Incest

Judge Blocks Indiana Abortion Ban A Week After It Took Effect

By Associated Press
September 22, 2022

The ban replaced Indiana laws that prohibited abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and restricted them after the 13th week.

An Indiana judge on Thursday blocked the state’s abortion ban from being enforced, putting the new law on hold as abortion clinic operators argue that it violates the state constitution.

Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction against the ban that took effect one week ago. The injunction was sought by abortion clinic operators who argued in a lawsuit that the state constitution protects access to the medical procedure.

The ban was approved by the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature on Aug. 5 and signed by GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb. That made Indiana the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June.

The judge wrote “there is reasonable likelihood that this significant restriction of personal autonomy offends the liberty guarantees of the Indiana Constitution” and that the clinics will prevail in the lawsuit. The order prevents the state from enforcing the ban pending a trial on the merits of the lawsuit.

The state attorney general’s office and top Republican legislative leaders didn’t immediately comment on the order.

The ban, which includes limited exceptions, replaced Indiana laws that generally prohibited abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and tightly restricted them after the 13th week.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which is representing the abortion clinics, filed the lawsuit Aug. 31 and argued the ban would “prohibit the overwhelming majority of abortions in Indiana and, as such, will have a devastating and irreparable impact on the plaintiffs and, more importantly, their patients and clients.”

Ken Falk, the ACLU of Indiana’s legal director, pointed to the state constitution’s declaration of rights including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in arguing before the judge on Monday that it included a right to privacy and to make decisions on whether to have children.

The state attorney general’s office said the court should uphold the ban, calling arguments against it based on a “novel, unwritten, historically unsupported right to abortion” in the state constitution.

“The constitutional text nowhere mentions abortion, and Indiana has prohibited or heavily regulated abortion by statute since 1835 — before, during, and after the time when the 1851 Indiana Constitution was drafted, debated, and ratified,” the office said in a court filing.

The Indiana abortion ban includes exceptions allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, before 10 weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the pregnant person; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.

The new law also prohibited abortion clinics from providing any abortion care, leaving such services solely to hospitals or outpatient surgical centers owned by hospitals.

The lawsuit was filed in southern Indiana’s Monroe County, which includes the liberal-leaning city of Bloomington and Indiana University’s main campus, but two elected Democratic judges from that county declined to handle the case without stating any reasons.

Hanlon, a Republican from neighboring Owen County, accepted appointment as special judge. Hanlon, who was first elected as a judge in 2014, was among three finalists that the state Judicial Nominating Commission selected in July for appointment to the state appeals court, but the governor last week named a different judge to the position.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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California Governor Runs Billboard Campaign For New Abortion Website

California launched a publicly funded website to promote the state’s abortion services, listing clinics and linking to financial help for travel.

“Abortion remains legal and protected in California. We have your back,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Newsom touted a brand new state website dedicated to locating and accessing abortion services.

The new site is a direct appeal to women in seven GOP-led states where abortion bans are in effect or in motion.

In those seven states Newsom ran a billboard campaign directing people to the new website.

Republicans are blasting him for the move. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem defended her state as a “destination for freedom and life.”

“These are extremely dangerous times,” said Noem.

This is a new push as Democrats at a national level make abortion a centerpiece of their midterm election pitch. They’re arguing Republican wins this fall would galvanize the party around a national abortion ban, which Senator Lindsey Graham proposed this week.

“I think we should have a law at the federal level that would say after 15 weeks, no abortion on demand, except in cases of rape, incest, to save the life of the mother. And that should be where America is at,” said Graham.

The latest Pew Research data shows adults think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, as Republicans hesitate to embrace Graham’s bill.

“I think most of the members of my conference prefer that this be dealt with at the state level,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader.

California is now trying to solidify its place as a sanctuary state in a country where most people want abortion access, but many states restrict it.

“Visit abortion.ca.gov to learn more about your freedom to choose in California,” said Newsom.

The site offers ways to find, get to and pay for abortion services from in or outside California.

A political strategy, no doubt, but a potentially critical move for people looking for abortion care in states where it’s not allowed.

“These are extremely personal decisions that women make and should only make in the context of their lives, their faith, their medical needs, not with what the congressman from their district thinks they should do,” said Rep. Katherine Clark.

: newsy.com

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West Virginia Legislature Passes Abortion Ban With Few Exceptions

By Associated Press
September 14, 2022

The legislation would allow victims of rape and incest to obtain abortions at up to eight weeks of pregnancy, if they report to law enforcement first.

West Virginia’s Legislature passed a sweeping abortion ban with few exceptions Tuesday, approving a bill that several members of the Republican supermajority said they hope will make it impossible for the state’s only abortion clinic to continue to offer the procedure.

