Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights per draft opinion (Update: Dobbs opinion official) (3 Viewers)

[LovesMusic7360]

Not long ago Kari Lake proclaimed Arizona's abortion law was a great law and wanted it the law of the state.

Now that she has gotten her way, she is lobbying for it to be repealed.

As I have been saying since 2022, the overwhelming vast majority of women aren't going to vote for the man who proudly boasts that he got rid of Roe V. Wade. Nor are those women going to vote for a forced birther politician.

Turns out, republican belief in "pro life" was all just lies to get votes. Who is surprised? I sure am not.

How many forced birthers will do the same about face?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ka ... r-BB1ltx3I.

Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake is actively lobbying state lawmakers to overturn a 160-year-old law she once supported that bans abortion in almost all cases, a source with knowledge of her efforts told CNN.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Women using abortion clinics are still being harassed despite MPs voting a year ago to create buffer zones to stop protesters intimidating them, medical and abortion groups say.

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has failed to “commence” the legislation to introduce buffer zones in England and Wales, even though parliament approved the move on 18 October last year.

The abortion services provider the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) accused Braverman of “complete silence” over her failure to implement the law.

Parliament agreed to set up “safe access zones”, banning anti-abortion protesters from certain activities within 150 metres of a clinic. This included reciting prayers, holding up placards, reading from the Bible or otherwise attempting to dissuade women from having terminations.

“The home secretary hasn’t done her job and as a result women remain at risk of harassment, intimidation, alarm and distress while they go to access legal healthcare from anti-abortion groups who continue to gather together outside abortion clinics, as do clinic staff,” said Rachael Clarke, BPAS’s chief of staff.

“This law was supported overwhelmingly, with a majority of MPs from all major parties agreeing. There is simply no justification for the complete silence from the home secretary.”

Dr Ranee Thakar, the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: “Safe access zones must be brought in now, to stop anti-choice organisations imposing stigma, guilt and shame on those accessing and providing abortion care services. This would not be tolerated for any other area of healthcare.”……

Women still being harassed at abortion clinics despite buffer zone law

‘Safe access zones’ entered law in England and Wales in May but Home Office has delayed implementing them

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

A law that would have been the first in the United States to ban a controversial practice known as “abortion pill reversal” cannot take effect, a judge ruled late Saturday.

US district court judge Daniel D Domenico granted a preliminary injunction in the case, ruling in favor of a Catholic health clinic that had argued the law infringed on its first amendment rights.

“The state generally cannot regulate an activity if that regulation burdens religious exercise, provides for individualized exceptions, fails to regulate comparable secular activities that raise similar risks, and otherwise targets religious activity,” Domenico wrote. “The law at issue here runs afoul of these first amendment principles.”

Abortion foes claim that “abortion pill reversal” can be used to halt a medication abortion, which is typically induced by taking doses of two drugs several hours apart. If an abortion patient takes the first drug and then changes her mind, anti-abortion activists say that she can take the hormone progesterone to “reverse” the first drug and preserve the pregnancy.

The first randomized, controlled clinical study to attempt to study the “reversal” protocol’s effectiveness, however, was suddenly halted in 2019, after three of its participants ended up in the hospital hemorrhaging blood. In an announcement entitled, in part, “Facts Are Important”, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said claims about abortion reversal are “not based on science and do not meet clinical standards”.……

Katherine Riley, the policy director of Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, one of the organizations that backed the Colorado law, told the Guardian that the law was meant to stop the spread of false information, not target specific religious practices.

Ahead of the ruling, she said a ruling against the law would blur the line between medicine and science.

“These folks can pretty much get away with whatever they want, as long as they just claim they’re doing it in the name of their religion,” Riley said. “Which, to me, is bonkers.”………

US judge blocks law that would have been first to ban ‘abortion pill reversal’

Abortion foes claim practice can be used to halt medication abortion while studies don’t support potentially harmful theory

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

It is totally bonkers. They couldn’t even complete one study to show their theory works because it harmed 3 patients. Yet this judge is going to let them continue to claim it‘s a totally fine option to use. It reminds me of the GOP legislators that thought you could move an ectopic pregnancy into the uterus. And tried to pass a bill making that mandatory. It’s not a thing. They care nothing about women, just controlling them. All about controlling women.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The average number of abortions performed each month in the US rose in the year after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to ban the procedure, according to data released Tuesday from a research group backed by the Society of Family Planning.

This stunning finding masks a deep divide in abortion access in the US. The number of abortions performed in states with near-total or six-week abortion bans plummeted, with providers in those states performing 114,590 fewer abortions than they would have if Roe had not been overturned, according to data collected by the research group, WeCount.

