Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes confirmed on Tuesday her office will not enforce the 19th century abortion law recently upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court until at least June.
Mayes said in a video posted to the attorney general’s account on X clarifying that the law is slated to go into effect on June 8. Calling the ruling “outrageous,” Mayes also confirmed she is “working on a plan to fight back” against the abortion ban.
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A nonpartisan elections analysis announced two rating changes on Wednesday that endanger Republicans for competitive races in the battleground state of Arizona following a ruling that imposed a near-total abortion ban.
The Arizona Supreme Court decided on April 9 that an 1864 law, which allows for abortion only when the life of the mother is at risk and makes performing or helping procure the procedure a crime, can take effect. The ruling, which has supercharged the issue of abortion in the swing state, prompted Sabato’s Crystal Ball to move the expected Senate matchup between Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake to “Leans Democratic,” as well as shifting GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s reelection bid to “Toss-Up.”
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A progressive polling firm released data on Tuesday that claims Republicans are divided over the decision by the Arizona Supreme Court to enact a 19th-century law that bans most abortions, including in the event of rape or incest.
Pollsters at Data for Progress asked likely U.S. voters whether they approve of the state Supreme Court’s decision to ban all abortions “with exceptions only for when the life of the mother is in danger” and with “no exceptions for pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.”
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Republican lawmakers in Arizona are trying to fast-track ballot initiatives to counter an abortion amendment that will likely be in front of voters this fall, according to Axios.
Activists have been working to get an amendment on the ballot that would enshrine abortion as a right in the state’s constitution and in April, proponents of the measure claimed that they had enough signatures to get the proposal on the ballot in November, according to NBC News. GOP state representatives, however, are considering a series of initiatives that would protect the legislature’s ability to limit abortion and enshrine a law restricting abortion to before the first day of the 15th week of pregnancy, according to Axios.
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Two of Arizona’s most high profile Democrats have publicly disagreed about the correct course of action after the Arizona Supreme Court approved a 19th century law that effectively bans most abortions.
In a Friday appearance on The View, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs urged the Arizona State Legislature to immediately repeal the 1864 law that predates Arizona’s statehood.
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U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake on Thursday released a video detailing her full position on abortion in the wake of the Arizona Supreme Court decision to enact a 19th century law that imposes a near-total abortion ban in the state.
Lake announced she opposes the ruling on Tuesday and was joined in her opposition by former President Donald Trump on Wednesday. Both Trump and Lake have suggested Governor Katie Hobbs and the Arizona State Legislature should immediately approve legislation to change the state’s abortion laws.
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Dr. Carol M. Swain and national political reporter Neil W. McCabe, while discussing the politics surrounding the topic of abortion, identified how some seemingly pro-life groups and individuals who claim to be Christians “talk the talk and not walk the walk” when it comes to protecting the unborn.
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The Tennessee State Senate on Wednesday passed legislation that would impose criminal penalties for adults who provide transportation to minors seeking to circumvent the state’s abortion laws.
SB 1971 passed with 26 votes in favor and just three votes against. If passed by the House and signed by the governor, the legislation would create the criminal offense of abortion trafficking of a minor.
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Former President Donald Trump joined Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake in opposition to the recent ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court that upheld a 19th century abortion law.
In a moment captured by C-SPAN, the former president told reporters on Wednesday that Arizona’s 1864 abortion law is too strict, and that any changes to the state’s abortion policy will represent the “will of the people.”
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The Arizona Supreme Court issued a 4-2 ruling Tuesday upholding Arizona’s 1864 territorial ban on all abortion unless necessary to save the mother’s life, A.R.S. 13-3603. After the Arizona Legislature passed a law in 2022 banning abortions after 15 weeks except to save the mother’s life, A.R.S. 36-2322, Planned Parenthood challenged the older law, which was revived after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.
Planned Parenthood alleged that the two laws were in conflict, so the earlier law must be struck down. After a split between the lower courts, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the law, finding that the two statutes were harmonious. The court relied upon legislative language accompanying the newer law, which said it did not supersede the earlier law. Both laws penalize the provider of the abortion, not the mother.