“It is going to shut down that abortion clinic, of that I feel certain,” Republican Sen. Robert Karnes said on the Senate floor, amid shouts from protesters standing outside the chamber doors. “I believe it’s going to save a lot of babies.”

Under the legislation, rape and incest victims would be able to obtain abortions at up to eight weeks of pregnancy, but only if they report to law enforcement first. Such victims who are minors would have until 14 weeks to terminate a pregnancy and must report to either law enforcement or a physician.

Rape and incest victims would have to report the assault within 48 hours of getting an abortion, and a patient must present a copy of a police report or notarized letter to a physician before the procedure can be performed.

Abortions also would be allowed in cases of medical emergencies.

West Virginia joins the ranks of states moving to ban abortion in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to end the constitutional right to privacy that protected abortion rights nationwide. That left it to states to decide whether abortion should remain legal, which in turn has ignited intense state-level debates, especially in states controlled by Republicans, about when to impose the ban, whether to carve out exceptions in cases involving rape, incest or the health of the woman giving birth, and how those exceptions should be implemented.

The West Virginia bill now heads to the desk of Republican Gov. Jim Justice, who has signed several anti-abortion bills into law since taking office in 2017. Lawmakers resumed debate on the bill Tuesday after failing to come to an agreement in late July, giving up the chance for the state to become the first to approve new legislation restricting access to abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June removing its protected status as a constitutional right.

Both the Senate and the House of Delegates speedily approved the bill, after several hours of debate. Dozens of protesters wearing pink shirts reading “bans off our bodies” and holding signs reading “abortion is healthcare” staged a rally in the Capitol rotunda while lawmakers were in session.

Some of the group sat in the gallery as legislators discussed the bills, with some shouting down to legislators in frustration as they spoke in support of the bill. Legislative leadership asked that the onlookers remain silent as lawmakers conducted business. At one point, at least one protester was escorted out of the building by police.

Lawmakers inserted several provisions they said were specifically targeted at the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, which was the state’s first abortion clinic when it opened in 1976 following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade case. It has existed as the state’s sole abortion clinic for years, making it the ever-increasing target of anti-abortion lawmakers and protesters.

The bill states that surgical abortions can only be performed at a state-licensed hospital by a physician with hospital privileges. Anybody else who performs an abortion, including nurse practitioners and other medical professionals, could face three to 10 years in prison. A physician who performs an illegal abortion could lose their medical license.

Pregnant people who obtain illegal abortions will not face any form of prosecution under the bill, however.

Kaylen Barker, spokesperson for the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, said the clinic will not be shutting down, even if the staff is no longer able to provide abortions. Like many clinics that perform abortions, the facility did not offer the procedure daily.

Most days are dedicated to services like gender-affirming hormone therapy, HIV prevention and treatment and routine gynecological care — cervical exams, cancer screenings — mostly for low-income patients on Medicaid with nowhere else to go.

Democratic Sen. Owens Brown, West Virginia’s only Black senator, spoke against the bill before it passed the Senate. He said when he looks around at his fellow lawmakers, he sees a body that is overwhelmingly comprised of white, middle-aged to elderly men who are middle-class or above.

Brown compared groups of men passing legislation that overwhelmingly impacts women to laws that were passed by white lawmakers when slavery was legal in the U.S. He said “all laws are not good laws made by men.”

“That’s somewhat irrational in many ways to be able to apply a law that will never apply to you,” he said to his fellow lawmakers. “It’s easy for you to sit there and do that because you will never have to face the consequences of your actions.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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South Carolina Senators Reject A Near-Total Abortion Ban

By Associated Press

and Newsy Staff
September 9, 2022

Senators did pass a change that cuts the time that victims of rape and incest who become pregnant can seek an abortion from 20 weeks to 12 weeks.

South Carolina senators rejected a ban on almost all abortions Thursday in a special session called in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade after five Republicans, including all the chamber’s women, refused to support it.

The 30 Republicans in the 46-member chamber had a majority to pass the ban, but did not have the extra votes to end a threatened filibuster by Republican Sen. Tom Davis.

Davis, the chief of staff for former Gov. Mark Sanford before being elected to the Senate in 2009, was joined by the three Republican women in the Senate, a fifth GOP colleague and all Democratic senators to oppose the proposed ban.

Davis said he promised his daughters he would not vote to make South Carolina’s current six-week abortion ban stricter because women have rights, too.

“The moment we become pregnant we lost all control over what goes on with our bodies,” Davis said, recalling what his daughters told him. “I’m here to tell you I’m not going to let it happen.”

After a recess to work through their options, Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey conceded the abortion ban likely couldn’t pass.

“We were never going to pass a total abortion ban,” Massey said. “We never had the votes to pass even what the House passed.”

