Closing Summary
It is slightly past 4pm in Washington DC. Here is a wrap up of the day’s key events:
President Joe Biden has issued a statement to mark the one-year anniversary of the supreme court’s overturn of Roe, which he said “has already had devastating consequences.” “States have imposed extreme and dangerous abortion bans that put the health and lives of women in jeopardy, force women to travel hundreds of miles for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide.”
Vice-President Kamala Harris took the stage in North Carolina on Saturday and delivered an impassioned address on restoring nationwide reproductive freedoms following a year since the supreme court’s decision to strip them. Speaking to a crowd full of supporters including healthcare professionals and activists, Harris said: “How dare they? How dare they attack basic healthcare? How dare they attack our fundamental rights? How dare they attack our freedom?”
A handful of Democratic lawmakers have pledged their support on Saturday to protect and fight for reproductive rights as the country marks first anniversary of Roe’s overturn. “House Dems are working hard to stop these extremists and restore reproductive freedom. Together we will win,” wrote Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader. US representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland tweeted: “Pro-choice America won’t rest until we restore women’s freedom as law of the land.”
As reproductive rights activists protested against the end of Roe v Wade, anti-abortion leaders celebrated one year since the landmark decision was overturned. Speaking at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in Washington, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, framed the end of Roe as just the beginning of right-wing activists’ work.
Arizona’s Democratic governor Katie Hobbs has signed an executive order that will further protect reproductive rights across the state and curtail restrictive reproductive legislation from Republicans. On Friday, Hobbs tweeted about her executive order, saying, “I will not allow extreme and out of touch politicians to get in the way of the fundamental rights of Arizonans.”
Several reproductive rights organizations have announced their endorsement of the Biden-Harris administration in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. The organizations include Planned Parenthood, NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) Pro-Choice America , and EMILYs List, a political action committee dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women into office.
More than a quarter of registered US voters say they will only vote for candidates who share their beliefs on abortion, according to a poll released earlier this week, a total (28%) one point higher than last year. The survey, from Gallup, was released before the first anniversary of Dobbs v Jackson, by which conservatives on the supreme court removed the right to abortion that had been safeguarded since Roe v Wade in 1973.
That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.
Amnesty International on Roe v Wade overturn: 'Unprecedented human rights crisis'
Human rights organization Amnesty International has issued a statement condemning the supreme court’s decision a year ago to strip federal reproductive right protections.
Tarah Demant, the national programs director at Amnesty International USA said:
“One year after the Supreme Court shamefully stripped millions of their rights, women, girls, and people who can become pregnant in the United States are facing an unprecedented human rights crisis.
A patchwork of devastating laws now blankets the country. One in three women and girls of reproductive age now live in states where abortion access is either totally or near-totally inaccessible…and a climate of fear is being purposefully sewn to restrict women, girls, and people who can get pregnant from finding legal abortion care.
“Yet despite these coordinated and vitriolic attacks on our rights, Americans continue to overwhelmingly support access to safe and legal abortion, multiple states have added new protections, and activists across states continue to advocate for their rights. Abortion is a human right and basic healthcare, and activists across the country and around the world are more determined than ever to ensure that people across the USA will be able to access this right.”
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A Planned Parenthood abortion-providing clinic in Fairview Heights, Illinois saw a 700% increase in abortion-seeking patients from out of state.
According to a new report by Jezebel, Planned Parenthood said that the 700% increase in out-of-stage patients seeking abortions in their Fairview Heights clinic comes along with a 35% increase in abortion patients overall who came to the clinic in the last year.
Speaking to the outlet, Yamelsie Rodriguez, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Services of St. Louis region’s Planned Parenthood branch, said that the patients coming to her clinic hail from 29 states and are “mostly from the South.”
The Guttmacher Institute has categorized Illinois as a state with “protective” abortion policies. Currently, abortion is banned at fetal viability, generally 24–26 weeks of pregnancy, and state Medicaid funds cover abortions.
In addition, Illinois has a shield law that protects abortion providers from investigations launched by other states.
Following the overturn of Roe vs. Wade, women of color have found themselves struggling even more to access reproductive healthcare in a medical and political landscape that has traditionally failed them.
The Guardian’s reproductive rights reporter Poppy Noor profiled two women, Anya Cook and Samantha Casiano, on their experiences of being denied abortions in post-Roe America.
