Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Competitive races across the country are expected to disappear as states begin to submit their re-drawn maps for this decade’s round of redistricting.

While only 18 states have finished their gerrymandering process, nearly half a dozen highly competitive seats have been slashed from the last batch of congressional maps according to data tracked by FiveThirtyEight. Instead, swing and lightly safe districts are being transformed into incumbent safe havens, giving Republicans a competitive edge over Democrats in the map overall, with 55 seats leaning Democratic and 90 seats leaning Republican.

On the old maps, drawn in 2011, Republicans had 21 competitive seats and 67 solid seats; this go around, only 12 competitive seats remain while 78 are solidly GOP. Democrats can’t bank on the same certainty. Instead, many Democrat-drawn maps have so far added competition, creating six new competitive left-leaning seats and creating no additional safe races.

“There’s concern about competition because Republicans don’t view their ability to compete in a competitive race as very durable,” Doug Spencer, redistricting expert at the University of Colorado’s Bryon White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law, told ABC News. “Republicans did a very good job at gerrymandering in 2010, so they don’t have a lot of room to grow, and they do have a lot of room to lose, so they’re shoring up now as many of these seats as safely as possible.”

Rapidly shifting racial demographics, especially in key swing suburban counties within red states, is one of the motivating factors for GOP-led legislatures to propose redrawn boundaries as to not lose out on seats in future elections to a more diverse voting bloc, even if it means delivering safe seats to Democrats in exchange. Compared with old maps, Democrats so far have picked up six safe seats, while Republicans have two additional ones. This shift can be seen clearly in highly coveted Georgia, where a proposed map pushes two critically competitive Atlanta-area counties, GA-6 and GA-7, squeezing Democrat Rep. Lucy McBath into a heavily conservative district, effectively creating a safe GOP challenge and placing Rep. Carolyn Bourdeux in a secure Democratic seat, respectively. McBath has since announced she will be running for Congress in Bourdeux’s district instead.

“I refuse to let (Gov.) Brian Kemp, the (National Rifle Association) and the Republican Party keep me from fighting,” McBath told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “They are not going to have the last word.”

Gwinnett County, a portion of which is in GA’s seventh district, had nearly 90% white residents in 1990. Now, it’s only 35% — a clear threat to potential conservative candidates down ballot, likely to be a part of this round of gerrymandering calculus, redistricting expert Michael Li explained to ABC News.

“The suburbs are becoming much more multiracial than they were in the past and also at the same time, suburban white voters have proven to be much more volatile much more less automatically supportive of Republicans than in the past ad that’s created uncertainty for Republicans,” said Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “Suburbs are dangerous to Republicans in a way that they weren’t before. And so the best play under those circumstances is to circle the wagons and try to hang on to what you have, and to make your districts ultra Republican.”

Such buffer building is present in Texas, a state with rapidly diversifying population growth. New maps in the Lone Star State show a net loss of five competitive seats, with Democrats picking up five safe seats and Republicans picking up two. According to data tracked by 538, Republicans were able to flip seven “light-red seats” (or slightly safe) as well as a Republican-held swing seat into safe seats. Only one race in Texas remains competitive with the newly approved map, a much more advantageous map for Republicans in the state than in years past.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan analysis tool that measures political advantage in redistricting maps state by state, gave Georgia a grade of “C” in partisan fairness, competitiveness and geography. Texas received an “F.”

Midterm competition elimination present in the new maps is likely to “piss off Democrats” says Spencer. He suggested that it’s possible that Democrats may be able to harness the collective anger to spike turnout in the few key competitive races that remain, though it’s unlikely to know this early if impassioned messaging alone is enough to rally in impactful numbers. He agreed that lack of durability, especially in the suburbs, has motivated Republicans to draw districts with incumbency protection in mind.

The immediate impact of less competition is uncertain. Yet Spencer said he is concerned that more safe seats may negatively impact voter engagement and the fundamentals of the democratic system.

“You’re now basically muting the voices of a lot of people who just feel like politics is dead to them,” Spencer said. “If we live in a country where you can’t unelect the people that you don’t support, it’s not a democracy. The core fundamental idea of democracy is elections are a check on the government and without competitive seats it’s just not true.”

