Idaho Has Lost 22% of Its Practicing Obstetricians in the Last 15 months.
The number of obstetricians in Idaho decreased from 227 in 2022 to about 176 in 2023, a decline of 51 doctors.
Coincidence?
Non-paywall AP link.
Dozens of Idaho obstetricians have stopped practicing there since abortions were banned, study says
Also.
Alabama hospital puts pause on IVF in wake of ruling saying frozen embryos are children
Unintended or intended consequences? Couples with infertility issues in Alabama will have to go out of state now.
Last edited by Rasulis; 2024-02-22 at 07:16 AM.
"Buh dah DEMS"
But...this has nothing to do with neoliberalism? This has nothing to do with market-oriented policies, but is a market response to legal rulings on matters of law that impacts their legal liability.
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https://thehill.com/policy/healthcar...ma-ivf-ruling/
Once again, even if she's hardly alone or far from the first to say it, Hillary is correct.“They came for abortion first. Now it’s [in vitro fertilization], and next it’ll be birth control,” the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and secretary of State said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“The extreme right won’t stop trying to exert government control over our most sacred personal decisions until we codify reproductive freedom as a human right,” Clinton added.
I do wonder if freezing your embryos in Alabama is now "one easy trick" to claim upwards of dozens of dependents on your state taxes?
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tommy...b0cc1f2f7b1a81
In both highlighting why you shouldn't elect a dumbass college football coach to the US Senate, and also highlighting how this is such a thorny issue for Republicans who are trying to both appeal to their extremist base and not completely ostracize moderates.Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said Thursday that he is “all for” the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision that frozen embryos are children.
He also said he opposes the effects of the ruling. And that he supports fertility treatments like IVF that are now being denied to women across his state as a result of the court’s ruling. And that he wants to read the legislation more closely before saying more — except there is no legislation.
The Alabama senator delivered this spectacular series of responses in the span of three minutes when asked for his reaction to the court’s unprecedented decision on Tuesday.
Children are a commodity? That's a strange way of referring to them. Not really and it speaks volumes of how folks like Tuberville actually view the situation, though. It's very telling.Tuberville initially didn’t hesitate to praise the court’s ruling when asked about it by reporters attending the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“I was all for it,” the Republican senator said cheerfully. “You know, you just gotta look at everything going on in the country. It’s just an attack on families, an attack on kids. You know, anything we can do for the future of our young people because they’re our No. 1 commodity.”
Notably absent: Any push for additional funding for programs that support young parents and the like.His remarks made no sense, as families are now being denied the ability to try to have children through IVF. “We need to have more kids,” he continued. “We need to have an opportunity to do that. I thought this was the right thing to do.”
Honestly 50/50 on whether Tuberville is aware of his comments and just lying, or whether he's this deeply stupid and ignorant of the topic and also doesn't even have a passing familiarity with the ruling he's sharing his opinion on.When it was pointed out that Alabama health clinics are halting IVF treatments as a result of the court decision, Tuberville started talking about abortion.
“Well, that’s for another conversation,” he said. “I think the big thing is, right now, you protect, you go back to the situation and try to work it out to where it’s best for everybody. I mean, that’s what the whole abortion issue is about.”
Except the court’s decision wasn’t about abortion. And the concern now is that families in Alabama might not have access to IVF anymore.
Tommy Tuberville is astoundingly stupid, maliciously so.HuffPost asked what he would say to women in Alabama who will no longer have access to IVF treatments as a result of this ruling. Tuberville said it was “unfortunate” and “hard.”
“Really hard. Because again, you want people to have that opportunity,” he said. “We need more kids. I’d have to look at the entire bill, how it’s written. I have not seen it.”
Except there is no bill. This was an Alabama Supreme Court decision, not a bill passed by the state legislature.
“Well, I know that,” Tuberville snapped. “But I haven’t looked at it. This is a state issue.”
Huh?
The people spearheading this kind of thinking and these kinds of rulings and policies to this effect genuinely don't know what the fuck they're talking about.When another reporter asked if he thought the court’s decision would alienate swing voters in the November general election, the senator shrugged.
“I don’t know, it might, some,” he said, downplaying its significance. “You don’t hear a lot of folks talk about it. That’s not a big conversation.”
Tuberville then backtracked and agreed that there is a conversation about this happening right now, and that fertility treatments are not a partisan issue.
