The War On Abortion And Women's Rights

[thoughtful]

Look! It's the "duh . . . how was I supposed to know" defense from John Becker. Even if Dr. Grossman hadn't told him, there are these funny little things in his house and office called computers (connected to the Internet) and phones (that can be used to ask questions of actual doctors). 

 

[front hugs > duggs]

"How am I supposed to know" is appalling. If you don't know, you should NOT be legislating on it! Just like men shouldn't be legislating against what a women can/can't do with their body. THEY DON'T KNOW.

[klein_roeschen]

On 12/18/2019 at 8:38 PM, thoughtful said:

Look! It's the "duh . . . how was I supposed to know" defense from John Becker. Even if Dr. Grossman hadn't told him, there are these funny little things in his house and office called computers (connected to the Internet) and phones (that can be used to ask questions of actual doctors). 

 

I maybe have expectations that are to high concerning his political party, but aren't they paying their aides for exactly that thing, doing research for them? Or hearing experts on this topic before they come up with such stupid law? And another question, why in all hell could anyone voting on a candidate who is showing so much stupidy and incompetence in doing their jobs?

[thoughtful]

9 hours ago, front hugs > duggs said:

"How am I supposed to know" is appalling. If you don't know, you should NOT be legislating on it! Just like men shouldn't be legislating against what a women can/can't do with their body. THEY DON'T KNOW.

Even if they do know, they have no right to legislate it. 

We have an amazing, brilliant OB/GYN in our family. He knows everything a man can know about women's bodies, and learns more daily. He knows that women get to choose what they want to do with their bodies - he's just there to help.

I am a woman -- I don't have any right to legislate what other women do with their bodies.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Some lawmakers push ‘abortion reversal’ treatments. A new study shows how dangerous they are."

Spoiler

Several states now require women who seek medication abortions to be provided with dubious information that the procedure could be stopped, allowing a pregnancy to continue.

But when researchers attempted to carry out a legitimate study of whether these so-called “abortion reversal” treatments were effective and safe, they had to stop almost immediately — because some of the women who participated in the study experienced dangerous hemorrhaging that sent them to the hospital.

The halted study illustrated the dangers of antiabortion laws that are pushing women to disinformation and unproven treatments, said Mitchell D. Creinin, an OB/GYN at the University of California at Davis Health who conducted the research this year with his colleagues, Melissa J. Chen, Melody Y. Hou, Laura Dalton and Rachel Steward.

By passing these abortion reversal laws, “states are encouraging women to participate in an unmonitored experiment,” Creinin said.

Creinin and his colleagues detailed their concerns in a commentary in the journal Contraception, and they will publish their study in January’s edition of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Medication abortions, which are used up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy, consist of taking two pills in sequence. The first pill in the regimen, mifepristone, loosens the pregnancy’s attachment to the uterus. The second pill, misoprostol, forces the uterus to contract to push out the pregnancy. The pills must be taken consecutively to complete the abortion, and there’s a chance the pregnancy will continue if the second pill is not taken.

A total of 862,320 abortions were provided in clinical settings in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, about 39 percent of which were medication abortions. Decades of research has shown these drugs are a safe way to end a pregnancy.

Some antiabortion activists and legislators claim that not taking the second pill, or giving a woman high doses of the hormone progesterone after taking mifepristone, can help stop, or “reverse,” a medical abortion.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists firmly states that “claims regarding abortion ‘reversal’ treatment are not based on science and do not meet clinical standards” and say the purported studies that underpin these antiabortion arguments lack scientific rigor and ethics.

Despite this, the claims made in these discredited studies have worked their way to antiabortion lawmakers, who in turn have put them into “abortion reversal” legislation that was signed by governors in North Dakota, Idaho, Utah, South Dakota, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arkansas. The laws are currently blocked or enjoined in Oklahoma and North Dakota.

Because reliable research on these so-called “abortion reversal” treatments are nonexistent, earlier this year, Creinin and his colleagues designed a legitimate double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial that aimed to observe 40 volunteers who had already elected to have a surgical abortion. Their goal was to see if giving progesterone to women who took the first pill in the prescribed regimen would effectively and safely halt an abortion. After the women took the first pill in the abortion protocol, mifepristone, rather than take the second pill, misoprostol, they were either given a placebo or a dosage of progesterone.

Researchers only enrolled 12 women before they had to stop the study.

Bleeding occurs normally during a medication abortion. But three of the women who enrolled in the UC Davis study experienced far more serious bleeding than anyone could have anticipated when the second pill was not administered.

One woman “was so scared she called an ambulance,” while another woman startled by the amount of blood “called 911 and crawled into her bathtub,” Creinin said. A third woman who went to the emergency room needed a transfusion. One of the women had received a placebo, while two others had taken the progesterone.

