Roe v. Wade live updates: Democrats seek contrast with Republicans on abortion - The Washington Post
Today, the only public event on President Biden’s schedule is a Cinco de Mayo reception in the Rose Garden at the White House. But behind the scenes, Biden and fellow Democrats are far less celebratory as they scramble to respond to the expected demise of Roe v. Wade from both policy and political perspectives.
With the midterm elections approaching, Democrats see support of abortion rights as a central issue on which to draw contrasts with Republicans, whose reaction to their probable success on this issue has been noticeably muted to this point. One reason: Polls show a majority of Americans think Roe v. Wade should be upheld by a roughly 2-to-1 margin.
Got a question about politics? Submit it here. At 3 p.m. weekdays, return to this space and we’ll address what’s on the mind of readers.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe is “absolutely appalling” but will not affect the final outcome of the court’s historic deliberations on the abortion issue, Robert Barnes reports.
“A leak of this sort — let’s assume that’s what it is — is absolutely appalling, and if the people behind it, or person behind it, thinks that it’s going to have an effect on our decision process, that’s absolutely foolish,” Roberts told the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference meeting in Atlanta.
“The people who work at the Supreme Court are extremely dedicated to the institution, and in fact to the rule of law,” Roberts said, adding that extends from “from the guy who empties the wastebasket at night to the most tenured justice on the court.”
Roberts is in Atlanta for a meeting of the 11th Circuit with lawyers and judges from Florida, Alabama and Georgia. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who wrote the leaked draft, canceled his appearance at a similar judge and lawyer conference in Nashville.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden shares with many Americans “that concern and that horror of what he saw in that draft opinion” and would encourage them to protest peacefully.
“It’s not a final opinion,” Psaki said, but the draft “has prompted [a] redoubled effort across the administration and with Congress to take every step we can to protect women’s health care.”
Psaki said the White House is “in a range of discussions” with Congress on the path forward “and what’s possible” for a bill that could codify the access to abortion, but did not detail what those efforts would look like.
Will Justice Amy Coney Barrett recuse herself from a ruling on abortion because of her published personal religious opinions regarding the issue? — asks Joan from Connecticut.
Barrett, then a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, signed the statement along with hundreds of residents in the South Bend, Ind., area.
In the statement, Barrett and the other people who signed — led by an antiabortion organization from Michiana, Ind. — said they “oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death.”
While Barrett’s participation in this advertisement is widely known, there is no evidence that she would see this as a reason to recuse herself from a ruling on the future of Roe v. Wade.
There are no rules that force justices to recuse themselves from cases. Barrett did not recuse when hearing arguments in the abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last year.
It is ironic, though, that Barrett once wrote a piece for the Marquette Law Review that Catholic judges should recuse themselves from capital cases — cases that touch on the death penalty.
Judges in those cases, she said, are “obliged to adhere to their church’s teaching on moral matters” and are “morally precluded from enforcing the death penalty.”
While mere identification of a judge as Catholic is not sufficient reason for recusal under federal law, the authors suggest that the moral impossibility of enforcing capital punishment in such cases as sentencing, enforcing jury recommendations, and affirming are in fact reasons for not participating.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of two prominent Republican senators who support abortion rights, will not back a measure that would codify the procedure into law, arguing that the legislation does not provide sufficient protection to antiabortion health providers.
Collins told reporters Thursday that the Democratic-led Senate effort “supersedes all other federal and state laws, including the conscience protections that are in the Affordable Care Act.”
“It doesn’t protect the right of a Catholic hospital to not perform abortions,” Collins said, Felicia Sonmez and Mike DeBonis report. “That right has been enshrined in law for a long time.”
As we reported earlier Thursday, the Democratic effort to codify abortion through the Senate is likely to stall out, since 60 senators would need to vote yes to overcome a filibuster. Even a Democratic attempt to change the filibuster rule just for that bill, called a carve-out, would probably fail, given that Democrats would need 50 votes, and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) said they wouldn’t support such a move.
Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who also supports abortion rights, voted against an earlier version of the legislation in February. At the time, Collins voiced similar concerns about the impact the legislation would have on health-care providers who do not want to perform abortions.
Deputy White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will be the next press secretary, replacing Jen Psaki. As Tyler Pager reports, Jean-Pierre will take over within weeks when Psaki heads to an expected job in cable news.
Jean-Pierre will be the first Black and openly gay woman to serve as the White House press secretary, taking on the high-profile job of holding the daily news briefing at the White House and fielding questions from the press corps.
She has, since May 2021, filled in for Psaki multiple times, making her the first Black woman in 30 years to address the press in the White House briefing room.
Jean-Pierre was always viewed as the front-runner to replace Psaki, but other potential candidates for the role emerged in recent weeks, including Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, and John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Senate would vote next week on legislation to codify abortion rights but did not offer details on the procedural steps.
“It’s the first time there’s a vote like this in a very, very long time when the actual rights are at stake, when it’s not an abstract exercise,” he told reporters Thursday.
“Once we have that vote, we’ll look at the best way to get things done,” Schumer added. “This is not just one vote and this issue goes away.”
Elizabeth Dwoskin: Facebook warns employees against using company channels to discuss abortion ruling — In a company memo this week, a senior Facebook executive steered employees away from discussing the Supreme Court leak on public company discussion channels, while the firm also began deleting some posts where employees had expressed concerns about the issue, according to a person familiar with the announcement and a copy of the memo obtained by The Post.In the memo, executive Naomi Gleit reminded colleagues of the company’s Respectful Communications Policy, which restricts how employees can discuss controversial topics, including abortion.She directed workers to use other channels besides company communications platforms to express their concerns and feelings. She said that employees were allowed to “participate in a listening session of up to 5 like-minded people to show solidarity” or to interact one-on-one.Gleit also noted that employees could still use public social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, to share their thoughts and connect with people. Facebook’s own chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, posted on Facebook that the leaked ruling represented a “scary day for women all across our country.”The policy against discussing abortion on company channels dates from at least 2020, when Facebook tightened restrictions on public conversations among its highly vocal employee base in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests that summer.
“If the law changes, we will address appropriate next steps at that time,” Garland said. “But what will not change is our commitment to defending the rights of women and all Americans.”
Last year, when the Texas law that virtually banned abortions after six weeks into a pregnancy was passed, Garland vowed that the Justice Department would “not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services.”
“The department will provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack,” Garland said.
Garland said that the department would do so under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the 1994 law that guarantees access to clinics that offer reproductive health care, including abortion clinics.
But it was unclear what kind of enforcement the Justice Department would use to protect women seeking abortions. At the time, Garland said he had spoken with the FBI and U.S. attorneys offices around the nation to discuss “enforcement authorities.”
Some good news for Biden and the Democrats: Voters are crediting them with taming the worst of the pandemic. The bad news: Most voters have turned their attention to other issues.
The Washington Post’s Paul Kane takes note of the phenomenon, noting that Democrats have found a bit of underappreciated success on a topic that had dominated U.S. politics for more than two years. Kane writes:
Coronavirus infection rates are a fraction of their omicron-infused peak in January, hospital beds are plentiful in most regions, and covid-19-related deaths are down 90 percent from four months ago, all coming more than two months after federal officials eased mask recommendations, ending most pandemic-era mandates.Yet most voters have turned their attention to other issues, particularly inflation, that Post poll and others have showed, without broadly rewarding Biden and Democrats for taming the worst of the pandemic.
