The Abortion Thread

[jhu72]

DEPLORABLE
Death panels did come to fruition, in r states..

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/us/britt ... index.html

"An Ohio woman who suffered a miscarriage and left the nonviable fetus at home will not be criminally charged, a grand jury decided Thursday."

... seems like a lot of buck passing going on as to who is responsible for the decision to put the woman through a grand jury. No matter who it was, it was a scumbag republICON. Great news that when it got in front of the citizenry, common sense prevailed.

[jhu72]

Pennsylvania SC says state government funding of abortion is constitutionally protected ..."the right to reproductive autonomy is fundamental."

Note in other news, republiCON office holders all over the country are removing references to being pro-life from their resumes and "positions" from their official websites.

[Seacoaster(1)]

Pretty interesting concurring opinion in a decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court:

https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions ... 2.pdf?cb=1

Sorry, I didn't notice 72's post about this case.

[dislaxxic]

More on this powerful SCOPA opinion:

A State Supreme Court Just Issued the Most Devastating Rebuke of Dobbs Yet

...with major-league rebukes of "Alito’s profoundly flawed historical account" in Dobbs

It was once widely conceded in the legal academy that we are all, as Justice Elena Kagan once quipped, originalists now. But in the new “now,” we are beginning to see judges push back against the most crabbed and noxious methodologies of originalism, which hold that robed lawyers make for better historians than actual historians, or that it is somehow uninteresting or unimportant when the original meaning of a law replicates the subordination inflicted by its authors. Judges across the country are beginning to apply contemporary scholarship and renew recent understandings of the entire limiting project of relying exclusively on so-called history and tradition as meaningful barometers for modern freedoms. And in the process, they are discovering and explaining to laymen the inherent injustice of so-called originalist outcomes as delineating the bounds of equality and dignity for all.

The lesson to be gleaned from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s rejection of both Dobbs’ cramped methodology and tragic result is not merely that state constitutions will be more essential than ever to protect against the misogynistic and revanchist efforts to restore women to subordinate and indeed powerless vessels. That we already knew. The lesson is also that the conservative project of gluing a misshapen cutout of the past onto a blank canvas of the present is itself an exercise in perpetuating inequality. This is as it was expressly designed to be. So long as judges are capable of independent thought, they will continue to call BS on the very notion that Dobbs-style originalism holds any real utility in ordering a complex, pluralistic, multiracial modern society. If constitutional values like equality are to endure, they will do so in spite of a structurally oppressive history, and not because of it.

The highlighted sentence is very interesting: there is pushback appearing, of this very conservative idea of "constitutional originalism"...taking the written words of 18th century men as literally as possible to meet their intended goals...may be coming to an end as a means of furthering modern inequality...

..

[jhu72]

South Carolina lawmakers have proposed a bill that would reimburse expenses to women who have carried a fetus to term only because of the state abortion ban. The reimbursement would be for all reasonable expenses incurred until the child reaches age 18. Makes a lot of sense because as we all know the anti-abortion folks don't give a sh*t about the mother or child's life after the child is born, if they did, every anti-women state would already have a law like this.

Props to the responsible legislators. Hope they aren't counting on seeing this become law.

[PizzaSnake]

Pretty sad when Tejas is your "choice."

"“I just feel like I don’t even want to ever come back to Alabama,” Gabrielle Goidel said Thursday.

Yesterday, Goidel was days away from having her eggs retrieved at an Alabama fertility clinic, after three miscarriages and more than a $20,000 investment in a grueling in vitro fertilization journey. Now, she and her husband are packing for a flight to Texas tonight, in hopes of salvaging their shot at a successful pregnancy."

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/22/us/alaba ... index.html

[jhu72]

A new prescription-less birth control pill to be available over the counter. Is not Mifpristone based. it is a single pill.

[PizzaSnake]

A new prescription-less birth control pill to be available over the counter. Is not Mifpristone based. it is a single pill.

There’s always quinine…

What’s most astounding is that the “Christian”- fascists think they can possibly control the majority (females) of the population.

[jhu72]

A new prescription-less birth control pill to be available over the counter. Is not Mifpristone based. it is a single pill.

There’s always quinine…

What’s most astounding is that the “Christian”- fascists think they can possibly control the majority (females) of the population.

