The War On Abortion And Women's Rights

[closetcagebaby]

I’m a planned parenthood clinic escort and I had a shift this morning that really got to me. One anti woman called me a demon and tried to basically exorcise me. I’m usually not too fried after my shift but this was...something else. Not exactly sure why I’m posting this here but feeling compelled to share. 

[Botkinetti]

Thank you for being an planned parenthood escort. I believe you are brave and kind and I’m sorry you are subject to abuse.

Edited May 31, 2019 by Botkinetti

[GreyhoundFan]

Lauren Rankin's thread is a good read:

 

[Briefly]

On 5/29/2019 at 9:20 AM, countressrascal said:

Since she could not miscarry on her own, she was having some medical issue (can't remember what they were) so they gave her a choice of either having a D&C or take the abortion pill and have a miscarriage at home. She chose the pill, at least she had a choice. Either way technically she had an abortion and it would have been medically coded as a termination of a pregnancy i.e. abortion. So every time they come out an protest against abortion, they should look at themselves in the medical world she had one, however it was their choice. Why don't they let other's have the same.

This is about as hypocritical as it can possibly get.  Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I have heard that part of the latest ban is that this sort of thing is not allowed and also that a woman and/or doctor will have to prove that it was a real miscarriage and not just saying so to be able to perform an abortion.  I have not read all of the bill, only pieces of it, so I don't know if that is true or not.  But I would not be surprised if it was.

[47of74]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Lauren Rankin's thread is a good read:

 

Yeah I just realized that too that today is the 10th anniversary of that anti choice terrorist act.

 

Fuck Scott Roeder and fuck the entire reich to life movement.  Fuck Dildo O'Reilly for getting Dr. Tiller killed.  Fuck him 394329090 times.

 

[JMarie]

On 5/31/2019 at 10:09 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

Lauren Rankin's thread is a good read:

 

And what is Bill O'Reilly doing these days? Anyone?

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is utterly horrible.

 

[Ali]

20 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This is utterly horrible.

 

Is this even a Planned Parenthood location that does abortions? Not all of the locations do. I went to Planned Parenthood to get birth control because I did not have health insurance and I could afford to get it through them.  This idiot is likely harassing women that are not getting abortions.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Ali

[smittykins]

It probably doesn’t matter to him.  For many of those people, it’s just a hop, skip and jump from BC to abortion.  Slippery slope and all that.

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

The exchange copied in this tweet is hilarious, but also very on point. Click on the pic to embiggen. 

 

[RosyDaisy]

It looks like one of the University of Alabama's top doners is not happy about the abortion ban. He wants his money back and his name removed from the law school.

https://www.al.com/news/2019/05/hugh-culverhouse-calls-for-boycott-of-university-of-alabama-and-state-over-abortion-ban.html

[GreyhoundFan]

"As states try to restrict abortion, access is expanding in some parts of the South"

Spoiler

CHARLOTTE — For nearly three years, Jill Dinwiddie worked quietly. She talked to potential donors about how desperately Planned Parenthood needed a new health center, one large enough to add abortion to the clinic’s services for the first time in three decades. She needed to raise $10 million, find a building in the city’s competitive real estate market and renovate it — all without media outlets or protesters finding out.

Dinwiddie and her co-chairs of the capital campaign committee, Crandall Bowles and Linda Hudson, conducted an under-the-radar search for a real estate agent, purchased a building with a limited-liability company set up to mask the buyer and built a password-protected donation website. When word began to leak to the public about a month ago, the committee already had raised $8.5 million — and a nearly complete health center, more than double the size of the previous facility, stood at 700 S. Torrence St. A ribbon-cutting took place Tuesday, with the operational clinic to open in July.

Even as abortion laws are being rewritten across the country — with several states passing “heartbeat” laws prohibiting abortion after six weeks, Alabama enacting a near-total ban on the procedure, Missouri’s only clinic in jeopardy and Texas seeking to ban cities from partnering with Planned Parenthood — access to abortion is also expanding across parts of the South.

Charlotte is the third Planned Parenthood South Atlantic clinic to add abortion services in the past four years, following Charleston, S.C., last year and Asheville, N.C., in 2015. Ten of the 14 centers in the region will now provide abortion.

The new Charlotte clinic will open as North Carolina’s legislature considers adding further restrictions on the procedure and states gear up for what seems destined to be a challenge to Roe v. Wade.

“We’ve seen this coming for years,” Planned Parenthood South Atlantic chief executive Jenny Black said of newly enacted restrictions. “And we really wanted to put our stake in the ground in Charlotte, and say that access to these services is very important to us and we are going to do what it takes to bring it to fruition for Charlotte.”

