The Assault on Womens Sexual and Reproductive Rights

[Kobi]

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A doctor will have to be present for any drug-induced abortion in Missouri starting on August 28 because Governor Jay Nixon on Friday allowed a measure passed by the state legislature to become law without his signature.

Nixon, a Democrat, said he decided not to sign the law and made no further comment.

The law applies to the so-called "abortion pill," RU-486 or any other abortion inducing chemical.

Missouri will be the 11th state to require doctors be present for administration of the drug, which is allowed up to about nine weeks of pregnancy, said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research group.

The law is on hold in Wisconsin and North Dakota due to litigation, she said.

The measure is the latest of a wave of small restrictions on abortion approved by conservative states where opposition to the procedure is strong.

Abortion opponents favor the law in part because it eliminates telemedicine in which a doctor at a different location can observe a patient taking the medication. Abortion rights advocates said the law is unfair to rural residents who live far from an abortion provider and need telemedicine to get early-term abortions, Nash said.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, Missouri with the new law joins Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee.

http://news.yahoo.com/doctor-must-pr...222457010.html

[*Anya*]

Pill Available in Mexico Is a Texas Option

By ERIK ECKHOLM

McALLEN, Tex. — At the Whole Woman’s Health center here, a young woman predicted what others would do if the state’s stringent new abortion bill approved late Friday forces clinics like this one to close: cross the border to Mexico to seek an “abortion pill.”
“This law will lead a lot more women to try self-abortion,” said Jackie F., a 24-year-old food server and student who was in the health center last week for a follow-up medical examination after getting a legal abortion.
The woman, who requested that her last name not be used to avoid stigma, was referring to a drug that can induce miscarriages and is openly available in Mexico and covertly at some flea markets in Texas.
In Nuevo Progreso, only yards past the Mexican border, pharmacists respond to requests for a pill to “bring back a woman’s period” by offering the drug, misoprostol, at discount prices: generic at $35 for a box of 28 pills, or the branded Cytotec for $175.
When asked how women should use the pills, some of the pharmacists said they did not know and others recommended wildly different regimes that doctors say could be unsafe.
“The women see it as “a pill to make my period come,’” said Andrea Ferrigno, a vice president of Whole Woman’s Health, which runs a network of abortion clinics. “Often in their minds, it’s not abortion.”
On Friday, the Texas Senate gave final passage to one of the strictest anti-abortion measures in the country, legislation championed by Gov. Rick Perry, who rallied the Republican-controlled Legislature after a Democratic filibuster last month blocked the bill and intensified already passionate resistance by abortion-rights supporters.
The law would ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and hold abortion clinics to the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers, among other requirements.
If the new law survives legal challenges, both Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen and the only other abortion clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, in nearby Harlingen, which together perform more than 3,500 abortions a year, will have to shut down, their owners say.
The greatest impact is likely to be among low-income women, who will be less able to make the needed two trips to the nearest clinic that meets the new surgical-center standards, in San Antonio, four hours north.
In the United States, legal medication abortions involve the use, in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, of misoprostol together with a steroid that breaks down the uterine lining. The success rate is more than 95 percent. In addition to requiring many clinics to close, the new Texas law would curb such medication abortions by requiring that the drugs be administered at surgery centers and at what doctors call an outdated dosage.
Misoprostol taken alone is less effective, but the drug is more readily available because it is prescribed to prevent gastric ulcers.
But health experts worry about its unmonitored use.
Lacking health insurance or fearing the stigma of being seen at an abortion clinic, thousands of Texas residents every year are already making covert use of this pill or trying other methods to induce abortions on their own.
When used properly in the early weeks of pregnancy, misoprostol, which causes uterine contractions and cervical dilation, induces a miscarriage about 85 percent of the time, according to Dr. Grossman. But many women receive incorrect advice on dosage and, especially later in pregnancy, the drug can cause serious bleeding or a partial abortion, he said.
The looming limits on legal abortion follow deep cuts in state support for family planning. Planned Parenthood clinics here in Hidalgo County do not perform abortions, but in 2010 provided subsidized contraception to 23,000 men and women at eight centers; as financing dried up, four of them have been closed. This year, the group will serve only 12,000 clients, and other organizations have not taken up the slack, said Patricio Gonzales, chief executive of the Hidalgo County chapter of Planned Parenthood.
Lucy Felix, a community educator here with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, said that many of the women she works with do not have legal residency and cannot drive north in Texas through Border Patrol checkpoints or even cross the southern border to buy the pill directly for fear that they may not be able to return to their families in Texas.
“The only option left for many women will be to go get those pills at a flea market,” Ms. Felix said. “Some of them will end up in the E.R.”
The two abortion clinics in the Rio Grande Valley say that the cost of meeting ambulatory surgical center standards would be prohibitive. They also doubt that they could find nearby hospitals that would grant admitting privileges to the abortion doctors, another element of the new law.
In a tour of the Whole Woman’s Health clinic here, Ms. Ferrigno noted some of the design and equipment requirements in the new law that would force the clinic to shut down. The clinic, part of a chain in Texas and other states, performs about 1,900 abortions a year using doctors that fly in from other states.
The clinic, like most in Texas, performs abortions only through the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, using medications or a suction method that takes 10 to 15 minutes and involves no incisions. The center uses donations to offer subsidies to many women, Ms. Ferrigno said.
The suite does not have the wide hallways required of a surgery center to facilitate the movement of stretchers in an emergency.
With plush recliners, a Georgia O’Keeffe flower print on the wall and herbal tea, the center’s recovery room resembles a small first-class lounge.
Ambulatory surgery centers, in contrast, must have large, hospital-style recovery rooms, with medical equipment on the walls. Patients must rest on gurneys, separated by ceiling-mounted curtains. The herbal tea would not be allowed.
To enter the McAllen clinic, women must cross a gantlet of protesters. Florine deLeon, 72, was out front last week with her husband, both of them fingering rosary beads.
“We’re praying for all the babies,” she said. If pregnancies are unwanted, she said, the crisis pregnancy center down the street could set up an adoption.
■

