�������ýҕ�l

The right to an abortion is teetering in Arizona, Kansas and Michigan — all states with primary elections on Aug. 2. In each state, the decision may come down to a different election outcome. (Clark, McLean and Davis-Young, 8/1)

On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to end the state’s constitutional right to an abortion. It comes in the form of a ballot measure that, if it passes, will allow the state’s conservative legislature to enact a near-total ban on abortion, as several neighboring states have done. This fight is the first of its kind post-Roe v. Wade, and analysts say it could go either way. So it’s a bellwether for whether ballot measures will help protect — or end — abortion rights across the country. (Phillips, 8/1)

Kansas is the first state in the nation to put the question of abortion rights directly to voters since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The final hours of the campaign are a street fight. Working block-by-block, hundreds of canvassers, some flown in from across the country, are knocking on hundreds of thousands of doors to remind people of the stakes in Tuesday’s referendum — not just for Kansas, but for the country. (Ollstein, 8/1)

The number of Americans ranking abortion as the nation’s top issue has reached a new high, according to a Gallup poll published Monday. The polling showed that 8 percent of Americans listed abortion as the most important problem facing the U.S., the highest number of respondents who have said that since Gallup began tracking the issue in 1984. The number puts abortion in fourth place overall, behind the economy, inflation and “dysfunctional government or bad leadership.” (Mueller, 8/1)

When the Rev. Laurie Hafner ministers to her Florida congregants about abortion, she looks to the founding values of the United Church of Christ, her lifelong denomination: religious freedom and freedom of thought. She taps into her reading of Genesis, which says “man became a living being” when God breathed “the breath of life” into Adam. She thinks of Jesus promising believers full and abundant life. “I am pro-choice not in spite of my faith, but because of my faith,” Hafner says. (Boorstein, 8/1)