May 25, 2019 "Singular for abortion rights in the US": Today I found this article by Rosemary Westwood in the Globe and Mail:
Rosemary Westwood is a New Orleans-based journalist
Last year, when I wanted to visit an abortion clinic in Louisiana, I first had to meet the administrator for coffee. She was, essentially, sussing me out. Clinics in the South are deeply protective of their privacy and their patients. I was sussing her out, too. How did she feel about the state of abortion rights in Louisiana, where only three clinics are operating, down from 11 in 2001?
What did she make of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious ascendance to the U.S. Supreme Court? She told me she could hear the “death rattle” of abortion rights. Later, I heard her staff joke, darkly, of an “abortion apocalypse.”
What did she make of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious ascendance to the U.S. Supreme Court? She told me she could hear the “death rattle” of abortion rights. Later, I heard her staff joke, darkly, of an “abortion apocalypse.”
They – and others who’ve been fighting anti-abortion laws in conservative states for years – are not surprised by recent events in the United States. Really, no one should be.
The “heartbeat” abortion bans enacted in six states and counting (the laws ban abortion at about six weeks, when the pulsing of a cluster of embryonic cells that later form a heart can first be detected), an eight-week ban in Missouri, and Alabama’s outright abortion ban (the only exception is if a woman is likely to die or risks serious bodily harm) are by far the most severe abortion laws in the United States in recent decades.
They’re also in line with both the trajectory of the anti-abortion movement’s fight and its core beliefs. They are, essentially, the legislative equivalent of a long-held ideology: that zygotes, embryos and fetuses are people.
They’re also in line with both the trajectory of the anti-abortion movement’s fight and its core beliefs. They are, essentially, the legislative equivalent of a long-held ideology: that zygotes, embryos and fetuses are people.
What is exceptional is that the laws clearly contradict decades of Supreme Court precedent, and that is the point.
They are aimed at Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established the constitutional right to abortion, and its descendants (Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992 and Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt in 2016). None of them will take immediate effect, since all have or will be challenged by lawsuits.
What matters is the outcome of those cases. The laws are the clearest legislative indication yet that conservatives believe their new appointments to the Supreme Court are poised to hand them a long-wished-for victory. That Roe is toast.
The Democratic Party has erupted in outrage and alarm – outrage on a scale not previously seen while anti-abortion laws advanced over decades, alarm that was largely absent until the arrival of President Donald Trump.
“Momentum is clearly on the side of life," Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the prominent anti-abortion group the Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement after a Missouri bill passed. Another group, Pro-Life Action League, tweeted, “The days of #RoeVWade are numbered.”
Mr. Trump is one major reason. The President aggressively campaigned on appointing justices who would overturn Roe (“that will happen automatically,” he said in 2016). He’d barely arrived in the White House before he put Justice Neil Gorsuch on the bench. But replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy last year with Brett Kavanaugh was especially crucial – Justice Kennedy, a conservative, twice voted to uphold abortion rights, including as the pivotal vote just three years ago in the Whole Woman’s Health case.
While Mr. Trump banged this particular drum the loudest, appointing anti-abortion judges has been a Republican priority since Ronald Reagan, as Supreme Court observer Linda Greenhouse recently noted in The New York Times, and the effort extends across the entire federal bench. Thus, lower courts have entertained numerous state attacks on abortion, and “a majority of the Fifth Circuit is at war with the Supreme Court’s abortion precedent – and was, even before the Trump administration filled five vacancies on the 16-judge appeals court,” she wrote.
There was no such attention on the other side. While conservative states built a network of abortion hurdles, liberal ones have, for decades, done little. In an analysis of state policy, the pro-choice research non-profit the Guttmacher Institute deems 21 states “hostile” to “very hostile” toward abortion and only four “supportive” or “very supportive.”
Twenty-five are simply “middle ground.” Nor have Democratic politics obsessed over Supreme Court appointments the way Republican circles have – one could hardly imagine a swath of Hillary Clinton voters telling reporters they voted for her because of the Supreme Court, but that’s what Trump voters did.
With the writing on the wall, all this is changing. Protests against abortion bans swept the United States last week in a national day of action. Democratic states have pushed reproductive-rights bills of their own in 2019 and pro-choice groups argue the 2018 midterm elections – which sent a wave of pro-choice Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives – prove their voters have been galvanized.
