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Woman dies after shooting in U.S. Capitol; D.C. National Guard activated after mob breaches building

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Woman dies after shooting in U.S. Capitol; D.C. National Guard activated after mob breaches building

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this represents the executive branch because when the trumpies were storming the capitol, the national guard had to get involved which is a part of law enforcement which is what the executive branch is made up of.

i think calling for higher power law enforcement was a good idea because what they were doing could have starting something more than just a riot.

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This coverage has ended. Follow here for Thursday's updates. Congress was set to confirm that President-elect Joe Biden won the election. Show more
The latest developments

The Senate stopped its proceedings, with Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) interrupted by an aide who said protesters were in the building. The House doors also were closed. In a notification, U.S. Capitol Police said no entry or exit is permitted in the buildings within the Capitol Complex. "Stay away from exterior windows, doors. If outside, seek cover," police said.

A woman was fatally shot inside the U.S. Capitol after the mob breached the building. The circumstances were not clear.

The entire D.C. National Guard was activated. The rapid expansion of military involvement came after D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) requested that guards members already on duty be sent to the Capitol, said a defense official and a District official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

In a televised speech, Biden condemned Trump for stoking the violence. "I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward," he said.

Bowser imposed a citywide curfew as a chaotic scene worsened at the U.S. Capitol building. From 6 p.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday, Bowser said no one other than essential personnel would be allowed outdoors in the city.

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Here's what to know:

The Senate stopped its proceedings, with Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) interrupted by an aide who said protesters were in the building. The House doors also were closed. In a notification, U.S. Capitol Police said no entry or exit is permitted in the buildings within the Capitol Complex. "Stay away from exterior windows, doors. If outside, seek cover," police said.

A woman was fatally shot inside the U.S. Capitol after the mob breached the building. The circumstances were not clear.

The entire D.C. National Guard was activated. The rapid expansion of military involvement came after D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) requested that guards members already on duty be sent to the Capitol, said a defense official and a District official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

In a televised speech, Biden condemned Trump for stoking the violence. "I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward," he said.

Bowser imposed a citywide curfew as a chaotic scene worsened at the U.S. Capitol building. From 6 p.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday, Bowser said no one other than essential personnel would be allowed outdoors in the city.

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Election 2020: Biden defeats Trump

The latest: Congress affirms Biden's presidential win following riot at U.S. Capitol

Graphic: How members of Congress voted on counting the electoral college vote

Live updates: Trump pledges 'orderly transition' after Biden is declared winner at the end of a violent day

25th Amendment: Senior officials have discussed removing Trump. Here's how that could work.

Election results under attack: Here are the facts

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Woman dies after shooting in U.S. Capitol; D.C. National Guard activated after mob breaches building

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A day that began with thousands of President Trump's supporters in Washington for demonstrations turned violent as many in attendance saw Wednesday as a last stand for Trump because Congress was set to confirm that President-elect Joe Biden won the election.

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Alabama Governor Signs Abortion Ban Into Law

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Alabama Governor Signs Abortion Ban Into Law

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this is an example of federalism (state) because this was a matter that varied with different people, so each state had their law on it. alabama decided to ban abortions which i personally disagree with because i think that if you have a baby you are not prepared for you can screw up its life and not be able to provide it with the necessary things it needs. to that some people would just say "put it into the foster care system". many bad things happen in the foster care system, its not rare that the girls AND the boys get raped, beat, neglected, and even sometimes killed. and thats not just with the foster care center they are placed in, but the homes they a put in, whether thats a home with two parents and a sibling or a group home. the system is so worried about making the money that they dont really think about the child and the home they are being placed in. (i will provide a few links that may elaborate.)
https://www.healio.com/news/pediatrics/20200424/children-in-foster-care-42-more-likely-to-die-than-children-in-general-population

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2020/09/04/after-11-foster-children-die-texas-to-be-in-contempt-of-court-ndash-again/42383213/

https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/sexual-abuse-an-epidemic-in-foster-care-settings-6703#:~:text=A study by John Hopkins,not living in these homes.

"A study by John Hopkins University found that children who are in foster care are four times more likely to be sexually abused than other children not in this setting. Additionally, children who are in group homes are 28 times more likely to be abused than children not living in these homes."

https://www.healio.com/news/psychiatry/20161017/children-in-foster-care-more-likely-to-have-physical-mental-health-problems

and that is just the surface of many more.

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Alabama Governor Signs Abortion Ban Into Law

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The law bans nearly all abortions and is among the most restrictive in the country. It’s part of a broader anti-abortion strategy to prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the right to abortion.

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Electoral College makes it official: Biden won, Trump lost

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Electoral College makes it official: Biden won, Trump lost

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this represents popular sovereignty because he is the person that majority people voted on.

in my opinion i think this is great because he seems like the perfect fit for our country , and deserves to win.

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Electoral College decisively confirmed Joe Biden on Monday as the nation's next president, ratifying his November victory in an authoritative state-by-state repudiation of President Donald Trump's refusal to concede he had lost.

The presidential electors gave Biden a solid majority of 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232, the same margin that Trump bragged was a landslide when he won the White House four years ago.

Heightened security was in place in some states as electors met to cast paper ballots, with masks, social distancing and other pandemic precautions the order of the day. The results will be sent to Washington and tallied in a Jan. 6 joint session of Congress over which Vice President Mike Pence will preside.

For all Trump's unsupported claims of fraud, there was little suspense and no change as every one of the electoral votes allocated to Biden and the president in last month's popular vote went officially to each man. On Election Day, the Democrat topped the incumbent Republican by more than 7 million in the popular vote nationwide.

California's 55 electoral votes put Biden over the top. Vermont, with 3 votes, was the first state to report. Hawaii, with 4 votes, was the last.

"Once again in America, the rule of law, our Constitution, and the will of the people have prevailed. Our democracy - pushed, tested, threatened - proved to be resilient, true, and strong," Biden said in an evening speech in which he stressed the size of his win and the record 81 million people who voted for him.

He renewed his campaign promise to be a president for all Americans, whether they voted for him or not, and said the country has hard work ahead on the virus and economy.

But there was no concession from the White House, where Trump has continued to make unsupported allegations of fraud.

Trump remained in the Oval Office long after the sun set in Washington, calling allies and fellow Republicans while keeping track of the running Electoral College tally, according to White House and campaign aides. The president frequently ducked into the private dining room off the Oval Office to watch on TV, complaining that the cable networks were treating it like a mini-Election Night while not giving his challenges any airtime.

