�Թϲ�����

For Senator Elizabeth Warren, the moment brought up memories of “back alley butchers” and “desperate women.” Senator Kamala Harris compared it to “a scene from ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’” And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand warned about a “war on women,” calling for Americans to “fight like hell.” Female presidential candidates have charged into the battle over the new Alabama law that would, barring legal challenges, effectively outlaw abortions in the state, condemning it just minutes after the State Senate’s passage and continuing to sound the alarm as Gov. Kay Ivey signed it on Wednesday. (Lerer and Glueck, 5/15)

The furor over abortion quickly took over on the Democratic campaign trail. Rallying supporters in New Hampshire, Sen. Kamala Harris said she would back a legal challenge to Alabama and Georgia's restrictive abortion laws. She also vowed to make a commitment to upholding the Roe decision a "significant factor" in any Supreme Court nominees she might choose as president, though she declined to go as far as presidential rival Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has promised to only nominate judges ready to preserve the 1973 ruling that established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. (Schor, Miller and Weissert, 5/15)

Democratic presidential hopefuls decried the Alabama Senate’s passage on Tuesday of a measure that would outlaw almost all abortions in the state, accusing Republicans of carrying out a brazen attack on women’s rights in a bid to overturn decades of legal precedent. The legislation, which would outlaw abortions at every stage of pregnancy with few exceptions, is the latest flashpoint in the national debate over abortion rights and the fate of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that recognized a woman’s right to the procedure. (Greenwood, 5/15)

Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who announced last week that she would only appoint judges who would uphold Roe, called the legislation an “outrage” in an interview on MSNBC Wednesday. “It's nothing short of an attack on women's basic human rights and civil rights, and it's something women in America will have to fight against with everything they've got,” she said, promoting her planned trip to Georgia to hold round-table meetings on its bill. (Oprysko, 5/15)

Republicans leaders, by contrast, spent much of the day avoiding questions about the Alabama law, wary of being dragged into a debate over whether to refuse rape and incest victims the option of abortion following forced pregnancies. Trump left the topic of the Alabama law unaddressed on Twitter, the White House offered no comment about the measure, and several Republican senators such as Martha McSally (Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (N.C.), who are facing tough reelection fights, avoided the issue as best they could. (Scherer and Sonmez, 5/15)

Abortion is emerging as a factor in the 2020 elections, putting pressure on endangered Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones as his state pushes the strictest limits in the country and presidential contenders seek to use new state abortion bans to rally their core supporters. Conservative state legislatures around the country have pushed a number of curbs on abortion this year in an effort to turn back the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision guaranteeing a national right to abortion. Alabama has taken the lead in adding restrictions, moving late Tuesday to pass a bill that would essentially ban abortion, with a limited exception for saving the life of the woman. (Raman, 5/15)