Abortion & Contraception Rights Under Attack

[LFC]

This ad. Wow. Just ... wow.

[Bact PhD]

May 13, 2022 21:06:11 GMT indy said:

May 13, 2022 20:55:17 GMT AnBr said:

I am becoming more and more convinced that this is actually a return of DSP. Same myopic vision of reality with absolutist untethered conclusions.

Nah.

I find myself concurring with Indy. From what I recall of the long-departed DSP (even going back to FF days), there were a couple of other “signatures” in the posts that (so far) I’m not picking up on. There are enough folks out there with similar narrow visions and absolutist ideals (hell, I know a few IRL), especially when it comes to issues surrounding “the proper sphere of wimmin”, that I’m more inclined to think this is a separate individual of like mind.

[Albert]

May 13, 2022 15:33:42 GMT LFC said:

May 13, 2022 14:16:26 GMT Albert said:

What hindsight? It's been clear for at least 3 decades, since Newt's time that the GOP is what it is.

It's been clear for 3 decades that the Republican Party would go 100% obstruction? Sure, let's go with that.

Of course if the Dems had gone scorched earth first and lost the next election you'd now be screeching that they are awful, should have known better, and ruined the country. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I've said many times the Dems need to fight harder, be more vocal, and more brutally attack Republicans who tell wild lies (which is most of them now)  but I can also see the reality of the Sinemanchin situation and the limits they are under. You need to check your blind rage, drop the "Dems 100% bad 100% of the time!" if you want to offer anything more than shrill commentary.

Blind rage? I would say you folks need to check your blind loyalty and obedience out the door. I've seen some of the most pathetic apologetics and excuse-making for incompetence in this thread ever. Third world countries with massive dysfunction and corruption hold their political leaders to greater accountability than the bizarre borderline religious apologetics I've seen in this thread.

[jackd]

He's right; we should all go eat worms!

[AnBr]

May 13, 2022 21:08:03 GMT LFC said:

This ad. Wow. Just ... wow.

They need to flood media with this right up to the election.

[goldenvalley]

May 14, 2022 1:50:36 GMT AnBr said:

May 13, 2022 21:08:03 GMT LFC said:

This ad. Wow. Just ... wow.

They need to flood media with this right up to the election.

This will only work for those who are persuadable if they would only pay attention.  But the ones that are the loudest, like a lady I saw interviewed about ectopic pregnancy who said let God decide, will be untouched by this.  Their abortions, and they have them, are totally justified, not like those sluts and naughty girls' abortions.

[AnBr]

I have no illusions that this would sway MAGAts, but it might motivate the apathetic and/or borderline Republican voters. Something that might give us more than typical turnouts for a midterm.

[indy]

Uh, the U.S. trails most third world democracies in voter participation, as it does virtually all of its established democratic peers (in the bottom 10% of that group depending on how you count), so it's not difficult to compare our politics to third world countries. The U.S. is also one of what, two maybe three true two-party democracies, which brings it's own unique challenges to representational politics. Both of these things are bad---quite bad in fact---but it's what we have.

Again, lots of complaints but no solutions. 'Get mad at so-and-so and hold them accountable' (presumably by voting them out although the mechanism for holding them accountable is conveniently left out) is a vague and useless goal (and, gee whiz, how had I never thought of such a simple plan after all these years of observing politics?). It doesn't even qualify as rational thinking about the matter. I don't vote in New York and I don't vote in California, so demanding I hold the representatives of those states accountable for Democratic party failures is a failure of its own. I, for one, certainly acknowledge that the Democratic party stinks in many, many ways and I am fairly certain I could improve it if they would just let me run it as my own personal fiefdom. But recounting its failures in detail doesn't really offer anything useful, either, beyond implying we're all too dumb or too naive or too inexperienced to see the shortcomings of the world. But maybe that's the point.

[LFC]

Here's a more easily shareable version of that video on YouTube.

Here's a link that can be copied and pasted.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g2CqOrFGak

[LFC]

Nebraska's governor is going after exceptions for rape and incest.

