Gilead is Real - The War on Women and Abortion Part 3

[GreyhoundFan]

Sad, but not surprising.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This makes me so sad. Women in TX deserve better. CW: maternal death.

Spoiler

 

[GreyhoundFan]

On 12/2/2023 at 10:23 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

This is horrifying. CW: miscarriage 

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At least the grand jury didn't indict her:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Some good news:

 

[fraurosena]

This is an excellent ad. 

 

[Becky]

This is an absolutely appalling statistic.  It should be widely publicized.  People who think pregnancy from rape is a "rare" occurrence need to have their eyes opened.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/64k-women-girls-became-pregnant-due-rape-states-abortion-bans-study-es-rcna135565

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make this up.

 

[Ozlsn]

Sigh. I really want someone to ask him about what happens when the ultrasound shows abnormalities. When the sheep has a seizure. What he does, as a vet, when the offspring is born with lethal deformities.

If he wants to claim expertise then it obliges him to talk about the dark side as well, when it doesn't go as planned - and how he translates that into human terms.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a great interview with Brittany Watts. Like so many women today, what she was forced to endure is unconscionable. 

 

[fraurosena]

Please, take 3.37 minutes of your time and watch this. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I saw this, which reminded me of the great video @fraurosena posted.

[GreyhoundFan]

What the actual fuck?

 

[Audrey2]

24 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

What the actual fuck?

 

And that's what happens when you don't teach sex ed in school. They think that one year olds can get pregnant.

[GreyhoundFan]

No big surprise. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Sigh: "Alabama Supreme Court rules IVF embryos are protected under Wrongful Death of a Minor Act"

Quote

An embryo created through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is a child protected by Alabama’s wrongful death act and the Alabama Constitution, the Alabama Supreme ruled on Friday. 

In a case originating from Mobile, LePage v. Mobile Infirmary Clinic, Inc., the Supreme Court held in a 7-2 decision that parents of frozen embryos killed at an IVF clinic when an intruder tampered with an IVF freezer may proceed with a wrongful death lawsuit against the clinic for alleged negligence. 

The Court also held that the Alabama Constitution's Sanctity of Life Amendment, ratified by Alabama voters and made law in 2018, would require the Court to interpret the law in favor of protecting the unborn. Alabama’s Sanctity of Life Amendment declares in the state Constitution that it is “the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life.”

Alabama Supreme Court Associate Justice Jay Mitchell wrote the majority’s opinion and said, “This Court has long held that unborn children are "children" for purposes of Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.”

“Finally, the defendants and their amicus devote large portions of their briefs to emphasizing undesirable public-policy outcomes that, they say, will arise if this Court does not create an exception to wrongful-death liability for extrauterine children. In particular, they assert that treating extrauterine children as "children" for purposes of wrongful-death liability will "substantially increase the cost of IVF in Alabama" and could make cryogenic preservation onerous,” he added. “While we appreciate the defendants' concerns, these types of policy-focused arguments belong before the Legislature, not this Court. Judges are required to conform our rulings "to the expressions of the legislature, to the letter of the statute," and to the Constitution, "without indulging a speculation, either upon the impolicy, or the hardship, of the law."

Mitchell continued, “Here, the text of the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation. It is not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based on our own view of what is or is not wise public policy. That is especially true where, as here, the People of this State have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding "unborn life" from legal protection.”

Alabama Associate Justice Greg Cook wrote in his dissenting opinion that the “main opinion's holding almost certainly ends the creation of frozen embryos through in vitro fertilization ("IVF") in Alabama.”

