The American Taliban in action.

Texas prison guards throw nurse in isolation for explaining abortion: report

Matthew Chapman
May 02, 2023



Bars Prison Jail - Dan Henson:Shutterstock.com


An incarcerated woman in Texas was thrown into isolation by prison guards after they heard her debunking right-wing talking points against abortion, reported The Nation on Tuesday.

The problems started when Kwaneta Harris, a former nurse who was sentenced to 50 years in 2009 for killing and burying her romantic partner, began trying to fill in the sex education of women in adjacent cells in the Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville, Texas, where she has been locked up on high security since trying to forge a note from a judge to escape prison in 2016.

"One Wednesday in mid-April, Harris removed her headphones and heard the younger women shouting through their cell doors. That in itself wasn’t unusual, but the conversation soon had Harris at her own door. They were giving advice about avoiding pregnancy — and all of their advice was wrong," reported Victoria Law. "'You gotta let him in yo butthole before yo biscuit and be a toaster strudel, not a twinkie,' they shouted to a woman who was scheduled for release within a few months. Translation: To avoid pregnancy, a woman should have anal sex before vaginal sex. She should also be sure that the man ejaculated on her, not inside her." Harris corrected them.

Then, as other women began asking her questions, one asked her about "partial-birth abortion" — a right-wing term that doesn't actually have any medical meaning. Harris said, "that's not a thing" — and then a guard intervened.

"From her cell, Harris could see in only one direction. She did not see the man during the first part of her impromptu sex education discussion. But once she began dispelling myths about abortion, he stormed into view, yelling at her to shut up and threatening not only a disciplinary ticket for violating prison rules but even a new criminal charge, which could lead to additional prison time," said the report. "In response, the younger women cursed him out, even telling the officer that he was a 'partial birth abortion.' The officer took Harris’s identification card to write a disciplinary ticket and he threatened to file a new criminal charge against her, Harris said. After he stormed off, Harris began making phone calls from her prison-issued tablet to find out if the state had passed any post-Dobbs laws that might allow new charges to be brought against her."

Shortly after that incident, Harris was removed to another side of the cell, far away from any other prisoner so she couldn't speak to them anymore. Speaking to The Nation, she said the guards sent her a clear message: "Shut the hell up."



https://www.rawstory.com/texas-pris...d-nurse-in-isolation-for-explaining-abortion/

 

Well, but you see, all you have to do is see who posted it, and their source, and if it's stumbler and wrong story, you should just move on.
+wrong story + stumbler = bullshit and lies

 

But of course, all you need do is see who's making such hollow statements without showing anything to the contrary...

Shooter don't need no stinking facts!

 

Just curious, but is this inhumane? I would think pro-life would also mean you don't want to inflict needless suffering...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/health/florida-abortion-term-pregnancy/index.html

 

Missouri Republican proposes bill to enable murder charges for getting an abortion

1.8k
Maia Bond
Wed, May 3, 2023 at 11:39 AM MDT·3 min read




A Missouri Republican has offered legislation that would allow for women to be charged with murder if they get an abortion in the state.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mike Moon, an Ash Grove Republican, would give fetuses the same rights as human beings, which would allow for criminal charges to be filed against anyone who gets an abortion, helps someone get an abortion or provides abortion care.

The bill does not explicitly mention whether going out of state to get an abortion would be illegal. Abortions are still available at clinics close to the Missouri border in Kansas and Illinois, where the procedure remains legal.

It does allow for a duress defense and does not allow for criminal charges if the abortion was performed to save the patient’s life or if a doctor accidentally aborts a fetus during a life-saving medical procedure on the pregnant person.


Mallory Schwarz, the executive director of Pro-Choice Missouri, an organization advocating for reproductive rights in the state, said the bill would put pregnant people in harm’s way and make it unsafe for them to discuss their needs with family and friends.

“We also know that criminalizing someone’s support system, their doctors, their friends, family, partners that may assist them in getting access to needed abortion care creates a culture of shame,” Schwarz said.

The bill was considered Wednesday at a hearing by the Missouri Senate Health and Welfare Committee. Moon did not attend the hearing due to a family emergency.

A large crowd holding anti-abortion signs gathered outside the hearing room to support the bill. Bradley Pierce, the president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, testified in support of the legislation.

“I hold the supposedly extreme position that murdering anyone should be illegal for everyone,” Pierce said. “Because everyone is created in the image of God.”

However, one the state’s top anti-abortion organizations, Missouri Right To Life, is opposed to the bill.

