3 Stories You Should Read 4/7/2019: Heartbeat Bill, Pete Buttigieg, Don McGahn
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In the category of: Instructions to break the law.
White House instructs McGahn not to comply with Democrats’ subpoena
The White House has instructed former White House Counsel Don McGahn not to comply with a subpoena for documents from House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, teeing up the latest in a series of escalating oversight showdowns between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats.
In the category of: What would Jesus do?
Pete Buttigieg: God doesn’t belong to a political party, but ‘I can’t imagine’ God would be a Republican
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has made clear throughout his upstart 2020 presidential bid that he believes Democrats should embrace religion and decry those who try to suggest God belongs to one political party or another.
In the category of: States rights.
The bills used to be a fringe idea. Now they could threaten Roe v. Wade.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Tuesday signed into law a so-called “heartbeat” bill, banning abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Georgia is the fourth state to pass such a law this year alone.
The bills prohibit abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. But reproductive rights advocates and doctors say the laws, which prohibit abortion before many women know they are pregnant, amount to a near-total ban on the procedure.
“It’s basically a forced pregnancy bill. It’s a health care ban bill,” said Dr. Krystal Redman, the executive director of Spark Reproductive Justice Now, a group that works on reproductive rights and other issues for women of color and queer and trans people in the South.
But for some supporters of the bills, banning nearly all abortions isn’t a problem — it’s the whole point.
