Abortion & Contraception Rights Under Attack

[jackd]

At least Jimmy's fantasys didn't get anyone pregnant.

[LFC]

Planned Parenthood in Montana won't provide medications that induce abortions to people from states with trigger laws due to the legal uncertainty surrounding the situation. This was, of course, the Christianist plan all along. The vagueness and chaos work to their advantage.

Planned Parenthood of Montana will no longer be providing medication abortions to patients in South Dakota and three other states with “trigger laws,” according to an all-staff email sent by organization President and CEO Martha Fuller Thursday.

South Dakota, along with Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, have total bans on abortion care that went into effect via “trigger laws” that went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade — the case which had guaranteed some form of federal protection for the medical procedure.

In Fuller’s email she said that PPMT has seen a “significant number of patients” seeking care from South Dakota.

Every state bordering Montana has “trigger laws” in place, with South Dakota’s already in effect and Wyoming and North Dakota to follow within a month. Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit with Idaho’s Supreme Court earlier this week to block its trigger law banning nearly all abortions, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

Fuller said in the email to comply with the change, all medication abortion patients would be required to provide proof of residency.

“The risks around cross-state provision of services are currently less than clear, with potential for both civil and criminal action for providing abortions in states with bans,” Fuller said in the email.

[AnBr]

http://instagr.am/p/CfRtZR3FG-4

[LFC]

Period tracking apps aren't covered under HIPAA. Neither are at-home test kits.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, advocates for privacy and reproductive health have expressed fears that data from period-tracking apps could be used to find people who’ve had abortions.

They have a point. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the federal patient privacy law known as HIPAA, does not apply to most apps that track menstrual cycles, just as it doesn’t apply to many health care apps and at-home test kits.

In 2015, ProPublica reported how HIPAA, passed in 1996, has not kept up with changes in technology and does not cover at-home paternity tests, fitness trackers or health apps.

The story featured a woman who purchased an at-home paternity test at a local pharmacy and went online to get the results. A part of the lab’s website address caught her attention as a cybersecurity consultant. When she tweaked the URL slightly, a long list of test results of some 6,000 other people appeared.

She complained on Twitter and the site was taken down. But when she alerted the Office for Civil Rights within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees HIPAA compliance, officials told her they couldn’t do anything about it. That’s because HIPAA only covers patient information kept by health providers, insurers and data clearinghouses, as well as their business partners.

Deven McGraw is the former deputy director for health information privacy at the HHS Office for Civil Rights. She said the decision overturning Roe, called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, should spark a broader conversation about the limits of HIPAA.

“All of a sudden, people are waking up to the idea that there’s a lot of sensitive data being collected outside of HIPAA and asking, ‘What are we going to do?’” said McGraw, who is now the lead for data stewardship and data sharing at Invitae, a medical genetics company. “It’s been that way for a while, but now it’s in sharper relief.”

McGraw noted how that’s not just the case for period-tracking apps but also some apps that store COVID-19 vaccine records. Because Congress wrote HIPAA, lawmakers would have to update it to cover those cases. “Our health data protections are badly out of date,” she said. “But the agencies can’t fix this. This is on Congress.”

[pnwguy]

Jul 5, 2022 20:14:07 GMT LFC said:

Period tracking apps aren't covered under HIPAA. Neither are at-home test kits.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, advocates for privacy and reproductive health have expressed fears that data from period-tracking apps could be used to find people who’ve had abortions.

They have a point. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the federal patient privacy law known as HIPAA, does not apply to most apps that track menstrual cycles, just as it doesn’t apply to many health care apps and at-home test kits.

In 2015, ProPublica reported how HIPAA, passed in 1996, has not kept up with changes in technology and does not cover at-home paternity tests, fitness trackers or health apps.

The story featured a woman who purchased an at-home paternity test at a local pharmacy and went online to get the results. A part of the lab’s website address caught her attention as a cybersecurity consultant. When she tweaked the URL slightly, a long list of test results of some 6,000 other people appeared.

She complained on Twitter and the site was taken down. But when she alerted the Office for Civil Rights within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees HIPAA compliance, officials told her they couldn’t do anything about it. That’s because HIPAA only covers patient information kept by health providers, insurers and data clearinghouses, as well as their business partners.

Deven McGraw is the former deputy director for health information privacy at the HHS Office for Civil Rights. She said the decision overturning Roe, called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, should spark a broader conversation about the limits of HIPAA.

