Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights per draft opinion (Update: Dobbs opinion official) (1 Viewer)

A quartet of Republicans want the Department of Veterans Affairs to explain a recent decision to offer In Vitro Fertilisation services to veterans who are unmarried or in same-sex relationships, citing “a plethora of ethical concerns and questions” raised by the announcement.

In a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, Representatives Matt Rosendale, Bob Good, Mary Miller and Josh Brecheen call IVF — a procedure in which human embryos are fertilised in a laboratory setting and implanted in a woman’s uterus — “morally dubious” and say it “should not be subsidised by the American taxpayer”.

They cite the fact that IVF procedures produce extra fertilised embryos which must be frozen or discarded, a practice which fundamentalist Christians consider tantamount to murder, and call the Veterans’ Affairs’ policy “shocking not only on a moral level but on a political and legal level as well”.

“It appears that either the VA always had this authority and is responding to the appeals of activists or is possibly violating existing law,” they said, citing previous Democratic proposals to specifically enshrine IVF expansions into legislation as evidence that the VA programme is currently unlawful...........

Optimus Prime said:

A quartet of Republicans want the Department of Veterans Affairs to explain a recent decision to offer In Vitro Fertilisation services to veterans who are unmarried or in same-sex relationships, citing “a plethora of ethical concerns and questions” raised by the announcement.

In a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, Representatives Matt Rosendale, Bob Good, Mary Miller and Josh Brecheen call IVF — a procedure in which human embryos are fertilised in a laboratory setting and implanted in a woman’s uterus — “morally dubious” and say it “should not be subsidised by the American taxpayer”.

They cite the fact that IVF procedures produce extra fertilised embryos which must be frozen or discarded, a practice which fundamentalist Christians consider tantamount to murder, and call the Veterans’ Affairs’ policy “shocking not only on a moral level but on a political and legal level as well”.

“It appears that either the VA always had this authority and is responding to the appeals of activists or is possibly violating existing law,” they said, citing previous Democratic proposals to specifically enshrine IVF expansions into legislation as evidence that the VA programme is currently unlawful...........

MSN

Click to expand...

Now they are being more honest and forthright with:

They cite the fact that IVF procedures produce extra fertilised embryos which must be frozen or discarded, a practice which fundamentalist Christians consider tantamount to murder, and call the Veterans’ Affairs’ policy “shocking not only on a moral level but on a political and legal level as well”.

Click to expand...

The crux of their argument is that since fundamentalist Christians pay taxes and IVF violates their religious beliefs, then the government can not spend taxpayer money on IVF.

Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists pay taxes in the United States. Eating beef violates Hindu's beliefs, eating pork for Muslims and Jews, and eating any animals for some Buddhists, so the government cannot spend any taxpayer money on anything that supports those activities. The US gives billions of livestock subsidies every year. They should stop that if we can't spend tax dollars on anything that might violate someone's religious beliefs.

A pharmacy professor who strenuously avoids heated political discussions is an unlikely candidate to get involved in a fight over abortion, particularly one as high stakes as a case now before the supreme court: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) v the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (AHM).

But when the professor Chris Adkins of South University in Georgia emailed his concerns about an academic article to the editors of Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology, that’s exactly what happened.

The article had been published by an anti-abortion research institute and, perhaps unsurprisingly, concluded that medication abortion was far less safe than the accepted scientific consensus – one established by more than 100 peer-reviewed studies across multiple continents and two decades of real-world use.


“The way this study used this situation to exaggerate, and I’ll say obfuscate, the truth behind mifepristone’s safety profile is where I thought: ‘I’ll reach out to the journal and say I’ve got these issues,’” said Adkins, referring to the drug targeted by researchers. Mifepristone is one half of a two-pill regimen that treats miscarriage and ends early pregnancy, and its future hangs in the balance of the supreme court case, to be heard this week.

“I honestly didn’t think I would be the first to do that,” said Adkins.

