Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Wisconsin Monday morning to host an event in support of abortion rights, while President Biden assembles a task force on reproductive health care in Washington.

Both events are intended to draw attention to the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion, and to announce new steps the Biden administration has taken to increase access to support abortion since the court struck. in 2022.

“Even as Americans — from Ohio to Kentucky to Michigan to Kansas to California — have resolutely rejected efforts to limit reproductive freedom, Republican elected officials continue to push for a national ban and devastating new restrictions across the country,” Biden said in a statement speech. rack. “Vice President Harris and I are fighting today and every day to protect women's reproductive freedom.”

Ms. Harris, who has become the administration's most outspoken defender of abortion rights, chose Wisconsin as the setting for the first in a series of events on abortion rights that her office has planned across the country this spring. Kirsten Allen, the vice president's press secretary, said Ms. Harris' office had planned several more stops over the next two to three months in “states that have established protections, restricted access and states that continue to threaten access, causing mayhem and mayhem.” confusion.”

Wisconsin is crucial to Mr. Biden's reelection prospects — he won there by about 20,600 votes in 2020 — and recent polls indicate a close race in 2024. It was also a target of former President Donald J. Trump's efforts to suppress falsehoods about spreading illegal practices. vote in 2020.

But Democrats are hoping that a string of victories for abortion rights advocates in Wisconsin could signal a broader trend ahead of the general election. In April, Wisconsin voters elected a liberal candidate to the state Supreme Court by an 11-point margin. In September, Planned Parenthood began offering abortions again after a judge ruled that an 1849 state ban against them — which Roe declared invalid until it fell — was unenforceable.

Back in Washington, the administration's reproductive rights task force on Monday announced what officials said were new steps to help Americans obtain contraceptives, including new guidance meant to clarify standards for federal workers' insurers. It also released a letter issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra that will inform private insurers of their obligation to provide contraceptives to those they serve.

The Department of Health and Human Services will also issue guidance for patients experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies to better understand their rights to care under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA. The law requires hospital emergency rooms to provide medically necessary care in urgent circumstances, including abortions. The department will also “provide training materials for healthcare providers and establish a dedicated team of experts” to support hospitals across the country, according to a fact sheet distributed by the administration.

These efforts could contribute to the legal challenges surrounding the administration's efforts to promote access to abortion. The government is already engaged in legal battles with Texas and Idaho over whether the law provides for this procedure. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Idaho case.

The president and vice president plan to continue trying to draw a contrast between Republican-led efforts to restrict abortion and contraception and the Biden administration's efforts to frame the issue as one rooted in the protection of personal freedoms.

On Tuesday — the day of the New Hampshire primary — Ms. Harris will join Mr. Biden at an abortion rights rally in Virginia, where Democrats recently took control of the legislature and proposed to enshrine protection against abortion in the state constitution. Jill Biden, the first lady, and Doug Emhoff, Ms. Harris' husband, will also attend.

In 2021, Representative Michelle Steel, a California Republican whose district President Biden won in 2020, co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, a bill to recognize a fertilized egg as a person with equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

It took a year for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Ms. Steel was one of 166 Republicans in the House of Representatives — then about three-quarters of the conference — who would ultimately sign the legislation, which amounted to a nationwide abortion ban. She did this just weeks after it was introduced.

For Republicans, the bill's far-reaching potential impact was not seen as problematic at the time. In the case of Roe v. Wade, which recognized a constitutional right to abortion as the law of the land, the measure might have little practical effect. It was primarily a gesture of support for the anti-abortion movement, a vital source of political support for the Republican Party. And the Democrats, who controlled the House of Representatives at the time, were never going to vote on it anyway.

Last year, when Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced identical legislation, the landscape had changed significantly. The Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe, setting off a race for many states to impose tough restrictions, and abortion bans became a politically toxic issue for Republicans in elections across the country. The Republican Party also regained control of the House of Representatives, if only narrowly, with the power to control what was brought to the table.

Ms. Steel waited nearly a year to sign up — and did so on Friday morning, only after her Democratic challenger criticized her for spinning the issue for political gain and The New York Times alerted her to a story in which her change of position was documented. Nearly three dozen other Republican lawmakers who supported it in the last Congress, including several who face tough reelection races in competitive districts, have yet to sign up again.

