Facebook and most other social media is state adjacent at best. Look at the crossover of a lot of the high level positions amongst the top social media companies from Meta to Twitter to Snapchat with the CIA, NSA, FBI etc. I mean even look at what masquerades as the news on TV and notice that many of the intelligence analysts have come from the agencies that they are supposed to be reporting to us truthfully about, I'm sure there is no cronyism and crosstalk with their old spy buddies. Coming from that kind of culture it is not surprising that the backchannel to all communications is open to LE. So I would say absolutely Facebook is at fault partially, especially if they don't take this opportunity to tighten up the security and privacy of their users. Why we don't have robust digital privacy laws that would make some of these issues the default position is astounding, I don't believe this is a D or R issue either, plenty of support all around. This (PJ Forum) is my only social media and sometimes I feel like this is too much, and I'm an avocado toast eating millennial that has ruined my own future because I went out to brunch too many times.
Facebook and most other social media is state adjacent at best. Look at the crossover of a lot of the high level positions amongst the top social media companies from Meta to Twitter to Snapchat with the CIA, NSA, FBI etc. I mean even look at what masquerades as the news on TV and notice that many of the intelligence analysts have come from the agencies that they are supposed to be reporting to us truthfully about, I'm sure there is no cronyism and crosstalk with their old spy buddies. Coming from that kind of culture it is not surprising that the backchannel to all communications is open to LE. So I would say absolutely Facebook is at fault partially, especially if they don't take this opportunity to tighten up the security and privacy of their users. Why we don't have robust digital privacy laws that would make some of these issues the default position is astounding, I don't believe this is a D or R issue either, plenty of support all around. This (PJ Forum) is my only social media and sometimes I feel like this is too much, and I'm an avocado toast eating millennial that has ruined my own future because I went out to brunch too many times.
Two thoughts here my friend-
-All of us are to some degree responsible to impacting the planet, but you care, and that makes a huge difference. Kudos for your efforts!
-I get it how AMT can be overwhelming at times. We're all imperfect and I'm sure I've said things I wish I hadn't or at least had said better. But we're here because we care and I'm grateful for this place. And it would be a lesser place without you. I hope you stay!
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Facebook and most other social media is state adjacent at best. Look at the crossover of a lot of the high level positions amongst the top social media companies from Meta to Twitter to Snapchat with the CIA, NSA, FBI etc. I mean even look at what masquerades as the news on TV and notice that many of the intelligence analysts have come from the agencies that they are supposed to be reporting to us truthfully about, I'm sure there is no cronyism and crosstalk with their old spy buddies. Coming from that kind of culture it is not surprising that the backchannel to all communications is open to LE. So I would say absolutely Facebook is at fault partially, especially if they don't take this opportunity to tighten up the security and privacy of their users. Why we don't have robust digital privacy laws that would make some of these issues the default position is astounding, I don't believe this is a D or R issue either, plenty of support all around. This (PJ Forum) is my only social media and sometimes I feel like this is too much, and I'm an avocado toast eating millennial that has ruined my own future because I went out to brunch too many times.
Two thoughts here my friend-
-All of us are to some degree responsible to impacting the planet, but you care, and that makes a huge difference. Kudos for your efforts!
-I get it how AMT can be overwhelming at times. We're all imperfect and I'm sure I've said things I wish I hadn't or at least had said better. But we're here because we care and I'm grateful for this place. And it would be a lesser place without you. I hope you stay!
I'm not going anywhere...at least not until my membership renewal comes up. for those keeping track 15xxx so yes your member numbers and chances of getting closer will likely greatly be improved if I decide to not renew. Lack of shows more limited chances of getting tickets and no more xmas single will play more into that than my views on social media or the AMT. Honestly I renewed the last time just so I could keep participating on the forum. This place is pretty refreshing and most people are open to debate and discussion. My qualms are just that I have been able to divest or have not joined any social media, except for my one great weakness PJ and their fan forum!
Facebook and most other social media is state adjacent at best. Look at the crossover of a lot of the high level positions amongst the top social media companies from Meta to Twitter to Snapchat with the CIA, NSA, FBI etc. I mean even look at what masquerades as the news on TV and notice that many of the intelligence analysts have come from the agencies that they are supposed to be reporting to us truthfully about, I'm sure there is no cronyism and crosstalk with their old spy buddies. Coming from that kind of culture it is not surprising that the backchannel to all communications is open to LE. So I would say absolutely Facebook is at fault partially, especially if they don't take this opportunity to tighten up the security and privacy of their users. Why we don't have robust digital privacy laws that would make some of these issues the default position is astounding, I don't believe this is a D or R issue either, plenty of support all around. This (PJ Forum) is my only social media and sometimes I feel like this is too much, and I'm an avocado toast eating millennial that has ruined my own future because I went out to brunch too many times.
Two thoughts here my friend-
-All of us are to some degree responsible to impacting the planet, but you care, and that makes a huge difference. Kudos for your efforts!
-I get it how AMT can be overwhelming at times. We're all imperfect and I'm sure I've said things I wish I hadn't or at least had said better. But we're here because we care and I'm grateful for this place. And it would be a lesser place without you. I hope you stay!
I'm not going anywhere...at least not until my membership renewal comes up. for those keeping track 15xxx so yes your member numbers and chances of getting closer will likely greatly be improved if I decide to not renew. Lack of shows more limited chances of getting tickets and no more xmas single will play more into that than my views on social media or the AMT. Honestly I renewed the last time just so I could keep participating on the forum. This place is pretty refreshing and most people are open to debate and discussion. My qualms are just that I have been able to divest or have not joined any social media, except for my one great weakness PJ and their fan forum!
Sounds a lot like where I'm at!
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Facebook and most other social media is state adjacent at best. Look at the crossover of a lot of the high level positions amongst the top social media companies from Meta to Twitter to Snapchat with the CIA, NSA, FBI etc. I mean even look at what masquerades as the news on TV and notice that many of the intelligence analysts have come from the agencies that they are supposed to be reporting to us truthfully about, I'm sure there is no cronyism and crosstalk with their old spy buddies. Coming from that kind of culture it is not surprising that the backchannel to all communications is open to LE. So I would say absolutely Facebook is at fault partially, especially if they don't take this opportunity to tighten up the security and privacy of their users. Why we don't have robust digital privacy laws that would make some of these issues the default position is astounding, I don't believe this is a D or R issue either, plenty of support all around. This (PJ Forum) is my only social media and sometimes I feel like this is too much, and I'm an avocado toast eating millennial that has ruined my own future because I went out to brunch too many times.
Two thoughts here my friend-
-All of us are to some degree responsible to impacting the planet, but you care, and that makes a huge difference. Kudos for your efforts!
-I get it how AMT can be overwhelming at times. We're all imperfect and I'm sure I've said things I wish I hadn't or at least had said better. But we're here because we care and I'm grateful for this place. And it would be a lesser place without you. I hope you stay!
I'm not going anywhere...at least not until my membership renewal comes up. for those keeping track 15xxx so yes your member numbers and chances of getting closer will likely greatly be improved if I decide to not renew. Lack of shows more limited chances of getting tickets and no more xmas single will play more into that than my views on social media or the AMT. Honestly I renewed the last time just so I could keep participating on the forum. This place is pretty refreshing and most people are open to debate and discussion. My qualms are just that I have been able to divest or have not joined any social media, except for my one great weakness PJ and their fan forum!
I think these are good forums. I like shooting the shit here.
Facebook and most other social media is state adjacent at best. Look at the crossover of a lot of the high level positions amongst the top social media companies from Meta to Twitter to Snapchat with the CIA, NSA, FBI etc. I mean even look at what masquerades as the news on TV and notice that many of the intelligence analysts have come from the agencies that they are supposed to be reporting to us truthfully about, I'm sure there is no cronyism and crosstalk with their old spy buddies. Coming from that kind of culture it is not surprising that the backchannel to all communications is open to LE. So I would say absolutely Facebook is at fault partially, especially if they don't take this opportunity to tighten up the security and privacy of their users. Why we don't have robust digital privacy laws that would make some of these issues the default position is astounding, I don't believe this is a D or R issue either, plenty of support all around. This (PJ Forum) is my only social media and sometimes I feel like this is too much, and I'm an avocado toast eating millennial that has ruined my own future because I went out to brunch too many times.