“We don’t need that,” he said of the court’s decision halting IVF treatments. “We need people to have an opportunity to have kids.”
Another reporter asked Tuberville if he disagrees, then, with the court’s decision to treat embryos as children. This time, he simply feigned ignorance on it.
“I’d have to look at what they’re agreeing to or not agreeing to,” he replied, before walking away. “I haven’t seen that.”
The cruelty remains the point, and Republican men who think that "a womans body just has a way of rejecting pregnancies from rape" or "put an Aspirin between your knees to avoid pregnancy" and the like continue to have no right being in the room where decisions are being made or discussing this topic in any capacity and need to sit down and shut the fuck up.
I had to double check. Apparently as of 2019, 56% of IVF patients received the procedure through their insurance. Going to another state likely meant that they going to an out of network facility which won't be covered by their insurance. A single IVF cycle—defined as ovarian stimulation, egg retrieval and embryo transfer—can range from $15,000 to $30,000. Without insurance those are some pretty daunting numbers.
Two more Alabama facilities have paused IVF treatment.
More Alabama IVF providers pause treatment after court ruling on frozen embryos
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Yikes.
Tennessee GOP Kill a Bill To Legalize Abortion Exception for Children Who Are Raped
BTW, that's children as in 12 and under.
It's depressing how dumb people are to believe this trash. Like, "how do you function on a day to day basis" kind of dumb.After the vote, forced birth organization Tennessee Right to Life sent an email to members calling Johnson an "abortion activist", saying her bill created an exception "based on the mother's age," and was designed to allow babies to be "aborted up until the day of birth."
While not related to Roe V Wade this is related to the SCOTUS (and I didn't know where else to post this). John Oliver has legit offered to give Clarence Thomas 1 Million dollars a year until one of them dies for him to step down from the SCOTUS.
This is out of John's on pocket and completely legal, Clarence Thomas has 30 days (from Sunday) to accept it. He also is throwing in a RV that cost's 2.5mil
While cool this is fucken insane that the world has came to this, Our system is so fucken broke we have to bribe people to leave it.
The last like 4min's of the video is where he offers it.
Check me out....Im └(-.-)┘┌(-.-)┘┌(-.-)┐└(-.-)┐ Dancing, Im └(-.-)┘┌(-.-)┘┌(-.-)┐└(-.-)┐ Dancing.
My Gaming PC: MSI Trident 3 - i7-10700F - RTX 4060 8GB - 32GB DDR4 - 1TB M.2SSD
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/22/12332...-ivf-treatment
I believe this is the first time we've ween Republicans in one of these states actually respond to a court ruling like this or stories of girls and/or women suffering due to unclear laws.Six days after Alabama's Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are "children," upending in vitro fertilization treatments, a Republican state senator said he plans to introduce a bill that would protect IVF statewide.
State Sen. Tim Melson, who chairs the Senate's Health Care Committee, said the bill would clarify that embryos are not viable unless they are implanted in a uterus.
In its decision, the State Supreme Court gave frozen embryos the same rights as children. The court ruling came in a lawsuit by couples whose frozen embryos were accidentally destroyed in a clinic. The judges ruled that the states laws concerning wrongful deaths of minors do not exclude "extrauterine children."
The judges urged the state Legislature to clarify Alabama law, which holds that life begins at conception.
"They just read the bill, and the way it's written, it's like if you're going to say from conception, it's life, which I do believe it is. But it's not a viable life until it's implanted in the uterus," Melson said about Friday's ruling.
Melson, who is also a medical doctor, says his proposal would make clear that "a human egg that is fertilized in vitro shall be considered a potential life," but should not be legally considered a human life until it is implanted in a uterus."
Fertility clinics in Alabama are anxiously waiting for the Legislature to act, and at least three of them have put IVF treatment on hold or restricted their services. The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system, the state's largest hospital, said it is also halting some IVF services.
"This is a huge, huge issue that affects so many families, and so many patients throughout the nation that we are very hopeful that there are dedicated, very intelligent, motivated legislatures that will help us with this process," said Dr. Beth Malizia with Alabama Fertility, which runs three clinics in Alabama.
They have halted all new IVF treatment due to potential legal risks.
The Center for Reproductive Medicine in Mobile, the clinic at the center of the Supreme Court lawsuit, has also halted IVF services. "The recent Alabama Supreme Court decision has sadly left us with no choice but to pause IVF treatments for patients," it said in a statement.
