Abortion & Contraception Rights Under Attack

[LFC]

With the unconstitutional Texass vigilante law and right-wing extremist Catholic SCOTUS giving it cover I imagine we can expect to see this topic come up quite a lot in the near future.

I'll kick off with this article about Facebook accepting sketchy ads from an anti-abortion group.

Rebekah Hagan was a college freshman when she discovered she was pregnant with her second child. In a vulnerable moment, swayed by pressure from the “abortion industry,” she obtained a medication abortion—a two-pill process that can successfully terminate most pregnancies before 10 weeks. She immediately regretted it.

Luckily for Hagan, there was a revolutionary new procedure that could stop the effects of medication abortion in its tracks and save the life of a growing fetus. And it could be obtained by calling a single hotline.

At least, that’s what dozens of ads on Facebook would like you to think.

Hagan is one of the faces of a $100,000-plus ad campaign run by anti-abortion organization Live Action, which advertises so-called “abortion reversal” as an effective means of reversing a medication abortion. In reality, the “method” is an unproven, potentially dangerous intervention that has never been approved by the FDA. The only independent study on it was halted after a quarter of the participants were hospitalized.

But ads promoting it on Facebook were seen up to 18.4 million times in the last year and a half, according to a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate. More than three-quarters of Google searches for terms related to abortion displayed similar ads.

[goldenvalley]

That phrase abortion industry has been around a while. And the anti people love to trot out women who claim to have forced to have abortions because of it.

[andydp]

On a personal experience note, I dated a young lady from GA who went to Planned Parenthood got some “pills”. When I asked why she took about three pills at once, she explained it was to make sure.

Amazing how attitudes change from 40+ years ago.

[goldenvalley]

Edsall in NYT has interesting piece on abortion politics in which he quotes a lot of professor types. I quoted the ones that confirm my bias.

Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Dartmouth and the author of a new book, “Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right,” looked at conservative strategizing in a recent op-ed in The Guardian. In his essay, Balmer recounted a 1990 meeting of conservatives in Washington at which Weyrich spoke:

Remember, Weyrich said animatedly, that the religious right did not come together in response to the Roe decision. No, Weyrich insisted, what got the movement going as a political movement was the attempt on the part of the Internal Revenue Service to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because of its racially discriminatory policies, including a ban on interracial dating that the university maintained until 2000.

In an email, Balmer wrote, “Opposition to abortion became a convenient diversion — a godsend, really — to distract from what actually motivated their political activism: the defense of racial segregation in evangelical institutions.”

David Leege, emeritus professor of political science at Notre Dame, has an additional explanation for the process linking racial animosity and abortion. In an email, he wrote:

For the target populations — evangelical Protestants — whom Viguerie, Weyrich, and Falwell sought to mobilize, racial animosity and abortion attitudes are related but mainly in an indirect way, through aversion toward intellectual elites. The people perceived to be pushing government’s role in equal opportunity and racial integration were now the same as those pushing permissive abortion laws, namely, the highly educated from New England, banking, universities, the Northern cities, and elsewhere.

In short, Leege wrote, “although the policy domain may differ, the hated people are the same.”

Jefferson Cowie, a historian at Vanderbilt, argued in an email that “there are three dimensions to the question of abortion.”

The first, he notes:

is an obvious and genuine concern for fundamentalist Christian morality among the Southern polity. Some are clearly motivated by the obvious: they think abortion is wrong. Such views are a minority in this country, but they are highly concentrated in the South.

The second, he continued, is:

the politicization of the issue to rile up the electorate. This is less about policy and more about pure and simple voting harvesting. Obviously, there is very little support for neonatal care or curbing the death penalty, so “pro-life” is a ridiculous misnomer. They are less pro-life than they are pro-political power — their own.

The third, in Cowie’s view, is:

The overlooked part: the deep resonance of state and regional sovereignty. Regional politics is still defined by a resistance to federal authority. If the federal government can run any aspect of regional culture or politics, the logic goes, then they can run it all. This has been a concern on just about everything since Reconstruction, including lynch law, fair employment practices, the Brown decision, busing, prayer in schools, and abortion. This issue runs deep — consider the career of George Wallace who liked to say the federal government has put the courts in schools and taken God out. This is the remnants of the Lost Cause still blowing in the political winds.