The shift reflects how dramatically the demise of Roe has changed the GOP's calculus on abortion, creating a dilemma for members of a party that still wants to appeal to conservative voters who favor tough restrictions without to alienate a growing majority in the country that does not. .

It could also spell the demise of a tactic that Republicans in Congress have used successfully for decades to score political points with their base: the anti-abortion bill.

Speaker Mike Johnson, an evangelical Christian who has placed his faith at the forefront of his politics throughout his career, has called abortion “an American holocaust.” But even he has acknowledged the political realities of the moment and said he will not insist on raising controversial social issues this year.

In the year and a half since the Dobbs decision, it has become clear to many Republicans that taking away a right women have had for decades does not lead to a positive political outcome for them. About 69 percent of voters believe abortion should be legal during the first three months of pregnancy. according to a recent Gallup polla record high.

Democrats have capitalized on this dynamic, highlighting their efforts to protect access to abortion and attacking Republicans who have previously tried to limit or ban it — even if they have since distanced themselves from their position or simply remained silent on the issue.

“Steel will do whatever it takes to win,” said Derek Tran, a consumer rights attorney and Democrat who is running to unseat Ms. Steel. “She is silent on abortion issues, but she has been nothing but an extremist who has led to the elimination of abortion as a right.”

While voters in other parts of the country may be concerned about laws or ballot measures restricting abortions across the state, he added that in deep blue California they are “afraid of federal legislation.”

A spokeswoman for Ms. Steel, Claire Nance, criticized The Times for inquiring whether the congresswoman had changed her position, saying that Ms. Steel “is pro-life, with the exception of rape, incest and maternal health.” The bill she approved on Friday does not include these exceptions.

The group of former co-sponsors who have stayed away from the legislation this time include two other vulnerable Republican lawmakers from California who also represent districts Mr. Biden won in the last presidential election: Reps. David Valadao and Mike Garcia.

Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, a former co-sponsor of the bill who won her 2020 election by six votes, also dropped the latest version. Two other Republicans whose districts Mr. Biden won in 2020, Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and David Schweikert of Arizona, also did not sign this year, even though they supported the bill in the past.

Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who represents a purple district in South Carolina, is also a previous cosponsor who avoided the bill this time and talked about how the party needs to have a more appealing message to female voters if it wants one. keep control of the House.

Some former co-sponsors have given reasons for withholding their support this time around, while others have not. Mr. Bacon has said he does not support the 2023 legislation because it does not include a clear exception for the life of the mother. (The 2021 version he supported didn't either.)

When asked directly at an intimate town hall As to whether she planned to co-sponsor the Life at Conception Act at this Congress, as she had done in the past, Ms. Miller-Meeks said that “it hasn't come up yet,” then said that most people define life as beginning between ages 12 and 15. to soften.

Mary Ziegler, a law professor and historian of abortion at the University of California, Davis, said Republicans have not changed their positions, but some are simply undermining the anti-abortion language and gestures they once embraced and now believe they could harm them politically.

“What they're trying to do is achieve things for the anti-abortion movement without broadcasting it because they don't want the political backlash,” Professor Ziegler said. “A bill with empty gestures clearly seems like a bad idea.”

Still, more than 50 percent of Republicans in the House of Representatives support the national abortion ban bill, even after the legislation has been withdrawn.

Nicole McCleskey, a Republican Party pollster, said Republicans were still navigating the new, more politically thorny abortion landscape and that lawmakers from competitive districts were beginning to understand the need to strike a balance between showing they value women and stay true to their principles.

“There are adjustments to the way we represent our views that are still consistent with the position on preserving life,” Ms McCleskey said. “No one is going to vote for someone who says they will take away their rights, but we haven't fully recognized that in the way we talk about this issue.”

Ms. McCleskey said she advises Republicans to be consistent on abortion but try to signal their respect for women by talking about other issues, such as contraception, mental health care and care for older women.

Some Republicans are trying a version of that approach. Nikki Haley, the only woman in the Republican Party primary, has spoken about ensuring access to contraception, and Ms. Miller-Meeks has pointed to a contraception bill she introduced to soften criticism of her opposition to abortion rights.

This week, two House committees began considering a measure, titled the Pregnant Student Rights Act, that would require colleges and universities to disseminate information about the rights, benefits and resources available to pregnant students.

