The War On Abortion And Women's Rights

[47of74]

On 6/3/2019 at 11:05 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

This is utterly horrible.

 

Disclaimer - I don't have any guns myself even though I considered it in the past.  I'm not likely to get any anytime soon.  (I'd rather spend my money on expensive camera gear).  That said, I hope he realizes Republicans and reich to lifers aren't the only ones who know where the gun store is and there are guns that live inside of liberal homes as well.  If he comes face to face with the business end of a .38 special or a 9mm gun when "visiting" one of these homes he has only himself to blame.

And Rachel Maddow showed again why she is awesome;

Quote

Rachel Maddow had a response for the Republican-led government in Missouri after they criticized her reporting on the state’s attack on women: Get lost.

“The state government in Missouri has let us know they are upset about our coverage,” the MSNBC host said. “But our reporting on this matter is correct and the state has not substantively rebutted any of it.”

Maddow said the only thing the GOP-run government in Missouri made clear in their press release is that they don’t want the rest of the country to know about their escalating war on women.

 

 

 

[47of74]

Some good news out of Illinois;

Quote

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a sweeping abortion access protection bill into law Wednesday.

The bill's signage comes as part of a wave of Democratic states opting to codify abortion protections as a slew of Republican states push forward bills restricting abortion access. Lawmakers have pushed such restrictions in an effort to force a potential legal challenge of the landmark Supreme Court Roe V. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide in 1973.

The Illinois bill, effective immediately, protects an individual's "fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about one's own reproductive health," including to continue a "pregnancy and give birth or to have an abortion."

The bill repeals the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975, which punished doctors for abortions not deemed "necessary," as well as the the state's Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act. It also establishes "that a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the law, of this State."

I cannot wait for the various expressions of butt hurt from various conservatives.  Especially Paprocki of the Republican Catholic Church.

I'm ready for that too.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Five men outlaw abortion in a Texas town, declaring a ‘sanctuary city for the unborn’"

Spoiler

Five men this week declared a small town in East Texas a “sanctuary city for the unborn,” commandeering the language of the movement for immigrant rights to counter the reproductive freedom of women.

There are no abortion clinics in Waskom, Tex., a city of about 2,200, which lies on the border with Louisiana. But the all-male, all-white city council decided unanimously Tuesday that prohibiting abortion was necessary as a preventive measure.

The municipal prohibition, which plainly contradicts the judgments of the U.S. Supreme Court, joins statewide bans on abortion sweeping the country in the wake of the solidification of a conservative majority on the nation’s top court. In Texas, abortion has already been banned after 20 weeks. Now in the state, a bill awaiting the governor’s signature would require doctors to treat “a child born alive after an abortion,” which happens rarely.

Supporters of the city ordinance say it is the first of its kind in the Lone Star State.

The legislation was modeled on a measure embraced 7 to 1 in March by the city council of Roswell, N.M., which is best known as the site of a purported UFO crash in 1947. Roswell’s move to declare its support for “fetal life” was accompanied by a measure characterizing itself as a “Second Amendment Sanctuary City,” in opposition to legislation advanced by the state legislature that expands background checks for private gun sales.

Waskom residents said they were unconcerned by the prospect of a costly legal fight over the abortion measure because, according to local media, “they say God will take care of them.”

Applause broke out in the chambers of the city council when all five local lawmakers raised their hands to signal their approval.

They were cheered by antiabortion activists who are fearful that a strict abortion ban in Louisiana — signed into law last month by the state’s Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards — might cause a facility that offers the procedure in Shreveport, about 20 miles east of Waskom, to move across the border. But the facility has no plans to relocate, according to a reporter covering the legislative effort for a CBS affiliate in Shreveport, Blane Skiles. He told The Washington Post that supporters of the city ban are citing an article that appeared in a local paper in 1991 indicating that a crackdown in Louisiana at that time risked driving the clinic’s director out of town. The director who made the vow to relocate, Robin Rothrock, died in 2011.

The legislation has additional aims, namely setting up a conflict with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision by the Supreme Court that made abortion a constitutional right. Nationwide, Republican lawmakers acknowledge that their effort to curtail abortion rights is part of a larger strategy to goad the Supreme Court into revisiting that decision.

Local efforts in Waskom are no different. City officials said they included exceptions for rape and incest, and cases where the mother’s life is at risk, to force a reckoning with the procedure of abortion itself, preventing a judgment based only on the absence of exceptions.

Lobbying for the ordinance was led by Right to Life of East Texas, whose director, Mark Lee Dickson, celebrated the unanimous vote in posts on Facebook.

