ROE V WADE

[merh]

You should like her, ABBEY
She was a Russian Revolutionary

[abbey1227]

Nov 30, 2022 8:31:50 GMT merh said:

You should like her, ABBEY
She was a Russian Revolutionary

I like the part about a 'voluntary act'.........that's how it should be for most things, don't you agree?

[merh]

Nov 30, 2022 8:35:40 GMT abbey1227 said:

Nov 30, 2022 8:31:50 GMT merh said:

You should like her, ABBEY
She was a Russian Revolutionary

I like the part about a 'voluntary act'.........that's how it should be for most things, don't you agree?

So now you're back to not having to pay child support?

So the government should support the child, not the father?

This gal died around 1940 so birth control wasn't an easy option 

[abbey1227]

Nov 30, 2022 13:45:41 GMT merh said:

Nov 30, 2022 8:35:40 GMT abbey1227 said:

I like the part about a 'voluntary act'.........that's how it should be for most things, don't you agree?

So now you're back to not having to pay child support?

So the government should support the child, not the father?

This gal died around 1940 so birth control wasn't an easy option 

Not paying for a child you created makes you an irresponsible loser. The argument over male vs female in the decision making process of abortion/pregnancy is another debate, though.

And the $Amounts of that child support is a whole nother thing. Just saw Kanye will be paying Kim $200,000/month for child support

I don't think the Govt should have EVER gotten involved in the first place. That's how Planned Parenthood and others got involved and on the take, too

Only 80 years ago?  We've got more choices now. They should be inexpensive and widely available.

[Prometheus]

Nov 30, 2022 13:51:14 GMT abbey1227 said:

Nov 30, 2022 13:45:41 GMT merh said:

So now you're back to not having to pay child support?

So the government should support the child, not the father?

This gal died around 1940 so birth control wasn't an easy option 

Not paying for a child you created makes you an irresponsible loser. The argument over male vs female in the decision making process of abortion/pregnancy is another debate, though.

And the $Amounts of that child support is a whole nother thing. Just saw Kanye will be paying Kim $200,000/month for child support

I don't think the Govt should have EVER gotten involved in the first place. That's how Planned Parenthood and others got involved and on the take, too

Only 80 years ago?  We've got more choices now. They should be inexpensive and widely available.

Then stop voting for Republicans you fucking moron.

[Deleted]

Vote for democrats.

That way, you won't even be sure what's a man and what's a woman!

Problem solved!

I solve shit.

[Prometheus]

Dec 1, 2022 5:52:50 GMT @shadyvsesham said:

Vote for democrats.

That way, you won't even be sure what's a man and what's a woman!

Problem solved!

I solve shit.

Remember when they used to say, "If men could get pregnant, there'd be drive-thru abortion clinics!"?

Guess they were wrong....

[merh]

Dec 1, 2022 5:52:50 GMT @shadyvsesham said:

Vote for democrats.

That way, you won't even be sure what's a man and what's a woman!

Problem solved!

I solve shit.

That keeps you up at night?

Why on earth does that worry your little head?

There is so much else in this world.



Every feed the crows?
They are fascinatingly smart & fun creatures.

[abbey1227]

Dec 1, 2022 8:37:50 GMT merh said:

Every feed the crows?
They are fascinatingly smart & fun creatures.

unlike most people you bump into

[Deleted]

Dec 1, 2022 6:12:15 GMT Prometheus said:

Dec 1, 2022 5:52:50 GMT @shadyvsesham said:

Vote for democrats.

That way, you won't even be sure what's a man and what's a woman!

Problem solved!

I solve shit.

Remember when they used to say, "If men could get pregnant, there'd be drive-thru abortion clinics!"?

Guess they were wrong....

I am pro choice, always have been.

I'm not gonna promote having an abortion should be Nobel prize worthy.

[merh]

“The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion”
When the Anti-Choice Choose
By Joyce Arthur

Copyright © September, 2000

Abortion is a highly personal decision that many women are sure they’ll never have to think about until they’re suddenly faced with an unexpected pregnancy. But this can happen to anyone, including women who are strongly anti-choice. So what does an anti-choice woman do when she experiences an unwanted pregnancy herself? Often, she will grin and bear it, so to speak, but frequently, she opts for the solution she would deny to other women — abortion.