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Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)(WASHINGTON) — As cases rise in the colder months and amid concerns of a new COVID-19 variant, President Joe Biden announced a plan Thursday for a winter coronavirus strategy that includes making at-home rapid tests free, extending the mask requirement on public transit and requiring more stringent testing protocols for all international travelers.

The latest plan does not include more aggressive measures like requiring testing for domestic flights or mandating testing for passengers after their arrival in the U.S.

To allow for free rapid tests, senior administration officials say the more than 150 million Americans with private insurance will be able to submit for reimbursement to their insurance companies through the same rule that allows tests on site to be covered by insurance.

To reach uninsured Americans and those on Medicare or Medicaid, the Biden administration will send 50 million at-home tests to 20,000 federal sites around the country to be handed out for free.

The Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor and Treasury Department will put out guidance by Jan. 15 to determine exactly how many tests will be covered and at what frequency, the plan said, and it will not retroactively cover tests already purchased.

Senior administration officials said they are confident in the supply of rapid tests to meet the possible demand of Americans who will now be able to get them at no cost.

“Supply will quadruple this month from where it was at the end of summer, so we’re doing a ton to ramp up all tests, but specifically a big focus on ramping up these at-home tests,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters Wednesday night.

The extension of mask mandates on public transportation, including airplanes, rails and buses, will now go through March 18, per the plan, and tighter requirements for travel into the United States will go into place early next week.

The new travel rules call for proof of a negative COVID test within one day of travel to the U.S. for all passengers, regardless of their vaccination status or nationality.

The plan also puts a heavy emphasis on booster shots, which have had a sluggish uptake in the U.S. but experts urge for added protection in the face of the new omicron variant and its many unknowns.

Pharmacies will expand locations and hours to administer booster shots through December, according to the plan, and the Biden administration will up its outreach efforts through a public education campaign aimed at seniors and new family vaccination clinics that can be a one-stop shop for kids vaccines, adult vaccines and booster shots.

Biden also raises the possibility that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will no longer suggest that schoolchildren quarantine for 14 days after exposure, instead relying on the popular “test-to-stay” policy that allows kids to keep attending school so long as they test negative each day.

“The CDC has been studying approaches to quarantine and testing, including looking at the science and data of how they may keep school communities safe. CDC will release their findings on these approaches in the coming weeks,” according to the plan.

In all, the new strategy comes as cases continue to rise, a combination of colder weather pushing people indoors together and vaccine immunity waning among people who got the shot more than six months ago and haven’t yet gotten a booster.

There are also new concerns about omicron, which has more mutations than previous variants but is still mostly a mystery — from how transmissible it is to its capability to cause more severe disease or evade vaccines.

On Monday, Biden reassured Americans that his administration is taking every precaution to protect the public from the omicron variant and that he doesn’t expect this to be the “new normal.”

“It’s a new variant that’s cause for concern, but not a cause for panic,” the president said. “And we’re gonna fight this with science and speed. We’re not going to fight it with chaos and confusion, and we believe we can deal with it.”

The administration’s ban on incoming travel from eight countries in southern Africa went into effect this week after the variant was first detected in Botswana. It has since been found in nearly 30 countries, including in the U.S. on Wednesday.

Over the past year, Biden has focused his efforts to defeat COVID on increasing vaccinations and testing.

When the country didn’t meet his goal of 70% of all adults vaccinated with at least one shot by July, and as cases spiked again from the delta variant’s arrival over the summer, Biden moved forward on vaccine mandates.

Though the mandates were supposed to apply to all federal government employees, health care workers and employees of large private companies, the rollout has been met with lawsuits and lax deadlines.

The mandate for government employees initially was supposed to be implemented in late November, but the government has delayed firing employees who refused to comply until after the holidays.

Still, 92% of federal employees had their first dose as of last week.

The mandates on health care workers and employees of large companies have faced legal challenges that halted them until a decision in higher courts later this winter.

But many hospitals and companies have gone ahead with mandates on their own, often successfully.

The nation’s public health experts have continued to push vaccines and boosters as the best defense against the variant, even as they wait for more data.

“We don’t know everything we need to know about the omicron variants, but we know that vaccination is a safe and effective way to protect yourself from severe illness and complications from all known SARS-CoV-2 variants to date,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters on Tuesday.

As of Wednesday, 71% of adults over 18 and almost 60% of the entire American population are currently fully vaccinated. Nearly 100 million adults who are eligible for boosters have yet to get them.

