Misogynist barbarians in Alabama impose forced pregnancy law

[8ball]

Biden said Wednesday that he supports Roe v. Wade and he's spoken out repeatedly this year against restrictions on abortion rights in Texas and elsewhere - but it doesn't seem like a big priority for him and I don't think any of his remarks have resulted in his administration actually doing anything.

Would that be a Federal vs State law thing that he's skirting around?

 

[Cloo]

Gov. Abbott said Texas will 'eliminate all rapists from the streets' so women don't have to worry about the new antiabortion law having no exception for rape

In response to a question on the state's new restrictive abortion law, Gov. Greg Abbott pledged to "eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas."

www.yahoo.com

I wonder if they'll think of doing anything about the vast majority of rapists, who are in people's homes?

 

[8ball]

I wonder if they'll think of doing anything about the vast majority of rapists, who are in people's homes?

I think it's more likely to be a 'rapist lockdown' at best.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I wonder if they'll think of doing anything about the vast majority of rapists, who are in people's homes?

Dallas (CNN)The Texas law barring abortions at six weeks of pregnancy has women's rights advocates up in arms for a number of reasons, not least because it makes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

For Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, that's not a big issue, since "Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets," Abbott said last week.

How, these advocates ask, will Texas do that when it has more than 5,000 rape kits still untested, languishing on shelves around the state? And when there have been as many as 18,000 incidents of rape in the state in a year?

"That would be a beautiful thing to see, but it's not going to happen," Lavinia Masters, a rape survivor and an advocate for other survivors, said of Abbott's promise. "It's not realistic."

Statistics from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) show that as of August 2021, there were 5,298 untested sexual assault kits, including 1,716 kits within the DPS crime lab system and 3,582 unsubmitted kits that remain with law enforcement agencies across the state.

And that's not counting the kits that could still be untested at the 231 law enforcement agencies that did not respond to the state audit, although it is required by law.

Masters was 13 when she was raped by someone who broke into her Dallas home and held a knife to her throat. Her rape kit sat on a shelf for more than 20 years before it was tested.

Her rapist, finally identified by the kit evidence, was already in prison, having gone on to rape two other women.
The statute of limitations had expired in her case.

A bill Abbott signed in 2019 designed to audit untested rape kits across the state and set strict testing requirements was named the Lavinia Masters Act. Masters was there when he signed the bill, and she is a member of Abbott's sexual assault survivor's task force.

Texas state Rep. Victoria Neave has been working alongside Masters for years to clear the rape kit backlog. At one point, there were about 19,000 untested kits.

"Each box is not just a box sitting on a shelf. It represents a survivor's story. It represents an individual, a family who has been impacted by this," Neave told CNN. "It represents women who are waiting for justice."

The state is making the rape kits a priority, Neave said, and it has approved $50 million to help test the kits, but part of the problem is a shortage of forensic investigators to process them, she said.
Masters said she still gets angry when she thinks about her case.

"I know that you didn't care about me and what happened to me," she said of officials. "And so you just shelved me. And I know that's part of my passion, and why I get so angry with this."

Beyond the backlog, the new Texas law banning abortions after six weeks even in the case of rape and incest, infuriates Masters. She said she knows that if she had gotten pregnant from that rape, she wouldn't have known in time to end the pregnancy.

She would have had to carry and deliver her rapist's child, at 13 years old.

"I would be forced to carry that baby," Masters said. "That's not even common sense."
Neave voted against the new legislation, which she said will lead to women again attempting dangerous abortions on themselves without medical help.

"That legislation is taking us backwards," she said. "And the fear and concern that we have is that if you cannot have a medical doctor perform that procedure, that we're going to have women doing it in a garage, or going back to the era of the hangers. And that is a concern."

Texas governor says he's committed to eliminating rapists. The state has more than 5,000 untested rape kits | CNN

The Texas law barring abortions at six weeks of pregnancy has women's rights advocates up in arms for a number of reasons, not least because it makes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

www.cnn.com

If you read about this woman's case, she was only 13 at the time of the rape. If the current Texas abortion law were in effect then, she could have been forced to carry her rapist's baby to term. As it was, two other women were raped while her test kit sat in storage untested.

