Three more GOP-led states join move to restrict abortion
Judge grants motion for injunction in North Dakota
BY KIMBERLEE KRUESI ASSOCIATED PRESS NASHVILLE, TENN. | Three more Republican-led states will ban almost all abortions this week as yet another slate of laws severely limiting the procedure takes effect following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
To date, 13 states have passed so-called “trigger laws” that were designed to outlaw most abortions if the high court threw out the constitutional right to end a pregnancy. The majority of those states began enforcing their bans soon after the June 24 decision, but Idaho, Tennessee and Texas had to wait 30 days beyond when the justices formally entered the judgment, which happened several weeks after the ruling was announced.
That deadline expired Thursday.
North Dakota’s trigger law was scheduled to take effect Friday, but a district judge in Burleigh County granted a motion for a preliminary injunction as he weighs arguments from the state’s lone abortion clinic that the law violates the state constitution.
Judge Bruce Romanick granted the motion as part of a lawsuit brought by the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo.
The changes in Idaho, Texas and Tennessee will not be dramatic. All states already had antiabortion laws in place that largely blocked patients from accessing the procedure. And the majority of the clinics that provided abortions in those areas have either stopped offering those services or moved to other states where abortion remains legal.
Texas, the country’s secondlargest state, has banned most abortions once fetal cardiac activity has been detected, which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant. The ban has been in place for almost a year, since courts refused to stop the law last September.
While clinics were severely limited in the services they could provide during that time, they offi cially stopped offering abortions on the day of the Supreme Court ruling. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that state laws that banned abortion before Roe v. Wade could be enforced ahead of the implementation of the trigger law.
Much like Texas’ current abortion ban, the trigger law does not include exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Instead it has a provision allowing abortions if a woman’s life or health is in danger.
The political response to the change was swift: Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke chose Thursday to unveil the first TV ads in his campaign against Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who signed off on the statute.
Meanwhile, Texas has challenged a legal interpretation put forth by the federal government that was aimed at requiring Texas hospitals to provide abortion services if the life of the mother is at risk. On Wednesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the government from enforcing that interpretation.
Texas argued that the federal guidance would have required hospitals to provide abortions before the mother’s life is clearly at risk, which would have violated the state’s trigger law.
In Tennessee, just two of the six clinics that provide abortions continued to offer the service after Roe was overturned. They did so even as Tennessee enacted a “heartbeat law” similar to the one passed in Texas. Under both the new trigger law and the previous heartbeat law, doctors who violate the law risk felony convictions and up to 15 years in prison.
Operating after the high court’s abortion ruling has been at times a “painful” experience, said Melissa Grant, chief operations officer of Carafem, which has had a Nashville clinic since 2019. The legal environment has required difficult conversations between staffers and patients who may be unaware how early in pregnancy cardiac activity can be detected.
“When we find that we do ultimately have to turn somebody away, whether it’s the first visit, the second visit, the conversations can be very emotional. Primarily anger, fear, grief, sometimes disbelief, and it’s difficult for the staff,” she said.
In Idaho, the federal government argued that Medicaid-funded hospitals must provide “stabilizing treatment” to pregnant women experiencing medical emergencies despite its trigger law.
Much of Idaho’s law went into effect Thursday, but due to the federal judge’s ruling Wednesday, the state cannot prosecute anyone who is performing an abortion in a medical emergency.
Most abortions in Idaho were effectively banned on Aug. 12, when the Idaho Supreme Court allowed a different law to go into effect allowing potential relatives of an embryo or fetus to sue abortion providers
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GOP won over Roe, but is losing abortion debate
Republicans need to go on the offense (and compromise)
By Steve Levy
Republican commentators are in a quandary as to why Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro in a New York swing seat contest for Congress. Or how Democrats are leading in key U.S. Senate races for the midterm election, despite the fact that the country is wallowing in Democratic-caused hyperinflation, open borders and record-breaking crime waves.
