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Old 06-23-2013, 09:21 PM   #221
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Old 06-23-2013, 10:00 PM   #222
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Old 06-24-2013, 09:12 AM   #223
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Default US Supreme Court agrees to hear challenge to Mass. abortion clinic buffer zone law

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
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Old 06-24-2013, 09:16 PM   #224
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Default Texas House passes sweeping abortion restrictions

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
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Old 06-25-2013, 08:31 PM   #225
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Default Please Support Senator Davis

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.



=================


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.
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Old 06-25-2013, 08:38 PM   #226
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Sen. Wendy Davis Filibuster Live Stream: Watch The Texas Senator Try To Defeat Abortion Bill

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Old 06-26-2013, 02:32 AM   #227
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Default Wendy Davis didnt make it to midnight but was the vote too late?

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
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Old 06-26-2013, 05:43 AM   #228
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...6pLid%3D336067

Yee Haw!
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Old 06-26-2013, 05:22 PM   #229
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Default Texas gov. calls 2nd special session on abortion

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday called a second special session of the Texas Legislature to pass widespread abortion restrictions across the nation's second-largest state, after the first attempt by Republicans died overnight following a marathon one-woman filibuster.

Perry ordered lawmakers to meet again on July 1 to act on the abortion proposals, as well as separate bills that would boost highway funding and deal with a juvenile justice issue. The sweeping abortion rules would close nearly all the state's abortion clinics and impose other widespread restrictions.

Perry can call as many 30-day extra sessions as he likes, but lawmakers can only take up those issues he assigns.

The debate over abortion restrictions led to the most chaotic day in the Texas Legislature in modern history, starting with a marathon filibuster and ending with a down-to-the wire, frenetic vote marked by questions about whether Republicans tried to break chamber rules and jam the measure through.

Democrats put their hopes of thwarting the bill in the hands of Wendy Davis, a state senator clad in pink running shoes, for a daylong attempt to talk the bill to death. Over the duration of the speech, Davis became a social media star, even becoming the subject of a tweet from President Obama for her efforts.

But just before midnight, Republicans claimed she strayed off topic and got help with a back brace — two things that are against filibuster rules — and cut her off.

That cleared the way for a vote.

But when Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst shouted into the microphone, trying to call the final votes, nobody seemed to hear him. Some 400 supporters jammed into the gallery had taken their feet with a deafening roar, drowning out his voice. It was, as some claimed, a "people's filibuster" — an attempt by protesters to finish what Davis had started more than 11 hours earlier.

"Get them out!" Republican Sen. Donna Campbell shouted to a security guard. "... I want them out of here!"

As the crowd clapped and shouted "shame, shame, shame," Dewhurst gathered Republican lawmakers around Secretary of the Senate Patsy Spaw to register their votes. Democrats ran forward, holding up their cellphones, which showed it was past midnight.

But Dewhurst and other Republicans insisted the first vote was cast before midnight by the Legislature's clock and that the bill had passed.

By the time decorum was restored and the 19-10 vote in favor of the measure was recorded, the clock read 12:03 a.m. Confusion took over: The Republicans had passed the bill, but did it count? Were the votes tallied in time?

Reporters checked the Senate's official website and saw the vote registered on Wednesday, after the deadline. But a short time later, the website was updated to show the vote on Tuesday. Sen. Chuy Hinojosa produced two official printouts of the vote, each showing a different day for the same vote.

After protests from angry Democrats, senators met privately with Dewhurst for more than an hour. Eventually, he returned to the then-empty Senate chamber and declared that while the bill had passed, he didn't have time to sign it, so it wasn't approved. In return for declaring the measure dead, Democrats promised not to question the date of the vote any further.

While altering a public record is illegal, stopping the clock to allow for a vote or changing the journal before it is published are long traditions in the Texas Legislature and unlikely to lead to a prosecution.

The bill would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and forced 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.

The law's provision that abortions be performed at surgical centers means only five of Texas' 42 abortion clinics would remain in operation in 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.

Conservatives and anti-abortion campaigners joined Dewhurst in condemning the "unruly mob" for violating the Senate's decorum by screaming obscenities at Republican backers of the bill.

Texas Democrats, though, see an opportunity to capitalize just months after setting up a grassroots organization called "Battleground Texas" with a $36 million cash infusion. And they circled around Davis — the teen mom turned Harvard Law School grad whose Twitter followers rocketed from 1,200 to 83,000 in just 24 hours.

