'Abortion Goes Back to the People' Says the Wall Street Journal. Does It?

 Gallup polls on abortion. Link below.

Back to the People? Really?

A Wall Street Journal editorial proclaims Abortion Goes Back to the People.

Really? The above chart shows the idea is nonsense. 

The most recent data point suggests the Supreme Court case itself may have caused a jump in pro-choice. 

Alternatively, we see a jump due to a dying off off aging boomers as more liberal opinions of millennials and Zoomers take hold. 

 'Pro-Choice' Identification Rises to Near Record High in U.S.

The Gallup poll shows 'Pro-Choice' Identification Rises to Near Record High in U.S.

A Gallup poll conducted mostly after the draft of a Supreme Court decision addressing abortion rights was leaked finds a marked shift in public attitudes over the past year. After a decade in which Americans' identification as "pro-choice" varied narrowly between 45% and 50%, the percentage has jumped six points to 55% in the latest poll, compared with the prior measure a year ago.

Pro-choice sentiment is now the highest Gallup has measured since 1995 when it was 56% -- the only other time it has been at the current level or higher -- while the 39% identifying as "pro-life" is the lowest since 1996.Reuters Poll Shows Same Thing

Please consider a Reuters Factbox: Broad U.S. support for abortion rights at odds with Supreme Court's restrictions

About 71% of Americans - including majorities of Democrats and Republicans - say decisions about terminating a pregnancy should be left to a woman and her doctor, rather than regulated by the government. 

Unfortunately, Reuters did not link to that poll conducted after the decision. 

But trends were already in place according to an Ipsos May 6, 2022 poll What we know about the public’s views on abortion

Ipsos Poll on abortion, link above.

Overall, Americans have gotten more supportive of a woman getting a legal abortion for any reason. Yet, the topline numbers mask a deeper partisan divide that has developed around the issue. Over the past 45 years, Republicans and Democrats have grown farther apart on this issue. In the late 70s, similar shares of Democrats and Republicans were more or less in agreement about abortion. Now, there is a roughly 35-point difference between the two sides. Also see Americans prefer Democrats' position on abortion to Republicans' - Reuters/Ipsos poll

YouGov Poll

While on the subject of polls, a YouGov Poll Shows Majority of Americans disapprove of overturning Roe v. Wade

• Fifty-nine percent of Americans disapprove of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and take away the federal protections of abortion rights, according to a new CBS News/YouGov reaction poll. 
• Among women polled, 67% disapprove.
• Opinion is starkly divided along party lines. 78% of Republicans approve of the decision, compared with 38% of independents and 17% of Democrats.

Back to the People? How?

In general, I am no fan of the New York Times, but this article has aspects that ring true: Supreme Court Throws Abortion to an Unlevel State Playing Field

In his concurring opinion to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh struck a note of optimism that democracy and the will of the people would prevail, even on the agonizing issue of a woman’s right to end a pregnancy.

“The nine unelected Members of this Court do not possess the constitutional authority to override the democratic process,” he wrote, adding that the court’s decision merely “restores the people’s authority to address the issue of abortion through the processes of democratic self-government.”

States, in other words, hold the power.

In Ohio, Republicans hold an undeniable edge statewide, but it’s nothing like their 64-35 edge in the Statehouse or their 25-8 edge in the State Senate. Those advantages will likely yield a near-total abortion ban in the coming weeks. Because the gerrymandering of state legislative lines is so extreme, the only competition that Republican lawmakers fear is from even more conservative Republicans.

In Wisconsin, Democrats hold virtually every statewide office, including governor. Yet, waves of gerrymandering have left Republicans with close to a supermajority in the State Senate and Assembly. That means an abortion ban that was passed in 1849, when only white men could vote, is set to go back into force now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned.Gerrymandering a Two-Way Street 

Gerrymandering is a two-way street, of course. Illinois, Texas, and Ohio are among the worst. 

Let's discuss Ohio and How Republicans pass abortion bans most Americans don’t want.

On 10 April 2019, the Ohio legislature easily passed SB 23, a bill that banned abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

There wasn’t widespread support for the bill – polling showed public opinion was nearly evenly split over the bill (a poll after the bill was passed showed a majority opposed it), John Kasich, a previous Republican governor, had twice vetoed the bill, saying it was unconstitutional, and it had stalled in the legislature for years.

But Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, a Republican, nonetheless signed the bill into law the next day. 

Ohio offers a case study of how US politicians enact extreme abortion measures that don’t align with voters’ views but face little accountability at the polls.

That kind of gerrymandering will probably serve as an invisible, virtually impenetrable fortress that will allow lawmakers across the US to continue to push extreme abortion measures that are unsupported by the public.

As lawmakers have pushed these severe restrictions, they have consistently remained out of line with what most Ohioans believe. Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Ohio voters support some form of legalized abortion, while a minority believes it should be illegal.

 

In Illinois, extreme gerrymandering has led to worst in the nation public union corruption, high property taxes, business flight, and personal flight. 

Illinois is one of a few states losing population due to extreme liberal policies. 

Gerrymandering is not a one-party issue. 

Abortion Access 

Abortion access courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.

