Abortion & Contraception Rights Under Attack

[goldenvalley]

Aug 9, 2022 17:49:29 GMT LFC said:

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SCumbag) should just STFU about abortion when he knows this little about how babies are made. With a statement this dumb he should probably just STFU about everything.

In his latest fundraising email, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) paints a very dark picture for the GOP if the party doesn’t win back the Senate in November.

“If we don’t take back the Senate, Dems will pack the courts, give DC statehood, grant abortions up to 52 weeks, and Republicans will never win again,” he wrote to supporters Monday.

Right now, Democrats control the Senate, House and the White House, and none of those things have happened. And it sure seems like Republicans have a great shot at winning back control of Congress in November. Structurally, the Senate map favors Republicans long-term, so the idea that the GOP will “never win again” is nonsense.

But even more head-scratching is the idea that Democrats will “grant abortions up to 52 weeks.”

“A full-term pregnancy is approximately 40 weeks,” Dr. Meera Shah, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, told HuffPost. “It is not logical or medically accurate to say that people can be pregnant at 52 weeks ― let alone be seeking an abortion. It is comments like this one that underscore exactly why medical decisions should not be made by politicians.”

You elites care about details...the emotion counts, not the details!

[AnBr]

The Stupid! It burns!

[LFC]

The SCOTUS decision is just months old and already Facebook has rolled over to allow Nebraska to prosecute a teenage girl and her mother. Here comes Christian nationalism in all its fascist glory!

A 17-year-old girl and her mother have been charged with a series of felonies and misdemeanors after an apparent medication abortion at home in Nebraska. The state’s case relies on evidence from the teenager’s private Facebook messages, obtained directly from Facebook by court order, which show the mother and daughter allegedly bought medication to induce abortion online, and then disposed of the body of the fetus. While the court documents, obtained by Motherboard, allege that the abortion took place before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in June, they show in shocking detail how abortion could and will be prosecuted in the United States, and how tech companies will be enlisted by law enforcement to help prosecute their cases.

[LFC]

This is just sad.

If you are looking to end your own pregnancy, your own doctor may be your downfall.

Between 2000 and 2020, law enforcement in 26 states investigated or arrested at least 61 people for allegedly aborting their own pregnancy or helping someone else do so, according to a report released earlier this week by the legal advocacy group group If/When/How. And in 45 percent of those cases, it was healthcare providers or social workers who tipped off police.

In another 26 percent of the cases, people “entrusted with information”—like partners, parents, and friends—reported their ostensible loved one to police.

“The research really clearly confirms that the biggest threat to the privacy of abortion seekers is other people,” said Laura Huss, senior researcher for If/When/How. “That breakdown of trust and ethics and the patient-doctor relationship is really alarming.”

The report, which examined the criminalization of self-managed abortions while Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land, offers a stunning glimpse at how people who get abortions in this post-Roe era may be targeted and threatened by law enforcement. Although abortion opponents often insist that they do not want to punish pregnant people for abortions, abortion rights supporters have long pointed out that pregnant people have already faced criminal consequences—and there’s no way to ensure they’ll be kept out of an anti-abortion dragnet.

Indeed, that future is already coming to pass: Earlier this week, Nebraska law enforcement charged a 17-year-old and her mother with a litany of misdemeanors and felonies after they allegedly sought to end the 17-year-old’s pregnancy through a medication abortion.

Currently, just three states have laws on the books that explicitly target self-managed abortions. But if prosecutors want to pursue charges, abortion rights experts say they’ll find a way to do so. In the Nebraska case, both individuals are facing charges that apparently refer to the 17-year-old’s fetus as a “dead human body”—language that elevates the fetus to the status of personhood, suggesting that it deserves the same rights and protections as people who can get pregnant.

[LFC]

Fools and their money...

Dismayed by Kansas voters’ overwhelming rejection of an amendment that would’ve stripped away abortion rights from the state’s constitution, several anti-abortion activists sought a statewide hand recount – but failed to raise enough cash for the $229,000 required to pay for it in all 105 counties on Monday.

So they’re settling for nine.