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Presumptive GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday announced his stance on abortion ahead of the November election, sticking, as expected, with the Supreme Court decision that the matter should be decided by the states.
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Abortion activists in Florida are frustrated after the state’s Supreme Court ruling allowing a fetal heartbeat law to take effect failed to produce “rage” donations.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of a law signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in April 2023 that would prohibit a doctor from performing an abortion after a heartbeat is detected, usually around six weeks of pregnancy. McKenna Kelley, a board member of the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund, said that, unlike the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Florida ruling had produced little “rage giving” despite a growing demand for funding for abortions, according to Axios.
“It’s really important that if you care about people having access to abortion, you help support us,” Kelley told Axios.
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A Hamilton County judge now must decide on parts of Ohio’s heartbeat law after Attorney General Dave Yost agreed the law banning nearly all abortions is unconstitutional.
In court filings, Yost said Ohio’s 2019 law that banned most abortions in the state was unconstitutional after voters guaranteed the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution in November.
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The measure will need 60 percent support to take effect.
The Florida Supreme Court on Monday approved a ballot measure that would expand abortion access in the Sunshine State, though it also upheld an existing ban on the procedure after 15 weeks.
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Democratic President Joe Biden has made abortion a cornerstone of his campaign going into November, but its effect on his re-election chances is less than certain, according to political experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager, said in June that they were going to be putting abortion “front and center” leading up to the election, and Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have since been active on the campaign trail at rallies across the country focusing on the issue. The president also invited Kate Cox, the woman at the center of a contentious abortion case in Texas, to his State of the Union address in March, but the jury is still out as to whether the president will reap the rewards of his efforts, according to political experts who spoke to the DCNF.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Ohio announced Friday it filed a lawsuit on behalf of abortion providers across the Buckeye State challenging state law that says women must wait a minimum of 24 hours after an in-person medical consultation before getting an abortion performed.
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Tucker Carlson posted an interview Tuesday of a Tennessee man who is facing 11 years in prison for praying outside an abortion clinic.
In October of 2022, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) showed up at Paul Vaughn’s home with guns drawn and arrested him in front of his wife. Vaughn has 11 children.
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Former President Donald Trump is still weighing his pick for vice president and is looking to avoid a candidate who is too strict about limiting abortion, according to NBC News.
During a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in February, Trump reportedly polled his guests to see where they thought his vice president should fall on the pro-life spectrum, according to individuals close to Trump who spoke to NBC News, one of whom was at the dinner. The former president allegedly asked the diners about the electability of Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
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Candice Keller, who is running in the Republican primary for Ohio State Senate District 4, said she decided to run to unseat State Senator George Lang (R-District 4) after learning the incumbent Republican sponsored the Ohio Fairness Act.
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Is America on the verge of establishing a theocracy? The Left’s recent warnings about the rise of “Christian nationalism” suggest that a powerful, conservative Christian cabal is pulling the strings behind the scenes to forcibly convert the entire nation, or something.
In the past week, Politico’s Heidi Przybyla has been hammering the drum on this issue, first claiming—apparently without concrete evidence—that former Trump administration official Russell Vought has prioritized “Christian nationalism” by name in documents for a potential Trump second term, and then defining Christian nationalism as the doctrine that rights come from God, not government.
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A Montana judge ruled Thursday that three of the state’s laws limiting abortion were unconstitutional, according to the Daily Montanan.
The laws banned abortion after 20 weeks and by way of telehealth services, as well as required a 24-hour waiting period and two ultrasounds. District Court Judge Kurt Krueger sided with Planned Parenthood of Montana, who filed the lawsuit, arguing that the government should not be able to “infringe” on bodily autonomy any more than it can force someone to have an abortion, according to the Daily Montanan.
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Tennessee State Representative Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) is pushing back against California Governor Gavin Newsom, whose super PAC released an advertisement attacking Tennessee for proposing a parental rights bill.
