The War On Abortion And Women's Rights

[fraurosena]

Yay!

 

[Audrey2]

Don't you know that by Trump's logic, if we stopped doing pregnancy testd then no one would be pregnant who didn't want a baby! We would only figure out a woman was pregnant if she showed up to the hospital in labor. didn't know you were pregnant and delivered a baby at home? Fake news since you wouldn't have been tested in a hospital.

[GreyhoundFan]

Hawley once again competing for biggest asshole in the senate: "Sen. Hawley lays down new antiabortion marker for Supreme Court nominees"

Spoiler

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he would not support any nominee for the Supreme Court unless they had publicly stated before their nomination that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established federal protection for abortion, was “wrongly decided.”

“I will vote only for those Supreme Court nominees who have explicitly acknowledged that Roe v. Wade is wrongly decided,” Hawley said in an interview with The Washington Post. “By explicitly acknowledged, I mean on the record and before they were nominated.”

Hawley added: “I don’t want private assurances from candidates. I don’t want to hear about their personal views, one way or another. I’m not looking for forecasts about how they may vote in the future or predications. I don’t want any of that. I want to see on the record, as part of their record, that they have acknowledged in some forum that Roe v. Wade, as a legal matter, is wrongly decided.”

Hawley’s new marker comes as Republicans are preparing for the possibility that President Trump could name a third member of the court later this year, should there be a vacancy.

And it comes as conservatives nationally are pushing to overhaul the court’s jurisprudence supporting the right of a woman to choose the procedure. But they have recently been disappointed by the court’s rulings on this front — and particularly by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Last month, the Supreme Court struck down a restrictive Louisiana abortion law. It was a dramatic victory for abortion rights activists and a bitter disappointment to conservatives in the first showdown on the issue since Trump’s remake of the court.

As with other recent liberal victories at the court, Roberts was key in the 5-to-4 decision. He joined the court’s liberals rather than his conservative colleagues, including Trump’s appointees, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Although no vacancy is imminent, White House officials and some top Republicans have privately discussed the possibility that Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative appointed by George H.W. Bush, could retire.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked then-President Barack Obama from making an election-year appointment to the Supreme Court in 2016. He denied Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, a confirmation hearing, saying the next president should make the choice.

But McConnell has said he would push through a Trump nominee this year, should an opening occur. The difference from 2016, he maintains, is that now the same political party controls the White House and Senate.

Hawley, 40, a former law professor and clerk for Roberts, said in the interview that he is focusing on abortion ahead of the next Supreme Court nomination because he believes “Roe is central to judicial philosophy. Roe is and was an unbridled act of judicial imperialism. It marks the point the modern Supreme Court said, ‘You know, we don’t have to follow the Constitution. We won’t even pretend to try.’ ”

Hawley’s salvo could upend the dynamics of how Republicans evaluate nominees on the issue of Roe v. Wade — and pressure them to move away from Roberts’s past statements as a guide.

Roberts, during his 2005 confirmation hearing, said Roe v. Wade was “settled as a precedent of the court,” and his position has since been cited as Republicans navigate nomination fights.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), for instance, who supports abortion rights and is up for reelection this year, has said she would oppose a Supreme Court nominee who “demonstrates hostility” to Roe v. Wade. But Collins supported Kavanaugh in 2018 after she said Kavanaugh told her that he agreed with Roberts.

Hawley said conservatives must do more to push Republicans to the right and take a harder line.

“This standard, for me, applies to Supreme Court nominees, whether they’re a sitting judge or whatever,” Hawley said. “If there is no indication in their record that at any time they have acknowledged that Roe was wrong at the time it was decided, then I’m not going to vote for them — and I don’t care who nominates them.”

Hawley said he has spoken to Trump and senior White House officials about his views on the court and a possible vacancy but declined to describe those exchanges. He also declined to name any federal judges who would meet his own criteria but did say there are “many” who would.

“This is not an attempt to push forward a particular person,” Hawley said. “This is about where I’m going to be on Supreme Court nominees.”

Hawley defeated then-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) in 2018 and has not yet voted on a Supreme Court nominee. Since entering the Senate, he has frequently addressed matters of abortion and the court, at times to the chagrin of top Republicans.

In 2019, Hawley and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) privately raised questions about Neomi Rao, Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and how she would potentially rule on cases involving abortion. Rao later met with Hawley, who eventually voted in favor of her nomination.

 

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Hawley once again competing for biggest asshole in the senate: "Sen. Hawley lays down new antiabortion marker for Supreme Court nominees"

  Reveal hidden contents

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he would not support any nominee for the Supreme Court unless they had publicly stated before their nomination that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established federal protection for abortion, was “wrongly decided.”

“I will vote only for those Supreme Court nominees who have explicitly acknowledged that Roe v. Wade is wrongly decided,” Hawley said in an interview with The Washington Post. “By explicitly acknowledged, I mean on the record and before they were nominated.”