The president had grown increasingly disappointed with the size of "Stop the Steal" rallies across the nation as well as efforts for the GOP to field its own slates of electors in states. A presidential wish for a fierce administration defense led to TV appearances early Monday by Stephen Miller, one of his most ferocious advocates, to try to downplay the importance of the Electoral College vote and suggest that Trump's legal challenges would continue all the way to Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

Late in the day, he took to Twitter to announce that Attorney General William Barr was leaving the administration before Christmas. Barr's departure comes amid lingering tension over Trump's unsupported fraud claims, especially after Barr's statement this month to The Associated Press that the election results were unaffected by any fraud.

In a Fox News interview taped over the weekend, Trump said that "I worry about the country having an illegitimate president, that's what I worry about. A president that lost and lost badly."

On Monday in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - the six battleground states that Biden won and Trump contested - electors gave Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris their votes in low-key proceedings. Nevada's electors met via Zoom because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump's efforts to undermine the election results also led to concerns about safety for the electors, virtually unheard of in previous years. In Michigan, lawmakers from both parties reported receiving threats, and legislative offices were closed over threats of violence. Biden won the state by 154,000 votes, or 2.8 percentage points, over Trump.

Georgia state police were out in force at the state Capitol in Atlanta before Democratic electors pledged to Biden met. There were no protesters seen.

Even with the Electoral College's confirmation of Biden's victory, some Republicans continued to refuse to acknowledge that reality. Yet their opposition to Biden had no practical effect on the electoral process, with the Democrat to be sworn in next month.

Republicans who would have been Trump electors met anyway in a handful of states Biden won. Pennsylvania Republicans said they cast a "procedural vote" for Trump and Pence in case courts that have repeatedly rejected challenges to Biden's victory were to somehow still determine that Trump had won.

In North Carolina, Utah and other states across the country where Trump won, his electors turned out to duly cast their ballots for him. Electors in North Carolina had their temperatures checked before being allowed to enter the Capitol to vote. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes withdrew as a Trump elector and was in quarantine because he was exposed to someone with COVID-19.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated four years ago, were among New York's 29 electors for Biden and Harris.

In New Hampshire, before the state's four electors voted for Biden at the State House in Concord, 13-year-old Brayden Harrington led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance. He had delivered a moving speech at the Democratic National Convention in August about the struggle with stuttering he shares with Biden.

Following weeks of Republican legal challenges that were easily dismissed by judges, Trump and Republican allies tried to persuade the Supreme Court last week to set aside 62 electoral votes for Biden in four states, which might have thrown the outcome into doubt.

The justices rejected the effort on Friday.

The Electoral College was the product of compromise during the drafting of the Constitution between those who favored electing the president by popular vote and those who opposed giving the people the power to directly choose their leader.

Each state gets a number of electors equal to its total number of seats in Congress: two senators plus however many members the state has in the House of Representatives. Washington, D.C., has three votes, under a constitutional amendment that was ratified in 1961. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, states award all their Electoral College votes to the winner of the popular vote in their state.

The bargain struck by the nation's founders has produced five elections in which the president did not win the popular vote. Trump was the most recent example in 2016.

___

Associated Press writer Jonathan Lemire and AP writers across the United States contributed to this report.

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Electoral College makes it official: Biden won, Trump lost

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Electoral College decisively confirmed Joe Biden on Monday as the nation's next president, ratifying his November victory in an authoritative state-by-state repudiation of President Donald Trump's refusal to concede he had lost.

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This 115-year-old Supreme Court Case could determine if states can force you to wear a mask

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This 115-year-old Supreme Court Case could determine if states can force you to wear a mask

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this represents the judicial branch because it shows that the courts have to completely analyse other documents to make sure what they are about to do is constitutional.

i think this is good because it means they can't just do things for no reason, or just because they want to. that would probably bring in some bias feelings. so instead they have to rely off of a document instead of their feelings.

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The U.S. Supreme Court is seen Tuesday, June 30, 2020 in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Wearing a mask has become the new normal amid the coronavirus pandemic, but whether or not the government can force you to wear one has become a topic of contention.

The argument pits the power of government to protect the public's health against the Constitution's protection of civil liberties. As people consider challenging mask mandates in the courts, there's a Supreme Court decision against a Massachusetts man who refused vaccination during a smallpox outbreak that keeps coming up as a reference point for legal battles.

Jacobson v. Massachusetts could be used in the argument when trying to justify the government's abilities to curb one's liberties in the interest of public health as it expands on the state's capacity to regulate behavior and enforce order within their territory for the betterment of the health, safety, morals and general welfare of residents. This is otherwise known in constitutional law as a state's police power.

In 1902, the city asked the board of health in Cambridge, Massachusetts for advice to mitigate the smallpox outbreak. The board adopted a regulation that those who had not been vaccinated should be, the board asking the city to make vaccinations a requirement.
Read the regulation below: "Whereas, smallpox has been prevalent to some extent in the city of Cambridge, and still continues to increase; and whereas, it is necessary for the speedy extermination of the disease that all persons not protected by vaccination should be vaccinated; and whereas, in the opinion of the board, the public health and safety require the vaccination or revaccination of all the inhabitants of Cambridge; be it ordered, that all the inhabitants habitants of the city who have not been successfully vaccinated since March 1st, 1897, be vaccinated or revaccinated."
A criminal complaint was then filed against Jacobson in the state's lower courts. According to court records, the 21-year-old refused to comply with the requirement.

Jacobson argued the vaccine mandate infringed upon his federal rights as outlined in the preamble of the U.S. Constitution also pointing to the clauses that no state shall make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the U.S. He was arguing the state was overstepping its police power.

As the case moved through the courts, Jacobson's defense was that the smallpox vaccination "quite often" caused serious and permanent injury to the health of the person vaccinated and occasionally in death.

The court ruled that epidemic played a huge factor in the decision, saying the widespread smallpox outbreak justified a general rule for vaccination, saying the state was working to protect public health and safety.
"Such an answer would mean that compulsory vaccination could not, in any conceivable case, be legally enforced in a community, even at the command of the legislature, however widespread the epidemic of smallpox, and however deep and universal was the belief of the community and of its medical advisers that a system of general vaccination was vital to the safety of all."
The case sets a precedent as it is interpreted that all constitutional rights may be reasonably restricted when fighting a public health emergency. The Supreme Court upheld the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination laws.

