Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abortion. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

The Politics Of Stoopid


The decision is said to have been tailored to fit within the narrow parameters of this particular case.

 It's Alabama.

I can't wait for the stories to start pouring in.
  • Some joker's gonna try to beat a ticket for driving in the HOV lane by carrying his wife's recently used tampon in the car
  • A couple going with IVF coild decide to claim an extra dozen Dependent Child deductions on their 1040
  • A mom just might submit a life insurance claim because her period was 5 days late

Shock, anger, confusion grip Alabama after court ruling on embryos

Alabama doctors are puzzled over whether they will have to make changes to in vitro fertilization procedures. Couples have crammed into online support groups wondering if they should transfer frozen embryos out of state. And attorneys are warning that divorce settlements that call for frozen embryos to be destroyed may now be void.

Throughout Alabama, there is widespread shock, anger and confusion over how to proceed after the state Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are people, a potentially far-reaching decision that could upend women’s reproductive health care in a state that already has one of the nation’s strictest abortion laws.

“Women who actually know what happened, they feel under attack and almost powerless,” said AshLeigh Meyer Dunham, a Birmingham mother who conceived a child through in vitro fertilization and is a partner in a law firm that specializes in assisted reproductive technology cases. “First you had the Dobbs decision and now this. What does this even mean?”

The state Supreme Court decision signals a new chapter in America’s fight over reproductive rights and marks another blow to women’s rights groups that expect similar challenges in other conservative states. The ruling is limited to Alabama, but legal experts say it could embolden the “personhood movement,” which asserts that unborn children should be granted legal rights beginning at conception.

The decision was decried Tuesday by the White House.

“This is exactly the type of chaos that we expected when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for politicians to dictate some of the most personal decisions families can make,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with President Biden.

Interviews with physicians and attorneys in Alabama, as well as advocates on both sides of the issue nationwide, paint a confusing path forward for IVF clinics trying to interpret the ramifications of the ruling. Although physicians hope the Alabama legislature will limit the impacts of the ruling, they warn that the most dire consequence of the ruling is that some Alabama IVF clinics may be forced to suspend their operations.

And even if they remain operational, physicians say patients could have to endure longer — and more costly — treatments to try to achieve a pregnancy.

“Under the current Alabama ruling, patients nor physicians nor IVF labs are going to be willing to have frozen embryos,” said Mamie McLean, a physician at one of the state’s largest fertility clinics, Alabama Fertility Specialists. “So if we are faced with two potential embryos that need to be transferred, modern practice would say transfer one and freeze one. But under this ruling, it may not be safe to freeze embryos so we will be forced to transfer two embryos … which increases the lifelong health risks to both mothers and children.”

The challenge to IVF in Alabama comes as the number of pregnancies conceived through the procedure has soared over the past decade. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 97,128 infants were born nationwide via IVF in 2021, the last year for which statistics were available. There are 453 IVF clinics nationwide, and every state except Wyoming has at least one clinic.

Jennifer Lincoln, a board certified OB/GYN who practices in Portland, Ore., said she doesn’t think people understand how “scary” the Alabama ruling is. She raised a common scenario: A patient undergoing IVF has an egg retrieval that leads to the creation of multiple embryos, with the hope that at least one turns into a live birth. If successful, the remaining embryos remain frozen for possible future use — but not all may be used.

“If someone has five embryos left and they decide not to have any more kids and want those embryos destroyed — and someone in that physician’s office hears that, could [the doctor] be criminalized for being an accomplice in a crime?” Lincoln asked.

What Alabama’s frozen embryos ruling means for IVF across the U.S.

The Alabama ruling is the first to attribute human rights to a developing organism at such an early stage following conception. The ruling states that “unborn children are ‘children,’” and that frozen embryos should be afforded the same protection as babies under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.


Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action, a national antiabortion organization, heralded the court for showing “moral clarity” in ruling that the unborn deserve the same rights as children.

“You have children being created in petri dishes at will and then destroyed at will and used for experimentation,” Rose said. “It’s not acceptable to leave human beings on ice. It’s not acceptable to destroy them. These are not commodities.”

