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SCOTUS Ends Roe; U.S. House Passes Bipartisan Gun Safety Legislation; G7 Leaders Prep for Germany Summit; Ukrainian Troops Pull Out of Severodonetsk. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired June 25, 2022 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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IVAN WATSON, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Ivan Watson. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM.
Just ahead --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) a turning point of society.
WATSON (voice-over): Demonstrations across America after the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, which once guaranteed a woman's right to an abortion. And the shockwaves are being felt around the world.
Plus, the U.S. Congress passes its most significant gun reform bill in decades with bipartisan support.
And a big blow for wartorn Ukraine as troops are now pulling back from one key city.
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WATSON: All right. Dozens of demonstrations are expected around the U.S. this weekend after Friday's abortion ruling. Emotions are extremely high after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion in 1973.
In California, where abortion remains legal, protesters blocked a busy freeway in Los Angeles to express their outrage. The ruling means abortion clinics will have to shut down in many states with strict antiabortion laws. Abortion law opponents are ecstatic.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm here today. To be a voice for the unborn. I didn't know it would be announced today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I was a baby in a room, I want someone to stand up for my rights.
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WATSON: A draft of the decision was leaked weeks ago. But the ruling itself still comes as a shock. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris had this reaction.
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KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is the first time in the history of our nation that a constitutional right has been taken from the people of America: it's the right to privacy. Think about it, it's the right for each person to make intimate decisions about heart and home.
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WATSON: Democrats and women's rights activists are vowing to make abortion rights an issue in the upcoming midterm congressional elections. CNN's Manu Raju has more.
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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Casting aside 50 years of settled law, the Supreme Court ended a woman's constitutional right to an abortion. And in the process, broiled the nation's political landscape.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): I am spitting mad over this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roe versus Wade belongs on the ash heap of history with Dred Scott and Plessy.
RAJU (voice-over): Justice Samuel Alito writing for the conservative majority in a fight for opinion called Roe v Wade "egregiously wrong and deeply damaging."
The three liberal justices dissenting warning the ruling will lead to "the curtailment of women's rights and of their status as free and equal citizens." On Capitol Hill, the reaction was swift.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Disgraceful, disgraceful judgment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is absolutely a major issue on the ballot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Largest governmental overreach in the history of our lifetime.
RAJU (voice-over): House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy told CNN he supports codifying a 15-week abortion ban at the national level. The Supreme Court upheld Mississippi's 15-week ban and its ruling overturning Roe with the support of Chief Justice John Roberts, who oppose overturning Roe entirely.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The right to life has been vindicated. The voiceless will finally have a voice. RAJU (voice-over): Congressional Democrats left with little recourse given they lack 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a GOP filibuster.
REP. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): The senator from my state, the senator from West Virginia, senators from everywhere, if you say that you're for women then do not use an old law that was not even, again, in the country's United States to stop protection for them.
RAJU (voice-over): But two Democratic senators stand in the way of changing the filibuster rules fearing future GOP majority would enact an even more conservative agenda. At the White House, President Biden called for electing more Democrats to Congress.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This fall Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty equality, they're all on a ballot.
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RAJU (voice-over): While Democrats hope the issue motivates voters in November, many Republicans believe the midterms will turn on the economy.
REP. BILL HUIZENGA (R-MI): Most people are pretty entrenched with what they believe on this particular issue and what ought to happen.
RAJU (voice-over): But the fight ultimately maybe on the state level, 26 states likely to ban abortion completely, including 13 that set abortion bans into motion as soon as Roe is overturned. The emotion palpable in the streets.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This decision is an outrage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is one important victory. It's not the end but we are dancing on the grave of Roe versus Wade.
RAJU: Reaction from two key senators who played a decisive role in ensuring that Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, Susan Collins and Joe Manchin, both of whom said what both Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch said to them in private meetings and in their testimony was inconsistent with how they ruled in the abortion case.
Collins saying plainly this decision is inconsistent with what justices said in their testimony and meetings with me and say they both insisted they would uphold long standing legal precedent -- Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.
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WATSON: There has been plenty of reaction from all around the world. The Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life supports it.
"It is time to build a society and economy that supports marriages and families and where every woman has the support and resources, she needs to bring her child into this world with love."
But overall, the reaction has been critical.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau calling it, "horrific.