Though the court came to the conclusion that the legislation did not invade any right secured by the Federal Constitution, the justices outlined that their decision should not be interpreted for abuse of power.

"To suppose the case of an adult who is embraced by the mere words of the act, but yet to subject whom to vaccination in a particular condition of his health or body would be cruel and inhuman in the last degree. We are not to be understood as holding that the statute was intended to be applied to such a case, or, if it was so intended, that the judiciary would not be competent to interfere and protect the health and life of the individual concerned. 'All laws,' this court has said, 'should receive a sensible construction. General terms should be so limited in their application as not to lead to injustice, oppression, or an absurd consequence," the court clarified.

The justices further outlined their decision does not mean the absolute rule that an adult must be vaccinated saying there are other considerations such as if a person is not fit for vaccination, or if the vaccination could impair their health or cause probable cause of death, items that the defendant in the case could not personally prove.

"We now decide that the statute covers the present case," the decision reads. Court documents read the minority cannot control what's done for the health and safety of the majority furthering the point a state is allowed to do things its public does not approve of if it's an informed decision that is in the interest of the health, safety, morals and general welfare of their inhabitants. The country's balance of powers is meant to make sure states are not abusing this power or misusing it in which the justices found Massachusetts was not.

Again, the context is in the timeline. It's been more than 100 years since the case and public health and personal liberty laws have changed and a state's police power has been further outlined.

There's now the right to refuse treatment, the necessity for a present and imminent threat of disease, and more modern constitutional law. Ultimately, it would largely depend on the case challenging mask mandates and the regulation itself for a court to come to a decision.

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This 115-year-old Supreme Court Case could determine if states can force you to wear a mask

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Wearing a mask has become the new normal amid the coronavirus pandemic, but whether or not the government can force you to wear one has become a topic of contention. The argument pits the power of government to protect the public's health against the Constitution's protection of civil liberties.

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WHEN DEMOCRACY WORKS: TRUMP CHECKED BY JUDICIAL SYSTEM

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WHEN DEMOCRACY WORKS: TRUMP CHECKED BY JUDICIAL SYSTEM

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this represents "checks and balances" because trump tried banning muslims from the united states and the judicial branch said it was unconstitutional.

i think this was good because trump stepped out of his place and needed to be put back into it before he let it happen again.

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Centurion Law Group | Full Suite Legal Services for Africa

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President Donald Trump, in his first months in office, is already being checked by the United States judicial system over his controversial executive order to ban citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries to enter the United States.

By Adalberto Ncogo Angono, Associate Attorney

While democratic systems certainly present challenges, the United States' system of separation of powers and checks and balances on the federal government does have a balancing effect on U.S. policies. When U.S. President Donald Trump recently banned citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, including those with valid visas, the United States court system quickly stepped in and put a stop to the order.

The order was deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, a federal appeals court, and the order was stayed, at least until it is appealed and ruled upon by the highest court in the United States, the United States Supreme Court. This system of checks and balances provided in the United States Constitution is vital for limiting the powers of government. The U.S. Constitution divides federal government into three branches to divide the power: the legislative branch, comprised of the United States Congress; the executive branch, which includes the president, the vice-president and the president's cabinet; and the judicial branch, which is made up of a nation-wide court system and federal judges.

This system creates "checks and balances" that are used to prevent each branch of government from becoming too powerful. For example, the United States Congress passes laws, but the president is able to veto these laws, unless a law has a two-thirds support in the Congress. Additionally, federal judges serve life terms, but are appointed by the president and confirmed by the United States Senate. The judicial branch also has the obligation of ensuring federal laws adhere to the Constitution. This system proved its value and effectiveness when Trump, in one of his first actions as president, banned all refugees and citizens from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States, even citizens who already valid American visas.

The ban, according to the federal court that stayed the President Trump's executive action, represented a grave violation of the United States Constitution. In the decision to overrule the ban, the judges wrote, "The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States," the judges wrote. "Rather than present evidence to explain the need for the Executive Order, the Government has taken the position that we must not review its decision at all."

No citizens from the countries listed in the ban have carried out acts of terrorism in the United States, and in fact, many of the countries are key allies to the United States, especially Iraq, which is fighting the Islamic State with key support from the United States. Clearly, Trump's executive action was out of line, and was appropriately preempted by the checks and balances system. The judicial branch stepped in when the executive branch exceeded its legal role. In other cases, federal judges in four states accepted a request by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to take precautionary measures that prevent people detained at US airports to from being returned to their countries of origin.

"Applicants have a strong probability of success in establishing that the order violates their rights to Due Process and Equal Protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution," New York City Judge Ann Donnelly wrote in her court decision. This clearly demonstrates that while the executive branch has power, that power is not absolute. It has limitations, and those limitations are interpreted and enforced by the court system.

The battle over the ban, however, is set to continue, as Trump's team issued a new executive order blocking immigrants from six countries and a 10-day delay of implementation. Despite the changes, the order similarly blocked by the federal courts. The Trump administration is appealing the court's decision.

The democratic system is not perfect, but in this case, it seemed to work. Because of the separation of powers, President Trump might not win this fight. This system of democracy protects the people and their will, based on the separation of powers. Under this system, even when you are the president, you are not allowed to do whatever you please. You have to play by the rules and show respect.

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When Democracy Works: Trump Checked By Judicial System | Centurion Law Group

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President Donald Trump, in his first months in office, is already being checked by the United States judicial system over his controversial executive order to ban citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries to enter the United States.

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Abortion: Judicial History and Legislative Response

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Abortion: Judicial History and Legislative Response

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" In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy. "

i think this is a good thing because i believe a woman should be able to choose what she does/doesn't do with her body.

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In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy. In a companion decision, Doe v. Bolton, the Court found that a state may not unduly burden the exercise of that fundamental right with regulations that prohibit or substantially limit access to the procedure. Rather than settle the issue, the Court's rulings since Roe and Doe have continued to generate debate and have precipitated a variety of governmental actions at the national, state, and local levels designed either to nullify the rulings or limit their effect. These governmental regulations have, in turn, spawned further litigation in which resulting judicial refinements in the law have been no more successful in dampening the controversy.

Although the primary focus of this report is legislative action with respect to abortion, discussion of the various legislative proposals necessarily involves an examination of the leading Supreme Court decisions concerning a woman's right to choose.

