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Now that she has gotten her way, she is lobbying for it to be repealed.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

Last January, Jen Jackson Quintano stepped into a theater in Sandpoint, a tiny city in northern Idaho, to debut a production that could best be described as The Vagina Monologues meets The Moth – a night of Idahoans sharing stories about their own reproductive agency.

Quintano was nervous. Idaho, where Republicans outnumber Democrats five to one, has one of the most punitive abortion bans in the country. Further, Quintano lives in a region of the state that keeps making national headlines for bold displays of armed intimidation by militia, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists. This was not necessarily a safe place to talk about abortion.

So that afternoon, as people began filing into the theater, she considered worst-case scenarios – even though she’d promoted the event mostly by word of mouth to avoid alerting disruptors, ensured law enforcement had patrols in the area, and brought in a peacekeeper force of local volunteers trained in de-escalation tactics. One attendee, wearing high heels, stashed sneakers in her bag in case she had to run. Another kept her coat on and her purse on her shoulder for a hasty exit.


Quintano wasn’t a full-time activist; she’d pulled this event together in her spare time between running a chainsaw and driving one-ton trucks for her family’s arborist business. She empathized with attendees’ apprehension: “My husband had volunteered as a peacekeeper, my mother-in-law was in the audience, we were all there. And I had this morbid thought: what is my daughter left with if shirt goes down?”

Quintano, 44, isn’t an inconspicuous target. Tall and lanky, with a purple streak in her blond hair and a silver ring glinting in her nose, she’s easy to pick out of a crowd. In a year-plus as north Idaho’s lone abortion rights organizer, she’s had no qualms about showing herself; her face appears all over the website and Instagram of the Pro-Voice Project, the organization she founded last March to encourage abortion storytelling in Idaho. “How can I ask other people to put themselves out there, if I’m not willing to do that myself?” she says……

The same fear-based politics dominate the state’s abortion ban, which begins at conception and subjects physicians to revoked medical licenses and felony convictions; OB-GYNs have since fled the state. The ban also allows family members, including those of rapists, to sue abortion providers; and attempts to criminalize helping minors get abortions outside the state without parental consent. Bills are on the table in the current legislative session to remove the rape and incest exception from the abortion ban, and redefine language in Idaho law from “fetus” to “preborn child”.

Recent Planned Parenthood polling shows that 65% of Idahoans believe that women should have access to all available reproductive healthcare options, including abortion, and 45% of Idahoans identify as pro-choice. But many people here are afraid to speak out, often for fear of literally being shot, an environment that makes it difficult to organize against far-right policies that endanger women.…….

‘Idaho’s seen as a war zone’: the lone abortion activist defying militias and the far right

Jen Jackson Quintano is her region’s only abortion rights organizer. Faced with a ‘culture of silence’, she’s platforming women – and changing minds

www.theguardian.com

 

[Taurus]

Last January, Jen Jackson Quintano stepped into a theater in Sandpoint, a tiny city in northern Idaho, to debut a production that could best be described as The Vagina Monologues meets The Moth – a night of Idahoans sharing stories about their own reproductive agency.

Quintano was nervous. Idaho, where Republicans outnumber Democrats five to one, has one of the most punitive abortion bans in the country. Further, Quintano lives in a region of the state that keeps making national headlines for bold displays of armed intimidation by militia, white supremacists, and Christian nationalists. This was not necessarily a safe place to talk about abortion.

So that afternoon, as people began filing into the theater, she considered worst-case scenarios – even though she’d promoted the event mostly by word of mouth to avoid alerting disruptors, ensured law enforcement had patrols in the area, and brought in a peacekeeper force of local volunteers trained in de-escalation tactics. One attendee, wearing high heels, stashed sneakers in her bag in case she had to run. Another kept her coat on and her purse on her shoulder for a hasty exit.


