Written by Andrew Naughtie | May 03, 2022 |
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No issue divides or inflames American public opinion like abortion, and no Supreme Court decision of the modern era has the totemic importance of Roe v Wade. Decades of attacks on reproductive freedoms have shown that Roe and its sequel, Planned Parenthood v Casey, have always been extremely vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of presidential and congressional power – or to be more precise, subject to the two parties' willingness to play political hardball when it comes to shaping the court. In recent years, it was the Republicans who were prepared to plumb the depths of cynicism by refusing to even hold hearings for Barack Obama's last nominee, Merrick Garland, on the nonsensical pretext that he had been nominated in the months before an election. Four years later, having installed two Trump appointees, they then confirmed the hardline social conservative Amy Coney Barrett under exactly the same circumstances they had cited during the Garland farce. The likely results of these maneuvers are now rendered in black-and-white in Samuel Alito's caustic draft opinion, which reports say has already gathered the support of up to five of the court's justices. For now, while the justices finalize their opinions and dissents, and protesters gather outside the court in droves, the right's priority is to rout out the source of the leak – and the Democrats are once again left wondering what to do about an institution they have so far failed to reform. |
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Politico's publication of a leaked initial draft of the Supreme Court's majority opinion effectively killing Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey detonated a grenade that had been a long time coming. Conservatives, who have spent the better part of the last four decades attempting to build a conservative majority on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, are now effectively the dog that chased the car. Meanwhile, Democrats seem vindicated after years of saying that Republicans would gut access to abortion. But now that it's likely going to happen, both of them face significant disadvantages. A Washington Post/ABC News poll published on Sunday found that 47 per cent of voters trust Democrats as opposed to Republicans on abortion. That number is likely to nosedive even more if this leaked draft becomes the official opinion of the Supreme Court. "This is like, really unprecedented, and just to be frank with you is going to piss a lot of people off across the country," Marcela Mulholland, political director for the progressive polling outlet Data for Progress. "And there's been a lot of talk about this being a tough midterm cycle for Democrats, but I really think there's no telling how a decision like this could have ramifications and really be a backlash against conservatives who are stripping people of their constitutional rights to bodily autonomy." Meanwhile, one Republican strategist who your dispatcher texted on background had this to say: "Most of the GOP will remain on the offensive regarding inflation, crime and immigration while the Democrats will try to use it to draw female voters away from the growing wave coming at them in November." But that doesn't mean Democrats are in the clear on abortion. Last year, the House of Representatives passed the Women's Health Protection Act and only one Democrat voted against it: Representative Henry Cuellar, who represents South Texas and is facing a primary challenger in Jessica Cisneros, whom Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supports. But the legislation died in the Senate. This makes it harder for Democrats to argue that they will protect abortion rights, which could discourage supporters of abortion rights less enthusiastic about turning out. |
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What else you need to know today |
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- Further bad news for Joe Biden on the economy as new polling shows voters have less and less confidence in their leaders' ability to handle the multiple problems they face, including rising inflation and fuel prices. That said, Mr Biden does at least poll marginally higher than his Democratic counterparts in Congress – and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill score almost the same low rating.
- As another Capitol rioter was found guilty on multiple charges, a judge dismissed an attempt by the Republican National Committee to stop the 6 January committee accessing fundraising emails sent by the party to supporters in advance of the insurrection. The committee followed that victory by requesting new information from three GOP congressmen – Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks and Ronny Jackson – who are thought to understand more than they have conveyed about how the riot came about, what Donald Trump did while it was underway, and who was involved in laying the groundwork for it. Meanwhile, Mr Trump has announced he will be holding a rally in Wyoming in support of a challenger to the state's sole congresswoman, Liz Cheney, a committee member who enraged the former president by voting for his impeachment after the riot and subsequently joining the top congressional investigation into its causes.
- As the headline-grabbing This Will Not Pass hits the shelves with its deep reporting on the transition between the Trump and Biden administrations, two other major Trump-era memoirs are on the way – both of them from people who sat at the center of the administration. Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and a top adviser throughout his term, will in August be publishing his memoir Breaking History, in which he is expected to focus in particular on the so-called Abraham Accords that he helped to broker. On a very different note, former defense secretary Mark Esper is putting out a volume titled A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times, which has already confirmed a story that Mr Trump wanted to see Black Lives Matter protesters shot in the legs by the military when they demonstrated outside the White House in 2020.
- The governor of Missouri has refused clemency for death row inmate Carman Deck, who has appealed to the US Supreme Court to have his execution halted. Mr Deck has seen his capital sentence thrown out three times because of procedural errors, but the highest court in the land declined to hear his case, leaving him at the governor's mercy. Yet Republican Tennessee governor Bill Lee has paused all pending executions by lethal injection while the state evaluates its execution protocol. Lethal injection has proven extremely controversial in recent years due to concerns about the hours of extreme pain that it can entail if wrongly implemented – an event that anti-death penalty campaigners say violates legal protections against "cruel and unusual punishment".
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Of all the names associated with the fate of Roe v Wade, one in particular sticks out: Hillary Clinton, whose defeat in 2016 cleared the way for Donald Trump to appoint three Supreme Court justices whose votes look set to eliminate the right for American women to end their pregnancies. Last night, before the leaked opinion was first exposed, Ms Clinton appeared at New York's upbeat Met Gala for the first time in two decades, wearing a gown embroidered with the names of American women she admires. The substantial number of left-leaning voters and commentators who complained there wasn't enough to differentiate Ms Clinton from her opponent have now been given something to think about. |
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