Senators did pass a few changes to the six-week ban, including cutting the time that victims of rape and incest who become pregnant can seek an abortion from 20 weeks to about 12 weeks and requiring that DNA from the aborted fetus be collected for police. The bill goes back to the House, which passed a ban with exceptions for rape or incest.

South Carolina’s six-week ban is currently suspended as the state Supreme Court reviews whether it violates privacy rights. In the meantime, the state’s 2016 ban on abortions 20 weeks after conception is in effect.

South Carolina’s General Assembly was meeting in a special session to try to join more than a dozen other states with abortion bans.

Most of them came through so-called trigger laws designed to outlaw most abortions when the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the constitutional right to end a pregnancy in June. Indiana’s Legislature passed a new ban last month that has not taken effect.

The debate started Wednesday with the three Republican women in the South Carolina Senate speaking back to back, saying they couldn’t support the bill unless the rape or incest exceptions were restored.

Sen. Katrina Shealy said the 41 men in the Senate would be better off listening to their wives, daughters, mothers, granddaughters and looking at the faces of the girls in Sunday School classes at their churches.

“You want to believe that God is wanting you to push a bill through with no exceptions that kill mothers and ruins the lives of children — lets mothers bring home babies to bury them — then I think you’re miscommunicating with God. Or maybe you aren’t communicating with him at all,” Shealy said before senators added a proposal allowing abortions if a fetus cannot survive outside the womb.

Massey helped broker the compromise among Republicans that briefly returned the exceptions to the bill. He pointed out state health officials recorded about 3,000 abortions in 2021 within the first six weeks of a pregnancy.

“Heartbeat is great, but this I think is better,” Massey said. “I don’t think abortion should be used as birth control.”

Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto said Republican women stood up for all women in South Carolina, while Republican men let them down. He said Democrats didn’t want any changes to current laws.

“There may be a sentiment that this is the same as what we already had. It’s not. It’s worse in many regards,” Hutto said.

Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who has said before he would be happy if there were no abortions in the state, thought the Senate version struck an appropriate balance, governor’s spokesman Brian Symmes said

“It is the governor’s hope that the House and Senate will soon come to an agreement and send a bill to his desk for signature,” Symmes said.

Republican Sen. Sandy Senn, who didn’t vote for the six-week ban in 2021, said a total ban would be an invasion of privacy against every woman in the state.

“If what is going on in my vagina isn’t an unreasonable invasion of privacy for this legislature to get involved in, I don’t know what is,” Senn said.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Trump Moves To General Election Mode With Pennsylvania Rally

The stakes are particularly high for Trump as he lays the groundwork for an expected 2024 presidential run amid a series of legal challenges.

Larry Mitko voted for Donald Trump in 2016. But the Republican from Beaver County in western Pennsylvania says he has no plans to back his party’s nominee for Senate, Dr. Mehmet Oz — “no way, no how.”

Mitko doesn’t feel like he knows the celebrity heart surgeon, who only narrowly won his May primary with Trump’s backing. Instead, Mitko plans to vote for Oz’s Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a name he’s been familiar with since Fetterman’s days as mayor of nearby Braddock.

“Dr. Oz hasn’t showed me one thing to get me to vote for him,” he said. “I won’t vote for someone I don’t know.”

Mitko’s thinking underscores the political challenges facing Trump and the rest of the Republican Party as the former president was shifting to general election mode with a rally Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the first of the fall campaign.

While Trump’s endorsed picks won many Republican primaries this summer, many of the candidates he backed were inexperienced and polarizing figures now struggling in their November races. That’s putting Senate control — once assumed to be a lock for Republicans — on the line.

Among those candidates are Oz in Pennsylvania, author JD Vance in Ohio, venture capitalist Blake Masters in Arizona and former football star Herschel Walker in Georgia.

“Republicans have now nominated a number of candidates who’ve never run for office before for very high-profile Senate races,” said veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres. While he isn’t writing his party’s chances off just yet, he said, “It’s a much more difficult endeavor than a candidate who had won several difficult political races before.”

The stakes are particularly high for Trump as he lays the groundwork for an expected 2024 presidential run amid a series of escalating legal challenges, including the FBI’s recent seizure of classified documents from his Florida home. Investigators also continue to probe his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

This past week, President Joe Biden gave a prime-time speech in Philadelphia warning that Trump and other “MAGA” Republicans — the acronym for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan — posed a threat to U.S. democracy. President Biden has tried to frame the upcoming vote, as he did the 2020 election, as a battle for the “soul of the nation.” President Biden’s Labor Day visit to Pittsburgh will be his third to the state within a week, a sign of Pennsylvania’s election-year importance.

While Republicans were once seen as having a good chance of gaining control of both chambers of Congress in November amid soaring inflation, high gas prices and President Biden’s slumping approval ratings, Republicans have found themselves on defense since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision protecting abortion rights.

