The War On Women

People Persons (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker| April 14, 20233:03 pm| 124 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, The War On Women, Women's Rights Are Human Rights

I only read People magazine when waiting in a doctor’s or dentist’s office when there are no bars on my phone or National Geographics lying around. My impression through infrequent reading is that People is mostly a celebrity gossip magazine that is primarily aimed at women.

That’s fine but usually not my thing since I’m an old mombie who hasn’t heard of most current pop stars and doesn’t give a flying fuck about feuds among the Kardashians or royal family. Then a saw a link online to this People mag article published today:

Rape, Incest Victims Must Show Proof to Get Exception to Florida’s New Abortion Ban

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Heartbeat Protection Act into law, which bans abortions after six weeks and increases restrictions to the standing exceptions

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has doubled down on the state’s restrictions against abortion services.

On Thursday, DeSantis announced that he signed the Heartbeat Protection Act into law, which will now require a woman to provide proof that the pregnancy was a result of rape, incest or human trafficking in order to receive an abortion up until 15 weeks of gestation…

A poll in February done by the University of North Florida found that 75% of the state’s residents either somewhat or strongly opposed the six-week ban — including 61% of Republicans.

I knew about DeSantis’s “heartbeat” law, but it surprised me to see it covered in People magazine. But you know what? That’s exactly where this bullshit ban needs to be covered.

I also applaud the tone of the article, which focused on the impact on, well, people instead of political prospects. It included a quote from a White House statement, which was also exactly on point:

“This ban would prevent four million Florida women of reproductive age from accessing abortion care after six weeks — before many women even know they’re pregnant,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement issued Thursday.

The statement added, “This ban would also impact the nearly 15 million women of reproductive age who live in abortion-banning states throughout the South, many of whom have previously relied on travel to Florida as an option to access care.”

The only whiff about the horserace implications of the Florida abortion ban is contained in the reference to the poll that shows it’s unpopular across both parties. That is also refreshing, though I admit I do find horserace content more interesting than coverage of the Taylor Swift tour costumes. But it turns out maybe I’m a People person after all.

Open thread.

People Persons (Open Thread)Post + Comments (124)

Lawless Ruling in Texas

by Betty Cracker| April 8, 20239:15 am| 221 Comments

This post is in: Activist Judges!, Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics, Republican Venality, The War On Women, Women's Rights Are Human Rights

As expected, Trump-appointed Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk anointed himself supreme arbiter of women’s reproductive healthcare in a ruling that withdrew FDA approval for mifepristone, a medication abortion option that has been used safely for more than two decades. Kacsmaryk, a religious fanatic who lacks the clinical training to make such a judgment, made it anyway.

Mark Joseph Stern at Slate lays out what’s at stake:

His order, which applies nationwide, marks the first time in history that a court has claimed the authority to single-handedly pull a drug from the market, a power that courts do not, in fact, have. Kacsmaryk’s ruling is indefensible from top to bottom and will go down in history as one of the judiciary’s most shocking and lawless moments. It goes even further than expected, raising the possibility that he will impose “fetal personhood,” which holds that every state must ban abortion because it murders a human…

Through the combination of Comstock Act enforcement and fetal personhood, Kacsmaryk is laying the groundwork for a federal ban on abortion imposed through the courts. He knows such a ban could never be enacted through the democratic process. So he is apparently intent on delivering it through the judiciary, instead.

On the same evening Kacsmaryk appointed himself Chief Medical Officer of Women, Judge Thomas Rice in Washington State ruled in a separate case, ordering the FDA to continue providing mifepristone. In that case, 18 jurisdictions sued to remove FDA restrictions on the drug.

Stern says the Biden admin will probably appeal both rulings but hopes they will ask the SCOTUS for an emergency stay because the appeals court that will take up the case is also stocked with anti-abortion fanatics who are likely to uphold Kacsmaryk’s decision.

Here’s President Biden’s reaction to the news (via Twitter):

Today, a federal district judge in Texas ruled that a prescription medication available for over 22 years, approved by the FDA, and used safely by millions of women should no longer be approved in the U.S.

Here’s why this matters. And how my Administration is going to fight it.

What’s more – the court in this case has substituted its judgment for FDA, the expert agency that approves drugs.