The horse is out of the barn. It will not be put back, legal, illegal, women won't care. This technology is just one of a handful used in different countries around the world. I believe they have been using this one in France for longer than we have used Mifpristone. Lots of safety data.

[jhu72]

Good news in Nevada and Wisconsin.

[jhu72]

RepubliCON house proposes a 15 weeks abortion ban.

... why do these dumbasses think any non-cult woman is going to be in favor of this??

#1 --- the fascist cult doesn't seem to get it, that NO ONE TRUSTS THEM ON THIS ISSUE. They are putting this forward to try to keep from getting killed in the November election. Everyone knows they will try to change the 15 weeks to 0 weeks, first chance they get.
#2 --- The Blue states are currently sitting at 24 weeks. A handful of Red states have already put better terms in their constitutions. They aren't going to vote for this fascist stupidity.



THE FASCIST CULT NEEDS TO BE 100% PUT OUT OF OFFICE in November!

[cradleandshoot]

Funny how all of the rabid abortion lovers are all people who have been born. You ever wonder if your parents ever contemplated aborting you? Would you have had a problem with that if they had done so? I'm only inquiring for a friend.

[dislaxxic]

The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Biggest Fear

Just a few days ago, the Guttmacher Institute released a study showing that the number of abortions in 2023 topped 1 million, which is more than the last 10 years. The last time it was over a million was 2012, and a major reason why abortion access has increased, despite Dobbs, is because of two things: Abortion pills being more accessible and people being able to access abortion pills through telemedicine.

That happened recently. It happened in 2020 and 2021 as a result of COVID, as everybody began to access health care through telemedicine. Advocates filed a lawsuit to force the FDA to allow people to get abortion pills through telemedicine. Historically, they had not been able to do that, and so people living in rural areas, people even living in states where there are abortion bans, now are able to access abortion pills through telemedicine from doctors in states that still allow abortion health care.

Abortion pills are really the present and the future of abortion, and that’s why they’re being targeted in this case. The anti-abortion movement is very aware that abortion pills are the crux to controlling women’s access to abortion, and so they’re going after it.

..

[Seacoaster(1)]

The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Biggest Fear

Just a few days ago, the Guttmacher Institute released a study showing that the number of abortions in 2023 topped 1 million, which is more than the last 10 years. The last time it was over a million was 2012, and a major reason why abortion access has increased, despite Dobbs, is because of two things: Abortion pills being more accessible and people being able to access abortion pills through telemedicine.

That happened recently. It happened in 2020 and 2021 as a result of COVID, as everybody began to access health care through telemedicine. Advocates filed a lawsuit to force the FDA to allow people to get abortion pills through telemedicine. Historically, they had not been able to do that, and so people living in rural areas, people even living in states where there are abortion bans, now are able to access abortion pills through telemedicine from doctors in states that still allow abortion health care.

Abortion pills are really the present and the future of abortion, and that’s why they’re being targeted in this case. The anti-abortion movement is very aware that abortion pills are the crux to controlling women’s access to abortion, and so they’re going after it.

..

Josh Hawley's spouse and the "Alliance Defending Freedom" is spearheading this effort to effectively overturn the regulatory processes used for generations by the FDA. Of course, the Fifth Circuit agreed.

[Seacoaster(1)]

FYI; it's almost like the folks proposing these laws don't really care about the realities surrounding pregnancy:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... on-access/

"More than 80,000 women get an abortion in Florida in a typical year — accounting for about 1 in 12 abortions in the country.

Now, most of those women will need to find somewhere else to go.

With the Florida Supreme Court’s decision Monday night upholding an existing 15-week ban and allowing a strict new six-week ban to take effect in 30 days, the court has cut off nearly all abortion access across the South, where all other states have either implemented similar bans or outlawed abortion entirely since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

The new law will affect more women seeking abortions in the first trimester than any other single abortion ban to date, upending an already precarious new landscape for abortion access that has developed in the wake of the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The Florida justices issued a separate ruling Monday that greenlighted an initiative to put abortion on the ballot in November.

But even if voters decide to establish a constitutional right to abortion, thousands of women will have to reckon with unwanted pregnancies in the eight months between May 1, when the new ban will take effect, and next January, when such an amendment could be added to the constitution.