Abortion rights organizations condemned the bill in a letter to members of Congress as “a thinly veiled anti-abortion bill that would fail to remove key barriers to educational attainment for pregnant students.” They argue that the proposed bill aims to limit health care options for pregnant students by omitting abortion from the list of rights and services that should be made available to them.

Dana Singiser, co-founder of the nonprofit Contraception Access Initiative, said it was a smart political move for Republicans to focus on smaller, seemingly tasty initiatives that on the surface appear to strengthen women's rights, rather than limit them.

“It is now politically indefensible to support a national abortion ban,” she said. “This is the embodiment of the dog that caught the car. They were against abortion, the right is overturned by the Supreme Court, and then they don't know how to reconcile their extremist positions, which were defensible as long as people actually had the right.”

Still, some Republicans are pushing for action on the issue as aggressively as ever.

“Protecting life is one of my top priorities in Congress,” said Rep. Alex X. Mooney of West Virginia, the lead sponsor of the Life at Conception Act, who is running for Senate. “Respecting human life from the moment of conception until natural death is not simply a religious belief; it is a scientific fact that life begins at conception.”

Jeff Roe, the chief strategist of the leading super PAC backing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid, resigned Saturday evening, the latest and perhaps most significant departure from the group, which has been consumed by unrest in recent weeks.

Since the day before Thanksgiving, the pro-DeSantis super PAC called Never Back Down has seen the resignation of a CEO and a board chairman; firing a second CEO, along with two other top executives; and now the nightly departure of Mr. Roe. They have all come after intense infighting and finger-pointing as Mr. DeSantis has slumped in the polls.

“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Mr. Roe said wrote in a statement he posted Saturday evening on X. News of Mr. Roe’s resignation was first reported by The Washington Post.

His decision to quit followed comments from the super PAC’s new chairman of the board, Scott Wagner, a DeSantis loyalist and Florida appointee. Mr. Wagner had explained it The Washington Post why the previous CEO and two others – all of whom had worked for Mr Roe – had been fired.

Mr Wagner accused them of ‘mismanagement and behavioral problems’ and of ‘numerous unauthorized leaks’. The Post reported that an attorney for these employees contacted Mr. Wagner, who subsequently revised his statement to substantiate these allegations.

“I cannot in good conscience remain associated with Never Back Down given the statements made in The Washington Post,” Mr. Roe wrote in a statement. He said he still hoped Mr. DeSantis would be the next president and praised the Never Back Down team as “political warriors.”

Mr. Wagner did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

From the start, Never Back Down has been something of a Frankenstein’s monster in composition, with Mr. Roe and some of his top lieutenants forced to co-exist with a decision-making council made up mostly of old friends and loyalists of Mr. DeSantis. The arrangement has raised questions about how closely the campaign and super PAC have adhered to rules that prevent coordination.

Former President Donald J. Trump, who was in Las Vegas for a UFC match and who routinely mocked Mr. Roe in private, celebrated the departure in a post on his social media site Truth Social. “Jeff Roe is out – GAME OVER for DeSanctimonious,” he says wrote.

The future of the internal operations of Never Back Down, which raised more than $130 million in July, is unclear. Mr. Roe’s allies hold many of the group’s key positions, and his company, Axiom, helped lead early state efforts for the super PAC. It is unclear whether they will all remain in place.

Word that Mr. Roe would be leaving the super PAC began circulating shortly before 8 p.m. on Saturday. But Mr. Roe and several people associated with Never Back Down did not respond to multiple messages seeking confirmation. Mr. Roe eventually took his news to The Washington Post and posted it on X.

Mr. Roe had long ago aggravated Mr. DeSantis with unwanted headlines, including a New York Times story about a memo detailing the candidate’s debate strategy before the first primary debate that was posted on his company’s website and subsequently removed after The Times learned of it. The campaign found the memo’s existence embarrassing.

Later, in late August, Mr. Roe was secretly recorded at a meeting with donors pitching them for tens of millions of dollars, saying Mr. DeSantis must defeat Mr. Trump in the next 60 days.

The Trump campaign has seized on the “60 days” comment, referring to it as Mr. Roe’s “kiss of death” in an often cruel daily email. That 60-day period has expired, and Mr. DeSantis is still far behind the former president in the polls.

