June 24, 2022 Roe v. Wade news

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department disagrees with the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“The Supreme Court has eliminated an established right that has been an essential component of women’s liberty for half a century – a right that has safeguarded women’s ability to participate fully and equally in society. And in renouncing this fundamental right, which it had repeatedly recognized and reaffirmed, the Court has upended the doctrine of stare decisis, a key pillar of the rule of law," according to the statement from Garland.

Garland reiterated that the decision today does not ban states to keep abortion legal within their borders.

“We recognize that traveling to obtain reproductive care may not be feasible in many circumstances. But under bedrock constitutional principles, women who reside in states that have banned access to comprehensive reproductive care must remain free to seek that care in states where it is legal. Moreover, under fundamental First Amendment principles, individuals must remain free to inform and counsel each other about the reproductive care that is available in other states," he said.

The DOJ "will work tirelessly to protect and advance reproductive freedom" and "strongly supports efforts by Congress to codify Americans’ reproductive rights," according to his statement.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Alexis McGill Johnson said that supporters of abortion access will not back down. In a statement on Friday, McGill said “anyone today who is scared, or angry, or determined” following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade that “we will rebuild and reclaim the freedom that is ours.”

“To anyone today who is scared, or angry, or determined, know this — 17 million Planned Parenthood supporters proudly stand with you. We will rebuild and reclaim the freedom that is ours. We won’t go back. And we won’t back down,” she said. 

Planned Parenthood Action Fund on Friday emphasized that abortion is “still legal in most of the country” and directed “people who need care” to abortionfinder.org, a website that lists abortion service providers.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said there are ways now to "fight back" against the ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, accusing Supreme Court justices of not staying true to their words when they were nominees.

"I am spitting mad over this. We have six extremist justices on the United States Supreme Court who have decided that their moral and religious views should be imposed on the rest of America. This is not what America wants," Warren told CNN's Erica Hill.

"And in a democracy on this issue, the Supreme Court does not get the last word, the people do. We are going to fight back. We've got tools. We're going to use them and in November, we're going to make sure that we elect enough people who believe in that democracy that we can pass Roe v. Wade and make it the law of the land again — only this time we'll do it by statute and enforce it," Warren said.

She said justices, when they were appointees, promised to follow the law "but wink, wink, nod, nod, were cleared in order to get where they got today."

Warren also said that the midterm elections in November will have a focus on abortion.

"It looks like getting two more Democrats in the United States Senate who are willing to support both filibuster reform and making Roe v. Wade the law of the land. It means hanging onto the House of Representatives and it means passing Roe into law. That's what November will be all about," she said.

Warren said that she and Sen. Patty Murray led a letter with more than half of Democratic senators calling on President Biden to take immediate federal action to strengthen abortion rights.

"He can make medicated abortion more widely available. He can help with money and time off for people to be able to move across state lines. He can consider using federal lands as a place where we can set up abortion clinics," she said.

Watch Sen. Warren here:

JPMorgan Chase is clarifying its health care benefits in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade on Friday, saying that abortion has long been a covered service for the bank and starting in July will be included under the company’s health care travel benefit.  

“As always, we’re focused on the health and well-being of our employees, and want to ensure equitable access to all benefits," JPMorgan Chase spokesperson Joseph Evangelisti told CNN on Friday. 

In a memo sent to all US JP Morgan employees on June 1, the investment bank noted that it will expand its existing health care travel benefit for any covered service “that can only be obtained far away from your home," including abortion. 

It previously only covered services such as organ transplants and bariatric surgery under that travel benefit. 

Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey – one of the GOP’s leading anti-abortion voices who said the issue is what inspired him to run for office – said he’s planning to lower his proposed 20-week abortion ban down to 15 weeks in light of the Supreme Court eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion. 

Smith is the chief sponsor of “The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” which would ban abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. The bill has previously passed the House when Republicans were in power, and the GOP has pointed to that measure as a piece of legislation they would like to again put on the floor if they regain control of the chamber next year.

But Smith said he’s planning to make the ban stricter.

“We’re working on something along those lines,” Smith said, when asked by CNN about a nationwide abortion ban. “I have the Pain Capable at 20 weeks. We’re going to lower it to 15. There are all kinds of ideas there.”

“But we don’t have at this point the ability to overcome a veto or a filibuster,” he added.

In anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v Wade, House Republicans have started discussing what anti-abortion bills they would put on the floor if they win the majority and have used recent closed-door party meetings to discuss their messaging and strategy on abortion. 

CNN reported that earlier this month, the head of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List addressed a House GOP conference meeting, where she talked to members about how to message on the issue and encouraged members to take incremental steps toward banning abortion if they win the majority. 

