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Post by Webster on Jan 11, 2024 15:30:52 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Donald Trump is expected in the Manhattan courtroom today for closing arguments in his civil fraud trial (which he wanted to make himself). Yesterday, he was in Iowa, where the Guardian’s David Smith reports he took credit for the supreme court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v Wade and allowing states to ban abortion: Donald Trump, the former US president, boasted about the “miracle” of ending the constitutional right to abortion but warned that Republicans who tout extreme bans are being “decimated” in elections.
Trump was put on the spot on Wednesday during a Fox News town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, his latest attempt at counter-programming a Republican debate that was being shown on CNN at the same time.
A female voter, undecided between Trump and rival Ron DeSantis, raised concerns over the Republican frontrunner’s recent attempts to back away from abortion restrictions unpopular in elections and opinion polls.
She said: “I’ve been vocal in celebrating with you all of your pro-life victories from the past but then in this campaign you’ve also blamed pro-lifers for some of the GOP losses around the country and you’ve called heartbeat laws like Iowa’s terrible.”
The voter added: “I’d just like some clarity on this because it’s such an important question to me. I’d like for you to reassure me that you can protect all life, every person’s right to life without compromise.”
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Post by Webster on Jan 17, 2024 15:40:26 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Ahead of the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has condemned anti-abortion Republicans over their abortion bans. In a statement on Wednesday, Schumer said: “For decades, the far-right has led a campaign to systematically dismantle a woman’s fundamental right to choose. The most extreme elements of the Republican party have made it their mission to eliminate this freedom of choice. Republican abortion bans across the country have led to chaos, irreperable harm… We will never, never stop fighting for a woman’s right to choose.”
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Post by Webster on Jan 17, 2024 23:15:57 GMT -5
(American Family News) A pro-lifer says a feminist magazine doesn't seem to understand what human rights are. In their recent opinion piece in Ms. Magazine, former Planned Parenthood employee Victoria Boydell and Kate Gilmore, the former deputy high commissioner for human rights for the United Nations, compare abortionists, or "human rights defenders [who] continue to live in constant fear of being attacked and prosecuted for providing this essential, life-saving care," to superheroes or saints. Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, however, says "exactly the opposite is true;" abortionists deny children their own human rights. He agrees with Live Action News: Killing another human being can never be considered a human right. "Abortionists are killing innocent human beings, the unborn child, the most vulnerable of all of our brothers and sisters," Scheidler notes. "An abortionist's job is to kill those children at the behest of their mothers who are often being pushed by others." The fact is 63%-74% of women who have had an abortion say they would not have done so had they not been coerced by their baby's father or their own family members. "One out of four abortions is forced, and yet Ms. Magazine turns a completely blind eye to that," Scheidler tells AFN. "They're deaf to the cries of women who regret their abortions, who say that they were pushed and coerced, and they want to praise abortionists as great health practitioners and human rights defenders." He can think of plenty of people who truly deserve the title of "human rights defenders," beginning with the mothers who decide to carry their unplanned pregnancies to term. He also recognizes the workers at pro-life pregnancy centers -- often unpaid volunteers who help women in crisis bring their children into the world and help provide for the families after those babies are born.
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Post by Webster on Jan 19, 2024 18:51:14 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Anti-abortion activists are gathering in Washington DC today for the annual March for Life campaign. This time the event takes place ahead of the 51st anniversary, on Monday, of the supreme court’s ruling in Roe v Wade in 1973 that brought in the national right to an abortion in the US, and ahead of the two-year anniversary of the current, right-leaning supreme court striking down Roe in 2022. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris plan to highlight the depletion of reproductive rights, which is proving a vote-loser for Republicans, on the 2024 campaign trail next week, amid high Democratic party spending on related ads, Axios reports. The Guardian’s Carter Sherman is in the cold and snowy capital and will be sending a dispatch. Meanwhile, she’s on X/Twitter with vignettes.
