Protesters clash over Supreme Court plan to scrap abortion law - follow live

Just as the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v Wade led to the right to abortion being enshrined in law in 197, the court’s ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation could take that right away.

The Dobbs case questions whether a 2018 Mississippi state law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy is constitutional.

The video in the tweet below from the Center for Reproductive Rights gives some background on the case.

Please note the information on current state abortion laws is slightly out of date. A lot of states have introduced further restrictions since this video was posted.

The office of the governor of California has put out a statement proposing an amendment to protect abortion rights in the state constitution.

Governor Gavin Newsom and state senate president Toni Atkins said in a statement California “will build a firewall around this right”.

Mr Newsom said in a tweet: “Our daughters, sisters, mothers, and grandmothers will not be silenced. The world is about to hear their fury.

“California will not sit back. We are going to fight like hell.”

The state last month introduced legislation to improve access to abortion by stopping health insurance providers charging customers extra for the procedure.

Mr Newsom framed the legislation in contrast to the restrictions being introduced elsewhere in the US. He said: “As states across the country attempt to move us backwards by restricting fundamental reproductive rights, California continues to protect and advance reproductive freedom for all.”

Abortion bans have been introduced in 31 states since January, according to the Guttmacher Institute – a reproductive rights research body.

The bans are mostly of three types: 15-week bans, “Texas-style” bounty hunter bans and bans designed to be triggered if Roe v Wade is overturned.

15 week bans have been enacted in Arizona, Florida and Kentucky and at least introduced to state congress in 5 other states.

Idaho early this year enacted a “Texas-style” ban, which allows people who would have been family members to sue a doctor who performs an abortion on an embryo which has cardiac activity. The state last month passed a ban on abortions after six weeks into law. 14 other states have at least introduced legislation for the bans to state congress.

Nine states have introduced so-called “trigger” bans, which would outlaw abortion in the event of Roe v Wade being overturned. Wyoming enacted such a law.

Supporters and opponents of abortion rights clashed in front of the US Supreme Court building after Politico reported an early draft opinion that would effectively kill Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey.

Police officers were already on hand and barricades blocked the steps to the Supreme Court building before protesters began to show up late Monday evening. Many students at universities that dot the nation’s capital descended on the complex with candles with sombre moods.

“I feel like this is, in a way a funeral,” Sabrina, who declined to give a last name. “Something that’s really representative of what we’ve been going through for the past couple years.”

Lauren G, who is 20 and from Pittsburgh and a student at George Washington University, said she cried and knew she had to come to the court after reading the Politico article and said she would try to be active not just in the state’s Senate race but also its gubernatorial race.

My colleague Eric Garcia has the latest.

In a joint statement from Congress’ top two Democrats, house speaker Nancy Pelosi and senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said, “If the report is accurate, the Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years — not just on women but on all Americans.”

Calling it “one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history,” they said “the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower has now completely devolved into the party of Trump.”

“Every Republican Senator who supported Senator McConnell and voted for Trump Justices pretending that this day would never come will now have to explain themselves to the American people.”

Senator Patty Murray demanded the need to “fight back”.

“In a matter of days or weeks, the horrifying reality is that we could live in a country without Roe. If this is true, women will be forced to remain pregnant no matter their personal circumstances. Extreme politicians will control patients’ most personal decisions. And extreme Republicans will have eliminated a fundamental right an entire generation of women have known their whole lives,” she added.

Assistant house speaker Katherine Clark called the reported draft ruling “devastating”.

“Overturning [Roe] would create a second class of citizens & make the dystopian horrors of forced pregnancy a reality, especially for low-income women. But that is exactly the goal: to take away our rights, agency, and humanity. We will not go quietly,” she wrote on Twitter.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, said people seeking abortions could head to New York. “For anyone who needs access to care, our state will welcome you with open arms. Abortion will always be safe & accessible in New York,” Ms Hochul said in a tweet.

The US Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in a Mississippi case challenging a state law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, presenting a major challenge to the landmark precedent established in the 1973 ruling in Roe v Wade, which enshrined consititutional protections for the procedure.

Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization marks the first major abortion rights challenge in front of the new conservative majority on the court with its three newest justices, all conservatives appointed by former president Donald Trump. The court heard oral arguments in the case on 1 December.

The Roe ruling effectively repealed laws that banned the procedure outright and sparked decades of religious and moral conflict over women’s bodies.

What is the ruling and the bearing it has had on abortion rights? My colleagues Alice Hutton and Alex Woodward explain in this report.

Hundreds of abortion rights supporters gathered in anger at the US Supreme Court after an unprecedented leak showed a majority of justices were poised to overturn the Roe v Wade decision that legalised abortion nationwide.

Within hours of Politico’s publication of report, a crowd was calling on Democrats in Congress to take action to protect the access to abortion.

“The first line in the draft is that this is a moral issue,” Annie McDonnell, 19, a student at George Washington University, said, referring to the draft opinion. “If it’s a moral issue, you shouldn’t be depriving us of our choice.”

“Justices get out of my vagina,” one sign held aloft read. “I love someone who had an abortion,” read another.

“Abortion is healthcare,” abortion rights supporters chanted back. Chants of “Do something Democrats,” also broke out. Moira Flath, 22, said she was “horrified” when she read the news.

“I think a part of me has to be cautiously optimistic, like seeing people out here who are willing to get up at 10, 11 at night and do this gives me hope for my generation, but it’s going to be a very uphill battle,” the University of Delaware student said.

An anti-abortion activist celebrated a leaked draft opinon that revealed that the US Supreme Court will overturn Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, saying his ultimate plan was to punish every abortion provider, including women who seek abortions.

Randall Terry, who leads Operation Rescue, is one of the most prominent anti-abortion activists in the United States.

On the night that the draft opinion--initially leaked by Politico--showed at the Supreme Court building up with a group of anti-abortion protesters with a ukulele talking about dancing on the grave of Roe v Wade, the landmark decision that enshrined the right to an abortion.

Mr Terry spoke to The Independent about his plans, comparing it to D-Day in World War II.

My colleague Eric Garcia reports.

The leak of a US Supreme Court draft opinion on right to abortion is major breach of confidentiality, experts say.

Many court watchers blasted on the leak of the draft to Politico as a rare occurrence breaching the longstanding tradition of confidentiality and trust surrounding its deliberations.

Unlike the White House and Congress, where leaks are a regular fact of life and a tool of political operatives trying to advance their agendas, the Supreme Court typically keeps its internal deliberations private.

“This is the equivalent of the Pentagon Papers leak, but at the Supreme Court,” Neal Katyal, a former acting US Solicitor General, who argues frequently before the court, said in a Twitter post.

“It’s impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the justices and staff,” wrote the widely followed Scotusblog on its Twitter account.

“Leaking a draft opinion is a massive violation of settled norms. It just doesn’t happen,” tweeted Dan Epps, a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, adding that the culprit likely “would be someone who is upset” about what the court is doing.

Ilya Shapiro, a lecturer at the Georgetown University Law Center, posted that the leaker is “someone on the left engaged in civil disobedience” and called the leak “inexcusable and threatens the court’s functioning.”