Abortion & Contraception Rights Under Attack

[goldenvalley]

Sept 14, 2022 16:18:39 GMT LFC said:

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.

No way will Graham's bill be taken up by the election date.  And no way would it pass the currently constituted House. 

All he did was give ammo to Democrats running for Congress in blue and purple states.  Don't send the Rep candidate to Congress if you value reproductive freedom.

[LFC]

The Republicans in Texas treat pregnancy data just like Republicans treat gun related deaths, COVID numbers, global temperatures, and anything else that's not politically valuable to them; they block its release.

Texas health officials won’t be releasing the findings of their latest study on statewide maternal death rates until next summer, a major delay from the original September 1 release date.

Per the Houston Chronicle, Dr. John Hellerstedt, the commissioner of Texas’ Department of State Health Services (DSHS), explained the missed deadline in a hearing with the state’s Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee earlier this month.

Hellerstedt told the committee that the DSHS didn’t have enough staff and funding to complete the study, which focuses on death rates in 2019, on time. He also said that the study’s methodology needed to be adjusted to make it easier to compare the results to those of maternal mortality studies in other states.

“The information we provide is not easily understood, and not easily and readily comparable to what goes on in other states,” the official said. “And the fact it isn’t easily understood or easily comparable in my mind leaves room for a great deal of misunderstanding about what the data really means.”

Texas hasn’t updated its maternal death count since 2013, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The delay means Texas lawmakers won’t have access to the most recent data on pregnancy-related deaths in the state when addressing the effects of Texas’ sweeping six-week abortion ban in the upcoming legislative session. It also means voters won’t have access to that information ahead of the midterm election in November, when Republican Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who backs the state’s six-week abortion ban, is up for reelection, running against Democrat and former congressman Beto O’Rourke.

But even without the precise figures, the dangerous consequences of the ban have already emerged: There are troubling reports of Texas women being denied care for pregnancy complications by health providers who fear they may be violating the ban, which only allows exceptions for poorly-defined “medical emergencies.”

This is age old. I remember when it was pointed out in the 80s that timber leasing on federal lands lost a pile of money every year. Reagan's reaction? They stopped publishing the data where you could figure that out. It's the Republican way.

[LFC]

Religious freak Mike Pence is all in with Little Lindsey.

While vowing his undying allegiance to the “pro-life” movement, Turning Point USA founder and far-right provocateur Charlie Kirk could barely contain his ire with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) this week as he sweatily yelled at the senator for his abortion ban legislation. Kirk described the introduction of a bill that would ban abortion federally at 15-weeks just weeks out from the midterms as synonymous with “election interference.”

While Kirk is a staunch anti-abortion advocate who only supports exceptions if the pregnant person’s life is in danger, he’s joined Mitch McConnell and other conservatives hoping to take back Congress this fall in their utter befuddlement over Graham’s move, suggesting the senator’s trying to help Democrats keep power.

“Really where have you been Lindsey Graham? That feels like election interference. And I say this as someone who is so pro-life, I would love a total abortion ban, 15-weeks isn’t enough. But I’m also not dumb,” Kirk said during his show this week. “They’re enthusiastic that Lindsey Graham is now making [the election] all about the one issue that Democrats could actually win suburban women on.”

It’s been the focal point of all the “red wave no more” thinkpieces published in recent weeks: Republicans bit off more than they could chew between Roe‘s overturning and the passage of outright abortion bans in red states with restrictions so extreme they were once only supported by the most fringe members of the anti-abortion movement.

So why is Mike Pence getting involved?

During an interview with RealClearPolitics today, Pence defended Graham’s proposal and even threw his weight behind the Graham bill. The former vice president — who, before Trump, made a name for himself as one of the most hardline Christian-right conservatives to ascend to the national stage — even subtly acknowledged that the bill might be bad for the GOP in November. But his moral convictions hold more weight than politics here, he suggested, arguing the impact of a federal ban “is profoundly more important than any short-term politics.”

“I’m convinced,” he said, “that enthusiasm among pro-life Americans in states across the country is equal to, or greater than, any new motivation by people that support abortion rights.”

I guess Mike hasn't paid attention to Kansas.

[LFC]

Full criminalization of abortion is now out in the open. It's no longer on the Republican fringe ... except right before an election, of course.