Never Back Down has been plagued by infighting for weeks, with senior employees resigning or being fired. Mr. DeSantis and his team were dissatisfied with the group’s activities, particularly its focus on television advertising, and had indicated that they wanted the group to contribute substantially to vote-getting.

Tensions reached a breaking point in November when another super PAC, Fight Right, was formed by a trio of DeSantis loyalists. Never Back Down’s board allocated $1 million to that group, and shortly thereafter the original CEO, Chris Jankowski, resigned, followed by the resignation of the board’s chairman, Adam Laxalt.

The person named as Mr. Jankowski’s replacement, Kristin Davison, was subsequently fired, along with two other top executives.

Mr. DeSantis has since met with potential donors for Fight Right, and his campaign manager wrote a memo embracing the group as the entity of choice to conduct political advertising. The new super PAC’s first ad attacked South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley by invoking previous comments she made about Hillary Clinton — a line of attack the campaign had just prominently featured in its own anti-Haley material .

Although Mr. DeSantis entered the race as Mr. Trump’s closest challenger, his campaign has sputtered in recent months. Ms. Haley has now matched or surpassed Mr. DeSantis in many early state polls.

The ongoing drama at the super PAC has infuriated some campaign workers, who see it as an unnecessary, constant distraction. The campaign itself was once the source of that drama, which involved mass layoffs and the rise to power of a campaign manager who had never worked on a campaign before.

Jeff Roe, the chief strategist of the leading super PAC backing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid, resigned Saturday evening, the latest and perhaps most significant departure from the group, which has been consumed by unrest in recent weeks.

Since the day before Thanksgiving, the pro-DeSantis super PAC called Never Back Down has seen the resignation of a CEO and a board chairman, the firing of a second CEO along with two other top executives, and now the late-night quit of Mr. Roe.

“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Mr. Roe said wrote in a statement he posted on X on Saturday evening.

The decision to quit followed comments from the super PAC’s new chairman of the board, Scott Wagner, a DeSantis loyalist and Florida appointee, who had explained The Washington Post why the previous CEO and two others – all of whom had worked for Mr Roe – had been fired.

Mr Wagner accused them of ‘mismanagement and behavioral problems’ and of ‘numerous unauthorized leaks’. The Post reported that an attorney for these employees contacted Mr. Wagner, who subsequently revised his statement to substantiate these allegations.

“I cannot in good conscience remain associated with Never Back Down given the statements made in The Washington Post,” Mr. Roe wrote in a statement.

Mr. Wagner did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

By the time the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, a draft of the ruling had been leaked to the press and the outcome was expected. The story behind the decision seemed obvious: The constitutional right to abortion had effectively died with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose replacement, Amy Coney Barrett, was a favorite of the anti-abortion movement.

But that version is far from complete.

The New York Times has pieced together the hidden story behind this massive shift in the law, drawing on internal documents, contemporaneous notes and interviews with court insiders who had real-time knowledge of the events.

The article offers a rare glimpse into the unraveling of a constitutional right, with excerpts from the judges’ internal messages to each other. They include a 2016 memo on how the court should proceed after Senate Republicans vowed to block any nominee of President Barack Obama, and 2021 communications on a “shadow docket” case that all but struck down abortion rights in Texas and caused unrest within the court.

Here are five takeaways.

Barrett opposed taking the case.

Judge Barrett was chosen by President Donald J. Trump to gain a conservative supermajority on the court. Initially, in the justices’ private deliberations, she favored hearing the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a fight over a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas wanted to move quickly and hear the case that spring.

Judge Barrett said the timing was wrong — she had been on the court for less than three months — and the others agreed to move the case to the next term.

But she later reversed herself and voted against hearing the case. A minority of the court, four male members, including Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, gave it the green light anyway.

The court created distance from RBG’s death.

At Judge Kavanaugh’s suggestion, the court delayed announcing the case for months. In addition to postponing the case to the next term, the delay would buy time, allowing the justices to watch other abortion cases play out in lower courts, he told his colleagues.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. expressed concern that the court could look as if it had simply been waiting for a new judge arrive before taking on the challenge with Roe. The Kavanaugh plan, which gave the appearance of distance from Justice Ginsburg’s death, gave the public the impression that the justices were still debating even though the case had cleared the bar for moving forward.