Melissa Leavitt, the activist who attempted to launch the first recount, and Kansas Coalition for Life chairman Mark Gietzen, an anti-abortion ally who tried to help her raise the money for it, shelled out $119,000 on Monday for recounts in just Sedgwick, Johnson, Shawnee, Douglas, Crawford, Harvey, Jefferson, Lyon and Thomas counties.

All but one of them – Thomas County – rejected the amendment in the state’s primaries earlier this month.

The Kansas secretary of state’s office said on Monday that the deadline for the recount is Saturday.

One of Gietzen’s credit cards was used to pay a whopping $118,000 for the new recount gambit, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

Even if Leavitt and Gietzen (who went as far as offering his house as collateral to meet the $229,000 fee, an offer the Kansas secretary of state’s office rejected) had managed to get the statewide recount they initially wanted, it wouldn’t have done much to change the outcome of the vote: Opponents of the amendment won a jaw-dropping 165,000 more votes than its supporters.

But Leavitt has hinted that the stunt is less about overturning the results of the vote and more about pushing conservatives’ baseless narrative about voter fraud.

“We are just praying for exposure of anything that might have been nefarious and just some answers to put the voters of Kansas at peace,” Leavitt said, per the Kansas Reflector.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 17, 2022 2:47:33 GMT LFC said:

“We are just praying for exposure of anything that might have been nefarious and just some answers to put the voters of Kansas at peace,” Leavitt said, per the Kansas Reflector.

They don't need to pray for this.  They just need to stop lying about the integrity of the 2020 and all other elections. That'll put those voters at peace.

[LFC]

Aug 17, 2022 3:37:51 GMT goldenvalley said:

They don't need to pray for this.  They just need to stop lying...

You may as well just ask them to stop breathing. Hmmmm, maybe that's not a bad request.

[LFC]

Gee, maybe this asshat should have actually consulted the piles of information available to him before undertaking such an important vote. And maybe taking medical information from religious zealots wasn't the best idea. Dipshit.

A South Carolina lawmaker on Tuesday had to fight back tears as he explained that an anti-abortion law he’d voted for led to a young woman nearly losing her uterus, and even put her life at risk. Republican State Rep. Neal Collins told the state’s House Judiciary Committee that he’d lost sleep after learning about the case of a 19-year-old woman whose water broke after just 15 weeks of pregnancy. He said that because the fetus had a heartbeat, lawyers advised doctors that they could not remove the fetus, despite that being the recommended medical course of action. The young woman was discharged from hospital. “First, she’s going to pass this fetus in the toilet,” Collins said. “She’s going to have to deal with that on her own.” He added that a doctor told him that there was a “greater than 50 percent chance that she’s going to lose her uterus” and “there’s a 10 percent chance that she will develop sepsis and herself die.” “That weighs on me,” Collins added. “I voted for that bill. These are affecting people.”

[goldenvalley]

Aug 17, 2022 15:46:58 GMT LFC said:

Gee, maybe this asshat should have actually consulted the piles of information available to him before undertaking such an important vote. And maybe taking medical information from religious zealots wasn't the best idea. Dipshit.

A South Carolina lawmaker on Tuesday had to fight back tears as he explained that an anti-abortion law he’d voted for led to a young woman nearly losing her uterus, and even put her life at risk. Republican State Rep. Neal Collins told the state’s House Judiciary Committee that he’d lost sleep after learning about the case of a 19-year-old woman whose water broke after just 15 weeks of pregnancy. He said that because the fetus had a heartbeat, lawyers advised doctors that they could not remove the fetus, despite that being the recommended medical course of action. The young woman was discharged from hospital. “First, she’s going to pass this fetus in the toilet,” Collins said. “She’s going to have to deal with that on her own.” He added that a doctor told him that there was a “greater than 50 percent chance that she’s going to lose her uterus” and “there’s a 10 percent chance that she will develop sepsis and herself die.” “That weighs on me,” Collins added. “I voted for that bill. These are affecting people.”

Yeah when the rubber hits the road the abstract "saving babies" concept gets beaten up by reality.

Horrible pregnancies are not something people talk about much. It's personal, painful, and the people who suffer them just want to grieve and then get on with their lives.  They aren't inclined to share their stories with anyone but people who are close to them.  Unfortunately that leads the Neal Collinses of the country to vote for restrictive abortion laws.