Abortion has not been provided at Charlotte’s Planned Parenthood facility since sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, when the center moved to its current rented offices off Albemarle Road, about five miles from the city’s center. Three other clinics in Charlotte currently perform abortions, and Mecklenburg County, where the city is seated, is the site of about 36 percent of North Carolina’s total abortions, by far the most in the state. About 39 percent of abortions performed in the county are to out-of-state residents, according to 2017 data from the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics.

Given those numbers and Planned Parenthood’s cramped, hard-to-find Charlotte office, Black and her team began gathering data and forming a plan for a new facility soon after she assumed her position in 2015. By 2016, Dinwiddie, Bowles and Hudson were working with a committee of supporters to target donors.

After securing their first major gift — $2 million from the Gambrell Foundation — the search was on for a new building location, one that would be near the city, close to hospitals and major freeways, and accessible by public transit. Planned Parenthood called three or four real estate agents before hearing back from one.

“They don’t always return your call when you’re Planned Parenthood,” said Marcie Shealy, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic’s director of philanthropy. “You learn. I’m thinking, ‘Well, they want business.’ Well, they don’t necessarily want our business because people see it as political — although it is not political.”

By mid-2017, they had found a building on South Torrence Street, former doctors’ offices already zoned for medical use, situated midway between Charlotte’s two largest hospitals. Under the name Secure Source LLC, Planned Parenthood bought it for $2.35 million, according to city records.

The organization had learned from recent renovations of its Charleston and Columbia, S.C., facilities how construction could be delayed by too much publicity. After the recession put plans for renovations in Asheville on hold, a fundraising campaign resumed in 2012, only to face delays as protesters disrupted construction. The facility opened in 2015, eight years after the project first was proposed.

In Charlotte, abortion provider A Preferred Women’s Health Center, in particular, has long been the target of numerous and vocal antiabortion protesters. The city council is set to vote this month on a noise ordinance that, among other things, prohibits amplified sound near medical facilities, which protesters have said is aimed at quieting them.

“We really recognized early on that the community of Charlotte is home to some of the most virulent antiabortion activists in the country, and the potential for the project to be slowed down was high,” Black said. “And that we needed to do everything we could to deliver on our promise to the community in a timely fashion. So we did feel like we needed to run the project as quietly as possible — and boy, these ladies delivered.”

Larken Egleston, the city council member whose district encompasses the Cherry neighborhood where the new clinic is located, said the council did not learn of the new health center until recently because new building zoning was not required. Since then, he has heard from those in favor and those against the clinic, and said the city council will keep an eye on protests and traffic near the facility after it officially opens. There have been a few small gatherings of protesters since news of the clinic became public.

But in general, Egleston said, the facility, which includes a call center that will employ about 15 new workers, is welcome.

“I think it’s a positive anytime we can add safe, reliable medical care that people can access,” Egleston said. “I think giving them access to a broad array of medical services in a facility — one of which happens to be controversial but the other hundred of which aren’t — is a good thing for that community and a good thing for the city.” (Abortion accounted for 3.4 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services in 2017, according to its most recent annual report.)

North Carolina’s attempts to restrict abortion have been mixed recently. On May 24, a federal judge struck down a 2015 state law that restricted abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The state legislature is now attempting to override a veto by Gov. Roy Cooper (D) of Senate Bill 359, which would punish physicians and nurses who don’t provide care to newborns who survive an abortion. Republicans don’t have a large enough majority in the House to override the veto without some Democratic support.

“This has suddenly gotten to be an even much larger movement than it has always been,” said Bowles, one of the Charlotte capital campaign co-chairs. “I think, actually, it could have been a lot worse for us doing this, in terms of getting attention and getting protests and that sort of thing.”

Added Dinwiddie: “Our timing was right.”

 

[front hugs > duggs]

On 6/3/2019 at 1:32 PM, smittykins said:

It probably doesn’t matter to him.  For many of those people, it’s just a hop, skip and jump from BC to abortion.  Slippery slope and all that.

My (lesbian) friend, happily married to another woman, had to go to a Planned Parenthood to pick up birth control. Because even birth control isn't always used solely for preventing pregnancy. Can't believe how much harassment happens outside of these centers.

[Cartmann99]

On 6/3/2019 at 11:22 AM, Ali said:

Is this even a Planned Parenthood location that does abortions? Not all of the locations do. I went to Planned Parenthood to get birth control because I did not have health insurance and I could afford to get it through them.  This idiot is likely harassing women that are not getting abortions.