Roberts and Breyer tried to save part of Roe.

The chief and Justice Stephen G. Breyer, a conservative and a liberal, teamed up to urge their newest colleagues — Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh — to withdraw support for hearing the case.

Judge Breyer, then 82, appealed to their relative youth: They still had decades on the bench ahead of them, and to maintain public confidence in the court, they needed to take a longer view. “Why the hurry?” he would ask.

Their push for compromise continued after the court heard oral arguments in December 2021. By then, Mississippi was not only asking for the 15-week ban, but also claiming that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

Most of the conservative bloc was receptive. But the chief would only allow the fifteen-week ban and nothing more. Because of the court’s arcane rules, his middle position could prevail if he were to omit just one vote.

He and Judge Breyer appealed to Judge Kavanaugh. If they could win him over, Justice Breyer even considered joining them in supporting a 15-week ban — which could erode Roe’s protections so they wouldn’t be erased.

The leak made those efforts hopeless.

When Politico published a leaked draft of Justice Alito’s majority opinion in May 2022, the chief justice was working on a concurring opinion that he had hoped would persuade colleagues to the middle.

In a statement at the time, Chief Justice Roberts said that “the work of the court will not be affected in any way.” But behind the scenes, the leak hampered the search for compromises. The chief even hesitated to spread his views on the internal email list, which had become a list of suspects. Instead, he waited until new paper-only protocols were available.

A Ginsburg tradition was in jeopardy.

The Dobbs decision was released on June 24, 2022, officially overturning the constitutional right to abortion. The three liberal justices, who wrote a dissenting opinion in one voice, argued that the outcome “undermines the court’s legitimacy.”

Justice Breyer had requested that a summary of their dissents be read from the bench, which would evoke memories of Justice Ginsburg, who had used oral dissents as a form of protest. The chief said no: the Covid-era practice of releasing only written decisions still existed.

Months later, Justice Gorsuch urged the complete elimination of in-person opinion announcements, including oral dissents. Justices Alito, Barrett and Thomas told their colleagues they agreed.

Outnumbered liberals pushed back — “I think this would be a particularly unfortunate time to eliminate the practice of reading dissent,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote to her colleagues — and Justice Kavanaugh sided theirs. Ultimately, the tradition survived.

A year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, former President Donald J. Trump reminded a gathering of evangelical activists in the nation’s capital how he shaped the court’s conservative supermajority that ended nearly 50 years of constitutional protection of abortion.

Appearing Saturday night at a Faith & Freedom Coalition gala in Washington, he cited his nomination of three of the six justices who voted to abolish the law as the capstone of his presidency. And he set himself up as a fearless crusader for the Christian right in a meandering speech that lasted nearly 90 minutes.

“No president has ever fought as hard for Christians as I have,” he said, adding, “I pulled it off and no one thought it was even a possibility.”

It was Mr. Trump’s eighth appearance for the group, whose support he is trying to consolidate in a crowded G.OP. battle for the 2024 nomination, although he is the front runner in the field. He said Republican voters were skeptical of claims by some of his rivals that they were stronger opponents of abortion, and suggested the skepticism had started on the campaign trail.

“A woman stood up and said, ‘This man has ended Roe v. Wade. How the hell can you go against him?” said Mr. Trump, without naming the candidate or setting.

A few thousand activists gave Mr Trump a standing ovation when he mentioned the ruling, which he says gave conservatives leverage in the ongoing fight for abortion rights. Several hundred more filled an overflow chamber.

“You have power for the first time,” he said.

Virtually all of Mr. Trump’s rivals in the crowded GOP field showed up at the group’s three-day Road to Majority conference at the Washington Hilton. The lineup included Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Mr. Trump’s main rival, and former Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s former running mate.

At a rally earlier Saturday in front of the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the court’s ruling, Mr Pence urged anti-abortion activists to continue fighting for further restrictions on the state-level procedure.

“Save the babies and we will save America,” he said, adding, “As the old book says, there are many more with us than with them.”

Speaking at the rally a day earlier, Mr. Pence called on the entire 2024 Republican presidential field to pledge support for a national abortion ban after 15 weeks — a ban more extreme than anything Mr. Trump has supported to date.

David Porter, 64, a Republican from Newport News, Virginia, who wore a “Walk With Jesus” hat at the rally, praised Trump for his mark on the judiciary.

