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.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
Did you wake up this morning with the expectation you and Mitch would be on the same exact page regarding abortion?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday made clear that Senate Republicans are not eager to debate Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) proposal to ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, telling reporters that most GOP senators want to leave the issue to states.
McConnell also said Graham’s proposal is the South Carolina senator’s own initiative and not something being pushed at the leadership level.
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.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
Did you wake up this morning with the expectation you and Mitch would be on the same exact page regarding abortion?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday made clear that Senate Republicans are not eager to debate Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) proposal to ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, telling reporters that most GOP senators want to leave the issue to states.
McConnell also said Graham’s proposal is the South Carolina senator’s own initiative and not something being pushed at the leadership level.
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 didn't realize that Lindsay was saying Republicans would vote on 15 week ban IF they won the senate. So that's an interesting twist and not sure why he went out on this limb. It doesn't make political sense that I can see, at least for the party at large. Maybe it helps him in some way.
I didn't realize that Lindsay was saying Republicans would vote on 15 week ban IF they won the senate. So that's an interesting twist and not sure why he went out on this limb. It doesn't make political sense that I can see, at least for the party at large. Maybe it helps him in some way.
That almost seems dumber than if he said "now."
The only thing I can think of (to repeat myself) is that the dishonest title "late term" gives candidates the opportunity to say "my opponent supports late-term abortion."
I suppose another possibility is getting every last member of the pro-life base to the polls or even fired up enough to participate in bigger ways. Either way, I don't see it working; the hard-core forced-birthers are already pretty active and the middle-of-the-roaders tend to be pro choice.
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
I didn't realize that Lindsay was saying Republicans would vote on 15 week ban IF they won the senate. So that's an interesting twist and not sure why he went out on this limb. It doesn't make political sense that I can see, at least for the party at large. Maybe it helps him in some way.
They will vote on it no question. They are backpedaling a bit now because of the midterms certainly. The uncertainty helps though. In races where abortion restrictions are an issue it plays well. In races where abortion restrictions don’t play well there is enough uncertainty that people are voting with some sort of ambiguity of what will happen and those republicans can say what they want on the issue. It’s playing both sides at once. Both pro choice and pro life republicans/ independents hear what they want to hear
At a minimum the democrats need to do an education campaign and define “weeks pregnant “ anyway
a 15 week ban is an 11 week ban if pregnancy is defined as the date of your last period. It starts at 4 weeks. When we can’t even get the timescales right it makes it seem like you are more pregnant than you are
Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction against the ban that took effect one week ago. The injunction was sought by abortion clinic operators who argued in a lawsuit that the state constitution protects access to the medical procedure.
The judge wrote “there is reasonable likelihood that this significant restriction of personal autonomy offends the liberty guarantees of the Indiana Constitution” and that the clinics will prevail in the lawsuit. The order prevents the state from enforcing the ban pending a trial on the merits of the lawsuit.
Republican state Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement: “We plan to appeal and continue to make the case for life in Indiana.”
Indiana’s ban followed the political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy. The case gained wide attention when an Indianapolis doctor said the child came to Indiana because of Ohio’s “fetal heartbeat” ban.
An Ohio judge has temporarily blocked that state law, indicating he will allow abortions to continue up to 20 weeks’ gestation until after a court hearing scheduled for Oct. 7.
With Indiana now on hold, bans on abortion at any point in pregnancy are in place in 12 Republican-led states. In another state, Wisconsin, clinics have stopped providing abortions amid litigation over whether an 1849 ban is in effect. Georgia bans abortions once fetal cardiac activity can be detected and Florida and Utah have bans that kick in after 15 and 18 weeks gestation, respectively.
The Indiana ban, which includes limited exceptions, replaced state laws that generally prohibited abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and tightly restricted them after the 13th week.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which is representing the abortion clinics, filed the lawsuit Aug. 31 and argued the ban would “prohibit the overwhelming majority of abortions in Indiana and, as such, will have a devastating and irreparable impact on the plaintiffs and, more importantly, their patients and clients.”
Ken Falk, the ACLU of Indiana’s legal director, pointed to the state constitution’s declaration of rights including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in arguing before the judge on Monday that it included a right to privacy and to make decisions on whether to have children.
The state attorney general’s office said the court should uphold the ban, calling arguments against it based on a “novel, unwritten, historically unsupported right to abortion” in the state constitution.
“The constitutional text nowhere mentions abortion, and Indiana has prohibited or heavily regulated abortion by statute since 1835 — before, during, and after the time when the 1851 Indiana Constitution was drafted, debated, and ratified,” the office said in a court filing.
The question of whether the Indiana Constitution protects abortion rights is undecided.
A state appeals court decision in 2004 said privacy was a core value under the state constitution that extended to all residents, including women seeking an abortion. But the Indiana Supreme Court later set aside that ruling without addressing whether the state constitution included such a right.
Hanlon, a Republican who was first elected in 2014 as a judge in the rural southern Indiana county, wrote that Indiana's constitution “is more explicit in its affirmation of individual rights and its limitation of legislative power to intrude into personal affairs” than the U.S. Constitution.
“There is a reasonable likelihood that decisions about family planning, including decisions about whether to carry pregnancy to term,” are protected by the state constitution, Hanlon wrote.
Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinic operators involved in the lawsuit said in a statement that they were “grateful that the court granted much needed relief for patients, clients, and providers but this fight is far from over.”
“Indiana lawmakers have made it abundantly clear that this harm, this cruelty, is exactly the reality they had in mind when they passed (the abortion ban,)” the statement said.
The Indiana abortion ban includes exceptions allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, before 10 weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.
The new law also prohibited abortion clinics from providing any abortion care, leaving such services solely to hospitals or outpatient surgical centers owned by hospitals.
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
This deserves its own new topic "why america is screwed" but Roe topic is as good a place as any.
In a poll of midterm voters, Roe has dropped to the 7th most important issue, while crime has skyrocketed to 2nd.
Crime is important, but how many police departments does Congress oversee and fund directly? The NYPD? The LAPD?
Republicans are the masters of taking a locally administered issue like crime, and turn it into almost the most important national issue to voters for midterms, just as soon as their ads hit the airwaves in Sept.