"We are considered a pro-life state. But what's so ironic about that is there's not anything a lot more pro-life than a fertility practice trying to help couples who can't conceive, conceive a baby, " said Dr. Brett Davenport, with Fertility Institute of North Alabama, which has not curtailed services.
Alabama's Supreme Court ruling has reverberated across the U.S.
President Biden tied it directly to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 that ended the federal right to an abortion: "Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade." Speaking today in Grand Rapids, Mich. Vice President Kamala Harris said, "So on the one hand, the proponents are saying that an individual doesn't have a right to end an unwanted pregnancy. And on the other hand, the individual does not have a right to start a family. And the hypocrisy abounds."
Alabama Democrats have introduced a bill that also makes it clear that an embryo outside a womb would not be considered a human child, but they are in the minority in the state legislature.
Melson, a Republican, hopes his legislation will pass quickly so that Alabama's IVF clinics can continue to operate.
"This issue is one that I've heard from several infertility clinics, and they're anxious to get it out and have the ability to go back to functioning," he said.
So I guess it's possible that Republicans can respond to address the problems that are resulting in women suffering needlessly, they're just continuing to choose not to.
But this is, ultimately, a good move by the Alabama Legislature in clarifying. Because the consequences of fetal personhood continues to be vast, like whether or not storing dozens of embryos in Alabama as a resident would allow you to qualify to claim them as dependents on your state taxes.
Its courts intentionally or unintentionally called their bullshit. Suddenly their wives and theor friends wives are directly impacted. They send their daughters 'on vacation' to have an abortion but IVF is too expensive and delicate to be doing all of that.
"Now hold uo Melson, you know we froze my wife froze her eggs, wtf?"
But more importantly a change should mean they can't go after Plan B.
Emphasis on potential. Those words are going to eat their argument.
Melson, who is also a medical doctor, says his proposal would make clear that "a human egg that is fertilized in vitro shall be considered a potential life," but should not be legally considered a human life until it is implanted in a uterus."
This is still an absolute disaster though. IVF attempts have somewhere between a high of 40% and a low of around 8% success rate depending on the age and other factors of the woman undergoing the procedure. That's why they freeze a multitude of eggs and not just a single one. If it is considered a protected life the moment it is implanted in the uterus, that's still over 50% chance of involuntary manslaughter under the law.
I really hate the term "potential life". You're alive. Your gametes are alive. When your gametes meet the gametes from the opposite sex and fertilize, the fertilized ovum/zygote is alive. There is never a point in this entire process for the last several billion years where any life ever "began". Life beginning is abiogenesis. Reproduction is just life continuing.
The fetus is alive. That's also meaningless, because so are bacteria. So is a tumor. So is the ficus in the pot in your office. So is your left toe. Being "alive" isn't a useful distinguishing factor.
If they mean "potential human", well, thanks for admitting it's not a human being yet, case closed, you lose, fuck off thataway thankyouverynot.
I was listening to an interview with an IVF doctor and her current patient. The embryo implanted in the uterus is a 5-day embryo from an egg extracted from the woman which was then artificially inseminated. You already covered the success rate for the embryo to grow into a fetus. However, the chances of an egg becoming an embryo is also quite low at 1 in 3. With such high failure rates, IVF providers in Alabama face high liability from frivolous lawsuits.
Currently, all IVF providers in Alabama have suspended operations. Except for women that already started the procedure. Stopping in the middle of the procedure apparently can have some dire consequences.
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She needs a surrogate to have a baby. After Alabama's IVF ruling, her embryo transfer was canceled
“(My doctor) called me like 20 minutes later and said, ‘It’s canceled. We had meetings with lawyers all day. We can’t move forward knowing that we might be open to some sort of liability or criminal prosecution if something were to happen to the embryo before it’s transferred,’” Meghan Cole, an attorney in Birmingham, recalled. “I said, ‘I’ll sign a release. I am not going to sue you. I just want this to move forward.’ And obviously, she felt terrible. It’s out of her control.”
Initially after hearing the news, Meghan Cole hoped she could move her seven embryos to the state where her surrogate lives. But she soon learned that cannot happen.
“(The clinic is) afraid something will happen to them in transit, that one of them might die or something,” Meghan Cole said. “I’m just kind of stuck until something changes down here. Who knows how long that’s going to take?"
Even if they can move the embryos out of state, their surrogate will have to start preparing for the transfer anew. At the instruction of their doctor, she said she has stopped taking the medications.