Liberal groups are attacking Republicans over questions raised by the many laws:
Could women be punished for abortion?
For laws that protect a woman’s life – what exactly counts as a serious-enough threat?
What is the personhood of an IVF treatment?
Alabama Senator Clyde Chambliss told his critics his state’s ban doesn’t apply to IVF. “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not a woman. She’s not pregnant.”
Some are now questioning whether attempting to topple Roe is good politics for Republicans ahead of the next presidential election. A recent poll found Georgians are split over their support for the “heartbeat” ban and 70 per cent do not think Roe should be overturned.
A Fox News political analyst warned last week the extreme bans “will help the Democrats in 2020," especially in key suburban districts. Mr. Trump himself was conspicuously silent for weeks as the bans sped through state legislatures. Only last weekend, days after Alabama’s Governor signed the new law, did he take to Twitter, and the message was subdued.
“We have come very far in the last two years with 105 wonderful new Federal Judges (many more to come), two great new Supreme Court Justices, the Mexico City Policy, and a whole new & positive attitude about the Right to Life,” Mr. Trump tweeted.
Arguably the most consistent action of this unpredictable President has been his full-throttled effort to please religious conservatives by targeting abortion rights, including putting anti-abortion judges across federal benches and reinstating the Mexico City policy banning U.S. overseas funding from pro-choice groups.
“We must stick together and Win for Life in 2020,” Mr. Trump went on, warning that “if we are foolish and do not stay UNITED as one, all of our hard fought gains for Life can, and will, rapidly disappear!” – presumably by Mr. Trump losing the election. But another part of his tweet revealed a key weakness in that unity.
Mr. Trump proclaimed himself “strongly Pro-Life” with exceptions for rape, incest, and risks to a woman’s life – a statement that drew backlash from anti-abortion activists, one of whom captured the mainstream pro-life view when she tweeted that “a baby of rape is innocent & doesn’t deserve the death penalty for her father’s evil crimes.”
Meanwhile, a previously unreleased 2018 poll found that even in Alabama, 65 per cent of respondents think rape and incest victims should be able to get abortions.
How the Supreme Court will react to these political convulsions remains unclear. The justices are already considering whether to hear a handful of abortion cases that do not directly challenge Roe the way these new laws have. The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin and Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern argue conservative justices have already shown their willingness to disregard precedents they don’t like (in a recent dissent, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer warned the court’s decision “can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next”).
Others expect Chief Justice John Roberts – a conservative who prizes the court’s reputation and its legitimacy – will preside over a continued chipping away at abortion rights, rather than their outright demise.
For pro-choice Americans, that is the current best-case scenario, and there is only one way to change it. The 2020 elections will be, in part, a referendum on abortion in America, a singular moment for the country to choose its fate after 46 years of bitter discord. There is only one way to ensure abortion access, for those who’d choose to: they need to take back the U.S. Senate, the White House and, ultimately, the Supreme Court.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-a-singular-moment-for-abortion-rights-in-the-us/
There are 54 comments right now:
Dianne440:
Passing a law prohibiting abortion does not stop abortions. It simply ensures that women of means travel to a location where abortion is legal to have the procedure. Women without means have back street abortions by unlicenced practitioners or try to abort themselves, which results in more women dying.
"Trudeau is scaremongering over abortion": Today I found this article by Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail:
Not everyone is distressed over the radical new abortion laws in Alabama and other U.S. states – the ones that restrict abortions under almost any circumstances. Hardline abortion opponents are, of course, rejoicing. But so is the Liberal Party of Canada, which sees these distressing developments as a golden opportunity to wring dollars from people’s pockets and portray their Conservative opponents as anti-woman.
Justin Trudeau, for instance, declared the other day that he is “deeply disappointed” by the “backsliding on women’s rights” in the U.S. This backsliding stands in sharp contrast to his position on the rights of women, which all true Canadians defend.
“As a government, as Canadians, we will always be unequivocal about defending a woman’s right to choose, defending women’s rights in general,” he said. By contrast, he warned, the Conservatives want to take away “rights that have been hard-fought over many, many years by generations of women and male allies.”
Mr. Trudeau’s female allies in the Liberal Party are currently tweeting up a storm to warn us that a woman’s right to choose is under threat. As proof, they offer the fact that 12 Conservative MPs (that’s 12 out of 97) recently attended a pro-life rally in Ottawa. “This is the true face of the Conservative Party,” tweeted Mélanie Joly, who, when last I looked, was Mr. Trudeau’s Minister of Tourism.