Anya Cook, who nearly died after she was denied an abortion under Florida’s existing 15-week ban in 2022, had a message Monday for women in the Sunshine State who now encounter pregnancy complications after the six-week mark.

“Run,” she said. “Run, because you have no help here.”

The closest clinic where abortion will now be legal after the six-week mark for someone living at Florida’s southernmost tip will be a 14-hour drive away in Charlotte. Patients whose pregnancies have progressed beyond 12 weeks, the point at which North Carolina bans abortion, will have to drive 17 hours, to southern Virginia.

“I think the minority [of patients] are going to be able to do that,” said Chelsea Daniels, a doctor and abortion provider with Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida. “There are certain types of patients who will always be able to access care and others who will not.”

As has happened in other states where abortion is illegal, many people in Florida are expected to order abortion pills online rather than making the journey to a bricks-and-mortar clinic — an experience that some find simple, but for others can be confusing and scary amid a fraught legal landscape.

Before Monday’s ruling, Florida had long been a refuge for people seeking abortions across the South, with its Supreme Court upholding protections for the procedure under a 1980 amendment to the state constitution that established a right to privacy. Even before Roe fell, Florida required patients to comply with significantly fewer restrictions than other states in the region, permitting abortions later in pregnancy than its neighbors and allowing patients to receive care without first scheduling an initial consultation at least 24 hours before their procedure.

That reputation as a destination for women seeking to terminate their pregnancies frustrated antiabortion advocates, who focused in recent years on changing on the ideological makeup of the state Supreme Court. Since taking office, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has remade the court into a conservative stronghold, appointing several justices with deep ties to the antiabortion movement. The court ruled 6-1 on Monday that the existing constitution does not protect the right to abortion.

John Stemberger, a longtime antiabortion advocate in Florida, celebrated the triumph over what he called the “older, activist Florida Supreme Court.”

“We were right about this all along,” said Stemberger, the recently appointed president of Liberty Counsel Action, a conservative advocacy group. “It’s a huge victory.”

Florida’s existing law, passed in the spring of 2022, allows abortions up to 15 weeks into pregnancy, a time period in which the vast majority of abortions take place. The new six-week ban — which includes exceptions for rape, incest, medical emergencies and “fatal fetal abnormalities” — outlaws the procedure before many people know they’re pregnant.

Across the country on Monday night, abortion rights advocates were already imagining how a surge of patients from populous Florida could further strain clinics in Democratic-led states that have seen a spike in traffic since Roe fell.

“The concern isn’t where Alabamians are going to go without Florida,” said Robin Marty, the executive director of the West Alabama Women’s Center, a former abortion clinic that has remained open providing other health-care services after Alabama made almost all abortions illegal. “It’s where are Floridians going to go — because they have no place to go.”

The Alamo Women’s Clinic of Illinois — an abortion clinic that reopened in southern Illinois after locations were forced to shutter in Oklahoma and Texas — currently sees between 400 and 500 patients a month, said Andrea Gallegos, who runs the clinic. The location, a 17-hour drive from Miami, is ready to expand its hours, she said, to absorb more patient traffic from Florida.

“I don’t know what our limit is,” said Gallegos. “Right now it’s just important to take it one day at a time and see as many people as we can.”

While the clinic is currently able to see patients within a week after they seek an appointment, Gallegos said she expects wait times will lengthen once the six-week ban takes effect in Florida. That’s what happened at the clinic in Oklahoma after Texas enacted a six-week ban in the fall of 2021, nine months before Roe fell.

“We tripled our case load then,” she recalled. “The days became longer, and we just had to adapt.”

About 50,000 people got an abortion every year in Texas before Roe fell, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. That’s significantly fewer than the 84,000 who received abortion care in Florida last year, numbers compiled by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

Many people in Florida were already forced to leave the state for abortions under the 15-week ban that took effect soon after Roe was overturned, including some who experienced pregnancy complications that doctors said they could no longer treat.

Almost every day at the clinic, Daniels said she has to turn someone away who is beyond the 15-week mark. When they ask her where they can go, she said, she refers them to clinics in Virginia or Maryland.

“I have no words for the looks on their faces,” she said. “It’s not a reality I think most people are prepared for.”

Those conversations will become far more frequent once the six-week ban takes effect, Daniels said.

