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For Immediate Release
June, 29 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Email: media@reproductivefreedomforall.org
NARAL Pro-Choice America Responds to Supreme Court Decision in June Medical Services LLC v. Russo
Following ruling in abortion case, NARAL calls out Maine Senator Susan Collins for casting deciding vote for Brett Kavanaugh and rubber-stamping Donald Trump's other extremist judicial nominees
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision today in June Medical Services LLC v. Russo struck down a medically unnecessary clinic shutdown law in Louisiana. The law threatened to decimate abortion access in Louisiana, where access is already extremely restricted.
In response, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue released the following statement:
"Today's decision is a win for women in Louisiana who will continue to have access to the time-sensitive abortion care they need. It's a win for truth and fact-based decision making, as even a Court tilted so far right couldn't ignore the concrete arguments and data showing that public health is compromised by these burdensome restrictions on abortion. Finally, today's decision shows that advocates can make a difference. Support for Roe v. Wade is at an all-time high in this country and so many made their voices heard through this process. The Court's legitimacy in the eyes of the public will be threatened if they follow through on Trump's promise to end legal abortion.
This win, however, doesn't change the simple fact that reproductive freedom in the United States remains on the line thanks to anti-choice extremists who have shown time and again that they will stop at nothing to advance their dangerous ideological agenda and a Court still looking for ways to accommodate them.
Susan Collins, who has long masqueraded as a supporter of reproductive freedom in the Senate, cast the deciding vote for Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Throughout Kavanaugh's nomination process, Susan Collins falsely claimed that he posed no threat to abortion rights and would respect precedent. Today's decision makes crystal-clear just how deep her betrayal of women and families in Maine really was, with Kavanaugh siding with the minority to uphold this restrictive anti-choice law. Following Kavanaugh's vote today and come November, she'll have to answer for throwing our rights, our lives, and our well-being under the bus. Unlike Susan Collins, Mainers are clear about their values - they support reproductive freedom and want to see a champion for women and families represent their values in the Senate. That champion is Sara Gideon, who will never stop fighting for our rights."
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) cast the deciding vote for Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court, claiming repeatedly that he would respect precedent, but in today's decision he made clear his willingness to overturn precedent to advance his anti-choice, anti-freedom agenda. NARAL Pro-Choice America today released a video outlining Sen. Collins' betrayal of her constituents when she voted to confirm Kavanaugh.
June Medical Services LLC v. Russo challenged a dangerous Louisiana law that would have gutted abortion access in the state by requiring doctors to have medically unnecessary admitting privileges at a local hospital.
The clinic shutdown law at issue in the case was identical to one blocked in a previous case, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, decided by the Supreme Court in 2016 before Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch joined the Court. These restrictions are based on disinformation pushed by the anti-choice, anti-freedom movement that falsely claims restrictions like this help women, though there is no medical benefit to mandating admitting privileges and they do nothing to make women safer. In truth, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that abortion care is extremely safe and leading medical experts oppose these restrictions because they block "access to quality, evidence-based medicine."
This case puts an intense spotlight on Senator Susan Collins, who voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, tipping the balance of the Court to anti-choice control. Collins has rubber-stamped Donald Trump's extremist agenda by helping him to stack the federal judiciary with judges hostile to Roe v. Wade and determined to gut or overturn the constitutional right to abortion.
In Maine, almost a quarter (24%) of Maine women live in counties with no abortion clinics, but Mainers have more access to abortion than in many other states thanks to their pro-choice governor and state legislature.
In 2019, House Speaker Sara Gideon and Gov. Janet Mills delivered on their promise to protect access to reproductive healthcare by passing and signing into law a bill (LD 1261) that removed unnecessary barriers to allow qualified and trusted providers to provide abortion care.
The anti-choice movement has spent decades working overtime to decimate access to abortion, state by state, law by law. This Louisiana law was just one part of a coordinated effort by the anti-choice radical right to gut Roe v. Wade and advance their agenda of power and control. Since 2011, anti-choice politicians have pushed nearly 450 laws restricting reproductive freedom through state legislatures.
For over 50 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.
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'Deadly Shadow Prison': Inmates, ACLU Sue Trump Admin for Denying Due Process at 'Alligator Alcatraz'
"What's happening here is not just a policy failure, it's a moral one," said the executive director for the ACLU of Florida. "This is how rights are erased."
Jul 17, 2025
Detainees at "Alligator Alcatraz" are suing the Trump administration for subjecting them to inhumane conditions at the prison without due process.
