Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a former football coach for a high school in western Washington who lost his job after praying on the 50-yard-line after games.
The court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines that the free exercise and free speech clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in religious expression. Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered the opinion for the majority in the case, known as Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.
“The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike,” Gorsuch wrote.
The dispute involving Joseph Kennedy, the former Bremerton High School assistant football coach, stood at the intersection of the First Amendment’s establishment clause and the free speech and free exercise clauses, as lawyers for Kennedy argued the school district’s punishment for his religious expression violated his constitutional rights. The school district, meanwhile, warned Kennedy when it learned of his postgame prayers that his activities likely violated the establishment clause, which prohibits the government from endorsing a religion.
The court fight involving Kennedy’s postgame prayers at midfield attracted a bevy of friend-of-the-court briefs, including from former NFL players and professional and collegiate athletes who came down on both sides of the debate.
In an interview with CBS News on Monday, Kennedy thanked his supporters and said he grateful that the case was finally over, calling decision a “great ruling for America.”
“People of faith or no faith, everybody has the same rights, and that is what the Constitution is all about,” Kennedy said. “It’s rights for all Americans.”
Writing for the liberal minority on Monday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the Constitution does not authorize public schools to embrace Kennedy’s conduct, and wrote that the majority’s opinion rejects “longstanding concerns” surrounding government endorsement of religion.
“Official-led prayer strikes at the core of our constitutional protections for the religious liberty of students and their parents, as embodied in both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” wrote Sotomayor, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. “The court now charts a different path, yet again paying almost exclusive attention to the Free Exercise Clause’s protection for individual religious exercise while giving short shrift to the Establishment Clause’s prohibition on state establishment of religion.”
Kelly Shackelford, head of the group First Liberty, which represented Kennedy, celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision, calling it a “tremendous victory” for him and religious liberty.
“Our Constitution protects the right of every American to engage in private religious expression, including praying in public, without fear of getting fired,” Shackelford said in a statement.
But Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, warned the decision by the court “represents the greatest loss of religious freedom” in generations.
“Today, the court continued its assault on church-state separation, by falsely describing coercive prayer as ‘personal’ and stopping public schools from protecting their students’ religious freedom,” she said in a statement. “It is no coincidence that the erosion of the line between church and state has come alongside devastating losses on so many of the rights we cherish. As that line has blurred, public education, reproductive rights, civil rights and more have come under attack.”
The Bremerton School District said it will continue working to ensure it is a “welcoming, inclusive environment for all students, their families and our staff.”
Kennedy first began praying after football games in August 2008 following his first game as coach of the Bremerton Knights. While his praying first began with him alone briefly thanking God after the final whistle, players soon began to join Kennedy after games, with participation varying from week to week. At least one parent said his son “felt compelled to participate” out of fear he would lose playing time.
The prayers, too, evolved from brief, private expressions of thanksgiving into motivational speeches with religious references.
Kennedy’s practice of praying on the field continued without issue for seven years. The Bremerton School District learned what the coach was doing in September 2015 when an opposing team’s coach told the high school’s principal that Kennedy asked his players to join him for the post-game prayer and he “thought it was pretty cool” that the district would allow such an activity.
But the observation sparked a yearslong battle between Kennedy and the school district, with the coach arguing he was engaging in constitutionally protected religious expression, and defenders of the school district claiming the coach was acting as an agent of the state who, as a public school employee, violated the religious freedom of students who felt pressure to pray.
Kennedy stopped engaging in his postgame prayers after the district told him his talks with students had to be secular and his future religious activity had to be separate from any student activity, but he resumed the practice in October 2015.
The school district then punished Kennedy, placing him on administrative leave for violating its directives, and Bremerton’s athletic director recommended he not be rehired for the following football season, citing a failure to follow district policy and supervise student-athletes after games.
Kennedy chose not to reapply for his coaching position at Bremerton High School and sued the district in August 2016 for violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of his faith.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the school district, and Kennedy appealed to the Supreme Court for the first time. In 2019, the high court rejected his case, with four of the court’s conservative justices saying it was premature for the court to consider the legal fight.
After additional proceedings, Kennedy again lost in the lower courts. He asked the Supreme Court for a second time to hear the case, and the justices agreed to do so in January.
Even when Roe v. Wade was in effect and women had the legal right to an abortion no matter where they lived in the U.S., health insurance coverage of the procedure was limited.
Many states restrict what plans can cover, and a decadeslong national law bans the use of federal funds for abortions, meaning that women on Medicaid and Medicare were often not covered when it came to pregnancy terminations.
With abortion now expected to be prohibited in at least half the states after the landmark decision protecting women’s right to an abortion was overturned by the Supreme Court last week, coverage will only become rarer, experts say.
“State-regulated insurers in states where abortion is banned will have to drop coverage of abortions to stay in compliance with state criminal law,” said Caitlin Donovan, a spokeswoman for the National Patient Advocate Foundation.
Still, women seeking coverage for abortion may have options available to them. Although the landscape is quickly changing, here’s what we know as of now.
How much does an abortion cost?
Medication abortions, which account for over half of all abortions, and include a two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol, can be safely used within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, and can cost up to $750 without insurance, according to Planned Parenthood.
A surgical abortion, meanwhile, can run more than $2,000 out of pocket.
How did coverage of abortions work before?
Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision last week, abortion coverage was still highly dependent on where you lived and what type of plan you had, Donovan said. “Most states impose restrictions on coverage in varying degrees.”
Eleven states limit the coverage of abortion in all private health insurance plans written in the state, according to The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research organization. They are Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.
Meanwhile, just six states — California, Illinois, Maine, New York, Oregon and Washington — require abortion coverage, with some stipulations, on private plans.
