SCOTUS removes Roe V Wade

[Endus]

I did not say they are the same thing. I said Republicans run into the same problem with pro-choice voters that Democrats had with MAGA voters. These voters already made up their mind. Nothing will change that. Fortunately for Democrats, MAGA voters are in the minority, while pro-choice voters are obviously in the majority.

And I'm saying there's a world of difference between people unwilling to challenge their own beliefs, and people who've seen every challenge to those beliefs, considered them, and found them to have not just no value but to be actively, intentionally malicious.

[The Stormbringer]

And I'm saying there's a world of difference between people unwilling to challenge their own beliefs, and people who've seen every challenge to those beliefs, considered them, and found them to have not just no value but to be actively, intentionally malicious.

This part right here is the part that's so sad because it's true. I was watching a video last night, a journalist going to heavily conservative areas and talking to conservatives both for and against Trump, and the ones for Trump all seemed to either have been completely against the very concept of the indictments and thus didn't read them, as they were "all fake and just made to attack Trump", or they hadn't read them but had heard about them, and believed that "everything he did was legal and fine".

It is absolutely a cult. Also, one of those people (the first one) was a black woman, which just makes me so fucking sad.

[Lenonis]

Also, one of those people (the first one) was a black woman, which just makes me so fucking sad.

One of the most amazing things the GOP has been able to do is convince people to actively vote against their own self-interest.

[Rasulis]

One of the most amazing things the GOP has been able to do is convince people to actively vote against their own self-interest.

I don't think that will work with pro-choice voters. The problem with GOP when it comes to abortion is not what they say, but what they do. They talked about reasonable policy. However, their actions belied their words.

[Captain N]

I don't think that will work with pro-choice voters. The problem with GOP when it comes to abortion is not what they say, but what they do. They talked about reasonable policy. However, their actions belied their words.

Most likely noted by the last couple years where "We're glad this is now a states rights issue..." has become "The people didn't understand what they were voting on so we must take this to the courts and ignore them"

[Sunseeker]

Most likely noted by the last couple years where "We're glad this is now a states rights issue..." has become "The people didn't understand what they were voting on so we must take this to the courts and ignore them"

And the numerous examples of "Now that this is a states rights issue....lets ban it federally!"

"Rules for thee and not for me." gets tired pretty quick.

[Rasulis]

Final tally from the Ohio Issue 1 referendum election.

57 - 43 for Issue 1.

25 out of 88 counties in Ohio voted yes on Issue 1. Including 10 counties that voted for Trump by 10 pts in the last presidential election. It appears, a lot of GOP women voters, especially from the suburbs, voted yes on Issue 1.

[Edge-]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...s/10496559002/

At 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 2, nearly 18 weeks into her pregnancy, Mylissa Farmer experienced what doctors call a preterm premature rupture of membranes – her water broke before labor, followed by vaginal bleeding, abdominal pressure and cramping.

She went to Freeman Hospital in Joplin, Missouri, where she'd been just the day before. Everything had been normal then. She and her boyfriend, Matthew McNeill, had already picked out a name for their daughter: Maeve.

But the doctors had devastating news for them.

If Maeve was delivered right then, chances of survival at 17 weeks and 5 days were zero, according to the assessment and plan section of Farmer's medical records outlining the visit. And the outcome wasn't much better if they tried to hold off on delivery.

The doctors recommended terminating the pregnancy – but 39 days after the state of Missouri banned abortions, that wasn't an option, at least not in Missouri.

A year ago, the hospital could have offered a chance for the couple to say goodbye and hold their daughter, even though they knew she wouldn't survive outside the womb.

Instead, Farmer and McNeill were left to make a series of trips across three states and countless phone calls.

The couple wanted to be able to grieve the loss of their daughter, not sit at home or in a hospital "with a baby dying inside me," Farmer said.

Another tragic story of a family left to suffer, risk the health of the pregnant girl/woman, and be unable to begin grieving the loss of a pregnancy because they live in a state that does not care about life while proclaiming to care about life.

But reality came crashing down when more doctors came to advise them.

One newborn intensive care unit doctor "went over the whole baby being deformed because their bones are so soft, she would have permanent disabilities the rest of her life even if she made it," Farmer said. "But he said because my cervix was open, there was no chance for me to even make it 6 weeks."

"The thing he said was, 'There are things worse than death, and I have seen it.'"

Imagine being told that and being unable to receive the medical care necessary because Republican politicians in your state can't be bothered to act to limit needless physical and emotional suffering in situations like this.

Rather than stay at the hospital to wait for infection to set in, Farmer went home to wait, monitoring her temperature and her pain. On Aug. 4, she called her state senator, Bill White, and explained her situation to an aide.