Two thoughts here my friend-
-All of us are to some degree responsible to impacting the planet, but you care, and that makes a huge difference. Kudos for your efforts!
-I get it how AMT can be overwhelming at times. We're all imperfect and I'm sure I've said things I wish I hadn't or at least had said better. But we're here because we care and I'm grateful for this place. And it would be a lesser place without you. I hope you stay!
I'm not going anywhere...at least not until my membership renewal comes up. for those keeping track 15xxx so yes your member numbers and chances of getting closer will likely greatly be improved if I decide to not renew. Lack of shows more limited chances of getting tickets and no more xmas single will play more into that than my views on social media or the AMT. Honestly I renewed the last time just so I could keep participating on the forum. This place is pretty refreshing and most people are open to debate and discussion. My qualms are just that I have been able to divest or have not joined any social media, except for my one great weakness PJ and their fan forum!
I think these are good forums. I like shooting the shit here.
I agree this is the highlight of the internet for me.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Sounds like those corporations are a little bit woke. President DeSantis is going to go after them.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Opinion | A post-Dobbs gender gap in new voters is poised to affect midterms Opinion by Jennifer Rubin August 18, 2022 at 10:30 ET In a batch of swing-district races I’ve looked at in recent days (contests in Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Virginia and Washington), the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade appears to have changed voters’ priorities and put Republicans who support abortion bans on the defensive. The June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization might have a profound effect in many states with hotly contested races, according to findings by TargetSmart, a Democratic political data and data services firm. The electorate in Kansas “changed dramatically” in the days after a draft of the court’s Dobbs decision leaked in May, the TargetSmart analysis indicates. “Kansans turned out in record numbers in the primary and delivered a victory for abortion rights, a win fueled by Democrats out registering Republicans by 9 points since the Dobbs decision was announced, with a staggering 70% of all new registrants being women,” the firm found. And this trend isn’t limited to Kansas. [Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights] TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier says the gender gap in new registrations is evident in multiple states: If the tilt toward female registrants holds up, it might affect House and Senate seats in key states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the gender gap among new registrations is 11 points or greater. In Wisconsin, where Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes is facing Republican incumbent Ron Johnson, the TargetSmart data show that “women have out-registered men by 15.6%” since Dobbs was decided and that “Democrats make up 52.36% of all of those newly registered voters, compared with 16.59% of new voters registering as Republicans.” That’s problematic for Johnson, a hard-line proponent of forced pregnancy and forced birth who cheered the repeal of Roe. Johnson will have to explain to voters what he meant in May when he told the Wall Street Journal: “It might be a little messy for some people, but abortion is not going away.” He also said: “I just don’t think this is going to be the big political issue everybody thinks it is, because it’s not going to be that big a change.” The facts on the ground contradict his blithe assurances. In Wisconsin, the repeal of Roe appeared to leave reproductive rights governed by an 1849 law that bans nearly all abortions. (The law has been challenged by the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general.) The latest poll from Marquette University Law School found that 60 percent of respondents oppose Roe’s repeal. The 1849 statute makes no exception for rape or incest or even a serious health condition — only a threat to the woman’s life. The percentage of registered Wisconsin voters who think that abortion should be legal in all or most cases has risen over the past two months (perhaps due to all the new women voters). Marquette found that 88 percent think abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest. Meanwhile, in Michigan, a state referendum to codify Roe is headed for the November ballot. As in Wisconsin, new registrants have skewed female. “Among the 12,879 new voters that have registered since the Dobbs decision, women are out-registering men by 8.1 percentage points,” TargetSmart reports. Moreover, “In the same time frame, Democrats are out-registering Republicans by 18 percentage points.” [Jennifer Rubin: In Nevada and Minnesota, different races with the same Democratic message] Anecdotal and polling evidence suggest that abortion is moving up the list of priorities for many voters. If more women and more pro-choice voters who prioritize abortion rights cast ballots, candidates’ positions on Dobbs might be decisive. As TargetSmart’s analysis put it, “Right now, all signs point to a fired up female electorate around the country in states where abortion rights are under immediate threat.” No wonder so many Republican candidates who used to tout their antiabortion stances have gone mute.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Kansas recount confirms results in favor of abortion rights
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH and JOHN HANNA
17 mins ago
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A decisive statewide vote in favor of abortion rights in traditionally conservative Kansas was confirmed with a partial hand recount, with fewer than 100 votes changing after the last county reported results Sunday.
Nine of the state’s 105 counties recounted their votes at the request of Melissa Leavitt, who has pushed for tighter election laws. A longtime anti-abortion activist, Mark Gietzen, is covering most of the costs. Gietzen acknowledged in an interview that it was unlikely to change the outcome.
A no vote in the referendum signaled a desire to keep existing abortion protections and a yes vote was for allowing the Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban abortion. After the recounts, “no” votes lost 87 votes and “yes” gained 6 votes.
Eight of the counties reported their results by the state's Saturday deadline, but Sedgwick County delayed releasing its final count until Sunday because spokeswoman Nicole Gibbs said some of the ballots weren't separated into the correct precincts during the initial recount and had to be resorted Saturday. She said the number of votes cast overall didn't change.
A larger than expected turnout of voters on Aug. 2 rejected a ballot measure that would have removed protections for abortion rights from the Kansas Constitution and given to the Legislature the right to further restrict or ban abortion. It failed by 18 percentage points, or 165,000 votes statewide.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I don’t get the criticism towards FB in this case. They had a warrant to hand over data. They did. It’s not like they went to the police and started the investigation. I can’t believe we still have to tell people if you don’t want something shared, don’t put it online. Private messages and emails included. There’s always a way to get it. Don’t be mad at FB about it.
Lawyer's mission: Translate Tenn.'s bewildering abortion ban
By CLAIRE GALOFARO
Today
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Chloe Akers considers herself a grizzled criminal defense attorney. Until a few months ago, she didn’t spend much time thinking about abortion — for all her 39 years, abortion was not a crime, so she’d never imagined having to defend someone accused of performing one.
That changed in June, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Akers sat down in her law office and pulled up Tennessee’s new criminal abortion statute.
She didn’t read it through a political lens; it doesn’t matter whether she likes a law — there are a lot of them she doesn’t like. Instead, she read it like she would any other statute: What does it make illegal? How would it be enforced?
She was shocked. She read it maybe 10 times more. Surely, she was missing something.
Tennessee’s law is one of the strictest in the country. It makes performing an abortion a Class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. There are no exceptions. This is the part that Akers has since found herself having to repeat, often eliciting raised eyebrows and deeply drawn breaths: Unlike many states' abortions bans, including the one in Texas, this law does not explicitly exempt abortions performed to save a mother’s life.
Instead, it offers doctors an “affirmative defense.” The difference is linguistically subtle but extraordinarily meaningful in criminal law, Akers says. The law makes performing all abortions illegal. And instead of the state having to prove that the procedure was not medically necessary, the law shifts the burden to the doctor to convince a court that it was.
She ran down the hallway toward a colleague’s office: “Have you read this?” she gasped.
Then she opened up Instagram, where she sometimes explains criminal law to a handful of followers. She looked into the camera and explained that there are no exceptions for rape, for incest or for those so desperate they threaten to end their lives.
“Our legislature is not having any of that,” she said. “They straight-up criminalized abortion.”
If she would have known that 2 million people would end up watching her 13-minute video — including members of Congress and country music stars — she would have brushed her hair and spit out her gum.
She tried to explain an affirmative defense in a way people without a law degree might understand it: It is akin to claiming self-defense after killing someone. A prosecutor might decide the killing was justified and decide not to charge. But that’s entirely up to the prosecutor. If they do charge, the defendant is at the mercy of the courts.
“It’s about to get real, and it may not happen to you. But it’s going to happen here,” she said. For those who were scared or confused, she added words of support: “You know exactly where to find me.”