"My heart goes out to the millions of American women, who are now set to lose their legal right to an abortion."
Let's go now to CNN's Nada Bashir in London, who's following this.
You know, abortion has long been a hot button political topic in the U.S. It is remarkable, the international reaction to the Supreme Court decision.
NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Absolutely, shock waves internationally. Certainly, here in Europe. Leaders came out to criticize the decision. We heard from Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez yesterday, saying that women should have the freedom to make decisions over their own lives.
Scottish prime minister, Nicola Sturgeon says it's one of the darkest days for women's rights.
We saw a demonstration spread across Europe, in Paris yesterday. We saw demonstrators take to the streets. French president Emmanuel Macron himself issued a statement describing access to abortion as a fundamental right for all women, which must be protected.
We also saw protests here in London yesterday outside the U.S. embassy. There was a sizeable turnout to that, despite the fact that the decision was announced only a matter of hours before that protest was held.
We heard prime minister Boris Johnson describe it as a major step backwards. He also warned that this could, perhaps, give suggestions to other anti-abortion activists and groups across the globe, that this could influence thoughts around this matter. Take a listen.
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BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: This is not our court. It's another jurisdiction. But clearly, it has massive impacts on people's thinking around the world. It's a very important decision.
I have got to tell you, I think it's a big step backwards. I think it's a big step backwards. I've always believed in a woman's right to choose. And I stick to that view. And that is why the U.K. has the laws that it does.
And actually, if you, look we recently took steps to make sure that those laws were enforced throughout the whole of the U.K.
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BASHIR: Ivan, that is coming from the United Nations and even health care authorities across the continent.
WATSON: Nada Bashir, live in London for. Us thank you very much for that.
We'll turn now to Leah Hoctor. She's with the Center for Reproductive Rights, where she serves as senior regional director for Europe. She joins us live now from Geneva, Switzerland.
Good to see you. I'd like you to help our audience.
Can you compare the Supreme Court decision in the U.S. with the international trends that we're seeing among countries that have decriminalized abortions in recent years?
LEAH HOCTOR, CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: I mean, I think what is really important for viewers to understand, Ivan -- and thank you for having me on today -- is that this decision contrasts so starkly with the overwhelming global trend, which is toward the greater recognition of abortion as an essential health care and toward the legalization and, as you mentioned, decriminalization of abortion.
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HOCTOR: Over the past 30 years, 55 countries across the world have moved to legalize and broaden access to abortion. And only three other countries are now for, sadly, including the U.S., have actually rode back entitlements to abortion.
In recent history, the decision is simply unprecedented in terms of globally, its scale, in terms of the move by the Supreme Court to take away a constitutional right to abortion that has existed for 50 years. This has simply never been seen in the global arena.
What we have seen, instead, is countries from Ireland, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Kenya to South Africa, Mexico to Colombia expanding recognition for rights to abortion and squarely moving to repeal laws and policies that ban abortion and that put barriers in place.
Even just in the past few weeks and months, for example, in Europe, major jurisdictions conducting law reform to improve access to abortion. France, the Netherlands, just last week, Germany, just yesterday, Spain, legislation now pending that will improve abortion rights.
Of course, the green wave across Latin America over the past year to 18 months that has just lead to systemic change in Mexico, in Colombia, Argentina, that has galvanizing continued progress across the world.
WATSON: So you're arguing that this would effectively make the U.S. an outlier compared to much of the world when it comes to this issue.
Can you tell me what are your predictions for the kind of impact that this decision in the U.S. could have on the abortion debate in other countries?
HOCTOR: I think it is exactly true in terms of how you turned this. The U.S. is now an outlier. The scale of the retrogression in terms of yesterday's decision and the scale of the retrogressive impact that it will have at the state level across the United States, it's just extreme in global terms.
We know already, as your reporters are covering, that a number of states are moving to ban abortion in the United States or to heighten restrictions. This is likely to continue at the state level and in parts of the United States over the coming weeks.
What we know is that this will affect the lives of millions of people in these states. There will now be no or very limited access to abortion in these states and in the places where people live.
This means, sadly, that their lives, health and future will be impacted. They will not be able to make decisions for themselves in terms of their pregnancies and access to abortion care will be extremely limited for them.