“All of a sudden, people are waking up to the idea that there’s a lot of sensitive data being collected outside of HIPAA and asking, ‘What are we going to do?’” said McGraw, who is now the lead for data stewardship and data sharing at Invitae, a medical genetics company. “It’s been that way for a while, but now it’s in sharper relief.”

McGraw noted how that’s not just the case for period-tracking apps but also some apps that store COVID-19 vaccine records. Because Congress wrote HIPAA, lawmakers would have to update it to cover those cases. “Our health data protections are badly out of date,” she said. “But the agencies can’t fix this. This is on Congress.”

I am awaiting states that will demand registration of all home-pregnancy kits before sale and a requirement that those sold can ONLY display their results online, after keying in the unique serial number of the kit.  Then a woman that tests positive can expect a visit from the state Blessed Event police to monitor their pregnancy for the next 9 months.  A miscarriage (10-15% of known pregnancies according to the March Of Dimes) will require an investigation and hearing, subject to arrest for non-compliance.  If that pregnant lady suddenly expels a blood clot 3 weeks after her positive test, she better not flush the toilet.

BTW, I can imagine Ginni Thomas as the future Aunt Lydia of MAGAstan. 

[indy]

[LFC]

A Florida judge just struck down DeSatanist's abortion ban.

Florida Circuit Judge John C. Cooper officially blocked a state law banning abortion after 15 weeks.

In a ruling entered on Tuesday, Cooper said that he was following a precedent set by the Florida Supreme Court, which decided in 1989 that the state's constitution gave women a right to privacy.

“This Court must follow the Florida Supreme Court’s precedents on the right to privacy as those precedents currently exist, not as they might exist in the future," Cooper wrote in his 68-page ruling.

Cooper noted that Florida's constitution includes a broader right to privacy than the United States Constitution.

"The Florida Supreme Court thereafter determined that this right to privacy is 'clearly implicated in a woman's decision of whether or not to continue her pregnancy,'" he wrote.

The Planned Parenthood victory will be likely nullified automatically when the state files for appeal. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has vowed to fight for the law that first took effect on Friday. Cooper said that the DeSantis administration had the "burden" of proving that the law serves a "compelling state interest."

[LFC]

Cruelty and incompetence, hallmarks of America's red states.

On Tuesday, Axios reported that experts are alarmed about the rise of new abortion bans, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, in states that happen to also have the worst maternal mortality rates.

"U.S. women already were likelier to die during or after pregnancy than anywhere else in the developed world, and public health experts predict things will get worse in the post-Roe landscape as health providers weigh legal exposure against clinical decisions," reported Oriana Gonzalez. "Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi top the CDC's list of states with the highest maternal mortality, each with more than 30 deaths per 100,000 live births. Each had 'trigger' laws, or abortion bans that took effect in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court eliminating a federal right to the procedure."

"The combination of more restrictive abortion laws, more births and insufficient care could leave those states 'completely unprepared for the ramifications in the lives and health and wellbeing of women and children and families that these bans are going to cause,' said Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, which advocates for access to abortion care," said the report.

Meanwhile, a not-yet-peer-reviewed study from the University of Colorado "projected that in the first year following a nationwide abortion ban, the number of maternal deaths would increase 13%, from a baseline of 861 to 969. In subsequent years, maternal deaths would increase 210, or 24%."

[pnwguy]

"Compelling state interest" is controlling the bodies of women who won't obey the Dear Govenator

[LFC]

The Governor of Colorado took safeguarding abortion rights a step further.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis — a Democrat up for reelection — signed an executive order this week that will, essentially, protect Colorado from having to cooperate with other states’ investigations into people seeking or providing abortions.

Polis’ executive order states that Colorado will not help out with any criminal investigations or civil actions that originate in other states that are aimed at curbing access to abortion or punishing those involved in the procedure. Here’s the language of that part of the order, it’s seems rather sweeping:

“All state agencies and principal departments shall not, unless pursuant to a court order, provide information or data, including patient medical records, patient-level data, or related billing information, or expend time, money, facilities, property, equipment, personnel, or other resources to assist or further any investigation or proceeding initiated in or by another state that seeks to impose criminal or civil liability or professional sanction upon a person or entity for conduct that would be legal in Colorado related to providing, assisting, seeking, or obtaining reproductive health care.”