Here is the full story on Cook and Samantha’s experiences and how they reflect the harsh realities faced by countless of other women of color in America:
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In a video address on Saturday, New York attorney general Letitia James reaffirmed New York’s status as a safe haven for abortion seekers and promised to continue fighting for reproductive rights.
James said:
“A ban on abortions will not ban abortions. It will only ban safe abortions.
But it’s important to know that New York is a sanctuary city and state and that we provide assistance to young women, individuals who need reproductive care…
Here in New York, we believe in you having control over your body and we believe in providing you with healthcare.
I will continue to fight and to use the law to protect your rights each and every day.”
Barbara Lee, a US representative from California since 1998, has pledged to continue fighting for reproductive rights in light of the first anniversary of Roe’s overturn.
“I’m going to keep fighting for every person who finds herself in the same situation I was once in: pregnant, out of options, and forced to take extreme measures,” Lee tweeted.
As we mark the 1 year anniversary of losing our right to an abortion with #Roe, I'm vowing to keep fighting.
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) June 23, 2023
I’m going to keep fighting for every person who finds herself in the same situation I was once in: pregnant, out of options, and forced to take extreme measures. pic.twitter.com/0xyJb9tnhQ
Lee, a longtime champion of women’s rights, is the author of the EACH Woman Act which would repeal the discriminatory Hyde Amendment that has restricted many women’s access to reproductive healthcare, her website said.
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Singer Demi Lovato has released a new song inspired by the first anniversary of Roe v Wade’s overturn.
Lovato titled the pro-choice song “Swine,” which was released on Thursday.
“It’s been one year since the Supreme Court’s decision to dismantle the constitutional right to a safe abortion, and although the path forward will be challenging, we must continue to be united in our fight for reproductive justice.
I created ‘SWINE’ to amplify the voices of those who advocate for choice and bodily autonomy. I want this song to empower not only the birthing people of this country, but everyone who stands up for equality, to embrace their agency and fight for a world where every person’s right to make decisions about their own body is honored,” Lovato wrote in an Instagram caption.
The music video features Lovato in front of men who appear to represent supreme court justices as she leads a revolt.
“My life, my voice/My rights, my choice/It’s mine, or I’m just swine,” she sings. “My blood, my loins/My lungs, my noise/It’s mine, or I’m just swine,” she sings.
It’s been one year since the Supreme Court's decision to dismantle the constitutional right to a safe abortion, and although the path forward will be challenging, we must continue to be united in our fight for reproductive justice. I created ‘SWINE’ to amplify the voices of those… pic.twitter.com/bOayj5Z3Qj
— Demi Lovato (@ddlovato) June 22, 2023
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Here are some images coming through the newswires as people across the country attend rallies marking the one-year anniversary of Roe’s overturn:
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Chelsea Clinton has also chimed in on first anniversary of the supreme court’s decision that stripped federal protections of reproductive rights from women, saying that she’s “really f**king angry.”
In an interview at Aspen: Health in Aspen, Colorado, NBC host Kristen Welker asked the daughter of former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton on her thoughts about the supreme court’s decision.
Clinton replied:
“I’m really f**king angry and I am — and that is an uncomfortable place to be because of the historical women tropes that so often have been used to kind of silence and diminish women and our voices, not just in this country but throughout human history. But I’m really angry because we know that women have died.”
'I'm really f*cking angry ... women have died' — Chelsea Clinton shared candid thoughts about the upcoming 1-year anniversary of SCOTUS' Dobbs decision while speaking at the Aspen Ideas: Health summit pic.twitter.com/OC3mRPsMWX
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 23, 2023
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Vice-President Kamala Harris on supreme court's overturn of Roe: 'How dare they?'
Vice-President Kamala Harris took the stage in North Carolina on Saturday and delivered an impassioned address on restoring nationwide reproductive freedoms following a year since the supreme court’s decision to strip them.
Speaking to a crowd full of supporters including healthcare professionals and activists, Harris said:
“How dare they? How dare they attack basic healthcare? How dare they attack our fundamental rights? How dare they attack our freedom?…
In the midst of this healthcare crisis, extremist so-called leaders in states across our nation have proposed or passed more than 350 new laws to restrict these freedoms and the right to have access to reproductive healthcare. Right now in our country, 23 million women of reproductive age live in a state with an extreme abortion ban in effect…
Most of us here know is that many women don’t even know they are pregnant in six weeks. Which by the way tells us most of these politicians don’t even understand how the body actually works. They don’t get it,” Harris continued.