The class action suit, brought Wednesday with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other immigrant rights groups, challenges the government's refusal to let detainees speak with lawyers and file legal documents needed to petition for their release.
Inmates in the Everglades detention facility have detailed horrific conditions, including crushing heat, incessant mosquito presence, tainted food, cramped conditions, and a lack of access to water and basic sanitation.
After visiting the detention center over the weekend, some Democratic lawmakers described it as an "internment camp," where as many as 32 inmates apiece were crammed into small cages beneath a single tent.
The majority of the roughly 1,000 people detained there, according to the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times, have not been convicted of criminal offenses, while over a third have not even been charged.
"This facility opens another dark chapter in our nation's history. Its very existence is predicated on our country's basest impulses and shows the danger of unchecked governmental authority when combined with unbridled hate. It represents an attack on common decency, and in this case, its treatment of detained people is also unlawful," said Eunice Cho, senior counsel with the ACLU's National Prison Project and the lead attorney in the case.
According to the complaint, multiple attorneys have arrived at the detention center to meet with their clients, only to be turned away by armed police and members of the Florida National Guard. The attorneys were later told no in-person meetings would be allowed. They have additionally been given no information about how to communicate with their clients over the phone or virtually.
"The U.S. Constitution does not allow the government to simply lock people away without any ability to communicate with counsel or to petition the court for release from custody. The government may not trample on these most fundamental protections for people held in its custody," Cho said.
The plaintiffs argue this violates the First and Fifth Amendment rights of those being detained, as well as the First Amendment rights of the attorneys.
"What's happening here is not just a policy failure, it's a moral one," said Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. "The state has hastily erected a costly and deadly shadow prison in the middle of the Everglades during hurricane season to warehouse human beings—stripping them of due process and dignity, cutting them off from their families and legal counsel, intentionally putting their lives in danger, and leaving them to suffer in silence. This is how rights are erased."
The Trump administration is seeking to replicate "Alligator Alcatraz" all around the country. As The New Republic reports, the budget megabill signed by the president earlier this month contains $3.5 billion for "eligible states" to use for the "temporary detention of aliens."
In a Fox News interview earlier this month, Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump's "mass deportation" crusade, called on Republican governors to use this fund to build their own immigrant detention camps.
"We want every governor of a red state, and if you are watching tonight: Pick up the phone, call [the Department of Homeland Security], work with us to build facilities in your state," Miller said.
"No amount of armed guards or government spin can shield this facility from legal scrutiny," Jackson said Wednesday. "We will use every tool at our disposal to end this cruel experiment and defend the rights of every person trapped inside of this unconstitutional abomination."
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In the early hours of Thursday morning, Senate Republicans passed legislation that would claw back $9 billion in previously approved congressional funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid programs targeted by President Donald Trump's White House.
The final vote count was 51 to 48, with Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joining Democrats in opposing the package, which now heads back to the GOP-controlled House for final passage. The legislation would cement some of the Trump administration's lawless, unilateral attacks on programs approved by Congress with bipartisan support.
"At 2 am, Republicans just passed a bill to defund public broadcasting and lifesaving aid because Trump told them to—they wouldn't even protect rural radio or emergency alerts," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, warning that the GOP's partisan clawback of funding imperils all future spending negotiations.
"Congress should decide what we spend and what we cut—not Trump and not Russ Vought," Murray added, referring to the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
In a floor speech ahead of the Thursday morning vote, Murray said Vought refused to be specific about which programs would be cut if the rescissions bill passes.
"It's one of the great outrages of this package," said Murray. "At our hearing with him, he refused to go into detail. He stonewalled us. We asked and we asked. The chair, the Republican chair, even asked him about this. But OMB would not tell us. The question is: What will you cut? The answer has been: Pass it, we'll see."
"The thing that's particularly dangerous about it is that this is probably a test case. If they pull it off with these topics, they'll move on to more and more and more topics."
The White House rescissions request was broadly outlined in a May memo authored by Vought, an architect of the far-right Project 2025 agenda.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund PBS and NPR, is expected to face over $1 billion in cuts, while the rest of the rescissions package targets foreign assistance.
"With this vote, Senate Republicans are telling us everything we need to know about their priorities," said Alex Jacquez, the Groundwork Collaborative's chief of policy and advocacy. "After passing a tax law that gives a massive giveaway to billionaires and raises costs on working families, Senate Republicans are now codifying DOGE's deeply unpopular and reckless cuts to vital programs. Once again, Republicans are failing to deliver on the one thing they promised: lower prices. Instead, they're waging a campaign that will make life more expensive and difficult for working families while lining the pockets of the wealthy."