In 1973, the Supreme Court issued its landmark abortion rulings in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. In those cases, the Court found that Texas and Georgia statutes regulating abortion interfered to an unconstitutional extent with a woman's right to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy. The Texas statute forbade all abortions not necessary "for the purpose of saving the life of the mother." The Georgia enactment permitted abortions only when continued pregnancy seriously threatened the woman's life or health, when the fetus was very likely to have severe birth defects, or when the pregnancy resulted from rape. The Georgia statute also required that abortions be performed only at accredited hospitals and only after approval by a hospital committee and two consulting physicians.

The Court's decisions were delivered by Justice Blackmun for himself and six other Justices. Justices White and Rehnquist dissented. The Court ruled that states may not categorically proscribe abortions by making their performance a crime, and that states may not make abortions unnecessarily difficult to obtain by prescribing elaborate procedural guidelines. The constitutional basis for the decisions rested upon the conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment right of personal privacy embraced a woman's decision whether to carry a pregnancy to term. With regard to the scope of that privacy right, the Court stated that it includes "only personal rights that can be deemed 'fundamental' or 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty'" and bears some extension to activities related to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education. Such a right, the Court concluded, "is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy."

In Doe v. Bolton, the Court extended Roe by warning that just as states may not prevent abortion by making its performance a crime, they may not make abortions unreasonably difficult to obtain by prescribing elaborate procedural barriers. In Doe, the Court struck down Georgia's requirements that abortions be performed in licensed hospitals; that abortions be approved beforehand by a hospital committee; and that two physicians concur in the abortion decision. The Court appeared to note, however, that this would not apply to a statute that protected the religious or moral beliefs of denominational hospitals and their employees.

The Court did not, however, resolve the question of when life actually begins. While noting the divergence of thinking on this issue, it instead articulated the legal concept of "viability," defined as the point at which the fetus is potentially able to live outside the womb, with or without artificial assistance. Many other questions were also not addressed in Roe and Doe, but instead led to a wealth of post- Roe litigation.

Following Roe, the Court examined a variety of federal and state requirements that addressed different concerns related to abortion: informed consent and mandatory waiting periods; spousal and parental consent; parental notice; reporting requirements; advertisement of abortion services; abortions by nonphysicians; locus of abortions; viability, fetal testing, and disposal of fetal remains; and "partial-birth" abortions.

In Rust v. Sullivan, the Court upheld on both statutory and constitutional grounds the Department of Health and Human Services' Title X regulations restricting recipients of federal family planning funding from using federal funds to counsel women about abortion. While Rust is probably better understood as a case involving First Amendment free speech rights rather than a challenge to the constitutionally guaranteed substantive right to abortion, the Court, following its earlier public funding cases ( Maher v. Roe and Harris v. McRae), did conclude that a woman's right to an abortion was not burdened by the Title X regulations. The Court reasoned that there was no constitutional violation because the government has no duty to subsidize an activity simply because it is constitutionally protected and because a woman is "in no worse position than if Congress had never enacted Title X."

In addition to Rust, the Court decided several other noteworthy cases involving abortion following Roe. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey illustrate the Court's shift from the type of constitutional analysis it articulated in Roe. These cases and other more recent cases, such as Stenberg v. Carhart and Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England have implications for future legislative action and how enactments will be judged by the courts in the years to come. Webster, Casey, and Ayotte are discussed in the subsequent sections of this report. A discussion of Stenberg is included in the " Partial-Birth Abortion" section of this report.

In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the Court upheld Missouri's restrictions on the use of public employees and facilities for the performance of abortions. Although the Court did not overrule Roe, a plurality of Justices indicated that it was willing to apply a less stringent standard of review to state abortion regulations. The plurality criticized the trimester framework established by Roe, noting that it "is hardly consistent with the notion of a Constitution cast in general terms[.]" The plurality also questioned Roe's identification of viability as the point at which a state could regulate abortion to protect potential life:

[W]e do not see why the State's interest in protecting potential human life should come into existence only at the point of viability, and that there should therefore be a rigid line allowing state regulation after viability but prohibiting it before viability.

Webster recognized that state legislatures retain considerable discretion to pass abortion regulations, and acknowledged the likelihood that such regulations would probably pass constitutional muster in the future. However, because Webster did not affect private doctors' offices or clinics, the ruling was arguably narrow in scope. Nevertheless, Webster set the stage for the Court's 1992 decision in Casey, where a real shift in direction was pronounced.

Webster and Rust energized legislative activity at the federal and state levels. Some of the state legislative proposals that became law were later challenged in the courts. The constitutionality of Pennsylvania's Abortion Control Act was examined by the Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. In Casey, a plurality of the Court rejected the trimester framework established in Roe,explaining that "in its formulation [the framework] misconceives the pregnant woman's interest ... and in practice it undervalues the State's interest in potential life[.]" In its place, the plurality adopted a new "undue burden" standard, maintaining that this standard recognized the need to reconcile the government's interest in potential life with a woman's right to decide to terminate her pregnancy. While Roe generally restricted the regulation of abortion during the first trimester, Casey emphasized that not all of the burdens imposed by an abortion regulation were likely to be undue. Under Casey, an undue burden exists if the purpose or effect of an abortion regulation is "to place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability."

In adopting the new undue burden standard, Casey nonetheless reaffirmed the essential holding of Roe, which the plurality described as having three parts. First, a woman has a right to choose to have an abortion prior to viability without undue interference from the state. Second, the state has a right to restrict abortions after viability so long as the regulation provides an exception for pregnancies that endanger a woman's life or health. Third, the state has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus.

The plurality's decision in Casey was significant because the new standard of review appeared to allow more state restrictions to pass constitutional muster. In addition, the plurality maintained that the state's interest in protecting the potentiality of human life extended throughout the course of the pregnancy. Thus, the state could regulate, even to the point of favoring childbirth over abortion, from the outset. Under Roe, which utilized the trimester framework, a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy was reached in consultation with her doctor with virtually no state involvement during the first trimester of pregnancy.

In addition, under Roe, abortion was a "fundamental right" that could not be restricted by the state except to serve a "compelling" state interest. Roe's strict scrutiny standard of review resulted in most state regulations being invalidated during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. The "undue burden" standard allowed greater regulation during that period. This is evident from the fact that the Casey Court overruled, in part, two of its earlier decisions which had followed Roe: City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health and Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In these cases, the Court, applying strict scrutiny, struck down 24-hour waiting periods and informed consent provisions; whereas in Casey, applying the undue burden standard, the Court upheld similar provisions.