“He’s my husband now,” he said.

During his speech on Saturday night, Mr. Trump tried several times to connect with the faith community and said it was under attack, just as he was.

“Together we are warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, the atheists, the globalists and the Marxists,” he said.

Each charge, he added, was a “great sign of courage.”

“I’m being sued for you,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s alliance with the Christian right is a study in political expediency, one that has paid miraculous dividends for both.

In 2016, evangelical voters helped Trump to consecutive Republican primary victories in South Carolina and other key states, paving his way to the nomination and eventually the presidency.

The influential electoral bloc showed its willingness to look beyond the wickedness of the twice-divorced Mr. Trump, whose extramarital affairs had long been tabloid fodder and who had a history of supporting abortion rights in the 1990s. Evangelical voters voted in favor of Mr. Trump’s populist narrative, as well as his commitments to a heavy-handed reset of the nation’s immigration and trade policies and to appoint “pro-life” judges.

The group collected its proceeds during Mr. Trump’s presidency, when he won a supermajority on the Supreme Court.

Trump has announced his remake of the nation’s Supreme Court as he once again seeks the support of evangelical voters, this time beset by a barrage of charges, including one in a hush money case involving a porn star.

But while Trump has emphasized his role in the right’s fight to end abortion rights, he has repeatedly dodged questions about whether he would sign a federal abortion ban if Republicans succeeded in pushing one through the divided Congress.

Mr Porter, the Virginia anti-abortion activist, said Mr Trump’s evasiveness was concerning.

“Either you stand for what you believe in or you don’t,” he said.

Mr. DeSantis, who spoke Friday at the evangelical conclave, has sought to turn the right wing against Mr. Trump over abortion policies. He criticized the former president for suggesting that a six-week abortion ban that Mr. DeSantis in Florida was “too hard”.

Susan Migliore, an anti-abortion activist from Falls Church, Virginia, who said she was religious but not evangelical, said at the Lincoln Memorial rally that she was grateful for Mr Trump’s choice but had not yet decided which candidate to run. will support in 2024.

It’s been exactly one year since Bethany Bomberger gathered in a makeshift group outside a hotel ballroom with fellow anti-abortion activists, overcome with gratitude and optimism as news broke that the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade just hours before the Pro- Life had destroyed. Women’s conference officially opened.

“There will be a life before Roe was overthrown and a life after that,” Ms Bomberger said this weekend, tearfully recalling what she described as a moment when “the impossible became possible”. She and her husband lead an anti-abortion organization, which has recently branched out into the fight against the rising acceptance of transgender identity — what she called “gender radicalism.”

As this year’s conference got underway, Ms. Bomberger took the stage at a modest convention center in a suburb outside St. Louis. “Who’s here with me to let go?” she asked the crowd, several hundred women leading the wave. “We pro-lifers, we have life on our side!” She was wearing a small gold chain that read “mama,” a gift from her son.

Last summer’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ended the state’s right to abortion and sent the issue back to the states. It also radically changed the landscape of abortion in the United States, closing some clinics, prompting others to open their doors, and sparking new battles over abortion pills, miscarriage care, and birth control. Legal abortions fell by more than six percent in the first six months after the ruling.

For those who believe abortion is the destruction of innocent life and have fought for years to end it, June 24 now marks “a great day in the history of our country,” said Shawn Carney, the president and CEO of 40 Days for Life. The organization of Mr. Carney is a co-sponsor of a Dobb’s anniversary gathering at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, where a crowd gathered Saturday morning to hear Mike Pence and Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece.

“The work for life continues, across America,” said Mr. Pence, who has pledged to make abortion a central part of his campaign for president.

Redi Degefa, who lives in Washington and serves as a congressional staffer, said she came to the Saturday morning rally to show that young women are represented in the anti-abortion movement. She said she had studied for two years and was Catholic and came up with a sign that read “Pray the Rosary to End Abortion”.

“It’s both a celebration and a reminder that we need to hold onto this energy, the energy that we’ve sustained for the last 50 years – we need to double it now and keep going,” Ms Degefa said. “It will never be a victory until abortion is abolished in all 50 states.”

