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Arizona voters have approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion access up to fetal viability, typically after 21 weeks a major win for advocates of the measure in the presidential battleground state who have been seeking to expand access beyond the current 15-week limit. Arizona was one of nine states with abortion on the ballot. Democrats have centered abortion rights in their campaigns since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Abortion-rights supporters prevailed in all seven abortion ballot questions in 2022 and 2023, including in conservative-leaning states. Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition leading the state campaign, gathered well over the 383,923 signatures required to put it on the ballot, and the secretary of state's office verified that enough were valid. The coalition far outpaced the opposition campaign, It Goes Too Far, in fundraising. The opposing campaign argued the measure was too far-reaching and cited its own polling in sayi
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a 200-word summary that abortion advocates used to collect signatures for a ballot measure is valid, clearing the way for voters to decide on the constitutional right to an abortion. Under the measure, abortions would be allowed until an embryo or foetus could survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks. There are some exceptions for later-term abortions to save the mother's life or to protect her physical or mental health. The decision comes on the heels of a Thursday ballot printing deadline in Arizona. The Arizona Right to Life, the organisation that sued the ballot measure campaign, argued that the petition summary was misleading. The high court justices rejected that argument, as well as the claim that the summary for the proposed amendment failed to mention it would overturn existing abortion laws if approved by voters. We have noted that (r)easonable people can differ about the best way to describe a principal provision,
President Joe Biden is wading deeper into the fight over abortion rights that has energised Democrats since the fall of Roe v. Wade, travelling to Florida to assail the state's upcoming ban and similar restrictions that have imperiled access to care for pregnant women nationwide. Tuesday's campaign visit to Tampa puts Biden in the epicentre of the latest battle over abortion restrictions. The state's six-week abortion ban is poised to go into effect May 1 at the same time that Florida voters are gearing up for a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution. Biden is seeking to capitalise on the unceasing momentum against abortion restrictions nationwide to not only buoy his reelection bid in battleground states he won in 2020, but also to go on the offensive against Donald Trump in states that the presumptive Republican nominee won four years ago. One of those states is Florida, where Biden lost by 3.3 percentage points to Trump. At the same time, .
Democrats in the Arizona Senate cleared a path to bring a proposed repeal of the state's near-total ban on abortions to a vote after the state's highest court concluded the law can be enforced and the state House blocked efforts to undo the long-dormant statute. Although no vote was taken on the repeal itself, Republican Sens. T.J. Shope and Shawnna Bolick sided with 14 Democrats in the Senate on Wednesday in changing rules to let a repeal proposal advance after the deadline for hearing bills had passed. Proponents say the Senate could vote on the repeal as early as May 1. If the proposed repeal wins final approval from the Republican-controlled Legislature and is signed into law by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, the 2022 statute banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy would become the prevailing abortion law. The move by the Senate came after Republicans in the Arizona House, for the second time in a week, blocked attempts on Wednesday to bring a repeal bill to a vote. One
Poland's parliament is finally holding a long-awaited debate on liberalising the country's strict abortion law. The traditionally Catholic nation has one of the most restrictive laws in Europe but the reality is that many women terminate pregnancies at home with pills mailed from abroad. Lawmakers in the lower house of parliament will consider four different proposals on Thursday. Currently abortion is regulated by a 1993 law, which was heavily influenced by the Catholic church, and further restricted following a 2020 constitutional court ruling preventing abortion in case of fetal abnormalities. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who came to power in December after eight years of a conservative government, has vowed to legalise abortion until the 12th week of pregnancy. He has said the decision is a woman's to make, not that of a priest, a prosecutor or a party official. Many Tusk voters hoped lawmakers would have taken up the matter sooner. But conservatives in Tusk's three-party ...
Former President Donald Trump says he will finally announce Monday when he believes abortions should be banned, after months of refusing to stake a position on an issue that could decide the outcome of November's presidential election. The presumptive Republican nominee wrote on his social media site Sunday night that he plans to issue a statement on abortion and abortion rights." He told reporters last week he would make a statement soon after being asked about Florida's six-week abortion ban going into effect. Trump for more than a year now has declined to say when in a pregnancy he would try to draw the line, even as Republican-led states have ushered in a wave of new restrictions following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. His announcement will be closely watched both by Democrats who believe the fight over abortion rights helps them at the polls and Republicans who failed to push Trump to endorse a national abortion ban during the GOP primary. Great love and compassion
A 2019 law banning most abortions in Ohio is unconstitutional following an abortion referendum last year, the state's Republican attorney general has said in a court filing. Monday's filing comes after abortion clinics asked a Hamilton County judge to throw out the law since Ohio voters decided to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution last November. They argue that under the new constitutional amendment, the law, which bans most abortions once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, is invalid. Attorney General Dave Yost, for the most part, agreed. However, the attorney general asked the court to only strike down the core prohibition of the law banning abortions after six weeks and let other portions remain. These include requiring a doctor to check for a heartbeat and inform a patient, as well as documenting the reason someone is having an abortion. Yost said in the filing that the plaintiffs have not demonstrated how such provisions violate the constitutional ...
France inscribed the guaranteed right to abortion in its constitution Friday, a powerful message of support for women's rights on International Women's Day. Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti used a 19th-century printing press to seal the amendment in France's constitution at a special public ceremony. Applause filled the Place Vendome. The measure was overwhelmingly approved by French lawmakers earlier this week, and Friday's ceremony means it can now enter into force.
As France becomes the only country to explicitly guarantee the right to abortion in its constitution, other Europeans look at the US rollback of abortion access and wonder: Could that happen here? Abortion is broadly legal across Europe, and governments have been gradually expanding abortion rights, with some exceptions. Women can access abortion in more than 40 European nations from Portugal to Russia, with varying rules on how late in a pregnancy it is allowed. Abortion is banned or tightly restricted in Poland and a handful of tiny countries. "It may not be an issue today in France, where a majority of people support abortion. But those same people may one day vote for a far-right government, and what happened in the US can happen in Europe," said Mathilde Philip-Gay, a law professor and specialist in French and American constitutional law. The inscription into France's constitution will "make it harder for abortion opponents of the future to challenge these rights." Here is a lo
The leader of a major anti-abortion group aligned herself Monday with former President Donald Trump on the issue, just weeks after raising questions about his commitment to restricting access to the procedure. Calling her meeting Monday with Trump "terrific," Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group, said in a statement that he "reiterated that any federal legislation protecting these children would need to include the exceptions for life of the mother and in cases of rape and incest. The characterization of the meeting which Dannenfelser's group said happened at Trump's Florida home marked a turnaround from more than two weeks ago. Then, Dannenfelser called Trump's contention that abortion restrictions should be left up to individual states, not the federal government, a morally indefensible position for a self-proclaimed pro-life presidential candidate. Dannenfelser's group has said it would not support any White House candidate who did not
Abortion based on sex-determination is a powerful method of perpetuating gender inequalities, the Delhi High Court has said, emphasising the law must have teeth to sternly deal with such situations till attitudinal changes at family level are achieved. The restriction of access to foetal sex information is directly related to the problem of misogyny which affects women of all socioeconomic backgrounds not only in this country but globally as well, the court said. Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma made the observations while passing a slew of directions to the authorities for a strict implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 (PCPNDT Act). The high court's order came while refusing to quash an FIR against a doctor who was booked under several sections of the PCPNDT Act after a raid was conducted at a hospital here on information regarding illegal sex determination. It, however, set aside as bad in law the cognisance taken by the trial court in the