"As Sen. Wendy Davis most powerfully emphasized, Democrats are not afraid of a fight," said Gilberto Hinojosa, Texas Democratic Party chairman. "Last night was a turning point in that story of Texas."


http://news.yahoo.com/texas-gov-call...211507600.html
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Old 06-26-2013, 08:29 PM   #230
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Default Texas State Senator Wendy Davis

IMO, she is an outstanding example of an elected official. The Republicans say "grandstanding." I say intelligent woman with conviction. Side note, I just saw the National Planned Parenthood president, Cecila Richards on Rachel Maddow's news broadcast. Ms. Richards is the daughter of the late Governor Ann Richards. Ann Richards another extraordinary woman and leader.
__________________________________________________ _________


Texas. State Sen. Wendy Davis is all the rage in the Democratic party for her fights over abortion rights and education funding. Republicans aren't so sold on her grandstanding.


CONFLICT WITH REPUBLICANS
  • Tuesday's filibuster was not Davis' first. In 2011, she led a shorter filibuster that prevented the Texas state legislature from passing a budget that removed $4 billion from public schools.
  • Davis' 2011 filibuster drew the ire of Texas Republicans, who were forced to meet for a special session. She was dropped from the Texas Senate Committee on Education by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R) following the filibuster. Gov. Rick Perry called Davis a "show horse" after the incident.
  • Davis became the 12th Democratic member of the Texas State Senate in 2008. That electoral victory and her re-election in 2012 prevented Senate Republicans from establishing a filibuster-proof majority.
  • In 2011, Republicans engineered a redistricting plan that attempted to shift Davis into a more conservative district. After a battle in federal courts, attorneys for the state announced in late May that they would drop their effort to redraw Davis' district's boundaries, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

HARDSCRABBLE BEGINNINGS
  • Davis was raised by a single mother with a sixth-grade education and began working at the age of 14 to support her mother and three siblings.
  • She worked at an Orange Julius and sold subscriptions to the Star-Telegram, according to the New York Times.
  • Living in a trailer park at the age of 19, Davis was already a divorced single mother. Despite her predicament, she went on to complete high school, junior college and an undergraduate degree at Texas Christian University, where she graduated first in her class.
  • Davis was the first person in her family to graduate from college. She went on to receive her law degree from Harvard. She then remarried and had a second daughter. Davis divorced again in 2003.

Read More:

http://news.msn.com/us/who-is-texas-...en-wendy-davis
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Old 06-29-2013, 12:54 AM   #231
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Default Kansas judge blocks portions of state's new abortion law

KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - A Kansas judge on Friday issued a temporary injunction on two parts of the state's new anti-abortion law, while upholding the majority of far-reaching measure that goes into effect Monday.

Shawnee County District Judge Rebecca Crotty struck down a part of the law that forbids a waiver of the required 24-hour waiting period to be granted based on the woman's mental health.

Crotty also struck down a part of the law requiring abortion providers on their websites to vouch for the accuracy and independence of the state's health department material on abortions.

Crotty ruled that forcing abortion providers to attest to material would be an infringement on free speech.

Kansas is one of a handful of states, primarily in the country's south and midsection, to have passed or enacted laws restricting abortion recently. Some of the measures appeared designed to stand as challenges to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal.

Crotty refused to issue an injunction on the rest of the measure, which was signed into law by Republican Governor Sam Brownback in April.

The law defines life as beginning at fertilization, blocks tax credits for abortion services, bars employees of abortion clinics from providing sex education in schools and bans abortions based solely on the gender of the fetus.

Crotty's injunction will stay in effect, pending future hearings, said Teresa Woody, the lawyer for doctors Herbert Hodes and Traci Nauser, who brought the lawsuit.

Kansas is one of seven states to have laws that say life begins at fertilization, according to the anti-abortion Guttmacher Institute, which researches abortion-related laws nationwide.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/kansas-judg...040248614.html
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Old 06-30-2013, 11:47 AM   #232
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Default CBO: GOP abortion bill would raise deficit

Nearly every single House Republican voted last week to increase government spending and push the nation further into debt — all to limit abortion access for some women.

The official budget scorekeeper of Congress says the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks, would increase Medicaid costs by as much as $400 million.

The bill from Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), received a lot of media attention and angered some House Republicans, who had no idea why the party was voting on abortion restrictions when it is trying to make inroads with female voters. Six Democrats joined 222 House Republicans to pass the bill.

The Congressional Budget Office, which judges the budgetary impact of all legislation, says “Depending on the number of additional births under H.R. 1797, such Medicaid costs could range from about $75 million over the next 10 years to more than $400 million over that period.”

