House Conservatives Want Abortion Bill Vote As GOP Searches For Unified Footing

Axios: Exclusive: House Conservatives Challenge Their Leaders On Abortion
The Republican Study Committee is pushing House GOP leadership for a vote on the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act (H.R. 7), Axios has learned. Moderates and some members of GOP leadership are worried the bill could hurt members in swing districts. Frontliners have said they feel bringing H.R. 7 to the floor could hurt their ability to keep their seats, with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) recently telling ABC News she believes the party will "lose huge" if they don't find a "middle ground" on abortion. (Brufke, 6/23)

AP: Evangelical Leader Hopes Conference Is 'Testosterone Booster Shot' For Anti-Abortion 2024 Candidates
A year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, some of the Republican Party’s most powerful evangelical Christian voices are gathering to celebrate a ruling that sent shockwaves through American politics and stripped away a constitutional protection that stood for almost a half century. At the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual conference in Washington, GOP presidential candidates will be urged to keep pushing for stronger abortion restrictions, even as Democrats insist the issue will buoy them ahead of the 2024 election. Former President Donald Trump, whose three nominees to the high court allowed for the reversal of nationwide abortion rights, will give the keynote address Saturday night, the anniversary of the court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. (Weissert and Price, 6/23)

Los Angeles Times: ‘Just The Beginning.’ An Uncertain Future For Abortion A Year After Roe’s Overturn
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a nonprofit group that works to end abortion in the U.S. by electing anti-abortion politicians, said that almost half the states passing “pretty ambitious pro-life legislation” was a “pretty good scorecard for one year.” But Dannenfelser is not done. After playing a key role in 2016 persuading Donald Trump to commit to appointing Supreme Court justices who oppose abortion, she is working to push Republican presidential candidates to support, at the minimum, a 15-week national abortion ban. “The fall of Roe marked the beginning of the race, it’s not the end of anything,” Dannenfelser added. “This is the most motivating moment for the pro-life movement since 1973.” (Jarvie, 6/22)

MPR News: Abortion Opponents Say They’ll Work To Roll Back Minnesota Law Changes 
Minnesota lawmakers removed abortion restrictions this year and guaranteed access to abortion in state law. Groups opposed to abortion say those changes have energized their members and that they’ll mobilize Minnesotans to roll them back. Lynesha Caron is trying to figure out how to balance the books with a quarter of her annual budget gone. Caron is executive director at Pregnancy Choices in Apple Valley, one of dozens of “crisis pregnancy centers” around the state that works with Minnesotans facing unplanned pregnancies. They don’t provide abortions, nor do they refer clients for abortion services. Instead, they offer pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, counseling and parenting classes. (Ferguson, 6/22)

The Guardian: These 1,572 US Politicians Have Helped Ban Abortion Since Roe Fell. They’re Mostly Men
The Guardian has created a visual directory of state legislators who embraced the opportunity to restrict abortion access. These are the faces of lawmakers and governors whose votes helped pass bans on abortion at conception or after six weeks, before most women know they are pregnant. (Sasani and Witherspoon, 6/22)

On Republican presidential candidates —

Politico: Mike Pence Leans In On Abortion Politics
Saturday marks one year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, revoking the constitutional right to abortion. And ever since, Republicans have been twisting themselves in knots over how to handle the fallout. Former President Donald Trump avoids talking about the matter almost entirely. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban in the middle of the night in April, and has barely spoken about it since. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) originally waffled on whether he’d support a nationwide abortion ban. And former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has been vague about how she’d handle the issue as president. Then there’s former Vice President Mike Pence. More than any other Republican candidate, the former vice president has staked his pitch to voters on his unabashed “pro-life” stance. (Bade, 6/23)

CNN: Trump Struggles To Navigate Defining 2024 Campaign Issue: Abortion
Donald Trump’s appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court during his time in the White House made him the architect of the post-Dobbs world, a decision that thrilled a huge faction of the Republican Party and many of the evangelical Christian voters Trump has viewed as central to both his 2016 presidential win and his 2024 campaign. Yet even as he wants to take credit for the decision that changed the political and legal landscape of abortion, the former president has privately blamed abortion hard-liners for the party’s lackluster 2022 midterm results and attempted to largely steer clear of the issue on the campaign trail, offering only a series of muddled responses when pressed on whether he would sign a federal abortion bill into law – something many within the conservative movement see as the next frontier in this fight. (Treene and Holmes, 6/22)

Des Moines Register: Iowa Anti-Abortion Leaders Say GOP Candidates Must Embrace Federal Ban
A panel of anti-abortion advocates sent a message to Republican presidential hopefuls campaigning in Iowa: Embrace a national abortion ban or risk losing in the caucuses. During a town hall at Experience Church in Des Moines, a group that included Iowa's Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called on the growing primary field to face the issue of abortion head-on. (Bacharier, 6/22)