Casey had its greatest immediate effect on women in the state of Pennsylvania; however, its reasoning prompted other states to pass similar restrictions that would withstand challenge under the "undue burden" standard.

On June 28, 2000, the Court decided Stenberg v. Carhart, its first substantive abortion case since Casey. In Stenberg, the Court determined that a Nebraska statute that prohibited the performance of so-called "partial-birth" abortions was unconstitutional because it failed to include an exception to protect the health of the mother and because the language defining the prohibited procedure was too vague. In affirming the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, the Court agreed that the language of the Nebraska statute could be interpreted to prohibit not just the dilation and extraction (D&X) procedure that prolife advocates oppose, but the standard dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedure that is the most common abortion procedure during the second trimester of pregnancy. The Court maintained that the statute was likely to prompt those who perform the D&E procedure to stop because of fear of prosecution and conviction. The result would be the imposition of an "undue burden" on a woman's ability to have an abortion.

Within two days of the act's signing, federal courts in Nebraska, California, and New York blocked its enforcement. On April 18, 2007, the Court upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, finding that, as a facial matter, it is not unconstitutionally vague and does not impose an undue burden on a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy. In Gonzales v. Carhart, the Court distinguished the federal statute from the Nebraska law at issue in Stenberg. According to the Court, the federal statute is not unconstitutionally vague because it provides doctors with a reasonable opportunity to know what conduct is prohibited. Unlike the Nebraska law, which prohibited the delivery of a "substantial portion" of the fetus, the federal statute includes "anatomical landmarks" that identify when an abortion procedure will be subject to the act's prohibitions. The Court noted: "[I]f an abortion procedure does not involve the delivery of a living fetus to one of these 'anatomical landmarks'-where, depending on the presentation, either the fetal head or the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother-the prohibitions of the Act do not apply."

In reaching its conclusion that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 does not impose an undue burden on a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy, the Court considered whether the federal statute is overbroad, prohibiting both the D&X and D&E procedures. The Court also considered the statute's lack of a health exception.

Relying on the plain language of the act, the Court determined that the federal statute could not be interpreted to encompass the D&E procedure. The Court maintained that the D&E procedure involves the removal of the fetus in pieces. In contrast, the federal statute uses the phrase "delivers a living fetus." The Court stated: "D&E does not involve the delivery of a fetus because it requires the removal of fetal parts that are ripped from the fetus as they are pulled through the cervix." The Court also identified the act's specific requirement of an "overt act" that kills the fetus as evidence of its inapplicability to the D&E procedure. The Court indicated: "This distinction matters because, unlike [D&X], standard D&E does not involve a delivery followed by a fatal act." Because the act was found not to prohibit the D&E procedure, the Court concluded that it is not overbroad and does not impose an undue burden a woman's ability to terminate her pregnancy.

According to the Court, the absence of a health exception also did not result in an undue burden. Citing Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, its 2006 decision involving New Hampshire's parental notification law (discussed below), the Court noted that a health exception would be required if the act subjected women to significant health risks. However, acknowledging medical disagreement about the act's requirements ever imposing significant health risks on women, the Court maintained that "the question becomes whether the Act can stand when this medical uncertainty persists." Reviewing its past decisions, the Court indicated that it has given state and federal legislatures wide discretion to pass legislation in areas where there is medical and scientific uncertainty. The Court concluded that this medical uncertainty provides a sufficient basis to conclude in a facial challenge of the statute that it does not impose an undue burden.

Justice Ginsburg authored the dissent in Gonzales. She was joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer. Describing the Court's decision as "alarming," Justice Ginsburg questioned upholding the federal statute when the relevant procedure has been found to be appropriate in certain cases. Citing expert testimony that had been introduced, Justice Ginsburg maintained that the prohibited procedure has safety advantages for women with certain medical conditions, including bleeding disorders and heart disease.

Justice Ginsburg also criticized the Court's decision to uphold the statute without a health exception. Justice Ginsburg declared: "Not only does it defy the Court's longstanding precedent affirming the necessity of a health exception, with no carve-out for circumstances of medical uncertainty ... it gives short shrift to the records before us, carefully canvassed by the District Courts." Moreover, according to Justice Ginsburg, the refusal to invalidate the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 on facial grounds was "perplexing" in light of the Court's decision in Stenberg. Justice Ginsburg noted: "[I]n materially identical circumstances we held that a statute lacking a health exception was unconstitutional on its face."

In Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the Court concluded that a wholesale invalidation of New Hampshire's Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act was inappropriate. Finding that only a few applications of the act raised constitutional concerns, the Court remanded the case to the lower courts to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief.

Declining to revisit its prior abortion decisions, the Court insisted that Ayotte presented a question of remedy. Maintaining that the act would be unconstitutional only in medical emergencies, the Court determined that a more narrow remedy, rather than the wholesale invalidation of the act, was appropriate:

Generally speaking, when confronting a constitutional flaw in a statute, we try to limit the solution to the problem. We prefer, for example, to enjoin only the unconstitutional applications of a statute while leaving other applications in force ... or to sever its problematic portions while leaving the remainder intact.

Ayotte illustrated the Court's willingness to invalidate an abortion regulation only as applied in certain circumstances. While it is not uncommon for federal courts to save a statute from invalidation by severing unconstitutional provisions, they have generally limited this practice to federal statutes. Observers noted that the Court's opinion represented an expansion of federal judicial power over the states.

In Whole Woman 's Health v. Hellerstedt, the Court invalidated two Texas requirements that applied to abortion providers and physicians who perform abortions. Under a Texas law enacted in 2013, a physician who performs or induces an abortion was required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles from the location where the abortion was performed or induced. In general, admitting privileges allow a physician to transfer a patient to a hospital if complications arise in the course of providing treatment. The Texas law also required an abortion facility to satisfy the same standards as an ambulatory surgical center (ASC). These standards address architectural and other structural matters, as well as operational concerns, such as staffing and medical records systems. Supporters of the Texas law maintained that the requirements would guarantee a higher level of care for women seeking abortions. Opponents, however, characterized the requirements as unnecessary and costly, and argued that they would make it more difficult for abortion facilities to operate.

