#apply this to other places - ones where abortion is banned or restricted - and we have an enormous rise in unwanted pregnancy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tomorrowusa · 8 months

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Need an OBGYN? Good luck finding one easily in a red state!

In conservative states, care delays largely stem from the fallout of the Dobbs decision last summer when the supreme court revoked the constitutional right to abortion. Facing possible lawsuits for providing abortion care, OB-GYNs in Texas, Florida, Idaho and elsewhere are choosing to relocate to more liberal states, while medical students are opting for other fields entirely. “Florida has become a place where it is unsustainable to be an OB-GYN,” said Stephanie Ros, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the University of South Florida who, until recently, ran the school’s OB-GYN residency program. For years, the program was among the nation’s top schools for abortion training, and was found on the prestigious Ryan list of the best family planning residency programs. But after the state banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, the designation was revoked. Applicant numbers subsequently declined dramatically, as skilled candidates took their talents elsewhere.

Ron DeSantis with his extremist agenda is turning Florida into a women's healthcare desert. Sadly, the same is also true in other states with hardline Republican governors.

In a national survey, 60% of medical students said they were unlikely to apply for residency in a restrictive state. “States with stringent abortion laws won’t align with my goals as a future OB-GYN,” said Rohini Kousalya Siva, president of the American Medical Student Association. “If young doctors want to … get the skills they need, then they have to go to states where they can access [abortion] training.” Verda J Hicks, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, described the trend as cause for concern about the “next generation of OB-GYNs”. Notably, fewer residents means fewer doctors on the floor. To remedy that vacuum, USF hired locum doctors, who Ros described as “the substitute teachers of the doctor world”. Still, routine care appointments at USF are significantly pushed back. In August, the earliest a new patient could book a prenatal visit was November. “We have people who … don’t get their first ultrasound until 30 weeks, because they just can’t get in,” she said. [ ... ]

When chronic diseases are not managed as well, the overall risk of any pregnancy goes up, explained Erika Werner, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Tufts medical center in Boston. “If you don’t have your first visit until 14 weeks, you don’t have the same access to prenatal testing. You may not have an early ultrasound that reveals a major structural problem,” she said.

It's ironic that Republicans are eager to turn women into baby making machines but are making it impossible to get proper prenatal care.

Women seeking reproductive care are heading to blue states and are putting a strain on services there.

Even parts of the country without abortion bans are struggling to keep up with care needs. Christina Han, the director of maternal fetal medicine at UCLA in California, pointed to the influx of out-of-state patients seeking abortion care and how it stretches the workforce thin. Han specializes in complex procedures like multifetal reduction – an operation that must be completed early in pregnancy. That time crunch means that if a patient travels to LA for urgent reproductive care, which Han says is happening with increased frequency, the hospital has to defer local patients’ scheduled operations, including terminations, that are not as time sensitive. “We have to tell our patient who is struggling with a miscarriage … that we just can’t get them in. And that is an emotional, physical burden for these patients,” said Han. Werner, who also chairs the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine’s health policy and advocacy committee, explained that this displacement effect is especially pronounced in states that directly border those with restrictive policies, and are now receiving the lion’s share of out-of-state patients. In Pennsylvania, which borders West Virginia, Stolfer remembers thinking about women in other states as she awaited care for her miscarriage. “It was one way that I was trying to make peace with how long it was taking,” she said.

Being an OBGYN was stressful even before the Republican SCOTUS decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

For years, studies have predicted that population rise paired with an ageing workforce would lead to gaps in women’s healthcare. Ruth Crystal of Stanford University also points to the high risk for medical malpractice litigation and demands for long and irregular hours as factors that steer people away from the field. “OB care is a 24-hour-a-day job,” she said. “Babies don’t come only between banking hours.”

So Republicans have made an already difficult job nearly impossible in some areas. As a result, maternal mortality rates are growing in the African-American community.

Nationwide, 36% of counties are maternity care deserts, meaning they lack any obstetric care facilities or providers, explains Amanda Williams, clinical innovations adviser at Stanford University’s California Quality of Care Collaborative. The affected populations are also disproportionately people of color, people with lower incomes and people in rural areas – groups that already face care inequities. In the US, Black women are experiencing soaring maternal mortality rates. “All of these things compound for poor maternal health outcomes,” said Williams. “When patients give birth in these maternity deserts, they have higher rates of preterm births and maternal deaths.” [ ... ] Werner believes the most critical fix is abolishing restrictive abortion laws and creating “parity across all states”. “It’s only when it comes to OB-GYN care that what you can get in one state is different than what you can get in another,” she said. “That just forever means that we’re going to have unequal care in different states.”

#dobbs v. jackson women's health organization #obgyn #shortage of obgyns in red states #women's healthcare #abortion #florida #republicans #the gop #the republican scotus #a woman's right to choose #the sanctity of reproductive freedom

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theivorybilledwoodpecker · 1 year

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Petition Text:

Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas started this petition to Attorney General of Texas Ken Paxton and 2 others

Hello, thank you for taking the time to read about this issue and support. We are the Esto’k Gna of Somi S’ek, the Original Peoples of so-called Texas. We have been here before any other group of people migrated or were forcibly displaced onto our lands. We aim to protect and live our Lifeways, while sharing with others about who we are. We are not protestors. We are protectors. We are carrying out the tasks given to us by our parents, our parents' parents, and the generations backwards and forwards. Today, we come to you to talk about so-called Texas and the various ways they continue to attack us: Native peoples, the land, the water, the air. We call on Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas and Brent Webster, First Assistant Attorney General to uphold and protect the Indian Child Welfare Act.

On September 1, 2021, Senate Bill 8 went into effect. This law bans access to people living in Texas to access abortion after 6 weeks. A point at which people don’t know if they are pregnant. It further criminalizes family or friends who help someone get an abortion after the 6-week restriction by allowing anyone to sue them and reap a $10k bounty. While this affects all people who are able to get pregnant, it disproportionately will have worse outcomes for Black, Native, and People of Color, who are already at the intersections of high criminalization and violence with lack of access to adequate health care.

A couple days later on September 3, 2021, a petition was filed asking the United States Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in Brackeen v Haaland, essentially asking them to overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act. The lawsuit is brought by Texas, Indiana, Louisiana, and individual plaintiffs alleging that ICWA is unconstitutional.

The two are connected because of money and land greed. When Native people are not wanting or able to see a pregnancy to term, and instead look towards releasing that pregnancy (get an abortion), they are denied access, criminalized, and/or told to “just give it up for adoption." This leads to Native children disproportionately being “adopted” by predominantly white families, disconnecting them from their traditions, teachings, and lands. Large amounts of money make this process happen, and in turn, the government continues with its goal to “kill the Indian, save the man” through threatening the safeguards the ICWA has enabled throughout the years. Safeguards that lawyers still circumvent.

Brief History on ICWA

The Indian Child Welfare Act was enacted in 1978 in response to the large number of Native children being separated from their parents, extended families, and communities at the hands of state child welfare and private adoption agencies. An ongoing legacy from when Native children were abducted by the church and government and placed into boarding schools. The ICWA sets federal requirements that apply to state child custody proceedings involving an Indian child who is a member of or eligible for membership in a federally recognized tribe.

Purpose

Essentially, the purpose of ICWA is to keep Native children within their families or tribal settings, recognizing not only the importance of keeping Native children in the safest homes, but also highlighting that what is best for a Native child is to remain with a family that will maintain and enhance those ancestral ties. In various Native communities across the world, we know that connection to the land is connection to ourselves and one another, so disconnection from the land is disconnection from ourselves and one another.

Actuality

To the white man and colonial society, a Native child has historically been treated as a thing--a pet or plant that can be taken, bought, uprooted, and placed into a new home where it will be trained to work or adapt to society’s norms. Historically, Native children were kidnapped and placed into boarding schools for the purpose of “Kill the Indian, save the man." Currently, the goal remains the same while the tactics have changed. ICWA created safeguards, but it also has its limitations. It is highly ignored by lawyers already, creating alternative routes of law to allow mostly white parents to “adopt” Native children.

We Esto’k Gna, like our relatives from other nations, have been deeply impacted by the kidnapping of our children in the “name of progress”. We stand with our relatives and demand that the ICWA be upheld and further that the government respect Tribal governance overall. The ICWA is a part of their machine. In it, they tell us the criteria for being an “Indian child” and how, when, and in what manner family and Tribes can get involved. We are Esto’k Gna, we are people of the land, we do not need the US or any other government dividing us up through blood quantum mentatilities, kidnapping our children, killing our women, taking our men, and desecrating our siblings who are Two Spirit, QTLBGI+. Overturning the ICWA is about land management. With the kidnapping of Native children through the adoption process, it disconnects them from their lands, from their families, from their traditions, from their creation. It is a current iteration of “Kill the Indian, save the man.” The "man" to be saved is a person that will live in their society, and think like them. With the severed connection to the land, that means less Native people to populate the tribe, to maintain their Lifeways, and to protect and defend the land from “development” such as pipelines, mines, and other “critical infrastructure” that is destructive to the land, waters, people.

This attack against ICWA is reflective of their thirst for land grab and energy consumption, which can further be seen through the over 28 laws waived in Somi S’ek (so-called texas) in the Valley in order to build their border wall. They waive their own laws in order to create areas known as “no mans’ land” where US Border Patrol and Homeland Security have ultimate jurisdiction. Included in the laws being waived are the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. Like ICWA, NAGPRA and AIRFA are meant to protect Native peoples and our traditional items, histories, Lifeways, land, water, and more, but because the US government wrote it, they can sidestep it at will with their word play and the power they have taken. There are many more of us “Indians” than they’ll ever recognize, due to kidnapping, boarding schools, adoption agencies, and the hoops people have to jump through in order to prove who we are, but we know. And they are scared. Which is why they are trying to overturn ICWA. Which is why we can’t let it happen. We must protect the few safeguards we have and we must demand for more. For our children, for ourselves, for the land, for the water, for the air, for the fires.

Sign this petition in support of ICWA and stay tuned for further updates.

#indian child welfare act #ICWA #native americans #Alaska Natives

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recentlyheardcom · 6 months

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LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — A Texas county near New Mexico — where abortion is legal — has banned helping people traveling to get an abortion in one of the newest ways conservatives are trying to restrict abortion access since the fall of Roe v. Wade.Lubbock County is the largest of four Texas counties that have now adopted a version of the measure, which would be enforced through lawsuits filed by private citizens against people who help women obtain abortions. It is the same legal mechanism Texas used to enact a strict abortion law in 2021 before the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the state last year to ban nearly all abortions entirely.Commissioners in the west Texas county adopted the measure 3-0 at a meeting Monday, rejecting some requests to postpone the vote.The ordinance "has many legal problems,” said Lubbock County Judge Curtis Parrish, the county's top elected official. “This ordinance, however, does not have a problem with its intent or the intent of those who are passionate about this."The measures expand on city ordinances rural Texas cities began passing in 2019 to ban abortion within their boundaries, even if the cities did not have a clinic performing abortions. Critics have attacked the campaign as an effort to intimidate women from seeking abortions in places where it remains legal.Mark Lee Dickson, a Texas pastor who has led the efforts, praised the vote.“Guys, I long for the day (when), coast to coast, abortion is considered a great moral, social and political wrong and is outlawed in every single state,” Dickson told commissioners.No violations of the travel prohibition have been reported in the counties with similar measures already on the books. The measures would not punish women who are seeking the abortion but would present legal risks to people who help transport them to get the procedure.Legal experts have questioned whether the ordinances could be enforced.“We haven’t had this kind of issue tested, so it’s really kind of a case of first impression,” said Seema Mohapatra, a health law expert and law professor at Southern Methodist University.The Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the ban or its implementation.Lubbock County has about 317,000 residents and far outnumbers the population of the three other Texas counties — Mitchell, Goliad and Cochran — that have approved the ordinance in recent months, with each county's population counting fewer than 10,000 residents. Highways through Lubbock County run to New Mexico, which has some of the most permissive abortion laws in the U.S.The ban does not apply to cities within Lubbock County, including the city of Lubbock, which has about 264,000 of the county's residents. Lubbock voters in 2021 adopted a similar measure.“Texans already live under some of the most restrictive and dangerous abortion bans in the country, yet anti-abortion extremists continue to push additional unnecessary, confusing and fear-inducing barriers to essential healthcare,” said Autumn Keiser, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas.Texas is one of 13 states that bans abortion at all stages of pregnancy. In August, a Texas judge ruled that the state's ban was too restrictive for women with pregnancy complications. But that ruling was swiftly put on hold following an appeal by the state.The Texas law was passed prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling that overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that allowed abortions nationwide.___An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that two New Mexico counties had also passed similar measures.

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manic-pixie-dick-girl · 2 years

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With the abortion debate growing again I need all my fellow progressives to remember: conservatives don't make decisions based on facts, they make them based on vibes.

