#alabama abortion ban

[betweenthings2]

You know what's absolutely fucking wild to me? The fact that Alex Turner/Arctic Monkeys/The Last Shadow Puppets are allegedly banned from Coachella because of the time Alex kissed Miles on stage, but The 1975 isn't. Matty Healy/The 1975 are banned from two whole countries and facing legal charges in one for being pro-LGBT+, but not from one homophobic American festival, and Alex Turner, who I've never seen say two fucking words about politics is.

[emperornorton47]

[reasonandempathy]

To summarize:

The Alabama supreme court ruled that frozen embryos are considered children under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act, impacting IVF procedures.

Alabama Fertility and the University of Alabama at Birmingham are suspending IVF treatments due to legal risks.

The Medical Association of the State of Alabama expressed concern over the ruling and its potential impact on fertility options.

[northern-spies]

Any Americans who don't think the threats to ban contraception are legitimate need to learn about Decree 770, which banned abortion and contraception in Romania in nearly all circumstances between 1967 and 1989. The Ceaușescu episodes of Behind the Bastards touch on it for a start.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Amanda Marcotte at Salon:

Abortion is supposedly an act so evil that it's tantamount to murder — yet it's somehow less wicked if someone takes a road trip before doing it. That appears to be the bizarre opinion of Kari Lake, failed gubernatorial candidate turned current Republican Senate candidate in Arizona. At a Tuesday campaign event, Lake was dismissive toward those angered by a recent state Supreme Court ruling that resurrected a near-total abortion ban initially passed before Arizona was a state, and 55 years before women had the right to vote.  "Even if we have a restrictive law here," Lake tried to assure the concerned crowd, "you can go three hours that way, three hours that way, and you're going to be able to have an abortion." The comment is confounding in multiple ways, and it's just the latest twist in Lake's ever-changing position on abortion. In 2022, she insisted that bringing back the 1864 law was a good idea because "life begins at conception." After the court's wildly unpopular decision, however, she discovered she could set aside her alleged deep moral qualms with abortion to denounce the ruling. Then again, on Tuesday she seemed to be fine with the ruling, not because of deep moral qualms but because she sees it as no big deal to make someone drive three hours to get an abortion. 

This cavalier attitude towards what patients go through to get abortion care is, first and foremost, gross. There's nothing easy about driving three hours one way, sitting at a clinic for many more hours, and then trying to find a way home when you're not allowed to drive yourself after an abortion. (It's not safe to drive while under pain medication.) For younger women, low-income women and single mothers, that burden often makes getting an abortion impossible.  But this "eh, just go out of state" attitude brings up more questions about how much Lake has even thought about her supposed deeply held beliefs about abortion. If it's so immoral that it must be banned in the state of Arizona, then why does it suddenly become OK if a woman does it in California? And if it's not immoral, as Lake's statement suggests, then why should abortion be banned in Arizona at all? 

Last week, Republicans tried to dodge their own contradictions by blocking a Democratic bill to repeal the 1864 law from even coming to a vote. Democrats responded by yelling "Shame! Shame!" But it's not just Republican opposition to women's rights that is shameful; it's their cowardice. They could just vote to uphold the 1864 law, as they did in 2022, in conjunction with passing another ban on abortion. But they're so afraid to go on the record defending that cruel, ancient law, now that it's enforceable, that they won't even allow a vote on it. So even though Arizona Republicans drew humiliating national coverage over their gutless behavior, they did it again on Wednesday. Democrats once again tried to end the 1864 law, and using arcane rules of order, Republicans weaseled out of holding a vote at all. Worse, state Rep. Ben Toma, the speaker of the Arizona House, feigned a high-and-mighty attitude about it. He accused Democrats of "childish behavior" in trying to force this issue. But it's Republicans who are refusing to pull up their big boy pants and deal with this pressing issue.