Some candidates, like Doug Mastriano, the GOP’s hard-line nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, are sticking with their primary campaign playbooks, hoping they can win by turning out Trump’s loyal base even if they alienate more moderate voters.

Mastriano, who wants to outlaw abortion even when pregnancies are the result of rape or incest or endanger the life of the mother, played a leading role in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election and was seen outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as pro-Trump rioters stormed the building.

But others have been trying to broaden their appeal, scrubbing from their websites references to anti-abortion messaging that is out of step with the political mainstream. Masters, for instance, removed language from a policy section of his website that labeled him “100% pro-life,” as well as language saying, “if we had had a free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today.” Others have played down Trump endorsements that were once featured prominently.

The shifting climate has prompted rounds of finger-pointing in the party, including from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who last month cited “candidate quality” as he lowered expectations that Republicans would recapture control of the Senate in November.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said those who complain about the party’s nominees have “contempt” for the voters who chose them.

“It’s an amazing act of cowardice, and ultimately, it’s treasonous to the conservative cause,” he wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Examiner.

Trump, too, fired back, calling McConnell a “disgrace” as he defended the party’s candidate roster.

“There’s some very good people,” he said in a radio interview. “You know, takes a lot of courage to run and they spend their wealth on it and they put their reputations on the line.”

Democrats have also piled on.

“Senate campaigns are candidate versus candidate battles and Republicans have put forward a roster of deeply flawed recruits,” said David Bergstein, the Senate Democratic campaign committee’s communication director. He credited Trump with deterring experienced Republicans from running, elevating flawed candidates and forcing them to take positions that are out of step with the general electorate.

“All those factors have contributed to the weakness of the slate of Republican candidates they’ve been left with,” he said. A Trump spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

In Pennsylvania, Republicans are hoping Oz’s shortcomings as a candidate will be overshadowed by concerns about Fetterman, who suffered a stroke just days before the primary and has been sidelined for much of the summer. He continues to keep a light public schedule and visibly struggled to speak at a recent event.

Republicans acknowledge that Oz struggles to come off as authentic and was slow to punch back as Fetterman spent the summer trolling him on social media and portraying him as an out-of-touch carpetbagger from New Jersey.

While Fetterman, whom Republicans deride as “Bernie Sanders in gym shorts,” leads Oz in polls and fundraising, Republicans say they expect the money gap to narrow and are pleased to see Oz within striking distance after getting hammered by $20 million in negative advertising during the primaries.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is helping finance a new round of Oz’s television ads, and the Senate Leadership Fund, a McConnell-aligned super political action committee, says it added $9.5 million to its TV buy — boosting its overall commitment to $34.1 million by Election Day.

“Regardless of what people may have heard in the primary, they’re going to realize that Oz is the best choice for Pennsylvania,” said Pennsylvania Republican National Committeeman Andy Reilly.

A super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says it has made $32 million in television ad reservations in the state.

Oz has won over some once-skeptical voters, like Glen Rubendall, who didn’t vote for the TV doctor in his seven-way primary — a victory so narrow it went to a statewide recount — but said he’s come around.

“I’ve been listening to him speak, and I have a pro-Oz view now,” said Rubendall, a retired state corrections officer.

Traci Martin, a registered independent, also plans to vote for Oz because she opposes abortion, despite ads that aired during the primary featuring past Oz statements that seemed supportive of abortion rights.

“I hope he is (anti-abortion),” Martin said, “but the sad part is we live in an age when we see politicians say one thing and do another.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Indiana Abortion Clinics Sue To Block Ban Set To Take Effect

By Associated Press
August 31, 2022

The lawsuit claims the ban “strips away the fundamental rights of people seeking abortion care” in violation of the Indiana Constitution.

Indiana abortion clinic operators filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the state’s ban on abortions before it takes effect in about two weeks.

The lawsuit filed in a Monroe County court claims the ban, which includes limited exceptions, “strips away the fundamental rights of people seeking abortion care” in violation of the Indiana Constitution. It asks for a judge to block the law from going into effect on Sept. 15, arguing the ban “will infringe on Hoosiers’ right to privacy, violate Indiana’s guarantee of equal privileges and immunities, and includes unconstitutionally vague language.”

Indiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature approved the tighter abortion restrictions during a two-week special legislative session that ended Aug. 5, making it the first state to do so since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections for abortions by overturning Roe v. Wade in June.

The Indiana law includes exceptions, allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, before 10 weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.

The legal question of whether the Indiana Constitution protects abortion rights is unclear, said Ken Falk, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which filed the lawsuit.

Falk pointed to a 2004 state appeals court decision that said privacy was a core value under the state constitution that extended to all residents, including women seeking an abortion. But the Indiana Supreme Court later upheld a law mandating an 18-hour waiting period before a woman could undergo an abortion while not deciding whether the state constitution included a right to privacy or abortion.