“We want to reach out to women and have compassion for them and help them to see that they have alternatives to abortion, but we don’t want to prosecute them,” said Susan Klein, executive director of Missouri Right To Life.

Sam Lee, a longtime anti-abortion lobbyist and director of Campaign For Life, also testified that Missouri should not criminalize women for getting abortions.

Two women testified at the hearing about the abortions they received and said their birth control methods failed when they were college students in their early 20s.

Sam Hawickhorst, one of the women who testified about her abortion, said she was 22 at the time and a student at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Now 28, she said regular people have abortions and they aren’t monsters.

“We deserve to live our lives. We shouldn’t be having an economic and physical barrier caused by being forced to carry a child,” Hawickhorst said.

Missouri was the first state to enact a trigger law banning abortions when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. The state’s law now prohibits all abortions except in cases of medical emergency.

Another bill relating to Missouri’s abortion ban was weighed Wednesday, and would exclude the use of birth control from the definition of “abortion.” Sponsored by Sen. Greg Razer, a Kansas City Democrat, the bill would also include ectopic pregnancies in the definition of “medical emergency.”

“What my bill does is just clarify, contraception is not considered an abortion. That it is perfectly legal in the state of Missouri,” Razer said.

Schwarz said that Razer’s good intentions may sow confusion about whether birth control is legal, and lead people to be scared of seeking contraception. She said they should not fight political interference in medicine with more political interference.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/missouri-republican-proposes-bill-enable-173929449.html

 

Now theres a novel thought.
A fetus is a life and has the same rights as someone with a birthday.

 

It will be really interesting to see how this showdown turns out. It is playing out in a surprising place.


North Carolina Governor Vows to Veto 12-Week Abortion Ban, Pleads with Republicans Not to Override It

910
Ari Blaff
Mon, May 8, 2023 at 8:23 AM MDT



Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina said Sunday that the state’s newly-passed 12-week abortion ban would endanger the access of millions of residents to the medical procedure and urged Republican legislators to resist overriding the veto he promised to sign.

“It will effectively ban many abortions altogether, because of the obstacles that they have created for women, for clinics, and for doctors,” Cooper told Face the Nation on Sunday.

“They’ve [Republicans] dressed this up as a 12-week ban, but it’s really not,” the governor added. “They ran through a bill in 48 hours with no public input, with no amendments, that drastically reduces access to reproductive freedom for women.”

- ADVERTISEMENT -

On Thursday, the Republican-controlled Senate passed new restrictions capping abortions at 12 weeks, down from the previous limitation of 20 weeks. Shouts of “Abortion rights now!” rang from the gallery after the Senate voted on Bill 20, also known as the “Care for Women, Children, and Families Act,” which passed along party lines.

“We are grateful more babies will be protected,” Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the NC Values Coalition, told the New York Times following the vote. The bill “marks the end of North Carolina as a destination for abortion and is a historic step forward for unborn babies and their mothers.”


State Democrats recently suffered a major loss when Representative Tricia Cotham decided to cross party lines and join Republicans in early April.

“The modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me and to so many others throughout this state and this country,” Cotham said during a recent press conference. “The party wants to villainize anyone who has free thought, free judgment, has solutions,” she said. “If you don’t do exactly what the Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you. They will try to cast you aside.”


The move handed Republicans a supermajority in the house, alongside its dominance in the state senate, giving the party the power to override the governor’s veto.

Cooper has insisted that he will fight to overturn the legislation by actively calling on a handful of Republicans to throw their support behind him to deprive the party of its supermajority.

“We only need one Republican to keep a promise,” Cooper said during the Sunday interview.

“At least four Republican legislators made promises to their constituents during this campaign that they were going to protect women’s reproductive freedom. They only have a supermajority by one vote in the Senate, and one vote in the House. And we’ve seen Republicans across the country step up. We saw them step up in South Carolina, we saw them step up in Nebraska, because they know that people don’t want abortion bans.”


Cooper specifically named Cotham, along with three other Republican lawmakers, in a video address released last Thursday in a bid to undermine support for the bill and dismantle its veto-proof supermajority.

“We only need one Republican in either the House or Senate to help sustain the veto of this dangerous abortion ban. Ted Davis, Michael Lee, John Bradford, and Tricia Cotham promised to protect women’s reproductive freedom. There’s still time for them to keep their promises,” the governor tweeted following the news Thursday night.

The bill will go into effect July 1 if Cooper fails to find a willing Republican.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/north-carolina-governor-vows-veto-142317893.html

 

Prophetic, eh?