Abortion access across the U.S. now depends on state laws after Supreme Court overturned 1973 decision that established constitutional right to an abortion.

Here is a non-paywalled link to the WSJ article Where Abortion Is Legal and Where It Loses Protections Without Roe v. Wade

Anyone living in Southern Texas, Mississippi, or Arkansas has a hell of a long drive for clinic access.

https://mishtalk.com/economics/abortion-goes-back-to-the-people-says-the-wall-street-journal-does-it

US Will 'Continue To Provide Seamless Access' To Abortion In Military: Defense Sec

 by Naveen Anthrapully via The Epoch Times,

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a statement suggesting that the Defense Department intends to maintain the military’s access to abortion.

“Nothing is more important to me or to this Department than the health and well-being of our Service members, the civilian workforce, and DOD families. I am committed to taking care of our people and ensuring the readiness and resilience of our Force. The Department is examining this decision closely and evaluating our policies to ensure we continue to provide seamless access to reproductive health care as permitted by federal law,” Austin said in a June 24 press release.

The Supreme Court decision leaves the matter of abortion laws to states. Of 50 U.S. states, 26 are likely or certain to ban abortion now that the Supreme Court has struck down Roe v. Wade, according to research group Guttmacher Institute.

Thirteen states already have “trigger laws” in place that ban most abortions. These were set to come into effect immediately following the Supreme Court ruling. Many of the country’s military bases are in states like Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama where abortion is expected to be mostly outlawed.

Women make up around 20 percent of the 1.3 million active-duty force of the American military. Almost 95 percent of women in the military are of reproductive age, according to estimates by the Defense Department. Military women also have a 50 percent higher rate of unplanned pregnancy when compared to women from the general populace.

Abortion Leave

At present, the military’s health program for service members and their families, Tricare, only covers abortions in case of rape, incest, or when the woman’s life is in danger.

For all other abortion procedures, women have to go off-base and pay for these services from their own pockets.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-will-continue-provide-seamless-access-abortion-military-defense-secretary

Whitmer: ‘no common ground’ with Republican-controlled Michigan legislature on abortion

 Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said on Sunday that it is a “scary moment” for women as Republicans in her state push to ban abortion after Friday’s Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

“What I’m trying to fight for is the status quo in Michigan, and there are reasonable restrictions on that,” Whitmer told CBS “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan. “With the current legislature that I have, there is no common ground, which is the sad thing.” 

But later in the interview, Whitmer did say some “compromise was possible” as she referred to Republican efforts as a “radical agenda.”

A 1931 Michigan law had banned abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest, but the Roe decision decades later made the law unconstitutional.

As the Supreme Court weighed a challenge to Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, eventually overturning the landmark case on Friday, a judge last month granted a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the decades-old Michigan law.

Abortion remains legal in Michigan as long as the injunction remains in place, and Whitmer on Friday filed a motion asking the Michigan Supreme Court to recognize a right to abortion under the state’s constitution.

Meanwhile, the GOP-controlled Michigan legislature asked a court earlier this month to reconsider its decision granting a preliminary injunction, the Detroit Free Press reported.

“They’ve all endorsed the 1931 law, as [have] all of the Republican people running for governor,” Whitmer told Brennan on Sunday. “They want abortion to be a felony, no exceptions for rape or incest. That’s the kind of legislature that I’m working with. That’s the kind of matchup I’m going to have this fall.”

Whitmer is up for reelection in November, and multiple Republicans will face off in an August primary in their bid to challenge her.

“We’re pulling out all the stops,” Whitmer said. “This is a fight like hell moment.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3537438-whitmer-says-no-common-ground-with-republican-controlled-michigan-legislature-on-abortion/

Hutchinson: Arkansas abortion providers should face ‘criminal penalty,’ not women

 Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) on Sunday said abortion providers should face criminal penalties for performing procedures but said women would not be prosecuted in his state for getting an abortion.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd, the GOP governor said only doctors who perform an abortion to save the life of a mother would not be prosecuted.\

“They have to make those medical judgments and it’s not the state’s judgment to reconfigure those or rethink those,” Hutchinson said. “The decision has to be made whether it’s an [illegal] abortion, and then you go after the provider, and there’s a criminal penalty [but not for] the woman.”

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday, Arkansas’s trigger law banning abortions with the only exception to save the life of the mother went into effect.

The law makes it illegal to perform an abortion, with violators facing up to 10 years in prison. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.

Hutchinson on Sunday said the law is meant to “save the unborn baby.”

“You use the power of the state to say, ‘Unless the health of the mother is at risk, let’s carry that child to term,'” the governor said. “When you’re saving life, that’s an appropriate role of the state.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3537434-hutchinson-says-abortion-providers-should-face-criminal-penalty-not-women/

Noem: Doctors who perform abortions will be targeted for prosecution

 South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) on Sunday said doctors who perform abortions will be targeted for prosecution in her state after a new trigger law went into effect following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade on Friday.

Noem told CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan that while South Dakota would charge doctors who violate the abortion ban, the state will not prosecute mothers.