The leader of Indiana’s most prominent anti-abortion group argued the state constitution protects life as among the “inalienable rights.”

“We are confident the state will prevail and pray the new law is not blocked from going into effect on September 15, knowing that any delay will mean the indiscriminate killing of unborn children will continue at abortion clinics across Indiana,” Indiana Right to Life CEO Mike Fichter said in a statement.

Jennifer Drobac, an Indiana University law professor, said she believed the argument that the state constitution prohibits lawmakers from stripping legal privileges from some residents that are available to others is a strong argument against the abortion ban.

“When you look at people who become pregnant, their medical care is being regulated in a way that the medical care of people who do not become pregnant is not being regulated,” she said. “Men, for example, can access the full panoply of available medical resources in a health situation.”

Under new Indiana law, abortions could be performed only in hospitals or outpatient centers owned by hospitals, meaning all abortion clinics would lose their licenses. Any doctors found to have performed an illegal abortion would be stripped of their state medical licenses and could face felony criminal charges punishable by up to six years in prison.

Indiana’s ban followed the political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy. The case gained wide attention when an Indianapolis doctor said the child came to Indiana because of Ohio’s “fetal heartbeat” ban.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of abortion-rights supporters including Planned Parenthood, which operates four of Indiana’s seven licensed abortion clinics, along with groups that operate two of the other clinics and a doctor who performs abortions.

It will be heard by a judge in southern Indiana’s Monroe County, which includes the liberal-leaning city of Bloomington and Indiana University’s main campus. All nine of the county’s nine judges are Democrats, while all other counties with abortion clinics have judges who’ve either been elected as Republicans or been appointed by Republican governors.

The ACLU’s Falk said the suit was filed in Monroe County because an abortion clinic is located there but did not respond to a question about whether the group was seeking a friendly judge.

Drobac said she believed filing the complaint in Bloomington could be where the ban opponents “have the greatest opportunity for success.”

Republican legislative leaders said they believed the abortion restrictions would be upheld by the courts.

“We set out to pass a bill in the special session that would protect life and support mothers and babies, and that’s what we did,” Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said in a statement. “It was always our intent to draft a bill that could withstand a constitutional challenge, and I hope to see that will be the case.”

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Florida Democrats Choose Rep. Crist To Challenge Gov. Desantis

Rep. Charlie Crist defeated Nikki Fried, who staked out a more progressive campaign, in the Florida governor race.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist won the Democratic nomination for governor in Florida on Tuesday, putting him in position to challenge Gov. Ron DeSantis this fall in a campaign that the Republican incumbent is eyeing as the first step toward a potential White House run.

U.S. Rep. Val Demings seized the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Marco Rubio this fall. Demings, a former police chief and a prodigious political fundraiser, has a chance to become Florida’s first Black female senator.

In selecting Crist in the race for governor, Florida Democrats sided with a candidate backed by many in the party’s establishment who viewed him as the safest choice, even after he lost his previous two statewide elections. The 66-year-old already served one term as a Republican governor more than a decade ago before becoming a Democrat. His moderate stances could appeal to voters in Florida’s teeming suburbs as Democrats seek to reverse a losing pattern in a state that was recently seen as a perennial political battleground.

Crist defeated Nikki Fried, the state agriculture commissioner. She staked out a more progressive campaign and was particularly vocal in defending abortion and LGBTQ rights. The 44-year-old cast herself as “something new” and hoped to become Florida’s first female governor. In a sign of the party’s meager standing in Florida, she’s currently the only Democrat holding statewide office.

But the race ultimately centered on the political future of DeSantis, who emerged from a narrow victory four years ago to become one of the most prominent figures in GOP politics. His hands-off approach to the pandemic and eagerness to lean into divides over race, gender and LGBTQ rights have resonated with many Republican voters who see DeSantis as a natural heir to former President Donald Trump.

DeSantis’ reelection effort is widely assumed to be a precursor to a presidential run in 2024, adding to a sense of urgency among Democrats to blunt his rise now.

The Florida contest concludes the busiest stretch of primaries this year, which featured contests in 18 states over just 22 days. In that span, Republicans from Arizona to Alaska have supported contenders who embraced Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, an assertion roundly rejected by elections officials, the former president’s attorney general and judges he appointed.

And for the most part, Democrats have avoided brutal primary fights — with some exceptions. Voters in New York Tuesday night decided congressional primaries that featured two powerful Democratic committee chairs, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler, competing for the same seat and other incumbents fending off challenges from the left.

Democrats are entering the final weeks ahead of the midterms with a sense of cautious optimism, hoping the Supreme Court’s decision overturning a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion will energize the party’s base. But Democrats still face tremendous headwinds, including economic uncertainty and the historic reality that most parties lose seats in the first midterm after they’ve won the White House.