This is why they control the Court, and why Dobbs will not be overturned anytime soon. Even on AMT, Roe was on page 2 today.
This deserves its own new topic "why america is screwed" but Roe topic is as good a place as any.
In a poll of midterm voters, Roe has dropped to the 7th most important issue, while crime has skyrocketed to 2nd.
Crime is important, but how many police departments does Congress oversee and fund directly? The NYPD? The LAPD?
Republicans are the masters of taking a locally administered issue like crime, and turn it into almost the most important national issue to voters for midterms, just as soon as their ads hit the airwaves in Sept.
This is why they control the Court, and why Dobbs will not be overturned anytime soon. Even on AMT, Roe was on page 2 today.
Pentagon to provide funds, help for troops seeking abortions
By TARA COPP
2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will provide travel funds and support for troops and their dependents who seek abortions but are based in states where they are now illegal, according to a new department policy released Thursday. The military will also increase privacy protections for those seeking care.
The order issued by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin outlines the rights and protections service members and their dependents will have regardless of where they are based, which was a key concern of troops after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
Access to abortion has become a central issue in the midterm elections. President Joe Biden promised this week that the first bill he sends to Capitol Hill next year will be one that writes abortion protections into law, if Democrats control enough seats in Congress to pass it.
The high court ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson case stripped away women’s constitutional protections for abortion and left it to states to determine whether the procedure is legal within their borders. In the months since, abortion has been banned or sharply restricted in more than a dozen states.
The new military policy sets guidelines so that local commanders aren't allowed to influence whether service members get access to care or face a culture where they or their dependents do not come forward out of fear of repercussions. It builds on an initial reaction by the Pentagon in June, when, days after the Supreme Court decision, the Pentagon said it would continue to allow medical leave for service members who needed to travel out of state to get abortions but noted it needed to review the court ruling and subsequent state laws to see if further guidance would be necessary.
Austin directed the services to implement the new policy by the end of this calendar year.
The Pentagon has also been concerned that the Dobbs decision could affect recruitment and retention as service members or potential recruits weighed the risk that they would be assigned to states where abortions are illegal. Many of the Pentagon’s major military bases are located in states including Texas and Florida where anti-abortion laws are now in place.
The new guidelines also direct each military base to publicly display what reproductive heath care support is available for service members and their dependents, extend the time in which a service member must report a pregnancy to commanders to 20 weeks and provide additional protections for defense health care providers who furnish abortion services.
Under federal law, the Pentagon’s health care system can provide abortions only in cases of rape or incest or when a mother’s life is in danger. That doesn't change under the new policy. The funds the military would provide service members would cover transportation only; they would not pay for abortion services that are not covered by federal law.
Attorney Natalie Khawam, who represented the family of slain U.S. soldier Vanessa Guillén, whose body was found last year outside the boundary of Fort Hood, Texas, said the policy is part of a continued effort by the Pentagon to address a military culture that has not been supportive of female service members. Guillén’s death led to sweeping changes as to how sexual harassment and assault are addressed in the military.
“When you are protecting a woman, you are protecting a family, you are protecting everyone that's in her nexus. It could be her children, it could be her parents, it could be her spouse or siblings, and you are definitely protecting the country as she's serving the country," Khawam said.
____
Associated Press writer Lolita Baldor 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
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Win elections...
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Win elections...
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
I like what you say in your post! Can you post an example of blatantly silly positions, thanks
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Win elections...
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
I like what you say in your post! Can you post an example of blatantly silly positions, thanks
Defund the police.
Some democrats said it for exactly a week and the GOP had kept it alive for 2+ years.
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Win elections...
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
I like what you say in your post! Can you post an example of blatantly silly positions, thanks
Defund the police.
Some democrats said it for exactly a week and the GOP had kept it alive for 2+ years.
Biden immediately came out against and said they need more funding. THEN followed through with legislation the D's voted for but the R's said no.
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
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Win elections...
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
I like what you say in your post! Can you post an example of blatantly silly positions, thanks
Defund the police.
Some democrats said it for exactly a week and the GOP had kept it alive for 2+ years.
Biden immediately came out against and said they need more funding. THEN followed through with legislation the D's voted for but the R's said no.
Trust me, I know. I'm saying that one week of it has haunted the Ds
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Win elections...
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
I like what you say in your post! Can you post an example of blatantly silly positions, thanks
Defund the police.
Some democrats said it for exactly a week and the GOP had kept it alive for 2+ years.
Biden immediately came out against and said they need more funding. THEN followed through with legislation the D's voted for but the R's said no.
Trust me, I know. I'm saying that one week of it has haunted the Ds
It was so stupid...The idea of defunding the police is fine by me but even so, the terminology was just so stupid. When I first heard it I assumed it meant to stop funding them. And guess what, so did a lot of people. How that term became the go-to is beyond me.
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
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Win elections...
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
I like what you say in your post! Can you post an example of blatantly silly positions, thanks
Defund the police.
Some democrats said it for exactly a week and the GOP had kept it alive for 2+ years.
Biden immediately came out against and said they need more funding. THEN followed through with legislation the D's voted for but the R's said no.
Trust me, I know. I'm saying that one week of it has haunted the Ds
Ok yes I agree with that and I also believe the cops believed it too and they responded not by saying anything but with a hands off approach to policing the streets and highways!
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Win elections...
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
I like what you say in your post! Can you post an example of blatantly silly positions, thanks
Defund the police.
Some democrats said it for exactly a week and the GOP had kept it alive for 2+ years.
Biden immediately came out against and said they need more funding. THEN followed through with legislation the D's voted for but the R's said no.
Trust me, I know. I'm saying that one week of it has haunted the Ds
Wasn’t that a subset of dem voters which was taken completely out of context, to be extent it’s entire meaning has been changed? Was it ever part of an official position or even a speech from a democrat in leadership?
Yet if Republicans take over next month they will completely ban abortions across America! Screw crime they have no plans for that issue they are conniving pricks the whole party! They bark crime crime they know what scares their constituents!
No, it wouldn't get through the senate and even if it did (won't), Biden wouldn't sign it.
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
Win elections...
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
I like what you say in your post! Can you post an example of blatantly silly positions, thanks
Defund the police.
