Legislators in Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Tennessee have filed bills that would further curb access. In states with near-total bans, lawmakers are looking to eliminate the workarounds residents have used to continue accessing abortions. In others, lawmakers will weigh whether to move from six-week abortion bans to almost completely outlawing the procedure. … Read more
Missouri abortion rights in legal limbo after constitutional protections take effect The day after Missouri voters supported the measure to amend the constitution, Planned Parenthood affiliates in the state filed a lawsuit asking the court to strike down the state’s near-total abortion ban as well as a raft of other restrictions that, Planned Parenthood said, … Read more
Drawing on the playbook they successfully used under Roe v. Wade to regulate clinics out of existence and outlaw particular methods of abortion, conservative groups plan next year to file lawsuits targeting federal regulation of abortion pills and push legislation in Congress and in at least 15 states they believe can circumvent constitutional amendments and … Read more
Yet now abortion has been enshrined in the Missouri Constitution, and a litany of Republican officials are calling for lawmakers to put another constitutional amendment on the ballot rolling back those rights. “For years,” Harris said, “we’ve been discussing making it more difficult to put something in the state constitution. That’s something that Republicans need … Read more
For another, DeSantis — the man who signed back-to-back abortion bans into law here — has thrown the full force of the state government behind coordinated efforts to tank the measure. Read more at Rolling Stone
What the First Amendment does is leave matters like that to the public marketplace of ideas,” Stafford said, “not the whims of a government censor.” The decision Walker handed down on Tuesday extends an Oct. 18 order barring state officials from “trampling” on the free speech rights of those they disagree with. “The government cannot … Read more
A Guardian investigation into the ballot’s demise tells a more complicated story than just a bureaucratic screw-up, revealing a confluence of rightwing actors working in parallel to ensure it never got to voters: a reclusive donor who has helped shape the anti-abortion movement across the US; the inner circle of Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, … Read more
Anti-abortion centers and their leaders have been campaigning against the abortion ballot measures in 10 states in the lead up to Election Day. The organizations — also known as crisis pregnancy centers — have sought to remove those measures from state ballots and distributed materials with misleading talking points. Read more at 19th News
A lawyer for the Florida Department of Health would not rule out criminal charges stemming from a round of cease and desist letters that were sent by the agency to stop a TV ad promoting this year’s abortion access ballot initiative. Read more at Politico
But Florida stands out for how DeSantis is deploying multiple levers of power within his administration to discredit the amendment and even block political speech about it. While courts have pushed back on some of those efforts, they amount to the most sweeping and brazen government-funded campaigns opposing an abortion ballot measure this election cycle. … Read more