Within a couple days of Adkins’ complaint, the global academic publisher Sage, which publishes the journal, began investigating. Within weeks, Sage retracted not one but three papers by the anti-abortion researchers.

Adkins’ concerns go to the heart of a problem that has bedeviled scientists for at least a decade: the judicial system’s repeated adoption of poor-quality evidence to justify litigation and legislation to restrict abortion. Often that evidence is produced by the anti-abortion movement itself.

FDA v AHM is scheduled for oral arguments on Tuesday. The suit, brought by anti-abortion doctors, seeks to force the FDA to reverse decisions that relaxed restrictions on prescribing mifepristone. The Biden administration and the medication’s manufacturer argue the doctors have no right to sue in the first place.……

The number of women using abortion pills to end their pregnancies on their own without the direct involvement of a U.S.-based medical provider rose sharply in the months after the Supreme Court eliminated a constitutional right to abortion, according to the most comprehensive examination to date of how many people have ended their pregnancies outside of the formal medical system since the ruling.

Nearly 28,000 additional doses of pills intended for “self-managed” abortions were provided in the six months after the fall of Roe v. Wade — more than quadrupling the average number of abortion pills provided that way per month before the decision and suggesting that many women have turned to medication abortion to circumvent state bans.

The research — published in JAMA on Monday, the day before the highly anticipated Supreme Court arguments on a challenge to a key abortion drug — highlights the importance of abortion pills in post-Roe America.

Before the ruling legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, women seeking abortions were forced to find someone to perform an illegal surgical procedure, leading to thousands of deaths.

Today, the process for accessing abortion is far easier and safer, with a rapidly expanding online and community-based network of pill suppliers sending pills through the mail into states with strict bans……

brandon said:

This is wild. Never thought this would happen.

Click to expand...

I did. Always knew it would.

I have watched since the 80s as the conservatives have waged their war on women. They have bombed clinics, murdered doctors and staff, harassed women who want to go to the clinics and have lied about both abortion and clinics.

I have been voting since 1978. I have never missed an election in my life. My first question to every politician since the conservative war on women started is are you pro choice. If they don't immediately say yes, I don't vote for them. I don't care what party they are from.

I have been trying to warn people about this for decades but just about everyone had the same reaction as you, they just didn't believe that the conservatives were stupid enough to overturn Roe V. Wade.

They are that stupid. Now, most republicans will have a hard time getting elected in a lot of our nation.

We have seen forced birther politicians remove their forced birther lies off their websites to hide their true beliefs from women.

All the forced birth lies and abortion bans do is the following, women are out registering men to vote in droves. As much as 40% more women are registering to vote than men:

probably just a coincidence


Ho served on the three-judge panel last summer that ruled to restrict access to mifepristone. The legal group behind the mifepristone case, Alliance Defending Freedom, made at least six payments from 2018 through 2022 to his wife, Allyson, a powerhouse federal appellate lawyer who has argued in front of the supreme court and has deep connections to the conservative legal movement that has led the attack on the right to abortion in the US.

SCOTUS is hearing this case now. Alito is an arse.

Women won’t have to be reminded about Roe and IVF.

A US supreme court hearing that held the potential to reshape abortion access and the US Food and Drug Administration’s authority did not go well for anti-abortion doctors behind the case, legal experts said on Tuesday.

The consensus is a positive sign for abortion-rights advocates, who feared the case would curtail access to medication abortions, which now account for the majority of all abortions nationally.

“It’s very possible that they will just toss the lawsuit out because the anti-abortion doctors didn’t have legal standing to sue,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown Law School and an expert in global public health law, said about the justices.

“In my view, the lawsuit was absurd on its face and deserves to be thrown out because these anti-abortion doctors had very little injury,” Gostin added.……

I really hope they push this issue and bombard tv and radio with ads this election about how Republicans are going after more than just abortion,beause they have no intention of stoping there, and its well documented in their own words.