“The party wants to villainize anyone who has free thought, free judgment, has solutions,” she said. “If you don’t do exactly what the Democrats want you to do, they will try to bully you. They will try to cast you aside.”

 

Abortion pill case to be heard by conservative, anti-abortion panel

FILE PHOTO: Used boxes of Mifepristone, the first pill in a medical abortion, line a trash can at Alamo Women's Clinic in Carbondale
489

• 
  

Brendan Pierson and Jacqueline Thomsen
Mon, May 8, 2023 at 12:10 PM MDT·3 min read


By Brendan Pierson and Jacqueline Thomsen

(Reuters) - A case brought by anti-abortion groups seeking to ban the abortion pill mifepristone nationwide will be heard next week by a panel of three deeply conservative judges hostile to abortion rights, a federal appeals court revealed on Monday.

The Biden administration is expected to urge the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in New Orleans on May 17 to overturn a court order that suspended the federal government's approval of mifepristone.

The administration will be appealing to Circuit Judges Jennifer Walker Elrod, who upheld a Texas law making it more difficult for abortion clinics to operate in the state; James Ho, who has called abortion a "moral tragedy"; and Cory Wilson, who supported abortion bans as a Mississippi state legislator.


The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is named as the defendant in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ho did not immediately return a request for comment. A Wilson staffer said he does not comment on pending cases, and a staffer for Elrod referred Reuters to the court's clerk's office, which said it could not comment.

Mifepristone is part of the two-drug regimen used in medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions.

Led by the recently formed Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, abortion foes claimed in a lawsuit last year that mifepristone is dangerous and that the FDA approved it unlawfully in 2000. Scientific studies have overwhelmingly concluded that the drug, which has been used by millions of women, is safe.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas last month sided with the plaintiffs, finding they were likely to win, and suspended mifepristone's approval while their lawsuit goes forward. The U.S. Supreme Court put that order on hold, meaning that mifepristone remains available while the case is appealed.

In filings last week, the FDA and mifepristone maker Danco Laboratories said Kacsmaryk's order would both harm the public and destabilize the pharmaceutical industry.

The plaintiffs are expected to file a response brief later on Monday.

"Despite those who insist on playing politics and endangering the lives of girls and women, we look forward to a final outcome in this case that will hold the FDA accountable," Erik Baptist, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

Ho, who was appointed by former Republican president Donald Trump, was part of a 5th Circuit panel that in 2019 blocked Mississippi's 15-week ban on abortions, but in a separate opinion spoke out against the constitutional right to abortion.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority last year used the same case to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and find there was no right to abortion enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

In 2021, Ho was in the majority in a 2-1 ruling refusing to block Texas's six-week abortion ban. The Supreme Court later let that law go into effect.

Ho last month also spoke to the conservative Federalist Society's Dallas chapter in defense of Kacsmaryk, who he called a friend, after the Washington Post reported the then-nominee did not disclose to the U.S. Senate ahead of his confirmation hearing a law review article he helped write that criticized protections for people seeking abortions.

Elrod, who was appointed by former Republican president George W. Bush, in 2019 wrote the majority opinion for a 5th Circuit decision striking down a key part of the Obamacare health insurance law.

Wilson, another Trump appointee, as a state legislator voted to ban abortion once fetal cardiac activity is detected, around six weeks.

Whichever party loses the appeal would be able to ask for en banc rehearing from the full 5th Circuit, which has 12 Republican appointees among 16 active judges serving on the court, and then appeal to the Supreme Court.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/abortion-pill-case-heard-conservative-181001835.html

 

We are the American Taliban. Sharia Law For Christians demands if you are raped or your father impregnates you you must carry your rapist's baby to birth.






Louisiana Republicans Kill Rape, Incest Exceptions to Abortion Ban After Unhinged Hearing

3.7k
Lorena O’Neil
Wed, May 10, 2023 at 12:00 PM MDT



Photo: Melinda Deslatte (AP)

After a truly eyebrow-raising hearing on Wednesday, Louisiana’s House criminal justice committee voted against adding rape and incest exceptions to the state’s abortion ban, one of the strictest in the country.

Pastor John Raymond of Slidell, La., testified against the bill, saying that an abortion in the case of rape would make it so there are two victims instead of one–a talking point parroted by anti-abortion activists throughout the discussion. Women will “clamor to put old boyfriends behind bars in order to dispense with the inconvenience of giving birth,” he said.