That means if this ruling were to stand, there would be virtually no prescription approved by the FDA safe from this kind of attack.

We’re going to fight it.

The Attorney General has announced @TheJusticeDept will file an appeal and seek an immediate stay of the decision.

And Congress must restore the protections of Roe v. Wade.

@VP and I are committed to protecting a woman’s right to an abortion. Period.

Of course, Biden knows the current Congress won’t protect women’s healthcare, but a new Congress might if the Dems win a trifecta next year. Most pundits would have dismissed that possibility as a pipedream given the terrible Senate map, etc. But with elected and unelected Republicans gleefully consigning half the population to second-class citizenship and substandard healthcare, who knows?

Stern thinks the SCOTUS will intervene sooner rather than later due to the contradictory rulings from Texas and Washington State, as Dave noted last night, and also to avoid an escalation if the admin agrees with Democrats who are urging the FDA to simply ignore Kacsmaryk’s ruling.

Stern says the FedSoc Six can now prove they weren’t lying when they overturned Roe to “leave the issue to ‘the people and their representatives’ rather than unelected judges.”

I have no idea what they’ll do, but I’m pretty sure if the GOP operatives on the Supreme Court punt instead of taking the maximalist anti-choice position, it will be politics that stays their hand, not judicial restraint. They showed us who they are a long time ago.

Open thread.

Lawless Ruling in TexasPost + Comments (221)

Abortion going back to SCOTUS soon

by David Anderson| April 7, 20237:55 pm| 80 Comments

This post is in: The War On Women, Women's Rights

In the past couple of hours, two district court judges issued rulings on RU-486/medication abortion. One, based in Washington State, told the Food and Drug Administration that it was to maintain the status quo. The other, a district court judge in a single judge sub-division in North Texas who every reactionary crank goes to because he is predictable inclined to favor reactionary plaintiffs, found that the FDA has been out of compliance with the regulatory laws for twenty years and ordered a national injunction pulling this drug from the market. The decision is stayed for a week.

The FDA is being told to do two very contradictory things by the same level of authority.

Abortion going back to SCOTUS soonPost + Comments (80)

Fighting Dems in Florida

by Betty Cracker| April 4, 20239:59 am| 83 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads, Politics, The War On Women, Women's Rights Are Human Rights

Fighting Dems in Florida — Photo credit: Alicia Devine, Tallahassee Democrat

After the most recent election debacle in Florida and the ritual resignation of the state party leaders associated with it, former agriculture commissioner (and Charlie Crist primary opponent) Nikki Fried stepped up to run for state party chair and won. Lots of folks were skeptical of Fried, and not wholly without reason, but maybe Fried is just what our demoralized state party needs. (Orlando Sentinel)

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried and Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book were arrested and taken away in handcuffs Monday night during a demonstration over an abortion bill outside Tallahassee City Hall near the Capitol.

The two Democratic leaders were with about 40 abortion-rights advocates protesting the Senate’s passage on Monday of SB 300, which bans most abortions after six weeks. Eleven protestors sitting in a circle singing “Lean on Me” on the plaza outside City Hall were detained and taken to jail, witnesses said.

They were charged with trespass after warning and taken to the county jail for processing, according to a statement from the Tallahassee Police Department.

Shortly after midnight, Fried tweeted: “I’m out. And not ever backing down. Just [expletive] vote @FlaDems!!!”

DeSantis will soon sign a so-called “heartbeat bill” that will effectively make abortion illegal in Florida and rob about 11 million Florida women of their bodily autonomy and consign us to second-class citizenship and substandard medical care. So yeah, it’s good to see the state party leader out there raising hell.

I don’t know if a more activist approach will turn things around anytime soon, but damn it, it’s a start. And it’s a refreshing change from the usual suspects huddled around conference room tables in Miami poring over useless reports from expensive consultants. Go Nikki!

Fighting Dems in FloridaPost + Comments (83)

So-Called ‘Heartbeat Bill’ Filed in Florida

by Betty Cracker| March 8, 20233:22 pm| 166 Comments

This post is in: Gun nuts, Open Threads, Politics, The War On Women

Yesterday, the Florida legislature came back into session. That hasn’t been a good thing at any point in this century, but it’s especially bad this year. After winning reelection by a hefty margin, Gov. Ron DeSantis was in Triumph of the Will mode as he paraded through the Giant Twig & Two Berries Capitol.*

Florida’s part-time GOP legislators/full-time grifters mostly function as rubber stamps to codify DeSantis’s 2024 campaign wish-list these days instead of proposing legislation independently. They submitted a flurry of bills yesterday designed to maximize signing ceremony photo-ops.

