R&I – FS
(CNN)When three red states finalized severe restrictions on abortion over consecutive days last week, they highlighted the GOP’s rising militancy on the issue — and the political and legal calculations underpinning it.
Separate actions last week in Oklahoma, Florida and Kentucky made clear the red state drive to retrench, or eliminate, access to abortion is escalating as the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority nears a decision, expected in late June, in which it is widely anticipated to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a nationwide right to abortion.
The abortion restrictions these states approved last week all denied exceptions for victims of rape or incest — a provision that was once a common feature of conservative anti-abortion proposals but has been jettisoned almost completely in the wave of new restrictions approved since 2021.
The Oklahoma legislation banned nearly all abortions from the moment of conception and imposed severe penalties on doctors who perform them, including up to 10 years in jail. The Kentucky bill, continuing an offensive already underway in several other red states, prohibited state residents from obtaining medication abortion through the mail, as the federal Food and Drug Administration authorized late last year.
Continued
Embrace Common Sense
Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/abortion-laws-red-states-republicans/index.html