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People visit the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, U.S. March 15, 2022.
Supreme Court rejects abortion pill challenge
The nation’s highest court on Thursday unanimously rejected a broad ban on the abortion medication mifepristone, meaning patients and doctors will retain access to the increasingly important drug. Since the same court overturned federal abortion protections two years ago, a raft of states have imposed harsh bans, which has spiked demand for mifepristone since it can be safely mailed from states that permit abortion.
The court rejected arguments from anti-abortion doctors, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing in the decision that their “desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue.” Still, despite the rare unanimous decision, the activists who brought the case say they intend to revive the challenge with a fresh case, likely in a friendly jurisdiction.
They’ll have to wait in line, though. This is the most crowded Supreme Court calendar in recent memory, with over a dozen big decisions expected before the court breaks for summer recess in late June. We have our eye on the most crucial items, including the case over Trump’s claims to presidential immunity, the one that could overturn the entire legal framework for federal agency regulations, and a case that could make a mess out of US tax laws.
Supreme Court will rule on abortion rights once again. What’s at stake now?
“The [abortion pill case] affects women across the country, it’s not state by state,” Bazelon stresses, “It’s the FDA’s authority to allow pills to be shipped everywhere and other rules that have made abortion pills more accessible for women in blue as well as red states.”
A group of doctors is challenging the Food and Drug Administration's authority to allow doctors to prescribe abortion pills without an in-person visit with a patient and for those pills to be sent through the mail. Bazelon explains that this group of plaintiffs is unusual in that they haven’t yet experienced direct harm from the FDA’s ruling, which you usually need to prove has happened before a case makes it all the way up to the highest court in the land. Four female justices are also on the bench this year, a historic high-water mark. Could that make a difference in the way justices rule on either case?
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
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Graphic Truth: Abortion meds in SCOTUS case are crucial
The US Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday on whether access to mifepristone, an oral drug used to terminate a pregnancy, should be restricted. The drug works by blocking progesterone, a hormone that’s necessary for a pregnancy to continue. The case centers on whether changes the FDA made in 2016 and 2021, which broadened access to the drug, should be rolled back.
One year since Roe v. Wade reversal, biggest surprises in state law
Surprises and non-surprises surrounded the Supreme Court's landmark Dobbs ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade last year. It started with the infamous leak to POLITICO about the ruling to come, and then the decision itself came down nearly a year ago today. But according to GZERO World guest Yale Law legal expert Emily Bazelon, one of the biggest surprises happened after the ruling.
"What has been surprising has been the ballot initiatives that have uniformly so far protected abortion rights in the six states where they have been up for a vote, including in Kansas." The fact that, at least at the state level, abortion has fared much better than expected this past year, Bazelon says, has to do with the voters themselves.
"When abortion is put to voters directly, one issue they can concentrate on, they are more interested in protecting abortion rights than I think a lot of people on the right and the left expected."
Tune into GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television stations nationwide. Check local listings.
For more on the Supreme Court and what to expect from anticipated rulings this year, watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: "Who polices the Supreme Court?"
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A family tries to flee Khartoum.
What We’re Watching: US preps Sudan embassy evacuation, Kosovo election boycott, US abortion pill decision, Ukrainian grain curbs, Schumacher’s “interview"
US seeks to evacuate embassy as Sudan crisis deepens
One American has been killed amid the fighting in Sudan this week, the State Department said Thursday. With the security situation worsening, the US is preparing for a possible evacuation of roughly 70 embassy staffers by deploying troops to nearby Djibouti who could help with the operation.
But amid ongoing bombardments in Khartoum, the capital, Washington acknowledges that any evacuations will be hard to pull off – whether they involve embassy workers or the 19,000 US citizens living in Sudan.
This comes as two warring military factions, both linked to the country's former autocrat Omar al-Bashir, have been locked in a battle for almost a week that’s caused Khartoum’s 5 million residents to hide in their homes. Fighting has also prompted tens of thousands to flee into neighboring Chad. (For more on the causes of the conflict and regional implications, see here.)