Creinin and his colleagues immediately halted the study after it became clear that they could not proceed safely.

“I feel really horrible that I couldn’t finish the study. I feel really horrible that the women … had to go through all this,” Creinin said. Because the study ended prematurely, the researchers could not establish any evidence that progesterone was an effective way to stop a medication abortion.

“What the results do show though, is that there’s a very significant safety signal” when it comes to disrupting the approved medication abortion protocol, Creinin said.

In their upcoming paper in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the researchers warn that “patients in early pregnancy who use only mifepristone may be at high risk of significant hemorrhage.”

Medical experts are so concerned about abortion reversal laws that the American Medical Association has joined a lawsuit against North Dakota’s abortion reversal law.

The North Dakota abortion reversal law, signed by Gov. Doug Burgum (R) in March, instructs health-care providers to tell a woman “that it may be possible to reverse the effects of an abortion-inducing drug if she changes her mind, but time is of the essence” and to provide a woman with literature on how to do this. The law fails to specify what that literature would include, or what such a treatment might entail.

AMA President Patrice A. Harris told The Washington Post in July such laws “actually compel physicians and other members of the health-care team to provide patients with false or misleading information that’s not based on evidence, that’s not based on science.”

“We will oppose any law or regulation that restricts our ability to talk to our patients honestly about their health, health care, or treatment alternatives,” Harris said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Sigh. Why aren't they separating out the portion that is ED drug coverage? "Why millions of Americans — including men — will get a separate bill for abortion coverage starting in June"

Spoiler

If you are one of the 3 million Americans who bought health insurance on an Affordable Care Act state exchange, you may be surprised to open up the mail this summer and find two separate monthly bills. Under a new rule finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services in December, insurers are now required to issue a separate invoice for the amount of your premium that they attribute to abortion services. So you’ll get one bill for abortion services and another for the rest of your insurance coverage.

Here’s what you need to know about the new requirements:

What is the background? Why was the change made?

The first thing to know is that federal funding for abortion has been illegal since 1976, when Congress passed a measure now known as the Hyde Amendment after its sponsor, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.). (Subsequent updates included exceptions for pregnancies that are a danger to the life of the woman.)

When President Barack Obama was presenting his plans for the ACA, antiabortion lawmakers protested that it would illegally fund abortion, despite his assurances otherwise, through tax breaks and government subsidies. The ACA already requires insurers to itemize abortion coverage separately, but early on in the rollout of the plans, in 2014, a Government Accountability Office report found that many did not do so.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement that providing separate bills is “an essential step” in remedying that issue. “The separate billing requirement fulfills Congress’ intent and reflects President Trump’s strong commitment to preventing taxpayer funding of abortion coverage,” he said.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other groups that oppose abortion praised the change.

“Consumers have a right to know if they are paying for elective abortion,” said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., a USCCB official. “While the Affordable Care Act still allows government-subsidized plans to cover abortion, at least with this rule, Americans can now see and try to avoid complicity by choosing plans consistent with their consciences.”

What about those who opposed the rule? What are their arguments?

There were many objections to the new rule.

Abortion rights groups argued that it would create stigma around abortion and make it more difficult for women to get insurance coverage for abortion.

Jacqueline Ayers, vice president for government relations for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the rule is an effort to make legal abortion more difficult to access: “This rule won’t just require separate payments, it further splits off abortion from other reproductive health care and puts up massive barriers to access.”

Equity Forward’s Mary Alice Carter accused HHS of again putting “the wishes of the antiabortion lobby ahead of what is best for the health and well-being of people in America.”

Insurers protested that the administrative requirements are burdensome. Medical groups said the rule could lead health insurance companies to drop coverage of abortion and cause people to lose coverage if they get confused and do not pay both bills.

“Many commenters stated that the proposals would threaten the mental and physical health, well-being, and economic security of enrollees, especially women, across the country,” HHS said in the document announcing the rule, summarizing the objections of people who responded when a draft of the rule was open to public comment. “Commenters stated that health insurance should provide coverage for the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion, and that this rule threatens to take such coverage away by imposing burdensome requirements on issuers.”

There is good reason for the concerns about making abortion more difficult to access.

A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis published in December 2018, when a draft rule was published, said it would probably result in some insurers deciding to eliminate abortion coverage. The official rule does not address the possibility of enrollees opting out of paying for abortion services, but HHS does address it in a subsequent guidance-document fact sheet. HHS explains in a section that could be confusing, because of double negatives, that it would not take action against plans that “effectively allow enrollees to opt out of coverage for these services by not paying the separate bill for such services.” And the more people “opt out,” the more financial pressure there will be on insurers that offer abortion services and the more expensive it will get for those who want the coverage.