 

On 6/3/2019 at 12:32 PM, smittykins said:

It probably doesn’t matter to him.  For many of those people, it’s just a hop, skip and jump from BC to abortion.  Slippery slope and all that.

Our PP office did not perform abortions, and the nutters commenting on the local news article about its closure were firmly on the "Don't have sex if you don't want to have children"  bandwagon.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is sickening:

Related:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I've already called my congressman, who is supporting the act.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

From the WaPo: "I gave the University of Alabama $26.5 million. They gave it back when I spoke out about abortion."

Spoiler

Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr. is an alternative and real estate investor and lawyer who resides in Miami.

I am proud to have been born and raised in Alabama. My family’s roots run deep in the state and, for decades, we have been honored to celebrate that heritage by supporting the University of Alabama. It’s where my father learned to practice law, which gave him the tools to succeed in America along with a strong understanding of right and wrong. Over the past 30 years, we have chosen to repay that debt and make use of our good fortune by supporting the university financially. I’ve long believed that the school served the public good by training the next generation of leaders and, last year, I made the decision to donate $26.5 million so that those leaders could flourish just as my family has.

My love for Alabama is exactly why I was so horrified to watch its lawmakers trample over the Constitution last month. The ban on abortion they passed wasn’t just an attack against women, it was an affront to the rule of law itself. Part of being an American is engaging in public debate, and we can disagree over this issue. But the courts settled this matter a long time ago: Abortion is legal. So it was shocking to see legislators ignore this and pass a bill that turned women and health professionals into criminals, and it felt important to say so publicly.

I expected that speaking out would have consequences, but I never could have imagined the response from the University of Alabama, which on Friday said it would be returning my gift and removing my name from the law school. This decision will hurt future students. Less money will be available for scholarships, and there will be fewer resources for the school to use to educate young minds and help them grow.

It has been painful to witness administrators at the university choose zealotry over the well-being of its own students, but it’s another example of the damage this attack on abortion rights will do to Alabama. The bill will not survive a court challenge, and likely will cost the state a great deal in court fees and other expenses that could be used to help its citizens. But for those who support it, that collateral damage doesn’t even merit a passing thought. Total victory must be achieved, even if it means running roughshod over people’s rights and harming students.

This isn’t just about politics. I am an independent — not a Democrat or a Republican. But taking away a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body isn’t about politics, either; it’s an act of oppression. This is a moment for people of conscience to take a stand and be prepared to speak out against the actions of lawmakers in states such as Alabama who want to roll back the clock to an era when women needed to risk their lives to get an abortion. That’s why I have chosen to support the American Civil Liberties Union in its challenge of this unconscionable act. And I urge others to do so, too.

Until the action by the Board of Trustees to remove my name from the law school and to return my donation, I have been the largest donor in the history of the university, and my father’s name still adorns the College of Business. Like me, he would have been saddened to see the self-destructive turn taken by lawmakers in the state he loved. During the 1950s, he was an officer with Planned Parenthood in Miami, and I am certain that he also would have spoken out against what has transpired in the Alabama legislature. Friday’s decision is a charade, as the governor of Alabama, who signed the abortion bill into law, is a voting trustee of the university.

At the end of the day, the people who will be most harmed by the university’s decision are those who need help the most. Fewer students will have scholarships that could provide resources for them to unlock their potential, and administrators have sent a message to young women that their agency is not respected or valued. And for what, to send a message that the school doesn’t respect the very law it purports to teach?

My family remains committed to supporting students in reaching their true potential, and we are currently examining other alternatives to help fulfill this goal.

There will be no winners in the wake of the decision Alabama has made to attack the constitutional rights of women. The state will become more divided and isolated, and it will be people such as the future students of the University of Alabama law school who will suffer the consequences. Whether my name is taken down is unimportant, but I hope university administrators will contemplate all the names that will never appear on their admissions rolls, as well.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"We are prosecutors. We will use our discretion on new antiabortion laws."

Spoiler

Satana Deberry is the district attorney of Durham County, N.C. Stephanie Morales is the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Portsmouth, Va. Miriam Aroni Krinsky is a former federal prosecutor and executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution.

We are women, mothers of daughters and criminal-justice leaders who collectively have spent nearly 25 years as prosecutors. From each of these perspectives, we have seen friends, loved ones and victims struggle with the impact of trauma, and we are well aware of the vitally important role that elected prosecutors play in protecting the health and safety of all members of our communities. Today, this shared experience brings us together with deep concerns stemming from recent laws which seek to criminalize personal decisions around abortion, and thereby create untenable health-care choices for women, crime victims and medical professionals.