He quoted from the measure, which states that “the Supreme Court erred in Roe v. Wade when it said that pregnant women have a constitutional right to abort their pre-born children.” It further describes the 1973 opinion as a “lawless and illegitimate act of judicial usurpation, which violates the Tenth Amendment by trampling the reserved powers of the States, and denies the people of each State a Republican Form of Government by imposing abortion policy through judicial decree.”

Dickson, who is a pastor at the Baptist Sovereign Love Church in Longview, Tex., added his interpretation of the measure, saying it meant that all organizations that provide abortions or assist others in obtaining the procedure “are now declared to be criminal organizations in Waskom, Texas.”

The antiabortion activist has thrown his weight behind some of the most sweeping efforts to outlaw the procedure, including by assigning criminal liability to women, and not just the doctors they seek out to end their pregnancies.

In April, he went to Austin to advocate for a bill that would have criminalized abortion without exception, making it possible to convict women who undergo the procedure of homicide, which can carry the death penalty in Texas. The measure, which earned a hearing before the state House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence, was introduced by state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, a Republican from Arlington, Tex., who argues that the measure is necessary to make women “more personally responsible.”

In a statement on Thursday, the executive director of Naral Pro-Choice Texas, Aimee Arrambide, called the ordinance a “dangerous attempt to undermine Roe v. Wade," and affirmed that, “abortion remains legal in all 50 states.”

“We will not be intimidated,” Arrambide pledged.

Before the Tuesday vote, Waskom’s mayor told council members that the city lacked the resources to engage in a lengthy legal battle over the legislation, the instigation of which is the professed aim of the ordinance.

“Most likely we will wind up getting sued if this is passed,” the mayor, Jesse Moore, said. “It could go to the Supreme Court.”

That prospect would present fiscal challenges for the city, lawmakers acknowledged.

“We don’t have the possible millions of dollars that it would take to take it to that level,” said alderman Jimmy Dale Moore, who nevertheless voted for the ordinance. “We can’t pay those kind of attorney’s fees. The city don’t have the money.”

Pointing to a member of the crowd gathered to watch the proceedings, the mayor advised, “Save your nickels and pennies,” eliciting chuckles from the public.

“We may need them,” he said.

What a group of self-righteous jerks.

[fraurosena]

Those stupid (old, white) with their tiny win in their little Texas town will be frothing at the mouth at this news.

 

[fraurosena]

Good News. Sadly, it’s only temporary.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Federal judge blocks Missouri’s 8-week abortion ban a day before it would have gone into effect"

Spoiler

A federal judge in Missouri put a block on a strict and controversial abortion ban Tuesday, a day before the state was set to criminalize abortions after eight weeks, to allow pending legal challenges against it to proceed.

“The various sections specifying prohibitions on abortions at various weeks prior to viability cannot be allowed to go into effect on August 28, as scheduled,” U.S. District Court Judge Howard Sachs wrote in an 11-page opinion, CNN reported.

“However formulated, the legislation on its face conflicts with the Supreme Court ruling that neither legislative or judicial limits on abortion can be measured by specified weeks or development of a fetus; instead, ‘viability’ is the sole test for a State’s authority to prohibit abortions where there is no maternal health issue,” Sachs wrote.

Missouri has become a flash point alongside other conservative states that seek to challenge the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a woman’s right nationwide to an abortion. Those states’ efforts triggered a wave of lawsuits from abortion rights advocacy groups.

Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri sued the state, saying the law was unconstitutional and contrary to the Roe v. Wade decision.

The Missouri law signed in May would ban abortions before many women know they are pregnant, with no exceptions for rape or incest, making it one of the strictest in the country. If the court doesn’t uphold the ban, the bill includes less-strict bans ranging from 14 weeks to 20 weeks, the Associated Press reported.

“We are in the fight of our lives to protect abortion for 1.1 million Missouri women of reproductive age in our state,” Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, said last month. “The attacks are relentless, but our commitment to our patients’ rights and freedoms is unwavering.”

While conservatives championed the ban, with Missouri House Speaker Elijah Haahr (R) saying the bill “stood for the unborn,” opponents said it would only drive women to get unsafe procedures out of state or seek unsafe operations on their own.

“We will be killing women with this bill,” Rep. Sarah Unsicker, a Democrat from the St. Louis suburbs, said before the vote.

Gov. Mike Parson (R) made a forceful statement with the bill passage, vowing to make Missouri “one of the strongest pro-life states in the country.”

 

[thoughtful]

It's not breaking news, but I thought this thread was the place for it. Have we discussed this website?

https://abortiondocs.org/mission/

It's run by Operation Rescue, and tells people where to find abortion providers and various things about their history, including any dirt (or supposed dirt) they can dig up to make the doctors and facilities look as bad as possible.