They'll have to travel to access that care very long distances. They may have to seek care through telemedicine services. They may be doing so illegally under the threat of criminal prosecution.
And we know, from examples across the world, the harm that restrictive abortion laws cause to the everyday lives of human beings. We have seen just in our own region here in Europe in the past week the chilling example of the case in Malta of a woman who was miscarrying, needed lifesaving care during that miscarriage.
And because that country has a ban on abortion, she was not able to access that care. She had to be airlifted out of the country to Spain.
We know in Poland, for example, another country that has a highly restrictive abortion law, a number of women have died in the last year as a result of this law. Women coming in from Ukraine who have endured conflict related sexual violence are not able to access abortion care in Poland.
So these are just some examples of what we know from across the world, the impact on people's lives of bans and highly restrictive laws on abortion. Sadly, we know what will happen in the United States, now at the state level, is that these realities will become much closer for people across the country and will, of course, affect those who are already facing, you know, major forms of exclusion.
And in terms of discrimination, people of color, people of low income, young people, people who are extremely marginalized and vulnerable in their lives, we know that the harm that will be caused in real terms will be very grave.
WATSON: All right. Leah Hoctor in Geneva, thank you very much for sharing your views there.
Now one month after a shooter killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, the first major U.S. federal gun safety bill will soon be signed into law.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): On this vote, the yeas are 234. The nays are 193. The motion is adopted.
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WATSON: But years of division about guns to adopt the measure on Friday by a vote of 234 to 1 93, with the support of 14 Republicans, the Senate had already passed the bill. The measure includes millions of dollars for mental health, school safety and crisis intervention programs.
Along with incentives for states to include a background check system on gun sales to juveniles and closes the boyfriend loophole for gun buyers. President Biden is expected to sign the bill in the coming hours.
To Norway, a shooting at a gay night club in Oslo, has left two people dead and eight others in the hospital. Police say three remain in critical condition. The shooting happened at a place called the London Pub, which describes itself as the largest gay and lesbian venue in Oslo.
A witness says a man arrived with a bag, picked up a gun and started shooting. The suspect was apprehended nearby. But it's not immediately clear what the motive for the attack was.
Ukrainian troops are giving up the fight in the city of Severodonetsk but new reports from there say Russian attacks still haven't stopped. That is ahead.
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WATSON: Welcome back to the program.
Russia's slow but steady advances in Eastern Ukraine are paying off in the city of Severodonetsk. Ukrainian troops now pulling out of the city after weeks of grinding street battles.
The fighting now shifting across the river to Lysychansk, the last city in the Luhansk region, still in Ukrainian hands. Ukraine says Russia has carried out a new airstrike there and it is trying to cut off a key highway leading to the southeast.
The war in Ukraine will be high on the agenda when the G7 leaders summit gets underway Sunday. They're meeting in Germany to cushion the effect of the war on the global economy and on food supplies.
Our reporters are standing by to cover all sides of this story. We have Salma Abdelaziz in Kyiv right now. But first we're going to turn to international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, who is live in Brussels. Nic, I read your piece, I recommend our viewers look at cnn.com, at
your analysis piece. Yes, it looks like the war in Ukraine would be high on the agenda.
But there are plenty of other problems that G7 heads of state will have to address at this meeting, right?
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The problems they will be addressing are almost directly because of the war in Ukraine. Some of them are a byproduct of it. The global supply chains that have affected prices of commodities around the world, driving up inflation, adding on to that, gas and energy supplies that are no longer flowing from Russia the way that they used to because of sanctions, partly because Russia is throttling back gas supplies to European Union consumers.
All of this is driving up the prices at the pump. Russia, again, in a big part creating these food shortages around the world. The food supply crisis that is looming. All of these are triggers for instability around the world as we saw coming out of the global economic downturn in 2008.
The Arab Spring came out of that later because of frustrations on the streets at high food costs and other issues with governments. All of these will be the issues that underpin what is going on at the G7.
I think one of them at the G7, you have France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., the United States, Japan, Canada and the European Union leaders -- and I think the E.U. yesterday were talking about the energy difficulties that they face because of Russia.
You get a sense that leaders are beginning to dig in for what you might call a war footing, the war in Ukraine is not the only, is the direct war but there is an outfall that is affecting all these countries. I think the Irish prime minister framed it this way.