Hawley added: “I don’t want private assurances from candidates. I don’t want to hear about their personal views, one way or another. I’m not looking for forecasts about how they may vote in the future or predications. I don’t want any of that. I want to see on the record, as part of their record, that they have acknowledged in some forum that Roe v. Wade, as a legal matter, is wrongly decided.”

Hawley’s new marker comes as Republicans are preparing for the possibility that President Trump could name a third member of the court later this year, should there be a vacancy.

And it comes as conservatives nationally are pushing to overhaul the court’s jurisprudence supporting the right of a woman to choose the procedure. But they have recently been disappointed by the court’s rulings on this front — and particularly by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Last month, the Supreme Court struck down a restrictive Louisiana abortion law. It was a dramatic victory for abortion rights activists and a bitter disappointment to conservatives in the first showdown on the issue since Trump’s remake of the court.

As with other recent liberal victories at the court, Roberts was key in the 5-to-4 decision. He joined the court’s liberals rather than his conservative colleagues, including Trump’s appointees, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Although no vacancy is imminent, White House officials and some top Republicans have privately discussed the possibility that Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative appointed by George H.W. Bush, could retire.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked then-President Barack Obama from making an election-year appointment to the Supreme Court in 2016. He denied Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, a confirmation hearing, saying the next president should make the choice.

But McConnell has said he would push through a Trump nominee this year, should an opening occur. The difference from 2016, he maintains, is that now the same political party controls the White House and Senate.

Hawley, 40, a former law professor and clerk for Roberts, said in the interview that he is focusing on abortion ahead of the next Supreme Court nomination because he believes “Roe is central to judicial philosophy. Roe is and was an unbridled act of judicial imperialism. It marks the point the modern Supreme Court said, ‘You know, we don’t have to follow the Constitution. We won’t even pretend to try.’ ”

Hawley’s salvo could upend the dynamics of how Republicans evaluate nominees on the issue of Roe v. Wade — and pressure them to move away from Roberts’s past statements as a guide.

Roberts, during his 2005 confirmation hearing, said Roe v. Wade was “settled as a precedent of the court,” and his position has since been cited as Republicans navigate nomination fights.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), for instance, who supports abortion rights and is up for reelection this year, has said she would oppose a Supreme Court nominee who “demonstrates hostility” to Roe v. Wade. But Collins supported Kavanaugh in 2018 after she said Kavanaugh told her that he agreed with Roberts.

Hawley said conservatives must do more to push Republicans to the right and take a harder line.

“This standard, for me, applies to Supreme Court nominees, whether they’re a sitting judge or whatever,” Hawley said. “If there is no indication in their record that at any time they have acknowledged that Roe was wrong at the time it was decided, then I’m not going to vote for them — and I don’t care who nominates them.”

Hawley said he has spoken to Trump and senior White House officials about his views on the court and a possible vacancy but declined to describe those exchanges. He also declined to name any federal judges who would meet his own criteria but did say there are “many” who would.

“This is not an attempt to push forward a particular person,” Hawley said. “This is about where I’m going to be on Supreme Court nominees.”

Hawley defeated then-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) in 2018 and has not yet voted on a Supreme Court nominee. Since entering the Senate, he has frequently addressed matters of abortion and the court, at times to the chagrin of top Republicans.

In 2019, Hawley and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) privately raised questions about Neomi Rao, Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and how she would potentially rule on cases involving abortion. Rao later met with Hawley, who eventually voted in favor of her nomination.

 

This is why it's so wrong that the legislative branch gets to appoint the people on the judiciary branch. How could the judiciary ever be impartial?

Let the judiciary appoint their own. They are literally and figuratively the best judges of who is most qualified. Politics should not enter the equation.

 

[WiseGirl]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The handmaid's influence is now in full force. "Supreme Court restores requirements for medication abortions, siding with Trump administration"

Quote

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed with the Trump administration and reinstated requirements that women seeking medication abortions receive the drugs in person at a clinic, setting aside a judge’s ruling that protocol was dangerous during the coronavirus pandemic.

The administration sought to reinstate rules by the Food and Drug Administration that women pick up the abortion pills at a medical facility — rather than receive them by mail or delivery — even though there is no requirement they take the medication in such a setting. Most take the pills that end a pregnancy in its early stages at home.

The court’s three liberals objected to reimposing the requirements, which a lower court had eased during the pandemic in an effort to protect women and health workers.

“This country’s laws have long singled out abortions for more onerous treatment than other medical procedures that carry similar or greater risks,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Elena Kagan. She seemed to hold out hope the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden will change the policy.

“One can only hope that the government will reconsider and exhibit greater care and empathy for women seeking some measure of control over their health and reproductive lives in these unsettling times.”

Justice Stephen G. Breyer also noted his dissent, but did not join Sotomayor’s opinion.

The court’s conservative majority did not explain its reasoning, as is common in emergency applications. But it has been strengthened by the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court since it last considered the issue and refused to reinstate the requirements.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote separately to say he went along with the decision to dissolve the lower court’s stay out of respect for government experts.