Reflecting on the past year, Biden on Monday said, “we’re in a very different place” as we enter December, noting that vaccinations were just being rolled out and the majority of schools were still closed in 2020.

“Last Christmas, our children were at risk without a vaccine. This Christmas, we have safe and effective vaccines for children ages 5 and older, with more than 19 million children and counting now vaccinated,” Biden said.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday began to hear historic arguments over a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, asks the justices directly to reconsider the precedent set by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

This means that the justices, a majority of whom are conservative, have the real opportunity to lessen the right to an abortion or possibly overturn the landmark case that made abortion a federally protected right nearly half a century ago.

Legal scholars are raising the alarm that if the court should decide to uphold the Mississippi ban, it could clear the way for new restrictions on abortion across the U.S.

ABC News legal analyst Kate Shaw, a professor at Cardozo Law School, told ABC News’ “Start Here” that as many as 30 states would restrict abortions if Roe gets overturned.

“It’s certainly possible that there will be a majority of justices on board to just overturn Roe and Casey and rule that the Constitution doesn’t protect a right to terminate a pregnancy,” Shaw said. That would leave each state to decide for itself, and “a number of states already have laws on the books that go into effect immediately.”

According to a report from The Guttmacher Institute, 21 states have these so-called trigger laws, some of which include bans on abortion after six or eight weeks of pregnancy, effectively banning all abortions. Several other states without trigger laws, according to Shaw, would likely “move very quickly” to prohibit abortion should Roe be overturned.

Shaw said she believes that the court could reach a compromise solution that still would allow Mississippi to enforce its 15-week, and even though that also “would be a dramatic change in the constitutional law of abortion, but that they do that without overturning Roe and Casey, simply suggesting that Roe and Casey undervalued the state’s interest in protecting potential life, and thus that this viability line should be reconsidered.”

Such a ruling could give states more power to restrict abortions, Shaw continued, “but it would not allow them to prohibit or criminalize all abortions.”

This report was featured in the Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021, episode of “Start Here,” ABC News’ daily news podcast.

“Start Here” offers a straightforward look at the day’s top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, the ABC News app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday declined to comment on the claim former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows makes in an upcoming book, according to the Guardian, that Trump had a positive COVID-19 test three days before their first presidential debate.

ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked Biden, who was 78 and, like Trump, unvaccinated when they shared the stage in the September debate, if he believes Trump put him at risk of contracting the potentially fatal virus.

Biden paused, and then responded with a smirk, “I don’t think about the former president.”

Later, White House press secretary Jen Psaki took a different tone — slamming Republicans and Trump allies she said had appeared to withhold the positive test result.

“What is not lost on us is that no one should be surprised that currently in Congress, as we’re looking at the government staying open, you have supporters of the former president, supporters of the former president who withheld information, reportedly, about testing positive and appeared apparently at a debate, also held events at the White House, reportedly, with military veterans and military families,” she said.

She said the White House did not know about Meadows’ claim prior to the story breaking in The Guardian.

The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who notably was the target of Trump’s ire for his messaging surrounding the virus, also said he “certainly was not aware of his test positivity or negativity” when ABC News Correspondent Karen Travers asked him about the revelation at the afternoon White House briefing.

“I’m not going to specifically talk about who put who at risk, but I would say, as I’ve said, not only from an individual but for everybody, that if you test positive, you should be quarantining yourself,” he said.

The Guardian , which says it obtained a copy of Meadows’ upcoming book, reported that Trump test positive on Sept. 26, sending shockwaves through the White House, before a second COVID-19 test came back negative, according to the Meadows account.

ABC News has not independently confirmed the book’s contents.

According to the debate rules, each candidate was required “to test negative for the virus within seventy-two hours of the start time” of the Sept. 29 debate in Cleveland, Meadows recalls understanding in the book, according to The Guardian.

But Trump, then 74, was determined to go to the debate and face Biden, regardless, according to the account.

“Nothing was going to stop [Trump] from going out there,” Meadows writes, according to the excerpt in The Guardian.

Trump’s reportedly positive, then negative, in tests were taken on the same day of the now-infamous packed Rose Garden ceremony, described as a “superspreader event,” in which Trump announced he would nominate now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

At least 11 guests, including press secretary Kellyanne Conway, former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie, Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins, tested positive afterward.