CBO officially estimates that the bill increases federal deficits by $75 million between 2014 and 2018, and $225 million between 2014 and 2023.

CBO’s cost estimate is based on this: “about three-quarters of the abortions that would occur 20 weeks or more after fertilization under current law would instead occur earlier, and the remaining one-quarter would not occur so those pregnancies would be taken to term.

“Because the costs of about 40 percent of all births are paid for by the Medicaid program, CBO estimates that federal spending for Medicaid will rise to the extent that enacting H.R. 1797 results in additional births and deliveries relative to current law,” CBO added. “In addition, some of those children would themselves qualify for Medicaid and possibly for other federal programs as well.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...#ixzz2XisCbthj

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Another of those "huh?" moments.

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Old 07-01-2013, 09:20 PM   #233
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Default Meet Ohio's Three New Anti-Abortion Laws

Ohio has three new abortion-restricting laws on the books now that Governor John Kasich has signed the new state budget without vetoing any of the abortion measures attached to it.

Kaisich also continued the trend of keeping the visuals of abortion legislation 100 percent men.

Keep in mind that there are actually two big anti-abortion legislative efforts going on in Ohio this month. HB 200, the bill that will, among other things, require doctors to give patients disputed scientific "facts" about abortion, is still making its way through the state's legislature. The budget measures signed today pertain to funding provided to family planning services (effectively prioritizing anti-abortion pregnancy centers over Planned Parenthood for federal funding), and bans surgical facilities that perform abortions from partnering with public hospitals for transfer agreements. The Cleveland Plain Dealer explains the practical effects of the latter:

Surgical facilities in the state are required to have a transfer agreements with a hospital, Ribbins said, adding that barring Planned Parenthood from drafting agreements with public hospitals would force the health care provider to seek agreements with private hospitals, which are often affiliated with religious groups that oppose abortion."

A last-minute provision added to the bill will require doctors to listen for, and if detected, inform patients of, a "fetal heartbeat." The bill doesn't specify the method used to detect the heartbeat, but this could possibly mean that doctors will perform external ultrasounds.

The new measures could cause the closure of some clinics and family planning centers that provide abortions. At the very least, they'll make it a lot harder for women in the state to receive any of the services offered by those providers.

While the three abortion measures in the budget went untouched, the governor did veto 22 measures from the budget, including provisions pertaining to Medicaid, the sales tax, and Spider Monkeys.

http://news.yahoo.com/meet-ohios-thr...030520731.html
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Old 07-03-2013, 06:05 PM   #234
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Default North Carolina latest state to seek tighter abortion clinic rules

Reuters) - Stricter rules for abortion clinics were approved by the North Carolina Senate on Wednesday, adding that state to the ranks of a growing number nationwide seeking to tighten regulations.

The bill passed the Republican-majority state Senate on Wednesday on a vote of 29-12. Supporters maintain the bill is designed to protect the safety of women who seek an abortion, while opponents argue it could shut down all but one of the state's clinics.

The package of anti-abortion amendments was attached to an unrelated bill that would ban sharia, Islamic law in the state.

The amendments would require abortion clinics in the state to meet the same safety standards as ambulatory surgery centers, limit healthcare coverage for abortion and that a doctor be present when women take the RU-486 pill to induce abortion.

The move comes as lawmakers in Texas and Ohio have pushed hard for abortion limits in the past week, angering supporters of abortion rights. The tightened standards for abortion clinics are being considered in five states, and are already on the books in nine more, according to abortion rights advocates.

"A fuse has been lit that is burning across this country. Women have been shut down, shut out and told to shut up, but we demand to be heard," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. "These attacks on women's health are dangerous and deeply unpopular, and that's why politicians are trying to sneak them in with special sessions, midnight votes, hearings without witnesses and other underhanded tactics."

The North Carolina House of Representatives has already passed the sharia bill without the last-minute abortion provisions, which were added by state senators without public notice in a late-day committee hearing and put to a preliminary vote on the Senate floor in Raleigh on Tuesday night.

The bill now goes back to the House for approval of the changes. If the bill is not approved, it may be sent to a conference committee to decide whether the abortion restrictions stay in the bill before it goes to the governor.

The hasty action was decried not only by supporters of abortion rights, but by the state's Republican governor.

The nine states that require abortion clinics to meet the same safety standards as ambulatory surgery centers for all abortions are Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia, according to the National Abortion Rights Action League.

