Analysis | Abortion politics paves the road to 2024

Today’s edition: President Biden is slated to sign an executive order aimed at increasing access to birth control. Three prominent abortion rights groups are throwing their support behind Biden and Vice President Harris’s re-election bid. But first …

The battle over abortion is already looming large over the 2024 elections.

What happens next year has the potential to further upend the nation’s new abortion landscape. The stakes are high for activists on both sides of the debate who are already working to hone their messages and sharpen their strategies.

On the left: The Biden administration has issued various guidelines, executive orders and legal interpretations aimed at protecting abortion and reproductive health care. Federal officials are well aware a Republican administration could rescind those efforts.

Meanwhile, abortion rights advocates who scored major victories during last year’s midterm elections are now grappling with how to sustain that momentum throughout the 2024 cycle.

On the right: Antiabortion advocates are pressuring Republican candidates to back a national ban on most abortions at 15 weeks or earlier. One prominent group, SBA Pro-Life America, is likely to ask GOP candidates — some of whom have struggled to say what they’re for — to sign a pledge supporting such limits.

A lot hinges on the 2024 presidential race. And President Biden is expected to make his support for abortion rights a centerpiece of his reelection campaign.

The federal government’s ability to intervene in state legislation has been limited, but White House officials believe they’ve used their executive powers to shore up some protections. That includes the Justice Department’s guidance making the Comstock Act — a long-dormant 150-year-old law that some in the antiabortion movement are using to argue for restrictions on abortion pills — largely inapplicable.

• “Another administration could come in and remove those protections,” Jennifer Klein, the director of the White House’s Gender Policy Council, which helps oversee the administration’s abortion policy, said in an interview. The administration is cognizant that “nothing will replace federal legislation,” which is why it’s pushing to codify Roe, she added.

About that filibuster: Nationally, Biden has called for the Democratic-controlled Senate to scrap its long-standing filibuster rules to enshrine abortion rights into federal laws. But the party doesn’t have the votes to do so.

Meanwhile, a top Senate Republican, Minority Whip John Thune (S.D.), told The Post that the GOP, if it wins back the majority, wouldn’t use similar tactics to pursue its abortion goals and intends to keep the rule requiring 60 votes to pass legislation in place for abortion policy.

Aware that a move against the filibuster by antiabortion lawmakers could backfire if party control of Congress flipped again, SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said she also is not advocating for such a move. But that doesn’t give Republican candidates an excuse to shy away from taking a firm stance on nationwide abortion limits, she said.

• “Several candidates have said, ‘well, gee, you know, 60 votes, do we really even need to talk about federal legislation?’ … That’s not what a real leader says about any human rights cause that they claim to be a leader of,” Dannenfelser said.

In early June, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R) made his long-shot presidential bid official. Quickly, Mini Timmaraju, the head of Naral Pro-Choice America, was out with a statement slamming Christie — who says he opposes abortion but believes policy decisions should be left up to the states — as being aligned with “extremist, anti-abortion politicians.”

The rapid response by design. The prominent abortion rights group is doing opposition research on every GOP candidate with one goal in mind: “Decredential them right out of the gate,” Timmaraju said.

The 2024 presidential election provides a path for the antiabortion movement to build off its victory at the Supreme Court last year. But abortion rights groups view upcoming elections as an opportunity to elect more Democrats and attempt to circumvent bans in conservative states.

Abortion rights groups are planning to deploy a strategy that worked during November’s midterm elections: Enshrine abortion rights into state constitutions. They’ve launched campaigns to gather signatures for ballot measures in Ohio this year and in Florida next year, while activists in Missouri have begun the lengthy process to kick off their own effort.

• It’s possible more states could follow suit. The American Civil Liberties Union is in contact with its affiliates and other partners in at least half a dozen additional states, but it’s too soon to tell whether more campaigns will ultimately be launched, said Carolyn Ehrlich, a senior political strategist at ACLU.

Yet some divisions have emerged within the movement. There are disagreements over whether to include certain limits on the procedure, such as the option to regulate abortion after fetal viability, which is typically viewed as 22 to 24 weeks, or require minors to obtain consent for an abortion from a parent or guardian. This split was on full display in Missouri, where advocates filed 11 different variations of proposed language for a ballot measure.