PUBLISHED JULY 13, 2013


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/us...-abortion.html

[Kobi]

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed sweeping new abortion restrictions on Thursday that could shutter most of the clinics in the state.

The new law bans abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and dictates when abortion-inducing drugs can be taken. But it also requires abortion clinic doctors to have hospital admitting privileges and restricts abortions to surgical centers. Only five of Texas' 42 abortion clinics currently meet the new requirements.

The law will take effect in October and clinics will have a year to upgrade their facilities or shutdown. Perry said the new law "builds upon our commitment to protecting life in the state of Texas."

Federal judges have blocked enforcement of similar measures in other states, questioning their constitutionality. Opponents are expected to file similar suits in Texas now that Perry has signed the law.

[Allison W]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id

By Cherie Howie


5:30 AM Sunday Jul 14, 2013

A young woman was refused the birth control pill because she had not yet done her "reproductive job".

Melissa Pont, 23, said her family practitioner, Dr Joseph Lee, would not renew her pill prescription, instead lecturing her on a baby's right to live and on using the rhythm method, an unreliable family planning technique that involves having sex only at certain times of the month.

The Women's Health Action Trust said it has a "simmering issue" with GPs who will not prescribe contraceptives.

"Contraception is a basic health right for women," said senior policy analyst George Parker. "That should take precedence over a doctor's personal beliefs."

The NZ Medical Association said doctors can refuse treatment in non-emergency situations if their beliefs prohibit it - but they are required to refer the patient to another doctor.

Lee was initially reluctant to do that, Pont said, and she was concerned other women in her situation might not have had the confidence to argue back.

"I felt like my decision to not have children yet was being judged. That's a decision me and my fiance made," she said.

"We're young and we just bought a house and who is he to say whether we should have children or not?"

Lee, a doctor at Wairau Community Clinic in Blenheim, stood by his views and actions. "I don't want to interfere with the process of producing life," the Catholic father-of-two told the Herald on Sunday.

Lee also does not prescribe condoms, and encourages patients as young as 16 to use the rhythm method.

Teen pregnancy might be a girl's "destiny", he said, and it was certainly not as bad as same- sex marriage.

The only circumstances in which he would prescribe the contraceptive pill would be if a woman wanted space between pregnancies, or had at least four children.

