The treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republican forcing their religious beeves down everyone else's throats not only won't put abortion on the ballot so people can vote on it there is a concerted effort to get states to change their ballot initiatives or eliminate them all together to prevent the citizens of their state from getting abortion on the ballot themselves. They are desperate about that because they know if people are allowed to vote on abortion they will lose.

 

We won't even ask stumbler to source his claims.
We don't want to trigger him into demanding a debate again.
We feared he was gonna pop a vessel last time.

Plus, we aren't even sure what a "religious beeves" is.
A herd of saintly cows?
An informal religious based complaint?
No matter. We don't really want to know what the old boy was on about.

 

True so true. That pro-choice advocate would never be outside an anti-abortion clinic protesting...

 

Oh wow! Why didn't we think of that! Anon is soooo smart! Thank you anon for pointing out the flaw in our thinking!
Thank you for your insightful and meaningful input!

Sarcasm off.
Had to make sure that anon knew shooter was being sarcastic. He sometimes doesn't catch the finer points of a post.

 

Check out your mirror...

 

I bet states will be competing to see who can get the most creative coming up with means of execution of woman who get abortions. The Bible says they should be taken to the city's edge and stoned to death. Or maybe they could be publicly drawn and quartered by angry mods.


South Carolina becomes the latest GOP-led state with a bill to make the death penalty a punishment for abortion

690
Sarah Al-Arshani
Sat, March 4, 2023 at 10:10 AM MST·3 min read



An exterior view of the South Carolina State House, ColumbiaEpics/Getty Images

• Several states have banned and criminalized abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
  
  
• A South Carolina legislator proposed the death penalty as punishment for women who get abortions.
  
  
• The new bill, still in the legislature, would equate abortion to homicide.
  

South Carolina is the latest GOP-led state to propose a bill that would make the death penalty a punishment for abortion.

State Rep. Rob Harris introduced the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023 last week, which could make getting an abortion the same as committing homicide. The bill had been prefiled in December and is now sits in the Judiciary Committee.

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"What I did the other day is I took the opportunity while the rest of the house was dealing with H. 3774, Human Life Protection Act, a different bill, I put the first amendment on that bill when we were processing it on the floor and I tried to amend it to basically strike the whole thing and replace it with my bill," Harris told WBTW.

South Carolina state law currently punishes abortion with up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $1,000. The new bill would work to define a fetus as any state of development as a person that "should be equally protected from fertilization to natural death."

The bill states its purpose was to "ensure that an unborn child who is a victim of ASSAULT is afforded equal protection under the assault laws of the State, with exceptions."

"If we call it life and define it as life, then why should anyone, not just mothers, why should anybody be able to take that life? If it's life, it needs to be protected like any other life," Harris told WPDE.

Vicki Ringer, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, criticized the bill.

"That's a hard pill to swallow for anybody," Ringer told WBTW. "To recognize that you are not valuable. To call this equal protection, it is far from equal. It is giving greater weight to a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus than it is to a human being. You can consider a fetus to be a person, but you can't consider it to have more weight than the living person who is a life fully lived on this planet."

The development comes as at least 13 states have banned abortion following the Supreme Court's ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade last June.

The penalty is one of the harshest, but this isn't the first time a state lawmaker has proposed the death penalty for abortion. In March 2021, Texas state Rep. Bryan Slaton proposed legislation that would ban and criminalize abortion which could carry the death penalty, the Texas Tribune reported. The bill, similar to those like it in the past, did not pass the state legislature.

Harris did not respond to Insider's email request for comment at the time of publication.

Read the original article on Business Insider



https://www.yahoo.com/news/south-carolina-becomes-latest-gop-171058595.html

 

Women who the fuck do you think you are trying to tell us good Christian men when you can have an abortion.


Women sue Texas over abortion ban: Law endangers ‘lives of my future babies’
by Joseph Choi - 03/07/23 5:46 PM ET

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Center for Reproductive Rights attorney Molly Duane, left, and CEO Nancy Northup, right, stand with plaintiffs, from left, Lauren Hall, Amanda Zurawski, Anna Zargarian and Lauren Miller on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at the Texas Capitol in Austin, after filing a lawsuit against the state’s abortion ban. (AP Photo/Acacia Coronado)
A group of Texas women are suing their state government over its abortion ban, saying the legislation which enacted it is too vague and left doctors unable to provide necessary care to protect their health as well as the health of their fetuses.

The suit was filed by five women who sought abortions after the Texas ban went into effect and were denied despite the risk and harm that their pregnancies posed to their health and that of their fetuses or future children.


Under the Texas state law, no pregnancy in which a fetal heartbeat may be detected can be aborted. The law does not include exceptions for cases of incest or rape. The law states all abortions are criminalized as such “unless the mother’s life is in danger” without specifying when the procedure can be performed, leaving many doctors at a loss for when to intervene.

The plaintiffs, who also include two Texas OB/GYNs, are being represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights. This is the first lawsuit in which individual women are suing a state over harm they experienced due to abortion access being limited by the law.

One of the plaintiffs, 35-year-old Amanda Zurawski, was in the second trimester of her first pregnancy when she was diagnosed with a condition known as cervical insufficiency, which occurs when the cervix ruptures prematurely and is a common cause of late miscarriages.

According to Zurawski, multiple physicians informed her that the loss of her pregnancy was “inevitable” once her fetal membrane broke.

“I asked what can be done to ensure the respectful passing of our baby and what could protect me from a deadly infection now that my body was unprotected and vulnerable,” Zurawski said in a press conference Tuesday. “My health care team was anguished as they explained there was nothing they could do because of Texas’s anti abortion laws.”