 

[Spandex]

Biden said Wednesday that he supports Roe v. Wade and he's spoken out repeatedly this year against restrictions on abortion rights in Texas and elsewhere - but it doesn't seem like a big priority for him and I don't think any of his remarks have resulted in his administration actually doing anything.

When Biden arrived in the Senate in 1973 he thought Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. In 1981 he voted for a failed constitutional amendment allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade. In 1982, he voted against the same failed constitutional amendment allowing states to overturn Roe. In 2003, Biden voted for the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. In 2006, he stated in an interview that "I do not view abortion as a choice and a right. I think it's always a tragedy". From 1976 to June 5, 2019, Biden supported the Hyde Amendment, barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortion (except to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape).

It was only when he started his run for the Presidency that he changed his position to "Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and should not be overturned".

Anything he does to prevent Roe v. Wade being overturned will be based on political calculation rather than personal belief, as he spent the first 46 years of his political career being solidly anti-abortion.

 

[Cloo]

Reasons Mississippi representatives (the state with the highest infant mortality rate in the US, and one of the highest maternal ones too) gave why they thought women would be just fine if forced to give birth:

Let’s Review the Ridiculous Reasons Mississippi Said It’s OK to Overturn Roe v. Wade

Folks, you don't need abortion rights because you can give up newborns at fire stations!

jezebel.com

In short - 'They can give 'em up for adoption', because that's really easy, especially in a country where you need insurance to give birth
'Employers never discriminate against pregnant employees' - not sure what this connected with, maybe women who may want to abort as it will fuck up their career, but sure employers never treat pregnant people badly, because It's The Law.
'Women can get contraception' - if it's covered and they can afford it (also, I would add to this article to say these legislators are just super-excited to pull availability of contraception as well)
'Only bad, nasty countries allow late term abortions' - hint, this is the least of the reasons America may not be The Good Guys
'Voters should decide' - most voters don't actually support forced birth

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Reasons Mississippi representatives (the state with the highest infant mortality rate in the US, and one of the highest maternal ones too) gave why they thought women would be just fine if forced to give birth:

One of the things that has alarmed me about the way our governor has run things is that he has replaced most of our social services managers with people from Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. All of these are states with low levels of social sector support and high rates of intergenerational poverty, low educational attainment, high unwanted pregnancy rates. All three states are usually at the bottom of any measurement of wellbeing. Duplicating their systems only makes sense if you want to duplicate their results.

 

[Cloo]

I mean, it's almost as if these states hate women, and especially poor and black ones...

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I mean, it's almost as if these states hate women, and especially poor and black ones...

Yes, its "almost as if these states hate women."

The maternal death rate in Texas reached a significantly high rate in comparison to the rest of the country, according to The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist. Amongst pregnant women, black women are dying at higher rates, Jezebel reports.

A 2016 report by the Texas Department of State Health Services’ Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force found that 11.4 percent of black women became mothers in 2011 and 2012, but accounted for 28.8 percent of deaths in relation to pregnancy.

Because of Texas’ strict anti-abortion laws, healthcare for women in the state has floundered. Additionally, it has the highest rate of uninsured women in the country.

“In an ideal world, a woman would have the opportunity to have a visit with a physician before she becomes pregnant to identify any potential risk factors before she gets pregnant,” Dr. Lisa Hollier, an OB/GYN who heads the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force told The Times. “Then a woman would enter prenatal in her first trimester. Unfortunately, African American women are the least likely to have that first trimester of prenatal care.”

Report: Black Women In Texas Face The Highest Maternal Mortality Rate In The Country

African-American women in Texas are facing the highest mortality rates in the country.

www.vibe.com

 

[Sue]

How come a devout catholic can legitimately be involved in deciding this case, I just don’t get it.
If they do this, dismantle / reverse the ruling that’s been in place for two generations, what do they think will happen as a result? Are they just thinking about their own careers or their personally getting into heaven or what.

What's the alternative? You decide who rules on what according to their religious affiliation? That's a very slippery slope.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

What's the alternative? You decide who rules on what according to their religious affiliation? That's a very slippery slope.

The alternative is that you diversify the court so that it represents everyone, not just a very few. The current court is in no way representative of the general public and was deliberately packed to get certain results.

 

[Yossarian]

The court is currently made up of seven Catholics and two Jews so things could get a little tricky if people started recusing themselves for religious reasons.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The court is currently made up of seven Catholics and two Jews so things could get a little tricky if people started recusing themselves for religious reasons.