And they did. Her inbox was flooded with thousands of messages, so many she couldn’t keep up.
The mayor wrote. Socialites invited her to present at dinner parties. Doctors pleaded for guidance. A women’s motorcycle club asked her to come talk with them.
She had accidently become the state’s primary interpreter of this law, which went into effect Aug. 25. Within days she quit her cushy job in a law firm and started a nonprofit she named Standing Together Tennessee. For the past two months, she’s crisscrossed the state on a tour aimed at explaining this abortion law to doctors, and the intricacies of pregnancies to the lawyers who might have to defend them.
As she climbed off the stage after her latest stop at a Nashville synagogue, a doctor asked a question she’s heard again and again.
“Are they really going to enforce this?”
Akers’ answer is always the same.
“I don’t know.”
___
Nikki Zite, a Knoxville OB-GYN, watched Akers’ video and sent her a message.
“I need to know you,” she wrote. “I think physicians and people will be very confused about the affirmative defense. How close to dead does the patient need to be?”
Zite is a complex family planning physician, and until recently provided abortion care for pregnancies that threatened the life of the mother and for those where it was clear the fetus would not survive. The latter are no longer allowed in Tennessee.
These are often desired pregnancies, with parents who have decorated nurseries and decided on names. It’s devastating every time, she said. Since Roe fell, her colleagues had to tell three mothers carrying babies who would not survive that the law forbids them from ending their pregnancies.
She’s also treated two ectopic pregnancies, where the pregnancy is growing outside the womb, usually in the fallopian tubes. An ectopic pregnancy can never be viable and can rupture if allowed to continue to grow, threatening the mother’s life. Termination is standard treatment. And yet Zite has found herself looking over her shoulder.
“What if someone disagrees with me? Am I going to go to jail?” she wonders.
Zite is on the executive committee of the Tennessee section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which issued a statement that the trigger law might lead doctors to hesitate, to contact lawyers in the midst of medical emergencies, while their patients get sicker.
One day soon in Tennessee, a doctor will inevitably see a woman whose water breaks early, weeks before viability, Zite said. She will not be on her death bed, but risks infection, sepsis, bleeding.
She knows how risky delays can be: After Texas passed its six-week abortion ban last year, researchers studied 28 patients who were enduring dangerous pregnancies and hospitals interpreted the law to mean they had to delay care until the patient became sicker. More than half suffered serious health complications, twice the rate of patients in states where abortions were immediately available.
“We are now at the mercy of the criminal justice system,” Zite said. “Should I win? I think so. But do I want to go through that? No. I don’t want to feel guilty until proven innocent.”
She signed up to be the medical director of Akers’ nonprofit. They hosted a panel of doctors and asked them: What are you afraid of?
Akers can’t stop thinking about an oncologist who described a scenario pregnant women face with some regularity: They are diagnosed with aggressive cancer in early pregnancy, when they cannot receive chemotherapy or radiation.
Before, doctors would have hard conversations with patients about how they would like to proceed. They could delay treatment, understanding that their cancer might grow. Or they can terminate and treat themselves immediately, save their own lives and try for a baby once they are well.
Akers asked the doctor what they planned to do in that scenario after the trigger ban.
“That’s what we’re asking you,” the doctor said.
___
Akers knows pressure. Every time she speaks to a jury, her client’s freedom is on the line. Still, she said, the stakes seem higher here.
She’s lost weight. She barely sleeps. She jolts awake at night, her head spinning with questions:
What about insurance companies? If a termination is illegal, even to save a mother’s life, will they pay for it? Would that make them an accomplice akin to a getaway driver?
What about nurses? Anesthesiologists?
Providers must submit a form to the state reporting every termination. Now, would that amount to forcing them to prepare evidence against themselves in violation of the constitution’s protection against self-incrimination?
“It’s like I opened a box, and thought there was one question. And in answering that question, 10 more questions arise and 10 more from that and 10 more from that,” she said. “That’s the most frustrating part about this whole endeavor is feeling like I’m on a merry-go-round, going round and round.”
When she first began her tour, she thought of it as a pragmatic, apolitical effort to explain the law without the fervor of the abortion wars. She’d leave the debate to others.
But she’s grown indignant about the confusion that continues to swirl over what the law really says. Many, including legislators who passed it, insist it includes an exemption to save the mother’s life.
“I don’t know how many other ways to say there’s no exceptions. We can’t tell people that it’s not going to be prosecuted," Akers said. “People might be like, ‘Why is this lady being so persnickety and detail-oriented?’ Because I’m a lawyer.”
Words matter in a courtroom. She’s spent hours arguing with prosecutors over the definition of “unreasonable.” There is no world in which she can imagine telling a judge that her client thought there was an exception, even though there wasn’t.
As a criminal defense lawyer for 15 years — many of them as a public defender — she’s well acquainted with the mercilessness of America’s criminal justice system.
“I think there is this hope in people. That because this is so unreasonable and because this is so antithetical to what we think of as fair and just and American, that they’re like, surely, surely someone’s not going to prosecute this. Right?” she said. “But I have seen cases that would make your skin crawl.”
She’s watched the courts throw the book at mentally ill clients, homeless veterans, children, people struggling with addiction.
So she told the doctors in Nashville:
“Do I suspect that this law will be enforced? Yes, I do. Otherwise, why write laws?”
___
Will Brewer, an attorney and lobbyist with Tennessee Right to Life, thinks the lawyers like Akers and doctors agonizing over the wording are exaggerating the possible consequences.
“I think you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a prosecutor that is going to prosecute a physician when they can back up their claim that they did this to save the life of the mother,” Brewer said.
Brewer has said — and has written in published essays — that the law should be interpreted as only applying to elective abortions, when the sole reason for termination is that the mother doesn’t want a baby.
Yet he said lawmakers chose the wording for a specific reason: to raise the bar high for doctors to perform an abortion. Exemptions are easier to abuse, he said. It was designed to be a narrow window where abortions would be justified.
The law mandates doctors prove only that the abortion in their “good faith medical judgment” was necessary “to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
That gives them wide berth, Brewer thinks — it doesn’t require death be imminent and it doesn’t mean every decision will be second-guessed.
“You still end up in the same place at the end of the day,” he said of the line between an exemption and a defense. “But you just make sure the due diligence was done and that the law was treated with the seriousness that it deserves.”
He pointed to Ohio laws in effect for years that used affirmative defense language in banning later-term abortions except in medical emergencies.
“Were any physicians charged with violating any of these laws? No, not one,” he said.
That no one was prosecuted because of them does not reflect the true toll they have taken on doctors, said Danielle Bessett, a professor at the University of Cincinnati. She held focus groups with 35 Ohio physicians working in hospitals and private practice, not abortion clinics.
Doctors reported feeling demonized, confused, powerless. They described waiting to perform an abortion they knew would be inevitable until the patient became sicker so the hospital would deem their condition “bad enough.” Others said they advised patients to go out of state for terminations if they were in decent health to travel.
Pregnancy complications are not black-and-white, Bessett said. It was cases in the gray area, where serious health consequences were not imminent but likely, that caused doctors “great moral distress,” Bessett said.
And these Ohio laws governed only later-term abortions, which account for a tiny fraction of terminations, she said. The post-Roe laws like the one in Tennessee will govern virtually all pregnancies, so the number of times a termination could be questioned in court will skyrocket.
Idaho has a trigger ban nearly identical to Tennessee’s. The wording is the same, though unlike Tennessee’s, it includes an affirmative defense for rape or incest. And while Tennessee’s includes one to protect the mother from death or serious injury, Idaho’s scraps the language about injury and allows an abortion only to prevent death.
The United States Department of Justice sued that state, arguing that the ban would force hospitals to violate federal law that requires they stabilize patients in medical emergencies.
Lawyers representing the state had argued in part that in the “real world,” no prosecutors would ever bring charges against a doctor for performing an abortion on a sick patient.
Winmill seemed skeptical. They were asking him to ignore what the law actually says, he wrote. It makes criminal what doctors routinely do to care for patients. One gynecologist had described for the court that physicians were “bracing for the impact of this law, as if it is a large meteor headed towards Idaho.”