“My view is that courts owe significant deference to the politically accountable entities with the ‘background, competence, and expertise to assess public health,’ ” Roberts wrote, referring to an opinion he wrote upholding state limits on attendance at church worship services.

“In light of those considerations, I do not see a sufficient basis here for the district court to compel the FDA to alter the regimen for medical abortion.”

A federal judge this summer had found the rules to be cumbersome and dangerous during the pandemic.

The Supreme Court in the fall told U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang in Maryland to reconsider in light of current conditions. But he said last month that the health risks have “only gotten worse.”

He stood behind the nationwide injunction he put in place.

“While the progress on vaccines and medical treatments for COVID-19 are cause for optimism and may advance the day that the Preliminary Injunction will no longer be warranted, the impact of these advances to date has not meaningfully altered the current health risks and obstacles to women seeking medication abortions,” he wrote.

Doctors and abortion providers who brought the suit said the government had not shown there was a good reason to retain the rules, as other more dangerous drugs were dispensed without an in-person visit.

The government asks for “the extraordinary step of staying a preliminary injunction that protects patients and health-care providers from life-threatening COVID-19 risks” they told the court.

“It is mind-boggling that the Trump administration’s top priority on its way out the door is to needlessly endanger even more people during this dark pandemic winter — and chilling that the Supreme Court allowed it,” Julia Kaye, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement Tuesday. Biden’s administration, she added, “must right this wrong on day one and hold firm to its commitment to support both evidence-based regulations and reproductive freedom.”

Medication abortions require taking two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy. They have been in use since 2000, and in 2016 the FDA eliminated the requirement that the first drug be administered in a hospital, clinic or doctor’s office. FDA experts said it was just as safe for a woman to take the medications at home.

But the FDA did not relax the requirement that women pick up the pills in person and sign for them.

Sotomayor said the longtime restriction made no sense.

“Of the over 20,000 FDA-approved drugs, mifepristone is the only one that the FDA requires to be picked up in person for patients to take at home,” Sotomayor wrote.

She said that government agencies during the pandemic have eased restrictions on picking up other drugs in person.

“As a result, government policy now permits patients to receive prescriptions for powerful opioids without leaving home, yet still requires women to travel to a doctor’s office to pick up mifepristone, only to turn around, go home, and ingest it without supervision,” Sotomayor wrote.

She called the policy an “unnecessary, unjustifiable, irrational, and undue burden on women seeking an abortion during the pandemic.”

The case is FDA v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

 

[Destiny]

Aunt Comey Barratt is a stain on the court. (I don’t think she’s a handmaid. She’s 100% an Aunt, keeping other women in line.)

I hope the ghost of RBG haunts her ass and hides her car keys every damn day. 

[AmericanRose]

Because the AZ GOP wasn't bad enough: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/legislature/2021/01/21/doctors-patients-could-face-homicide-charge-abortion-under-arizona-bill/6667436002/

An Arizona lawmaker known for his hard-line stance on abortion has introduced legislation requiring prosecutors to charge women who opt to end their pregnancies — and the doctors who help them do it — with homicide. 

Spoiler

 

Rep. Walt Blackman, R-Snowflake, had vowed to run such a bill late last summer, calling abortion clinics "death factories" and saying women who terminated pregnancies needed to "spend some time in our Arizona penal system."

At the time, he shrugged off legal protections enshrined in federal law, arguing that Roe v. Wade is only an "opinion" and the U.S. Supreme Court should "honor (Arizona's) sovereignty."

House Bill 2650 reflects that view, saying county attorneys must pursue criminal prosecutions "regardless of any contrary or conflicting federal laws, regulations, treaties, court decisions or executive orders."

"If you want to spout, 'My body, my body choice,' you need to spend some time in our Arizona penal system," Blackman said in August. "If you are going to kill and end the life of another human being, that is murder."

The legislation, which expands the definition of a "person" to include "an unborn child in the womb at any stage of development," would allow both the state attorney general and county attorneys to prosecute "homicide by abortion."

It removes existing protections for "an unborn child's mother" as well as "the person … performing an abortion" with the mother's consent.

Measure caps off years of anti-abortion efforts in Arizona

Blackman's bill is one of several anti-abortion measures under consideration in legislatures across the country.

Earlier this week, Mississippi lawmakers introduced legislation seeking to charge those who have or perform abortions with murder, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

South Carolina legislators are backing a proposed abortion ban that would find providers guilty of murder including in cases of rape or incest, allowing exceptions only if a woman's life is at risk.

The Arizona bill appears to go even further, as it leaves open the possibility of first-degree murder charges — which can result in the death penalty or a lifetime sentence — and does not protect mothers from prosecution.

Blackman has argued that anything less would be insufficient, contending that Republican lawmakers have merely been "regulating murder" rather than taking a bold, unambiguous stance against it. 