At heart the problem isn't the religion. The problem is that the court was deliberately packed and some of the current justices committed perjury to get confirmed. There's also been instances such as accepting all-expense paid hunting trips from someone with a case before the court. Scalia, for instance, died in the very act of accepting such a free perk. It's corrupt and needs to be cleaned up or no one will trust their rulings.

 

[JimW]

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

This is inevitably where the Republicans lead us to on abortion:

Woman faces Texas murder charge after self-induced abortion

Authorities say a 26-year-old woman has been charged with murder in Texas after causing “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.”

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas -- A 26-year-old woman has been charged with murder in Texas after authorities said she caused “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” in a state that has the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S.

It’s unclear whether Lizelle Herrera is accused of having an abortion or whether she helped someone else get an abortion.

Herrera was arrested Thursday and remained jailed Saturday on a $500,000 bond in the Starr County jail in Rio Grande City, on the U.S.-Mexico border, sheriff's Maj. Carlos Delgado said in a statement.

“Herrera was arrested and served with an indictment on the charge of Murder after Herrera did then and there intentionally and knowingly cause the death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” Delgado said.

Delgado did not say under what law Herrera has been charged. He said no other information will be released until at least Monday because the case remains under investigation.

Texas law exempts her from a criminal homicide charge for aborting her own pregnancy, University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck told The Associated Press.

“(Homicide) doesn’t apply to the murder of an unborn child if the conduct charged is ‘conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child,’” Vladeck said.

A 2021 state law that bans abortions in Texas for women who are as early as six weeks pregnant has sharply curtailed the number of abortions in the state. The law leaves enforcement to private citizens who can sue doctors or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.

The woman receiving the abortion is exempted from the law.

However, some states still have laws that criminalize self-induced abortions "and there have been a handful of prosecutions here and there over the years," Vladeck said.

“It is murder in Texas to take steps that terminate a fetus, but when a medical provider does it, it can’t be prosecuted" due to U.S. Supreme Court rulings upholding the constitutionality of abortion, Vladeck said.

Woman faces Texas murder charge after self-induced abortion

Authorities say a 26-year-old woman has been charged with murder in Texas after causing “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.”

abcnews.go.com

They narrow the available choices so much that women start making choices on their own. Then, they get prosecuted for basic choices about their life and health.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

They dropped the charges, but there's nothing here that bodes well for the wellbeing and status of women:

Over the weekend, Lizelle Herrera, a 26-year-old woman in Texas, was arrested and jailed, charged on suspicion of murder for allegedly self-inducing an abortion. The charges against Herrera were ultimately dropped on Sunday, but the damage had already been done: Yet another person was criminalized and incarcerated for the outcome of their pregnancy in the United States.

Herrera’s story quickly gained national attention and outrage, and the leadership of Black and brown activists in Texas ultimately won her freedom. But tragically, her story isn’t an anomaly: Nearly 1,300 people faced criminalization for pregnancy outcomes, including self-managed abortions, between 2006 and 2020. This number has tripled compared with the period between 1973 and 2005, according to National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). Laws like Texas’ near-total abortion ban, which incentivizes citizens to spy and sue each other, and escalating threats to Roe v. Wade that include a forthcoming case this summer have further shrouded abortion and pregnancy loss in stigma and criminal suspicion—especially as more and more people are ending pregnancies with medication abortion pills, which can’t be medically distinguished from miscarriage.

I found some of the incidents reported here to be terrifying:

As Jezebel has previously reported, a pregnant person can be criminalized for eating poppyseeds and testing positive for substance use. Compounding the trauma of losing a pregnancy, someone who may have consumed alcohol and drugs can be charged with feticide, homicide, or child abuse, and arrested and incarcerated. The list of reasons some have faced arrest is virtually endless: surviving violence that results in miscarriage, experiencing stillbirth and “improperly” disposing of fetal remains, or even a home birth with complications.

There are links to the individual stories here:

Protecting Yourself From Arrest for Miscarriage and Abortion

At this increasingly fraught time for pregnant people in the US, there are steps you can take to protect yourself from criminal suspicion and arrest.

jezebel.com

 

[Ax^]

Save the children my arse

what unrestricted pandering for votes to conservaties and Cultist christian leads to

 

[existentialist]

Save the children my arse

what unrestricted pandering for votes to conservaties and Cultist christian leads to

"Unintended consequences". Fucking crazy.