At least nine states have recently enacted abortion laws that will adversely impact the health of anyone facing an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy. And several more states are considering these laws, despite the clear legal pronouncement 46 years ago that women have a fundamental right to privacy that protects their right to make health-care decisions — including whether to end a pregnancy.

In the face of laws that are not only unconstitutional but also endanger members of their community and may re-traumatize victims of crime, elected prosecutors have two options: They can courageously lead and make clear that they refuse to use their discretion to criminalize women and health-care providers, or they can sit back in silence and acquiesce in the erosion of fundamental rights of members of their community. We choose the former.

Whatever their personal views on abortion may be, prosecutors can readily understand that these recent laws are irresponsibly crafted. Many lack provisions to indicate who will be held criminally responsible, creating an atmosphere of unnecessary fear and confusion for those seeking vital medical care. For example, Georgia’s law, HB 481, opens the door to criminalizing anyone involved in performing or assisting with an abortion, those seeking an abortion and anyone involved in helping — from medical professionals to a person driving someone to the health center — and fails to explicitly prohibit criminalizing the women who make these medical choices.

These laws also fail to account for the needs and trauma of victims of rape, incest, human trafficking, domestic violence or child molestation. For example, Alabama, Missouri and Ohio explicitly do not have exceptions for victims of rape and incest, meaning those who become pregnant by these means will be forced to carry the fetus of their abuser. And Georgia’s law would allow for access to an abortion only if the victim of rape or incest first reports the crime to authorities — ignoring the reticence of victims and the re-traumatization that is often inherent in reporting.

Concerns such as these have led more than 40 elected prosecutors from across the country to add their names to a statement urging prosecutors to use their discretion and decline to criminalize health-care decisions that have been protected under settled Supreme Court law for nearly 50 years. As the statement notes, “prosecutors must be perceived by their communities as trustworthy, legitimate and fair — values that would be undermined by the enforcement of laws which harm and impose untenable choices on many in the community.”

Some may argue it is a prosecutor’s obligation to prosecute all laws and that only legislators are charged with making these “policy” decisions. We don’t see the role of prosecutors elected by their communities through this narrow lens. With thousands of laws on the books, elected prosecutors use their discretion every day in deciding how to wisely and justly allocate resources to promote enforcement of laws that will have the greatest effect on advancing public safety. To do so, they necessarily decline to prosecute certain laws — such as those that criminalize substance-use disorder or adultery — which do not serve the interests of justice.

In years past, our country has had a host of questionable laws on the books — including provisions prohibiting interracial marriage and homosexuality. Elected prosecutors may not in the past have been willing to stand tall and serve as the conscience of the community in refusing to use their discretion to criminalize these acts. But today, we are proud to refuse to remain silent in the face of troubling legislative decisions that harm members of our community and erode trust in our system of justice.

There are many ways prosecutors can use the rule of law to make communities safer and healthier — but trampling upon decades-old legal precedent to put women and doctors in jail for seeking or performing a legal medical procedure is simply not one of them. Prosecutors must use their voices and, more importantly, their discretion to ensure these laws do not infringe upon the fundamental rights of members of their communities.

While I agree, we can't rely on the hope that a prosecutor will not choose to charge people under the new Taliban-like laws. We need laws that treat all women and men fairly.

[GreyhoundFan]

A sobering compilation from the WaPo: "When abortion was illegal: A 1966 Post series revealed how women got them anyway"

Spoiler

In January 1966, The Washington Post ran a four-part series on how women in the Washington area obtained abortions. At the time, abortion was illegal with few exceptions in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. Now, nearly a half-century after Roe v. Wade, new abortion restrictions are being imposed in Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Utah and other states. Below is an abridged version of The Post’s four-part series, edited to highlight personal experiences. The original headlines of the series are now subheads for each section.

Abortions: Agony, Risk of Death

In the early twilight of mid-December, a car stopped briefly at 14th and K Streets NW. A young woman clambered in. At two other downtown intersections, two more women joined the group.

As the car sped out of the city, the driver ordered the three women to cover their eyes with scarves. Less than an hour later, they reached their destination — a house in the isolated Virginia countryside.

That night, three more of what is estimated to be one million abortions of that year were performed.

Police have no idea how many abortions are done annually in the Washington area, since most are unreported.

Humiliation, agony, and the risk of sterility or death do not deter American women from ending an average of one out of every five pregnancies by abortion.

Dr. John Skilling, chief obstetrical resident at Washington Hospital Center, says that a Washington woman with $600 [$4,700 in 2019] can often get a safe, competently performed abortion in a local hospital.