The Hyde Amendment, passed in 1976, blocked federal funding for services such as Medicaid from being used for abortions, except in limited cases including rape and incest. States can choose to use their own budgets to supplement their Medicaid coverage and extend their abortion policies, but more than 30 states have not done so, Donovan said.
As a result, “in many states, hundreds of thousands of women seeking abortion services annually are left without coverage options,” according to a 2019 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
How will coverage now change?
It will just get more limited, experts say.
If you live in a state such as Louisiana or South Dakota, where abortion is now banned, “you probably don’t have any insurance coverage for it at all except in the case of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life,” Donovan said.
“Some states may not even allow those exceptions,” Donovan added.
However, employers that self-fund for their health insurance policy, meaning they take on most of the costs of benefit claims, may be able to maintain their abortion coverage, said Joelle Abramowitz, an assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan. Such plans tend to be subject to less regulation, giving the company more flexibility on benefits offered.
Donovan recommends calling your plan provider and asking about its abortion coverage. Of course, if abortions are banned in your state, even if you’re covered, you’ll likely have to travel to another state to get one.
Some companies are also covering travel expenses for employees who need to leave the state for an abortion.
What about leaving my state for an abortion?
If you have abortion coverage, you may need to go “out of network” on your health insurance plan to see a doctor in another state, experts say.
Out-of-network coverage is typically less robust, and some health plans, including HMO plans, don’t offer it at all. Abramowitz suggests calling your insurance plan and asking whether you have out-of-network benefits and how they work.
In some cases, people may find it’s cheaper to pay a provider out of pocket than to go through their out-of-network insurance option, Abramowitz said. Many abortion providers work on a sliding scale, she added.
It’s also worth asking your insurance plan if there are any in-network abortion providers in another state. There could be one right over the state line, for example, Abramowitz said.
You also may be able to see a provider in another state virtually through a telehealth visit to get a medication abortion. In these cases, your medication can be mailed to you or you’ll be asked to pick it up somewhere.
However, 19 states have already made it illegal to receive medication prescribed during a telehealth visit.
How can I get financial help?
A growing number of resources are available to help people with the financial costs of an abortion.
KREMENCHUK, Ukraine, June 27 (Reuters) – Two Russian missiles slammed into a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, killing at least 11 people and wounding 50, the regional governor said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said more than 1,000 people were in the shopping centre at the time of the attack, which witnesses said caused a huge fire and sent dark smoke billowing into the sky.
A Reuters reporter saw the charred husk of a shopping complex with a caved-in roof. Firefighters and soldiers were pulling out mangled pieces of metal as they searched for survivors.
“It is impossible to even imagine the number of victims … It’s useless to hope for decency and humanity from Russia,” Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Dmytro Lunin, governor of the central Poltava region, wrote on Telegram that 11 people had now been confirmed killed by the strike, adding that rescue workers would keep searching through the smouldering rubble, with more bodies likely to be found.
Lunin also wrote on Telegram that 21 people had been hospitalised, and 29 others had been given first aid without hospitalization.
“It’s an act of terrorism against civilians,” he said separately, suggesting there was no military target nearby that Russia could have been aiming at.
At one point, paramedics rushed into the building after rescuers called out “200” meaning they had found one or more bodies in the building. Reporters were later pushed away from the scene as air raid sirens wailed again.
UKRAINE WANTS MORE WEAPONS
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Rescuers work at a site of a shopping mall hit by a Russian missile strike, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kremenchuk, in Poltava region, Ukraine June 27, 2022. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS
As night began to fall, rescuers brought lights and generators to continue the search. Worried family members, some close to tears and with hands over their mouths, lined up at a hotel across the street from the mall where rescue workers had set up a base.
Kiril Zhebolovsky, 24, was looking for his friend, Ruslan, 22, who worked at the Comfy electronics store and hadn’t been heard from since the blast. “We sent him messages, called, but nothing,” he said. He left his name and phone number with the rescue workers in case his friend is found.
Kremenchuk, an industrial city of 217,000 before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, lies on the Dnipro River in the region of Poltava and is the site of Ukraine’s biggest oil refinery.
Ukraine’s air force command said the mall was hit by two long-range X-22 missiles fired from Tu-22M3 bombers that flew from Shaykovka airfield in Russia’s Kaluga region.
Russia did not immediately comment on the Ukrainian assertion. It has denied deliberately targeting civilians during in its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“We need more weapons to protect our people, we need missile defences,” Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office, said.
Vadym Denysenko, an interior ministry adviser, said Russia could have had three motives for the attack.
“The first, undoubtedly, is to sow panic, the second is to… destroy our infrastructure, and the third is to… raise the stakes to get the civilised West to sit down again at the table for talks,” he said.
Russia, which has captured the eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk after a weeks-long assault, has stepped up missile strikes across Ukraine in recent days. read more
Missiles hit an apartment block and landed close to a kindergarten in the Ukrainian capital on Sunday, killing one person and wounding several more people. read more
On the fifth week of hurricane season, meteorologists are keeping their eyes on three disturbances with odds of becoming the second tropical storm of the season.
First, the NHC continues to monitor a tropical wave over the central Atlantic that is continuing to improve its organization, according to the 2 p.m. Monday update.
The wave is located about 700 miles east-southeast of the Windward Islands. It is moving west at 15 to 20 mph, expected to approach the islands on Tuesday and then move into the southeastern Caribbean Sea on Wednesday and Thursday. Meteorologists speculate the system to become a tropical depression or storm in the next day or so.
The NHC gives the wave a 70% chance of developing in the next two days and a 90% chance in the next five. A NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft is scheduled to investigate the system Monday afternoon.
Also, tropical storm watches or warnings could be required for the Windward Islands and the northeastern coasts of Venezuela.
