SCOTUS removes Roe V Wade

[Poopymonster]

How long until a woman forced to carry a corpse for 9 months goes on shooting spree involving state level congress/judicial members because she is being forced to carry a corpse, that will kill her when it starts necrotizing, for the rest of the 9 months?

While I am not advocating yet another normalized mass shooting in the US, I can understand why she'd do it.

[Lynarii]

Maybe im not reading this right but are they saying hospitals can refuse abortions because of legal liability even if the result is death?

It's less can and more must. If the hospital performs it and the state disagrees, the doctor can face jail time and a loss of license, which leaves the other women under their care in a dangerous position. Keep in mind that this is not a field that has an overabundance of qualified doctors that people can be shuffled to without consequence. The 'legal liability' in this case can cause harm to multiple women whose only relation to the initial incident is that they went to the same hospital for care.

[Glorious Leader]

It's less can and more must. If the hospital performs it and the state disagrees, the doctor can face jail time and a loss of license, which leaves the other women under their care in a dangerous position. Keep in mind that this is not a field that has an overabundance of qualified doctors that people can be shuffled to without consequence. The 'legal liability' in this case can cause harm to multiple women whose only relation to the initial incident is that they went to the same hospital for care.

If the doctor refused the procedure and the patient died would that not still leave the doctor liable.

[Endus]

If the doctor refused the procedure and the patient died would that not still leave the doctor liable.

Not if the doctor would be charged with a crime for moving forward with the procedure. The doctor's legally barred from performing it. That's the point, here; the laws force doctors to refuse legitimate procedures for nonsensical reasons.

The cruelty, as always, is the point.

You might get some doctors who throw caution to the wind and risk legal penalty/incarceration to save a patient, and they'll likely pass the AMA's ethical guidelines in doing so and not risk their license, but refusing to perform an illegal procedure is never going to put a doctor at any legal or professional risk.

[Lynarii]

If the doctor refused the procedure and the patient died would that not still leave the doctor liable.

This is why the ambiguity is so bad.

Doctors are, as part of their job, sometimes expected to make split second decisions with incomplete information that dramatically impact their patients. You try to avoid that scenario whenever possible, but emergencies happen. In order to make it so that anyone is even willing to DO the job in the first place, they're normally granted quite a bit of protection against people going back and second-guessing those decisions. In normal circumstances, holding a doctor liable requires not only proving that they made the wrong decision, but also proving that it was obviously the wrong decision before it was made. It's a high bar.

The Texas laws basically say that the politicians are going to go back after the fact and decide if they feel the decision was right or wrong. They don't have to prove that it was wrong, instead the burden is on the doctor to prove that it was right. To people with not only have no medical knowledge, but have historically made commentary along the lines of not believing that rape can cause pregnancy because 'the woman's body would shut it down'.

That's what they're faced with. How much does a doctor want to bet that they can successfully explain the value of saving a woman's life to a politician who doesn't believe a woman is a person?

[Poopymonster]

They are intentionally vague so that no action can be safely taken except "Miss please go home to die since we legally can do nothing for you."

[Inuyaki]

That decision is... I can't...

Everyone who votes for that shit party and their shit policies and shit judges are just monsters.
I don't care if you rescue drowning puppies in your free time, nothing will ever make me change my view that you are amongst the most deplorable human beings and fuck you and your miserable life.


Oh, and also that fascist in Florida strikes again:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2624767.html

[Edge-]

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is threatening TV stations that air ads in support of an abortion rights ballot initiative with criminal penalties, including jail time.

DeSantis and his allies are already spending large sums of taxpayer dollars to fight Amendment 4, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution if voted into law in November. His “election police” have interrogated and intimidated residents who signed petitions to put it on the ballot. His administration created a publicly funded, state-run website condemning the amendment, and has run ads promoting the current law, which bans abortions after six weeks.

Now, however, DeSantis is escalating the battle: On Oct. 3, his Department of Health sent a letter to at least one local NBC affiliate suggesting that prosecutors could bring criminal charges against the TV station for airing ads that encourage residents to vote for the amendment. The letter, first reported by investigative journalist Jason Garcia, asserted that the ads violate Florida’s “sanitary nuisance” law and that stations may commit a second-degree misdemeanor by carrying them, subjecting their employees to a 60-day jail sentence.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...hoice-ads.html

Once more: Nobody hates the First Amendment protections of Freedom of Speech more than Florida Republicans and Ron DeSantis - his entire term has been one long-running, nonstop attack on Freedom of Speech.

Anyways, here he is again leveraging his office to attempt to threaten media into silence, censoring them from running ads from paying customers that are 100% legal.

Why yes, the ads are related to Amendment 4, which is the abortion amendment in the state that Ron really wishes wasn't on the ballot (and tried to get off the ballot) and promoting it. And no, there doesn't appear to be any reporting indicating that he and the Florida state government have sent similar threats to networks for airing anti-Amendment 4 ads.

