Reproductive Rights Today

Groups that rallied Ohio voters to pass Issue 1 are preparing for a legal fight over the amendment’s enactment. 

Earlier this year, New Jersey launched an agency dedicated to improving maternal and infant health. Now, lawmakers want to require hospitals and birthing centers to allow doulas in their facilities.

A year after Michigan voters passed an amendment to protect reproductive rights, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed additional safeguards into law on Tuesday. 

Looking to shore up support from Iowa evangelicals ahead of the 2024 caucus, three Republican presidential candidates shared why they oppose abortion during the Family Leader’s Presidential Thanksgiving Forum on Friday night, Iowa Capital Dispatch reports. The trio also shared their family stories when talking about their anti-abortion rights stances. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said she had trouble conceiving, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said their wives experienced pregnancy loss. 

Reproductive rights advocates across the country are working to put abortion protection measures on the ballot next year, but Republican officials are trying to stymie those efforts.

While the biggest news out of Washington, D.C., this week was arguably the aversion of a Thanksgiving government shutdown, four U.S. Senate Republicans also held the floor for hours, pleading with an Alabama senator to roll back his protest against the Pentagon’s abortion policy. 

Nearly 57% of Ohio voters codified reproductive rights last week in a huge blow to opponents. Some Republican leaders are urging the party to move on, Ohio Capital Journal reports. 

Anti-abortion groups want to make their case before the Florida Supreme Court to reject a proposed amendment to the state constitution.

The outcome of last week’s elections in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia proved the political saliency of abortion rights to various degrees. But the firmest rejection of restrictions undoubtedly emerged in Ohio, where the majority of voters approved Issue 1 and enshrined reproductive rights into the state constitution. 

Advocates in Kentucky are hopeful they can bring abortion rights back to their conservative state following Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s re-election victory last week. As the Kentucky Lantern reports, Beshear campaigned heavily on reproductive rights and ran a “devastatingly effective” ad against Republican challenger Attorney General Daniel Cameron. The ad featured 21-year-old Hadley Duvall from Owensboro, who described her childhood rape and pregnancy while decrying the attorney general’s support for Kentucky’s near-total ban on abortion.

Republican candidates for president reversed their previous abortion policy stances during Wednesday night’s debate in Miami, which followed an election that featured strong wins for abortion rights, States Newsroom reported. The candidates this time included former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. Republican frontrunner and former President Donald Trump, who has been indicted in four separate cases, once again skipped the debate. 

Anti-abortion leaders learned Tuesday that the midterms were no fluke. The right to an abortion is a winning issue, and if Republicans want to remain in power, they have to match the reproductive rights movement’s fierce funding and messaging strategies, States Newsroom reported.