SCOTUS set to overturn Roe and Casey

[Veritable Quandry]

The language prevents the state of Ohio from putting up barriers to reproductive care. It does not override Federal drug laws and it does not change State and Federal requirements for physicians and clinics to be licensed. It would prevent the State creating barriers to reproductive care that do not apply to other forms of healthcare, which Ohio has been doing for decades.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Also, many of the states with the strict abortion laws also include wording to prevent IVF treatments - thus proving it is not about babies at all, but cruelty to women - whether they want a child, or don't want one - it is about taking away the right to choose entirely.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The language prevents the state of Ohio from putting up barriers to reproductive care. It does not override Federal drug laws and it does not change State and Federal requirements for physicians and clinics to be licensed. It would prevent the State creating barriers to reproductive care that do not apply to other forms of healthcare, which Ohio has been doing for decades.

I realise that's the intention but if -- and I realise that's a very big "if" -- the language of the amendment is as reported, I think a court would have to interpret it as doing rather more than that. That's what worries me.

And I really don't see the point of involving fertility treatments, which involve a whole lot very different regulatory issues.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Also, many of the states with the strict abortion laws also include wording to prevent IVF treatments - thus proving it is not about babies at all, but cruelty to women - whether they want a child, or don't want one - it is about taking away the right to choose entirely.

The problem, for someone who believes "life begins at conception," is that with IVF, you normally end up with several fertilised embryos for which there's no immediate use.

Usually in IVF, the woman has medicines (fertility hormones) to stimulate the ovaries to produce several eggs. The eggs are then collected and mixed with sperm in a laboratory.

IVF is carried out when the sperm quality is considered to be ‘normal’ If there are issues with the sperm quality such as low motility or numbers, a procedure called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) may instead be used – this is where a single sperm is injected into the egg by an embryologist

If fertilisation is successful, the embryos are allowed to develop for between two and six days. This helps the embryologist to select the strongest embryo, which is then transferred back to the woman’s womb to hopefully continue to a successful birth.

Often several good quality embryos will be created. In these cases, it’s normally best practice to freeze the remaining embryos because putting two embryos back in the womb increases your chance of having twins or triplets, which carries health risks. You can use your frozen embryos later on if your first cycle is unsuccessful or you want to try for another baby.

HFEA: UK fertility regulator

We are the UK's independent regulator of fertility treatment and research using human embryos.

www.hfea.gov.uk

If you don't want to store them, at least in the UK you can either donate them (either to someone else who wants a baby or for reasearch) or ask for them to be disposed of.

"Life begins at conception" people would regard the last two options as being as bad as abortion.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

The full text is here.

Fertility treatments are included because it is intended to protect all forms of reproductive health, and the state government has started throwing up barriers to fertility treatments as well. If the Ohio abortion ban is allowed to go in effect (the 6 week ban is currently blocked by courts) it is worded in a way to make IVF illegal in the state.

As far as courts are concerned, the Ohio courts will be hostile to this amendment and will rule as restrictively as they can. The state Supreme court is elected in state wide elections and while theoretically non-partisan, they are in the pocket of the Republican party. In order to hold the August election to try to restrict future Constitutional Amendments, they ruled that the Legislature was not bound by the law that they just passed to eliminate August elections. The Legislature used a Joint Resolution to advance the referendum instead of passing it as a law in order to speed up passage and reduce public hearings, but a joint resolution should not override statutory law, making the election illegal under Ohio law. But the state courts ignored that point entirely in their ruling allowing the election to proceed.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The full text is here.

Fertility treatments are included because it is intended to protect all forms of reproductive health, and the state government has started throwing up barriers to fertility treatments as well. If the Ohio abortion ban is allowed to go in effect (the 6 week ban is currently blocked by courts) it is worded in a way to make IVF illegal in the state.

As far as courts are concerned, the Ohio courts will be hostile to this amendment and will rule as restrictively as they can. The state Supreme court is elected in state wide elections and while theoretically non-partisan, they are in the pocket of the Republican party. In order to hold the August election to try to restrict future Constitutional Amendments, they ruled that the Legislature was not bound by the law that they just passed to eliminate August elections. The Legislature used a Joint Resolution to advance the referendum instead of passing it as a law in order to speed up passage and reduce public hearings, but a joint resolution should not override statutory law, making the election illegal under Ohio law. But the state courts ignored that point entirely in their ruling allowing the election to proceed.

Thanks. I couldn't get the link to load (maybe it doesn't like visitors from abroad*) but I found the text here:

Homepage - Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights

In the 2023 November elections, the Reproductive Freedom Amendment passed 57% - 43%, marking a significant victory for OPRR and reproductive rights in Ohio.

protectchoiceohio.com

Now that I've read the full text I'm reassured -- it contains the sort of restrictions and qualifications I'd regard as common-sense.

*It doesn't -- I could open the link by using a VPN that gave me a US IP address.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

She Just Had a Baby. Soon, She'll Start 7th Grade.

