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An attendee at an abortion rights rally holds a sign outside the Idaho Capitol on May 14. The U.S. Supreme CourtÂ’s reversal of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, two landmark abortion cases, triggers a law in Idaho that bans most abortions.
Leaked Supreme Court document indicates emergency abortion protection in Idaho
A draft opinion mistakenly posted to the Supreme Court’s website on Wednesday indicated the justices plan to allow for emergency abortions in Idaho and to dismiss Boise’s appeal. The court later released a statement saying no final decision has been issued, but if the leaked decision holds, it could be a sign conservatives are seeing the need to moderate on abortion.
This doesn’t mean abortion will be federally legal again. By dismissing the case, the justices are punting on the question, but it does mean women in Idaho whose health may be threatened by pregnancy-related issues can get an abortion. The case will not affect other states that have implemented limits or bans on abortion care.
Abortion-related leaks are becoming a pattern. The court’s decision in the case that overturned Roe v. Wade and removed federal abortion protections was also leaked early in 2022 (also an election year), to Politico in that instance. Could it could be a symptom of an increasingly politicized court? Leaking an inflammatory opinion may help politicians rally their bases in the runup to Election Day.
We’re watching for how this decision plays into the rhetoric around abortion at tonight’s presidential debate, and whether it has a measurable effect in November.
The sun sets at the U.S. Supreme Court building the week that the court is expected to hear arguments in a Mississippi case that challenges Roe v. Wade in Washington, U.S., November 29, 2021.
Get ready for the SCOTUS deluge
This is the Supreme Court’s last scheduled week for issuing opinions this term — and they have some big questions to decide. At least 14 cases are still outstanding, with big consequences for the election and the US government.
Here are three to watch:
Trump and Jan. 6: Trump claims he is immune from prosecution for virtually any action he took as president, following the argument that Congressional impeachment is the check on his power, not the courts. It’s a very bold claim, one that lower court judges pointed out could mean a president who orders assassinations of his rivals might face no consequences. The court is expected to split a fine hair here, perhaps protecting some forms of conduct but not others.
Federal regulations: Right now, when Congress doesn’t lay out new regulations in excruciating detail (and they usually can’t), federal agencies can fill in their own interpretations. Courts are supposed to defer to those interpretations if they are “reasonable.” But an association of fishermen claims the practice overreaches and that regulation must stay in the hands of the legislative branch.
The justices look set to upend the status quo, with huge ramifications for how the federal government operates. Congress may ultimately need to set up a whole new regulatory body to do the rule writing that agencies are currently doing in-house.
Abortion: Democrats have successfully hammered the GOP on reproductive rights across multiple races since the Supreme Court struck down nationwide abortion protection in 2022. This case argues that one such ban in Idaho is superseded by the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986, which requires doctors to perform abortions in emergencies.
The conservative justices didn’t seem persuaded during oral arguments, so we’ll be watching to see which law prevails.
For more on this year’s major Supreme Court decisions, watch Ian Bremmer’s interview with Emily Bazelonfor GZERO World on PBShere.
Women and babies at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan, January 2024.
Hard Numbers: Spike in forced displacement, Biden signs long-term deal with Kyiv, Thousands face starvation in Sudan, Sharp increase in travel for abortions
120 million: As of May, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide stood at a record 120 million — roughly equivalent to the population of Japan — according to the UN refugee agency, which blamed “new and mutating conflicts” as well as the failure to resolve “long-standing crises.” The conflict in Sudan, in particular, has contributed to the historic level of displacement, the UN said. By the end of 2023, nearly 11 million Sudanese had been driven from their homes.
10: President Joe Biden signed a 10-year security agreement for a range of military assistance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday amid Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia. But if former President Donald Trump — who isn’t a fan of aid for Kyiv — wins in November, he could scrap the agreement without much effort because it hasn’t been ratified by Congress.
756,000: The conflict in Sudan has induced a dire humanitarian crisis. It’s now estimated that 756,000 people in the country could face catastrophic food shortages by September, according to a preliminary projection utilized by UN agencies and other aid groups as they evaluate whether it’s officially a famine. But the US special envoy to Sudan warned Tuesday that parts of the country were already experiencing famine and that the question now is “how much famine, how much of the country, and for how long.”
171,000: New estimates show that roughly 171,000 US patients traveled for an abortion in 2023. By comparison, around 73,000 traveled for abortions in 2019. The sharp increase is indicative of the far-reaching impact of the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, which saw a number of states institute full abortion bans. This includes Texas, a state that saw 14,000 patients travel across the border into New Mexico for abortions last year.
People visit the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, U.S. March 15, 2022.
Supreme Court rejects abortion pill challenge
The nation’s highest court on Thursday unanimously rejected a broad ban on the abortion medication mifepristone, meaning patients and doctors will retain access to the increasingly important drug. Since the same court overturned federal abortion protections two years ago, a raft of states have imposed harsh bans, which has spiked demand for mifepristone since it can be safely mailed from states that permit abortion.
The court rejected arguments from anti-abortion doctors, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing in the decision that their “desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue.” Still, despite the rare unanimous decision, the activists who brought the case say they intend to revive the challenge with a fresh case, likely in a friendly jurisdiction.
