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The next front is rapidly emerging in the struggle between supporters and opponents of legal abortion, and that escalating conflict is increasing the chances that the issue will shape the 2024 election as it did last Novembers midterm contest.

President Joe Biden triggered the new confrontation with a flurry of recent moves to expand access to the drugs used in medication abortions, which now account for more than half of all abortions performed in the United States. Medication abortion involves two drugs: mifepristone followed by misoprostol (which is also used to prevent stomach ulcers). Although abortion opponents question the drugs safety, multiple scientific studies have found few serious adverse effects beyond headache or cramping.

Federal regulation of the use and distribution of these drugs by agencies including the FDA and the United States Postal Service has long been overshadowed in the abortion debate by the battles over Supreme Court nominations and federal legislation to ban or authorize abortion nationwide. But with a conservative majority now entrenched in the Court, and little chance that Congress will pass national legislation in either direction any time soon, abortion supporters and opponents are focusing more attention on executive-branch actions that influence the availability of the pills.

Read: The abortion backup plan no one is talking about

The reality of abortion care has been changing very, very rapidly, and now the politics are catching up with it, Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster who served as one of Bidens advisers in 2020, told me.

Tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists will descend on Washington today for their annual March for Lifethe first since the Supreme Court last summer overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a nationwide right to abortion. The activists will cheer the swift moves by some two dozen Republican-controlled states to ban or severely restrict abortion since the Court struck down Roe.

But even as abortion opponents celebrate, they are growing more frustrated about the increased reliance on the drugs, which are now used in 54 percent of U.S. abortionsup dramatically from less than one-third less than a decade ago, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. With the overturning of Roe, [with] COVID, and with President Bidens loosening of the restrictions on these [drugs] there is a new frontier that everyone is pivoting to, Rebecca Parma, the legislative director for Texas Right to Life, a prominent anti-abortion group, told me.

George W. Bush and Donald Trump, the two Republicans who have held the presidency since the drugs were first approved under Democratic President Bill Clinton, in 2000, took virtually no steps to limit their availability. But conservative activists are already signaling that they will press the Republican presidential candidates in 2024 for more forceful action.

Our job is to make sure this becomes an issue that any GOP candidate will have to answer and address, Kristan Hawkins, the president of the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, told me. No one can be ambivalent again; it will simply not be an option.

The challenge for Republicans is that the 2022 midterm elections sent an unmistakable signal of resistance to further abortion restrictions in almost all of the key swing states that tipped the 2020 presidential election and are likely to decide the 2024 contest. Would you really want to be Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump running in a close election saying, Im going to ban all abortion pills in Michigan or Pennsylvania right now? says Mary Ziegler, a law professor at UC Davis, who has written extensively on the history of the abortion debate.

Sunday is the 50th anniversary of the original Roe decision, and the Biden administration will mark the occasion with a defiant pro-abortion-rights speech from Vice President Kamala Harris in Florida, where GOP Governor DeSantis, a likely 2024 presidential contender, signed a 15-week abortion ban last April.

White House officials see access to abortion medication as the next battlefront in the larger struggle over the procedure, Jennifer Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council, told me. She said she expects Republicans to mount more sweeping efforts to restrict access to the drugs than they did during the Bush or Trump presidencies. The reason youve seen both Democratic and Republican administrations ensure access to medication abortions is because this is the FDA following their evidence-based scientific judgment, she said. So what I think is different now is you are seeing some pretty extreme actions as the next way to double down on taking away reproductive health and reproductive rights.

Federal regulation of the abortion drugs has followed a consistent pattern, with Democratic presidents moving to expand access and Republican presidents mostly accepting those actions.

Read: The other abortion pill

During the 2000 presidential campaign, for instance, George W. Bush called the Clinton administrations initial approval of mifepristone wrong and said he worried it would lead to more abortions. But over Bushs two terms, his three FDA commissioners ignored a citizen petition from conservative groups to revoke approval for the drug. Under Barack Obama, the FDA formalized relatively onerous rules for the use of mifepristone. Physicians had to obtain a special certification to prescribe the drug, women had to meet with their doctor once before receiving it and twice after, and it could be used only within the first seven weeks of pregnancy.