[LFC]

Aug 17, 2022 16:16:55 GMT goldenvalley said:

Yeah when the rubber hits the road the abstract "saving babies" concept gets beaten up by reality.

Horrible pregnancies are not something people talk about much. It's personal, painful, and the people who suffer them just want to grieve and then get on with their lives.  They aren't inclined to share their stories with anyone but people who are close to them.  Unfortunately that leads the Neal Collinses of the country to vote for restrictive abortion laws.

All they want to talk about is "partial birth abortion." The instant health and safety of the mother come up it's all "well, you can't trust those doctors" and complete dismissal of reality. They know what they want and they don't give a shit who gets hurt as long as it's not a fetus.

[LFC]

Below the age of consent for sex but apparently not for having a baby. Welcome to the predictable and predicted outcome of the Christianist right's victory. It's a brave new (f***ed up) world.

A pregnant 16-year-old in Florida was denied a waiver to get an abortion in the state without legal guardian notification and consent, after a court deemed she did not prove that she is mature enough to make the decision.

Florida, which currently bans most abortions at 15 weeks, requires physicians to notify and obtain written consent from a minor’s parent or legal guardian before performing an abortion on the minor. Under the law, a minor is allowed to petition a circuit court to waive these requirements.

The minor, who is “parentless” and living with a relative, told the circuit court that her legal guardian is “fine with what [she] wants to do,” according to one of the judges for the appellate court.

A state circuit judge had dismissed the pregnant teen’s petition, finding that she “had not established by clear and convincing evidence that she was sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy,” according to an appellate court’s opinion issued Monday.

In its opinion, a three-judge panel of the First District Court of Appeal in Florida affirmed the lower court’s decision and said there was no need to remand the ruling to the trial court.

The case was first reported by The Daily Beast.

The minor, identified in court documents as Jane Doe 22-B, was 10 weeks pregnant when she petitioned the Florida circuit court, according to appellate court Judge Scott Makar, who dissented in part.

In her petition, the teenager stated that she isn’t ready to have a baby, doesn’t have a job, is still in school and that the father is unable to support her, Makar said. Shortly before she decided to seek an abortion, she also “experienced renewed trauma (the death of a friend),” he wrote.

Escambia Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Frydrychowicz had denied the minor’s petition on the basis of her maturity, but said that the minor “may be able, at a later date, to adequately articulate her request” and the court may reevaluate its decision, according to Makar, who wrote in his dissent that he would have returned the case to the lower court.

"At a later date." You know, because it's not like this is a time sensitive issue.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 18, 2022 15:15:08 GMT LFC said:

Below the age of consent for sex but apparently not for having a baby. Welcome to the predictable and predicted outcome of the Christianist right's victory. It's a brave new (f***ed up) world.

A pregnant 16-year-old in Florida was denied a waiver to get an abortion in the state without legal guardian notification and consent, after a court deemed she did not prove that she is mature enough to make the decision.

Florida, which currently bans most abortions at 15 weeks, requires physicians to notify and obtain written consent from a minor’s parent or legal guardian before performing an abortion on the minor. Under the law, a minor is allowed to petition a circuit court to waive these requirements.

The minor, who is “parentless” and living with a relative, told the circuit court that her legal guardian is “fine with what [she] wants to do,” according to one of the judges for the appellate court.

A state circuit judge had dismissed the pregnant teen’s petition, finding that she “had not established by clear and convincing evidence that she was sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy,” according to an appellate court’s opinion issued Monday.

In its opinion, a three-judge panel of the First District Court of Appeal in Florida affirmed the lower court’s decision and said there was no need to remand the ruling to the trial court.

The case was first reported by The Daily Beast.

The minor, identified in court documents as Jane Doe 22-B, was 10 weeks pregnant when she petitioned the Florida circuit court, according to appellate court Judge Scott Makar, who dissented in part.

In her petition, the teenager stated that she isn’t ready to have a baby, doesn’t have a job, is still in school and that the father is unable to support her, Makar said. Shortly before she decided to seek an abortion, she also “experienced renewed trauma (the death of a friend),” he wrote.