Conservative reasoning is emotional rather than logical. If you think about it you already know this. You struggle to believe so many people genuinely thought Trump was a good idea in 2016. Because they didn't THINK it, they FELT that "making America great again" was a good thing to do. It felt good so they voted for that.

So apply this to the abortion debate too. "Killing babies is bad" is one hell of a strong vibe. You can't argue that banning abortions only bans safe abortions, because if they are coming from "killing babies is wrong" then they're not going to be convinced that doctors helping people kill their babies is better than people trying to do it themselves. You haven't won an emotional victory there, all you've done is compare two extremely awful vibes.

So what do we do? That's the problem isn't it. There's not many things that create stronger emotions in humans than babies dying. I'm thinking we need to stop such people from seeing abortions as baby-murder in the first place. Which will take too much time for Roe. I think our best bet is focusing more on the serious harm pregnancy and childbirth can cause, and making concessions around later term abortions. This is counting on enough people drawing a difference between embryos a week old, and a fully fledged newborn baby. I might be wrong about those numbers.

I think there are other specific lines that could work, but the overall strategy we should be using to talk to pro-forced-birth people is this:

1. Make emotional appeals on how much harm pregnancy and childbirth cause

2. Get them to make concessions on their hardline stance that abortions are always wrong.

Step 1 is simple, examples of pretty young white girls that die or nearly die during pregnancy/childbirth aren't hard to come by.

Step 2 is more complicated. We want to erode their ideas about abortion being wrong over time. So we want to start with getting them to agree on circumstances where abortions are okay. This could be when the pregnancy is the result of rape, or if it's medically necessary to save the pregnant person's life. Perhaps like the example I gave earlier, they can accept abortions in the first trimester, or at 10 weeks, or at least something.

You'll notice that Republicans are doing the inverse of step 2. They've been walking backwards which abortions are acceptable. "I know we said abortions at X weeks were acceptable, but the child already has a heartbeat by then. Isn't that wrong? Let's push the restriction back earlier." It's taken them decades to make repealing Roe achievable, and it will take decades for us to get far enough in the other direction that we can have the things we actually want, like unrestricted nationwide protection for abortions. It sucks that we have to make concessions. I certainly don't think abortions are baby murder, I don't think abortions should be restricted based on how long the carrier has been pregnant for at all, I certainly don't give a damn about whether it's medically necessary or not. But these concessions are how we stop Republicans shifting the public idea of what's acceptable to be even more anti-abortion, and start pushing it the other way.

PS - say mother not pregnant person btw, your conservative aunt will go off on a transphobic tangent otherwise. But we know that trans-masc people exist and give birth so I say pregnant people here.

#This was probably garbage I just wanted to put my thoughts on the whole thing down #I'm not even American btw so sorry if I got specifics wrong #But Roe matters to more than just America because culturally where America leads the rest of the West follows.#If America repeals Roe v Wade every country led by white people will see conservative Christian groups try to do it there too #Longpost

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fuckyeahtx · 3 years

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Letters From An American

Today in Fuck Abbott and the GQP Harder Than Ever Before Welcome to Fucking Gilead Edition

September 1, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Last night at midnight, a new law went into effect in Texas. House Bill 1927 permits people to carry handguns without a permit, unless they have been convicted of a felony or domestic violence. This measure was not popular in the state. Fifty-nine percent of Texans—including law enforcement officers—opposed it. But 56% of Republicans supported it. “I don’t know what it’s a solution to,” James McLaughlin, executive director of the Texas Police Chiefs Association, said to Heidi Pérez-Moreno of the Texas Tribune when Republican governor Greg Abbott signed the bill in mid-August. “I don’t know what the problem was to start with.”

Texas Gun Rights executive director Chris McNutt had a different view. He said in a statement: “Texas is finally a pro-gun state despite years of foot-dragging, roadblocks, and excuses from the spineless political class.”

The bill had failed in 2019 after McNutt showed up at the home of the Texas House Speaker, Republican Dennis Bonnen, to demand its passage. Bonnen said McNutt’s “overzealous” visit exhibited “insanity.” "Threats and intimidation will never advance your issue. Their issue is dead," he told McNutt. McNutt told the Dallas Morning News: "If politicians like Speaker Dennis Bonnen think they can show up at the doorsteps of Second Amendment supporters and make promises to earn votes in the election season, they shouldn't be surprised when we show up in their neighborhoods to insist they simply keep their promises in the legislative session.”

That was not the only bill that went into effect at midnight last night in Texas. In May, Governor Abbott signed the strongest anti-abortion law in the country, Senate Bill 8, which went into effect on September 1. It bans abortion after 6 weeks—when many women don’t even know they’re pregnant—thus automatically stopping about 85% of abortions in Texas. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Opponents of the bill had asked the Supreme Court to stop the law from taking effect. It declined to do so.

The law avoided the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision protecting the right to abortion before fetal viability at about 22 to 24 weeks by leaving the enforcement of the law not up to the state, but rather up to private citizens. This was deliberate. As Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern explained in an article in Slate: “Typically, when a state restricts abortion, providers file a lawsuit in federal court against the state officials responsible for enforcing the new law. Here, however, there are no such officials: The law is enforced by individual anti-abortion activists.” With this law, there’s no one to stop from enforcing it.

S.B. 8 puts ordinary people in charge of law enforcement. Anyone—at all—can sue any individual who “aids or abets,” or even intends to abet, an abortion in Texas after six weeks. Women seeking abortion themselves are exempt, but anyone who advises them (including a spouse), gives them a ride, provides counseling, staffs a clinic, and so on, can be sued by any random stranger. If the plaintiff wins, they pocket $10,000 plus court costs, and the clinic that provided the procedure is closed down. If the defendant doesn’t defend themselves, the court must find them guilty. And if the defendant wins, they get…nothing. Not even attorney’s fees.

So, nuisance lawsuits will ruin abortion providers, along with anyone accused of aiding and abetting—or intending to abet—an abortion. And the enforcers will be ordinary citizens.

Texas has also just passed new voting restrictions that allow partisan poll watchers to have “free movement” in polling places, enabling them to intimidate voters. Texas governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign that bill in the next few days.

Taken together with the vigilantism running wild in school board meetings and attacks on election officials, the Texas legislation is a top red flag in the red flag factory. The Republican Party is empowering vigilantes to enforce their beliefs against their neighbors.

The law, which should keep us all on a level playing field, has been abandoned by our Supreme Court. Last night, it refused to stop the new Texas abortion law from going into effect, and tonight, just before midnight, by a 5–4 vote, it issued an opinion refusing to block the law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent read: “The court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”

Texas’s law flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents, she points out, but the Supreme Court has looked the other way. ”The State’s gambit worked,” Sotomayor wrote. She continued: “This is untenable. It cannot be the case that a state can evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry."

The Supreme Court has essentially blessed the efforts of Texas legislators to prevent the enforcement of federal law by using citizen vigilantes to get their way. The court decided the case on its increasingly active “shadow docket,” a series of cases decided without full briefings or oral argument, often in the dead of night, without signed opinions. In the past, such emergency decisions were rare and used to issue uncontroversial decisions or address irreparable immediate harm (like the death penalty). Since the beginning of the Trump administration, they have come to make up the majority of the court’s business.

Since 2017, the court has used the shadow docket to advance right-wing goals. It has handed down brief, unsigned decisions after a party asks for emergency relief from a lower court order, siding first with Trump, and now with state Republicans, at a high rate. As University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck noted: “In less than three years, [Trump’s] Solicitor General has filed at least twenty-one applications for stays in the Supreme Court (including ten during the October 2018 Term alone).” In comparison, “during the sixteen years of the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations, the Solicitor General filed a total of eight such applications—averaging one every other Term.”

So, operating without open arguments or opinions, the Supreme Court has shown that it will not enforce federal law, leaving state legislatures to do as they will. This, after all, was the whole point of the “originalism” that Republicans embraced under President Ronald Reagan. Originalists wanted to erase the legal justification of the post–World War II years that used the “due process” and “equal protection” clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to apply the protections of the Bill of Rights to the states. It was that concept that protected civil rights for people of color and for women, by using the federal government to prohibit states from enforcing discriminatory laws.

Since the 1980s, Republicans have sought to hamstring federal power and return power to the states, which have neither the power nor the inclination to regulate businesses effectively, and which can discriminate against minorities and get away with it, so long as the federal government doesn’t enforce equal protection.

Today’s events make that a reality.

Worse, though, the mechanisms of the Texas law officially turn a discriminatory law over to state-level vigilantes to enforce. The wedge to establish this mechanism is abortion, but the door is now open for extremist state legislatures to turn to private citizens to enforce any law that takes away an individual’s legal right…like, say, the right to vote. And in Texas, now, a vigilante doesn't even have to have a permit to carry the gun that will back up his threats.

During Reconstruction, vigilantes also carried guns. They enforced state customs that reestablished white supremacy after the federal government had tried to defend equality before the law. It took only a decade for former Confederates who had tried to destroy the government to strip voting rights, and civil rights, from the southern Black men who had defended the United States government during the Civil War. For the next eighty years, the South was a one-party state where enforcement of the laws depended on your skin color, your gender, and whom you knew.

Opponents have compared those who backed the Texas anti-abortion law to the Taliban, the Islamic extremists in Afghanistan whose harsh interpretation of Islamic Sharia law strips women of virtually all rights. But the impulse behind the Texas law, the drive to replace the federal protection of civil rights with state vigilantes enforcing their will, is homegrown. It is a reflection of the position that Republicans would like women to have in our society, for sure, but it is also written in the laughing faces of Mississippi law enforcement officers Lawrence Rainey and Cecil Ray Price in 1967, certain even as they were arraigned for the 1964 murders of James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Henry Schwerner, that the system was so rigged in their favor that they would literally get away with murder.

When they were killed, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were trying to register Black people to vote.

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 1, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

So, nuisance lawsuits will ruin abortion providers, along with anyone accused of aiding and abetting—or intending to abet—an abortion. And the enforcers will be ordinary citizens.

Today’s events make that a reality.

When they were killed, Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were trying to register Black people to vote.

—-

Notes:

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/437665-texas-gop-leaders-drop-constitutional-carry-bill-after-gun-rights

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/16/texas-permitless-carry-gun-law/

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/31/1033068542/texas-voting-restrictions-bill-abbott-republicans

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/texas-abortion-supreme-court-roe-wade.html

Mark Joseph Stern @mjs_DCBREAKING: By a 5–4 vote, with Roberts joining the liberals, the Supreme Court REFUSES to block Texas' six-week abortion ban. Opinions here:

s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentclo…

3,936 Retweets5,180 Likes

September 2nd 2021

https://www.vox.com/2020/8/1/21350679/supreme-court-border-wall-trump-sierra-club-stay-stephen-breyer

https://www.vox.com/2020/8/11/21356913/supreme-court-shadow-docket-jail-asylum-covid-immigrants-sonia-sotomayor-barnes-ahlman

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#history #Texas #repressive legislation #abortion #women #women's rights #equal rights #voting rights #Texas Taliban

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phroyd · 4 years

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Oh My, what terrible timing, and what a great loss! Rest In Peace Justice Ginsburg, thank you for all you have done for our country! - Phroyd

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas.

The court, in a statement, said Ginsburg died at her home in Washington surrounded by family. She was 87.

"Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature," Chief Justice John Roberts said. "We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tired and resolute champion of justice."

Architect of the legal fight for women's rights in the 1970s, Ginsburg subsequently served 27 years on the nation's highest court, becoming its most prominent member. Her death will inevitably set in motion what promises to be a nasty and tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her, and it thrusts the Supreme Court vacancy into the spotlight of the presidential campaign.

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Just days before her death, as her strength waned, Ginsburg dictated this statement to her granddaughter Clara Spera: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

She knew what was to come. Ginsburg's death will have profound consequences for the court and the country. Inside the court, not only is the leader of the liberal wing gone, but with the Court about to open a new term, Chief Justice John Roberts no longer holds the controlling vote in closely contested cases.

Though he has a consistently conservative record in most cases, he has split from fellow conservatives in a few important ones, this year casting his vote with liberals, for instance, to at least temporarily protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation by the Trump administration, to uphold a major abortion precedent, and to uphold bans on large church gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic. But with Ginsburg gone, there is no clear court majority for those outcomes.

Indeed, a week after the upcoming presidential election, the court is for the third time scheduled to hear a challenge brought by Republicans to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. In 2012 the high court upheld the law by a 5-to-4 vote, with Chief Justice Roberts casting the deciding vote and writing the opinion for the majority. But this time the outcome may well be different.

That's because Ginsburg's death gives Republicans the chance to tighten their grip on the court with another Trump appointment that would give conservatives a 6-to-3 majority. And that would mean that even a defection on the right would leave conservatives with enough votes to prevail in the Obamacare case and many others.