Next, a trough of low pressure has created an area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms from southeastern Louisiana across the northeastern Gulf of Mexico and the southern part of the Florida peninsula. The NHC gives it a 10% chance of forming into a tropical system in the next two days, or 20% in the next five days, as it slowly drifts west across the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Lastly, the NHC identified a tropical wave several hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms. Atlantic conditions could become ripe enough for the system’s development into a tropical storm in the next several days. The NHC gave the wave a 20% chance of developing in the next five days.
If any of the systems develop, they would be the season’s second system after Tropical Storm Alex, which dumped nearly a foot of rain over parts of Florida earlier this month. The next named storm would become Tropical Storm Bonnie.
After Bonnie, the next two names would be Colin and Danielle.
A tropical system could be named a tropical depression without growing to tropical-storm status. It doesn’t become named until the system has sustained winds of 39 mph and isn’t named a hurricane until it has sustained winds of 74 mph.
The 2022 season runs from June 1-Nov. 30 is predicted to be another above-normal year for storms following the 30 named storms of 2020 and 21 of 2021.
Kollene Dunn’s abortion a few months after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling saved her family, she said.
Dunn learned she was pregnant from a date rape and her mind quickly raced to her two young children, she told CNN. The single mom realized she did not have the economic means to support a third child on her income as a secretary.
“Roe v. Wade saved me and my two children,” said the resident of Otis, Oregon. “My life would have been so different had I not been able to get a legal abortion.”
“This is an earthquake that’s happening to our society, and it didn’t need to happen,” Dunn said Friday afternoon, reading the ruling on her laptop in her living room.
“It was enough to just make me sick,” she said. “The rights that we’ve had, we’re going to not have anymore, and it doesn’t stop here. It’s terrible.”
Roe v. Wade is “part of the larger story of personal freedom,” Dunn said, and a woman’s right to make decisions about her body is still her top issue politically.
Dunn was a single 18-year-old when she had her first child, she said. She later got married and had her son in 1970.
She had recently separated from her husband when she said she was date raped in 1973 by a man she had gone out with a few times.
“When I found out I was pregnant, it was like, horrifying,” she recalled. “It was like, ‘Oh, my God, what am I going to do? I can’t do this.’”
The decision weighed heavily on Dunn. How would she feed three children? How would she pay the rent? Could she keep her full-time job? And could she afford a babysitter?
“But by child number three, I’m thinking I can barely make it with two. I can’t do this,” Dunn said. “It would be very impactful for my children and very negatively because I wouldn’t be able to feed them as well as I did or house them as well as I did.”
The decision to terminate the pregnancy was the right one for her and her family, Dunn said, after considering her options. Even if she’d had to get an abortion illegally, she said she would have done so.
“I was just really grateful that it was at a time when I could have a legal abortion in a doctor’s office and that it would be OK,” she said.
Dunn now worries about the next generations of people who may need to get the critical procedure, she said, including her own grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“I just feel so bad,” she said, for the younger women in the country.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization dramatically and rapidly alters the landscape of abortion access in the U.S. The court on June 24 ruled 6-3 to uphold a Mississippi law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, but also to overturn the nearly half-century precedent set in Roe v. Wade that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion. With the Dobbs decision, states have the ability to set their own restrictions, so where people live will determine their level of access to abortion.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, stated that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey [Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 1992] are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
Almost immediately after the decision was released, protests and celebrations outside the court and across the country began — highlighting the patchwork of laws and restrictions that now will take effect. State officials from conservative states said they would move quickly to restrict abortion, while in other states, some officials pledged to keep the right to access.
Here are five key points that will affect access to abortion.
1. Where is abortion still legal?
The Supreme Court ruling means access to abortion will, very shortly, be highly uneven.
Sixteen states plus the District of Columbia have laws that protect the right to abortion. In two other states, courts have ruled that the state constitution establishes that right. Those states are concentrated on the East and West coasts.
On the other end of the spectrum, 13 states have “trigger” laws that would quickly ban nearly all abortions, and at least a half-dozen moved Friday to implement them, including Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and South Dakota. Four more have pre-Roe bans that would again be in effect. Three other states have laws on the books that will ban abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.
Access to abortion is likely to evolve in other states, too. Kansas and Montana, which are among the states that have abortion rights enshrined in their constitutions, could see rollbacks in those protections through a ballot measure in Kansas and a legal challenge by the Montana attorney general. In at least eight states, the right to abortion isn’t explicitly protected or prohibited by state law.
And in Michigan, a 1931 state law bans nearly all abortions, but its enforcement was temporarily suspended by a May court decision. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, has said she will not enforce the law, but questions remain about whether that would also be the case for local prosecutors.
As was the case before the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe decision, people seeking abortion care will also be subject to a variety of restrictions even in states where the procedure is still legal. They include gestational limits outlining the maximum point in pregnancy that someone can obtain an abortion, requirements that patients receive counseling beforehand, waiting periods, and parental notification rules for minors.
2. What can the Biden administration do?
President Joe Biden has said his administration is looking into executive actions to counteract the impact of the ruling. In remarks after the decision, Biden said that it was a “sad day” and that, without Roe, “the health and life of women in this nation is now at risk.”
But in short, without a new law from Congress, he has limited options.
Supporters of abortion rights and Democratic lawmakers in Congress have pushed the administration to make it easier for women to obtain medication abortion, which is available up to 10 weeks of pregnancy and involves taking two pills, assessing whether services could be provided on federal property even in states that ban the procedure, and bolstering digital privacy to protect patients.
Medication abortion has become an increasingly large share of total abortions provided in the U.S. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, the pills accounted for more than half of all abortions in 2020, the first year medication provided the majority.
Under the Biden administration, the Food and Drug Administration has already lifted one major restriction. Now, patients can receive mifepristone, the first drug used in the series, by mail. Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California at Davis School of Law and an abortion legal historian, said that, even as conservative states move to curtail access to medication abortion, the Biden administration could argue that the FDA’s rules and guidelines on mifepristone preempt any state laws that criminalize that method. Attorney General Merrick Garland took this position in a statement he released shortly after the decision was announced: “The FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.” Biden reinforced that message in his remarks.