If passed and signed, as most of this garbage will be, the proposed legislation will further dictate what teachers can teach, decree which funds state investors can choose and restrict how doctors practice medicine. There are yet more measures to oppress people who are LGBQ and especially T, restrict education about our racist past and present, defund public schools and loosen gun laws.

Since statehouse activities are now a wholly political operation focused on an upcoming presidential run, I was wondering how DeSantis and the Republican legislator-minions would handle the abortion rights hot potato, given that backlash to Dobbs almost certainly contributed to Republicans’ anemic results in the 2022 midterms outside of Florida. Now we know — they’re going full Mississippi anyway.

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The same religious fanatic who sponsored an earlier bill imposing a ban on abortion after 15 weeks submitted a new bill to outlaw access after six weeks in this session. We know how this will play out. The 15-week ban has already forced women to leave the state to access medically necessary care, and restricting access to six weeks will make it that much worse.

I’m not sure DeSantis welcomes this development because it could complicate his presidential bid if there’s newsworthy backlash to draconian restrictions in the state. Or maybe that’s not something Florida Republicans worry about these days?

I don’t feel like I know the state anymore; it’s entirely possible the majority of Florida voters don’t give a shit if women lose their bodily autonomy and receive substandard medical care. The most recent data point — the 2022 election results — suggests they don’t.

But I don’t think DeSantis knows either. He has focused on imaginary problems like eradicating “wokeness” and tried to have it both ways on genuine hot button issues like abortion and open carry. Here’s how The Tampa Bay Times covered his response to the proposed six-week ban:

At a news conference after his speech, DeSantis said he supports further restrictions on abortion. But he pointed to the legal challenge against Florida’s 15-week abortion limitations and said that any further abortion restrictions would be in legal limbo.

When asked specifically about the six-week ban, and whether there’s a concern that it could restrict abortions before a woman may know she’s pregnant, DeSantis said he thinks “the issue is less [about the] week than the fact that there’s a detectable heartbeat.”

As the dissembler and liar well knows, “legal limbo” is merely an opportunity to funnel taxpayer money to out-of-state wingnut law firms, where outfits staffed by DeSantis cronies like Adam Laxalt make bank defending indefensible laws in court. The “detectable heartbeat” thing is 100% bullshit too since at six weeks, an embryo does not yet qualify as a fetus (much less a baby), resembles a tadpole more than a human being and hasn’t yet developed an organ that can accurately be described as a “heart.”

Still, I don’t figure Florida’s Squintiest Snowflake will have to use the “legal limbo” mumbo-jumbo to avoid signing the bill. If he finds the timing inconvenient, he’ll direct his statehouse minions to hold it up so it doesn’t reach his desk.

Ditto any proposed “open carry” bills. The expressed intent now is to pass legislation that allows anyone to carry concealed weapons without the previously required mandatory training or permits. DeSantis is hoping that will placate gun nuts, but one of them secretly recorded him at a book tour event saying he supports open carry but doesn’t know if the legislature would pass that provision.

The response was an expression of contempt for his gun kook questioner because the idea that the wingnut supermajority Florida statehouse operates independently of DeSantis is absurd. The real question is whether the image of people openly carrying AR-15s on the streets of violent Republican-run Florida cities helps or hurts the 2024 campaign.

The other real question is will stories about pregnant women being in danger of dying of sepsis or having to flee to blue states to receive proper medical care help or hurt the campaign, especially since the media doesn’t cover it like an issue that affects half the population. I don’t know the answer, and I don’t think DeSantis does either, but it looks like we’re both going to find out.

Open thread.

*Search Google images for Florida’s capitol complex. It’s a giant concrete dick and scrotum, which is an appropriate villain’s lair for the many GOP dickheads and flaccid ball-sacks who work there.

So-Called ‘Heartbeat Bill’ Filed in FloridaPost + Comments (166)

These Creepy Motherfuckers

by John Cole| February 16, 202312:59 pm| 125 Comments

This post is in: Religious Nuts, The War On Women

Again, it was never about just abortion:

The Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, appears to have thwarted an attempt to stop law enforcement obtaining menstrual histories of women in the state.

