#Anti-abortion Centers

[gwydionmisha]

Democrats are trying to block funding to the propaganda clinics that try to trick pregnant people into entering to be barraged by misinformation in the guise of medicine.

Have something you want to tell your Congress Critters? If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options:

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.

Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David McAfee and Matthew Chapman at Raw Story:

U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) is being ridiculed on social media for a new piece of proposed legislation that, while billed as a child support bill for new moms, is being panned as yet another dystopian intrusion into women's pregnancies. Britt, who came to the forefront of the political conversation following her heavily-mocked response to President Joe Biden's 2024 State of the Union address, announced the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS) Act. The bill would create a registry of pregnant women, who would then be steered to support services that include "crisis pregnancy centers" — usually faith-based groups designed to shame or trick women seeking abortions into keeping their pregnancies anyway. "To all of my fellow moms out there, my goal is to give you and your children the opportunities to thrive and to live your American dreams," Britt said in a video announcing the policy.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) coming in strong with the Handmaiden's Tale vibes with her grossly anti-abortion MOMS Act bill that purports to help women but in reality would promote fake clinics (crisis pregnancy centers) and have a federal pregnancy tracker.

See Also:

Salon: Katie Britt is back at it, pushing a bill to launch a pregnancy tracking federal database

[pipperdoo]

Friendly PSA

Support your local pro-life crisis pregnancy center. They offer counseling services, parenting classes, referrals for pre/peri/post natal care, free ultrasounds, and free resources such as formula and diapers. Their services extend to the fathers involved as well. Some even offer counseling for those healing from past abortions. With abolition of abortion prayerfully drawing closer these facilities will need your help to be prepared for the shift. So support your local pregnancy center!

[cheerfullycatholic]

Forcing a woman to have an abortion, including a minor, is illegal in all 50 states of the United States of America. The Justice Foundation’s Center Against Forced Abortions (CAFA) was created to provide educational resources to empower women who are being forced, unduly pressured, or coerced into an unwanted abortion. Any individual who attempts to use force or coercion could be subject to criminal or civil liability including child abuse, fetal homicide, domestic partner violence, etc. If you or someone you know is facing this situation and would like more information, call (210) 614-7157 or email info@txjf.org.

[elumish]

I think I've said this before, but reading academic articles about political violence from the 1980s/1990s is very weird.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

In the new, post-Roe v. Wade world, for some anti-abortion forces, it is not enough to remove constitutional protection for abortion. They want to make criminals of women who seek abortions.

As if that weren’t enough, Republican legislators in four Southern states have proposed legislation that would make abortion a capital offense. Were such legislation to be passed, it would mark an unprecedented escalation of the right wing’s war on women.

As is true throughout America’s death penalty system, race and class will play a large role in who would be prosecuted, sentenced, and executed for getting an abortion.

National Public Radio quotes Dana Sussman, acting executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, as saying that criminalization of abortion already falls disproportionately on “‘poor people, people of color, young people. Anyone who is experiencing a mental health crisis, anyone who has a substance-use disorder, those are the people that are gonna be most vulnerable to suspicion and the specter of law enforcement when they experience a pregnancy loss.”

The dangerous extremism of the death-penalty-for-abortion proposals is reflected in the fact that in at least one state’s bill there is no exception for rape or incest. Welcome to the world that some radical conservatives want to create.

At a time when the death penalty is under intense scrutiny for its injustice, unreliability, and cruelty, they want to double down on it. In their dystopian vision, women who once had a constitutional right to abortion would now be put to death for exercising that right.

To cite one example, Arkansas House Bill 1174 says that “all unborn children should be protected under the state homicide laws as all other persons.” In addition to the woman who aborts a fetus, friends, partners, medical providers, and anyone else who helped her decide to end a pregnancy would be liable for the death penalty as accomplices under the Arkansas bill.

The anti-abortion movement has never had a plausible claim to being “pro-life,” but the Republican legislators who are pushing death penalty plans are stretching hypocrisy to withering heights.

Make no mistake about the danger ahead. This is an organized effort.

Though none of these bills seem likely to pass in the near term, they are part of an effort to normalize the idea that a fetus is a person protected by state homicide laws so that, sometime in the future, women who exercise their right to make their own family decisions might find themselves on murder dockets.

It’s the boiling frog theory. Gradually raise the heat on the pot and the amphibian won’t jump out before the water’s bubbling and it’s too late. Those who believe in reproductive freedom need to jump on this latest escalating attack on it.

