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Post by Webster on Jul 11, 2022 18:16:22 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Members of the youth voter group NextGen America gathered outside the US supreme court today to protest against the decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which ended nearly 50 years of federal protections for abortion access in the US. The group laid flowers in front of the court and wore black to mourn those who are expected to lose their lives because of the end of Roe. Health experts have said they expect maternal mortality to rise in the wake of the Roe reversal, as abortion will probably soon be outlawed in 26 states. The NextGen protesters carried signs criticizing the supreme court’s decision. One of them read, “Pro-life is a lie. They don’t care if people die.” After laying the flowers, one of the protesters cried as a trumpet player played solemn music outside the court.
Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the president of NextGen America, traveled from Texas to participate in the group’s abortion rights protest outside the supreme court today. Ramirez noted that her mother once obtained an abortion because her doctor warned of severe health risks if she carried her pregnancy to term. “I am so grateful that she was able to have that because I would have likely grown up without a mother,” Ramirez said. Gesturing toward the flowers representing the lives that will be lost because of the Roe reversal, Ramirez added, “Today my mom might be one of these flowers and one of these lives that will be lost in the coming years.” Ramirez said NextGen members are now organizing in battleground states like Arizona and Michigan to ensure that abortion rights supporters are elected to office in November. “Young people are pissed off, and they have every right to be, and we’re channeling their anger into power, into action,” Ramirez said. “We need to take every single step necessary, and everything should be on the table to look at how we protect access to abortion and also make sure that the supreme court doesn’t take away the right to gay marriage, that it doesn’t take away our right to contraception. Because this wasn’t the end; this was the opening salvo.”
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Post by Webster on Jul 12, 2022 12:41:35 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Senate judiciary committee holds hearing on end of RoeThe Senate judiciary committee is holding a hearing on the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, ending nearly 50 years of federal protections for abortion access. Dr Colleen P McNicholas, the chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of the St Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, was one of the five witnesses testifying before the committee. McNicholas told the committee that the reversal of Roe had created “two nations,” one where Americans still have reproductive rights and another where politicians “have effectively appointed themselves as decisionmakers over our bodies, our lives and our futures”. She noted that Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Illinois had seen appointments triple overnight in the wake of the Roe reversal. That is in addition to the clinic’s already double-booked schedule, caused by the abortion bans in Oklahoma and Texas. “Today, I’m here to speak for patients -- the patients I serve every day, people from across the Midwest and South who navigate a ridiculous obstacle course just to access basic care,” McNicholas said.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton asked the witnesses at the Senate judiciary committee whether they condemn recent violence against anti-abortion groups. The lieutenant governor of Illinois, Juliana Stratton, replied that she condemns all violence, including that committed against abortion providers and clinics. Stratton noted that incidents of arson, bombings and assaults carried out against abortion clinics and providers have increased exponentially in the past two years. Responding to Cotton’s question, Denise Harle, the director of the Center For Life at the Alliance Defending Freedom, said, “I do condemn all violence, and I would just note that abortion is an act of violence against the most innocent and vulnerable human beings.” Khiara M Bridges, professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, then said, “I condemn violence, and I would like to note that forced birth is an act of violence.”
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Post by Webster on Jul 12, 2022 12:53:41 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Khiara M Bridges, professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, sharply criticized the supreme court’s legal reasoning for overturning Roe v Wade. Testifying before the Senate judiciary committee, Bridges explained how the conservative justices who overturned Roe in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health argued that the 14th amendment only protects rights that were deeply rooted in history in 1868, when the amendment was ratified. Bridges said, “The majority concludes that abortion rights are not part of the nation’s history and tradition.” That reasoning, Bridges said, could imperil other rights that were not established in 1868 – including the right to access contraception, the right for same-sex couples to marry and the right to participate in consensual intimate relationships without fear of prosecution. “The method of constitutional interpretation that the majority uses in the Dobbs decision should frighten everyone who holds dear these rights that are necessary for people to live fully human lives with dignity in this country,” she told the committee.
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Post by Webster on Jul 13, 2022 12:09:50 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed an executive order preventing women who travel to Michigan for an abortion from being extradited to other states where seeking the procedure is illegal. Here’s how she described the order, which also protects abortion providers in the state from extradition: I will stand up for all women, even if their local and statewide leaders refuse to. Michigan must remain a place where a person’s basic rights are preserved. In this existential moment for fundamental rights, it is incumbent on every elected official who believes that health—not politics—should guide medical decisions to take bold action.Whitmer said the move was in response to attempts by Republican lawmakers to pass laws criminalizing out-of-state travel by women seeking abortions. Her order was similar to one made by Colorado’s Democratic governor Jared Polis, who banned state agencies from cooperating with investigations into abortions by other states.