Meadows called Trump, who was on Air Force One at the time, with news of the positive test before calling back that he tested negative after another screening.

Trump went on to headline a rally in Middletown, Pennsylvania, that evening, and held public events at the White House in the coming days.

Meadows has dodged questions surrounding Trump and COVID-19 since the president tweeted in the early hours of Oct. 2 that he tested positive, at the time, repeatedly refused to tell reporters when he had last tested negative.

Two senior Trump officials later told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jon Karl they had heard Trump tested positive before the debate but Meadows told Karl several months ago that was not true.

“Some people say you first got — you got an initial positive test even before the debate. Is that true or is that not true?” Karl asked Trump in a March 18 interview at Mar-a-Lago for his new book, “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.”

“No,” Trump responded. “No, that’s not true.”

In a new statement on Wednesday, the former president called the reporting “fake news” — but did not flat out deny that he had tested positive before the debate.

“The story of me having COVID prior to, or during, the first debate is Fake News. In fact, a test revealed that I did not have COVID prior to the debate,” he said.

Notably, Meadows did not write explicitly, according to The Guardian excerpts, that Trump had COVID-19 before the debate but that he had an initial positive test that was followed by a more reliable negative test.

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(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Wednesday will recommend the full House hold former Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark in contempt for refusing to cooperate with their investigation in the latest effort to ratchet up pressure on the former president’s aides and allies.

The move comes as Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff, agreed to cooperate with the panel, turning over thousands of pages of records and agreeing to appear for a deposition in the coming days.

The full chamber could vote to hold Clark, the former acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division, in contempt as soon as Thursday, making him the second Trump associate after Steve Bannon to be reprimanded by Congress for refusing to cooperate with the investigation.

After a House vote, the Justice Department would determine whether to prosecute Clark as it has Bannon, who was charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for spurning the panel’s subpoena.

Bannon has pleaded not guilty and faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine for each charge.

Unlike Bannon, Clark appeared before the committee with his attorney on Nov. 5, in response to a subpoena for records and testimony.

But he left after 90 minutes, after refusing to answer any questions, citing claims of executive privilege, which the committee has disputed, and Trump’s ongoing legal challenge to the panel’s inquiry.

Clark declined to answer direct questions about his knowledge of Georgia election law and his conversations with members of Congress, both of which committee members argued would not be covered by any claims of executive privilege.

The committee also sought to question him about Trump’s efforts to get the Justice Department to investigate baseless claims of election fraud.

Ahead of the Capitol riot, Clark played a prominent role advancing Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results inside his administration. He circulated a draft letter inside the Justice Department to urge Georgia’s governor and top Georgia officials to convene the state legislature to investigate voter fraud claims.

On Tuesday, committee members spent four hours interviewing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a source familiar with the interview confirmed to ABC News.

Raffensberger was the target of a pressure campaign from then-President Trump and his aides and allies last year over the results of the presidential election in Georgia. Joe Biden was the first Democrat to carry the state in a presidential election in nearly three decades.

ABC News’ Alex Mallin, Katherine Faulders and Ben Siegel contributed to this report.

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(ATLANTA) — Stacy Abrams will be back on the campaign trail in a second bid for governor of Georgia, setting the stage for a possible rematch with GOP Gov. Brian Kemp whom she lost to in 2018.

Abrams, hoping to become the nation’s first Black chief state executive, made her campaign announcement Wednesday on Twitter.

“I’m running for Governor because opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by zip code, background or access to power,” Abrams said in an announcement video.

I’m running for Governor because opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by zip code, background or access to power. #gapol

Be a founding donor to my campaign:https://t.co/gk2lmBINfW pic.twitter.com/z14wUlo8ls

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) December 1, 2021

In 2018, she ran a closely-watched race for governor against Kemp, but lost by almost 2 points.

Following the loss, Abrams continued to gain notoriety as she advocated for voting rights legislation. She launched the Fair Fight voter protection organization, which is credited with helping Joe Biden win Georgia in 2020, as well as Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win the state’s two Senate seats.

“We believe in this place and our folks who deserve to be seen and heard and have a voice because in the end, we are one GA.”

