Could One Phone Call Lead to the 28th Amendment?
Women don’t formally have equal rights before the law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtHqsaWz4Ww
Tag: abortion
Miscarriages are incredibly common. Abortion bans have made them less safe.
This would discourage me from getting pregnant and having kids.
https://www.vox.com/life/377657/pregnancy-miscarriage-care-abortion-bans
Nebraska is the only state with two abortion measures on the ballot. Confusion is the point.
“The 12-week abortion ban Nebraska lawmakers passed in May 2023 included exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.
As in other states, these exceptions have proved ambiguous for doctors on the ground, and many patients who need abortion care have been unable to get it.
Kim Paseka, a 34-year-old woman based in Lincoln, Nebraska, was one of those patients. Paseka lives with her husband and their 3-year-old son, and though they wanted at least two children, they were unsure about pursuing that in Nebraska after Roe was overturned.
“We knew it was probably inevitable that our state government was going to work on banning reproductive health care in some capacity and it definitely gave us pause, like should we move, do we stay and fight? Those were our dinner table conversations,” she told Vox. In the summer of 2023, just after Nebraska lawmakers passed their 12-week ban, Paseka learned she was pregnant again.
Initial blood tests looked fine, but following a routine ultrasound, Paseka was informed that her baby’s heartbeat was slower than expected. In subsequent appointments, the doctors determined the heartbeat was diminishing and that Paseka was carrying a nonviable pregnancy.
Because of the new ban and the fact that Paseka’s life was not immediately threatened, her doctors weren’t comfortable ending the pregnancy. They sent her home with instructions for “expectant management” — meaning to wait until she’d bleed out eventually with a miscarriage.
“I had to go back to the hospital for three more scans, where I had to see the heartbeat weaken further week by week, and during this whole time I’m so nauseous, I’m tired, I’m experiencing all the regular pregnancy symptoms, but I was carrying a nonviable pregnancy,” she said. It took roughly a month for Paseka to finally bleed out the pregnancy at home.
“In Nebraska, we have these exceptions, but in my situation it wasn’t assault, it wasn’t incest, and my life wasn’t in immediate danger, so I automatically just lose health care,” she said. “They’re forgetting how detrimental that can be to mental health, that it’s not just about physical endangerment. … I felt like a walking coffin.”
Mann, the executive director of Nebraska’s statewide abortion fund, emphasized that the 12-week ban has had far-reaching consequences that most people underestimate.
“Not only are folks now restricted in how and when they can get the care they need, but it’s additionally problematic that these rules are designed to be confusing and were brought about during a time when confusion was at an all-time high,” she told Vox. “We talk to callers and members of the community all the time who have no idea when and if abortion is even legal here in Nebraska.”
There are two remaining abortion clinics in the state, though both only perform abortions part-time, meaning there sometimes are not enough appointments to go around, including for patients traveling in from states with near-total bans like Iowa and South Dakota.
“This means that not only are patients who are past the 12-week mark forced to flee the state for care, but even patients under that ban restriction are sometimes having to travel just to get an appointment in a timely manner,” Mann explained. “These patients are going to places like Minneapolis, Chicago, and Denver … this travel is often expensive, inconvenient, and overall an enormous burden on pregnant people.””
https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/377639/nebraska-abortion-ballot-measure-trimester-ban-election-reproductive-freedom
Trump won, but so did seven ballot measures protecting abortion rights
“Americans in 10 states cast votes on ballot measures to protect or expand abortion access, and in seven, the measures for abortion rights won. That brings the total to 13 states approving abortion rights referendums since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.”
https://www.vox.com/abortion/382964/abortion-ballot-measures-election-trump-florida-missouri-arizona-montana-harris
How would a second Trump presidency change America’s courts?
“Since Trump’s three appointees gave Republicans a supermajority on the Supreme Court, the Republican justices have behaved as though they are all going down a GOP wishlist, abolishing the right to an abortion, implementing Republican priorities like a ban on affirmative action, and even holding that Trump has broad immunity from prosecution for crimes he committed using his official powers while in office. To be clear, right-wing litigants are not winning every case they bring before the justices, but on issues where the various factions within the Republican Party have reached consensus, the Republican justices reliably align with that consensus.
The lower courts, meanwhile, have become incubators for far-right policy ideas that often go too far even for a majority of the members of the current Supreme Court. Think, for example, of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s failed attempt to ban the abortion drug mifepristone. Or an astonishing decision by three Trump judges that declared the entire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unconstitutional. Both of these lower court decisions were rejected by the Supreme Court.
That there are some positions too far right even for many Republican members of the Supreme Court is a reminder of the diversity that exists among Trump’s judges. Some, like Justices Brett Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett, are fully committed to using the courts to implement a long list of Republican ideas. But this cohort of judges also rejects at least some right-wing legal theories that would have catastrophic consequences for the country.
Both Kavanaugh and Barrett, for example, rejected the legal attack on the CFPB. They joined an opinion explaining that the plaintiffs’ legal theory had no basis in constitutional text or history, but they may also have been motivated by the fact that this theory could have triggered an economic depression if it had prevailed. Kavanaugh and Barrett also backed Trump’s claim that he has broad immunity from criminal prosecution for crimes committed in office, but on the same day they rejected a Texas law that would have given that state’s Republican legislature extraordinary authority to dictate what the media must print.
