Anti-abortion activists will have multiple reasons to celebrate — and some reasons for unease — when they gather Friday in Washington for the annual March for Life. The march has been held since January 1974 — a year after the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision established a nationwide right to abortion. This year's gathering will be the first since the high court struck down Roe in a momentous ruling last June. Since then, 12 Republican-governed states have implemented sweeping bans on abortion. But in the same period, abortion opponents were defeated in votes on ballot measures in Kansas, Michigan and Kentucky. And state courts have blocked several abortion bans from taking effect.
By JAMES POLLARD Associated Press/Report for America
The South Carolina ban on abortions after cardiac activity is no more after the latest legal challenge to the state's 2021 law proved successful. The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the restrictions violate the state constitution's right to privacy. The measure banned abortions after cardiac activity is detected, typically around six weeks into a pregnancy, with exceptions for those caused by rape and incest or endangering the patient's life. Currently, South Carolina bars most abortion at 20 weeks. The decision comes about two years after Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed the measure into law. The ban drew a lawsuit almost immediately. Since then, legal challenges have made their way through both state and federal courts.
President Joe Biden says the U.S. will immediately begin turning away Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross the border from Mexico illegally. It's his boldest move yet to confront spiraling arrivals of migrants since he took office two years ago. The new rules expand on an existing effort to stop Venezuelans attempting to enter the U.S., which led to a dramatic drop in Venezuelans coming to the U.S. border. Together the changes represent a major revision to immigration rules that will stand even if the U.S. Supreme Court ends a Trump-era public health law that allows American authorities to turn away asylum seekers.
By MORGAN LEE, GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO and REBECCA SANTANA Associated Press
Thousands of migrants are gathered along the U.S. border with Mexico, camping outside or packing into shelters while awaiting a Supreme Court decision on whether and when to lift pandemic-era restrictions that prevented many from seeking asylum. The limits on border crossings had been set to expire Wednesday before conservative-leaning states sought the top court's help to keep them in place. The Biden administration asked the court to lift the restrictions, but not before Christmas. It is not clear when that decision will come. In the meantime, thousands of people have gathered all along the Mexican side of the southern border, camping outside or packing into shelters as they awaited the opportunity to seek refuge in the U.S.