"We've (said) it’s OK to murder at this stage, but it’s not OK to murder at this stage," he said, referencing the state's ban on abortions after 20 weeks. 

Arizona also has laws that: 

Mandate a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions. 

Require women to undergo ultrasounds at least 24 hours before the procedure.

Ban pill-induced abortions after seven weeks of pregnancy.

Prohibit telehealth providers from prescribing medication to induce abortions.

Require doctors to ask women if the pregnancies they want to terminate resulted from sexual assault, sex trafficking or domestic violence.

Make doctors and clinics report more specific information about any abortion-related medical complications.

Require doctors to take additional measures to "maintain the life" of any fetus delivered alive during an abortion, even if the fetus has no chance of survival.

Add restrictions to a charitable-giving program for state employees so they cannot donate to Planned Parenthood.

Though Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has consistently supported anti-abortion measures, he has long sidestepped questions about whether he would support a full reversal of Roe v. Wade.

He has made clear, however, that he supports abortion access when a women's life is in danger and when a pregnancy results from rape or incest. HB 2650 does not make exceptions for the latter.

Democrats: Bill 'unbelievable' and 'sickening'

Blackman's drew swift backlash from Democratic lawmakers following its introduction on Thursday, including a newly elected representative who said she had previously ended a pregnancy. 

"As someone who has had an abortion, it’s absolutely sickening knowing my colleagues want to sentence my doctor and I to death for choices they have NO BUSINESS dictating for me or anyone else," Melody Hernandez, D-Tempe, wrote in a Twitter post. 

State Rep. Athena Salman, D-Tempe, called the legislation "unbelievable."

"Instead of helping our communities survive this pandemic," she said on Twitter. "Republicans just dropped a bill that would ban abortion AND put people in jail for exercising their constitutional right to reproductive healthcare."

Addressing the outcry late Thursday, Blackman published a post saying he was proud to sponsor the bill.

"Life starts at conception," he said. "It’s time to abolish abortion in Arizona."

Nine other representatives have signed on in support of the bill: Brenda Barton, R-Payson; Leo Biasiucci, R-Lake Havasu City; Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix; Judy Burges, R-Skull Valley; Frank Carroll, R-Sun City West; David Cook, R-Globe; John Fillmore, R-Apache Junction; Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek; and Ben Toma, R-Peoria.

Anti-abortion activists planned to rally at the Arizona Capitol on Friday in support of the legislation and the larger "right to life" movement. 

 

 

[AmericanRose]

Looks like Kansas tried to pass this last year and failed... but it passed the KS House a few days ago [https://www.wibw.com/2021/01/23/kansas-house-passes-value-them-both-amendment/]

The Kansas House of Representatives passed the Value Them Both amendment 86-38 on Friday, Jan. 22. Value Them Both is a constitutional amendment to protect safeguards on the abortion industry for women and babies.

Spoiler

 

Minority Leader Tom Sawyer said Value Them Both is an extreme constitutional amendment that creates a path toward a complete and total abortion ban in Kansas. He said this includes cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in danger.

House Democrats offered four amendments to Value Them Both, all of which were denied. Sawyer said the proposed amendments included the following:

Placing HCR 5003 on the November General Election of 2022 where there is historically a higher turnout of voters.

Abolishing the Death Penalty because “life before conception and the life of the living are potentially conflicting issues.”

Protecting women in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.

Placing HCR 5003 on August primary in 2021 rather than 2022.

“This bill is too extreme for Kansas”, said Minority Leader Tom Sawyer. “Stripping the rights of bodily autonomy is an all-out attack on women with no exceptions for the horrors of rape, incest, or saving the life of the mother. Furthermore, putting this constitutional amendment on the August ballot will absolutely deny the rights of ALL Kansans to voice their opinion. This is purely a political maneuver by Republicans to refuse women their rights to make their own decisions. These very personal and private decisions ought to be between a woman, her doctor, and God.”

The Kansas Supreme Court decided that women have the right to bodily autonomy and to make their own decisions regarding health. Sawyer said abortion is a decision that is deeply personal and should not be regulated without checks and balances by legislatures.

“I’ve always believed that every woman’s reproductive decisions should be left to her, her family, and her physician. While I know others do not share my belief, I don’t think those supporting this amendment are aware of the consequences it will have for the state of Kansas and our reputation,” said Governor Laura Kelly. “We already know how this ends – North Carolina’s notorious bathroom bill cost that state nearly $4 billion in economic development – and this amendment has the same potential to do irreparable damage to our COVID-19 economic recovery efforts and our long-term prospects to recruit businesses and workforce talent.”

The Family Policy Alliance of Kansas said, however, that Value Them Both is a constitutional amendment to protect safeguards on the abortion industry for women and babies. It said after the 2020 election, the House became more pro-life and supportive of what it calls a “lifesaving” amendment.