"I think they've already done their reproductive job".

He acknowledged natural birth control was "not very reliable".

"That's the best thing about it. You can't choose it, you just have to be committed to it."

Family Planning national nursing adviser Rose Stewart said doctors should remember they were gatekeepers for a service, she said, and a woman's conscience was as important as theirs.

Medical Council guidelines say personal beliefs should not affect the advice or treatment offered, and should not be expressed in a way that exploits a patient's vulnerability or is likely to cause them distress.

Wairau Community Clinic lead GP Scott Cameron said a pamphlet at reception warned that some doctors did not prescribe birth control, and staff tried to screen patients. He would consider installing a sign.

The clinic is run by the Marlborough Public Health Organisation. Chief executive Beth Pester said Lee's choice not to prescribe was "his ethical choice", but she was concerned he discussed natural birth control with patients as young as 16, and would talk to him about that.

[Kobi]

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sued the state over including abortion-related provisions in its budget, in what abortion rights activists charged was an effort to quietly restrict women's access to clinics.

The ACLU said Ohio unconstitutionally approved three restrictions along with the state budget in June, including one that bars public hospitals from having patient transfer agreements with clinics, which were unrelated to budget issues.

Ohio, which has a Republican-controlled legislature and Republican governor, has become known among abortion rights supporters as a testing ground for restrictions, as conservatives have pushed a number of new proposed abortion provisions on the state level over the past three years.

"(The amendments were) highly controversial social legislation that were snuck into a must-pass budget bill in the eleventh hour without public debate or input," said ACLU cooperating attorney Jessie Hill.

At least two of the three abortion restrictions, one requiring that patients receive details about fetal heartbeat before they undergo an abortion and the transfer agreement ban, have nothing to do with the budget, the ACLU said.

Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, called the lawsuit "a legal stunt by the ACLU that will end up costing the Ohio taxpayers."

Gonidakis is a member of the Ohio State Medical Board and a defendant in the lawsuit.

Abortion rights advocates have expressed concern that Ohio's transfer agreement law, which was threatening to close Toledo's only abortion clinic, could be replicated elsewhere, as eight other states require abortion clinics to have transfer agreements.

One of the Ohio budget amendments bars abortion clinics from making agreements to move women needing emergency care to public hospitals. This amendment is threatening closure of Capital Care in Toledo, because its transfer agreement with a public hospital expired in July and, under the new law, the clinic cannot renew it.

The other Ohio amendments require clinics to present patients with evidence of a fetal heartbeat before performing abortions and create a "parenting and pregnancy" program to give state money to private groups that are forbidden to discuss abortion services, the ACLU said.

The ACLU said the first two amendments have nothing to do with budget appropriations - while the third creates and funds a new government program, something it said requires stand-alone legislation.

The lawsuit also names Governor John R. Kasich, a Republican who signed the budget bill, the state of Ohio, and Theodore Wymyslo, director of the Ohio Department of Health.

Spokesmen for Kasich and the health department said they had no comment on the litigation.

The ACLU of Ohio filed the lawsuit in Cuyahoga County court on behalf of a Cleveland clinic that provides contraception and abortion services.

http://news.yahoo.com/aclu-sues-ohio...-business.html

[Soon]

[Cin]

Appeals Court Allows Unconstitutional Texas Abortion Restrictions to Take Effect While Legal Challenge Proceeds

AUSTIN - A federal appeals court ruled today that part of a Texas anti-abortion law that was struck down Monday by a district court will be allowed to take effect while legal challenges proceed. The provisions will cause at least one-third of the state's licensed health centers that currently provide abortion to stop offering the service immediately.

The law was initially challenged by more than a dozen women's health care providers represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the law firm of George Brothers Kincaid & Horton. The district court ruled Monday that a provision that requires doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital is not rationally related to ensuring patient safety, and that the requirement would place a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking abortion. Following the state's emergency request, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the provisions can take effect while the case moves forward.

"We will continue to fight to preserve access to abortion services in Texas," said Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. "This law is unconscionable. As the district court found, it does not further patient safety, and it will shut down many clinics across the state."