Like the Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe v. Wade last June, the death penalty-for-abortion legislators are bucking strong international trends. Even Catholic South American countries like Colombia and Mexico have decriminalized abortion. Over the last three decades, close to 60 nations have liberalized their abortion laws. Only one of the world’s 195 countries, El Salvador, treats abortion as murder.

Bad company to keep. Anti-women, anti-reproductive rights legislators in southern states seem to be feeding their religious frenzy and desire for vengeance against those who believe differently.

Of course there’s that old “eye for an eye” concept that originated in Babylon about proportional justice. Let’s put aside the fact that these elected officials are not advocating an embryo for an embryo. They purport to embrace the Judeo-Christian tradition, but its truer form is about tolerance, not revenge.

Politicians loudly proclaiming their Christianity with legislation proposing death for mothers having abortions seem to have forgotten that Jesus renounced Babylonian justice: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you . . . [if] anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.”

Perhaps it’s too much to expect politicians seeking to stir up their base to follow the Bible. Pragmatically, however, they might want to notice that last June’s Supreme Court decision in Dobbs was the “driving force” that energized majorities of young people, women, and men who believe in reproductive freedom to cast their votes against Republicans in 2022.

Even in red states like Kansas and Kentucky, and in states like Michigan that went for Trump in 2016, post-Dobbs ballot measures that protected abortion won, and ballot measures meant to end it lost.

Maybe that wouldn’t be so in Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky, and South Carolina, the states where these new death-penalty-for-abortion bills have been introduced. But their proponents don’t seem to care about the 2024 political energy they may be handing Democrats in other parts of the country.

Such blindness to national political implications is also suggested by the extreme measures in Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas: The bills there also explicitly include abortion by medication. (A pill for a pill?) More than half the abortions nationwide occur by pharmaceuticals—at least pending the ruling in a fraught Texas case where right-wing groups have asked an anti-abortionist federal judge to invalidate a 22-year-old FDA decision that the pill is safe.

If that happens, the threat of legislation to make swallowing a pill murder may accelerate Democratic voters’ run to the polls nationwide in 2024. It may lead independents to steer clear of the fanatics for whom the end of Roe was just the beginning of the next stage of the anti-abortion crusade.

These Southern state legislators may think that imposing the death penalty will deter abortions. Think again. Legal restrictions on abortions don’t stop them but only multiply the numbers of unsafe, back-alley endings to pregnancy for women who can’t afford a baby or aren’t ready to have one.

Moreover, there is no reliable evidence in the familiar context of one person killing another that the death penalty really is a deterrent. Nearly two of three Americans doubt that it is.

In the end, as the Brennan Center for Justice rightly notes, “Criminalizing abortion and pregnancy upends lives, breaks up families, and disrupts entire communities.” And the idea of piling a possible death sentence on top of the painful choice to end a pregnancy is not just hypocritical and destructive, it is as cruel as it is unusual.

[iamacolor]

the french senate just voted yes to add the freedom to get an abortion to our constitution - the national assembly also voted yes in a previous vote so now it's official and will be added to the constitution in a few days!! this is a huge win when the current government has mainly been making things worse for women so far (and everyone else that isn't rich and racist basically) and helping the rise of the far-right. I kept doubting we'd get it (recently the president of the senate declared that the right to abortion wasn't threatened in France - which sadly isn't true - so he didn't see why the subject should be discussed) and just a few days ago the worst news channel we have - cnews is our fox news basically - presented abortion as the main mortality cause in the world before cancer or tobacco (which is a lie - the number wasn't even about the women who die getting an abortion but the number of abortion in the world. an embryo isn't a person) and I still can't quite believe it's real. the constitution will now states that " the law determines the conditions under which can be exercised a woman's guaranteed freedom to resort to voluntary termination of pregnancy"

[thebreakfastgenie]

It is extremely disturbing how many posts I see claiming that Roe v. Wade was overturned on Biden's watch and blaming him and the Democratic Party for it. It's disturbing on a number of levels.

First, it was Trump and Bush-appointed justices who handed down the Dobbs decision. This is a flagrant example of blaming Democrats for things Republicans did, and not coincidentally is one of the the most widely felt differences between the two parties. As a result, it's usually the first example Democrats and their allies point to; this misappropriation suggests a deliberate attempt to undercut that fact.

