The Assault on Womens Sexual and Reproductive Rights

[Kobi]

[Kobi]

US Supreme Court has agreed to consider a challenge to the Massachusetts abortion clinic buffer zone law.

The Supreme Court issued an order today granting a writ of certiorari to the petitioners, who are objecting to the law that keeps abortion protesters a set distance away from abortion clinics.

The high court’s action comes after a federal appeals court in January upheld the law, saying it protected the rights of patients while, at the same time, allowing others to express their opinions.

The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said in its ruling, “Few subjects have proven more controversial in modern times than the issue of abortion. ... The nation is sharply divided about the morality of the practice and its place in a caring society. But the right of the state to take reasonable steps to ensure the safe passage of persons wishing to enter health care facilities cannot seriously be questioned.

“The Massachusetts statute at issue here is a content-neutral, narrowly tailored time-place-manner regulation that protects the rights of prospective patients and clinic employees without offending the First Amendment rights of others,” said the opinion, written by Judge Bruce M. Selya, who heard the case, along with two other judges.

The appeals court ruling affirmed a decision by US District Judge Joseph L. Tauro in February 2012.

The law creates a 35-foot fixed buffer zone around the driveways and entrances of clinics. The lawsuit, Eleanor McCullen et al v. Martha Coakley et al, was brought by seven people who say they regularly engaged in antiabortion counseling outside the three clinics.

The challenge to the law was the latest in a series. “This case does not come to us as a stranger,” the appeals court said, leading off its decision.

The court twice upheld an earlier version of the law, in 2001 and 2004. After the Legislature revised the law in 2007, the appeals court upheld it again in 2009. More challenges were launched in Tauro’s court. Tauro rejected them, but the plaintiffs appealed.

Massachusetts began moving toward a buffer zone law after the slayings of two clinic workers in Brookline in 1994 shocked the nation. John C. Salvi III, a 22-year-old abortion opponent, shot two clinic workers to death and wounded several others. Salvi later committed suicide in prison while serving two life sentences.

http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013...nzJ/story.html

[Kobi]

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives approved on Monday sweeping restrictions on abortions, including a ban on most after 20 weeks of pregnancy and stricter standards for abortion clinics.

If the bill becomes law, Texas could become the 13th state to pass a 20-week ban and would have some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country.

Supporters says the bill is needed to protect women's health and to keep fetuses from feeling pain. Opponents say it will cause nearly all the state's abortion clinics to close or be completely rebuilt.

"Sadly, too often today the back-alley abortion is the abortion clinic because the standards for providers and the facilities are too lax or substandard," the measure's House sponsor, Representative Jodie Laubenberg, told colleagues early Monday. "This bill will assure that women are given the highest standard of healthcare."

State Representative Senfronia Thompson, a Democrat, waved a coat hanger on the floor of the House, warning that such objects would be used to perform abortions if the measure became law.

"There are going to be more people ending up in the hospital DOA (dead on arrival) for trying to do the abortions themselves," Thompson said during the debate.

The vote was 95-34, mostly along party lines. The House gave the measure preliminary approval earlier on Monday by a vote of 97-33. The measure now returns to the Senate, which has passed a version of the bill that does not include a 20-week ban.

Republicans are racing to send the measure to Governor Rick Perry, who supports restricting abortion, before the current special legislative session ends on Tuesday.

The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, but conservative states have enacted laws in recent years that seek to place restrictions on the procedure, especially on abortions performed late in pregnancy.

Twelve states have passed 20-week bans, including two states where the bans take effect later this year, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Courts have blocked the bans in three of the 12 states - Arizona, Georgia and Idaho.

Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill banning abortions 20 weeks after fertilization. The measure is extremely unlikely to become law because Democrats control the U.S. Senate and the White House.

Similar to the federal measure, the 20-week provision of the Texas proposal is based on controversial medical research that suggests a fetus starts to feel pain at that point.

The Texas proposal would allow exemptions for abortions to save a woman's life and in cases of severe fetal abnormalities.

Thompson unsuccessfully proposed an exemption for victims of rape and incest.

Planned Parenthood said the stricter requirements for abortion facilities would reduce the number of clinics in Texas to five from the present 42.

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-house-re...150751075.html

[Soon]

Texas senator Wendy Davis filibusters against abortion bill

AUSTIN, TEXAS Wearing pink tennis shoes to prepare for nearly 13 consecutive hours of standing, a Democratic Texas state senator on Tuesday began a one-woman filibuster to block a GOP-led effort that would impose stringent new abortion restrictions across the nation's second-most populous state.

Sen. Wendy Davis, 50, of Fort Worth began the filibuster at 11:18 a.m. CDT Tuesday and passed the nine-hour mark in her countdown to midnight -- the deadline for the end of the 30-day special session.