“You need $50 each for two psychiatrists,” he explains. “They write up consultation sheets saying you have threatened to commit suicide because you are pregnant, and then you find a gynecologist who will do a TA (therapeutic abortion) for depression.”

The total $600 cost that includes surgical fees and hospitalization is higher than the price of a criminal abortion ($250-$500), but the near-certainty of a safe operation is worth it, Dr. Skilling says.

“Therapeutic abortion may occasionally be necessary in cases of heart disease, diabetes and psychosis,” Dr. Skilling says, “but when I go into practice I’ll only do TAs for women who have been in psychiatric consultation for a long time—not for a woman who has only seen a psychiatrist once."

A means that some otherwise legitimate doctors use is to take blood from a woman‘s arm and squirt it into her vagina. When the blood seeps out, the physician admits the woman to a hospital for care, ostensibly on the basis that she is miscarrying. Then he does a D and C [dilation and curettage] for her “incomplete abortion.”

Assembly Line Abortion Rings Called Big Business in Area

“Everyone knows, but you never see a word written about it,” said the Bethesda woman.

Floating abortion rings are big-time business right now in well-heeled Washington suburbs, she adds.

A doctor, nurse and perhaps a dozen employees may rent a luxuriously furnished suburban home for several months, she says. They operate, assembly line fashion, on women referred by a sympathetic local physician — and then move to another state before police get wise.

“Those rings take every medical precaution,” the Bethesda matron claims, “because if the woman isn‘t all right afterwards they’re in trouble.”

One of the best known area physician-abortionists was Dr. G. Lottrell Timanus of Baltimore who says he performed 5,210 operations during more than 20 years of practice with only two deaths.

Closer to home was last year’s conviction of Marcella Brown as an abortionist.

“Some of those girls looked like they‘d go crazy if they didn’t get an abortion,” recalls Edna Q. Crump, 62, Marcella Brown’s mother, who was convicted as an abortionist’s accomplice.

Mrs. Crump and Marcella, 44, were arrested on the complaint of a 25-year-old Takoma Park woman who became ill after the operation.

Edna Crump served six weeks of probation in lieu of a three-month jail sentence, and her daughter is in District Jail serving an eight-month to two-year term.

Seated in her comfortably furnished living room on Shepherd St. NW, Mrs. Crump described the workings of her daughter’s abortion business — a sideline to the legitimate family enterprise — the Marcella Brown Hand Laundry at 3549 Georgia Ave. NW, which is still in business.

“The girls came to see Marcella,” Mrs. Crump recalled, “she didn’t go to them. Some people called long distance, and some connected with the law had abortions themselves.”

“Marcella had all the sanitary medical instruments and everything like that,” Mrs. Crump said, recalling that her daughter studied medicine at Howard University but never completed the course.

“Marcella operated in another place — not here in the house,” her mother continued, “and she didn’t put them to sleep — because we like to know what‘s happening to you.”

The girls were brought to the Shepherd Street home after the operations, and Mrs. Crump cared for them for 24 hours or until they were ready to leave.

One of the Washington area’s most notorious abortion mills was operated by Dr. George Thomas Strother in the early 1950s.

Dr. Strother, his third wife, and five accomplices were arrested in 1954 in the lonely farm house near Paris, Va., about 50 miles from Washington, where they had just operated on several women. Drugs and surgical instruments were confiscated from an air-conditioned operating room, and $2400 was found between the mattresses in a luxurious bedroom.

The Strother mill netted about $600,000 a year, police estimated. Girls who stood on pre-arranged Washington street corners were picked up by Strother’s three-man taxi service, it was discovered. Patients were obtained through “contact men” in government agencies.

Convicted in 1955, Strother was paroled after serving one year of a 15-year sentence. Police say he now is retired and lives in Southern Virginia.

Lack of Regret Over Abortions Is Widespread

“I’ve always wondered why more women don’t think of doing what I did,” says a happily married Washington mother of five who thinks she tricked a young doctor into performing her abortion at Georgetown Hospital.

“My husband had been sick for several months,” says this upper middle class woman, “and one of my little girls had rheumatic fever. When our family doctor told me I was pregnant, I decided I just couldn’t have the baby.”

“The doctor examined me very roughly internally,” she says. “He knew how I felt, and I think he was hoping something would happen. But once you’re implanted, you’re implanted, and it didn’t do any good.”

“I felt he would have given me the name of an abortionist if I had asked,” she recalls, “but of course he had to be very careful.”

“I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to risk my life,” she says, “and I began to think about making a quick trip to one of the Scandinavian countries.”