Secondly, and related to the first point, it obfuscates who the real enemy is, and I am comfortable using word "enemy" to describe the Republican Party because of the policies they advocate and enact. The truth is that states controlled by the Republican Party were where the effects of Dobbs are most severely felt, while states controlled by the Democratic Party are passing laws to protect abortion. It is important to know which party opposes abortion and which party supports it. If the Republicans gain control of the House, Senate, and White House, they will pass a national abortion ban, as they have done at the state level in several places.

Thirdly, blaming Biden for Dobbs demonstrates a very concerning lack of understanding of how the government functions. The judiciary is its own branch of government; judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. It doesn't matter who is president when a decision is handed down, it matters who was president when the justices were appointed. People sometimes react to this by moving the goalposts and claiming the real issue was a failure by Democrats to "codify" Roe v. Wade. I am not sure what "codify" means in this context, and I'm not sure they are either. One thing it does not mean is that congress can pass a law saying "abortion is legal forever." Republicans could easily repeal such a law and it the federal government cannot necessarily prevent states from restricting abortion at the state level. Roe v. Wade was a ruling stating that the constitution guaranteed a right to privacy, which included the right to have an abortion. This prevented abortion restrictions in a way federal law cannot. That doesn't mean passing federal law protecting abortion is a bad idea, but it isn't a foolproof protection. It's fair to argue that the Democratic Party and the left of center generally were complacent about abortion. The form of this complacency was not taking the courts seriously, while the right spent fifty years openly filling the courts with anti-abortion judges.

The last thing that worries me is that this is popping up phrased almost the exact same way all over the place. I am afraid that it is not merely incompetence, but intentional misinformation, that is then repeated by the incompetent who believe it.

I know some will probably dismiss this post as being from a "vote harder" liberal Biden supporter, but whatever your feelings about Biden, the Democratic Party, or the democratic process in the U.S., you should care about the truth. The truth is that Roe v. Wade was overturned by Republican-appointed judges and abortion bans are being enacted by Republican elected officials, and Joe Biden opposes these things. You can do with that information whatever you wish, but you denying it is dishonest.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Month - June 2024

💡Eco-friendly innovations building a better future—literally

1. Bill Gates-backed startup creates Lego-like brick that can store air pollution for centuries: 'A milestone for affordably removing carbon dioxide from the air'

The Washington Post detailed a "deceptively simple" procedure by Graphyte to store a ton of CO2 for around $100 a ton, a number long considered a milestone for affordably removing carbon dioxide from the air. Direct air capture technologies used in the United States and Iceland cost $600 to $1,200 per ton, per the Post.

2. Violent crime is down and the US murder rate is plunging, FBI statistics show

Violent crime dropped by more than 15% in the United States during the first three months of 2024, according to statistics released Monday by the FBI.

The new numbers show violent crime from January to March dropped 15.2% compared to the same period in 2023, while murders fell 26.4% and reported rapes decreased by 25.7%.

3. She thrifted this vase for $4. It turned out to be an ancient Mayan artifact

Anna Lee Dozier, paid about $4 for what she assumed was a reproduction of a Mayan vase. It turned out to be the real deal: an artifact that’s at least 1,200 years old from the ancient civilization. And now, it's headed back to its homeland.

4. U.S. Marshals Find 200 Missing Children Across the Nation During Operation We Will Find You 2

Of the 200 children found, 173 were endangered runaways, 25 were considered otherwise missing, one was a family abduction, and one was a non-family abduction. [...] 14 of the children were found outside the city where they went missing.

5. Amazon's ditching the plastic air pillows in its boxes

Amazon said the change will help it use nearly 15 billion fewer plastic pillows annually. The paper fillers are made from 100% recyclable materials and are curbside recyclable. The company began a transition away from plastic filler in October 2023 when it announced its first U.S. automated fulfillment center to eliminate plastic-delivery packaging.

6. Supreme Court rejects bid to restrict access to abortion pill

In a blow for anti-abortion advocates, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to the abortion pill mifepristone, meaning the commonly used drug can remain widely available. The court found unanimously that the group of anti-abortion doctors who questioned the Food and Drug Administration’s decisions making it easier to access the pill did not have legal standing to sue.  