Abrams highlighted the work she’s accomplished since leaving the campaign trail in an announcement video that shows Abrams at community events and features various scenes of Georgians at work. I’ve worked to do my part to help families make it through paying off medical debt for 68,000 Georgians expanding access to vaccines, bringing supplies to overwhelmed food banks, lending a hand across our state, especially in rural Georgia,” she said.

Kemp may face a Republican primary challenge.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Andre Carson on Tuesday night forcefully condemned the anti-Muslim remarks made by their colleague, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, last week.

Omar, Tlaib, and Carson are the only three Muslims in Congress.

“We may only be three among hundreds serving in Congress, but we are strong advocates that won’t shy away in demanding better for our communities. No one deserves to feel hate or racism solely based on one’s faith. It’s completely unacceptable,” Tlaib said.

A shaken Omar spoke of her difficult experiences as a Muslim American — from the person who told her she would never be elected to Congress for wearing a hijab, to the bigoted reception she received from some Republican members when she was first elected.

“So, when a sitting member of Congress calls a colleague a member of the “jihad squad” and falsifies a story to suggest that I will blow up the Capitol, it is not just attack on me, but on millions of American Muslims across this country,” Omar said of Boebert.

In a video posted to Twitter last week, Boebert referred to Omar as a member of the “Jihad Squad” and claimed that a Capitol Police officer thought she was a terrorist in an encounter in an elevator on Capitol Hill.

She apologized on Twitter Friday “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended,” adding that she had reached out to Omar’s office to speak with her directly, but the phone call did not go well.

Omar hung up on Boebert after the Colorado Republican refused to make a public apology to her, according to a statement from Omar and Boebert’s account of the call.

“We cannot pretend that this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences,” Omar said Tuesday. “The truth is that anti-Muslim hate is on the rise both here at home and around the world.”

Omar said she has received “hundreds” of death threats often triggered by Republican attacks. She held up her phone to the mics and played out a disturbingly graphic voicemail she received just hours after she got off the phone with Boebert on Monday — highlighting the types of threats she receives.

“Condemning this should not be a partisan issue,” Omar said. “This is about our basic humanity and fundamental rights of religious freedom enshrined in our Constitution. Yet, while some members of the Republican Party have condemned this, to date, the Republican Party leadership has done nothing to hold their members accountable.”

Omar said she wants “appropriate action” taken against Boebert but will leave it to leadership to decide what that means. She did not seem keen on the idea of a resolution that would condemn Islamophobia, noting that it’s been done before.

“This kind of hateful rhetoric and actions cannot go without punishment. There has to be accountability,” she said.

A senior Democratic aide confirmed to ABC News that House leadership discussed a possible resolution condemning Islamophobia but didn’t make any decisions during a meeting Tuesday night.

“Rep. Boebert has directed hateful, racist rhetoric against my colleague and friend, Rep. Omar,” Rep. Carson said. “Her verbal abuse was incendiary and hurtful to her and Muslims across the country and the world.”

“This is not about hurt feelings or mean-spirited words. This is about calling out individuals who deliberately incite violence and irresponsibly spread lies and misinformation,” Carson added.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who is not Muslim, also stood in solidarity with Omar, Tlaib and Carson during the press conference and called on Boebert to be removed from her committees.

“I’m urging House leadership to hold Lauren Boebert accountable by removing her from her committee assignments, advancing a resolution of condemnation, and taking all other appropriate measures to ensure our message that Islamophobia, anti-Blackness, and xenophobia will not stand is loud and clear,” he said in a statement.

ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard historic arguments over a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with conservative justices openly raising the prospect of overturning decades of legal precedent since the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide.

After almost two hours, the conservative majority appeared headed toward changing 30 years of settled law protecting a woman’s right to end a pregnancy before fetal viability and upholding the Mississippi ban, which legal scholars say could clear the way for stringent new restrictions on abortion in roughly half the country.

“Viability it seems to me has nothing to do with choice,” said Chief Justice John Roberts. “Why is 15 weeks not enough time?”

“That’s not a dramatic departure from viability,” Roberts added of the state law and the line it would draw.

Since the 1973 landmark Roe ruling and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case that affirmed the decision, the court has never allowed states to prohibit the termination of pregnancies prior to fetal viability outside the womb, roughly 24 weeks, according to medical experts.