In the spring of 2000, I collected the following anecdotes directly from abortion doctors and other clinic staff in North America, Australia, and Europe. The stories are presented in the providers’ own words, with minor editing for grammar, clarity, and brevity. Names have been omitted to protect privacy.

“I have done several abortions on women who have regularly picketed my clinics, including a 16 year old schoolgirl who came back to picket the day after her abortion, about three years ago. During her whole stay at the clinic, we felt that she was not quite right, but there were no real warning bells. She insisted that the abortion was her idea and assured us that all was OK. She went through the procedure very smoothly and was discharged with no problems. A quite routine operation. Next morning she was with her mother and several school mates in front of the clinic with the usual anti posters and chants. It appears that she got the abortion she needed and still displayed the appropriate anti views expected of her by her parents, teachers, and peers.” (Physician, Australia)

“I’ve had several cases over the years in which the anti-abortion patient had rationalized in one way or another that her case was the only exception, but the one that really made an impression was the college senior who was the president of her campus Right-to-Life organization, meaning that she had worked very hard in that organization for several years. As I was completing her procedure, I asked what she planned to do about her high office in the RTL organization. Her response was a wide-eyed, ‘You’re not going to tell them, are you!?’ When assured that I was not, she breathed a sigh of relief, explaining how important that position was to her and how she wouldn’t want this to interfere with it.” (Physician, Texas)

“In 1990, in the Boston area, Operation Rescue and other groups were regularly blockading the clinics, and many of us went every Saturday morning for months to help women and staff get in. As a result, we knew many of the ‘antis’ by face. One morning, a woman who had been a regular ‘sidewalk counselor’ went into the clinic with a young woman who looked like she was 16-17, and obviously her daughter. When the mother came out about an hour later, I had to go up and ask her if her daughter’s situation had caused her to change her mind. ‘I don’t expect you to understand my daughter’s situation!’ she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to ‘murder their babies.'” (Clinic escort, Massachusetts)

“We too have seen our share of anti-choice women, ones the counselors usually grit their teeth over. Just last week a woman announced loudly enough for all to hear in the recovery room, that she thought abortion should be illegal. Amazingly, this was her second abortion within the last few months, having gotten pregnant again within a month of the first abortion. The nurse handled it by talking about all the carnage that went on before abortion was legalized and how fortunate she was to be receiving safe, professional care. However, this young woman continued to insist it was wrong and should be made illegal. Finally the nurse said, ‘Well, I guess we won’t be seeing you here again, not that you’re not welcome.’ Later on, another patient who had overheard this exchange thanked the nurse for her remarks.” (Clinic Administrator, Alberta)

“We saw a woman recently who after four attempts and many hours of counseling both at the hospital and our clinic, finally, calmly and uneventfully, had her abortion. Four months later, she called me on Christmas Eve to tell me that she was not and never was pro-choice and that we failed to recognize that she was clinically depressed at the time of her abortion. The purpose of her call was to chastise me for not sending her off to the psych unit instead of the procedure room.” (Clinic Administrator, Alberta)

“Recently, we had a patient who had given a history of being a ‘pro-life’ activist, but who had decided to have an abortion. She was pleasant to me and our initial discussion was mutually respectful. Later, she told someone on my staff that she thought abortion is murder, that she is a murderer, and that she is murdering her baby. So before doing her procedure, I asked her if she thought abortion is murder — the answer was yes. I asked her if she thought I am a murderer, and if she thought I would be murdering her baby, and she said yes. But murder is a crime, and murderers are executed. Is this a crime? Well, it should be, she said. At that point, she became angry and hostile, and the summary of the conversation was that she regarded me as an abortion-dispensing machine, and how dare I ask her what she thinks. After explaining to her that I do not perform abortions for people who think I am a murderer or people who are angry at me, I declined to provide her with medical care. I do not know whether she found someone else to do her abortion.” (Physician, Colorado)