The FDA loosened these restrictions during Obamas final year in office. It reduced the number of physician visits required to obtain the drugs from three to one and increased to 10 the number of weeks into a pregnancy the drugs could be used. The revisions also permitted other medical professionals, such as nurses, to prescribe the drugs if they received certification, and eliminated a requirement for providers to report adverse effects other than death. Trump didnt reverse any of the Obama decisions. He did side with conservatives by fighting a lawsuit from abortion-rights advocates to lift the requirement for an in-person doctors visit to obtain the drugs during the COVID pandemic. But by the time the Supreme Court ruled for the Trump administration in January 2021, Biden was days away from taking office. Within months, women seeking an abortion could consult with a doctor via telehealth and then receive the pills via mail.

On January 3 of this year, the FDA took another major step by allowing pharmacies to dispense the drugs. In late December, the Justice Department issued a legal opinion that the Postal Service could deliver the drugs without violating the 19th-century Comstock Act, which bars use of the mail to corrupt the public morals.

The paradox is that the impact of these rules, for now, will be felt almost entirely in the states where abortion remains legal. Obtaining abortion pills there will be much more comparable to filling any other prescription. But 19 red states have passed laws that still require medical professionals to be present when the drugs are administered, which prevents pharmacies from offering them despite the FDA authorization. And although the FDA has approved use of mifepristone for the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, medical professionals cannot prescribe the drugs in violation of state time limits (or absolute bans) on abortion. In terms of anti-abortion states, the Biden administrations actions have had basically no impact, Greer Donley, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who studies abortion law, told me in an email.

Although the red states have largely walled themselves off from Bidens efforts on medication abortion, conservatives have launched a multifront attempt to roll back access to the pills nationwide. Students for Life has filed another citizen petition with the FDA, arguing that doctors who prescribe the drugs must dispose of any fetal remains as meical waste. In a joint letter released last week, 22 Republican attorneys general hinted that they may sue to overturn the new FDA rules permitting pharmacies to dispense the drugs. In November, another coalition of conservative groups filed a lawsuit before a Trump-appointed judge in Texas seeking to overturn the original certification and ban mifepristone. Jenny Ma, the senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, says that decision could ultimately have a broader effect than even the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe: This case, she told me, could effectively ban medication abortion nationwide. It means people in every state may not be able to get abortion pills.

Republicans will also ramp up legislative action against the pills, although their proposals have no chance of becoming law while Democrats control the Senate and Biden holds the veto pen. Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi is planning to reintroduce her SAVE Moms and Babies Act, which would restore the prohibition against dispensing abortion drugs through the mail or at pharmacies.

From the May 2022 issue: The future of abortion in a post-Roe America

However these legal and legislative challenges are resolved, its already apparent that the 2024 GOP presidential field will face more pressure than before to propose executive-branch actions against the drugs. Thats going to be our clarion call in 2024, says Kristi Hamrick, a long-term social-conservative activist, who now serves as the chief strategist for media and policy at Students for Life.

Katie Glenn, the state-policy director at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told me that, at the least, the group wants 2024 Republican presidential candidates to press for restoring the requirement to report adverse consequences from the drugs. Former Vice President Mike Pence, a likely candidate, has already suggested that he will support a ban on dispensing the pills through the mail. But the anti-abortion movements long-term goal remains the same: ban mifepristone altogether. Hawkins shows the growing fervor GOP candidates will face when she says, This pill is a cancer that has now metastasized throughout our country.

Simultaneously, abortion-rights advocates are pushing the Biden administration to loosen restrictions even further. Medication abortion has been overregulated for far too long, Ma told me. Many advocates want the FDA to extend permitted use of mifepristone from 10 to 12 weeks, eliminate the requirement that the professionals prescribing the drugs receive a special certification, and begin the process toward eventually making the drug available over the counter.

The immediate question is whether the Biden administration will challenge the red-state laws that have stymied its efforts to expand access. Advocates have argued that a legal case can be made for national FDA regulations to trump state restrictions, such as the requirement for physicians to dispense the drugs. But Biden is likely to proceed cautiously.

We dont have a lot of answers because, frankly, states have not tried to do this stuff in hundreds of years, Ziegler, the author of the upcoming book Roe: The History of a National Obsession, told me. Even so, she added, its a reasonable assumption that this conservative-dominated Supreme Court would resist allowing the federal government to preempt state rules on how the drugs are dispensed.