MT15 said:

Women won’t have to be reminded about Roe and IVF.

Click to expand...

Agreed, and I hope the R's continue to think otherwise....

MT15 said:

Click to expand...

That man is lying about his religion.

The christian god said that life begins when the first breath of air is taken through the nose. It's right there in the book of genesis.

NOT at conception.

In fact the Bible gives instructions on how to perform an abortion in the book of numbers.

I didn't watch the whole thing. I became tired of listening to his lies but nearly every word from him was a lie. Both from the scientific and religious fact.

If a fertilized egg is a baby then he better explain an ectopic pregnancy.

There are only 2 outcomes to an ectopic pregnancy.

1. Nothing is done. No abortion is performed. The woman dies a painful death.

2. An abortion is performed. The woman lives.

There are over 68 thousand ectopic pregnancies in the USA every year.

Who is murdering whom?

Seems to me that this man wants to murder over 68 thousand women in the USA every year.

MT15 said:

Click to expand...

Those folks are twisted/mentally ill....disgraceful.....

LovesMusic7360 said:

That man is lying about his religion.

The christian god said that life begins when the first breath of air is taken through the nose. It's right there in the book of genesis.

NOT at conception.

In fact the Bible gives instructions on how to perform an abortion in the book of numbers.

I didn't watch the whole thing. I became tired of listening to his lies but nearly every word from him was a lie. Both from the scientific and religious fact.

If a fertilized egg is a baby then he better explain an ectopic pregnancy.

There are only 2 outcomes to an ectopic pregnancy.

1. Nothing is done. No abortion is performed. The woman dies a painful death.

2. An abortion is performed. The woman lives.

There are over 68 thousand ectopic pregnancies in the USA every year.

Who is murdering whom?

Seems to me that this man wants to murder over 68 thousand women in the USA every year.

Click to expand...

What too few women understand is that the answer is YES. Yes he does want these defective baby machines to die.

Taurus said:

What too few women understand is that the answer is YES. Yes he does want these defective baby machines to die.

Click to expand...

Yes they pretty much said as much in Texas.

A woman has to be put through suffering excruciating pain, days or weeks of bleeding and be forced to nearly die before her life can be saved.

If her life is saved, her fertility will be permanently stripped from her so she can never have a child.

When a lower Texas court told the Texas republican congress to write a new law that will put a stop to the suffering, those republicans refused. When the case was taken to the state Supreme Court, that court overruled the lower court.

That same court told Amanda Cox that the state AG was right, she wasn't sick enough to be allowed to save her own life and fertility.

A republican in I think it was Missouri, I could be wrong about the state, tried to pass a law that would end the suffering. No republican would support it and the legislation died.

When Biden tried to enforce our federal law that mandates that doctors save lives in an emergency, Idaho and Texas went to court to challenge that law if the life saving care is an abortion. They want to deny a life saving abortions to women in emergencies.

They have said very loudly that one of the purposes of their forced birth laws is to torture women, make them suffer and die.

Women will die. It's just a matter of time.

Women are seriously pissed off now. They are coming for republicans in November and it won't end well for republicans.

All a person has to do is look at the past elections. Especially the one this week in deep red Alabama. All the polls had the republican winning by a comfortable margin.

The democrat made abortion and IVF front and center to her campaign.

That democrat won by 25 points.

It's going to keep happening all over the nation. When all the forced birthers are out of congress they won't be elected back in.

That means republicans will have a much harder time being elected. Women don't trust republicans anymore. Women have heard the lies for decades. If the forced birthers actually believe the overwhelming vast majority of women are going to vote for a forced birther politician I have a beautiful piece of ocean beachfront property in Colorado to sell them.

Women are the majority voters in the USA.

A Texas woman who was charged with murder over self-managing an abortion and spent two nights in jail has sued prosecutors along the US-Mexico border who put the criminal case in motion before it was later dropped.

