Live updates Abortion becomes central issue as Democrats draw contrast with GOP

First lady Jill Biden will travel to Romania and Slovakia this weekend, where she plans to spend Mother’s Day with Ukrainian mothers who left their home country during the Russian invasion.

Per the White House, Biden will visit with U.S. troops in both nations and meet with Ukrainian refugees.

“Dr. Biden is inspired by the resilience and strength of the Ukrainian people and hopes to communicate that Americans are standing with them,” the White House said in a release. “On Mother’s Day, she will meet with Ukrainian mothers and children who have been forced to flee their home country because of Putin’s war.”

On Friday, Biden will be in Romania, where she will visit U.S. troops and members of the NATO military leadership. On Saturday, she will meet with U.N. representatives and other nongovernmental organizations working with Ukrainian refugees in Romania, as well as with representatives from the country’s government. She will also meet with Romanian first lady Carmen Iohannis.

On Sunday, Biden will travel to Slovakia, where she will visit a refugee center and a public school that is hosting Ukrainian refugee students.

“Here, the First Lady will spend time with mothers and children (both Ukrainian refugees and Slovaks) as the families participate in Mother’s Day activities together,” the White House said.

On Monday, she will meet with Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova to “reaffirm our strong bilateral ties and express our gratitude for Slovakia’s support for Ukrainian refugees.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe is “absolutely appalling” but will not affect the final outcome of the court’s historic deliberations on the abortion issue, Robert Barnes reports.

“A leak of this sort — let’s assume that’s what it is — is absolutely appalling, and if the people behind it, or person behind it, thinks that it’s going to have an effect on our decision process, that’s absolutely foolish,” Roberts told the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference meeting in Atlanta.

“We will go about doing our work as we would in any event, regardless of the leak,” he said.

Roberts has said that while the draft of the opinion is genuine, it is not final.

Roberts also said that the “thing that upsets me quite a bit … is that it might give the wrong impression about our workforce.”

“The people who work at the Supreme Court are extremely dedicated to the institution, and in fact to the rule of law,” Roberts said, adding that extends from “from the guy who empties the wastebasket at night to the most tenured justice on the court.”

Roberts is in Atlanta for a meeting of the 11th Circuit with lawyers and judges from Florida, Alabama and Georgia. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who wrote the leaked draft, canceled his appearance at a similar judge and lawyer conference in Nashville.

Read more on these meetings from Robert here.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden shares with many Americans “that concern and that horror of what he saw in that draft opinion” and would encourage them to protest peacefully.

“It’s not a final opinion,” Psaki said, but the draft “has prompted [a] redoubled effort across the administration and with Congress to take every step we can to protect women’s health care.”

Biden’s message directly “to anybody out there who is feeling that frustration is participating in peaceful protest,” Psaki said.

“Have your voice heard peacefully,” Psaki said. “We should not be resorting to violence in any way, shape or form.”

Psaki said the White House is “in a range of discussions” with Congress on the path forward “and what’s possible” for a bill that could codify the access to abortion, but did not detail what those efforts would look like.

Will Justice Amy Coney Barrett recuse herself from a ruling on abortion because of her published personal religious opinions regarding the issue? — asks Joan from Connecticut.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett made her view on abortion clear in 2006, when she signed a newspaper ad opposing abortion.

Barrett, then a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, signed the statement along with hundreds of residents in the South Bend, Ind., area.

In the statement, Barrett and the other people who signed — led by an antiabortion organization from Michiana, Ind. — said they “oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death.”

While Barrett’s participation in this advertisement is widely known, there is no evidence that she would see this as a reason to recuse herself from a ruling on the future of Roe v. Wade.

There are no rules that force justices to recuse themselves from cases. Barrett did not recuse when hearing arguments in the abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last year.

It is ironic, though, that Barrett once wrote a piece for the Marquette Law Review that Catholic judges should recuse themselves from capital cases — cases that touch on the death penalty.

Judges in those cases, she said, are “obliged to adhere to their church’s teaching on moral matters” and are “morally precluded from enforcing the death penalty.”

Per the abstract of that piece:

While mere identification of a judge as Catholic is not sufficient reason for recusal under federal law, the authors suggest that the moral impossibility of enforcing capital punishment in such cases as sentencing, enforcing jury recommendations, and affirming are in fact reasons for not participating.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of two prominent Republican senators who support abortion rights, will not back a measure that would codify the procedure into law, arguing that the legislation does not provide sufficient protection to antiabortion health providers.

Collins told reporters Thursday that the Democratic-led Senate effort “supersedes all other federal and state laws, including the conscience protections that are in the Affordable Care Act.”

“It doesn’t protect the right of a Catholic hospital to not perform abortions,” Collins said, Felicia Sonmez and Mike DeBonis report. “That right has been enshrined in law for a long time.”

As we reported earlier Thursday, the Democratic effort to codify abortion through the Senate is likely to stall out, since 60 senators would need to vote yes to overcome a filibuster. Even a Democratic attempt to change the filibuster rule just for that bill, called a carve-out, would probably fail, given that Democrats would need 50 votes, and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) said they wouldn’t support such a move.

From Felicia and Mike:

Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who also supports abortion rights, voted against an earlier version of the legislation in February. At the time, Collins voiced similar concerns about the impact the legislation would have on health-care providers who do not want to perform abortions.

Democrats on Thursday argued that such fears are unwarranted.

“Some are saying that this legislation would tell hospitals — certain religious hospitals — that they have to perform abortions,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a news conference Thursday afternoon, without naming Collins. “That is simply not true. This bill simply gives providers the statutory right to provide abortion care without medically unnecessary restrictions. That’s plain and simple. So, this rumor is false.”

Read more about this effort here.

Deputy White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will be the next press secretary, replacing Jen Psaki. As Tyler Pager reports, Jean-Pierre will take over within weeks when Psaki heads to an expected job in cable news.

Jean-Pierre will be the first Black and openly gay woman to serve as the White House press secretary, taking on the high-profile job of holding the daily news briefing at the White House and fielding questions from the press corps.

She has, since May 2021, filled in for Psaki multiple times, making her the first Black woman in 30 years to address the press in the White House briefing room.

Per Tyler:

Jean-Pierre was always viewed as the front-runner to replace Psaki, but other potential candidates for the role emerged in recent weeks, including Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, and John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman.

Read more about this move here.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Senate would vote next week on legislation to codify abortion rights but did not offer details on the procedural steps.

Schumer, however, remained noncommittal on a filibuster carve-out to assure that the move passes.

“It’s the first time there’s a vote like this in a very, very long time when the actual rights are at stake, when it’s not an abstract exercise,” he told reporters Thursday.

“Once we have that vote, we’ll look at the best way to get things done,” Schumer added. “This is not just one vote and this issue goes away.”

A bill to codify abortion would need 60 votes in the Senate, which Democrats don’t have.