Of course, their disclaimer says they don't want anyone to go attack these doctors.

https://abortiondocs.org/disclaimer/

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

This is also not breaking news, but if anyone wants to help women who have difficulty accessing a legal and safe abortion, there is a national network of abortion funds. 

https://abortionfunds.org/about/

https://abortionfunds.org

Edited September 15, 2019 by WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?
riffle

[GreyhoundFan]

If we keep RWNJs in charge in the US, this will get worse: "U.S. joins 19 nations, including Saudi Arabia and Russia: ‘There is no international right to an abortion’"

Spoiler

The Trump administration declared there’s no “international right to abortion” at a United Nations meeting in New York this week, calling on other countries to join a coalition pushing the elimination of what it calls “ambiguous” terms and expressions, such as sexual and reproductive health, from U.N. documents.

“We remain gravely concerned that aggressive efforts to reinterpret international instruments to create a new international right to abortion and to promote international policies that weaken the family have advanced through some United Nations forums,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a letter circulated in advance of the gathering.

Earlier this year, HHS officials began meeting with representatives from other countries, urging them to join a new international coalition that would focus on the value of the family, and which would not condone harmful sexual risks for young people, or promote abortion as a means of family planning.

Other countries, civil society and women’s rights groups have expressed alarm at the efforts, and accused the United States of aligning with countries like Saudi Arabia and Sudan with poor human rights records and, also, of putting unfair pressure on poor countries that depend on U.S. aid.

Numerous country representatives tweeted their objections to U.S. statement under the hashtag #SRHR — sexual and reproductive health and rights — the very language the United States has sought to erase from U.N. documents.

Sweden’s Minister for International Development Cooperation tweeted that the action was “unbelievable news,” and that “women’s rights must be protected at all times.”

The Netherlands’ Sigrid Kaag, minister of foreign trade, spoke out in a competing joint statement issued on behalf of 58 countries. While she did not use the word abortion, she repeatedly stressed the need to uphold the full range of sexual and reproductive rights.

And Françoise Girard, president of the International Women’s Health Coalition, said that “sexual and reproductive rights are human rights, and are enshrined in UN agreements for almost 25 years now.”

“The Trump administration’s position is extreme and its repeated attempts to strip women, girls, and gender- diverse people of their rights at the United Nations have failed,” Girard said.

Antiabortion groups, meanwhile, praised the statement as a sign of the administration’s “strong pro-life leadership on the world stage.”

“From day one, President Trump has worked to restore respect for life as a foundational American value, not only in our domestic policies, but in our international relations as well,” SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement.

Azar unveiled the results of that work on Monday, announcing 19 states representing 1.3 billion people had agreed to work with the United States on these issues.

Below is the full text of the United States’ joint statement:

We are pleased to speak on behalf of the United States of America, Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

We believe that health of women, men, children and adolescents supports and improves the overall health of our families and communities, and that the family is the foundational institution of society and thus should be supported and strengthened.

We commend the United Nations and the Member States on the significant work done on the Universal Health Coverage Political Declaration, and for the high priority placed on expanding access to health care.

We therefore urge Member States to join us in focusing on the important work of expanding health and opportunities for all people, and especially those in situations of risk and/or vulnerability.

To make the most meaningful progress without delay or dissension, we respectfully call upon Member States to join us in concentrating on topics that unite rather than divide on the critical issues surrounding access to health care.

We do not support references to ambiguous terms and expressions, such as sexual and reproductive health and rights in U.N. documents, because they can undermine the critical role of the family and promote practices, like abortion, in circumstances that do not enjoy international consensus and which can be misinterpreted by U.N. agencies.

Such terms do not adequately take into account the key role of the family in health and education, nor the sovereign right of nations to implement health policies according to their national context. There is no international right to an abortion and these terms should not be used to promote pro-abortion policies and measures.

Further, we only support sex education that appreciates the protective role of the family in this education and does not condone harmful sexual risks for young people.

We therefore request that the U.N., including U.N. agencies, focus on concrete efforts that enjoy broad consensus among member states. To that end, only documents that have been adopted by all Member States should be cited in U.N. resolutions.

To this end, we also understand the important role the Sustainable Development Goals play in assisting countries realize their own path to universal health coverage, in accordance with national policies and legislation.

We strongly support the highest attainable health outcomes for women, men, children, and adolescents holistically and throughout their lives.

We support equal access to health care, which includes, but is not limited to reproductive concerns, maternal health, voluntary and informed family planning, HIV, elimination of violence against women and girls, and empowerment to reach the highest standard of health.

We support programs to improve the health, life, dignity, and well-being of women, men, children, and families, and we will continue to be their stalwart defender.

Let us focus on concrete issues and challenges to accelerate access to health for all.

To this end, international solidarity has a key role to play, in order to the build broad consensus by member states.”