“Then,” she says, “just on a chance I talked to a young doctor at the clinic where I take the children. I told him I had been spotting (bleeding between menstrual periods) and right away he told me I ought to have a dilation and curettage.”

“Two days later I was in Georgetown Hospital,” she recalls, “and the last thing I remember as I was going under the anesthetic was wondering whether I’d wake up with a policeman beside my bed.”

“Instead the doctor came to me afterwards and apologized,” she says. “He told me that he had discovered after the operation that I was pregnant, but that the fetus was dead.”

“I don’t think it was dead,” she says. “He just told me that so as not to upset me — and I don’t think he ever knew I’d tricked him.”

“I’ve never had any regrets,” she concludes, “just a great feeling of relief. It’s all we can do to support the children we have — right now I’m wondering if we can afford braces for our youngest girl.”

Few of the estimated million American women each year who get abortions get theirs the way this woman did, but her lack of regret is widespread.

A recent study of 500 post-abortion cases in Sweden showed that only 11 percent felt “serious self-reproach” and only 14 percent felt “mild self-reproach.”

For a few women, however, abortion leaves lasting regrets. One girl, a 23-year-old magazine researcher, became pregnant by a business associate who refused to marry her.

She took two weeks vacation, borrowed the flight fare and visited a college classmate in Japan, where abortion is legal. Her physical recovery from the operation was quick, but the destruction of the child of the man she loved deeply still haunts her.

Many Women Pay Death Penalty After Abortions

The most common abortion tool in Washington is a rubber catheter attached to a straightened wire coat hanger, according to Dr. John Skilling, chief obstetrical resident at Washington Hospital Center, “I had a 26-year-old girl here recently who did it that way herself lying on a bed with a mirror,” he says. “She didn’t have $300 for an abortionist and couldn‘t afford to lose her job as a keypunch operator.”

“There was so much pain — I can‘t explain it really,” another woman told a grand jury after an illegal operation was performed on her without anesthetic. “It was just like my whole stomach was coming out,” she testified.

“When a girl comes to our emergency room she’s bleeding massively,” Skilling says, “She has a high fever — and often an infection in the blood stream or abdominal cavity or a bowel obstruction.”

One of Dr. Skilling’s recent patients had injected a soapy solution with a catheter and swallowed 30 tablets that she thought would make her womb contract. The price of aborting her four-month fetus was the loss of her womb — and later the loss of her hearing. The deafness was caused by the powerful drugs necessary to save her life during an 11-week illness that cost $14,000.

Dr. Benny Waxman, chief medical officer in D.C. General’s Department of Obstetrics, says about 10 percent of D.C. General’s obstetrical admissions are suffering from spontaneous or criminal abortions.

One recent patient was a 16-year-old girl who drank lye to abort herself and died. Another woman succumbed to gas gangrene — a toxin that can kill between 24 and 48 hours after a bungled abortion.

On D.C. General‘s grounds is a stark, square brick building which is the city’s morgue. Dr. Richard L. Whelton, the Coroner, says that he has seen only five abortion victims here in the last five years.

One, he said, was the victim of a hospital nurse who brought surgical instruments home to “help out” her neighbor.

The nurse tried to break the membrane surrounding the fetus and draw out the fluids with a catheter, creating an air pocket between the womb and its lining.

The air bubble entered the blood vessels and was carried to the heart, causing a sudden and fatal blockage of blood supply.

With laws as they are, the dreary story of the frightened girl and the incompetent abortionist is doomed to be repeated day after day in the back rooms of every American city.

In 1965, the death list of Washington women included:

• Jeretha Tanner, a mother of three, who died during an abortion attempted by Theodora Cagle, a 45-year-old practical nurse, police said.
• Teresa Lyles, 26, who died of an air embolism after an abortion attempted, police said, by James L. Davis and Shirley J. Rawot.
• A 26-year-old suburban Maryland housewife who died June 1 at George Washington University Hospital from an infected abortion performed, police charged, by Lucille Caroline Jefferson.

Present laws are “puritanical punishment,” says Dr. Allan F. Guttmacher, president of Planned Parenthood. But punitive laws are hard to repeal, and it seems that women — not abortionists — will continue to pay the death penalty.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The article is hard to read, but is a scary warning about what we are headed towards.

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘Women should have autonomy’: A Michigan hotel offers free stays to anyone seeking an abortion"

Spoiler

From Yale, Mich., a conservative meat-processing town with less than 2,000 people in the state’s eastern “thumb,” the nearest abortion providers are roughly an hour drive away. For Shelley O’Brien, the manager of the Yale Hotel, that was close enough to be of help.