Maryam Monsef, our Minister for Women and Gender Equality, has been busy too. She issued a letter daring Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer to let us know “whether or not the Conservative Party of Canada would take us backwards by restricting or undermining a woman’s right to choose.”
Maryam Monsef, our Minister for Women and Gender Equality, has been busy too. She issued a letter daring Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer to let us know “whether or not the Conservative Party of Canada would take us backwards by restricting or undermining a woman’s right to choose.”
So keep your red cloaks handy, ladies. If Andrew Scheer has his way, Canada could become a real-life Handmaid’s Tale before you know it.
Not to be outdone, Katie Telford, Mr. Trudeau’s chief of staff, is using her Twitter account to pass along particularly scary bits from severely rattled female columnists, of whom there is no shortage. Ms. Telford quoted from a column in the Toronto Star, which argued: “Given what is happening south of the border ... it would be wise to pay close attention to the growing political influence of pro-lifers in Canada.”
In reality, there’s no evidence that pro-lifers have any more influence than they’ve always had. Hardline pro-lifers are a small (if noisy) minority of the population. A 2017 Ipsos poll found that only 12 per cent of Canadians think abortions shouldn’t be permitted. People who are pro-choice, make up 77 per cent of the population. Conservative leaders don’t wish to self-implode. They can read the poll results, and they know that support for choice in Canada is overwhelming.
Despite many dire predictions, during a decade in office the Harper government wouldn’t go near near the issue, and today’s Conservatives won’t either. The party’s official policy says that a Conservative government “will not support any legislation to regulate abortion.” Even in Alberta, where the pro-life movement is unusually vigorous, the new Premier, Jason Kenney, says he would not “bring forward legislative measures on abortion”.
Of course all these people could be lying. They could have a hidden agenda. That’s what Liberals want you to believe.
In fact, if anything abortion rights in Canada are growing stronger. Last week Ontario’s high court ruled that even doctors who oppose abortion on religious grounds are required to offer “effective referrals” for any patient who wants one. But the biggest guarantor of women’s rights in this country is the fact that for the past 30 years – ever since the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s abortion law – we’ve had no law at all. This peculiar situation seems to suit almost everyone just fine.
Personally, I’m sick of the abortion war. That’s because it has long since ceased to be a debate, and has devolved into two opposing tribes screaming at each other across the void. Both sides have no room for moral complexity. They have turned the abortion question into a purity test.
The pro-life (or anti-choice) side cannot admit that in certain circumstances, abortion is sometimes the moral choice.
The pro-life (or anti-choice) side cannot admit that in certain circumstances, abortion is sometimes the moral choice.
The pro-choice (or anti-life) side cannot admit that under some circumstances abortion can be morally problematic.
(Is there a difference between terminating a fetus at seven weeks and at seven months? Most people would probably say yes.)
Despite these lingering moral dilemmas (which will never go away), the abortion wars in Canada are basically over. Canada won’t turn into Alabama under any scenario that I can see. But the Liberals have no interest in admitting that. After all, there’s an election on.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-justin-trudeau-and-the-liberals-are-scaremongering-over-abortion/
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This week's theme is about abortions:
"This doctor commutes 800 miles to provide abortion services in underserved communities"
"Big changes to abortion law appear likely after oral arguments at Supreme Court in Mississippi case"/ "An activist claims she took an abortion pill on live TV"
My week:
May 6, 2022 NDP abortions petition: I posted this on my Facebook page so you can sign the petition:
Abortion services must be accessible to every Canadian.
Abortion rights are only as strong as access to services.
In Canada many individuals seeking abortion services can’t access them – only 1 hospital in 6 offers abortion, and some provinces refuse to cover the cost of surgical abortion outside hospitals. Lack of access is even worse for people in rural areas and the North.
Everyone deserves safe, accessible abortion and reproductive healthcare services – no matter where they live or how much money they make. It’s not enough for elected officials to say that they won’t reopen the abortion debate – we need leaders to take action to improve access to services.
Join Jagmeet Singh and the NDP in demanding Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government to implement a national plan to expand abortion and reproductive health care access to all parts of Canada without barriers.
Add your name and take action now.