“In 1973, after Roe v. Wade, abortion became legal but had to be performed in a hospital. That of course was changed later. For the first ‘legal abortion day’ I had scheduled five procedures. While scrubbing between cases, I was accosted by the Chief of the OB/Gyn service. He asked me, ‘How many children are you going to kill today?’ My response, out of anger, was a familiar vulgar retort. About three months later, this born-again Christian called me to explain that he was against abortion but his daughter was only a junior in high school and was too young to have a baby and he was also afraid that if she did have a baby she would not want to put it up for adoption. I told him he did not need to explain the situation to me. ‘All I need to know’, I said, ‘is that SHE wants an abortion.’ Two years later I performed a second abortion on her during her college break. She thanked me and pleaded, ‘Please don’t tell my dad, he is still anti-abortion.'” (Physician, Washington State)

“The sister of a Dutch bishop in Limburg once visited the abortion clinic in Beek where I used to work in the seventies. After entering the full waiting room she said to me, ‘My dear Lord, what are all those young girls doing here?’ ‘Same as you’, I replied. ‘Dirty little dames,’ she said.” (Physician, The Netherlands)

“I had a patient about ten years ago who traveled up to New York City from South Carolina for an abortion. I asked her why she went such a long way to get the procedure. Her answer was that she was a member of a church group that didn’t believe in abortion and she didn’t want anyone to know she was having one. She planned to return to the group when she went back to South Carolina.” (Physician, New York)

“I once had a German client who greatly thanked me at the door, leaving after a difficult 22-week abortion. With a gleaming smile, she added: ‘Und doch sind Sie ein Mörder.’ (‘And you’re still a murderer.’)” (Physician, The Netherlands)

“My first encounter with this phenomenon came when I was doing a 2-week follow-up at a family planning clinic. The woman’s anti-choice values spoke indirectly through her expression and body language. She told me that she had been offended by the other women in the abortion clinic waiting room because they were using abortion as a form of birth control, but her condom had broken so she had no choice! I had real difficulty not pointing out that she did have a choice, and she had made it! Just like the other women in the waiting room.” (Physician, Ontario)

“A 21 year old woman and her mother drove three hours to come to their appointment for an abortion. They were surprised to find the clinic a ‘nice’ place with friendly, personable staff. While going over contraceptive options, they shared that they were Pro-Life and disagreed with abortion, but that the patient could not afford to raise a child right now. Also, she wouldn’t need contraception since she wasn’t going to have sex until she got married, because of her religious beliefs. Rather than argue with them, I saw this as an opportunity for dialogue, and in the end, my hope was that I had planted a ‘healing seed’ to help resolve the conflict between their beliefs and their realities.” (Physician, Washington State)

“I had a 37 year old woman just yesterday who was 13 weeks. She said she and her husband had been discussing this pregnancy for 2-3 months. She was strongly opposed to abortion, ‘but my husband is forcing me to do it.’ Naturally, I told her that no one could force her into an abortion, and that she had to choose whether the pregnancy or her husband were more important. I told her I only wanted what was best for her, and I would not do the abortion unless she agreed that it was in her best interest. Once she was faced with actually having to voice her own choice, she said ‘Well, I made the appointment and I came here, so go ahead and do it. It’s what’s best.’ At last I think she came to grips with the fact that it really was her decision after all.” (Physician, Nevada)

“We have anti-choice women in for abortions all the time. Many of them are just naive and ignorant until they find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. Many of them are not malicious. They just haven’t given it the proper amount of thought until it completely affects them. They can be judgmental about their friends, family, and other women. Then suddenly they become pregnant. Suddenly they see the truth. That it should only be their own choice. Unfortunately, many also think that somehow they are different than everyone else and they deserve to have an abortion, while no one else does.” (Physician, Washington State)

Although few studies have been made of this phenomenon, a study done in 1981 (1) found that 24% of women who had abortions considered the procedure morally wrong, and 7% of women who’d had abortions disagreed with the statement, “Any woman who wants an abortion should be permitted to obtain it legally.” A 1994/95 survey (2,3) of nearly 10,000 abortion patients showed 18% of women having abortions are born-again or Evangelical Christians. Many of these women are likely anti-choice. The survey also showed that Catholic women have an abortion rate 29% higher than Protestant women. A Planned Parenthood handbook on abortion notes that nearly half of all abortions are for women who describe themselves as born-again Christian, Evangelical Christian, or Catholic. (4)

According to a 1987 article, Abortion Clinics’ Toughest Cases,(5) “Physicians and clinics frequently terminate pregnancies for women who believe abortion is ‘murder’ and ‘a sin’ but who are not anti-abortion activists. Demonstrators, organizers, and leaders in the [anti-abortion] movement are seen less frequently, ranging from perhaps once or twice a month to a few times in the course of a professional career.” The article contained the following anecdotes:

An administrator at a Missouri clinic recalled a woman blurting out in the recovery room, “It should be illegal.” The other women’s mouths fell open, said the administrator. “They couldn’t believe it.”