The Netherlands joint statement is below:

Mr. President,

It is my pleasure to deliver this statement on behalf of the governments and peoples of Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cap Verde, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guinea, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lebanon, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo, Tunisia, United Kingdom and Uruguay, as well as my own country, The Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Mr. President, I would like to join previous speakers in congratulating you on your election and wishing you a successful tenure. We wish to express our appreciation and give thanks to Ambassador Imnadze of Georgia and Ambassador Srivihok of Thailand, for steering the negotiations on the Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) to success. We thank Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of WHO for his support and look forward to his continued leadership in advancing UHC. We also acknowledge the outstanding contributions of civil society to this process.

Mr. President, today, the adoption of the Political Declaration and this historic High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage constitute a defining moment for the benefit and the well-being of millions of people around the world. UHC is fundamental for achieving all sustainable development goals. We believe that the implementation of this Political Declaration will be a major contribution to a world i which every person’s right to health is protected. As we celebrate this milestone, I would like to addressthe importance of sexual and reproductive health and rights to realize UHC and achieve the SDGs, in four points:

First, we strongly believe that SRHR is an integral part of Universal Health Coverage and the SDGs. For UHC to be genuinely universal, it must embrace all health services, including sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Sexual and reproductive health services in UHC programs need to be of good quality, available, accessible and acceptable to all women and girls across the life course, free of stigma, discrimination, coercion and violence. Many examples of national UHC schemes encompassing SRHR, around the world, have demonstrated the significant difference such programs can make in preventing risks, reducing harm, and ultimately saving lives.

Second, investing in SRHR has proven to be affordable, cost-effective, and cost saving. Such investments significantly contribute to reducing financial risk, decrease the burden on health systems, and hence foster economic development, poverty reduction and sustainable development. Around sixty-two percent of sexual and reproductive health services are financed out-of-pocket by patients, with alarming implications for equitable access to these preventable and life-saving services. With a limited investment of nine US dollars per person, per year, these essential services can be available to all.

Third, gender-related barriers to accessing UHC must be addressed, including by direct involvement of women, adolescents and marginalized groups in policy and program design. Gender inequalities are a barrier to the realization of the right to health and universal and equitable access to quality health services. They are also a barrier to achieving the SDG targets of reducing maternal mortality, ensuring universal access to SRHR, addressing gender-based violence as well as harmful practices.

Lastly, Mr. President, investing in comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services in UHC is necessary to address the needs of women, girls, adolescents and people in the most marginalized situations who need these the most. According to the recent Guttmacher-Lancet report on SRHR, more than half of the world population will have limited or no access to sexual and reproductive health services over their reproductive years. Focusing on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable women, adolescent girls and young people in UHC programs is necessary to close the gap in access, equity and gender equality, to empower women and girls tangibly, and achieve universality, leaving no one behind.

In closing Mr. President, we wish to reassure you of our full commitment and support to the implementation of the Political Declaration on Universal Health Coverage in our respective countries and abroad.

I thank you.

 

[fraurosena]

Victory!   

[GreyhoundFan]

This is awful:

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

13 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is awful:

 

This...I have no words. Beyond disgusted and beyond enraged. This is so Gilead.

[JMarie]

The principal is a man.  Repeat, the principal is a man.

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/a29640103/middle-school-protest-principal-abuse-privilege-free-tampons-cookies-twitter/

[GreyhoundFan]

"What every member of Congress should know about vaginas"

Spoiler

A bill currently winding through the Pennsylvania legislature would require the remains of miscarriages or abortions — anything past the point of “fertilization,” the bill clarifies — be buried or cremated. As a person with more early miscarriage experience than I’d like, I am confused. Do lawmakers plan to come stand over the toilets of miscarrying women with an eyedropper? Or should the women just bring their bloody sanitary napkins into an emergency room so the hospitals — who are pinned with responsibility in the language of the legislation — can fashion a thumbtack-sized coffin?

It may sound like I’m using sardonic humor to conceal grief. I am actually projecting earnest bafflement to conceal rage. Do the legislators supporting this bill, which was approved this week by the state House Health Committee, have the slightest idea how miscarriages often work? Do they understand female biology at all?

Which is why I was gratified to learn that Jen Gunter, a gynecologist who has found national fame via fact-checking specious women’s health claims — you may know her as the woman who regularly speaks truth to Goop — was planning to mail 535 copies of her book, “The Vagina Bible,” to every member of the United States Congress.

You can drop in on almost any point in American history and be horrified by what our elected and appointed officials do not understand about reproductive health. You can listen to the Supreme Court's oral arguments on the 1965 decision Griswold v. Connecticut, in which nine men bashfully sputter through a discussion of whether birth control would lead to "immorality" and notice how the justices were so clearly embarrassed they could only refer euphemistically to "devices."