Some democrats said it for exactly a week and the GOP had kept it alive for 2+ years.
Biden immediately came out against and said they need more funding. THEN followed through with legislation the D's voted for but the R's said no.
Trust me, I know. I'm saying that one week of it has haunted the Ds
Wasn’t that a subset of dem voters which was taken completely out of context, to be extent it’s entire meaning has been changed? Was it ever part of an official position or even a speech from a democrat in leadership?
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
Mailer on abortion, top Kansas court described as deceptive
By JOHN HANNA
2 hours ago
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A mailer to voters across Kansas suggests removing state Supreme Court justices in Tuesday's election would protect access to abortion, when abortion rights advocates want to keep them on the bench.
The mailer's return address says it is from VMCF Inc., of Lenexa, a Kansas City suburb. For a brief time in October, that was the legal name of a charitable foundation run by a prominent Republican direct mail firm's owner, state records show.
One side says “Kansans pushed back” against the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in late June to overturn Roe v. Wade. Voters in August decisively rejected a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution. The mailer includes the logo of the pro-amendment side with a red “X” through it.
The mailer's opposite side urges no votes Tuesday on retaining state Supreme Court justices. Six of the seven justices are on the ballot for yes-or-no votes on whether they stay on the bench another six years.
“LET THEM HEAR YOU AGAIN!” the mailer says under a bigger “NO!”
Abortion rights groups want to retain the justices, and Kansans for Life, the state's most influential anti-abortion group, wants to oust five of the six. The court in 2019 ruled that access to abortion is a “fundamental” right under the Kansas Constitution, spurring GOP legislators to push the proposed anti-abortion amendment.
“It's clearly designed to misinform,” said state Rep. Stephanie Clayton, a Kansas City-area Democrat, whose daughter was sent a mailer.
An online state records search for VMCF brought up documents for the nonprofit Van Meteren Charitable Foundation Inc. and showed that it switched from the longer name to the shorter one on Oct. 24 and back on Oct. 31.
Its 2021 annual report listed the same address as the return address on the mailer. Its only officer was Kristian Van Meteren, who owns the The Singularis Group direct mail firm, also in the Kansas City area. He did not immediately return telephone messages Friday seeking comment.
___
The summary and 2nd paragraph of this story have been corrected to show that the company named on the mailer is VMCF, not KMCF.
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
wouldn't codifying Roe just open it up to being overturned later by a republican congress?
Probably. But I think we've learned recently that most people are pro-choice and that a lot of them are pretty upset. A lot of GQPers are backpeddling (i.e., lying) now and saying either they won't (or even for some reason can't) criminalize abortion. It would only take a few of them being nervous about voting on that law...
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
Weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Grace Ferguson treated a woman whose water had broken halfway through pregnancy. The baby would never survive, and the patient’s chance of developing a potentially life-threatening infection grew with every hour.
By the time she made it to Pittsburgh to see Ferguson, the woman had spent two days in a West Virginia hospital, unable to have an abortion because of a state ban. The law makes an exception for medical emergencies, but the patient’s life wasn’t in danger at that moment.
“She was just kind of standing on the edge of the cliff,” Ferguson said, “waiting for an emergency to happen or for the baby to pass away.”
In Pennsylvania, at the hospital a four-hour drive away, Ferguson was able to induce labor to end the pregnancy.
A growing number of physicians and families tell similar stories as a post-Roe fear comes to pass: Pregnant women with dangerous medical conditions are showing up in hospitals and doctors’ offices only to be denied the abortions that could help treat them. Some doctors in states with restrictive abortion laws say they've referred or suggested more patients go elsewhere than ever. Some women are facing harmful, potentially deadly delays.
Doctors say they’re forced to balance medical judgment with potential punishments, including prison time. Although even the strictest laws allow abortion to save a mother’s life, a weighty question lingers: How close to death must the patient be?
“You don’t automatically go from living to dead,” Ferguson said. “You slowly get sicker and sicker.”
It’s impossible to say when that line is crossed, said Dr. Alison Haddock, who’s on the board of the American College of Emergency Physicians. “There’s just no moment where I’m standing in front of a critically ill patient where I know: OK, before their health was just in danger. But now, their life is in danger,” she said.
Experts say it’s hard to pinpoint data on abortion denials when serious complications arise. Employers often discourage health care workers from speaking about them, though The Associated Press reached more than a dozen doctors and patients who shared stories of such denials.
And many doctors and researchers agree that evidence, even if largely anecdotal, shows a widespread problem. In Texas, for example, a doctors’ association sent a letter to the state’s medical board saying some hospitals refused to treat patients with major complications because of the state’s abortion ban.
And at the University of California, San Francisco, researchers who invited health care workers nationwide to anonymously send examples of poor-quality care caused by abortion restrictions say they were surprised by the initial volume of responses. Twenty-five submissions came in the first six weeks. Among them were descriptions of patients sent home after their water broke in the second trimester who later returned with serious infections. One told of an ectopic pregnancy that was allowed to grow on a scar left by a previous cesarean section – which can cause uterine rupture, hemorrhage and death.
“The legislators are playing with fire,” said Dr. Dan Grossman, the project’s leader.
Dr. Cara Heuser, a maternal-fetal specialist in Utah, recalled one patient denied an abortion in Idaho despite developing a serious heart condition midway through pregnancy. The woman had to be transported to Utah for the procedure.
Dr. Lauren Miller, a maternal-fetal specialist in Boise, said she regularly sees patients whose water breaks at 15 through 19 weeks’ gestation, and all doctors can do is help them make the tough decision: “Do they stay here for their care and just wait until something bad happens, or do we facilitate them finding care out of state?”
Dr. David Eisenberg, an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said Missouri doctors and hospitals are regularly “punting that responsibility for care” when people show up with serious complications. They wind up at the university-affiliated medical center where he works — one of the few in Missouri that performs abortions in such cases.
He said patients in crisis are told: “I’ve got to call the lawyer for the hospital before I can figure out what I can do.
“That’s just totally insane and totally inappropriate and really unfortunate.”
The stories are similar when pregnancy is complicated by cancer — diagnosed in about 1 in 1,000 pregnant women each year.