A businessman turned state representative from rural Oil City, Louisiana, and a Baptist pastor banded together earlier this year on a radical mission.

They were adamant that a woman who receives an abortion should receive the same criminal consequences as one who drowns her baby.

Under a bill they promoted, pregnant people could face murder charges even if they were raped or doctors determined the procedure was needed to save their own life. Doctors who attempted to help patients conceive through in-vitro fertilization, a fertility treatment used by millions of Americans, could also be locked up for destroying embryos, and certain contraception such as Plan B would be banned.

“The taking of a life is murder, and it is illegal,” state Rep. Danny McCormick told a committee of state lawmakers who considered the bill in May, right after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked.

“No compromises, no more waiting,” Brian Gunter, the pastor who suggested McCormick be the one to introduce the legislation, told the committee.

Only four people spoke against the bill during the committee meeting— all women. They pleaded with the lawmakers to grasp the gravity of the proposed restrictions, which went farther than any state abortion law currently on the books, and warned of unintended consequences.

“We need to take a deep breath,” said Melissa Flournoy, a former state representative who runs the progressive advocacy group 10,000 Women Louisiana. She said the bill would only punish women and that there wasn’t enough responsibility being placed on men.

But in the end, only one man and one woman, an Independent and a Democrat, voted against it in committee. Seven men on the committee, all Republicans, voted in favor of the bill, moving it one step closer to becoming law.

[LFC]

Shorter Doctor: "Suck it up, incubator. See you after menopause."

A New York woman says she was denied highly effective medication for a chronic, painful condition that’s caused her to contemplate suicide because her neurologist told her she could become pregnant, and the medication might cause birth defects—even though she never plans on having children. In a series of TikTok videos, Tara Rule (@pogsyy) included audio, in which the doctor explains to her that despite the facts that she uses protection, her partner would be willing to get a vasectomy, and she would have to get an abortion anyway (her hypothetical pregnancies would be high-risk), the risks to her hypothetical fetus trump her debilitating pain.

In the audio in one video, Rule asks if the issue preventing her from getting medication is solely that she’s of “childbearing age,” and, “if I were like through menopause, would this be effective for cluster headaches?” When the doctor says “yes,” Rule asks, “So the only thing that’s kind of stopping this is the fact that at some point in my life, I could get pregnant?” In response, the doctor changes the subject and asks, “How’s your sleep?”

Since sharing her story along with the recorded audio on Wednesday, Rule posted a TikTok in which she alleges that Glens Falls Hospital, where the incident happened, warned all hospitals in Albany County that Rule had livestreamed her visit (which she denies). This prompted doctors, who confronted her during a later visit to Malta Med Emergent Care, to “berate” and “threaten [her] with legal action.” Rule includes audio of some of this conversation in the video. On its website, Glens Falls Hospital doesn’t appear to have any policy against recording oneself in the hospital.

The threat of legal action, of course, is on top of the fact that Rule still can’t get medication to effectively manage her debilitating chronic pain. “It was frustrating to be in so much pain and just hear ‘no,’ for that hypothetical reason,” Rule told Jezebel in a phone interview, adding that she’s “pretty sure I can’t even get pregnant” because of several “reproductive issues” she’s had. “It’s already hard enough to deal with this condition. It’s already so misunderstood, it took me 10 years to even get a diagnosis, because it’s a very rare condition and the symptoms are all over the place,” she said.

In her first TikTok last week, through tears, Rule explained that she suffers from painful, chronic cluster headaches and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome—which, she told Jezebel, causes several excruciating comorbidities. Despite the severity and life-threatening risk factors accompanying her condition, Rule told me that doctors who confronted her at her Wednesday visit to Malta Med Emergent Care warned her that she was on a “tracker” and is essentially blacklisted from hospitals in Albany County for the alleged “livestreaming.” Rule has filed a complaint to Glens Falls Hospital and received confirmation that it’s being processed, but it could be up to 45 days before she receives any update.

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we’ve seen horrifying ripple effects like what Rule says she experienced across the health system. As Jezebel has previously reported, several people say they’ve been denied life-saving medications from pharmacists, because these medications could supposedly double as miscarriage-inducing abortifacients. Rule told Jezebel that since she shared her story, numerous people have reached out to her about issues they faced getting medications due to pregnancy-related concerns, even before the overturning of Roe. Just last summer, a pregnant woman in Alabama was arrested and prosecuted for trying to pick up pain medications to manage a chronic back condition.

