Two high courts dealt blows to abortion rights advocates on Monday in decisions affecting abortion access in Georgia and Texas — rulings that could have an impact on Democrats’ attempts to narrow leads in both states before the November elections.
In Georgia, the state Supreme Court reinstated the state’s ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. That ruling came roughly one week after a lower court ruled that the state must revert to previous rules banning abortion after about 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a Biden administration appeal of a lower court decision that limited the ability of hospitals to provide emergency abortions that go against Texas’ abortion law, effectively leaving the Texas law in effect.
The rulings could provide fuel to Democrats’ election year message of reproductive rights. Democrats including presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris have made abortion rights their top issue for 2024 and both Georgia and Texas are considered critical for messaging on this issue.
One of the Harris campaign’s biggest surrogates on this issue is Amanda Zurawski, a Texas plaintiff in a third, separate abortion-related case. Zurawski was denied an abortion when her water ruptured at 18 weeks. She was left with permanent damage to her fallopian tubes.
Harris also spoke last month with the family of Amber Nicole Thurman, a Georgia woman who died of sepsis after she was unable to receive abortion services in-state. Harris used a separate speech in Atlanta to tie deaths like Thurman’s to abortion policies made possible by former President Donald Trump and continued to call attention to Thurman’s story including during an appearance on the popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast this weekend.
The Harris-Walz campaign critiqued Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance on Monday for remarks he made this weekend when asked about the Georgia law. The Ohio senator told Atlanta’s 11Alive that “I don’t know the full details of Georgia’s heartbeat bill or the litigation that’s happened over it.”
“Trump and Vance think they can rip away women’s freedoms and dodge the consequences — but voters know exactly what’s at stake,” said Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson Sarafina Chitika in a statement Monday following the court decision.
Monday’s court decisions provide Democrats with additional opportunities to hammer on the issue in Georgia, a highly watched swing state that President Joe Biden carried in 2020, and in Texas, where Democrats hope to pick up a Senate seat.
A Quinnipiac University poll from last week found 50 percent of likely Georgia voters in favor of Trump compared to 44 percent for Harris. A separate poll from the Cook Political Report Swing State Project Survey puts the GOP presidential nominee at 49 percent to Harris’ 47 percent among Georgia voters.
Texas
In Texas, national Democrats last month announced that they were funding a late, multimillion-dollar blitz to bolster Rep. Colin Allred, the Democrat seeking to unseat GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Allred has highlighted his support of reproductive rights and criticized Cruz for his vocal opposition to abortion. Texas has one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans, which abortion rights activists say is vaguely worded and could jeopardize the life of a pregnant patient.
Allred and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee began airing an ad featuring women who were unable to terminate their pregnancies in Texas because health care workers were unable to determine if the care would comply with the law.
Among the women in the ad was Kate Cox, who was forced to leave the state to obtain an abortion after genetic testing disclosed that her fetus had a condition with a low chance of survival. Cox also shared her story at the Democratic National Convention in August. She sued the state of Texas last year to terminate her pregnancy; the Texas Supreme Court overturned a court order that would have allowed her to get an abortion hours after her lawyers said she was leaving the state to terminate her nonviable pregnancy.
On Monday, in response to the Supreme Court’s action, Allred continued the criticism of Cruz.
“To deny women in emergencies the life-saving abortion care they need is outrageous, and this only furthers dangerous uncertainty for Texas women,” Allred said on the social media platform X. “These decisions should be made by women and their doctors – not judges or politicians like Ted Cruz.”
Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales recently downgraded Cruz’s chances of winning, shifting its rating of the race from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.
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