[Masark]

How long until a woman forced to carry a corpse for 9 months goes on shooting spree involving state level congress/judicial members because she is being forced to carry a corpse, that will kill her when it starts necrotizing, for the rest of the 9 months?

Unlikely to be any time soon. American politics has a bomber gap. All the violent psychotics are on one side.

[Flarelaine]

Word is Alito and Thomas are desperate to retire and want Trump to pick their replacement.


SCOTUS on the ballot again, as ever.

Imagine if Thurgood Marshall went on medical leave instead of retiring and leaving a seat to Thomas.

(He died days into Clinton's term.)

[Rasulis]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...hoice-ads.html

Once more: Nobody hates the First Amendment protections of Freedom of Speech more than Florida Republicans and Ron DeSantis - his entire term has been one long-running, nonstop attack on Freedom of Speech.

Anyways, here he is again leveraging his office to attempt to threaten media into silence, censoring them from running ads from paying customers that are 100% legal.

Why yes, the ads are related to Amendment 4, which is the abortion amendment in the state that Ron really wishes wasn't on the ballot (and tried to get off the ballot) and promoting it. And no, there doesn't appear to be any reporting indicating that he and the Florida state government have sent similar threats to networks for airing anti-Amendment 4 ads.

So far, no TV stations in Florida have stopped airing the adds.

[Edge-]

So far, no TV stations in Florida have stopped airing the adds.

I doubt any will - they're getting paid to air them and likely already have deals inked. They know they have the law on their side and they can likely recoup legal fees if the state is actually stupid enough to take them to court over it.

[Rasulis]

"Threatening to cancel votes": Florida officials allege fraud to kneecap abortion rights amendment

Let the people vote. Why is Florida GOP so afraid to let the people vote over abortion right? For the amendment to pass, it has to have at least 60% of the votes. The advantage is all them.

[Odinfrost]

"Threatening to cancel votes": Florida officials allege fraud to kneecap abortion rights amendment

Let the people vote. Why is Florida GOP so afraid to let the people vote over abortion right? For the amendment to pass, it has to have at least 60% of the votes. The advantage is all them.

Where is Donald Trump? Isn't he championing that the people of the states decides? Has he spoken up against how Florida doesn't want the people to decide?
Come on, Don! Be the champion of the people that you say you are!

[Edge-]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/21/healt...ans/index.html

In the year and a half following the Supreme Court Dobbs decision that revoked the federal right to an abortion, hundreds more infants died than expected in the United States, new research shows. The vast majority of those infants had congenital anomalies, or birth defects.

Earlier research – spurred by a CNN investigative report - found that infant mortality spiked in Texas after a 6-week abortion ban took effect in 2021, and experts say the new data suggests that the impacts of the bans and restrictions enacted by some states post-Dobbs have been large enough to affect broader trends.

“This is evidence of a national ripple effect, regardless of state-level status,” said Dr. Parvati Singh, an assistant professor of epidemiology with The Ohio State University College of Public Health and lead author of the new study.

In the new paper, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, Singh and co-author Dr. Maria Gallo, a professor of epidemiology and associate dean of research with the Ohio State University College of Public Health, compared infant mortality rates for the 18 months following the Dobbs decision against historical trends.

They found that infant mortality was higher than usual in the US in several months after the Dobbs decision and never dropped to rates that were lower than expected.

In the months that infant mortality was higher than expected – October 2022, March 2023 and April 2023 – rates were about 7% higher than typical, leading to an average of 247 more infant deaths in each of those months.

About 80% of those additional infant deaths could be attributed to congenital anomalies, which were higher than expected in six of the 18 months following the Dobbs decision, according to the new research. Congenital anomalies can range from mild to severe cases, and some of the most common types can affect an infant’s heart or spine. In some cases, babies with a birth defect may only survive a few months.

Reminder about the actual effects of Republican abortion bans.

More babies are literally forced to born just to die. Parents (mostly the girl/woman) are forced to go through the traumatic process of giving birth to a child that they know has little to no chance of survival and that will likely die quickly and painfully.

This is the kind of "morality" Republicans are pushing. Rather than end a pregnancy early, saving both the person carrying the fetus the physical and emotional trauma, they'd rather ensure that trauma is forced on the girl/woman, including if it results in complications that prevent them from being able to have, or safely have, children again.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Singh said. “Mortality is the ultimate outcome of any health condition. This is a very, very acute indicator. It could be representative of underlying morbidity and underlying hardship.”

Other research has found that births have increased in states with abortion bans, and experts say that some of that increase is linked to a disproportionate rise in the number of women who are carrying fetuses with lethal congenital anomalies to term.