7. Wild horses return to Kazakhstan steppes after absence of two centuries

A group of the world’s last wild horses have returned to their native Kazakhstan after an absence of about 200 years. Seven Przewalski’s horses, the only truly wild species of the animal in the world, flown to central Asian country from zoos in Europe

That's it for this month :)

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Hananoki at MMFA:

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, news outlets have published numerous stories documenting how restricted abortion access has medically harmed women across the U.S. In contrast, numerous groups involved with Project 2025, including lead organizer The Heritage Foundation, have falsely claimed over the years that abortions are never medically necessary.  The Associated Press reported that doctors have said “that there are many circumstances in which abortion — meaning the termination of a pregnancy — can be medically necessary,” and AFP wrote that “the scientific consensus” is “that abortion is sometimes medically necessary.” 

Since Dobbs, media outlets have also highlighted cases where state abortion bans have caused significant medical issues.  ABC News talked to “18 women from across 10 states who say their medical care was impacted by abortion bans -- bringing some of them to the brink of death.” ProPublica reported on how doctors “say they can’t give women potentially lifesaving care.” The Washington Post “found that many hospitals have failed to provide specific guidance or policies to help doctors navigate high-stakes decisions over how to interpret new abortion bans — leading to situations where patients are denied care until they are on the brink of permanent injury or death.” And the AP reported this week on how “abortion bans complicate risky pregnancy care.”  Media Matters has documented how Project 2025 seeks to significantly restrict reproductive rights in the country. Multiple Project 2025 partners have also continued to signal that they want to criminalize abortion.

Many groups that are in partnership with Project 2025, such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Family Research Council, American Family Association, and lead sponsor Heritage Foundation, have all pushed anti-abortion misinformation falsely claiming that abortions are never medically necessary.

[thepro-lifemovement]

Pro-life legislation (Senate Bill 300), sponsored by state Sen. Erin Grall, R-Fort Pierce, would provide $25 million to help pregnancy centers expand resources to pregnant and parenting families in need throughout the state. An additional $5 million would go to the state family planning program to provide contraception to low-income individuals.

“The $25 million appropriation is really to go to all families, all mothers who are looking for support at this time in their life,” Grall said Monday when the state Senate Health Policy Committee voted to pass her bill, which also bans most abortions once an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable.

According to the Miami Herald and Reveal News, the bill would increase funding to the state alternatives to abortion program by five times; the state budgeted $4.45 million for the program in 2022.

Grall told the news outlet that she wants Florida to become a “beacon of hope for those who understand that life is sacred and must be protected.”

Pregnancy resource centers are community-based nonprofits that help pregnant mothers choose life for their unborn babies. Often, women have abortions because they fear they cannot afford a child, but pregnant mothers frequently change their minds when they find out that there are resources available to help them.

Most pregnancy centers offer free ultrasounds, pregnancy and STI tests, baby and maternity clothes, cribs and diapers, counseling and referrals for additional support. There are nearly 160 in Florida, and many are located near abortion facilities so they can help mothers and fathers understand the facts about abortion, the value of their unborn child and the resources available to families in need.

[hellyeahscarleteen]

Maybe you’ve noticed: there’s been a shift in how people and movements that are anti-trans present themselves, and it feels designed to make them more palatable to people who would otherwise recoil at arguments that position trans people as threats. They don’t hate trans people! They’re very concerned about them! Think of the risks! Think of the children!! If that language sounds familiar, it’s because the anti-abortion movement uses this same playbook. Just like a crisis pregnancy center might advertise itself as offering pre-natal care, counseling or free pregnancy tests, an anti-trans provider might offer “gender exploratory” therapy or claim to offer valuable information on the “harms” of transition. Just like reporters being too willing to parrot unsubstantiated, anti-choice claims to the greater public, anti-trans groups are using places like the New York Times—and the fact that many people within those spaces were already held anti-trans beliefs-- to spread misinformation and position their “experts” as the reliable voices on trans care. Quite contrary to articles that claim people are being rushed through transition, accessing gender affirming care remains difficult for most people, especially young people. There are a limited number of places that provide it (and, due to transphobic violence both digital and physical, some of the places that used to aren’t able to anymore), waiting lists, and a dozen other barriers to access. Not to mention that plenty of elements of transition, especially physical transition, require at least a letter from a therapist. And now, on top of that, you have healthcare providers and resources who seek only to discourage or pressure all trans and nonbinary folks into not transitioning. This is a recipe for trans folks, or the people helping them access care, to walk right into a trap, and enables ongoing, anti-trans bias more broadly. Here's a guide from Scarleteen co-director Sam Wall to help trans people, and especially, adults in the lives of trans young people, to identify legitimate — and illegitimate — sources of trans care.