These mirror-image pressures in each party increase the odds of a clear distinction between Biden (or another Democrat) and the 2024 GOP nominee over access to the drugs. Democrats are generally confident they will benefit from almost any contrast that keeps abortion prominent in the 2024 race. Some, like Lake, see access to the pills as a powerful lever to do that. The issue, she argues, is relevant to younger voters, who are much more familiar than older people with the growing use of medication abortion and are especially dubious that pharmacies can offer certain drugs in some states but not in others.

The impact of abortion on the 2022 election was more complex than is often discussed. As Ive written, in the red states that have banned or restricted the practice, such as Florida, Ohio, and Texas, there was no discernible backlash against the Republican governors or state legislators who passed those laws. But the story was different in the blue and purple states where abortion remains legal. In pivotal states including Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, a clear majority of voters said they supported abortion rights, and, according to media exit polls, crushing majorities of them voted against Republican gubernatorial candidates who pledged to restrict abortion. Those Democratic victories in the states likely to prove decisive again in 2024 have left many Republican strategists leery of pursuing any further constraints on abortion.

Whats clear now is that even as abortion opponents gather to celebrate their long-sought toppling of Roe, many of them wont be satisfied until they have banned the procedure nationwide. It is totally unacceptable for a presidential candidate to say, Its just up to the states now, Marilyn Musgrave, the vice president for government affairs at the Susan B. Anthony group, told me. We need a federal role clearly laid out by these presidential candidates. Equally clear is that abortion opponents now view federal regulatory actions to restrict, and eventually ban, abortion drugs as a crucial interim step on that path. The U.S. may seem in some ways to be settling into an uneasy new equilibrium, with abortion banned in some states and permitted in others. But, as the escalating battle over abortion medication makes clear, access to abortion in every state will remain on the ballot in 2024.

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BBC and Channel 4 should ‘merge’ to survive, Sir Phil Redmond says

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BBC and Channel 4 should 'merge' to survive, Sir Phil Redmond says

One of Britain’s most legendary TV dramatists, Sir Phil Redmond, is no stranger to tackling difficult issues on screen.

Courting controversy famously with his hard-hitting storylines on his children’s show Grange Hill for the BBC in 1978, before he switched over to Channel 4 to give it its two most prominent soaps, Brookside (1982) and later Hollyoaks (1995).

He’s been a pivotal figure at Channel 4 from its inception, widely considered to be a father to the channel.

Sir Phil Redmond says the BBC and Channel 4 should team up to survive
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Sir Phil Redmond says the BBC and Channel 4 should team up to survive

While he’s been responsible for putting some of TV’s most impactful storylines to air for them – from the first lesbian kiss, to bodies buried under patios – off-screen nowadays, he’s equally radical about what should happen.

“Channel 4’s job in 1980 was to provide a platform for the voices, ideas, and people that weren’t able to break through into television. They did a fantastic job. I was part of that, and now it’s done.”

It’s not that he wants to kill off Channel 4 but – as broadcasting bosses gather for Edinburgh’s annual TV Festival – he believes they urgently should be talking about mergers.

A suggestion which goes down about as well as you might imagine, he says, when he brings it up with those at the top.

He laughs: “The people with the brains think it’s a good idea, the people who’ve got the expense accounts think it’s horrendous.”

Some of the original Grange Hill cast collecting a BAFTA special award in 2001. Pic: Shutterstock
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Some of the original Grange Hill cast collecting a BAFTA special award in 2001. Pic: Shutterstock

A ‘struggling’ BBC trying to ‘survive’

With charter renewal talks under way to determine the BBC’s future funding, Sir Phil says “there’s only one question, and that is what’s going to happen to the BBC?”

“We’ve got two public sector broadcasters – the BBC and Channel 4 – both owned by the government, by us as the taxpayers, and what they’re trying to do now is survive, right?

“No bureaucracy ever deconstructs itself… the BBC is struggling… Channel 4 has got about a billion quid coming in a year. If you mix that, all the transmissions, all the back office stuff, all the technical stuff, all that cash… you can keep that kind of coterie of expertise on youth programming and then say ‘don’t worry about the money, just go out and do what you used to do, upset people!’.”

Brookside's lesbian kiss between Margaret and Beth (L-R Nicola Stapleton and Anna Friel) was groundbreaking TV. Pic: Shutterstock
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Brookside’s lesbian kiss between Margaret and Beth (L-R Nicola Stapleton and Anna Friel) was groundbreaking TV. Pic: Shutterstock

How feasible would that be?

