Arizona's Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday is set to vote on repealing a Civil War-era abortion ban, one week after a similar motion passed the GOP-controlled state House.

After two failed attempts, three Republicans in the state House on joined all the Democrats in successfully voting to repeal the law, sending it to the Senate.

The 14 Democrats in the state Senate are hoping to pick up at least two Republicans to send the measure to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has said she will sign it. If the repeal is signed, a 2022 law that capped abortions at 15 weeks would eventually go into effect.

Last month, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the 1864 law banning nearly all abortions could go into effect, superseding a 15-week abortion ban put in place in 2022 by state Republicans. The March 2022 law was signed three months before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to an abortion with its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.

The state Supreme Court found that the 2022 Arizona ban "is predicated entirely on the existence of a federal constitutional right to an abortion" because the 2022 ban didn't "independently authorize abortion." As a result, the court said, there was no provision in either state or federal law that addressed the operation of the 1864 ban, so that ban "is now enforceable," the court ruled.

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — Florida's ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant, went into effect Wednesday, and some doctors are concerned that women in the state will no longer have access to needed health care.

Dr. Leah Roberts, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist with Boca Fertility in Boca Raton, said the anti-abortion laws being enacted by Florida and other red states are being vaguely written by people who don't understand medical science. The rules are affecting not just women who want therapeutic abortions, meaning procedures to terminate viable pregnancies because of personal choice, but also nonviable pregnancies for women who want to have babies.

“We’re coming in between them and their doctors and preventing them from getting care until it’s literally saving their lives, sometimes at the expense of their fertility,” Roberts said.

The new ban has an exception for saving a woman's life, as well as in cases involving rape and incest, but Roberts said health care workers are still prevented from performing an abortion on a nonviable pregnancy that they know may become deadly — such as when the fetus is missing organs or implanted outside the uterus — until it actually becomes deadly.

“We’re being told that we have to wait until the mother is septic to be able to intervene,” Roberts said.

LUBBOCK — Anti-abortion activists in Amarillo say they have collected enough signatures — more than 10,000 — to force the City Council to reconsider a policy that would outlaw using local streets to access an abortion in other states.

Organizers submitted the petition to the city last week.

If they were indeed successful in collecting the required number of signatures — the city secretary must validate the signatures — the council would be required to take up the issue early this summer.

However, voters in the Texas Panhandle city may have the final say. The council can accept, reject, or amend the ordinance presented to them. Depending on the council’s decision, the residents behind the signature gathering can demand the issue go to the voters.

Amarillo stands apart from other conservative areas of the state. More than a dozen cities and counties, including Lubbock County, about 120 miles south of Amarillo, have passed similar policies, according to a tally kept by supporters of the bans.

Amarillo’s City Council first took up the issue in October, just one day after Lubbock County Commissioners approved the ordinance — making it the largest county to do so. In December, the council signaled it was willing to pass an ordinance that focused on restricting access to abortion-inducing medication for medical abortions, and regulating the disposal of human remains. That version of the policy would have removed the travel ban entirely — a key component for anti-abortion advocates, as Interstates 40 and 27 run through the city.

CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s policy advocacy group is sinking resources into a Florida ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, an announcement that comes one day before the state’s six-week abortion ban is to go into effect.

Think Big America, Pritzker’s not-for-profit group that has funded abortion-rights efforts across the country, told NBC News on Tuesday it is donating $500,000 to the Floridians Protecting Freedom ballot initiative campaign. The funding follows Think Big’s donation of $1 million to the ballot campaign in Nevada and $250,000 so far to Arizona’s ballot campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to visit Florida on Wednesday to draw attention to the abortion restrictions, which the Biden administration has framed as an example of Donald Trump’s legacy after he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to reverse Roe v. Wade.

“The Democratic Party is really energized by … the attention that we are receiving from the administration,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried told reporters Tuesday. “They understand that if you want to protect democracy and freedom across the entire country that you have to come to the belly of the beast, which is here in the state of Florida.”

The ballot measure in Florida, which would go before voters in November, seeks a state constitutional amendment to bar restrictions on abortion before fetal viability, considered to be at about the 24th week of pregnancy. It would include exceptions past that point for “the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”

Michael Li 李之樸
@mcpli

🚨🚨 BREAKING: 5th Circuit panel votes 2-1 to strike down Louisiana's new Black majority congressional district as unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Opinion here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/135TznkCmm4FHH6FLELIdekqm1Pk_xVPC/view?usp=sharing

The court will hold a status conference on May 6 at 10:30 CT to discuss the remedial process.

Judge Joseph and Judge Summerhays, both Trump appointees, are in the majority.

Fifth Circuit Judge Carl Steward, a Clinton appointee, dissents.

I should be clear, this is a 3-judge *trial* panel in the Fifth Circuit, not an appeals panel. Because it is a 3-judge trial court any appeals go directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing the court of appeals.

