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Politicians are again pointing fingers over who wants to cut Medicare. As past Washington brawls show, the party accused of threatening popular entitlements tends to lose elections — although it’s the beneficiaries relying on lawmakers to fund it who stand to lose the most.
Abortion is a top issue for state lawmakers meeting for their first full sessions since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Anti-abortion candidates have fared well in recent elections. But decades of ballot initiatives — including a half-dozen measures considered after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June — show that when voters are asked directly, they usually side with preserving abortion rights.
Although control of Congress was still undecided Wednesday, Republicans seemed poised to take power in the House, while the fate of the Senate remained too close to call. Economic issues were at the top of voters’ minds, but abortion access also played a large role in their decisions.
Republicans say Democrats are wrong to claim that birth control could be the Supreme Court’s next target. But Democrats have plenty of evidence that it might be.
The commonly repeated myths include arguments that only women who are pregnant are affected by the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, that Democratic lawmakers could have codified abortion protections before, and that Congress can easily get rid of federal laws restricting abortion.
By undoing that landmark decision, the law of the land since 1973, the court has empowered states to set their own abortion restrictions — so where people live will determine their level of access.
The 6-3 decision, telegraphed in May by an unprecedented leak of a draft opinion, eliminates the right to abortion as if it never existed at all.
Conservative states are moving to severely restrict abortions, and many are pressing for bans that provide no exception for cases of rape or incest or even to save the life of the mother. But public opinion polls suggest those limits could cause blowback.
An opinion published by Politico confirms what many who have followed the abortion debate already suspected: Roe v. Wade is soon to be no more. But the question remains: How will the public respond?
The man who forged a successful working relationship with Democratic health giants, such as Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Henry Waxman, fell back on his deep conservative roots as opposition grew to the Affordable Care Act and the administration of President Barack Obama.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has yet to make clear its stand on Roe v. Wade. But state lawmakers aren’t waiting to consider a variety of extreme measures: bills that would ban abortions in cases of ectopic pregnancies, allow rapists’ families to object to terminating a victim’s pregnancy, or prohibit the procedure in the case of fetal disability. Do these proposals make the less extreme restrictions seem more mainstream?
Public opinion remains bitterly divided on the issue as a Supreme Court decision is imminent that could overturn or dramatically undercut Roe v. Wade.
The Supreme Court temporarily blocked a federal rule requiring larger businesses to mandate employees be vaccinated or wear masks and undergo weekly testing. At the same time, however, it allowed a federal order that health care workers be vaccinated.
The court is considering whether to let the rules go into effect as opponents fight them in lower courts. Conservative justices pressed lawyers hard about whether the administration overstepped its authority, but liberal members of the high court questioned why the government shouldn’t be expected to move forcefully when facing a severe health crisis.
The decision does not address the fate of abortion rights nationally, but the justices took up those arguments in a separate case earlier this month that will likely be decided in the summer.
A majority of the members of the Supreme Court seemed sympathetic Wednesday during arguments to Mississippi’s assertion that the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized the procedure throughout the country, was wrongly decided.
The arguments before the justices did not deal directly with the state’s ban on abortions after six weeks. Instead, they centered on the unique mechanism in the law that gives state officials no role in enforcing the ban.
The Supreme Court justices, who accepted the case only 10 days before the arguments will be made, may skirt the issue of abortion and concentrate instead on the legality of the law’s unusual tack to let private citizens enforce it.
Dr. Francis Collins, who announced he is stepping down as chief of the National Institutes of Health, used his communication skills and political insights to help protect the highly acclaimed federal research institutes through difficult times.
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