Katie O’Connor, director of federal abortion policy at the National Women’s Law Center, says the ruling will immediately disrupt reproductive care in Alabama because hospitals and doctors will be unclear about what they can and can’t do in terms of fertility treatments.

“Doctors are going to decide that these questions surrounding fertility treatments are not easily answerable and that the work is just too risky to do with the state,” said O’Connor, who predicted the Alabama decision will probably inspire antiabortion activists to push for similar protections in other states.

McLean, the Alabama doctor, cautions she is not yet ready to accept “the worst case scenario” that would result in clinics closing and patients being forced to receive treatment in other states. She expects Alabama’s medical community will be able to work with legislators and judges to carve out a middle ground that enables IVF treatments to continue.

Still, McLean blasted the ruling, saying it was not “grounded in medicine.”

“Unfortunately, this has become a political debate, but in reality this is a medical debate, and how we are able to practice medical care as physicians,” McLean said.

If no concessions to the court ruling are made, McLean said it could cost Alabama women more money because some doctors might only be willing to retrieve a limited number of eggs. In a typical IVF cycle, doctors stimulate the ovaries to produce as many mature eggs as possible. Those eggs are then fertilized in a lab and, if successful, turn into embryos. Multiple embryos are often needed to produce a single live birth.

“If we are to say, ‘Okay, I can fertilize two eggs instead of 10,’ we may not end up with any embryos or end up with an unhealthy embryo, so patients may need multiple egg retrievals to achieve the same pregnancy rate that we were trying to achieve with one retrieval,” McLean said. “Multiple attempts at retrieval will cost more money.”

McLean added she worries insurance companies could balk at those costs. She also worries that medical malpractice costs could go up and that it will become harder to attract physicians to the state.

“So, yes, there is a scenario where this closes fertility clinics in the state,” McLean said. “But we remain hopeful and absolutely expect a different path forward.”

Dunham, the Birmingham attorney, is even more pessimistic about the implications of the ruling. She noted that an online infertility support group she is a part of is already buzzing with discussion from Alabama couples about how to ship their frozen embryos out of state. It costs about $1,500 to mail the embryos to labs in Georgia or another state, but Dunham noted that many labs elsewhere are already facing strains on their storage capacities.

On Tuesday, Dunham said she was also fielding questions from divorce attorneys about whether settlement agreements that call for the destruction of a couple’s embryos can remain valid. The decision could also have implications for genetic testing of embryos, she said. Many patients rely on screening embryos to identify and prevent passing along genetic conditions.

Such testing can also identify which embryos have a normal number of chromosomes and are less likely to result in a miscarriage.

“If someone has a recurrent miscarriage, it could be due to a genetic disorder,” Dunham said. “You end up creating multiple embryos, and they usually genetically test to see which one has the best chance of making it.

“But if you say these are children, and they can’t be destroyed — we are looking at maybe not being able to test it, because it could hurt the embryo,” she said.

Even outside of Alabama, the ruling is causing an additional stress for IVF patients already undergoing an anxiety-inducing process.

Audra Stark, 40, has an 8-month-old daughter she conceived through IVF and calls it one of the most “mentally traumatic experiences” of her life. The Virginia mother went through the process three years ago after her physician told her she wasn’t able to ovulate and ended up freezing four embryos in hopes of growing her family.

When she heard about the Alabama news, Stark said she immediately wondered which state would follow.

“It’s scary because I think it’s going to be like dominoes falling,” Stark said. “I think it’s going to be like abortion restrictions where we’re going to see huge swaths of the country without access to these services.”

Without good solid Fertility Services, and great healthcare insurance to help pay for it, my three kids wouldn't exist. So fuck all you pinch-faced blue-nosed bible-thumpin' god-knobbers. Fuck you with a barrel cactus.