Redmond claims, practically, you could pull it off in a week – “we could do it now, it’s very simple, it’s all about keyboards and switches”.

But the screenwriter admits that winning people over mentally to his way of thinking would take a few years of persuading.

As for his thoughts on what could replace the BBC licence fee, he says charging people to download BBC apps on their phones seems like an obvious source of income.

“There are 25 million licences and roughly 90 million mobile phones. If you put a small levy on each mobile phone, you could reduce the actual cost of the licence fee right down, and then it could just be tagged on to VAT.

“Those parts are just moving the tax system around a bit. [then] you wouldn’t have to worry about all the criminality and single mothers being thrown in jail, all this kind of nonsense.”

Original Brookside stars at BAFTA - L:R: Michael Starke, Dean Sullivan, Claire Sweeney and Sue Jenkins. Pic: PA
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Original Brookside stars at BAFTA – L:R: Michael Starke, Dean Sullivan, Claire Sweeney and Sue Jenkins. Pic: PA

‘Subsidising through streaming is not the answer’

Earlier this year, Peter Kosminsky, the director of historical drama Wolf Hall, suggested a levy on UK streaming revenues could fund more high-end British TV on the BBC.

Sir Phil describes that as “a sign of desperation”.

“If you can’t actually survive within your own economic basis, you shouldn’t be doing it.

“I don’t think top slicing or subsidising one aspect of the business is the answer, you have to just look at the whole thing as a totality.”

Mark Rylance (L) and Damian Lewis in Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light. Pic: BBC
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Mark Rylance (L) and Damian Lewis in Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light. Pic: BBC

Since selling his production company, Mersey Television, two decades ago, much of his current work has focused on acting as an ambassador for the culture and creative industries.

Although he’s taken a step away from television, he admits he’s disappointed by how risk-averse programme makers appear to have become.

“Dare I say it? There needs to be an intellectual foundation to it all.”

The Hollyoaks cast in 1995. Pic: Shutterstock
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The Hollyoaks cast in 1995. Pic: Shutterstock

TV’s ‘missing a trick’

He believes TV bosses are too scared of being fined by Ofcom, and that’s meant soaps are not going as far as they should.

“The benefits [system], you know, immigration, all these things are really relevant subjects for drama to bring out all the arguments, the conflicts.

“The majority of the people know the benefits system is broken, that it needs to be fixed because they see themselves living on their estate with a 10 or 12-year-old car and then there’s someone else down the road who knows how to fill a form in, and he’s driving around in a £65k BMW, right? Those debates would be really great to bring out on TV, they’re missing a trick.”

While some of TV’s biggest executives are slated to speak at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Redmond is not convinced they will be open to listening.

“They will go where the perceived wisdom is as to where the industry is going. The fact that the industry is taking a wrong turn, we really need somebody else to come along and go ‘Oi!'”

When I ask if that could be him, he laughs. Cue dramatic music and closing credits. As plot twists go, the idea of one of TV’s most radical voices making a boardroom comeback to stir the pot, realistic or not, is at the very least food for thought for the industry.

Edinburgh TV Festival runs from 19 – 22 August.

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Noel Gallagher praises ‘amazing’ Liam for Oasis reunion tour

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Noel Gallagher praises 'amazing' Liam for Oasis reunion tour

Noel Gallagher has said he is “proud” of his brother Liam after the pair reunited for this summer’s Oasis Live ’25 tour.

The highly anticipated reunion was announced in August last year, after the brothers seemingly put the feud which led to their split in 2009 behind them.

At the time, Noel said he “simply could not go on working with Liam”, but having just completed the UK-leg of their comeback tour, he has nothing but praise for his younger sibling.

“Liam’s smashing it. I’m proud of him,” Noel told talkSport in his first interview since the tour began.

“I couldn’t do the stadium thing like he does it, it’s not in my nature. But I’ve got to say, I kind of look and I think ‘good for you, mate’. He’s been amazing.

“It’s great just to be back with Bonehead [Paul Arthurs] and Liam and just be doing it again.”

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‘We need each other’: Oasis back on stage

When asked if he has felt emotional during the tour, Noel added: “I guess when it’s all said and done we will sit and reflect on it, but it’s great being back in the band with Liam, I forgot how funny he was.”

