Abortion foes, supporters map next moves after Roe reversal
CHARLESTON, W. Va. — A Texas group that helps women pay for abortions halted its efforts Saturday while evaluating their legal risks under a ban it says will disproportionately hurt poor and minority women. Mississippi’s only abortion clinic kept seeing patients while awaiting a 10-day notice that will trigger a ban. And elected officials across the country vowed to take action to protect women’s access to abortion.
A day after the Supreme Court’s bombshell ruling overturning Roe v. Wade ended the constitutional right to abortion, emotional protests and prayer vigils turned to resolve as several states enacted bans and supporters and foes of abortion rights mapped out their next moves.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s sweeping rulings on guns and abortion sent an unmistakable message. Conservative justices hold the power and they are not afraid to use it to make transformative changes in the law, none more so than taking away a woman’s right to abortion that had stood for nearly 50 years.
No more half measures, they declared Friday in overturning Roe v. Wade and allowing states to outlaw abortion. And the day before, in ruling for the first time that Americans the right to carry handguns in public for self-defense, they said the Constitution is clear.
“A restless and newly constituted Court,” is how Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of three liberals on the nine-member court, described her colleagues earlier in June.
SALT LAKE CITY — Mitt Romney isn’t up for reelection this year, but Trumpaligned Republicans hostile toward the Utah senator have made his name a recurring theme in this year’s primaries, using him as a foil and derisively branding their rivals “Mitt Romney Republicans.”
Republicans have used the concept to frame their primary opponents as enemies of the Trump-era GOP in southeast Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The anti-tax group Club For Growth, among the most active super PACs in this year’s primaries, used “Mitt Romney Republican” as the central premise of an attack ad in North Carolina’s Senate primary.
But nowhere are references to Romney Republicanism as common as they are in Utah. Despite his popularity with many residents here, candidates are repeatedly deploying “Mitt Romney Republican” as a campaign trail attack in the lead-up to Tuesday’s Republican primary.
ROME — Pope Francis celebrated families Saturday and urged them to shun “selfish” decisions that are indifferent to life as he closed out a big Vatican rally a day after the U.S Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion.
Francis didn’t refer to the ruling or explicitly mention abortion in his homily. But he used the buzzwords he has throughout his papacy about the need to defend families and to condemn a “culture of waste” that he believes is behind the societal acceptance of abortion.
“Let us not allow the family to be poisoned by the toxins of selfishness, individualism, today’s culture of indifference and waste, and as a result lose its very DNA, which is the spirit of welcoming and service,” he said.
HONOLULU — Megan Kau takes occasional weeklong hunting trips to the Hawaiian island of Lanai, where she enjoys watching the sunrise and hearing the distant rustle of deer and mouflon sheep in the tropical wilderness, a rifle ready at her side.
As a gun owner, she also goes to shooting ranges several times a year. Those outings are the only times the attorney and Oahu native sees others with guns in this tourist mecca where strict laws make it harder to purchase firearms and restrict carrying loaded guns in public.
Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning New York’s concealed weapon law will likely change things in Hawaii, too, where it’s now highly unusual to see people carrying loaded weapons in public.