Saturday, December 30, 2023

Thursday, November 09, 2023

Today's Wingnut

  • Democrats want no restrictions on abortion... "up to the moment of birth - and beyond."
  • We need to stop being shy about this and paint with bright red colors (WTAF, Bob?)
  • Bob Good - even his name is a lie

Sunday, November 05, 2023

Today's Wingnut

Tommy Tuberville is known as the dumbest member of the US Senate.

Classic bit of abuser's bullshit at about 10:55

"I hate to have to do this."
Translated: "I'll stop hitting you when you stop making me hit you."
 
Hey, asshole - nobody's "making" you do anything. You're doing it because you choose to do it. Take responsibility for your own actions and stop blaming your victims for what you're doing.
What a fuckin' dick this guy is.


Tuesday, September 05, 2023

Fuckin' Republicans


Not literally of course. I wouldn't fuck a Republican with somebody else's dick.

But rhetorically or politically? Gladly. Con brio, amigo.

What Tuberville is doing - what every Republican supports - is not "playing hardball". It's hostage-taking. It's roadblocks at the state line, and detaining every woman until she proves she's not pregnant, or "abortion trafficking."

The GOP is ugly and fucked up in the head.


Opinion
Three service secretaries to Tuberville: Stop this dangerous hold on senior officers

As the civilian leaders of the Navy, Air Force, Space Force and Army, we are proud to work alongside exceptional military leaders who are skilled, motivated and empowered to protect our national security.

These officers and the millions of service members they lead are the foundation of America’s enduring military advantage. Yet this foundation is being actively eroded by the actions of a single U.S. senator, Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who is blocking the confirmation of our most senior military officers.

The senator asserts that this blanket and unprecedented “hold,” which he has maintained for more than six months, is about opposition to Defense Department policies that ensure service members and their families have access to reproductive health no matter where they are stationed.

After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this policy is critical and necessary to meet our obligations to the force. It is also fully within the law, as confirmed by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

Senators have many legislative and oversight tools to show their opposition to a specific policy. They are free to introduce legislation, gather support for that legislation and pass it. But placing a blanket hold on all general and flag officer nominees, who as apolitical officials have traditionally been exempt from the hold process, is unfair to these military leaders and their families.

And it is putting our national security at risk.

Thus far, the hold has prevented the Defense Department from placing almost 300 of our most experienced and battle-tested leaders into critical posts around the world.

Three of our five military branches — the Army, Navy and Marine Corps — have no Senate-confirmed service chief in place. Instead, these jobs — and dozens of others across the force — are being performed by acting officials without the full range of legal authorities necessary to make the decisions that will sustain the United States’ military edge.

Across the services, many generals and admirals are being forced to perform two roles simultaneously. The strain of this double duty places a real and unfair burden on these officers, the organizations they lead and their families.

The blanket hold is also exacting a personal toll on those who least deserve it.

Each of us has seen the stress this hold is inflicting up and down the chain of command, whether in the halls of the Pentagon or at bases and outposts around the world.

We know officers who have incurred significant unforeseen expenses and are facing genuine financial stress because they have had to relocate their families or unexpectedly maintain two residences.

Military spouses who have worked to build careers of their own are unable to look for jobs because they don’t know when or if they will move. Children haven’t known where they will go to school, which is particularly hard given how frequently military children change schools already.

These military leaders are being forced to endure costly separations from their families — a painful experience they have come to know from nearly 20 years of deployments to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

All because of the actions of a single senator.

Any claim that holding up the promotions of top officers does not directly damage the military is wrong — plain and simple.

The leaders whose lives and careers are on hold include scores of combat veterans who have led our troops into deadly combat with valor and distinction in the decades since 9/11. These men and women each have decades of experience and are exactly who we want — and need — to be leading our military at such a critical period of time.

The impact of this hold does not stop at these officers or their family members.

With the promotions of our most senior leaders on hold, there is a domino effect upending the lives of our more junior officers, too.

Looking over the horizon, the prolonged uncertainty and political battles over these military nominations will have a corrosive effect on the force.

The generals and admirals who will be leading our forces a decade from now are colonels and captains today. They are watching this spectacle and might conclude that their service at the highest ranks of our military is no longer valued by members of Congress or, by extension, the American public.