Mississippi argues Roe was wrongly decided and that each state should be allowed to set its own policy.

Scott Stewart, the solicitor general of Mississippi and a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, spoke first, saying that the precedents the Supreme Court set with Roe and Casey in 1992 “damaged the democratic process” and “poisoned the law,” adding, “they’ve choked off compromise.”

“For 50 years they’ve kept this court at the center of a political battle that it can never resolve,” he said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the court should have taken up the case since the legal right to an abortion based on viability has been a long-standing precedent.

“There has been some difference of opinion with respect to undue burden, but the right of the woman to choose, the right to control her own body has been fairly set since Casey and never challenged. You want us to reject that viability line and adopt something different,” she said. “Thirty (justices) since Casey have reaffirmed the basic viability line. Four have said no to the members of this court, but 15 justices have said yes or varying political backgrounds.”

Referring to comments from a Mississippi lawmaker, she said, “The Senate sponsor said we’re doing it because we have new justices on the Supreme Court,” noting the new makeup of the court with three conservative justice appointed by former President Donald Trump.

“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” she asked.

Justice Stephen Breyer stressed the importance of stare decisis — the legal principle that courts generally adhere to precedent.

“To overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to reexamine a watershed decision would subvert the court’s legitimacy beyond any serious question,” Breyer said.

Jackson Women’s Health and its allies say the high court’s protection of a woman’s right to choose the procedure is clear, well-established and should be respected.

But the current court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, is widely considered more sympathetic to abortion rights opponents than any in a generation.

Conservative justices homed in on the current viability standard of roughly 24 weeks, with Justice Samuel Alito describing the line set as “arbitrary.”

As Julie Rikelman of the Center for Reproductive Rights, representing Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, argued the impact of pregnancy, Alito responded, “If a woman wants to be free of the burdens of pregnancy, that interest does not disappear the moment the viability line is crossed,” adding, “The fetus has an interest in having a life, and that doesn’t change from the point before viability and after viability.”

When Justice Thomas asked her to identify the constitutional right at issue — whether to abortion, privacy or autonomy, Rikelman replied, “It’s liberty.”

“It’s the textual protection in the 14th Amendment that the state can’t deny someone liberty without the due process of law,” she said.

“Allowing a state to take control of a woman’s body and force her to undergo the physical demands for risks and life-altering consequences pregnancy is a fundamental deprivation for liberty, and once the court recognizes that liberty interest deserves heightened protection, it does need to draw a workable line of viability that logically balances the interests at stake,” Rikelman added.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked if the court’s decisions in Roe and Casey were wrong to begin with, how that would counter the stare decisis principle.

“The Constitution is neither pro-life nor pro-choice on abortion. If we think that the prior precedents are seriously wrong, why don’t we return to neutrality? Doesn’t the history of this court’s practice with respect to those cases tells us that the right answer is actually a return to the position of neutrality, and not stick with those precedents in the same way that all those other cases did?”

Later, Kavanaugh asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing the Biden administration’s support for abortion providers, “Why should this court be the arbiter rather than Congress?”

“There’ll be different answers in Mississippi in New York, different answers and Alabama than California because they’re two different interests at stake and the people in those states might value those interests somewhat different way,” Kavanaugh said, signaling he might support handing the issue back to the states, despite saying at his confirmation hearings that Roe was “settled law.”

Prelogar replied that it’s not up to states to decide whether to honor fundamental rights.

A former clerk to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Elena Kagan, Prelogar earlier said, “The court has never revoked a right that is so fundamental to so many Americans and so central to their ability to participate fully and equally in society. The court should not overrule the central component of women’s liberty.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who’s personal views on abortion factored large during her confirmation hearing last year, raised doubts about how sweeping the impact would be if the court sides with Mississippi. “Don’t Safe Haven Laws take care of that?” she said, referring to legislation in nearly every state allowing a parent to abandon a newborn baby without fear of prosecution in the event life circumstances make them unable to parent.

Majorities of Americans support the Supreme Court upholding Roe v. Wade and oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll this month. Three in four Americans, including majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats, say the decision of whether or not to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.

But Americans appear more sharply divided on the type of ban at issue in Mississippi. A Marquette University Law School poll this month found 37% favored upholding a 15-week ban, with 32% opposed.