The answer? To paraphrase former Bill Clinton operative James Carville: It’s abortion, stupid. (We can also couple in the impact that multiple Trump investigations have had on distracting the focus from these Democratic liabilities.) There have been two seminal political moments in the Biden administration that have altered the trajectory of public opinion. The first was the botched Afghanistan withdrawal last August, which combined gross incompetence with horrific policy. The debacle made Mr. Biden look feeble, illogical and out of touch. It marked the end of his honeymoon and a clear dive toward the polling dumpster.
Additional polls followed showing that Americans favored Republicans in generic matchups as to who should run the country. But over the last few months, Democrats
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have gained ground and now are even ahead by four points in a Politico Morning Consultant poll.
The change correlates closely to the leaking of the Supreme Court decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which now places abortion in play in elections on the state and national levels.
Republicans have traditionally been on the losing side of the abortion argument, given that most agree with the policy baked into the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
In May of 2021, Gallup polls showed Americans’ support for abortion in all or most cases at 80%, while the Pew Research Center finds 59% of adults believe abortion should be legal.
An NPR/PBS poll showed that this year, two-thirds of the American public opposed Roe’s reversal.
That concept was confirmed just last month in a Kansas referendum which surprised many political observers but shouldn’t have. Yes, even conservative Midwesterners (when they got in the polling booth) didn’t want the government removing options in the first trimester.
It’s simply hard to fathom how a party can maintain dominance nationwide promoting ending abortion choice in the early months when the public is seemingly demanding it.
While polls show abortion landing far below inflation as a top issue, one should not underestimate the passion it stirs in voters. Fifty-five percent of Americans said in a post-Dobbs poll that abortion now ranks as an important issue to them in the upcoming election, with 56% opposing the Dobbs decision.
Since Dobbs, money has been flowing into Democratic coffers and advocacy groups such as Planned Parenthood, which will be crucial in generating get-out-the-vote campaigns. Dems are crushing Republicans in money raised, having brought in over $80 million through June after word got out about the court decision.
Important demographics, including single women and independents, are impacted markedly by Dobbs.
Lesser informed voters might not be sold on the fact that the Democrats caused the massive rise in crime (which they indeed did), but it’s very easy to distinguish how your local candidate will vote on an upcoming abortion bill.
A recent AP/NORC poll shows that 60% of Americans want Congress to pass legislation making access to some abortions a national right. Given that 60 votes in the Senate would be needed to effectuate such a change, the Senate races will logically be more impacted by the Dobbs decision, which may explain why Democrat Senate candidates are pulling ahead of their Republican rivals.
Republicans would be wise to strike a compromise position that is in line with the electorate and actually winds up limiting abortions. Just as voters want to maintain choice in the first trimester, only 28% support abortions in the last trimester.
Yet, the Democratic platform continues to espouse the radical view that abortion should be a matter of choice, even as a baby is exiting the birth canal.
The GOP should announce that they will agree not to alter present access in the first trimester if Democrats will support bans in the third.
This isn’t only a wise political move, but it would also wind up actually lessening abortions, which is the ultimate goal of the pro-life movement. Pushing too hard on bans in the first trimester will likely lead to larger Democratic majorities and, thus, more abortions.
Polls show that the public trusts Republicans more than Democrats on important issues such as the economy, the border and crime.
The GOP even shifted public opinion toward their favor on the issue of education, a longtime centerpiece of the Democratic platform.
Still, Republicans have faired very poorly with single women and the younger generation, in large part due to a perception of not being flexible enough on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion (though a majority of even Republicans now are copasetic with the former.)
The average American thinks much more like a Republican than a progressive on most issues. By striking a compromise on the abortion front, Republicans could seal the deal in becoming America’s majority party. But if the GOP is perceived as going gung-ho on first trimester bans, the red tidal wave we were anticipating this November could devolve into a tepid ripple.
Steve Levy is president of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as an New York State assemblyman and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” Find more from him at
www.SteveLevy.info , @ SteveLevyNY on Twitter and steve@commonsensestrategies.com.