Cook was turned away from a hospital in December 2022 when her water broke around 16 weeks of pregnancy, long before a fetus is viable. Less than 24 hours later, she hemorrhaged on the floor of a hair salon — a harrowing experience she recounted in an interview in The Washington Post. Her friend Shanae Smith-Cunningham was turned away from a different hospital with the same complication less than a week later.

Over a year after that experience, Cook is pregnant again — and consumed by anxiety over what might happen.

“I’m terrified that my life is still at risk,” said Cook, who has been on full bed rest during her pregnancy, determined to take every precaution.

She is furious at the Republican politicians who passed the new law, as well as the Supreme Court justices who ruled to allow it to go into effect.

“They see the complications that come from their decisions. But nothing is going to make them change their minds,” she said.

Many advocates in Florida are hopeful that voters will turn out in November to secure abortion rights in the state, which would require over 60 percent of voters to agree to amend the state constitution.

“When voters head to the polls this November, they will send a message to Florida politicians that decisions about whether to have an abortion should be between a patient and a provider, not a constituent and their politician,” said Lauren Brenzel, the campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group organizing the efforts to pass the ballot measure."

[PizzaSnake]

FYI; it's almost like the folks proposing these laws don't really care about the realities surrounding pregnancy:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... on-access/

"More than 80,000 women get an abortion in Florida in a typical year — accounting for about 1 in 12 abortions in the country.

Now, most of those women will need to find somewhere else to go.

With the Florida Supreme Court’s decision Monday night upholding an existing 15-week ban and allowing a strict new six-week ban to take effect in 30 days, the court has cut off nearly all abortion access across the South, where all other states have either implemented similar bans or outlawed abortion entirely since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

The new law will affect more women seeking abortions in the first trimester than any other single abortion ban to date, upending an already precarious new landscape for abortion access that has developed in the wake of the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The Florida justices issued a separate ruling Monday that greenlighted an initiative to put abortion on the ballot in November.

But even if voters decide to establish a constitutional right to abortion, thousands of women will have to reckon with unwanted pregnancies in the eight months between May 1, when the new ban will take effect, and next January, when such an amendment could be added to the constitution.

Anya Cook, who nearly died after she was denied an abortion under Florida’s existing 15-week ban in 2022, had a message Monday for women in the Sunshine State who now encounter pregnancy complications after the six-week mark.

“Run,” she said. “Run, because you have no help here.”

The closest clinic where abortion will now be legal after the six-week mark for someone living at Florida’s southernmost tip will be a 14-hour drive away in Charlotte. Patients whose pregnancies have progressed beyond 12 weeks, the point at which North Carolina bans abortion, will have to drive 17 hours, to southern Virginia.

“I think the minority [of patients] are going to be able to do that,” said Chelsea Daniels, a doctor and abortion provider with Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida. “There are certain types of patients who will always be able to access care and others who will not.”

As has happened in other states where abortion is illegal, many people in Florida are expected to order abortion pills online rather than making the journey to a bricks-and-mortar clinic — an experience that some find simple, but for others can be confusing and scary amid a fraught legal landscape.

Before Monday’s ruling, Florida had long been a refuge for people seeking abortions across the South, with its Supreme Court upholding protections for the procedure under a 1980 amendment to the state constitution that established a right to privacy. Even before Roe fell, Florida required patients to comply with significantly fewer restrictions than other states in the region, permitting abortions later in pregnancy than its neighbors and allowing patients to receive care without first scheduling an initial consultation at least 24 hours before their procedure.

That reputation as a destination for women seeking to terminate their pregnancies frustrated antiabortion advocates, who focused in recent years on changing on the ideological makeup of the state Supreme Court. Since taking office, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has remade the court into a conservative stronghold, appointing several justices with deep ties to the antiabortion movement. The court ruled 6-1 on Monday that the existing constitution does not protect the right to abortion.

John Stemberger, a longtime antiabortion advocate in Florida, celebrated the triumph over what he called the “older, activist Florida Supreme Court.”

“We were right about this all along,” said Stemberger, the recently appointed president of Liberty Counsel Action, a conservative advocacy group. “It’s a huge victory.”