Escambia Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Frydrychowicz had denied the minor’s petition on the basis of her maturity, but said that the minor “may be able, at a later date, to adequately articulate her request” and the court may reevaluate its decision, according to Makar, who wrote in his dissent that he would have returned the case to the lower court.

"At a later date." You know, because it's not like this is a time sensitive issue.

She's not mature enough to decide whether to have an abortion so she'll just have the baby.  Maybe once it's born she will be mature enough to decide whether put it up for adoption. Yeah sure.

[AnBr]

Aug 18, 2022 15:15:08 GMT LFC said:

"At a later date." You know, because it's not like this is a time sensitive issue.

"At a later date" so it becomes a "late term abortion." Yeah, that's the ticket.

[LFC]

The North Carolina 20-week abortion ban was reinstated.

Abortions in North Carolina are no longer legal after 20 weeks of pregnancy, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, eroding protections in one of the South’s few remaining safe havens for reproductive freedom.

U.S. District Judge William Osteen reinstated an unenforced 20-week abortion ban, with exceptions for urgent medical emergencies, after he said the June U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade erased the legal foundation for his 2019 ruling that placed an injunction on the 1973 state law.

His decision defies the recommendations of all named parties in the 2019 case, including doctors, district attorneys and the attorney general’s office, who earlier this month filed briefs requesting he let the injunction stand.

“Neither this court, nor the public, nor counsel, nor providers have the right to ignore the rule of law as determined by the Supreme Court,” wrote Osteen, who was appointed to the court by Republican President George W. Bush.

Unable to pass abortion restrictions that would survive Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto, the Republican General Assembly leaders urged Osteen to restore the ban in a July 27 friend-of-the-court brief after the state’s Democratic attorney general, an outspoken abortion rights supporter, rejected their demand that he bring the ban before a judge himself.

[LFC]

Another horror story from another red state. Remember when you read this that the confusion about what is and isn't legal is completely intentional. For example the Texas vigilante law was meant to keep risk high for anybody involved with an abortion even if what they did wasn't illegal.

A doctor in Nebraska is crying foul after a local Walmart pharmacy denied one of her patients access to medication to treat her miscarriage.

In an interview with local news station KETV, Dr. Meghan Oakes says that a pharmacist recently refused to sell one of her patients misoprostol, which she regularly prescribes to women suffering miscarriages.

"The pharmacist refused to dispense that medication, subsequently coming back and telling the provider that there was a Nebraska statute that necessitated that the provider be present for this medication to be dispensed,” Oakes tells KETV.

The doctor went on to add that no such statute exists in Nebraska law.

That said, Oakes believes that the pharmacist's actions were not a result of malevolence but out of genuine confusion over what is still legal in a world where Roe v. Wade has been overturned.

"It leads to fear and it leads to suspicion and it leads to confusion," she says. "And it and the person who suffers is this poor woman who miscarried."

She also said that, even though many states have rushed to pass abortion bans, Nebraska has not done so yet.

"This didn't have to happen," Oakes adds. "There didn't have to be this confusion... Nothing changed in Nebraska. Abortion is legal in Nebraska. Medical abortion is critical.”

[LFC]

The Kansas nitwits just can't accept that they lost the vote, by quite a lot. I have to admit I'd love for somebody like this to come to my door and try to ask my opinion.

Anti-abortion activists threatened to carry out a door-to-door investigation after a recount proved again that Kansas voters overwhelmingly backed an amendment to preserve abortion rights.

Nine of the state's 105 counties recounted their ballots and found 87 fewer votes in favor of preserving those rights and six more in favor of stripping those from women in the Aug. 2 election where 922,000 votes were cast on the issue, and the election denier and anti-abortion activist were ordered to pay nearly $120,000 for the hand recount they requested, reported The Kansas City Star.

“It looks insidious," said state Rep. Stephanie Clayton (D-Overland Park). "It’s a two-pronged attack. It’s attacking our election system and it’s attacking, specifically, the counties that didn’t vote the way that they wanted them to. They’re creating unnecessary work for our already overburdened election workers in what I see as an effort to put democracy itself at risk.”

The recount was requested by Melissa Leavitt, a Colby woman who has testified before the state Legislature about 2020 election conspiracy theories, and bankrolled by longtime anti-abortion activist Mark Gietzen, whose Kansas for Life group targeted George Tiller's late-term abortion clinic before he was murdered.