Zurawski eventually developed sepsis as she waited, in her words, to become “sick enough” for a hospital ethics board to permit an abortion or for doctors to no longer be able to detect a fetal heartbeat.


“What I needed was an abortion, a standard medical procedure,” Zurawski said. “An abortion would have prevented the unnecessary harm and suffering that I endured, not only the psychological trauma that came with three days of waiting, but the physical harm my body suffered, the extent of which is still being determined. I needed an abortion to protect my life and to protect the lives of my future babies that I dream and hope I can still have someday.”

Fellow plaintiff Lauren Miller, 35, became pregnant with twins in 2022. She has a 19-month child as well. During a 12-week ultrasound appointment, Miller learned there were abnormalities with one of the twins who was later diagnosed with Trisomy 18 or Edward’s Syndrome. The vast majority of fetuses diagnosed with this condition do not survive to full-term.

Miller said that while doctors sought to counsel her on the options available for the twin diagnosed with Trisomy 18, whom she referred to as Baby B, they would have to stop speaking mid-sentence out of fear of bringing up abortion.


“After speaking with multiple doctors and genetic counselors, we kept arriving at the same points: Baby B will die, it’s just a matter of how soon, and every day that Baby B continued to develop he put his twin and myself at greater risk,” Miller said.

CPAC spotlights Republican rift over war in Ukraine FTC demanded Musk communications, names of journalists receiving internal files in Twitter probe, House Republicans say
Despite the complications with her pregnancy, Miller considers herself lucky because she had connections with out-of-state doctors as well as family members to look after her child.

“We had the time and the money to make the journey but layers of privilege should never determine which Texans can get access to the health care they need. Politicians in Texas are prohibiting health care that they don’t understand. They could do something but they’re not. And it’s killing us,” Miller stated.


The plaintiffs are asking that the exceptions to Texas’s abortion ban be clarified and that the law be found unconstitutional when it applies to pregnant people with emergency medical conditions. They are also asking that Texas be barred from enforcing the abortion ban as well as its related disciplinary actions.



https://thehill.com/policy/healthca...-ban-law-endangers-lives-of-my-future-babies/

 

As proposed by the pro-death wing of the pro-life party...

 

I hope they win! Especially the woman who was forced in to sepsis just because these laws (and those enforcing them) are draconian! Her case was one of the reasons for Roe v. Wade!

 

Republicans push wave of bills that would bring homicide charges for abortion

798
Poppy Noor
Fri, March 10, 2023 at 4:00 AM MST·4 min read




For decades, the mainstream anti-abortion movement promised that it did not believe women who have abortions should be criminally charged. But now, Republican lawmakers in several US states have introduced legislation proposing homicide and other criminal charges for those seeking abortion care.

Related: ‘Sanctuary cities for the unborn’: how a US pastor is pushing for a national abortion ban

The bills have been introduced in states such as Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Some explicitly target medication abortion and self-managed abortion; some look to remove provisions in the law which previously protected pregnant people from criminalization; and others look to establish the fetus as a person from the point of conception.


It is highly unlikely that all of these bills will pass. But their proliferation marks a distinct departure from the language of existing bans and abortion restrictions, which typically exempt people seeking abortion care from criminalization.

“This exposes a fundamental lie of the anti-abortion movement, that they oppose the criminalization of the pregnant person,” said Dana Sussman, the acting executive director of Pregnancy Justice. “They are no longer hiding behind that rhetoric.”

Some members of the anti-abortion movement have made it clear the bills do not align with their views, continuing to insist that abortion providers, rather than pregnant people themselves, should be targeted by criminal abortion laws.

“[We] oppose penalties for mothers, who are a second victim of a predatory abortion industry,” said Kristi Hamrick, the chief media and policy strategist for Students for Life of America. “We want to see a billion-dollar industry set up to profit by preying on women and the preborn held accountable. The pro-life movement as a whole has been very clear on this.”

A spokesperson for Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America echoed the same sentiment: that the organization unequivocally rejects prosecution of the pregnant person.

The bills are likely to be controversial as they proceed, even within conservative circles: Republicans have frequently hit walls when trying to pass anti-abortion legislation, with lawmakers at odds over exactly how far bans should go.

The reproductive justice organization If/When/How points out these bills are an indication of the different wings and splinter groups in the anti-abortion movement, increasingly evident since the Dobbs decision last year that overturned Roe v Wade.

“What we’re seeing, post-Dobbs, is a splintering in tactics that abortion opponents are using, and emboldening on the part of more hardline” factions within the movement, said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How.

“That has always been an undercurrent” in the movement, Diaz-Tello added. “As we see other abortion opponents declaring their opposition to criminalization of people who end their pregnancies, this is the opportunity for them to really step up and put those principles into action.”

The bills being introduced in Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky and South Carolina look to establish that life begins at conception. Each of these bills explicitly references homicide charges for abortion. Homicide is punishable by the death penalty in all of those states.

Bills in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas also explicitly target medication abortion, which so far has fallen into a legal grey zone in much of the country.

A bill in Alabama has also been announced, although not yet been introduced, by Republican representative Ernest Yarbrough, that would establish fetal personhood from conception and repeal a section of Alabama’s abortion ban that expressly prevents homicide charges for abortion. The state’s current law makes abortion a class A felony, on the same level as homicide, but exempts women seeking abortions from being held criminally or civilly liable.

Laws that establish fetal personhood also bring the risk of opening pregnant people up to battery and assault charges for endangering a fetus. Such charges have already been documented in hundreds of cases, using criminal laws championed in recent decades by the anti-abortion movement that recognize fetuses as potential victims.

“It never starts or stops with abortion,” said Sussman of the far-reaching effects of fetal personhood laws.