[...] Rather than dealing honestly with the public, Republicans are scheming to find a way to trick voters into accidentally giving away their rights. On Monday, NBC News exposed a strategy document shared internally by party leaders, which offered ideas to bamboozle people about abortion measures on the ballot. The document suggested piling multiple, conflicting ballot measures onto voters to confuse them about how, exactly, they can vote to protect abortion rights. Should the will of the masses prevail and abortion is made legal again, it suggests abusing the health regulatory framework to make it more difficult and expensive for providers to offer abortion services. 

It's always been the case that opposition to abortion is about hostility to women's liberation, not "life." As Nicole Narea at Vox explained over the weekend, when the 1864 abortion ban was first passed, supporters didn't even bother to pretend they thought abortion was "murder." First-trimester abortion was a common form of birth control that had been accepted for centuries. What changed was not people's moral views on abortion. It was the development of misogynist outrage at the burgeoning feminist movement of the 19th century and falling birth rates.  Male doctors also wanted to put their competition — midwives who made extra cash providing abortions — out of business. Eager to push women into more subservient roles, legislators started passing abortion bans —which was a lot easier to pull off when women couldn't vote.   Alabama Republicans are also facing the consequences of lying about the real purpose of abortion bans for so long, when their own court, taking seriously its own rhetoric about "life," functionally banned in-vitro fertilization. After all, if you actually believe an embryo is the moral equivalent of a child, IVF is worse than abortion, since it requires deliberately creating multiple embryos with the understanding most will not survive. If abortion is "murder," IVF is premeditated serial killing. But under a deluge of criticism, Alabama Republicans passed a bill that ostensibly protects IVF (though it really doesn't). In doing that, they tacitly admitted that they never actually thought abortion was a criminal act. 

#AZSen GOP candidate Kari Lake telling Arizonans to "go three hours that way" out of the state to obtain an abortion is so dismissive, forgetting that it is costly to obtain an abortion both cost-wise and time-wise.

[letterstothefutureme]

This decision is bad enough on its own but the rationale for the decision is unconstitutional.

In a concurring opinion, the chief justice of the court writes, “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”

Laws cannot be based on someone’s sky daddy.

Not my club, not my rules.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Katie Britt, the Republican US senator from Alabama best known for delivering a widely ridiculed State of the Union speech in March, marked the run-up to Mother’s Day on Sunday by introducing a bill to create a federal database to collect data on pregnant people.

The More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS) act proposes to establish an online government database called “pregnancy.gov” listing resources related to pregnancy, including information about adoption agencies and pregnancy care providers, except for those that provide abortion-related services.

The bill specifically forbids any entity that “performs, induces, refers for, or counsels in favor of abortions” from being listed in the database, which would in effect eliminate swaths of OB-GYN services and sexual health clinics across the country.

The website would direct users to enter their personal data and contact information, and although Britt’s communications director said the site would not collect data on pregnant people, page three of the bill states that users can “take an assessment through the website and provide consent to use the user’s contact information” which government officials may use “to conduct outreach via phone or email to follow up with users on additional resources that would be helpful for the users to review.”

Britt introduced the legislation on Thursday alongside two co-sponsors: fellow Republican senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.

In a statement, Britt said the bill was proof that “you can absolutely be pro-life, pro-woman, and pro-family at the same time”, adding that the legislation “advances a comprehensive culture of life” for mothers and children to “live their American Dreams”.

Critics have noted that the database of “pregnancy support centers” would provide misleading information in an effort to dissuade women from seeking abortions. Axios noted that the bill would also provide grants to anti-abortion non-profit organizations.

The state of Alabama, which Britt represents, already has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. After the US supreme court eliminated federal abortion rights by overturning Roe v Wade in 2022, the state banned abortion except in cases where there is a serious health risk to the mother.

Britt’s party is in the minority in the US Senate and has only a slim majority in the House. Her bill would need to be approved in both chambers and then be signed by Democratic President Joe Biden to become law, giving her proposal virtually no chance of making meaningful progress in the legislative process as-is.