Polis also ordered the state Department of Regulatory Affairs to put measures in place to protect anyone who holds a Colorado professional license from “disciplinary action against a professional license or disqualified from professional licensure” for performing or seeking abortion care in any state.

“I will exercise the full extent of my discretion to decline requests for the arrest, surrender, or extradition of any person charged with a criminal violation of a law of another state where the violation alleged involves the provision of, assistance with, securing of, or receipt of reproductive health care, unless the acts forming the basis of the prosecution of the crime charged would also constitute a criminal offense under Colorado law,” Polis wrote in the order.

It’s not the first action Colorado has taken to shore up abortion rights in the state in the wake of Roe’s demise. Polis signed a bill into law earlier this year that protected access to abortion and contraceptives in the state.

[LFC]

Love this!

A pregnant Texas woman who was ticketed for driving in the HOV lane suggested that Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court means that her fetus counted as a passenger and that she should not have been cited.

Brandy Bottone was recently driving down Central Expressway in Dallas when she was stopped by a sheriff’s deputy at an HOV checkpoint to check whether there were at least two occupants per vehicle as mandated. When the sheriff looked around her car last month, she recounted to The Washington Post, he asked, “Is it just you or is someone else riding with you?”

“I said, ‘Oh, there’s two of us,’” Bottone said. “And he said, ‘Where?’”

Bottone, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, pointed to her stomach. Even though she said her “baby girl is right here,” Bottone said, one of the deputies she encountered on June 29 told her it had to be “two bodies outside of the body.” While the state’s penal code recognizes a fetus as a person, the Texas Transportation Code does not.

“One officer kind of brushed me off when I mentioned this is a living child, according to everything that’s going on with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. ‘So I don’t know why you’re not seeing that,’ I said,” she explained to the Dallas Morning News, the first to report the story.

Bottone was issued a $215 ticket for driving alone in the two-or-more occupant lane — a citation she told local media she’d be challenging in court this month.

“I will be fighting it,” Bottone, 32, of Plano, Tex., said to The Post.

[LFC]

Biden's FDA is looking at making birth control pills over the counter. I think this move is long overdue. I do wish he'd speed up the process, though. It's not like the FDA doesn't have decades worth of data.

FDA To Consider Over-The-Counter Birth Control Pills

Weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, HRA Pharma, a pharmaceutical company based in France, submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration to authorize its birth control pill for over-the-counter purchase.

• The FDA is expected to make its decision in about 10 months, according to HRA Pharma officials.

• Another pharmaceutical company, Cadence Health, said it hopes to submit an application next year to make its birth control pills available to buy over the counter as well.

• Don’t expect the Biden administration to speed up the authorization process, though. One of the White House’s co-chairs of its Gender Policy Council said on Friday that the FDA “has to go through its process.”

[LFC]

I believe this approach was taken in Ireland years ago.

One day soon, people in states that have outlawed abortion may be able to take to the sea. A California OB-GYN is currently organizing and fundraising for an offshore, floating abortion clinic in the Gulf of Mexico. The clinic boat would be strategically positioned in federal waters, to avoid the jurisdiction of state abortion bans.

The proposed project is called Protecting Reproductive Rights of Women Endangered by State Statutes (PRROWESS), and is led by Dr. Meg Autry, an OB-GYN and professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Autry had been working on the idea of an offshore clinic for a while, and planning accelerated following the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade last month, according to a report from NBC Bay Area News.

“Part of the reason we’re working on this project so hard is because wealthy people in our country are always going to have access [to abortions], so once again it’s a time now where poor, people of color, marginalized individuals, are gonna suffer —and by suffering I mean like lives lost,” Autry told the NBC affiliate.

And it is true: more people will die without legal access to abortion. Medication abortions with misoprostol can be safely self-managed at home. However, there are other dangers to restricting abortions: rates of pregnancy complications, domestic violence, and unsafe surgical abortions are all known to rise where abortion access is cut off.

People in southern and coastal Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas are the primary group that PRROWESS intends to serve. As the project website pointed out, people in these areas “may be closer to the coast than to facilities in bordering states where abortion and reproductive health care are available.”

Federal waters begin three nautical miles off the coast of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi (although temporary laws have previously extended that boundary), and nine miles off the coast of Texas. Since Roe was repealed, all four states have enacted total abortion bans.

Currently, people living in states with abortion bans have the theoretical option of flying out of state to access care elsewhere. However, PRROWESS aims to be another option, ideally one less time and cost intensive for some than long-distance air travel.