The medical director of an Indianapolis clinic recalled one prospective patient who phoned to ask whether the clinic had a back door. He said no. How, she asked, could she get inside without being seen by fellow picketers outside? Pointing out that two orthopedists practiced with him, the doctor told the woman “she could limp and say she was coming to see the orthopods.”

The medical director at a Dallas abortion clinic told this story: A white woman from an affluent north Dallas neighborhood brought her black maid in for an abortion and paid for it. While the maid was in a counseling session, a commotion was heard in the waiting room outside. The maid’s employer was handing out anti-abortion leaflets to other women waiting for abortions.

From a clinic director in a mid-western state: “One of the most remarkable cases was a woman who came [from another part of the state] and said she was the Right-to-Life president in her county. ‘But,’ she said, she ‘had become pregnant and had to have an abortion.'”

From a counselor in Virginia: “[The patient] was disturbed and upset and insisted she couldn’t carry the pregnancy to term. She opposed abortion — and in fact had picketed this very clinic — [but] felt the abortion was something she had to do.”

Many anti-choice women are convinced that their need for abortion is unique — not like those “other” women — even though they have abortions for the same sorts of reasons. Anti-choice women often expect special treatment from clinic staff. Some demand an abortion immediately, wanting to skip important preliminaries such as taking a history or waiting for blood test results. Frequently, anti-abortion women will refuse counseling. Some women insist on sneaking in the back door and hiding in a room away from other patients. Others refuse to sit in the waiting room with women they call “sluts” and “trash.” Or if they do, they get angry when other patients in the waiting room talk or laugh, because it proves to them that women get abortions casually, for “convenience”.

A few behave in a very hostile manner, such as calling clinic staff “murderers.” Years ago, a clinic counselor in British Columbia told me that one of her patients went into the procedure room apparently fine with her decision to have an abortion. During the abortion, at a stage when it was too late to stop the procedure, the woman started screaming “You murderers!” and other invectives at everyone in the room.

A few doctors actually refuse to provide abortions to anti-choice women for liability reasons. In the words of a Kansas physician:

“Early in my career, I thought I was obligated to provide an abortion for every woman who arrived at my doorstep requesting an abortion. My experience in general medicine, surgery, and abortion has led me to believe differently. Not inadvertently, women give either me or my staff an uneasy feeling about their ambivalence or their anxiety about the abortion process. Since I have never been sued for an abortion I did not perform, my policy is to acknowledge my gut feeling, which is more often right than wrong.”

A clinic counselor from Georgia stated:

“I have long felt that anti-abortionism is a psychological contraindication to the abortion procedure. And that we don’t have to give everyone who asks an abortion. An anti-abortion woman is likely to be uncooperative and will probably not follow post-op instructions or instructions on how to deal with complications. There is actually a case where an anti-abortion patient failed to go as directed to Emergency for an unrelated complication. She ended up dying, and her family sued the physician and badgered him publicly. Additionally, if you have a complication that day, it will be the anti-abortionist. I’m not talking about the patient who says, ‘I was against abortion until it happened to me’, or ‘I’m really against abortion, but I have to do this’. I’m talking about the picketer, the activist, the totally anti-creature who will come back to haunt us.”

In fact, an anti-abortion organization called Life Dynamics Inc., of Denton Texas, specializes in malpractice suits against abortion providers. They advertise for and exploit women who regret their abortion decision or who had complications, and try and persuade them to file suit against the doctor or clinic. Many of these women are vulnerable and suffer from emotional problems, but others are anti-abortion, or at least very ambivalent about their decision to have an abortion. The message that abortion is murder has had a profound influence on them, and it may leave them with a legacy of guilt and shame after their abortion, too often borne alone and in silence. When these women find themselves unable to cope with their abortions, they may look for somebody else to blame, and doctors become a convenient scapegoat.