In a 5-3 decision, the Court rejected the procedural and constitutional grounds that were articulated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to uphold the requirements. Writing for the majority in Whole Woman's Health, Justice Breyer concluded that res judicata did not bar facial challenges to either the admitting privileges requirement or the ASC requirement. In applying the undue burden standard, Justice Breyer maintained that courts should place considerable weight on the evidence and arguments presented in judicial proceedings when they consider the constitutionality of abortion regulations. Justice Breyer also noted that the undue burden standard requires courts to consider "the burdens a law imposes on abortion access together with the benefits those laws confer."

The Whole Woman's Health Court referred heavily to the evidence collected by the district court in its examination of the admitting privileges and ASC requirements. With regard to the admitting privileges requirement, the Court cited the low complication rates for first- and second-trimester abortions, and expert testimony that complications during the abortion procedure rarely require hospital admission. Based on this and similar evidence, the Court disputed the state's assertion that the purpose of the admitting privileges requirement was to ensure easy access to a hospital should complications arise. The Court emphasized that "there was no significant health-related problem that the new law helped to cure." Citing other evidence concerning the closure of abortion facilities as a result of the admitting privileges requirement and the increased driving distances experienced by women of reproductive age because of the closures, the Court maintained: "[T]he record evidence indicates that the admitting-privileges requirement places a 'substantial obstacle in the path of a woman's choice.'"

The majority's focus on the record evidence, and a court's consideration of that evidence in balancing the burdens imposed by an abortion regulation against its benefits, is noteworthy for providing clarification of the undue burden standard. Although the Casey Court did examine the evidence collected by the district court with respect to Pennsylvania's spousal notification requirement, and was persuaded by it, the Fifth Circuit discounted similar evidence collected by the district court in its consideration of the two requirements. In Whole Woman's Health, the Court maintained that the Fifth Circuit's approach did "not match the standard that this Court laid out in Casey ..."

After the Supreme Court's decisions in Roe and Doe, some of the first federal legislative responses involved restrictions on the use of federal money to pay for abortions. In 1976, Representative Henry J. Hyde offered an amendment to the Departments of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare, Appropriation Act, 1977, that restricted the use of appropriated funds to pay for abortions provided through the Medicaid program. Almost immediately, the so-called Hyde Amendment and similar restrictions were challenged in the courts. Two categories of public funding cases have been heard and decided by the Supreme Court: those involving (1) funding restrictions for nontherapeutic (elective) abortions; and (2) funding limitations for therapeutic (medically necessary) abortions.

The Supreme Court, in three related decisions, ruled that the states have neither a statutory nor a constitutional obligation to fund elective abortions or provide access to public facilities for such abortions.

In Beal v. Doe, the Court held that nothing in the language or legislative history of Title XIX of the Social Security Act (Medicaid) requires a participating state to fund every medical procedure falling within the delineated categories of medical care. The Court ruled that it was not inconsistent with the act's goals to refuse to fund unnecessary medical services. However, the Court also indicated that Title XIX left a state free to include coverage for nontherapeutic abortions should it choose to do so. Similarly, in Maher v. Roe, the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause does not require a state participating in the Medicaid program to pay expenses incident to nontherapeutic abortions simply because the state has made a policy choice to pay expenses incident to childbirth. More particularly, Connecticut's policy of favoring childbirth over abortion was held not to impinge upon the fundamental right of privacy recognized in Roe, which protects a woman from undue interference in her decision to terminate a pregnancy. Finally, in Poelker v. Doe, the Court upheld a municipal regulation that denied indigent pregnant women nontherapeutic abortions at public hospitals. The Court also held that staffing those hospitals with personnel opposed to the performance of abortions did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Poelker, however, did not deal with the question of private hospitals and their authority to prohibit abortion services.

The 1977 Supreme Court decisions left open the question of whether the Hyde Amendment and similar state laws could validly prohibit the governmental funding of therapeutic abortions. In Harris v. McRae, the Court ruled 5-4 that the Hyde Amendment's abortion funding restrictions were constitutional. The majority found that the Hyde Amendment did not violate the due process or equal protection guarantees of the Fifth Amendment or the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Court also upheld the right of a state participating in the Medicaid program to fund only those medically necessary abortions for which it received federal reimbursement. In Williams v. Zbaraz, a companion case raising similar issues, the Court held that an Illinois statutory funding restriction that was comparable to the Hyde Amendment also did not contravene the constitutional restrictions of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court's rulings in McRae and Zbaraz indicate that there is no statutory or constitutional obligation of the federal government or the states to fund medically necessary abortions.

Rather than settle the issue, the Court's decisions in Roe and Doe prompted debate and a variety of governmental actions at the national, state, and local levels to limit their effect. Congress continues to be a forum for proposed legislation and constitutional amendments aimed at limiting or prohibiting the practice of abortion. This section examines the history of the federal legislative response to the abortion issue.

Prior to the Court's decision in Roe, relatively few bills involving abortion were introduced in either the House or the Senate. Since 1973, however, more than 1,000 separate legislative proposals have been introduced. The wide disparity in these statistics illustrates the impetus that the Court's 1973 decisions gave to congressional action. Most of these proposals have sought to restrict the availability of abortions. Some measures, however, have been introduced to better secure the right to terminate a pregnancy. The Freedom of Choice Act, for example, attempted to codify Roe and was introduced in several Congresses. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 made it a federal crime to use force, or the threat of force, to intimidate abortion clinic workers or women seeking abortions.

Proponents of more restrictive abortion legislation have employed a variety of legislative initiatives to achieve this end, with varying degrees of success. Initially, legislators focused their efforts on the passage of a constitutional amendment that would overrule the Supreme Court's decision in Roe. This course, however, proved to be problematic.

Following Roe, a series of constitutional amendments were introduced in an attempt to overrule the Court's decision. To date, however, no constitutional amendment has been passed in either the House or the Senate. Moreover, for several years, proponents of a constitutional amendment had difficulty getting the measures reported out of committee. Interest in the constitutional approach peaked in the 94th Congress, when nearly 80 amendments were introduced. By the 98th Congress, the number had significantly declined. It was during this time that the Senate brought to the floor the only constitutional amendment on abortion that has ever been debated and voted on in either chamber.

was introduced during the 98th Congress. Subcommittee hearings were held, and the full Judiciary Committee voted (9-9) to send the amendment to the Senate floor without recommendation. As reported, included a subcommittee amendment that eliminated the enforcement language and declared simply, "A right to abortion is not secured by this Constitution." By adopting this proposal, the subcommittee established its intent to remove federal institutions from the policymaking process with respect to abortion and reinstate state authorities as the ultimate decisionmakers.

was considered in the Senate on June 27 and 28, 1983. On June 28, 1983, was defeated (50-49), not having obtained the two-thirds vote necessary for a constitutional amendment.