Raymond, mind you, currently faces numerous criminal charges for cruelty to juveniles, including multiple allegations of physically abusing a 4-year-old, once allegedly holding him upside down by the ankle and whipping his butt. The pastor has also been accused of taping three 13-year-old boys’ mouths shut after they refused to stop talking in class.

The rest of the hearing was equally disheartening. Democrat Delisha Boyd, who introduced the bill to add rape and incest exceptions, revealed that she was the product of rape after her mother was sexually assaulted when she was 15. “My mother never recovered,” said Boyd, adding that her mother died just before she was 28 years old.

Republicans, of course, were unmoved by this argument. Anti-abortion activist Debbie Melvin said abortion “can be like a second rape.”

“A baby is the only beautiful thing that can come from rape,” she said.

Most rape survivors who testified supported Boyd’s bill. One survivor wept as she said that if she hadn’t been able to have an abortion she may have died by suicide. Morgan Lamandre, the president and CEO of Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response (STAR), said that she used to be vice president of the anti-abortion club at her high school, but changed her mind after working with sexual assault survivors. She pointed out that forcing a person to carry a rapist’s baby is only further traumatizing them.

“By forcing survivors to give birth, you are forcing them to forever be connected to their rapist,” Lamandre said. “In Louisiana, men are allowed to choose the mother of their children regardless of what the mother wants.”

The House Criminal Justice Committee then killed the bill in a 10-5 vote. All of the Republicans on the committee voted against adding the exception. One Republican representative, Tony Bacala, said he was voting against it because its author, Rep. Boyd, is the product of rape, and she turned out to be a good person.

We’re living in hell.

More from Jezebel

https://www.yahoo.com/news/louisiana-republicans-kill-rape-incest-180000016.html

 

I sure haven't heard much about "Jane's Revenge" lately. But as always there are lots of attacks on abortion providers and its getting worse.




Abortion Clinics See Triple-Digit Spikes in Stalking, Burglaries, Bomb Threats & Arson

87
Kylie Cheung
Thu, May 11, 2023 at 10:10 AM MDT



Photo: Mykola Romanovskyy (Getty Images)

Nearly a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, a new report by the National Abortion Federation published Thursday reveals how mass clinic closures due to abortion bans have impacted clinics in states where abortion remains legal. In particular, clinics in states where abortion rights are proactively protected—what the NAF calls “protective states”—now face the brunt of targeted anti-abortion violence.

The NAF has tracked anti-abortion harassment for five decades and has documented 11 murders, 42 bombings, 200 arsons, 531 assaults, 492 clinic invasions, 375 burglaries, and thousands of other criminal acts directed at patients, providers, and volunteers. Compared to 2021, the NAF found that, last year (the year Roe was overturned), there was a 229% increase in stalking, 231% increase in burglaries, and 100% increase in clinic arsons (from two cases in 2021 to four in 2022) at clinics across the country.


At clinics in protective states, NAF recorded a staggering 913% increase in stalking inflicted on patients, providers, and volunteers; a 538% increase in obstructions of clinics (from 45 in 2021 to 287 in 2022), and a jump in bomb threats (there were three in 2021 and seven in 2022). All these increases come as out-of-state patients are forced to seek abortion care in protective states.

Abortion bans aren’t just driving a surge in interstate abortion-related travel and an increasingly unmanageable surge in patients seeking care from remaining clinics. By shuttering clinics by the dozen, abortion bans are also making the dwindling numbers of clinics that are still open exponentially more vulnerable to harassment and violence. The availability of abortion pills and procurement of them via telehealth (without in-person clinic visits) are under legal threats, which could further expose abortion patients to ongoing harassment and violence surrounding clinics.

“The data is proof of what we have known to be true: anti-abortion extremists have been emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the cascade of abortion bans that followed,” Melissa Fowler, chief program officer of the National Abortion Federation, said in a statement shared with Jezebel. “As clinics closed in states with bans, extremists have simply shifted their focus to the states where abortion remains legal and protected, where our members have reported major increases in assaults, stalking, and burglaries.”

Still, law enforcement has remained fixated on a false equivalence of violence supposedly targeting both anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers” (which exist to prey on and deceive pregnant people) and abortion clinics. Last fall, the FBI put out a memo about “a general intensification of violence across the issue” of abortion, and the agency has spent the last several months very publicly seeking information on alleged attacks on CPCs. On a local level, clinic workers and volunteers have also spoken out about police officers declining to help them; actively protecting or even joining anti-abortion protesters; and telling them to simply accept these violent threats as a part of the work they’ve chosen to do.