June has quickly become the new focal point of the anti-abortion calendar, a shift from the birthday on which Roe was decreed, January 1973. Carney compared the Roe anniversary to the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which Americans do not celebrate, and the Dobbs anniversary to Juneteenth, which they do. He is among those who have proposed moving the March for Life, the annual anti-abortion event held in Washington every January, to June.

Other activists are observing what they call “Dobbs Day” this weekend in state homes, including in Georgia and Wisconsin. Some are calling for social conservatives to rename June “Life Month,” a celebration of the decision that serves as a swipe at Pride Month.

In the exhibition space this weekend in Missouri, bumper stickers, prayer bracelets, and colorful stacks of “Pro-Life Kids” coloring books lay on tables. Nuns in habit mingled with young women in T-shirts that read “Love Wildly” and “Life Has Purpose.” A selfie station had a neon sign reading “Pro-Woman Is Pro-Life.”

Attendees were invited to “come dressed up in your best outfit from 1972 or 2022” at a Saturday night dance, a reference to the year before Roe was ruled and the year the court reversed itself 50 years later.

“It makes me so happy to know that I’m dancing to celebrate Roe’s overthrow,” Danielle Pitzer, director of sanctity of human life at Focus on the Family, said Friday. She had packed a sequined kaleidoscopic “disco dress,” complete with platform shoes and a matching headband.

While many American women mourned the loss of the national right to abortion, conservative women—especially young women—had fueled the anti-abortion movement and imbued it with the fresh energy of a new generation. For them, this was a moment to celebrate and recognize the new challenges ahead.

American public opinion is moving toward increased support for abortion rights, making the issue a painful political liability for Republicans. The party has struggled to come to a consensus on abortion restrictions, and many GOP presidential candidates have so far avoided the issue. At the same time, women have not stopped having abortions, even in states with a ban: instead, they have turned to abortion pills or traveled to other states.

“We learned this year that there is still a lot of work to be done,” said Angela Huguenin, director of operations for And Then There Were None, an organization that aims to convince abortion clinic workers to join the anti-abortion movement. . That effort has been met with more hostility by many clinic staff over the past year, she said. Dozens of clinics have closed since Roe was overthrown, and many have had to be uprooted and moved to neighboring states.

For Missouri’s true believers, many of whom work or volunteer for anti-abortion organizations, part of the political fallout can be attributed to a communication error: if the public better understood the movement’s commitments to both mothers and babies, seeing things differently.

Some in the movement are skeptical that Dobbs represents a clear victory. Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, the founder of the small anti-abortion group New Wave Feminists, was at a conference hosted by National Right to Life last year when the court delivered its ruling. The room erupted in almost panicked elation, she said. Her own feelings were more mixed.

“It didn’t solve or do anything, it just created chaos,” she said. Some of the new state laws do not include rape or incest exceptions and, she said, Since then, “horror stories” have surfaced in which women have been denied care for pregnancy complications.

“Pro-lifers may have won the battle, but they won’t win the war,” unless they write better laws and advocate for a more comprehensive social safety net, she said. Missteps, she added, “could easily lead to the codification of abortion rights.”

In Missouri, conference host Abby Johnson addressed the women from the podium on Friday afternoon, sitting on a white couch next to a panel of former abortion clinic employees. Ms. Johnson is a former director of the Planned Parenthood clinic and now a prominent anti-abortion activist.

She warned the enthusiastic crowd of the rise of drug-induced abortion and of the abortion rights movement’s commitment to “never stop killing babies.”

“We just got this big win,” she said. “Let’s keep winning.”

Zach Montague contributed to this article.

It’s been exactly one year since Bethany Bomberger gathered in a makeshift group outside a hotel ballroom with fellow anti-abortion activists, overcome with gratitude and optimism as news broke that the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade just hours before the Pro- Life had destroyed. Women’s conference officially opened.

“There will be a life before Roe was overthrown and a life after that,” Ms Bomberger said this weekend, tearfully recalling what she described as a moment when “the impossible became possible”. She and her husband lead an anti-abortion organization, which has recently branched out into the fight against the rising acceptance of transgender identity — what she called “gender radicalism.”

As this year’s conference got underway, Ms. Bomberger took the stage at a modest convention center in a suburb outside St. Louis. “Who’s here with me to let go?” she asked the crowd, several hundred women leading the wave. “We pro-lifers, we have life on our side!” She was wearing a small gold chain that read “mama,” a gift from her son.