After the fall of Roe v. Wade, some travel hundreds of miles to get abortions. This is the story of a girl who couldn't

time.com

Ashley just had a baby. She’s sitting on the couch in a relative’s apartment in Clarksdale, Miss., wearing camo-print leggings and fiddling with the plastic hospital bracelets still on her wrists. It’s August and pushing 90 degrees, which means the brown patterned curtains are drawn, the air conditioner is on high, and the room feels like a hiding place. Peanut, the baby boy she delivered two days earlier, is asleep in a car seat at her feet, dressed in a little blue outfit. Ashley is surrounded by family, but nobody is smiling. One relative silently eats lunch in the kitchen, her two siblings stare glumly at their phones, and her mother, Regina, watches from across the room. Ashley was discharged from the hospital only hours ago, but there are no baby presents or toys in the room, no visible diapers or ointments or bottles. Almost nobody knows that Peanut exists, because almost nobody knew that Ashley was pregnant. She is 13 years old. Soon she’ll start seventh grade.

In the fall of 2022, Ashley was raped by a stranger in the yard outside her home, her mother says. For weeks, she didn’t tell anybody what happened, not even her mom. But Regina knew something was wrong. Ashley used to love going outside to make dances for her TikTok, but suddenly she refused to leave her bedroom. When she turned 13 that November, she wasn't in the mood to celebrate. “She just said, ‘It hurts,’” Regina remembers. “She was crying in her room. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she didn’t want to tell me.” (To protect the privacy of a juvenile rape survivor, TIME is using pseudonyms to refer to Ashley and Regina; Peanut is the baby’s nickname.)

 

[WolfEyes]

Ashley

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

https://apnews.com/article/abortion-activists-clinic-blockade-trial-fetuses-b49db7f6b6a0a073a6a2f37b446bce53

Anti-abortion activists, including one who kept fetuses, convicted of illegally blocking DC clinic

 

[Isabeau]

https://apnews.com/article/abortion-activists-clinic-blockade-trial-fetuses-b49db7f6b6a0a073a6a2f37b446bce53

Anti-abortion activists, including one who kept fetuses, convicted of illegally blocking DC clinic

The defendants face up to 11 years in prison.

Hope they will serve time.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Guardian summarises an article in the Washington Post:

Is Texas going to start enforcing pregnancy tests at its borders?
The way things are going it doesn’t seem implausible. Texas has some of the toughest abortion bans in the US but it’s still theoretically possible to leave the state and get an abortion elsewhere. Anti-abortion activists want to clamp down on that. The Washington Post reports that a wave of new proposals would make it illegal to use certain roads to drive someone out of state for an abortion.

“This really is building a wall to stop abortion trafficking,” said Mark Lee Dickson, the anti-abortion activist leading this dystopian initiative.

Evernote link to WaPo

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

The Guardian summarises an article in the Washington Post:



Evernote link to WaPo

I remember in SLU Sea Warcliffe mentioned being a frequent ocean traveller on cargo boats. And one encounter with a Russian officer who was filling in paperwork for entry into a US port. The officer said, “You Americans are becoming so Soviet.”

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I remember in SLU Sea Warcliffe mentioned being a frequent ocean traveller on cargo boats. And one encounter with a Russian officer who was filling in paperwork for entry into a US port. The officer said, “You Americans are becoming so Soviet.”

I always found both the old Soviet Border Police and the KGB easier to deal with than the US INS.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

I always found both the old Soviet Border Police and the KGB easier to deal with than the US INS.

I avoid transiting through the USA if at all possible even if the flight costs more otherwise.

To Europe through Heathrow is a delight.

 

[Free]

Well done, "pro-lifers." Well. Done.

Idaho hospital closes its maternity ward, citing the state’s ‘political climate’

Idaho has a strict abortion ban. People living in Sandpoint, Idaho will now have to drive at least 46 miles to find the nearest hospital offering perinatal care.

www.today.com

 

[Sean Gorham]

Like George Carlin once said: "If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're pre-school, you're fucked!"

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Evernote link

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The Next Targets for the Group That Overturned Roe

Alliance Defending Freedom has won fifteen Supreme Court cases. Now it wants religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws—and is going after trans rights.

www.newyorker.com

Evernote link

 

[Beebo Brink]

“Unreliable” Lung Float Test Still Being Used to Convict Women of Murder — ProPublica

 

[Beebo Brink]

An Alabama woman was imprisoned for ‘endangering’ her fetus. She gave birth in a jail shower | Alabama | The Guardian

But over the next seven months of incarceration for “chemical endangerment” in the Etowah county detention center (ECDC), Caswell was denied regular access to prenatal visits, even as officials were aware her pregnancy was high-risk due to her hypertension and abnormal pap smears, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday against the county and the sheriff’s department. She was also denied her prescribed psychiatric medication and slept on a thin mat on the concrete floor of the detention center for her entire pregnancy.

In October, when her water broke and she pleaded to be taken to a hospital, her lawyer says, officials told her to “sleep it off” and “wait until Monday” to deliver – two days away.