[jackd]

Doubtful the sea remedy will help the poor.

[goldenvalley]

Jul 11, 2022 17:50:11 GMT jackd said:

Doubtful the sea remedy will help the poor.

Yes and that's the rub.  Low income people can't afford to travel...not just the travel but missing work to do it and/or arranging and paying for care for other children or other responsibilities.  Plus maybe having to undergo a "wait" period between the talk and the actual procedure that some states require.  And the farther west you go the longer the distances are to find a clinic that can actually take you as a patient.

[LFC]

Jul 11, 2022 17:50:11 GMT jackd said:

Doubtful the sea remedy will help the poor.

Certainly not all the poor but, as the piece says, "People in southern and coastal Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas are the primary group that PRROWESS intends to serve." The area within, say, a few hours of the Gulf Coast contains a lot of poor people. So drive to the dock, hop aboard, take care of business, return. Live up in Iowa? You're hosed.

[LFC]

What was that about "Deep State?" This time it's the religious patriarchy, just like partisan hack SCOTUS wants.

Since the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, America’s extensive surveillance state could soon be turned against those seeking abortions or providing abortion care.

Currently, nine states have almost entirely banned abortion, and more are expected to follow suit. Many Republican lawmakers in these states are discussing the possibility of preventing people from traveling across state lines to obtain an abortion. If such plans are enacted and withstand legal scrutiny, one of the key technologies that could be deployed to track people trying to cross state lines is automated license plate readers (ALPRs). They’re employed heavily by police forces across the US, but they’re also used by private actors.

ALPRs are cameras that are mounted on street poles, overpasses, and elsewhere that can identify and capture license plate numbers on passing cars for the purpose of issuing speeding tickets and tolls, locating stolen cars, and more. State and local police maintain databases of captured license plates and frequently use those databases in criminal investigations.

The police have access to not only license plate data collected by their own ALPRs but also data gathered by private companies. Firms like Flock Safety and Motorola Solutions have their own networks of ALPRs that are mounted to the vehicles of private companies and organizations they work with, such as car repossession outfits. Flock, for instance, claims it’s collecting license plate data in roughly 1,500 cities and can capture data from over a billion vehicles every month.

“They have fleets of cars that have ALPRs on them that just suck up data. They sell that to various clients, including repo firms and government agencies. They also sell them to police departments,” says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the ACLU. “It’s a giant, nationwide mass surveillance system. That obviously has serious implications should interstate travel become part of forced-birth enforcement.”

[LFC]

Texass state government fascists (you know, Republicans) are threatening a company for doing something completely legal in the United States of America. Sieg heil, y'all!

A group of Texas state House lawmakers called the Texas Freedom Caucus sent a letter to a law firm in Dallas last week threatening “consequences” over the firm’s decision to reimburse employees for the costs of out-of-state travel to obtain an abortion.

The lawmakers’ missive, sent and posted on its website on July 7, accused the firm, Sidley Austin LLP, of being “complicit in illegal abortions” in Texas that were allegedly performed before and after the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs ruling that struck down Roe v. Wade.

“It has come to our attention that Sidley Austin has decided to reimburse the travel costs of employees who leave Texas to murder their unborn children,” state Rep. Mayes Middleton (R), the chair of the Texas Freedom Caucus, wrote in the email to Sidley Austin, which is based in Chicago but has an office in Dallas. “We are writing to inform you of the consequences that you and your colleagues will face for these actions.”

Middleton claimed that the law firm was “exposing itself and each of its partners to felony criminal prosecution and disbarment,” citing Texas’ anti-abortion law from 1925 that the state can now enforce after the Supreme Court struck down Roe last month.

“We will also be introducing legislation next session that will impose additional civil and criminal sanctions on law firms that pay for abortions or abortion travel,” Middleton warned.

The new legislation, according to the letter, will criminalize any Texas company’s reimbursement of “elective abortions” or “abortion-related expenses — regardless of where the abortion occurs, and regardless of the law in the jurisdiction where the abortion occurs.”

It will also require the State Bar of Texas to disbar any lawyer who violates the states’ ban on abortion, Middleton warned.

The email included a CC to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who has sworn to enforce the state’s abortion restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s strikedown of Roe.