During the marathon amendment process, Republicans rejected Democratic proposals to shield public safety alerts and prevent cuts to international disaster relief programs.
Vought has signaled that the White House will likely submit more rescissions requests if the $9 billion in cuts make it through Congress.
Kate Riley, the president and CEO of America's Public Television Stations, said in a statement following the Senate vote that the rescissions bill would "eliminate federal funding to the local public television stations throughout this country that provide essential lifesaving public safety services, proven educational services, and community connections to their communities every day for free."
"This elimination of federal funding will decimate public media and put local stations at risk of going dark, cutting off service to communities that rely on them—many of which have no other access to locally controlled media," Riley warned.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) accused Republicans of weaponizing the rescissions process to attack "some of their favorite enemies, like National Public Radio, Elmo, or food for starving people overseas."
"The thing that's particularly dangerous about it is that this is probably a test case," Whitehouse added. "If they pull it off with these topics, they'll move on to more and more and more topics, bringing their Musk-type chainsaw to projects which Congress has approved on a bipartisan basis, put into law, and funded."
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"We are witnessing an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. immigration court system by the Trump administration."
Jul 16, 2025
A dozen immigrants and their legal advocates on Wednesday launched a class action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's campaign of courthouse arrests "designed to strip noncitizens of their rights" and expedite deportations.
"We are witnessing an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. immigration court system by the Trump administration," said Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), one of the groups behind the new suit. "People who attend their hearings to seek permission to remain in this country and comply with U.S. immigration law are being rounded up and abruptly ripped from their families, homes, and livelihoods."
"Meanwhile, the administration is issuing directives telling immigration judges to violate those same immigration laws and strip people of fundamental due process rights," Zwick added. "We must continue fighting to overcome the administration's escalating attacks on the U.S. Constitution and rule of law."
The suit—filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by NIJC, Democracy Forward, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF), and Refugee and Immigrant Center for Legal Education and Services (RAICES)—aims to end the "unlawful" arrests and strike down related guidance from the administration.
"For years, both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) had policies limiting civil immigration-related arrests in immigration courts," explains the complaint, filed on behalf of 12 people identified by their initials as well as the groups American Gateways and Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative (ARC).
"These policies were rooted in the commonsense recognition that such arrests hamper the fair administration of the immigration process and create a palpable fear that disincentivizes people from appearing for their hearings," the complaint explains. "But in the first few days of the Trump administration, defendants repealed those policies, exposing individuals who properly appear for their hearings, including to seek asylum and other relief, to the imminent threat of arrest and indefinite detention."
Defendants include DHS, DOJ, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and leaders in the administration who have been working to deliver on President Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations.
@skyeperryman.bsky.social of @democracyforward.org said the Trump administration is ‘weaponizing’ immigration courts and chilling participation in the legal process.”apnews.com/article/immi...
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— Melissa Schwartz (@mschwartz3.bsky.social) July 16, 2025 at 6:01 PM
"The egregious and unprecedented coordination amongst government agencies that we are witnessing not only inflicts irreparable harm upon infants and adults alike for seeking refuge in the U.S., but also establishes a chilling precedent in which law and order are abandoned in favor of stoking widespread panic and fear—leaving the entire American public at risk, regardless of immigration status," warned Faisal Al-Juburi, chief external affairs officer at RAICES.
Jordan Wells, senior staff Attorney at LCCRSF, declared that "these directives forsake any notion of immigration courts as a neutral forum, weaponizing them into a trap for immigrants who show up in reliance on the American promise of a fair process before a judge, only to be met instead with handcuffs and shunted into a fast-track deportation process controlled by ICE agents."
Priyanka Gandhi-Abriano, interim CEO for Immigrant ARC, said that "our friends, neighbors, and families are told to 'do it the right way'—to follow the legal process. They're doing just that—showing up to court, complying with the law. Despite this, they're being arrested and detained."
"This isn't justice," Gandhi-Abriano stressed. "It's a deliberate attempt to intimidate and disappear people before they can be heard. We're defending the integrity of the legal system, protecting every person's right to due process, and holding the Trump administration accountable for their deeply harmful practices aimed at the most vulnerable communities."
The filing follows a Friday letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons—all defendants in the new case—in which two dozen U.S. Senate Democrats wrote that "we are extremely concerned by reports of a recent initiative to arrest and detain noncitizens at their immigration court hearings, and in many cases, dismiss their immigration cases without advance notice and while hiding the government's intent to arrest them."
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