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Post by Webster on Jul 13, 2022 22:46:52 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Congress held two hearings today on the impact of last month’s landmark supreme court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, in which advocates for and against the procedure made their case to House and Senate lawmakers. Here are some highlights: A Missouri lawmaker worried the state’s regulations would mean doctors and women alike would face jail for seeking out the procedure.. And a Georgia state representative said the burden of abortion bans would hit Black women and racial minorities the hardest.. Anti-abortion lawyer Erin Hawley, wife of Republican senator Josh Hawley, batted away pro-abortion talking points.. As did Roger Marshall, Kansas’s Republican Senator..
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Post by Webster on Jul 14, 2022 14:13:20 GMT -5
(The Guardian) As Adam Gabbatt reports, the story of a 10-year-old girl who had to travel from Ohio to Indiana to get an abortion after being raped has illustrated the real consequences of the supreme court’s ruling last month overturning Roe v. Wade: In a case that has become a flashpoint in the abortion debate after being highlighted by Joe Biden and baselessly disputed by some rightwing media and politicians, an Ohio man has been charged with raping a 10-year-old girl who later traveled to neighboring Indiana for an abortion. Gerson Fuentes, 27, who was arrested on Tuesday, appeared in Franklin county, Ohio, municipal court for an arraignment on Wednesday. A police investigator testified at the hearing that Fuentes had confessed to raping the girl at least twice. The arrest came after rightwing media – and the Republican Ohio attorney general – had poured scorn on reports of the child’s abortion, suggesting it was “not true” and “too good to confirm”. -Read more: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/14/man-charged-10-year-old-abortion-rightwing-media-indiana-ohio
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Post by Webster on Jul 14, 2022 14:17:16 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Indiana’s attorney general said he will investigate the doctor who provided the 10-year-old Ohio girl with an abortion over whether she properly reported the child’s rape. Speaking on Fox News last night, Republican Todd Rokita said: “We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report. And in Indiana it’s a crime … to intentionally not report.” Asked why it was so important that the child’s rape be reported, Rokita replied: “This is a child, and there’s a strong public interest in understanding if someone under the age of 16 or under the age of 18 or really any woman is having abortion in our state. And then if a child is being sexually abused, of course parents need to know. Authorities need to know. Public policy experts need to know.”
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Post by Webster on Jul 14, 2022 14:22:05 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Republican-led states are moving swiftly to ban abortion outright or retaliate against patients seeking the care and the doctors providing it to them. But the message of a new Morning Consult/Politico poll of voters gauging support for these policies might be: not so fast. The survey found that of 13 state-level proposals, only two weren’t opposed by a majority of voters. Banning all abortions without exception is the most disliked, with 73 percent opposing it, while criminalizing abortion seekers and people who travel out of state for care both came in with 70-percent disapproval. Proposals to fine or criminalize abortion providers also polled poorly, as did the idea to allow people to sue anyone involved in abortions. The least disliked proposals were banning abortions after around 23 or 24 weeks of pregnancy, which only 38 percent of respondents opposed. Banning the procedure 15 weeks into pregnancy was opposed by 47 percent of those surveyed.
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Post by Webster on Jul 15, 2022 15:25:32 GMT -5
(The Guardian) House Democrats will today make a renewed push to pass legislation protecting the right to abortion nationwide and the ability of Americans to cross state lines to seek the procedure. But the bills’ chances of passing the Senate are slim due to opposition from Republicans. House speaker Nancy Pelosi just held an event with other Democrats prior to the vote, declaring, “As we pass his landmark legislation today, Democrats will not stop ferociously defending freedom for women and for every American. And we want everybody to know, women out there who are concerned about their own personal reproductive freedom and what it means to their health, that... the message from the House Democrats in our groups here today is, we are not going back”, sparking a chant that was joined by the lawmakers assembled behind her.
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Post by Webster on Jul 15, 2022 15:26:21 GMT -5
(The Guardian) A colleague of Indiana doctor Caitlin Bernard, who provided the 10-year-old girl from Ohio with an abortion after her rape, has written an op-ed in The New York Times about how the episode, and the downfall of Roe v. Wade, has affected reproductive health. Tracey A. Wilkinson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, wrote: Political attacks on abortion providers are, of course, nothing new. And that’s not all that providers and their staff face: They have been targeted, harassed and in some cases even murdered for providing legal health care to their patients; some types of attacks against them recently have increased. This moment, post-Roe v. Wade, feels particularly frightening and is chilling to anyone who cares for patients, especially those providing reproductive health care.
This saga has had real-world repercussions for Dr. Bernard. The local police have been alerted to concerns for her physical safety.
My colleagues and I have watched all this in horror. We are worried that this could happen to us, too. A law that recently went into effect in Indiana mandates that doctors, hospitals and abortion clinics report to the state when a patient who has previously had an abortion presents any of dozens of physical or psychological conditions — including anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders and uterine perforation — because they could be complications of the previous abortion. Not doing so within 30 days can result in a misdemeanor for the physician who treated the patient, punishable with up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.-Read more: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/14/man-charged-10-year-old-abortion-rightwing-media-indiana-ohio
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Post by Webster on Jul 15, 2022 15:33:57 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Jul 15, 2022 15:35:19 GMT -5
 (The Guardian) Abortion rights bill passes the HouseThe US House of Representatives has approved a law which would preserve access to abortion nationwide at the federal level – but the bill is still expected to fail in the Senate. HR 8296, the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022, passed the House by 219 yes votes to 210 no votes. Two members did not vote. The law would preserve access to abortion, after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade. The bill is expected to fail in the Senate, however. In May a vote in the Senate failed, with Joe Manchin, the Democrat who has repeatedly blocked his own party’s legislative efforts, joining Republicans to vote the bill down by 51 votes to 49. The House will now consider another abortion rights bill, HR8297 – the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022. That bill would protect individual’s right to travel for abortion access.