How much will the bill cost? Will people be paying more?

HHS has said the second bill should be for no less than $1 per enrollee, per month.

The total cost will not change under the new rule — that is, the abortion services coverage charges will not be an add-on but will simply be broken out from the total bill. But there’s a big catch.

The insurance industry has said the changes would create huge burdens for them, including changing their billing software, managing double the payments and dealing with confusion from customers. HHS wrote that the total cost to insurers, exchanges and enrollees would reach $546.1 million in 2020 and then stabilize at $232.1 million in 2021, $230.7 million in 2022 and $229.3 million in 2023 and subsequent years.

Those costs will inevitably get passed on to consumers in some form, whether via an increase in premiums, deductibles or co-pays or changes to coverage and doctor networks.

Where can I get more-detailed information?

The final HHS rule is published in the Federal Register, and HHS has published a fact sheet outlining some steps insurers should take to inform consumers about the legislation.

 

[JMarie]

Saint Rachel is doing a special on abortion providers tonight. And then there's this.  The Green Bay Packers are killing babiez!!!

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/packers-heat-foundation-grant-planned-parenthood

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘When will we start shooting?’: Teen accused of firebombing Planned Parenthood shared far-right memes and fantasized about murder"

Spoiler

It was almost 3 a.m. on Friday when a young Delaware man crossed the street and approached a rectangular building with a bright blue banner pinned to its stucco facade declaring, “Health Care Happens Here,” in bold white lettering.

Then, he allegedly lit a molotov cocktail-like incendiary device and lobbed it at the health clinic’s front window. The glass shattered, and flames licked the building near where the firebomb hit. The Delaware teen reportedly ran to his father’s maroon Toyota Highlander and drove away.

On Monday, federal prosecutors charged 18-year-old Samuel James Gulick with three crimes connected to the Newark, Del., arson and vandalism. He had been arrested by FBI agents on Saturday after federal officers traced the Toyota to Gulick’s family home in Middletown, Del., according to a criminal complaint.

Investigators this week found links to far-right extremism on Gulick’s social media accounts that go beyond antiabortion fervor. An FBI agent investigating the crime said they discovered Gulick’s personal Instagram page, which was flooded with “strong antiabortion ideology,” including several posts comparing the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Roe v. Wade to the genocidal policies enacted by the Nazis in the Holocaust. On Tuesday, an archived version of Gulick’s Instagram account surfaced showing references to other extreme ideologies, posts about guns and veiled threats against abortion providers, according to BuzzFeed News.

In one post that compared Democrats who support access to abortion to Nazis, Gulick suggested murder: “When will we start shooting? Its about time we kill these genocidal demons.”

Before throwing the firebomb at the reproductive health clinic, Gulick allegedly pulled a tube of red spray paint from a plastic bag and scrawled the words, “Deus Vult” in a clumsy, capitalized script. On each side of the Latin phrase for “God wills it,” he crudely drew two religion-linked symbols, a Marian Cross on the left and a Chi Rho on the right.

Gulick’s Instagram bio also included the “Deus Vult” phrase he allegedly painted on the Planned Parenthood clinic. The Latin slogan was a battle cry used during the Crusades that has been linked to far-right activists and white supremacists who co-opted the phrase to hint at their fantasies about a religious war between Christians and Muslims.

That phrase and Crusades-linked imagery appeared at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Those symbols have also been used by supporters of a newer far-right movement growing online and on college campuses known as “America First” or “Groyper Army,” a reference to a meme called “Groyper,” which is associated with the alt-right symbol Pepe the Frog.

Medieval scholars have denounced the use of Crusades-linked imagery by white supremacists, saying the extremists are misrepresenting history to spread propaganda.

“By using imagined medieval symbols, or names drawn from medieval terminology, they create a fantasy of a pure, white Europe that bears no relationship to reality,” members of the Medieval Academy said in a statement after the “Unite the Right” rally. “This fantasy not only hurts people in the present, it also distorts the past.”

The arrest in Delaware comes months after federal officials apprehended another 18-year-old in Ohio for targeting a Planned Parenthood in August. FBI agents seized 15 rifles, 10 semiautomatic pistols and 10,000 rounds of ammunition from Justin Olsen, who had posted similar far-right memes using the screen name “ArmyOfChrist.” His posts included nods to a Christian war against Muslims, “Antifa,” feminists, leftists and others.

Both Gulick and Olsen shared posts threatening or deriding members of the LGBTQ community, women and liberals. They also appeared fascinated with the deadly FBI raids at Waco, Tex., and Ruby Ridge near Naples, Idaho, which have become rallying points for members of the sovereign citizen movement and several militias affiliated with the Patriot movement. Both men also joked in posts about killing federal law enforcement agents.