At the center of the battle to achieve that will be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In 2016 he took a step unprecedented in modern times: He refused for nearly a year to allow any consideration of President Obama's supreme court nominee.

Back then, McConnell's justification was the upcoming presidential election, which he said would allow voters a chance to weigh in on what kind of justice they wanted. But now, with the tables turned, McConnell has made clear he will not follow the same course. Instead he will try immediately push through a Trump nominee so as to ensure a conservative justice to fill Ginsburg's liberal shoes, even if President Trump were to lose his re-election bid. Asked what he would do in circumstances like these, McConnell said: "Oh, we'd fill it."

So what happens in the coming weeks will be bare-knuckle politics, writ large, on the stage of a presidential election. It will be a fight Ginsburg had hoped to avoid, telling Justice Stevens shortly before his death that she hoped to serve as long as he did--until age 90.

"My dream is that I will stay on the court as long as he did," she said in an interview in 2019.

She didn't quite make it. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nonetheless an historic figure. She changed the way the world is for American women. For more than a decade, until her first judicial appointment in 1980, she led the fight in the courts for gender equality. When she began her legal crusade, women were treated, by law, differently from men. Hundreds of state and federal laws restricted what women could do, barring them from jobs, rights and even from jury service. By the time she donned judicial robes, however, Ginsburg had worked a revolution.

That was never more evident than in 1996 when, as a relatively new Supreme Court justice, Ginsburg wrote the court's 7-to-1 opinion declaring that the Virginia Military Institute could no longer remain an all-male institution. True, said Ginsburg, most women — indeed most men — would not want to meet the rigorous demands of VMI. But the state, she said, could not exclude women who could meet those demands.

"Reliance on overbroad generalizations ... estimates about the way most men or most women are, will not suffice to deny opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description," Ginsburg wrote.

She was an unlikely pioneer, a diminutive and shy woman, whose soft voice and large glasses hid an intellect and attitude that, as one colleague put it, was "tough as nails."

By the time she was in her 80s, she had become something of a rock star to women of all ages. She was the subject of a hit documentary, a biopic, an operetta, merchandise galore featuring her "Notorious RBG" moniker, a Time magazine cover, and regular Saturday Night Live sketches.

On one occasion in 2016, Ginsburg got herself into trouble and later publicly apologized for disparaging remarks she made about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

But for the most part Ginsburg enjoyed her fame and maintained a sense of humor about herself.

Asked about the fact that she had apparently fallen asleep during the 2015 State of the Union address, Ginsburg did not take the Fifth, admitting that although she had vowed not to drink at dinner with the other justices before the speech, the wine had just been too good to resist. The result, she said, was that she was perhaps not an entirely "sober judge" and kept nodding off.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Ruth Bader went to public schools, where she excelled as a student — and as a baton twirler. By all accounts, it was her mother who was the driving force in her young life, but Celia Bader died of cancer the day before the future Justice would graduate from high school.

Then 17, Ruth Bader went on to Cornell on full scholarship, where she met Martin (aka "Marty") Ginsburg. "What made Marty so overwhelmingly attractive to me was that he cared that I had a brain," she said.

After her graduation, they were married and went off to Fort Sill, Okla., for his military service. There Mrs. Ginsburg, despite scoring high on the civil service exam, could only get a job as a typist, and when she became pregnant, she lost even that job.

Two years later, the couple returned to the East Coast to attend Harvard Law School. She was one of only nine women in a class of over 500 and found the dean asking her why she was taking up a place that "should go to a man."

At Harvard, she was the academic star, not Marty. The couple was busy juggling schedules, and their toddler when Marty was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Surgeries and aggressive radiation followed.

"So that left Ruth with a 3-year-old child, a fairly sick husband, the law review, classes to attend and feeding me," said Marty Ginsburg in a 1993 interview with NPR.

The experience also taught the future justice that sleep was a luxury. During the year of Marty's illness, he was only able to eat late at night; after that he would dictate his senior class paper to Ruth. At about 2 a.m., he would go back to sleep, Ginsburg recalled in an NPR interview. "Then I'd take out the books and start reading what I needed to be prepared for classes the next day."

Marty Ginsburg survived, graduated, and got a job in New York; his wife, a year behind him in school, transferred to Columbia, where she graduated at the top of her law school class. Despite her academic achievements, the doors to law firms were closed to women, and though recommended for a Supreme Court clerkship, she wasn't even interviewed.

It was bad enough that she was a woman, she recalled later, but she was also a mother, and male judges worried that she would be diverted by her "familial obligations."

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is pictured in the justice's chambers in Washington, D.C., during an interview with NPR's Nina Totenberg in September 2016.

A mentor, law professor Gerald Gunther, finally got her a clerkship in New York by promising Judge Edmund Palmieri that if she couldn't do the work, he would provide someone who could. That was "the carrot," Ginsburg would say later. "The stick" was that Gunther, who regularly fed his best students to Palmieri, told the judge that if he didn't take Ginsburg, Gunther would never send him a clerk again. The Ginsburg clerkship apparently was a success; Palmieri kept her not for the usual one year, but two, from 1959-61.

Ginsburg's next path is rarely talked about, mainly because it doesn't fit the narrative. She learned Swedish so she could work with Anders Berzelius, a Swedish civil procedure scholar. Through the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, Ginsburg and Berzelius co-authored a book.

In 1963, Ginsburg finally landed a teaching job at Rutgers law school, where she at one point hid her second pregnancy by wearing her mother-in-law's clothes. The ruse worked; her contract was renewed before her new baby was born.

While at Rutgers, she began her work fighting gender discrimination.

The 'Mother Brief'

Her first big case was a challenge to a law that barred a Colorado man named Charles Moritz from taking a tax deduction for the care of his 89-year-old mother. The IRS said the deduction, by statute, could only be claimed by women, or widowed or divorced men. But Moritz had never married.

The tax court concluded that the internal revenue code was immune to constitutional challenge, a notion that tax lawyer Marty Ginsburg viewed as "preposterous." The two Ginsburgs took on the case, he from the tax perspective, she from the constitutional perspective.

According to Marty Ginsburg, for his wife, this was the "mother brief." She had to think through all the issues and how to fix the inequity. The solution was to ask the court not to invalidate the statute but to apply it equally to both sexes. She won in the lower courts.

"Amazingly," he recalled in a 1993 NPR interview, the government petitioned the United States Supreme Court, stating that the decision "cast a cloud of unconstitutionality" over literally hundreds of federal statutes, and it attached a list of those statutes, which it compiled with Defense Department computers.

Those laws, Marty Ginsburg added, "were the statutes that my wife then litigated ... to overturn over the next decade."

In 1971, she would write her first Supreme Court brief in the case of Reed v. Reed. Ginsburg represented Sally Reed, who thought she should be the executor of her son's estate instead of her ex-husband.

The constitutional issue was whether a state could automatically prefer men over women as executors of estates. The answer from the all-male supreme court: no.

It was the first time the court had ever struck down a state law because it discriminated based on gender.

And that was just the beginning.

By then Ginsburg was earning quite a reputation. She would become the first female tenured professor at Columbia Law School, and she would found the Women's Rights Project at the ACLU.

As the chief architect of the battle for women's legal rights, Ginsburg devised a strategy that was characteristically cautious, precise and single-mindedly aimed at one goal: winning.

Knowing that she had to persuade male, establishment-oriented judges, she often picked male plaintiffs, and she liked Social Security cases because they illustrated how discrimination against women can harm men. For example, in Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, she represented a man whose wife, the principal breadwinner, died in childbirth. The husband sought survivor's benefits to care for his child, but under the then-existing Social Security law, only widows, not widowers, were entitled to such benefits.

"This absolute exclusion, based on gender per se, operates to the disadvantage of female workers, their surviving spouses, and their children," Ginsburg told the justices at oral argument. The Supreme Court would ultimately agree, as it did in five of the six cases she argued.

Over the ensuing years, Ginsburg would file dozens of briefs seeking to persuade the courts that the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection applies not just to racial and ethnic minorities, but to women as well.

In an interview with NPR, she explained the legal theory that she eventually sold to the Supreme Court.

"The words of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause — 'nor shall any state deny to any person the equal protection of the laws.' Well that word, 'any person,' covers women as well as men. And the Supreme Court woke up to that reality in 1971," Ginsburg said.

During these pioneering years, Ginsburg would often work through the night as she had during law school. But by this time, she had two children, and she later liked to tell a story about the lesson she learned when her son, in grade school, seemed to have a proclivity for getting into trouble.

The scrapes were hardly major, and Ginsburg grew exasperated by demands from school administrators that she come in to discuss her son's alleged misbehavior. Finally, there came a day when she had had enough. "I had stayed up all night the night before, and I said to the principal, 'This child has two parents. Please alternate calls.'"

After that, she found, the calls were few and far between. It seemed, she said, that most infractions were not worth calling a busy husband about.

The Supreme Court's Second Woman

In 1980 then-President Jimmy Carter named Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Over the next 13 years, she would amass a record as something of a centrist liberal, and in 1993 then-President Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court, the second woman appointed to the position.

She was not first on his list. For months Clinton flirted with other potential nominees, and some women's rights activists withheld their active support because they were worried about Ginsburg's views on abortion. She had been publicly critical of the legal reasoning in Roe v. Wade.

But in the background, Marty Ginsburg was lobbying hard for his wife. And finally Ruth Ginsburg was invited for a meeting with the president. As one White House official put it afterward, Clinton "fell for her--hook, line and sinker." So did the Senate. She was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3.

Once on the court, Ginsburg was an example of a woman who defied stereotypes. Though she looked tiny and frail, she rode horses well into her 70s and even went parasailing. At home, it was her husband who was the chef, indeed a master chef, while the justice cheerfully acknowledged that she was an awful cook.

Though a liberal, she and the court's conservative icon, Antonin Scalia, now deceased, were the closest of friends. Indeed, an opera called Scalia/Ginsburg is based on their legal disagreements, and their affection for each other.

Over the years, as Ginsburg's place on the court grew in seniority, so did her role. In 2006, as the court veered right after the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Ginsburg dissented more often and more assertively, her most passionate dissents coming in women's rights cases.

Dissenting in Ledbetter v. Goodyear in 2007, she called on Congress to pass legislation that would override a court decision that drastically limited back-pay available for victims of employment discrimination. The resulting legislation was the first bill passed in 2009 after President Barack Obama took office.

In 2014, she dissented fiercely from the court's decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, a decision that allowed some for-profit companies to refuse, on religious grounds, to comply with a federal mandate to cover birth control in health care plans. Such an exemption, she said, would "deny legions of women who do not hold their employers' beliefs, access to contraceptive coverage."

Where, she asked, "is the stopping point?" Suppose it offends an employer's religious belief "to pay the minimum wage" or "to accord women equal pay?"

And in 2013, when the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, contending that times had changed and the law was no longer needed, Ginsburg dissented. She said that throwing out the provision "when it has worked and is continuing to work ... is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

She viewed her dissents as a chance to persuade a future court.

"Some of my favorite opinions are dissenting opinions," Ginsburg told NPR. "I will not live to see what becomes of them, but I remain hopeful."

And yet, Ginsburg still managed some unexpected victories by winning over one or two of the conservative justices in important cases. In 2015, for example, she authored the court's decision upholding independent redistricting commissions established by voter referenda as a way of removing some of the partisanship in drawing legislative district lines.

Ginsburg always kept a backbreaking schedule of public appearances both at home and abroad, even after five bouts with cancer: colon cancer in 1999, pancreatic cancer 10 years later, lung cancer in 2018, and then pancreatic cancer again in 2019 and liver lesions in 2020. During that time, she endured chemotherapy, radiation, and in the last years of her life, terrible pain from shingles that never went away completely. All who knew her admired her grit. In 2009, three weeks after major cancer surgery, she surprised everyone when she showed up for the State of the Union address.

Shortly after that, she was back on the bench; it was her husband Marty who told her she could do it, even when she thought she could not, she told NPR.

A year later her psychological toughness was on full display when her beloved husband of 56 years was mortally ill. As she packed up his things at the hospital before taking him home to die, she found a note he had written to her. "My Dearest Ruth," it began, "You are the only person I have ever loved," setting aside children and family. "I have admired and loved you almost since the day we first met at Cornell....The time has come for me to ... take leave of life because the loss of quality simply overwhelms. I hope you will support where I come out, but I understand you may not. I will not love you a jot less."

Shortly after that, Marty Ginsburg died at home. The next day, his wife, the justice, was on the bench, reading an important opinion she had authored for the court. She was there, she said, because "Marty would have wanted it."

Years later, she would read the letter aloud in an NPR interview, and at the end, choke down the tears.

