EnglishEdward
Deity
I will bow to your expertise about salamanders.
Yeah, well.
I am not incorrect in imagining that, because I do not imagine that.
Roe vs Wade overturned
- Thread starter Samson
- Start date
I will bow to your expertise about salamanders.
Yeah, well.
I am not incorrect in imagining that, because I do not imagine that.
Senethro
Overlord
Oh ok I'll just sit here agog in mystery as to what your position is.
Lexicus
Deity
Literally crying in awe at the persuasive power and cogency of this argument well done mate
Sofista
Deity
Salamanders just have the best ideas when it comes to romantic life:
W ... T ... F
Alabama is jailing pregnant marijuana users to ‘protect’ fetuses
Alabama is jailing pregnant marijuana users to ‘protect’ fetuses
At a traffic stop, the police officer found a small amount of weed. Ashley Banks, a 23-year-old woman living in Alabama, admitted to the cops that she had smoked marijuana two days earlier. It was the same day that she learned she was pregnant. She was six weeks along. It was this disclosure – that she was pregnant – that led Etowah county officials to keep her in jail, without a trial, for the next three months.
Alabama has an exceptionally high incarceration rate, locking up about 938 people per 100,000 residents. But even in a state with a disproportionate prison population, an arrest for small-scale drug possession would not usually lead to such an extended pre-trial jail stay. But Banks fell victim to a peculiar Alabama law that advocates say Etowah county enforces with special zeal: pregnant women who are arrested for drug offenses are not allowed to post bail and go free, the way other people are. They have to stay in state custody: either in jail, or in a residential drug rehab program. The logic is that the women are a danger to their fetuses: they need to be imprisoned by the state, and kept from their freedom, in order to protect their pregnancies.
In Banks’s case, jail officials tried to send her to rehab, but after an assessment, the facility turned her away: Banks, they said, was merely a casual marijuana user, not an addict, and did not need in-patient drug treatment. Too healthy for rehab, but not trusted enough by the state to be set free, she was kept in limbo in jail. Meanwhile, Banks’s pregnancy wasn’t going well. She has a family history of miscarriages, and was experiencing bleeding in jail. At one point, jail officials assigned her to sleep in a bed that was already occupied by another prisoner; Banks slept on the floor.
These jailings are not just an Alabama thing: the trend of imprisoning pregnant and postpartum women for supposedly endangering their fetuses is one that’s growing nationwide. Over 32 years, from 1973, when Roe v Wade was decided, to 2005, the United States saw a total of 413 pregnancy prosecutions throughout the whole nation, according to Afsha Malik, a research associate at the reproductive justice group National Advocates for Pregnant Women and the co-author of a recent report on pregnancy criminalization. But over just a 14-year period, from 2006 to 2020, there were more than 1,300 such cases. That steep increase happened while Roe was still in place; now that it’s fallen, pregnancy criminalization is likely to accelerate even more.
Trump ally pushes for 15-week abortion ban across US
West Virginia Passes Strict Abortion Ban NYT (paywalled) Text Version
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has introduced a bill that would ban abortions at 15 weeks of pregnancy across the United States, drawing rebuke from Democrats and reproductive rights advocates.
Dubbed the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act, Graham’s bill argues that fetuses can feel pain around 15 weeks of pregnancy, “if not earlier” – hence the cutoff for the procedure. The proposal provides exceptions for victims of rape and incest, and it would also allow abortion to save the life of the mother.
West Virginia Passes Strict Abortion Ban NYT (paywalled) Text Version
West Virginia on Tuesday became the latest state to pass a near-total ban on abortion, with the two chambers of the Legislature reaching a compromise after deadlocking on the terms earlier this summer.
Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June, ending the constitutional right to an abortion, so-called trigger laws passed in anticipation of the ruling have gone into effect; abortion has been banned or severely restricted in 14 states. But West Virginia is only the second state, after Indiana, to pass a new ban since the ruling. Other states have tried, but their attempts have failed or are stalled.
Under the bill passed in West Virginia on Tuesday, an abortion in the case of sexual assault or incest would be permissible in the first eight weeks of pregnancy if the assault had been reported to law enforcement. For minors, abortion would be permissible up to 14 weeks of pregnancy in the case of rape or incest, provided that the assault had been reported to law enforcement or the victim had sought treatment at a West Virginia hospital.
In the hours of debate leading up to the amended bill's passage, the small minority of lawmakers who opposed it said the exceptions were so narrow as to be "illusory" and "marketing."