“Dear sisters that live in Alabama, Ohio, Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, or any of the other states that follow with similar laws restricting access,” the 55-year-old mother of three wrote on the hotel’s Facebook page in May. “We cannot do anything about the way you are being treated in your home state. But, if you can make it to Michigan, we will support you with several nights lodging, and transportation to and from your appointment.”

After watching multiple state legislatures pass new laws that would make it difficult or nearly impossible to obtain an abortion, O’Brien started thinking about the Underground Railroad that helped enslaved people in the antebellum South make their way north to freedom, she told the Detroit Free Press. If a comparable network could help today’s women access safe and legal abortions, she wanted to be part of it. And as the manager of a hotel, she had something to offer them: A free place to stay.

“Between gas and lodging, you’re looking at probably $300 or $400 that you’re going to put out on top of the cost of abortion,” she told the paper. “And if you’re having an abortion because you have no way to provide for a baby, then how are you going to drum up $1,000 or $1,500 to do it? If I can help at all in that, it satisfies the social worker in me.”

Her offer of support was one of several to make headlines in recent weeks, as Republican lawmakers and abortion rights advocates gear up for bruising court battles. Though none of the restrictive new laws in states such as Alabama, Ohio and Georgia have gone into effect yet, and many are being litigated in court, supporters of legalized abortion are preparing for a nation with more restrictive access to the procedure by offering temporary lodging in more liberal states or volunteering to cover pregnant women’s travel costs.

Last week, Brandon Wade, the founder of CEO and SeekingArrangement, posted a video offering to pay for Alabama women’s abortions, as well as the costs they would incur by traveling out of state. (SeekingArrangement is a dating site where wealthy men can seek out attractive women for what the site describes as “mutually beneficial relationships.”) In the video, Wade explained that his girlfriend and her sister, both Alabama natives, had wept after the state passed the nation’s most stringent abortion ban in May, virtually outlawing the procedure unless a woman’s health is at risk.

Wade had wondered why women in Alabama couldn’t simply travel to another state to get an abortion, he said. His girlfriend explained that many couldn’t afford to. In an interview with The Hill, he said that he plans to use $500,000 to $1 million to set up a new charity, which would then make the funds available to women who are up to three months pregnant. The move was immediately derided by antiabortion group Students for Life of America as a “publicity stunt.”

The restrictive new laws have also inspired a grass roots effort nicknamed the “Auntie Network.” On social media, hundreds of women have posted open invitations for friends, acquaintances, and strangers from other states to come stay with them. Though Auntie Network posts don’t usually use the word “abortion,” the posters make it clear that they will provide cover for anyone who wants to visit their “aunt” in a state where the procedure is legal.

“Some invitations are written hyper-cautiously, as if in anticipation of a backlash,” observed The Washington Post’s Monica Hesse. “Attorneys have raised concerns that the new measures could penalize those who seek abortions across state lines. And so we see some aunties suggest that itineraries could include touristy selfies in front of landmarks. ‘Proof’ that the trip was merely a vacation.”

Critics of the Auntie Network have pointed out that existing restrictions on abortion already require many women to travel out of state for the procedure, and nonprofit abortion funds already exist to provide them with financial and logistical support. In a May editorial for Rewire News, Yamani Hernandez, the executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds, argued that supporting those organizations would be more helpful than trying to duplicate their efforts.

“Abortion funds thoroughly train and vet their volunteers to ensure the people calling for help will get the best assistance available, no matter what it is,” she wrote. “They are already connected to networks across state lines and best poised to facilitate care effectively. For the safety of those who need help and protection, this is a time to build our ranks — not attempt to create new structures. "

In Yale, which is best known for hosting an annual bologna festival, O’Brien’s message to abortion-seekers has been largely uncontroversial. Since May 16, when she first made the offer, her Facebook post has been shared over 3,000 times and received thousands of comments, most of them positive. Though the area is fairly conservative — Donald Trump won the 2016 election with roughly 65 percent of the vote in Yale — no one has showed up at the hotel to protest or confront her in person, she told the Free Press last week.

“I have had one person call to say that he thought it was wrong,” she said. “He didn’t have Facebook, but he heard about it and he wanted to let me know that he thought what we are doing is wrong. And I’ve been called a baby killer. And it’s like, ‘No, I’m not killing babies in the basement. I am just giving someone a place to stay or maybe a ride.’"