Candace Dye opened her independent clinic in Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, in 1991.Credit...Martina Tuaty for The New York Times


The sky was still dark outside the clinic, but two women were already sitting quietly in the small, beige waiting room while Candace Dye and her staff prepared for an extremely busy morning. It was a few minutes past 5 a.m. on one of the last days it would be legal to get an abortion until 15 weeks of pregnancy in Florida, and A Woman’s World Medical Center in Fort Pierce was completely booked.

“I just can’t believe it’s actually going to happen,” Ms. Dye said.

Starting on Wednesday, Florida will ban abortions after six weeks, a dramatic change in a state that less than two years ago allowed the procedure up to about 24 weeks. Prohibiting it at six weeks, when many women do not yet know that they are pregnant, will further restrict access to abortion in the Deep South where a number of other states have near-total bans, and force many patients to travel much farther for care.

Ms. Dye, 67, opened her independent clinic in Fort Pierce, about 130 miles north of Miami on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, in 1991. Now she wondered if she would have to lay off two people from her modest staff or possibly close her doors. She hopes to carry on until November, at least, when Florida voters will decide whether to amend the State Constitution to guarantee access to abortion “before viability,” or about 24 weeks.

“I’m not ready to give up,” she said.

It was Saturday, one of the two days a week when a doctor came to the clinic to prescribe medication abortions and provide surgical ones, back to back to back, before heading to another clinic further south.

Jake Charles
@JacobDCharles

NEW: The 5th Cir has for once *upheld* a fed law challenged on Second Amendment grounds post-Bruen. It holds that enhanced background checks for 18-20 year olds as part of the recent Bipartisan Safer Communities Act are const'l.

https://ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-10837-CV0.pdf

I'm not entirely convinced by all the reasoning in the op, but it's notable the court says that background checks don't need to go through Bruen's history + tradition test. They are presumed const'l & challengers must rebut that. They didn't here.

Five Republican-led states have sued the Biden administration over its new rules expanding Title IX — a federal civil rights law that protects students from sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools — to protect transgender students.

A handful of Republican officials in other states have publicly said they will not enforce the new rules but have stopped short of filing lawsuits.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, sued the Biden administration Monday to block the rules, which will, in part, prohibit schools from barring trans students and teachers from using the school facilities and pronouns that align with their gender identities, among other policies.

Paxton said the expanded rules mandate “compliance with radical gender ideology.”

“Texas will not allow Joe Biden to rewrite Title IX at whim, destroying legal protections for women in furtherance of his radical obsession with gender ideology,” Paxton said in a statement. “This attempt to subvert federal law is plainly illegal, undemocratic, and divorced from reality. Texas will always take the lead to oppose Biden’s extremist, destructive policies that put women at risk.”

Republican attorneys general in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho filed a separate lawsuit Monday arguing that the rule exceeds the Education Department’s authority, in part because it redefines sex to include gender identity.

TALLAHASSEE — Supporters of a Florida amendment that would protect abortion access have already passed several hurdles, including getting nearly one million petitions and a signoff from the state’s conservative Supreme Court.

But getting 60% of Florida voters to approve the amendment in November will likely still not be the last challenge.

Florida’s lawmakers have a history of watering down amendments they don’t support. And with Gov. Ron DeSantis and top Florida lawmakers in opposition to the abortion measure, it’s not out of the question that the Legislature might try.

And it’s not the only amendment Florida lawmakers disapprove of; Florida voters in November will also decide if they want recreational marijuana legalized, which DeSantis and others have opposed.

“(Lawmakers) actually have this really sophisticated set of countermeasures for how to respond to initiatives that they don’t like,” said Jonathan Marshfield, a professor of state constitutional law at the University of Florida’s law school.

Outside advocacy groups that oppose the amendments could also file court challenges that target how the amendments are carried out, which could bring the cases back in front of the state Supreme Court.

TALLAHASSEE — Supporters of a Florida amendment that would protect abortion access have already passed several hurdles, including getting nearly one million petitions and a signoff from the state’s conservative Supreme Court.

But getting 60% of Florida voters to approve the amendment in November will likely still not be the last challenge.

Florida’s lawmakers have a history of watering down amendments they don’t support. And with Gov. Ron DeSantis and top Florida lawmakers in opposition to the abortion measure, it’s not out of the question that the Legislature might try.

And it’s not the only amendment Florida lawmakers disapprove of; Florida voters in November will also decide if they want recreational marijuana legalized, which DeSantis and others have opposed.

“(Lawmakers) actually have this really sophisticated set of countermeasures for how to respond to initiatives that they don’t like,” said Jonathan Marshfield, a professor of state constitutional law at the University of Florida’s law school.

Outside advocacy groups that oppose the amendments could also file court challenges that target how the amendments are carried out, which could bring the cases back in front of the state Supreme Court.