She went on to issue a strong warning towards Republican lawmakers in Congress, saying:
Extremist Republicans in Congress have proposed to ban abortion nationwide. But I have news for them. We’re not having that. We’re not standing for that. We won’t let that happen. And by the way, the majority of Americans are with us.
The majority of Americans, I do believe, agree that one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body…
The United States Congress must put back in place what the Supreme court took away.”
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A handful of Democratic lawmakers have pledged their support on Saturday to protect and fight for reproductive rights as the country marks first anniversary of Roe’s overturn.
“House Dems are working hard to stop these extremists and restore reproductive freedom. Together we will win,” wrote Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader.
Right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court shamefully overturned #RoevWade 1 yr ago.
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) June 24, 2023
MAGA Republicans in Congress want to impose a nationwide ban on abortion care.
House Dems are working hard to stop these extremists and restore reproductive freedom.
Together we will win.
“A year after SCOTUS’ disastrous Dobbs decision, I’m highlighting that districts like mine – and Black women in particular – are hurting the most,” said US representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas’s 30th district.
“My district is 40% Black and majority women. It’s the people I represent that are hurt by life-saving medical care the most … North Texas has the highest rate of hospitalization due to pregnancy complications in the entire state … For all their talk about protecting babies, let me ask you this: What happens to the already born children of a mother who dies from pregnancy complications because she can’t get the treatment she needs during an ectopic pregnancy? Who’s protecting them?” Crockett added.
It's been a year of trauma & terror for women across the country, especially in states like Texas where Roe was our last line of defense.
— Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (@RepJasmine) June 24, 2023
A year after SCOTUS' disastrous Dobbs decision, I'm highlighting that districts like mine—and Black women in particular—are hurting the most. pic.twitter.com/vfz2P44YKH
US representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland tweeted: “Pro-choice America won’t rest until we restore women’s freedom as law of the land.”
One year after the Supreme Court's disgraceful Dobbs decision, two American futures stand opposed: one upholding women’s rights & health care, one defined by theocrats, misogynists and fanatics.
— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) June 24, 2023
Pro-choice America won't rest until we restore women’s freedom as law of the land.
Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois echoed similar sentiments, saying:
“Let’s be honest: Republicans’ anti-choice agenda is not about protecting life. If it was, perhaps they would help us tackle our maternal mortality crisis or do something–anything–to help end gun violence. But they don’t. Because it’s not about saving lives. It’s about control…
Look, I know that a lot of us are tired from the seemingly endless fight to protect our most basic human rights. But we have to do more. Congress has to do more.”
Look, I know that a lot of us are tired from the seemingly endless fight to protect our most basic human rights.
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) June 24, 2023
But we have to do more.
Congress has to do more.
I'll never stop working to restore and enshrine the right to choose for every American in every state.
House Democrats also joined the pledges as they released compilation of various members promising to protect reproductive freedoms:
One year ago, SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade — leaving millions of Americans without access to essential health care.
— House Democrats (@HouseDemocrats) June 24, 2023
Every day since the Dobbs decision, House Democrats have fought to restore reproductive freedom and protect access to contraception.
We won’t back down. pic.twitter.com/jMVeGicHiw
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As reproductive rights activists protested against the end of Roe v Wade, anti-abortion leaders celebrated one year since the landmark decision was overturned.
Speaking at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in Washington, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, framed the end of Roe as just the beginning of right-wing activists’ work.
“We are at the starting line,” Dannenfelser said. “We have just begun. We have just begun a journey to start saving lives.”
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of anti-abortion group Susan B Anthony List, says she just came from the Lincoln Memorial, where she was celebrating one year since the end of Roe:
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) June 24, 2023
“We’re at the starting line. We’ve just begun. We’ve just begun a journey to start saving lives.” pic.twitter.com/4CrNQ2Celh
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More people are feeling backed into a corner after the supreme court struck down the nationwide right to abortion last year, with many turning to birth control.
In one of our latest features in our ‘A year without Roe’ series, Ema O’Connor explores the way that people’s relationships with birth control have evolved over the past year.
O’Connor reports:
Dr Rachel Neal, an OB-GYN working out of Atlanta, Georgia, said she has seen a trend toward LARCs nationally over the past six years, in part due to Trump’s presidency, as well as medicaid expansion and more insurance plans covering long term contraceptives.