Republican Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts declared on Sunday morning that he wants his state to pass a law banning all abortion with no exceptions for incest or rape, stating that it’s his “intention” to call a special legislative session to take “further steps” to “protect preborn babies.”

Interviewing Ricketts on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning, anchor Dana Bash noted that Nebraska’s effort to pass a “trigger law” failed by only two votes before pressing the governor on his abortion stance.

“The abortion ban you tried to pass did not include any exceptions for rape or incest,” she said. “So, can you clarify, do you think that the state of Nebraska should require a young girl who was raped to carry that pregnancy to term?”

Declaring Nebraska a “pro-life state,” Ricketts stated that he believes life begins at conception before affirming that he believes rape victims should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term.

“Those are babies, too. If Roe v. Wade, a horrible constitutional decision, gets overturned by the Supreme Court, which we’re hopeful of, here in Nebraska we’ll take further steps to protect those preborn babies,” he insisted.

“Including in the case of rape or incest?” Bash shot back.

“They’re still babies, too,” Ricketts replied. “Yes, they’re still babies.”

Ditto Oklahoma.

Ricketts wasn’t the only Republican governor to tout abortion bans with no exceptions for rape and incest on Sunday morning. During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt defended his state’s recently passed law that prohibits abortion after six weeks. The law, similar in style to neighboring state Texas’ bill, does authorize abortions in the case of medical emergencies.

“The argument is that a victim may not know at six weeks that she is pregnant. So what do you say to a woman who finds herself in that situation, lives in your state, and feels like she has no option?” Fox News anchor Shannon Bream asked Stitt.

“That is a human being inside the womb,” he answered. “And we’re going to do everything we can to protect life, and love both the mother and the child. And we don’t think killing one to protect the other is the right thing to do either. And our heart is super compassionate about that.”

These governors’ defense of no rape and incest exceptions for abortion comes after Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves struggled to justify why his state would force pregnancy on victims of incest last week. Additionally, Reeves didn’t take off the table the possibility that his state could outlaw emergency contraception and IUDs.

[goldenvalley]

May 16, 2022 18:27:10 GMT LFC said:

Nebraska's governor is going after exceptions for rape and incest.

Republican Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts declared on Sunday morning that he wants his state to pass a law banning all abortion with no exceptions for incest or rape, stating that it’s his “intention” to call a special legislative session to take “further steps” to “protect preborn babies.”

Interviewing Ricketts on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning, anchor Dana Bash noted that Nebraska’s effort to pass a “trigger law” failed by only two votes before pressing the governor on his abortion stance.

“The abortion ban you tried to pass did not include any exceptions for rape or incest,” she said. “So, can you clarify, do you think that the state of Nebraska should require a young girl who was raped to carry that pregnancy to term?”

Declaring Nebraska a “pro-life state,” Ricketts stated that he believes life begins at conception before affirming that he believes rape victims should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term.

“Those are babies, too. If Roe v. Wade, a horrible constitutional decision, gets overturned by the Supreme Court, which we’re hopeful of, here in Nebraska we’ll take further steps to protect those preborn babies,” he insisted.

“Including in the case of rape or incest?” Bash shot back.

“They’re still babies, too,” Ricketts replied. “Yes, they’re still babies.”

Ditto Oklahoma.

Ricketts wasn’t the only Republican governor to tout abortion bans with no exceptions for rape and incest on Sunday morning. During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt defended his state’s recently passed law that prohibits abortion after six weeks. The law, similar in style to neighboring state Texas’ bill, does authorize abortions in the case of medical emergencies.

“The argument is that a victim may not know at six weeks that she is pregnant. So what do you say to a woman who finds herself in that situation, lives in your state, and feels like she has no option?” Fox News anchor Shannon Bream asked Stitt.

“That is a human being inside the womb,” he answered. “And we’re going to do everything we can to protect life, and love both the mother and the child. And we don’t think killing one to protect the other is the right thing to do either. And our heart is super compassionate about that.”