A Planned Parenthood employee eventually discovered the damage Gulick had left behind hours before. The fire put itself out in under a minute, but left the wall surrounding the window burned and the glass shattered. The red graffiti marred the side of the clinic facing the street.

“The safety of patients and staff is our top priority, and Planned Parenthood of Delaware has strong measures in place to ensure that our health centers are safe, supportive, welcoming environments for all people to get the high-quality health care they need,” Ruth Lytle-Barnaby, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Delaware, said in a statement Tuesday.

The Newark clinic sits on the same corner as a building used by the University of Delaware and just blocks from the college’s main campus. If the fire had caught and spread, it could have ignited a student housing complex, Lytle-Barnaby told BuzzFeed News. She said she has noticed the extremists who harass her Planned Parenthood clinic online have been getting younger, more hateful and increasingly obsessed with eugenics.

Planned Parenthood of Delaware was already familiar with some of the extremist views Gulick repeated on Instagram as early as last March, when a rabbi penned a blog post analyzing the tendency for some zealots to compare abortion to the Holocaust.

The growing vitriol spilled off the computer screen and onto the side of the clinic’s walls when Gulick drove up armed with spray paint and an explosive on Friday.

“It was determined to be an act of domestic terrorism,” Lytle-Barnaby said.

He needs to be locked up and the key thrown away.

[Audrey2]

15 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"‘When will we start shooting?’: Teen accused of firebombing Planned Parenthood shared far-right memes and fantasized about murder"

  Reveal hidden contents

It was almost 3 a.m. on Friday when a young Delaware man crossed the street and approached a rectangular building with a bright blue banner pinned to its stucco facade declaring, “Health Care Happens Here,” in bold white lettering.

Then, he allegedly lit a molotov cocktail-like incendiary device and lobbed it at the health clinic’s front window. The glass shattered, and flames licked the building near where the firebomb hit. The Delaware teen reportedly ran to his father’s maroon Toyota Highlander and drove away.

On Monday, federal prosecutors charged 18-year-old Samuel James Gulick with three crimes connected to the Newark, Del., arson and vandalism. He had been arrested by FBI agents on Saturday after federal officers traced the Toyota to Gulick’s family home in Middletown, Del., according to a criminal complaint.

Investigators this week found links to far-right extremism on Gulick’s social media accounts that go beyond antiabortion fervor. An FBI agent investigating the crime said they discovered Gulick’s personal Instagram page, which was flooded with “strong antiabortion ideology,” including several posts comparing the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Roe v. Wade to the genocidal policies enacted by the Nazis in the Holocaust. On Tuesday, an archived version of Gulick’s Instagram account surfaced showing references to other extreme ideologies, posts about guns and veiled threats against abortion providers, according to BuzzFeed News.

In one post that compared Democrats who support access to abortion to Nazis, Gulick suggested murder: “When will we start shooting? Its about time we kill these genocidal demons.”

Before throwing the firebomb at the reproductive health clinic, Gulick allegedly pulled a tube of red spray paint from a plastic bag and scrawled the words, “Deus Vult” in a clumsy, capitalized script. On each side of the Latin phrase for “God wills it,” he crudely drew two religion-linked symbols, a Marian Cross on the left and a Chi Rho on the right.

Gulick’s Instagram bio also included the “Deus Vult” phrase he allegedly painted on the Planned Parenthood clinic. The Latin slogan was a battle cry used during the Crusades that has been linked to far-right activists and white supremacists who co-opted the phrase to hint at their fantasies about a religious war between Christians and Muslims.

That phrase and Crusades-linked imagery appeared at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Those symbols have also been used by supporters of a newer far-right movement growing online and on college campuses known as “America First” or “Groyper Army,” a reference to a meme called “Groyper,” which is associated with the alt-right symbol Pepe the Frog.

Medieval scholars have denounced the use of Crusades-linked imagery by white supremacists, saying the extremists are misrepresenting history to spread propaganda.

“By using imagined medieval symbols, or names drawn from medieval terminology, they create a fantasy of a pure, white Europe that bears no relationship to reality,” members of the Medieval Academy said in a statement after the “Unite the Right” rally. “This fantasy not only hurts people in the present, it also distorts the past.”

The arrest in Delaware comes months after federal officials apprehended another 18-year-old in Ohio for targeting a Planned Parenthood in August. FBI agents seized 15 rifles, 10 semiautomatic pistols and 10,000 rounds of ammunition from Justin Olsen, who had posted similar far-right memes using the screen name “ArmyOfChrist.” His posts included nods to a Christian war against Muslims, “Antifa,” feminists, leftists and others.