The dynamics are especially challenging for Democrats in Florida, one of the most politically divided states in the U.S. Its last three races for governor were decided by 1 percentage point or less. But the state has steadily become more favorable to Republicans in recent years.

For the first time in modern history, Florida has more registered Republicans — nearly 5.2 million — than Democrats, who have nearly 5 million registered voters. Fried serves as the only Democrat in statewide office. And Republicans have no primary competition for four of those five positions – governor, U.S. Senate, attorney general and chief financial officer — which are all held by GOP incumbents.

Democrats hope that Demings, who defeated a little-known candidate in her Senate primary Tuesday, can unseat the state’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Marco Rubio, this fall. But for now, the party’s national leadership is prioritizing competitive Senate contests in other states, including neighboring Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Demings sounded an optimistic note as she reflected on her unlikely life story.

“Together, I really do believe this daughter of a maid and janitor who is not supposed to be standing here tonight — I really do believe that together we can do anything,” she said.

In Florida’s governor’s race, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision animated the final weeks of the Democratic primary.

Fried promoted herself as the only true abortion-rights supporter in the race, seizing on Crist’s appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices while he was governor.

The conservative-leaning court will soon decide whether the Republican-backed state legislature’s law to ban abortions after 15 weeks is constitutional. Florida’s new abortion law is in effect, with exceptions if the procedure is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life, to prevent serious injury or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality. It does not allow exemptions in cases of rape, incest or human trafficking.

Crist insisted he is “pro-choice” and highlighted a bill he vetoed as governor in 2010 that would have required women seeking a first-trimester abortion to get and pay for an ultrasound exam.

“It is a woman’s right to choose,” Crist said. “My record is crystal clear, and for my opponent to try to muddy that up is unconscionable, unfair and unwise.”

DeSantis and Fried spent several hours together Tuesday morning during a Cabinet meeting at the Tallahassee statehouse. They kept things cordial during the hourslong event, which placed Fried seats away from the governor as they heard reports from agency heads on state finances, contracting and other matters.

DeSantis shook Fried’s hand as the meeting concluded and told her “good luck” before criticizing her campaign and predicting her loss in brief remarks to reporters.

“I think that you know she had an opportunity as being the only Democrat elected statewide to exercise some leadership and maybe get some things done and instead she’s used her time to try and smear me on a daily basis, that’s all she does,” DeSantis said of Fried.

After the meeting, Fried told reporters she thought the governor had scheduled the meeting as a way to sideline her during her final day of campaigning.

“Of course it’s not a coincidence,” she said of the meeting’s timing. “I think that he is scared of me winning tonight so he’s doing everything in his power to keep me off the campaign trail today.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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DeSantis Rival To Emerge From High-Stakes Florida Governor Primary

By Associated Press

and Forrest Saunders
August 23, 2022

Voters will choose Tuesday between U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried for the Democratic gubernatorial nominee.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is poised to learn the identity of his general election opponent on Tuesday as Democrats choose between a man who spent a lifetime in politics — much of it as a Republican — and a woman casting herself as “something new” as she seeks the energy of her party’s resurgent base.

The Democratic establishment has largely lined up behind Charlie Crist, a 66-year-old Democratic congressman who served as the state’s Republican governor more than a decade ago. Running now as a moderate Democrat, Crist is facing 44-year-old Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who hopes to become the state’s first female governor while leaning into the fight for abortion rights.

The race is ultimately a debate over who is best-positioned to defeat DeSantis, who emerged from a narrow victory four years ago to become one of the most prominent Republicans in politics. His relatively light touch handling the pandemic and his eagerness to lean into divides over race, gender and LGBTQ rights have resonated with many Republican voters who see DeSantis as a natural heir to former President Donald Trump.

His reelection effort is widely assumed to be a precursor to a presidential run in 2024, adding to a sense of urgency among Democrats to blunt his rise now.

The Florida contest wraps up the busiest stretch of primaries this year. Republicans from Pennsylvania to Arizona have supported contenders who have embraced Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, an assertion roundly rejected by elections officials, the former president’s attorney general and judges he appointed.

And for the most part, Democrats have avoided brutal primary fights. That could be tested Tuesday, however, as voters in New York participate in congressional primaries that feature two powerful Democratic committee chairs, Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler, competing for the same seat and other incumbents fending off challenges from the left.

For the first time in modern history, Florida has more registered Republicans — nearly 5.2 million — than Democrats, who have nearly 5 million registered voters. Fried serves as the only Democrat in statewide office. And Republicans have no primary competition for four of those five positions — governor, U.S. Senate, attorney general and chief financial officer — which are all held by GOP incumbents.