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Post by Webster on Jan 19, 2024 18:51:56 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Jan 22, 2024 16:42:57 GMT -5
(The Guardian) 'How dare he?': Harris attacks Trump on Roe v Wade anniversaryOn the 51st anniversary of the supreme court’s Roe v Wade decision, Kamala Harris attacked Donald Trump for his role in appointing justices who overturned the precedent and allowed states to ban abortion. The vice-president spoke during a visit today to Wisconsin, a battleground state that will be crucial to deciding the outcome of the November election. Democrats plan to campaign on restoring access to abortion, after the 2022 decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization that curtailed abortion access in many states. Harris did not hold back from assailing the former president, citing his comments that he was “proud” of his role in getting three justices confirmed to the court, all of whom voted to overturn Roe. Here’s what she had to say:
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Post by Webster on Jan 26, 2024 16:53:30 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Immigration officials did not document the medical necessity of at least two hysterectomies they authorized for women in their custody, according to a new report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General. Investigators contracted with an OB/GYN to review six hysterectomies performed on migrant women who were in federal custody. The doctor found that in two of the cases, officials had failed to document whether it was medically necessary, the watchdog report states. “Our contracted OB/GYN concluded that for two of six hysterectomies performed, the detained non-citizens’ IHSC medical files did not demonstrate that a hysterectomy was the most appropriate course of treatment and was medically necessary,” investigators wrote. “[Immigration health] officials agreed that their medical files did not contain the necessary documentation to demonstrate the medical necessity of these two hysterectomies.” The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) finding was part of a larger review that concluded Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) did not follow proper procedures to authorize dozens of such surgeries between fiscal years 2019 and 2021. Looking at a sample of 227 major surgeries, investigators found 72 of them – about a third – did not follow proper procedures. While a clinical director is supposed to approve all major surgeries, investigators found these surgeries were approved by other healthcare personnel, like a nurse or nurse practitioner. Based on that sample, OIG said it could infer with 95 percent confidence that between 137 and 217 of 553 major surgical procedures were not properly approved in the timeframe it studied.
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Post by Webster on Feb 20, 2024 15:21:56 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The Guardian’s Adria R Walker reports that an Alabama supreme court decision could have major impacts on people seeking reproductive technology treatments like in vitro fertilization: In a first-of-its-kind decision, the Alabama supreme court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are “children”, allowing two wrongful death suits against a Mobile fertility clinic to proceed. The decision could have sweeping implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments and could increase criminalization of expectant people.
In 2021, a patient at Mobile’s Center for Reproductive Medicine wandered into the clinic’s cryogenic nursery and removed several embryos. According to the lawsuit, “the subzero temperatures at which the embryos had been stored freeze-burned the patient’s hand, causing the patient to drop the embryos on the floor, killing them”.
The three couples who lost their frozen embryos sued for wrongful death, but the clinic claimed that Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act did not apply to embryos outside of the womb. Mobile county circuit court judge Jill Parrish Philips agreed with that argument and ruled to dismiss the case, but the state’s supreme court threw it out last week.
-Read more: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/20/alabama-supreme-court-frozen-embryos-children-ruling-ivf
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Post by Webster on Feb 21, 2024 19:18:17 GMT -5
(The Guardian) In the political reproductive rights war, with its real life repercussions, another new and consequential twist. Less than a week after the unprecedented decision from the Alabama supreme court that frozen embryos are “children”, a key medical school in the state has paused in vitro fertilization procedures. The court decision has been widely seen as one that would have serious implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments. On Wednesday, AL.com reported, a spokesperson, Hannah Echols, said on behalf of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a research university and academic medical center that is also the largest healthcare provider in the state, that the institution is “saddened” for patients who hope to have babies through IVF. “We must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments,” Echols wrote in the email, obtained by AL.com. In the decision released on Friday, two wrongful death suits were allowed to proceed against a Mobile fertility clinic, effectively ruling that fertilized eggs and embryos are “children”. The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system suspended in vitro fertilization procedures because of the risk of criminal prosecution and lawsuits, a spokeswoman told AL.com.
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Post by Webster on Feb 21, 2024 19:22:15 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Nikki Haley says she agrees with Alabama ruling that could curb IVF careThe Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley announced her support for an Alabama supreme court ruling that could complicate access to in vitro fertilization procedures, telling NBC News in an interview: “Embryos, to me, are babies. “When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that,” said the former South Carolina governor, who is the last major challenger to Donald Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination. The Alabama supreme court last week ruled that frozen embryos are “children” and allowed two wrongful death suits to proceed against a fertility clinic where several embryos were destroyed in 2021, a decision that could complicate access to IVF treatment more widely. Here’s more from NBC on what Haley’s comments mean: Classifying embryos as children under state law raises significant questions about whether the practice, used by families having trouble conceiving, could continue in states like Alabama. Unused embryos are often destroyed, which could open families or clinics up to wrongful death lawsuits under this policy. Storing frozen embryos, meanwhile, is expensive.
Asked if legislation and rulings like the one in Alabama could have a chilling effect on families using IVF to become parents, Haley said, “This is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it.”
