Gun violence rattles US amid Independence Day celebrations – latest updates

Americans are continuing to grapple with the supreme court’s ruling last month allowing states to ban abortion – including the founder of the country’s largest provider of the procedure. Jessica Glenza spoke to Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, about how the group plans to help women continue accessing abortions:

In the time after the US supreme court rescinded the constitutional right to abortion in America and thereby allowed nearly a dozen states to outlaw the procedure, the president and CEO of the US’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has worked feverishly with three goals in mind.

Alexis McGill Johnson wants to get women where they need to be to access abortion, whether that means helping patients cross state lines or flying doctors to states where abortion remains legal.

Then, she wants to win in state courts. Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have filed 11 lawsuits seeking to delay abortion bans or, perhaps optimistically, strike them down entirely.

“What we can see, essentially, is just a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion and a lot of concern for patients on the ground being able to get the care they need,” McGill Johnson told The Guardian. “What we’ve also seen is a significant amount of rage.”

That will power her third goal – to win at the ballot box.

“Our work right now is to maximize the care that we can in the states that we can, and also take this moment as an opportunity to maximize mobilization.”

Related: ‘No one can be neutral’: Planned Parenthood’s chief on abortion rights