“The next step is to check the registrations of the people who they say voted,” Gietzen said. “I don’t care whether they voted yes or no, it doesn’t make any difference to me. I want to know if a human being voted. So we’ll be visiting homes to see if anyone lives there – maybe 10 out of every precinct.”

[LFC]

Republicans in potentially competitive races are trying to backpedal from their previous fire and brimstone on abortion.

Arizona Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters softened his tone and scrubbed his website's policy page of tough abortion restrictions Thursday as his party reels from the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

In an ad posted to Twitter on Thursday, Masters sought to portray his opponent, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, as the extremist on the issue while describing his own views as "commonsense."

"Look, I support a ban on very late-term and partial-birth abortion," he said. "And most Americans agree with that. That would just put us on par with other civilized nations." (Late-term abortions are extremely rare, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracker.)

Just after it released the ad, Masters' campaign published an overhaul of his website and softened his rhetoric, rewriting or erasing five of his six positions. NBC News took screenshots of the website before and after it was changed. Masters' website appeared to have been refreshed after NBC News reached out for clarification about his abortion stances.

"I am 100% pro-life," Masters' website read as of Thursday morning.

That language is now gone.

Another notable deletion: a line that detailed his support for "a federal personhood law (ideally a Constitutional amendment) that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed."

Masters is far from the only Republican feeling the impact that abortion politics are having on the midterms. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel fretted about the post-Roe Democratic small-dollar advantage in a call to donors that Politico reported Wednesday. Before the Supreme Court’s decision in June, McDaniel also expressed concern about the energizing effect that abortion could have for the left if Roe were overturned, according to two sources who had spoken with her about it in the past and spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations more freely.

"It’s a big fundraising concern, because we’re seeing a huge boost on the Democrats’ side," one of the Republican sources said. "We never expected Democrats to sit out. We expected them to put their jerseys on. Now the candidates have to navigate this in the states."

In Arizona, a once-red Republican bastion that is now a purple swing state, voters opposed the Supreme Court’s decision 52% to 33%, according to a poll this summer from OH Predictive Insights. Only a majority of Republicans were in support, while most independents sided with Democrats in opposition.

Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona Republican pollster, said he just wrapped up a survey of voters that suggests Masters is trailing Kelly by 10 points. A recent Fox News survey found Kelly up by 8 points, too.

"Abortion is a devastating issue for Republican candidates," Coughlin said. "There are three constituencies who don’t like the Republican position: women, independents and voters over 64 — who are just tired of all the change and chaos and want to go back.

"What Mr. Masters is discovering is there no such thing as political startups," he added of the venture capitalist, whom tech mogul Peter Thiel has spent millions backing. "You can’t make it up as you go along."

[LFC]

The Republicans are tapdancing ... poorly.

Representative Doug Gilliam from South Carolina has enraged critics with his recent comments on a theoretical 12-year-old rape and incest victim. Responding in court to SC Republican Gil Gatch’s statement that a hypothetical child victim who had been impregnated by her father would be “forced” to carry a pregnancy under the abortion ban, Gilliam responded that “she had choices... the morning after pill was available... that’s available in Walmart.” “If her dad rapes her and she’s carrying the child, who drives her to get the morning after pill?” Gatch asked Gilliam. “The ambulance,” Gilliam said. On Tuesday, South Carolina has passed a near-total abortion ban that doesn’t allow children who’re rape victims to get abortions at up to 20 weeks.

[LFC]

Abortion is going to be on the ballot in multiple states, in both directions. I'm sure smart Republicans aren't pleased about this, especially after their crushing defeat in Kansas. This could hurt them in close races in purple districts or statewide races.

The States With Abortion On Ballot

Voters in California, Kentucky, Montana and Vermont will vote on state constitutional amendments or legislative referendums on abortion access this November.

• California: A vote on amending the state’s constitution to confirm that the state “shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom in their most intimate decisions, which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and their fundamental right to choose or refuse contraceptives.”

• Kentucky: A vote on amending the state’s constitution to say explicitly that Kentuckians don’t have a constitutional right to abortion care.
    • The proposed language: “To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.”