At times, clinic staff understandably become frustrated and angry when they have to deal with abusive, hostile, or hypocritical patients. And it is rare for anti-choice women to express appreciation for the service they’ve received. But most clinics perform abortions on anti-abortion women because they feel it’s their obligation to help all women. They provide more thorough and specialized counseling to these women to ensure they take ownership of their decision, as far as possible. Here’s a couple of examples of counseling techniques:

“When a patient comes in with my ‘favorite’ sentiment: ‘The only moral abortion is my abortion,’ I try to expand her understanding that a few more of us have had and deserve a ‘moral’ abortion. When a woman expands her need for care beyond herself, you no longer have an ‘anti’.” (Clinic Administrator, Louisiana)

“Sometimes I say to patients who have that ‘I have no choice, I know I’ll regret it, just do me’ attitude: ‘You may not care, but we do. We only do abortions on women who want our services. We will not knowingly contribute to any possible trauma of any woman.’ They seem surprised that we care how we do our work, but they also accept it.” (Counselor, New York)

Some anti-choice women who have abortions do make peace with their decision and even become pro-choice, or at least more forgiving of other women seeking abortions. A Louisiana patient who was anti-choice before her abortion, wrote a warm and grateful thank-you letter to the clinic, admitting that she had been a hypocrite:

“I never dreamed, in my wildest nightmares, that there would ever be a situation where I personally would choose such an act. Of course, we would each like to think that our reasons for a termination are the exception to the rule. But the bottom line is that you people spend your lives, reputations, careers and energy fighting for, maintaining, and providing an option that I needed, while I spent my energy lambasting you. Yet you still allowed me to make use of your services even though I had been one of your enemies. You treated us as kindly and warmly as you did all of your patients and never once pointed an ‘I told you so’ finger in our direction. I got the impression that you cared equally about each woman in the facility and what each woman was going through, regardless of her reasons for choosing the procedure. I have never met a group of purely non-judgmental people like yourselves.”

On occasion, an abortion turns out to be a momentous, life-affirming experience for an anti-choice woman. A doctor from a north-western state shared the following personal story with me:

“I was born into a very Catholic family, and was politically pro-life during college. After dating my first real boyfriend for three years, we broke up, and the day my boyfriend moved out, I discovered I was pregnant. It was an agonizing decision, and something I never thought I would do, but I decided an abortion was the only realistic option. Thanks to Planned Parenthood counseling, I worked through some very tough conflicts within myself. I had to learn that my decision was a loving one. That ‘my god’ was actually a loving and supportive god. And that men don’t have to make this decision, only women do. That it is a very personal, individual decision. I had to own it. I became much more compassionate towards myself and others as a result of my experience. Two years later I began medical school. When it came time to choose a practice, an abortion clinic opportunity came up. In working there, I began to feel that this was my calling. Having been in my patients’ shoes, and coming from an unforgiving background, I could honestly say to patients, ‘I know how you feel.’ Deciding to have an abortion was THE hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life. Yet it has brought me the greatest transformation, fulfillment, and now joy. I am a more loving person because of it, and a better doctor for having experienced it. I love the work that I do, and the opportunity to support women seeking to end an unwanted pregnancy. My patients and my work are life’s gifts to me, and I think my compassion and support are my gifts in return.”

[abbey1227]

Dec 2, 2022 19:24:37 GMT merh said:

“The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion”
When the Anti-Choice Choose
By Joyce Arthur

we can talk ourselves into and justify just about anything

[merh]

Dec 1, 2022 12:57:31 GMT abbey1227 said:

Dec 1, 2022 8:37:50 GMT merh said:

Every feed the crows?
They are fascinatingly smart & fun creatures.

unlike most people you bump into

It's interesting because I live in an apartment so the crows get friendly, then overcautious, work back to friendly. I figure it has to do with other people. 
If someone disturbs them, they get skittish.

Like this morning.
Not a crow in sight.

Yesterday I no sooner put stuff out & they were there grabbing stuff. 

We went out Wednesday & saw a crow with one leg at the water in the street a block away. Sis noticed it had 2 hot dog chunks.  It put one down to drink so it must have swallowed the other one. 