“Value Them Both is vital to ensure that we can continue to provide life-saving safeguards to women,” said Director of Advocacy at Family Policy Alliance of Kansas, Brittany Jones, Esq. “We are so thankful for all eighty-six (86) members of the House who voted to protect our life-saving laws in Kansas. We are confident that the Senate will soon pass Value Them Both and then it will be up to the people of Kansas.”

To pass the Senate, the amendment needs a two-thirds majority vote on the Senate floor and if passed will head to a vote in August of 2022.

 

How the hell is it "lifesaving" or "valuing them both" when you're decided a victim or rape / incest, or someone who might die from pregnancy, doesn't 'need' an abortion??
How is it "pro-life" when an amendment to abolish the death penalty is rejected?

Do these people even hear themselves? They are so transparent.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Biden drops Trump’s antiabortion ‘global gag rule.’ Here’s what that means for abortion access worldwide."

Quote

Soon after he took office, President Donald Trump reinstated and expanded a policy known by its critics as the “global gag rule,” which bars U.S. funding for organizations abroad that perform abortions or offer information about them.

On Thursday, a week into his presidency, Biden signed an executive order rescinding the policy. He also signed a memorandum requesting that the Department of Health and Human Services review a rule instated by Trump that cut off federal funding for domestic family planning programs involved with abortions, such as Planned Parenthood.

The Reagan administration first enacted its version of the global gag rule, often called the Mexico City policy after the place where it was drafted, in 1985. Since then, two previous Democratic presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, have rescinded it, arguing that it put millions of women and girls at risk by cutting off access to critical health services. Two Republican presidents, George W. Bush and Trump, have put it back in place, arguing that U.S. money should not go to organizations that promote abortion.

The decades of Washington-imposed whiplash have left sexual and reproductive health and rights programs around the world scrambling to secure funding — or needing to adjust the services they provide.

Here’s what you need to know about Biden’s move.

What is the ‘global gag rule’?

The policy forbids international organizations that receive U.S. health aid from using their own funds or money from another source to provide abortion services or counseling. The measure has become a “political football that is rescinded by Democrats and reinstated by Republicans,” said Bethany Van Kampen, a senior policy adviser at Ipas, an international organization focused on safe abortion and contraception access, during a call with reporters in December.

Trump broadened the funding restrictions to cover all global health aid, rather than just aid aimed at family planning. Under Trump’s expansion, the rule applied to about $12 billion in U.S. aid, said Van Kampen.

The policy is built on a preexisting base of constraints on U.S. aid recipients, such as the 1973 Helms Amendment.

What is the Helms Amendment?

An addition to the Foreign Assistance Act passed more than a decade earlier, the Helms Amendment requires that U.S. assistance cannot be used by foreign organizations to provide abortions as part of family planning. (The “gag rule” goes further, demanding that organizations do not provide the service at all.) It covers around $40 billion dollars in U.S. aid.

As a law rather than executive order, it does not seesaw with White House turnover. But critics say it extends in practice beyond its family planning confines.

The amendment has come to be “applied as a total ban on abortion services and information with U.S. funds,” Van Kampen said. Aid recipients may feel forced to cut services for abortions, she said, that do not fall under the category of family planning, such as in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life.

“It causes such fear among providers and health system managers who worry that any association with abortion will jeopardize their overall U.S. funding,” she said.

What else did Trump do to restrict abortion access globally?

In 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would eliminate funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for the coming year, over claims that the reproductive and maternal health agency supported abortion and forced sterilization in China. The UNFPA said the charges were erroneous.

“The support we received over the years from the government and people of the United States has saved tens of thousands of mothers from preventable deaths and disabilities, and especially now in the rapidly developing global humanitarian crises,” the U.N. agency said in a statement at the time.

The United States provided $69 million in UNFPA funding in 2016. If reinstated, the money could be used to prevent 1.4 million unintended pregnancies, 32,000 unsafe abortions, and provide reproductive and sexual health care to 4.2 million women and girls within a year, according to Eddie Wright, a UNFPA spokesman. Biden is expected to reinstate funding.

Last year, the Trump administration spearheaded the Geneva Consensus, a nonbinding international antiabortion declaration, which Biden is also reportedly set to disavow Thursday.

What impact do U.S. funding restrictions have on abortion rates?

Worldwide, around 48 percent of pregnancies are unintended, and of those about 60 percent end in abortions, leading to some 73 million abortions every year, said Zara Ahmed, associate director of federal issues at the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, during a call with reporters in December. Around 35 million of those women undergo an unsafe abortion, according to Ipas.

Studies have shown repeatedly that U.S. restrictions do not lower abortion rates. A recent report published in British medical journal the Lancet found they often led to cuts in health and reproductive services that caused increases in unsafe abortions.

“There is no evidence that abortion rates are lower where it’s restricted,” said Ahmed. “In fact, abortion rates are lowest in high-income countries were abortion is broadly believed to be legal, but almost four times higher in low-income countries where it is heavily restricted.”