In the years after Marty's death, she would persevere without him, maintaining a jam-packed schedule when she was not on the bench or working on opinions.

Some liberals criticized her for not retiring while Obama was president, but she was at the top of her game, enjoyed her work enormously, and feared that Republicans might not confirm a successor. She was an avid consumer of opera, literature, and modern art. But in the end, it was her work, she said, that sustained her.

"I do think that I was born under a very bright star," she said in an NPR interview. "Because if you think about my life, I get out of law school. I have top grades. No law firm in the city of New York will hire me. I end up teaching; it gave me time to devote to the movement for evening out the rights of women and men. "

And it was that legal crusade for women's rights that ultimately led to her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.

To the end of her tenure, she remained a special kind of feminist, both decorous and dogged.

Phroyd

#scotus #ruth bader ginsburg #rip

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crimsonherbarium · 3 years

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I’m sitting here thinking about the “Game of Thrones Effect” in fandom, which is the term I like to use to refer to fans conveniently forgetting the content of the source material in order to purity police content creators.

This is uniquely troublesome for The Witcher, specifically, because there are multiple canons, all of which are quite different from one another. The CDPR games (gritty as they are) are extremely sanitized compared to the original books by Andrzej Sapkowski. The Netflix series, which follows the storyline of the books (ostensibly beginning with Blood of Elves, although there’s some timeline fuckery going on that results in you seeing most of the prequel short stories acted out as well), is also remarkably more vanilla than the books.

So, since quite a lot of you have clearly either a) never read the books, or b) conveniently forgotten what happens in them, here’s a sample platter of what the canon has in store for you.

(Blanket CW for rape, underage, incest, abortion, miscarriage, violence/gore, and just about everything else under the sun. Blanket spoiler warning for The Witcher books and also, presumably, future seasons of the Netflix series.)

Most of the high-trigger-potential things that happen in The Witcher happen to Ciri, who is 11-15 during the events of the books. You’ll find that:

She gets raped or almost raped by just about every man she meets. In fact, the threat of rape is constant for any woman who’s “onscreen” for more than 0.5 seconds, sorceresses included. It’s clear in reading the prose that Sapkowski doesn’t think much of women, but like some other creators I could mention, he wanders around considering himself a feminist. My personal feelings about the old man aside, there truly is a staggering amount of rape in these books. I started counting how many pages between instances at one point because I was flabbergasted by how much there was, and the count rarely went higher than 3.

In one instance, Ciri is being raped by one of her “friends,” a member of the Rats. Mistle pulls the boy off her and yells at him. She then proceeds to climb into bed with Ciri and rape her herself.

The majority of the plot centers around Ciri’s bloodline, and the various rulers of the Continent (including/especially her father), who intend to force her to bear children for them.

Vilgefortz plans to extract her uterus by force to use it his own way. We get as far as seeing her in the fucking stirrups for this, iirc. It’s quite graphic.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

Let’s talk about Milva, one of our other female leads. Partway through the story, Milva reveals that she is pregnant. Our male leads (notably Geralt, Regis, and Cahir--I forget if Jaskier was present for this conversation) have a long discussion while she is sleeping over whether or not they should force her to abort the baby, or terminate her pregnancy without her knowledge. After a while, they decide to let her keep it. She later is struck in the abdomen by an arrow and loses the baby anyway.

Rape and violence towards women aside, the world of The Witcher itself is dark. One of the earliest short stories (you’ll remember the Striga) was set in motion by Foltest impregnating his own sister. Other repetitive themes are abuse of every kind and manipulation. Mages are forced into sterilization in exchange for their power. Pretty much any use of magic begets a consent issue of some kind.

So what’s your point? you say, as I’m sitting here typing this.

My point is that, when you apply incredibly tight, almost puritanical restrictions to content for a fandom event (particularly one where the participants were encouraged to sign up before the restrictions were revealed), you’re creating an event where creators...can’t include any aspect of the canon when they’re creating. That’s what’s so incredibly laughable to me about this entire situation. The people writing the restrictions have clearly never read the books, or paid a whit of attention when playing the games. They even banned violence. Violence. From a Witcher exchange. You’re kidding, right?

TL;DR: if you’re going to harass someone for including non-con, incest, abuse, violence, or anything else in a Witcher fic, you’d better point the finger at old man Sapkowski first. It’s ridiculous to blanket label darkfic as “problematic” in the first place, and even more so when the fucking CANON is darker than most of the fics people are writing.

TL;DR, TL;DR: Do the Fisstech and Succubi Exchange instead.

#yes this is about the eskel big bang #i honestly can't stop laughing #what a joke #go participate in the fisstech and succubi exchange instead

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gra-sonas · 4 years

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The Roswell, New Mexico Abortion Storyline Is Just As Timely As Ever

Showrunner Carina Adly MacKenzie and actor Lily Cowles 'had to fight' to bring Isobel's raw narrative to TV screens

Make no mistake: Roswell, New Mexico is, in many ways, a fantasy. But in the story of three humanoid aliens finding a new sense of home after being abandoned on earth, and of the people they love and who love them, there are plenty of opportunities to tell real-world stories, too.

Take the character of Isobel Evans (Lily Cowles): In the CW show’s second season, she learns that she is pregnant by her villainous ex-husband, but feels like she has few options available to her. She can’t go to a doctor, she reasons, because her body is not of this world and doing so would risk her discovery. And she opts not to confide in her family, or anyone else she knows. Instead, Isobel decides to take a poison specifically designed to shut alien bodies down, despite receiving cautionary visions from her late brother Max (Nathan Parsons) warning her against it. What results is a self-induced abortion with potentially disastrous consequences — and a story that showrunner Carina Adly MacKenzie, who co-wrote the episode in response to the so-called “heartbeat bills” that conservative lawmakers tried to pass in states like Georgia and Ohio, hopes will resonate with viewers in a particularly timely way.

In telling this story, Roswell, New Mexico joins at least 43 other TV shows that featured abortion storylines in 2019. Isobel’s experience includes a particularly rough set of barriers, albeit fantastical ones, that complicate her ability to receive medical care. In that way, she mirrors the people who live in abortion deserts, or in states that mandate restrictive waiting periods and other invasive hurdles that many individuals living paycheck-to-paycheck simply can’t afford to broach. In March alone, lawmakers in Texas, Ohio, and Iowa have tried to use the current coronavirus pandemic as cause to ban abortion care by deeming it an “elective” and “non-essential” procedure. But how can a service that has the potential to change the trajectory of someone’s life forever be defined as “non-essential?”

The Roswell, New Mexico team kept the people who might be denied choice-affirming care in mind as they worked on what would eventually become the third episode of Season 2. MTV News spoke with Adly MacKenzie and Cowles about their supernatural allegory for the issues at stake, how it feels that this episode is airing at a time when abortion access is visibly under attack in the United States, and science fiction’s legacy of tackling controversial topics.

MTV News: How did you and the writers decide to tell this story?

Carina Adly MacKenzie: There wasn't a plan in place last season for Noah impregnating Isobel. This was something that was really born out of wanting to speak to what it looks like when someone feels like they have to take desperate measures to save their own life, whether that's their actual physical life or the kind of life that they're choosing to have. That's the story that we're trying to tell with Isobel. It's really about her being unable to access the care that she needs through medical professionals, and doing something very, very dangerous and very, very scary to protect her own bodily autonomy and her own agency, which has been taken from her for a very long time.

Lily was the first phone call that I made, and she was at first a little bit freaked out by it. I was like, “I'm not sure that this is something I want to tackle. I'm thinking about it and then I want to put it in your head and see what you think.” She circled back to me later and was like, “Let's do it.”

Lily Cowles: I remember this moment so well. She called me and she's like, "Listen, I have an idea for Isobel and I want to run it by you because it's no small thing." And it knocked the wind out of me when she told me. For a moment I had this resistance because I knew what it was going to take to go there as an actor and to put your character through that. But Carina was very sensitive about it and told me, "I want you to think about this and take some time and tell me what your thoughts are." It was really intimidating, but I knew that it was extremely important. And so I called her the next day and I said, "We’ve got to do it."

MTV News: That Isobel tries to self-induce an abortion because she can't access care is an allegory in a sci-fi setting, but it has very real world parallels, and very real world stakes. One report from the Guttmacher Institute found that the number of attempted self-induced abortions may be on the rise, likely because people feel like they have few resources or options. With that in mind, how did you draw the line between fantasy and reality?

Cowles: It is absolutely allegorical with Isobel. She's an alien, and she can't get medical help because she has a different biology. And yet this is the reality that so many women have faced in a very real way. There are so many women who face this and I think that was the reason we felt we really needed to tell this story.

Adly MacKenzie: I think it's a very real story. We have Isobel taking alien poison but the metaphor is right there. It's not a leap to imagine a woman in this situation and what measures she might take. The story is about an alien who can't go to a normal hospital, but it's also about a woman who can't afford a $400 procedure, or a teenager who can't tell her parents, or someone in Texas right now where abortion is being halted because it's considered an elective, non-essential surgery during this pandemic, which could go on for months and months and months. Anybody in any of those scenarios could become desperate.

Cowles: There's a real stigma around this subject and it's such a hot-button political issue for so many people. Ultimately it's the most personal situation that someone can be in. In my opinion, it's absolutely the business of the person that's just going through it and it is not something that the nation needs to be commenting on.

Adly MacKenzie: We did try to make Isobel's story mirror reality. There’s a lot of blood involved and we had to fight to be able to show that on TV. We wanted to show the ugliness of what it really looks like on TV because we wanted to make sure that we weren't telling a story that sugarcoats the experience in any way or that makes it seem like it's safe to try this at home without medical help. Were she not in a sci-fi situation, she says, “I would be a statistic.”

Cowles: We felt an obligation to tell this story hopefully so that we could say “you're not alone” to people who have had to go through something like this, who are facing this.

MTV News: The fact that Isobel tries to self-induce without medical supervision is important to distinguish, because statistically, a medically-supervised abortion is one of the safest procedures there are. How did you make sure that you were telling a story about a dangerous situation as responsibly as you could?

Cowles: We're taking on a very real story that many women face and deal with and an issue that still feels dangerous to touch. I think the story that we're looking to tell here is that women’s bodies are their own bodies. We're investigating the consequences of what happens when you take away female autonomy. And it's not pretty.

Adly MacKenzie: One in four women have gotten abortions in one way or another. She is doing this in an unsafe way and I think we're really clear about that in the episode and we make sure to drive home the idea that poison is not the method, but also that it is a very real story about what happens when people get desperate.

Cowles: This is a reality that we face as a consequence of putting restrictions on female reproductive health. This is the consequence. What will happen as the people will get into situations where they have unwanted pregnancies that maybe threaten their lives, threaten their futures in some way, and they have no opportunities to manage it because of restrictions that other people have put on them?

Adly MacKenzie: We're not telling the story for shock value. We really tried to avoid glamorizing any aspect of it. There was a point in which I was asked if I could make the blood glittery. I was horrified by that. I hope that people see the ugly side of it and understand the story that we're trying to tell.

MTV News: What was it like to work with each other on this episode specifically?

Adly MacKenzie: Lily is a person who puts a lot of care and a lot of thought into her work. She comes prepared. We had a lot of conversations. I think the thing that she brought to this was fearlessness. It's a very vulnerable story to tell. She's lying in a nightgown while people are applying fake blood to her inner thigh and she's crying and she's trying to get into this space of being in a lot of pain. It was a very solemn day on set and I think that Lily took it very seriously, but she approached it ready to be completely vulnerable.

MTV News: How did you make sure that Lily was supported throughout all the filming?

Adly MacKenzie: Jeff Hunt is a director I've worked with before and who the whole cast knew pretty well. He was somebody who our cast was comfortable with. I was also on set the entire time, and Deirdre, the other writer, was on set as much as she could be.

Cowles: I came into it already feeling I was in a very safe place. I think the way that Carina handled it in general, having called me and asked me to think about it, it was always something that I felt I had a certain amount of say in. It wasn't like, “You're doing this so good luck and have fun.” It was very much a collaborative experience where I got to feel like I was really at the helm in a lot of ways.

Adly MacKenzie: I'm very serious about making sure the actors are always feeling safe and feeling comfortable even when they're portraying unsafe and uncomfortable situations. I think she was surrounded by a lot of love and a lot of feminine energy. We asked her, “OK, what do you think Isobel would be wearing in this situation? How much do you think we should be seeing? How much are you comfortable with the positioning?” When you're shooting those difficult angles, you want to make sure that the actor has the choice. She definitely guides the situation.

MTV News: During the moments Isobel is imagining her brother Max, she tells him that her desire to induce an abortion isn't really a matter of motherhood. Can you walk me through why you decided to include those lines?

Adly MacKenzie: It wasn't about being selfish and it's not about whether Isobel wants to be a mother. It's about having agency over her body right now and about choosing the way that you want to become a parent if you do want to become a parent. We wanted to tell a story about choosing how and when your life takes big turns.

