Tag Archives: United States

U.S. lawmakers look to advance sweeping bid to counter China

By Patricia Zengerle and Michael Martina

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. lawmakers expect to boost the country’s ability to push back against China if a Senate panel approves sweeping legislation on Wednesday as expected, even as they voiced a need to do far more to counter Beijing.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee members were debating the “Strategic Competition Act of 2021” and considering amendments, before voting on whether to send it for a vote in the 100-member Senate.

The measure has strong support from both political parties and was co-sponsored by Senators Bob Menendez, the panel’s chairman, and Jim Risch, its top Republican, making it a rare major bipartisan initiative in the deeply divided Senate.

“This is a challenge of unprecedented scope, scale and urgency, and one that demands a policy and strategy that is genuinely competitive,” Menendez said.

Risch said the bill is “truly bipartisan.”

The 280-page measure, details of which were first reported by Reuters on April 8, addresses economic competition with China, but also humanitarian and democratic values, such as imposing sanctions over the treatment of the minority Muslim Uighurs and supporting democracy in Hong Kong.

The bill is part of a fast-track effort announced in February by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to pass a wide range of legislation to counter China.

A separate bill calling for $100 billion in government spending over five years on basic and advanced technology research and science in the face of competition from China, was introduced on Wednesday.

“Having something that is embedded into the statutory framework, that is durable and enduring, is really important, particularly if you’re looking at the sort of competition that we envisage with the People’s Republic of China in the years and decades ahead,” a Democratic congressional aide told reporters on a conference call before the committee meeting.

But committee members said they want to do more.

“I don’t believe anyone would think that this legislation is going to change China’s march toward a global hegemony of autocracy and repression,” Republican Senator Mitt Romney said. “…I would suggest we have a lot more work to do.”

The legislation calls for hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, much of which still must be arranged.

“We are acutely aware of the need to make sure that the resources are aligned with the enormity and scale of the challenge that we face across every dimension of power,” the aide said.

The foreign relations committee also was due to consider a bill to counter Chinese censorship in the United States, as U.S. officials have complained that Beijing has sought to suppress opposition to its ruling Communist Party by coercing U.S. companies to take pro-Beijing stances and suppressing free speech on U.S. university campuses.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Howard Goller)

U.S. adds 116 countries to its ‘Do Not Travel’ advisory list

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. State Department has added at least 116 countries this week to its “Level Four: Do Not Travel” advisory list, putting the UK, Canada, France, Israel, Mexico, Germany and others on the list, citing a “very high level of COVID-19.”

On Monday, the State Department said it would boost the number of countries receiving its highest advisory rating to about 80% of countries worldwide.

Before Tuesday, the State Department listed 34 out of about 200 countries as “Do Not Travel.” The State Department now lists 150 countries at Level Four. It declined to say when it would complete the updates.

The State Department said on Monday the move did not imply a reassessment of current health situations in some countries, but rather “reflects an adjustment in the State Department’s Travel Advisory system to rely more on (the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s) existing epidemiological assessments.”

The recommendations are not mandatory and do not bar Americans from travel.

Other countries in the “Do Not Travel” list include Finland, Egypt, Belgium, Turkey, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain. Some countries like China and Japan remain at Level 3: Reconsider Travel.”

Most Americans already had been prevented from traveling to much of Europe because of COVID-19 restrictions. Washington has barred nearly all non-U.S. citizens who have recently been in most of Europe, China, Brazil, Iran and South Africa.

On Tuesday, the United States extended by a further 30 days restrictions in place for 13 months that bar non-essential travel at its Canadian and Mexican borders.

Nick Calio, who heads Airlines for America, a trade group representing major U.S. carriers, told a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday that policymakers needed to find a “road map” to reopening international travel.

Earlier this month, the CDC said fully vaccinated people could safely travel within the United States at “low risk,” but its director, Rochelle Walensky, discouraged Americans from doing so because of high coronavirus cases nationwide.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Return the favor: South Korea looks to U.S. for COVID-19 vaccine aid

By Sangmi Cha

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea hopes the United States will help it tackle a shortage of coronavirus vaccine in return for test kits and masks Seoul sent to Washington earlier in the pandemic, the foreign minister said on Wednesday.