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MICHEAL MARTIN, IRISH TAOISEACH: Energy, food and migration has been weaponized, terrorizing the people of Ukraine through indiscriminate bombings of civilians, towns and cities. It is creating a humanitarian crisis for the continent of Europe, the likes we haven't seen since World War II.
The same applies to energy. That said, Europe is robust. European Union has demonstrated during COVID-19 that, working collectively together, it can resist and can be resilient.
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ROBERTSON: That is the key, acting collectively together, not just the European Union but the G7 nations that have tackled these global problems, that have a large part to do with the Russia and the way that Russia is fighting this war with Ukraine is to take that war economically, painfully, to the rest of the world.
The G7 will have to begin to come up with solutions to keep their populations happy.
WATSON: And what I learned from your article, Nic, again I recommend people read on cnn.com, is that some of these European countries are having to turn back to coal as other energy supplies from Russia are drying up. Thank you very much, Nic. Let's go now to Salma Abdelaziz in Kyiv, with an update on the war in Ukraine.
We're not seeing Russia send huge columns of armor that then get decimated by the Ukrainian military. It's this grinding battle where Russia seems to be advancing in the east.
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Ivan. As the G7 leaders meet, it is clear that Ukraine is on the back foot, it needs help, this is a fight they simply cannot sustain.
And, of course, the illustration of that is Severodonetsk. Ukrainian officials are describing it as a tactical withdrawal. But the reality is that this is a major blow, a huge loss that shows just how much Ukraine is desperate on those front lines, succumbing, again, to Russian military might. Take a look.
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ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): A devastating blow for battle-weary Ukraine. Outmanned and outgunned in Severodonetsk, Ukrainian troops will withdraw and pull back from the key city.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative.
ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): This body cam footage reported (INAUDIBLE) foreign legion and shared by local officials shows why. Ukrainian defenders buckling under ferocious Russian firepower.
"It makes no sense to stay in positions broken after months of hostility," he says, "our defenders who are there have already received a command to withdraw to new positions."
The drawdown will take days to complete, officials say. But with the city's three main bridges down, there is concern for the fate of thousands of trapped residents and for the fate of troops.
Russia claims it has encircled up to 2,000 soldiers in the Donbas. Kyiv has yet to comment. The strategic industrial city was one of Ukraine's last strongholds in the Luhansk region.
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ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): It's territory Vladimir Putin desperately wants to claim. To achieve that aim, his troops unleashed hell on Severodonetsk and its sister city, Lysychansk, pounding it by land and air.
Moscow's military advantage here is massive, its artillery power is tenfold that of Ukraine's. The Kremlin wants to wrest full control of the Donbas to create a land bridge connecting Russia all the way down to Crimea. But it is also a significant cultural victory. Putin claims these lands are ethnically Russian.
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VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): While it seems, it has fallen to us to take back and strengthen and if we take these basic values as fundamental to our existence, we will prevail.
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ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): On the other side of the front line, Moscow's troops making their inch-by-inch advance toward what was Ukraine's last defensive position.
"We're actually very close to the Azov chemical plant," he says, "which means we are finishing the battle for the industrial zone."
Little now stands in the way of yet another land grab by President Putin.
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ABDELAZIZ: Now as you know Western allies have been pouring support into Ukraine in the form of military aid, form of packages to help try to bolster that fight. But clearly it is not working when you look at those front lines.
This is a battle. This is a fight that could drag out for many years. Those G7 leaders, they have to make a determination.
How do they help Ukraine and how do they do it for the long term?
WATSON: And our colleagues will be covering that. Salma Abdelaziz, live in Kyiv for us, thank you very much.
Now if you would like to safely and securely help people in Ukraine, who may be in need of shelter, food and water, please go to cnn.com/impact. You will find several ways that you can help.
Turning to Afghanistan, an aftershock has killed five people near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. It happened on Friday, just days after a powerful earthquake killed more than 1,000 people in the Afghan provinces of Paktika and Khost.
Trucks from aid agencies such as the World Food Programme and Doctors without Borders were able to get relief supplies to some villages in the hardhit area. But thousands of people remain with little food, shelter and water, three days after the country's deadliest quake in decades.
I'm Ivan Watson, thank you for your company. "AFRICAN VOICES: CHANGEMAKERS" is next and I will be back of the top of the hour with more news.