My- feminism: I found this on Facebook and posted this on my page:
Hours later, Facebook sent me this:
Does the Netherlands have the lowest abortion rate in the world? No, that's not true: Although the Netherlands has a low abortion rate, with data showing that it has an estimated average annual rate of seven abortions per 1,000 women, it is not the lowest in the world. That title belongs to both Singapore and Switzerland, which, according to the same dataset, have an estimated average annual rate of five abortions per 1,000 women.
Defend Roe:
Right now the Supreme Court in the United States is debating Roe v. Wade. Roe is the only protection women have to control their own bodies in the USA.
If we lose Roe 3 things will happen:
1. Women will not have access to healthcare and will die and be permanently harmed from "back street" abortions. Restricting or making abortion illegal doesn't stop them - it just stops safe ones.
2. Miscarriages will be investigated. When abortion is illegal that means that every pregnancy loss must be investigated to ensure the "crime" of abortion didn't happen.
3. The rich will still have access to abortion.
May 9, 2022:
ROE VS WADE
First... I LOVE babies! I LOVE life. I LOVE choice.
Please be VERY CLEAR....
I'm not pro-murdering babies and if you saying words like that...block me right now... you and I will never agree on this and likely many other topics. I love you and goodbye.
Now, having said that...
I'm pro-Becky who found out at her 20-week anatomy scan that the infant she had been so excited to bring into this world had developed without life sustaining organs.
I'm pro-Susan who was sexually assaulted on her way home from work, only to come to the horrific realization that she was pregnant when she got a positive test result a month later.
I'm pro-Theresa who hemorrhaged due to a placental abruption, causing her parents, spouse, and children to have to make the impossible decision on whether to save her or her unborn child.
I'm pro-little Cathy who had her innocence ripped away from her by someone she should have been able to trust and her 11-year-old body isn't mature enough to bear the consequence of that betrayal.
I'm pro-Melissa who's working two jobs just to make ends meet and has to choose between bringing another child into poverty or feeding the children she already has because her spouse walked out on her.
I'm pro-Brittany who realizes that she is in no way financially, emotionally, or physically able to raise a child.
I'm pro-Emily who so desperately wanted a baby that she went through IVF, ending up with SIX viable implanted eggs requiring selective reduction to ensure the safety of her and a SAFE number of fetuses.
I'm pro-Jessica who is FINALLY getting the strength to get away from her physically abusive spouse only to find out that she is carrying the monster's child.
I'm pro-Vanessa who went into her confirmation appointment after YEARS of trying to conceive only to hear silence where there should be a heartbeat.
I'm pro-Lindsay who lost her virginity in her sophomore year with a broken condom and now has to choose whether to be a teenage mom or just a teenager.
I'm pro-Courtney who just found out she's already 13 weeks along, but the egg never made it out of her fallopian tube so either she terminates the pregnancy or risks dying from internal bleeding.
You can argue and say that I'm pro-choice all you want, but the truth is:
I'm PRO CHOICE.
YOU nor anyone else does not get to pick and choose which scenarios should be accepted.
It's not about which stories you don't agree with. It's about fighting for the women in the stories that you do agree with and the CHOICE that was made.
Women's rights are meant to protect ALL women, regardless of their situation!
May 13, 2022 Abortions on TV: I wrote about this before:
Jenny Jones: There was this out-of- control teen girl with blond hair. She looks like she's 14. She wears tight and revealing clothes and says things like: "When I grow up, I want to be a stripper." This was probably back when I was 14 and watching this in 1999.
Jenny: You got pregnant when you were 13?
Girl: Yeah.
Jenny: And you got an abortion?
Girl: Yeah.
Do you think this girl should have stayed pregnant and had the kid?
My friends' opinions:
Sherry: No, she's too young.
Angela: No, she doesn't seem very smart and mature, so how do you know she's not going to smoke, drink and do drugs during the pregnancy?
My opinion: No, this girl seems like her priorities are boys and partying. No guy is going to hit on her when she's pregnant. Can you imagine her dancing on the dance floor with this huge baby bump? She's not going to be partying that much.
America's Most Wanted: I saw this like in 2003-2004. This woman was pregnant and got into a fight with her friend's boyfriend. The boyfriend kicked her in the stomach. So she got an abortion because she got kicked in the stomach and didn't want to risk anything bad happening to the baby.
The pregnant woman's boyfriend was very upset that she got an abortion, because he wanted to be a dad. He then killed the guy who kicked her in the stomach and then he's on the run.
They both needed counseling.
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