“More fundamentally,” Winmill wondered, “if the law does not mean what it says, why have it at all?”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The lawsuit follows another one filed last week
also challenging the abortion ban that’s scheduled to take effect Sept.
15. The Republican-dominated Legislature approved the new ban last
month.
The
lawsuit filed in Marion County court by the American Civil Liberties
Union of Indiana on behalf of several anonymous residents and the group
Hoosier Jews for Choice argues that the ban would violate their
religious rights on when they believe abortion is acceptable.
Ken
Falk, the ACLU of Indiana’s legal director, said in a statement that
the religious-freedom law protects “all Hoosiers, not just those who
practice Christianity.”
“The
ban on abortion will substantially burden the exercise of religion by
many Hoosiers who, under the new law, would be prevented from obtaining
abortions, in conflict with their sincere religious beliefs,” Falk said.
Indiana’s
religious freedom law sparked a national backlash after it was signed
by then-Gov. Mike Pence in 2015 as opponents criticized it as allowing
discrimination against gay people.
The state attorney general’s office and Republican legislative leaders didn’t immediately comment Thursday on the new lawsuit.
Indiana
abortion clinic operators argued in a lawsuit filed last week that the
abortion ban would violate the state constitution’s protections for
privacy and equal privileges. No court rulings have been issued in that lawsuit.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
South Carolina senators reject a near-total abortion ban
By JEFFREY COLLINS
19 mins ago
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina senators rejected a ban on almost all abortions Thursday in a special session called in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade after five Republicans, including all the chamber's women, refused to support it.
The 30 Republicans in the 46-member chamber had a majority to pass the ban, but did not have the extra votes to end a threatened filibuster by Republican Sen. Tom Davis.
Davis, the chief of staff for former Gov. Mark Sanford before being elected to the Senate in 2009, was joined by the three Republican women in the Senate, a fifth GOP colleague and all Democratic senators to oppose the proposed ban.
Davis said he promised his daughters he would not vote to make South Carolina’s current six-week abortion ban stricter because women have rights, too.
“The moment we become pregnant we lost all control over what goes on with our bodies,” Davis said, recalling what his daughters told him. “I’m here to tell you I’m not going to let it happen.
After a recess to work through their options, Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey conceded the abortion ban likely couldn't pass.
“We were never going to pass a total abortion ban," Massey said. “We never had the votes to pass even what the House passed.”
Senators did pass a few changes to the six-week ban, including cutting the time that victims of rape and incest who become pregnant can seek an abortion from 20 weeks to about 12 weeks and requiring that DNA from the aborted fetus be collected for police. The bill goes back to the House, which passed a ban with exceptions for rape or incest.
South Carolina's six-week ban is currently suspended as the state Supreme Court reviews whether it violates privacy rights. In the meantime, the state’s 2016 ban on abortions 20 weeks after conception is in effect.
South Carolina's General Assembly was meeting in a special session to try to join more than a dozen other states with abortion bans.
Most of them came through so-called trigger laws designed to outlaw most abortions when the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the constitutional right to end a pregnancy in June. Indiana's Legislature passed a new ban last month that has not taken effect.
The debate started Wednesday with the three Republican women in the South Carolina Senate speaking back to back, saying they couldn't support the bill unless the rape or incest exceptions were restored.
Sen. Katrina Shealy said the 41 men in the Senate would be better off listening to their wives, daughters, mothers, granddaughters and looking at the faces of the girls in Sunday School classes at their churches.
“You want to believe that God is wanting you to push a bill through with no exceptions that kill mothers and ruins the lives of children — lets mothers bring home babies to bury them — then I think you’re miscommunicating with God. Or maybe you aren’t communicating with Him at all,” Shealy said before senators added a proposal allowing abortions if a fetus cannot survive outside the womb.
Massey helped broker the compromise among Republicans that briefly returned the exceptions to the bill. He pointed out state health officials recorded about 3,000 abortions in 2021 within the first six weeks of a pregnancy.
“Heartbeat is great, but this I think is better,” Massey said. ”I don’t think abortion should be used as birth control.”
Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto said Republican women stood up for all women in South Carolina, while Republican men let them down. He said Democrats didn't want any changes to current laws.
“There may be a sentiment that this is the same as what we already had. It’s not. It’s worse in many regards," Hutto said.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who has said before he would be happy if there were no abortions in the state, thought the Senate version struck an appropriate balance, governor's spokesman Brian Symmes said
“It is the governor’s hope that the House and Senate will soon come to an agreement and send a bill to his desk for signature,” Symmes said.
Republican Sen. Sandy Senn, who didn't vote for the six-week ban in 2021, said a total ban would be an invasion of the privacy against every woman in the state.
“If what is going on in my vagina isn’t an unreasonable invasion of privacy for this legislature to get involved in, I don’t know what is,” Senn said.
___
Associated Press writer James Pollard contributed to this report.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Michigan’s high court puts abortion question on Nov. ballot
By JOEY CAPPELLETTI, SARA BURNETT and ED WHITE
Today
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Voters will determine whether to place abortion rights in the Michigan Constitution, the state Supreme Court declared Thursday, settling the issue a day before the fall ballot must be completed.
Abortion rights would be guaranteed if the amendment passes on Nov. 8. A 1931 state law makes it a crime to perform most abortions, but the law was suspended in May and a judge this week followed up by striking it down as unconstitutional.
Though appeals of that decision are likely, the law would be trumped if voters approve the amendment in the fall election.
There are political implications beyond the ballot question.
Democrats say the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is mobilizing voters and will help Democratic candidates this fall, when top races including governor, secretary of state and attorney general are on the Michigan ballot. They point to conservative Kansas, where voters overwhelmingly defeated a measure that would have allowed the Republican-controlled Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban the procedure outright.
In Michigan, a state elections board on Aug. 31 deadlocked along party lines on whether the abortion initiative should appear on the ballot, with Republicans voting no and Democrats voting yes. The 2-2 tie meant the measure wasn’t certified for the ballot.
Supporters submitted more than 700,000 signatures, easily clearing the minimum threshold. But Republicans and abortion opponents argued the petitions had improper or no spacing between certain words and were confusing to voters.
“What a sad marker of the times,” Chief Justice Bridget McCormack said in a brief statement that accompanied the Supreme Court's 5-2 order.
McCormack said “there is no dispute” that every word was legible and in the correct order.
Republican members of the Board of State Canvassers “would disenfranchise millions of Michiganders not because they believe the many thousands of Michiganders who signed the proposal were confused by it, but because they think they have identified a technicality that allows them to do so, a game of gotcha gone very bad,” McCormack said.
The majority was made up of McCormack, three other Democratic justices and a Republican justice. Two Republicans dissented.
The court directed state canvassers, who meet again Friday, to sign off on the ballot question. Tony Daunt, a Republican who had voted against the proposal, last week said that the board would obey a court order.
Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat who supports abortion rights, hailed the decision.
“Our state Constitution provides the people with direct access to the democratic process and that access should not be limited by appointed individuals acting beyond the scope of their duty,” Nessel said.
A group called Citizens to Support MI Women and Children said it will campaign against the amendment. Right to Life of Michigan also will be a major opponent.
“Current events continue showing us that any nation that sees the next generation as an existential threat — rather than an existential necessity — has no future,” Right to Life said on Facebook.
There was no immediate comment from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is in favor of the ballot question and is seeking reelection. Her Republican opponent, Tudor Dixon, opposes abortion rights except to save the life of the mother.
Results of a poll published this week by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV showed abortion and women’s rights was the top issue motivating Michigan residents to vote in November, ahead of inflation and cost of living, education, and the economy and jobs. The poll also showed a majority of likely voters support a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights.
In a dissent, Justice Brian Zahra said supporters of the abortion question did not have a “clear legal right” to the ballot.
“Words separated by spaces cease being words or become new words when the spaces between them are removed,” Zahra said.
___
Burnett reported from Chicago and White reported from Detroit.