What else are international abortion rights activists pushing Biden to change?

Biden’s election marks an “unprecedented moment” in which to “repeal the multitude of harmful actions that the Trump administration took to attack sexual and reproductive rights around the world,” said Seema Jalan, executive director of the Universal Access Project and policy at the United Nations Foundation, a nongovernmental organization that supports the U.N.

Thursday’s move is a “first step,” said Amanda Ussak, the international program director for Catholics for Choice. But she had hoped he would move even faster. “The fact that he didn’t repeal the global gag rule on day one is problematic,” she said.

Advocates have called on the Biden administration to throw its support behind the Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (Global HER) act, which would prevent future presidents from re-declaring the “gag rule,” and the Abortion is Health Care Everywhere act, proposed legislation to repeal the Helms Amendment and to issue guidance clarifying that U.S. funding can be used for abortions in the case of rape, incest or a threat to life. Biden on Thursday did not mention these demands.

“For better or for worse, the actions of the United States have an outsized impact around the world,” said Jalan. “This is why it such a high priority to put a permanent end to these harmful policies so that people’s access to basic health care around the world is not based on the political whims of what’s happening in the United States.”

The Trump administration’s antiabortion policies drew global support from conservative religious groups, especially evangelical Christians. Ussak’s organization, in contrast, works with faith-based groups pushing to expand abortion access, with a focus on heavily Catholic countries like Argentina, Malta and Poland.

Biden, like the majority of U.S. Catholics, according to polls, supports abortion rights, despite the official teachings of the church. Ussak said she considers “access to reproductive rights and women’s health and autonomy … part of Catholic social justice teaching.” Biden’s view could “help reshape the narrative” around faith and abortion in some parts of the world, she said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Why South Carolina’s first female sheriff is calling the state’s antiabortion bill ‘absolute insanity’"

Quote

Mere weeks into her tenure, South Carolina’s first elected female sheriff, Kristin Graziano, has made clear that she is not one to back down from a fight. Especially not against the state’s male-dominated legislature.

On Wednesday night, Graziano, who is also South Carolina’s first openly gay sheriff, publicly challenged a new amendment to an abortion bill widely expected to pass the state legislature and be signed into law in the next few weeks. The amendment would outlaw most abortions, but provides an exception for survivors of rape and incest. In these cases, however, health-care providers would be required to report the name of the victim to police.

“This is absolute insanity to re-victimize the victim. Sheriffs should not be policing a woman’s body, religious beliefs, or personal health decisions,” Graziano wrote in a tweet responding to the amendment vote.

“I may be a new sheriff, but I’m not new at being a woman,” she added later.

Graziano expanded on her online comments in an email Thursday.

“It’s clear that this bill is intended to punish women. If this is passed, especially with this particular amendment, a victim’s privacy and safety are at risk,” Graziano wrote. “Women and girls need bodily autonomy.”

The sheriff cited more than 30 years of working in law enforcement, noting that many victims of these crimes feel they will endanger themselves or their families if they speak to police.

“I trust women to make the best decision for themselves,” she added.

Graziano also says law enforcement was not consulted before the amendment was tacked on.

It is unusual for police to publicly criticize state lawmakers for bills that don’t explicitly center on policing, and even more rare for law enforcement leadership to speak up about an antiabortion bill. But the sheriff’s comments were echoed by survivors and reproductive rights advocates, as well as OB/GYNs, who said the proposed exception, ostensibly inserted to protect survivors, would have the opposite effect.

“These exceptions only serve to make bans like these more politically palatable, to make people feel better about what they’re doing,” said Ann Warner, chief executive of the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network (WREN), which has been advocating against the bill.

The bill would outlaw most abortions if the fetus’s heartbeat can be detected: a timeline of roughly six weeks, before many women are aware they’re pregnant, doctors say. The bill, which is the latest attempt by lawmakers in the Palmetto State to restrict abortion, was passed by the South Carolina Senate on Thursday and has been sent to the House, where it is expected to be passed quickly, reports the State. Gov. Henry McMaster (R) said he would sign the bill as soon as he can.

“If this gets upheld by the courts, we will have saved thousands of lives in South Carolina every year,” said state Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey (R), who proposed the survivor exception. Massey likened it to laws that require doctors to report when a child has been raped or the victim of incest.

“This extends that to adult women,” Massey said, according to the Post and Courier.

This comparison is inappropriate, said Patricia Seal, an OB/GYN working in Columbia, S.C. It is already hard enough for a patient to disclose a traumatic event to a health-care provider, she says. If the provider were forced to disclose that her patient could be contacted by police about the abuse, it would be “adding trauma to trauma.”

“I think it’s just going to prevent women from coming in to seek care,” she said.

Sara Barber, executive director of the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, in testimony to the South Carolina Senate, warned that the abortion bill exception would have deleterious effects on survivors.