Bills That Seek to Prohibit the Right to Abortion by Statute

As an alternative to a constitutional amendment to prohibit or limit the practice of abortion, opponents of the procedure have introduced a variety of bills designed to accomplish the same objective without resorting to the complex process of amending the Constitution. Authority for such action is said to emanate from Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which empowers Congress to enforce the due process and equal protection guarantees of the amendment "by appropriate legislation." For example, , introduced during the 97th Congress, would have declared as a congressional finding of fact that human life begins at conception, and would, it was contended by its sponsors, allow states to enact laws protecting human life, including fetuses. Hearings on the bill were marked by controversy over the constitutionality of the declaration that human life begins at conception and over the withdrawal of lower federal court jurisdiction over suits challenging state laws enacted pursuant to federal legislation. A modified version of was approved in subcommittee, but that bill, , was not further considered in the 97th Congress.

Hyde-Type Amendments to Appropriations Measures

As an alternative to the unsuccessful attempts to prohibit abortion outright, opponents of abortion sought to ban the use of federal funds to pay for the performance of the procedure. Because most federally funded abortions were reimbursed under Medicaid, they focused their efforts primarily on that program.

The Medicaid program was established in 1965 to fund medical care for indigent persons through a federal-state cost-sharing arrangement. Abortions were not initially covered under the program. During the Nixon Administration, however, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare decided to reimburse states for the funds used to provide abortions to poor women. This policy decision was influenced by the Supreme Court's decision in Roe, which, in addition to decriminalizing abortion, was seen as legitimizing the status of abortion as a medical procedure for the purposes of the Medicaid program.

In 1983, the Hyde Amendment process was extended to the Department of the Treasury and Postal Service Appropriations Act, prohibiting the use of funds for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) to pay for abortions, except when the life of the woman was in danger. Prior to this restriction, federal government health insurance plans provided coverage for both therapeutic and nontherapeutic abortions.

The restriction on FEHBP funds followed an administrative attempt by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to eliminate nonlife-saving abortion coverage. OPM's actions were challenged by federal employee unions, and a federal district court later concluded that the agency acted outside the scope of its authority. In American Federation of Government Employees v. AFL-CIO, the court found that absent a specific congressional statutory directive, there was no basis for OPM's actions.

The restriction on FEHBP funds was removed briefly in 1993, before being reinstated by the 104th Congress. That Congress passed language prohibiting the use of FEHBP funds for abortions, except in cases where the life of the mother would be endangered or in cases of rape or incest.

In addition to the temporary funding limitations included in appropriations bills, abortion restrictions of a more permanent nature have been enacted in a variety of contexts since 1970. For example, the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970 bars the use of funds for programs in which abortion is a method of family planning.

The Legal Services Corporation Act of 1974 prohibits lawyers in federally funded legal aid programs from providing legal assistance for procuring nontherapeutic abortions and prohibits legal aid in proceedings to compel an individual or an institution to perform an abortion, assist in an abortion, or provide facilities for an abortion.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act provides that employers are not required to pay health insurance benefits for abortion except to save the life of the mother, but does not preclude employers from providing abortion benefits if they choose to do so.

The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988 states that nothing in the measure either prohibits or requires any person or entity from providing or paying for services related to abortion.

The Civil Rights Commission Amendments Act of 1994 prohibits the commission from studying or collecting information about U.S. laws and policies concerning abortion.

The ACA indicates that an issuer of a qualified health plan that provides coverage for elective abortions cannot use any funds attributable to a premium tax credit or cost-sharing subsidy to pay for such services. The issuer of a qualified health plan that provides coverage for elective abortions is required to collect two separate payments from each enrollee in the plan: one payment that reflects an amount equal to the portion of the premium for coverage of health services other than elective abortions; and another payment that reflects an amount equal to the actuarial value of the coverage for elective abortions. The plan issuer is required to deposit the separate payments into separate allocation accounts that consist solely of each type of payment and that are used exclusively to pay for the specified services. State health insurance commissioners ensure compliance with the segregation requirements in accordance with applicable provisions of generally accepted accounting requirements, Office of Management and Budget circulars on funds management, and Government Accountability Office guidance on accounting.

On March 23, 2018, President Donald J. Trump signed H.R. 1625, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018. The measure provided FY2018 funds for foreign operations, the District of Columbia, HHS, and other federal agencies. Long-standing funding restrictions on abortion and abortion-related services, including restrictions on the use of federal and local DC funds to pay for abortions, were retained.

Contributions to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) were conditioned on the entity not funding abortions. In addition, amounts appropriated to the UNFPA were required to be kept in an account that was separate from the UNFPA's other accounts. The UNFPA could not commingle funds provided under H.R. 1625with the entity's other funds.

Finally, funds appropriated for HHS, as well as funds derived from any trust fund that received appropriations, could not be used to pay for abortions except in cases of rape or incest, or when a woman who suffered from a physical disorder, injury, or illness would have her life jeopardized if an abortion was not performed.

On January 24, 2017, the House passed , the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2017, by a vote of 238-183. Introduced by Representative Christopher H. Smith, the bill would have amended Title 1 of the U.S. Code to add new sections that would have permanently prohibited the use of federal funds for abortion. Unlike the Hyde Amendment and the other Hyde-type restrictions that have been included annually in various appropriations measures, the proposed sections would not have to be renewed each year. Moreover, these funding limitations would have applied to all federal funds and not just those specifically appropriated for HHS and other federal agencies.

would have imposed additional restrictions on the availability of abortion. The measure would have amended the Internal Revenue Code to indicate that a health plan that included coverage for elective abortions was not a "qualified health plan" for purposes of the availability of a premium tax credit. Under the ACA, recipients of a premium tax credit are permitted to select a qualified health plan that includes elective abortion coverage, so long as the plan enrollee and plan issuer comply with specified payment and accounting requirements. Thus, if enacted, H.R. 7 would have likely affected a recipient's decision to select a health plan that covered elective abortions.

Finally, would have made permanent the Dornan Amendment, which restricts the use of local DC funds to pay for abortions, and would have amended the ACA to require plans to disclose abortion services coverage in marketing or advertising materials, comparison tools, and benefit summaries. H.R. 7 was received in the Senate on January 30, 2017, but no further action was taken. The Senate also took no action on a companion bill, S. 184.