Florida’s existing law, passed in the spring of 2022, allows abortions up to 15 weeks into pregnancy, a time period in which the vast majority of abortions take place. The new six-week ban — which includes exceptions for rape, incest, medical emergencies and “fatal fetal abnormalities” — outlaws the procedure before many people know they’re pregnant.

Across the country on Monday night, abortion rights advocates were already imagining how a surge of patients from populous Florida could further strain clinics in Democratic-led states that have seen a spike in traffic since Roe fell.

“The concern isn’t where Alabamians are going to go without Florida,” said Robin Marty, the executive director of the West Alabama Women’s Center, a former abortion clinic that has remained open providing other health-care services after Alabama made almost all abortions illegal. “It’s where are Floridians going to go — because they have no place to go.”

The Alamo Women’s Clinic of Illinois — an abortion clinic that reopened in southern Illinois after locations were forced to shutter in Oklahoma and Texas — currently sees between 400 and 500 patients a month, said Andrea Gallegos, who runs the clinic. The location, a 17-hour drive from Miami, is ready to expand its hours, she said, to absorb more patient traffic from Florida.

“I don’t know what our limit is,” said Gallegos. “Right now it’s just important to take it one day at a time and see as many people as we can.”

While the clinic is currently able to see patients within a week after they seek an appointment, Gallegos said she expects wait times will lengthen once the six-week ban takes effect in Florida. That’s what happened at the clinic in Oklahoma after Texas enacted a six-week ban in the fall of 2021, nine months before Roe fell.

“We tripled our case load then,” she recalled. “The days became longer, and we just had to adapt.”

About 50,000 people got an abortion every year in Texas before Roe fell, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. That’s significantly fewer than the 84,000 who received abortion care in Florida last year, numbers compiled by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

Many people in Florida were already forced to leave the state for abortions under the 15-week ban that took effect soon after Roe was overturned, including some who experienced pregnancy complications that doctors said they could no longer treat.

Almost every day at the clinic, Daniels said she has to turn someone away who is beyond the 15-week mark. When they ask her where they can go, she said, she refers them to clinics in Virginia or Maryland.

“I have no words for the looks on their faces,” she said. “It’s not a reality I think most people are prepared for.”

Those conversations will become far more frequent once the six-week ban takes effect, Daniels said.

Cook was turned away from a hospital in December 2022 when her water broke around 16 weeks of pregnancy, long before a fetus is viable. Less than 24 hours later, she hemorrhaged on the floor of a hair salon — a harrowing experience she recounted in an interview in The Washington Post. Her friend Shanae Smith-Cunningham was turned away from a different hospital with the same complication less than a week later.

Over a year after that experience, Cook is pregnant again — and consumed by anxiety over what might happen.

“I’m terrified that my life is still at risk,” said Cook, who has been on full bed rest during her pregnancy, determined to take every precaution.

She is furious at the Republican politicians who passed the new law, as well as the Supreme Court justices who ruled to allow it to go into effect.

“They see the complications that come from their decisions. But nothing is going to make them change their minds,” she said.

Many advocates in Florida are hopeful that voters will turn out in November to secure abortion rights in the state, which would require over 60 percent of voters to agree to amend the state constitution.

“When voters head to the polls this November, they will send a message to Florida politicians that decisions about whether to have an abortion should be between a patient and a provider, not a constituent and their politician,” said Lauren Brenzel, the campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, the group organizing the efforts to pass the ballot measure."

Maybe life should imitate art?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata

[SCLaxAttack]

Another state making it harder for Republicans (and particularly MAGAs) to win toss-up states in 2024. Thank you!

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/08/us/arizo ... index.html

[Typical Lax Dad]

Another state making it harder for Republicans (and particularly MAGAs) to win toss-up states in 2024. Thank you!

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/08/us/arizo ... index.html

Let’s repeal the 13th Amendment!

[PizzaSnake]

Another state making it harder for Republicans (and particularly MAGAs) to win toss-up states in 2024. Thank you!

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/08/us/arizo ... index.html

Let’s repeal the 13th Amendment!

And the 19th…

[ardilla secreta]

Funny how all of the rabid abortion lovers are all people who have been born. You ever wonder if your parents ever contemplated aborting you? Would you have had a problem with that if they had done so? I'm only inquiring for a friend.

Do you ever think what would have happened if you were born as Elizabeth Montgomery?