Overshadowing the case is the Supreme Court’s still-pending decision in a separate dispute over Texas’ unprecedented six-week abortion ban, SB8, which has been in effect for nearly three months and dominated national headlines.

The justices gave the Texas law a highly expedited hearing, during which a majority appeared skeptical of its enforcement scheme that encourages citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an unlawful abortion for the chance at a $10,000 bounty. Many observers assumed the court would quickly move to put the law on hold, but it has not done so.

A decision in the Mississippi and Texas cases are expected by the end of the court’s term in June 2022.

The abortion rights battle at the Supreme Court comes as Republican-led states have enacted more than 100 new abortion restrictions so far this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.

Twenty-one states have laws in place that would quickly impose abortion bans in the event the Supreme Court overturns Roe.

Fourteen states plus Washington, D.C., have laws explicitly protecting access to abortion care, according to Guttmacher.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday is hearing arguments over a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and whether decades of legal precedent since Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

Since the 1973 landmark Roe ruling and a 1992 case that affirmed the decision, the court has never allowed states to prohibit the termination of pregnancies prior to fetal viability outside the womb, roughly 24 weeks.

Mississippi argues Roe was wrongly decided and that each state should be allowed to set its own policy.

The sole abortion clinic in the state, Jackson Women’s Health, and its allies say the high court’s protection of a woman’s right to choose the procedure is clear, well-established and should be respected.

The arguments are being heard by a court with a 6-3 conservative majority widely considered more sympathetic to abortion rights opponents than any in a generation.

Audio of the arguments, beginning at 10 a.m., can be heard live on the court’s website.

Legal scholars say the case is the most significant for abortion rights in 30 years. If the justices uphold the Mississippi law, they would be reversing a key precedent that could clear the way for stringent new restrictions on abortion in roughly half the country.

Majorities of Americans support the Supreme Court upholding Roe v. Wade and oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll this month. Three in four Americans, including majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats, say the decision of whether or not to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.

But Americans appear more sharply divided on the type of ban at issue in Mississippi. A Marquette University Law School poll this month found 37% favored upholding a 15-week ban, with 32% opposed.

Overshadowing the case is the Supreme Court’s still-pending decision in a separate dispute over Texas’ unprecedented six-week abortion ban, SB8, which has been in effect for nearly three months and dominated national headlines.

The justices gave the Texas law a highly expedited hearing, during which a majority appeared skeptical of its enforcement scheme that encourages citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an unlawful abortion for the chance at a $10,000 bounty. Many observers assumed the court would quickly move to put the law on hold, but it has not done so.

A decision in the Mississippi and Texas cases are expected by the end of the court’s term in June 2022.

The abortion rights battle at the Supreme Court comes as Republican-led states have enacted more than 100 new abortion restrictions so far this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.

Twenty-one states have laws in place that would quickly impose abortion bans in the event the Supreme Court overturns Roe.

Fourteen states plus Washington, D.C., have laws explicitly protecting access to abortion care, according to Guttmacher.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider a case that could fundamentally transform abortion rights in America by overturning Roe v. Wade and clearing the way for stringent new restrictions on abortion in roughly half the country.

“This is the most important Supreme Court case on abortion since Roe in 1973, and I don’t think it’s particularly close,” said Sherif Girgis, Notre Dame law professor and former clerk to Justice Samuel Alito.

The justices will hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health over a Mississippi law that prohibits termination of pregnancies after 15 weeks. Lower courts have found the ban plainly unconstitutional under the half century of legal precedent since Roe and put it on hold.

Fetal viability outside the womb — around 24 to 26 weeks, according to medical experts — has been the long-standing line before which states cannot ban abortions. Mississippi is asking the justices to eliminate that standard and allow each state to set its own policy.

“Roe v. Wade has hindered a healthy political dialogue about abortion, and perhaps most importantly, about how we as a society care for the dignity of women and children,” said Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who is leading defense of the state law.

The case will be heard by a court whose conservative majority of justices is widely viewed as more sympathetic to opponents of abortion rights than any in a generation. The three most recently appointed justices were all elevated to the high court by former President Donald Trump with the express purpose of overturning Roe.

​​”The new crop of quite conservative justices on the court seems to put special stock in how wrong a previous opinion was, and they all think that Roe was very, very wrong,” said Cardozo Law professor and ABC News legal analyst Kate Shaw. “I think that will be an important factor in their decision whether to revisit it.”

