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planned parenthood
Highlighting Election Stakes, Top Georgia Court Revives 6-Week Abortion Ban
"We don't have to guess what another Trump presidency will bring, Georgians and millions more are living it."
Oct 07, 2024
Just a week after Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney struck down Georgia's six-week abortion ban with an "absolutely epic ruling," the state Supreme Court on Monday reinstated House Bill 481, demonstrating what's at stake in next month's U.S. elections.
In a 6-1 decision, the Georgia Supreme Court granted a stay sought by Republican state Attorney General Christopher Carr. The so-called Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act took effect again at 5:00 pm on Monday. The high court left in place the judge's decision to block prosecutors' broad access to abortion patients' medical records as the case proceeds.
"It is cruel that our patients' ability to access the reproductive healthcare they need has been taken away yet again," said Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director of Feminist Women's Health Center, in a Monday statement. "Once again, we are being forced to turn away those in need of abortion care beyond six weeks of pregnancy and deny them care that we are fully capable of providing to change their lives."
"This ban has wreaked havoc on Georgians' lives, and our patients deserve better," she continued. "The state of Georgia has chosen to subject our community to those devastating harms once again, even in light of the deadly consequences we have already witnessed. We will keep fighting to protect our patients, their health, their rights, and their dignity—in the clinic, in the Capitol, in the courts, and in the community."
The state and national ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Georgia-based law firms have challenged H.B. 481 on behalf of Jackson's group as well as multiple providers and organizations including Planned Parenthood Southeast and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.
"Today's ruling is an egregious example of how far anti-abortion lawmakers and judges will go to strip Georgians of their fundamental rights," stressed Jaylen Black, vice president of communications and marketing of Planned Parenthood Southeast. "As our state and region have been battered by Hurricane Helene and chemically polluted air quality, they're focused on causing more harm rather than prioritizing time-sensitive recovery efforts. At every turn, they choose to put their own agendas above our health and well-being."
The Georgia law—which prohibits abortion after cardiac activity can be detected, which is before many people even know they are pregnant—is one of several strict bans that have been enacted or allowed to take effect since the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority reversedRoe v. Wade in June 2022.
Reproductive freedom has been a key topic of the 2024 election cycle, at all levels of politics, including and especially the presidential contest. Former Republican President Donald Trump has bragged about appointing half the justices who overturned Roe but also unsuccessfully tried to distance himself from the most extreme abortion bans.
Meanwhile, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly stressed her support for reproductive freedom and attacked her opponent for his role in rolling it back, including in a speech in Georgia last month and a Sunday appearance on Call Her Daddy, a podcast whose primary audience is younger American women.
During Harris' September speech, she paid tribute to Georgia women whose deaths health experts have said were "preventable" and the result of the state's six-week abortion ban. Critics of the high court's new ruling also pointed to their deaths.
"Today, the Georgia Supreme Court sided with anti-abortion extremists. Every minute this harmful six-week abortion ban is in place, Georgians suffer," asserted SisterSong executive director Monica Simpson. "Denying our community members the lifesaving care they deserve jeopardizes their lives, safety, and health—all for the sake of power and control over our bodies. This decision is unconscionable, especially after the loss of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, two Black women who would be here today had this ban not been in place."
"This ban is rooted in white supremacy and intensifies an already dire situation in Georgia, where Black women are more than twice as likely to die from pregnancy complications compared to white women, largely due to the absence of Medicaid expansion, a shortage of OB-GYNs, and a healthcare system rife with inequities since its founding," she continued. "Despite all evidence that this ban is killing us, the court sided with those more interested in limiting our access to care than seeing us live and thrive."
Simpson declared that "now, we need everyone to turn their pain into action and vote with these issues in mind this November."
Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, also responded to the Georgia high court's ruling by emphasizing the importance of electing Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, next month.
"Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died because of this abortion ban," she
said on social media. "We fight back in their memory and the countless other women across the country who have their freedoms at risk. 29 days until we elect repro champions to fix this mess starting with VP Harris and Gov. Walz."
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Missouri Supreme Court Restores Abortion Rights Ballot Initiative
"Anti-abortion opponents are trying everything to keep abortion rights questions away from voters—but their dirty tricks keep failing," said one campaigner.
Sep 10, 2024
Reproductive freedom defenders on Tuesday cheered the Missouri Supreme Court's restoration of an abortion rights referendum—one of numerous 2024 ballot initiatives seeking to codify access to the healthcare procedure in states from coast to coast.
Missouri's highest court overturned Cole County Judge Christopher Limbaugh's ruling removing Amendment 3—also known as the Right to Reproductive Freedom initiative—from the November 5 ballot. Limbaugh ordered Republican Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who decertified the measure on Monday, to place it back on the ballot.
“The majority of Missourians want politicians out of their exam rooms, and today's decision by the Missouri Supreme Court keeps those politicians out of the voting booth as well," Planned Parenthood Great Rivers Action vice president of external affairs Margot Riphagen
said on social media. "On November 5, Missouri voters will declare their right to reproductive freedom, ensuring decisions about our bodies and our healthcare—including abortion—stay between us, our families, and our providers."
Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project—which provides funding and technical assistance to abortion rights campaigns in Missouri, Arizona, Montana, and Florida—said in a statement that "anti-abortion opponents are trying everything to keep abortion rights questions away from voters—but their dirty tricks keep failing. They know that when voters have a say, reproductive freedom is upheld time and time again."
Chris Hatfield, a lawyer representing abortion rights groups in the case, toldThe New York Times: "This is a big deal. The court will send a message today about whether, in our little corner of the democracy, the government will honor the will of the people, or will have it snatched away."
Missouri has one of the nation's most draconian abortion bans, with the procedure
prohibited in almost all circumstances "except in cases of medical emergency." The ban—which dates to 2019—took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturnedRoe v. Wade in 2022.
The Midwestern state joins
at least seven others in which abortion will be on the ballot this November. Every abortion rights ballot measure since the overturn of Roe has passed.
In neighboring Nebraska, the state Supreme Court on Monday
heard arguments in three lawsuits filed by activists trying to keep multiple abortion rights referenda off the ballot.
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In Undercover Video, Project 2025 Architect Says Trump Is 'Very Supportive of What We Do'
A watchdog group secretly recorded Russell Vought, a former Trump administration official, explaining his plan to get confidential Project 2025 plans into the Republican nominee's hands if he wins in November.
Aug 15, 2024
A key architect of Project 2025 believed he was speaking to relatives of a wealthy right-wing donor when he described his plan to share a flurry of secret executive orders, proposed regulations, and other documents directly with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his transition team if he wins another White House term in November.
In fact, Russell Vought—who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump's first term—unwittingly divulged his strategy to an undercover journalist and a paid actor working undercover for the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR), an investigative organization based in the United Kingdom.
During the nearly two-hour conversation, which was secretly recorded by CCR's undercover team, Vought boasted of his close proximity to Trump and voiced confidence that he will be able to get Project 2025's confidential 180-day plan into the Republican nominee's hands following the November election, despite the former president's false claim that he knows "nothing about" the project.
"There are people like me that have his trust that will be able to get it to him in whatever position we're at," said Vought, who is expected to receive a high-ranking post in a potential second Trump administration. "The relationships will be there. The trust level will be there."
Vought, founder of the Center for Renewing America (CRA), went on to describe Project 2025's secret plan as a "very, very close hold," which CCR noted is a phrase used by the U.S. government for documents that aren't for public consumption.
Watch CCR's video of its conversation with Vought, who expressed his desire to "rehabilitate Christian nationalism," pursue "the largest deportation in history," and "block funding for Planned Parenthood":
NEW
We went undercover in Project 2025.
Our investigation uncovered details of the secretive second phase of Project 2025 being led by a Trump insider, with plans to feed hundreds of highly-confidential battle plans directly into the Trump transition team.
Watch here. pic.twitter.com/je9qHpjAns
— Centre for Climate Reporting (@ClimateReport_) August 15, 2024
Much of the media attention on Project 2025—a sweeping far-right agenda crafted by more than 100 conservative groups and many former Trump administration officials—has centered on the initiative's 922-page "Mandate for Leadership," a document that outlines plans to abolish the Education Department, further privatize Medicare, roll back climate regulations and abortion protections, and centralize power in the executive branch.
Such plans are deeply unpopular with the U.S. public, according to recent polling.
But in recent weeks, Democratic lawmakers and watchdogs have attempted to shine light on what Project 2025 has called the "Fourth Pillar" of its agenda, which is briefly described on the project's website as a "180-day transition playbook" that contains "a comprehensive, concrete transition plan for each federal agency."
Micah Meadowcroft, who worked in the Environmental Protection Agency during Trump's first term, told CCR's undercover reporter that Vought has "supervised" the handling of Project 2025's secretive "second phase," which aims to "break down actual policy packets and executive orders and agenda items and things like that."
"He's the team lead behind the scenes, just putting all that together," said Meadowcroft, who helped set up the meeting between Vought and CCR's undercover team. "I have colleagues who officially work for CRA, but like 35 out of their 40-hour work week is Project 2025 stuff."
Meadowcroft went on to describe Project 2025's secret plan as "a big, fat stack of papers that will be distributed during the transition period, but not as part of the transition."
"Because obviously, you want as little of it to be FOIA-able... as possible," he added, referring to the ability of members of the press and the public to request documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
Vought told CCR that he is "overseeing a large team that is developing 350 different transition documents, consisting of draft executive orders, secretarial memos, and regulations," the outlet noted in its detailed story on the investigation.
"His priority, he said, is to provide detailed plans for enacting policies he already knows Trump wants to carry out, based on the former president's campaign speeches," CCR continued. "He is confident that these plans won't end up in a White House shredder, despite the Trump campaign's insistence that they have nothing to do with Project 2025. He suggested that Trump's disavowal of Project 2025 is a pre-election political ploy rather than anything substantive."
As Vought himself put it: "He's running against the brand. He is not running against any people; he is not running against any institutions."
"He's very supportive of what we do," Vought said of Trump's stance on the Center for Renewing America, which CCR noted is "responsible for promulgating some of the most radical Project 2025 policy ideas."
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