At the same time, abortions skyrocketed in the states that still permit the procedure. In total, those states performed 116,790 more abortions than expected.

“From a national picture, it could look like a kind of calm increase over time,” said Dr Alison Norris, a co-chair of WeCount and an associate professor at the Ohio State University’s College of Public Health. “And what actually is happening is a complete disruption in the healthcare system and in people’s lives.”

It’s unclear how long these abortion clinics, now overwhelmed with patients, will be able to keep up with the wild increase in demand for the procedure. Norris warned: “The increased access that the clinics have created by extending hours and hiring more staff, in some cases, is not sustainable.”

WeCount’s data includes all abortions provided by clinicians, including pill-induced abortions performed through telehealth. Those kinds of abortions are increasingly common: before Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe, they accounted for just under 5% of all abortions; in the year after Dobbs, they made up more than 8% of all abortions.............

US abortion rates rise post-Roe amid deep divide in state-by-state access

States that still allow the procedure performed 116,790 more abortions than expected, says newly released data

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

It’s an off-off year for US elections, but somehow, abortion is still on the ballot.

A year after nationwide rage over the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade crushed Republican hopes for a “red wave” in the midterms, Democrats are trying to once again harness that anger to defeat Republicans in the relatively few states holding 2023 elections. The GOP, on the other hand, is still scrabbling over how to talk about an issue that could not only cost them seats this year but also lead them to lose the White House in 2024.

The elections in November will help both parties fine-tune their messaging on abortion, as well as determine the future of some of the last states in the south and midwest that have access to the procedure. Here’s what you need to know about where and how Americans will vote on abortion this year.

Kentucky​

Last year, deep-red Kentucky stunned the nation when voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have clarified that the state constitution does not protect abortions. Now, abortion could be the deciding issue in the governor’s race between the incumbent governor, Andy Beshear, a Democrat, and the current attorney general, Daniel Cameron, a Republican.

Kentucky law currently bans abortion in almost all circumstances, including in cases of rape and incest. Cameron has long supported the ban. Although he indicated in September that he would approve a bill adding exceptions for rape and incest, he suggested a few weeks later that he would do so only “if the courts made us change that law”, according to a recording of a conversation obtained by the Associated Press.

Beshear has attacked Cameron for his longtime hardline stance on abortion, releasing an ad featuring a young woman discussing being raped by her stepfather.

“I was raped by my stepfather after years of sexual abuse. I was 12,” the woman says to the camera in the ad. “This is to you, Daniel Cameron. To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable.”…….

Abortion on the ballot: six US states with elections in 2023

Here’s what you need to know about where and how Americans will vote on abortion this year

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Emmanuel Macron has promised to enshrine a woman’s right to an abortion in the French constitution by next year, after restrictions in other countries propelled France on a path towards unconditionally guaranteeing abortion rights.

The French president said on Sunday that his government would submit a draft text to France’s highest administrative court over the coming week, with the aim of making abortion rights constitutional by the end of the year.

“In 2024, the right of women to choose abortion will become irreversible,” he wrote on social media.

The announcement follows a promise made by Macron on 8 March, International Women’s Day, when he tweeted in response to the overturning of federal abortion rights in the US last year: “A universal message of solidarity to all women who today see this right violated: France will engrave in its Constitution the freedom of women to have recourse to abortion.”

The resolution was overwhelmingly backed in the national assembly last November before being passed in the senate in February, despite opposition from rightwing parties, which argued that France’s abortion rights were not at risk.……

Abortion rights will be in French constitution next year, Macron vows

President promises by next year the constitutional right to choose ‘will become irreversible’

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

By the time Chasity Dunans learned about her pregnancy, she had already lost the right to end it.

She had gotten her period in July, but towards the end of the month the 23-year-old mother of one started to have heartburn and wrenching stomach pains. She told herself: you’re not pregnant, you’re just sick. When the pain didn’t stop, she gave in and saw a doctor.

“He was like, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re six, seven weeks pregnant,’” Dunans recalled. Then, she says, he added: “I don’t know what your guys’ plans are, but I do have to let you know that in Georgia, [if it’s] six weeks with a heartbeat, you cannot terminate the pregnancy here.”

In the year since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, nearly all states in the US south, including Georgia, have banned almost all abortions. Only one southern state has not restricted abortion: Virginia.