The lawsuit filed by Lizelle Gonzalez in federal court Thursday comes a month after the state bar of Texas fined and disciplined the district attorney in rural Starr county over the case in 2022, when Gonzalez was charged with murder in “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion”.

Under the abortion restrictions in Texas and other states, women who seek abortions are exempt from criminal charges.


The lawsuit argues Gonzalez suffered harm from the arrest and subsequent media coverage. She is seeking $1m in damages.

“The fallout from Defendants’ illegal and unconstitutional actions has forever changed the Plaintiff’s life,” the lawsuit stated.

The Starr county district attorney, Gocha Ramirez, said Friday that he had not yet been served the lawsuit and declined comment. Starr county judge Eloy Vera, the county’s top elected official, also declined comment.

According to the lawsuit, Gonzalez was 19 weeks pregnant when she used misoprostol, one of two drugs used in medication abortions. Misoprostol is also used to treat stomach ulcers.

After taking the pills, Gonzalez received an obstetrical examination at a hospital emergency room and was discharged with abdominal pain. She returned with bleeding the next day and an exam found no fetal heartbeat. Doctors performed a caesarian section to deliver a stillborn baby.

The lawsuit argues that the hospital violated the patient’s privacy rights when they reported the abortion to the district attorney’s office, which then carried out its own investigation and produced a murder charge against Gonzalez.


Cecilia Garza, an attorney for Gonzalez, said prosecutors pursued an indictment despite knowing that a woman receiving an abortion is exempted from a murder charge by state law.

Ramirez announced that the charges would be dropped just days after Gonzalez’s arrest but not before she’d spent two nights in jail and was identified by name as a murder suspect.…….

Optimus Prime said:

A Texas woman who was charged with murder over self-managing an abortion and spent two nights in jail has sued prosecutors along the US-Mexico border who put the criminal case in motion before it was later dropped.

The lawsuit filed by Lizelle Gonzalez in federal court Thursday comes a month after the state bar of Texas fined and disciplined the district attorney in rural Starr county over the case in 2022, when Gonzalez was charged with murder in “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion”.

Under the abortion restrictions in Texas and other states, women who seek abortions are exempt from criminal charges.


The lawsuit argues Gonzalez suffered harm from the arrest and subsequent media coverage. She is seeking $1m in damages.

“The fallout from Defendants’ illegal and unconstitutional actions has forever changed the Plaintiff’s life,” the lawsuit stated.

The Starr county district attorney, Gocha Ramirez, said Friday that he had not yet been served the lawsuit and declined comment. Starr county judge Eloy Vera, the county’s top elected official, also declined comment.

According to the lawsuit, Gonzalez was 19 weeks pregnant when she used misoprostol, one of two drugs used in medication abortions. Misoprostol is also used to treat stomach ulcers.

After taking the pills, Gonzalez received an obstetrical examination at a hospital emergency room and was discharged with abdominal pain. She returned with bleeding the next day and an exam found no fetal heartbeat. Doctors performed a caesarian section to deliver a stillborn baby.

The lawsuit argues that the hospital violated the patient’s privacy rights when they reported the abortion to the district attorney’s office, which then carried out its own investigation and produced a murder charge against Gonzalez.


Cecilia Garza, an attorney for Gonzalez, said prosecutors pursued an indictment despite knowing that a woman receiving an abortion is exempted from a murder charge by state law.

Ramirez announced that the charges would be dropped just days after Gonzalez’s arrest but not before she’d spent two nights in jail and was identified by name as a murder suspect.…….

Texas woman charged with murder in 2022 abortion sues prosecutors for $1m

Lizelle Gonzalez says she suffered harm from two nights in jail and being identified as a murder suspect before charges were dropped

www.theguardian.com

Click to expand...

Control and punishment of women for daring to have agency in their lives. Even when it's legal, they'll do it.

On a side note: Only one million dollars? My dear Ms Ramirez, that's chump change. Sue for something they'll notice, like three hundred million.