Second bill preserving abortion rights passes HouseA second bill protecting the right to abortion has passed the US House. HR 8297, the Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022, passed by 223 votes to 205 no votes. Three Republicans did not vote. The bill would prohibit restrictions on out-of-state travel for the purpose of obtaining an abortion service. Like HR 8296, the bill is likely to fail in the Senate, where there is not enough support for either bill to survive the 60-vote filibuster threshold. There are 50 Republicans in the Senate. |
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Post by Webster on Jul 15, 2022 15:37:11 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The passage of two bills preserving the right to abortion is likely to temporarily buoy Democrats, even if both bills are extremely unlikely to pass the Senate. One thing is clear though: the issue of abortion access is not going away. According to the Wall Street Journal, Democrats are “increasingly talking about abortion in their midterm campaign advertising,” while Republicans are shying away from the issue. In June the Supreme Court reversed the Roe v Wade ruling which enshrined the right to abortion in federal law. On Friday almost all House Republicans voted against the bills which would restore and protect access to abortion – but the GOP is out of step with Americans, a majority of whom think abortion should be legal. Ahead of the November mid-term elections, Democrats seem to be tying Republicans to the reversal of Roe v Wade, the WSJ reported: [An analysis] of broadcast and national cable data from the ad-tracking firm AdImpact shows more than a third of all spots aired by Democrats and their allies in congressional and gubernatorial campaigns from July 1-12 have mentioned abortion.
Republicans are focusing their ads on inflation, which voters have consistently cited as their top concern heading into November’s elections. Less than 3% of all spots run by GOP candidates and their allies during that period included the abortion issue, the analysis showed.
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Post by Webster on Jul 18, 2022 15:30:08 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Legal fights over abortion access continue across the US. Today in West Virginia, the state’s lone abortion clinic is asking a judge to toss an 150-year-old state law so that the facility can immediately resume providing the procedure. The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia suspended performing abortions on 24 June, when the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. The 1800s West Virginia law states that obtaining or performing an abortion is a felony, which can result in up to 10 years imprisonment, according to The Associated Press. The exception is for instances where a woman or other pregnant person’s life is at risk. The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia has contended that the statute isn’t valid because it hasn’t been enforced in more than five decades, and has been superseded by more contemporary statutes on abortion, which recognize the right to this procedure, AP says. Advocates point to West Virginia’s 2015 abortion law, which permits the procedure up to 20 weeks. The state’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, has contended that the old law remains enforceable. Lawyers for the state contend that the law hasn’t been enforced solely because Roe would have made illegal the prosecution of abortion recipients and providers, per AP.
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Post by Webster on Jul 18, 2022 15:36:17 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Judge approves resumption of West Virginia abortionsA West Virginia judge on Monday blocked officials from enforcing a 19th-century ban on abortions after the US supreme court overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that recognized the right of women nationally to terminate pregnancies, Reuters reports. The decision by Kanawha county circuit judge Tera Salango clears the way for the state’s lone abortion clinic to resume services, which it suspended out of fear of prosecution following the high court’s 24 June ruling.
Here’s a little more on the West Virginia abortion ruling. Circuit court judge Tera Salango sided with the state’s last remaining abortion clinic on Monday by overturning a 19th-century law that made performing or receiving the procedure a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The ruling allows the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia to immediately resume providing abortions, which it stopped following the 24 June US Supreme Court decision overturning federal protections provided by Roe v Wade. The state argued that an abortion ban on the books dating back 150 years, which included an exception when the woman’s life was in danger, was still enforceable. But Salango agreed with the position of the ACLU of West Virginia, which argue for the clinic that the law was invalid, partly because it had not been enforced in more than 50 years, but also because it had been superseded by others, including a 2015 law allowing abortions until 20 weeks.
West Virginia’s Republican leaders knew a court ruling could stop the state’s abortion ban from coming into effect. “The West Virginia Legislature is strongly advised to amend the laws in our state to provide for clear prohibitions on abortion that are consistent with Dobbs”, attorney general Patrick Morrisey wrote in a June memorandum following the supreme court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion. However governor Jim Justice said lawmakers in the Republican-dominated Senate and House of Delegates “are not ready” right now to craft new abortion legislation, the State Journal reported. While the legislature will hold a special session later this month to debate a proposal to slash the state’s income taxes, Justice predicted a special session on legislation to restrict abortion would have to be called later.
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