Matt Zapotosky: New questions about the FBI and intelligence ahead of Jan. 6 attack — The U.S. Government Accountability Office this week released a report tracking how federal law enforcement agencies analyzed social media posts and other publicly available information in advance of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. The report mostly confirmed what has long been known: well in advance of the riot, law enforcement had seen ample online chatter indicating the possibility of violence. It has been well-documented that their response was not sufficiently aggressive.The report was notable for offering such a thorough accounting of all the intelligence products agencies produced in advance of the riot. And it raised some questions about the FBI’s public statements about what it knew and when. FBI officials have repeatedly sought to minimize what they were seeing about possible violence in advance of Jan. 6.The head of the bureau’s Washington Field Office, for example, said in the days after the attack “there was no indication” of anything planned for the day of Trump’s rally “other than First Amendment-protected activity” — even though a report from the bureau’s Norfolk Field Office had warned on Jan. 5 that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war.”The GAO report makes clear that multiple agencies were tracking a wide range of possible threats, and getting information directly from the social media companies Facebook and Parler. If you’re interested in reading more about it, here’s a thread I put together on Twitter and an account of the report from Just Security.
As a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, there was a direct line of communication between the Oath Keepers and someone with close ties to former president Donald Trump.
We know this because William Todd Wilson, a North Carolina leader of the far-right group, became the Oath Keeper’s third member to cooperate with prosecutors in Capitol riot cases.
Afterward, Wilson joined Rhodes in a suite at the Phoenix Park Hotel, just blocks from the Capitol, and listened to Rhodes call someone on a speaker phone, Wilson said. But we don’t know who was on the other end of the call.
Stone has denied being on the other end of the call with Rhodes, but he was known to be in contact with the leaders of extremist groups.
But, as Phil writes, if it was Stone, that makes the direct line to the White House more frail, given that he didn’t even secure VIP access to that morning’s rally.
This simply brings us back to our original question: What did the ties look like? What’s been added with the revelation of that Jan. 6 call is either that the Oath Keepers had some close link to Trump or that they thought they did — as they thought they could functionally invade D.C. with “quick reaction forces” stationed at hotels in Virginia to keep Trump in power.
Biden on Thursday doubled down on his attempt to make former president Donald Trump part of the midterm conversation, tweeting a video from the day before in which Biden disparaged the “ultra-MAGA agenda” and took aim at a tax plan put forward by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
In his remarks Tuesday, Biden repeatedly used the term “MAGA” — an acronym for Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” — to describe what he called an “extreme” plan by Scott, who serves as chairman of the Senate Republicans’ campaign organization.
Scott’s plan calls for all Americans to pay some federal income taxes “to have skin in the game.” Taken literally, that would raise taxes on about half of Americans whose income is too low to be federally taxed under existing rules. Scott later narrowed his definition of who would be affected after other Republicans distanced themselves from the plan.
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, there’s all but certain to be a wave of state-level abortion restrictions in the United States. That would largely buck the worldwide trend, The Post’s Ishaan Tharoor notes, writing in the WorldView newsletter. Ishaan reports:
In the last 28 years, over 30 countries have expanded national abortion access, while only three countries — Nicaragua, Poland and El Salvador — have pushed through new national restrictions. Unintended pregnancies are at a 30-year low around the world, while abortion rates are rising in both countries where access is legalized as well as in those where abortion is restricted, according to a recent study co-led by the World Health Organization.
While the antiabortion movement has traditionally embraced policies that are claimed to protect both the woman and the fetus — and avoided laws that criminalize those seeking abortions — abortion rights advocates worry that could change if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Republicans in the Louisiana House advanced a bill Wednesday that would classify abortion as homicide and allow prosecutors to criminally charge patients, with supporters citing a draft opinion leaked this week showing the Supreme Court ready to overturn Roe v. Wade.The legislation, which passed through a committee on a 7-to-2 vote, goes one step further than other antiabortion bans that have gained momentum in recent years, which focus on punishing abortion providers and others who help facilitate the procedure. Experts say the bill could also restrict in vitro fertilization and emergency contraception because it would grant constitutional rights to a person “from the moment of fertilization.”
source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/05/abortion-contrasts-democrats-republicans/
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