The other faction of Trump’s judges is more nihilistic. They include Kacsmaryk, who has turned his Amarillo, Texas, courtroom into a printing press for court orders advancing far-right causes. The nihilistic faction also includes judges like Aileen Cannon, the Trump judge who has presided over one of Trump’s criminal trials (and behaved like one of his defense attorneys), much of the far-right United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and Trump Supreme Court appointment Justice Neil Gorsuch.”
https://www.vox.com/scotus/373084/supreme-court-trump-judges-federalist-society
The big lie about Project 2025
“In reality, Project 2025, an initiative put together last year by the right-wing Heritage Foundation to plan for the next GOP administration, was shaped by longtime close allies of Trump. Detailed planning for a second Trump term agenda along these lines is very real, and though the Project 2025 initiative itself has seemingly fizzled out, other groups have picked up the slack.
Furthermore, many of Project 2025’s key proposals — to centralize presidential power, crack down on unauthorized immigrants, deprioritize fighting climate change, and eliminate the Department of Education — are fully and openly supported by Trump.
Yet Trump’s intentions are less clear on a vitally important issue where Project 2025 made some particularly extreme proposals: abortion.
The project’s plan called for using presidential power to aggressively restrict abortions in several ways. Trump, wary of these proposals’ unpopularity, has said during the campaign that he won’t support some of them. He also evidently feels hesitant to outright disavow the social conservatives who have long been a key part of his base.”
https://www.vox.com/politics/373485/project-2025-abortion-ban-trump-comstock-mifepristone
On Abortion, Harris and Trump Were Both Right and Both Infuriatingly Wrong
“Trump is likely referencing comments made by former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in 2019. Northam was discussing what happens if a woman delivers a nonviable fetus or a baby with life-threatening deformities. “The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” Northam said. Some Republicans ran with this comment to suggest that Northam supported “post-birth abortions,” when what he was really discussing was palliative care for babies born fatal or likely fatal conditions.
Trump also kept suggesting..that the Roe v. Wade regime meant states had to allow unfettered abortion through nine months of pregnancy. But the Roe regime actually allowed states to significantly restrict abortion in later months, and the vast majority did. Then—as is still the case now—only a handful of states opted out of setting legal limits on what point in a pregnancy abortion was banned. Even in these states, the lack of a legal prohibition on later-term abortions does not necessarily mean physicians would actually perform later-term abortions, nor that women were generally seeking them without good reason, like a pregnancy that was life-threatening or a fetus that was nonviable.”
https://reason.com/2024/09/11/on-abortion-harris-and-trump-were-both-right-and-both-infuriatingly-wrong/
How IVF exposed fissures in the Republican coalition
“The anti-abortion movement has been banking on more appointments of friendly federal judges and taking control of key federal agencies that could use executive power to heavily restrict reproductive freedom.”
…
““Human embryos are created and discarded or frozen by dozens in most IVF procedures,” Matthew Yonke, a spokesperson for the Pro-Life Action League, told me. “It’s no way to treat human beings, and the federal government should not subsidize it.”
(Louisiana remains the only state to outright prohibit the destruction of embryos, requiring patients to either pay forever to store their unused embryos, or donate them to a married couple. Most states allow patients to decide what to do with any excess genetic material.)
Some social conservatives also lament that contemporary IVF treats parenthood like an individual right instead of a responsibility or privilege for committed couples, and others object to the ethical implications of sex selection and optimizing for certain characteristics, such as eye color or intelligence.
Ever since February, when Alabama’s Supreme Court issued its unprecedented legal decision that invoked God to claim frozen embryos count as “children” under state law, policymakers and prospective parents have been realizing how vulnerable IVF is in the United States, even as politicians scramble to assure voters it’s not actually at risk.
For religious conservatives who oppose IVF, the last seven months have provided a fresh opportunity to make their case against the assisted reproductive technology. In some states they’ve made political gains: the North Carolina Republican Party adopted a platform in June that opposes the destruction of human embryos. Also in June, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the US, approved a resolution against IVF.
Anti-abortion leaders are prepared to fight for their long-term goal of fetal personhood, just as they did for decades to overturn Roe v. Wade. In many ways, these new IVF battles are just beginning: This past spring, a supermajority of justices on Florida’s Supreme Court signaled openness to a future fetal personhood challenge, suggesting that “pre-born children” are “persons” entitled to the right to life under the Florida Constitution. Regardless of whether Trump wins in November, these fights over reproductive technology will continue to embroil conservatives and the Republican Party.”
https://www.vox.com/politics/373046/trump-republicans-ivf-abortion-reproductive-rights-election
The Bible is not anti-abortion.
The Bible is not anti-abortion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agy88gCk1K0
A Fetus Doesn’t Need Its Own Medical Marijuana License, Oklahoma Court Says
“In a dissenting opinion, Lumpkin argued that Aguilar’s marijuana use should have been illegal because “only [she] has a permit to use it, not her baby.” Thus, “the baby’s exposure to [Aguilar’s] use and possession of marijuana, a Schedule I drug, is illegal.”
Judge David B. Lewis takes up a similar theme in his dissent, writing that “a medical marijuana license is certainly not a legal authorization to share, transfer, or distribute marijuana to others who have no license, especially those for whom its use or possession is unauthorized by law.” And “who could really doubt that a licensed marijuana consumer would face legal consequences for willfully sharing, distributing, or permitting the unlicensed ingestion of marijuana by children for whose welfare they are responsible?””
…
“Fetal personhood is most often invoked as a justification for banning abortion. But it also can be used to justify all sorts of restrictions on pregnant women or criminal penalties for those who do anything that the state says isn’t in a fetus’ best interests. It’s grounds for everything from charges against women who do drugs while pregnant (something Rowland generally endorses, writing that “an expectant mother who exposes her unborn child to illegal methamphetamine could be convicted of child neglect”) to punishing a pregnant woman for getting shot because she put herself in harms’ way.”
https://reason.com/2024/07/30/a-fetus-doesnt-need-its-own-medical-marijuana-license-oklahoma-court-says/