Both Gulick and Olsen shared posts threatening or deriding members of the LGBTQ community, women and liberals. They also appeared fascinated with the deadly FBI raids at Waco, Tex., and Ruby Ridge near Naples, Idaho, which have become rallying points for members of the sovereign citizen movement and several militias affiliated with the Patriot movement. Both men also joked in posts about killing federal law enforcement agents.

A Planned Parenthood employee eventually discovered the damage Gulick had left behind hours before. The fire put itself out in under a minute, but left the wall surrounding the window burned and the glass shattered. The red graffiti marred the side of the clinic facing the street.

“The safety of patients and staff is our top priority, and Planned Parenthood of Delaware has strong measures in place to ensure that our health centers are safe, supportive, welcoming environments for all people to get the high-quality health care they need,” Ruth Lytle-Barnaby, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Delaware, said in a statement Tuesday.

The Newark clinic sits on the same corner as a building used by the University of Delaware and just blocks from the college’s main campus. If the fire had caught and spread, it could have ignited a student housing complex, Lytle-Barnaby told BuzzFeed News. She said she has noticed the extremists who harass her Planned Parenthood clinic online have been getting younger, more hateful and increasingly obsessed with eugenics.

Planned Parenthood of Delaware was already familiar with some of the extremist views Gulick repeated on Instagram as early as last March, when a rabbi penned a blog post analyzing the tendency for some zealots to compare abortion to the Holocaust.

The growing vitriol spilled off the computer screen and onto the side of the clinic’s walls when Gulick drove up armed with spray paint and an explosive on Friday.

“It was determined to be an act of domestic terrorism,” Lytle-Barnaby said.

He needs to be locked up and the key thrown away.

If there is anything almost redeeming about this story, it is that this young man is 18 and will have to "man up" and take adult responsibility for his actions. I'm very glad he wasn't a juvenile and only subject to juvenile sentencing.

[GreyhoundFan]

Some good news in Virginia: "Democrats start effort to loosen abortion laws in Virginia"

Spoiler

Virginia Democrats, having passed the Equal Rights Amendment and slapped down gun rights legislation, are turning their attention to easing restrictions on getting or performing abortions in the commonwealth.

The effort, launched on the 47th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide, is part of the Democrats’ bid to overturn state laws that have frustrated them for decades, now that the party has control of both houses and the governor’s mansion for the first time in 26 years. By one advocacy group’s measure, more than 170 proposals to limit abortion and contraception have been heard in the commonwealth since 2008.

Opposition geared up even before the Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition’s morning announcement about the effort. The Family Foundation, a conservative and faith-based lobby in Richmond, urged its supporters in an email to contact legislators ahead of a Wednesday afternoon committee hearing for two of the bills.

The Democrats, led by House Majority Leader Charniele L. Herring (Alexandria) and Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan (Richmond), want to remove a number of abortion restrictions that they say are medically unnecessary and burdensome.

“We know this is just one step in unraveling decades of anti-woman legislation,” McClellan said. “If there was ever a time to respect woman’s autonomy, that time is now. ”

Advanced practice medical professionals, such as nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives, would be able to perform first-trimester abortions under the bill. No longer would women have to review what abortion rights activists call biased materials, decide whether to listen to the fetus’s heartbeat or view an ultrasound image before the procedure. The requirement for an ultrasound and a 24-hour waiting period before a woman can get an abortion would be eliminated.

Republicans, unable to ban abortion, in 2011 passed targeted regulation of abortion providers laws, which require clinics performing more than a few abortions per month to meet hospital-level standards for their building. The Democrats want to undo those laws.

Another set of bills would require all health insurance plans to cover the costs of services, drugs, devices and procedures related to reproductive health.

The bill “will remove political interference between a woman and her doctor,” said Sen. Jennifer B. Boysko (D-Fairfax), the chief co-sponsor of SB733. “We are going to say goodbye to treating abortion providers differently from other health-care providers … The bottom line here is once a woman decides to have an abortion, it should be safe, it should be affordable, it should be free of punishment or judgment.”

Boysko said she is optimistic that Democrats will be able to pass the bills this year because “women in Virginia are demanding it.” The message of the November elections was clear, she added.

A Quinnipiac University poll in 2018 reported that 24 percent of Virginians said abortion should be legal in all cases, and 40 percent said it should be legal in most cases.

“Due to the new conservative makeup of the Supreme Court, we can no longer rely on the court to protect our own rights and freedoms,” said Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia. “If Roe is overturned, we need to be a safe haven in Virginia, because West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina are preparing to outlaw abortion.”

 

[TuringMachine]

Some good new albeit a couple days late, Governor Cuomo signed the Reproductive Health Act into law Tuesday night.

If you believe trumpers, it allows abortions on healthy babies UP UNTIL THE MOMENT OF BIRTH.