He told her, "That’s not what the law was designed for. It’s designed to protect the woman’s life."

"It’s not protecting me. We have to wait for the heartbeat (to stop). There’s no chance for a baby; she’s not going to make it. It’s putting my life in danger," Farmer said she remembers telling him. "We just want to move on, we just want to grieve."

Even when being told that the legislation is directly hurting women, it appears state Republicans are unmotivated to act. Or at least their offices, an extension of them, are unwilling to act.

The aide told her he would reach out to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, and also connected her with Choices Medical Services, "which is basically an anti-abortion clinic" in Joplin, Farmer said. She never heard back about what Schmitt said.

Choices Medical Services offers "pregnancy testing for confirmation of pregnancy, limited obstetrical ultrasounds, STI/STD testing and prenatal education classes." According to the website, it does not offer nor refer people to abortion services.

"We are often contacted by individuals who request an appointment, but their specific needs are out of the scope of our services," said Mischa Long, director of nursing for Choices Medical Services in Joplin. "For these individuals, we clarify our services and offer a referral to a local doctor for prenatal care."

Farmer's situation turned out to be one such case.

Despite the clinic's compassion, they were "unable to give any answers to help my medical situation. In my case, it was unhelpful and slowed my progress for actual care," Farmer said.

Instead, they provided her a completely useless referral to an organization that does testing and otherwise does not provide actual medical care to patients, and would be wholly unable to provide any assistance, support, guidance, or care for her current medical emergency.

Farmer describes herself as "pretty pro-life" and Christian. She then did something she never thought she would do: Begin looking for abortion clinics.

A tale we keep hearing time and time again.

But still, the experience was harrowing. Protesters in front of the clinic echoed the things her friends had told her, "saying we were killing our baby and that we were evil."

"It was awful, you know? We were just going through so much. We didn’t want this ... but at the same time, we had no choice," Farmer said.

Another tale we hear time and time again because remember, "Ever abortion is wrong and amoral except mine." in the eyes of the Republican party.

If they had been able to get the care they needed in-state, McNeill feels things would have been different. Though their daughter would have died, at least Farmer would have been able to deliver her close to home, among friends and support.

"If this was a year ago, they could have induced labor and I would have been able to hold her and say goodbye,” McNeill said.

Republicans: Continuing to voluntarily cause additional unnecessary trauma for families who already experience a tragedy during a planned, wanted pregnancy. They have the power to address these issues within their respective legislation while still achieving their stated goals, they just continues to choose not to.

[Rasulis]

2022 March of Maternity Care Desert Report Card. 2023 Report Card coming out tomorrow.

The map can be toggled between Maternity Care/Hospital/OB/Insurance. The Hospital with maternity care map is ugly.

The OB/Gyn map is also interesting. Remote counties in CA have more OB/Gyn per 10k live births than most metro areas in the south. San Francisco with one of the lowest percentage of children's populations in the US has an OB/Gyn rate of over 350 per 10k live births. Marin over 450. Highest and second highest ratios of all counties in the US.

The map of women without health insurance is truly damning for the Southern states. Including Texas and Florida.

[Edge-]

2022 March of Maternity Care Desert Report Card. 2023 Report Card coming out tomorrow.

The map can be toggled between Maternity Care/Hospital/OB/Insurance. The Hospital with maternity care map is ugly.

The OB/Gyn map is also interesting. Remote counties in CA have more OB/Gyn per 10k live births than most metro areas in the south. San Francisco with one of the lowest percentage of children's populations in the US has an OB/Gyn rate of over 350 per 10k live births. Marin over 450. Highest and second highest ratios of all counties in the US.

The map of women without health insurance is truly damning for the Southern states. Including Texas and Florida.

What a great visual representation of how little actual support and care there is for pregnant folks in southern states where they can't shut up about how "pro-life" they are and how much they care about mothers and babies and shit.

Florida looks pretty good though, surprisingly. A bit of trouble up north, but overall it seems to be the southern/midwest conservative state with the most access overall.

[Rasulis]

What a great visual representation of how little actual support and care there is for pregnant folks in southern states where they can't shut up about how "pro-life" they are and how much they care about mothers and babies and shit.

Florida looks pretty good though, surprisingly. A bit of trouble up north, but overall it seems to be the southern/midwest conservative state with the most access overall.

Their health insurance map is just as bad as the other Southern states.

[Edge-]

Their health insurance map is just as bad as the other Southern states.

I was exclusively looking at the maternity care map with my comment, but yeah, their insurance map is pretty bad.