The Texas Freedom Caucus’ threat marks the next frontier in the GOP’s war on reproductive rights: Policing across state lines and barring people from accessing abortions in other states, especially as companies like Sidley Austin and others establish reimbursement policies for out-of-state abortion access.

[LFC]

Protection of abortion rights is already on the ballot in Michigan. It's very popular. I wonder how it will impact the electoral outcomes for Republicans.

I wanted to follow up on Nicole Lafond’s post from yesterday afternoon. Subject to signature verification, a broad right to abortion and reproductive rights in the form of a state constitutional amendment will now appear on the ballot in Michigan in the November election. It seems very likely the referendum will win and essentially end the abortion issue in the state of Michigan going forward, excluding the possibility of a national abortion ban or Court ruling that might conceivably override the state constitution. One recent poll shows that 58% of Michigan residents oppose the Dobbs decision and 52% strongly oppose it. Only 34% support it.

For months Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been attuned not only to substantive importance of protecting abortion rights in the state but how the issue might help her win reelection. Michigan has a particular set of factors which make it particularly on the line in the context of abortion politics. It has a defunct 1931 law on the books which in the absence of Roe immediately outlaws abortion in the state in virtually all cases. It’s currently held up in state litigation. So it hasn’t come into effect yet. At the same time, abortion rights are quite popular in the state. As we noted above, a referendum is highly likely to win.

Michigan is one of those heavily gerrymandered upper midwestern states where Republicans routinely control the state legislature even while Democrats routinely win statewide races. In those states holding the governorship becomes a single point of failure or protection for abortion rights. Without having a Democratic governor Michigan is all but certain to cease being a free state even though the majority of the population supports abortion rights. If the constitutional amendment succeeds that removes the importance of the governorship. But having it on the ballot likely assures Whitmer’s reelection since it is likely to bring out voters who are disproportionately likely to support her.

But these aren’t the only electoral implications. Michigan has at least three up for grabs House seats in November. The inclusion of the constitutional amendment could quite likely save one or more of those House seats for the Democrats. If you’re in a close run state to start with you really, really want to be running with someone or in this case something on the ballot that has overwhelming public support. Now they do.

[LFC]

Federal law, which overrides state law, says that abortions must remain legal if a woman's life is at risk.

The Biden administration told health care providers in a letter dated Monday that they “must” provide abortion services if the pregnant person’s life is at risk, saying federal law preempts state laws or mandates that have banned the procedure in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

In its letter to health care providers, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cited the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires medical facilities to determine whether a pregnant person seeking treatment may be in labor or whether they are in an emergency medical condition where an abortion is “the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition.”

“If a physician believes that a pregnant patient presenting at an emergency department is experiencing an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA, and that abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote. “When a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life of the pregnant person — or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition — that state law is preempted.”

Becerra noted that emergency medical conditions involving pregnant patients may include, but are not limited to, “ectopic pregnancy, complications of pregnancy loss, or emergent hypertensive disorders, such as preeclampsia with severe features.”

[LFC]

A horrible story came out about a 10-year old girl who was raped and impregnated in Ohio. She had to go to Indiana to get an abortion because she was 6 weeks pregnant.

The case of a 10-year-old child rape victim in Ohio who was six weeks pregnant, ineligible for an abortion in her own state, and forced to travel to Indiana for the procedure has spotlighted the shocking impact of the US supreme court ruling on abortion.

The story of the girl came to light three days after the court overturned a nationwide right to terminate pregnancy, and Ohio’s six-week “trigger ban” came into effect.

Dr Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, said she had received a call from a colleague doctor in Ohio who treats child abuse victims and asked for help. Indiana’s lawmakers have not yet banned or restricted abortion, but they are likely to do so when a special session of the state assembly convenes later this month.

The right-wing noise machine's follow-up on this is nothing short of vile and soulless. Some crank named Megan Fox at PJ Media (now THERE's a reliable source of info) reported it was a hoax. The continually fact challenged WSJ op-ed page jumped on it and blared the same. Now the rapist has been arrested and the tapdancing and self-serving bullshit has begun.

Fox continued to be vile and soulless. You are the reason they caught the rapist? Bless your heart, Megan.

[LFC]

Good for Biden! If you are licensed to dispense the pharmaceuticals people require, you don't get to ask what they're doing with them, what their marital status is, or anything else. If your conscience doesn't allow you to dispense them then you can't be recognized as somebody who can fulfill the obligations that come with the position. It's that simple.