In contrast, pregnant people and abortion providers are more likely to face investigation and criminalization from law enforcement. Several active abortion bans threaten abortion providers with prison time, while bills under consideration in some state legislatures threaten them with the death penalty. Pregnant people have frequently faced surveillance and arrest for their pregnancy outcomes.

NAF’s report highlights who is actually at risk of being victimized by abortion-related crimes, and the heightened vulnerability that clinics face today as they absorb both more out-of-state patients—and become the target of more out-of-state protesters

https://www.yahoo.com/news/abortion-clinics-see-triple-digit-161000459.html

 

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...evenge-alleged-florida-vandals-on-the-defense

 

Ohio Republicans don't like democracy, nor do they like it when the people get involved.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/11/poli...ction-constitution-abortion-rights/index.html

 

Under Sharia Law For Christians enforced by the American Taliban this will become perfectly legal. In fact in some states they will execute the woman for him.




Man fatally shoots girlfriend because he was angry she had an abortion, Texas police say

3.4k
Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY
Fri, May 12, 2023 at 9:33 PM MDT




A 22-year-old man was arrested and charged with murder after police say he got angry at his girlfriend for having an abortion out of state and fatally shot her in a Dallas parking lot this week.

Dallas Police Department said officers responded to a reported shooting at about 7:40 a.m. Wednesday and found 26-year-old Gabriella Gonzalez shot on the ground. She died at the scene, police said in a statement. Surveillance video from the parking lot showed her and her boyfriend, Harold Thompson, arguing when he tried to put her in a chokehold, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Associated Press.

In the video, Gonzalez "shrugs him off" and the two continued walking. Then, Thompson pulled out a gun and shot her multiple times before fleeing, the affidavit said.

ABORTION PILL: Supreme Court sides with the Biden administration, halts restrictions on mifepristone

Investigators found Gonzalez had recently traveled back to Dallas from Colorado where she had the abortion.

“It is believed that the suspect was the father of the child,” the affidavit said. “The suspect did not want (Gonzalez) to get an abortion.”

Abortions have been banned in Texas beyond about six weeks of pregnancy since late 2021, and most abortions in the state – except in emergent cases – have been blocked since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion last year.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-fatally-shoots-girlfriend-because-033321420.html

 

GOP Bill Could Hit Women Who Miscarry With Murder Charges, Advocates Say
465

Tessa Stuart
Tue, May 16, 2023 at 8:01 AM MDT·5 min read



Syndication: The Montgomery Advertiser - Credit: Mickey Welsh/Advertiser/USA TODAY NETWORK/Imagn

There is virtually no ambiguity in Alabama law: Abortion is banned at any stage of pregnancy, and anyone who performs one can be charged with a felony. But there is one caveat: Under current law, a pregnant person cannot be criminally charged in connection with her own abortion.

A group of Republican lawmakers in the Alabama House of Representatives are angling to change that. A new bill, sponsored by freshman Ernie Yarbrough, would open the door for a pregnant person to be charged with murder if she has an abortion — or even if she has a miscarriage.



Yarbrough’s bill proposes excising from the state’s criminal code “the provision that prohibits the prosecution of homicide or assault following any abortion, and the provision that prohibits the prosecution of homicide or assault against any woman with respect to her own unborn child.”

Instead, the bill seeks to ensure that “prosecutions of homicide or assault where the victim is an unborn child shall be treated the same as prosecutions of homicide or assault of a person born alive.”

Yarbrough — who, ironically, ran on a platform advocating for the freedom to make personal health care decisions — officially introduced HB 454 on Tuesday. He did not respond to a request for comment. Four other Republican representatives — Ben Harrison, Mack Butler, Mark Gidley, Ritchie Whorton — joined him as co-sponsors.

The text of the law specifies that a survivor of rape or domestic violence can not be charged with murder for terminating a pregnancy, but it makes no exception for nonviable pregnancies. And because a miscarriage is indistinguishable in many cases from a medication abortion, advocates worry that the law would result in not only the widespread criminalization of self-managed abortion — which carries no penalty under current Alabama law — but in the criminalization of pregnancy loss as well.

