Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights per draft opinion (Update: Dobbs opinion official) (4 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Now that she has gotten her way, she is lobbying for it to be repealed.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]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio was in the throes of a bitter debate over abortion rights this fall when Brittany Watts, 21 weeks and 5 days pregnant, began passing thick blood clots.

The 33-year-old Watts, who had not shared the news of her pregnancy even with her family, made her first prenatal visit to a doctor’s office behind Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, a working-class city about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland.

The doctor said that, while a fetal heartbeat was still present, Watts’ water had broken prematurely and the fetus she was carrying would not survive. He advised heading to the hospital to have her labor induced, so she could have what amounted to an abortion to deliver the nonviable fetus. Otherwise, she would face “significant risk” of death, according to records of her case.

That was a Tuesday in September. What followed was a harrowing three days entailing: multiple trips to the hospital; Watts miscarrying into, and then flushing and plunging, a toilet at her home; a police investigation of those actions; and Watts, who is Black, being charged with abuse of a corpse. That’s a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.



Her case was sent last month to a grand jury. It has touched off a national firestorm over the treatment of pregnant women, and especially Black women, in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crumpelevated Watts’ plight in a post to X, formerly Twitter, and supporters have donated more than $100,000 through GoFundMe for her legal defense, medical bills and trauma counseling.…..

A Black woman was criminally charged after a miscarriage. It shows the perils of pregnancy post-Roe

A Black Ohio woman who miscarried in her bathroom has been charged with abuse of a corpse. Thirty-three-year-old Brittany Watts, of Warren, awaits grand jury action.

apnews.com

Brittany Watts, an Ohio woman who was charged with abuse of a corpse after having a miscarriage, has filed a federal lawsuit accusing some of the medical professionals who treated her of conspiring with a police officer to fabricate the criminal case against her.

The lawsuit, which was filed last week and names the professionals, the officer, the hospital where Watts was treated and the city of Warren, Ohio, as defendants, is the latest development in a case that first made national headlines in late 2023 when Watts was first charged.

Although a grand jury ultimately declined to move forward with the charge against Watts, the case sparked fears about how the fall of Roe v Wade and subsequent wave of abortion bans could endanger pregnant women and lead to police treating miscarriages as crimes.

“This case is a perfect example of the broader implications of the overruling of Roe v Wadein the Dobbs case. Brittany was not seeking an abortion,” said Julia Rickert, one of Watts’s attorneys and a partner at the civil rights law firm Loevy and Loevy.

“But the repercussions of the Dobbs decision meant that her pregnancy and her choices and her medical crisis were viewed in a different way.”……..

Ohio woman sues hospital and police after she was arrested over miscarriage

Brittany Watts files lawsuit accusing medical professionals of conspiring with police to fabricate abuse of corpse charge

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

A lawsuit that aims to restrict nationwide access to abortion pills can proceed, a federal judge in Texas ruled on Thursday, months after the US supreme court rebuked an earlier version of the lawsuit over a legal technicality.

The US judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is allowing the attorneys general of Idaho, Kansas and Missouri to continue a case that takes aim at the FDA’s regulation of mifepristone, a drug typically used in medication abortions. Joe Biden’s department of justice had asked for the case to be dismissed, arguing that the attorneys general had no real link to Kacsmaryk’s court in the northern district of Texas.

Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee, said in his ruling that it was too early in litigation to make that call.


“Venue remains disputed here,” he wrote, “and should be properly dealt with at a phrase where each party may fully argue the issue.”

The case could have sweeping implications for the availability of abortion across the country, as medication abortions account for more than two-thirds of all US abortions.

The original version of the case, which was brought by a group of anti-abortion activists, sought to roll back the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone – a request Kacsmaryk granted but was later paused by an appeals court. In later litigation, the activists asked courts to reverse more recent FDA rule-making around mifepristone, such as a policy that permits providers to dispense the drug through telehealth.

Last year, the US supreme court ruled that the anti-abortion activists behind the case lacked the necessary standing to sue. Although the activists dismissed their case, Idaho, Kansas and Missouri attorneys general filed a 199-page complaint arguing for their right to take up the case in the activists’ stead.

“This outrageous case should have been put to bed,” Julia Kaye, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. “Instead, the same Texas judge who already tried to take mifepristone off the market nationwide has left the door open for extremist politicians to continue attacking medication abortion in his courtroom.”……..

Judge allows lawsuit aiming to restrict abortion pills across US to proceed

Texas judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rules attorneys general of Idaho, Kanas and Missouri can continue mifepristone case

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Donald Trump signed pardons for 23 anti-abortion activists who were convicted for violating a federal law that makes it a crime to block entrances to reproductive health clinics.