“Whether the pregnancy was wanted or unwanted, we know that many of these are pregnancies that would have ended in abortion had people had access to those services,” said Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, an associate professor in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at the University of California, San Francisco. She was not involved in the new study, but does research abortion trends in the US.

Experts say that abortion bans can also affect access to broader health care, which can lead to increased risk for both babies and mothers.

“The well-being of a pregnant person is inextricably linked to the well-being of the pregnancy,” Upadhyay said. Abortion bans may affect access to and willingness to seek prenatal care and broader support systems, she said, and the barriers compound.

“People who face the most structural barriers in terms of poverty, lower levels of education, food insecurity, and other life stressors can’t access abortion care, and these factors also increase their risks of poor pregnancy and birth outcomes,” she said.

Infant mortality includes deaths that occur before a baby has turned one, so it is difficult to parse out exactly what was happening during the months that did see rates that were higher than expected, Singh said. But the timing – four, nine and 10 months after the Dobbs decision – line up with about the time that congenital anomalies can be identified in the fetus and a full-length gestation term.

“These studies are providing a signal that people aren’t getting the care that they need, and because of that, there are spillover effects,” said Dr. Alison Gemmill, a demographer and perinatal epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University who led the research identifying the link between rising infant mortality and abortion restrictions in Texas. “It’s never going to be the case that everybody’s going to be able to overcome the barriers of these bans.”

The Republican party is the party of dead babies.

[Rasulis]

Multiple polls show that Florida abortion amendment will likely pass.

Amendment 4, “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,” had the greatest
support of the three, with 69% indicting a vote of “yes,” and just 23% who said “no.” Eight percent said
they did not know or refused to answer. This is somewhat more support than it received from registered
voters last Fall, when 62% said they would vote “yes,” and 29% said “no.”

Unfortunately, it does not look like that Florida will turn blue anytime soon.

[Edge-]

https://apnews.com/article/ohio-abor...73d900bb240a04

The most far-reaching of Ohio’s laws restricting abortion was struck down on Thursday by a county judge who said last year’s voter-approved amendment enshrining reproductive rights renders the so-called heartbeat law unconstitutional.

Enforcement of the 2019 law banning most abortions once cardiac activity is detected — as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant — had been paused pending the challenge before Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins.

Jenkins said that when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned power over the abortion issue to the states, “Ohio’s Attorney General evidently didn’t get the memo.”

The judge said Republican Attorney General Dave Yost’s request to leave all but one provision of the law untouched even after a majority of Ohio’s voters passed an amendment protecting the right to pre-viability abortion “dispels the myth” that the high court’s decision simply gives states power over the issue.

“Despite the adoption of a broad and strongly worded constitutional amendment, in this case and others, the State of Ohio seeks not to uphold the constituional protection of abortion rights, but to diminish and limit it,” he wrote. Jenkins said his ruling honors voters’ wishes.

The ACLU of Ohio sued on behalf of a group of abortion providers in the state, the second round of litigation filed to challenge the law.


“This is a momentous ruling, showing the power of Ohio’s new Reproductive Freedom Amendment in practice,” Jessie Hill, cooperating attorney for the ACLU of Ohio, said in a statement. “The six-week ban is blatantly unconstitutional and has no place in our law.”

An initial lawsuit was brought in federal court in 2019, where the law was first blocked under the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. It was briefly allowed to go into effect in 2022 after Roe was overturned. Opponents of the law then turned to the state court system, where the ban was again put on hold. They argued the law violated protections in Ohio’s constitution that guarantee individual liberty and equal protection, and that it was unconstitutionally vague.

After his predecessor twice vetoed the measure citing Roe, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the 2019 law once appointments by then-President Donald Trump had solidified the Supreme Court’s conservative majority and raised hopes among abortion opponents.

The Ohio litigation has unfolded alongside a national upheaval over abortion rights that followed the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, including constitutional amendment pushes in Ohio and a host of other states. Issue 1, the amendment Ohio voters passed last year, gives every person in Ohio “the right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.”

Yost, acknowledged in court filings this spring that the amendment rendered the Ohio ban unconstitutional, but sought to maintain other elements of the 2019 law, including certain notification and reporting provisions.

Another example of Republicans saying, "LEAVE IT UP TO THE STATES TO DECIDE" and then when the people in the state make a decision Republicans don't like their response is, "NO, NOT LIKE THAT WE DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT AND WILL TRY TO IGNORE YOU."

Glad the judge isn't putting up with dishonest Republican bullshit, and it continues to be disappointing to see many Republican AG's who hold laws they disagree with in contempt and not just deprioritize their enforcement, but actively try to ignore or reject elements they don't like.

- - - Updated - - -

Republicans aren't coming for birth control and the morning after pill!

