“Thousands of abortion rights supporters rallied across the United States on Saturday, angered by the prospect that the Supreme Court may soon overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide a half century ago,” Reuters reports.

“The protests kicked off what organizers predict will be a ‘summer of rage’ ignited by the May 2 disclosure of a draft opinion showing the court’s conservative majority ready to reverse the 1973 ruling that established a woman’s constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.”

Axios: “Conservative legislatures are passing a raft of controversial new laws, many of which push the envelope further than the courts have ever allowed. But with the court poised to significantly weaken Roe v. Wade, if not overturn it altogether, red states appear confident that these new measures will stand.”

“As of May 5, 86 bills to restrict or outright ban the procedure have been introduced in 31 states this year alone, according to Guttmacher Institute data. Eight bans have been enacted in 2022, with two being blocked by lower courts.”

New York Times: “Should the Supreme Court strike down Roe in the sweeping manner of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s draft opinion, it would unleash a ferocious state-by-state battle over abortion regulations — and introduce a powerful new issue into the calculus of voters who might otherwise be inclined to treat the midterm election as an up-or-down vote on Mr. Biden’s performance in the presidency.”

“Moderate women who have tilted back toward the Republicans might now have second thoughts; young people who feel let down by Mr. Biden could well find motivation to vote Democratic out of a feeling of fear and indignation about the Supreme Court.”

Margaret Atwood: “In the early years of the 1980s, I was fooling around with a novel that explored a future in which the United States had become disunited. Part of it had turned into a theocratic dictatorship based on 17th-century New England Puritan religious tenets and jurisprudence. I set this novel in and around Harvard University—an institution that in the 1980s was renowned for its liberalism, but that had begun three centuries earlier chiefly as a training college for Puritan clergy.”

“In the fictional theocracy of Gilead, women had very few rights, as in 17th-century New England. The Bible was cherry-picked, with the cherries being interpreted literally. Based on the reproductive arrangements in Genesis—specifically, those of the family of Jacob—the wives of high-ranking patriarchs could have female slaves, or ‘handmaids,’ and those wives could tell their husbands to have children by the handmaids and then claim the children as theirs.”

“Although I eventually completed this novel and called it The Handmaid’s Tale, I stopped writing it several times, because I considered it too far-fetched. Silly me. Theocratic dictatorships do not lie only in the distant past: There are a number of them on the planet today. What is to prevent the United States from becoming one of them?”

The Lancet has a blistering editorial on the leaked Supreme Court draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade:

“If the U.S. Supreme Court confirms its draft decision, women will die. The Justices who vote to strike down Roe will not succeed in ending abortion, they will only succeed in ending safe abortion. Alito and his supporters will have women’s blood on their hands.”

“What is so shocking, inhuman, and irrational about this draft opinion is that the Court is basing its decision on an 18th-century document ignorant of 21st-century realities for women. The route forward is unclear and perilous. This Court’s argument suggests possible future attacks on a raft of other civil rights, from marriage equality to contraception.”

New York Times: “Around the country — from South Texas to Chicago, Pittsburgh to New York — the looming loss of abortion rights has re-energized the Democratic Party’s left flank, which had absorbed a series of legislative and political blows and appeared to be divided and flagging. It has also dramatized the generational and ideological divide in the Democratic Party, between a nearly extinct older wing that opposes abortion rights and younger progressives who support them.”

“The growing intensity behind the issue has put some conservative-leaning Democrats on the defensive.”

“Louisiana’s state House gutted a controversial abortion bill that could have charged women who abort their pregnancies with murder, removing language that criminalized mothers and instructed the state to ignore any federal law making abortion legal,” the Lafayette Daily Advertiser reports.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) defended the U.S. Supreme Court’s potential move to issue rulings that are in conflict with a majority of Americans’ views on abortion rights, telling NPR that is a feature of the system.

Said McConnell: “So for the Supreme Court to on any issue, to reach a decision contrary to public opinion it is exactly what the Supreme Court is about. It’s to protect basic rights, even when majorities are in favor of something else, that happens all the time.”

But he didn’t expect it to be a big issue in the midterm elections: “My guess is in terms of the impact on federal races, I think it’s probably going to be a wash.”

“If Republicans in Congress have any qualms about announcing new abortion restrictions in the event Roe v. Wade is overturned, they are not shared by their state-level counterparts,” The Hill reports.

“GOP governors and state legislators are planning to hold special legislative sessions later this spring and summer to consider new measures to remove or restrict abortion rights, after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority is expected to reverse the landmark decision half a century ago guaranteeing those rights.”

States planning special sessions include South Dakota, Indiana, Nebraska, Florida and South Carolina.

“Legalizing abortion was one of the most meaningful economic policies of the past 50 years for women — bolstering their educational attainment and career advancement, as well as reducing poverty rates for women and families, research shows,” Axios reports.

“If Roe v. Wade goes away, some of that progress will likely be reversed, which could slow economic growth more broadly.”

“The Senate on Wednesday failed to advance legislation that would write the constitutional right to abortion into federal law — a symbolic gesture that Democrats promise will be only a first step in a larger strategy to mobilize Americans around reproductive rights as the Supreme Court considers overturning Roe v. Wade and related decisions,” the Washington Post reports.

“Wednesday’s vote — which failed 49-51, well short of the 60 votes necessary under Senate rules — was largely a reprise of a failed February vote staged by Senate Democratic leaders.”

Axios: “Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME), two Republican senators who generally oppose abortion restrictions, also voted no on the measure, saying it’s too expansive.”

“About 64 million women and girls of reproductive age live in the United States, and more than half of them live in states that could seek to ban or further restrict access to abortion if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade,” the New York Times reports.

“Many of the millions of people who live in these states would be able to seek legal abortions elsewhere, but the barriers to access — including financial resources, time off work and child care — may be hard for some to overcome.”

“South Carolina legislators plan to return to Columbia this summer for a special session to debate further restrictions to abortion access as the U.S. Supreme Court readies to issue an opinion that could wipe out its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling,” the Columbia State reports.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he would oppose a Democratic bill to guarantee abortion access nationwide, indicating that it was too broad to get his vote, The Hill reports.

Said Manchin: “But I would vote for a Roe v. Wade codification if it was today. I was hopeful for that but I found out yesterday in caucus that that wasn’t going to be.”

Politico: “With Manchin’s opposition, Senate Democrats will demonstrate there’s a bipartisan majority that opposes their proposal, though they seem unworried by that result.”