Quintano wasn’t a full-time activist; she’d pulled this event together in her spare time between running a chainsaw and driving one-ton trucks for her family’s arborist business. She empathized with attendees’ apprehension: “My husband had volunteered as a peacekeeper, my mother-in-law was in the audience, we were all there. And I had this morbid thought: what is my daughter left with if shirt goes down?”

Quintano, 44, isn’t an inconspicuous target. Tall and lanky, with a purple streak in her blond hair and a silver ring glinting in her nose, she’s easy to pick out of a crowd. In a year-plus as north Idaho’s lone abortion rights organizer, she’s had no qualms about showing herself; her face appears all over the website and Instagram of the Pro-Voice Project, the organization she founded last March to encourage abortion storytelling in Idaho. “How can I ask other people to put themselves out there, if I’m not willing to do that myself?” she says……

The same fear-based politics dominate the state’s abortion ban, which begins at conception and subjects physicians to revoked medical licenses and felony convictions; OB-GYNs have since fled the state. The ban also allows family members, including those of rapists, to sue abortion providers; and attempts to criminalize helping minors get abortions outside the state without parental consent. Bills are on the table in the current legislative session to remove the rape and incest exception from the abortion ban, and redefine language in Idaho law from “fetus” to “preborn child”.

Recent Planned Parenthood polling shows that 65% of Idahoans believe that women should have access to all available reproductive healthcare options, including abortion, and 45% of Idahoans identify as pro-choice. But many people here are afraid to speak out, often for fear of literally being shot, an environment that makes it difficult to organize against far-right policies that endanger women.…….

‘Idaho’s seen as a war zone’: the lone abortion activist defying militias and the far right

Jen Jackson Quintano is her region’s only abortion rights organizer. Faced with a ‘culture of silence’, she’s platforming women – and changing minds

www.theguardian.com

She's probably safe in Sandpoint proper. It's a touristy town and a reputation for violence is the last thing the city fathers want.

Now, somewhere like Hayden Lake or Athol? I wouldn't like her chances.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Morning-after pill handed out at Olivia Rodrigo concert in Missouri – where abortion is banned

Fans got access to $50 pill and condoms via singer’s Fund 4 Good campaign to protect reproductive rights

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

 

[Optimus Prime]

Antiabortion lawmakers on Capitol Hill are facing a quiet pressure campaign by some of their most influential supporters to ramp up their defense that frozen embryos should legally be considered people and advocate for legislation that would codify a central driving force of antiabortion policies.


In the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos created and stored for in vitro fertilization treatments are “unborn children” — and that those who destroy them could be held liable under a wrongful death law — ardent abortion opponents at the Heritage Foundation and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, among other groups, have sought to push lawmakers and state legislatures toward regulating IVF treatments in the United States.

That could include limiting the number of embryos created during a round of IVF, legally codifying the recommended guidelines for embryos transferred during IVF cycles and limiting the use of pre-implantation genetic testing.


Opponents of the effort argue that the endgame is an overly burdensome regulatory environment that could eventually lead to IVF clinic closures and is part of the broader creep toward legislation that puts limits on reproductive care and abortion.

The politics of reproductive health issues have left Republicans flummoxed — in particular the Republican House majority, which has wrestled with advancing its antiabortion offensive — since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Antiabortion stalwarts cheered the ascension of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), a longtime opponent of abortion; but since taking the gavel, he has clearly stated that he did not have the cultural nor political consensus to bring a federal abortion ban to the House floor for a vote.

A Gallup poll conducted last year showed a record-high 69 percent of Americans favor legal abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, and a recent CBS News-YouGov poll found that an even higher 86 percent of Americans think IVF should be legal.

Still, talking points distributed to congressional lawmakers by the Heritage Foundation in recent weeks encouraged members to talk about the Alabama decision as a reassurance for parents who rely on IVF that “their children will receive the same legal protections as everyone else’s” and suggested that lawmakers call for every state legislature to “establish clear legal framework for the industry that … limits the destruction of unborn human life.”