Rather than continue making sacrifices to serve our nation, some might leave uniformed service for other opportunities, robbing the Defense Department of talent cultivated over decades that we now need most to maintain our superiority over our rivals and adversaries.

Throughout our careers in national security, we have deeply valued the bipartisan support shown for our service members and their families. But rather than seeking a resolution to this impasse in that spirit, Tuberville has suggested he is going to further escalate this confrontation by launching baseless political attacks against these men and women.

We believe that the vast majority of senators and of Americans across the political spectrum recognize the stakes of this moment and the dangers of politicizing our military leaders. It is time to lift this dangerous hold and confirm our senior military leaders.

Wednesday, August 09, 2023

Way To Go Buckeyes




Ohio voters reject higher bar for altering constitution, a win for abortion rights supporters

Ahead of a November vote on abortion rights, Republican lawmakers wanted voters to make it more difficult to amend the state constitution


Ohio voters rejected a measure Tuesday that would have made it more difficult to amend the state constitution ahead of a November vote to ensure access to abortion.

For more than a century, Ohioans have been able to amend the state constitution with a simple majority. The failed measure would have changed that threshold to 60 percent.

With about 88 percent of votes counted Tuesday night, 56.5 percent voted against the proposal, while 43.5 percent supported it. The Associated Press projected the measure would fail.

Republican state lawmakers decided to try to make it tougher to amend the constitution as reproductive rights advocates gathered signatures of support this spring for a November measure that would guarantee access to abortion. Because of those stakes, Tuesday’s election became a proxy fight over abortion, which is expected to again be a defining issue in the 2024 election.

From the start, Republican leaders were clear that they wanted to make the abortion rights measure more difficult to pass, but they also embraced the proposal more broadly, arguing that modifications to the state constitution should have overwhelming support. Opponents of changing the rules called the measure anti-democratic, saying the nation is founded on the idea of majority rule.

“People showed up, they were fired up, and quite frankly they were fed up,” said Rep. Shontel M. Brown (D-Ohio), an opponent of the ballot measure. “I think this demonstrated that issues are still important, messaging still matters and the power still belongs to the people.”

When the race was called, cheers went up at the Northwood Cider Company in suburban Cincinnati, where Democrats gathered to watch results roll in. They clinked their glasses in celebration and said they would quickly turn their attention to passing the abortion rights measure in November.

“Tomorrow we sleep, and Thursday we get back to work,” Isaac Goff-Mitchell, the executive director of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, told the crowd of about 100.

The antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America called the results “a warning for pro-life states across the nation,” arguing that Republicans had not done enough to persuade voters to change the rules for amending the constitution.

“So long as the Republicans and their supporters take the ostrich strategy and bury their heads in the sand, they will lose again and again,” the group said in its statement.

The measure, known as Issue 1, was the only item on the ballot. Supporters and opponents spent millions of dollars on their campaigns, and early turnout was high for an election held during a normally sleepy political season. More than 600,000 people voted early, more than twice as many as voted early in the May 2022 primary for U.S. Senate.

The special election drew national attention. Mike Pence, the former vice president seeking the GOP nomination for president, released a video Tuesday urging Ohioans to vote “yes” so they could block the November abortion rights amendment, “stop the radical left” and “save Ohio.” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), meanwhile, in a Twitter post called on voters to cast “no” ballots because “voting rights and reproductive freedoms are on the line.”

Since the Supreme Court last year ended a nationwide right to abortion, voters in three states backed state constitutional amendments ensuring access to the procedure: Michigan, Vermont and California. In addition, voters in two conservative-leaning states, Kansas and Kentucky, rejected referendums that would have changed their constitutions to explicitly say they do not provide a right to abortion.

Tuesday’s vote could foreshadow the outcome of the abortion measure in November. According to a July poll from USA Today and Suffolk University, 58 percent of likely voters in Ohio supported the abortion rights ballot measure.

Voters had abortion on their minds as they went to the polls Tuesday.