Or if you believe reality, it expands the existing exemption for late term abortion to protect the mother's life to include when it protects her health as well as when the fetus is not viable, it allows abortions to be performed by licenced medical professionals other than physicians, and it removes abortion from the penal code.

 

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2019/01/22/abortion-laws-new-york-how-they-change-immediately/2643065002/
 

[meep]

It was the March for Life yesterday. ?

[candygirl200413]

Someone was sharing about "survivors of abortion" at the March for Life rally like please make it make sense!!

[thoughtful]

5 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

Someone was sharing about "survivors of abortion" at the March for Life rally like please make it make sense!!

But there's a whole movie about it! We even have a thread, and I recapped this great and realistic work of cinema!

 

[candygirl200413]

@thoughtful

WOWWW I just read the whole thread, and that just made me gag and want to bleach my eyes?! From the whole diary entries being read allowed to her breaking into the hospital where she was born and how much HIPAA was violated and that her mom found her diary and dad sent the passage about feeling unwanted? Couldn't that have also just been about adoption and not a "failed" abortion. Also interesting how I can't find any article about her that isn't on a pro life website!

Thank you for taking one for the team and watching it!

[AmericanRose]

So today we have Paula White (the woman who 'personally led Trump to Christ', uh huh) calling for "all Satanic pregnancies to miscarry". Of course, you know, she mispoke. You would think, given... everything, she would be more careful about her wording... though I do feel they would be okay with abortions if it was to foil anyone who was against Trump, which is hypocritical (but what else is new).
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trumps-spiritual-adviser-called-for-all-satanic-pregnancies-to-miscarry-it-was-a-metaphor-she-says/ar-BBZlo0n?li=BBnbcA1

And a Catholic priest taking a group to the 'March for Life' is boycotting Starbucks because they match employee donations, even to Planned Parenthood. I'm okay with someone keeping their anti-choice activism to boycotting coffee shops! Especially if they're not standing outside telling other people why those frappes are of the devil.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/22/some-march-life-antiabortion-views-drive-their-personal-spending-health-care-investments-even-starbucks/

"Activists such as Lundberg say they also are focused on demanding freedom to exercise choice as consumers, as a way to ease their consciences and send a message about their moral preferences to the government, nonprofits and corporate America."

Dude, no one's gonna make you buy something from Starbucks. Just like someone's not going to make me buy something from Chik-fil-A.

[47of74]

16 hours ago, AmericanRose said:

So today we have Paula White (the woman who 'personally led Trump to Christ', uh huh) calling for "all Satanic pregnancies to miscarry". Of course, you know, she mispoke. You would think, given... everything, she would be more careful about her wording... though I do feel they would be okay with abortions if it was to foil anyone who was against Trump, which is hypocritical (but what else is new).
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trumps-spiritual-adviser-called-for-all-satanic-pregnancies-to-miscarry-it-was-a-metaphor-she-says/ar-BBZlo0n?li=BBnbcA1

And a Catholic priest taking a group to the 'March for Life' is boycotting Starbucks because they match employee donations, even to Planned Parenthood. I'm okay with someone keeping their anti-choice activism to boycotting coffee shops! Especially if they're not standing outside telling other people why those frappes are of the devil.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/22/some-march-life-antiabortion-views-drive-their-personal-spending-health-care-investments-even-starbucks/

"Activists such as Lundberg say they also are focused on demanding freedom to exercise choice as consumers, as a way to ease their consciences and send a message about their moral preferences to the government, nonprofits and corporate America."

Dude, no one's gonna make you buy something from Starbucks. Just like someone's not going to make me buy something from Chik-fil-A.

Yeah, taken out of context.  The favorite defense of reich wing scumbags everywhere.

Quote

Paula White, a controversial televangelist who joined the White House in an official capacity last year, is arguing that the content of a sermon she delivered on January 5, which mentioned adversaries of President Donald Trump and soon after advocated for divine forces to cause the miscarriage of babies in "satanic wombs," was taken out of context.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I wasn't quite sure where to post this. Poor little anti-women's choice jerkwad doesn't like the consequences of her pushing a woman to change her choice:

She's probably one of those who are on camera screaming about the precious babyeez. She just doesn't want to care for them.

[Alisamer]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I wasn't quite sure where to post this. Poor little anti-women's choice jerkwad doesn't like the consequences of her pushing a woman to change her choice:

She's probably one of those who are on camera screaming about the precious babyeez. She just doesn't want to care for them.

Good call on the family's part, IMO. If she wanted the kid birthed so much, she should be happy to raise the kid. 

Instead, she convinced (guilted, most likely) a woman into not getting the abortion she needed, leading to someone who didn't want to/wasn't ready to be a mother bringing a child into a family situation that was clearly unsuitable for a child. And then started backpedaling and whining when as a logical conclusion they listed her as a placement for the child. She wanted the kid enough to convince the mother to carry to term, why wouldn't they think she'd want the kid enough to care for it?