That 3rd point of Crowie's is not something I'd thought about before.

[jackd]

That third point is the basis for the police power vs. commerce clause debate on powers of the state vs. the national government.

[Bact PhD]

Sept 15, 2021 19:23:33 GMT goldenvalley said:

Edsall in NYT has interesting piece on abortion politics in which he quotes a lot of professor types. I quoted the ones that confirm my bias.

Randall Balmer, a professor of religion at Dartmouth and the author of a new book, “Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right,” looked at conservative strategizing in a recent op-ed in The Guardian. In his essay, Balmer recounted a 1990 meeting of conservatives in Washington at which Weyrich spoke:

Remember, Weyrich said animatedly, that the religious right did not come together in response to the Roe decision. No, Weyrich insisted, what got the movement going as a political movement was the attempt on the part of the Internal Revenue Service to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because of its racially discriminatory policies, including a ban on interracial dating that the university maintained until 2000.

In an email, Balmer wrote, “Opposition to abortion became a convenient diversion — a godsend, really — to distract from what actually motivated their political activism: the defense of racial segregation in evangelical institutions.”

David Leege, emeritus professor of political science at Notre Dame, has an additional explanation for the process linking racial animosity and abortion. In an email, he wrote:

For the target populations — evangelical Protestants — whom Viguerie, Weyrich, and Falwell sought to mobilize, racial animosity and abortion attitudes are related but mainly in an indirect way, through aversion toward intellectual elites. The people perceived to be pushing government’s role in equal opportunity and racial integration were now the same as those pushing permissive abortion laws, namely, the highly educated from New England, banking, universities, the Northern cities, and elsewhere.

In short, Leege wrote, “although the policy domain may differ, the hated people are the same.”

Jefferson Cowie, a historian at Vanderbilt, argued in an email that “there are three dimensions to the question of abortion.”

The first, he notes:

is an obvious and genuine concern for fundamentalist Christian morality among the Southern polity. Some are clearly motivated by the obvious: they think abortion is wrong. Such views are a minority in this country, but they are highly concentrated in the South.

The second, he continued, is:

the politicization of the issue to rile up the electorate. This is less about policy and more about pure and simple voting harvesting. Obviously, there is very little support for neonatal care or curbing the death penalty, so “pro-life” is a ridiculous misnomer. They are less pro-life than they are pro-political power — their own.

The third, in Cowie’s view, is:

The overlooked part: the deep resonance of state and regional sovereignty. Regional politics is still defined by a resistance to federal authority. If the federal government can run any aspect of regional culture or politics, the logic goes, then they can run it all. This has been a concern on just about everything since Reconstruction, including lynch law, fair employment practices, the Brown decision, busing, prayer in schools, and abortion. This issue runs deep — consider the career of George Wallace who liked to say the federal government has put the courts in schools and taken God out. This is the remnants of the Lost Cause still blowing in the political winds.

That 3rd point of Crowie's is not something I'd thought about before.

Yup. I remember a friend, a Jacksonville, FL native, remarking to me a number of years ago: You know all those Christian academies that sprung up in the 1970s & ‘80s, supposedly in response to “secular humanism “? They were sooo much more about “protecting” their daughters from possibly (gasp!) dating Black boys (and we can’t have that under any circumstances!!)

[LFC]

Democrats in Illinois are sponsoring legislation similar to the Texass vigilante act. Well, similar in mechanism anyway.

Two weeks after Texas effectively banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a Democratic state lawmaker in Illinois is proposing a law based on Texas’ model — but turned on its head.

State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), who in 2019 sponsored law defining abortion as a fundamental right in Illinois, is introducing a bill dubbed the “EXpanding Abortion Services Act,” the acronym of which spells TEXAS.

The Texas law is uniquely designed, allowing private citizens the right to bring a civil lawsuit against anyone who performs an abortion, gets an abortion or aids in someone getting an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Opponents of the law have described the minimum $10,000 in damages up for grabs as a “bounty.”