Retired attorney Richard Russeth, 67, voted against the measure Tuesday at an elementary school in Middletown, a city of 50,000 between Cincinnati and Dayton.

“I am not against having a supermajority, but they are only doing this to defeat abortion,” he said. “They are changing the rules in the middle of the game and that doesn’t fly with me.”

Several miles away, in rural Wayne Township, Jim Gentry, 84, said he voted for the measure because of his opposition to abortion.

“I don’t want them fooling with the constitution,” said Gentry, a retired truck driver.

In recent years, Republicans in a handful of states have sought to make it more difficult to pass citizen-led initiatives after a string of liberal policies — from expanding Medicaid to raising the minimum wage — have been placed on the ballot.

Last year, such efforts to raise the voter threshold failed in South Dakota and Arkansas, and attempts to schedule a similar vote in Missouri were unsuccessful this spring. In Arizona, voters narrowly approved a state constitutional amendment requiring 60 percent of voters to greenlight measures enacting a new tax.

“Ohio is going to shape the contours of this conversation going forward,” said Sarah Walker, the policy and legal advocacy director at the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which helps with liberal ballot measures.

Speaking before the race was called, she said: “If it’s a resounding defeat, it will send a very strong message that it is not in the interest of policymakers to attempt to restrict the citizen-initiative process.”

In Ohio, millions of dollars flowed to both opponents and proponents of the measure, from within the state and outside it. Groups that support the November abortion rights effort and those opposing Tuesday’s ballot measure have raised about $25 million. Those on the other side have secured about $20 million, according to campaign finance filings.

Michael Gonidakis, the president of Ohio Right to Life, lobbied the state legislature for months to try to make it harder to pass constitutional amendments. Those efforts were successful in May, and since then, he has traveled across the state pitching the argument that powerful out-of-state groups want to wield outsize influence on Ohio.

“Bottom line is we’re going to have to work harder now — we know that,” Gonidakis said Tuesday night.

He added: “I think Ohioans are going to regret not taking this opportunity to protect our constitution because hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be poured in this state.”

Supporters of Tuesday’s measure argued that raising the threshold for constitutional amendments was about more than abortion. They pointed to an array of other liberal-leaning issues that could appear on future ballots, such as raising the minimum wage and legalizing marijuana. They contended that it is too easy to amend the state constitution and that there should be a high bar for modifying it like there is for the U.S. Constitution.

“A simple 50 percent-plus-one majority shouldn’t be able to change the rules that we use to govern our state,” said Frank LaRose, Ohio’s Republican secretary of state, who has launched a bid for U.S. Senate. “This is about protecting our state constitution.”

Abortion rights advocates banded with other groups to reject Tuesday’s measure, and they cheered the results.

“Seeing this Issue 1 go down in this crushing defeat just is proof that these extremists are out of touch with what the people of Ohio want,” said Lauren Beene, executive director of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights.

Her group and others are now turning their attention to November.

“This is the first step, but it was an important step,” said Kellie Copeland, the treasurer of Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights. “We have our work cut out for us, and we’re confident that we’re going to win in November, but there’s a lot of miles to go before we get there.”

Other groups largely avoided discussion of abortion when they talked about Issue 1, and they argued that it is unfair to let a minority block the will of the voters.

“This ability to take something to the ballot and have a constitutional amendment is our last line of defense,” said Melissa Cropper, the president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers. “That’s the beauty of being in Ohio, is that we have the ability to go to the ballot and make a change. And we shouldn’t be sacrificing it.”

Tim Burga, the president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, said Issue 1 failed because of “massive overreach by the legislative backers.”

“They just disregarded the will of the people,” he said. “They overstepped and overplayed their hand in epic proportions.”


Translated: Republicans know they're losing so they're taking steps to make a majority not a majority. They want 57% of the votes not to count, so they can "win" with the other 43%.
The GOP has made it impossible for me to vote Republican ever again - on anything.
Ever.

The day the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, a ban went into effect in Ohio on abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, often at six weeks of pregnancy. But nearly three months later, in September 2022, a Hamilton County judge blocked the abortion ban, and a lawsuit is wending its way through the courts.