Last summer’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ended the state’s right to abortion and sent the issue back to the states. It also radically changed the landscape of abortion in the United States, closing some clinics, prompting others to open their doors, and sparking new battles over abortion pills, miscarriage care, and birth control. Legal abortions fell by more than six percent in the first six months after the ruling.

For those who believe abortion is the destruction of innocent life and have fought for years to end it, June 24 now marks “a great day in the history of our country,” said Shawn Carney, the president and CEO of 40 Days for Life. Mr. Carney’s organization is co-sponsoring a celebratory Dobbs anniversary gathering that will take place Saturday morning at Washington’s Lincoln Memorial, followed by a black tie-optional gala in the evening.

June has quickly become the new focal point of the anti-abortion calendar, a shift from the birthday on which Roe was decreed, January 1973. Carney compared the Roe anniversary to the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which Americans do not celebrate, and the Dobbs anniversary to Juneteenth, which they do. He is among those who have proposed moving the March for Life, the annual anti-abortion event held in Washington every January, to June.

Other activists will observe what they call “Dobbs Day” this weekend in state homes, including Georgia and Wisconsin. Some are calling for social conservatives to rename June “Life Month,” a celebration of the decision that serves as a swipe at Pride Month.

In the exhibition space this weekend in Missouri, bumper stickers, prayer bracelets, and colorful stacks of “Pro-Life Kids” coloring books lay on tables. Nuns in habit mingled with young women in T-shirts that read “Love Wildly” and “Life Has Purpose.” A selfie station had a neon sign reading “Pro-Woman Is Pro-Life.”

Attendees were invited to come “dressed in your best outfit from 1972 or 2022” to a Saturday night dance, referencing the year before Roe was ruled and the year the court reversed itself 50 years later.

“It makes me so happy to know that I’m dancing to celebrate Roe’s overthrow,” Danielle Pitzer, director of sanctity of human life at Focus on the Family, said Friday. She had packed a sequined kaleidoscopic “disco dress,” complete with platform shoes and a matching headband.

While many American women mourned the loss of the national right to abortion, conservative women—especially young women—had fueled the anti-abortion movement and imbued it with the fresh energy of a new generation. For them, this was a moment to celebrate and recognize the new challenges ahead.

American public opinion is moving toward increased support for abortion rights, making the issue a painful political liability for Republicans. The party has struggled to come to a consensus on abortion restrictions, and many GOP presidential candidates have so far avoided the issue. At the same time, women have not stopped having abortions, even in states with a ban: instead, they have turned to abortion pills or traveled to other states.

“We learned this year that there is still a lot of work to be done,” said Angela Huguenin, director of operations for And Then There Were None, an organization that aims to convince abortion clinic workers to join the anti-abortion movement. . That effort has been met with more hostility by many clinic staff over the past year, she said. Dozens of clinics have closed since Roe was overthrown, and many have had to be uprooted and moved to neighboring states.

For Missouri’s true believers, many of whom work or volunteer for anti-abortion organizations, part of the political fallout can be attributed to a communication error: if the public better understood the movement’s commitments to both mothers and babies, seeing things differently.

Some in the movement are skeptical that Dobbs represents a clear victory. Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, the founder of the small anti-abortion group New Wave Feminists, was at a conference hosted by National Right to Life last year when the court delivered its ruling. The room erupted in almost panicked elation, she said. Her own feelings were more mixed.

“It didn’t solve or do anything, it just created chaos,” she said. Some of the new state laws do not include rape or incest exceptions, and “horror stories” denying women care for pregnancy complications have since emerged.

“Pro-lifers may have won the battle, but they won’t win the war,” unless they write better laws and advocate for a more comprehensive social safety net, she said. Missteps, she added, “could easily lead to the codification of abortion rights.”

In Missouri, conference host Abby Johnson addressed the women from the podium on Friday afternoon, sitting on a white couch next to a panel of former abortion clinic employees. Ms. Johnson is a former director of the Planned Parenthood clinic and now a prominent anti-abortion activist.

She warned the enthusiastic crowd of the rise of drug-induced abortion and of the abortion rights movement’s commitment to “never stop killing babies.”

“We just got this big win,” she said. “Let’s keep winning.”