Cassidy’s proposal instead would instead give Illinoisans the right to seek at least $10,000 in damages against anyone who causes an unwanted pregnancy — even if it resulted from consensual sex — or anyone who commits sexual assault or abuse, including domestic violence.

“If folks are policing the bodies of people who are seeking reproductive healthcare in Texas, well, then maybe we should be policing the bodies of the people who are causing those problems here in Illinois,” Cassidy told NPR Illinois.

Under Cassidy’s bill, half of the damages awarded would go toward a new “State Abortion Freedom Access Fund,” to be managed by the state’s Department of Healthcare and Family Services. The money would also be required to be halved even if a case is settled. The fund would be used as financial aid for people from states with limited abortion access to travel to Illinois for the procedure.

While Cassidy acknowledged the bill’s name and modeling after the Texas law includes some element of trolling, she said she’s serious about getting co-sponsors and a hearing on the legislation.

“There’s certainly an element of ‘hold my beer’ to this, obviously,” Cassidy said. “But the truth here is if this is our new normal, if this is the way that conservatives are going to police women’s bodies, and we as a state have — with a great deal of intentionality — have established ourselves as a safe haven, we also…have to figure out a way to manage that.”

House Speaker Chris Welch (D-Hillside) spokeswoman Jaclyn Driscoll said it’s up to Cassidy to request a hearing on the bill, but “the Speaker certainly wouldn’t stand in the way of one.” Welch has also pushed for reproductive rights in his time in office.

[goldenvalley]

We now have the first two suits filed under the Texas law. One suit from a guy in Arkansas and one from a guy in Illinois. 

The Arkansas man, Oscar Stilley, who was described in the complaint as a “disbarred and disgraced” lawyer, said in an interview that he had filed the lawsuit against a Texas doctor, who publicly wrote about performing an abortion, to test the provisions of the law.

He claims to have a higher calling than simple abortion politics.

Mr. Stilley said he was not trying to halt abortions by Dr. Alan Braid, a San Antonio physician who wrote in The Washington Post on Saturday that he had violated the Texas law — which prohibits abortions after cardiac activity is detected, or roughly six weeks into pregnancy.

“I’m not pro-life,” Mr. Stilley, 58, said in an interview. “The thing that I’m trying to vindicate here is the law. We pride ourselves on being a nation of laws. What’s the law?”

Further explanation...he wants the money if he can get it, but he has a beef against the laws in this country anyway. 

Mr. Braid wrote that on the morning of Sept. 6, he had “provided an abortion to a woman who, though still in her first trimester, was beyond the state’s new limit.”

After reading that, Mr. Stilley said he decided to file suit. His complaint includes a description of his own legal troubles, which he said included a federal conviction for tax evasion and conspiracy; he was released to home confinement after a decade in prison.

Mr. Stilley said in the interview that he believed in a woman’s right not to have an unwanted child, and that because his lawsuit was a win-win for him, he rushed to file it.

The other guy:

Dr. Braid was also sued on Monday by an Illinois man, Felipe N. Gomez, who described himself in his complaint as a “pro-choice plaintiff.” Mr. Gomez could not be immediately reached for comment about his lawsuit, which was earlier reported by KSAT news in San Antonio.

[LFC]

Sept 21, 2021 17:01:42 GMT goldenvalley said:

We now have the first two suits filed under the Texas law. One suit from a guy in Arkansas and one from a guy in Illinois.

First, he can be sawed by multiple people who have not experienced injury for the same act? This law is a bigger and bigger steaming pile of shit at every turn. Second, you gotta' love the the anti-abortion freakout.

“Neither of these lawsuits are valid attempts to save innocent human lives,” said John Seago, legislative director for Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, which lobbied for the new abortion law. “Both cases are self-serving legal stunts, abusing the cause of action created in the Texas Heartbeat Act for their own purposes.”

Hey, dipshit. This law was designed to be a self-serving legal and political stunt so why don't you just sit down and STFU.

[AnBr]

Sept 21, 2021 20:35:38 GMT LFC said:

First, he can be sawed by multiple people

iPhoneism?

[LFC]

Sept 21, 2021 20:44:40 GMT AnBr said:

Sept 21, 2021 20:35:38 GMT LFC said:

First, he can be sawed by multiple people

iPhoneism?