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Former abortionist turned pro-life advocate Dr. Haywood Robinson is set to headline the Memphis Coalition for Life’s Help Them Have Birthdays event on February 27.
The event will be held at First Evangelical Church in Memphis from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
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Florida authorities have caught multiple individuals involved in petition fraud related to a radical effort to enshrine late-term abortion into Florida’s state constitution.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced this week that inspectors arrested a “paid petition circulator” and issued an arrest warrant for a second petition circulator after they submitted 133 invalid constitutional amendment petitions in numerous counties.
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The Department of Justice reportedly advised the Washington, D.C. Medical Examiner to discard the remains of aborted preemie-sized babies, according to an attorney with the Thomas More Society.
Those baby remains are from an abortion clinic in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood of D.C. Pro-life activists believe the baby bodies are evidence that a D.C. abortionist was performing illegal abortions, but for two years now, D.C. authorities have stonewalled any questions about the babies’ deaths.
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Thanks to the Dobbs decision and pro-life leaders, 24 states have laws protecting unborn children at 12 weeks or sooner. Through ballot measures, abortion activists are trying to reverse that progress so anyone can get an abortion anytime, anywhere. These activists are targeting ten pro-life states which have laws that protect 30,000 babies in the womb annually.
The proposed constitutional amendments go far beyond Roe to establish unlimited abortion, eviscerate parental rights, and remove health and safety requirements for women. Though some of the measures include the word “viability,” the broad exceptions in the law ultimately allow elective abortion in all nine months. Ohio Democrats have introduced legislation that does this following the vote on Issue 1 laying bare the policy agenda they are pursuing but denied during the amendment campaign.
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The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that 10 Republican state senators are ineligible to run for reelection after they participated in a quorum-denying walkout for six weeks last year to stall legislation on abortion, transgender treatments and firearms.
The high court decided in favor of Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, who had disqualified the senators from running for office again after voters approved a measure in 2022 to amend the state constitution to ban lawmakers with more than 10 unexcused absences from running again.
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Catholic University confirmed to The Daily Signal that it has terminated the contract of the professor who invited a self-declared “abortion doula” to speak to students about coaching women through abortions and “pregnant men” through a “seahorse birth.”
Catholic University President Peter Kilpatrick announced to students on Jan. 30 that the university “terminated our contract with the professor who invited the speaker” after obtaining “clear evidence that the content of the class did not align with our mission and identity.”
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A recent state Supreme Court ruling side-stepped the question of constitutional abortion access in Pennsylvania, reviving discussion over a would-be ballot referendum mired in legislative gridlock.
Five justices said Monday the Commonwealth Court erred when it dismissed a 2019 case brought by seven abortion providers challenging Medicaid coverage restrictions first established in 1982 and upheld in 1985.
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A self-declared “abortion doula” spoke this week to Catholic University of America students about her experiences coaching women through delivering or aborting babies, as well as coaching “pregnant men” to deliver in what she called a “seahorse birth,” according to audio of the class lecture obtained by The Daily Signal.
A Catholic University nursing student described Tuesday’s lecture to The Daily Signal, saying the guest speaker said she also practices Reiki, a controversial Japanese method of spiritual healing and self-improvement.
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Georgia Right to Life’s annual event, Georgia Stand for Life – Memorial Service, Rally and March, is set to take place on Friday.
The event, previously known as the Georgia March for Life, will begin at 11:30 a.m. at Liberty Plaza in downtown Atlanta, adjacent to the Georgia State Capitol.
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A bill introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly would criminalize abortion trafficking of minors.
HB 1895 “creates the criminal offense of abortion trafficking of a minor; provides for a civil action against a person committing the offense of abortion trafficking of a minor for the wrongful death of an unborn child that was aborted,” according to its summary.
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Wisconsin Republicans introduced a bill Friday that would ban abortion at 14 weeks, just months ahead of the 2024 presidential primary.