That’s why, on a recent Tuesday in October, Dunans and her boyfriend, Jayvonta Stone, drove eight hours from their home in Georgia to a house on a sleepy street in Charlottesville, Virginia. Other than the small sign out front and a couple of quiet protesters who lingered on the sidewalk, there was little to suggest that the house was home to an outpost of a national network of abortion clinics, Whole Woman’s Health.

There, after waiting all day, Dunans was finally able to get an abortion, exactly 14 weeks into her pregnancy.

“There are situations where some people are not ready, and why is it fair to bring a child into that situation? Some people, in the moment, have sex, and boom: ‘Oh, no, we’re pregnant,’” Dunans said, as she sipped tea a few minutes after her procedure. “That doesn’t mean it’s planned, doesn’t mean it’s wanted. It’s unexpected. So you should have that choice to determine how your life should go, especially if you cannot handle a child.”

Virginia’s status as a haven of southern abortion access is at risk. On 7 November, the state will hold elections for the state legislature. Republicans, who already hold a majority in the statehouse, need to win only a handful of seats to take control of the senate.

Abortion is at the center of the election. Not only is it one of the top issues for voters, according to multiple polls, but Virginia’s governor, the Republican Glenn Youngkin, has made his support for a 15-week ban the centerpiece of his campaign to help Republicans retake the state legislature.…….

‘It’s cruel’: the last southern refuge for abortion rights might soon fall

Virginia is the only southern state that hasn’t restricted abortion post-Roe. Is that about to change?

www.theguardian.com

 

[Taurus]

By the time Chasity Dunans learned about her pregnancy, she had already lost the right to end it.

She had gotten her period in July, but towards the end of the month the 23-year-old mother of one started to have heartburn and wrenching stomach pains. She told herself: you’re not pregnant, you’re just sick. When the pain didn’t stop, she gave in and saw a doctor.

“He was like, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re six, seven weeks pregnant,’” Dunans recalled. Then, she says, he added: “I don’t know what your guys’ plans are, but I do have to let you know that in Georgia, [if it’s] six weeks with a heartbeat, you cannot terminate the pregnancy here.”

In the year since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, nearly all states in the US south, including Georgia, have banned almost all abortions. Only one southern state has not restricted abortion: Virginia.

That’s why, on a recent Tuesday in October, Dunans and her boyfriend, Jayvonta Stone, drove eight hours from their home in Georgia to a house on a sleepy street in Charlottesville, Virginia. Other than the small sign out front and a couple of quiet protesters who lingered on the sidewalk, there was little to suggest that the house was home to an outpost of a national network of abortion clinics, Whole Woman’s Health.

There, after waiting all day, Dunans was finally able to get an abortion, exactly 14 weeks into her pregnancy.

“There are situations where some people are not ready, and why is it fair to bring a child into that situation? Some people, in the moment, have sex, and boom: ‘Oh, no, we’re pregnant,’” Dunans said, as she sipped tea a few minutes after her procedure. “That doesn’t mean it’s planned, doesn’t mean it’s wanted. It’s unexpected. So you should have that choice to determine how your life should go, especially if you cannot handle a child.”

Virginia’s status as a haven of southern abortion access is at risk. On 7 November, the state will hold elections for the state legislature. Republicans, who already hold a majority in the statehouse, need to win only a handful of seats to take control of the senate.

Abortion is at the center of the election. Not only is it one of the top issues for voters, according to multiple polls, but Virginia’s governor, the Republican Glenn Youngkin, has made his support for a 15-week ban the centerpiece of his campaign to help Republicans retake the state legislature.…….

‘It’s cruel’: the last southern refuge for abortion rights might soon fall

Virginia is the only southern state that hasn’t restricted abortion post-Roe. Is that about to change?

www.theguardian.com

Well ladies, you know what to do.

Republican harder right? Surely that'll make everything better.

 

[MT15]

DeWine is being very slimy about the vote on Issue 1. I’ve lost what little respect I had for him.

 

[MT15]

In Idaho a woman and her son have been arrested for driving his girlfriend out of state for an abortion. Police accessed GPS data from her phone to put the teen at the location of an abortion clinic. Since the law they wanted to use to arrest the two is being challenged in court, they actually charged the two with kidnapping, they just used the exact wording from the abortion travel law in the kidnapping charge. In this case the teen lived with the woman and her son, and seemingly went willingly to get the abortion. It was an awful situation for other reasons and the woman and her son are not good people. But its still horrible that the police charged them with kidnapping.