___
Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Michigan’s high court puts abortion question on Nov. ballot
By JOEY CAPPELLETTI, SARA BURNETT and ED WHITE
Today
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Voters will determine whether to place abortion rights in the Michigan Constitution, the state Supreme Court declared Thursday, settling the issue a day before the fall ballot must be completed.
Abortion rights would be guaranteed if the amendment passes on Nov. 8. A 1931 state law makes it a crime to perform most abortions, but the law was suspended in May and a judge this week followed up by striking it down as unconstitutional.
Though appeals of that decision are likely, the law would be trumped if voters approve the amendment in the fall election.
There are political implications beyond the ballot question.
Democrats say the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is mobilizing voters and will help Democratic candidates this fall, when top races including governor, secretary of state and attorney general are on the Michigan ballot. They point to conservative Kansas, where voters overwhelmingly defeated a measure that would have allowed the Republican-controlled Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban the procedure outright.
In Michigan, a state elections board on Aug. 31 deadlocked along party lines on whether the abortion initiative should appear on the ballot, with Republicans voting no and Democrats voting yes. The 2-2 tie meant the measure wasn’t certified for the ballot.
Supporters submitted more than 700,000 signatures, easily clearing the minimum threshold. But Republicans and abortion opponents argued the petitions had improper or no spacing between certain words and were confusing to voters.
“What a sad marker of the times,” Chief Justice Bridget McCormack said in a brief statement that accompanied the Supreme Court's 5-2 order.
McCormack said “there is no dispute” that every word was legible and in the correct order.
Republican members of the Board of State Canvassers “would disenfranchise millions of Michiganders not because they believe the many thousands of Michiganders who signed the proposal were confused by it, but because they think they have identified a technicality that allows them to do so, a game of gotcha gone very bad,” McCormack said.
The majority was made up of McCormack, three other Democratic justices and a Republican justice. Two Republicans dissented.
The court directed state canvassers, who meet again Friday, to sign off on the ballot question. Tony Daunt, a Republican who had voted against the proposal, last week said that the board would obey a court order.
Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat who supports abortion rights, hailed the decision.
“Our state Constitution provides the people with direct access to the democratic process and that access should not be limited by appointed individuals acting beyond the scope of their duty,” Nessel said.
A group called Citizens to Support MI Women and Children said it will campaign against the amendment. Right to Life of Michigan also will be a major opponent.
“Current events continue showing us that any nation that sees the next generation as an existential threat — rather than an existential necessity — has no future,” Right to Life said on Facebook.
There was no immediate comment from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is in favor of the ballot question and is seeking reelection. Her Republican opponent, Tudor Dixon, opposes abortion rights except to save the life of the mother.
Results of a poll published this week by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV showed abortion and women’s rights was the top issue motivating Michigan residents to vote in November, ahead of inflation and cost of living, education, and the economy and jobs. The poll also showed a majority of likely voters support a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights.
In a dissent, Justice Brian Zahra said supporters of the abortion question did not have a “clear legal right” to the ballot.
“Words separated by spaces cease being words or become new words when the spaces between them are removed,” Zahra said.
___
Burnett reported from Chicago and White reported from Detroit.
___
Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Tudor Dixon has zero chance of beating Whitmer with abortion on the ballot. It also damages GOP House chances in the state.
Lindsey Graham proposes new national abortion restrictions bill
Sen. Lindsey Graham during a May hearing in Washington, D.C. Photo: Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced a bill on Tuesday that would ban abortion nationally after 15 weeks.
Driving the news: "We will introduce legislation ... to get America in a position at the federal level I think is fairly consistent with the rest of the world," Graham said Tuesday in announcing the legislation.
The legislation includes exceptions for situations involving rape, incest or risks to the life and physical health of the mother.
"If we take back the House and Senate, I can assure you we'll have a vote" on the bill, Graham added.
The big picture: Graham has previously introduced bills that sought to ban abortions nationally from 20 weeks.
Graham's plan comes less than two months out from the midterm elections, with abortion expected to be an important issue for voters following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Republican candidates across the U.S. have moved to disappear hardline anti-abortion stances they took during their primaries, particularly in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Arizona and North Carolina.
The other side: "Proposals like the one today send a clear message from MAGA Republicans to women across the country: Your body, our choice," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday.
"Rather than expanding women's rights, MAGA Republicans would curtail them. Rather than giving individuals the freedom to make their own health care choices, they hand that power over to radical politicians," Schumer said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that Graham's bill "is wildly out of step with what Americans believe."
"President Biden and Congressional Democrats are committed to restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade in the face of continued radical steps by elected Republicans to put personal health care decisions in the hands of politicians instead of women and their doctors, threatening women's health and lives," she added.
Thought bubble, via Axios' Andrew Solender: Graham's bill is designed to present Republicans as being more mainstream on abortion by pushing a partial ban over either a full ban or what they characterize as Democrats' "abortion on-demand" position.
Haha, leave it to the states. That is funny. I posted this on the other page, I guess more relevant here.
This is an interesting play. I'm not sure Schumer will let this come to a vote. Many Americans are okay with 15 weeks. Most are against abortion after 20 or so. So they are trying to turn this into a reasonableness argument, saying that Democrats want abortion for viable babies. Birth abortion or whatever. If I'm Schumer, I'm pretty happy just letting the Republicans twist in the wind on abortion through election day.
It also makes it crystal clear that GOP sees this as a clear danger to their electoral prospects and are doing what they can to blunt the issue. It would be political malpractice to let this come up for a vote.
Haha, leave it to the states. That is funny. I posted this on the other page, I guess more relevant here.
This is an interesting play. I'm not sure Schumer will let this come to a vote. Many Americans are okay with 15 weeks. Most are against abortion after 20 or so. So they are trying to turn this into a reasonableness argument, saying that Democrats want abortion for viable babies. Birth abortion or whatever. If I'm Schumer, I'm pretty happy just letting the Republicans twist in the wind on abortion through election day.
It also makes it crystal clear that GOP sees this as a clear danger to their electoral prospects and are doing what they can to blunt the issue. It would be political malpractice to let this come up for a vote.
I don't know. Even if most are okay with 15 weeks, if the Dems were smart they would just be talking nonstop about a nationwide ban/nationwide ban/nationwide ban----just keep drilling that into everyone's heads. The politics are on their side here. It's kind of like defund the police in reverse.
Haha, leave it to the states. That is funny. I posted this on the other page, I guess more relevant here.
This is an interesting play. I'm not sure Schumer will let this come to a vote. Many Americans are okay with 15 weeks. Most are against abortion after 20 or so. So they are trying to turn this into a reasonableness argument, saying that Democrats want abortion for viable babies. Birth abortion or whatever. If I'm Schumer, I'm pretty happy just letting the Republicans twist in the wind on abortion through election day.
It also makes it crystal clear that GOP sees this as a clear danger to their electoral prospects and are doing what they can to blunt the issue. It would be political malpractice to let this come up for a vote.
I don't know. Even if most are okay with 15 weeks, if the Dems were smart they would just be talking nonstop about a nationwide ban/nationwide ban/nationwide ban----just keep drilling that into everyone's heads. The politics are on their side here. It's kind of like defund the police in reverse.
I agree they should be talking about it. But do you think they should let this come up to a vote? I think that would be a mistake and giving the R's an opportunity to blunt the impact by saying 15 weeks is reasonable (even though the vote will fail). It's a trap. An obvious one, but a trap.
Maybe. I think the entire purpose of this with the BS title of "late term" is so GOP candidates can see "my opponent supports late-term abortions!" There's no way it works unless the media doesn't actually pick up on this correctly. Oh. Crap.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Comments
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Two thoughts here my friend-
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Sounds a lot like where I'm at!
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Sounds like those corporations are a little bit woke. President DeSantis is going to go after them.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
because of course she's mature enough to raise a child.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Opinion by Jennifer Rubin
August 18, 2022 at 10:30 ET
In a batch of swing-district races I’ve looked at in recent days (contests in Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Virginia and Washington), the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade appears to have changed voters’ priorities and put Republicans who support abortion bans on the defensive. The June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization might have a profound effect in many states with hotly contested races, according to findings by TargetSmart, a Democratic political data and data services firm.