The bill would limit abortions in the state by an additional six weeks since Wisconsin already has a 20-week ban on the books, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In addition to passing the legislature and getting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ signature, the bill would also have to appear on the ballot for voters during the state’s primary election in April, which is just months before the presidential election in November.
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Thousands of people attended the annual March for Life, joined by high-profile advocates and speakers, in Washington, D.C., on Friday to oppose abortion amid a massive snowstorm that blanketed the city.
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Attorney General Austin Knudsen of Montana stopped an abortion ballot proposal from going through on Tuesday, claiming it was “legally insufficient,” according to the Montana Free Press.
Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana launched the ballot initiative in November 2023, which would prevent “the government from denying or burdening the right to abortion before fetal viability,” according to the Idaho Capital Sun. Knudsen dismissed the proposal, arguing in a memorandum that it was “legally insufficient” and “logrolls multiple distinct political choices into a single initiative,” the Montana Free Press reported.
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It sounds so simple. Take these pills, and your problem will be over—except, it isn’t. People do not forget an event so significant. A few months ago, social media went into a frenzy when Britney Spears shared that she was pressured by her boyfriend 20 years ago to take abortion pills. After two decades she still described the chemical abortion as “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.” She is not alone.
The abortion industry has worked overtime to convince women that chemical abortions are “very safe”—even making the claim that they are safer than Tylenol. They attempt to conflate chemical abortions with contraceptive pills to push them on moms as a “safe” way to end a pregnancy. But the drugs used in a chemical abortion are far more dangerous.
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One of the prosecutors helping special counsel Jack Smith prosecute former President Donald Trump for alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election also worked on a high-profile case against a pro-life activist.
Molly Gaston, a prosecutor who spent years in the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office and is now playing a key role on Smith’s team, worked on the early stages of the prosecution of pro-life activist Lauren Handy. Handy had been in jail since August when she, along with four co-defendants, were found guilty of violating the Freedom of Access To Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for blocking access to a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic in 2020.
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Former President Donald Trump has gained traction with several pro-life groups in his bid for the GOP nomination despite the movement’s heavy criticism of him over the last several months for changing his position on abortion, according to The Washington Post.
Trump has said in the past that he would not support a 15-week federal abortion ban and in September he claimed that he did not “frankly care” whether there was a federal or state ban on abortion, according to Axios. Pro-life groups such as Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-Life America and Students for Life (SFL) had called out Trump for failing to support the pro-life movement but recently stated that while he is not the most ideal candidate, the former president has gotten the job done in the past, according to the Post.
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The most recent report on abortion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is out and, as usual, it’s grim.
The number of abortions rose from 620,327 in 2020 to 625,978 in 2021. The key drivers in this depressing increase are a greater use of dangerous chemical abortion pills and weakened safety protocols governing the use of such pills.
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To borrow from an old saying, nothing can be certain except for death and taxpayer funding for the abortion industry. At the request of pro-life members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office released the latest round of data detailing how much taxpayer funding goes to Planned Parenthood and other international abortion organizations. From 2019 through 2021, Planned Parenthood in the U.S. received $1.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies.
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Kate Cox asked the Texas Supreme Court to give her permission to abort her unborn baby, a baby that has a condition known as trisomy 18. On Monday, her lawyers said that she will go to another state to end the baby’s life. That same day, the court said Texas law didn’t require her to ask its permission.
Trisomy 18 is a condition where a baby has an extra copy of chromosome 18, making it highly likely that the baby will die in the womb or shortly after birth—though some babies with trisomy 18 do survive, such as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s daughter. Cox’s lawyers have argued that by not aborting her baby, Cox is jeopardizing her health and future fertility.
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The Arizona Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in a case involving challenges to Arizona’s 1864 law that mostly banned abortion. The Arizona Legislature passed a law in 2022 banning abortions after 15 weeks, anticipating the U.S. Supreme Court reversing Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson. The reversal also revived the older law, which was initially passed when Arizona was still a territory. In October 2022, the Arizona Court of Appeals found that the two laws were in conflict, and placed an injunction on the older law from going into effect as to physicians, effectively allowing abortions to take place up to 15 weeks under the new law.