These governors’ defense of no rape and incest exceptions for abortion comes after Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves struggled to justify why his state would force pregnancy on victims of incest last week. Additionally, Reeves didn’t take off the table the possibility that his state could outlaw emergency contraception and IUDs.

They think love is enough?  Or is it just the least (and most) they will offer...doesn't cost them anything.  

[LFC]

Is it any wonder most congressional Republicans want to celebrate their destruction of Roe as quietly as possible?

New polling conducted by NBC News has found that American opposition to overturning Roe v. Wade is at a record high. The poll was conducted after the draft Supreme Court majority opinion overturning Roe was leaked earlier this month.

Abortion access has become a more important political priority for those polled than it has been in previous years, too. NBC has been conducting polls on Americans’ support for abortion since 2003.

Sixty-three percent of respondents indicated they oppose the Supreme Court overturning Roe, which is what the high court is poised to do if the leaked draft of the majority opinion is indicative of a final ruling. We’ll know whether or not it is by the end of the summer, but political observers, politicians, the media, pro-abortion and anti-abortion advocates, voters and most other sectors of American public life are safely running with the assumption that Roe will be struck down, given what we saw during oral arguments on the case in December.

NBC News also found that 60 percent of Americans support abortion being either always legal (37 percent), or legal most of the time (23 percent). On the other end of the spectrum, just 32 percent of respondents indicated they believed abortion should be illegal with some exceptions. Only 5 percent of those polled said it should be completely illegal, with no exceptions.

Meanwhile there are several outright bans being pushed in red states. Oklahoma already passed it.

[LFC]

Raise your hand if you're surprised. Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?

When it comes to reproductive care, Mississippi has a dual distinction. The state spawned the law that likely will lead to the Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade. It is also unique among Deep South states for doing the least to provide health care coverage to low-income people who have given birth.

Mississippians on Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, lose coverage a mere 60 days after childbirth. That’s often well before the onset of postpartum depression or life-threatening, birth-related infections: A 2020 study found that people racked up 81% of their postpartum expenses between 60 days and a year after delivery. And Mississippi’s own Maternal Mortality Review Committee found that 37% of pregnancy-related deaths between 2013 and 2016 occurred more than six weeks postpartum.

[LFC]

POGers prove themselves to be as unserious as ever. Here's their dumbf***ery over hearings on abortion access.

Good Thing These Guys Get To Be In Charge Of Writing Laws

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on abortion access on Wednesday, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) grilled Dr. Yashica Robinson on just how far into a patient’s pregnancy she would go to perform an abortion.

• “How about if a child is halfway out of the birth canal? Is an abortion permissible then?” Johnson asked.

• Robinson:

Chips A-Roy Screeches About Frozen Baby Parts

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), there to ensure that the House hearing on abortion didn’t get any less stupid, gave Robinson the third degree over “baby parts” that he claimed were being stored in freezers and Pyrex dishes.

Robinson:

[goldenvalley]

May 19, 2022 15:37:20 GMT LFC said:

POGers prove themselves to be as unserious as ever. Here's their dumbf***ery over hearings on abortion access.

Good Thing These Guys Get To Be In Charge Of Writing Laws

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on abortion access on Wednesday, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) grilled Dr. Yashica Robinson on just how far into a patient’s pregnancy she would go to perform an abortion.

• “How about if a child is halfway out of the birth canal? Is an abortion permissible then?” Johnson asked.

• Robinson:

Chips A-Roy Screeches About Frozen Baby Parts

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), there to ensure that the House hearing on abortion didn’t get any less stupid, gave Robinson the third degree over “baby parts” that he claimed were being stored in freezers and Pyrex dishes.

Robinson:

Ah Mr Johnson, just asking questions I guess. So Mr. Johnson ask yourself about this: My kid's neighbor was one week post due date so, as is routine, she went to her doctor who discovered the baby (and at that point it is a baby in my view) had no heart beat, did not react to stimuli.  Delivery was induced.  Is that an abortion?  She wasn't in labor until then. And of what business is it of us except for the parents who were happily anticipating a second child?