The memo also pointed to other countries that could serve as a model for IVF regulation in the United States and that “prohibit the wanton production and destruction of human embryos,” like Germany, Italy, France, New Zealand and Australia…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/14/ivf-congress-antiabortion-alabama-ruling/

 

[MT15]

That could include limiting the number of embryos created during a round of IVF, legally codifying the recommended guidelines for embryos transferred during IVF cycles and limiting the use of pre-implantation genetic testing.

This is just evil. I mean it. If any of them knew anything about how difficult, even dangerous, it is for women to go through a round of egg harvesting they wouldn’t be doing this. They just want to control everything about women, and they don’t really care one bit about actual people.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Morning-after pill handed out at Olivia Rodrigo concert in Missouri – where abortion is banned

Fans got access to $50 pill and condoms via singer’s Fund 4 Good campaign to protect reproductive rights

www.theguardian.com

That was fast
==========

Olivia Rodrigo is helping raise money for abortion funds and inviting them to set up tables at U.S. stops on her GUTS tour, but multiple fund workers told Jezebel that, as of Wednesday, Rodrigo’s team will no longer let them hand out supplies like condoms, lube, or emergency contraception following news coverage of one show and concerns that children could access those items.

At the St. Louis show on Tuesday, the Missouri Abortion Fund partnered with Right by You to hand out condoms and emergency contraception (EC). Someone posted a photo with the caption: “free planb at @oliviarodrigo in st. louis tonight thank you.” The post went viral, with more than 11 million views as of publishing, and the free birth control generated headlines in the U.S. and internationally due to the singer’s celeb status, and the fact that Missouri has a total abortion ban.

The reaction was mostly glowing but there were a few right-wingers, including Missouri state senator Bill Eigel (R), who falsely claimed that the morning-after pill is an abortifacient. (It’s not, it prevents pregnancy by blocking sperm from fertilizing an egg or preventing the release of an egg in the first place.) Eigel, we must note, is running for governor.

Multiple sources told Jezebel that, the next day, the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) told member funds slated to table at future tour stops that Rodrigo’s management now prohibited them from distributing these supplies. The reason given was that the items would be too accessible to young girls in attendance. (Though, if they’re very young, presumably they’re not at the show without a chaperone?)

Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler, director of engagement for Carolina Abortion Fund, said the group handed out EC at the Charlotte, North Carolina, show on March 8 without issue. (A photo on their Instagram account shows a table with condoms and blue-and-yellow boxes of EC.) Orlovsky-Schnitzler said they gave out every single box they brought.

Destini Spaeth, chair of Prairie Abortion Fund, which will be at the St. Paul, Minnesota, show on Friday night, told Jezebel that PAF had hundreds of boxes of EC ready to give away, but now it can’t bring them. “We are missing the opportunity to share our resources and this feels almost performative when we have actionable things, like EC, that we could hand out to young people who encounter so many barriers to care,” Spaeth said. Putting tangible resources in people’s hands “is community care and a huge part of what abortion funds do.” The fund will still be there with as many buttons, stickers, beanies, and resource pages as they can carry. “ just wish we could bring more,” Spaeth said..........

Olivia Rodrigo's Team Reportedly Won't Let Abortion Funds Hand Out Plan B or Condoms at Shows Anymore

Since 2007, Jezebel has been the Internet's most treasured source for everything celebrities, sex, and politics...with teeth.

www.jezebel.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Texas teens need parental consent for birth control, court rules against fed regulations

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled parental consent can be required for minors seeking birth control, largely affirming a lower court ruling.

www.usatoday.com

 

[samiam5211]

Texas teens need parental consent for birth control, court rules against fed regulations

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled parental consent can be required for minors seeking birth control, largely affirming a lower court ruling.

www.usatoday.com

I wonder if they would support putting an age restriction on condoms? or force boys to get permission from their parents to get them.