Or, you can drop in on Twitter this week to read NARAL president Ilyse Hogue’s account of a very young woman who tried to make tampons available in her middle school bathroom only to come up against a principal who refused, Hogue wrote, because girls might “abuse the privilege.”

The privilege of . . . having the means to deal with a mandatory bodily function? Abuse it by . . . using 27 tampons at once, willy-nilly, for the fun of it all?

This is a principal who cannot possibly understand the mechanics of menstruation. But then again, neither does the Department of Homeland Security, at least according to recent lawsuit alleging that migrant girls, denied adequate access to menstrual products, were bleeding through their pants.

Lord. Please. “Vagina Bibles” for all of them.

What I’ve always appreciated about Dr. Jen — everyone calls her Dr. Jen — is her generous, optimistic viewpoint that these lunacies happen not because officials are evil, but because officials are ignorant. Folly can be fought with facts. “The Vagina Bible” is not a screed; it is a measured, pragmatic manual detailing how the female reproductive system works or doesn’t. It does not explicitly argue for policy changes; it implicitly argues that officials in charge of policies should at least understand what they’re voting for.

“There are laws that are just in opposition to basic medical facts,” Dr. Jen told me. “Right now, the burden of menstruation is put on half the population,” she said, while the laws affecting menstruation are often written by the other half of the population. “I prefer to think about menstruation as a natural resource,” she said. “Every person on the planet owes their life to it.”

If male lawmakers had a better understanding of reproduction, she says, maybe they would finally regulate the “pink tax,” a phenomenon in which women’s hygiene products are priced 13 percent higher than men’s, and tampons are taxed as if they’re luxury goods rather than biological necessities. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) is Gunter’s representative and a co-sponsor of the Pink Tax Repeal Act; she said in a statement that she is “extremely proud of my constituent.”

If lawmakers were more informed on the health-care needs of transgender individuals, then maybe they wouldn’t support rolling back Obama-era transgender protections, as the Trump administration has proposed doing.

Maybe everyone could learn something. Maybe things could just stop sucking quite so much.

This is a stunt, obviously. People send books and pamphlets to members of Congress all the time. This is a good stunt — underwritten in part by Andy Shallal, a beloved Washington restaurateur — but still. Can I picture Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) sitting in his office, reading up on women's sexual function post-pregnancy? I cannot.

But I like knowing the book will be on his shelf. Or, at least in his mailbox, for a day or two, until an intern chucks it.

I like the premise of the stunt: that laws should come from a place of compassion and science, not point-scoring and punishment.

Dr. Jen and I talked about tampons. We talked about a recent news story about how the Missouri state health director has been bizarrely tracking patients’ periods. “I don’t even have words to describe how horrible that is,” she said.

When I bring up the proposed Pennsylvania legislation on disposal of fetal remains, Dr. Jen sighed. Some parents, she pointed out, might find deep comfort in choosing to hold a memorial service following miscarriages or abortions. But mandating burial would put hospitals in charge of determining what a woman’s pregnancy should mean to her, rather than allowing her to take the lead.

“I had a son die at 22 weeks,” Dr. Jen told me. He was one of triplets; her other children are teenagers now. Her son’s ashes are still in her closet, because she’s never wanted to bury him in a city she might not permanently live in. “How dare you tell me what’s dignified?”

We talked about how exhausting it is to keep up with these kind of legislative efforts, which seem to pop up, Whack-a-Mole style, every passing week. About the intersection of law, medicine and humanity, and about the wide-eyed optimism of trying to make a difference.

Dr. Jen’s publicist emailed me later and said books have just gone in the mail. “The Vagina Bibles” are on the move, and there’s nothing left to do but pray.

 

[thoughtful]

On 11/1/2019 at 5:38 PM, JMarie said:

The principal is a man.  Repeat, the principal is a man.

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/a29640103/middle-school-protest-principal-abuse-privilege-free-tampons-cookies-twitter/

Someone please take the toilet paper out of the men's room the principal uses at work, and tell him that he will need to pay for it, sheet by sheet.

[GreyhoundFan]

Of course Gorka missed the point of the article. It didn't include any white supremacist language.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Supreme Court leaves in place Kentucky abortion restriction"

Spoiler

The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a Kentucky law requiring abortion providers to perform an ultrasound and show and describe it to the patient, regardless of the patient's wishes.

The justices did not offer an explanation for their decision to refuse to hear a challenge to a lower court ruling that upheld the Kentucky restrictions. The law, which had been blocked by lower courts since 2017 when it was enacted, will now take effect.

The Kentucky law also requires doctors to play audio of a fetal heartbeat, and it doesn't include typical exceptions for victims of rape or incest or the pregnant patient's health. The law was signed by Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, who was defeated for reelection last month in a race that focused heavily on abortion.