While Rule said the Glens Falls neurologist she consulted repeatedly cited the overturning of Roe for why he couldn’t prescribe her the medication, she believes it’s more likely he was pushing his “personal agenda.”

[pnwguy]

Sept 22, 2022 20:13:47 GMT LFC said:

Shorter Doctor: "Suck it up, incubator. See you after menopause."

Maybe the GOP approach will just be to put down women after their fertility ceases, not unlike dairy cows or hens.  "Why spend food or health care money on non-producers?"

[LFC]

Welcome to Republican style public education.

[LFC]

Arizona, marching backwards to a "better" time.

Jay Kuo
@nycjayjay

The anti-abortion law that just got resurrected in AZ was part of a code that also said no Black, Indian, or Asian could testify against whites, forbade all marriages between whites and non-whites, and defined the age of consent to be just ten years old.

[LFC]

The chaos, which has been created by design through ridiculously vague laws, continues.

[LFC]

Shorter Tudor Dixon: "Pay no attention to my extremist anti-abortion stance behind the curtain!"

It’s been an incredibly shameless pivot to the general election season for the current crop of Republican candidates hoping to secure wins in November. As they face the music on the electability of their extreme views, we’ve seen the candidates — some of whom have not only pushed Big Lie propaganda as policy positions, but have launched their entire political careers on the back of Trumpy election denialism — flail around, walking back or entirely reversing their stances on the 2020 election in recent weeks.

Desperate GOPers such as Blake Masters in Arizona have also attempted to completely re-write their views on abortion, as Roe’s overturning has turned out to be incredibly unpopular among Americans, and an energizing rallying cry for Democrats.

But Tudor Dixon’s recent spin might be among the most flagrant yet.

Last week, Dixon told reporters, “you can vote for Gretchen Whitmer’s position without having to vote for Gretchen Whitmer again,” suggesting to voters that they could theoretically support the referendum to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution, but still … vote for her, the candidate who is against the procedure in nearly all cases.

Her messaging got even weirder this weekend. As the headlining opener for Donald Trump’s appearance at a rally in Michigan Saturday, Dixon suggested on stage that the issue of abortion rights was no longer up for discussion in the state and therefore shouldn’t be a part of the midterms election in a few short weeks (which is, of course, not true).

“Gretchen Whitmer is out there saying that I’m going to be able to do something about that issue in this state,” Dixon said on stage. “As you all know, it’s on the ballot, it’s been decided by a judge, don’t let her bright shiny thing distract from the fact that she has done nothing but hurt this state.”

A few hours later, she doubled down on the bizarre position, almost outright admitting to reporters that Whitmer’s laser-focus on abortion as the campaign issue was actually a successful strategy.

“It shouldn’t be an issue for the gubernatorial race, but she hasn’t come out with a plan, so she’s trying to run against me on that,” she said.

As we head into the final weeks of this midterms season, the squirm-filled distancing will likely only get more cringe. Be sure to restock your popcorn 🍿

[LFC]

The wingers are going to lose their shit.

Planned Parenthood Launches Plan For Mobile Abortion Clinic

Planned Parenthood announced yesterday that it’ll soon open a mobile abortion clinic in Illinois in the form of a 37-foot RV that will travel along the borders of neighboring states that have banned abortion.

• The clinic will move along Illinois’ borders in the areas of ​​southeastern Missouri and western Kentucky after it arrives this month, according to Planned Parenthood. It’s expected to be fully operational by the end of this year.

• The clinic will start by offering abortion pills for the first 11 weeks of pregnancy, then will begin providing surgical abortions several months later.

[LFC]

Ouch. Georgia's Republicans really don't want to defend their position on abortion. The judge hearing the case really doesn't want to hear their pathetic excuses.

A Scathing Georgia Judge

Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing a legal challenge against Georgia’s abortion ban, shot down on Wednesday state attorneys’ motion asking to delay the scheduled Oct. 24 trial until after Election Day.