The electorate in Kansas “changed dramatically” in the days after a draft of the court’s Dobbs decision leaked in May, the TargetSmart analysis indicates. “Kansans turned out in record numbers in the primary and delivered a victory for abortion rights, a win fueled by Democrats out registering Republicans by 9 points since the Dobbs decision was announced, with a staggering 70% of all new registrants being women,” the firm found. And this trend isn’t limited to Kansas.
[Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights]
TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier says the gender gap in new registrations is evident in multiple states:
If the tilt toward female registrants holds up, it might affect House and Senate seats in key states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where the gender gap among new registrations is 11 points or greater.
In Wisconsin, where Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes is facing Republican incumbent Ron Johnson, the TargetSmart data show that “women have out-registered men by 15.6%” since Dobbs was decided and that “Democrats make up 52.36% of all of those newly registered voters, compared with 16.59% of new voters registering as Republicans.”
That’s problematic for Johnson, a hard-line proponent of forced pregnancy and forced birth who cheered the repeal of Roe. Johnson will have to explain to voters what he meant in May when he told the Wall Street Journal: “It might be a little messy for some people, but abortion is not going away.” He also said: “I just don’t think this is going to be the big political issue everybody thinks it is, because it’s not going to be that big a change.”
The facts on the ground contradict his blithe assurances. In Wisconsin, the repeal of Roe appeared to leave reproductive rights governed by an 1849 law that bans nearly all abortions. (The law has been challenged by the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general.) The latest poll from Marquette University Law School found that 60 percent of respondents oppose Roe’s repeal. The 1849 statute makes no exception for rape or incest or even a serious health condition — only a threat to the woman’s life. The percentage of registered Wisconsin voters who think that abortion should be legal in all or most cases has risen over the past two months (perhaps due to all the new women voters). Marquette found that 88 percent think abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, a state referendum to codify Roe is headed for the November ballot. As in Wisconsin, new registrants have skewed female. “Among the 12,879 new voters that have registered since the Dobbs decision, women are out-registering men by 8.1 percentage points,” TargetSmart reports. Moreover, “In the same time frame, Democrats are out-registering Republicans by 18 percentage points.”
[Jennifer Rubin: In Nevada and Minnesota, different races with the same Democratic message]
Anecdotal and polling evidence suggest that abortion is moving up the list of priorities for many voters. If more women and more pro-choice voters who prioritize abortion rights cast ballots, candidates’ positions on Dobbs might be decisive. As TargetSmart’s analysis put it, “Right now, all signs point to a fired up female electorate around the country in states where abortion rights are under immediate threat.” No wonder so many Republican candidates who used to tout their antiabortion stances have gone mute.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A decisive statewide vote in favor of abortion rights in traditionally conservative Kansas was confirmed with a partial hand recount, with fewer than 100 votes changing after the last county reported results Sunday.
Nine of the state’s 105 counties recounted their votes at the request of Melissa Leavitt, who has pushed for tighter election laws. A longtime anti-abortion activist, Mark Gietzen, is covering most of the costs. Gietzen acknowledged in an interview that it was unlikely to change the outcome.
A no vote in the referendum signaled a desire to keep existing abortion protections and a yes vote was for allowing the Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban abortion. After the recounts, “no” votes lost 87 votes and “yes” gained 6 votes.
Eight of the counties reported their results by the state's Saturday deadline, but Sedgwick County delayed releasing its final count until Sunday because spokeswoman Nicole Gibbs said some of the ballots weren't separated into the correct precincts during the initial recount and had to be resorted Saturday. She said the number of votes cast overall didn't change.
A larger than expected turnout of voters on Aug. 2 rejected a ballot measure that would have removed protections for abortion rights from the Kansas Constitution and given to the Legislature the right to further restrict or ban abortion. It failed by 18 percentage points, or 165,000 votes statewide.
continues.....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I can’t believe we still have to tell people if you don’t want something shared, don’t put it online. Private messages and emails included. There’s always a way to get it. Don’t be mad at FB about it.
Department of Veterans Affairs to offer abortion counseling and certain abortions to veterans
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Chloe Akers considers herself a grizzled criminal defense attorney. Until a few months ago, she didn’t spend much time thinking about abortion — for all her 39 years, abortion was not a crime, so she’d never imagined having to defend someone accused of performing one.
That changed in June, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Akers sat down in her law office and pulled up Tennessee’s new criminal abortion statute.
She didn’t read it through a political lens; it doesn’t matter whether she likes a law — there are a lot of them she doesn’t like. Instead, she read it like she would any other statute: What does it make illegal? How would it be enforced?
She was shocked. She read it maybe 10 times more. Surely, she was missing something.
Tennessee’s law is one of the strictest in the country. It makes performing an abortion a Class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. There are no exceptions. This is the part that Akers has since found herself having to repeat, often eliciting raised eyebrows and deeply drawn breaths: Unlike many states' abortions bans, including the one in Texas, this law does not explicitly exempt abortions performed to save a mother’s life.
ABORTION
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Instead, it offers doctors an “affirmative defense.” The difference is linguistically subtle but extraordinarily meaningful in criminal law, Akers says. The law makes performing all abortions illegal. And instead of the state having to prove that the procedure was not medically necessary, the law shifts the burden to the doctor to convince a court that it was.
She ran down the hallway toward a colleague’s office: “Have you read this?” she gasped.
Then she opened up Instagram, where she sometimes explains criminal law to a handful of followers. She looked into the camera and explained that there are no exceptions for rape, for incest or for those so desperate they threaten to end their lives.
“Our legislature is not having any of that,” she said. “They straight-up criminalized abortion.”
If she would have known that 2 million people would end up watching her 13-minute video — including members of Congress and country music stars — she would have brushed her hair and spit out her gum.
She tried to explain an affirmative defense in a way people without a law degree might understand it: It is akin to claiming self-defense after killing someone. A prosecutor might decide the killing was justified and decide not to charge. But that’s entirely up to the prosecutor. If they do charge, the defendant is at the mercy of the courts.
“It’s about to get real, and it may not happen to you. But it’s going to happen here,” she said. For those who were scared or confused, she added words of support: “You know exactly where to find me.”
And they did. Her inbox was flooded with thousands of messages, so many she couldn’t keep up.
The mayor wrote. Socialites invited her to present at dinner parties. Doctors pleaded for guidance. A women’s motorcycle club asked her to come talk with them.
She had accidently become the state’s primary interpreter of this law, which went into effect Aug. 25. Within days she quit her cushy job in a law firm and started a nonprofit she named Standing Together Tennessee. For the past two months, she’s crisscrossed the state on a tour aimed at explaining this abortion law to doctors, and the intricacies of pregnancies to the lawyers who might have to defend them.
As she climbed off the stage after her latest stop at a Nashville synagogue, a doctor asked a question she’s heard again and again.
“Are they really going to enforce this?”
Akers’ answer is always the same.
“I don’t know.”
___
Nikki Zite, a Knoxville OB-GYN, watched Akers’ video and sent her a message.
“I need to know you,” she wrote. “I think physicians and people will be very confused about the affirmative defense. How close to dead does the patient need to be?”
Zite is a complex family planning physician, and until recently provided abortion care for pregnancies that threatened the life of the mother and for those where it was clear the fetus would not survive. The latter are no longer allowed in Tennessee.
These are often desired pregnancies, with parents who have decorated nurseries and decided on names. It’s devastating every time, she said. Since Roe fell, her colleagues had to tell three mothers carrying babies who would not survive that the law forbids them from ending their pregnancies.
She’s also treated two ectopic pregnancies, where the pregnancy is growing outside the womb, usually in the fallopian tubes. An ectopic pregnancy can never be viable and can rupture if allowed to continue to grow, threatening the mother’s life. Termination is standard treatment. And yet Zite has found herself looking over her shoulder.
“What if someone disagrees with me? Am I going to go to jail?” she wonders.
Zite is on the executive committee of the Tennessee section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which issued a statement that the trigger law might lead doctors to hesitate, to contact lawyers in the midst of medical emergencies, while their patients get sicker.