Before Davis began speaking, her chair was removed. CBSDFW.com reports that Davis must speak continuously -- and stay on topic -- the entire time. She is not allowed to lean against something for support. And she will not be able to stop or take a break, not even for meals or the restroom, during the entire 13-hour ordeal.

Davis offered some insight to her plans Monday night on Twitter:


If signed into law, the measures would close almost every abortion clinic in Texas, a state 773 miles wide and 790 miles long with 26 million people. A woman living along the Mexico border or in West Texas would have to drive hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion if the law passes.

In her opening remarks, Davis said she was "rising on the floor today to humbly give voice to thousands of Texans" and called Republican efforts to pass the bill a "raw abuse of power."

Democrats chose Davis to lead the effort because of her background as a woman who had her first child as a teenager and went on to graduate from Harvard Law School.

In the hallway outside the Senate chamber, hundreds of women stood in line, waiting for people in the gallery to give up their seats. Women's rights supporters wore orange T-shirts to show their support for Davis, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst reminded those in the gallery that interrupting the proceedings could results in 48 hours in jail.

Davis tried to stay comfortable and sharp by shifting her weight from hip to hip and slowly walking around her desk while reading notes from a large binder on her desk. When a male protester stood in the Senate gallery and shouted, "Abortion is genocide," Davis continued talking uninterrupted as the man was removed by security.

Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, speaks as she begins a filibuster in an effort to kill an abortion bill, June 25, 2013, in Austin, Texas. / AP PHOTO/ERIC GAY
If the filibuster succeeds, it could also take down other measures. A proposal to fund major transportation projects as well as a bill to have Texas more closely conform with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision banning mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole for offenders younger than 18 might not get votes. Current state law only allows a life sentence without parole for 17-year-olds convicted of capital murder.

Twice in the first six hours, anti-abortion lawmakers questioned Davis about the bill, presenting their arguments that it would protect women or that abortions were wrong. Davis answered their questions but did not give up control of the floor.

"This is really about women's health," said Sen. Bob Deuell, who introduced a requirement that all abortions take place in surgical centers. "Sometimes bad things can happen."

Davis questioned then why vasectomies and colonoscopies aren't also required to take place in such clinics. "Because I've been unable to have a simple question answered to help me understand how this would lead to better care for women, I must question the underlying motive for doing so."

Davis read testimony from women and doctors who would be impacted by the changes, but who were denied the opportunity to speak in a Republican-controlled committee. During one heart-wrenching story describing a woman's difficult pregnancy, Davis choked up several times and wiped tears.

The bill would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and force many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities and be classified as ambulatory surgical centers. Also, doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles -- a tall order in rural communities.

"If this passes, abortion would be virtually banned in the state of Texas, and many women could be forced to resort to dangerous and unsafe measures," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and daughter of the late former Texas governor Ann Richards.

CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez reports many clinics would be forced to shut down because they wouldn't be able to afford the changes required by the law. Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman's Health, said it would cost up to $2 million for each of her clinics to be upgraded to hospital-style operating rooms.

"I'd have to knock down the wall between this room and another room, I'd have to add airflow systems, I'd have to get oxygen piped in through walls instead of tank in here," she explained in one of her centers.


Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said the Democrats never should have been allowed to put Republicans "in a box" and complained that many in the Senate GOP were "flying by the seat of their pants."

But the bill's bogging down began with Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who summoned lawmakers back to work immediately after the regular legislative session ended May 27 but didn't add abortion to the special session to-do list until late in the process. The Legislature can only take up issues at the governor's direction.

Then, House Democrats succeeded in stalling nearly all night Sunday, keeping the bill from reaching the Senate until 11 a.m. Monday.

Debate in that chamber included lawmakers waving coat-hangers on the floor and claiming the new rules are so draconian that women are going to be forced to head to Mexico to have abortions.

At one point, the bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Jodie Laubenberg of Spring, errantly suggested that emergency room rape kits could be used to terminate pregnancies.



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Texas Senator Wendy Davis is standing on the Senate floor RIGHT NOW filibustering conservative attempts to pass some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.

Tell Wendy you stand with her in fighting for women's health care and reproductive rights - now and in the months to come. We will send her your messages of support.

[Soon]

Sen. Wendy Davis Filibuster Live Stream: Watch The Texas Senator Try To Defeat Abortion Bill

[Kobi]

The news is reporting Wendy Davis didn't make thru all the hoops Texas required for her filibuster to hold off voting on the abortion bill.

But, now there is controversy as to when the vote was actually taken. The official record originally had the vote taken after midnight. It was then changed to before midnight.

http://news.yahoo.com/dispute-texas-...070453921.html

[DapperButch]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...6pLid%3D336067

Yee Haw!