The fact that the court decided to take up the case — without a clear conflict among lower courts or ambiguity in legal precedent — suggests to many legal scholars that a decision favoring Mississippi is highly likely.

“The court has long surprised us,” said Shaw, “but it seems to me a vanishingly slim chance that the court will strike down the Mississippi law.”

A decision upholding the state’s 15-week abortion ban would implicitly reverse nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and open the door to state restrictions much earlier in pregnancy.

“You cannot uphold Mississippi’s 15-week ban on abortion and continue the precedent of Roe v. Wade. They’re not compatible,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is leading the legal battle against the law. “There is no middle ground.”

Majorities of Americans support the Supreme Court upholding Roe v. Wade and oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll this month. Three in four Americans, including majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats, say the decision of whether or not to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.

University of California, Berkeley Law professor Daniel Farber said the legal options before the court are stark and extreme. “I think between those two options, I think overruling Roe would win the day,” Farber said.

Some abortion law scholars believe the justices may attempt a more moderate approach — at least in appearance — by upholding the Mississippi law while explaining that they are changing, rather than overturning, the standard set by Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

“The court might say, ‘We are not finding that there’s no constitutional protection for abortion, only that these earlier decisions didn’t give sufficient weight to other kinds of state interests,'” said Shaw. “So, perhaps states may be able to ban abortions prior to viability, but that doesn’t mean they have carte blanche to ban all abortions.”

Mississippi has just one remaining abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health, that only provides abortion services up to 16 weeks of pregnancy. The state argues that a ban starting at 15 weeks would not impose a significant burden on most women.

While Americans are broadly supportive of abortion rights, they appear more sharply divided on the type of ban at issue in Mississippi. A Marquette University Law School poll this month found 37% favored upholding a 15-week ban, with 32% opposed.

Overshadowing the case is the Supreme Court’s still-pending decision in a separate dispute over Texas’ unprecedented six-week abortion ban, SB8, which has been in effect for nearly three months and dominated national headlines.

“SB8 has the effect of making the Mississippi statute look quite moderate,” said Julia Mahoney, a law professor at the University of Virginia. “So in a sense, upholding the Mississippi statute looks now like kind of a middle ground.”

The justices gave the Texas law a highly expedited hearing, during which a majority appeared skeptical of its enforcement scheme that encourages citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an unlawful abortion for the chance at a $10,000 bounty. Many observers assumed the court would quickly move to put the law on hold, but it has not done so.

Girgis said the delay suggests the justices “hit some snags” in their negotiations and may have decided to resolve the dispute in tandem with the Mississippi case.

“If they end up reversing Casey and Roe, then obviously the question of the constitutionality of SB8 becomes a lot easier,” Girgis said.

In the meantime, access to abortion care for millions of women in the nation’s second-most populous state remains on hold and could be suspended for months longer. The court is not expected to issue a decision in the Mississippi case until June.

“We’re waiting on tenterhooks to hear from the court,” said Northup of Texas law SB8. “But it is just quite unconscionable that we’re so many months in, allowing this law to be in effect when it clearly violates Roe v. Wade.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh could be the key vote to watch in both cases, analysts said. He sided with the majority more than any other justice last term and notably broke with Chief Justice John Roberts in September to allow SB8 to take effect.

“From a tea leaf reading standpoint, we’re watching Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett,” said Mary Ziegler, Florida State Law professor and a leading abortion law historian.

“I think she may have some incentive, certainly not to save Roe, but to take her time in unraveling Roe rather than kind of delivering an immediate death blow,” Ziegler said of Barrett, the court’s newest and youngest member. “We don’t know what Brett Kavanaugh, who is no longer beholden to John Roberts to get the deciding vote, will say about abortion.”

The abortion rights battle at the Supreme Court comes as Republican-led states have enacted more than 100 new abortion restrictions so far this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. Twenty-one states have laws in place that would quickly impose abortion bans in the event the Supreme Court overturns Roe.

Fourteen states plus Washington, D.C., have laws explicitly protecting access to abortion care, according to Guttmacher.

“If the court follows the rule of law, we will prevail,” Northrup said. “But we are ready to fight on every front if there should be a reversal of Roe.”

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