The government has drawn fire from the media for not doing enough to secure enough vaccines early, with just 3% of the population inoculated, due to tight global supply and limited access.

“We have been stressing to the United States that ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed,'” the minister, Chung Eui-yong, told reporters at the Kwanhun Club of South Korean journalists.

He said South Korea had airlifted Washington a large volume of coronavirus test kits and face masks in the early stages of the pandemic “in the spirit of the special South Korea-U.S. alliance,” despite tight domestic supply at the time.

“We are hoping that the United States will help us out with the challenges we are facing with the vaccines, based on the solidarity we demonstrated last year.”

The allies were in talks, added Chung, who also flagged South Korea’s potential contribution to preserving a global semiconductor supply chain U.S. President Joe Biden is keen to maintain.

Diplomatic efforts have not yielded any concrete steps, however, as the talks with Washington are still in an early stage, health ministry official Son Young-rae told reporters.

Opposition lawmaker Park Jin urged more aggressive vaccine diplomacy, calling for the government to invoke its free trade pact (FTA) with Washington to secure pharmaceutical products.

“The government needs to be more proactive,” Park told Reuters.

“The FTA provides us a legal base to demand (vaccines) as it stipulates the two countries’ commitment to promoting the development of, and facilitating access to, pharmaceutical products.”

The U.S. embassy in Seoul did not immediately reply to a Reuters’ request for comment.

About 1.77 million people in South Korea have had their first dose of the AstraZeneca Plc or Pfizer vaccines. The low rate compares with a 40% vaccination rate in the United States, according to Reuters data.

Tuesday’s 731 new coronavirus infections, up from 549 cases a day earlier, took South Korea’s tally to 115,926, with 1,806 deaths.

U.S. to set aside 6,000 guest worker visas for Central Americans – sources

By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration plans to set aside 6,000 seasonal guest worker visas for people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, according to two sources familiar with the matter, a small step toward establishing more legal pathways to the United States from the region.

The 6,000-visa allotment would be part of an additional 22,000 H-2B visas made available to employers in the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, a U.S. official and a second person familiar with the matter said.

The increase has been sought by business groups but opposed by labor unions amid high unemployment related to the coronavirus pandemic.

President Joe Biden has grappled in recent months with a rising number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, including families and unaccompanied children. In March, about 85,000 of the 172,000 migrants caught at the border came from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Biden officials have urged migrants not to travel to the border while systems are established that allow them to seek asylum from their home countries or come to the United States through other legal pathways.

The extra H-2B visas would be in addition to the annual allotment of 66,000 visas for the fiscal year, a tally that was exhausted in February. The visas are used for landscaping, food processing and hotel work, among other seasonal jobs.

If the 6,000 visas are not used by companies seeking to hire people from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, they would go back to the general visa pool sometime before Sept. 30, the two people familiar with the matter said.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)

Iran says 60% enrichment meant to show nuclear prowess, is reversible

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran began enriching uranium to 60% purity in order to show its technical capacity after a sabotage attack at a nuclear plant, and the move is quickly reversible if the United States lifts sanctions, the Iranian government said on Tuesday.

Talks in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States and Iran back to full compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal have been further complicated by an explosion at Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

Iran has responded by saying it is enriching uranium to 60% fissile purity, a big step towards weapons-grade from the 20% it had previously achieved. The 2015 pact between Iran and world powers had capped the level of enrichment purity at 3.67% – suitable for generating civilian nuclear energy. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon.

“The start of 60% enrichment in Natanz was a demonstration of our technical ability to respond to terrorist sabotage at these facilities,” Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei told reporters in Tehran.

“As in previous steps (in curbing Iran’s commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal), … this measure can quickly be reversed for a return to the agreed enrichment level in the nuclear accord if other parties commit to their obligations,” Rabiei said, in remarks streamed live on a state-run website.