Democrats hope that U.S. Rep. Val Demings, who faces a little-known candidate in her Senate primary Tuesday, can unseat the state’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Marco Rubio, this fall. But for now, the party’s national leadership is prioritizing competitive Senate contests in other states, including neighboring Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

In Florida’s governor’s race, the Supreme Court’s abortion decision has animated the final weeks of the Democratic primary.

Fried has promoted herself as the only true abortion-rights supporter in the race, seizing on Crist’s appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices while he was governor.

Crist insisted he is “pro-choice” and highlighted a bill he vetoed as governor in 2010 that would have required women seeking a first-trimester abortion to get and pay for an ultrasound exam.

In experience and personality, voters have a clear contrast between Crist, an establishment-backed lifelong politician viewed as a relatively safe choice, and Fried, a newer face who may be in better position to catch fire with the party’s most passionate voters.

Meanwhile, Fried has gained twice as many followers on every social network and is quick to jump on online trends. She built her profile as one of DeSantis’ fiercest opponents, regularly challenging him on policy related to the COVID-19 pandemic. She also created a position within her department to ensure LGBTQ members are given opportunities as DeSantis wages what the Human Rights Campaign recently described as “an assault on transgender Floridians.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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Indiana Becomes 1st State To Approve Abortion Ban Post Roe

Under the ban, which takes effect Sept. 15, all abortion clinics would lose their licenses. The ban includes some exceptions.

Indiana on Friday became the first state in the nation to approve abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, as the Republican governor quickly signed a near-total ban on the procedure shortly after lawmakers approved it.

The ban, which takes effect Sept. 15, includes some exceptions. Abortions would be permitted in cases of rape and incest, before 10-weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly. Victims of rape and incest would not be required to sign a notarized affidavit attesting to an attack, as had once been proposed.

Under the bill, abortions can be performed only in hospitals or outpatient centers owned by hospitals, meaning all abortion clinics would lose their licenses. A doctor who performs an illegal abortion or fails to file required reports must also lose their medical license — wording that tightens current Indiana law that says a doctor “may” lose their license.

“I am personally most proud of each Hoosier who came forward to courageously share their views in a debate that is unlikely to cease any time soon,” Gov. Eric Holcomb said in the statement announcing that he had signed the measure. “For my part as your governor, I will continue to keep an open ear.”

His approval came after the Senate approved the ban 28-19 and the House advanced it 62-38.

Indiana was among the earliest Republican-run state legislatures to debate tighter abortion laws after the Supreme Court ruling in June that removed constitutional protections for the procedure. But it is the first state to pass a ban through both chambers, after West Virginia lawmakers on July 29 passed up the chance to be that state.

“Happy to be completed with this, one of the more challenging things that we’ve ever done as a state General Assembly, at least certainly while I’ve been here,” Senate President Pro-Tem Rodric Bray told reporters after the vote. ” I think this is a huge opportunity, and we’ll build on that as we go forward from here.”

Sen. Sue Glick of LaGrange, who sponsored the bill, said that she does not think “all states will come down at the same place” but that most Indiana residents support aspects of the bill.

Some senators in both parties lamented the bill’s provisions and the impact it would have on the state, including low-income women and the health care system. Eight Republicans joined all 11 Democrats in voting against the bill, though their reasons to thwart the measure were mixed.

“We are backsliding on democracy,” said Democratic Sen. Jean Breaux of Indianapolis, who wore a green ribbon Friday signifying support for abortion rights, on her lapel. “What other freedoms, what other liberties are on the chopping block, waiting to be stripped away?”

Republican Sen. Mike Bohacek of Michiana Shores spoke about his 21-year-old-daughter, who has Down syndrome. Bohacek voted against the bill, saying it does not have adequate protections for women with disabilities who are raped.

“If she lost her favorite stuffed animal, she’d be inconsolable. Imagine making her carry a child to term,” he said before he started to choke up, then threw his notes on his seat and exited the chamber.

Republican Sen. Mike Young of Indianapolis, however, said the bill’s enforcement provisions against doctors are not stringent enough.

Such debates demonstrated Indiana residents’ own divisions on the issue, displayed in hours of testimony lawmakers heard over the past two weeks. Residents rarely, if ever, expressed support for the the legislation in their testimony, as abortion-rights supporters said the bill goes too far while anti-abortion activists expressed it doesn’t go far enough.

The debates came amid an evolving landscape of abortion politics across the country as Republicans face some party divisions and Democrats see a possible election-year boost.

Republican Rep. Wendy McNamara of Evansville, who sponsored the House bill, told reporters after the House vote that the legislation “makes Indiana one of the most pro-life states in the nation.”