 

[Optimus Prime]

An Arizona lawmaker made headlines when she announced her plans to get an abortion on the state Senate floor - in an effort to shed light on the state’s restrictive abortion laws.

When Democratic state senator Eva Burch took to the Senate floor on Monday 18 March, she revealed to her fellow lawmakers that she was seeking an abortion after learning that her pregnancy is not viable.

Burch explained that she recently learned she was pregnant “against all odds” and detailed her family’s “rough journey” with fertility. The District 9 representative, who is also a registered nurse, experienced a miscarriage “more than 13 years ago” and terminated a nonviable pregnancy two years ago, while she was campaigning for her Senate seat.

“After numerous ultrasounds and blood draws, we have determined that my pregnancy is once again not progressing and is not viable, and once again I have scheduled an appointment to terminate my pregnancy,” Burch said……

Arizona lawmaker announces plan to have an abortion on state Senate floor

Democratic state senator Eva Burch announced to the Arizona Senate floor that she plans on getting an abortion for a ‘not viable’ pregnancy

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Taurus]

An Arizona lawmaker made headlines when she announced her plans to get an abortion on the state Senate floor - in an effort to shed light on the state’s restrictive abortion laws.

When Democratic state senator Eva Burch took to the Senate floor on Monday 18 March, she revealed to her fellow lawmakers that she was seeking an abortion after learning that her pregnancy is not viable.

Burch explained that she recently learned she was pregnant “against all odds” and detailed her family’s “rough journey” with fertility. The District 9 representative, who is also a registered nurse, experienced a miscarriage “more than 13 years ago” and terminated a nonviable pregnancy two years ago, while she was campaigning for her Senate seat.

“After numerous ultrasounds and blood draws, we have determined that my pregnancy is once again not progressing and is not viable, and once again I have scheduled an appointment to terminate my pregnancy,” Burch said……

Arizona lawmaker announces plan to have an abortion on state Senate floor

Democratic state senator Eva Burch announced to the Arizona Senate floor that she plans on getting an abortion for a ‘not viable’ pregnancy

www.independent.co.uk

Appealing to empathy is a fool's errand, Senator Burch. They do. not. care. But it's worthwhile to tell your story and fight the good fight for the voters to see, some of them are still capable of acting to mitigate another person's pain.

 

[LA - L.A.]

Appealing to empathy is a fool's errand, Senator Burch. They do. not. care. But it's worthwhile to tell your story and fight the good fight for the voters to see, some of them are still capable of acting to mitigate another person's pain.

This seems to be an internally conflicted statement. I agree with the second part and disagree with the first part.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Lawmakers in more than a dozen states have considered efforts to endow embryos or fetuses with legal rights and protections since the start of the year, and at least three states have advanced such “fetal personhood” legislation since February, when an Alabama supreme court decision ruling that frozen embryos are “extrauterine children” unleashed national outrage.

The Alabama state legislature responded to the repercussions of that ruling – which led several of the state’s in vitro fertilization (IVF) providers to halt their work – by passing a bill to protect providers’ ability to offer that treatment.

Yet, just hours after the legislature passed those protections, Republicans in the Iowa statehouse passed a fetal personhood bill that amends state law to criminalize causing the “death of an unborn person”.

An “unborn person”, according to the Iowa bill, is “an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization to live birth”.

Such a definition would include frozen embryos, which are eggs that have been fertilized by sperm. If passed by the Republicans who control the Iowa state senate, the bill could endanger IVF access in the state.

But because the language of the bill is so broad, prosecutors may also try to apply it to a wide range of circumstances. Causing the “death of an unborn person” intentionally through acts like murder, assault or sexual abuse would be a Class A felony, punishable by a life sentence. Doing so unintentionally would be a Class B felony.

The bill even specifies that unintentionally causing “the death of an unborn person while drag racing” would be a Class D felony…….