"The result of this ruling is not academic," said Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas. "Women in many parts of the state will lose access to care they count on because clinics will close. If the State of Texas cares about women's health and safety, as it claims, it should take steps to reduce the need for abortion rather than closing clinics in already underserved parts of the state."

For more information on this case, please visit: http://www.aclu.org/reproductive-fre...thood-v-abbott

https://www.aclu.org/reproductive-fr...ns-take-effect



Stealth Attack: What You Need to Know About the New Abortion Laws

The ACLU has enlisted the help of comic artist Jen Sorensen to help illustrate (literally) the coordinated, national efforts that anti-abortion groups are waging across the country to outlaw women's health clinics and block access to abortion care. Jen uses sharp wit and humor to reveal the tactics our opponents are using to undermine our private and personal decisions.

Ultimately these attacks are no laughing matter. During the 2013 state legislative session over 300 anti-abortion restrictions were introduced. From motorcycle vaginas to claims that "women don't get pregnant that often from rape," we have seen some politicians and their political allies go to ridiculous lengths to push through anti-choice measures. These politicians MUST think we are stupid if they think we want politicians playing doctor.

Check out Sorensen's illustrations:

https://www.aclu.org/reproductive-fr...-abortion-laws

[Cin]

Behind the right’s crazy crusade to make women pay more for health insurance
Equalizing premiums for men and women is common sense -- unless you’re opposed to women’s freedom

In a sane world, when Rep. Renee Ellmers asked rhetorically last week “Has a man ever delivered a baby?” she would have been arguing not against, but for the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that men and women pay the same insurance premiums. After all, the special physical burdens borne solely by women to ensure the life and health of the next generation obviously benefit both genders, right? Healthy men today can thank their mothers for eating well and getting good prenatal care; likewise fathers are grateful to the mothers of their children for the same. (Michael Hiltzik runs down the case for sharing those costs publicly here.)

But no, Ellmers asked that question of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in order to rail against the ACA’s equal premium requirement. She thought it was a clever “gotcha” moment, designed to show the craziness of requiring all insurance policies to cover maternity care and contraception without a co-pay. (The doofuses at Breitbart agreed, declaring “Ellmers brings her A game.”) Amazingly, Ellmers chairs the House GOP’s “women’s policy committee” – so how could she be so tone-deaf in attacking the way the ACA helps that increasingly elusive GOP constituency, female voters?

Because the right-wing base of the modern Republican Party is dedicated to restoring men as the head of the household, and the nuclear, husband-headed family as the principle social unit. From Rick Santorum railing against contraception and preaching the nuclear family as the answer to poverty in last year’s GOP presidential primary, to Rafael Cruz Sr. telling an audience that “God commands us men to teach your wife, to teach your children—to be the spiritual leader of your family,” today’s right-wing Republicans are increasingly comfortable with open displays of old-time crackpot patriarchy. This week Sen. Ted Cruz Jr. courts the right-wing preachers of the South Carolina Renewal Project, which is thought to be a key stop on his way to the GOP nomination in that early-primary state.
advertisement

Let’s face it: The only way charging women more for health insurance and healthcare makes sense is if they have a partner who either shares that burden or shoulders it entirely. As in … a husband. Then it’s clear that the male of the species is doing his part to keep the species healthy and reproducing itself. A woman who doesn’t have a husband to play that role? Well, there shouldn’t be women like that – and certainly if there are, they shouldn’t be having children anyway, or even having sex, so they don’t need maternity care or contraception.

That’s the only way I can explain the GOP’s willingness to openly endorse an enormous transfer of wealth from women back to men by not only advocating the repeal of the ACA but specifically railing against its equal-premium provisions. But don’t worry, gals: You’ll get that wealth back once you get yourself a man!

I got a glimpse of this mind-set from an otherwise open-minded Republican, former RNC chair Michael Steele, last year, when he argued against the ACA’s contraception without a co-pay provision on “Hardball.” As Steele told me:

The problem is that you have effectively absolved the male of any responsibility in the relationship with this woman, whether it’s a sexual nature or beyond that. It’s not just about giving women access to contraception. It’s about the responsible behavior that goes with that access. It’s nice for Barack Obama to tell women, ‘I got your back. Here, have a pill.’ Men have a responsibility here … It’s this other piece that doesn’t get talked about in terms of the responsibility of fathers, or potential fathers, in this relationship.