“That means that not getting prenatal care, not taking pre-natal vitamins, working a job that is physically demanding – all of those things could impose some risk to the fetus – and that could be a child neglect or child abuse case.”

Such laws have been used to target pregnant people who have taken prescribed medication, taken illegal drugs or drunk alcohol while pregnant, even when there has been no adverse outcome on the fetus.

Some of the bills, such as the one in Arkansas, allow a partner to file an unlawful death lawsuit against a pregnant person who has had an abortion.

“The ways in which pregnant people could become a mere vessel for an entity that has separate and unique rights is becoming closer and closer to reality. And there are ways in which this could be used that we haven’t even contemplated yet,” said Sussman.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-push-wave-bills-bring-110049489.html

 

Experts debunk 5 common myths about abortion
1k

Korin Miller
Tue, March 7, 2023 at 7:00 AM MST·6 min read



Abortion has been a hot-button topic in the U.S. for years, but debate about the consequences of having an abortion ignited again last year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed the right to abortion in America.

Now, nearly 60% of American women between the ages of 13 and 44 live in a state that's considered hostile or extremely hostile to abortion rights, per the Guttmacher Institute. Given how much abortion is debated and discussed in person and online, it can be tough to know what's real and what is a total myth.

But why is there so much misinformation out there about abortion? Many "facts" about it have been repeated so many times that people think they're real, Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, tells Yahoo Life. "People who are opposed to anyone having access to abortion care simply state something about a lack of safety as fact with no facts to back it up," she says. "Anti-abortion extremists have spent decades trying to create stigma and shame around abortion. It means that these kinds of lies work their way into the zeitgeist and become difficult to eliminate."


How can you tell myth from reality? These are some of the biggest falsehoods about abortion that continue to circulate.

Myth No. 1: Abortion can impact your future fertility
"There's no evidence to suggest that abortion affects future fertility — it's a common myth," Antonia Biggs, associate professor and social psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco's Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, tells Yahoo Life. Abortion is "one of the most common, safest medical procedures performed in the U.S.," she says. "There is no impact of an abortion procedure — whether through medication or aspiration abortion — on future fertility," Biggs says.

What can affect your fertility is having an abortion through unsafe means outside of a medical setting, she says. According to the World Health Organization, up to 13.2% of maternal deaths worldwide can be attributed to unsafe abortions.

Consider this too: "The majority of patients who have an abortion and do not start on hormonal contraception following their abortion will return to their prior menstrual cycles within the next three months — and many within seven weeks — indicating the likely ability to get pregnant," Dr. Rebecca Simon, family medicine physician in Pennsylvania and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, tells Yahoo Life.

Myth No. 2: Abortion increases your risk of mental health issues and suicide
Research has repeatedly debunked this myth, but it still persists. A recent study published in the Archives of Women's Mental Health analyzed data from nearly 7,200 women who had an unplanned pregnancy within the past year, and found that "psychological distress" was the lowest for people who had a baby that they wanted. It increased for people who had an abortion, gave their child up for adoption or had an unwanted birth.

But the study found that abortion was linked with lower distress scores than those for people who engaged in adoption and unwanted birth. "Compared to the wanted birth, adoption and unwanted birth showed significantly higher levels of distress," the study reads.

On the flip side, however, research has found that not having access to abortion care can raise the risk of mental health issues.

The University of California, San Francisco's Turnaway Study found that women who are denied access to an abortion and have to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term are four times more likely to live below the federal poverty level. These women are also more likely to experience anxiety and loss of self-esteem after being denied access to an abortion.

"The myth that abortion causes mental health harm is something that has been propagated by anti-abortion groups," Biggs says. "But we have very good evidence to dispel that common myth."

Myth No. 3: Abortion is linked to eating disorders
The data on this one is a little muddled. Research has found that people with anorexia nervosa are more likely to have unwanted pregnancies, but there's nothing that states that having an abortion causes an eating disorder.

As Simon points out: "Carrying a pregnancy to term can worsen chronic medical conditions, including eating disorders." According to the Guttmacher Institute, "there is still no conclusive evidence directly linking abortion to subsequent mental health problems."

Myth No. 4: Abortion isn't safe
This is simply "not true," Dr. Lauren Streicher, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, tells Yahoo Life. "It is far more likely for a woman to die during pregnancy and childbirth than from having an abortion," she adds.

There is a lot of chatter right now about mifepristone, one of two medications used in a medication abortion, now that anti-abortion advocates have filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asking it to remove its approval of the drug, despite the fact that mifepristone has been approved for 23 years and has a long-standing safety record. Meanwhile, there's another lawsuit filed by 12 states with the opposite goal: to get the agency to drop some restrictions on mifepristone. "Medication abortion is exceedingly safe and effective," Miller says. "The FDA has reviewed extensive data for years" about its use.

"Abortion is very common and, because of this, we also know it is very safe," Simon says. "Abortion is safer than continuing a pregnancy to term — especially in the U.S., where the maternal death rate is higher than any other high-income country."

Myth No. 5: Women often regret having an abortion
Research has found the opposite is true. A University of California, San Francisco study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine analyzed five years of longitudinal data, collected one week postabortion and semiannually for five years, from women who sought abortions at 30 American clinics between 2008 and 2010. Women were asked about their emotions and whether they felt that abortion was the right decision for them over five years.

After five years, the researchers discovered that more than 95% of women in the study said getting an abortion was the right decision for them.

"This myth that women regret an abortion has been perpetuated and is not evidence-based," Biggs says.

Overall, experts stress the importance of knowing the facts around abortion and abortion care. "These myths can be very hurtful," Biggs says. "Not only do they misinform policies, but people internalize these myths and are misinformed about the safety of abortion — that can impact the care that they receive."


https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/abortion-myths-140057142.html

 

21 South Carolina GOP Lawmakers Propose Death Penalty for Women Who Have Abortions


Members of the South Carolina State House are considering a bill that would make a woman who has an abortion in the state eligible for the death penalty.

