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For Immediate Release
May, 17 2021, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
NARAL Responds to SCOTUS Decision to Hear Case Directly Challenging Roe v. Wade
Court’s alarming decision to review case involving Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban underscores acute threat to reproductive freedom.
WASHINGTON
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a case involving Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban that directly challenges Roe v. Wade and violates nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent. There is no path for the Supreme Court to uphold Mississippi's abortion ban without overturning Roe's core holding, illustrating the direct and acute threat to reproductive freedom across the country. The Mississippi ban threatens doctors who provide abortion care with severe civil penalties for providing abortion care after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
NARAL Pro-Choice America Chief Campaigns and Advocacy Officer Christian LoBue released the following statement in response:
"The Supreme Court's decision to review this unconstitutional ban is an ominous sign and an alarming reminder that the threat to the legal right to abortion is imminent and real. If Roe v. Wade were to fall as a result of this case, states across the country are poised to ban abortion. The impact would be devastating, especially on those who already face the greatest barriers to care, including people of color, trans and non-binary people, those with lower incomes, and those in rural areas.
Although Donald Trump is no longer in the White House, he leaves behind a dark legacy of anti-choice, anti-freedom judges hostile to our fundamental rights. The anti-choice movement is laser-focused on banning abortion and determined to capitalize on the anti-choice supermajority Trump solidified on the Court.
With the future of reproductive freedom on the line like never before, NARAL and our 2.5 million members will be fighting every step of the way to ensure that Roe and the legal right to abortion remain intact."
Today's news comes as anti-choice lawmakers in states across the country are waging war on reproductive freedom. They have escalated their blatantly unconstitutional attacks on abortion access--going as far as to advance legislation criminalizing pregnant people and doctors who provide abortion care--all in hopes of rolling back or overturning Roe v. Wade. This year alone, anti-choice politicians have introduced, advanced, or passed over 300 bills attacking reproductive freedom and abortion access.
Despite the anti-choice movement's relentless efforts to restrict reproductive freedom and ban abortion, the vast majority of Americans support reproductive freedom. Polling has found that 77% support Roe v. Wade, and there is no state in the country where banning abortion is popular.
If Roe fell tomorrow, 24 states would likely take action to ban abortion outright. Eleven states already have "trigger bans" in place, which would ban abortion immediately if Roe is overturned. The Court's decision to hear this case now--more than a year into a pandemic where people are already facing barriers to access time-sensitive and needed care--is especially troubling.
The case in question, Jackson Women's Health Organization v. Dobbs, was filed in March 2018 by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of Jackson Women's Health Organization--the last remaining clinic in Mississippi--to block the state's unconstitutional ban on abortion after 15 weeks.
For years, anti-choice, anti-freedom politicians have worked to chip away at the right to abortion. When abortion care is banned, lives are on the line. Overturning or gutting Roe would only endanger people and potentially criminalize trying to make the best decisions for their lives and futures.
It is more urgent than ever that Congress take action to protect reproductive freedom and abortion access and pass the Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA). WHPA is a critical step toward creating a world where every body is free to make the best healthcare decisions for themselves, their families, and their lives, without political interference.
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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Social Security Agency Tells Workers to Give ICE Details About Beneficiary Appointments
"ICE is attempting to infiltrate the Social Security Administration too—using field offices to further round up and detain people, and scaring people out of getting the benefits they need."
Feb 16, 2026
Leaders at the Social Security Administration are reportedly instructing agency employees to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with information about in-person beneficiary appointments.
Wired reported Friday that the instructions were "recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices." The outlet quoted an unnamed employee with direct knowledge of the orders who said that "if ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time."
Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Social Security benefits, though they do contribute tens of billions of dollars per year to the program through payroll taxes. Noncitizens can qualify for Social Security, but Wired noted that they are "required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits."
"Social Security numbers are issued to US citizens but also to foreign students and people legally allowed to live and work in the country," the outlet observed. "In some cases, when a child or dependent is a citizen and the family member responsible for them is not, that person might need to accompany the child or dependent to an office visit."
The revelation that SSA workers are being told to hand over appointment details to ICE came amid an ongoing congressional fight over proposed reforms to the immigration agency that has resulted in a funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security, which has a data-sharing agreement with the Social Security Administration.
“You're seeing SSA becoming an extension of Homeland Security,” Leland Dudek, the former acting commissioner for the Social Security Administration, told Wired.
SSA is currently led by Frank Bisignano, a former financial services CEO who backed the Elon Musk-led assault on government agencies via the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Indications that ICE has Social Security field offices in its crosshairs as part of the Trump administration's large-scale, lawless mass deportation campaign sparked outrage. In a joint statement, Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said that "under this administration, ICE has been transformed into Donald Trump’s secret police force—accountable to nobody."
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"EPA’s new policy is irrational. Even where health benefits are 'uncertain,' what is certain is that they are not zero," they said. "It will lead to perverse outcomes in which EPA will reject actions that would impose relatively minor costs on polluting industries while resulting in massive benefits to public health—including in saved lives."
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Research published in 2023 in the journal Science found that between 1999 and 2020, PM2.5 pollution from coal-fired power plants killed roughly 460,000 people in the United States, making it more than twice as deadly as other kinds of fine particulate emissions.
While this is a staggering loss of life, the senators pointed out that the EPA has also been able to put a dollar value on the loss by noting quantifiable results of increased illness and death—heightened healthcare costs, missed school days, and lost labor productivity, among others.
Pointing to EPA estimates from 2024, they said that by disregarding human health effects, the agency risks costing Americans “between $22 and $46 billion in avoided morbidities and premature deaths in the year 2032."
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The senators requested all documents related to the decision, including any information about cost-benefit modeling and communications with industry representatives.
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Democratic voters overwhelmingly want a leader who will fight the superrich and corporate America, and they believe Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the person to do it, according to a poll released this week.
While Democrats are often portrayed as squabbling and directionless, the poll conducted last month by the New Republic with Embold Research demonstrated a remarkable unity among the more than 2,400 Democratic voters it surveyed.
This was true with respect to policy: More than 9 in 10 want to raise taxes on corporations and on the wealthiest Americans, while more than three-quarters want to break up tech monopolies and believe the government should conduct stronger oversight of business.
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Three-quarters said they wanted Democrats to "be more aggressive in calling out Republicans," while nearly 7 in 10 said it was appropriate to describe their party as "weak."
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With 85% favorability, Bronx congresswoman had the highest approval rating of any Democratic figure in the country among the voters surveyed.
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Early polls show AOC lagging considerably behind these top two. However, there are signs in the New Republic's poll that may give her supporters cause for hope.
While Harris is also well-liked, 66% of Democrats surveyed said they believe she's "had her shot" at the presidency and should not run again after losing to President Donald Trump in 2024.
Newsom does not have a similar electoral history holding him back and is riding high from the passage of Proposition 50, which will allow Democrats to add potentially five more US House seats this November.
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As labor unions in California have pushed for a popular proposal to introduce a billionaire's tax, Newsom has made himself the chiseled face of the resistance to this idea, joining with right-wing Silicon Valley barons in an aggressive campaign to kill it.
While polls can tell us little two years out about what voters will do in 2028, New Republic editorial director Emily Cooke said her magazine's survey shows an unmistakable pattern.
"It’s impossible to come away from these results without concluding that economic populism is a winning message for loyal Democrats," she wrote. "This was true across those who identify as liberals, moderates, or progressives: An unmistakable majority wants a party that will fight harder against the corporations and rich people they see as responsible for keeping them down."
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