Tehran says the Natanz blast was an act of sabotage by Israel, and on Saturday Iranian authorities named a suspect. Israel has not formally commented on the incident.

Iran responded to the explosion by saying it is enriching uranium to 60%.

Iran and world powers have made some progress on how to revive the 2015 nuclear accord later abandoned by the United States, and an interim deal could be a way to gain time for a lasting settlement, Iranian officials said on Monday.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told visiting British Cabinet Office Minister Michel Gove that Iran should not be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon.

“Iran is undermining stability in the entire Middle East and the international community must act to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. Not today and not in the future,” an Israeli statement quoted Ashkenazi as saying.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom, Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Editing by William Maclean)

New U.S. COVID cases fall 0.4% last week, after rising for four weeks

(Reuters) – New cases of COVID-19 in the United States fell 0.4% last week after rising for four weeks in a row, according to a Reuters analysis of state and county data.

Health experts say new cases have plateaued at a high level as more infectious variants of the virus offset progress made in vaccinations. The country logged nearly 70,000 new cases per day in the week ended April 18, compared with 55,000 new cases a day in March and about 30,000 new cases this time last year.

Michigan continued to lead the states, with nearly twice as many new cases per 100,000 people last week as Rhode Island and New Jersey, the states with the next highest rates of infection based on population.

The average number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals rose 5% to more than 41,000 across the country, increasing for a third week in a row, according to the Reuters analysis.

Deaths from COVID-19, which tend to lag infections by several weeks, fell 2.8% last week, excluding a backlog of deaths reported by Oklahoma, according to the Reuters analysis. Including the backlog, reported deaths fell by 27%.

Cumulatively, nearly 568,000 people have died from the coronavirus pandemic, or one in every 576 U.S. residents.

Vaccinations plateaued at 3.1 million shots per day last week, after setting records the previous seven weeks. U.S. health regulators called for a pause in administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine last week due to reports of brain blood clots in six women who received the shot out of some 7 million vaccinated.

As of Sunday, 40% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 25% was fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Analysis: U.S. announcement of pullout from Afghanistan undermines chances of peace

By Hamid Shalizi, Charlotte Greenfield and Jibran Ahmad

KABUL (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s announced pullout of troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11 has jeopardized Washington’s push for peace with Taliban Islamists and increased the chances of an upsurge in violence, sources say.

Biden announced the withdrawal, pushed back from a May 1 deadline agreed with the Taliban, without buy-in from the insurgents, sources involved in the discussions told Reuters.

The decision was signaled just hours after Turkey announced dates for a crucial peace summit on April 24, which the Taliban had also not yet agreed on.

The Taliban then announced they were shunning the summit while troops remained, throwing the process into disarray.

“Biden’s announcement decreases any leverage the international community has left over them, and helps the Taliban justify refusing to attend,” said Ashley Jackson of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

One official whose country is involved in the peace process said the Taliban’s negotiating position had become much stronger and chances of progress were slim.

“What do the Taliban get out of the Turkey summit? They need something tangible,” he said. “It’s difficult to bring them to a negotiation table where they know they will have to make painful compromises.”

Tribal elders and Taliban members in Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled areas described jubilation at the U.S. announcement.

“Of course we won and America lost the long…war,” said Quraishi, a Taliban commander in eastern Logar province. “There is no bigger happiness than hearing that the invaders are packing their bags.”

In recent weeks, Washington raced to get agreement on a ceasefire and an interim government, and to get the Taliban onboard with a deadline extension, officials said.

Biden’s decision on the extension and the Taliban’s reaction have sparked more frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations.

The sources said Washington was urging Qatar and Pakistan, which have long-standing ties within the Taliban, to pressure the militants to come back to the table.

Taliban sources described intense pressure from Pakistan.

“When our leadership refused to go (to Turkey), then Pakistani authorities asked us to send Mullah Yaqoob. When he refused, they proposed Sirajuddin Haqqani but he too is unwilling,” one source said, referring to the Taliban’s military chief and their deputy leader.

Pakistan’s foreign office and Qatar’s government did not respond to requests for comment.

Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem denied there was any pressure.

In a statement on Thursday, Pakistan said it would “continue to work together with the international community in efforts for lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan.”

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said: “We continue to put the full weight of our government behind diplomatic efforts to reach a peace agreement…and encourage Afghanistan’s neighbors and countries in the region to do the same.”

But a senior Afghan official told Reuters Washington had also lost leverage with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

“The withdrawal announcement will certainly embolden the Taliban to increase attacks but it will also embolden President Ghani’s position not to step down,” the official said of the proposal to replace Ghani’s administration with an interim government.

READY FOR WAR

Security and diplomatic officials warned that violence would escalate if talks fell apart. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 when they were ousted by U.S.-led forces, but they still control wide areas.

A senior Western official in Kabul said military bases were being revamped and air strikes had been conducted by the Afghan Air Force in recent days to put pressure on the Taliban.

Four Taliban military and political leaders said they too had already prepared for war, realizing that foreign forces were unlikely to leave.

Though many experts and officials warned the U.S. stance undermined the chance of a peace settlement, some concede that Washington had done all it could.

“The Biden announcement didn’t help, but the Turkey effort already looked to be falling apart,” said ODI’s Jackson.

Two diplomatic sources said a stalemate had become apparent when the Taliban refused to join an interim administration headed by Ghani, who in turn refused to step down without holding elections, a suggestion the insurgents reject.

The U.S. State Department did not comment on the interim government but said any solution must be Afghan-led and owned.

Two sources said discussions have revolved around the set-up of an Islamic jurisprudence council whose decisions by religious scholars could bind the president.

Other concessions discussed, one source added, were whether the Taliban could nominate a president, whether to remove Taliban leaders from international sanctions lists, prisoner releases, and their fighters having status equal to Afghan security forces, without joining them.

Naeem did not confirm or deny discussions over an interim government. He said the release of prisoners and removal from sanctions lists was necessary under their 2020 deal.

Officials say the challenge to get both sides in an interim government was revealed at a conference in Moscow last month.

Deep hostilities became apparent when the delegations gathered. On one occasion, a Taliban leader hissed “traitor” at a politician and former warlord who had once held him captive, people in the room said.

Since the Moscow meeting and as Washington tried to negotiate a troop withdrawal extension, one source said, the Taliban had toughened their stance.

“Their proposals (now) are more like almost a takeover,” said the official whose country is involved in the peace process.

Though the Taliban learned of Biden’s withdrawal decision through media on Tuesday, a Taliban leader said, Washington had already discussed a six-month extension with them, which they had rejected.

“We told them you should call back all your troops and then start shifting logistics later and we guaranteed them of providing protection to their belongings,” another Taliban leader said. “They damaged our trust and now we wouldn’t believe them…until they fulfil their commitment.”

But Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former Pakistani diplomat, said there was hope and the Taliban did not want to lose international recognition.

“Missing the Turkey conference would be a huge mistake,” he said. “It’s the last big effort for peace and stability in Afghanistan and it must not be allowed to fail.”

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad, Hamid Shalizi in Kabul, Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Rupam Jain in Panjim, India, and Alexander Cornwell in Dubai; Additional reporting by Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Orooj Hakimi in Kabul and Jonathan Landay and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Editing by Nick Macfie)

U.S. sanctions Russia for ‘malign’ acts, Moscow reacts angrily

By Trevor Hunnicutt, Arshad Mohammed and Andrew Osborn

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW (Reuters) -The United States on Thursday imposed a broad array of sanctions on Russia, including curbs to its sovereign debt market, to punish it for interfering in last year’s U.S. election, cyber-hacking, bullying Ukraine and other alleged “malign” actions.

The U.S. government blacklisted Russian companies, expelled Russian diplomats and barred U.S. banks from buying sovereign bonds from Russia’s central bank, national wealth fund and finance ministry. The United States warned Russia that more penalties were possible but said it did not want to escalate.