A bill passed in the Democratic-led state senate, and supported by half the chamber’s Republicans, would have banned search warrants for menstrual data stored in tracking apps on mobile phones or other electronic devices.

Advocates feared private health information could be used in prosecutions for abortion law violations, after a US supreme court ruling last summer overturned federal protections for the procedure.

But Youngkin, who has pushed for a 15-week abortion ban to mirror similar measures in several Republican-controlled states, essentially killed the bill through a procedural move in a subcommittee of the Republican-controlled House.

It is and always has been about control and keeping women as second class citizens to the fucking christofascists.

These Creepy MotherfuckersPost + Comments (125)

Open Thread: The Roe v Wade Anniversary

by Anne Laurie| January 25, 20235:16 pm| 133 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Venality, The War On Women, Women's Rights Are Human Rights

‘The right of every woman in every state in this country to make decisions about her own body is on the line’: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris says abortion rights are under attack across the nation https://t.co/sVWWVVHHVy pic.twitter.com/u0CxoB5h4M

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 23, 2023

.@SenTinaSmith: Overturning Roe v. Wade was just ‘the beginning’ for GOP https://t.co/MjEfQYzhqL pic.twitter.com/tsWOfzKee9

— The Last Word (@TheLastWord) January 21, 2023

Roe v. Wade was a vital step in America’s journey toward liberty and justice for all. ⁰⁰I shared my thoughts in @TheHill about the struggle for freedom in a post-Roe world — and why @HouseDemocrats will never stop fighting for abortion rights.https://t.co/6XISrBEzfH

— Katherine Clark (@RepKClark) January 23, 2023

Today should’ve been the 50th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Instead, MAGA Republican officials are waging a war on women’s right to make their own health care decisions.

But this fight isn’t over.

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 22, 2023

From the minute Roe was overturned last June, our Administration fought to protect access to abortion where we could – including taking executive action to safeguard access to medication abortion and travel to access reproductive health care services.

Since then, anti-choice bills have cropped up in state houses across America, including proposals restricting access to contraception.

And in Congress, MAGA officials are touting a national ban with the goal of blocking women everywhere from making their own health care choices.

Let me be clear: a woman’s right to choose is non-negotiable.

I haven’t stopped fighting to protect women’s reproductive rights – and I never will.

Now, it’s time for Congress to pass legislation codifying the protections of Roe.

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If the anti-abortion movement fails to shift public opinion, it could see the reemergence of pro-choice Republican candidates and elected officials, observes @Ed_Kilgore https://t.co/YgARNPTVmN

— Intelligencer (@intelligencer) January 22, 2023

… It’s as though Captain Ahab suddenly harpooned Moby Dick and had to figure out his next step in life.

Dobbs triggered much celebration and self-congratulation among anti-abortion activists: Their decades-long strategy of undermining Roe via Supreme Court appointments by Republican presidents had finally borne fruit. But this development was obviously just a condition precedent to the movement’s ultimate goal of banning abortion entirely and everywhere. It raised a lot of new and difficult questions about where to move next and how quickly to do so while fundamentally changing the dynamics of the abortion debate.

Since the central legal battle has now been resolved, the most urgent task for anti-abortion activists is to rethink their alliance with the Republican politicians they rely on for further progress in ending reproductive rights. Yes, there have always been considerable differences of opinion within the anti-abortion ranks over strategy, tactics, and rhetoric. But intra-movement arguments that were largely theoretical when Roe was in place are suddenly very real, and their resolution must be coordinated with GOP elected officials, candidates, and opinion leaders. There is no question that while Dobbs led quickly to abortion bans wherever they were possible, it also produced a sea change in public opinion that has to be troubling to those for whom reversing Roe was just the starting point.