Robin Marty, director of operations at the West Alabama Women’s Center, says it’s easy to imagine how it would play out: “One thing that you need to understand about Alabama is the fact that we have a very, very large uninsured population,” Marty says. Many don’t have a trusted primary care doctor, so the hospital is the first place they will turn when in need of medical attention. “We have people who are going to go into the hospital because they are bleeding. And when they go into this hospital, a doctor, a nurse, somebody in the hospital system says to them, ‘Did you want to be pregnant?’ Or: ‘Did you do anything before this that might have brought it on?’ Which are the kind of invasive questions that we see medical staff ask all the time.… The reality is that this is going to be based primarily upon just a feeling that a doctor is going to get.”

According to the founder of End Abortion Alabama, the group credited with coming up with the proposed law, it is explicitly intended to end a “loophole” in Alabama law that permits women to self-manage their own abortions. If it sounds punitive, it is — as founder D.J. Parten told the Alabama Political Reporter: “Women who intentionally terminate their child should not be granted blanket immunity.… [W]omen openly boasting about abortions, using that language, those women are not victims.”

Observers of the Alabama legislature say Yarborough’s bill does not appear to have the level of support it would need to advance this session, but Dana Sussman, acting executive director of the national advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, stresses that law enforcement doesn’t need a new law to criminalize pregnant people in Alabama — they can, and are, doing it already using existing law.

Alabama has a constitutional amendment guaranteeing “personhood” to a fertilized embryo. Earlier this year, Attorney General Steve Marshall declared his office would prosecute women who self-managed their abortions for chemical endangerment of a child using the personhood rationale.

“We have to be very aggressive and push back against these kinds of bills,” Sussman says. “But I also think it’s important to contextualize it in what’s already going on in the state: Laws that were never ever even intended to apply to pregnancy are being used to prosecute people.”

Marshall, whose office has since sought to walk his comments back, was articulating a legal strategy that has been repeatedly invoked in parts of Alabama including Etowah County, where more than a dozen women suspected of using marijuana, prescription drugs, or other substances have been charged and prosecuted for chemical endangerment of their pregnancies in recent years. Yarbrough’s bill gives the attorney general “concurrent authority” to bring cases, even if local prosecutors decline to. (In Marty’s estimation that provision is “the most terrifying part.”)

In another well-known personhood case in Alabama, a pregnant woman named Marshae Jones was arrested and charged with manslaughter for losing a pregnancy after she was shot in the stomach. The shooter was not charged. “For everyone else this reality sounds like this really far-off, ‘There’s no way this could happen’ sort of situation, but we have already had this stuff happen here in so many other cases,” Marty says. Jenice Fountain, executive director of the Yellowhammer Fund, says she doesn’t expect the bill to advance in the Alabama Legislature. But even if it doesn’t, the damage is already done. “It will still function in the way that it was designed to — to scare people out of getting abortion care,” Fountain says. “Everybody’s already heard that Alabama might [charge women with murder for having an abortion]. That’s going to be the bulk of what people remember.”

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/gop-bill-could-hit-women-140138374.html

 

This Appalling Alabama Bill Would Allow Prosecution of Abortion Patients for Murde


210
Sam Manzella
Thu, May 11, 2023 at 10:34 AM MDT


Conservative lawmakers in Alabama are pushing one of the country’s most disturbing anti-abortion bills yet. Earlier this week, Republican state Rep. Ernie Yarbrough introduced HB454, which would allow law enforcement officers to prosecute certain abortion patients for murder or assault. Yes, you read that correctly. As AL.com reported, the bill proposes expanding the state’s definition […]

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/appalling-alabama-bill-allow-prosecution-163435191.html

 

It is an unnecessary tragedy it has come to this but taking away a woman's right to abortion is the best thing that has happened to progressive/liberal/Democrats in decades. The treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans overlooked something very basic. The majority of women in this country have never lived during a time they did not have the right to control their own bodies. And they are not willing to go bask. Which is why Democrats are winning elections.

And here are the two sides of the same coin.

Abortion after 12 weeks banned in North Carolina after GOP lawmakers override governor’s veto
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-veto-override-north-carolina-4282913637b499490494dd3e3cce3478


North Carolina news
POLL: Do a majority of NC voters support or oppose the 12-week abortion bill?

According to new polling by Carolina Forward/Change Research, 54% of likely voters strongly or somewhat oppose the abortion bill, while 40% strongly or somewhat support it.

https://www.cbs17.com/news/north-ca...-support-or-oppose-the-12-week-abortion-bill/





Missouri voters likely to reinstate abortion rights if given the chance, Republicans say

https://www.yahoo.com/news/missouri-voters-likely-reinstate-abortion-103000982.html

 

ABORTION IS A STATE'S RIGHTS ISSUE!!! Until we can outlaw abortion nationally.