The speech Britt gave to rebut Biden’s State of the Union was panned by both parties after she invoked a story about child rape that she implied had resulted from the president’s handling of immigration at the US’s southern border. The abuse actually occurred years earlier in Mexico while a Republican was president, George W Bush.

Britt’s delivery – which oscillated between smiling and sounding as if she were on the verge of tears – was also a target of ridicule, though she defended her performance.

[autonom-us-project]

State-by-State: What are your abortion rights in 2024?

In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court made the morally bankrupt decision to overturn the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, which had previously ruled that the choice of whether to end or continue a pregnancy belonged to the individual rather than the government, federally protecting the right to abortion.

Now, with the responsibility of protecting the right to reproductive freedom left to the states, it can be hard to keep track of the constantly changing laws and regulations. To help, we’ve gathered the most important information on each state’s current legalities, restrictions, and other need-to-know details regarding your reproductive autonomy below*.

To see information about abortion rights in your state, simply click the hyperlink. This is a work in progress, so if your state isn't posted yet, check back soon!

ϴ=abortion is banned entirely, [Highest Risk]

▼​= abortion is legal but heavily restricted and threatened, [High Risk]

▽= abortion is legal but unprotected, [Moderate Risk]

√= abortion is legal and protected, [Low Risk]

Alabama ϴ Alaska √ Arizona ϴ Arkansas ϴ California √ Colorado √ Connecticut √ Delaware √ Florida ▼ Georgia ▼ Hawaii √ Idaho ϴ Illinois √ Indiana ϴ Iowa ▼ Kansas √ Kentucky ϴ Louisiana ϴ Maine √ Maryland √ Massachusetts √ Michigan √ Minnesota √ Mississippi ϴ Missouri ϴ Montana √ Nebraska ▼ Nevada √ New Hampshire ▽ New Jersey √ New Mexico ▽ New York √ North Carolina ▼ North Dakota ϴ Ohio √ Oklahoma ϴ Oregon √ Pennsylvania ▽ Rhode Island √ South Carolina ▼ South Dakota ϴ Tennessee ϴ Texas ϴ Utah ▼ Vermont √ Virginia ▽ Washington √ West Virginia ϴ Wisconsin ▼ Wyoming ▼

*Please note, information on this website should not be used as legal advice or as a basis for medical decisions. Consult an attorney and/or a physician for your particular case, if possible.

[mental-mona]

This is absolutely horrific. Not super surprising when you know the laws and zeal for enforcement involved, but horrific.

[nevermind-i-forgot-whats-that]

Sometimes, as much as I love internet communities and spaces, I really think a lot of people have spent so much time in sanitized, morally pure echo chambers that they lose sight of realism and life outside the internet.

I live in Alabama. My fiancée and I cannot hold hands down the street without fear of homophobic assholes. We have an abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. We are one of the poorest states in the US with some of the lowest scores on metrics related to quality of life, including maternal mortality, healthcare, education, and violence. It’s not a coincidence that we are also one of the most red, one of the most Republican states in the Union. In 2017 the UN said the conditions in Alabama are similar to those in a third-world country.

Trump gave a voice to the most violently racist, sexist, xenophobic groups of people who, unfortunately for most of us in the Southern U.S., run our states and have only grown more powerful since his rise to power. The Deep South powers MAGA, and we all suffer for it.

We have no protections if they don’t come from the federal government.

I know people are suffering internationally and my heart is with them. However, this election is not just about foreign policy - we have millions of Americans right here at home living in danger, living in areas where they have been completely abandoned by their local leaders. We need this win.

No candidate is perfect, but for the first time in my voting lifetime I’m excited to vote. I’m excited for the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz ticket because they are addressing the issues close to home. They’re advocating for education as the ticket to a better life, but without the crippling student debt. They’re advocating for the right to love who you love without fear and with pride. Kamala has always been pro-LGBT+ and so has Tim. Again, if you’re queer in the South, we don’t have support unless it comes from the federal government, and we absolutely will not have support if the Republicans regain the White House.