But in the past year Dr Neal has also seen an increased skepticism about any methods – including many birth control pills and IUDS – that pause or stop menstruation altogether.
Before Roe was overturned, Dr Neal said that patients often saw not getting their periods as a positive side effect because they didn’t have to deal with cramps or spend money on tampons.
“Now they’re uneasy towards methods that cause them to have no periods because they want to … prove to themselves that they’re not pregnant,” Dr Neal said.
For the full story, click here:
Biden issues statement on one-year anniversary of Roe v Wade overturn
President Joe Biden has issued a statement to mark the one-year anniversary of the supreme court’s overturn of Roe, which he said “has already had devastating consequences.”
"States have imposed extreme and dangerous abortion bans that put the health and lives of women in jeopardy, force women to travel hundreds of miles for care, and threaten to criminalize doctors for providing the health care that their patients need and that they are trained to provide.
Yet state bans are just the beginning. Congressional Republicans want to ban abortion nationwide, but go beyond that, by taking FDA-approved medication for terminating a pregnancy, off the market, and make it harder to obtain contraception. Their agenda is extreme, dangerous, and out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans.
My administration will continue to protect access to reproductive health care and call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe. vs. Wade in federal law once and for all.”
One year ago, the Supreme Court took away a constitutional right from the American people, denying women the right to choose.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 24, 2023
My Administration has taken swift and strong action – but the job isn't finished until Congress codifies the protections of Roe v. Wade once and for all. pic.twitter.com/NjoQrW6Kj3
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In a recent interview, actor and comedian Natalie Morales spoke to the Guardian about her fight for reproductive rights, her own coming out journey and her film Plan B.
The Guardian’s Andrew Lawrence reports:
“One of the main things in it is the conscience clause, a law that already exists in many states and is growing in others where a pharmacist can deny a prescription to anybody based on their personal beliefs, even if that prescription is legal,” Morales said of the film during a Zoom call earlier this month…
Not only that, but many places are trying to outlaw the Plan B pill – which is not even an abortifacient! I’ve never understood why, if you’re against abortion, you would also be against contraceptives. That has never made sense to me.”
For the full interview, click here:
61% of voters disapprove of the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, according to a new poll by NBC.
The results, which NBC released on Friday, showed that amongst women, 67% disapproved of the decision while 31% approved.
Amongst 18 and 49-year old women, 77% disapproved while 21% indicated otherwise.
Two-thirds of suburban women, 66%, surveyed also cited their disapproval, while 33% said they approved.
Amongst white, Black and Latino voters, a majority said they disagreed with the decision (with 57% of white voters, 78% of Black voters, and 70% of Latino voters indicating so).
92% of Democrats surveyed disagreed with the decision while 31% of Republicans said they disproved.
The Guardian’s reproductive rights reporter Poppy Noor reflects on her year of covering the erosion of women’s rights across the country following the overturn of Roe v Wade.
In her personal piece, Noor describes her experience of reporting on harrowing and heartbreaking stories of women struggling with abortion access and the multitude of complexities they face following the stripping of federal reproductive rights in the United States.
“In an abortion context obsessed with a very particular kind of religious morality, the changes a body goes through in a pregnancy sometimes feel like an afterthought,” Noor writes.
For Noor’s full story, click here:
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Arizona governor signs executive order to protect reproductive rights
Arizona’s Democratic governor Katie Hobbs has signed an executive order that will further protect reproductive rights across the state and curtail restrictive reproductive legislation from Republicans.
On Friday, Hobbs tweeted about her executive order, saying, “I will not allow extreme and out of touch politicians to get in the way of the fundamental rights of Arizonans.”
The executive order includes the following measures:
Centralizes all abortion related prosecutions under the state attorney general
Directs state agencies to not assist in investigations relating to providing, assisting seeking or obtaining reproductive healthcare
Declines extradition requests from other states seeking to prosecute individuals who provide, assist, seek or receive abortion services legal in Arizona
Establishes the Governor’s Advisory Council on Protecting Reproductive Freedom to make recommendations that expand access to reproductive healthcare
I signed an Executive Order protecting Arizonans’ reproductive freedom. I will not allow extreme and out of touch politicians to get in the way of the fundamental rights of Arizonans. My Executive Order does four things to the full extent of my authority: pic.twitter.com/2digbGB6EM
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) June 23, 2023
Reproductive rights organization endorse Biden-Harris administration for 2024
Several reproductive rights organizations have announced their endorsement of the Biden-Harris administration in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
The organizations include Planned Parenthood, NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) Pro-Choice America , and EMILYs List, a political action committee dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women into office.