Other states – including Japan and Germany – have already tried to evacuate their citizens but have been forced to stand down as Khartoum’s airfields remain closed due to heavy shelling.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation is deteriorating. After a tenuous ceasefire broke down Wednesday, the World Health Organization said that the death toll had surpassed 300. What’s more, Khartoum residents say they are quickly running out of food as the UN has suspended aid deliveries and many stores have run out of supplies.
Kosovo’s ghost elections
This Sunday, Kosovo holds municipal elections in northern regions of the country where tensions have flared between the local Serb majority and the Kosovan national government. There’s one big problem: The Serbs are boycotting the vote.
Local Serb leaders say they won’t recognize the national government until they’re permitted to form a long-promised, quasi-autonomous association of Serb municipalities. Kosovan authorities are setting up polling locations anyway.
The background? Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia never recognized the move, and northern Kosovo – where many ethnic Serbs still consider Belgrade their capital – has been a tinderbox ever since. Last year, clashes even erupted over the introduction of Kosovan license plates, and violence has already caused this Sunday’s elections to be postponed once, from last December.
Kosovo and Serbia recently agreed to an EU-backed peace plan, but progress will be halting at best. Serbia’s president recently said Kosovo will “remain in Serbia” during his term. We’re watching the polls this Sunday, especially if no one goes to them.
See our Kosovo explainer here.
US’s abortion pill litigation battle
Abortion pill access in the US is still in legal limbo after the Supreme Court extended until midnight Friday a deadline on whether to uphold a lower court’s ban on the use of mifepristone, an abortion pill.
Justice Samuel Alito issued a terse statement Wednesday saying that the deadline had been extended by 48 hours. Some analysts took this as a sign that the court, which gutted the landmark Roe v. Wade decision last summer, is struggling to reach a decision, though that remains speculation.
This development comes after a federal judge in Texas recently banned the use of the drug, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2000, before a federal appeals court then ruled that mifepristone can remain on the market until the Supreme Court decides. Still, the appellate judges stripped back some provisions introduced in 2016 to enhance access to abortion pills, including allowing them to be sent by mail.
Whatever happens Friday, the litigation will continue as the Justice Department, representing the FDA, and drug makers, continue to pursue legal cases to keep abortion medication – accounting for 50% of abortions nationwide – on the market.
EU steps in to rescue Eastern Europe from Ukrainian grain
The EU is implementing emergency restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports to five member states neighboring the war-torn country. The move comes after Poland and Hungary took unilateral actions to rescue their farmers from the influx of Ukraine’s cheap grain.
With Black Sea ports caught up in the fighting, neighboring countries have been the sole transit routes for Ukrainian exports. But the high costs of transporting grain this way (and the relative cheapness of importing it from Latin America) trapped millions of tons of grain in Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. As local prices plummeted, countries implemented individual bans on Ukrainian imports despite warnings from Brussels.
The upcoming “preventative measures” seek to be a universal solution substituting for piecemeal bans that risk destabilizing the entire market. Brussels is also organizing convoys to transport the grain from the bloc to where it can be sent to countries in need.
The measures come along with €100 million ($109 million) worth of compensation for farmers who have been enraged by plummeting prices. But as Brussels pays to disperse the grain across the continent, farmers in Western Europe need to brace themselves for local prices to take a hit.
Fake Schumacher, real lawsuit
Ten years after suffering a severe head injury that left him incapacitated, legendary Formula One driver Michael Schumacher miraculously gave his first interview this week.
Or so it seemed. The exchange with German tabloid Die Aktuelle was actually generated by an AI program. Schumacher’s family is now planning legal action.
Frankly, we’re a little disappointed in Die Aktuelle. This isn’t like the AI-generated Drake/Weeknd song that blew up earlier this week. In that case, a computer actually mimicked the voices of those artists so well that millions of people thought they were listening to the real thing.
But with Die Aktuelle, it’s just … printed words, and flat ones like, “My wife and my children were a blessing to me and without them I would not have managed it.”
We’re not sure why the ‘zine went to the trouble of using an AI program rather than just making up fake quotes themselves. Can’t humans do anything anymore?