On October 3, 2017, the House passed , the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, by a vote of 237-189. Introduced by Representative Trent Franks, the bill would have prohibited the performance or attempted performance of an abortion if the probable postfertilization age of the "unborn child" was 20 weeks or greater. The prohibition would not have applied to abortions that are necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury. The bill's prohibition would also not have applied when a pregnancy is the result of rape and certain specified conditions are satisfied. Individuals who violated H.R. 36 would have been subject to a fine under Title 18, U.S. Code, imprisonment for not more than five years, or both. H.R. 36 was received in the Senate on October 4, 2017, but no further action was taken on the measure. A cloture vote on , a companion bill, was taken in the Senate on January 29, 2018. Cloture on the motion to proceed to consideration of S. 2311 was rejected by a vote of 51-46.

On January 19, 2018, the House passed , the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, by a vote of 241-183. Introduced by Representative Marsha Blackburn, the bill would have required care to be provided to a fetus "born alive" following an abortion or attempted abortion. Under the measure, any health care practitioner who was present at the time the fetus was "born alive" would have been required to exercise the same degree of skill, care, and diligence necessary to preserve the life and health of the fetus as a "reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age." A health care practitioner who failed to exercise the specified level of care would have been subject to a fine, imprisonment for not more than five years, or both. H.R. 4712 was received in the Senate on January 20, 2018, but no further action was taken on the measure. The Senate also declined to consider a companion bill, .

On May 4, 2017, the House passed , the American Health Care Act of 2017, by a vote of 217-213. Introduced by Representative Diane Black, the reconciliation bill would have made two notable changes related to the ACA. First, it would have amended Section 36B(c)(3)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code to provide that a health plan that included coverage for elective abortions would not be considered a "qualified health plan." Because the tax credit provided under Section 36B is available only to enrollees in a qualified health plan, the change could have affected an individual's choice of health coverage. Second, the bill would have defined the term "qualified health plan" to exclude any plan that included coverage of elective abortions for purposes of Section 45R of the Internal Revenue Code, which provides a small employer health insurance credit based on employee enrollment in a qualified health plan. The bill would have also restricted the availability of federal funds for certain nonprofit organizations that provide elective abortions.

was considered by the Senate in July 2017 and remained on its calendar until the end of the session. Notably, two discussion drafts prepared by the Senate Committee on the Budget-the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) and the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act (ORRA)-included similar provisions with regard to abortion. The drafts were written as amendments in the nature of a substitute, intended to replace the House-passed provisions of H.R. 1628, if adopted. However, neither the BCRA nor the ORRA was adopted.

Legislation in the 116th Congress

FY2019 Appropriations

Additional Legislation

Two abortion-related bills that were passed by the House during the 115th Congress, but not considered in the Senate, received some attention by Senators in the 116th Congress. Cloture votes were taken on S. 109, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2019, and S. 311, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. These measures were generally similar to the versions passed by the House in the 115th Congress. On January 17, 2019, the Senate voted against further consideration of S. 109 by a vote of 48-47. Cloture on the motion to proceed to consideration of S. 311 was rejected by a vote of 53-44 on February 25, 2019. Companion bills have been introduced in the House, but have yet to be considered.

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Abortion: Judicial History and Legislative Response

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In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy. In a companion decision, Doe v. Bolton, the Court found that a state may not unduly burden the exercise of that fundamental right with regulations that prohibit or substantially limit access to the procedure.

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First Senate Bill of the New Congress is Unconstitutional

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First Senate Bill of the New Congress is Unconstitutional

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this represents legislative branch because it shows that the senate was introducing a bill.

i think this is a very good representation of checks and balances as well because the bill was unconstitutional so they didn't pass it.

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Last week, Senators Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, James Risch, and Cory Gardner introduced the first Senate bill (S.1) of the new Congress, titled the "Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019." On Tuesday, the Senate voted against the passage of S.1, which would have, among other things, appropriated funds for Israel's own security and defense programs and passed into law the "Combating BDS Act of 2019." The following day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reintroduced the bill for a vote on the Senate floor, which will take place later today.

Were it to ultimately fail, the "Combating BDS Act of 2019" would still be just one of many recent pieces of anti-BDS legislation which have sought passage. Last month, we mobilized against one such bill, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (IABA), which was first introduced in March of 2017 with the consultation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and which was opportunistically included in a congressional spending bill at the end of this past year. The IABA would have criminalized participation in any foreign boycott against a country "friendly to the United States." The "Combating BDS Act" would accomplish the same function by permitting the U.S. government, as well as state and local governments, to take punitive measures against any entity found to have engaged in BDS activities.

Many Americans, including American Muslims, have opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the First Amendment ensures their ability to express those views and to engage in public boycotts. The ACLU argued convincingly that the IABA infringed on this foundational American liberty, and two federal courts have already judged similar anti-BDS legislation as unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the IABA enjoyed bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, and might very well have passed in the last Congress were it not for a groundswell of criticism from civil society organizations and media outlets.

The introduction of S.1 was also particularly egregious in light of its being the first Senate bill of the new Congress, a distinction typically reserved for high priority legislation. By introducing it in the midst of a government shutdown which the President has threatened could last " months or even years," Congress essentially prioritized funding a foreign government over reopening our own. This is especially odious in light of the personal stories of economic hardship faced by those impacted by the government shutdown.

While Congress issued an important vote in support of free speech on Tuesday, the failure of the "Combating BDS Act of 2019" is no indication that similar infringements won't be introduced down the road. Just last year, the 20,000 inhabitants of Dickinson, a small city in Texas, were forced to sign over their right to boycott Israel in order to receive aid in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Currently, 26 states have passed anti-BDS legislation, with similar such bills still pending in 13 different statehouses.

It is as important now as it has ever been to defend the basic constitutional right to free political expression. We will continue to champion your voice and keep you informed as any new versions of this Act or challenges to your free speech surface.

Stay in the know: Subscribe to our policy update emails, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook.

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First Senate Bill of the New Congress is Unconstitutional

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Senators Rubio, McConnell, Risch, and Gardner recently introduced the year's first Senate bill (S.1), the "Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019." Included in S.1 is the "Combating BDS Act of 2019" which allows the U.S. government to take punitive measures against individuals found to be engaging in BDS activities.