The Guttmacher Institute reports that, post-Dobbs, 24 states have enacted some sort of previously unconstitutional abortion ban. But at the same time, the abortion-rights side won every 2022 ballot test on abortion policy including three in the deep-red states of Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana and another in the key battleground state of Michigan. Perhaps of equal significance, candidates from a Republican Party that had maintained a steady partnership with the anti-abortion movement since at least 1980 ran away from the issue as quickly as it could in most competitive election contests. At the federal level, Republicans hid behind the ancient and entirely insincere pre-Dobbs claim that they wanted only to return the issue to the states. (If you think of fetuses as “babies” with an inalienable “right to life,” then that’s a contemptuous dodge; today, as in the antebellum era, “states’ rights” is just a veil for more absolute policy goals, whether it’s slavery or forced birth.) And in states where voters were allowed to weigh in, Republicans sometimes shrugged and deferred to the abortion-rights majority of public opinion.

So the challenge before anti-abortion activists isn’t just to reach internal consensus over short- and long-term goals and tactics; they also need to reimpose discipline on the GOP and its shifty politicians. Fortunately for these activists, they will have a lever via their influence on what looks to be a highly competitive 2024 GOP presidential nominating contest. Republican presidential candidates will find that support for a federal abortion ban is an absolute condition for the movement’s support. At the same time, Republicans at the state and local levels will be pressed to work toward the most extreme abortion policies that are politically viable wherever they run or hold office. If Republicans candidates stick with their impulse to avoid this sensitive issue, it could be deadly for the future of the “right to life” movement.

For all the post-Dobbs excitement over “babies being saved,” the anti-abortion movement needs to quickly make ground on public opinion or increase its control of GOP candidates. If it fails to do so, it could see the reemergence of pro-choice Republican candidates and elected officials, a nearly extinct species until now but one that could command some significant grassroots support within the party along with crossover appeal. If that happens, the nation’s abortion-rights majority will impose its will sooner or later, and reproductive rights may gain recognition nearly everywhere in law, if not in the Constitution.

VP Kamala Harris, in @GovRonDeSantis‘ political backyard, didn’t mention him by name but said: “Last year, so-called leaders at the Statehouse here in Tallahassee passed a radical abortion ban with no exceptions, even for the survivors of crimes like rape and child molestation.”

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 22, 2023

This war has never been about life. It has always been about control.

Honored to stand alongside reproductive rights advocates to welcome @VP to Florida yesterday on the 50th anniversary of #RoeVWade

👩🏻👩🏿👩🏼👩🏾👩🏽👧🏼🧒🏾👩🏼‍🦰 pic.twitter.com/Ja6ffW3bek

— Lauren Book (@LeaderBookFL) January 23, 2023

.@VP Kamala Harris greets the crowd of about 1,200 in Tallahassee, at a local concert venue in the shadow of Florida’s state Capitol. pic.twitter.com/Ab40LzS58o

— Ana Ceballos (@anaceballos_) January 22, 2023

Vice President Kamala Harris visited Florida on Sunday to hold a rally in support of reproductive rights, an issue she equated to “freedom,” a remark that doubled as an apparent jab to the “free state of Florida” rhetoric Gov. Ron DeSantis has embraced.https://t.co/lyV5Z8tlB6

— Ana Ceballos (@anaceballos_) January 22, 2023

.@VP Harris on Roe v. Wade: “Let us not be tired or discouraged, because we’re on the right side of history. […] Here now, on this 50th anniversary, let us resolve to make history and secure this right.” https://t.co/hErI5hgvlg pic.twitter.com/dScplWzdJ2

— The Hill (@thehill) January 23, 2023

Open Thread: The Roe v Wade AnniversaryPost + Comments (133)

Ruckus on *Finally* Saturday Morning Open Thread: Be Of Good Cheer! (Oct 12, 2024 @ 5:36pm)

caphilldcne on A Blog Shower for John and Joelle! (Oct 12, 2024 @ 5:36pm)

cain on Fuckers (Oct 12, 2024 @ 5:31pm)

Bupalos on A Blog Shower for John and Joelle! (Oct 12, 2024 @ 5:30pm)

There go two miscreants on A Blog Shower for John and Joelle! (Oct 12, 2024 @ 5:30pm)

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

We still have time to mess this up!

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

People Persons (Open Thread)

Rape, Incest Victims Must Show Proof to Get Exception to Florida’s New Abortion Ban

Lawless Ruling in Texas

Abortion going back to SCOTUS soon

Fighting Dems in Florida

So-Called ‘Heartbeat Bill’ Filed in Florida

These Creepy Motherfuckers

Open Thread: The Roe v Wade Anniversary