“We’ll continue to have those debates on how we can support these mothers and what it means to really make sure we are not prosecuting mothers ever in a situation like this,” she said. “It will always be focused toward those doctors who knowingly break the law to perform abortions in our state.”

With Roe overturned, states can now enforce bans or increase restrictions on abortions. South Dakota has a trigger law that immediately went into effect that banned abortions in the state following the lifting of the precedent.

In South Dakota, abortions are illegal and performing the operation is now a felony unless it will save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.

Noem also said she would seek to ban telemedicine appointments for abortions, looking to stop abortion care providers from shipping abortion pills to women after an online consultation.

The governor on Sunday defended her state’s new restrictions on abortions, arguing “every life is precious” and that new technology showed how cruel the abortion procedure is for the unborn.

“We know so much more using technology and science than we did even 10, 15 years ago about what these babies go through and the pain they feel in the womb,” she said. “We’re putting resources in front of these women and walking alongside them, getting them the healthcare, the mental health counseling services they need.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3537449-doctors-who-perform-abortions-will-be-targeted-for-prosecution-south-dakota-governor-says/

Noem: will ban abortion pills prescribed online

 South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) on Sunday said she will ban telemedicine appointments with abortion care providers who prescribe pills online in the GOP-controlled state in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Noem told host Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that she brought a bill forward in her state to ban the telemedicine appointments in order to block women from getting prescription abortion pills online and receiving them through the mail.

“These are very dangerous medical procedures,” Noem argued. “We don’t believe it should be available because it is a dangerous situation for an individual without being medically supervised by a physician.”

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday, punting the future of abortion rights back to states to decide whether they want to ban abortion procedures or tighten restrictions.

South Dakota passed a trigger law that went into effect immediately after Roe was overturned.

The state’s law bans abortions except in the case of saving a mother’s life and makes it a felony to perform the procedure.

Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol, a legal fight is likely to ensue between GOP states pushing to restrict access to the pills and the federal government under the Biden administration.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday said the Department of Justice will protect women’s abortion rights and their ability to get the pills.

Noem on Sunday said the Biden administration has “been overstepping its authority” and states will now decide what restrictions on abortions they wish to pass.

“The constitution does not give a women the right to an abortion,” Noem told Brennan on CBS. “The power to make these decisions really goes to each individual state.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3537363-south-dakota-governor-says-she-will-ban-abortion-pills-prescribed-online/

Flash of Greater Stroke Risk at Initiation of Oral Contraceptives

 The upfront stroke risk associated with oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) waned to varying degrees after the first year of use, an observational study found.

U.K. Biobank participants on birth control were at higher risk of any stroke during the first year of use (HR 2.49, 95% CI 1.44-4.30), after which strokes were no longer at an excess compared with nonusers (HR 1.00, 95% CI 0.86-1.14), according to researchers led by PhD student Therese Johansson, MSc, of Uppsala University in Sweden.

As for HRT, the first year of therapy was tied to an increased risk of stroke (HR 2.12, 95% CI 1.66-2.70) that declined in remaining years. The risk nevertheless remained modestly elevated over time (HR 1.18, 95% CI 1.05-1.32), even after HRT discontinuation (HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.02-1.32), Johansson's group reported in the journal Stroke.

The study supports prior work linking exogenous hormone use and stroke. Unlike other groups, however, Johansson and colleagues were able to show that HRT was associated with both ischemic and subarachnoid hemorrhage stroke subtypes.

"The increased rate of ischemic stroke during the first year of use could be a result of an immediate prothrombotic effect of the treatment that gradually declines due to adaptation of the hemostatic imbalance during remaining years of use," the authors suggested.

"However, the underlying mechanism through which HRT confers an immediate increased risk of subarachnoid hemorrhage is less clear," they said. "The short-term increased risk could be explained by cerebral vasodilation together with a transient elevation in systemic blood pressure following HRT initiation, causing rupture of preexisting aneurysm."

HRT is commonly used to treat menopause symptoms in clinical practice and has been suggested to improve cardiovascular health in some individuals.

Johansson and colleagues reported that the stroke risk associated with HRT didn't change in relation to menopause onset. This is consistent, they said, with the thinking that entering menopause increases the risk of stroke among nonusers, but women who have been on HRT are not at increased risk when they enter menopause.

Johansson and colleagues noted that the small number of strokes recorded among the relatively young group of oral contraceptive users precluded an analysis by stroke subtype in this group.

The study included more than 250,000 women ages 37-73 years from the U.K. Biobank. First occurrence of stroke was tracked in the database, which categorized events as ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, or subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Use of oral contraceptives (81%) and HRT (37%) was self-reported by participants, which left room for recall bias in the study, Johansson's group acknowledged.

Additionally, this was a relatively healthy population, limiting the generalizability of the results, and the authors could not differentiate between the various formulations of HRT and oral contraceptives used.

Disclosures

The study was funded by the Swedish Brain Foundation. The work was also funded by the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, and the Uppsala University center for women's mental health.

Johansson had no disclosures.

Primary Source

Stroke

Source Reference: Johansson T, et al "Oral contraceptives, hormone replacement therapy, and stroke risk" Stroke 2022; DOI: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.121.038659.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/cardiology/strokes/99434