Idaho’s law requires doctors to treat pregnant women’s health as disposable – and the loss of their lives as an acceptable risk

The risk of stating plainly what Idaho argued at the US supreme court on Wednesday morning is that it is so sadistic and extreme that people might not believe you. Idaho has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. Prohibiting all abortions at any stage of gestation, with no exceptions for rape or incest, the Idaho law allows doctors to perform abortions in cases where the life – but not “merely” the health – of the pregnant woman is at risk.

In practice, this has wound up being a ban on abortions needed to save women’s lives: according to Idaho hospitals, six pregnant women experiencing medical emergencies have had to be airlifted across state lines to hospitals in states with life and health exemptions in the months since Idaho began enforcing its abortion ban. One way to describe this state of affairs is to say that Idaho’s abortion law has come into conflict with medical best practice. Another way to describe it is to say that the law has forced pregnant women to flee the state for their lives.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

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Cases listed in federal documents raise alarms around emergency pregnancy care, especially in states with strict abortion laws

One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her to the hospital.

Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound, and the baby later died.

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Providers are optimistic for a different future for abortion in the state even as Republicans flounder in their response

The waiting room of the Acacia Women’s Center in Phoenix, Arizona, was calm and quiet on Friday. Patients sat with their mothers, friends or partners, paying no mind to the slapstick Tyler Perry movie on the TV and an arrangement of Vogue magazines resting on a table.

It had been three days since the state’s highest court reinstated an 1864 law that would ban almost all abortions and send abortion providers to prison for up to five years.

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Opposition parties say women’s rights dealt blow after package approved by Georgia Meloni’s cabinet

Italian opposition parties have said women’s rights in Italy have been dealt a “heavy” blow after parliament passed a measure by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government allowing anti-abortion activists to enter abortion consultation clinics.

The measure forms part of a package of initiatives approved by Meloni’s cabinet that will be funded by the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund, of which Italy is the biggest beneficiary, and was put to the lower house in a confidence vote on Tuesday. The package of measures is expected to comfortably pass in the senate, too.

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Split reflects GOP’s identity crisis, as Republican politicians struggle to talk about increasingly toxic issue for them

Republicans are nearly evenly divided over the Arizona supreme court’s decision to uphold an 1864 law that would ban almost all abortions, new polling shows.

Forty-nine per cent of Republicans strongly or somewhat disapprove of the decision, while 46% of Republicans strongly or somewhat approve of it, according to polling of more than 1,000 likely voters released on Tuesday by the left-leaning thinktank Data for Progress. That split reflects the GOP’s identity crisis over post-Roe v Wade abortion politics, as Republican politicians have struggled to talk about an issue that was once their bread-and-butter but has become increasingly toxic for them.

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Most cases of abortion are illegal in Germany, which report is expected to say is not compatible with international standards

Abortions in Germany should be legalised within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a government-appointed commission is expected to recommend on Monday.

While abortion is rarely punished, it remains illegal in Germany, except for specific circumstances including when a woman’s life is in danger, or she is a victim of rape, while the prerequisite for any termination is a consultation with a state-recognised body.

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The Republican former TV anchor is trying to soften her election-denying image against the Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego in one of the year’s most closely watched races

On a recent Tuesday morning, at a retirement community on the western edge of Phoenix’s sprawling desert metropolis, Kari Lake beamed at the graying crowd and introduced her guest, the Montana senator Steve Daines, the Republican charged with winning back the party’s Senate majority in Washington.

His presence sent the message that establishment Republicans were fully behind Lake, a former TV news anchor in Phoenix whose embrace of election denialism and fealty to Donald Trump made her a darling of his Maga movement but probably cost her the 2022 race for Arizona governor, a loss she has never formally conceded.

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Trump is walking a tricky tightrope trying to appeal to his evangelical base and moderate voters. His solution? A bunch of contradictory nonsense

In recent years, Donald Trump has sold NFTs, sneakers, and bibles. Now the perennial marketer is busy selling a new and improved version of himself to voters. Meet Don 2.0: a reasonable man with moderate views on abortion.

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Republican presumptive nominee struggles to articulate position on divisive issue after meeting with House speaker

Facing the press alongside the House speaker, fellow Republican Mike Johnson, Donald Trump bragged: “We broke Roe v Wade.”

The former president made the stark admission about his dominant role in attacks on abortion rights at the end of a week in which the rightwing Arizona state supreme court ruled that an 1864 law imposing a near-total ban could go back into effect.

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