In fact, she said, other women have responded and offered to pitch in, volunteering to provide rides to and from Yale. The surge of publicity also brought in an extra $400 in business during the first week that she announced the offer. Though she is trying to renovate the historic hotel on a limited budget, O’Brien told the Free Press that she donated $100 to the Yellowhammer Fund, a nonprofit that helps women get abortions in Alabama. If other customers choose to stay with her because of the new policy, she said, a quarter of the proceeds will be donated to other abortion funds.

In Michigan, the Republican-dominated legislature voted in May to ban a common procedure for performing second-trimester abortions unless a patient’s life is at risk. Doctors who perform the procedure would face felony charges and a sentence of two years in prison. However, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has said that she will veto the bill. A group called Right to Life of Michigan plans to introduce a ballot proposal to circumvent her veto, according to the Free Press.

Historically, only a small percentage of the woman obtaining abortions in Michigan have traveled from out of state to do so, the paper reported, and O’Brien hasn’t had anyone take her up on her offer so far. She’s keeping one room in the three-story hotel open just in case, calling it Jane’s Room in honor of the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade. She’s also extending her offer to women in parts of Michigan that have no abortion clinics, and anyone else who is unable to get an abortion where they live.

“Women should have autonomy over their own bodies,” she told CNN. “If we do not have control over our own bodies, then this is not a free world.”

 

[AmericanRose]

Michigan is my home state. I'm glad someone there has decided to step up (still ashamed they went for Trump). But... I wish it wasn't necessary. In 2019.

I find it insane that we can challenge 46-year-old laws (or any laws, really) repeatedly. What's the point of passing anything, if it can just be revoked? I mean, some are dumb and should be discarded (like the one where women are required to get their husband's permission for a haircut) but this has to do with a woman's autonomy.

[fraurosena]

Missouri women's rights have a slight reprieve. At least until the 21st.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Abortion restrictions hurt business, 180 CEOs say in open letter"

Spoiler

More than 180 CEOs signed an open letter opposing state efforts to restrict reproductive rights, as business leaders weigh how to most effectively exert pressure against abortion bans.

Square chief executive and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey as well as fashion icon Diane von Furstenberg and others wrote that restrictions on abortion access threaten the economic stability of their employees and customers and make it harder to build a diverse workforce and recruit talent.

The letter, which appeared Monday as a full-page ad in the New York Times, marks the business community’s latest foray into a polarizing societal issue. The chief executives of Bloomberg News, Atlantic Records, Yelp and Warby Parker, among others, have aligned themselves with such groups as Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The move also comes nearly four weeks after Alabama signed off on the nation’s most restrictive abortion law. Other states, including Georgia, have adopted or pursued similar legislation.

“As anti-choice politicians are escalating attacks on these fundamental freedoms, we encourage the entire business community to join us in protecting access to reproductive health care in the critical months and years to come,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement.

Georgia’s law, signed last month by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which typically occurs near the six-week mark and before many women even know they are pregnant. Alabama banned virtually all abortions in the state — including for victims of rape and incest. Abortion opponents want the laws to build on a broader state-by-state strategy to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to take a new look at Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Several industries have moved to exert pressure on states that limit access to abortion. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood — including Walt Disney and WarnerMedia — have suggested they might pull their business from Georgia if its new law survives legal challenge. Filmmaking is a $9.5 billion industry in Georgia that created more than 92,000 jobs last year, according to a McKinsey study.

But even among the law’s staunch objectors, there isn’t a clear consensus on how companies should respond. Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost Georgia’s gubernatorial race last year, is urging Hollywood to keep its business in the state, saying a boycott would only strip working-class people of their jobs with no guarantee it would reverse the new law.

Instead, Abrams and other business leaders are launching a “#StayAndFight” campaign encouraging Hollywood powerhouses to put their money behind political groups and the legal fight. Film industry workers are also organizing against any potential boycott and are raising money for a challenge to the law by the ACLU.

Companies that threaten to take their business elsewhere often have the sharpest influence, said Timothy Coombs, a corporate communications expert at Texas A&M University. There may be an initial debate about leaving a country or state altogether, or trying to “change the system from the inside.”

Coombs cited companies that cut ties with Indiana over a 2015 law, signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence, that could have made it easier for religious conservatives to deny service to gay couples. At the time, Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce.com, said he would cancel all company events in the state. Jeremy Stoppelman, the founder of Yelp, said that “it is unconscionable to imagine that Yelp would create, maintain, or expand a significant business presence in any state that encouraged discrimination.”

“To say, ‘Oh, we’re going to stay and engage,' that’s usually pretty hollow,” Coombs said. “To say, ‘Okay, we’re going to boycott,’ companies need to know that most of their stakeholders are going to support that position.”

I hope more companies step up.