Besides the 20-week ban bill, there is also a stricter measure in the House that would prohibit abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which has more than 100 Republican co-sponsors in the House. 

Top House Republicans, however, have been wary to push for stricter, nationwide abortion bans and are instead expected to focus their messaging on calling for bans on so-called late term abortions, which are rare. But Republicans feel like it’s a more popular message and that polling is on their side when it comes to late term abortions.

Dozens of civil and reproductive rights groups are denouncing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

The National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda released a statement calling it a “devastating blow against women’s civil and human rights.” 

The NAACP also rejected the move by the Supreme Court with one leader saying it sets the country back to a “dangerous era where basic constitutional rights only exist for a select few.”

Leaders from Movement for Black Lives say the decision further guts reproductive health care access for millions of Black women, girls, transgender and gender nonconforming people. 

The Lilith Fund, which provides financial assistance and emotional support for people who need abortions in Texas, responded to the decision with a tweet saying “Another #SCOTUS day and we are struggling.” 

Lupe M. Rodríguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, said the court’s decision will “directly and disproportionately” harm Latinas and all communities of color. For many, she added, it is a matter of life and death.

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With states now free to ban the procedure, Friday’s ruling sets up the next anticipated abortion fight in court: what states can do to hinder abortions obtained outside their borders.

The liberal justices noted this in their dissent.

As they expressed concerns about the financial and logistical challenges women will face to travel out of state to obtain abortion, the liberals alluded to effort to prevent “interstate travel to obtain an abortion.”

In a concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh tried to quell some of those concerns, as he tried to play down the other legal questions the Friday ruling raises. 

Still, even before Friday’s opinion, some red states were testing the waters around how fair they could reach to regulate outside their borders. A proposal in Missouri sought to apply the state’s criminal abortion laws to abortions obtained in other states by its residents. The proposal would even extend to cases where "sexual intercourse occurred within this state and the child may have been conceived by that act of intercourse."

In Texas, some state lawmakers have vowed to punish companies that pay for the out of state travel of their employees who seek abortions. Medication abortion — and the way that women can order the two-pill regimen over the internet and be delivered it via the mail — is further complicating the legal questions around states efforts to eradicate the procedure. Blue states have proactively sought to protect their providers from extradition and other legal risks if red states try to prosecute them for facilitating an abortion.

As the liberal justices see it, the questions over interstate abortion access is also shaping up to the next big court battle that Friday’s ruling will prompt. They wrote that “the majority’s ruling today invites a host of questions about interstate conflicts.”

At the annual National Right to Life Convention in Atlanta, which is being held this weekend, cheers erupted when someone shouted “Roe’s been overturned!” at 10:10 a.m. ET.

Attendees hugged one another, and some were visibly emotional.

But, Tobias acknowledged: “We have a long battle ahead of us. Abortion is not going to be illegal because of this decision. The elected officials are now going to have to determine what the laws will be – federal and state levels. There’s a lot of work to do. And we need to build a culture that’s pro-mom, pro-baby, pro-life. We certainly know this is not the end.”

Lynda Bell, the chair of the board of NRLC and President of Florida Right to Life, teared up as she described what she was feeling.

“I can barely talk,” she said. “We have waited for this for 49 years, and finally, the court has recognized their egregious decision that stripped the states of the ability to protect life,” she said, calling Friday’s ruling the “correction of a terrible, terrible decision.”

“When you fight for something for decades and it comes to fruition, it is just stunning,” she told CNN.

Friday's Supreme Court ruling that overturns Roe v. Wade will most affect poor women across the United States, CNN senior political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson said.

Poor or low-income woman represent 75% of abortion patients, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

"If you think about the primary reason why women choose to get an abortion is financial ... they can't afford to have a child," Henderson said. "A lot of these women already have children. The extra financial burden would be just too much for them to bear."

Looking at the policies in states that are intent on banning abortions, the question is whether they will expand the social safety net for women who are forced to carry their babies to term, Henderson explained.

"They will have to get all sorts of medical care. Will there be paid family leave at these jobs? We know this is going to fall disproportionately on women who are poor of all races — White, Black, Latino, Asian," she said. "They can't afford to go to another state where they can get an abortion."

There are also legal implications to face if they do manage to travel to another state, and additionally, a lot of questions surround the father of the child in question.

"Think about also the partners of these women. If they're not together, not living in the same household, now does a man have to start paying child support earlier than they would at this point?" Henderson asked.

The Supreme Court ruling that leaves states to determine their respective abortion rights has now created two Americas, Henderson said.