Dr. Karen Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society, said some oncologists are confused about treating pregnant cancer patients, particularly when therapies may induce miscarriage. Dr. Kristina Tocce, medical director for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said she’s seen patients with life-threatening diagnoses forced to drive 10 hours or more, or fly out of state, to get abortions so they can begin chemotherapy or radiation treatment.
Tocce said she recently treated a Texas woman whose cancer had gone into remission but came back aggressively after she became pregnant with her second child. She sought an abortion to resume the cancer treatment that promised to keep her alive for her toddler. During the visit, she thanked Tocce repeatedly.
“I finally told the patient: ‘You can’t thank us anymore. We are doing our jobs,’” Tocce said. “I said, ‘I am so disturbed that you had to travel so far with your family and the hurdles you have had to overcome.’”
Some abortion opponents say doctors may be unnecessarily denying abortions in life-threatening situations out of fear. Dr. Patti Giebink, a former abortion doctor who described changing her views in her book “Unexpected Choice: An Abortion Doctor’s Journey to Pro-Life,” said it comes down to intent. If you intend to save the mother and not end the life of the fetus, she said, “you’re doing good medicine.”
“We’re sort of in a period of time where all these questions come up,” she said. “The legislatures are going to be working to solve some of these problems.”
Dr. Paul LaRose, a member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said he thinks the issue is overstated and those raising concerns are exaggerating.
“Or they may be they misinformed,” he said. “Most pro-life physicians would take care of the mother and do what’s necessary without purposely taking the life of the unborn baby.”
But some women say restrictive abortion laws have put them in danger.
Kristina Cruickshank of Rosenberg, Texas, thought her life was in jeopardy after a diagnosis of a nonviable “partial molar pregnancy,” in which the fetus has too many chromosomes and develops incompletely. Cruickshank, 35, had thyroid problems and massive cysts around both ovaries. She was vomiting, bleeding and in pain.
It was early June, shortly before Roe fell, when Texas banned nearly all abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy. She endured three days of agony in one hospital before her doctor could find another that agreed to the termination procedure. She thought: “What am I supposed to do, just lay here and die?’”
Mylissa Farmer of Joplin, Missouri, faced similar delays in August. Her water broke at 17 1/2 weeks’ gestation, sending her to the emergency room. Tests showed she'd lost all her amniotic fluid. The fetus she and her boyfriend had named Maeve wasn’t expected to survive.
Despite risks of infection and blood loss, she couldn’t get an abortion. The fetus still had a heartbeat. Doctors told her Missouri law superseded their judgment, medical records show.
She tried for days to get an out-of-state abortion, but many hospitals said they couldn’t take her. Ultimately, an abortion helpline connected Farmer with a clinic in Granite City, Illinois. She drove 4 ½ hours from home — while in labor — and had the procedure.
After news outlets covered Farmer’s story and she appeared in a political ad, the Missouri health department started an investigation into whether the Joplin hospital, which declined to comment on the case, violated federal law. The state has shared its preliminary findings with the federal government .
Farmer said the experience was so traumatic that she took a permanent step to ensure nothing like this happens to her again.
She got her tubes tied.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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
US divided over Roe's repeal as abortion foes gird for march
By DAVID CRARY
Today
Anti-abortion activists will have multiple reasons to celebrate — and some reasons for unease — when they gather Friday in Washington for the annual March for Life.
The march, which includes a rally drawing abortion opponents from across the nation, has been held annually since January 1974 — a year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision established a nationwide right to abortion.
This year’s gathering — 50 years after that decision — will be the first since the high court struck down Roe in a momentous ruling last June.
Since then, 12 Republican-governed states have implemented sweeping bans on abortion, and several others seek to do the same. But those moves have been offset by other developments. Abortion opponents were defeated in votes on ballot measures in Kansas, Michigan and Kentucky. State courts have blocked several bans from taking effect. And myriad efforts are underway to help women in abortion-ban states either get abortions out of state or use the abortion pill for self-managed abortions.
“It’s almost like the old wild, wild West … everything is still shaking out,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee.
With numerous Democratic-governed states taking steps to protect and expand abortion access, Tobias likened the current situation to the pre-Civil War era when the nation was closely divided between free states and slave states.
“I will not be surprised if we have something like that for a few years,” she said. “But I do know that pro-lifers are not going to give up — it’s a civil rights issue for us.”
The theme for this year’s March for Life is “Next Steps: Marching Forward into a Post-Roe America.” Scheduled speakers include Hall of Fame football coach Tony Dungy and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who won the Supreme Court case that overturned Roe.
The president of March for Life, Jeanne Mancini, depicted the June ruling as “a massive victory for the pro-life movement.”
“But the battle to build a culture of life is far from over,” she said. “March for Life will continue to advocate for the unborn and policies that protect them until abortion becomes unthinkable.”
Prospects for any federal legislation restricting abortion nationwide are negligible for now, given that any such measures emerging from the Republican-led House would face rejection in the Democratic-led Senate. The main battlegrounds will be in the states.
Since June, near-total bans on abortion have been implemented in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Legal challenges are pending against several of those bans.
Elective abortions also are unavailable in Wisconsin, due to legal uncertainties faced by abortion clinics, and in North Dakota, where the lone clinic relocated to Minnesota.
Bans passed by lawmakers in Ohio, Indiana and Wyoming have been blocked by state courts while legal challenges are pending. And in South Carolina, the state Supreme Court on Jan. 5 struck down a ban on abortion after six weeks, ruling the restriction violates a state constitutional right to privacy.
The Guttmacher Institute, a research group which supports abortion rights, says the overall result is “a chaotic legal landscape that is disruptive for providers trying to offer care and patients trying to obtain it.”
“When people do not have access to abortion care in their state, they are forced to make the difficult decision to travel long distances for care, self-manage an abortion or carry an unwanted pregnancy to term,” Guttmacher staffers Elizabeth Nash and Isabel Guarnieri wrote last week.
Looking ahead, some anti-abortion leaders hope the Republicans nominate a 2024 presidential candidate who will aggressively push for nationwide abortion restrictions, rather than keep it as a state-by-state matter.