• Montana: A legislative referendum on the “Born-Alive Infant Protection Act,” an anti-abortion law that defines a fetus that was born alive after an attempted abortion as a legally protected person (abortion is still legal in Montana for now).

• Vermont: A vote on amending the state’s constitution to codify the right to an abortion.
    • The proposed language: “That an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”

[LFC]

News Flash: Republicans suck! They appear desperate to keep it off the 2022 ballot, probably hoping it comes up in 2023 and not 2024 so it can do the least damage.

The ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in Michigan’s constitution garnered more petition signatures from everyday voters than any measure in the state’s history: Roughly 750,000, well above the state’s threshold.

But, as of right now, the language won’t be on voters’ ballots this November, and for the strangest reason: GOP officials were upset about the spacing between words in the measure’s proposed language.

Last Wednesday, when Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers met to review the ballot measure, the board’s two Republicans voted against certifying the measure for the ballot, claiming that it had been type-set incorrectly and that words were incomprehensibly smushed together. Now, the issue is pending before the state’s Supreme Court.

“You wouldn’t sign a mortgage that had this kind of mistake in it,” said Chair Tony Daunt, one of the board’s two Republicans, who was nominated by the state GOP’s chairwoman for the seat after Donald Trump’s nearly-successful effort to pressure the same body into rejecting Joe Biden’s presidential win.

Vice Chair Mary Ellen Gurewitz, one of two Democrats on the board, said that in addition to the issue simply not being in the board’s purview, the text was perfectly legible.

“While the words are compressed, I think it’s easy to read. And 700,000 people also thought it was easy to read,” she said, according to Politico. The number of valid signatures supporting the measure’s ballot placement represents more than 9 percent of the state’s voting-age population.

“We simply have no authority to reject this petition based on challenges to the content,” Gurewitz continued. “That is not within our purview.”

[LFC]

The Michigan Republicans' attempt at striking down the anti-abortion amendment was rejected.

A 5-2 majority of the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a pro-choice amendment seeking to enshrine abortion rights in the Michigan constitution would appear on this November’s ballot, despite a challenge from anti-abortion activists that focused on the spacing between the printed words of the proposed amendment.

Michigan law requires only that ballot proposals be formatted in eight-point type, the court’s majority ruled — “regardless of the existence or extent of the spacing.”

“In this case, the meaning of the words has not changed by the alleged insufficient spacing between them,” the majority opinion added.

I wonder what the track records are for the 2 apparent hacks who voted against. I mean, seriously? This was a blatantly obvious and stupid attempt at delay with no validity from the get go.

[LFC]

Little Lindsey is pushing for a national abortion ban.

Josh Marshall does some analysis. The proposal is for a ban at 15 or 20 weeks, possibly with exceptions. Below are the political issues. As he says, it's a "blue state abortion ban." It's not an actual national law, it's a new minimum.

Second, Republicans want to portray this as a reasonable national compromise, setting a national standard as I’ve seen even some journalists put it. But that’s not what it is. It doesn’t set a national 15 or 20 week standard. All the total restrictions which are now common in red and some purple states stay in place. It simply takes the Mississippi law which brought us the Dobbs decision and imposes it on every blue state. So what Mississippi passed and which was treated as extreme a year ago will become the law in California, New York, Illinois, Washington state and everywhere else. In practice it’s a blue state abortion ban. Abortion’s already banned in the great majority of red states or soon will be.

Republicans leave the decision to the states. Unless a state protects abortion rights. In which case Republicans ban it for them.

It is critical at every stage – though I suspect most won’t need it pointed out – that this is a national ban. Even if it’s 15 weeks versus from the moment of conception, it is a national ban. So if you’re relying on your blue state politics making this someone else’s problem you’re out of luck. It’s coming for you. And it certainly won’t stop with a 15 week ban.

Third, this move by Republicans underscores a central reality: there will be national abortion legislation. It’s just a matter of who writes it. Will it be Republicans starting with a 15 week ban and tightening restrictions going forward or will it be Democrats restoring the Roe protections which were the status quo ante? Needless to say, this makes it all the more critical that Democrats make clear that with the House and two additional Senate seats they will pass that law in January 2023. Not just pass it. Pass it in January 2023, the first week Congress reconvenes if they hold the House and add two Senate seats.

