The Supreme Court puts the GOP’s abortion dilemma back in the spotlight: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.

In today’s edition, senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur outlines how the abortion pill case at the Supreme Court is making it difficult for Republicans to turn the page on the issue. Plus, national political correspondent Steve Kornacki breaks down Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s general election poll numbers.

The Supreme Court puts the GOP’s abortion dilemma back in the spotlight

By Sahil Kapur

National Republican operatives want to turn the page on the abortion debate, seeing it as a political loser in 2024. But reality keeps intervening.

The latest flare-up came Tuesday when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case brought by the conservative Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom that challenged the FDA’s decision to make the abortion pill mifepristone widely available.

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The justices appeared skeptical of the plaintiffs’ argument, but politically it opened up yet another battle in the ongoing war over abortion access in the U.S. since five Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. It follows intense partisan fights over state-level bans, an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that threatened access to in vitro fertilization, and a long-running debate about federal abortion restrictions.

President Joe Biden, speaking in North Carolina on Tuesday, drew attention to the case and described it as a reason voters should elect him and other Democrats this fall.

“Just this morning, the Supreme Court heard a case to gut access to medication that was approved by the FDA 20 years ago to give women a choice,” Biden said. “Folks, if America sends me a Congress that are Democrats, I promise you, Kamala [Harris] and I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.”