Judge Chides Abortion Pill Lawyer for Being Mean to Trump Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk

135
Tessa Stuart
Wed, May 17, 2023 at 4:24 PM MDT



Abortion Pill Expected To Be Available in Australia Within Year - Credit: Getty Images

The fight over access to a critical abortion drug rages on. On Wednesday, lawyers for the Biden administration and Danco Laboratories, the maker of mifepristone, defended the Food and Drug Administration’s two-decade old approval of the medication, while advocates for a coalition of anti-abortion medical and dental societies argued the drug — famous for causing fewer complications than Tylenol — is too dangerous to remain on the market.

The battle began in November, when a newly formed organization, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, filed a lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas, demanding the FDA end its approval of mifepristone, the first pill in the two-pill abortion medication regimen. Amarillo was chosen for a reason: The Northern District of Texas is home to a judge with a reputation for being especially hostile to abortion rights. Last month, in a 67-page opinion littered with rhetorical flourishes favored by the anti-abortion movement, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered the FDA to do exactly what the plaintiffs asked and rescind approval for mifepristone. The decision triggered a cascade of emergency appeals — first to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which partially upheld the lower court’s ruling, and then to the Supreme Court, which stayed the decision, protecting access to the most widely used means of abortion in the United States, at least temporarily.



Lawyers for all three parties were back in court Wednesday, appearing this time before a panel of three Fifth Circuit judges in New Orleans, Louisiana. A decision from the court is not expected to pose an existential threat to nationwide access to mifepristone the way Kacsmaryk’s decision did: a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would likely remain on hold because of the stay already issued by the Supreme Court.

Advocates for reproductive rights were not optimistic going into the hearing. “We know that the Fifth Circuit in general is incredibly hostile to abortion, and the judges who have been assigned to this case happen to be particularly conservative,” Jennifer Dalven, Director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said Monday on a call with reporters. She added that some have gone so far to call the three jurists “one of the worst panels of judges that could have been assembled” from the perspective of anyone hoping to protect access to the abortion pill.

Like Kacsmaryk, each of the judges who heard arguments on Wednesday — Cory Wilson, Jennifer Walker Elrod, and James Ho — have lengthy anti-abortion records. Before he was a judge, Wilson was a Republican official who served in Mississippi House of Representatives, where he voted to restrict abortion and voiced support for the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

Elrod likewise has a long history of restricting abortion: in 2014, she voted to uphold a Texas law that required doctors to gain hospital admitting privileges, banned abortion at 20 weeks, and restricted the use of abortion pills. (The law was later struck down by the Supreme Court.)

Judge James Ho, who called abortion a “moral tragedy” in a 2018 opinion, also “volunteered” as an attorney for the anti-abortion First Liberty Institute where Kacsmaryk was once deputy general counsel. (Another bit of trivia: Ho was sworn in as a member of the federal bench by Justice Clarence Thomas, in the private library of Harlan Crow — the Republican billionaire who purchased the home Thomas’ mother lives in, paid for his grandnephew’s private education, and bankrolled many years of Thomas’ vacations. Ted Cruz was also present at the swearing in as a witness.)

Advocates were right to be concerned. The judges were aggressive with the defendants — Danco and the FDA — and deferential to the plaintiffs — Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, represented by Sen. Josh Hawley’s wife, Erin — from the very start.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sarah Harrington had barely finished the first two sentences of her argument before Ho interrupted her, taking umbrage with her assertion that the case was “unprecedented.” Harrington patiently explained that no court has ever vacated the FDA’s determination that a drug is safe to be on the market. (“We are allowed to look at FDA just like any other agency,” Ho grumbled.)

But the idea that this case is “unprecedented” was a point both Ho and Elrod returned to later. Elrod was miffed by what she called “unusual remarks” from the plaintiffs’ lawyers that she said equated to a personal “attack” on the district court — phrases like “the district court defied long standing precedent,” “the court’s relentless one-sided narrative,” and “the non-expert court.”

The question before the court could affect the lives of millions of women across the United States, but the judges were concerned whether lawyers might have hurt Kacsmaryk’s feelings with their strongly-worded brief. “I’m wondering if you would have had more time, and not been in a rush, and probably exhausted from this whole process, would those have been statements you would have included in your brief?” Elrod wanted to know. “You think it’s appropriate to attack the district court, personally, in that kind of way?”