The “South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023” would amend the state’s code of laws, redefining “person” to include a fertilized egg at the point of conception, affording that zygote “equal protection under the homicide laws of the state” — up to and including the ultimate punishment: death.


The bill was authored by Rep. Rob Harris, a registered nurse and member of the Freedom Caucus; it has attracted 21 co-sponsors to date. (Two former co-sponsors — Rep. Matt Leber and Rep. Kathy Landing — asked to have their names removed as sponsors of the bill. Leber and Landing could not be reached for comment.)

Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who represents South Carolina in the U.S. House, took to the floor on Friday to call attention to the bill, which she sees as part of a “deeply disturbing” trend. (Multiple Texas lawmakers have floated the idea of executing women who have abortions in the past. Those bills, proposed before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, failed.)

“To see this debate go to the dark places, the dark edges, where it has gone on both sides of the aisle, has been deeply disturbing to me as a woman, as a female legislator, as a mom, and as a victim of rape. I was raped as a teenager at the age of 16,” Mace said. “This debate ought to be a bipartisan debate where we balance the rights of women and we balance the right to life. But we aren’t having that conversation here in D.C. We aren’t having that conversation at home. We aren’t having that conversation with fellow state lawmakers.”

Asked about exceptions for victims of rape, which Mace raised in her remarks on the floor, Harris told Rolling Stone, “There are other bills with exceptions, but will do little or nothing to save the lives of pre-born children.” He went on list exceptions the bill does contain, including: “a ‘duress’ defense for women who are pressured/threatened to have an abortion” and “medical care to save the mother’s life… The functional language in that scenario is whether the baby’s life is forfeited ‘unintentionally’ or ‘intentionally’.” (Asked if he saw any irony between being a member of the so-called “Freedom Caucus” while proposing such harsh restrictions on reproductive freedoms, Harris responded simply: “Murder of the pre-born is harsh.”)

In 2021, legislators in South Carolina — which has experienced difficulty obtaining drugs to carry out executions by lethal injection — revived the electric chair and firing squads as methods to kill inmates convicted of capital crimes. (The South Carolina Supreme Court is currently weighing the constitutionality of that law after a lower court found lawmakers who passed the law “ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency.”)

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, Republican lawmakers in South Carolina’s House and Senate have failed to agree on new abortion restrictions. Republicans in the House have insisted on outlawing abortion at conception, while the GOP majority in the Senate has put forth a proposal that would ban the practice at around six weeks gestation.

Abortion is currently legal in South Carolina up to 21 weeks and 6 days; a 2021 ban outlawing abortion at six weeks was struck down by the state’s Supreme Court in January. Self-managed abortion — obtaining medication to terminate a pregnancy without a doctor’s supervision — is illegal in the state, punishable with a fine of $1000 and up to two years in prison. Earlier this month, a Greenville woman was arrested under that law for taking pills to end a pregnancy in 2021.



https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/south-carolina-lawmakers-propose-death-171639754.html

 

Wonder what they'll have in store for those women that have miscarriages?

 

No difference between a miscarriage and an abortion..........
The xnxx forum legal expert speaks.

 

This will be well worth watching to see if the trend continues. Because so far at lest if people in a state get to voe on abortion abortion wins.


Abortion rights advocates get green light to collect signatures for 2023 ballot measure

284
Jessie Balmert, Cincinnati Enquirer
Mon, March 13, 2023 at 1:21 PM MDT·3 min read



Ohioans rallied in support of and opposition to a 2019 law that banned most abortions. Now, advocates for abortion access want to put the issue before voters in November.
Advocates of abortion access will soon hit the streets to collect signatures to try to make the November ballot.

The proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution cleared the Ohio Ballot Board Monday after the five-member board certified that the proposal was one issue rather than multiple ones.

Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, noted that she was "horrified at the thought" of the amendment being added to the Ohio Constitution but had a procedural role to fulfill. She joined the unanimous vote.

Proponents now have until July 5 to collect 413,446 valid signatures from at least 44 counties. If they do, the measure will be placed on Ohioans' November ballot.


"We're probably printing the books now that we got the thumbs up," said Jordyn Close, a spokesperson for Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom. "You can see us out collecting signatures, I'm sure, as soon as the end of this week."

Those backing the constitutional amendment have a roster of volunteers but also plan to hire paid signature collectors.

What the amendment would do
The amendment states that "every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion."

If approved by voters, Ohio lawmakers and state officials could not ban abortion until after fetal viability, which is the point in a pregnancy when physicians say a fetus can survive outside of the womb. That is typically about 23 to 24 weeks into pregnancy.

Current Ohio law prohibits doctors from performing abortions after cardiac activity is detected, which is about six weeks into pregnancy. That law, signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2019, is currently on hold by a court order.

"The legislators should stay out of the exam room and let this be a discussion between women and their physicians to decide what healthcare is right for them," said Dr. Amy Burkett, an OB-GYN in Northeast Ohio and member of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, which is pushing the constitutional amendment.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost appealed the decision, but the Ohio Supreme Court has not yet decided whether it will review the case now.

Opponents of the measure say it goes too far in allowing abortions later in pregnancy. They promised a well-funded and organized effort to stop the abortion access amendment.

"This is the great debate in the public square, and we’re prepared to have it," Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis said. "The (amendment's) language is dangerous and deceptive."

Burkett disagreed, saying "we are not interested in doing full-term abortions. This is about protecting the right to reproductive healthcare, including abortion, up to viability."