The American Civil Liberties Union in 2017 challenged the law on behalf of the state's lone abortion clinic. The ACLU argued it violates the First Amendment by forcing doctors to engage in state-mandated speech, even when they fear it will cause trauma or psychological harm to their patients.

A lower federal judge had ruled the law unconstitutional in 2017, but a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling earlier this year. The appellate court opinion, written by Trump appointee Judge John Bush, said the law gives patients more information about the abortion.

With its refusal to review the lower court decision, the Supreme Court "has rubber-stamped extreme political interference in the doctor-patient relationship,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “This law is not only unconstitutional, but as leading medical experts and ethicists explained, deeply unethical."

Anti-abortion groups hailed the Supreme Court's refusal to reconsider the case.

"Women facing an unexpected pregnancy deserve to have as much medically and technically accurate information as possible when they are making what could be the most important decision of their life," said March for Life president Jeanne Mancini.

The Supreme Court's decision not to intervene in the case is notable, given that the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a virtually identical ultrasound abortion law in North Carolina a few years ago. A split decision at the circuit court level has typically been one of the reasons the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case, though there's no requirement for justices to resolve the conflicting decisions.

Since Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the bench last year, the Supreme Court's new conservative majority has been cautious on abortion cases, sidestepping several opportunities to revisit Roe v. Wade. In March, however, the court will hear a challenge to a Louisiana law that could provide an opportunity for the justices to redefine states' ability to restrict access to abortion.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"She needed to fill her prescription for the morning-after pill. The pharmacist refused because of his ‘beliefs.’"

Spoiler

A severe snowstorm was brewing in McGregor, Minn., when Andrea Anderson called her doctor after a condom mishap left her in need of an emergency contraceptive to prevent an unwanted pregnancy last January.

“The next morning, I got up and said, ‘We can’t roll the dice,’” she told KSTP.

Her gynecologist told the 39-year-old mother of five she should take ella, the prescription-only morning-after pill, and sent the prescription to the only pharmacy in McGregor, a very small town about 130 miles north of Minneapolis.

But when Anderson showed up at the Thrifty White Pharmacy to pick up the pill, the pharmacist allegedly told her he would not fill the prescription. The small-town pharmacy wasn’t out of stock or too far from a wholesaler to get the pill for Anderson. Instead, the pharmacist told her he wouldn’t sell her the emergency birth control pill because of a personal objection.

“He said, ‘I don’t feel comfortable, that goes against what I believe,’ ” Anderson told WCCO, “and all of a sudden it clicked.”

Anderson filed a lawsuit Monday in Minnesota’s 9th Judicial District Court alleging that pharmacist George Badeaux told the woman he would not give her the morning-after pill because of his “beliefs,” a practice allowed by state regulations. As part of the lawsuit, Anderson, who is represented by a Minnesota nonprofit called Gender Justice, is suing Badeaux, Thrifty White and an unnamed CVS pharmacist, who also refused to provide the morning-after pill.

Thrifty White, CVS and Badeaux did not immediately return requests for comment.

Anderson and her partner of 10 years are foster parents who also have a biological child together. She said in her lawsuit the couple is not looking to have any more kids, which is why she called her doctor on Jan. 21 as soon as she realized her usual birth control had failed.

After the Thrifty White pharmacist rejected Anderson’s prescription, he told her not to go to a nearby pharmacy because the employees there would also likely refuse her request.

“He did not clarify what his beliefs were or why they interfered with his ability to perform his job as a medical professional,” the lawsuit said. But Anderson said the pharmacy’s owner, Matt Hutera, gave her more information.

Hutera told Anderson that Badeaux had refused to fill prescriptions based on his personal beliefs before, and let her know that the pharmacist was also a pastor at a local church, the lawsuit said.

Anderson did not give up. She drove about 20 miles to a CVS pharmacy in a neighboring town, where another pharmacist declined to fill her prescription. That pharmacist, who is not named in the suit, told Anderson the CVS pharmacy did not have ella in stock and could not get it from a wholesale provider in time for her to take the pill, which must be taken within five days of unprotected sex.

The CVS pharmacist allegedly called a Walgreens pharmacy more than 50 miles away from Anderson’s home, but told the desperate mother that location did not have the pill either.

Anderson decided to ring the Walgreens herself. The pharmacist confirmed that the CVS employee had phoned minutes before, but told Anderson the pharmacy, about an hour away in Brainerd, Minn., would be happy to fill her prescription the following day.

On Jan. 22, Anderson strapped her young son into his car seat and drove to the Walgreens. By then, snowflakes had begun to fall and the temperature dropped to the single digits. The lawsuit describes “white out” conditions as Anderson drove to and from Brainerd, on a treacherous a three-hour round trip.