[LFC]

I ... I can't even. How did somebody this insane even get to speak before Congress? She was probably invited by some equally insane Republican.

Catherine Glenn Foster, who is the president and CEO of Americans United for Life, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. She spoke out forcefully and at times graphically about abortion. At one point she claimed discarded fetuses help power Washington, D.C.:

Abortion activism always requires euphemism and misdirection. Why? Because of the violent nature of abortion. Because it is, frankly, inconvenient. Human persons, from their earliest, days poisoned in the womb and dismembered, torn limb from limb, bodies thrown in medical waste bins and – in places like Washington, D.C. – burned to power the lights of the city’s homes and streets.

Let that image sink in with you for a moment. The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators, think about what we’re doing to ourselves so callously and so numbly.

Mediaite reached out to Foster for an explanation but did not receive a response before publication.

It’s possible Foster is alluding to the fact that some jurisdictions use various forms of waste – including medical waste – to convert into electricity. For example, in 2013 Washington, D.C. unveiled an energy system that uses human feces to generate power.

Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, who flagged Foster’s comments, described her as “not some random nut that Republicans pulled off a soapbox at a subway station minutes before the hearing started. She is a Georgetown law school graduate who is paid $190,000 a year to be the president of Americans United for Life, one of the largest anti-abortion non-profits in the country.”

[pnwguy]

A good essay from a high-risk pregnancy physician.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/roe-overturn-high-risk-pregnancy-late-abortion/629921/

[goldenvalley]

May 22, 2022 2:21:46 GMT LFC said:

Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, who flagged Foster’s comments, described her as “not some random nut that Republicans pulled off a soapbox at a subway station minutes before the hearing started. She is a Georgetown law school graduate who is paid $190,000 a year to be the president of Americans United for Life, one of the largest anti-abortion non-profits in the country.”

The only difference between an Ivy League Grad/well paid individual "random nut" and a "random nut" in the subway station is the location of the soapbox.

[indy]

Whatever happened to our guest? Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

[goldenvalley]

May 25, 2022 19:45:31 GMT indy said:

Whatever happened to our guest? Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

May 25, 2022 19:45:31 GMT indy said:

Whatever happened to our guest? Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

I think he's been around here in the past...Seems like I remember him complaining about Biden's BBB Act and how Dems were stupid, lazy, useless at getting a proper bill passed.  Similar theme to the recent one.  

[LFC]

Google automatically collects a pile of location data from Android phones which could be used by Republicans to track a woman's movements across state lines.

More than 40 Democratic members of Congress called on Google to stop collecting and retaining customer location data that prosecutors could use to identify women who obtain abortions.

"[W]e are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google's current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cell phone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive health care. That's because Google stores historical location information about hundreds of millions of smartphone users, which it routinely shares with government agencies," Democrats wrote Tuesday in a letter led by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.). The letter was sent to Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Specifically, Google should stop collecting "unnecessary customer location data" or "any non-aggregate location data about individual customers, whether in identifiable or anonymized form. Google cannot allow its online advertising-focused digital infrastructure to be weaponized against women," lawmakers wrote. They also told Google that people who use iPhones "have greater privacy from government surveillance of their movements than the tens of millions Americans using Android devices."

The draft Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade could be followed by strict limits or bans on abortion in many states, and Democrats wrote that "Republicans in Congress are already discussing passing a law criminalizing abortion in all 50 states, putting the government in control of women's bodies."

Google obtains detailed information "from Android smartphones, which collect and transmit location information to Google, regardless of whether the phone is being used or which app a user has open," they wrote. While Android users have to opt into this data collection, "Google has designed its Android operating system so that consumers can only enable third party apps to access location data if they also allow Google to receive their location data too. In contrast, Google is only able to collect location data from users of iPhones when they are using the Google Maps app," the lawmakers wrote.

[LFC]

Inside The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Uber Successful Messaging Campaign

This. Maybe it's just me but it seems like every right-wing cause is pushed with piles of lies. It's like they have never been able to win the day by adhering to reality so they don't even bother trying, now more than ever.