[emogirlitsok]

A word from a woman

I am speaking to you as a woman, we as a minority, must look out for each other. We are in a world not built for us, so we must fight as to not be overpowered or forgotten.

“Your liberty starts where mine ends”, that means you are entitled to do and think whatever you want, that is until your actions start harming other people. You can believe abortion is wrong, but as soon as that evolves to protesting against abortion rights, then you are imposing your beliefs into someone else’s life, then you’re trying to take control over someone else’s body, someone else’s…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Working class Dems who campaign on economics beat Trumpists in elections

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me FRIDAY NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The Democratic Party Pizzaburger Theory of Electioneering is: half the electorate wants a pizza, the other half wants a burger, so we'll give them all a pizzaburger and make them all equally dissatisfied, thus winning the election:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

But no one wants a pizzaburger. The Biden administration's approach of letting the Warren/Sanders wing pick the antitrust enforcers while keeping judicial appointments in the Manchin-Synematic universe is a catastrophe in which progressive Dem regulators (who serve one term) are thwarted by corporatist Dem judges (who serve for life):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

The Democrats – like all parties in two-party systems – are a coalition; in this case, a "progressive" liberal-left coalition with liberals serving as senior partners, steering the party and setting its policies. These corporate dems like to color themselves as "neutral" technocrats with "realistic, apolitical" policies that represent what's best for the country:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

This sets up the left wing of the party as the starry-eyed, unrealistic radicals whose policies are unpopular and will lose elections. But for a decade, grassroots-funded primary challenges have made it possible to test this theory, by putting leftist politicians on the ballot in front of voters, especially in tight races with far-right Republicans (that is, exactly the kinds of races that the corporate wing of the party says we can't afford to take chances on).

The 2022 midterms included enough races to start testing these theories – and, unlike traditional midterms, these races enjoyed high voter turnout, thanks to the unpopularity of GOP positions like abortion bans, book bans and anti-trans laws. Jacobin teamed up with the Center for Working-Class Politics, Yougov and the Center for Work and Democracy at ASU and analyzed those races:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11134429/CWCP-Report-2024.pdf

Their conclusion: candidates from working-class backgrounds who campaigned on economic policies like high-quality jobs, higher minimum wages, a jobs guarantee, ending offshoring and outsourcing, building infrastructure and bringing manufacturing back to the US won with a 50% share of the vote in rural and working-class districts. Dems who didn't lost with a 35% share of the vote:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-03-18-how-actually-existing-democrats-run-for-office/

In other words, in the kinds of districts where Trumpist politicians are beating Democrats, running on "left populist" policies beats Trumpist politicians.

That's the good news: if Dems recruit leftist, working class politicians and put them up for office on policies that address the material reality of voters' lives, they can beat fascist GOP candidates.

Now for the bad news: the Democratic establishment has no interest in getting these candidates onto the ballot. Working-class candidates, by definition, lack the networks of deep-pocketed cronies who can fund their primary campaigns. Only 2.3% of Dem candidates come from blue-collar backgrounds (if you include "pink-collar" professions like nursing and teaching, the number goes up to 5.9%):

https://jacobin.com/2024/03/left-populists-working-class-voters

All of this confirms the findings of Trump's Kryoptonite, an earlier Jacobin/CWCP research project that polled working-class voters on preferences for hypothetical candidates, finding that working-class candidates with economically progressive policies handily beat out Republicans, including MAGA Republicans:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/08125102/TrumpsKryptonite_Final_June2023.pdf

Since the Clinton-Blair years, "progressives" have abandoned economic populism ("It's not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money" -T. Blair) and pursued a "third way" that seeks to replace half the world's of supply white, male oligarchs with diverse oligarchs from a variety of backgrounds and genders. We were told that this was done in the name of winning elections with "modern" policies that replaced old-fashioned ideas about decent pay, decent jobs, and worker power.

These policies have delivered a genocide-riven world on the brink of several kinds of existential catastrophe. They're a failure. The pizzaburger party didn't deliver safety, nor prosperity – and it also can't deliver elections.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/20/actual-material-conditions/#bread-and-butter

[radicalgraff]

"Abort the Court"

Footage from some of the pro-choice vandalism that occurred in various US cities targeting Christian anti-abortion centers in mid 2022, following the decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn it's 1973 abortion rights decision in Roe v. Wade.