States push ‘fetal personhood’ bills despite outrage at Alabama IVF ruling

Lawmakers in more than a dozen states have considered efforts to give legal rights and protections to embryos and fetuses

www.theguardian.com

 

[SFIDC3]

Appealing to empathy is a fool's errand, Senator Burch. They do. not. care. But it's worthwhile to tell your story and fight the good fight for the voters to see, some of them are still capable of acting to mitigate another person's pain.

T, I think she realizes this, she is a smart lady....this speech was not for the R's it was for the potential voters watching.....

 

[Taurus]

This seems to be an internally conflicted statement. I agree with the second part and disagree with the first part.

I should have clarified it as appealing to the empathy of her colleagues.

 

[LA - L.A.]

I should have clarified it as appealing to the empathy of her colleagues.

I thought that's what you probably meant.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Guess this can go here
==================
Search for birth control on TikTok or Instagram and a cascade of misleading videos vilifying hormonal contraception appear: Young women blaming their weight gain on the pill. Right-wing commentators claiming that some birth control can lead to infertility. Testimonials complaining of depression and anxiety.


Instead, many social media influencers recommend “natural” alternatives, such as timing sex to menstrual cycles — a less effective birth-control method that doctors warn could result in unwanted pregnancies in a country where abortion is now banned or restricted in nearly half the states.

Physicians say they’re seeing an explosion of birth-control misinformation online targeting a vulnerable demographic: people in their teens and early 20s who are more likely to believe what they see on their phones because of algorithms that feed them a stream of videos reinforcing messages often divorced from scientific evidence.

While doctors say hormonal contraception — which includes birth-control pills and intrauterine devices (IUDs) — is safe and effective, they worry the profession’s long-standing lack of transparency about some of the serious but rare side effects has left many patients seeking information from unqualified online communities.

The backlash to birth control comes at a time of rampant misinformation about basic health tenets amid poor digital literacy and a wider political debate over reproductive rights, in which far-right conservatives argue that broad acceptance of birth control has altered traditional gender roles and weakened the family………

Prominent conservative commentators have seized upon mistrust of medical professionals, sowing misinformation as a way to discourage the use of birth control. Some commentators inaccurately depict hormonal contraception as causing abortions. Others say they’re just looking out for women’s health.

Brett Cooper, a media commentator for the conservative Daily Wire, argued in a viral TikTok clip that birth control can impact fertility, cause women to gain weight and even alter whom they are attracted to. It racked up over 219,000 “likes” before TikTok removed it following The Post’s inquiry.


In a Daily Wire video, Cooper and political commentator Candace Owens denounce birth-control pills and IUDs as “unnatural,” with Owens saying she’s a “big advocate of getting women to realize this stuff is not normal,” and claiming that viewers of her content told her copper IUDs can harm women’s fertility.

Medical experts say there is no evidence birth control impacts fertility long term.


On his show, Ben Shapiro, another right-wing pundit, called discussing birth-control side effects a “political third rail,” while interviewing a guest who proclaimed that women on birth-control pills are attracted to men who are “less traditionally masculine.”……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/03/21/stopping-birth-control-misinformation/

 

[Optimus Prime]

.........The FACE Act was enacted to prevent people who protest outside abortion clinics and women's health centers from threatening, intimidating or blocking the entrances to patients. It specifically prohibits the following three things:

1. Using physical force, the threat of force, or physical obstruction or intimidation, or injuring or attempting in injure any person attempting to enter or leave a clinic.

2. The use of physical force, threat of force, or physical obstruction in an attempt to injure or interfere with any person trying to exercise their First Amendment rights at a religious service.

3. Intentional destruction or damaging a clinic.

Right-wing politicians and activists have complained about this Act in recent years, claiming that people who were prosecuted and arrested for violations had a First Amendment right to intimidate and harass patients. Most, however, have simply complained about the application of the act, not the repeal of it.

Until today.......

MSN