One day soon in Tennessee, a doctor will inevitably see a woman whose water breaks early, weeks before viability, Zite said. She will not be on her death bed, but risks infection, sepsis, bleeding.
She knows how risky delays can be: After Texas passed its six-week abortion ban last year, researchers studied 28 patients who were enduring dangerous pregnancies and hospitals interpreted the law to mean they had to delay care until the patient became sicker. More than half suffered serious health complications, twice the rate of patients in states where abortions were immediately available.
“We are now at the mercy of the criminal justice system,” Zite said. “Should I win? I think so. But do I want to go through that? No. I don’t want to feel guilty until proven innocent.”
She signed up to be the medical director of Akers’ nonprofit. They hosted a panel of doctors and asked them: What are you afraid of?
Akers can’t stop thinking about an oncologist who described a scenario pregnant women face with some regularity: They are diagnosed with aggressive cancer in early pregnancy, when they cannot receive chemotherapy or radiation.
Before, doctors would have hard conversations with patients about how they would like to proceed. They could delay treatment, understanding that their cancer might grow. Or they can terminate and treat themselves immediately, save their own lives and try for a baby once they are well.
Akers asked the doctor what they planned to do in that scenario after the trigger ban.
“That’s what we’re asking you,” the doctor said.
___
Akers knows pressure. Every time she speaks to a jury, her client’s freedom is on the line. Still, she said, the stakes seem higher here.
She’s lost weight. She barely sleeps. She jolts awake at night, her head spinning with questions:
What about insurance companies? If a termination is illegal, even to save a mother’s life, will they pay for it? Would that make them an accomplice akin to a getaway driver?
What about nurses? Anesthesiologists?
Providers must submit a form to the state reporting every termination. Now, would that amount to forcing them to prepare evidence against themselves in violation of the constitution’s protection against self-incrimination?
“It’s like I opened a box, and thought there was one question. And in answering that question, 10 more questions arise and 10 more from that and 10 more from that,” she said. “That’s the most frustrating part about this whole endeavor is feeling like I’m on a merry-go-round, going round and round.”
When she first began her tour, she thought of it as a pragmatic, apolitical effort to explain the law without the fervor of the abortion wars. She’d leave the debate to others.
But she’s grown indignant about the confusion that continues to swirl over what the law really says. Many, including legislators who passed it, insist it includes an exemption to save the mother’s life.
“I don’t know how many other ways to say there’s no exceptions. We can’t tell people that it’s not going to be prosecuted," Akers said. “People might be like, ‘Why is this lady being so persnickety and detail-oriented?’ Because I’m a lawyer.”
Words matter in a courtroom. She’s spent hours arguing with prosecutors over the definition of “unreasonable.” There is no world in which she can imagine telling a judge that her client thought there was an exception, even though there wasn’t.
As a criminal defense lawyer for 15 years — many of them as a public defender — she’s well acquainted with the mercilessness of America’s criminal justice system.
“I think there is this hope in people. That because this is so unreasonable and because this is so antithetical to what we think of as fair and just and American, that they’re like, surely, surely someone’s not going to prosecute this. Right?” she said. “But I have seen cases that would make your skin crawl.”
She’s watched the courts throw the book at mentally ill clients, homeless veterans, children, people struggling with addiction.
So she told the doctors in Nashville:
“Do I suspect that this law will be enforced? Yes, I do. Otherwise, why write laws?”
___
Will Brewer, an attorney and lobbyist with Tennessee Right to Life, thinks the lawyers like Akers and doctors agonizing over the wording are exaggerating the possible consequences.
“I think you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a prosecutor that is going to prosecute a physician when they can back up their claim that they did this to save the life of the mother,” Brewer said.
Brewer has said — and has written in published essays — that the law should be interpreted as only applying to elective abortions, when the sole reason for termination is that the mother doesn’t want a baby.
Yet he said lawmakers chose the wording for a specific reason: to raise the bar high for doctors to perform an abortion. Exemptions are easier to abuse, he said. It was designed to be a narrow window where abortions would be justified.
The law mandates doctors prove only that the abortion in their “good faith medical judgment” was necessary “to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
That gives them wide berth, Brewer thinks — it doesn’t require death be imminent and it doesn’t mean every decision will be second-guessed.
“You still end up in the same place at the end of the day,” he said of the line between an exemption and a defense. “But you just make sure the due diligence was done and that the law was treated with the seriousness that it deserves.”
He pointed to Ohio laws in effect for years that used affirmative defense language in banning later-term abortions except in medical emergencies.
“Were any physicians charged with violating any of these laws? No, not one,” he said.
That no one was prosecuted because of them does not reflect the true toll they have taken on doctors, said Danielle Bessett, a professor at the University of Cincinnati. She held focus groups with 35 Ohio physicians working in hospitals and private practice, not abortion clinics.
Doctors reported feeling demonized, confused, powerless. They described waiting to perform an abortion they knew would be inevitable until the patient became sicker so the hospital would deem their condition “bad enough.” Others said they advised patients to go out of state for terminations if they were in decent health to travel.
Pregnancy complications are not black-and-white, Bessett said. It was cases in the gray area, where serious health consequences were not imminent but likely, that caused doctors “great moral distress,” Bessett said.
And these Ohio laws governed only later-term abortions, which account for a tiny fraction of terminations, she said. The post-Roe laws like the one in Tennessee will govern virtually all pregnancies, so the number of times a termination could be questioned in court will skyrocket.
Idaho has a trigger ban nearly identical to Tennessee’s. The wording is the same, though unlike Tennessee’s, it includes an affirmative defense for rape or incest. And while Tennessee’s includes one to protect the mother from death or serious injury, Idaho’s scraps the language about injury and allows an abortion only to prevent death.
The United States Department of Justice sued that state, arguing that the ban would force hospitals to violate federal law that requires they stabilize patients in medical emergencies.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill blocked part of the ban from taking effect.
Lawyers representing the state had argued in part that in the “real world,” no prosecutors would ever bring charges against a doctor for performing an abortion on a sick patient.
Winmill seemed skeptical. They were asking him to ignore what the law actually says, he wrote. It makes criminal what doctors routinely do to care for patients. One gynecologist had described for the court that physicians were “bracing for the impact of this law, as if it is a large meteor headed towards Idaho.”
“More fundamentally,” Winmill wondered, “if the law does not mean what it says, why have it at all?”
___
continues....
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Indiana abortion ban challenged under religious freedom law
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Opponents of Indiana’s ban on abortions filed a lawsuit Thursday arguing that it would violate the state’s religious freedom law that Republicans enacted seven years ago.
The lawsuit follows another one filed last week also challenging the abortion ban that’s scheduled to take effect Sept. 15. The Republican-dominated Legislature approved the new ban last month.
The lawsuit filed in Marion County court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of several anonymous residents and the group Hoosier Jews for Choice argues that the ban would violate their religious rights on when they believe abortion is acceptable.
Ken Falk, the ACLU of Indiana’s legal director, said in a statement that the religious-freedom law protects “all Hoosiers, not just those who practice Christianity.”
“The ban on abortion will substantially burden the exercise of religion by many Hoosiers who, under the new law, would be prevented from obtaining abortions, in conflict with their sincere religious beliefs,” Falk said.
Indiana’s religious freedom law sparked a national backlash after it was signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence in 2015 as opponents criticized it as allowing discrimination against gay people.
Abortion
EXPLAINER: Online privacy in a post-Roe world
Idaho Legislature asks judge to reconsider abortion ruling
Senate to vote on same-sex marriage in coming weeks
Exceptions split Republicans in South Carolina abortion ban
The state attorney general’s office and Republican legislative leaders didn’t immediately comment Thursday on the new lawsuit.
Indiana abortion clinic operators argued in a lawsuit filed last week that the abortion ban would violate the state constitution’s protections for privacy and equal privileges. No court rulings have been issued in that lawsuit.
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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina senators rejected a ban on almost all abortions Thursday in a special session called in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade after five Republicans, including all the chamber's women, refused to support it.