The Russian foreign ministry reacted angrily, summoning the U.S. ambassador for a diplomatic dressing-down to tell him “a series of retaliatory measures will follow soon.” A ministry spokeswoman also said a possible summit could be imperiled.

Russia denies meddling in U.S. elections, orchestrating a cyber hack that used U.S. tech company SolarWinds Corp to penetrate U.S. government networks and using a nerve agent to poison Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin to raise concerns about these issues and the build-up of Russian forces in Crimea and along the border with Ukraine, though a top U.S. general saw only a “low to medium” risk of a Russian invasion in the next few weeks.

Biden, who also proposed a U.S.-Russian summit, is trying to strike a balance between deterring what Washington sees as hostile Russian behavior while avoiding a deeper deterioration in U.S.-Russian ties and preserving some room for cooperation.

“Our objective here is not to escalate. Our objective here is to impose costs for what we feel are unacceptable actions by the Russian government,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Among his moves, Biden signed an executive order authorizing the U.S. government to sanction any area of the Russian economy and used it to restrict Russia’s ability to issue sovereign debt to punish Moscow for interfering in the 2020 U.S. election.

Biden barred U.S. financial institutions from taking part in the primary market for rouble-denominated Russian sovereign bonds from June 14. U.S. banks have been barred from taking part in the primary market for non-rouble sovereign bonds since 2019.

He did not, however, prohibit them from buying such debt in the secondary market, a step likely to have a far more dramatic effect on the Russian bond and currency markets, which fell as news of the sanctions seeped out before recovering some losses.

“The president signed this sweeping new authority to confront Russia’s continued and growing malign activity,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

The Treasury also blacklisted 32 entities and individuals that it said had carried out Russian government-directed attempts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election and other “acts of disinformation and interference.”

ANALYST: RUSSIA TO CONTINUE TESTING U.S.

In concert with the European Union, Britain, Australia and Canada, the Treasury also sanctioned eight individuals associated with Russia’s ongoing occupation and repression in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The White House said it was expelling 10 Russian diplomats in Washington D.C., including representatives of the Russian intelligence services and for the first time, formally named the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) as the perpetrator of the SolarWinds Corp hack. The agency said the allegations were “nonsense” and “windbaggery.”

The U.S. government plans a new executive order to strengthen its cybersecurity, a U.S. official told reporters, suggesting it could include such elements as encryption and multifactor authentication.

The White House also said it would respond to reports Russia had offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. However, it said it would not make its response public to protect U.S. forces, saying the matter would be handled via “diplomatic, military and intelligence channels.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have “low to moderate” confidence in their assessment of these reports, in part because they rely on sometimes undependable testimony from detainees, it said.

Russia has long brushed off allegations of putting bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

Andrew Weiss, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank analyst, was skeptical the U.S. sanctions would change a “largely competitive and adversarial relationship” in the short term or deter Russia in the long term.

“I’d be surprised if today’s very calibrated announcements by the Biden administration materially shift the relationship in either direction,” he said, saying Russia was willing to cooperate on some issues but there was unlikely ever to be a meeting of the minds on Ukraine or election interference.

“I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the new sanctions will shift Russia’s risk calculus in a fundamental fashion,” he added. “It’s to be expected that the Russians will keep probing and testing our resolve.”

(Reporting By Trevor Hunnicutt, Tim Ahmann, Doina Chiacu, Jeff Mason, Patricia Zengerle in Washington, by Arshad Mohammed in St. Paul, Minn. and by Andrew Osborn, Andrey Ostroukh and Tom Balmforth in Moscow; Writing by Arshad Mohammed, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Cynthia Osterman)

Pace of U.S. economic recovery accelerates, Fed says

By Jonnelle Marte, Ann Saphir and Howard Schneider

(Reuters) – The U.S. economic recovery accelerated to a moderate pace from late February to early April as consumers, buoyed by increased COVID-19 vaccinations and strong fiscal support, opened their wallets to spend more on travel and other items, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday.

The labor market, which was decimated by the coronavirus pandemic, also improved as more people returned to work, with the pace of hiring picking up the most in the manufacturing, construction, and leisure and hospitality sectors.