Cowles: I truly believe that Isobel wants to be a mother. I think she wants to have a family. If Noah hadn't been a psychopathic, serial-killing alien, she probably would've wanted to have kids with him. She might've been trying for a baby, but the way that her marriage turned out… Consent almost became a question for her.

Adly MacKenzie: She's reacting to something that she never really had a say in. Now she does have a choice, and she's making it. She's just in a situation in which making that choice isn't easy, when it should be.

Cowles: Being pregnant and having a child is probably one of the most wonderful things that a human being can do. And it is conversely maybe the most terrible thing that can happen to someone when it threatens their life or their future or their personhood. And I think that's what Isobel is facing with this is, “These are not the terms that I want. This is not how I want it to be. It’s not that I don't want to be a mother, but that I want to be a mother on my own terms.”

MTV News: This episode is airing concurrent to the fight to protect abortion access in states where lawmakers are trying to argue that the procedure is “non-essential.” Given that this episode was written in response to the Georgia bill that was eventually blocked, how do you feel about the continued timeliness of the issue?

Adly MacKenzie: It's always under siege. The people who want to ban abortion are always looking for a new reason. I also was shocked when I thought it was being considered a non-essential medical service. But then that shock turned into, “Of fucking course, the world is falling apart right now and this is what some people are thinking about.” It is a life-saving procedure always, every time. Sometimes it's about literally saving the mother's life. But it's also about protecting the lives that they're choosing and protecting the lives that they want to lead.

Cowles: We live in an age when particularly white men are trying to make decisions about female bodies. It seems like something that should've been resolved a long time ago. You can decide that you would never want to have an abortion and that is absolutely valid. Or you might need to have an abortion and you should absolutely be granted the ability to do that. It's sad at this point that we're still fighting this fight, but we have to keep fighting for it because having autonomy over one's health and one's body seems to me a very basic fundamental human right.

Adly MacKenzie: It's frustrating. When the heartbeat bill in Georgia didn't pass, I felt this immense sense of relief. But what's the next thing? And there's always something. With the Supreme Court as it stands right now, I don't know that we're going to see the end of this fight in our lifetimes. It seems like there's an endless battle against women having control over themselves and their own medical care.

MTV News: A lot of people believe that certain television shows shouldn't be political, but many elements in Roswell, New Mexico are really political. What responsibility do you think the show has to wade into the more obviously political waters?

Adly MacKenzie: I don't think the show is more political than our daily lives are. I just think it's more political than other shows are. I think other shows avoid the politics that we face on a day-to-day basis and we're just not doing the acrobatics to avoid it.

Cowles: It’s a responsibility to shed light onto all the different parts of the human experience. Some of them are really not pleasant. They're ugly and they're scary and they're raw. They make you uncomfortable. It is part of the work to represent that just as much as you represent how good it feels to be in love and to triumph over your woes. It's equally part of the human experience.

Adly MacKenzie: I don't necessarily think the show is there to push any agenda except for humanity — ironically, because we're literally dealing with actual creatures from outer space. But it's not about the politics, it's about the humanity. That's where we try to live in our storytelling.

Sci-fi, for as long as it's existed, has been about metaphor, has been about telling human stories in a fantastical way. Anybody who's a sci-fi writer will save that they're telling you a story that's a metaphor for real human emotion. The difference between that and what we do is that we are telling a story that's a metaphor alongside telling the story that's real life. Here, we’re telling a story about what it feels like to be an unwelcome alien on earth, and also telling a story about what it feels like to be an undocumented American in a border state. And we’re trying to tell it with compassion as opposed to spectacle.

~ MTV

#lily cowles #isobel evans #roswell new mexico #rnm spoilers #rnm 2x03 #carina mackenzie #rnm cast interviews

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feministstruggle · 5 years

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Abortion is a Woman’s Fundamental Right

https://feministstruggle.org/2019/05/20/abortion-is-a-womans-fundamental-right/

Our world is crying out as abortion bans are in sweeping through conservative parts of the country, particularly the southeastern United States, the historical site of much slavery and the largest African American communities, as well as a stronghold of white Christian patriarchy. While some women in the liberal northeast and west coast may never experience these bans, Black and U.S. Native American women (groups who researchers say have the highest risk of dying in childbirth) as well as poor, young, and rural women (who cannot as easily access affordable health care) will be primarily impacted by these bans. In addition, the Journal of Perinatal Education states that unintended pregnancies -- which abortion would allow us to stop -- are associated with increased likelihood of risk factors causing death in childbirth, which also happens to vary by state. Women will always attempt to perform abortions, whether or not the abortions are legal. Women die from both unintended pregnancies and attempted unsafe abortions all over the world, and lack of access to safe abortions (caused by outlawing abortion) puts them at risk. Therefore, the bans on abortion amount to the state-sanctioned murder of women, especially those of less social privilege. All of the country is ablaze with fury and apprehension, and we are seeing even women who were previously apolitical now come forward to speak with their families and communities on the right of a woman to abortion.

The male supremacist right wing sees women as vessels to produce the working class, soldiers to uphold their various patriarchal nationalisms — and not as full human beings unto ourselves! As radical feminists, we vehemently reject this ethos. These are the hateful convulsions of an anti-abortion movement that knows many of these bans are nearly impossible to enforce. This round of bans are purposely unconstitutional, designed to force a Supreme Court case that (they hope) would overturn Roe v. Wade. But we women won’t let them. We have a vast number of sympathetic medical personnel nationwide and can end unwanted pregnancies privately during the first 9 weeks with the medications misoprostol and mifepristone.

Abortion rights have been whittled away, step by step for decades, starting with the Hyde Amendment. Because legislators couldn’t take abortion away from us immediately, they have been doing it slowly. Parental Consent & Notification laws, TRAP laws, mandated sonograms/guilt trips/”waiting periods” — an astonishing array of laws designed to deprive us of our bodily autonomy. When Donald Trump took office, his Supreme Court picks were specifically for overturning Roe v. Wade, and one of his first executive orders was an attack on abortion. As Planned Parenthood Action Fund states: “The global gag rule was first introduced by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. On January 23, 2017, in one of his first acts as president, President Donald Trump reinstated and expanded the global gag rule. … The global gag rule prevents foreign organizations receiving U.S. global health assistance from providing information, referrals, or services for legal abortion or advocating for access to abortion services in their country — even with their own money.”

Trump’s executive order, which was essentially an imposed sanction on women’s bodies around the world, severely hampers women’s ability to obtain abortions and other sexual health care, regardless of legality in their own countries. It even prohibits health care providers’ ability to treat AIDS, a crisis which Trump boasted about attempting to fix. The terrible impact is felt “especially in places where maternal deaths, HIV rates and unmet need for contraception are unacceptably high. Communities have lost access to essential life-saving services such as HIV testing, antiretroviral medications, nutritional support, birth control and pregnancy care,” says Dr. Leana Wen, President of Planned Parenthood.

It’s a United States tradition for the ruling elite to practice human rights abuses overseas before bringing them home. This year, we are seeing a wave of abortion bans. The New York Times (pdf) has the rundown. As of May 2019, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi severely limited abortion rights to the first trimester. Alabama eliminated abortion rights entirely, even in cases of rape and incest. Utah, Arkansas, and Missouri all reduced abortion rights farther back into the 2nd trimester, away from the Roe v. Wade holding.

The bans are being met with fierce resistance. Kansas just added abortion protection to its constitution. New York enacted a law that will preserve access to abortions, protect medical professionals who perform abortions from being criminalized, allow medical professionals who are not doctors to perform abortions, and allow abortions to be performed after 24 weeks if the fetus is not viable or to protect the life of the woman. Vermont is about to pass a bill allowing abortions with “zero” limits, as a “fundamental right”, and prohibits government entities from interfering with or restricting access to abortion, “ensuring that any pregnancy may be terminated for any reason at any time”. Some Democrats called it “too far“! And this isn’t the first time Democrats started sounding like Republicans: in New Mexico, eight Democrats crossed party lines to defeat a pro-choice bill. Nor is it simply a matter of going “too far”. A milder law comparable to New York’s was proposed in Virginia by Kathy Tran, who immediately faced death threats, and the Republicans spread fake news that the bill was about legalizing “infanticide”. The Virginia bill removed some restrictions on abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy, allowed abortions during the second trimester to take place outside of hospitals, and made it so only one doctor would be needed to determine that pregnancy threatens the woman’s life or health.

We’ve never had full abortion rights. All the ways that the patriarchy nitpicks a woman’s right to abortion into “trimesters”, “medical” necessity, conditions of rape, harsher restrictions in some regions, etc, only serve to divide women and distract us from the fundamental right that women have to abortions on demand without apology, without approval, and without being treated as criminals.

Feminists in Struggle insists on ABORTIONS ON DEMAND with zero questions asked. The only condition should be the consent of the woman who is pregnant. We also demand an end to the petty restrictions and code regulations (TRAP laws) that specifically discriminate against pregnant women and abortion clinics. We won’t stop there. We demand safe abortion access for women both in the United States, where we are based, and everywhere else. But because patriarchy divides women, the women’s liberation movement is divided into various camps. The Democratic party soaks up most of women’s political energy, preventing us from experiencing our full potential as a movement.

You must be wondering: what can radical feminists do? What can WE all do about this? Especially while we are still living out the war on feminism by dominant forces in the transgender movement, positioning radical feminists as underdogs in any discussion on feminism? Ridiculous rhetoric we’ve been peddled about “pregnant people” instead of “pregnant women” is becoming “abortions for people” instead of “abortions for women”. We consider abortion a right of the female sex, but for us to say that in progressive circles will bring controversy and distractions that women can’t afford.

As radical feminists, we can utilize our position as the radicals and underdogs to push harder and farther than anyone else will. Our hearts are with the everyday woman. We will do what the long arm of the Democratic party would never do. We will demand ABORTIONS ON DEMAND WITHOUT CONDITION. Not to mention, free health care that includes abortions. And… END THE GLOBAL GAG ORDER! 100% of unwanted pregnancies are caused by MEN, yet no one holds the men responsible for the life-threatening condition of pregnancy!

If you join us at Feminists in Struggle, we will be able to organize marches for abortion rights and pressure legislators to secure abortion as women’s fundamental right. We can all strategize together. However, because our organization is young, what we want and what is feasible are two different things. We call for united mass action on the streets. We call for civil disobedience. We call for all women to speak up about abortion. We call for you and us to join the larger marches and apply pressure there for people to take up more radical positions.

We call for teaching women en masse how to use and smuggle the abortion pill, and perform menstrual extractions. We call for you, if you live in a state that protects abortion, to consider taking direct action to provide safe harbor for women seeking out of state abortions. Bring back the Jane Collective. We want to educate women about women’s self help groups who work to keep women’s health in women’s hands. Educate yourself and others on the use of plan B, a medication you can buy at the pharmacy that is effective in preventing pregnancy if taken within 48 to 72 hours following unprotected sex. Educate yourself and others on misoprostol and mifepristone, which can end unwanted pregnancies privately during the first 9 weeks. Educate women on preventing pregnancy and obtaining safe abortions. Spread the word to women affected by these bans not to sign any waivers when they get an abortion. You can also agitate and get previously apolitical women involved in the broader struggle. And of course… Join us as a member in F.I.ST’s Feminist Assembly!

Women are half the population. Women have the numbers. We will prevail! We have a few suggested chants and slogans: “Our bodies, our spaces, our sex based rights.” “My body, MY CHOICE!” “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries! “Women’s bodies are not incubators!” “It’s not a womb, it’s a WOMAN” “Abortion on demand, NO APOLOGY!” “Birth must be voluntary. Abortion is health care. Health care is a human right.” “Free Abortion on Demand!”

#radfem #abortion #abortion ban

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shotfromguns · 5 years

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Good, long thread by @TheMittani on Twitter on “neoconfederacy” in the South:

if you ever wonder why i got politically 'radicalized' it's because i grew up in alabama as an atheist child of two biochemistry professors; at 17 i graduated and moved away forever. reminder: Alabama came within 1.7% of sending a known pedo to the senate~

any '13th dimensional chess' tweets about how the AL leg composed this abortion ban to provoke a court fight has never met an actual neoconfederate this is what they want 100%, it's a white supremacist aristo fertility cult and all the moves make sense when understood that way

source: i have been to an unironic country club debutante ball in dear old mountain brook and folks have no idea how much intergenerational wealth transfer has carried over from the days of slavery in that society's upper class

for context, when i was in high school there were three country clubs, maybe 20k citizens, and zero black students; every street is named after a civil war battle, and 'houses' there would be called mansions anywhere else

best public schools in the state though~

folks have no clue how rich and well-educated the ruling class in alabama is, going to mountain brook means if you don't get into one of the better ivys you're probably a bitter slacker like me legislation like this isn't from stupid hicks, it's the goal

southern aristos can be incredibly intelligent and well-traveled and are all the more dangerous politically because they are happy to play dumb in public with the aw-shucks jesus loving hick routine in order to quietly run an antebellum society and pit poor whites against blacks

it's almost comically effective, I do this stuff all the time in Eve - say laughably wrong things, act like a fool, and then it's much easier to outmaneuver people. The most dangerous enemy is one who is comfortable with being publicly underestimated.