You really need to read the judge’s order, which is positively dripping with disdain for that request:

Since then, the State has filed a motion seeking to either “cancel” (not a term of civil procedure with which the Court is familiar) or postpone the trial. The State has offered four reasons for this “cancellation,” which can be summarized as “We are really busy with other things,” “There are no facts in dispute,” “We don’t know what facts are in dispute,” and “You can’t do what you are trying to do.” The Court’s response, detailed below, can be summarized as “Who isn’t?,” “There are,” “You do,” and “I can.”

There was also this little footnote tacked to McBurney’s remark that everyone in the case “can be adequately prepared” for the trial at the date he’d set:

[AnBr]

[LFC]

The dystopian future that was predicted is on its way. Oz said out loud that local politicians should have a say, which means outright control of the final decision, on whether a woman is allowed to have an abortion. Now a Republican House candidate is fleshing out this horrifically cruel idea.

A week ago, everyone who mocking Mehmet Oz’s suggestion that decisions about abortion should be left to the woman, her doctor and “local political leaders.” Now we have a Republican House candidate who’s actually trying to get concrete about how this works in practice. Bo Hines is a Madison Cawthorn-esque candidate who is the Republican nominee in North Carolina’s 13th congressional district. He’s Trump endorsed, with all you’d expect with that. But since getting the nomination he’s apparently been trying to come more towards the political center. Part of that has been trying to work out how the Oz proposal operates in practice.

According to WRAL in Raleigh, Hines “wants victims of rape and incest to be allowed to get an abortion on a case-by-case basis through a community-level review process outside the jurisdiction of the federal government.”

In other words, if you are a victim of rape and become pregnant, you would present your case to a community board to see if the situation was bad enough to merit your getting an abortion or whether your rape was legitimate enough (to paraphrase the immortal Todd Aiken) to merit an abortion.

If you think I’m exaggerating what this means, I’m not. Hines has hedged on how to legislatively structure his “individual basis” approach. He discussed it in general in this interview. He provided a little more detail in an October 1st interview in which he said that while the notorious case of the raped 10 year old girl in Ohio would meet his standard, “you have to look at each individual case and each individual circumstance and see what happens there.”

"WOMAN INCUBATOR, YOU MUST STAND BEFORE US AND GOD(TM) AND WE WILL DETERMINE IF YOU ARE ALLOWED AN ABORTION!" Let's not forget how many Republicans have already screeched "NO EXCEPTIONS!" Welcome to the 18th Century, ladies.

[LFC]

Perpetual victims, even when one of their own clearly assaults an elderly man.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, anti-abortion activists finally won the prize they had sought for decades. But since then, pro-life voices on the right have been on the hunt for a new reason to be aggrieved—and they may have found one: a spate of federal prosecutions against people illegally blocking access to abortion clinics.

“It sure looks like the FBI is just fishing for pro-lifers to prosecute,” the conservative Washington Examiner declared in October.

The backlash to prosecutions has gone mostly unnoticed in mainstream media outlets. And so far, there’s no evidence the activists are being unjustly targeted. But to the right, the cases are proof ahead of the midterms that what conservatives increasingly call the Biden “regime” has unfairly prosecuted activists.

Most of the attention to the prosecutions has focused on Mark Houck, a Pennsylvania anti-abortion activist arrested in September at his home. According to prosecutors, Houck was protesting outside a Planned Parenthood branch in Philadelphia in October 2021 when he berated and twice shoved a 72-year-old man working as a clinic escort to the ground as the victim helped bring two patients into the clinic.

Houck, like more than 20 other anti-abortion activists this year, is being charged with violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The law, enacted in 1994 to prevent anti-abortion protesters from blocking staff and patients from reaching abortion clinics, now appears to be key to a renewed Justice Department effort to prosecute protesters who allegedly break the law.

[goldenvalley]

Nov 2, 2022 16:35:20 GMT LFC said:

Perpetual victims, even when one of their own clearly assaults an elderly man.

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, anti-abortion activists finally won the prize they had sought for decades. But since then, pro-life voices on the right have been on the hunt for a new reason to be aggrieved—and they may have found one: a spate of federal prosecutions against people illegally blocking access to abortion clinics.

“It sure looks like the FBI is just fishing for pro-lifers to prosecute,” the conservative Washington Examiner declared in October.