Ohio Democrats back initiative, Ohio Republicans' resolution delayed
On Saturday, the Ohio Democratic Party endorsed the constitutional amendment and promised to help collect signatures for it. The party's infrastructure should help with signature collection, particularly outside of Ohio's largest cities.

"While Republican politicians in Columbus and Washington are working overtime to implement extreme laws that would make abortion illegal, we’re committed to the work of getting commonsense abortion rights on the ballot and passed by a majority of Ohioans," Ohio Democratic Party Chairwoman Elizabeth Walters said in a statement.

The Ohio Republican Party planned to pass a resolution denouncing the abortion amendment on Friday, but debate about whether to fold it into a new party platform delayed the vote. Their next scheduled meeting is in about two months.

Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou made clear that the GOP would oppose the measure.

"While pro-abortion special interests spend the next few months collecting signatures, the Ohio Republican Party will be informing Ohioans of the truth behind this dangerous abortion initiative," Triantafilou said in a statement. "Thanks to Republican leadership, Ohio is the most pro-life state in the country and we intend to make sure it stays that way by defeating this proposal."

Jessie Balmert is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/abortion-rights-advocates-green-light-150353307.html

 

What we are really seeing here is a bunch of mostly old impotent White men telling women its not really rape its more like assault with a friendly weapon. So if its inevitable just lay back and enjoy it. And if you get pregnant well that's just God's pan and you need to give birth to your rapist's baby and raise that child by yourself with no help from us.


Survivors Testify Against Bill Requiring ‘Proof’ of Rape to Get an Abortion: 'How Dare You?'

2.1k
Kylie Cheung
Thu, March 16, 2023 at 2:22 PM MDT




Florida state House Republicans advanced a bill to ban abortion at six weeks on Thursday, but not before survivors and advocates offered an hour of especially impassioned, heartbreaking testimony against the bill (HB7) at its first public hearing. HB7 offers only narrow exceptions for threats to the life of the pregnant person, severe fetal conditions, incest, or rape—that is, if a person can prove they’ve been raped.

An abortion seeker would have to provide a “restraining order, police report, medical record, or other court order or documentation” to “verify” that they’ve been raped and get care. Survivors and advocates have long pointed out that the process of obtaining this documentation is not just difficult but traumatic in and of itself.


“The amount of paperwork a woman has to go through to show that they are raped is re-traumatizing,” Rep. Robin Bartleman (D) said during the hearing. “Two out of three victims do not ever even report their rapes.”

After Rep. Kelly Skidmore (D) unsuccessfully introduced an amendment that would have loosened the requirements to access the rape exception by allowing a sworn legal statement from the victim to suffice, one Florida resident, Taylor Aguilar, testified about her experience becoming pregnant from rape. As the Tallahassee Democrat reported, Aguilar described a sexual encounter that had initially been consensual—until her partner removed the condom without her consent.

She was 10 weeks pregnant (well past Republicans’ proposed six-week cut off) when she learned she was pregnant, but still “got the choice” to have an abortion “because in 2015 we didn’t have these restrictions.” Aguilar, who left the committee room in tears, explained that she didn’t file a police report “because she wanted to get as far away from the situation as possible.” It’s a common sentiment, and reflects police officers’ history of dismissing and mistreating victims who seek help.


Florida resident Riley Moon testified next, HuffPost reporter Alanna Vagianos reported. “The invasive collection of evidence is often referred to as a second rape,” Moon told the committee, continuing, “How can you forcibly put someone through a second rape to validate them receiving consenting medical attention? The real question is how dare you?”

Moon’s framing isn’t hyperbole: Denying abortion services to those seeking care reproduces the violation and trauma of acts of sexual violence. Abortion bans amount to gender-based violence from the state, and requiring victims to get a medical examination to “prove” their rape in exchange for medical care is hardly a softer alternative to filing a police report. Medical verification for sexual assault can be a violating process that many survivors choose not to endure.

Others who spoke against the bill pointed out that few people realize they’re pregnant before six weeks, so lawmakers’ intention is really to ban all abortions, period. The founder of Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida also gave damning testimony, reiterating other progressives’ claim that the proposed abortion ban is merely meant to bolster Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ (R) conservative bonafides—and, consequently, “[offer] us up as the sacrificial lamb of DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign.”


In addition to Skidmore’s proposed amendment to ease requirements attached to HB7’s rape exception, Rep. Anna Eskamani (D) introduced an amendment to eliminate the proposed abortion ban altogether. Rep. Alison Tant (D) introduced a separate amendment to eliminate the requirement that a second physician sign off on abortion services for life-threatening medical emergencies. Both were rejected.

Florida currently has a 15-week abortion ban, without a rape exception. OB-GYNs and abortion providers in the state previously spoke out against the 15-week ban’s disparate impact on rape victims seeking care—including, in at least one documented case, an underage incest victim who was forced to travel out-of-state for the procedure because they were past 15 weeks pregnant.

Florida Republicans’ proposed six-week ban may have more stated exceptions than the state’s currently active 15-week ban, but as advocates and Democratic lawmakers pointed out Thursday, all of those exceptions come with their own problems. As Florida joins other anti-abortion states in proposing new bans with additional exceptions, the bleak reality is that no amount of stipulations or exemptions will ever be enough to make these laws humane. As one reproductive justice activist told Jezebel last year, “Survivors and someone who’s seeking abortion care want the same thing—we want control over our bodies, at any time, for any reason.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/survivors-testify-against-bill-requiring-202200770.html

 

Abortion on the ballot? Not if these Republican lawmakers can help it.

733
Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly
Sun, March 19, 2023 at 4:59 AM MDT·7 min read




Oklahoma’s leading anti-abortion group is pushing GOP lawmakers to loosen the state’s near-total ban.