Twenty-five states have passed less stringent variations of those laws, NARAL said, including some that require later-term abortions to be performed in a hospital.
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Old 07-08-2013, 10:35 PM   #235
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Default North Carolina protest against abortion bill ends with 64 arrests

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - North Carolina's "Moral Monday" protesters, now in their tenth week, objected to a bill that could limit abortion access - the latest move to counter a conservative shift by the state's first Republican-led government in more than a century.

The rally at the state capitol in Raleigh on Monday night was one of the largest since the protests began this spring, drawing about 2,000 people, including 64 protesters who refused to leave the legislative chambers and were arrested.

The protests have gained momentum since a few dozen people first rallied against the political shift to the right in a state that Barack Obama won in the 2008 presidential election but lost in 2012. Some 700 people have been arrested in acts of civil disobedience over issues ranging from natural gas drilling to school vouchers to voting rights.

Republican legislators have largely stayed mum in the midst of the protests, though some state officials have grumbled about the cost of the arrests and the impact on the state.

"I'm fielding calls every day, ‘What the heck's going on (over) there?'" the state's Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker told a crowd of reporters Monday. "The current environment makes it very challenging to market North Carolina."

This week, the protest zeroed in on a bill passed last week by the North Carolina state Senate requiring abortion clinics to conform to the same safety standards as ambulatory surgery centers, a regulation currently met by only one of the state's five clinics.

Opponents say it will limit access to safe abortions. Supporters of the measure say the higher standards will make abortion safer.

Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican, criticized senators for pushing the regulations through without a public hearing.

The state House of Representatives has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed regulations for Tuesday.

The bill makes North Carolina the latest state to consider abortion restrictions. The issue has dominated politics in Texas in recent days, after Democratic state Senator Wendy Davis spent 11 hours on the senate floor in an effort to stall the measure.

On Monday, a U.S. federal judge temporarily blocked a part of a new Wisconsin law, signed on Friday by Republican Governor Scott Walker, that opponents say will close two of the four abortion clinics in the state if enforced.

Cecil Bothwell, a city councilman from Asheville, North Carolina, made the four-hour bus ride to Raleigh with about 100 of his constituents. He said state lawmakers want to have it both ways when it comes to the state's role in health care.

"It amazes me that they claim they don't want government intervening in health care issues, yet they want to tell women what to do with their bodies," Bothwell said.

Melissa Reed, a vice president of Planned Parenthood Health Systems, brought a petition with 10,000 signatures opposing the measure.

Like many at Monday's protest, Tanya Glover, 34, who lives in Harnett County, a rural area outside of Raleigh, wore pink.

As she lined up with her father to be arrested, she said the legislature's lean education budget will slash services for her special needs child.

"This state has gone to hell and it's hurting my family," said Glover.
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Old 07-11-2013, 01:18 PM   #236
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Default Parent must be told before teen abortion in Illinois: court

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A parent must be notified 48 hours before a girl under the age of 18 gets an abortion in Illinois, the state Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, culminating nearly two decades of legal wrangling over the issue.

A state law passed in 1995 required doctors who performed abortions to notify parents 48 hours before the procedure unless there was a medical emergency.

In 1996, a federal judge stopped enforcement of the law because no rules had been adopted that allowed a girl to seek permission from the courts to undergo an abortion without notifying her parents. It has been the subject of legal sparring ever since.

The earliest the court's ruling can be enforced is 21 days, according to Paul Linton, an attorney representing the Thomas More Society, an anti-abortion organization that has been involved in the case.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois, which opposed the parental notice law, said it was disappointed by the decision. The organization provides health counseling and services including abortion.

"Planned Parenthood of Illinois is committed to doing everything we can to make this new process as easy as possible for teens," the group said.

The law does not require parental consent.

The Illinois court decision is the latest in a series of state measures imposed in recent years restricting the right to abortion approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/illinois-hi...154929844.html
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Old 07-11-2013, 07:27 PM   #237
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Old 07-11-2013, 07:51 PM   #238
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I stayed up really late the night Senator Davis did her filibuster and hundreds of people gathered both in the rotunda and outside the capitol. There was some dude doing a live stream from inside the rotunda and you could hear and see lots of chaos and determination happening.

I was literally biting my hand to keep from shrieking as Jackhammer lay next to me. I was just sure they were going to try to steal the vote. And they did try, it seems.