The backlash to prosecutions has gone mostly unnoticed in mainstream media outlets. And so far, there’s no evidence the activists are being unjustly targeted. But to the right, the cases are proof ahead of the midterms that what conservatives increasingly call the Biden “regime” has unfairly prosecuted activists.

Most of the attention to the prosecutions has focused on Mark Houck, a Pennsylvania anti-abortion activist arrested in September at his home. According to prosecutors, Houck was protesting outside a Planned Parenthood branch in Philadelphia in October 2021 when he berated and twice shoved a 72-year-old man working as a clinic escort to the ground as the victim helped bring two patients into the clinic.

Houck, like more than 20 other anti-abortion activists this year, is being charged with violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The law, enacted in 1994 to prevent anti-abortion protesters from blocking staff and patients from reaching abortion clinics, now appears to be key to a renewed Justice Department effort to prosecute protesters who allegedly break the law.

Mind boggling...it's unjust to enforce the law against the people who are violating it.  Law enforcement doesn't have to do any fishing, just go to a clinic and watch the protestors. Does it not make the law and order types among the right wing cringe a bit when they argue that they are unjustly prosecuted?

[LFC]

The abortion issue continues to break against Republicans and Christianists.

[LFC]

Montana voters also told the religious freaks to f*** off.

Montana rejects ‘born alive’ ballot measure

Montana voters rejected a ballot measure that would have required health care providers in the state to take “reasonable actions” to save an infant who is born alive, including after an attempted abortion, or face felony criminal charges.

The measure would have made clear that infants who are born alive — meaning with a heartbeat, breath or definite voluntary muscle movement — are legal persons, who require “necessary actions” by medical providers to preserve their lives.

The proposed punishments for convicted health care providers were up to 20 years behind bars and a maximum $50,000 fine.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said such a “cruel” law would mandate aggressive treatments in extremely complex situations, which could “prolong suffering and deny families the choice to offer comfort or spiritual care.”

[LFC]

The frothing religious freaks aren't remotely done.

The anti-abortion movement has had a banner year. After a decades-long takeover of the Republican Party and demands to appoint far-right anti-abortion judges to the bench, the Supreme Court finally fully stripped abortion rights from American women this past June. In preparation for that moment, the anti-abortion movement had spent years pushing and passing trigger laws in various state, which went into effect the moment Roe v. Wade was overturned and abortion was criminalized. These laws often with virtually no exceptions, for even the most extreme circumstances. The people who wrote these laws are not doctors, and already, a number of women have almost died because of the “pro-life” movement’s total disregard for women’s lives. The public is outraged, and just delivered Democrats unexpected midterm wins because of abortion. Everywhere abortion rights have been on the ballot, abortion rights have won.

The anti-abortion movement, though, has not been brought to heel. Instead, it is more emboldened and aggressive than ever. And its leaders are clear about what they believe the future holds: A public that grows acclimated to extreme abortion restrictions, and laws that will limit IVF and contraception.

The leaders of the anti-abortion movement are saying as much on private phone calls with Republican politicians.

When it comes to IVF and contraception, "I don’t think that that’s the conversation that you need to have now,” one anti-abortion leader told Tennessee Republicans on a private call. Instead, he offered, “Maybe your caucus gets to a point next year, two years from now, three years from now, where you do want to talk about IVF, and how to regulate it in a more ethical way, or deal with some of those contraceptive issues.”

They've tasted success and they're not going to take "no" for an answer from Republicans for very long. They'll withhold their votes or run their own extremist candidates.

[goldenvalley]

Remember the leak of the Dobbs decision before it was officially handed down?  Well that also happened prior to the Hobby Lobby case that allowed religious corporations to refuse to offer insurance that covered contraception or abortion.  And it turns out there was a whole lot of lobbying going on too.

In a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and in interviews with The New York Times, the Rev. Rob Schenck said he was told the outcome of the 2014 case weeks before it was announced. He used that information to prepare a public relations push, records show, and he said that at the last minute he tipped off the president of Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain owned by Christian evangelicals that was the winning party in the case.

Both court decisions were triumphs for conservatives and the religious right. Both majority opinions were written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. But the leak of the draft opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion was disclosed in the news media by Politico, setting off a national uproar. With Hobby Lobby, according to Mr. Schenck, the outcome was shared with only a handful of advocates.