“One of the cornerstones of safety for survivors is their privacy and their ability to determine for themselves what actions they should pursue in healing,” Barber said. It’s “robbing a victim or survivor of the most personal decision-making around their bodies.”

Survivors have many reasons not to report these crimes to police. The person who raped them may be a current or former partner, and they may not feel ready to come forward or they may fear for their safety. If they’re reporting incest, it could upend their families. Women may also be worried about not being believed by law enforcement or lack faith that the report will end with consequences for their attacker.

According to a 2018 Washington Post report, less than 1 percent of reported rapes lead to felony convictions. For this reason, many advocates want to see lawmakers focus less on using the criminal justice system to aid survivors of sexual abuse, instead placing more resources into preventive initiatives and direct aid.

Because the requirement to report is so invasive, Graziano said the bill would actually hamper law enforcement’s ability to investigate these crimes.

“One thing law enforcement needs is the trust of the victim,” she said. Taking the decision to report out of their hands, particularly when they are seeking care to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, “will make our investigations much more difficult.”

Warner, of the advocacy group WREN, was struck by Graziano’s public opposition to the bill, nodding to the gender dynamics in the state legislature. The state Senate has just five female senators, only one of whom voiced support for the bill, and only after the exception amendment was added. Introduction of the bill and its amendments, as well as debates over the legislation, have been dominated by men.

“It just goes to show what happens when people outside of the good-old-boys’ network get elected to office, because Sheriff Graziano knows what this actually means to people on the ground,” Warner said.

This includes OB/GYNs who have blasted the proposed law. A letter signed by 325 South Carolina doctors called the restrictions “medically unjustified,” adding that the bill “[replaces] medical facts with political rhetoric and personal ideology,” and obstructed their ability to care for their patients.

Among the doctors who delivered the letter to lawmakers was Kristl Tomlin, an OB/GYN who questioned why state senators were prioritizing an abortion bill when health-care providers need help fighting the coronavirus pandemic. (It is the first bill the legislature has put forward, she noted.) Before the coronavirus hit the state, South Carolina had one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation, with infant mortality rates also tracking higher than most states. Tomlin described a lack of health literacy and quality access to health care for many South Carolinians, including “routine women’s health care” and contraceptive care.

“We have multiple counties where there is not a single practicing OB/GYN,” she said.

Lost in the debates on the Senate floor around the sanctity of life were the sanctity of her patients’ lives, Tomlin said. She regards her office as a “sacred place,” where they can share their experiences, and where they must trust her to care for them. Her job, if a pregnant survivor shares the details of her rape, is to provide her “with the best medical care that I can, in the safest way possible,” Tomlin said.

“I do not feel that it is my job to force the woman to report a crime that she does not feel comfortable reporting,” she continued, calling the amendment an “unethical and onerous duty” on physicians and law enforcement alike.

Graziano said her department will see what happens with the bill as it travels through the legislature “and, inevitably, the court system,” where its constitutionality will be challenged.

Both Seal and Tomlin, the OB/GYNs, say they have older colleagues who warn them about what it used to be like before Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. One colleague told Seal that every Monday morning at their clinic, an operating room had to be reserved just to treat women who had attempted to get illegal abortions on their own.

“I hope that’s not our future,” she said.

 

[Ozlsn]

On 1/14/2021 at 1:21 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed with the Trump administration and reinstated requirements that women seeking medication abortions receive the drugs in person at a clinic, setting aside a judge’s ruling that protocol was dangerous during the coronavirus pandemic.

You know what might help reduce pregnancy? Require people getting viagara to present at at GP or a pharmacy, in person. No, you can't order it by mail from Mexico, it will be seized and you will be prosecuted. 

It is after all originally designed for pulmonary hypertension, and could be dangerous. Obviously men should be checked over by medical professionals before being allowed access to a very limited supply, with regular check ups. I wish someone would put that in a bill and see how they react.

[GreyhoundFan]

3 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

You know what might help reduce pregnancy? Require people getting viagara to present at at GP or a pharmacy, in person.

A couple of years ago, a democratic female legislator in GA introduced a bill where any man seeking any performance enhancing drug would have to get it in person and have written approval from his spouse or girlfriend. This was just after the repugs tried to pass a law that women had to bring a note from their husband or boyfriend when seeking an abortion.  Of course her bill failed.

[GreyhoundFan]

Arkansas fires another volley against women. I bet Kim Jong Boob and Meechelle are thrilled.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

And Texas has to weigh in:

 

[fraurosena]

13 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

And Texas has to weigh in:

 

How putting a person to death for having an abortion is pro-life is beyond my comprehension.

[smittykins]

Because it punishes the guilty to protect the innocent!  DUH!

 

/s

[ADoyle90815]

George Carlin was right. "If it grows up to be a doctor, we just might have to kill it."

Spoiler

 

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by ADoyle90815

[AmericanRose]

When you're so pro-life, you become pro-death.