Nah, I just f***ed up while trying to do multiple things at once. Of course I could believe Texass might come up with an anti-abortion law with that very penalty in it.

[goldenvalley]

WaPo has run 2 articles on Texas women who are trying to help pregnant women to stay pregnant and give birth. One wants to run a ranch for women to live in for about a year and the other has a crisis pregnancy center that gives away baby stuff to new moms.  Both are evangelicals, the latter is married to one of those anti abortion fire brands.   

It's interesting that both these women sense that economic desperation is part of why women seek abortions, but neither of them seem to recognize that after the first year of life, there comes another 17 years in a child's life.  

[Rue Bella]

It's interesting that both these women sense that economic desperation is part of why women seek abortions, but neither of them seem to recognize that after the first year of life, there comes another 17 years in a child's life.

That's what prison is for.

[pnwguy]

Nov 16, 2021 19:47:33 GMT goldenvalley said:

WaPo has run 2 articles on Texas women who are trying to help pregnant women to stay pregnant and give birth. One wants to run a ranch for women to live in for about a year and the other has a crisis pregnancy center that gives away baby stuff to new moms.  Both are evangelicals, the latter is married to one of those anti abortion fire brands.   

It's interesting that both these women sense that economic desperation is part of why women seek abortions, but neither of them seem to recognize that after the first year of life, there comes another 17 years in a child's life.  

While I strongly disagree with the efforts to stop abortions by any means, I do at least give them credit for doing something helpful, even if it's small.  Most  anti-choice zealots just want to control women's actions and then not give a rat's ass about the consequences of them bringing pregnancies to term.  And then they condemn such people for being poor.  Of course, these are wholly inadequate means of supporting a woman who wants to raise a child.  But compared to the majority of callous a-holes that don't think much beyond getting their way on a contentious social issue, I'm less angered by those that try to walk their talk.

[LFC]

Oklahoma is now trying to gear up for government sponsored vigilantism.

Oklahoma GOPer Pushes For Database On People Seeking Abortions

Oklahoma state Sen. George Burns (R) introduced a bill that would create a database of every pregnant person looking for an abortion by giving them a “unique identifying number” when they call a “pre-abortion resource” hotline.

We can't get a complete database of police shooting but yeah, let's make one of a legal activity.

[LFC]

Floriduh is (no shock) next in line to go after abortion rights.

Florida GOPers Pass Mississippi-Style Abortion Ban

Florida’s Republican-controlled state legislature passed a bill on Thursday that would prohibit most abortions after 15 week of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is expected to sign it into law.

[jackd]

Is there Florida polling available on abortion issues?

[jackd]

There is and it shows about 2/3ds of the population supports abortion rights and opposes this legislation. Go figure. They must not vote.

[LFC]

Missouri is trying to out-Texass Texass. They want to criminalize even speaking about going for a procedure where it is completely legal. And remember that it is still federally legal so they want to have the final say on inter-state laws including punishing those in the other states that don't adhere to the Missouri law. W...T...F?

No Escape

Missouri state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R) has proposed a measure that would deter people from leaving the state, which bans abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy, to have the procedure.

• Coleman’s proposal would set up a vigilante system of civil liability similar to what Texas has, enabling private citizens to sue anyone involved in facilitating an out-of-state abortion.

• WaPo: “The measure would target anyone even tangentially involved in an abortion performed on a Missouri resident, including the hotline staffers who make the appointments, the marketing representatives who advertise out-of-state clinics, and the Illinois and Kansas-based doctors who handle the procedure.”

• The measure would also criminalize the possession, transportation or distribution of abortion pills.

• Some 10,644 Missourians have gotten abortions at the Planned Parenthood clinic on the Missouri-Illinois border that opened in 2019 after the state passed the ban.

Welcome to the fascism of Republican abortion laws. Release the plaid shirts!

[pnwguy]

Mar 5, 2022 3:43:11 GMT jackd said:

There is and it shows about 2/3ds of the population supports abortion rights and opposes this legislation. Go figure. They must not vote.

Most are gerrymandered into a few districts, and even the pro-choice GOP voters have to keep their heads down in conversation.  Low taxes are more important to them.