Much of Wednesday’s hearing centered around the question of whether the plaintiffs in this case — doctors affiliated with the anti-abortion medical societies which brought the case — have a legal right to file it. Lawyers for FDA and Danco argued that those doctors could not show they were harmed by the FDA’s approval of the drug, and that existing state and federal conscience protections shield them from providing care to which they object. The judges appeared skeptical of the plaintiffs’ argument.

The Fifth Circuit is expected to issue an opinion on the case in the coming weeks or months, but the ruling will likely remain on hold until one of two things happens: either the Supreme Court declines to take up the case, or, if it does take up the case, until it issues its own decision. The earliest Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA could be heard in the Supreme Court is next year, but it’s possible that the case may not be heard until the 2024-2025 session

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/judge-chides-abortion-pill-lawyer-222417043.html

 

Women just need to lock their gate

 

The Latest Abortion Pill Hearing Went Fully off the Rails

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Susan Rinkunas
Wed, May 17, 2023 at 3:55 PM MDT·4 min read



James Ho testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on nominations on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 15, 2017.

The ridiculous abortion pill lawsuit is still ongoing, and its latest stop was a Wednesday hearing at the ultraconservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The three judges drawn at random to hear the case were all appointed by Republicans—and two by Donald Trump—so we knew it was going to be bad. But it was truly something to behold.

The wildest comment came from Judge James Ho, who was notably sworn in by Clarence Thomas in Republican megadonor Harlan Crow’s library in 2018. “Is pregnancy a serious illness?” he asked. “When we celebrated Mother’s Day, were we celebrating illness?”


For context, the plaintiffs are claiming that the FDA was wrong to approve the abortion drug mifepristone back in 2000 under the regulatory pathway it used because, they argue, pregnancy isn’t an illness (and it’s offensive to suggest otherwise). Ho clearly embraced this argument in his questioning and didn’t even remotely feign objectivity.

Jessica Ellsworth, the lawyer for Danco, the pill’s brand-name manufacturer, responded that the FDA used the words “illness, condition, and disease” interchangeably, so it’s wrong to say the agency was calling pregnancy an illness. Still, pregnancy can be life-threatening (even more so for people living in states with abortion bans!) and for every person who dies from pregnancy, another 70 women come close. As I’ve written previously, pregnancy is not a benign event.

After this exchange, George W. Bush-appointee Judge Jennifer Elrod decided to repeat the anti-abortion claim that mifepristone affects the “nutrition” of the embryo or fetus. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk also cribbed that language from the plaintiffs and then plopped it in his extremely unscientific April 7 opinion, writing that “Mifepristone—also known as RU-486 or Mifeprex—is a synthetic steroid that blocks the hormone progesterone, halts nutrition, and ultimately starves the unborn human until death.”

Kacsmaryk’s opinion was widely condemned not only for its language, but also for his claiming to have the power to make the FDA pull a drug from the market. But Elrod used part of her time in Wednesday’s hearing to ask if Ellsworth thought the pill manufacturer’s legal briefs were too mean to Kacsmaryk. Elrod quoted the brief and asked if it was inappropriate to say that the ruling was an“unprecedented judicial assault” with a “relentless one-sided narrative.”

Here’s a snippet of the exchange:

Judge Elrod: I’m wondering if you would have had more time and not been in a rush and probably exhausted from this whole process, would those have been statements that would have been included in your brief?

Ellsworth: Your Honor, I think those statements reflect our view that the district court court was very far outside the bounds of established…

Judge Elrod: So you think it’s appropriate to attack the district court personally in the case in that way, not just the rulings?

Ellsworth: Your honor, I don’t think that those remarks, any of them, were intended as any sort of personal attack. They were an attack on the analysis and the reasoning.

It’s pretty rich to see a judge try to defend the sanctity of the process, here, when this entire lawsuit is a farce. It was filed 22 years after the FDA approved the drug—only after Roe was overturned—and in a Texas district with a single anti-abortion judge, whose cases funnel up to this very conservative appeals court. In other words, the case has been rigged from the start.

It seemed clear from the arguments that this Fifth Circuit panel will eventually issue the same ruling the court handed down on an emergency basis last month, which would end telehealth appointments for medication abortion and shorten the time period during which people can take it. A ruling isn’t expected for several weeks, if not months.

The case would go back to the Supreme Court before any changes would take effect—a process that will itself take months—but SCOTUS would, unfortunately, be working off an opinion written by anti-abortion activist judges like Ho and Elrod. Stay tuned and stay vigilant, everyone.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/todays-abortion-pill-hearing-went-215500362.html