In comments before the justices’ decision was announced, Zeigler said arguing this position is “the biggest thing they could do.” Still, the FDA approach is uncertain, both legally and because a future Republican administration could easily reverse any action that Biden officials take. “If it worked it wouldn’t be permanent, and it may not work,” she added. The Biden administration could also expand the number of pharmacies that can dispense the medication.
3. Will people in states where abortion is illegal be able to access medication abortion?
For now, as a result of the Dobbs decision, states that ban abortions are likely to set limitations or bans on abortion pills as well. But some advocates note that people in those states still may be able to obtain abortion pills and perform a “self-managed” abortion at home, which carries some additional risk if the woman has a complication (though complications are very rare). And abortion pills will still be accessible in states where abortion is allowed.
Packages of the medication used to end an early pregnancy sit on a table inside a Planned Parenthood clinic on Oct. 29, 2021, in Fairview Heights, Ill.
Jeff Roberson / AP
Before Roe was overturned, many states had already enacted restrictions on obtaining abortion pills, including prohibiting the pills from being sent through the mail and not allowing patients to be prescribed the medication via a telemedicine appointment. But people found workarounds — a practice that’s likely to continue. These actions — such as traveling to neighboring states to secure the medication or having it sent to a friend’s house or a post office box in another location — could carry the risk of criminal charges, again depending on the specifics of state laws.
There is also concern among abortion rights activists that the states that outlaw abortion could go even further and criminalize traveling to another state to get an abortion, though this is an untested legal frontier and likely would be tied up in courts.
In his remarks, Biden took a hard-line stance on this question, saying that nothing in the court’s decision prevents a woman who lives in a state that bans abortion from traveling to a state that allows it. Women “must remain free to travel safely to another state to seek the care they need,” he said, adding that his administration “will defend that bedrock right.” He also noted that doctors in the states that continue to allow abortions can provide abortions to women from other jurisdictions.
4. How will this affect doctors’ ability to provide care?
In many states that ban abortions, obstetricians, gynecologists, emergency room doctors, and any type of physician that takes care of pregnant people will likely be targeted by law and could face criminal charges if they provide abortion services.
This will have a severe effect on reproductive health care, Dr. Nikki Zite, an OB-GYN in Knoxville, Tenn., recently told KHN. Tennessee’s trigger law says abortions are permissible only to prevent a death or “to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
“But exactly how much risk there needs to be is not clear,” Zite said. “Different physicians practicing at different institutions will have different interpretations of that law.”
There are also gray areas the law doesn’t address. In some very early pregnancies, the fertilized egg lodges outside the uterus — most commonly in a fallopian tube — a potentially life-threatening situation called an ectopic pregnancy. If that type of pregnancy proceeds, the woman can bleed to death.
Patients who have a miscarriage also sometimes need to take abortion medication or have dilation and curettage surgery — known as a D&C — to remove tissue that lingers inside the uterus.
“The challenge is that the treatment for an abortion and the treatment for a miscarriage are exactly the same,” Dr. Sarah Prager recently told KHN. Prager is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington in Seattle and an expert on early pregnancy loss.
Doctors may hesitate to perform D&Cs to treat miscarriages for fear someone will accuse them of performing a covert abortion.
“Physicians shouldn’t be fearful for being criminalized for taking care of patients,” said Zite. “I think there’s going to be a myriad of unintended consequences. I think that people will lose their lives. I also think there will be people in horrible situations, like those that strongly desire to be pregnant but have a complication of the pregnancy, that will not be able to make decisions on how that pregnancy ends, and that will be a different kind of devastation.”
5. Could this ruling affect more than just abortion?
Absolutely, according to reproductive health experts. Depending on what is determined to be an “abortion,” states could end up criminalizing — on purpose or by accident — in vitro fertilization and certain forms of birth control, and limiting the training and availability of doctors and other health care providers.
At stake is what is determined to be an abortion. Medically, abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy, by natural means — spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage — or by human intervention with medication or a surgical procedure. But when does a pregnancy begin? Doctors say pregnancy begins when a fertilized egg implants in a woman’s uterus. But many anti-abortion activists say it begins when a sperm and egg unite to form a zygote, which can happen several days earlier. That earlier time frame would mean that anything that interferes with the implantation of that fertilized egg, such as an IUD (intrauterine device), a common form of birth control, could be defined as an abortion. Similarly, in vitro fertilization, which involves removing a woman’s eggs, fertilizing them, and then implanting them back into the woman, could also be construed to involve abortion unless every fertilized egg was implanted.
An opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas that concurred with the decision to overturn Roe raised other questions. He suggested that the court could use the same arguments in the Dobbs case to overturn other key rulings, including those that established the rights to birth control and same-sex marriage. It was not clear that the other justices agreed, and Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the main opinion, said he did not believe the abortion decision affected other issues.
The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists applauded the decision, terming it “momentous.” But others worry that the ruling could have a negative impact on women’s access to care in places that have or enact strict abortion laws. Specifically, doctors and other health professionals may not want to train or practice in areas where they could be prosecuted for delivering medical care.
And this is not just theoretical. In Texas, where abortion after six weeks’ gestation has been effectively banned since September, according to a report in The New England Journal of Medicine, the law “has taken a toll on clinicians’ mental health; some physicians report feeling like ‘worse doctors,’ and some are leaving the state. As a result, clinicians worry that pregnant Texans are being left without options for care and without doctors capable of providing it.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated on June 25 to clarify that Montana’s constitutional protection for abortion is being challenged by the state attorney general, not lawmakers.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
Russia is rejecting the default declaration, on the grounds that it has made efforts to pay. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters on Monday that the statements about default were “absolutely illegal.”