Three Republican state attorneys general have renewed a push to restrict access to medication abortion, and their latest legal move includes an exceptionally absurd justification for their campaign against abortion pills.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador filed an amended complaint earlier this month that seeks to compel the Federal Drug Administration to restore restrictions on mifepristone, one of two pills required to induce an abortion. The revised filing comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the original plaintiffs, a group of anti-abortion doctors and groups, had no legal standing to sue, in part because they did not show how they have been harmed or are likely to be harmed by the FDA’s expansion of medication abortion access.

In the complaint, the attorneys general argue that expanding access to abortion pills poses a potential injury to their states because it leads to lower birth rates, including among teenagers.

“This is a sovereign injury to the State in itself,” the complaint says.

A decrease in birth rates, it adds, also leads to “further injuries” such as “diminishment of political representation” and “loss of federal funds” due to lower population numbers.

“Defendants’ actions are causing a loss in potential population or potential population increase,” the plaintiffs say. “Each abortion represents at least one lost potential or actual birth.”

Ladies, it's your duty to get knocked up and pump out babies for your state. Get to it, ladies, Kris Kobach wants you to have more babies! FORCE BIRTHS, BABY. FUCK YOUR BODILY AUTONOMY.

[The Stormbringer]

Ladies, it's your duty to get knocked up and pump out babies for your state. Get to it, ladies, Kris Kobach wants you to have more babies! FORCE BIRTHS, BABY. FUCK YOUR BODILY AUTONOMY.

One of the things that piss me off the most about this is the fact that they know how to improve birth rates and get people having more kids, they just refuse to do it. It's called social safety nets. If they built more programs for housing, food, tax write-offs, childcare, healthcare, education, and so on, people would have more kids. But instead they expect we the peasants--sorry, I meant people, to shoulder the burden all on our own... while they take all the benefits they can. It's almost like all they see us as are walking wallets for them to pluck money out of. An injury to the State indeed.

[Edge-]

https://www.lonestarlive.com/politic...rtion-law.html

Sen. Ted Cruz responded to a Houston woman’s 2021 miscarriage-related death, calling it a “tragedy” before defending Texas’ near-total abortion ban, whose medical emergency exception has been criticized by doctors as “dangerously unclear.”

“The facts of the case seem heartbreaking,” Cruz said in an Oct. 30 video clip from KXAN reporter Ryan Chandler. “That this woman lost her life is truly a tragedy.”

Josseli Barnica died of an infection on Sept. 8, 2021, after being forced to wait 40 hours to receive miscarriage care under Texas’ then-six-week abortion ban. She’s one of at least two women in the state who died after doctors delayed treating their miscarriages, according to ProPublica.

Barnica was 28 years old and had a 1-year-old daughter at home when she died. Her death was “preventable,” “horrific,” “astounding” and “egregious,” according to over a dozen medical experts who reviewed her case for ProPublica.

Doctors noted in Barnica’s medical records that a miscarriage was “in process” and “inevitable,” but told her and her husband they couldn’t intervene because they detected fetal cardiac activity.

Under Texas’ 2021 abortion ban, medical providers were prohibited from ending the heartbeat of a fetus unless there was a “medical emergency,” which the legislation did not define. People found in violation of the law faced a penalty of no less than $10,000.

“The Texas law makes clear that any procedure that is necessary to save the life of a mother can be done and should be done,” Cruz said in the video. “We don’t know all the details of what happened here but it is critical that we do everything necessary to save the lives of moms and we grieve with the family at the tragedy that occurred here.”

Cruz declined to comment to ProPublica for its story on Barnica’s death. The clip does not show if the senator was asked about this.

After Texas’ 2021 abortion ban passed, Cruz said it was “a perfectly reasonable decision.” The legislation has since been linked to an increase in maternal and infant deaths.

Rafael Cruz acknowledges the harm that draconian anti-abortion/bodily autonomy laws can cause but also thinks that harm is perfectly fine and an acceptable price to pay to deny women their bodily autonomy and leave them liable of a very, very, very avoidable death.

[Inuyaki]

https://www.propublica.org/article/n...ion-ban-emtala

Candace Fails screamed for someone in the Texas hospital to help her pregnant daughter. “Do something,” she pleaded, on the morning of Oct. 29, 2023.

Nevaeh Crain was crying in pain, too weak to walk, blood staining her thighs. Feverish and vomiting the day of her baby shower, the 18-year-old had gone to two different emergency rooms within 12 hours, returning home each time worse than before.

Now on Crain’s third hospital visit, an obstetrician insisted on two ultrasounds to “confirm fetal demise,” a nurse wrote, before moving her to intensive care.

By then, more than two hours after her arrival, Crain’s blood pressure had plummeted and a nurse had noted that her lips were “blue and dusky.” Her organs began failing.

Hours later, she was dead.

Obligatory fuck those garbage Republicans.