Critics, including members of the Legislature's Democratic minority, said that making it a crime to perform an abortion in most cases would only exacerbate what already was a serious shortage of health care providers in West Virginia. The version that passed in the new special session, which does not include criminal penalties for physicians, did not assuage those concerns.
"As we all know, it is hard to recruit obstetrics and gynecologists to West Virginia; we have what we call maternity deserts," Dr. Ron Stollings, a Democratic state senator, said during the debate in the Senate. "I've even had one husband-and-wife team tell me that if this bill passes, where they could lose their license for misinterpreting a medical emergency, as soon as their youngest daughter is out of high school, they're hitting the trail."
Three and a half months is not "late-term". It's a deliberate attempt to try to scaremonger federal legislation into existence, given that large numbers of state bans aren't materialising as expected.
EnglishEdward
Deity
Where in the much amended US constitution does it say that the federal government may regulate abortion?
If it doesn't say that, then such regulation would appear to be a power reserved to the individual states.
And any such federal law would likely be ruled by SCOTUS as unconstitutional.
If it doesn't say that, then such regulation would appear to be a power reserved to the individual states.
And any such federal law would likely be ruled by SCOTUS as unconstitutional.
Commerce clause I expect. Parents buy things, and things are made in different states.
EnglishEdward
Deity
Parents buy unborn babies ??
Lexicus
Deity
The other trick is that it allows more restrictive state bans to stay in place.
They do sometimes, but I was thinking about nappie and stuff. If you growing and consuming your own food (or pot) is able to be regulated under the commerce clause because it may affect interstate commerce than I am sure they could come up with something for abortion.
EnglishEdward
Deity
Regulation of nappies is not the same as regulation of abortion.
They might try the commerce clause argument with medical drugs that induce early abortions.
but it wouldn't work in practice because there would be a black market in such medical drugs.
They might try the commerce clause argument with medical drugs that induce early abortions.
but it wouldn't work in practice because there would be a black market in such medical drugs.
This is the case I was referring to. Growing wheat to feed to your own animals is interstate commerce because if you did not, you might buy wheat from out of state.
Farm Boy
they're all reactions
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2010
- Messages
- 27,944
Nearly all federal power as currently expressed rests on the commerce clause. It justifies literally everything because we might make a buck on forcing you to do something.
A 15 week ban would be the time to disallow states from passing earlier limits.
A 15 week ban would be the time to disallow states from passing earlier limits.
All the time. Heard of IVF, and surrogacy?
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
US abortion bans leave grey areas in complicated pregnancies
Moments after unveiling a bill that would ban all abortions in the United States at 15-weeks, US Senator Lindsey Graham was interrupted by a mother with a devastating story."I did everything right and at 16 weeks we found out that our son would likely not live," Ashbey Beasley told a crowded room. "When he was born, for eight days he bled from every orifice of his body," she said.
But, she said, at least she got to choose how to handle her difficult pregnancy, while Mr Graham's law would take away that choice.
"What do you say to someone like me?"
Mr Graham is not the only lawmaker who has been asked tough questions about his abortion stance, and how it might affect women with complicated or dangerous pregnancies.
Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade this summer, states across the US have pushed through abortion bans or severely restricted the procedure. But as such laws have gone into effect, unintended consequences have followed.
Doctors and patients say that confusing standards and the vague language of these laws have had a chilling effect on the medical field in anti-abortion states, leaving tragedies in their wake - and more in the making.
'We can't help you, good luck'
Abortions for medical reasons are rare, constituting less than 4% of all such procedures in the US in 2004, according to the Guttmacher Institute.But for certain pregnancy complications, they are an accepted and not uncommon procedure to save lives.
The model Chrissy Teigen, for example, said on Friday an abortion was used to save her life when she was 20 weeks along with a pregnancy that was unviable.
But today, in states with strict abortion limits, that option is becoming increasingly complicated.
For the last year, Amanda Horton, a Texas doctor who specialises in high-risk pregnancies, has struggled to care for patients with pregnancy complications.
At times, Dr Horton must inform families that their babies have been diagnosed with a fatal foetal anomaly. These conditions are rare and likely to lead to the death of a foetus in utero, or shortly after birth.
But under a strict abortion ban in Texas, her hands are tied.
"We can say, 'If you're interested in pregnancy termination, that's always an option. But it's not an option for you in Texas. And that's really where the counselling begins and ends," she said.