“The fact that Euroclear withheld this money, did not transfer it to the recipients, it is not our problem,” Mr. Peskov said. “In other words, there are no grounds to call this situation a default.”
The finance ministry added that the actions of foreign financial institutions are beyond its control and “it seems advisable for investors to contact the relevant financial institutions directly” over the payments.
The risk of default emerged in late February after Russia invaded Ukraine and sanctions were imposed to sever the country from international financial markets. In late May, Russia tried to navigate tightening sanctions that cut off its access to American banks and bondholders by sending the payments to a Moscow-based institution. But ultimately, the funds didn’t make it all the way to bondholders’ accounts because of far-reaching American and European sanctions.
ELMAU, Germany — Group of Seven nations are moving closer to capping the price that countries can pay for Russian oil, a senior U.S. official said.
The official said leaders aim to further restrict Vladimir Putin’s cash flow, bring down prices at the gas pump and provide greater stability to energy markets.
Leaders were said to be zeroing in on the way Russian oil is shipped. The U.S. official said G-7 leaders are planning to direct their governments to take urgent steps to design a price cap mechanism for countries that do not participate in the economic alliance.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters that an agreement on price caps would mark “pretty dramatic step forward,” adding that it would amount to “one of the more significant outcomes of G-7 summit.”
No additional details on a potential price cap and how it would work were immediately available. Sullivan saidthe delay of the agreement had to do with the novelty and complexity of the approach.
“It is a new kind of concept to deal with a particularly novel challenge, which is how to effectively deal with a country that’s selling millions of barrels of oil a day and try to deprive it of some of the revenues that they’re getting from the sale of that oil,” Sullivan said.
The latest at the G-7:
Ukraine comes in focus: Leaders spent their morning discussing ways to help Ukraine beat back a Russian offensive. They were addressed virtually by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Big decisions: Zelenskyy’s remarks were expected to jumpstart conversations about additional heavy artillery shipments. G-7 leaders are also discussing a price cap on Russian oil.
Global cooperation: To keep Putin from selling oil to other nations at higher prices, G-7 countries need cooperation from nations outside their alliance.
Enter India: Germany is hosting G-7 leaders this year at a resort in the Bavarian Alps. Chancellor Olaf Scholz invited India and several other countries to participate.
Why it matters: India’s imports of Russian oil have spiked recently, as Putin offloads his reserves to nations outside the economic bloc.
How it affects Americans: A U.S. official declined to project how costs for American consumers would be affected by an oil price cap. The official stressed that the goal is to ensure stability in global energy markets.
Taxing Russia: The official said new tariffs were carefully calibrated to hurt Russia and are not expected to impact the United States’ supply chain or raise costs for American consumers.
What’s ahead for G-7?
G-7 leaders will spend the second day of a Bavarian summit talking about a leader who was once a part of their exclusive economic club: Vladimir Putin.
In 2014, G-7 nations banished Russia from their gathering over its firstinvasion of eastern Ukraine. Now, with Putin’s army pummeling the country, world leaders are rushing to stop him.
Leaders will work over lunch (again) — this time discussing climate, energy and health initiatives. Later in the day, they will sit down with guest nations. This host of this year’s summit, Germany’s Scholz, invited the leaders of Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa to attend.
Italy, France, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan regularly form the G-7, which gets its name from the number of permanent participants. When Russia was part of the organization, it was known as the G-8.
What G-7 leaders are saying
G-7 leaders reaffirmed their support for Ukraine in a statement that condemned the invasion and called on Russia to remove its military from all areas of Ukraine.
“It is up to Ukraine to decide on a future peace settlement, free from external pressure or influence,” the joint statement said.
Leaders pledged to welcome Ukrainian refugees and Russian political dissidents into their countries and hold individuals who commit war crimes accountable.
They also promised to coordinate on addressing the global food crisis.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi told G-7 leaders at a Sunday session that capping the price of fossil fuels that are imported from Russia is in their interest. “We need to reduce our funding to Russia. And we need to eliminate one of the main causes of inflation,” Draghi said. “We must avoid the mistakes made after the 2008 crisis: the energy crisis must not produce a return of populism.”
Other G-7 takeaways
The U.S. also announced on Monday that it would impose sanctions that would make it harder for Russia to replace its military equipment. The official said that the U.S. Treasury Department will introduce blocking sanctions on private military companies operating in Ukraine and Russian officials trying to exert authority in contested areas.
G-7 leaders have also agreed on a new way to fund the Ukrainian war effort, according to the White House. A fact sheet on the new measures says nations will seek to use funds generated by new tariffs on Russia to help Ukraine. As part of the announcement, the U.S. says it will raise tariffs on roughly $2.3 billion of Russian goods.
Why it matters
Russia is on the verge of defaulting on its debt for the first time in more than a century, with access to its foreign currency reserves halted. The country is also experiencing inflation above 17%.
But consumers in the U.S. and other G-7 nations are also facing higher costs. Fuel prices in the United States have decreased in the past several days, yet a gallon of gas still costs $0.30 more than it did a month ago.
Biden administration officials have stressed at every turn that Putin’s unprovoked war on Ukraine is primarily causing inflation.
But with no end in sight to the military conflict, Biden is asking his administration and oil and gas companies to come up with creative ways to drive down prices for American consumers.
Want to know more? Here’s what you’ve missed
Biden and G-7 leaders announced a ban on new imports of Russian gold on the first day of their summit. They also launched a global infrastructure initiative.
And while she supported the state’s decision to ban abortion, she thought it also needed to pass laws for paid maternity leave, subsidized child care and financial support for food and housing for those who need it.
“Many of the reasons women feel like they need abortion is because of the lack of support for raising children,” Ms. Fullan said. “The hardships that come with pregnancy and recovery, that’s going to be hard even with paid health care and paid child care.”