Kamala speaks in length about re-entry programs to reduce recidivism and help people who have been arrested and imprisoned regain their lives. Tim Walz supported restoring voting rights to felons. In the South, you know who comprise the majority of felons? Members of minorities. It’s one of the major tools of systemic racism and mass disenfranchisement, and arguably the modern face of slavery (there are some fantastic documentaries and books that explain the connection between the post-Reconstruction South and the disproportionate rates of imprisonment for BIPOC). Having candidates who recognize this and want to restore the freedom and rights to people who have come into contact with the criminal justice system? And keep them from having to go to prison in the first place? That’s refreshing. That’s exciting.

I would *love* to live in a country where women’s rights are respected, where LGBT+ rights and protections are a given, where we treat former criminals and individuals experiencing mental health crises with respect and dignity. I would *love* to live in a country where education is free of religious interference and each and every citizen is entitled to a fair start and equal opportunities.

But I don’t live in that country. Millions and millions of Americans find their rights and freedoms up for debate and on the ballot.

Project 2025 poses the largest threat to the future of our democracy as we know it. We are being called to fight for the future of our country.

We have to put on our oxygen masks first before we can help others.

You don’t have moral purity when you wash your hands of the millions of us who are still fighting for own freedoms right here.

The reality is that a presidential candidate is a best fit, and not a perfect fit. But comparatively speaking? Kamala is pretty damn close.

[qqueenofhades]

And this is all during pride month too! A win for the queers in my opinion

Today alone has had:

Pat Robertson kicking the bucket (few people worked harder to make LGBTQ/abortion rights a demonized issue by religious conservatives);

SCOTUS shockingly striking down the racist Alabama gerrymanders which should result in southern states being forced to create at least 5 Democratic or lean-Democratic House seats;

Trump getting federally indicted for MOTHERFUCKING TREASON UNDER THE ESPIONAGE ACT;

Oh look, it is in fact the exact code and statute I said it was earlier

And a few days ago Florida's ban on gender-affirming care for minors was partly struck down;

Before that the Tennessee drag ban was totally eviscerated by a TRUMP APPOINTED JUDGE;

Idk man, it's only eight days in and we're going HOT

Clarence Thomas HAS to die before the month is over, right?

Or someone equally heinous

Just sayin

[rapeculturerealities]

(7) There is a reason politicians don't want pregnant women getting divorced

In Texas, Alabama, Missouri, and Arizona, pregnant women cannot divorce.

There are no exceptions for domestic violence.

These laws are not new, but they’re back in the news because a lawmaker in Missouri introduced a bill to change the law in that state. It’s unlikely the GOP-led legislature will pass the bill. These laws also have abortion bans — a sort of catch-22 for people who can become pregnant.

These laws initially came about, as so many bad laws do, as a paternalistic measure to make sure a child was provided for after birth. But when you add in the context that these states have banned abortions, what these laws essentially do is force women into positions of financial or emotional vulnerability and into marriage and into lives of unpaid labor.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

This is the price of the RepubliKKKlans abortion bans. The GQP wasn’t happy with just the South being like the Third World, they want to share it to the whole country.

[whatbigotspost]

I hate August. I love September. But just as with September 1st 2 years ago when SCOTUS previewed the overturning of Roe by allowing abortion to be outlawed here, there’s no celebrating for me today.

It’s a shitty day in Texas. Realllllllll shitty.

From Instagram, linking to this post from OutYouth for the resources they share.

Sadly, Texas is joining 21 other states with other such heinous laws.

“Additional bans on gender-affirming care have been passed in North Carolina, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Arizona, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, West Virginia, Indiana, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida.”

This hate fueled targeting and incessant attacking of trans people ESPECIALLY CHILDREN is disgusting beyond words.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

One week after the federal government made it easier to get abortion pills, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Tuesday that women in Alabama who use those pills to end pregnancies could be prosecuted.

That’s despite wording in Alabama’s new Human Life Protection Act that criminalizes abortion providers and prevents its use against the people receiving abortions. Instead, the attorney general’s office said Alabama could rely on an older law, one initially designed to protect children from meth lab fumes.