I mean to say, 'ha ha eat my ass look at me I'm so great at spaceship games', please interpret my above tweet as evidence of hubris and ignorance rather than giving up an actual tactic I've employed so often it's been nicknamed the 'tee hee, flounce flounce' by my chief of staff

'I'm the fucking Mittani, I know everything in this game,' another good one wearing red shirts? stupid gimmick, keep doing it because it's a stupid gimmick, it's far better for our competitors/enemies to see me as a joke luv2club? tee hee, flounce flounce, same shit

anyhoo yeah it's the same dance, play god-fearing jesus lover to keep the poor whites on your side, maintain that patriarchy with the complicity of ruling class women who enjoy the economic benefits of neoconfederacy, and live over the mountain so no one spots all the lexuses

it's interesting to see the term neoconfederate finally get some use but it implies that there isn't already an actual working confederate states of america right in front of everyone's eyes that's been there since reconstruction, none of that shit is an accident

if you put 'hail hydra' on statues in every town in the region you don't have to bother saying 'hail hydra' or announce in print that you're down with hydra, everyone who lives there gets it

the issue is not being part of a traitorous conspiracy against the united states government (i mean hydra, not the neoconfederacy, ha ha!) the problem comes when you state it where those not in on it can hear you. Viz: ”Alabama newspaper editor calls for Klan return to ‘clean out D.C.’”

i kind of like the hydra analogy for the neoconfederacy, because all this shit - 'states rights', 'pro-life', 'voter fraud', these disparate causes are actually all the same cause: the ~lost~ cause

southern politics makes a lot more sense when viewed through the lens of pro/anti-confederacy politics; confederate society is based upon a ruling gentry descended from the cavaliers see generally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed actual /aristos/ not merely rich people

so basically you have an entrenched aristocracy that traces their lineage back 10+ generations running a plantation society and fighting like fucking hell to maintain that privilege, privilege most people in the usa cannot even begin to imagine

generic usa high ~net worth individuals~ have nothing on the cunning and unity maintained by ancient proud cavalier aristocratic families in the south with shitloads of money who will do anything to protect the universe they and their forefathers have created (via slavery)

the whole 'the south will rise again' thing is a huge joke because the structure of the society immediately returned to functional slavery as soon as it could get away with it, the south already 'rose' after reconstruction, it's right in fucking the open

if they get away with the abortion thing, they'll gun for brown v board next; these people remember life before MLK and they have not forgotten or forgiven the civil rights movement those behind this aren't hicks, they very smart confederates acting like hicks to fool you.

many old privileged families come with a legacy and a purpose imposed on you from birth it's not a stretch of the imagination that the quest of a lot of these old aristo families is to restore the society to antebellum life and get their privileges (slavery) back

the civil war was only a few generations ago, these families have not forgotten and they have not let their children forget the monuments, the street named for war battles, that's why it matters still to them

southern aristos are pro-life because the whole point of the society is the poor whites fight the poor blacks, and restricting abortion = more labor and poverty to exploit by the gentry the goal of their flavor of white supremacy is about getting rich off slaves, not death camps

not that they have a problem with a death camp or three, it's difficult to communicate how utterly disposable the lives of people outside of their class are, this is a society whose rulers believe that god has anointed them to rule over their lessers

its not rocket science, you take a slaveholding landed gentry and take away their slaves and land (good!) that gentry is going to spend its time fanatically scheming to get its land and slaves back (bad, what we see in southern politics)

anyhoo what i'm saying is that this isn't about random kooks trying to put women 'in their place' (there's a bunch of them too, useful idiots) but part of a broad campaign across generations by a dispossessed cavalier nobility to get all their lost privileges (slavery) back

conveniently the rest of america doesn't have much of an entrenched aristo/gentry culture anymore so the maneuvers of the 'neo' confederates just look like random right wing lashing out rather than a deliberate series of moves to benefit the southern aristocracy

the reality of the modern confederacy reminds me a lot of 'The City and the City' in that it's clearly visible to those raised within it, yet its contour is completely alien to outsiders who don't know how to 'see' it the 'right' way.

shit like Roy Moore being a pedo but coming within 1.7% of winning a senate seat makes a buttload more sense than 'alabama voters will send anything not a democrat', Moore is a proud and loud confederate and Doug Jones is anti-confederate it's the confederacy - always.

Pro-life? Confederacy. State's Rights? Confederacy. Gun rights? Confederacy. Religious Freedom/Gay Cake Stuff? Confederacy. Anti-union? Confederacy. If you're a Cavalier or one of their foremen, it all fits~

Robert Caro basically spelled out in intricate detail how the confederacy works in his LBJ bios but particularly Master of the Senate, read these if you want a primer on actual power and its uses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Lyndon_Johnson

when LBJ shifted to supporting voting rights, the confederacy simply switched its support from the democrats to the republicans. it's a real thing and its moves make perfect sense once you grok the core motivations of the southern gentry and their henchmen~

you see this repeatedly through history where one side stops fighting after a victory and the other side loses but keeps trying to find ways to win, the Union torched the south and moved on, but the confederacy has /never stopped fighting/ using whatever means they have available

tl;dr "it's the confederacy, stupid" also explains those crazy 'obama is the antichrist' memes; if you're a confederate, a black president existing is against everything your flavor of pro-slavery jesus stands for

None of this thread really applies to Texas. I was born in Houston, moved to AL at 10; completely different culture in Texas. Going to rodeos, oil/cattle, science, ranching. When I say the 'South' I'm talking about the plantation society of the Cavaliers.

As a quick example of using the Lost Cause to understand Cavalier political behavior, Lindsey Graham's 'hypocrisy' makes perfect sense. He doesn't give a shit about spewing nonsense or lying to Yankees, all he cares about is Dixie. He's not dumb at all; the Union is his enemy.

Expanded May 17, 2019:

oh yeah and Mitch McConnell was born and raised in Alabama and then Georgia from 8yrs on, so heyoooo

look up how long jeff sessions family has been naming their kids after jefferson davis on his bio dixie is real; it's the confederacy, the political moves the cavaliers and their overseers are making on behalf of the lost cause as plain as day if you know what to look for

just gonna spend Friday night reading Albion’s seed to learn more fun ~cavalierfacts~ like how their royalist gentry is literally all one big interrelated family and coordinates retribution and uses debt to control the poor

“It is difficult to think of any ruling elite that has been more closely interrelated since the Ptolemies” holy lawl (it is a history insult as he’s basically calling the cavaliers a nest of outright incest, the Ptolemaic dynasty was Targaryen-style sibling marriage)

Hey guess what turns out the control of women is deeply ingrained in cavalier society because uh... kidnapping / human trafficking / sexual slavery and a massively skewed male to female ratio lovely people, these confederates

“These patterns did not develop by chance. Virginia’s great migration was the product of policy and social planning. Its royalist elite succeeded in shaping the social history of an American region partly by regulating the process of migration” (p 232) fucking hell it’s all here

May 22, 2019:

by req: another ‘understanding the confederacy’ thing, all the protest tweets saying “the cruelty is the point” are wrong, the point is opportunities for race-based policing (a la weed), disenfranchisement, reinforcing patriarchy, and more labor/babies to exploit + compliance

sure there’s a bunch of cruelty in there too but the whole thing is a means to the ends of rolling back the civil rights movement and restoring the structure of Dixie as the gentry/cavaliers prefer; the confederates may be slavers at heart but they’re not cartoon villains

(they're way worse)

In case I get hit by a bus, I currently think the concept of hegemonic liberty is the most misunderstood aspect of the cavalier mindset, so here’s three key pages from Albion’s Seed~

And the cavalier conception of condescension and deference as two sides of God’s hierarchy and order is a fracture point, that’s why incivility towards one’s ‘betters’ is so provocative - milkshakes would probably work over here, too

Also by hiding and lying about the existence of Dixie, they fragment their opposition into issue-based groups - pro-choice, gun control, voters rights, anti-racism - instead of each opposition group recognizing that they are fighting the same confederate foe

Not like they really hid that much, they had confederate flags flying over their capitols ever since the Civil War until recently, but the Union won the war and moved on, so folks think they’re fighting random bigots and not the CSA

May 23, 2019:

the lack of a concerted effort by the democratic party to win and develop victories in the south has allowed the bulwark of the RNC power to be unchallenged, if you erode the Dixie Wall in the Senate the republicans pretty much lose all their functional power

as the DNC is incompetent one doesn't need to rely upon them, state by state in Dixie voting rights and organization must be pushed to undermine the structure of confederate power, that's the fracture point, that and forcing their true nature as confederates into the open

I'll develop all this crap into more useful tactics on the upcoming blog thing but this is all just-in-case 'yo guys, if I get hit by a bus, take Albion's Seed, drive through Mountain Brook for proof of everything I'm saying (crestline doesn't count lawl) go fight hydra'

as someone will inevitably discover not EVERY street in Mountain Brook is named for civil war battles (there's a lot), the really old money lives on streets named for old british estates/towns + they're episcopalians (anglican 2.0) not baptists, of course

#US history #Slavery #Racism #Capitalism #Misogyny

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maxwellyjordan · 5 years

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Symposium: June Medical should be summarily reversed

Jonathan B. Miller is Chief of the Public Protection & Advocacy Bureau in the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of the Massachusetts Attorney General or the Office.

June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee potentially presents an opportunity for the newest lineup of the Supreme Court, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh, to revisit constitutional protection of abortion. In a move that surprised many, the justices stayed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s reversal of the district court’s injunction against enforcement of Louisiana’s Act 620, which requires any doctor performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, while the case remains pending in the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four liberal justices in reaching this outcome, prompting speculation that the chief’s concern for the integrity of the institution resulted in a switch from his dissenting vote in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, in which the court struck down an admitting-privileges requirement in Texas less than three years ago. For these same reasons – preserving the Supreme Court’s integrity and ensuring that the lower courts do not flout precedent now that the composition of the court has changed – the chief should join the four liberal justices in summarily reversing the decision below.

The court need not retrace its steps in a case identical to one decided so recently. Laws requiring admitting privileges do not enhance patient safety – in fact, developments since WWH cast further doubt on thin claims to the contrary. Plus, this case was very clearly wrongly decided. The 5th Circuit cast its second-guessing of the district court as “[m]irroring” the Supreme Court’s analysis in WWH. But the split decision tries too hard to make a case indistinguishable from WWH somehow look different. There is also recent precedent upon which the chief can rely. In American Tradition Partnership Inc. v. Bullock, the court, with the chief in the majority, summarily overturned a Montana Supreme Court decision that had sought to distinguish a 1912 voter-approved state ban of corporate contributions from the federal restriction at issue in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Bullock was decided only two years after Citizens United.

Summary reversal – that is, reversal without briefing and oral argument – is particularly appropriate because the underlying rationale for laws such as Act 620 is so weak. In WWH, the Supreme Court concluded that “nothing in Texas’ record evidence that shows that … the new law advanced Texas’ legitimate interest in protecting women’s health.” If anything, the empirical basis for such a conclusion has only strengthened since 2016. Last fall, the Trump administration proposed new rules for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in an effort to “reform Medicare regulations that are identified as unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome on health care providers and suppliers.” Among other things, this regulatory clean-up covered certain requirements for ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs), which include abortion clinics in some states. Regulations dating back to 1982 have required ASCs either to have written transfer agreements with hospitals or to employ physicians with admitting privileges in order to qualify for reimbursement. Under the proposed rules, these requirements would end. As the proposed rules explain, “we have seen no evidence of negative patient outcomes due to a lack of such transfer agreements or admitting privileges.” As further support for this regulatory relaxation, the administration also points to the challenges ASCs have faced in obtaining admitting privileges. Apparently, the problem is not unique to abortion practitioners.

In its decision, the 5th Circuit failed to connect admitting privileges and improved patient safety. Mostly its discussion focused on hospitals’ more rigorous credentialing of providers, and its supposition that such private screening would inherently improve patient care. With all of that said, the 5th Circuit explained that the district court did not clearly err in concluding that “Act 620 provides minimal benefits[.]”