Bolstered By The Pseudoscientific

Along with painting itself as a critical civil rights movement, the anti-abortion movement from the beginning latched on to pseudoscientific claims to shroud itself in the terminology of biology and medicine rather than religion.

That effort involved a stable of anti-abortion physicians who would substantiate the movement’s claims, even when they were outside of the medical mainstream. It also presented a difficulty for the abortion rights movement that persists today: It’s much easier to fit “life begins at conception” on a bumper sticker than its medically valid rebuttal.

The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization seeking to advance reproductive rights, is considered the gold standard in the industry. So the anti-abortion movement set up the Charlotte Lozier Institute to try to fight back.

“They want to be scientific, but again and again are discredited,” Carole Joffe, a sociology professor at the University of California, Davis’ center for global reproductive health, told TPM. She added that the institute has helped perpetuate the falsehood that abortion increases a woman’s chances of getting breast cancer.

There’s also been an effort in the movement to bolster claims that abortion presents a widespread and lasting harm to women’s mental health — something that the major medical associations have repeatedly debunked.

In some states, local laws mandate that providers regurgitate these lies, plucked straight from the anti-abortion movement, to pregnant patients.

“I was interviewing a clinic director from Texas who was telling us about what it’s like to tell patients lies,” Joffe recalled. “‘I was telling her that you may get breast cancer and may never conceive child if you get an abortion,’ the director said. The patient broke down crying, saying, ‘if it’s not true why are you telling me this?’”

[LFC]

The anti-choice fascists have been preparing for years to attack and punish those involved with abortions by gathering surveillance data. It's just another front of the right-wing wars on freedom and rights.

This new MIT report is a helpful reminder: anti-abortion activists have been using surveillance and other data collection tactics, like recording license plate numbers at abortion clinics, for some time to gather personal information about those seeking abortions. While anti-abortion activists maintained in this new report that the data collection is only used to track the activities of doctors and clinics carrying out abortions, there are some trends in Republican state legislatures’ bill writings that make this practice even more concerning — in that it could help private citizens go after people getting the procedure in the first place.

In states like Texas and Oklahoma, the onus for enforcing new abortion ban laws lies on private citizens. In Texas, for example, private citizens, like Uber drivers, could be targeted with citizen lawsuits for engaging in any act that could be construed as “aiding or abetting” the process for seeking an abortion post-six weeks. We’ve seen similar laws considered and passed in red states like Oklahoma in recent weeks.

And the data-tracking practices used by anti-abortion activists for decades has become increasingly sophisticated in recent years. Per the MIT report:

[pnwguy]

Jun 1, 2022 18:57:59 GMT LFC said:

The anti-choice fascists have been preparing for years to attack and punish those involved with abortions by gathering surveillance data. It's just another front of the right-wing wars on freedom and rights.

Let's sue Southwest Airlines for flying potentially pregnant women across Texass borders, until every woman boarding has to pass a pregnancy test.  At each gate, there will be the elite flyer line, the general boarding line, and the "pee on this stick" line.

[LFC]

Right-wing terrorism is starting to appear on the left. That's just ... great.

An armed man was arrested near Brett Kavanaugh's Maryland home after making threats against the Supreme Court justice, according to a court spokesperson.

The man was arrested at about 1:50 a.m. ET Wednesday, the spokesperson said. He was transported to Montgomery County Police 2nd District. Montgomery County police say the man arrested is from California.

There has been a rise in threats against the court amid the national abortion rights debate and protests that have taken place across the US. The Department of Homeland Security issued a memo last month warning law enforcement that there are potential threats to members of the Supreme Court after a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked.

The memo also said Supreme Court police have noticed a major uptick in social media threats of violence, with some currently under investigation. Some of those threats have been directed at the justices and the court building, which is now surrounded by fencing.

The arrest happened hours before the justices were scheduled to issue more rulings in the final weeks of the annual session.