[merh]

Dec 3, 2022 2:19:54 GMT abbey1227 said:

Dec 2, 2022 19:24:37 GMT merh said:

we can talk ourselves into and justify just about anything

That's the point.
Many of these pro-life/anti abortion types insist abortion is murder,  but if they need one, there is a perfectly valid reason.

Their exception is the only valid exception

[abbey1227]

Dec 3, 2022 9:06:23 GMT merh said:

Dec 3, 2022 2:19:54 GMT abbey1227 said:

we can talk ourselves into and justify just about anything

That's the point.
Many of these pro-life/anti abortion types insist abortion is murder,  but if they need one, there is a perfectly valid reason.

Their exception is the only valid exception

I know. That's a given.......just like the same people argue about all of these human 'rights' they demand........but not for a fetus before it pops out

We're all like that to some extent

[merh]

Jezebel
Activists Are Trying to Ban Abortion Pills in Blue States, Forcing Patients to Face Protesters
Susan Rinkunas
Mon, December 12, 2022 at 1:55 PM

People in blue states might recognize the threat of Congress passing a nationwide abortion ban under a Republican president in, say, 2025—but two recent under-the-radar actions on abortion pills underscore that no zipcode is safe from Republicans post-Roe v. Wade.

In November, anti-abortion activists filed a lawsuit asking the federal courts to revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, the first drug used in a medication abortion. Days later, a different group filed a citizen petition with the FDA in which it weaponized environmental regulations to argue that patients need to bag up the products of conception and return them to abortion providers to dispose of as medical waste.

It’s been obvious for some time that medication abortion would be “the next phase of the battle” for anti-abortion activists, said Greer Donley, associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School. “They’re trying to do whatever they can to go after pills,” she told Jezebel. “I’m not surprised at all—that doesn’t mean I’m not worried.”

While Donley called the claims in the Texas lawsuit “frivolous,” this is the effort she’s most worried about, because it could result in a nationwide ruling that makes the pills much harder to access in blue states. “We’re talking about the potential to end access to medication abortion nationwide—or to mifepristone at least,” Donley said.

The case was filed in a district with a particularly rogue Trump-appointed judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk—who’s so wild that he issued a ruling in 2021 forcing the Biden administration into negotiations with Mexico over border policy/—/and the appeals courts above that are the ultraconservative Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court. The outcome does not look good. “It doesn’t take that much at this point [to get an anti-abortion ruling],” she said.

“If this lawsuit is successful, it’s going to be a real shot—not even a warning shot, just a shot—showing everybody how seriously the anti-abortion movement takes this stuff,” she said.

Donley doesn’t believe people are prepared for a possible nationwide ruling resulting from the Texas case, which could happen in the coming weeks or months. She said the fact that it’s flying under the radar is “very worrisome.” The capture of the federal courts means conservatives could effectively ban a method of abortion without passing a single law, and without much news coverage in the lead-up.

The impact of a possible mifepristone ban
Since it’s FDA-approved through 10 weeks of pregnancy, medication abortion with mifepristone is becoming increasingly popular. In 2020, abortions with pills made up a staggering 54 percent of abortions done in medical settings (that’s not counting people who did their own medication abortions outside the medical system).

If Judge Kacsmaryk issues a nationwide ruling revoking the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, it would ban healthcare providers from prescribing it for abortion. (The drug is also sold as Korlym to treat Cushing’s syndrome.) Even people seeking care in states where abortion is still legal wouldn’t be able to get the pills from brick-and-mortar clinics or from telemedicine services. The only option would be Aid Access, based in Europe, or word-of-mouth networks.

People self-managing might move to misoprostol-only abortions out of necessity, and while that method is effective, it’s slightly less so than the two-drug combination. It’s also an off-label use of the drug, meaning it’s not FDA approved for that purpose. Because of that fact, it’s not clear if telehealth services would offer misoprostol-only abortions.

The possibility of telemedicine services halting care and clinics in blue states only offering procedural abortions would have ripple effects on access. “The waiting times that we see are going to balloon to the point where it’s really making abortion almost inaccessible throughout the country,” Donley said. “Not just for people in red states traveling, the people in New York wouldn’t feel safe…if the New York clinics are backed up, and you need an abortion, you’re not going to feel like you have access.”

And not only would wait times increase, but making people go to clinics for abortions they could have at home would also force them to face protestors. Medication abortion has been “harder to stigmatize in a lot of ways,” and the fact that people have their abortions at home is one reason why, Donley said.