 

[8ball]

what unrestricted pandering for votes to conservaties and Cultist christian leads to

I don't think it's just pandering to those groups that is at fault. It seems to me like there is a quite large sector of society in some areas that have been won over by a very heavily rotated media campaign.

 

[Combustible]

They dropped the charges, but there's nothing here that bodes well for the wellbeing and status of women:

Even the Texas murder statute explicitly states that a pregnant woman who harms her own fetus cannot be guilty of murder, but the sheriff just went ahead and had her arrested and indicted anyway.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Even the Texas murder statute explicitly states that a pregnant woman who harms her own fetus cannot be guilty of murder, but the sheriff just went ahead and had her arrested and indicted anyway.

It's a tactic to terrorize women into complying.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I'm seeing news reports of a leaked draft of the Supreme Court opinion on abortion rights. According to the leaked draft, Roe v. Wade will be overturned.





It's going to be a very different world for young women going forward. As much as I dislike abortion personally, this makes me a bit sick. I don't know how a country can be considered free if 51% of its population doesn't have basic rights to bodily autonomy.

 

[spring-peeper]

It's going to be a very different world for young women going forward. As much as I dislike abortion personally, this makes me a bit sick. I don't know how a country can be considered free if 51% of its population doesn't have basic rights to bodily autonomy.

I agree with you about abortions making me feel queasy.

If the female does not have the choice, then the father of the child MUST pay decent child support to help raise the child.
Paternity test MUST be done.

None of this argument that it is wrong to punish the man for 18 years just because he had 20 minutes of fun!!!

 

[tim]

I agree with you about abortions making me feel queasy.

tell the state who they had sex w the female does not have the choice, then the father of the child MUST pay decent child support to help raise the child.
Paternity test MUST be done.

None of this argument that it is wrong to punish the man for 18 years just because he had 20 minutes of fun!!!

Liberal shit like isn't an answer. It's not acceptable to be forced to bear a child even if you can get financial support from the impregnator. And it's not acceptable to oblige women to tell the state who they have had sex with.

 

[Poot]

Liberal shit like isn't an answer. It's not acceptable to be forced to bear a child even if you can get financial support from the impregnator. And it's not acceptable to oblige women to tell the state who they have had sex with.

I agree, it's just interesting that we're all supposed to be so pleased to welcome this new life, surely the father should also be overjoyed to contribute. But yeah, we all know that's not what this is actually about, it's about controlling women - nothing else.

 

[Flavour]

Think this is big enough news that it is deserving of its own thread or a change in title of this one.

I am disgusted and outraged by this news. The vast majority of American women do not support overturning Roe v Wade. This is conservative men (mainly men) imposing their medieval views on women.

Christianity in America is an abomination.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm seeing news reports of a leaked draft of the Supreme Court opinion on abortion rights. According to the leaked draft, Roe v. Wade will be overturned.





It's going to be a very different world for young women going forward. As much as I dislike abortion personally, this makes me a bit sick. I don't know how a country can be considered free if 51% of its population doesn't have basic rights to bodily autonomy.

Tbh it's going to have so many effects on issues away from abortion. The anti-abortion people seem so much better organized than pro-choice people, and appear to have much more in common with other aa people than the more diverse coalition who support choice. I fear the differences between pro-choice people will be emphasised and division and conquest to thus flourish.

It's a really shit decision to throw this to state legislatures, because this will inflame an already volatile situation in the states. Once again when an American institution has a choice between keeping things as they are and making things ten times worse, they opt unerringly for the make it shit option

 

[rubbershoes]

At heart the problem isn't the religion. The problem is that the court was deliberately packed and some of the current justices committed perjury to get confirmed. There's also been instances such as accepting all-expense paid hunting trips from someone with a case before the court. Scalia, for instance, died in the very act of accepting such a free perk. It's corrupt and needs to be cleaned up or no one will trust their rulings.

The problem is judges being political appointees.

 

[frogwoman]

This is really bad and it will have consequences in the UK and worldwide

 

[Pickman's model]

This is really bad and it will have consequences in the UK and worldwide

Watch the funding for anti-women groups surge