“Reports on tourism were more upbeat, bolstered by a pickup in demand for leisure activities and travel which contacts attributed to spring break, an easing of pandemic-related restrictions, increased vaccinations, and recent stimulus payments among other factors,” the U.S. central bank said in its latest “Beige Book,” a collection of anecdotes about the economy from its 12 regional districts.

Hospitality contacts told the Atlanta Fed they had “solid bookings for the remainder of spring and through the summer months and beyond,” according to the report, which was compiled by the Dallas Fed using surveys conducted before April 5.

While most districts said the pace of growth in their regional economies was moderate, the New York Fed said its economy “grew at a strong pace for the first time during the pandemic, with growth broad-based across industries.”

The improvement occurred despite an increase in COVID-19 cases in the region, the New York Fed said. “Moreover, business contacts have grown increasingly optimistic about the near-term outlook.”

FOCUS ON WAGES

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said this week that the U.S. economy is at an “inflection point” where growth and hiring could pick up speed over the coming months thanks to increased COVID-19 vaccinations and strong fiscal stimulus.

The United States added 916,000 jobs in March, the largest gain in seven months, according to Labor Department data. And U.S. consumer prices rose at the fastest clip in more than 8-1/2 years in March as vaccinations and stimulus boosted economic activity, according to Labor Department data released on Tuesday.

However, Powell and other Fed officials say the brighter economic forecasts and brief period of higher inflation will not affect monetary policy, and the central bank will keep its support in place until the crisis is over. The U.S. economy is still 8.4 million jobs short of its pre-pandemic levels.

Policymakers agreed last month to leave interest rates near zero and to keep purchasing $120 billion a month in bonds until there was “substantial further progress” toward the Fed’s goals for maximum employment and inflation. Fed officials will gather again in two weeks for their next policy-setting meeting.

The report highlighted the strategies some businesses are considering as they reopen, increase capacity and attempt to recruit workers. One staffing services firm told the Cleveland Fed that pay had for the first time become the top priority of job seekers, surpassing the type of work.

Several workforce contacts suggested that employers might be delaying wage hikes in hopes of a surge of newly vaccinated job seekers, the Minneapolis Fed reported: “Why start raising wages when a lot of labor might be coming back?”

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; Editing by Paul Simao)

Ohio can enforce ban on Down syndrome abortions -U.S. appeals court

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) -A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Ohio can enforce a 2017 law banning abortions when medical tests show that a fetus has Down syndrome.

In a 9-7 decision, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said the law did not create a substantial obstacle to obtaining abortions, was reasonably related to Ohio’s legitimate interests, and was “valid in all conceivable cases.”

The law subjected doctors to license revocations and up to 18 months in prison for performing abortions on women they knew decided to abort at least in part because Down syndrome was in the fetus, or had reason to believe the condition was present.

Tuesday’s decision reversed a 6th Circuit panel ruling in October 2019. The 2-1 panel said the law, House Bill 214, should not be enforced because it prevented some women from obtaining lawful pre-viability abortions.

Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers that challenged the law did not say in a joint statement whether they would appeal to the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.

“This abortion ban inserts politicians between patients and their doctors, denying services to those who need it,” Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson said.

Ohio’s Republican Attorney General Dave Yost said the decision upholds a law directed to “protecting the lives of every Ohioan.”

Down syndrome is a genetic disorder where a person has an extra chromosome. Symptoms include cognitive impairment, slower physical growth, a flat face, a small head, a short neck and poor muscle tone.

Circuit Judge Alice Batchelder, who wrote Tuesday’s majority opinion, said Ohio’s law promoted the state’s interests in destigmatizing Down syndrome children, and encouraging doctors to respond to such diagnoses with “care and healing.”

The dissenters said the decision turns House Bill 214 into a “don’t ask, don’t tell” law for doctors and pregnant women.

Circuit Judge Bernice Bouie Donald accused the majority of demonstrating unconcealed “hostility” toward Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion.

The case is Preterm-Cleveland et a v McCloud et al, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 18-3329.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)