The 30 Republicans in the 46-member chamber had a majority to pass the ban, but did not have the extra votes to end a threatened filibuster by Republican Sen. Tom Davis.
Davis, the chief of staff for former Gov. Mark Sanford before being elected to the Senate in 2009, was joined by the three Republican women in the Senate, a fifth GOP colleague and all Democratic senators to oppose the proposed ban.
Davis said he promised his daughters he would not vote to make South Carolina’s current six-week abortion ban stricter because women have rights, too.
“The moment we become pregnant we lost all control over what goes on with our bodies,” Davis said, recalling what his daughters told him. “I’m here to tell you I’m not going to let it happen.
After a recess to work through their options, Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey conceded the abortion ban likely couldn't pass.
“We were never going to pass a total abortion ban," Massey said. “We never had the votes to pass even what the House passed.”
ABORTION
EXPLAINER: Online privacy in a post-Roe world
Michigan’s high court puts abortion question on Nov. ballot
Indiana abortion ban challenged under religious freedom law
North Dakota asks judge to lift stay on abortion trigger law
Senators did pass a few changes to the six-week ban, including cutting the time that victims of rape and incest who become pregnant can seek an abortion from 20 weeks to about 12 weeks and requiring that DNA from the aborted fetus be collected for police. The bill goes back to the House, which passed a ban with exceptions for rape or incest.
South Carolina's six-week ban is currently suspended as the state Supreme Court reviews whether it violates privacy rights. In the meantime, the state’s 2016 ban on abortions 20 weeks after conception is in effect.
South Carolina's General Assembly was meeting in a special session to try to join more than a dozen other states with abortion bans.
Most of them came through so-called trigger laws designed to outlaw most abortions when the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the constitutional right to end a pregnancy in June. Indiana's Legislature passed a new ban last month that has not taken effect.
The debate started Wednesday with the three Republican women in the South Carolina Senate speaking back to back, saying they couldn't support the bill unless the rape or incest exceptions were restored.
Sen. Katrina Shealy said the 41 men in the Senate would be better off listening to their wives, daughters, mothers, granddaughters and looking at the faces of the girls in Sunday School classes at their churches.
“You want to believe that God is wanting you to push a bill through with no exceptions that kill mothers and ruins the lives of children — lets mothers bring home babies to bury them — then I think you’re miscommunicating with God. Or maybe you aren’t communicating with Him at all,” Shealy said before senators added a proposal allowing abortions if a fetus cannot survive outside the womb.
Massey helped broker the compromise among Republicans that briefly returned the exceptions to the bill. He pointed out state health officials recorded about 3,000 abortions in 2021 within the first six weeks of a pregnancy.
“Heartbeat is great, but this I think is better,” Massey said. ”I don’t think abortion should be used as birth control.”
Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto said Republican women stood up for all women in South Carolina, while Republican men let them down. He said Democrats didn't want any changes to current laws.
“There may be a sentiment that this is the same as what we already had. It’s not. It’s worse in many regards," Hutto said.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who has said before he would be happy if there were no abortions in the state, thought the Senate version struck an appropriate balance, governor's spokesman Brian Symmes said
“It is the governor’s hope that the House and Senate will soon come to an agreement and send a bill to his desk for signature,” Symmes said.
Republican Sen. Sandy Senn, who didn't vote for the six-week ban in 2021, said a total ban would be an invasion of the privacy against every woman in the state.
“If what is going on in my vagina isn’t an unreasonable invasion of privacy for this legislature to get involved in, I don’t know what is,” Senn said.
___
Associated Press writer James Pollard contributed to this report.
___
Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP.
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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Voters will determine whether to place abortion rights in the Michigan Constitution, the state Supreme Court declared Thursday, settling the issue a day before the fall ballot must be completed.
Abortion rights would be guaranteed if the amendment passes on Nov. 8. A 1931 state law makes it a crime to perform most abortions, but the law was suspended in May and a judge this week followed up by striking it down as unconstitutional.
Though appeals of that decision are likely, the law would be trumped if voters approve the amendment in the fall election.
There are political implications beyond the ballot question.
Democrats say the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is mobilizing voters and will help Democratic candidates this fall, when top races including governor, secretary of state and attorney general are on the Michigan ballot. They point to conservative Kansas, where voters overwhelmingly defeated a measure that would have allowed the Republican-controlled Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban the procedure outright.
In Michigan, a state elections board on Aug. 31 deadlocked along party lines on whether the abortion initiative should appear on the ballot, with Republicans voting no and Democrats voting yes. The 2-2 tie meant the measure wasn’t certified for the ballot.
ABORTION
EXPLAINER: Online privacy in a post-Roe world
South Carolina senators reject a near-total abortion ban
Indiana abortion ban challenged under religious freedom law
North Dakota asks judge to lift stay on abortion trigger law
Supporters submitted more than 700,000 signatures, easily clearing the minimum threshold. But Republicans and abortion opponents argued the petitions had improper or no spacing between certain words and were confusing to voters.
“What a sad marker of the times,” Chief Justice Bridget McCormack said in a brief statement that accompanied the Supreme Court's 5-2 order.
McCormack said “there is no dispute” that every word was legible and in the correct order.
Republican members of the Board of State Canvassers “would disenfranchise millions of Michiganders not because they believe the many thousands of Michiganders who signed the proposal were confused by it, but because they think they have identified a technicality that allows them to do so, a game of gotcha gone very bad,” McCormack said.
The majority was made up of McCormack, three other Democratic justices and a Republican justice. Two Republicans dissented.
The court directed state canvassers, who meet again Friday, to sign off on the ballot question. Tony Daunt, a Republican who had voted against the proposal, last week said that the board would obey a court order.
Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat who supports abortion rights, hailed the decision.
“Our state Constitution provides the people with direct access to the democratic process and that access should not be limited by appointed individuals acting beyond the scope of their duty,” Nessel said.
A group called Citizens to Support MI Women and Children said it will campaign against the amendment. Right to Life of Michigan also will be a major opponent.
“Current events continue showing us that any nation that sees the next generation as an existential threat — rather than an existential necessity — has no future,” Right to Life said on Facebook.
There was no immediate comment from Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is in favor of the ballot question and is seeking reelection. Her Republican opponent, Tudor Dixon, opposes abortion rights except to save the life of the mother.
Results of a poll published this week by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV showed abortion and women’s rights was the top issue motivating Michigan residents to vote in November, ahead of inflation and cost of living, education, and the economy and jobs. The poll also showed a majority of likely voters support a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights.
In a dissent, Justice Brian Zahra said supporters of the abortion question did not have a “clear legal right” to the ballot.
“Words separated by spaces cease being words or become new words when the spaces between them are removed,” Zahra said.
___
Burnett reported from Chicago and White reported from Detroit.
___
Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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https://www.axios.com/2022/09/13/lindsey-graham-national-abortion-restrictions-bill
Lindsey Graham proposes new national abortion restrictions bill
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced a bill on Tuesday that would ban abortion nationally after 15 weeks.
Driving the news: "We will introduce legislation ... to get America in a position at the federal level I think is fairly consistent with the rest of the world," Graham said Tuesday in announcing the legislation.
The big picture: Graham has previously introduced bills that sought to ban abortions nationally from 20 weeks.
The other side: "Proposals like the one today send a clear message from MAGA Republicans to women across the country: Your body, our choice," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday.
Thought bubble, via Axios' Andrew Solender: Graham's bill is designed to present Republicans as being more mainstream on abortion by pushing a partial ban over either a full ban or what they characterize as Democrats' "abortion on-demand" position.
Go deeper: Senate Republicans share abortion talking points
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
This is an interesting play. I'm not sure Schumer will let this come to a vote. Many Americans are okay with 15 weeks. Most are against abortion after 20 or so. So they are trying to turn this into a reasonableness argument, saying that Democrats want abortion for viable babies. Birth abortion or whatever. If I'm Schumer, I'm pretty happy just letting the Republicans twist in the wind on abortion through election day.
It also makes it crystal clear that GOP sees this as a clear danger to their electoral prospects and are doing what they can to blunt the issue. It would be political malpractice to let this come up for a vote.
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