“The approach to winning on abortion in federal races, proven for a decade, is this: state clearly the ambitious consensus pro-life position and contrast that with the extreme view of Democrat opponents,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America.
Dannenfelser says she’s not surprised by the divisive ups-and-downs that have unfolded since the June ruling.
“This is what it looks like when democracy is restored and we have a voice in the debate,” she said. “For 50 years, we had no voice because the judiciary was always going to shield public opinion from having an effect on the law.”
“We always knew it wouldn’t be a straight line (after Roe’s repeal),” she said, adding "we know neither side is going to lay down and die.”
Multiple public opinion polls since June have found that a majority of Americans support access to legal abortion. According to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in July, 53% of U.S. adults said they disapproved of the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe, while 30% approved.
Professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the University of Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, suggested the anti-abortion movement may suffer from a perception among many Americans that it’s more concerned with controlling women’s bodies than helping them cope with unintended pregnancies.
“It’s about consolidating their political power, more than about babies," she said.
Some abortion opponents are trying to counter such perceptions. In Texas, for example, anti-abortion groups are urging lawmakers to spend more money on services for pregnant and parenting Texans, including expanding Medicaid coverage for mothers.
According to Texas Right to Life, the state's new abortion ban has had a major impact — it says only 68 abortions were recorded by state health officials in July 2022, compared to 4,879 in July 2021.
The group noted the data does not include illegal, unreported abortions — which are widely believed to be increasing as women obtain abortion pills by mail from overseas or from Mexico suppliers.
Charles Camosy, a medical humanities professor at Creighton University School of Medicine who opposes abortion, has analyzed the high-profile election defeats suffered by the anti-abortion movement. Voters in Kansas and Kentucky rejected constitutional amendments that would have declared there is no right to abortion; Michigan voters approved an amendment enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution.
“Pro-lifers have clearly and badly lost the PR battle since June and this has shaped how people are voting,” Camosy said via email. He said abortion-rights supporters were better organized and better funded, while many anti-abortion politicians either avoided the issue or sounded too extreme.
“There are obviously very good things that have happened, however,” added Camosy, citing the drop in abortions reported in states with bans.
“Pro-lifers also now relish the chance to actually debate the issues in a democratic, open context ... as opposed to constantly running into the fiats of various courts,” he said. “We may lose some battles early on... but it is worth it to have the debates.”
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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
Comments
Did you wake up this morning with the expectation you and Mitch would be on the same exact page regarding abortion?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday made clear that Senate Republicans are not eager to debate Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) proposal to ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, telling reporters that most GOP senators want to leave the issue to states.
McConnell also said Graham’s proposal is the South Carolina senator’s own initiative and not something being pushed at the leadership level.
which is to say Graham isnt Leadership........
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 only thing I can think of (to repeat myself) is that the dishonest title "late term" gives candidates the opportunity to say "my opponent supports late-term abortion."
I suppose another possibility is getting every last member of the pro-life base to the polls or even fired up enough to participate in bigger ways. Either way, I don't see it working; the hard-core forced-birthers are already pretty active and the middle-of-the-roaders tend to be pro choice.
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
At a minimum the democrats need to do an education campaign and define “weeks pregnant “ anyway
a 15 week ban is an 11 week ban if pregnancy is defined as the date of your last period. It starts at 4 weeks. When we can’t even get the timescales right it makes it seem like you are more pregnant than you are
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana judge on Thursday blocked the state’s abortion ban from being enforced, putting the new law on hold as abortion clinic operators argue that it violates the state constitution.
Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction against the ban that took effect one week ago. The injunction was sought by abortion clinic operators who argued in a lawsuit that the state constitution protects access to the medical procedure.
The ban was approved by the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature on Aug. 5 and signed by GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb. That made Indiana the first state to enact tighter abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v. Wade in June.
The judge wrote “there is reasonable likelihood that this significant restriction of personal autonomy offends the liberty guarantees of the Indiana Constitution” and that the clinics will prevail in the lawsuit. The order prevents the state from enforcing the ban pending a trial on the merits of the lawsuit.
Republican state Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement: “We plan to appeal and continue to make the case for life in Indiana.”
ABORTION
EXPLAINER: Online privacy in a post-Roe world
Governors' races take on new prominence, with higher stakes
White House: GOP abortion ban would mean a nationwide crisis
Idaho asks judge to rethink temporary block on abortion ban
Indiana’s ban followed the political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy. The case gained wide attention when an Indianapolis doctor said the child came to Indiana because of Ohio’s “fetal heartbeat” ban.
An Ohio judge has temporarily blocked that state law, indicating he will allow abortions to continue up to 20 weeks’ gestation until after a court hearing scheduled for Oct. 7.
With Indiana now on hold, bans on abortion at any point in pregnancy are in place in 12 Republican-led states. In another state, Wisconsin, clinics have stopped providing abortions amid litigation over whether an 1849 ban is in effect. Georgia bans abortions once fetal cardiac activity can be detected and Florida and Utah have bans that kick in after 15 and 18 weeks gestation, respectively.
The Indiana ban, which includes limited exceptions, replaced state laws that generally prohibited abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and tightly restricted them after the 13th week.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which is representing the abortion clinics, filed the lawsuit Aug. 31 and argued the ban would “prohibit the overwhelming majority of abortions in Indiana and, as such, will have a devastating and irreparable impact on the plaintiffs and, more importantly, their patients and clients.”
Ken Falk, the ACLU of Indiana’s legal director, pointed to the state constitution’s declaration of rights including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in arguing before the judge on Monday that it included a right to privacy and to make decisions on whether to have children.
The state attorney general’s office said the court should uphold the ban, calling arguments against it based on a “novel, unwritten, historically unsupported right to abortion” in the state constitution.
“The constitutional text nowhere mentions abortion, and Indiana has prohibited or heavily regulated abortion by statute since 1835 — before, during, and after the time when the 1851 Indiana Constitution was drafted, debated, and ratified,” the office said in a court filing.
The question of whether the Indiana Constitution protects abortion rights is undecided.
A state appeals court decision in 2004 said privacy was a core value under the state constitution that extended to all residents, including women seeking an abortion. But the Indiana Supreme Court later set aside that ruling without addressing whether the state constitution included such a right.