[goldenvalley]

Sept 13, 2022 14:05:34 GMT LFC said:

Little Lindsey is pushing for a national abortion ban.

Josh Marshall does some analysis. The proposal is for a ban at 15 or 20 weeks, possibly with exceptions. Below are the political issues. As he says, it's a "blue state abortion ban." It's not an actual national law, it's a new minimum.

Second, Republicans want to portray this as a reasonable national compromise, setting a national standard as I’ve seen even some journalists put it. But that’s not what it is. It doesn’t set a national 15 or 20 week standard. All the total restrictions which are now common in red and some purple states stay in place. It simply takes the Mississippi law which brought us the Dobbs decision and imposes it on every blue state. So what Mississippi passed and which was treated as extreme a year ago will become the law in California, New York, Illinois, Washington state and everywhere else. In practice it’s a blue state abortion ban. Abortion’s already banned in the great majority of red states or soon will be.

Republicans leave the decision to the states. Unless a state protects abortion rights. In which case Republicans ban it for them.

It is critical at every stage – though I suspect most won’t need it pointed out – that this is a national ban. Even if it’s 15 weeks versus from the moment of conception, it is a national ban. So if you’re relying on your blue state politics making this someone else’s problem you’re out of luck. It’s coming for you. And it certainly won’t stop with a 15 week ban.

Third, this move by Republicans underscores a central reality: there will be national abortion legislation. It’s just a matter of who writes it. Will it be Republicans starting with a 15 week ban and tightening restrictions going forward or will it be Democrats restoring the Roe protections which were the status quo ante? Needless to say, this makes it all the more critical that Democrats make clear that with the House and two additional Senate seats they will pass that law in January 2023. Not just pass it. Pass it in January 2023, the first week Congress reconvenes if they hold the House and add two Senate seats.

Marshall is absolutely right.  This was always headed towards some sort of federal law restriction on abortion.  Let the states decide was a subterfuge.  

Here's my pet peeve.  The 15, 20 week limit is purely a numbers game that has nothing to do with the course of actual pregnancy and certainly not with medical knowledge.  It's just a number divisible by 5. Somewhere between 18 and 22 weeks (usually 20 weeks) into pregnancy an anatomy scan is done. It checks the development of organs and other potential issues.  This is where people learn such things as the fetus has no kidneys.  Cutting off abortion at 15 or 20 weeks makes the decision making ability of the parents more difficult and fraught than it should ever be.  Maybe there is an exception for these circumstances but what mechanism is going to be put into place to judge whether the fetus is either viable or capable of living a real life?  A stupid, cruel barrier will go into place.

[LFC]

Sept 13, 2022 15:25:05 GMT goldenvalley said:

A stupid, cruel barrier will go into place.

You say that like it's a bug and not a feature for these people.

[LFC]

Swing and a miss, Lindsey? But hey, thanks for the election ammo.

Shortly after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) unveiled his 15-week national abortion ban, with much hoopla and flanked by anti-abortion activists, his Republican peers started backing away from his proposal.

“I think most of the members of my conference prefer that this be dealt with at the state level,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) when asked if he’d schedule the bill for a vote, should Republicans win the Senate.

Graham on Tuesday summarily upended the Republican refrain ever since the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights in Dobbs: that killing Roe was actually democratic, and would return the contentious issue to the states, where it belongs.

Instead, Graham introduced a nationwide ban, draping it in the anti-abortion lingo of “fetal pain,” “late-term abortion” and “unborn child.”

The bill would not supersede state or local bans more draconian than the 15-week model, meaning that if it ever passed, stricter red state laws would be left standing. Blue states, however, would have a 15-week ban imposed upon them.

It has exemptions for pregnancies from rape and incest, if they’ve been reported to specific entities, and for threats to the woman’s life.

“That wasn’t a conference decision,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Politico. “It was an individual senator’s decision.”

Democrats seized upon the bill as proof of what they’ve been warning: that if Republicans win Congress and the White House, they’ll quickly pass a national abortion ban.

“For MAGA Republicans, this has always been about making abortion illegal everywhere,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday morning on the Senate floor.

Democratic candidates got in on the action too.