In a recent letter to legislators, Oklahomans for Life Chair Tony Lauinger argued that if they don’t amend the state’s anti-abortion law to add exceptions for rape and incest, there is a real chance a citizen-led ballot initiative to make all abortion legal will eventually succeed.

His efforts, which other lawmakers and anti-abortion groups have slammed as immoral and politically naive, are the latest example of the national scramble to prevent voters from restoring abortion access by popular vote.

Legislatures in Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma are debating bills this session that would hike the filing fees, raise the number of signatures required to get on the ballot, restrict who can collect signatures, mandate broader geographic distribution of signatures, and raise the vote threshold to pass an amendment from a majority to a supermajority. While the bills vary in wording, they would have the same impact: limiting voters' power to override abortion restrictions that Republicans imposed, which took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.


After watching the pro-abortion rights side win all six ballot initiative fights related to abortion in 2022 — including in conservative states such as Kansas and Kentucky — conservatives fear, and are mobilizing to avoid, a repeat.

“It was a wake-up call that taught us we have a ton of work to do,” said Kelsey Pritchard, the state public affairs director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which plans to spend tens of millions of dollars on ballot initiative fights on abortion over the next two years. “We’re going to be really engaged on these ballot measures that are often very radical and go far beyond what Roe ever did.”

In Mississippi, where a court order froze all ballot efforts in 2021, GOP lawmakers are advancing legislation that would restore the mechanism but prohibit voters from putting abortion-related measures on the ballot.

“I think it just continues the policy of Mississippi and our state leaders that we're going to be a pro-life state,” said Mississippi state Rep. Nick Bain, who presented the bill on the House floor.

But in most states, the GOP proposals to tighten restrictions on ballot initiatives are not explicitly targeting abortion. The push to change the rules began years before the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022 — spurred by progressive efforts to legalize marijuana, expand Medicaid and raise the minimum wage in several red states — though it reached new heights over the past year as voters and elected officials clashed over abortion policies.

Still, some anti-abortion activists worry that the trend could backfire, preventing groups from using the tactic to pass their own constitutional amendments via popular vote.

“In Florida, it’s a double-edged sword,” said Andrew Shirvell, the leader of the group Florida Voice for the Unborn that is supporting efforts to put an anti-abortion measure on the 2024 ballot. “So we’re conflicted about it, because there is a large contingent of pro-life grassroots advocates who feel our governor and legislature have failed us on this issue for far too long and want to take things into our own hands.”

Interest on the left in using ballot initiatives to protect or expand abortion access exploded in the wake of the 2022 midterm elections. Efforts are already underway in Missouri, Ohio and South Dakota to insert language restoring abortion rights into the states’ constitutions, while advocates in several other states are mulling their options.

The campaign is furthest along in Ohio, where abortion rights advocates began collecting signatures this week. A coalition of anti-abortion groups called Protect Women Ohio formed in response and announced a $5 million ad buy this week to air a 30-second spot suggesting the proposed amendment would take away parents’ rights to decide whether their children should obtain abortions and other kinds of health care.

At the same time, some Ohio lawmakers are pushing for a proposal that would raise the voter approval threshold for constitutional amendments from a simple majority to 60 percent.

In Missouri, where progressive groups have submitted several versions of an abortion-rights ballot initiative to state authorities for review, lawmakers are similarly weighing proposals to impose a supermajority vote requirement and mandate that the measure pass in more than half of Missouri House districts to take effect.

“It’s about making sure everyone has a voice, and that includes middle Missouri as well,” said Missouri Right to Life Executive Director Susan Klein. “We have known for some time that the threat to legalize abortion was going around different states and would ultimately come to Missouri. We’ve been hard at work preparing for this challenge and we’re ready.”

In Idaho, lawmakers are trying to require backers of initiative petitions to gather signatures from 6 percent of registered voters to qualify for the ballot.

“I call these bills ‘death by a thousand cuts,’” said Kelly Hall, the executive director of the progressive ballot initiative group The Fairness Project. “When you hear about each one in isolation, they seem like not that big a deal. But taken together, they have an exclusionary effect on people’s participation in democracy.”

Conservative lawmakers and advocates pushing the rule changes say they reflect their beliefs about how laws should be crafted and are not solely about abortion — but they are upfront about wanting to make it harder to pass the kind of broad protections voters in California, Michigan and Vermont enacted last year.

“I did not start this out due to abortion, but … Planned Parenthood is actively trying to enshrine a lack of protections for the unborn into constitutions,” said North Dakota state Sen. Janne Myrdal, who heads the state legislature’s Pro-Life Caucus. “You can sit in California or New York or Washington and throw a dart, attach a couple million dollars to it, and you change our constitution.”

The resolution Myrdal is sponsoring, which passed the Senate last month and is awaiting a vote in the House, would require proposed constitutional amendments to pass twice — during the primary and general elections — and bump up the signature-gathering requirement from 4 percent to 5 percent of residents. If approved, the proposed changes would appear on the state’s 2024 ballot.

Major national anti-abortion groups say they’re not formally endorsing these efforts, but support the GOP lawmakers behind them.

“It starts to diminish the importance of a constitution if it can be changed by the whim of the current culture,” Carol Tobias, the president of the National Right to Life Committee, said.

Even in states that have not yet taken steps to put an abortion-rights measure on the ballot, conservative fears of such a move are driving some surprising legislative action.

In Oklahoma, the anti-abortion leader Lauinger is arguing to lawmakers that polling shows overwhelming support for rape and incest exceptions — as one lawmaker has proposed in a bill that cleared its first committee last month — and overwhelming opposition to leaving the state’s ban as-is.

If the state didn’t have a ballot measure process, he said, he wouldn’t support exceptions. But since that threat exists, he argued, “We must not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.”