[goldenvalley]

Thanks Texas...now a Missouri (we called it Misery when I was a kid) legislator has a way to discourage Missouri residents from going to Illinois or some other state to get an abortion.

An unusual new provision, introduced by state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion out of state, using the novel legal strategy behind the restrictive law in Texas that since September has banned abortions in that state after six weeks of pregnancy.

They could build a wall around the parts of the state that are landlocked and blow up the bridges across the Mississippi but I guess that would be too costly.

[jackd]

Even the current Supreme Court might rule against that one.

Might. . . 

[LFC]

How f***ing SICK is this? These people disgust me.

An Idaho bill that would allow a pregnant woman’s family members to sue abortion providers also includes a controversial twist. It would allow a rapist’s family members to sue the victim’s doctor under the same proposal, the legislation’s Republican sponsor confirmed this week.

The Idaho bill, S.B. 1309, is modeled after Texas’ 6-week abortion ban that went into effect in September. It’s different, however, in that it limits who can sue once a woman obtains an abortion. Under the Idaho law, abortion providers can be sued by the patient, the father of a fetus or their family members.

The bill does include an exception for rape or incest, although it forces women to file a police report and provide it to a physician. If a woman fails to do so before an abortion, the rapist’s family members could sue and collect damages.

Damages start at $20,000, raising concerns a patient’s abortion could allow others to greatly profit off the bounties. The bill is broad enough that abortion advocates worry it will effectively ban abortion in the state at around 6 weeks when many women don’t yet know they’re pregnant.

[goldenvalley]

Mar 17, 2022 17:32:20 GMT LFC said:

How f***ing SICK is this? These people disgust me.

An Idaho bill that would allow a pregnant woman’s family members to sue abortion providers also includes a controversial twist. It would allow a rapist’s family members to sue the victim’s doctor under the same proposal, the legislation’s Republican sponsor confirmed this week.

The Idaho bill, S.B. 1309, is modeled after Texas’ 6-week abortion ban that went into effect in September. It’s different, however, in that it limits who can sue once a woman obtains an abortion. Under the Idaho law, abortion providers can be sued by the patient, the father of a fetus or their family members.

The bill does include an exception for rape or incest, although it forces women to file a police report and provide it to a physician. If a woman fails to do so before an abortion, the rapist’s family members could sue and collect damages.

Damages start at $20,000, raising concerns a patient’s abortion could allow others to greatly profit off the bounties. The bill is broad enough that abortion advocates worry it will effectively ban abortion in the state at around 6 weeks when many women don’t yet know they’re pregnant.

I see a whole industry started...men raping women, hoping the women end up pregnant and seek abortions.  Easy money for the men.

[LFC]

The governor of Idaho bemoans the bill he just willingly signed. Pathetic.

On Wednesday, Idaho became the first state to follow Texas’ lead on banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy with a private lawsuit enforcement mechanism that awards thousands of dollars to private citizens who snitch on abortion providers.

Idaho’s bounty-hunter style enforcement model is a bit more limited than Texas in that only family members of the so-called “preborn child” can file a lawsuit. But that means if a pregnancy occurred through rape, the rapist’s relatives can sue.

With all that in mind, Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) signed the ban on Wednesday, but rest assured, he knows the law is an absolute nightmare and he really doesn’t like it, you guys.

Little sent Idaho Lt. Governor and Senate President Janice McGeachin – who’s also running a primary challenge against Little – a letter on Wednesday officially informing her that he had signed the legislation known as SB 1309 into law.

But most of the letter was Little explaining why the thing he just signed into law was bad.

“While I support the pro-life policy in this legislation, I fear the novel civil enforcement mechanism will in short order be proven both unconstitutional and unwise,” he wrote. “Deputizing private citizens to levy hefty monetary fines on the exercise of a disfavored but judicially recognized constitutional right for the purpose of evading court review undermines our constitutional form of government and weakens our collective liberties.”

The Republican governor pointed out that as Idaho, Texas and other red states weaponize the private court system to gut constitutionally-protected abortion access, progressive states like New York and California could play that same card to ban gun ownership, for example.

“None of the rights we treasure are off limits,” he wrote.