• Amid the divides, leaders of abortion rights groups say they’re united in the belief that they’ll be able to sustain public anger throughout the next election. “Everywhere I go and see folks, they are still angry about the Dobbs decision,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the head of Planned Parenthood’s advocacy arm. “I think that the salience of abortion will continue.”

President Biden is slated to sign an executive order aimed at improving the accessibility of contraception — an action that will serve as the White House’s policy response this week to the first anniversary of the fall of Roe.

The effort is aimed at plugging the gaps in Obamacare’s mandate to cover contraception for free and ensure health plans are complying with the rules. It comes as congressional Democrats probe complaints of some health insurers forcing patients to pay out of pocket for birth control.

• Biden will direct the secretaries of three departments to consider new guidance to ensure private health insurers cover all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives without cost sharing.
• The executive order also includes other measures, such as boosting access to over-the-counter contraception like Plan B and increasing the availability of birth control to college students.

This will be the third executive order aimed at reproductive care Biden has signed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. But the order doesn’t set any timelines for federal departments to finish such work, making it unclear when new guidance or rules could emerge.

Biden and Vice President Harriswill join the Democratic National Committee and leaders from three of the country’s largest reproductive rights groups for an event in D.C. to mark the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

Before the event, Emily’s List,Naral Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund formally threw their support behind Biden and Harris’s re-election bid. (Emily’s List’s endorsement focuses on Harris since the group only endorses Democratic women who support abortion rights.) Politicofirst reported the news.

On Saturday: Harris will mark one year since the Roe reversal with a speech in North Carolina, where she plans to draw a contrast between Republican support for abortion bans and the Biden administration’s efforts to protect reproductive rights, according to NBC News.

The system of care for migrants being held at facilities run by Customs and Border Protection is unsafe and needs a major overhaul, our colleague Nick Miroff reports, citing an internal memo from a Department of Homeland Security medical team investigating the recent death of an 8-year-old girl.

The details: In a June 8 memo to CBP acting commissioner Troy Miller — which was obtained by The Post — DHS acting chief medical officer Herbert Wolfe described an ad hoc system with little ability to manage medical records, poor communication among staff and a lack of clear guidelines for seeking help from doctors outside the border agency.

The Harlingen, Tex., Border Patrol station where Anadith Reyes Álvarez and her family were held “lacked sufficient medical engagement and accountability to ensure safe, effective, humane and well-documented medical care,” Wolfe wrote. He added that the facility had a list of on-call doctors and pediatricians that was so rarely used it was “out of date.”

Monthly e-cigarette sales across the country surged by nearly 47 percent between January 2020 and December 2022, especially among flavors that appeal to young users, according to a report published yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Overall, monthly sales of e-cigarettes climbed to 22.7 million units late last year, from 15.5 million units in early 2020. During that period, fewer Americans purchased tobacco and mint-flavored products, but the sales of disposable vapes in fruit, candy and dessert flavors shot up considerably, researchers found.

News of the rise in e-cigarette sales during the pandemic comes as the Food and Drug Administrationsent warning letters yesterday to 189 retailers for selling unauthorized vapes — specifically Esco Bars and Elf Bar products. The CDC identified the latter in its report as the most popular disposable e-cigarette sold in the United States in December 2022.

FDA Commissioner Robert Califf:

• Moderna announced yesterday that it isseeking FDA authorizationof its updated coronavirus vaccine for the fall. The monovalent shot targets omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, the dominant strain of the virus nationwide.
• The federal Medicare agencyreleased new detailson how its registry requirement will work for Medicare patients seeking coverage for the new Alzheimer’s treatment Leqembi, should federal regulators grant the drug traditional approval as expected in the coming weeks.
• In Wyoming: Abortions pills will remain legal for the time being, after a judge issued a ruling yesterday preventing the state’s ban from taking effect on July 1 while a lawsuit against it proceeds, Mead Gruver reports for the Associated Press.

Thanks for reading! See y’all Tuesday.