This guy has a background of anti abortion activism that included things like:

He had long been an ends-justify-the-means anti-abortion provocateur. During the 1992 Democratic convention, he plotted a stunt to accost future President Bill Clinton with an aborted fetus in a container. He was repeatedly jailed for blocking access to abortion clinics. He helped pay Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of the 1973 ruling establishing abortion rights, for speaking appearances years later opposing the decision. (She later said she had been paid to lie.)

But no matter how much attention those tactics yielded, Roe v. Wade, one of the most consequential decisions in the past half-century, stood in the way of efforts to end the right to an abortion.

Historically, the court does not like to get too far out ahead of public opinion, and justices do not lightly overturn longstanding precedents. So in 2000, Mr. Schenck launched “Operation Higher Court”— an attempt to reach the justices directly.

Justices are given lifetime appointments to promote independence and buffer them from lobbying and politicking. But Mr. Schenck wanted the conservatives on the court to hear from people who would hail them as heroes if they seized the opportunity to strike down Roe one day. The goal, he said in an interview, was to “embolden the justices” to lay the legal groundwork for an eventual reversal by delivering “unapologetically conservative dissents.”

He wanted to gain access himself — but because he was a controversial figure, he also recruited couples who were less likely to draw notice. His leading players were Mrs. Wright and her husband, a real estate developer and philanthropist from Centerville, Ohio. They got involved in his work “to have a major impact on the attitudes and actions of those in a position to shape and interpret our laws,” they wrote in a 2001 newsletter.
From 2000 to 2018, when he left Faith and Action, Mr. Schenck raised more than $30 million in pursuit of that goal. His donors ranged from evangelicals with little political involvement to the American Center for Law & Justice, a conservative legal group that was founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson and litigates abortion and religious freedom cases. (Faith and Action paid Mr. Schenck an average annual salary of about $83,000, plus a housing allowance.)

The article is long but interesting.

[LFC]

Some Tennessee Republicans want to walk back their thoughtless, evil actions from a few years back. I hope they can but if you voted for a law that would harm people just because you thought it could never be upheld then you are an unserious, horrible person who has no place governing other humans. And, of course, the totalitarian religious freaks are after them so good luck finding enough sane and moral legislators who aren't complete cowards to vote for the fixes.

When state Sen. Richard Briggs voted “yes” on Tennessee’s total abortion ban, he never thought it would actually go into effect.

It was 2019, and Roe v. Wade was the law of the land. His vote seemed like a political statement, not a decision that would soon impact people’s lives.

But on Aug. 25, the ban, one of the strictest in the country, kicked in. It contains no explicit exceptions for circumstances under which the procedure would be allowed. Any doctor who performs an abortion in Tennessee faces a felony that carries penalties of up to 15 years in prison and fines of up to $10,000.

Republican state leaders have repeatedly said the law has enough protections for doctors who provide “medically necessary care to pregnant women,” referring to a narrow clause that allows doctors to defend themselves from charges by proving an abortion was necessary to prevent death. But already, some women have made costly rushes across state lines to end nonviable pregnancies or to seek high-risk care that Tennessee doctors weren’t sure they could legally provide.

Faced with the law’s real-world implications, Briggs and a handful of his fellow Republicans have made statements floating the idea that they will “clean up” or “clarify” the ban when the next legislative session begins in January.

Briggs, who won reelection last week, told voters he would like to see the law offer clear exceptions for rape, incest, severe fetal anomalies and cases where the pregnant patient’s life or health are at risk.

But any willingness from lawmakers to consider making changes to the ban provokes intense pushback from national anti-abortion lobbyists.

On Oct. 27, the Tennessee affiliate of National Right to Life held a webinar to encourage GOP legislators to hold the line. The anti-abortion organization helped write and lobby for so-called trigger bans — laws that outlawed abortion in anticipation of Roe being overturned — in Republican-majority statehouses across the country.

[goldenvalley]

Nov 22, 2022 15:29:57 GMT LFC said:

Some Tennessee Republicans want to walk back their thoughtless, evil actions from a few years back. I hope they can but if you voted for a law that would harm people just because you thought it could never be upheld then you are an unserious, horrible person who has no place governing other humans. And, of course, the totalitarian religious freaks are after them so good luck finding enough sane and moral legislators who aren't complete cowards to vote for the fixes.