I tried to reassure Steele that men could continue to be responsible to the women in their lives, even if they got contraception without a co-pay, but he wasn’t having it. I saw the uneasiness with female autonomy that’s at the heart of modern Republicanism, even if Steele himself handles that anxiety better than folks on the far right.

Article in entirety:
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/05/behi...lth_insurance/

[Cin]

Supreme Court allows Texas abortion restrictions to remain in place

The Supreme Court divided down partisan lines today when it ruled that Texas can continue to enforce strict abortion restrictions that prevent nearly a third of the state’s clinics from operating.

The court rejected the arguments by Planned Parenthood and several affiliated clinics that claimed that the strictures place an “undue burden” on women’s ability to procure an abortion.

“In just the few short days since the injunction was lifted,” lawyers for these groups wrote to the court, “over one-third of the facilities providing abortions in Texas have been forced to stop providing that care and others have been forced to drastically reduce the number of patients to whom they are able to provide care. Already, appointments are being canceled and women seeking abortions are being turned away.”

Justice Scalia, writing in support of the order, agreed with lower court judges who claimed that the restrictions do not outlaw the procedure, they merely make women drive a greater distance to obtain one.

In a statement, Texas Governor Rick Perry praised the decision. “This is good news both for the unborn and for the women of Texas, who are now better protected from shoddy abortion providers operating in dangerous conditions,” he said. “As always, Texas will continue doing everything we can to protect the culture of life in our state.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/2...main-in-place/

[Kobi]

Michigan women will have to purchase a separate rider if they want their health insurance to pay for an abortion, after the state's Legislature on Wednesday banned most public and private plans from covering abortion as a medical procedure.

Women must buy the rider before they become pregnant in order to have abortion coverage, once the law goes into effect in March. Women who become pregnant through rape or incest must already have the rider in place for an abortion to be covered, leading some opponents to dub the riders, "rape insurance."

But currently, insurance abortion riders don't actually exist in Michigan, the law's opponents say.

"There are no riders in Michigan that we are aware of," Lori Lamerand, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan, told The Huffington Post. "There are some riders available for some procedures, but there are certainly no riders for abortions here."

Elizabeth Nash is the state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a nationally recognized nonprofit reproductive health institute. "The riders don't exist," she told The Huffington Post. "There's no cost information. The riders just don't exist."

Michigan is the ninth state to restrict public and private insurance plans from covering abortions, Nash told The Huffington Post. Only two of those states have providers with abortion riders available for purchase. Dave Waymire, PR consultant for the Michigan Association of Health Plans, also told The Huffington Post that the group does not know which insurance companies currently provide or would offer abortion riders in the future, and how they would be priced.

There were about 23,000 reported abortions in Michigan in 2012, according to the Associated Press. Less than 4 percent were paid for by insurance. Women enrolled in Medicaid must pay out of pocket for abortions, except when their lives are at risk, or if they are victims of rape or incest.




According to a study published in the scientific journal Women's Health Issues, a typical first-trimester abortion costs around $500. Most women incurred ancillary expenses for transportation, lost wages and child-care costs, making the abortion more expensive. According to the study, 14 percent of women put off paying rent; another 16 percent delayed buying food in order to pay for the procedure.

Those costs can skyrocket in the second or third trimester to as much as $10,000, especially if the procedure is done in the hospital, Lamerand told The Huffington Post. Those procedures won't be covered by insurance in Michigan either.

"An early trimester procedure is one thing, but if you consider a family that had to abort a child due to a medical issue -- at a time when a family would be experiencing an incredible tragedy, we will just be adding insult to injury," she said.

After Gov. Rick Snyder (R) vetoed a similar bill in 2012, saying it wasn't "appropriate to tell a woman who becomes pregnant due to rape that she needed to select elective insurance coverage," Right to Life Michigan mounted a challenge, gathering 300,000 signatures on a petition (4 percent of the state's population). That forced the bill back to the Republican-controlled Legislature, which approved it Tuesday night; it does not need the governor's signature. Had legislators vetoed the bill, it would have been subject to a statewide vote in 2014.