“The abortion industry has the weapon to defeat what we regard as the ideal policy,” Lauinger told the lawmakers. “The initiative petition is their trump card.”

Lauinger did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Yet National Right to Life, the parent group of his organization, told POLITICO it backs his argument that it’s better to make exceptions for rape and incest than risk a sweeping ballot initiative enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution.

“This isn’t a betrayal,” insisted Tobias. “If you really look at what we’re facing, we could either save 95 percent of all babies or we could lose everything and all babies could be subject to death. It’s kind of hard to not see the reality.”

Advocates on both sides of the abortion fight stress, however, that a ballot initiative fight in Oklahoma is still possible — even likely — whether the state approves exceptions for rape and incest or not.

"They’re probably going to try to do one anyway, regardless of what we do," said Oklahoma state Rep. Jim Olsen, a Republican who launched an effort with other conservative lawmakers in the state to defeat the exceptions bill. "The fight hasn’t even come and we’re already backing away.”


https://www.yahoo.com/news/abortion-ballot-not-republican-lawmakers-105900402.html

 

Almost 3 weeks old.
Slow day, Stumbler?

Lets start with what a "religious beeves" is.

Don't trigger. Just yanking your chain a bit.
Cause, you know, Monday.

 

Well sure "states" mostly just old impotent White men should be able to dictate to a woman what she can't and can't do regularizing or own physical and mental health according to their own personal religious believes. Women have no say in that.



Texas abortion law means woman has to continue pregnancy despite fatal anomaly

NADINE EL-BAWAB
Mon, March 20, 2023 at 3:07 AM MDT


Kylie Beaton was looking forward to having her second child later this year. Now, she's faced with carrying an unviable pregnancy to its end due to Texas' highly restrictive abortion ban.

According to a report from her doctor, Beaton's baby has a rare, severe condition impacting the development of its brain, but she is unable to access abortion care in her home state.

"To have a woman go through so much torture along the way that's going to stay with them forever," Beaton told ABC News. "Whatever the case may be, you have to look at things from a different perspective."

Texas has several abortion bans in place that prohibit nearly all abortions, except when a mother's life is at risk or there is a risk of serious bodily harm. The state has civil and criminal penalties for performing banned abortions.


Beaton, who has a 4-year-old daughter with her husband, Seth, said the couple had been actively trying to get pregnant when they conceived the unviable pregnancy. Seth had been hospitalized with COVID pneumonia in June 2021. When he was finally released six months later, the couple started trying to have a baby right away, Beaton said. Beaton has polycystic ovary syndrome, which can make it harder for women to get pregnant, so it was all the more joyful when she learned their efforts were successful.

"I was really excited when we found that it was a boy, but that was short-lived," Seth Beaton told ABC News. "Right now, I'm just terrified for my wife. She's the strongest person I know and she's just helpless right now. And it's not fair for her and other women. And we have a daughter, I couldn't imagine my daughter ever having to go through this."

At her 20-week ultrasound appointment, Beaton said her physician discovered the fetus had a rare, severe anomaly -- called alobar holoprosencephaly -- in which the fetus's brain does not develop into two hemispheres as it normally would, and the major structures of the brain remain fused in the middle.

The brain splitting into two hemispheres is a "critical stage in the development" and can impact the development of the nose, mouth and throat, Dr. Katie McHugh, an Indiana OB-GYN and abortion provider, told ABC News. The condition can result in a very painful life and death for the fetus, McHugh said.

Often times we will offer, if not recommend, pregnancy termination," McHugh said.

The anomaly occurs in about 1 in 250 fetuses, but in just 1 in 16,000 live births, according to the Cleveland Clinic. In her seven years practicing as a maternal fetal medicine specialist, Dr. Carrie Rouse, an OB-GYN and maternal fetal medicine specialist at Indiana University Health, said she has only come across five cases. Beaton's 28-week ultrasound shows the severity of her baby's anomaly.

"The inside appears very empty," said Rouse, who is not treating Beaton, but looked at her ultrasound. "The normal brain structures that we would see, that should have formed and then separated in the midline, are not there where they normally would be. This is a very concerning ultrasound."

MORE: 'I had to carry my baby to bury my baby': Woman says she was denied abortion for fetus without skull

Beaton said her physicians told her the baby could survive out of the womb for a couple of weeks, at most, in the event that the pregnancy ends in a live birth. Rouse agreed with this assessment, pointing to what she said is a lack of development of normal brain tissue and empty fluid filling the head.

"This anomaly is typically lethal for most infants within days to weeks," Rouse said. "Outliers are only able to survive with significant amount of invasive procedures and interventions."

Babies with this condition never reach developmental milestones, meaning they won't have any intentional interactions like smiling, and often can't see, have severe seizures and hormonal abnormalities, according to Rouse. Very few outliers are able to survive up to a year and the level of intervention needed for babies with this condition to survive is extremely high; they often need mechanical ventilation or a life support machine, multiple medications and repeated lab draws, Rouse said.

"They live to a year with basically heroic measures," Rouse said.

Beaton said her physician referred her to a specialist a week after her diagnosis. However, she said the specialist confirmed that due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and Texas' "trigger" law effectively outlawing nearly all abortions, the physicians' hands were tied. She said the specialist told her he could not do anything to end the pregnancy unless Beaton developed a severe health issue or if the fetus dies in the womb.


Anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life has routinely argued that fetuses should be "honored and protected in law no matter how long or short their lives may be," according to a statement earlier this month.

Representatives for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton and state Sen. Bryan Hughes, who authored one of the state's abortion bans, did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment about Beaton's situation.