“She has to basically have her body reset to natural,” Meghan Cole's husband, Walker Cole, said. “If we ever get good news again, we’ve got to have another ultrasound and then pay for more medication. And then she’s got to start these medications again and go through the crazy hormone-filled three weeks.”
“It’s frustrating. Obviously, we spent so much money to get here,” Meghan Cole said. “Even to prep for this transfer, we had to pay out of pocket for all of her monitoring visits to do ultrasounds. We paid out of pocket for her medication. We’re not going to get that money back.”
IVF comes with a lot of out-of-pocket costs that the Coles covered thanks to donations from family and friends and a loan against their home. Already they've spent a lot of money to get to their transfer, and the cancelation is likely to add more to the price tag.
“It is astonishing,” Walker Cole said. “The surrogacy process is more expensive, but it’s close to $250,000.”
The Coles have been on their fertility journey for a year, which has included two IVF cycles.
“It’s been a long year and a bumpy year with lots of ups and downs,” Meghan Cole said. “The financial aspect of it is difficult.”
While storing the embryos is free for the first year, the Coles will likely have to pay for it starting in May. They don't know how much that might cost, but the thought of paying for embryos they can't implant feels maddening.
“I can’t use them, and you won’t release them to me, so why should I have to indefinitely pay for them?” Meghan Cole said. "Even though these are apparently my children, I don't have access to them. I can’t just go down there and visit them."
“I never thought this would be what we were doing this week,” she added. “I thought it was going to be one of the best days of our lives tomorrow, and now we’re just devastated.”
https://newrepublic.com/post/179228/...-embryo-ruling
Republicans continue to find themselves in the weeds commenting on this issue, unsurprisingly. Because when your opinion is informed by fiction and you've never once bothered to actually learn about the biological processes and how they work, or listened to any doctors or obstetricians who do this for a living and studied all this stuff and whatnot, you're left struggling to find a consistent position. Especially when you're trying to appease a base of extremists while trying not to alienate more moderate voters who don't agree with an extremist base.Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is frantically trying to quell the controversy over comments she made about IVF after an Alabama court’s recent ruling that frozen embryos are children.
“We don’t want fertility treatment to shut down, we don’t want them to stop doing IVF treatment, we don’t want them to stop doing artificial insemination,” Haley said on CNN on Thursday. “But I think this needs to be decided by the people in every state. Don’t take away the rights of these physicians and these parents to have these conversations.”
It was Haley’s second such attempt to explain away her controversial stance on the issue. On Wednesday evening, Haley blurted out a much more gibberish response.
“Well first off all, this is, again, I didn’t say that I agreed with the Alabama ruling. The question that I was asked is, ‘Do I believe an embryo is a baby?’” Haley said on CNN Wednesday evening. “I do think that if you look in the definition, an embryo is considered an unborn baby. And so yes, I believe, from my stance, that that is.”
But calling an embryo—the stage before the microscopic cellular mass is labeled a fetus—an unborn baby is not exactly correct.
In Handmaid’s Tale–esque fashion, Haley has tried to toe the line on the issue of third-party fertility in a futile effort to keep voters from turning away from her floundering campaign, even though she conceived her son via artificial insemination.
Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court decided that embryos created through in vitro fertilization would be protected under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, effectively classifying single-celled, fertilized eggs as children. The decision has spelled certain doom for IVF clinics across the state, three of which have already announced that they will no longer be offering the procedure for fear of being hit with wrongful death suits.
So when Haley initially claimed that embryos “are babies” and that she could see where the court was “coming from” on the issue, people were stunned.
“Embryos, to me, are babies,” Haley told NBC News. “When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that.”
Embryos aren't babies. If they were babies they'd be called babies. That they're called embryos should make that self-explanatory, but whatever.
An ectopic pregnancy put her life at risk. A Texas hospital refused to treat her.
After the first of two OB/GYNs at Arlington Memorial refused to treat Norris-De La Cruz, her mother, Stephanie Lloyd, immediately thought about Texas’s abortion ban.
“Does this have anything to do with the abortion law?” she remembered asking the doctor.
When he didn’t answer, Lloyd recalled, she had to restrain Norris-De La Cruz as her daughter tried to launch herself at him.
“Whenever I f---ing rupture,” Norris-De La Cruz said, “I’m giving my lawyers your f---ing name.”
She should do that.