“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been committed to fighting back against the onslaught of attacks against our reproductive freedom. And we need them to continue this critical work.
Abortion is health care… We need leaders who are committed to protecting our freedoms, not taking them away. That is why we must re-elect President Biden and Vice President Harris: people we can trust to keep rebuilding a path forward, because we know the journey to rebuilding our rights will be met with challenges,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
NARAL-Pro Choice America echoed similar sentiments, with its president Mini Timmaraju saying:
“President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are the strongest advocates for reproductive freedom ever to occupy the White House, and NARAL Pro-Choice America proudly endorses their reelection. It’s as simple as this: Abortion matters to Americans. In elections since the Supreme Court took away our right to abortion, voters have mobilized in massive numbers to elect Democrats who will fight to restore it...”
EMILYs List president Laphonza Butler released the following statement:
“When the Dobbs decision ended a constitutional right for the first time in this country’s history, we were grateful to have leaders in the White House like President Biden and Vice President Harris, who have been vocal advocates for abortion rights across the government and across the country… For her work as a groundbreaker, tireless advocate for reproductive freedom, and inspiring change-maker, EMILYs List is thrilled to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for reelection.”
Updated
More than a quarter of registered US voters say they will only vote for candidates who share their beliefs on abortion, according to a poll released earlier this week, a total (28%) one point higher than last year.
The survey, from Gallup, was released before the first anniversary of Dobbs v Jackson, by which conservatives on the supreme court removed the right to abortion that had been safeguarded since Roe v Wade in 1973.
A majority of Americans think abortion should be legal at least in some form. Since Dobbs, abortion rights has been seen as a vital motivating factor in a succession of Democratic successes.
One aspect of Roe being overturned is that trainee OB-GYNs in states where abortion is now banned lost their access to training.
Texas is one of those states where clinics have stopped providing abortion care to patients as well as training to medical residents.
Yet as a part of a national program requirement, under the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), medics need to have experience in abortion procedures to become an OB-GYN physician.
In Texas, abortion training is now limited to miscarriage procedures, but not hands-on abortion care.
Melanie Sevcenko spoke to OB-GYN residents to find out how they’ve been coping in the past 12 months and how Dobbs has changed the practice of medicine in the US:
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While the American public is largely in favour of abortion provision, a large part of the Republican party is not.
And yesterday, some of the GOP’s most influential evangelical Christian figures assembled in Washington to celebrate the anniversary of the supreme court’s Dobbs ruling.
The Associated Press reports:
At Friday’s Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference, activists urged Republican presidential candidates to push for more abortion restrictions.
Democrats, on the other hand, insist the issue will help them going into the 2024 election. Donald Trump is set to give the keynote address Saturday night.
Former vice-president Mike Pence called for a national ban on abortion at least 15 weeks of pregnancy. He told the conference:
The battle for life is far from over. We’ve not come to the end of our cause. We’ve simply come to the end of the beginning.” …
“We must not rest and we must not relent until we restore the sanctity of life to the center of American law in every state in this country. Every Republican candidate for president should support a ban on abortion before 15 weeks as a minimum nationwide standard.”
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who is also running for the Republican 2024 nomination, thanked God for the high court’s abortion ruling.
The supreme court ruling to overturn Roe v Wade has led to a patchwork of vastly unequal access to reproductive care across the US.
Abortion is banned in 14 states and severely restricted in five more. The Guardian’s Andrew Witherspoon, Jessica Glenza, Noa Yachot and Alvin Chang crunched the data and compiled the abortion bans now in place to create the map in the article below to show where state abortion laws stand as of 13 June 2023.
Welcome to our live coverage of the first anniversary of the supreme court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the overturning of Roe v Wade.
A year ago today, Scotus ruled that abortion is no longer federally protected, which means states now have the power to regulate the procedure as they see fit.
Since the Dobbs ruling, abortion bans invalidated by Roe v Wade in some states were resurrected. Elsewhere, “trigger laws”, designed to ban abortion if federal protections were overturned, went into effect. In other states, new bans were passed.
Abortion is now banned in 14 US states and severely restricted in many others.
As demonstrations crop up around the country and we look back on the last year, we will bring you all the latest updates as they happen.
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