He went on to say he was “completely blown away” after the band’s opening night in Cardiff, and “grossly underestimated” what he was getting himself into when first signing up for the shows.

Fans in Manchester don Oasis merch. Pic: Reuters
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Fans in Manchester don Oasis merch. Pic: Reuters

The brothers at Wembley, London. Pic: Lewis Evans
Image:
The brothers at Wembley, London. Pic: Lewis Evans

He said: “It was kind of after about five minutes, I was like, ‘all right, can I just go back to the dressing room and start this again?’

“I’ve done stadiums before and all that, but I don’t mind telling you, my legs had turned to jelly after about halfway through the second song.”

Pic: Big Brother Recordings
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Pic: Big Brother Recordings

“Every night is the crowd’s first night, you know what I mean?” he continued. “So every night’s got that kind of same energy to it, but it’s been truly amazing. I’m not usually short for words, but I can’t really articulate it.”

Having played to packed crowds in Cardiff, London, Manchester, Dublin and Edinburgh, Oasis have scheduled dates around the world including in major cities across the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Japan.

Read more:
Oasis photographers remember the early days
Wembley investigating smuggling claims at Oasis gig

It’s rumoured the band will continue their run of shows next year, when it marks 30 years since they played two sell-out nights at Knebworth Park to an estimated 250,000 people.

When quizzed on the rumours on talkSport, Noel quickly changed the subject, saying: “Right, let’s talk about football.”

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Labour smell dirty tricks over asylum hotel court ruling – but the risks are clear

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Labour smell dirty tricks over asylum hotel court ruling - but the risks are clear

“It’s an interesting moment,” was how one government source described the High Court ruling that will force an Essex hotel to be emptied of asylum seekers within weeks.

That may prove to be the understatement of the summer.

For clues as to why, just take a glance at what the Home Office’s own lawyer told the court on Tuesday.

Granting the injunction “runs the risk of acting as an impetus for further violent protests”, the barrister said – pointing out that similar legal claims by other councils would “aggravate pressures on the asylum estate”.

Right on cue and just hours after the ruling came in, Broxbourne Council – over the border in Hertfordshire – posted online that it was urgently seeking legal advice with a view to taking similar court action.

The risks here are clear.

Police officers ahead of a demonstration outside The Bell Hotel. Pic: PA
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Police officers ahead of a demonstration outside The Bell Hotel. Pic: PA

Recent figures show just over 30,000 asylum seekers being housed in hotels across the country.

If they start to empty out following a string of court claims, the Home Office will struggle to find alternative options.

After all, they are only in hotels because of a lack of other types of accommodation.

There are several caveats though.

This is just an interim injunction that will be heard in full in the autumn.

So the court could swing back in favour of the hotel chain – and by extension the Home Office.

Read more:
Who says what on asylum hotels?

Protesters in Epping on 8 August. Pic: Reuters
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Protesters in Epping on 8 August. Pic: Reuters

We have been here before

Remember, this isn’t the first legal claim of this kind.

Other councils have tried to leverage the power of the courts to shut down asylum hotels, with varying degrees of success.

In 2022, Ipswich Borough Council failed to get an extension to an interim injunction to prevent migrants being sent to a Novotel in the town.

As in Epping, lawyers argued there had been a change in use under planning rules.

The hotel has been the scene of regular protests. Pic: PA
Image:
The hotel has been the scene of regular protests. Pic: PA

But the judge eventually decided that the legal duty the Home Office has to provide accommodation for asylum seekers was more important.

So there may not be a direct read across from this case to other councils.

Home Office officials are emphasising this injunction was won on the grounds of planning laws rather than national issues such as public order, and as such, each case will be different.

Failing Labour approach or Tory tricks?

But government sources also smell dirty tricks from Epping Council and are suggesting that the Tory-led local authority made the legal claim for political reasons.

Pointing to the presence of several prominent Tory MPs in the Essex area – as well as the threat posed by Reform in the county – the question being posed is why this legal challenge was not brought when asylum seekers first started being sent to the hotel in 2020 during the Conservatives‘ time in government.

Epping Council would no doubt reject that and say recent disorder prompted them to act.

But that won’t stop the Tories and Reform of seizing on this as evidence of a failing approach from Labour.

So there are political risks for the government, yes, but it’s the practicalities that could flow from this ruling that pose the bigger danger.

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