Interesting, given the etymology of matrix: " late Middle English (in the sense ‘womb’): from Latin, ‘breeding female’, later ‘womb’, from mater , matr- ‘mother’."
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Unfortunately, most of the Senate does not.
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TPM copy editor … stat!!!
I’d say most elected folk in Texas don’t support abortion rights either and are willing to rip up the Constitution in their haste. Throw in the “conservative” side of the court as well.
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and sheep
OT - bounty-hunting
Isn’t Texas restraining trade?
Makes me physically ill.
Hearings. That’s how politicians pretend to do something. What we need are massive protests at the Supreme Court and a General Strike until the filibuster is gone and we use our majority, slim as it is, to save the Union. Because if this keeps going, the US will split apart. Red States can go F themselves, as far as I’m concerned.
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I’ve often wondered how many “This is how many unborn babies were murdered in the US last year” charts that fly around social media include spontaneous abortions.
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I don’t disagree. But these days, getting people involved is like trying to herd cats.
The nation is in an unrelenting spell of unmedicated schizophrenia and the inmates are pretty much running the asylum.
I just saw the Texas governor say his Creator guarantees a right to life, and Abbott made it law.
The Taliban won more than Afghanistan.
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Oh, goody! They’re going to hold hearings.
When are they going to do something? You know, like expanding the court to 13.
I see why. He made a very powerful statement: I’m pro-life. Their lives. Women’s lives.
Thanks.
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Yes, there could be some merit here, however, who’s going to watch those hearings? I suppose a scathing report being issued might make 1 or 2 news cycles but ultimately, short of adding seats, there is little Congress can actually do regarding the Court. There is much that needs to be done before the next election, most of which won’t get out of the Senate without getting rid of the filibuster. 
The initial question in response to that claim should be, “Are you counting therapeutic abortions in that number? Because if you are, we need to discuss terms and definitions.”
The closest thing to reasonably reliable abortion statistics is produced by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Alan Guttmacher Institute. (They got their results by surveying state health departments.) I would take even their results with a truckload of kosher salt… Anything produced by the forced birther crowd doesn’t pass my giggle test. Any statistic provided by a party with a dog in the hunt requires citation.
You can’t define a surgical therapeutic abortion by identifying the procedure. The procedure would usually be either dilation and curettage (D&C) or dilation and vacuum extraction (D&X). The problem is that both those procedures are used for things other than therapeutic abortions. So you can’t simply count procedures: you have to count the indication for the procedure. It’s been so long since I’ve dealt with ICD codes that they were ICD-9CM (Clinical Modification) codes when I was using them, and I don’t recall if the ICD-9CM are granular enough to get to indication. (The current set is some revision of ICD-10, and ICD-11 comes into effect January 1, 2022.)
In any event, doing the necessary work to get an accurate answer would require access to very low-level personal health information, which would come with HIPAA restrictions that would curl your hair for you. Our health ‘system’ is so fragmented that there isn’t really anyplace you could go to get a real look at the data.
Anyone who claims to know the number should be viewed with skepticism.
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When they were trying (and eventually succeeding in 2013) to take out the local Planned Parenthood clinic, the opponents claimed X abortions per year for the location. Considering that the clinic was only able to do abortions one day each week, their claim worked out to a ludicrous number done in a single day. But arithmetic is not their strong suit. I imagine they got a count for patients observed going into the clinic and extrapolated it (patients = abortions).
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Don’t confuse me with facts: my mind is made up.
And you can’t simply count the number of women going in and assume they are all patients…nor can you count the number of women going in on the day they did abortions and assume they are all there for an abortion.
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immigration
80%-plus of Mexicans share the same religion, and hence the same view of rape, as the Supreme Court.
Big. Frickin’. Deal.
What then, what leverage is there to deflect what has morphed into such a sneaky-ass way for SCOTUS to do its “business?” (you can read into that what you will…)
And as usual, the Dem’s are decades behind, and in fact have never taken seriously, the need to establish a counter-balance to the Federalist Society beyond getting a couple well-intentioned college professors together in a seminar room once in a while. What it needs is a couple real bastards like (ugh, I can taste the puke in my throat) Rahm Emmanuel to run an outfit like the ACS.
re: packing SCOTUS. It’s a stupid term. There is, of course, nothing anywhere in Article III or Amendment 11 that dictates either the size of the court or the length of service of justices. European supreme courts, for instance, have anywhere from 12 to 20 justices, serving for terms of 9 to 12 years, generally in smaller panels. Centrist courts are the preferred model. In Germany, a committee of 12 members representing all parties selects a nominee behind closed doors and parties take turns in proposing candidates.
Kinda think the US of A has already reached critical mass of craven assholes so why not just expand the SC to 13 (same as judicial districts), enact Medicare For All (including abortion) then hold votes on it every week. As everyone knows, craven assholes can take only so much before their melons burst. Take the dialogue away from the trump-humpers fer crissake.
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