“I respectfully dissent," Cook said. "The first question that this Court is being asked to decide in these appeals is whether Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act ("the Wrongful Death Act"), see § 6-5-391, Ala. Code 1975, as passed by our Legislature, provides a civil cause of action for money damages for the loss of frozen embryos. This is a question of the meaning of the words in that Act, as it was originally passed and understood in 1872. My sympathy with the plaintiffs and my deeply held personal views on the sanctity of life cannot change the meaning of words enacted by our elected Legislature in 1872. Even when the facts of a case concern profoundly difficult moral questions, our Court must stay within the bounds of our judicial role. Moreover, there are other significant reasons to be concerned about the main opinion's holding. No court -- anywhere in the country -- has reached the conclusion the main opinion reaches. And, the main opinion's holding almost certainly ends the creation of frozen embryos through in vitro fertilization ("IVF") in Alabama.”

Chief Justice Tom Parker, who agreed with the majority opinion, wrote a separate opinion to expand on how the Sanctity of Life Amendment introduced a strong legal public policy to protect unborn life in Alabama, including IVF embryos. Parker wrote, “A good judge follows the Constitution instead of policy, except when the Constitution itself commands the judge to follow a certain policy. In these cases, that means upholding the sanctity of unborn life, including unborn life that exists outside the womb.”

Parker noted that the People of Alabama’s decision to put the word “sanctity” in the constitutional amendment was deliberate and had theological connotations about the value of human life. That life is sacred because every human being is made in the image of God, noted Chief Justice Parker, and the People chose to make that a clear matter of constitutional law. As to the effect of the Sanctity of Life Amendment, Chief Justice Parker reasoned that it “does much more than simply declare a moral value that the People of Alabama like. Instead, this constitutional provision tilts the scales of the law in favor of protecting unborn life.”

 In response to a dissenting Justice’s claim that IVF would now end in Alabama, Parker said that argument was not well-founded, pointing to medical regulations in other Western countries that better protect the lives of embryonic children while still allowing couples to become parents through IVF technology. Regardless, the Constitutional Amendment protects the sanctity of IVF-created embryos like all other human life, Chief Justice Parker concluded, and the Court must follow that legal policy: “Carving out an exception for the people in this case, small as they were, would be unacceptable to the People of this State, who have required us to treat every human being in accordance with the fear of a holy God who made them in His image.”

The cases arose when three couples, who had already become parents through IVF, sued the Mobile Infirmary Clinic, Inc., claiming that the clinic's negligence in leaving the IVF clinic and freezer room unlocked and vulnerable to an intruder resulted in the deaths of their frozen embryos, which the clinic conceded were human. The Mobile County trial judge dismissed the cases, reasoning that a frozen embryo is not a “child” under Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

On appeal, the Supreme Court has now reversed the trial court and held that a human frozen embryo is a “child,” which is “an unborn or recently born person,” within the plain meaning of the Act and under prior judicial decisions recognizing that unborn children are protected by Alabama law. Similarly, the Court noted that when the statute was enacted in 1872, “child” meant “the immediate progeny of parents,” and that the Court would not create an exception in the statute for these IVF embryo children just because they were located outside the womb. The word “child,” the Court reasoned, means “an unborn or recently born individual member of the human species, from fertilization until the age of majority.”

Even if the wrongful death act did not clearly protect IFV embryos, held the Court, then Alabama's Sanctity of Life Amendment would have required the Court to interpret the Act in favor of -- and not against -- protecting the embryos, because “the People of this State have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding ‘unborn life’ from legal protection.”

For more information, see LePage v. Mobile Infirmary Clinic, Inc., SC-2022-0515, and Burdick-Aysenne v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C., SC-2022-0579, available on the Alabama Supreme Court's website here.

 

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Mitchell continued, “Here, the text of the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act is sweeping and unqualified. It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation.

By their logic then couldn't all IVF places be shut down? When they harvest eggs they fertilize several of them, and by the definition that egg plus sperm equals personhood they don't tend to implant the nonviable embryos, so these embryos that Alabama has deemed are people, since they ruled for a couple who's Frozen embryos didn't make it, could allow the IVF center to be charged if I understand the judge's decision.

[Ozlsn]

11 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

In response to a dissenting Justice’s claim that IVF would now end in Alabama, Parker said that argument was not well-founded, pointing to medical regulations in other Western countries that better protect the lives of embryonic children while still allowing couples to become parents through IVF technology.

