman’s right to choose. So a woman lives in a state that restricts abortion, the supreme court’s decision does not prevent her from traveling from her home state to the state that allows it, does not prevent a doctor in that state from treating her.

Biden warned that, “Any state or local official, high or low, tries to interfere with a woman’s exercising their basic right to travel, I will do everything in my power to fight that deeply unamerican attack.”

He also said he was directing the health and human services department to ensure abortion pills “are available to the fullest extent possible.”

Biden is connecting the court’s action against abortion with the upcoming midterm elections, saying Americans must choose politicians who back abortion rights if they want to see the conservative justices’ ruling undone.

Voters need to make their voices heard. This fall, they must elect more senators and representatives who codify woman’s right to choose in the federal law once again, elect more state leaders to protect this right at the local level. We need to restore the protections of Roe as law of the land. We need to elect officials who will do that. This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty equality. They’re all on the ballot.

Overturning Roe ‘a sad day for the court and for the country’ – Biden

States nationwide are continuing to act in the wake of the supreme court’s Dobbs decision, with Republican governors and officials moving to restrict abortion access.

“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad. Today, along with millions across Louisiana and America, I rejoice with my departed Mom and the unborn children with her in Heaven!”, Louisiana attorney general Jeff Landry said in a statement where he announced a law banning abortion in the state was now in effect.

South Dakota has a similar such “trigger law” banning the procedure, but governor Kristi Noem and the leaders of the state legislature also announced a special session “to save lives and help mothers impacted by the decision”.

“We must do what we can to help mothers in crisis know that there are options and resources available for them. Together, we will ensure that abortion is not only illegal in South Dakota – it is unthinkable,” Noem said.

The second-in-command of the state senate Lee Schoenbeck elaborated on the reasons for calling the legislature back into session: “A special session is necessary because we could not have known this winter in session that we would have this opportunity and new responsibility to protect lives presented by the Supreme Court’s decision. Also, there will be more work to do on the many challenges a post-Roe world presents in regular session next January”.

In Illinois, Democratic governor JB Pritzker announced a special legislative session to make the state a haven for abortion access in a region where many of its neighbors will do the opposite.

‘A slap in the face to women’: Nancy Pelosi reacts to the overturning of Roe v Wade