Even in making that concession, the panel opinion did not meaningfully grapple with the realities of health-care delivery that undercut the need for Act 620’s restrictions. States regulate doctors and require them to meet certain standards to have a license to practice, irrespective of the facility in which they practice. As a matter of logistics, the physician performing an abortion at an outpatient health-care facility is highly unlikely to be the treating physician at the hospital. For example, many women end their pregnancies through medication rather than surgery. Complications such as excessive bleeding are more likely to arise at home and if hospital-based care is needed, the patient will go to a local emergency room. In that scenario, the chances are quite low that the geographically convenient hospital for the patient and the hospital where the clinic physician has admitting privileges would be one and the same. Additionally, there is no risk that patients facing complications will be refused care. Under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, hospitals are required to provide treatment to patients who present to their emergency rooms. Beyond all of this, abortions are safe procedures, which minimizes the need for additional restrictions and requirements in the first place.

Summary reversal also is appropriate because the 5th Circuit went too far with its extensive critique of the physicians’ good-faith efforts to obtain admitting privileges. As an initial observation, a difference in scale seems to have allowed the 5th Circuit to engage in a tougher review than the Supreme Court’s inquiry in WWH. The Supreme Court had before it evidence that Texas’ admitting-privileges requirement reduced the number of abortion clinics in the state from 40 to less than 10. The impact spoke for itself, and any exercise seeking to call into question the basis for 30 clinic closures would have bordered on the absurd. Here, instead, the 5th Circuit had much more limited ground to cover and far fewer causal links to sever. As the decision explained, “[t]he paucity of abortion facilities and abortion providers in Louisiana allows for a more nuanced analysis of the causal connection between Act 620 and its burden on women[.]” Laws that are so similar, however, should not be analyzed so differently.

The intense second-guessing of the district court’s factual findings (which are supposed to get deference) was clear error. The district court fairly evaluated the efforts of doctors to come into compliance with a law that has never been in effect, that most of the physicians did not believe they could comply with as a practical matter, and that they knew was designed to have the same effect as H.B. 2 in Texas (because Act 620 was passed a year later). By contrast, the 5th Circuit’s review of the record impliedly required these physicians to prove a negative – that they cannot get credentialed at any qualifying hospital. In so doing, the 5th Circuit at times determined that particular physicians are not burdened or overly burdened by Act 620. Of course, the constitutional question is whether women experience an undue burden.

The panel majority’s critical view of these physicians and their attempts was echoed by Kavanaugh in his dissent from the grant of the stay. In his view, we do not yet know the impact of Act 620, because it has not gone into effect. Perhaps, once the law is in effect, the doctors will be able to comply. I believe we already do know the effect, because Act 620 was designed with a specific purpose: the inevitable closure of clinics and the loss of providers due to their inability to meet the admission-privileges requirement. Letting the law go into effect means irreparable and irreversible harm to the delivery of care to women in Louisiana.

There would be rich irony in allowing this type of targeted regulation of abortion providers (TRAP) law to stand. Over time, more and more abortion facilities became free-standing clinics owing to, among other things, the stigma associated with performing abortions and the unwillingness of certain hospitals to have them performed onsite. Now, when the federal government is poised to remove the need for admission privileges for ASCs, triggering the shutdown of these clinics because providers are unable to reconnect with hospitals is both unjust and an affront to the constitutional rights of women. The 5th Circuit did not properly apply WWH and wrongly decided this case. The Supreme Court should summarily reverse.

***

Past cases linked to in this post:

American Tradition P’ship Inc. v. Bullock, 132 S. Ct. 2490 (2012) Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 558 U.S. 310 (2010) Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 136 S. Ct. 2292 (2016)

The post Symposium: <em>June Medical</em> should be summarily reversed appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

from Law https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/03/symposium-june-medical-should-be-summarily-reversed/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#law #justice

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Conservatives with high expectations anxious for Justice Amy Coney Barrett to show her hand Barrett has only been on the bench since late October, providing an exceedingly small sample size, but her votes not backing President Donald Trump in attempting to overturn the 2020 election as well as a mixed ruling in a clash between houses of worship and California have brought concern to some who heralded her nomination. The nervousness so early in her tenure reveals more about the high hopes of the conservative movement that has finally obtained a 6-3 majority than it does about Barrett’s own jurisprudence. “You have a lot of people in the conservative movement who are so far disappointed and a little despondent about those votes,” said Kelly Shackelford, president of the First Liberty Institute — a group dedicated to defending religious liberty. “But I think they are reading way too much into what evidence we have so far,” he said, noting that the votes came in emergency applications and cert petitions, and not in published opinions. “Instead, we have to wait on significant opinions before we can tell where she is.” A separate source with close ties to religious liberty groups said that he had had a similar conversation with “more than a handful of people.” “There is concern and worry,” the source said, going as far as to call Barrett “timid,” but acknowledging a “‘wait and see’ component.” The source expressed concern that the court would end up in a 3-3-3 lineup in some cases with the liberals on one side, and Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Barrett in the middle and Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas on the far right. Trump’s most lasting legacy will be his judicial nominations, and conservatives are impatient to see how the more than 200 judges — including three justices — he nominated to the federal bench will reshape the country. Worries among supporters for judicial nominees or disdain for rulings that overshadow their overall record is nothing new for advocates. Roberts, for instance, has expanded 2nd Amendment rights, gutted the Voting Rights Act and has voted against same-sex marriage, but also saved Obamacare. Last term, many conservative allies were stunned by an opinion penned by Trump nominee Gorsuch that went in favor of LGBTQ workers, although Gorsuch has cast other votes in their favor, particularly on the issue of religious freedom. They are hoping that Barrett will not surprise them in the big cases, and instead, solidify the court’s rightward tilt, fulfilling Trump’s promise to change the direction of the court. The worst-case scenario for conservatives, of course, is that she would eventually be like Justice David Souter, the George H.W. Bush nominee who eventually joined the liberal wing. But there is nothing in Barrett’s record to indicate that would happen. The perception of Barrett could change instantly however with a couple of key cases. The justices have heard oral arguments in a case that could determine the future of Obamacare, as well as a significant religious liberty dispute out of Philadelphia. Also pending is a petition concerning a Mississippi 15-week abortion ban that would be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. It takes four justices to agree to hear a case, and it would be a major signal of Barrett’s intentions if she indicates publicly her stance. In addition, on Friday the court is considering whether to take up a case next term concerning the scope of the Second Amendment — an issue the justices have so far declined to revisit over the past decade. Next term could also bring cases on affirmative action and voting rights. A Republican who worked on Barrett’s nomination on the Hill said he hasn’t heard of similar concerns among the GOP senators who were deeply satisfied with her performance during her confirmation hearings and believed by the end of the term, Barrett would vote solidly for the right side of the bench. Despite any hand-wringing or nervousness, Barrett’s impact has already been felt on the court’s strong 6-3 conservative majority. On the bench, Barrett voted in her first abortion-related case granting the Trump administration’s request to reinstate long-standing restrictions for patients seeking to obtain a drug used for abortions early in pregnancy, over the dissent of the three liberals. It was Barrett who cast a key vote in a November case challenging Covid restrictions put in place by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, limiting the number of people attending religious services. Barrett sided with the conservatives in favor of the houses of worship, while Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberals in dissent. The vote was notable because before the death of Ginsburg, the court split 5-4 on similar cases out California and Nevada ruling in favor of the states. The majority flipped with the addition of Barrett. The 2020 election Those who wanted the court to weigh in on the 2020 election, however, were disappointed as the court sent a strong signal it had no interest getting involved with election results, despite an enormous amount of pressure from Trump. The former President has many times expressed bitter disappointment with the court for failing to rule in his favor to overturn election results, most recently in a Fox News interview last week. Barrett did not take part in an order on October 28 — two days after her confirmation — when the Supreme Court denied a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to accelerate review of a lower court decision that allowed ballots to be counted up to three days after Election Day. The court’s public information officer said at the time that Barrett did not participate because of the need for a “prompt resolution” and because she had not had time to fully review the filings. The move was not out of the ordinary for a new justice. But still, it came as Alito, joined by Gorsuch and Thomas, wrote a fiery statement saying that while they “reluctantly concluded” there was not enough time at this “late date” to decide the case before the election, they were troubled. “There is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the Federal Constitution,” Alito wrote. When the case came up again on February 22 the court denied an appeal from Republicans to take up the case. Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas again dissented. “Now, the election is over, and there is no reason for refusing to decide the important question that these cases pose,” Alito said. It would have taken four justices to take up the case, and there were only three. Barrett, among others, did not raise her hand. In December, the court also rejected a bid by Texas to overturn the election results in battleground states. In a brief order the court said that Texas did not have the legal right — known as “standing” — to bring the challenge. No full dissents were noted although Alito and Thomas disagreed on a procedural point in a statement. The election-related votes were in contrast to comments Trump made before the election in which he suggested the justices might end up deciding it. Back then Trump said it would be “important to have nine justices.” Religious liberty On another front, eyebrows were raised in early February when a fractured court voted to block California’s Covid-related ban on indoor worship services. Barrett sided with the majority. But she and Kavanuagh did allow other limitations to remain in place. Penning her first concurring opinion, Barrett didn’t go as far as the churches would have liked and voted to allow California’s prohibition on singing and chanting during indoor services to remain. “As the case comes to us,” she wrote, “it remains unclear whether the singing ban applies across the board (and thus constitutes a neutral and generally applicable law) or else favors certain sectors (and thus triggers more searching review).” Barrett did not sign on to a statement from Gorsuch, Thomas and Alito who pointed to some confusion and a record that suggested that the music, film and television studios are permitted to sing indoors. “Even if a full congregation singing hymns is too risky, California does not explain why even a single masked cantor cannot lead worship behind a mask and a plexiglass shield,” Gorsuch said. Five months in, as is the custom, Barrett has only released one majority opinion in a case concerning the Freedom of Information Act. Because she is the junior-most justice, it’s unlikely this term or next that she would be assigned a blockbuster opinion. Source link Orbem News #Amy #Anxious #Barrett #Coney #Conservatives #expectations #Hand #high #Justice #JusticeAmyConeyBarrett:Conservativeswithhighexpectationsareanxious-CNNPolitics #Politics #Show

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dipulb3 · 3 years

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Conservatives with high expectations anxious for Justice Amy Coney Barrett to show her hand

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/conservatives-with-high-expectations-anxious-for-justice-amy-coney-barrett-to-show-her-hand/

Conservatives with high expectations anxious for Justice Amy Coney Barrett to show her hand

Barrett has only been on the bench since late October, providing an exceedingly small sample size, but her votes not backing President Donald Trump in attempting to overturn the 2020 election as well as a mixed ruling in a clash between houses of worship and California have brought concern to some who heralded her nomination.

The nervousness so early in her tenure reveals more about the high hopes of the conservative movement that has finally obtained a 6-3 majority than it does about Barrett’s own jurisprudence.

“You have a lot of people in the conservative movement who are so far disappointed and a little despondent about those votes,” said Kelly Shackelford, president of the First Liberty Institute — a group dedicated to defending religious liberty.

“But I think they are reading way too much into what evidence we have so far,” he said, noting that the votes came in emergency applications and cert petitions, and not in published opinions. “Instead, we have to wait on significant opinions before we can tell where she is.”

A separate source with close ties to religious liberty groups said that he had had a similar conversation with “more than a handful of people.” “There is concern and worry,” the source said, going as far as to call Barrett “timid,” but acknowledging a “‘wait and see’ component.”

The source expressed concern that the court would end up in a 3-3-3 lineup in some cases with the liberals on one side, and Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Barrett in the middle and Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas on the far right.

Trump’s most lasting legacy will be his judicial nominations, and conservatives are impatient to see how the more than 200 judges — including three justices — he nominated to the federal bench will reshape the country.

Worries among supporters for judicial nominees or disdain for rulings that overshadow their overall record is nothing new for advocates. Roberts, for instance, has expanded 2nd Amendment rights, gutted the Voting Rights Act and has voted against same-sex marriage, but also saved Obamacare.

Last term, many conservative allies were stunned by an opinion penned by Trump nominee Gorsuch that went in favor of LGBTQ workers, although Gorsuch has cast other votes in their favor, particularly on the issue of religious freedom. They are hoping that Barrett will not surprise them in the big cases, and instead, solidify the court’s rightward tilt, fulfilling Trump’s promise to change the direction of the court.

The worst-case scenario for conservatives, of course, is that she would eventually be like Justice David Souter, the George H.W. Bush nominee who eventually joined the liberal wing. But there is nothing in Barrett’s record to indicate that would happen.

The perception of Barrett could change instantly however with a couple of key cases.

The justices have heard oral arguments in a case that could determine the future of Obamacare, as well as a significant religious liberty dispute out of Philadelphia.

Also pending is a petition concerning a Mississippi 15-week abortion ban that would be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. It takes four justices to agree to hear a case, and it would be a major signal of Barrett’s intentions if she indicates publicly her stance. In addition, on Friday the court is considering whether to take up a case next term concerning the scope of the Second Amendment — an issue the justices have so far declined to revisit over the past decade.

