The future of abortion is at stake in the U.S. election — and the fight is on in Arizona and Florida
CBC
On a sweltering day in Mesa, Ariz., people file into a neighbourhood church to watch a town hall with Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance. Nearby, a mega bus is splashed with a loud message: Vote "no" on Proposition 139, a ballot measure proposing to make abortion — currently banned after 15 weeks — a constitutional right in Arizona.
Barbara Miller, who lets out a cheerful "Go Trump!" as she approaches the event, likes Trump and Vance's tough talk on border security. But the registered Republican from nearby suburb Gilbert takes a more moderate tone when discussing the abortion referendum.
"I have mixed feelings about that, frankly," said Miller. "I think we're a big country with a lot of different religions, a lot of different opinions, a lot of different cultures. And I think that it's hard to have one answer for everyone."
When they cast their ballot for president in two weeks, U.S. voters in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Maryland, New York, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota will also vote on the future of abortion access in their states.
Miller's stance is a window into the complicated fight currently playing out across the country — one that no longer lends itself to tidy partisan narratives, in a post-Roe v. Wade era where abortion rights are left up to individual states.
Party divides over abortion have widened in the past decade. At the same time, more Americans support legal abortion now than they did before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling was overturned in 2022.
That leaves supporters and opponents of election amendments, which should change individual states' policies, in a fierce tug of war to reach those who can be persuaded to vote outside traditional party lines — especially as some Republican candidates soften their stance on abortion for fear of alienating any voters.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has expressed strong support for reinstating Roe v. Wade, though some abortion activists want her to go further.
Miller, the Trump supporter, didn't say how she would vote on Proposition 139.
"I think there's compromises there," she said."I don't believe in all or nothing."
CBC News spoke with voters, experts, advocates and opponents in Arizona and Florida who shared how the fight over abortion is playing out on the ground in the run-up to the 2024 U.S. election.
During a voter education event at a community college in Mesa, volunteers with the League of Women Voters of Arizona hand out pamphlets to students passing by with information on various amendments.
The group, which has a mandate to expand and protect voters' rights, is part of a coalition supporting Proposition 139.
"We are hearing within our own circles in the league that this transcends party," said Pinny Sheoran, the Scottsdale-based president of the group's Arizona branch.
Hundreds of Beirut residents fled their homes late on Sunday after Israel said it was preparing attacks on sites linked to the financial operations of the Hezbollah militant group and told people to leave those areas of Lebanon's capital immediately.
At a sidewalk stand staffed by Donald Trump's allies, in a bustling Hispanic hub in the critical election state of Pennsylvania, a man seeking voter-registration papers describes the moment his political views shifted.
Walid Fidama and Abdulhakem Alsadah have been friends for more than a quarter century. They joke about knowing each other's children since before they were born. They're both longtime members of the National Association of Yemeni Americans, socially and politically active in their home state of Michigan.
Cuba restored a trickle of power to its grid by mid-evening on Friday, officials said, hours after the island plunged into a countrywide blackout following the collapse of one of its major power plants.
Hamas confirmed Friday that its leader, Yahya Sinwar, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, and the militant group reiterated its stance that hostages taken from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a ceasefire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops.
In the end, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, who masterminded the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and then spent more than a year evading one of the largest and most destructive manhunts in history, may finally have met his demise almost by fluke.
Kamala Harris came fishing for Republican votes in choppy waters — the airwaves of Fox News. Fox News, meanwhile, sought to sink her boat.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy unveiled his much anticipated "victory plan" at Ukraine's parliament on Wednesday, urging his war-weary country to stay united at a precarious time ahead of its key U.S. ally's Nov. 5 presidential election.
The group of battle-hardened soldiers fighting for Ukraine had only just been dropped off in a forest full of Russians when the mortars began to fall.
It's clear whose political camp Tracey Danka is in as you pull up to her tree-lined property in Calabash, N.C. Various flags promoting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump flap in the breeze.
China employed a record 125 aircraft, as well as its Liaoning aircraft carrier and ships, in large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands Monday, simulating the sealing off of key ports in a move that underscores the tense situation in the Taiwan Strait, officials said.