Outside the chambers, abortion-rights activists often chanted over lawmakers’ remarks, carrying signs like “Roe roe roe your vote” and “Build this wall” between church and state. Some House Democrats wore blazers over pink “Bans Off Our Bodies” T-shirts.

Indiana’s ban followed the political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy. The case gained attention when an Indianapolis doctor said the child came to Indiana because of Ohio’s “fetal heartbeat” ban.

Religion was a persistent theme during legislative debates, both in residents’ testimony and lawmakers’ comments.

In advocating against the House bill, Rep. Ann Vermilion condemned fellow Republicans who have called women “murderers” for getting an abortion.

“I think that the Lord’s promise is for grace and kindness,” she said. “He would not be jumping to condemn these women.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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U.S. Sues Idaho Over Abortion Law

Federal prosecutors believe Idaho’s ban would force doctors to violate a federal law that requires medical facilities to provide emergency treatment.

The Justice Department on Tuesday filed a lawsuit that challenges Idaho’s restrictive abortion law, arguing that it conflicts with a federal law requiring doctors to provide pregnant women medically necessary treatment that could include abortion.

The federal government brought the lawsuit seeking to invalidate the state’s “criminal prohibition on providing abortions as applied to women suffering medical emergencies,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

The announcement is the first major action by the Justice Department challenging a state trigger law since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. The court’s decision has led some states to enact restrictive abortion laws and is likely to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states in the U.S.

The Justice Department brought the suit because federal prosecutors believe Idaho’s law would force doctors to violate the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a federal law that requires anyone coming to a medical facility for emergency treatment to be stabilized and treated, Garland said.

“Idaho’s law would make it a criminal offense for doctors to provide the emergency medical treatment that federal law requires,” Garland said.

Idaho, like many Republican-led states, has several anti-abortion laws on the books, creating a legal quagmire now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade.

The law targeted by the Justice Department criminalizes all abortions, subjecting anyone who performs or attempts to perform an abortion to a felony punishable by between two and five years in prison.

People who are charged under the law could defend themselves against the criminal allegations by arguing that the abortion was done to save a pregnant person from death, or that it was done after the pregnant person reported that they were a victim of rape or incest to a law enforcement agency — and provided a copy of that report to the abortion provider.

“Under the Idaho law, once effective, any state or local prosecutor can subject a physician to indictment, arrest, and prosecution merely by showing that an abortion has been performed, without regard to the circumstances,” the Department of Justice wrote in the lawsuit. “The law then puts the burden on the physician to prove an ‘affirmative defense’ at trial.”

Advocates for sexual assault survivors have said the rape and incest exception is essentially useless, because Idaho’s public record law doesn’t allow law enforcement agencies to release reports when a case is still under investigation — a process that generally takes weeks or months.

Dr. Caitlin Gustafson, a family physician, and a regional Planned Parenthood organization have already sued over the abortion ban and two other anti-abortion laws in the Idaho Supreme Court, which is expected to hear arguments in the case on Wednesday. In the lawsuit, Gustafson contends that the exception for medical emergencies is vague and impossible to interpret.

“It would be very difficult, if not impossible, for me to implement the medical exception and provide care to a pregnant person whose life may be at risk,” wrote Gustafson, noting that some serious pregnancy-related medical conditions like preeclampsia can cause death though it is not guaranteed to do so.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, said the U.S. Supreme Court gave states the ability to regulate abortion, “end of story.” He promised to work with the state’s attorney general, Lawrence Wasden, to defend the law.

“The U.S. Justice Department’s interference with Idaho’s pro-life law is another example of Biden overreaching yet again,” Little said in a prepared statement.

Wasden, also a Republican, said the lawsuit was “politically motivated” and said the Justice Department should have reached out to Idaho some time over the past six weeks to work out the issue.

“Instead of complying with the requirements of this provision,” Wasden said, referencing the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, “or even attempting to engage Idaho in a meaningful dialogue on the issue, the federal government has chosen to waste taxpayer dollars on an unnecessary lawsuit.”

Idaho Democratic Party Chair Lauren Necochea praised the Justice Department’s lawsuit in a prepared statement, saying the state’s Republican politicians “would rather let a pregnancy kill a person than allow them to receive an abortion.”

“Idaho’s radical abortion ban gives health care providers an impossible choice: withhold medically necessary care or face prison time,” Necochea said. “In states where these bans have gone into effect, providers are waiting for medical conditions to worsen before assisting their pregnant patients, increasing the risk of sepsis and other life-threatening complications. This is immoral.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last month informed hospitals that they must provide abortion services if the woman’s life is at risk, saying federal law on emergency treatment guidelines preempt state abortion bans if the bans don’t have adequate exceptions for medical emergencies.

In response, the state of Texas sued the federal government, contending that the guidance from the Biden administration is unlawful and that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act does not cover abortions. That case is still pending.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

: newsy.com

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