Also in Idaho, a young married couple got horrible news about their pregnancy. Multiple problems, there would never be a baby. They and their two yo were forced to drive 7 hours to get to a clinic where she could be treated. She ended up going into labor in their hotel bathroom. She had to stifle her screams of pain because she didn’t want to upset the 2 yo. She could have died. She is now suing the state for putting her through that nightmare. I hope she cleans them out.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

In Idaho a woman and her son have been arrested for driving his girlfriend out of state for an abortion. Police accessed GPS data from her phone to put the teen at the location of an abortion clinic. Since the law they wanted to use to arrest the two is being challenged in court, they actually charged the two with kidnapping, they just used the exact wording from the abortion travel law in the kidnapping charge. In this case the teen lived with the woman and her son, and seemingly went willingly to get the abortion. It was an awful situation for other reasons and the woman and her son are not good people. But its still horrible that the police charged them with kidnapping.

Also in Idaho, a young married couple got horrible news about their pregnancy. Multiple problems, there would never be a baby. They and their two yo were forced to drive 7 hours to get to a clinic where she could be treated. She ended up going into labor in their hotel bathroom. She had to stifle her screams of pain because she didn’t want to upset the 2 yo. She could have died. She is now suing the state for putting her through that nightmare. I hope she cleans them out.

Absolutely. I hope every state with these draconian laws gets sued into oblivion and goes broke. That's what it's going to take to get these butt crevasses out of office and really effect change.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Kansas cannot enforce laws that would force abortion patients to wait 24 hours for the procedure or be given anti-abortion talking points, a judge ruled on Monday.

The move comes months after Kansans overwhelmingly voted to protect abortion rights in the state’s constitution.

Judge K Christopher Jayaram’s preliminary injunction will freeze a host of abortion restrictions. Some of the restrictions date back to the 1990s, such as a law that requires abortion patients to wait 24 hours between an initial consultation and their procedure. Others were passed as recently as this year, such as a law that would have required abortion providers to indicate to patients that their pill-induced abortion could be “reversed” – a claim that is not backed up by science.…..

Kansas cannot enforce abortion pill law or impose 24-hour wait, judge rules

Preliminary order before 2024 trial comes months after Kansans voted to protect abortion rights in state constitution

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

The ad opens with the sound of a fetal heartbeat.

“Most people believe that abortion at the moment of birth is wrong, far beyond any reasonable limit. Not Virginia Democrats,” a female narrator says, just before the sound of a baby cooing and crying. “They fought to make late-term abortions the rule, not the exception.”

At the end of the ad, the heartbeat flatlines.

The digital ad, released in the last few weeks by the Virginia Republican party, is part of a six-figure effort to win over voters ahead of Virginia’s state legislative elections on 7 November.

It aims to portray Democrats as abortion extremists and Republicans as champions of a reasonable compromise on a notoriously controversial issue.

And it’s a new, risky Republican strategy – led by Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin – to recast abortion as a winning issue, after the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade last year led the GOP to underperform in the 2022 midterms.

If this strategy works in Virginia, it won’t stay there. The Virginia Republican party is hoping to retake control of the state senate after winning both the house of delegates and the governor’s mansion in 2021. If they succeed, Republicans across the country will likely push the 15-week ban in their own 2024 races.

“Both parties will claim, if they win, that, as goes Virginia, so goes the rest of the country. But what you really get, I think, is the testing of the messaging in Virginia,” said Stephen Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at University of Mary Washington in Virginia.

“It’s clear that Republicans have struggled to talk about abortion since the supreme court decision, and this will be the latest test of Republican anti-abortion messaging.”

Before Roe fell, abortion usually motivated Republicans, not Democrats, to head to the ballot box; while only a minority of Americans totally oppose abortion, those voters are some of Republicans’ most committed constituents.

For decades, Republicans were able to appease them by passing abortion restrictions – but were also largely able to evade any political fallout from those restrictions, because Roe stopped them from taking effect…….

In another rhetorical tactic, Virginia Republicans are also striking the word “ban” from their vocabulary and replacing it with “limit”.

In October, Youngkin’s political action committee, Spirit of Virginia, dropped $1.4m into an ad buy that included a spot focused on abortion. “It’s just not true. Their lies about abortion,” a female voice says at the beginning of the ad. “It’s disinformation. Politics at its worst.

“Here’s the truth. There is no ban,” the ad’s narrator continues, as a baby begins to gurgle in the background. “Virginia Republicans support a reasonable 15-week limit with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”

In a sign of just how central this message is to the Republican state senator Siobhan Dunnavant’s re-election campaign, visitors to her website are greeted with a pop-up ad titled “Not a Ban … ”……

Virginia Democrats, meanwhile, are trying to bring up the word “ban” whenever they can.