"These are people who love their unborn baby, and who, through no fault of their own, have been challenged in ways that they never expected," she said. But because her state bans all abortions except in life-threatening circumstances, "now, the answer is, 'We can't help you, good luck.'"
Defining emergency
Texas has one of the country's most restrictive abortion bans. But like all such bans passed this year, the state allows an exception when a pregnancy is a threat to the mother's life.Indeed, all states that ban abortion include similar exceptions when the life of a mother is threatened.
About a dozen states' laws include language allowing abortions in cases of a "medical emergency", and three specifically include an exception for foetal anomalies. West Virginia, which just passed an abortion ban this week, outlaws the procedure "except in a medical emergency or a non-medically viable foetus".
Mr Graham's proposal for a national law would come with broadly worded exemptions for a woman whose "life is endangered".
However, critics say that in practice these laws give little guidance on broad terms like "life-threatening", or what constitutes a medical emergency that would permit an abortion.
That leaves ample room for debate over when a doctor should act, and in some cases, has even altered options that would have been considered a standard of care.
In July, a Texas woman identified only as Amanda, told the New York Times that she spent 48 hours in agony, sitting in a bathtub while the water turned "dark red" as she waited for her body to expel the pregnancy after suffering a miscarriage.
- 'I need an abortion': The text that gets pills sent in secret
- Could US abortion bans affect miscarriage treatment?
Amanda was not given the procedure.
"It was so different from my first experience where they were so nice and so comforting, to now just feeling alone and terrified," she said.
Such cases have highlighted the gap between written policies over abortion limits and the medical reality, and it has doctors worried.
"It's very dangerous when legislators who have no experience in the area of medicine are legislating about how we can practise medicine, and prohibiting us from providing the standard of care," said Daniel Grossman, an obstetrician at the University of California in San Francisco.
'Reasonable medical judgment'
Many of the bans are modelled after draft legislation proposed by the National Right to Life (NRL), the nation's oldest anti-abortion organisation. Their model legislation allows for abortions when the mother's life is threatened."Our model law language says, 'reasonable medical judgement' of the attending physician, which is the usual case in all medical situations, not just abortions," NRL told BBC News in a statement.
"We're not aware of any pro-life legislation, including our model law, that would prevent appropriate medical treatment in any of these cases."
But for people facing difficult pregnancies, these laws, in practice, can get in the way of medical care.
In Louisiana, the story of Nancy Davis made national headlines after she said doctors would not terminate her non-viable pregnancy. At a press conference, Ms Davis told reporters her baby had acrania, a condition that causes a foetus to develop without a skull and is incompatible with life.
"Basically, they said I had to carry my baby, to bury my baby," she said, adding doctors "seemed confused about the law and afraid of what would happen to them if they performed a 'criminal abortion' according to the law."
"I want you to imagine what it's been like to continue this pregnancy for another six weeks after this diagnosis," she said. "This is not fair to me, and it should not happen to any other woman."
In South Carolina, a Republican state senator, Neal Collins, went viral for confessing he regretted voting for a six-week abortion ban, after a local OB-GYN told him the story of a 19-year-old who faced a harrowing miscarriage but was denied care.
"That whole week, I did not sleep," Mr Collins said in a speech before the state's judiciary committee. He said he followed up and, two weeks later, the ER was able to "extract" the foetus, but only after it had died.
Medicine by exemption
Days after expressing his regret, Mr Collins voted in favour of a near-total abortion ban that includes a list of some dozen situations that qualify as exceptions.And last month, after Ms Davis miscarried, Louisiana's health department issued a list of conditions that would render a pregnancy "medically futile" and qualify for an exception to the state's near-total abortion ban.
But Dr Grossman says it's impossible to make a list of the conditions that meet the "medical emergency" exception.
"It doesn't work that way. In medicine there's a lot of grey areas and uncertainty," he said. "If there's a 20% risk of death in the next month if they continue the pregnancy, that's a tremendously high risk. It would be the standard of care to offer that patient termination."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62921655
SCOTUS currently does not give a flying fudge what the Constitution says.
Try to keep up. This has been continuous since Roberts became Chief Justice.
EnglishEdward
Deity
It would be a very double edged sword for SCOTUS to take the view that
federal laws regulating abortion over rule state laws regulating abortion.
I doubt that the current SCOTUS would necessarily take the risk.
federal laws regulating abortion over rule state laws regulating abortion.
I doubt that the current SCOTUS would necessarily take the risk.
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