Hanlon, a Republican who was first elected in 2014 as a judge in the rural southern Indiana county, wrote that Indiana's constitution “is more explicit in its affirmation of individual rights and its limitation of legislative power to intrude into personal affairs” than the U.S. Constitution.
“There is a reasonable likelihood that decisions about family planning, including decisions about whether to carry pregnancy to term,” are protected by the state constitution, Hanlon wrote.
Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinic operators involved in the lawsuit said in a statement that they were “grateful that the court granted much needed relief for patients, clients, and providers but this fight is far from over.”
“Indiana lawmakers have made it abundantly clear that this harm, this cruelty, is exactly the reality they had in mind when they passed (the abortion ban,)” the statement said.
The Indiana abortion ban includes exceptions allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, before 10 weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.
The new law also prohibited abortion clinics from providing any abortion care, leaving such services solely to hospitals or outpatient surgical centers owned by hospitals.
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
In a poll of midterm voters, Roe has dropped to the 7th most important issue, while crime has skyrocketed to 2nd.
Crime is important, but how many police departments does Congress oversee and fund directly? The NYPD? The LAPD?
Republicans are the masters of taking a locally administered issue like crime, and turn it into almost the most important national issue to voters for midterms, just as soon as their ads hit the airwaves in Sept.
This is why they control the Court, and why Dobbs will not be overturned anytime soon. Even on AMT, Roe was on page 2 today.
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_100322/
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will provide travel funds and support for troops and their dependents who seek abortions but are based in states where they are now illegal, according to a new department policy released Thursday. The military will also increase privacy protections for those seeking care.
The order issued by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin outlines the rights and protections service members and their dependents will have regardless of where they are based, which was a key concern of troops after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
Access to abortion has become a central issue in the midterm elections. President Joe Biden promised this week that the first bill he sends to Capitol Hill next year will be one that writes abortion protections into law, if Democrats control enough seats in Congress to pass it.
The high court ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson case stripped away women’s constitutional protections for abortion and left it to states to determine whether the procedure is legal within their borders. In the months since, abortion has been banned or sharply restricted in more than a dozen states.
The new military policy sets guidelines so that local commanders aren't allowed to influence whether service members get access to care or face a culture where they or their dependents do not come forward out of fear of repercussions. It builds on an initial reaction by the Pentagon in June, when, days after the Supreme Court decision, the Pentagon said it would continue to allow medical leave for service members who needed to travel out of state to get abortions but noted it needed to review the court ruling and subsequent state laws to see if further guidance would be necessary.
Austin directed the services to implement the new policy by the end of this calendar year.
The Pentagon has also been concerned that the Dobbs decision could affect recruitment and retention as service members or potential recruits weighed the risk that they would be assigned to states where abortions are illegal. Many of the Pentagon’s major military bases are located in states including Texas and Florida where anti-abortion laws are now in place.
The new guidelines also direct each military base to publicly display what reproductive heath care support is available for service members and their dependents, extend the time in which a service member must report a pregnancy to commanders to 20 weeks and provide additional protections for defense health care providers who furnish abortion services.
Under federal law, the Pentagon’s health care system can provide abortions only in cases of rape or incest or when a mother’s life is in danger. That doesn't change under the new policy. The funds the military would provide service members would cover transportation only; they would not pay for abortion services that are not covered by federal law.
Attorney Natalie Khawam, who represented the family of slain U.S. soldier Vanessa Guillén, whose body was found last year outside the boundary of Fort Hood, Texas, said the policy is part of a continued effort by the Pentagon to address a military culture that has not been supportive of female service members. Guillén’s death led to sweeping changes as to how sexual harassment and assault are addressed in the military.
“When you are protecting a woman, you are protecting a family, you are protecting everyone that's in her nexus. It could be her children, it could be her parents, it could be her spouse or siblings, and you are definitely protecting the country as she's serving the country," Khawam said.
____
Associated Press writer Lolita Baldor 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
If Republicans win the senate and women don't show up and vote D in record numbers, I don't wanna hear a single complaint from the fairer sex. Dobbs is bad enough, who knows what this Court is capable of.
It could take decades to get the court more liberal to reverse Dobbs. But step one...win elections.
And stop taking blatantly silly positions that are easy to demonize.
Some democrats said it for exactly a week and the GOP had kept it alive for 2+ years.
Biden immediately came out against and said they need more funding. THEN followed through with legislation the D's voted for but the R's said no.
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
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
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think the squad amplified it.
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
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A mailer to voters across Kansas suggests removing state Supreme Court justices in Tuesday's election would protect access to abortion, when abortion rights advocates want to keep them on the bench.
The mailer's return address says it is from VMCF Inc., of Lenexa, a Kansas City suburb. For a brief time in October, that was the legal name of a charitable foundation run by a prominent Republican direct mail firm's owner, state records show.
One side says “Kansans pushed back” against the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in late June to overturn Roe v. Wade. Voters in August decisively rejected a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution. The mailer includes the logo of the pro-amendment side with a red “X” through it.
The mailer's opposite side urges no votes Tuesday on retaining state Supreme Court justices. Six of the seven justices are on the ballot for yes-or-no votes on whether they stay on the bench another six years.
“LET THEM HEAR YOU AGAIN!” the mailer says under a bigger “NO!”
Abortion rights groups want to retain the justices, and Kansans for Life, the state's most influential anti-abortion group, wants to oust five of the six. The court in 2019 ruled that access to abortion is a “fundamental” right under the Kansas Constitution, spurring GOP legislators to push the proposed anti-abortion amendment.
ABORTION
EXPLAINER: Online privacy in a post-Roe world
Abortion access could hinge on state election results
Kansas governor's race is close after abortion upheaval
California governor pardons abortion activist from 1940s
“It's clearly designed to misinform,” said state Rep. Stephanie Clayton, a Kansas City-area Democrat, whose daughter was sent a mailer.
An online state records search for VMCF brought up documents for the nonprofit Van Meteren Charitable Foundation Inc. and showed that it switched from the longer name to the shorter one on Oct. 24 and back on Oct. 31.
