A looming Supreme Court ruling on abortion is already having an impact on a number of key government disputes this fall.
On Monday night, Reported politician that a draft Supreme Court decision was drafted to overturn Roe v. Wade. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide, with the court later confirming that the project was legitimate, although the decision is not final.
If conservative justices were to overturn Roe, millions of Americans would immediately lose access to abortion in dozens of states, with other Republican-controlled states potentially following suit.
In Georgia, Democrat Stacey Abrams said her campaign will “fully support and lead” the issue. Abrams is challenging the governor. Brian Kempwho faces a primary challenge from Trump-backed former Senator David Perdue, but has been leading him by a wide margin in recent polls.
“Because if I want to be governor of Georgia, that means I have to govern for the women of Georgia. And Georgia women generally agree that their right to choose should not be taken away from them,” Abrams told the Atlanta Journal-Constitutionadding: “We should receive this news with anger and with absolute dismay, and we should organize to defend our people – to defend women and their abortion rights.”
Abrams narrowly lost to Kemp in 2018 and trailed in early polls ahead of a likely rematch in November. Your campaign announced is temporarily pausing its election fundraising efforts to focus on raising money for the state’s pro-abortion rights groups.
Kemp signed a bill banning abortions after six weeks — before many women know they are pregnant — in 2019, but it was overturned by the courts. Perdue, however, said he would go further and try to “eliminate all abortion in the state of Georgia.”
Abrams, a skilled fundraiser who has been organizing in Georgia for years, could benefit politically from repealing Roe. A January poll conducted by the Journal-Constitution found that 68% of registered voters did not want Roe overturned, as opposed to 24% who did.
In Michigan, the Democratic incumbent Governor Gretchen Whitmer filed suit last month in an attempt to overturn a 1931 law banning abortion and that would go into effect if Roe were overturned. Under this legislation, exceptions are made for the mother’s health, but not for rape or incest.
“No matter what happens with Roe, I will fight like hell and use every tool I have as governor to ensure reproductive freedom is protected,” Whitmer said in April. “Today, in court, I represent all those who deserve the freedom to choose their own future. This is a fight worth having.”
Whitmer’s opponent won’t be decided until the GOP primary in August, but all Republicans running for office described themselves as anti-abortion, with some expressing support for the ban that would go into effect if Roe falls. Michigan Republican Party candidates for attorney general and secretary of state have said they support keeping the 1931 law on the books.
Republican gubernatorial candidates in Pennsylvania outlined their plans to eliminate abortion in the state ahead of Politico’s story in a debate last week. Of the four candidates present, two wanted a total ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, while two wanted a ban with these limited exceptions.
“Thanks to President Trump, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court is prepared to right this historic wrong,” state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who led a series of polls ahead of the May 17 Republican primaries, said in a statement following the leak. decision. “Since I was elected to the Senate, there has been no issue more important to me than the right to life.”
Unlike 13 predominantly conservative states, Pennsylvania does not have a defined “trigger law” to restrict abortion after the repeal of Roe. But it also has no legal protections of its own for access to abortion, which means the legality of the procedure could be decided by the next governor and state legislature.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, whose term is out of office for a limited time, vetoed three abortion bans approved by the Republican-controlled legislature during his term. Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro is running unopposed in the gubernatorial primary and has issued a series of statements this week affirming his commitment to legal abortion.
“Our next governor will decide whether Pennsylvania women have the right to choose,” Shapiro said in a tweet. “It’s that simple. Our Republican Legislature will send a bill to the next governor’s desk banning abortion – my opponent will sign it. I will veto it.”
In Texas, which already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, Democrat Beto O’Rourke has attacked current governor Greg Abbott on the issue since last year.
Last year, Abbott signed the six-week ban that has since been upheld by state and federal courts. “Our creator endowed us with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose the right to life every year because of abortion,” he said at the time, adding that the legislator “We worked together on a bipartisan basis to pass a bill… that guarantees that the life of every unborn child with a heartbeat will be saved from the devastation of abortion.”
If Roe is indeed overturned by the Supreme Court, it would immediately result in abortion being banned in the state due to a trigger law. A survey by the University of Texas/Texas political project released on Monday found O’Rourke trailing Abbott by 11 points.
“These extreme attacks on abortion were never about life,” O’Rourke, a former congressman and presidential candidate, tweeted Tuesday night. “They were always about control. I will fight for every woman’s freedom to control her own health care, her own body, her own future.”
Last month in Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that reduces the period during which a woman can have an abortion from 24 weeks of pregnancy to 15 weeks, with no exceptions for rape and incest.
“We are here today to protect life,” DeSantis said at the bill signing ceremony. “We are here today to defend those who cannot defend themselves.”
DeSantis has led his potential general election rivals in polls by comfortable margins, but Democrats challenging him hope the focus on abortion can reshape the race.
“This will be a monumental shift in our state’s politics,” said Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, one of the Democrats running for governor. told the Tampa Bay Times. “This is our moment and it also proves how important it is to put the right candidate in the position. … If we do not change our state, more and more of our rights will be usurped.”
“If true, the fight for a woman’s right to choose will be left up to each state to decide… and will be front and center in this fall’s elections,” Rep. Charlie Crist, also running in the Democratic primary, tweeted with a link for the article. “We must defeat DeSantis.”