[The Stormbringer]

*looks at the Missouri post*

My state is such a god damn clusterfuck. And I'm sure they'll keep electing Republicans despite all of this...

[Rasulis]

Link to the March of Dime 2022 Report Card. US grade is D-.

Some of the more interesting excerpts.

[Edge-]

With data like that it sure seems like it's those pesky libruls that are indeed the ones who invest and care more about supporting folks through pregnancy and delivery and achieve better outcomes.

Almost as if none of the "pro-life/mother" rhetoric actually lines up with policies that deliver those kinds of results.

[Ivanstone]

Florida looks pretty good though, surprisingly. A bit of trouble up north, but overall it seems to be the southern/midwest conservative state with the most access overall.

Florida only functions because of tourism and medicare recipients. Both need hospitals sometimes.

[Shkar]

While I readily believe that the US as a whole is behind on healthcare, and the south in particular, those charts seem pretty bad from an information point of view. Without showing other nations, it's hard to get a judge on the infant mortality data when each state is differing only by 1-2/1000. Preterm birth data has a higher spread, but without actually knowing the science surrounding the topic doesn't really tell you much. Finally, the mother mortality rating doesn't really show much at all unless you click through to the source report.

[Edge-]

While I readily believe that the US as a whole is behind on healthcare, and the south in particular, those charts seem pretty bad from an information point of view. Without showing other nations, it's hard to get a judge on the infant mortality data when each state is differing only by 1-2/1000. Preterm birth data has a higher spread, but without actually knowing the science surrounding the topic doesn't really tell you much. Finally, the mother mortality rating doesn't really show much at all unless you click through to the source report.

Why do we need to compare outcomes in different nations? States themselves have fairly different policies around health care and insurance coverage, and there are different networks in place throughout them. Comparisons between states is like for like, it's absolutely fair and reasonable and doesn't need to be compared to other nations. It's comparing the different outcomes for folks within a nation, and that they seem to vary pretty significantly is indicative of some states policies resulting higher rates of infant mortality. Especially when you look at some of those states and how they still proudly reject federal funding that could go towards addressing those types of problems. That's a pretty significant data point in the discussion when we're taking a look at whether the states run by Republicans actually pursue policies that achieve their stated goal of being "pro-life" and "pro-mother".

Yes, looking at overall data sets doesn't give you granular data on every individual case. But it gives you a large data set of like data in which to analyze and study to evaluate if there might be issues worthy of further investigation - like why a state that professes to be "pro-life" seems to have nearly twice the infant mortality rate as one of those "librul" states that are filled with baby killers.

And yes, if you want to see the actual underlying data you do have to find the sources, which are usually provided. That's how data works. If you'd like to discuss something in the source report I'm sure folks would be happy to do so, though.

[s_bushido]

The map of women without health insurance is truly damning for the Southern states. Including Texas and Florida.

To be fair...the insurance map strikes me as the only one that's actually representative of much. Other than the fact that enough people simply don't live in a lot of space on the map to justify/support some of these services, regardless of whether or not the politicians that represent them are actively fighting against the expansion/availability of healthcare.

[Endus]

While I readily believe that the US as a whole is behind on healthcare, and the south in particular, those charts seem pretty bad from an information point of view. Without showing other nations, it's hard to get a judge on the infant mortality data when each state is differing only by 1-2/1000.

That data's readily available if you bother to look for it. For instance;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ortality_rates

The UN data, for instance, pegs the USA at 5.3 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, using the CIA World Factbook source. That's 2020 figures and a different model, hence the small variance from 5.4 in the study linked here.

By comparison, Canada's at 4.3 (we're a very large country with some significant transport issues from remote regions for critical care, unfortunately), and most of the developed world is at 3.3/1000 or lower.

The USA is a steep outlier.

But we don't even need to look at other countries. It demonstrates the American average to be "bad", but State differentials are more important. Look at California, at 3.7, or New York at 3.9; not that terrible. But then look at Mississippi, which is more than twice those figures. So if you're having a baby in Mississippi rather than California or New York, your new baby is twice as likely to die as an infant. Differing by 1 or 2/1000 (or 3 or 4/1000) is huge when the average is 5.4/1000.

Preterm birth data has a higher spread, but without actually knowing the science surrounding the topic doesn't really tell you much. Finally, the mother mortality rating doesn't really show much at all unless you click through to the source report.

You've got all that information. Literally the only thing keeping you from accessing it is you. Clicking through to the source report and looking for those details is a basic first research step.

If you want to know more, you check the source, that's why they tell you the source and give you links to that report. It's right there, and you can't be bothered. That's a "you" problem, not the study's problem.