Its 2021 annual report listed the same address as the return address on the mailer. Its only officer was Kristian Van Meteren, who owns the The Singularis Group direct mail firm, also in the Kansas City area. He did not immediately return telephone messages Friday seeking comment.
___
The summary and 2nd paragraph of this story have been corrected to show that the company named on the mailer is VMCF, not KMCF.
___
Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna
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
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Weeks after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Grace Ferguson treated a woman whose water had broken halfway through pregnancy. The baby would never survive, and the patient’s chance of developing a potentially life-threatening infection grew with every hour.
By the time she made it to Pittsburgh to see Ferguson, the woman had spent two days in a West Virginia hospital, unable to have an abortion because of a state ban. The law makes an exception for medical emergencies, but the patient’s life wasn’t in danger at that moment.
“She was just kind of standing on the edge of the cliff,” Ferguson said, “waiting for an emergency to happen or for the baby to pass away.”
In Pennsylvania, at the hospital a four-hour drive away, Ferguson was able to induce labor to end the pregnancy.
A growing number of physicians and families tell similar stories as a post-Roe fear comes to pass: Pregnant women with dangerous medical conditions are showing up in hospitals and doctors’ offices only to be denied the abortions that could help treat them. Some doctors in states with restrictive abortion laws say they've referred or suggested more patients go elsewhere than ever. Some women are facing harmful, potentially deadly delays.
ABORTION
EXPLAINER: Online privacy in a post-Roe world
Lawmakers urge action after report of other high court leak
Opponents file lawsuit targeting medication abortions
Georgia asks court to immediately reinstate abortion ban
Doctors say they’re forced to balance medical judgment with potential punishments, including prison time. Although even the strictest laws allow abortion to save a mother’s life, a weighty question lingers: How close to death must the patient be?
“You don’t automatically go from living to dead,” Ferguson said. “You slowly get sicker and sicker.”
It’s impossible to say when that line is crossed, said Dr. Alison Haddock, who’s on the board of the American College of Emergency Physicians. “There’s just no moment where I’m standing in front of a critically ill patient where I know: OK, before their health was just in danger. But now, their life is in danger,” she said.
Experts say it’s hard to pinpoint data on abortion denials when serious complications arise. Employers often discourage health care workers from speaking about them, though The Associated Press reached more than a dozen doctors and patients who shared stories of such denials.
And many doctors and researchers agree that evidence, even if largely anecdotal, shows a widespread problem. In Texas, for example, a doctors’ association sent a letter to the state’s medical board saying some hospitals refused to treat patients with major complications because of the state’s abortion ban.
And at the University of California, San Francisco, researchers who invited health care workers nationwide to anonymously send examples of poor-quality care caused by abortion restrictions say they were surprised by the initial volume of responses. Twenty-five submissions came in the first six weeks. Among them were descriptions of patients sent home after their water broke in the second trimester who later returned with serious infections. One told of an ectopic pregnancy that was allowed to grow on a scar left by a previous cesarean section – which can cause uterine rupture, hemorrhage and death.
“The legislators are playing with fire,” said Dr. Dan Grossman, the project’s leader.
Dr. Cara Heuser, a maternal-fetal specialist in Utah, recalled one patient denied an abortion in Idaho despite developing a serious heart condition midway through pregnancy. The woman had to be transported to Utah for the procedure.
Dr. Lauren Miller, a maternal-fetal specialist in Boise, said she regularly sees patients whose water breaks at 15 through 19 weeks’ gestation, and all doctors can do is help them make the tough decision: “Do they stay here for their care and just wait until something bad happens, or do we facilitate them finding care out of state?”
Dr. David Eisenberg, an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said Missouri doctors and hospitals are regularly “punting that responsibility for care” when people show up with serious complications. They wind up at the university-affiliated medical center where he works — one of the few in Missouri that performs abortions in such cases.
He said patients in crisis are told: “I’ve got to call the lawyer for the hospital before I can figure out what I can do.
“That’s just totally insane and totally inappropriate and really unfortunate.”
The stories are similar when pregnancy is complicated by cancer — diagnosed in about 1 in 1,000 pregnant women each year.
Dr. Karen Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society, said some oncologists are confused about treating pregnant cancer patients, particularly when therapies may induce miscarriage. Dr. Kristina Tocce, medical director for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said she’s seen patients with life-threatening diagnoses forced to drive 10 hours or more, or fly out of state, to get abortions so they can begin chemotherapy or radiation treatment.
Tocce said she recently treated a Texas woman whose cancer had gone into remission but came back aggressively after she became pregnant with her second child. She sought an abortion to resume the cancer treatment that promised to keep her alive for her toddler. During the visit, she thanked Tocce repeatedly.
“I finally told the patient: ‘You can’t thank us anymore. We are doing our jobs,’” Tocce said. “I said, ‘I am so disturbed that you had to travel so far with your family and the hurdles you have had to overcome.’”
Some abortion opponents say doctors may be unnecessarily denying abortions in life-threatening situations out of fear. Dr. Patti Giebink, a former abortion doctor who described changing her views in her book “Unexpected Choice: An Abortion Doctor’s Journey to Pro-Life,” said it comes down to intent. If you intend to save the mother and not end the life of the fetus, she said, “you’re doing good medicine.”
“We’re sort of in a period of time where all these questions come up,” she said. “The legislatures are going to be working to solve some of these problems.”
Dr. Paul LaRose, a member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said he thinks the issue is overstated and those raising concerns are exaggerating.
“Or they may be they misinformed,” he said. “Most pro-life physicians would take care of the mother and do what’s necessary without purposely taking the life of the unborn baby.”
But some women say restrictive abortion laws have put them in danger.
Kristina Cruickshank of Rosenberg, Texas, thought her life was in jeopardy after a diagnosis of a nonviable “partial molar pregnancy,” in which the fetus has too many chromosomes and develops incompletely. Cruickshank, 35, had thyroid problems and massive cysts around both ovaries. She was vomiting, bleeding and in pain.
It was early June, shortly before Roe fell, when Texas banned nearly all abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy. She endured three days of agony in one hospital before her doctor could find another that agreed to the termination procedure. She thought: “What am I supposed to do, just lay here and die?’”