They’ll have to wait in line, though. This is the most crowded Supreme Court calendar in recent memory, with over a dozen big decisions expected before the court breaks for summer recess in late June. We have our eye on the most crucial items, including the case over Trump’s claims to presidential immunity, the one that could overturn the entire legal framework for federal agency regulations, and a case that could make a mess out of US tax laws.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad, Iraq April 22, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Erdoğan cannot bank on change, US asks EU to double down on sanctions, SCOTUS mifepristone ruling may not be final word, Chile’s giant camera, Menendez and his love of steak
5: Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ruled that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lacks the authority to fire the country’s central bank governor, a move he’s madefive times in the past five years. It’s a remarkable rebuke for a leader who is battling 75% annual inflation and has repeatedly compromised the independence of Turkey’s leading institutions.
50 billion: According to a leaked document, the US intends to organize a$50 billion loan for Ukraine that’s repaid by profits from frozen Russian assets – but only if the EU agrees to indefinitely extend sanctions against Moscow. Washington wants to avoid accepting full responsibility for the loan if the EU lifts sanctions before the end of the war.
60: The US Supreme Court must rule by the end of the court term in late June or early July on continued legal access to the drug mifepristone, which is used inmore than 60% of all US abortions. But even if they strike down the current challenge to mifepristone, the justices could leave an opening for Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho, each of which has a Republican attorney general, to try to quickly revive the challenge to abortion pills.
3.2: Chile is set to install the largest digital camera ever built for optical astronomy, with a resolution above3.2 gigapixels, in the Atacama Desert. The camera will weigh nearly three tons and is designed to help scientists understand the nature of dark energy and dark matter in the universe.
250: A lawyer representing Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) told a judge presiding over Menendez’s trial on corruption charges, that his client dines at Washington’s famed Morton’s Steakhouse250 nights a year. That may not suggest Menendez is corrupt, but it certainly made this newsletter team feel poor – and a little bit hungrier.
The Arizona for Abortion Access news conference at the law offices of Coppersmith Brockelman in Phoenix.
Arizona courts order near-total abortion ban
The court rejected arguments that it should uphold the 15-week ban the state has followed since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, instead deciding to uphold a more restrictive law passed before Arizona was even a state. When it goes into effect in 15 days, abortion will be a felony punishable by two to five years in prison for anyone who performs or helps a woman obtain one. It makes no exceptions for instances of rape or incest.
It comes a week after a pro-choice group obtained enough signatures last week to put an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution on the ballot in November. This all but ensures that abortion – a major motivating issue for Democratic voters – will play a big role in how the swing state votes in 2024.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump gives a statement on abortion policy, in this screengrab obtained from a video released on April 8, 2024.
Trump embraces status-quo on abortion
Trump’s status-quo position is unlikely to appease the pro-lifers in his party who want national restrictions. But the former president is betting that his appointment of the three justices who overturned the constitutional right to an abortion is enough to keep them on his side.
Reactions from pro-life groups have been mixed. The president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said the organization was “deeply disappointed.” Students for Life of Action, meanwhile, made it clear they’re sticking by Trump but hoping he pursues a more restrictive approach to abortion in the future.
Trump’s move is unlikely to quell the Democratic Party’s advantage from high turnout in states where abortion is on the ballot. The left’s strategy is to amplify stories of women who have been harmed by Republican abortion policies, with the Biden campaign releasing an emotional video testimony hours after Trump’s announcement dropped.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, accused Trump of sowing “cruelty” and “chaos” around the abortion debate because of his role in the Dobbs decision.
Abortion referendums will be on the ballot in at least a few swing states – Florida is confirmed, and Arizona and Nevada are likely – creating a massive weakness for Republicans that Trump’s call for abortion to be left to the states will do nothing to mitigate.
What Florida's abortion rulings mean for the 2024 US election
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC, shares his perspective on US politics.
This is what we are watching in US Politics this week: Abortion.
Abortion is the big story in US politics this week with the Florida state Supreme Court ruling that a ballot initiative that would protect access to abortion up until fetal viability will be on the ballot in abortion in Florida this year. Democrats are excited about this ruling because it was starting to look like Florida was increasingly out of reach for them.
Republicans now out register Democratic voters in the state by over 800,000 registered voters, which is a flip from a decade ago when Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 500,000 registered voters. Florida is looking like more and more of a red state with a massive 20 point victory for Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in the 2022 midterm elections. That's what was making Democrats feel like it wouldn't be a very competitive state in this presidential cycle.
However, with abortion on the ballot, they now see an opportunity for outside groups to come in and spend a bunch of money who otherwise wouldn't have sent money there, forcing Republicans to respond by potentially wasting money there. The state is probably a little bit too red for it to truly be competitive for President Biden in this election cycle.
But this abortion referendum story is going to play out across the country. Democratic activists have the opportunity to get abortion on the ballot in two critical swing states of Nevada and Arizona. But it's unlikely they would show up in the other swing states of Wisconsin or Michigan, because Wisconsin had a recent state Supreme Court decision about it. And Michigan had an abortion referendum in 2022. That doesn't mean they can't find other ways to make this election about access to abortion, which has been a very positive issue for Democrats.
There have been seven state referendums since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And in each of those, the electorate shifted significantly to the left from what they did in the 2020 results, even in deep red states like Kansas and Kentucky. So this is going to be an important issue to keep watching throughout the election. And could be one of the wild cards that helps Joe Biden overcome the bad polls that he's been experiencing in recent weeks.