Next term could also bring cases on affirmative action and voting rights.

A Republican who worked on Barrett’s nomination on the Hill said he hasn’t heard of similar concerns among the GOP senators who were deeply satisfied with her performance during her confirmation hearings and believed by the end of the term, Barrett would vote solidly for the right side of the bench.

Despite any hand-wringing or nervousness, Barrett’s impact has already been felt on the court’s strong 6-3 conservative majority.

On the bench, Barrett voted in her first abortion-related case granting the Trump administration’s request to reinstate long-standing restrictions for patients seeking to obtain a drug used for abortions early in pregnancy, over the dissent of the three liberals.

It was Barrett who cast a key vote in a November case challenging Covid restrictions put in place by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, limiting the number of people attending religious services. Barrett sided with the conservatives in favor of the houses of worship, while Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberals in dissent.

The vote was notable because before the death of Ginsburg, the court split 5-4 on similar cases out California and Nevada ruling in favor of the states. The majority flipped with the addition of Barrett.

The 2020 election

Those who wanted the court to weigh in on the 2020 election, however, were disappointed as the court sent a strong signal it had no interest getting involved with election results, despite an enormous amount of pressure from Trump.

The former President has many times expressed bitter disappointment with the court for failing to rule in his favor to overturn election results, most recently in a Fox News interview last week.

Barrett did not take part in an order on October 28 — two days after her confirmation — when the Supreme Court denied a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to accelerate review of a lower court decision that allowed ballots to be counted up to three days after Election Day. The court’s public information officer said at the time that Barrett did not participate because of the need for a “prompt resolution” and because she had not had time to fully review the filings.

The move was not out of the ordinary for a new justice. But still, it came as Alito, joined by Gorsuch and Thomas, wrote a fiery statement saying that while they “reluctantly concluded” there was not enough time at this “late date” to decide the case before the election, they were troubled.

“There is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the Federal Constitution,” Alito wrote.

When the case came up again on February 22 the court denied an appeal from Republicans to take up the case. Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas again dissented.

“Now, the election is over, and there is no reason for refusing to decide the important question that these cases pose,” Alito said. It would have taken four justices to take up the case, and there were only three. Barrett, among others, did not raise her hand.

In December, the court also rejected a bid by Texas to overturn the election results in battleground states. In a brief order the court said that Texas did not have the legal right — known as “standing” — to bring the challenge. No full dissents were noted although Alito and Thomas disagreed on a procedural point in a statement.

The election-related votes were in contrast to comments Trump made before the election in which he suggested the justices might end up deciding it. Back then Trump said it would be “important to have nine justices.”

Religious liberty

On another front, eyebrows were raised in early February when a fractured court voted to block California’s Covid-related ban on indoor worship services. Barrett sided with the majority. But she and Kavanuagh did allow other limitations to remain in place.

Penning her first concurring opinion, Barrett didn’t go as far as the churches would have liked and voted to allow California’s prohibition on singing and chanting during indoor services to remain.

“As the case comes to us,” she wrote, “it remains unclear whether the singing ban applies across the board (and thus constitutes a neutral and generally applicable law) or else favors certain sectors (and thus triggers more searching review).” Barrett did not sign on to a statement from Gorsuch, Thomas and Alito who pointed to some confusion and a record that suggested that the music, film and television studios are permitted to sing indoors.

“Even if a full congregation singing hymns is too risky, California does not explain why even a single masked cantor cannot lead worship behind a mask and a plexiglass shield,” Gorsuch said.

Five months in, as is the custom, Barrett has only released one majority opinion in a case concerning the Freedom of Information Act. Because she is the junior-most justice, it’s unlikely this term or next that she would be assigned a blockbuster opinion.

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sinrau · 4 years

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The governmental response to the COVID-19 epidemic has perhaps seen the most sweeping peacetime restrictions of constitutional rights in U.S. history. A wide array of constitutional rights have been intruded on by lockdowns, closures, quarantines, isolation measures and social distancing requirements.

The states’ measures have led to a wave of lawsuits and court rulings about their impact on constitutional rights, with the most high-profile ones involving prayer and abortion. However, the basic legitimacy of the government depriving millions of their basic liberties and livelihood has not been a large part of the debate. Instead, it has been about how these measures apply to certain particular, and highly politicized, rights.

Whatever the merits of the harsh measures imposed in response to COVID-19, such measures should be seen as either inherently problematic or tolerable, regardless of what closures and social distancing might mean for particular rights.

The Constitution reserves for states broad power to protect the health of its citizens. And the legal framework of constitutional rights presumes a standard situation, where the rights’ enjoyment does not harm others. States in epidemics have always quarantined or isolated those who are ill or have been exposed to a contagion. But the COVID-19 lockdowns go much further, restricting the freedoms of those who pose no evident danger—a response to the long incubation period and significant incidence of asymptomatic transmission.

These lockdown orders are an inherently blunt tool—or, in constitutional law parlance, “over-broad.” Yet in the name of public safety, Americans largely agreed that the Constitution must tolerate the otherwise intolerable—the broad restriction of basic liberty. Constitutional liberty is not just about abortions and guns. It also has something to do with being free—free to meet a friend, free to put food on one’s table and so on.

Yet COVID-19 constitutional challenges are not largely about the general massive restriction of liberty. Instead, they have been about seeking exceptions for communal prayer, or for abortion facilities. (The unusual exception is last month’s Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, which concluded the cursory process behind the governor’s closure orders was inadequate, but did not question the basic ability to take such measures.)

Yet if such broad restrictions are indeed warranted, courts should not be sympathetic to special pleading for particular rights—especially because of the reality that different rights have vastly different political valences. At least in our times, constitutional rights come in different colors.

Liberals care about constitutional rights when it comes to abortions and inmates; conservatives will generally say that those rights, or particular extensions and penumbras of them, are not rights at all. On the other hand, conservatives greatly value the protection of gun rights and the religious rights of the First Amendment—again, in formulations that liberals might broadly see as mistaken. Like coloring states red or blue, this is, of course, a massive oversimplification, but it captures something important.

As the Supreme Court has said, there is no constitutional hierarchy of rights. There is no priority between buying a gun, saying a prayer, having an abortion and being able merely to walk out into the street. All are constitutional values so long as they do not endanger others; and the central assumption of the coronavirus measures put in place is that everyone might pose a covert, exponentially compounding danger to the public health. (The Supreme Court has called abortion a “fundamental” right, but by that it meant it was important enough to warrant constitutional protection despite not being expressly mentioned in the text. But having risen to the pantheon of rights, it takes an equal place among them.)

But perhaps the public health measures burden different rights differently. Abortion rights advocates argued in court that bans on all non-emergency surgical treatments deny women the substance of the right—at least for the subset of women close to the gestational stage where abortions are forbidden. Conversely, supporters of gun rights claim that closing gun shops entirely excludes from Second Amendment protection some subset of people—and at a time it may matter most. Those who challenge closures of places of worship claim the inability to come together in prayer, subject to distancing guidelines, permanently deprives the faithful of an opportunity to draw close to or solicit God at a crucial moment.

Given the varying political and cultural valences of these rights, there is no objective way to compare burdens. Some might say the burden on restricting particular modes of communal prayer is zero, because prayer is ineffectual, and religion merely a private pastime to which the Constitution shows a quaint solicitude. Others would say the burden of delaying abortions is zero, because the restriction actually saves a life. But gainsaying the subjective burden in effect undermines the idea of its constitutional protection.

Nothing could more undermine COVID-19 response than to put it in the crosshairs of the constitutional culture war. At the same time, there should indeed be some way for citizens to push back against public health measures that go too far.

Let me propose a shortcut: Harness the happy circumstance of politically opposing constitutional rights. The most dangerous situation is if those solicitous of one particular kind of liberty are able to think they can save theirs amid a more general restriction. But if the gun folks and the abortion folks and the prayer folks and the press folks and the prison folks all understood that their hard-won rights are all at stake in broad closure orders, such measures will only be used in the clearest necessity.

We need a simple rule: Either such unusually broad measures must make exceptions for all particular constitutional rights—or they need make no exceptions.

Eugene Kontrovichis professor of law at Antonin Scalia Law School. The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

The death toll associated with the novel coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19, has well surpassed 100,000 in the United States. To place this suffering in context, more Americans have died during the past three months due to COVID-19 than in the Vietnam War; the 9/11 attacks; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and H1N1, Ebola and the Zika virus—all combined. In three months, COVID-19 killed more Americans than what Americans have witnessed in the past 50 years of war and disease combined.

The chilling number of American deaths that spanned nearly two decades in Vietnam (over 58,000) pales in comparison to deaths caused by this deadly virus. In essence, COVID-19 took barely two months to surpass deaths suffered by Americans over 19 years of the Vietnam War. And while the Vietnam War is long over, COVID-19 still rages in the United States.

What this staggering death toll brings to light are two interrelated matters. First, it exposes questions related to capacity, compassion and competency in American leadership—from the federal government down to local officials. The failure to heed international warnings and develop effective test kits in December and January highlights serious weaknesses in pandemic preparedness and American leadership. Hasty and imprudent political rhetoric in February and March, comparing COVID-19 to the seasonal flu, was not only inaccurate and misguided; it likely contributed to a sense of false security among Americans, who came to believe the virus was no more infectious and no greater a threat than the seasonal flu. Sadly, this view persists among some Americans, including in government.

Second, fundamental questions of constitutional law have also emerged. The coronavirus crisis has brought to the forefront a national debate related to the interaction between constitutional rights, state police powers and federalism: What are the limits of government action in the midst of a pandemic?

Certain basic constitutional law questions persist for some Americans: Do governors have the authority to issue executive orders to shelter-in-place or quarantine? Can the legislature prioritize some business activity as “essential” while not granting that status to others? Is it legal to impose shelter-in-place on Sundays—a day when many Americans seek to worship?

The short answer is that, for nearly three centuries, quarantine has been justified and legally upheld—even before the official founding of the United States, dating all the way back to 1738.

In an 1824 case, Gibbons v. Ogden, the Supreme Court specifically referenced state authority to regulate health and erect quarantine laws. Eighty years later, in a seminal decision, the Supreme Court spoke directly to state police power to protect public health in its 1905 ruling, Jacobson v. Massachusetts. In that case, the Court upheld an ordinance requiring compulsory vaccination of all persons fit for inoculation. The Court found the statute to be a valid exercise of local police power to protect public health and reduce the spread of smallpox—a deadly disease.

Despite the myriad rallies and protests to “re-open”—some filled with vile and violent imagery, including effigies—governmental authority to impose the types of orders modeled in California by Governor Gavin Newsom, in Michigan by Governor Gretchen Whitmer or in New York by Governor Andrew Cuomo is clear, consistent with constitutional law and legal. In other words, during a pandemic, some constitutional rights may be burdened, but only to protect the public health and promote safety.

Nevertheless, government authority is not absolute—and that’s important to keep in mind, even in times of pandemic. In fact, during times of national disaster and health crises, government may attempt to exercise unconstitutional authority or unfairly or excessively infringe on civil rights and civil liberties.

Historically, governments, including our own, have deployed protecting the public health as a justification when seeking to harm and undermine the civil liberties of vulnerable groups. From eugenics, involving the forced sterilization of poor girls and women, to racial discrimination involving water fountains, swimming pools and interracial marriage, politicians have oftentimes claimed to be in the service of public health goals when actually serving no other purpose than the perpetuation of social and racial stereotypes and discrimination.

Nearly a century ago, the commonwealth of Virginia claimed it was in a public health crisis, “swamped” by children, men and women it considered socially and morally unfit. Its solution was to impose sterilization on Virginians as young as 10 years in order to rid the state of those who “burdened” society. The sad result included the sterilizations of thousands of people in Virginia alone—a clear violation of civil rights and civil liberties.

During this pandemic, questions related to the limits of governmental authority are all the more pressing and relevant in the wake of legislatures in Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, among others, that have used the pandemic as a cover for discriminating against women by dismantling abortion access. From a medical perspective, this is all the more senseless and tragic, considering that abortions are as safe as penicillin shots and far safer than child delivery; a woman is 14 times more likely to die by carrying a pregnancy to term than having an abortion. In these instances, hampering abortion rights had nothing to do with protecting health and safety, but were simply political attempts to undermine abortion rights.

For these reasons, government infringements on civil rights and civil liberties should be driven by science, confirmed by medical evidence and tailored to address the health harms and threats. It’s not all or nothing—that’s too simplistic a view. Rather, protecting the public’s health and safety during COVID-19 requires prioritizing the public’s health while safeguarding civil liberties.

Michele Goodwinis professor of law and founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

Which Lockdowns are Constitutional? #web #website #copied #to read# #highlight #link #news #read #blog #wordpress post# #posts #breaking news# #Sinrau #Nothiah #Sinrau29

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