When state Sen. Richard Briggs voted “yes” on Tennessee’s total abortion ban, he never thought it would actually go into 

Yup it's easy to be extremely anti abortion when the woman's right to choose one was protected by the federal Constitution.  You could fling out words, acquire campaign funding and votes by saying them, all in the name of being elected and re-elected and being protective of the unborn. But gulp! Words do have meaning when they are laws and are applied to real live people, not abstractions of evilness.  

This guy still isn't grappling with the whole reality and probably will vote for what he said he will vote for and feel magnanimous and righteous in doing so. 

[LFC]

Abortion, abortion, and again abortion. It's now a given that Republicans will do anything they can to illegalize it further.

Thanks to the 2022 midterms and Kansas’ primary election a few months earlier, there is now a very recent set of data points enforcing the reality that even in some deeply red states, majorities of voters support abortion access (or, at least, reject abortion restrictions). 

In a different political world, that may have given Republicans pause. With the energy seemingly flipped to supporters of abortion access, many of whom were not highly motivated by the issue until the Supreme Court overturned Roe, alternate universe Republicans might seek to moderate their position. 

As horror stories of women sickened, jailed, denied treatment, forced to carry pregnancies with no chance of success or that are products of rape leak out from all corners, parallel universe Republicans might find it politically expedient to soften their absolutist stance. 

But to begin the 118th Congress, these Republicans have not. 

They will hold votes as soon as this week on a trio of anti-abortion legislation: a bill permanently banning federally funded abortions, a bill that claims to protect infants who survive an attempted abortion and a bill to condemn attacks on anti-abortion organizations and facilities. 

None of these bills will pass the Democratic-controlled Senate. But they’re likely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the red-meat messaging bills House Republicans will introduce over the next two years. 

[LFC]

Could they be even more ignorant about women's health issues if they tried a little harder?

Every session of the Idaho Legislature, we can expect a Republican legislator to say something embarrassing that makes Idaho a laughingstock of the nation, like when Rep. Charlie Shepherd, R-Pollock, argued against an early literacy grant that “makes it easier or more convenient for mothers to come out of the home and let others raise their child.”

Or when Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, suggested that women could swallow a camera to check on their pregnancy. But usually we have to wait a couple of weeks for a legislator to say something like that.

Not this session.

Barely two days into the new session, Rep. Jack Nelsen, R-Jerome, uttered some strange words of “wisdom” in a committee hearing.

“I’ve milked a few cows, spent most of my time walking behind lines of cows, so if you want some ideas on repro and the women’s health thing, I have some definite opinions,” said Nelsen, who was a partner in a dairy and farming operation in Jerome for 45 years.

Not only were his comments offensive and embarrassing, they were odd, given that he was simply introducing himself to the House Agriculture Committee. This was how he chose to introduce himself, by comparing women’s health care with milking a cow?

After making his comments, Nelsen gave a chuckle, as if it were a laughing matter.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 17, 2023 16:59:34 GMT LFC said:

Could they be even more ignorant about women's health issues if they tried a little harder?

Every session of the Idaho Legislature, we can expect a Republican legislator to say something embarrassing that makes Idaho a laughingstock of the nation, like when Rep. Charlie Shepherd, R-Pollock, argued against an early literacy grant that “makes it easier or more convenient for mothers to come out of the home and let others raise their child.”

Or when Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, suggested that women could swallow a camera to check on their pregnancy. But usually we have to wait a couple of weeks for a legislator to say something like that.

Not this session.

Barely two days into the new session, Rep. Jack Nelsen, R-Jerome, uttered some strange words of “wisdom” in a committee hearing.

“I’ve milked a few cows, spent most of my time walking behind lines of cows, so if you want some ideas on repro and the women’s health thing, I have some definite opinions,” said Nelsen, who was a partner in a dairy and farming operation in Jerome for 45 years.

Not only were his comments offensive and embarrassing, they were odd, given that he was simply introducing himself to the House Agriculture Committee. This was how he chose to introduce himself, by comparing women’s health care with milking a cow?

After making his comments, Nelsen gave a chuckle, as if it were a laughing matter.

What? You don't think female cows and female humans are the same?  And no heifer needs book learnin' so why do human females need it!