At the Brethren Church on a rural highway in Jefferson Township, Ohio, the congregation is split roughly half between Black and white members, with a handful of Latino congregants. Part of the service is delivered in Spanish. And while the church’s stances have historically been progressive, the membership prides itself on nurturing a diversity of views.
“I am totally for the Supreme Court verdict, I don’t believe in harming innocent children,” said Sharon Sampson.
Terri Griffith said: “I am very disillusioned. This Supreme Court is dangerous.”
Yet those on opposite sides had worshiped together and shared in the potluck after the service. Jan Putrell, 68, was also there. While she described herself as a “radical progressive” on many social issues, she said abortion didn’t fit the easy categories that some do.
“We need a time of discernment,” she said, “to reflect on the verdict.”
Reporting was contributed by Jamie McGee, David Montgomery, Kevin Williams, Holly Secon, Luke Vander Ploeg, Sydney Cromwell and Ben Fenwick.
A South Carolina man was killed Friday after officials say an 11-foot alligator attacked him and pulled him into a retention pond.
In a Facebook post, the Horry County Police Department said they responded to a water rescue call around 11:45 a.m. Friday near the Myrtle Beach Golf & Yacht Club.
They and members of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Section and SCDNR Law Enforcement Division also responded to assist.
When they arrived at the scene, it was determined that the alligator grabbed the unidentified man standing near a retention pond and pulled him in.
The man’s body was later recovered from the pond, and officials determined that the alligator should be euthanized on site.
FOX News correspondent Phil Keating reports there are millions of alligators in the United States, from Texas to the Carolinas.
Florida has an estimated alligator population of about 1.3 million with a yearly average of seven unprovoked attacks that require medical attention, Keating reported.
Louisiana has an estimated 2 million alligators.
People living in or visiting areas where alligators are known to be living should be cautious when walking and should keep a close eye on pets and children.
Nine years ago Donovan Atterberry’s girlfriend became pregnant, but a lethal chromosomal disorder was detected. She chose to terminate the pregnancy, and Atterberry says “it changed my whole perspective … on bodily autonomy and things of that nature.” He’s now an organizer for New Voices for Reproductive Justice, which advocates for Black womens’ health care, including access to abortion.
Nick Cammett/AP
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Nick Cammett/AP
Nine years ago Donovan Atterberry’s girlfriend became pregnant, but a lethal chromosomal disorder was detected. She chose to terminate the pregnancy, and Atterberry says “it changed my whole perspective … on bodily autonomy and things of that nature.” He’s now an organizer for New Voices for Reproductive Justice, which advocates for Black womens’ health care, including access to abortion.
Nick Cammett/AP
There’s a mounting body of evidence on how having or being denied an abortion affects pregnant people, including impacts on their mental health and the finances of them and their children. The effects on their male partners have received less attention.
In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, experts say that no longer should be the case.
“It’s really naïve to think that the repeal of Roe is only going to impact women and pregnant people,” said Dr. Bethany Everett, a professor of sociology at the University of Utah.
While the issue disproportionately impacts people who can get pregnant, Dr. Everett says it’s important to look at abortion access from all sides, as limits on abortion access likely will have broader implications for society as a whole.
One in five men have been involved in an abortion, one study finds
Research on the impact of abortions on male partners has been limited, but that doesn’t mean the issue isn’t relevant to men.
Using existing data from the National Survey of Family Growth, a recent study estimates that one in five men have impregnated someone who’s had an abortion. That’s likely an undercount, according to Dr. Brian Nguyen, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Southern California, who helped oversee the project.
“Not all men are aware of the pregnancies they cause and those that end in abortion,” said Dr. Nguyen. “For some men who may see abortion as a failure on their part to be a better partner or potential father, or for those whose social and cultural backgrounds have made them feel as if abortion is wrong, disclosing an abortion can be challenging or uncomfortable.
In a separate survey of more than 200 male partners of women seeking procedures at abortion clinics, Dr. Nguyen and his team found that about half of them already had children, and supported termination of a pregnancy in order to better provide for their existing family.
Young men who have been involved in abortions are more likely to pursue college and earn more
In her study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, Dr. Everett and her team found that young men who were involved with a pregnancy and whose partners had an abortion were nearly four times more likely to graduate from college than those whose partners gave birth.
Her research also suggests that males under the age of 20 who were affected by an abortion were likely to earn more money than those who became parents but did not live with their child. Earnings between those who became parents and lived with their child and those whose partners terminated a pregnancy were about the same, Everett said, possibly because those who became teen fathers entered the workforce sooner.
“But still, you likely would see later down the road economic capital build among those who were able to pursue their educational careers,” she adds.
Those differences are significant but not surprising. According to Dr. Everett, previous research generally has linked delayed parenthood with greater educational achievement and future socioeconomic status for both men and women.
“Parents should really think hard about not just what the repeal of Roe is going to mean for their daughters, but what it’s going to mean for their sons,” Dr. Everett said. “Their sons may become dads much earlier than they’re prepared for.”
Debunking the “us v. them” narrative between men and women
Dr. Nguyen has been working to help people recognize cis men’s role in reproductive health for more than a decade. He sees his work as inherently female focused and in pursuit of gender equality, but to others that hasn’t always been clear.
“The gender-based discrimination and disparity that women have faced because of patriarchal power structures have really put a rift between the public’s mental image of men and women when it comes to reproductive rights,” Dr. Nguyen said.
He believes that the fight for abortion access would benefit if cis men fully engaged in the cause, and demonstrating their tangible stakes could help.
“When it comes to reproductive rights, we hear a lot of ‘her body, her choice’ and ‘I’ll support her no matter what.’ But that’s passive support,” he said. “To me, what men need to be risking is their own comfort of having to grapple with an issue that women are forced to do biologically.”