Opponents of the legislation, like Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing), who called the law "misogynistic" and "extreme" in a powerful floor speech Tuesday night about her own rape, may have some recourse. The Detroit Free Press reported that the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are discussing a coalition to mount another abortion petition drive -- this time to repeal the new law.

But Lamerand was extremely cautious about mounting a petition drive, given the resources needed to get the measure on the statewide ballot. A successful ballot initiative could cost $3 million, she said.

"That would take an extreme amount of resources to mount, and those resources may be better utilized to help women who are now not going to be able to afford their procedure," she said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/1...n_4433040.html

[Kobi]

[Kobi]

[Kobi]

2013 saw a continuing erosion of access to abortion in a handful of states as conservative legislators pushed through some of the most stringent antiabortion laws in the nation’s four decades of legalized abortion.

We’re in the midst of a wave of attacks on abortion rights on the state level,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that advocates for abortion rights. “This has reshaped the landscape in many states.”

Over the past three years, 203 restrictions on abortion have been enacted, with 68 in 2013 alone. This year, abortion opponents have focused efforts particularly on tightening regulations on clinic operations, banning abortions after 20 weeks post-conception, and a variety of steps designed to change women’s minds about getting an abortion.

The outlook for abortion rights advocates is not all bleak. Proponents were heartened by moves in two states: California, where legislators expanded abortion access, and New Mexico, where voters defeated a 20-week abortion ban.

Still, the conservative strategy of chipping away at abortion rights at the state level is likely to continue in 2014.

“There just hasn’t been that much movement in the ideological makeup of state legislatures,” Nash noted. “It’s the same cast of characters.”

The Worst

Texas: One of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws was adopted. It bars nearly all abortions 20 weeks post-conception, mandates clinics to meet the expensive standards of ambulatory surgery centers, requires doctors performing abortions to have formal admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic, and obligates doctors to use a particular drug protocol in medication-induced abortions. The law has caused nearly a third of Texas clinics to close. Opponents have appealed the provisions affecting doctors.

North Dakota: The state adopted the nation’s toughest abortion law yet, prohibiting abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks, as well as after 20 weeks, and on the basis of a genetic defect, such as Down syndrome. It also requires doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges. The state has one abortion provider. Opponents believe they have a good chance of overturning the six-week ban.

Arkansas: The state outlawed abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy, a measure that has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge while legal challenges are under way. However, the state earlier in the year adopted a 20-week ban, which remains intact.

Kansas: Under a new law, an abortion provider's website home page must provide a link to a state Department of Health and Environment site on abortion and fetal development and contain a statement that the state's information is "objective" and "scientifically accurate." The law also requires doctors to provide patients with information about a fetus’ ability to feel pain, prohibits gender-selection abortion, blocks tax breaks for providers, and prohibits providers from furnishing instructors or materials for sex education classes in public schools. The law is being challenged.

Ohio: Under a new law, clinics must have an agreement with a local hospital to send patients there in an emergency, but public hospitals are barred from entering into those agreements, and a state political appointee must approve those agreements. The law also requires doctors to search for a fetal heartbeat and tell women if they find one and forces women to undergo an ultrasound of the fetus. Additionally, providers must inform women how fetuses develop and give them information on adoption and other family planning options. The law also diverts federal welfare money to “crisis pregnancy centers”; increases financing for rape-crisis centers if they do not provide abortion referrals; and tightens parental consent requirements for minors. To avoid passing along money to Planned Parenthood, the state ended competitive bids for federal family planning grants, instead giving priority to public agencies.

North Carolina: A new law requires abortion clinics to meet standards of outpatient surgical centers, and it prohibits abortions for gender selection and abortion coverage under any insurance plan offered under the federal Affordable Care Act or by cities and counties. Opponents say most of the state’s clinics cannot afford the $1 million it would cost to meet the higher standards and will have to close.

Indiana: The state adopted a law requiring clinics that dispense abortion-inducing medication to meet standards for outpatient surgical centers, even if they do not perform surgical abortions. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the law while a lawsuit proceeds.