Another attack from the 19th century that could ban all abortions
Donley said that beyond these federal efforts, state lawmakers will also target mifepristone in 2023, including attacks on even talking about abortion pills. It’s a play from the 1873 Comstock Act, a law that criminalized the mailing, possession, or sale of “obscene materials,” which included information about birth control and abortion.

In a chilling New York Times op-ed about the coming crackdown on abortion-related speech, legal scholars Michele Goodwin and Mary Ziegler explained that some activists argue Comstock is still in effect and that it trumps state laws protecting abortion. It’s a theory championed by Texas activist Mark Lee Dickson and lawyer Jonathan Mitchell as they have pursue local anti-abortion ordinances since 2019—most recently in New Mexico and Colorado. Mitchell, we should note, is the same lawyer who wrote the Texas bounty-hunter law that the Supreme Court upheld while Roe was still on the books.

In June, the National Right to Life Committee released model legislation that would define “aiding or abetting an illegal abortion” to include simply providing information about abortion. This is Comstock 2.0. South Carolina lawmakers introduced their version of it, and while the bill didn’t go anywhere in 2022, Donley thinks that will change next year.

“I think you’re going to see a swath of states pass ‘aiding and abetting’ abortion laws,” she said, This would be an effort to criminalize people who are spreading information about abortion pills, setting up “a big battle between the First Amendment and state lawmakers.”

But don’t let the fact that banned states are likely to pursue it fool you: This strategy could also have nationwide implications. The Comstock threat is buried as an argument in the Texas mifepristone lawsuit, Donley notes—look for “18 U.S.C. §§ 1461-62”—and if a judge takes it seriously, it has the potential to not just ban abortion pills in blue states, but procedural abortions, too.

“Comstock is really terrifying,” she said. That’s because any clinic that gets supplies shipped across state lines could be found in violation of the law. “If anyone were to find that that law is still active, that ends abortion nationwide—all abortion.”

Dickson has already passed resolutions in dozens of cities arguing that fetuses are people and abortion should be outlawed. But at some point since, the resolutions were changed to claim that clinics are actually violating Comstock. Currently, he’s pushing to have it passed in Pueblo, Colorado—despite lawmakers codifying the right to abortion in state law earlier this year. It reads in part:

“Federal law imposes felony criminal liability on every person who ships or receives abortion pills or abortion-related paraphernalia in interstate or foreign commerce, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 1461-62.”

Yes, it’s very ironic to see anti-abortion activists trying to claim there’s no First Amendment right to sharing abortion information when they have taken multiple free speech cases all the way to the Supreme Court. They’ve also relied on the free speech argument in order for pharmacists to refuse to dispense emergency contraception and even regular birth control, as Goodwin and Ziegler note.

But pointing out antis’ hypocrisy won’t solve the problem of having Trump-appointed federal judges who rule by fiat. These recent moves point out the movement’s real plans. “Their goal was never [just] to overturn Roe,” Donley said. “It was to end as many abortions as possible.”

[abbey1227]

Dec 13, 2022 1:26:45 GMT merh said:

Jezebel
Activists Are Trying to Ban Abortion Pills in Blue States, Forcing Patients to Face Protesters

Boo! Hiss!!

Now where's the over the counter availability for all of this stuff?

[merh]

Dec 13, 2022 4:22:32 GMT abbey1227 said:

Dec 13, 2022 1:26:45 GMT merh said:

Boo! Hiss!!

Now where's the over the counter availability for all of this stuff?

You don't think a drug to cause an abortion might need a doctor's supervision?

[abbey1227]

Dec 14, 2022 1:02:30 GMT merh said:

Dec 13, 2022 4:22:32 GMT abbey1227 said:

Boo! Hiss!!

Now where's the over the counter availability for all of this stuff?

You don't think a drug to cause an abortion might need a doctor's supervision?

it's a racket.

And I want all the REAL cold medicine back, too

[merh]

Dec 14, 2022 6:55:13 GMT abbey1227 said:

Dec 14, 2022 1:02:30 GMT merh said:

You don't think a drug to cause an abortion might need a doctor's supervision?

it's a racket.

And I want all the REAL cold medicine back, too

Cocaine?
Meth?