Mylissa Farmer of Joplin, Missouri, faced similar delays in August. Her water broke at 17 1/2 weeks’ gestation, sending her to the emergency room. Tests showed she'd lost all her amniotic fluid. The fetus she and her boyfriend had named Maeve wasn’t expected to survive.
Despite risks of infection and blood loss, she couldn’t get an abortion. The fetus still had a heartbeat. Doctors told her Missouri law superseded their judgment, medical records show.
She tried for days to get an out-of-state abortion, but many hospitals said they couldn’t take her. Ultimately, an abortion helpline connected Farmer with a clinic in Granite City, Illinois. She drove 4 ½ hours from home — while in labor — and had the procedure.
After news outlets covered Farmer’s story and she appeared in a political ad, the Missouri health department started an investigation into whether the Joplin hospital, which declined to comment on the case, violated federal law. The state has shared its preliminary findings with the federal government .
Farmer said the experience was so traumatic that she took a permanent step to ensure nothing like this happens to her again.
She got her tubes tied.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Anti-abortion activists will have multiple reasons to celebrate — and some reasons for unease — when they gather Friday in Washington for the annual March for Life.
The march, which includes a rally drawing abortion opponents from across the nation, has been held annually since January 1974 — a year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision established a nationwide right to abortion.
This year’s gathering — 50 years after that decision — will be the first since the high court struck down Roe in a momentous ruling last June.
Since then, 12 Republican-governed states have implemented sweeping bans on abortion, and several others seek to do the same. But those moves have been offset by other developments. Abortion opponents were defeated in votes on ballot measures in Kansas, Michigan and Kentucky. State courts have blocked several bans from taking effect. And myriad efforts are underway to help women in abortion-ban states either get abortions out of state or use the abortion pill for self-managed abortions.
“It’s almost like the old wild, wild West … everything is still shaking out,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee.
With numerous Democratic-governed states taking steps to protect and expand abortion access, Tobias likened the current situation to the pre-Civil War era when the nation was closely divided between free states and slave states.
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“I will not be surprised if we have something like that for a few years,” she said. “But I do know that pro-lifers are not going to give up — it’s a civil rights issue for us.”
The theme for this year’s March for Life is “Next Steps: Marching Forward into a Post-Roe America.” Scheduled speakers include Hall of Fame football coach Tony Dungy and Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who won the Supreme Court case that overturned Roe.
The president of March for Life, Jeanne Mancini, depicted the June ruling as “a massive victory for the pro-life movement.”
“But the battle to build a culture of life is far from over,” she said. “March for Life will continue to advocate for the unborn and policies that protect them until abortion becomes unthinkable.”
Prospects for any federal legislation restricting abortion nationwide are negligible for now, given that any such measures emerging from the Republican-led House would face rejection in the Democratic-led Senate. The main battlegrounds will be in the states.
Since June, near-total bans on abortion have been implemented in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Legal challenges are pending against several of those bans.
Elective abortions also are unavailable in Wisconsin, due to legal uncertainties faced by abortion clinics, and in North Dakota, where the lone clinic relocated to Minnesota.
Bans passed by lawmakers in Ohio, Indiana and Wyoming have been blocked by state courts while legal challenges are pending. And in South Carolina, the state Supreme Court on Jan. 5 struck down a ban on abortion after six weeks, ruling the restriction violates a state constitutional right to privacy.
The Guttmacher Institute, a research group which supports abortion rights, says the overall result is “a chaotic legal landscape that is disruptive for providers trying to offer care and patients trying to obtain it.”
“When people do not have access to abortion care in their state, they are forced to make the difficult decision to travel long distances for care, self-manage an abortion or carry an unwanted pregnancy to term,” Guttmacher staffers Elizabeth Nash and Isabel Guarnieri wrote last week.
Looking ahead, some anti-abortion leaders hope the Republicans nominate a 2024 presidential candidate who will aggressively push for nationwide abortion restrictions, rather than keep it as a state-by-state matter.
“The approach to winning on abortion in federal races, proven for a decade, is this: state clearly the ambitious consensus pro-life position and contrast that with the extreme view of Democrat opponents,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America.
Dannenfelser says she’s not surprised by the divisive ups-and-downs that have unfolded since the June ruling.
“This is what it looks like when democracy is restored and we have a voice in the debate,” she said. “For 50 years, we had no voice because the judiciary was always going to shield public opinion from having an effect on the law.”
“We always knew it wouldn’t be a straight line (after Roe’s repeal),” she said, adding "we know neither side is going to lay down and die.”
Multiple public opinion polls since June have found that a majority of Americans support access to legal abortion. According to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in July, 53% of U.S. adults said they disapproved of the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe, while 30% approved.
Professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings, director of the University of Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, suggested the anti-abortion movement may suffer from a perception among many Americans that it’s more concerned with controlling women’s bodies than helping them cope with unintended pregnancies.
“It’s about consolidating their political power, more than about babies," she said.
Some abortion opponents are trying to counter such perceptions. In Texas, for example, anti-abortion groups are urging lawmakers to spend more money on services for pregnant and parenting Texans, including expanding Medicaid coverage for mothers.
According to Texas Right to Life, the state's new abortion ban has had a major impact — it says only 68 abortions were recorded by state health officials in July 2022, compared to 4,879 in July 2021.
The group noted the data does not include illegal, unreported abortions — which are widely believed to be increasing as women obtain abortion pills by mail from overseas or from Mexico suppliers.
Charles Camosy, a medical humanities professor at Creighton University School of Medicine who opposes abortion, has analyzed the high-profile election defeats suffered by the anti-abortion movement. Voters in Kansas and Kentucky rejected constitutional amendments that would have declared there is no right to abortion; Michigan voters approved an amendment enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution.
“Pro-lifers have clearly and badly lost the PR battle since June and this has shaped how people are voting,” Camosy said via email. He said abortion-rights supporters were better organized and better funded, while many anti-abortion politicians either avoided the issue or sounded too extreme.
“There are obviously very good things that have happened, however,” added Camosy, citing the drop in abortions reported in states with bans.
“Pro-lifers also now relish the chance to actually debate the issues in a democratic, open context ... as opposed to constantly running into the fiats of various courts,” he said. “We may lose some battles early on... but it is worth it to have the debates.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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