The Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider its third major abortion case in two years—and the third brought with the help of a legal nonprofit attempting to infuse American life with its far-right brand of Christianity. Not only is the group, Alliance Defending Freedom, behind legislation to ban abortion, it is also increasingly representing state governments in their efforts to protect and enforce the bans. The result is an ethically fraught arrangement that puts legal representation of the public in the hands of a religious organization that hauls in more than $100 million per year in ..read more

Just weeks after the Supreme Court ended the Constitutional right to an abortion in the summer of 2022, Mylissa Farmer arrived at a hospital in Joplin, Missouri after her water broke at about 18 weeks pregnant. The doctors agreed that the fetus had no chance of survival and that she needed to end her pregnancy to avoid sepsis, hemorrhage, or even death. But instead of helping to induce labor or perform an abortion, they urged her to go to another state for care: Under Missouri’s just-triggered abortion ban, they couldn’t provide the care she needed until she was in labor or her health det ..read more

Last week, in a bid to clarify his historically nebulous stance on abortion, Donald Trump said that if reelected, he intends to leave abortion rights “to the states,” seemingly contradicting his prior stance in favor of a 16-week national ban.  But Mary Ziegler, a law professor at UC Davis and leading abortion historian, thinks that a complete ban could be on the agenda for a future Trump administration—and the vehicle for it would be the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-obscenity law still on the books. Ziegler and other legal experts warn the law could be marshaled to ban all abor ..read more

Days after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a near-total ban on abortion could be enforced in the state, Kamala Harris went after Trump for his position on abortion in a campaign speech Friday in Tucson. Harris said that the ruling, which granted abortion exceptions only when it was “necessary to save” a woman’s life, “demonstrated once and for all that overturning Roe was just the opening act of a larger strategy.” “And we all must understand who all is to blame,” Harris, who has become the Biden administration’s most vocal official on abortion, said. “Former President Donald Trump d ..read more

In 2007, after Paul Ross Evans pleaded guilty to leaving a bomb outside of a women’s health clinic in Austin, he assured the judge: He never meant for anyone to get hurt. “Except,” he clarified, “for the abortionists.” For almost two centuries, the moniker “abortionist” has branded those who help terminate pregnancies as illegitimate, dangerous, and, in turn, allowable targets of violence. Before Roe v. Wade, the label turned midwives and doctors into criminals to be cracked down on by the state. After the 1973 decision, right-wing movements continued to deploy the term to imply only back-alle ..read more

Shortly after the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a Civil War-era, near-total ban on abortion on Tuesday, Republican Senate hopeful and former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake blasted the decision as “out of step with Arizonans.”  She declined, however, to explain the apparent about-face. Two years ago on the gubernatorial campaign trail, Lake eagerly praised the 1864 law, which if enforced would make nearly all abortions in the state illegal and potentially criminalize healthcare providers with up to five years in prison.   “I’m incredibly thrilled that we are going to have a gre ..read more

On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a 1864 abortion ban, making nearly all abortions in the state illegal and potentially criminalizing healthcare providers with up to five years in prison. The justices said that after the fall of Roe a Civil War-era law, that existed before Arizona became a state, took precedence over a 15-week ban passed in 2022. In a 4–2 decision, the court ruled that the law is “now enforceable.” The ban goes into effect in 14 days.  Arizona now joins 15 other states that ban abortion in nearly all cases with little to no exceptions. But it’s unclear how ..read more

Donald Trump wants to pretend he isn’t to blame for the devastating consequences of overturning of Roe v. Wade—even as he boasts about being responsible for the momentous Supreme Court decision. In a more than four-minute-long video released on Truth Social this morning the presumptive Republican nominee attempted to clarify his nebulous stance on abortion rights. It remained confounding. Trump took credit for overturning Roe and said he wants to leave abortion rights “to the states,” seemingly rebuking prior reporting that he’d support a 16-week national ban if re-elected ..read more

Florida’s Supreme Court issued a pair of major rulings today on abortion that will both further restrict access in the short-term and allow voters to decide whether or not to expand abortion rights this November.  One of the court’s rulings will allow a six-week abortion ban—signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last April—to take effect, according to the Associated Press.  And in the other ruling, the court decided that Floridians could vote on a ballot measure to expand abortion rights in the elections this November. Voters will weigh a constitutional amendment ..read more

Justice Samuel Alito implied that mifepristone—one of the two drugs used in medication abortion, which the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to restrict in what has been billed as “the biggest abortion case since Dobbs“—may cause “very serious harm.” But there’s just one problem: more than 100 scientific studies show that abortion pills are safe and effective, as my colleagues and I have reported. Alito made the comments this morning during oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. In 2000, the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone. The drug was made more ..read more