“A ban is a ban is a ban,” Hopkins said. “What they’re talking about is a ban on a right that so many women had access to for years. I’m 24 in Virginia, and now I might have less rights than my mom did, who was born in 1968. To me, that is something that is absolutely insane.”……….

‘There is no ban’: Republicans test-drive new abortion messaging

Ad released in Virginia part of well-funded effort to portray Democrats as abortion extremists and Republicans as reasonable compromisers

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

So many lies. The lying just never stops with these supposedly Christian people. It sickens me.

 

[Optimus Prime]

It's like last year when all those decades long, super pro lifers scrubbed their websites of it all and pretended like it never happened

Hopefully people don't fall for the "It's not a ban, it a limit" bull shirt

 

[MT15]

It's like last year when all those decades long, super pro lifers scrubbed their websites of it all and pretended like it never happened

Hopefully people don't fall for the "It's not a ban, it a limit" bull shirt

Sort of like “let the states decide” and “we don’t want to criminalize abortion”. The lies are just too numerous to recite.

 

[Optimus Prime]

This is outrageous. This is in Britain, is this happening here too?
========================================

Police are testing “distressed” women who have suffered miscarriages for abortion drugs, healthcare providers have warned.

Medical professionals argue it is “deeply sinister” to test women who have endured a miscarriage who are suspected of illegal abortions for the drugs – arguing it adds to the guilt and stigma women routinely experience after pregnancy loss.

In one document, seen by The Independent, a bodily fluid sample was sent to a forensics lab to be analysed for a range of drugs – including the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. Another reveals a woman who agreed to allow police to have access to samples of her bodily fluids taken by NHS staff.

Abortion providers warned women suspected of illegal abortions were being pushed into having the tests by police while in hospital with no legal representation and without first obtaining their proper consent.

Dr Jonathon Lord, co-chair of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers, also warned police were searching women’s phones for period apps and internet history after seizing their devices.……

‘Deeply sinister’: Police testing women who have miscarriages for abortion drugs

Medical professionals warn it is ‘deeply sinister’ to test women for abortion drugs

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

Mike DeWine’s ad left Shyla Thurston infuriated.

In the ad, DeWine, Ohio’s Republican governor, stands next to his wife, Fran DeWine, as they speak directly to the camera. They assure voters that they have “carefully studied” Issue 1, the name of a November ballot initiative to enshrine abortion rights in Ohio’s state constitution. And, the couple say, they have realized it goes too far.

“Issue 1 would allow an abortion at any time during a pregnancy, and it would deny parents the right to be involved when their daughter is making the most important decision of her life,” Fran DeWine tells voters.

But Issue 1 would only allow abortions past fetal viability – a benchmark that generally occurs around 24 weeks of pregnancy – in certain cases. Legal experts say that the amendment is also unlikely to rewrite the existing Ohio law that already requires minors to get permission from their parents before they get abortions.

“They want to confuse you, so that you don’t vote for it. Instead of putting factual information out, it’s lies being put out there by elected officials that people trusted to vote in, and they’re there leading by lying,” said Thurston, a 37-year-old office manager who lives outside Columbus.

On Tuesday, Ohioans will vote on whether to amend the state constitution to enshrine the right to abortion. But powerful anti-abortion forces are arguing that the amendment will go beyond guaranteeing access to the procedure to imperil parents’ rights when it comes to abortion and even gender-affirming care. Experts and abortion rights supporters say these claims are spreading misinformation about the proposed amendment.

“It’s not about medical treatment. It’s not about gender identity. It is about reproductive freedom. It’s about abortion and other reproductive rights. It’s about adults,” said Tracy Thomas, director of the Center for Constitutional Law at the University of Akron School of Law. “These are just arguments trying to say this amendment is about something that it’s not.”

The DeWine ad is the work of a coalition known as Protect Women Ohio. Over the course of the campaign, Protect Women Ohio and affiliated groups have received millions from the influential anti-abortion group Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, which operates out of Washington DC, as well as from the Concord Fund, an advocacy group linked to Leonard Leo, a behind-the-scenes power broker credited with helping to shape the US supreme court’s current conservative majority. (Abortion rights supporters are swimming in out-of-state money, too, with millions pouring in from billionaires and groups that are associated with them.)

Another ad paid for by Protect Women Ohio argues that if the amendment passes, children will be able to get gender-affirming care without their parents’ permission.…….

Anti-abortion misinformation mounting ahead of key Ohio vote, experts warn

Mistruths and outright lies abound in Republican advertising as the state gears up for crucial vote on abortion rights, say critics

www.theguardian.com