After decrying state supreme court ruling on ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, lawmakers ensure its potential to take effect After days of nationwide debate over the Arizona supreme court’s recent decision to uphold a near-total abortion ban from the 19th century, Arizona’s Republican-controlled statehouse has again quashed an effort to repeal the ban. Republicans, who hold a one-seat majority in both the Arizona house and senate, on Wednesday shot down a procedural measure in the statehouse that would have enabled the chamber to vote on a bill to repeal the ban. Just one Republican ..read more

Opposition parties say women’s rights dealt blow after package approved by Georgia Meloni’s cabinet Italian opposition parties have said women’s rights in Italy have been dealt a “heavy” blow after parliament passed a measure by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government allowing anti-abortion activists to enter abortion consultation clinics. The measure forms part of a package of initiatives approved by Meloni’s cabinet that will be funded by the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund, of which Italy is the biggest beneficiary, and was put to the lower house in a confidence vote on Tuesday. The package ..read more

Chance Brannon firebombed a Planned Parenthood clinic in 2022 and had plans to attack a power station and a Pride celebration A former US marine was sentenced on Monday to nine years in prison for firebombing a southern California Planned Parenthood clinic in 2022, federal prosecutors said. Chance Brannon, 24, pleaded guilty in November to four felony counts, including malicious destruction of property by fire as well as explosives and intentional damage to a reproductive health services facility ..read more

Split reflects GOP’s identity crisis, as Republican politicians struggle to talk about increasingly toxic issue for them Republicans are nearly evenly divided over the Arizona supreme court’s decision to uphold an 1864 law that would ban almost all abortions, new polling shows. Forty-nine per cent of Republicans strongly or somewhat disapprove of the decision, while 46% of Republicans strongly or somewhat approve of it, according to polling of more than 1,000 likely voters released on Tuesday by the left-leaning thinktank Data for Progress. That split reflects the GOP’s identity crisis over po ..read more

People can claim $3,000 deduction for fetuses reaching six weeks gestation – but ‘it’s abortion politics’ not tax policy, experts say There were more than 36,000 “unborn children” claimed in tax filings in Georgia in 2022, the year the state enacted an abortion ban that also let people claim fetuses as dependents. Claiming that fetus, however, may have only netted individuals less than a couple hundred dollars in a state where a fifth of all children live in poverty. Georgia currently bans abortion past six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they’re pregnant. But that ban, unl ..read more

Senate hopeful Ruben Gallego says ‘the damage is done’ and enshrining abortion rights in constitution is best countermeasure Repealing the 1864 near-total abortion ban that Arizona’s state supreme court recently ruled was enforceable would have little effect because “the damage is done”, the Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego said on Sunday. “Any initiative they pass right now wouldn’t even take effect for quite a while,” the US House member and Senate hopeful told NBC News on Sunday. He also said a repeal would be vulnerable to being neutralized by future iterations of the state legislature ..read more

The Republican former TV anchor is trying to soften her election-denying image against the Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego in one of the year’s most closely watched races On a recent Tuesday morning, at a retirement community on the western edge of Phoenix’s sprawling desert metropolis, Kari Lake beamed at the graying crowd and introduced her guest, the Montana senator Steve Daines, the Republican charged with winning back the party’s Senate majority in Washington. His presence sent the message that establishment Republicans were fully behind Lake, a former TV news anchor in Phoenix whose ..read more

Fervent Trump supporters from last elections air doubts over abortion and the man himself in state where turnout will be key Terri Burl has come full circle. The local Republican party official was a founding member of Women for Trump in her corner of rural Wisconsin eight years ago when the then New York businessman’s run for president was little more than a joke to political pundits ..read more

Trump is walking a tricky tightrope trying to appeal to his evangelical base and moderate voters. His solution? A bunch of contradictory nonsense In recent years, Donald Trump has sold NFTs, sneakers, and bibles. Now the perennial marketer is busy selling a new and improved version of himself to voters. Meet Don 2.0: a reasonable man with moderate views on abortion ..read more

Focus on reproductive rights has yielded big wins and Democrats hope threat of more Republican bans will mobilize voters Kamala Harris’s Friday visit to Arizona was planned before the state’s top court upheld a 160-year-old law that bans almost all abortions. But the news galvanized the vice-president’s message, one that has already yielded stunning victories for liberals since Roe v Wade fell nearly two years ago. That message is simple: abortion bans happen when Republicans are in charge ..read more