Time for another donation to Planned Parenthood. Thank you Cecile Richards for fighting the good fight for all. Your mama would be proud.
May I suggest making them the beneficiary of an Amazon Smile account, if you have one? Then there are ongoing donations, every time you buy something.
The only reason that the GOP have failed is because sane people donate to ACLU and PP so that they are able to sue the States. The GOP seem to believe that voters (many who the GOP have disenfranchised at the voting booth) that Dems as sheeple - the answer is NO, people need to be thanked to helping woman remain free of the GOP reproductive shackles.
Can we say Catch 22?
North Dakota’s Republican-led Legislature passed a measure in 2013 that blocks abortions based on unwanted gender or a genetic defect. The state’s sole abortion clinic, the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, has said the ban doesn’t affect it in part because most genetic abnormalities are not detected until after 16 weeks into a pregnancy, when the clinic stops providing abortions.
The Dems must start trying to add amendments to these bills that say that any woman who is stopped from getting an abortion because of these state mandated rules will, along with her child, be supported for the next 18 years and for life if the child is disabled.
You are right. After the Republicans force the unwanted and/or unhealthy baby to be born, all bets are off, and they couldn’t care less what happens to the child afterward.
GOP: Life begins at conception and ends at birth.
Poor Conservatives.
Between recent abortion rulings, affirmative action, ACA, same sex marriage, they really are losing “their country”.
And I couldn’t be happier.
Quite right. That’s because it’s about punishing the woman’s sexuality, not about helping a child.
Woo Hoo! The dominoes start to fall.
It’s about time - they had made a mockery out of a constitutional right.
These laws have always stuck me as incredibly disingenuous – if you can terminate a pregnancy for no specific reason, then making it illegal to terminate it for some specific reasons is pretty pointless. Unless the real purpose is for the Uterus Police to make life hell for every single woman who has an abortion by questioning her endlessly about every single detail of her decision.
Um yeah. That’s the whole raison d’être behind these laws.
I’ll pull the decision (which is not unexpected, given that the Court would have had to have followed Judge Posner’s very good opinion striking down WI’s anti-abortion laws, which establishes the same rule that Whole Woman’s Health just did), but I think this is just the first of a whole lot of court’s striking down right wing laws that are based upon made up grounds, designed to hide the actual goals.
In Whole Woman’s Heath v. Hetterstedt, the 5-3 opinion striking down Texas’s requirement for admission privileges and meeting “surgery center” requirements for abortion clinics, Texas justified the law on the purported basis that they were designed to “protect the heath of woman.” This was obviously to anyone with even a frontal lobotomy (see Fox news viewers) entirely B.S. Yet, the very right wing 5th Circuit (which wanted to uphold the regulations) took the position that whatever the Texas Legislature said was proven fact, as Justice Breyer summarized their logic:
“The Court of Appeals went on to hold that “the district court erred by substituting its own judgment for that of the legislature” when it conducted its “undue burden inquiry,” in part because “medical uncertainty underlying a statute is for resolution by legislatures, not the courts.”
Slip Op. at 19. But the Court (including Kennedy, J) rejected this entire approach noting that:
“The statement that legislatures, and not courts, must resolve questions of medical uncertainty is also inconsistent with this Court’s case law. Instead, the Court, when determining the constitutionality of laws regulating abortion procedures, has placed considerable weight upon evidence and argument presented in judicial proceedings…
For a district court to give significant weight to evidence in the judicial record in these circumstances is consistent with this Court’s case law. As we shall describe, the District Court did so here. It did not simply substitute its own judgment for that of the legislature. It considered the evidence in the record—including expert evidence, presented in stipulations, depositions, and testimony. It then weighed the asserted benefits against the burdens. We hold that, in so doing, the District Court applied the correct legal standard.”
Slip op. at 20. As Breyer noted, in a passage that will be often quoted:
“And, in Gonzales the Court, while pointing out that we must review legislative “fact finding under a deferential standard,” added that we must not “place dispositive weight” on those “findings.” 550 U. S., at 165. Gonzales went on to point out that the “Court retains an independent constitutional duty to review factual findings where constitutional rights are at stake.” Ibid.(emphasis added).”
Id. Why do I point out this passage? Well the Court (again for 5 members, including Kennedy, so regardless of what happens with Scalia’s seat, this is NOT changing) is saying that when constitutional rights – say to vote – are at issue, the Court must independently decide if the legislature is making up shit.
After this ruling by the Supreme Court, Court’s need not defer to legislatures, but must independently decide the real facts, is very important. It will give courts that see fit, the opportunity to so to speak call “BS” on laws that don’t make sense, as with this crazy IN law by Pence.
That’s the general consensus. And this story seems to be proof - and I’d love to see this extended to the Transgender bathroom laws - those are made-up too.
Also: a pretty serious slapdown of the 5th Circuit.
And yeah, judges have been doing a lot of deference to stated legislative purpose (voter ID anybody) when it suits their desires and when they have enough votes on their court.
And boy if ever a court needed slapped down it’s the 5th Circuit.
That used to be a reasonably decent district but not for a long time now.
Hear, hear. I have long believed that the consequences of such a ruling should be support of this type.
Of course, my preference would be that those who vote for / approve of such anti-abortion legislation should be required to pay into the fund from which the support for the resultant child is paid out. It’s their choice, ergo it’s their responsibility.
If we could get that through, there’d be a lot of minds changing pretty damn quickly, I do believe.
Some states also have laws that medical personnel are supposed to report “suspicious” miscarriages or stillbirths. I’m not sure if Texas has this law, but at 37 weeks I lost a child to a knot in the umbilical cord - if law enforcement had come in asking questions I would have gone ballistic. Cremation or burial requirements are just other ways to make abortion more expensive and allow law enforcement to get involved in case there is no other reason to criminalize a woman’s choice.
Didn’t know PP was on the list! Thanks. If you do this be sure you watch carefully because when you search for PP you also get anti-PP organizations and other such pretenders.
paulw: logic is never on their side. however, in indiana you have to go the extra mile just to be sure.