“I know that when my doctor came in, we knew what was possible and what wasn’t,” Haley continued, adding: “Every woman needs to know, with her partner, what she’s looking at. And then when you look at that, then you make the decision that’s best for your family.”
Haley has sought to find a rhetorical middle ground on reproductive health policy as a 2024 presidential candidate. She has repeatedly calling for national “consensus” on abortion in debates instead of the bans and restrictions favored by some of her primary opponents.
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Post by Webster on Feb 22, 2024 17:46:41 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden campaign blames Trump for Alabama court ruling curbing IVF accessJoe Biden’s re-election campaign is attempting to link last week’s Alabama supreme court ruling curbing IVF care in the state to Donald Trump, saying that the decision only came about after the downfall of Roe v Wade. Trump appointed three of the conservative US supreme court justices who overturned the 49-year-old precedent in 2022, allowing states to ban abortion entirely. In a statement, Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said the recent ruling by Alabama’s top court, which has allowed wrongful death suits to proceed against IVF care providers in cases where embryos have been destroyed, was a side-effect of Roe’s end: What is happening in Alabama right now is only possible because Donald Trump’s Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade. Across the nation, MAGA Republicans are inserting themselves into the most personal decisions a family can make, from contraception to IVF. With their latest attack on reproductive freedom, these so-called pro-life Republicans are preventing loving couples from growing their families. If Donald Trump is elected, there is no question that he will impose his extreme anti-freedom agenda on the entire country.
The aftershocks from the Alabama supreme court’s ruling that IVF embryos are children continue to reverberate across the state, the Guardian Carter Sherman reports: A second Alabama provider announced that it will pause its in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments on Thursday, just days after the state supreme court ruled in a first-of-its-kind decision that embryos are “extrauterine children”.
“We have made the impossibly difficult decision to hold new IVF treatments due to the legal risk to our clinic and our embryologists,” Alabama Fertility said in a post to its Instagram account. “We are contacting patients that will be affected today to find solutions for them and we are working as hard as we can to alert our legislators as to the far reaching negative impact of this ruling on the women of Alabama.”
The clinic said it does not plan to close entirely, and urged people to check back in for “advocacy opportunities”.
Alabama Fertility is at least the second IVF provider to announce that it would suspend its IVF procedures after the University of Alabama at Birmingham Wednesday said it would pause treatments in the wake of the court ruling. A spokesperson for the university, the largest healthcare provider in the state, said the institution is “saddened that this will impact our patients’ attempt to have a baby through IVF, but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments”.
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Post by Webster on Feb 22, 2024 17:47:31 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Feb 22, 2024 17:51:44 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Republican strategists are growing worried the Alabama supreme court’s decision that greatly complicates access to IVF care in the state could harm the party’s candidates nationwide, Politico reports. “It certainly intersects, badly, with general election politics for Republicans,” said Stan Barnes, a former Republican state senator from Arizona who is now a political consultant. “When a state, any state, takes an aggressive action on this particular topic, people are once again made aware of it and many think: ‘Maybe I can’t support a Republican in the general election.’” Former Donald Trump White House official Kellyanne Conway in December shared polling with congressional Republicans that found IVF care to be widely popular, including with evangelicals, a group that is traditionally anti-abortion.“Candidates for Congress – and certainly those already serving there – can bank significant political currency by advocating for increased access to and availability of contraception and fertility treatments,” Conway’s team told lawmakers. According to Politico, “The survey found that 86 percent of all respondents supported access to IVF, with 78 percent support among self-identified ‘pro-life advocates’ and 83 percent among Evangelical Christians.”
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Post by Webster on Feb 22, 2024 18:13:39 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden calls 'disregard' for reproductive rights in conservative push 'outrageous'Joe Biden has issued a statement sharply criticizing the Alabama state supreme court’s decision declaring embryos kept for IVF as “children”, and saying that this and other restrictions from the right on reproductive choice are “a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade”. In a first-of-its-kind decision, the Alabama supreme court ruled last Friday that frozen embryos are “children”, allowing two wrongful death suits against a Mobile fertility clinic to proceed. The decision has sweeping implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments and could increase criminalization of expectant people, (Guardian correspondent) Adria Walker reported earlier this week. The US president issued a statement from the White House on Thursday afternoon saying: “A court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.” Biden added: “Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade.” The supreme court, as stacked to the right during Donald Trump’s presidency, in 2022 tossed out the national right to an abortion in the US, almost 50 years after the landmark federal right was granted by a previous court bench.
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Post by Webster on Feb 23, 2024 22:34:31 GMT -5
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