Why it matters: This is the foreseeable outcome of sanctions imposed due to the invasion of Ukraine, even though Russia had successfully pushed off the inevitable for months. For now, the default is mostly notable for its symbolism as Russia’s first foreign debt default since 1918, reflecting the country’s international pariah status and crumbling economy.
Our thought bubble, via Axios’ Felix Salmon: Bond defaults normally happen because the issuer doesn’t want to make the payment. In this case, Russia was clearly willing to do so; it just wasn’t able to.
The big picture:Russia hasn’t defaulted on international debts since the Bolshevik Revolution, though it defaulted on domestic debt during a financial crash in 1998.
Russian officials have struggled with payments on $40 billion of outstanding bonds since the U.S. and allies moved to impose sanctions on the country after Putin’s forces launched their invasion last February.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last week for a temporary measure giving the government 10 days to pick banks to handle payments under a new scheme, indicating Russia will regard its debt obligations fulfilled by paying bondholders in rubles, Reuters reports.
What to watch: Although the deadline passed for Russian officials to meet a 30-day grace period on interest payments that were originally due on May 27, it could be a while before a default is confirmed, AP notes.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with more details on Russia’s outstanding bond payments and further context.
Thousands of abortion-rights activists gather in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after it overturned the landmark Roe v Wade case and erased a federal right to an abortion.
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Thousands of abortion-rights activists gather in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after it overturned the landmark Roe v Wade case and erased a federal right to an abortion.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
It’s hard to overstate the importance of what the Supreme Court did Friday with its outright overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that made abortion legal in this country nearly 50 years ago.
“It’s the legal equivalent of a nuclear bomb,” NPR’s Nina Totenberg, the dean of Supreme Court reporters, noted, adding that it’s possible this ruling opens the door for the potential “for undoing other areas of personal autonomy,” from contraception to interracial marriage.
There are lots of questions we have about what happens now to society and in politics. Here are six:
1. What happens for access to abortion now?
The Supreme Court is leaving it to the states to decide how to regulate – or outlaw – abortion. Twenty-two states have trigger laws in place that will outlaw abortion immediately.
Almost all are in red states, or places Donald Trump won in the presidential election. The U.S. is now going to have a patchwork of laws.
In red states with legislatures controlled by Republicans, an abortion is likely to be banned or made much more difficult to get.
And in blue states, places Democrats traditionally win in presidential elections and control the legislatures, abortion access will remain in place. It will make for a very unsettling round of new laws and regulations across the country.
2. Does the court go further, after other rights?
Justice Thomas wrote that he wants the court to reexamine precedents on cases dealing with contraception, same-sex marriage and even same-sex sex.
Other conservative justices said they disagree with that, but few thought the Supreme Court would go even this far and outright overturn Roe.
One thing is clear, this isn’t Chief Justice Roberts’ court anymore. He wrote a concurrent opinion advocating for upholding Mississippi’s 15-week ban, but not to go beyond that.
The court’s conservative supermajority didn’t listen. It’s their court now. If they band together, there’s no telling how they can – and will – reshape American society and culture.
3. What will this mean for the Supreme Court’s credibility?
Public opinion has been clear and consistent – a solid majority of Americans want abortion, with restrictions, to remain legal, but the Supreme Court opinion outright overturning Roe is woefully out of step with the American public.
The court’s credibility has declined and opinion of it has become more polarized this year. With the leak of the Roe draft opinion in May, it took a nosedive.
Gallup released numbers on Thursday that showed just 25% now say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the Supreme Court. That’s the lowest in the 50 years that Gallup has been asking the question.
4. Will the idea of doing away with the filibuster and packing the court become more mainstream?
Expect there to be a movement among progressives to add more justices to the court.
“The idea of adding Supreme Court justices, which I thought didn’t have a leg to stand on, I think, at some point, may have traction,” Totenberg noted.
Democrats don’t have the votes for that at this point. But given the court’s credibility problem – and how far out of step overturning Roe is with the broader public – do these ideas start to catch on?
5. How do Democrats and liberals respond more broadly?
It took half a century of meticulous planning, vetting and building a movement to get to this point for anti-abortion-rights conservatives.
They have not only mobilized for presidential elections, but also down-ballot ones, like state legislative races. Democrats have built up some apparatus to compete in those races in recent years after being largely absent for a decade or so, before and during the Obama administration.
But with the relative young ages of the Supreme Court nominees and the stranglehold Republicans have on many statehouses across the country, this is an aircraft carrier that’s likely to take a very long time to turn – certainly far longer than one or two election cycles.
6. Will it shake up the 2022 election?
While surveys show that Roe being overturned would fire up Democrats to vote more than Republicans, the decision is unlikely to change the forecast for control of the House.
Republicans are favored to take the House and that’s unlikely to change. So far, in the short term, people say they are more concerned about inflation and gas prices as motivating factors.
But this ruling undoubtedly introduces a wildcard. And it will be important to closely watch how the political landscape moves in the coming weeks.
This ruling not only will affect this upcoming election but the next one – the 2024 presidential election. That is especially true considering former President Trump is the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, and it’s because of his Supreme Court nominations that this day is here.
It would have been a very different world had Hillary Clinton won in 2016.
At a rally with former President Trump on Saturday, Republican Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois applauded the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, saying it was a “historic victory for White life in the Supreme Court.” Her campaign immediately responded, saying it was an error and she meant to say “a historic victory for right to life by the Supreme Court.”
“Mary stumbles while saying ‘Right to Life’ and the fake news vultures are out,” her spokesperson Isaiah Wartman said in a statement to CBS News.
Wartman said Miller has the “most Pro-Life voting record in Congress” and that she is the “proud grandmother of two beautiful grandchildren” who have Down syndrome.