“I had to take my 2½-year-old out in the snowstorm, wind, blowing snow, freezing temperatures to drive to Brainerd just to get my prescription,” Anderson told WCCO.

Ultimately, she got the pill from a pharmacist at the Walgreens and made it home safely after driving more than 100 miles through a blizzard. She did not get pregnant.

Minnesota regulations allow pharmacists to turn away patients seeking emergency contraceptives because of religious or personal objection, the suit concedes. But the rules, which date back to 1999, require the objecting pharmacist to counsel the patient on other ways to obtain the drugs.

“A pharmacist can decline to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, but they must provide an alternative way for the patient to fill their prescription,” the suit argued, quoting directly from the Minnesota guidelines. “Under the exception it is the ‘responsibility of the pharmacist-in-charge to make arrangements with a nearby pharmacy to fill these prescriptions so that the appropriate information can be communicated immediately to patients.’”

Anderson’s lawsuit alleges that neither pharmacist she spoke with helped her find a way to get the pill she needed, and one told her incorrect information that could have prevented her from finding the medicine.

The lawsuit argues that refusing to provide women access to the morning-after pill is a form of sex discrimination and violates people’s civil rights.

“When pharmacists refuse to fill a prescription due to their personal beliefs, refuse to follow the rules of the Pharmacy Board and have a backup referral … they’re violating those rights,” Gender Justice Executive Director Megan Peterson told the Duluth News Tribune. “They’re putting their personal beliefs ahead of someone’s health care.”

Cody Wiberg, the director of the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, told KSTP he had only seen two other complaints like Anderson’s in 20 years. Thrifty White Pharmacy told the TV station this week that Badeaux no longer works at the drugstore.

Anderson said she believes rural women are particularly at risk to have their medical needs overshadowed by a pharmacist’s personal beliefs because there are so few places to buy medication.

“I can’t help but wonder about other women who may be turned away,” Anderson told the Star-Tribune. “What if they accept the pharmacist’s decision and don’t realize that this behavior is wrong? What if they have no other choice? Not everyone has the means or ability to drive hundreds of miles to get a prescription filled.”

 

[klein_roeschen]

On 12/13/2019 at 6:08 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

"She needed to fill her prescription for the morning-after pill. The pharmacist refused because of his ‘beliefs.’"

  Hide contents

A severe snowstorm was brewing in McGregor, Minn., when Andrea Anderson called her doctor after a condom mishap left her in need of an emergency contraceptive to prevent an unwanted pregnancy last January.

“The next morning, I got up and said, ‘We can’t roll the dice,’” she told KSTP.

Her gynecologist told the 39-year-old mother of five she should take ella, the prescription-only morning-after pill, and sent the prescription to the only pharmacy in McGregor, a very small town about 130 miles north of Minneapolis.

But when Anderson showed up at the Thrifty White Pharmacy to pick up the pill, the pharmacist allegedly told her he would not fill the prescription. The small-town pharmacy wasn’t out of stock or too far from a wholesaler to get the pill for Anderson. Instead, the pharmacist told her he wouldn’t sell her the emergency birth control pill because of a personal objection.

“He said, ‘I don’t feel comfortable, that goes against what I believe,’ ” Anderson told WCCO, “and all of a sudden it clicked.”

Anderson filed a lawsuit Monday in Minnesota’s 9th Judicial District Court alleging that pharmacist George Badeaux told the woman he would not give her the morning-after pill because of his “beliefs,” a practice allowed by state regulations. As part of the lawsuit, Anderson, who is represented by a Minnesota nonprofit called Gender Justice, is suing Badeaux, Thrifty White and an unnamed CVS pharmacist, who also refused to provide the morning-after pill.

Thrifty White, CVS and Badeaux did not immediately return requests for comment.

Anderson and her partner of 10 years are foster parents who also have a biological child together. She said in her lawsuit the couple is not looking to have any more kids, which is why she called her doctor on Jan. 21 as soon as she realized her usual birth control had failed.

After the Thrifty White pharmacist rejected Anderson’s prescription, he told her not to go to a nearby pharmacy because the employees there would also likely refuse her request.

“He did not clarify what his beliefs were or why they interfered with his ability to perform his job as a medical professional,” the lawsuit said. But Anderson said the pharmacy’s owner, Matt Hutera, gave her more information.

Hutera told Anderson that Badeaux had refused to fill prescriptions based on his personal beliefs before, and let her know that the pharmacist was also a pastor at a local church, the lawsuit said.