Like where? Be specific there Parker. 

Seriously this is going to absolutely affect IVF access in Alabama. If a clinic is one power blackout from being sued for wrongful death of a child why would they operate there? As @Audrey2said if they are going with personhood begins at conception - well they're not going to grade embyos or screen them to get the highest chance of success. As in Italy those who can afford it will go interstate or out of the country, those who can't will be stuck. If you are utilising IVF to avoid a heritable disease that you know one or both of you carry the genes for - well you are absolutely going to be looking at options, and they are unlikely to include local ones.

[GreyhoundFan]

Good grief, this candidate is a moron. 

 

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good grief, this candidate is a moron. 

 

I don't very often get to use bless your heart but bless his heart in the most passive aggressive Southern way possible.

Sir do you have any thoughts on what kind of help you're able to give mom's with child care? Do you have any kind of last minute help suggestions when a mom's work schedule has just gotten changed or her babysitter calls 30 minutes before she needs to leave for work and she has an infant or small child who needs child care that now she is scrambling to find so she doesn't have to call off work and risk losing her job or risk not having enough money to pay her bills? While I'm sure you support crisis pregnancy centers do you have solutions for when the student is a month and a half old the mom's car has broken down and the mom has to choose between new shoes for her child or repairing the car that she needs to get her to work? What other solutions do you have to help women who happen to be single and find themselves pregnant? Even if they buy into your dream of give the baby up for adoption that still requires some time off work.

Sir, bless your heart for being such an idiot.

[Ozlsn]

I was reading a thread on that survey that said more young men than women wanted to be parents, and going into the potential reasons why. One of the reasons put forward was that a lot of young men's experience with babies and children is essentially being the "fun uncle" - drop in for a couple of hours, play, leave.

This is what that response is reminding me of. Helping mothers (or fathers come to that) by assisting with strollers, seats, bags, whatever during a flight is great and we should encourage it, but it's not the same as being there for the long haul. I would be very interested to hear his wife or daughter's response to the same question, because I suspect "longer paid maternity leaves, affordable childcare and flexibilty" would factor higher than "some dude folded the stroller for me while I was wrangling the kids onto the plane."

Edited February 21 by Ozlsn

[GreyhoundFan]

5 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

I was reading a thread on that survey that said more young men than women wanted to be parents, and going into the potential reasons why. One of the reasons put forward was that a lot of young men's experience with babies and children is essentially being the "fun uncle" - drop in for a couple of hours, play, leave.

This is what that response is reminding me of. Helping mothers (or fathers come to that) by assisting with strollers, seats, bags, whatever during a flight is great and we should encourage it, but it's not the same as being there for the long haul. I would be very interested to hear his wife or daughter's response to the same question, because I suspect "longer paid maternity leaves, affordable childcare and flexibilty" would factor higher than "some dude folded the stroller for me while I was wrangling the kids onto the plane."

You hit the mail on the head. One of my closest friends, a guy, who is on his third marriage, pushed his current wife to have a third child, even though they had a nine year old and an autistic two year old. I met them for the weekend last month and she’s struggling with the toddler and infant, and he’s watching TV and chatting with the pre-teen.  I yelled at him multiple times. He doesn’t like caring for the toddler “because he’s difficult “. I said his wife doesn’t have a choice. Before she delivered the infant, she said “no more”. I encouraged her to get her fallopian tubes removed and she did. He loves to do the fun things, but avoids everything else, just like the fun uncle. 
 

I work in a male dominated field. My coworkers quickly learned not to say that they were babysitting. I explained they are taking care of their children, or, gasp, parenting. 

[Ozlsn]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

He doesn’t like caring for the toddler “because he’s difficult “.

I would have hit the roof. Talk about grow the hell up and learn how to actually parent.

[GreyhoundFan]

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Mike Pence, are you listening?

[Xan]

This is all still about control of women.  Next up is getting rid of birth control.  Friends, Gilead is here.