The Good News

California: The Golden State stands out as one state that expanded abortion access. Physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and certified nurse midwives who undergo training are now allowed to perform first-trimester abortions.

New Mexico: Albuquerque voters defeated a ballot measure that sought to ban abortions after 20 weeks. The city referendum, the first attempt in the nation to restrict abortions on a municipal basis, only gained 45 percent voter approval.

http://news.yahoo.com/better-worse-a...164857151.html

[Kobi]

[Sweet Bliss]

okay, who's not voting?

time to start a kitchen table revolution

[silkepus]

This is kind of brilliant and provoking at the same time. A man who wants to ban abortion is asked why a woman would want to have one.





In case you cant see the video, his answer is "I dont know, I'm not a woman. It's a question I never even though about"



):-|

[Kobi]

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by silkepus

This is kind of brilliant and provoking at the same time. A man who wants to ban abortion is asked why a woman would want to have one.





In case you cant see the video, his answer is "I dont know, I'm not a woman. It's a question I never even thought about"



):-|

Silk, are you actually proposing that legislators actually think something thru before they act on it? That would clog up the entire system.

Seriously tho, the greatest mistake both men and women are making here, is that they are presuming this war on women is about abortion and religion and the Bible.

Those are merely excuses for what this war on women is all about. Sandra Day O'Connor says it better than I ever could:



This war on women is about male control, power, and dominance. It is about female enslavement, submission, and acquiescence.

One day, hopefully not in my lifetime, women will be scratching their heads, wondering how they became enslaved again.

This is how.

If you don't think misogyny and sexism is dangerous, or even exists, or isn't an integral part of the socialization of both males and females, there will be a rude awakening in your future.

[silkepus]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Silk, are you actually proposing that legislators actually think something thru before they act on it? That would clog up the entire system.

That would indeed be crazycakes.

I saw someone describe conservative’s view of unwanted pregnancies (or forced pregnancies) as sending women to their room for nine months for having been a naughty girl.

You’re absolutely right, banning abortion has little to do with saving babies and everything to do with controlling women. If people who are anti-choice really cared about reducing abortion numbers they would work hard to make contraception cheap and easily available. They would fight for sexual education that taught young people how to have safe sex. They would make plan B easily available too.

But instead it is the same people who want to ban abortion who often want to ban contraception (or make it hard to obtain and thus in reality banning it for a lot of women), who want to have abstinence only sex education who say plan B and abortion is the same etc.

It really does feel like were going backwards sometimes. I don’t think women should be too comfortable with the rights we have gained. History is full of examples of oppressed groups who gained rights only to lose them again.

[Kobi]

------------

Originally Posted by silkepus

That would indeed be crazycakes.

I saw someone describe conservative’s view of unwanted pregnancies (or forced pregnancies) as sending women to their room for nine months for having been a naughty girl.



Funny how the woman is a naughty girl but the sperm donor gets a 2 thumbs up eh?



You’re absolutely right, banning abortion has little to do with saving babies and everything to do with controlling women. If people who are anti-choice really cared about reducing abortion numbers they would work hard to make contraception cheap and easily available. They would fight for sexual education that taught young people how to have safe sex. They would make plan B easily available too.



Very true. The same people who are fighting against abortion are simultaneously fighting against the Obama administrations mandate for birth control to be part of health plans.



But instead it is the same people who want to ban abortion who often want to ban contraception (or make it hard to obtain and thus in reality banning it for a lot of women), who want to have abstinence only sex education who say plan B and abortion is the same etc.



Abstinence for females, not males. Females right to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies is being frowned upon. Males "right" to impregnate them - with or without their consent is still seen as a manly thing.



It really does feel like were going backwards sometimes. I don’t think women should be too comfortable with the rights we have gained. History is full of examples of oppressed groups who gained rights only to lose them again.



We are going backwards.....by design. Women won some of the battles but we lost track of the war. In addition, we have lost track of the insidious nature of sexism and misogyny and in doing so are, unwittingly, being complicit in our own victimization.

It is a prime example of the Stockholm syndrome on a nationwide/worldwide basis.

Stockholm syndrome, or capture–bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.

Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes “strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.

One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual’s response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be a threat.