She's OK with a baby potentially "destroying" someone else's life, but not her own? She should keep her nose out of other peoples' business, then.

I hope anyone who reads about this who finds themselves in the situation of being pressured not to have an abortion they want to have, reacts as if they assume the person doing the pressuring is offering to take and care for the child. See how fast they start sputtering and backing up once that happens. When a baby becomes THEIR problem, they don't want it. But if they can sit in their comfy life and judge others? Then they know exactly what everyone should do.

[EmmaWoodhouse]

Spoiler

 

Has anyone else been seeing the #notcounseling hashtag on Twitter?  A sample tweet under spoiler due to possible triggering.  These tweets are some of the most hateful, uninformed language directed toward women going into the Louisville, KY Planned Parenthood that I have ever seen.

[GreyhoundFan]

#MoscowMitch hasn't done jack shit legislatively this year. He's sat on hundreds of bills sent over by the House. So, guess what he decides to bring up? Red meat for the anti-woman Repug base: "McConnell, Looking to Energize Social Conservatives, Forces Votes on Abortion"

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell is about to plunge the Senate into the nation’s culture wars with votes on bills to sharply restrict access to late-term abortions and threaten some doctors who perform them with criminal penalties, signaling that Republicans plan to make curbing a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy a central theme of their re-election campaigns this year.

After months of shunning legislative activity in favor of confirming President Trump’s judicial nominees — and a brief detour for the president’s impeachment trial — Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, is expected to bring the bills up for votes on Tuesday. Both lack the necessary 60-vote supermajority to advance, and the Senate has voted previously to reject them.

But by putting them on the floor again, Mr. McConnell hopes to energize the social conservatives who helped elect Mr. Trump and whose enthusiasm will be needed to help Republicans hold on to the Senate this year, while forcing vulnerable Democrats to take uncomfortable votes on bills that frame abortion as infanticide. The rhetoric around the measures is hot; Mr. Trump, for instance, has pointed to one of the bills to falsely assert that Democrats favor “executing babies AFTER birth.”

Mr. McConnell declined to be interviewed, though in past speeches he has said the legislation poses “moral questions” that Democrats must answer. And on Monday, noting that only seven countries allow the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy, he said the late-term abortion ban would “bring our nation’s regard for the unborn off this sad and radical fringe and bring it more in line with the global mainstream.”

A senior aide said Republican senators were eager for the chance to remind voters of their anti-abortion credentials. Republican strategists say doing so is smart politics.

“It shows just how important this issue has become for a lot of people because of the presidential campaign,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who is close to Mr. McConnell. “I think we go through lulls in this country where we are not talking about it anymore, but it’s at the top of mind for a lot of conservatives now.”

Still, bringing up the bills exposes Mr. McConnell, who is also running for re-election this year, to accusations that he is playing politics with the Senate’s time. The leader has long insisted he is not interested in “show votes” on measures that stand no chance of passing, and he has drawn derision from Democrats for presiding over what they call a “legislative graveyard,” refusing to take up hundreds of bills they have passed in the House.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, accused Mr. McConnell of wasting the Senate’s time on “legislation that is purely an attack on women’s health care.” Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate health committee, said votes were a discouraging reminder of Republicans’ priorities.

“The first thing we do is go after women?” Ms. Murray asked in an interview. “I find it really offensive. If Senator McConnell really wants to get things done in the Senate and show people he wants to get things done, we have a long list for him.”

Both bills put a spotlight on late-term abortions, which are exceedingly rare — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last year that abortions after 20 weeks accounted for 1.2 percent of abortions in 2016, the latest period studied. And the bills carry names that abortion rights advocates regard as inflammatory and misleading.

They come amid a national furor over a push by Democrats in states like New York and Virginia to allow third-trimester abortions to protect the health of the mother, moves that prompted Mr. Trump to tweet last year that Democrats were “the Party of late-term abortion.”

The first bill, the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” bans nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with limited exceptions; for instance, rape victims would be required to undergo counseling first. Proponents, citing their own review of scientific literature, say fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks, but medical experts who favor abortion rights say there is no evidence of that.

The second, the “Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act,” requires doctors to use all means available to save the life of a child born after an abortion, an event that is exceedingly rare and typically occurs when a baby is not viable outside the womb and doctors induce labor as a means of terminating a pregnancy. The bill would subject physicians to fines and prison time if they failed to comply.

Mr. McConnell has called the measure “a straightforward piece of legislation to protect newborn babies.” But opponents say it is at best unnecessary — doctors already provide medical care to newborns — and at worst a government intrusion that would criminalize doctors helping women make wrenching decisions that should be made on a case-by-case basis.