Since Attorney General Kris Mayes declined to pursue the case after the appeals court ruling, Dr. Eric Hazelrigg, an obstetrician and medical director of Choices Pregnancy Center in Arizona, filed a petition in March asking the state’s high court to review the ruling and the injunction, which it agreed to do. Former Attorney General Mark Brnovich had initially asked a court to reinstate the original pro-life law, which was blocked in 1973 due to Roe, but the trial court’s revival of the law was quickly reversed by the appeals court.
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Abortion advocacy groups received close to $2 billion in federal taxpayer funding from 2019 to 2021, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released on Tuesday.
The GAO report was first requested in early 2022 by 142 congressional members led by Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, who underscored their concerns that taxpayer dollars are being used to fund abortion services. The report revealed that Planned Parenthood received approximately $1.78 billion in taxpayer funding from 2019 to 2021 and is receiving increased federal support under the current Biden administration.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) denied that Virginia Republicans suffered from his political action committee’s heavy campaigning to restrict abortion during the November elections during a Monday interview. However, the governor also acknowledged the majority of Americans are “living paycheck to paycheck” in remarks that follow a leadership challenge against his allies in the House of Delegates, which was reportedly orchestrated due to frustrations over Republicans’ failure to campaign on the economy.
Responding to criticisms that Virginia Republicans may have suffered due to Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC spending heavily in favor of restricting abortion during the 2023 elections, the governor told Bloomberg that campaigning on abortion “was not a mistake.” He seemed to argue the issue gave Republicans something to run on, telling the outlet, “I firmly believe that one of the challenges that we have had as Republicans is we haven’t been clear on what we’re going to do.”
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Alabama Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Tuesday ended his nearly 10-month hold on most military promotions over the Department of Defense’s abortion policies.
Tuberville made his stand in response to Pentagon policy using taxpayers’ money to give service members time off and pay to travel to other states for abortions. The policy from the Biden administration was enacted after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
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The process to remove abortion restrictions in Ohio is under way after voters enshrined abortion rights in the state’s constitution in November.
Reps. Anita Somani, D-Dublin, and Beth Liston, D-Dubin, formally introduced legislation to ease the restrictions but no hearings have been set in the House.
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Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D) signed a petition on Tuesday that calls for a public referendum to allow Arizonans to vote on whether to enshrine abortion access into the state’s constitution.
In remarks made before the media ahead of signing the petition, Hobbs claimed the abortion referendum is “about women’s ability to wholly participate and thrive in our society and our economy.”
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A Nevada judge ruled against a “misleading” petition to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution Wednesday, claiming that it violates the “single subject rule.”
In October, the Coalition for Parents and Children (CPC) PAC filed a lawsuit against a petition by Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom (NRF) to put an amendment on the ballot that protects access to abortion and birth control, and prenatal and postpartum care, according to The Hill. Carson City District Court Judge James Russell said that he was dismissing the petition because it did not focus on just abortion and, therefore, violated the “single subject rule,” according to the ruling.
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The Missouri Supreme Court ruled against Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s request to change the language of a proposed abortion amendment’s language Monday, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
An appeals court had ruled earlier this month that Ashcroft’s summaries of the amendment were “argumentative” and “politically partisan” because of his use of terms like “unborn child,” which the court considered “problematic.” Ashcroft appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court but the justices declined to hear his appeal, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly announced joint legislative plans on Monday to enshrine abortion access into the state’s constitution, raise the minimum wage, automatically restore voting rights for felons, and ban AR-15 rifles. The plans were released after Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) said he would pursue bipartisan legislation in the Democrat-controlled General Assembly.
Virginia Democrats in both chambers of the legislature say they submitted four bills on Monday, the first day of prefiling for the 2024 General Assembly Session, which seek to make good on the party’s campaign partisan campaign promises.
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