The one thing that struck me is that the demonstrators outside were described as "an unruly mob" rather than citizens who were protesting. If that doesn't lend itself to the Republican mindset that "I can do whatever the fuck I want regardless of what the citizens actually want", then I don't know what does.
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Old 07-13-2013, 12:37 AM   #239
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Default Texas Senate passes new abortion restrictions

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Senate passed sweeping new abortion restrictions late Friday, sending them to Republican Gov. Rick Perry to sign into law after weeks of protests and rallies that drew thousands of people to the Capitol and made the state the focus of the national abortion debate.

Republicans used their large majority in the Texas Legislature to pass the bill nearly three weeks after a filibuster by Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis and an outburst by abortion-rights activists in the Senate gallery disrupted a deadline vote June 25.

Called back for a new special session by Perry, lawmakers took up the bill again as thousands of supporters and opponents held rallies and jammed the Capitol to testify at public hearings. As the Senate took its final vote, protesters in the hallway outside the chamber chanted, "Shame! Shame! Shame!"

Democrats have called the GOP proposal unnecessary and unconstitutional. Republicans said the measure was about protecting women and unborn children.

House Bill 2 would require doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, allow abortions only in surgical centers, limit where and when women may take abortion-inducing pills and ban abortions after 20 weeks.

Abortion-rights supporters say the bill will close all but five abortion clinics in Texas, leaving large areas of the vast state without abortion services. Only five out of 42 existing abortion clinics meet the requirements to be a surgical center, and clinic owners say they can't afford to upgrade or relocate.


http://news.yahoo.com/texas-senate-p...050032557.html
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Old 07-13-2013, 07:43 AM   #240
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Women Denied Abortions More Likely to Wind Up on Welfare, study shows

In the United States, women are, in theory, legally equal to men. It was a long road traveled by many waves of feminists, but women steadily gained legal recognition as people having the right to vote and to receive equal education and employment opportunities. Now, one of the most contentious issues on the women’s rights scene is, you got it, abortion.

A new study shows that women who are denied abortions are more likely to be unemployed, on welfare, and in abusive relationships than their counterparts who did receive the abortions they petitioned for. The preliminary results of the “Turnaway Study” throw light on the importance of pro-choice legislation in continuing to promote women’s equality in the United States.

The researchers of the “Turnaway Study” have conducted over 2,800 interviews with women who sought abortions between 2008 and 2010. Some received the desired procedure with more or less difficulty, and some were turned away because they had been pregnant for longer than the abortion clinics’ limits for the procedure. The most common reason for seeking an abortion was economic: women felt that they simply did not have enough money to support a child. 76% of the women who had to carry an unwanted baby to term were on welfare two years later, as opposed to only 44% of women who had abortions. Furthermore, 7% of the women turned away from clinics were in abusive relationships at the times of their interviews, as opposed to only 3% of their counterparts. The interviews indicated that this was a result of women without children having more freedom to leave abusive partners.

Freedom is the key word here. It’s the principle, the fundamental human right, on which the United States is supposed to operate.

While the women in this particular study were not allowed to have abortions because they were outside of the time limit for the procedure, pro-life advocates would deny any woman from having an abortion. The result of this approach if we follow the trends laid out by the “Turnaway Study” would be a female population with decreased socioeconomic freedom. Laws requiring employers to provide equal employment opportunities to woman are useless if the women cannot apply for jobs because they must care for children borne of unwanted pregnancies.

Furthermore, pro-life policies would force more women onto welfare, a favorite target of disdain by the same group of politicians who support the banning of abortion. These policymakers criticize those Americans who are dependent on welfare while supporting policies that reduce women’s ability to choose a better economic option, that is, to abort an unwanted pregnancy.

The final, and perhaps most concerning, piece of this puzzle are the statistics on relationship abuse revealed by the “Turnaway Study.” Domestic violence is one of the least reported crimes in the country, with only 33% of those involved in abusive relationships ever telling anyone. Since women carrying unwanted babies to term also carried increased economic burdens, it’s not surprising that they would choose the relative economic security of a relationship, even an abusive relationship, in order to support their children. If denying a woman an abortion forces her into the prison of domestic violence, then we should count this as just another reason to defend Roe v. Wade with tooth and nail.

After all, pro-choice legislation is not pro-abortion legislation: It is pro-freedom legislation. It supports a woman’s, a person’s, right to choose the path of her life, to pursue opportunities on an equal basis with any other person. So if she chooses not to have a child because she is financially unable to support that baby, then she should be allowed to make that call. She should not have her freedom stripped from her and be condemned to a life of poverty and violence.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/19...re-study-finds
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