‘A recipe for a lot of suffering’: How abortion bans may strain the red states

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The central paradox of the abortion debate is that the red states racing to outlaw or severely limit the procedure may be the places least prepared to deal with the practical consequences of the new restrictions. And that, experts project, could mean significantly more infant and maternal deaths and childhood poverty in states that, as a group, already rank at the bottom on those critical outcomes for kids and families.

New research shows that the states banning abortion could see up to hundreds of thousands of new births each year, most of them unplanned, and concentrated among lower-income families already facing the greatest financial and health care challenges. …

Especially frustrating for social scientists is that while the majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito overturning Roe v. Wade reached so deeply into history that it cited “Henry de Bracton’s 13th-century treatise” on abortion, the ruling said nothing about the real-world effects today of allowing states to ban or severely restrict the practice. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, CNN

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Can Americans pass a civics test for U.S. naturalization?

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… Recently, YouGov asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to answer 20 multiple-choice practice civics questions from the U.S. naturalization test. On average, Americans who provided a valid response to all 20 questions answered about 15 of them correctly. About four in five (85%) effectively pass the test, meaning they answer at least 12 out of 20 questions correctly — or at least 60%, the proportion of correct answers needed to pass the real test. CONTINUED

Taylor Orth, YouGov

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I don’t buy GOP will definitely win Senate after SCOTUS decisions: Silver

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FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver breaks down how the recent landmark Supreme Court decisions will affect the midterm elections on “This Week.” CONTINUED

This Week, ABC News

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One in five adult members of Gen Z self-identifies as LGBTQ

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Last week’s Dobbs decision from the Supreme Court, which overturned Roe v. Wade, also contained some news about same-sex marriage. In his majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote about his desire to reconsider other precedents from the high court including 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized marriage between people of the same sex.

But reversing that decision would not be easy and the landscape around the issue has shifted sharply in the last decade.

Data show there have been dramatic increases in support of gay marriage and in how many Americans self-identify as LGBTQ. CONTINUED

Dante Chinni, NBC News

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Spurred by the Supreme Court, a Nation Divides Along a Red-Blue Axis

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Pressed by Supreme Court decisions diminishing rights that liberals hold dear and expanding those cherished by conservatives, the United States appears to be drifting apart into separate nations, with diametrically opposed social, environmental and health policies.

Call these the Disunited States. …

On each of those issues, the country’s Northeast and West Coast are moving in the opposite direction from its midsection and Southeast — with a few exceptions, like the islands of liberalism in Illinois and Colorado, and New Hampshire’s streak of conservatism.

Even where public opinion is more mixed, like in Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, the Republican grip on state legislatures has ensured that policies in those states conform with those of the reddest states in the union, rather than strike a middle ground. CONTINUED

Jonathan Weisman, New York Times

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Where the country is on abortion

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… While most Americans believe abortion should be legal, much of the country exists somewhere in the middle of the abortion debate, with few falling into the more extreme ends of the conversation. Other polling shows how different conditions affect abortion support, though notably, a majority of the country supports abortion regardless of the conditions tested. This isn’t a black-white issue. There are many shades of grey lost to our tribal reductionism. CONTINUED

Clifford Young & Sarah Feldman, Ipsos

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