Anderson did not give up. She drove about 20 miles to a CVS pharmacy in a neighboring town, where another pharmacist declined to fill her prescription. That pharmacist, who is not named in the suit, told Anderson the CVS pharmacy did not have ella in stock and could not get it from a wholesale provider in time for her to take the pill, which must be taken within five days of unprotected sex.

The CVS pharmacist allegedly called a Walgreens pharmacy more than 50 miles away from Anderson’s home, but told the desperate mother that location did not have the pill either.

Anderson decided to ring the Walgreens herself. The pharmacist confirmed that the CVS employee had phoned minutes before, but told Anderson the pharmacy, about an hour away in Brainerd, Minn., would be happy to fill her prescription the following day.

On Jan. 22, Anderson strapped her young son into his car seat and drove to the Walgreens. By then, snowflakes had begun to fall and the temperature dropped to the single digits. The lawsuit describes “white out” conditions as Anderson drove to and from Brainerd, on a treacherous a three-hour round trip.

“I had to take my 2½-year-old out in the snowstorm, wind, blowing snow, freezing temperatures to drive to Brainerd just to get my prescription,” Anderson told WCCO.

Ultimately, she got the pill from a pharmacist at the Walgreens and made it home safely after driving more than 100 miles through a blizzard. She did not get pregnant.

Minnesota regulations allow pharmacists to turn away patients seeking emergency contraceptives because of religious or personal objection, the suit concedes. But the rules, which date back to 1999, require the objecting pharmacist to counsel the patient on other ways to obtain the drugs.

“A pharmacist can decline to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, but they must provide an alternative way for the patient to fill their prescription,” the suit argued, quoting directly from the Minnesota guidelines. “Under the exception it is the ‘responsibility of the pharmacist-in-charge to make arrangements with a nearby pharmacy to fill these prescriptions so that the appropriate information can be communicated immediately to patients.’”

Anderson’s lawsuit alleges that neither pharmacist she spoke with helped her find a way to get the pill she needed, and one told her incorrect information that could have prevented her from finding the medicine.

The lawsuit argues that refusing to provide women access to the morning-after pill is a form of sex discrimination and violates people’s civil rights.

“When pharmacists refuse to fill a prescription due to their personal beliefs, refuse to follow the rules of the Pharmacy Board and have a backup referral … they’re violating those rights,” Gender Justice Executive Director Megan Peterson told the Duluth News Tribune. “They’re putting their personal beliefs ahead of someone’s health care.”

Cody Wiberg, the director of the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy, told KSTP he had only seen two other complaints like Anderson’s in 20 years. Thrifty White Pharmacy told the TV station this week that Badeaux no longer works at the drugstore.

Anderson said she believes rural women are particularly at risk to have their medical needs overshadowed by a pharmacist’s personal beliefs because there are so few places to buy medication.

“I can’t help but wonder about other women who may be turned away,” Anderson told the Star-Tribune. “What if they accept the pharmacist’s decision and don’t realize that this behavior is wrong? What if they have no other choice? Not everyone has the means or ability to drive hundreds of miles to get a prescription filled.”

 

I'm a pharm tech and I'm horrified by this. It isn't my place to judge why someone needs the morning after pill. It's my place to ask question to determine on which point in her cycle the patient is and if she has conditions or takes meds that would harm her if she takes the morning after pill. And my boss would tear me a new one if I refuse to give it to a patient based on my personal beliefs. And on top of that, the pharmacist form the article should educate himself on ulipristilacetate (Ella or Ella one in Germany) moves the ovulation 5 days into the future, so that every sperm in her uterus dies and conception don't happen. If she already ovulated and conception happened it wouldn't prevent the pregnancy.

[candygirl200413]

@klein_roeschen my mom said a similar thing. She's a pharmacist and her co-pharmacist wouldn't fill a prescription for morning after saying because she's catholic. My mom and the boss ripped her a new one in disgust and my mom ended up filling it because she's not a monster! If you can't do your job then you shouldn't work the job.

[RosyDaisy]

I wonder if any of these pharmacists object to filling a prescription for ED drugs for single men?  Something tells me the answer is no.

Edited December 16, 2019 by RosyDaisy

[samurai_sarah]

On 12/16/2019 at 7:31 PM, RosyDaisy said:

I wonder if any of these pharmacists object to filling a prescription for ED drugs for single men?  Something tells me the answer is no.

Is what you mean: Do you think they'll object to filling prescriptions for Viagra?

[Audrey2]

6 hours ago, samurai_sarah said:

Is what you mean: Do you think they'll object to filling prescriptions for Viagra?

And even if they do wear a ring, how do you know that they are planning to use the Viagra with his wife? 

[RosyDaisy]

Yes, I mean I don't think these pharmacists would object at all to filling a Viagra or any other ED drug to single men.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Would they also refuse to sell condoms to men?