Reading about TX actually got me thinking about how "pro-lifers" are actually pro-death - they usually support the death penalty and are rabid 2A supporters. They don't support anything that makes life easier/better, like healthcare, childcare, or even higher wages. And then of course.. got my mom telling me that a woman should die rather than have an abortion, and here's Texas trying to make abortion a capital crime.

[Alisamer]

On 3/13/2021 at 1:42 PM, AmericanRose said:

When you're so pro-life, you become pro-death.

Reading about TX actually got me thinking about how "pro-lifers" are actually pro-death - they usually support the death penalty and are rabid 2A supporters. They don't support anything that makes life easier/better, like healthcare, childcare, or even higher wages. And then of course.. got my mom telling me that a woman should die rather than have an abortion, and here's Texas trying to make abortion a capital crime.

They're not pro-life, they're anti-woman. They're not even pro-baby, because once that baby is born? Who cares! Now all of a sudden that it's out of the womb, it's no longer a precious life, it's a burden on the system that doesn't deserve food, healthcare, or education. 

The end result of anti-abortion laws is to punish women for having sex. That's it. That's the only thing that happens. It doesn't save any babies, it doesn't help anyone, it actually increases the strain on what little social safety net there is. But, it means women who have sex outside of marriage and without intending to have a baby get punished for it. They have to seek out expensive, potentially dangerous abortions elsewhere. They get stuck with a baby they can't care for and possibly massive hospital bills they can't pay. They have to go through 9 months of pregnancy and the trauma of birth, whether they decide to parent the child or not. And if that law passes, they could end up in prison or even on death row.

It's just to punish women who they consider "sluts". They'll tell you that, too. They just use phrases like "she should have kept her legs closed".

[fraurosena]

4 hours ago, Alisamer said:

It's just to punish women who they consider "sluts". They'll tell you that, too. They just use phrases like "she should have kept her legs closed".

What's worse, they'll even say it to victims of rape and incest.

And it doesn't end there. They'll even condemn a married woman for aborting a child that her doctor's have found is so deformed or ill that it has no viability and will die right after birth, possibly in horrific pain and agony. 

 

[AmericanRose]

On 3/15/2021 at 7:20 AM, Alisamer said:

They're not pro-life, they're anti-woman. They're not even pro-baby, because once that baby is born? Who cares! Now all of a sudden that it's out of the womb, it's no longer a precious life, it's a burden on the system that doesn't deserve food, healthcare, or education. 

The end result of anti-abortion laws is to punish women for having sex. That's it. That's the only thing that happens. It doesn't save any babies, it doesn't help anyone, it actually increases the strain on what little social safety net there is. But, it means women who have sex outside of marriage and without intending to have a baby get punished for it. They have to seek out expensive, potentially dangerous abortions elsewhere. They get stuck with a baby they can't care for and possibly massive hospital bills they can't pay. They have to go through 9 months of pregnancy and the trauma of birth, whether they decide to parent the child or not. And if that law passes, they could end up in prison or even on death row.

It's just to punish women who they consider "sluts". They'll tell you that, too. They just use phrases like "she should have kept her legs closed".

Yep. The thing I've noticed over the past year is that when "pro-lifers" talk about pregnancy, they seem to think everything magically turns out okay like in a movie. Men, especially, have no idea that pregnancy can be life-threatening, or that it can leave life-long side effects. They just think it boils down to being "responsible".

[GreyhoundFan]

On 3/15/2021 at 10:20 AM, Alisamer said:

It's just to punish women who they consider "sluts". They'll tell you that, too. They just use phrases like "she should have kept her legs closed".

I got into an argument with a male acquaintance who said that. My reply was that "he should have kept his dick in his pants".  Things went downhill from there.

[klein_roeschen]

On 3/16/2021 at 4:49 PM, AmericanRose said:

Yep. The thing I've noticed over the past year is that when "pro-lifers" talk about pregnancy, they seem to think everything magically turns out okay like in a movie. Men, especially, have no idea that pregnancy can be life-threatening, or that it can leave life-long side effects. They just think it boils down to being "responsible".

It's because the knowledge of side effects of pregnancy isn't widespread. I had good sex education at school that covered the different ways to prevent a pregnancy and sti's and abortion. I had human anatomy several times in biology at school where the basics of how a pregnancy starts. But never there where the side effects of pregnancy spoken about. It's widespread knowlegde that you have some morning sickness in the first trimester, but hyperemesis gravidarum? That pregnancy is a mayor factor in developing osteoporosis in later life? Incontince by weakened pelvic floor muscles and tearing during labor? Or more grave side effects like preeclamsia? Even when talking about therapeutic abortions, it's almost always because the fetus has a condition incompatible with live, but seldom the mother. It's like it's expected that a pregnant woman would lay down her life for the child in her womb and the less she knows about what can go wrong the better. It's disgusting.

[AmericanRose]

@klein_roeschen And even when it's conceded that pregnancy and delivery aren't all sunshine and roses, it turns into "it doesn't happen that often". ?