Save Roe

Remember when Nebraska passed the first ever federal abortion ban and the US Supreme Court upheld it? It became a nightmare for doctors trying to help women in tragic circumstances and provide the safest care.

Nebraska is at it again.

From RHRealityCheck.org:

Last week, Nebraska’s Republican governor Dave Heineman signed a sweeping new law that criminalizes almost all abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation and another bill that forces women to undergo extensive mental health assessment prior to obtaining an abortion before 20 weeks.

Intimidating providers

Monica Potts of TAPPED explains that the laws are meant to have a chilling effect on all abortion providers in Nebraska. In the wake of last year’s assassination of Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Nebraska began providing late-term abortions. According to Potts, the new abortion legislation is probably designed to run Dr. Carhart out of town.

An anti-choice Catch-22

Robin Marty of RH Reality Check notes the glaring contradictions between the two Nebraska abortion laws: Before 20 weeks of gestation, the state is so concerned about a woman’s health that they will force her to seek a mental health assessment to spare her the trauma of an ill-advised abortion. It seems that Nebraska legislators think women are so fragile that they can’t decide on their own whether an abortion will be unduly upsetting. Yet, after 20 weeks, a woman is not entitled to a “life of the woman” exemption even if a doctor determines that she is likely to commit suicide if she is forced to continue her pregnancy.

The second round of debate was held [Monday] on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a bill created almost entirely as a vehicle for getting anti-choice legislation challenged and potentially reviewed by the Supreme Court. Unlike every other anti-choice law that has so far passed in this country, LB 1103 refuses to provide an exemption for a mother’s mental health, regardless of the fact that prior to 20 weeks a pregnant woman’s mental health was so valuable that the state wants to advocate mandatory screenings to protect it.

Vanessa Valenti of Feministing writes of the Nebraska law:

The blatant anti-choice and ableist implications in these bills are just atrocious. Not only will some women be forced to carry their pregnancies to term with no mental health exception, but doctors will be terrified to perform abortions in fear of not correctly adhering to obscure these screening rules.

A collision course with Roe?

Gov. Heineman vowed to defend the new laws against any legal challenges. The Nebraska law bans abortion based on the purported ability of fetuses to feel pain, not their ability to survive outside the womb. The Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot ban abortion of pre-viable fetuses. According to the accepted legal reasoning, if a fetus is too immature to survive outside the woman’s body, the woman has the right to withdraw the support of her body by terminating the pregnancy.

Conveniently, anti-choicers say that they have scientific evidence that pre-viable fetuses can feel pain. This dubious evidence isn’t just a pretext for banning abortion earlier, it puts the bill on a crash course with Roe. If the abortion issue is really about a woman’s right to control her body, then the fetal pain issue is a red herring. A woman can legally inflict pain on a full-grown person if she strikes in self-defense to protect her bodily autonomy. Nebraska is launching a full frontal assault on women’s rights. In Nebraska the pain of a non-viable fetus allegedly matters more than a woman’s freedom. We’ll see what the Supreme Court says about that.

Palin: ‘I Don’t Know’ If Abortion Clinic Bombers Are Terrorists

From today’s post secret.

The Supreme Court’s onetime wide majority in favor of abortion rights has shrunk to one: Justice John Paul Stevens, who is 88. Now the decision’s fate may depend on who becomes the next president.

WASHINGTON—Every four years, defenders of abortion rights proclaim that the fate of Roe vs. Wade hangs on the outcome of the presidential election.

This year, they may be right.

Through most of the 1990s and until recently, the Supreme Court had a solid 6-3 majority in favor of upholding the right of a woman to choose abortion. But the margin has shrunk to one, now that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is retired and has been replaced by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

And Justice John Paul Stevens, a leader of the narrow majority for abortion rights, is 88.

“Clearly, Roe is on the line this time,” said Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen, a former lawyer for NARAL Pro-Choice America. “It is quite clear they have four votes against it. If the next president appoints one more, the odds are it will be overruled.”

Some advocates worry that the perennial cries of “Roe is falling” has had the effect of muting such claims.

“What we find scary is that people don’t understand what’s at stake,” said Kathryn Kolbert, president of People for the American Way. “In the next four years, one to as many as three Supreme Court justices may step down, and they all will come from the liberal end of the court.”

But that doesn’t mean abortion or the fate of the Roe decision is a rallying cry on the campaign trail for either Democrats or Republicans. The two parties have staked out opposite positions, but their candidates rarely mention them when campaigning.

The abortion issue is enormously important to the base of both parties, political strategists say, but it is a touchy and difficult matter to raise with an audience of swing voters and those who are undecided.

“People are conflicted about it,” said Peter Fenn, a veteran Democratic strategist. “If you are campaigning in Scranton, you want to make the lunch-bucket argument. When the economy is driving the race, you don’t want to ignite the culture wars.”

On the Republican side, Kenneth L. Khachigian, a California attorney and a campaign advisor to President Reagan, said abortion had become a key issue in the primary races but not in the general election.

“It is a motivating factor at the grass-roots level,” he said.

When Republican John McCain was considering his choices for a running mate, conservative activists threatened a rebellion at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn., if he were to choose a supporter of abortion rights.

Instead, McCain galvanized his support with conservative activists when he chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

McCain’s website says he “believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned.”

But having established his opposition to abortion, McCain has no reason to campaign on the issue, Khachigian said. “At this stage, when you focus on the 10% who are out there and have not decided, you can figure they are not going to decide based on your view of abortion or Roe vs. Wade,” he said.