“The Human Life Protection Act targets abortion providers, exempting women ‘upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed’ from liability under the law,” Marshall said in an emailed statement. “It does not provide an across-the-board exemption from all criminal laws, including the chemical-endangerment law—which the Alabama Supreme Court has affirmed and reaffirmed protects unborn children.”

The announcement followed changes last week to regulations of two medications commonly prescribed for abortion. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized a change that will allow brick-and-mortar and mail-order pharmacies to dispense mifepristone and misoprostol, two drugs used in more than half of abortions in the United States.

Before the change, people using medication for abortions had to pick it up at specialty clinics. Officials at the U.S. Department of Justice issued an opinion that carriers with the U.S. Postal Service could deliver pills in states that banned abortion. The new rules will expand access through telehealth and mail-order pharmacies but could set up clashes with anti-abortion states such as Alabama.

Marshall has said in the past his office could prosecute doctors with U.S. Veterans Affairs who perform abortions for victims of rape or incest. He has also said people who assist in setting up out-of-state abortions could face criminal penalties. This is the first time he has said police and prosecutors could arrest women who have undergone medication abortion.

“Promoting the remote prescription and administration of abortion pills endangers both women and unborn children,” Marshall said in an email. “Elective abortion—including abortion pills—is illegal in Alabama. Nothing about the Justice Department’s guidance changes that. Anyone who remotely prescribes abortion pills in Alabama does so at their own peril: I will vigorously enforce Alabama law to protect unborn life.”

In 2019, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed the Human Life Protection Act, which banned abortion except in cases where the mother’s health is in danger. That law went into effect when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last summer.

The law specifically states that women receiving abortions cannot be held criminally liable. However, Marshall said women using pills to induce abortions could be prosecuted under the chemical endangerment law.

Lawmakers passed the chemical endangerment law in 2006 to protect small children from fumes and chemicals from home-based meth labs. District attorneys soon began applying the law to protect the fetuses of women who used various drugs during pregnancy. Justices on the Alabama Supreme Court upheld and affirmed prosecutions of pregnant people in 2013 and 2014.

Since then, the law has been used against more than a thousand Alabama women who used drugs during pregnancy. Its enforcement varies widely. District attorneys in some counties rarely apply the law to pregnant women, while others routinely arrest those who use any illegal substance, including marijuana, while pregnant.

The chemical endangerment law has been used to incarcerate women for years who have had miscarriages or stillbirths after using drugs. Etowah County officials jailed pregnant women for months before trial under bond conditions designed to protect fetuses, despite evidence that incarceration increases the risk of pregnancy loss. After the publication of an investigative series in 2015 by ProPublica and Al.com, lawmakers voted to amend the law so it couldn’t be used against women who had lawful prescriptions from doctors.

Attorneys with Pregnancy Justice, a legal organization that represents pregnant women, have fought efforts to criminalize pregnancy and abortion. Emma Roth, a staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice, said prosecutors have already twisted the chemical endangerment law so it can be used against pregnant women. Using the law to go after those who use medications to induce abortions could be unlawful and would undermine the goals of lawmakers who voted for the Human Life Protection Act, she said.

“The Alabama legislature made clear its opposition to any such prosecution when it explicitly exempted patients from criminal liability under its abortion ban,” Roth said in an email. “Yet Alabama prosecutors and courts have shown a willingness to disregard legislative intent time and again in their crusade to criminalize pregnant women. Pregnancy Justice stands ready to challenge any attempt to expand the chemical endangerment statute to criminalize the use of abortion medication.”

JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, said women have the right to receive prescriptions from out-of-state doctors.

“The ACLU of Alabama is disappointed to learn that Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is continuing to insert himself into a person’s medical exam room,” Gilchrist said. “Medical decisions should remain the private choice between a patient and doctor. The Alabama Attorney General lacks the jurisdiction to prosecute Alabamians from receiving legal and legitimate medical services prescribed outside the state of Alabama.”