Which Mass. governor candidate will protect a womans freedom? – The Boston Globe

Hard to say.

Diehl declined to answer a question on whether he supports a federal abortion ban. He said he would respect the ROE Act the sweeping abortion protections passed in Massachusetts Legislature to preserve abortion rights here. But as my colleagues Matt Stout and Samantha J. Gross wrote, he also said he disagreed with parts of that law, mainly those that prompted Governor Charlie Baker to veto it, necessitating a legislative override.

Asked after the debate if he would also have vetoed the ROE Act as governor, Diehl declined to answer.

Abortion rights advocates have hammered Diehl on his antiabortion record, and the states Democratic Party last week launched a digital ad highlighting his stance. Of note: He once cosponsored a bill that would ban the procedure opponents call partial birth abortion and jail doctors who violated it for up to five years.

Diehl tried to explain that bills intentions during the debate, saying that while Healey keeps talking about trying to criminalize abortions, he was trying to protect those innocent lives who were born from a failed abortion to get medical attention. Thats infanticide in my opinion, and that to me is criminal.

Well, then.

Diehl called it shameful that Healey hadnt similarly supported choice in vaccine mandates; his running mate, Leah Allen, is a nurse who was pregnant during the pandemic and lost her job for declining to get a vaccine.

You know whats shameful? Healey said, Is all the talk about freedom except when it applies to women.

How did the candidates do in the debate? Heres a scorecard from my colleague and political guru, James Pindell.

Hello, Genius

Loretta J. Ross got the call from the MacArthur Foundation when she was driving to teach at Smith College, and she assumed it was from someone seeking a reference.

I said, Well, thats nice, but I dont drive and talk, Ross recalled, realizing how casually she had asked the person to call her back later.

Turns out, the caller was offering her a MacArthur genius grant, the surprise honor that delivers intellectual renown, not to mention $800,000 over five years, with no strings attached.

Ross is one of the Black feminists who coined the term reproductive justice and who founded SisterSong, the Southern-based organization that works to improve the reproductive lives of marginalized women.

Its going to be life-changing for me, Ross said of the award, and she meant that literally.

Ross intends to use the award for long-term care insurance, which she said she has been unable to access because shes diabetic. And she plans to start a human rights education institute at Smith College, seeing an opportunity for a liberal arts college like Smith to train young people in how to actively defend democracy using a human rights framework.

Her latest work has focused on challenging call-out culture, and encouraging people to instead call-in.

When I had last spoken to her in 2020, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett had not yet been confirmed. But Ross could see the writing on the wall and expected womens rights to be upended. The belligerent patriarchy has taken over again, she said at the time.

Now she is thinking of the Supreme Courts Dobbs ruling as a gift for the midterms.

I think that the Supreme Court has gifted us with an overreach because they have forgotten about a very important constituency and thats pro-choice Republican women, she said. Theyre the ones who turned Kansas out, right?

On fetuses in Rhode Island

This past week, the US Supreme Court skipped an opportunity to weigh in on whether fetuses have constitutional rights post-Roe, as my colleague Edward Fitzpatrick wrote.

The legal challenge centered on a Rhode Island case that was inherently interesting: The plaintiffs included two women who also filed on behalf of their fetuses. They were challenging the 2019 Rhode Island law enacted to protect abortion rights in case Roe v. Wade was overturned.

The Rhode Island Supreme Court found the unborn plaintiffs had no standing in part because they were ultimately born and unharmed by the law.

The mothers, along with Servants of Christ for Life, had filed a petition asking the highest court to review the Rhode Island decision.

In other states

In Georgia, one recent poll showed little effect of the bombshell news about Herschel Walker, a Republican running for US Senate. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday showed Walker trailing incumbent Raphael Warnock by 7 points, after trailing by 6 points last month. The poll was conducted after The Daily Beast reported a former girlfriends claims that the anti-abortion candidate had allegedly paid for her abortion and that she later went on to have a child with him. Walker has said she is lying.

But Nate Cohn has an analysis of four recent polls conducted since the story broke that suggests danger for Walker.

Kentucky is gearing up for a referendum on abortion rights like the vote heard round the world in Kansas in August. But this Red State might not deliver the same surprises that Kansas did, The 19th reports.

Kentucky is also the state facing the latest challenge to its abortion ban on religious grounds an interesting twist on the religious freedom arguments often successfully wielded in court by other congregations. Like the challenges in Florida and Indiana, the suit filed in state court by three Jewish women argues that the state Legislature imposed on their religious freedom and imposed sectarian theology with its abortion ban. In their suit, the Associated Press reported, the women argue that Jewish law answered the question of fetal personhood thousands of years ago.

Jews have never believed that life begins at conception.

What Im reading

Will Supreme Court abortion ruling drive women to vote in 2022 election? Washington Post

Post-primary parting thoughts on abortion from Gail Huff Brown New Hampshire Union Leader

Another conservative group offers ads and strategy to blunt the potentially galvanizing effect of abortion on the midterms Washington Post

This piece first appeared in Beyond Roe, our free weekly newsletter chronicling the fight for abortion rights in the United States. If youd like to receive it via e-mail every Friday, you can sign up here.

Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at Stephanie.Ebbert@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @StephanieEbbert.

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Which Mass. governor candidate will protect a womans freedom? - The Boston Globe