The political machine that took down Roe v. Wade
50 years ago, when the Supreme Court granted the constitutional right to abortion, the country was far less divided than is it today. Now with that Roe v. Wade decision overturned, roughly half the states have "trigger laws" on the books restricting abortion, New York Times columnist Emily Bazelon tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
From a constitutional perspective, Bazelon says that abortion decisions today depend "on what you think of the idea that abortion is fundamental to women's liberty and equality" — a hard sell for what she calls a "maximalist" conservative majority on the court.
Bazelon adds that access to abortion pills is going to turn into a big legal battle. The Justice Department is working to ensure states can't ban abortion pills, which are federally approved, but Congress (as a whole) will be a tough sell.
But much of the rest of the world has been moving in the opposite direction. Largely Catholic countries in Latin America and Europe have legalized abortion, while African nations have rolled back or are rethinking colonial-era abortion bans. Regardless, the SCOTUS ruling will make waves around the world.
How far does Biden’s executive order on abortion access go?
Having faced mounting criticism from many Democrats for his tepid response to the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, US President Joe Biden hit back Friday, issuing an executive order protecting some abortion rights.
Against the backdrop of the grand Roosevelt Room at the White House, Biden set out his administration’s plan to enhance sexual and reproductive health access for American women and girls, particularly those living in states where the procedure is outlawed in all or most circumstances.
Biden’s plan has a robust legal component. The White House is leveraging the full weight of the national legal apparatus – led by Attorney General Merrick Garland – to ensure lawful protection for women who access abortion pills and contraceptives or travel out of state for abortions.
Along with the White House counsel, the Department of Justice will work with a team of pro bono and private lawyers to protect medical practitioners and third parties involved in facilitating abortion care in states where it is banned – as well as for residents who seek abortions across state lines and face potential legal prosecution when they return to red states.
Still, details of the order remain scarce. The White House has directed the secretary of health and human services to come up with some sort of plan on how to preserve access to medical abortions (pills) and intrauterine devices, a form of reversible birth control, and report back within 30 days.
Moreover, Biden also said that the White House will work to protect user data on period and cycle trackers by cracking down on tech companies selling data to third parties, though it would certainly need Big Tech’s cooperation to work.
Biden’s move is unlikely to placate many Democrats who have been pushing him to go further, including by opening up federal property to abortion providers in states where the procedure is banned, thus shielding them from prosecution.
But Biden – a measured, middle-of-the road politician – has so far rebuffed those calls; he says this would be legally questionable. Besides, such blow-it-up tactics aren’t really his style.
To be sure, Biden himself has acknowledged that this isn’t significantly going to move the needle on enhancing abortion access in America: “Let me be very clear and unambiguous,” he recently said, “the only way we can secure a woman’s right to choose and the balance that existed is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v Wade as federal law. No executive action from the president can do that.”
So what’s his message to American women? Repeatedly during the Friday press conference, he instructed voters to head to the ballot box this November and vote for pro-choice representatives so that Congress can pass a law codifying abortion rights. Many voters, however, might not take kindly to being told to fix this problem, particularly after Democrats flocked to the polls in droves in 2020, delivering Biden a Democratic-led House and Senate.
US Supreme Court fights: why ending Roe is only the beginning
The US is now a much more divided country than it was almost 50 years ago, when the Supreme Court granted the constitutional right to abortion — recently overturned by the court.
Interestingly, most of the rest of the world is moving in the opposite direction, including in majority-Catholic countries. But striking down Roe v. Wade will surely have a bigger impact on US politics.
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer speaks to New York Times columnist Emily Bazelon, who knows a thing or two about this ultra-divisive issue because she's also a senior research fellow at Yale Law School.
Just hours after the bombshell ruling dropped on June 24, Bazelon reacted to it by analyzing what abortion rights will look like soon across different US states; why SCOTUS upheld the constitutional right to carry guns but not to get an abortion; the next steps by the Biden administration and Congress; and why the battle over abortion pills is likely headed to the same court that got rid of Roe.
Bonus: Wanna get an abortion in Missouri? It'll be a long drive, and you may get sued.