Beaton said she wanted to have a vaginal delivery, feeling like a scar from a cesarean section would be a constant reminder of what she had lost. A C-section also means that the couple would be advised to wait 12 to 18 months before trying to get pregnant again, the typical time physicians recommend women wait so their uterus can recover from surgery, according to the Center for Advanced Reproductive Medicine and Fertility.

"With this condition, in particular, because the head, the fetal head, develops at a different rate, often because of fluid collections, most of the time vaginal delivery is not an option. And so cesarean delivery is required," McHugh said. "And this is going to be major abdominal surgery, with risks associated with it -- for a baby that has maybe no chance of a normal life or potentially of survival at all, depending on the severity."

Unable to get care in Texas, Beaton said she booked an appointment to get an abortion at a clinic in New Mexico in February.

But, she said when she went in for an ultrasound days before her appointment, she was told her baby's head had grown too big and she could no longer get the procedure. The facility's cutoff for abortions is 23 weeks and six days she said and the fetus's head was already measuring at what it typically would at over 23 weeks of pregnancy.

"From there, we were pretty let down," Kylie Beaton said.

She said she was referred to a clinic in Colorado that provides later-term abortion care, but that facility told them it would cost between $10,000 to $15,000 for the procedure, which was financially out of question, Beaton said. The New Mexico clinic would have provided the same procedure for $3,500, Kylie Beaton said. Neither estimate includes the cost of travel and accommodation.


Since then, the fetus's head has continually increased in size, filling with fluid, she said. At her appointment on Monday, when she was 28 weeks pregnant, the fetus's head size was measuring at what it typically would be at 39 weeks, a full-term pregnancy, the ultrasound showed.

"On that ultrasound, the head is measuring significantly larger than it should be. It's measuring about 10 weeks further along than she actually is, which is very concerning," Rouse, the Indiana Health System OB-GYN, said.

Rouse said Beaton's C-section could be more complicated and risky as her pregnancy continues.

"You worry about ongoing growth of the fetal head of causing more complications at the time of delivery, like hemorrhage, needing a blood transfusion, needing to use a larger incision on her abdomen in order to to remove the infant, needing to use a larger and different incision on the uterus in order to remove the infant," Rouse said. "There's a risk of possibly uterine rupture just because of the stretch on the uterus. All of these things would make me pretty worried."

For a condition for which we expect the baby to pass away soon after birth, that baby is going to pass away because of the alobar holoprosencephaly, whether they are born at 39 weeks or earlier," Rouse added.

Beaton said her physicians in Texas contacted other doctors in the state, hoping they had heard of an alternative regarding the state's laws that would permit them to induce her labor since the baby's head was at full term. Ultimately, Beaton said, doctors determined the size of the baby's head was not a good enough reason to induce labor because her health is still not at risk.

"And if the state were to find out, they would most likely press charges," Kylie Beaton said.

Texas' anti-abortion law makes it a second-degree felony for any attempt by a medical professional to perform, induce or attempt an abortion, and a first-degree felony if the abortion is carried out.

"My specialist and my OB both had said I had to go essentially full term to at least 37 weeks unless something happens to either the baby or I, then they could induce," Kylie Beaton said.


The couple said the law has left them feeling helpless and frustrated over not being able to make a humane decision for their baby.

"I mean, for them to say, 'Well, you need to wait until you're in a health crisis, a health issue to where your life's in jeopardy, then that's when we can take it.' Well, then why do we have doctors?" Kylie Beaton said.

"Why are we taking medications for things like high blood pressure? Why don't you wait until you have a heart attack? Or until you have, you know, the signs that you're having a stroke to be on medication? All those things? It's kind of the same way, if you look at it from our perspective," she added.

Before this pregnancy, Beaton said she never would have considered getting an abortion. Now, she believes abortions should be allowed in cases like hers and for women with other health conditions to get the care they need.

"I'm personally not for it being a way of birth control. I do believe that there are certain instances where I deem that it is necessary," she said. "Never in a million years would I expect or believe that we will be going through what we're going through now."

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/texas-abortion-law-means-woman-090700179.html

 

Woman Who Drove 150 Miles to Torch Abortion Clinic Says It Was Giving Her 'Nightmares'

1.4k
Susan Rinkunas
Fri, March 24, 2023 at 12:25 PM MDT



Surveillance footage of abortion arson suspect now identified as Lorna Green

The 22-year-old suspect in the Wyoming abortion clinic arson told the FBI that she drove 150 miles to torch the clinic—which wasn’t even open at the time—because opposes abortion and had “nightmares” about other people having abortions there.

Authorities arrested Lorna Green this week and charged her with arson for setting fire to an abortion clinic under renovations in Casper, Wyoming, in May 2022. The Associated Press reports that Green admitted to the crime during interrogation: “Green stated she did not like abortion and was having nightmares which she attributed to her anxiety about the abortion clinic, so she decided to burn the building.” I can’t help but think of the Illinois man who told investigators that he burned a Planned Parenthood clinic because he was mad that his ex-girlfriend had an abortion three years ago rather than have a child with him.


Green, who lived in Laramie, Wyoming, at the time, told the agent that she bought gasoline cans the day before the fire and then drove 150 miles to Casper, broke a clinic window with a rock, and started a fire in one room before fleeing and driving straight home. Google Maps says that drive would take about two-and-a-half hours.

Surveillance photos showing a white woman in a hoodie were released shortly after the fire, but the investigation stalled. Authorities said they got more tips in the case after the original $5,000 reward was increased to $15,000 earlier this month with the help of an anonymous donor. Investigators said they received a dozen new tips, including four specifically naming Green and one from a person who said they were a friend of Green’s (probably not anymore!).

If convicted, she could face between five and 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. That’s a lot of time and money when she simply could have minded her own business


https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-drove-150-miles-torch-182500178.html