Biden administration officials on Wednesday said they are sending memos to tens of thousands of pharmacies nationwide to warn against refusing abortion or contraception care medications prescriptions.

The memos inform pharmacy workers that refusing to fill prescriptions for contraception or abortion medication or discriminating against a person based on their pregnancy status would put the pharmacy at risk of violating federal civil rights laws, according to the new guidance.

The memo comes amid reports and legal filings in some red states where pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions for contraception and abortion medication, as well as other medications they speculate could be used off-label to end a pregnancy. This all comes, of course, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month.

“Under federal civil rights law, pregnancy discrimination includes discrimination based on current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential or intended pregnancy, and medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth,” a new memo by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reads. HHS is sending the memo to more than 60,000 retail pharmacies this week.

The memo by HHS cites provisions in the Affordable Care Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to argue that it is unlawful for pharmacies that receive federal funding to refuse filling prescriptions for contraception and abortion pills based on their beliefs.

The Biden administration guidance includes several examples of scenarios that could be considered a violation of federal law — like a pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription for the abortion pill mifepristone for a person who is experiencing an early miscarriage.

[goldenvalley]

I almost put this in the media section but...when an issue is as politicized as abortion is I tend to blame those who have the most to gain. The antiabortion folks blew a gasket over the reports of a 10 year old rape victim having to go to another state to get an abortion.  They quickly claimed it wasn't true.  It was true.

A Columbus man has been charged with impregnating a 10-year-old Ohio girl, whose travel to Indiana to seek an abortion led to international attention following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade and activation of Ohio's abortion law.

Gerson Fuentes, 27, whose last known address was an apartment on Columbus' Northwest Side, was arrested Tuesday after police say he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. He's since been charged with rape, a felony of the first degree in Ohio.

Columbus police were made aware of the girl's pregnancy through a referral by Franklin County Children Services that was made by her mother on June 22, Det. Jeffrey Huhn testified Wednesday morning at Fuentes' arraignment. On June 30, the girl underwent a medical abortion in Indianapolis, Huhn said.

So what's the right wing response?  SQUIRREL!

Indiana’s Republican attorney general said on Wednesday that his office planned to investigate the Indiana doctor who helped a 10-year-old rape victim who crossed state lines to have an abortion.

“We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report. And in Indiana it’s a crime … to intentionally not report,” state Attorney General Todd Rokita said on Fox News on Wednesday night. “This is a child, and there’s a strong public interest in understanding if someone under the age of 16 or under the age of 18 or really any woman is having abortion in our state. And then if a child is being sexually abused, of course parents need to know. Authorities need to know. Public policy experts need to know.”

Who cares about the 10 year old in that branch of the world?

[pnwguy]

Instead of rape kits, police in Red States can lock up rape victims for several weeks to keep girls and women from doing any of these activities that could lessen implantation of the state's newest citizens!

pitterpatterofbabyfeet.com/9-things-decreasing-your-chances-of-successful-implantation/

Any of these things could at least be considered negligent homicide.

"Put your hands up and walk away from the Starbucks..."

[LFC]

With a 10-year old rape victim being forced to get an abortion in another state could Republicans be any more vile? That's rhetorical because of course they can!

Indiana’s Republican attorney general said on Wednesday that his office planned to investigate the Indiana doctor who helped a 10-year-old rape victim who crossed state lines to have an abortion.

Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indianapolis, has told multiple outlets that she provided care to the 10-year-old after a child abuse doctor in Ohio contacted her. The child was six weeks and three days into the pregnancy, Bernard said. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, a wave of state-level abortion restrictions took effect, including in Ohio, a state that bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Abortion in Indiana is banned after 22 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions for medical emergencies.

“We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report. And in Indiana it’s a crime … to intentionally not report,” state Attorney General Todd Rokita said on Fox News on Wednesday night. “This is a child, and there’s a strong public interest in understanding if someone under the age of 16 or under the age of 18 or really any woman is having abortion in our state. And then if a child is being sexually abused, of course parents need to know. Authorities need to know. Public policy experts need to know.”

After all this public performance art designed to act as intimidation to other doctors it turns out the report was filed and file properly. Now they're screeching that the rapist's age might be wrong. They'll do anything ... ANYTHING ... to avoid the real issue in this case including destroying the career of a doctor for doing something completely legal but politically inconvenient. The Weimar Republicans goose step on.