“These are all deeply connected efforts to put abortion out of reach and they are trying to use other language,” said Fatima Goss Graves, the president of the National Women’s Law Center, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to the “born alive” bill.

The action on Capitol Hill comes amid a new wave of enthusiasm among opponents of abortion in Washington and around the country, in large part because of the election of Mr. Trump. When he ran in 2016, Mr. Trump promised to sign the 20-week abortion bill into law and to appoint Supreme Court justices who would oppose Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established a woman’s right to an abortion.

States have since passed a wave of bills restricting access to abortions. A federal judge last week blocked a Mississippi bill banning abortion after six weeks. And last month, more than 200 Republican members of Congress — including 39 senators — asked the Supreme Court Court to consider overturning Roe, in a brief urging the justices to uphold a Louisiana law that severely restricts access to the abortion.

Mr. Trump has taken to calling himself “the most pro-life president in American history,” and Mr. McConnell has endeared himself to abortion opponents. Last year, the Susan B. Anthony List, which works to elect candidates that oppose abortion, honored Mr. McConnell at its annual gala with its “distinguished leader” award.

“These votes put pro-abortion Democrats on the defense and serve as a witness to educate the American people about where their elected officials stand,” said Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for the group. “We have to have these votes over and over again in order to lead to a change in policy. It’s not a show — its part of the strategy to get the policy.”

Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans, about six in 10, want abortion to remain legal in all or most cases, and there is broad opposition to completely overturning Roe, according to studies conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

But the partisan divide over abortion is deepening, and surveys have shown that support for late-term abortion is not as robust. In a 2018 Gallup poll, 75 percent of respondents supported abortion in the third trimester if the mother’s life was in danger, but just 20 percent supported one at that stage if the woman simply did not want the child.

The abortion votes could be the beginning of a small burst of legislative debate in a Senate that has so far avoided action on some of the biggest issues facing the United States: the high cost of health care, immigration and repairing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The Senate may also take up health care bills — in particular a measure that would curb surprise medical billing — before the summer, when lawmakers go home to campaign. And lawmakers hope to debate legislation to revise the government’s foreign intelligence surveillance powers.

For Mr. McConnell, the abortion votes are a way to drive a wedge between Democrats without inflicting political harm on Republicans who are facing tough re-election races.

The politics around abortion are complicated for centrists in both parties. Senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, both Democrats, voted in favor of the 20-week ban in 2018 when it came up for a vote in the Senate. Two Republicans — Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — voted against it. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, a Democrat who is facing a tough re-election race this year, joined Mr. Casey, Mr. Manchin and all Senate Republicans last year in voting to advance the born-alive bill.

The issue motivates activists at both ends of the ideological spectrum. After the Senate rejected a version of the born-alive bill last year, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat running for re-election in New Hampshire, faced a barrage of conservative attack ads over her opposition to the measure.

Liberals, who have sometimes been perceived as complacent about abortion rights, are beginning to fear that the restrictive laws they see being enacted in more conservative states like Louisiana and Mississippi could come to more liberal states as well, said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster.

“There was a time where we would explore the bans in places like Michigan and California and people would say, ‘That’s not going to happen here,’” Ms. Lake said. “Now people think that under this administration, under this president, it could come to their state.”

 

[JMarie]

On 2/4/2020 at 4:58 PM, Alisamer said:

Good call on the family's part, IMO. If she wanted the kid birthed so much, she should be happy to raise the kid. 

Instead, she convinced (guilted, most likely) a woman into not getting the abortion she needed, leading to someone who didn't want to/wasn't ready to be a mother bringing a child into a family situation that was clearly unsuitable for a child. And then started backpedaling and whining when as a logical conclusion they listed her as a placement for the child. She wanted the kid enough to convince the mother to carry to term, why wouldn't they think she'd want the kid enough to care for it?

She's OK with a baby potentially "destroying" someone else's life, but not her own? She should keep her nose out of other peoples' business, then.

I hope anyone who reads about this who finds themselves in the situation of being pressured not to have an abortion they want to have, reacts as if they assume the person doing the pressuring is offering to take and care for the child. See how fast they start sputtering and backing up once that happens. When a baby becomes THEIR problem, they don't want it. But if they can sit in their comfy life and judge others? Then they know exactly what everyone should do

I don't get it. On her twitter, she calls herself a mom and step mom. So what's another blessing for her household? But she has zero following, so her "message" is pretty much lost.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More from Utah:

 

[47of74]

Quote

The number of women having abortions in Iowa climbed last year, a turnaround that critics blame on the state’s controversial decision to withdraw from a federally funded family planning program.

After decades of plummeting abortion numbers, the state last year recorded 3,566 abortions.

That is 8% more than the previous year.

Nice job fixing it Kimmy