The pardon list includes Lauren Handy, who is serving a nearly five-year prison sentence after forcing her way inside a Washington, D.C., clinic in 2020 and using ropes, bike blocks and chains to stop patients from entering — actions that anti-abortion groups and Republican officials have characterized as peaceful protests unjustly prosecuted by a politically motivated administration.

Their convictions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act during Joe Biden’s presidency were fiercely condemned by anti-abortion organizations and right-wing legal groups, which pressed Trump for Thursday’s pardon……

Donald Trump pardons 23 anti-abortion activists who blocked clinics

President says prosecution of nearly two dozen activists accused of blocking patients from accessing care ‘ridiculous’

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

Legislators in at least four states have introduced bills this year that would change the legal definition of “homicide” to include abortion – proposals that pave the way for states to charge abortion patients with murder.

Pregnancy Justice, a group that tracks these kinds of efforts, says it has recorded more “homicide” bills this year than ever before. Abortion bans have typically penalized providers, rather than patients.

“That raises significant alarm – both that we’ve seen more than we have in the past in a single legislative session already, and that they’re not generating the level of outrage or attention or scrutiny that they have in years past,” said Dana Sussman, senior vice-president at Pregnancy Justice. “The more of these kinds of bills that get introduced, people get numb to the idea of them, and they seem less and less radical.”

With Donald Trump returning to power in Washington DC, abortion rights supporters and opponents are waiting to see how the new president will handle one of the most divisive issues in US life.

But red-state lawmakers have already filed a host of anti-abortion proposals over the last few weeks.

In addition to the “homicide” bills, many of these bills target access to abortion pills – which account for more than 60% of US abortions – and seek tolimit minors’ ability to obtain abortions.

In at least two states, Montana and Missouri, lawmakers are also seeking to implement legislation that would in effect roll back the abortion protections guaranteed by recent ballot measures.……

As Trump returns, state lawmakers pursue bills that would treat abortion as homicide

Red state legislators have also introduced a slew of bills targeting abortion pills and minors’ access to the procedure

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

This is concerning.

 

[superchuck500]

Federal law (FACE Act) prohibits blocking abortion clinics and otherwise prohibits threats of violence and other intimidation against those attempting to enter a healthcare facility for an abortion.

Trump's DOJ just announced that it would not longer prosecute FACE Act violations except in egregious cases - calling the DOJ's enforcement of this federal law to be "weaponization of the Justice Department"

Justice Department curtails prosecutions for blocking reproductive health care facilities

President Donald Trump’s new Justice Department leadership is curtailing prosecutions against people accused of blocking reproductive health care facilities, calling the cases an example of the “weaponization” of law enforcement.

apnews.com

 

[coldseat]

Federal law (FACE Act) prohibits blocking abortion clinics and otherwise prohibits threats of violence and other intimidation against those attempting to enter a healthcare facility for an abortion.

Trump's DOJ just announced that it would not longer prosecute FACE Act violations except in egregious cases - calling the DOJ's enforcement of this federal law to be "weaponization of the Justice Department"

Justice Department curtails prosecutions for blocking reproductive health care facilities

President Donald Trump’s new Justice Department leadership is curtailing prosecutions against people accused of blocking reproductive health care facilities, calling the cases an example of the “weaponization” of law enforcement.

apnews.com

They really are going after everything in Project 2025 and beyond.

And all of the "They won't do that " people just keeping quiet, with their head down and saying nothing now because it won't affect them.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order reinstating a federal rule known as the “Mexico City policy” which halts US aid from flowing to groups that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for abortion rights overseas.

The policy, which was first instituted by Ronald Reagan in 1984, is typically implemented whenever a Republican president wins the White House and rescinded whenever a Democrat wins. But this whiplash has major implications for abortion and reproductive healthcare around the world.

Historically, the revival of the Mexico City policy affects up to about $600m of international aid. During his first term, however, Trump dramatically expanded the scope of the Mexico city policy, which abortion rights supporters call a “global gag rule”. Rather than applying the policy only to family planning assistance, as was typical, the Trump administration applied to it to assistance for organizations that offer a range of health services around the globe – leading the policy to affect billions of dollars’ worth of aid.


According to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion restrictions and their impact, the policy can cut off access to contraception, lead women to seek out unsafe abortions and cause tumult within the non-governmental groups that depend on US aid to keep their programs going.

“Reinstating the Mexico City policy will have deadly consequences for people across the globe,” Rebecca Hart Holder, president of Reproductive Equity Now, said in a statement.………

Trump signs order to reinstate ‘global gag rule’ on abortion aid

Federal rule also known as ‘Mexico City policy’ halts US funds to overseas groups that provide abortion services

www.theguardian.com