Democrat Barack Obama has called himself a strong supporter of abortion rights.

“A woman’s ability to decide how many children to have and when, without interference from the government, is one of the most fundamental rights we possess,” he told NARAL Pro-Choice America. “I believe we must work together to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies,” he said.

But Obama, like McCain, does not talk up the issue on the campaign trail.

Polls show the American public remains closely split on abortion. Most say they favor legal abortion, with some restrictions. In August, a poll for the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 54% said abortion should be generally legal, and 41% said it should be mostly illegal.

Read more…

TAKE ACTION

I have just learned that the Bush administration is about to
release a rule that will make it possible for federal funding
that is specifically designed to prevent unintended pregnancy
and promote reproductive health to now be used for anything but
that.

If it happens, this will be a massive betrayal of women and
families, and we must stop it. For example, this is what one
result of Bush’s rule change could be:

Right now, anti-choice groups run so-called “crisis pregnancy
centers” in communities all around the country—often a block
or two away from Planned Parenthood affiliate health centers.
These facilities look like health centers, but in reality are
run by anti-choice zealots who deliver only the reproductive
health care options that fit their agenda. No birth control, no
abortion—and no choice for women and families who need it.

If this rule takes effect, they’re likely to receive a massive
influx of our tax dollars to expand their deceptive operations
and to attract hundreds of thousands of women who think they’ll
be getting medical care but instead will receive a large dose of
anti-choice ideology.

I believe that tricking women when they are most vulnerable is
wrong—and the federal government shouldn’t pay people to do
it.

Please join me in telling President Bush “no.” Here’s the link
with all the info you need.

I have the Blondie song, One Way or Another, running through my head thanks to “this story”http://www.feministing.com/archives/009733.html from feministing.com.

If you want to get real sick, read the entire New York Times story (free subscription required).

But if you are a policy junky or a lawyer, this might make sense to you: The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

Blah, blah blah. It basically opens up federal family planning dollars to non-family planning organizations. It is gross. And so damn clever on their part. And with just 3 and a half month until the election, it’s the perfect think to throw Planned Parenthood and NARAL into a tizzy. 1/20/09 can’t come fast enough.

Just in case you missed it: On Friday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in PPMNS v. Rounds, Planned Parenthood’s challenge to a South Dakota law requiring doctors to recite state-mandated ideology to women seeking abortion care. This law, passed by the South Dakota legislature in 2005, was pushed through by the same politicians who tried to ban all abortions in South Dakota last year. It violates doctors and patients constitutional rights by forcing doctors to give ideologically charged, non-scientific and inaccurate messages to patients.

In a 7-4 vote, the court, sitting en banc, vacated a lower court preliminary injunction, and allowed the South Dakota law to take effect.

“This case is about whether women in South Dakota should be able to make private health care decisions with their doctors – free from political interference,” said Mimi Liu, PPFA staff attorney.

This law is the only one of it’s kind in the country. Now nowhere is it more difficult for a woman to access abortion than in the state of South Dakota. It’s very disturbing on so many levels.

What are we, China?

Hi everyone! I’m hosting a virtual house party for Planned Parenthood. It’s called Let’s Do It In the Voting Booth!”

I’m volunteering for Planned Parenthood to help bring 1 million pro-choice voters to the polls in November and I’d love for you to join me. Because YOU ARE one in a million!

Visit my Virtual Party Web Site to RSVP and join the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

The person with the most house party attenders gets to have dinner with Cecile Richards, President of PP. Woot! Help me get there!

Once you’ve rsvp’d, check out this youtube

I hope you’ll join me!

this great piece by Vanessa Valenti on the war on contraception.

It might just blow your mind a bit. But it is excellent. Here’s an excerpt.

For the last three and a half decades, the big battle in women’s health has been abortion. Anti-choice activists attack Roe v. Wade at every turn and purposefully chip away at abortion rights. But as anti-choice groups expand their net to oppose basic birth control, they have a helping hand in the myriad political, financial and practical access issues that American women face in trying to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

The average American woman spends about three decades of her life trying to avoid pregnancy, and only a few years trying to become or being pregnant. And while the general belief is that contraception is only a pharmacy away, the United States still has one of the highest unintended pregnancy rates in the developed world. Why is it that in a country where 98 percent of sexually active women have used a form of contraception, nearly half will have an unintended pregnancy? According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization for sexual and reproductive health, one of the major contributing factors is simply a lack of access—economic gaps, racial disparities and insurance status all play a role in determining women’s access to birth control. And they all seem to have slipped under the public radar.

ELECTION 2008 | Colo. Group Submits Signatures To Put Proposal That Would Define Fertilized Embryo as Person on State Ballot
[May 15, 2008]

The group Colorado for Equal Rights submitted 131,245 signatures to place an initiative on the November statewide ballot that would define a fertilized embryo as a person and extend to it rights and protections under the Colorado Constitution, the Denver Post reports. According to the Post, 76,000 valid signatures are required. Signatures submitted by the Tuesday deadline will need to be validated by the Colorado Secretary of State’s office (Draper, Denver Post, 5/13). The initiative is seeking to amend the state constitution to define “any human being from the moment of fertilization” as a “person” for purposes of the state’s constitutional provisions “relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law” (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 5/8).

You can read more here.

Is anyone in Colorado? Can you tell me how you think this will go?