Miller represents Illinois’ 15th District, and due to redistricting, she is locked in a primary battle against another incumbent Republican, Rep. Rodney Davis, who represents the 13th District. The primary election is on Tuesday.
U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, a Republican from Illinois, is welcomed to the stage by former President Trump during a rally at the Adams County Fairgrounds on June 25, 2022, in Mendon, Illinois.
Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images
Trump called Miller a “warrior for our movement and our values” during Saturday’s rally.
In a statement, Davis called her comments “just another part in a disturbing pattern of behavior she’s displayed since coming to Congress” and said it was similar to a “Biden basement strategy” of not answering questions. Davis cited some previous controversies involving Miller, including when she praised Adolf Hitler at a January 2021 rally, and said she is “not fit for public office.”
Rudy Giuliani was slapped by a worker at a ShopRite on Staten Island on Sunday while campaigning for his son, leaving the 78-year-old former New York City mayor shaken, the ex-pol told The Post.
Giuliani said he had just gotten out of the men’s room at the store on Veteran’s Road and was being greeted by a bunch of supporters when he was suddenly hit from behind — an incident caught on surveillance video obtained by The Post.
“All of a sudden, I feel this, ‘Bam!’ on my back,” Giuliani said. “I don’t know if they helped me not fall down, but I just about fell down, but I didn’t.
“I feel this tremendous pain in my back, and I’m thinking, what the — I didn’t even know what it was,” he said. “All of a sudden, I hear this guy say, ‘You’re a f–king scumbag,’ then he moves away so nobody can grab him.
“And he says, ‘You, you’re one of the people that’s gonna kill women. You’re gonna kill women,’ ” Giuliani said, quoting the suspect, who now faces assault charges. ” ‘You and your f–king friend are gonna kill women.’ Then he starts yelling out all kinds of, just curses, and every once in a while, he puts in that woman thing.
” ‘You guys think you’re saving babies, but you’re gonna kill women,’ ” the worker continued to rage, according to Giuliani, also a lawyer for former President Donald Trump.
A video grab appears to show Giuliani being slapped on the back at ShopRite.
The incident occurred two days after the US Supreme Court reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion ruling.
“The Supreme Court made a decision,” Giuliani said. “You don’t go around attacking people because of it. I mean, go get it changed.”
The ex-mayor, calling into the Curtis Sliwa Show on 77 WABC talk radio, said the slap felt like “somebody shot me,” and, “Luckily, I”m a 78-year-old who is in pretty good shape.
Giuliani was campaigning for his son, Andrew, who is running for the Republican nomination for NY governor. Joe Tacopino
“If I wasn’t, I would have hit the ground and probably cracked my skull.”
The former federal prosecutor told The Post he felt it was his duty to call the cops — likening the decision to his tough-on-crime policies as mayor.
“I say to myself, ‘You know something? I gotta get this guy arrested,’ ” he said. “I talk about ‘broken windows’ theory all the time. You can’t let the little things go.
“I’m like, ‘I’m gonna get this guy arrested as an example that you can’t do this. And I said, also, in New York, we don’t prosecute people anymore And one of the reasons I brought crime down is I didn’t ignore stuff like this.”
His son, gubernatorial candidate Andrew Giuliani, called his dad “tough as nails.
Giuliani reportedly told his son he was “feeling good” after the attack.
“He’s doing fine,” Andrew said. “But it’s a sad day when New Yorkers’ greatest crime fighter, ‘America’s Mayor,’ is attacked. I blame the left-wing for encouraging violence. This is crazy.”
He said his father was in good spirits and even quipped that ” ‘I ran into the only person who is not voting for Andrew Giuliani.’
” ‘I’m feelin’ good,’ ” he said his dad assured him.
Witness Rita Rugova-Johnson told The Post she was “stunned” to see the attack.
“I was shoulder-to-shoulder with Rudy inside ShopRite,” Rugova-Johnson said. “We’re talking, and all of a sudden an employee came out of nowhere and open-handedly slapped him in the back and said, ‘Hey, what’s up scumbag?’
“[The attacker] was on duty at the time,” the witness said. “The cops arrested him.”
Sources said police took the assailant into custody at the store.
The suspect, Daniel Gill, 39, from Staten Island, was charged with second-degree assault involving a person over age 65. Gill has no prior arrests, sources said.
Cops were called to the supermarket shortly before 3:30 p.m., sources said.
The younger Giuliani is seeking the Republican nomination for New York’s governor, running in the primary against Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino and businessman Harry Wilson.
“Rudy was assaulted,” his WABC radio partner, Dr. Maria Ryan, told The Post. “He’s a 78-year-old man with a bad back and bad knees.”
LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin will visit two small former Soviet states in central Asia this week, Russian state television reported on Sunday, in what would be the Russian leader’s first known trip abroad since ordering the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion has killed thousands of people, displaced millions more and led to severe financial sanctions from the West, which Putin says are a reason to build stronger trade ties with other powers such as China, India and Iran.
Pavel Zarubin, the Kremlin correspondent of the Rossiya 1 state television station, said Putin would visit Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and then meet Indonesian President Joko Widodo for talks in Moscow.
In Dushanbe, Putin will meet Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon, a close Russian ally and the longest-serving ruler of a former Soviet state. In Ashgabat, he will attend a summit of Caspian nations including the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran and Turkmenistan, Zarubin said.
Putin also plans to visit the Belarus city of Grodno on June 30 and July 1 to take part in a forum with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, RIA news agency citedValentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia’s upper chamber of parliament, as telling Belarus television on Sunday.
Putin’s last known trip outside Russia was a visit to the Beijing in early February, where he and Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled a “no limits” friendship treaty hours before both attended the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games.
Russia says it sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 to degrade its neighbour’s military capabilities, keep it from being used by the West to threaten Russia, root out nationalists and defend Russian-speakers in eastern regions. Ukraine calls the invasion an imperial-style land grab.
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