More recently, abortion rights supporters gathered signatures at places like grocery stores, religious centers, large concerts and festivals in a quest to get a measure protecting access to abortion on the ballot this November. The secretary of state determined in July that their effort was successful. Two Republicans have sued to try to block the November election.

The focus of Tuesday’s vote was on the higher threshold it would set for passing future constitutional amendments. But the measure would also have made it tougher to place initiatives on the ballot in the first place by requiring signatures to be gathered in all 88 of Ohio’s counties instead of just 44.

Brenda Perkins, 66, voted against the measure at Rosa Parks Elementary School in Middletown. Perkins, a retired teacher, reflected on the national attention on the special election.

“The whole world,” she said, “is watching Ohio.

Tuesday, July 04, 2023

Stories Ae Essential




Why Abortion Stories Matter

Dr. Christine Henneberg is a writer and a doctor specializing in women’s health and family planning. Her memoir is “Boundless: An Abortion Doctor Becomes a Mother.”

Start with a story.

It’s the standard advice for any doctor who sets out to write, speak or advocate on behalf of her patients. Stories change minds. They change how people think about issues that can otherwise feel impersonal. Stories matter.

This is why, in the year since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, have been collecting stories from doctors detailing substandard medical care and harm to patients. It is why the obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Caitlin Bernard told the story of a patient of hers, a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio, who, unable to obtain a legal abortion in her home state, was forced to travel to Indiana to seek care. It is why, as an abortion provider in California, a state where abortion remains legal (for now), I collect and publish stories about my work — stories that, for whatever reason, stick with me.

Such as on a recent afternoon, when the last patient of the day chose to forgo IV anesthesia for her abortion because she was leaving straight from her appointment to pick up her kids from school. “I’m OK,” she said, her hands clutching the sides of the exam table. Half an hour later, I saw her in the subway on my way home, chin in her hand, staring out the window. I imagined her children waiting in the schoolyard, their eager hands thrusting into hers, their innocent questions and needs and demands.

Or the young woman who told me about her drag racer boyfriend and how, since becoming pregnant, she’d been too nauseated to ride in the car with him, instead watching from the sidelines, trying to imagine what her life would look like if they were to have the baby.

Like any doctor, I am careful to change names and identifying details to protect my patients’ privacy. This is, for the most part, easy to do, because so many of the stories I share are so common, so everyday. American women have nearly one million abortions each year. A vast majority of these are what the legal scholar and bioethicist Katie Watson calls ordinary abortions: A pregnant woman decides, for whatever reason, that she can’t or doesn’t want to give birth to a child right now. A doctor or nurse helps her safely end the pregnancy. These stories, no matter how fraught they might be with personal and moral tensions, don’t make exciting news. As Ms. Watson has written, “The imperatives of reporting preclude this headline: ‘Peaceful Day at Abortion Clinic: Ordinary People Got Quality Health Care.’”

“My life would not have been my own. I would be a prisoner subject to a body’s whims — and not my body’s whims, but the whims of a teenage boy.”

Nicole Walker, a writer and editor, in “My Abortion at 11 Wasn’t a Choice. It Was My Life.” Read the guest essay.

“It’s important that the government is in sync with the public opinion, but I don’t think they are.”

Dwyarrn, one of the participants in an Opinion focus group with 12 pro-life voters. Read the focus group’s discussion.

“Sometime soon, I am going to meet a patient who has no ability to leave the state, and I am going to have to tell her that her baby has a lethal condition, and she is going to have to carry a pregnancy to term against her will.”

David N. Hackney, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, in “I’m a High-Risk Obstetrician, and I’m Terrified for My Patients.” Read the guest essay.

“There are more of us than there are of them. That’s especially true if American men recognize that their way of life is also under attack. Men also have sex for pleasure. This is not just a women’s issue.”

“My fellow pro-lifers and I will also need to make the case to expectant mothers, and fathers too, that their unborn children are, like the rest of us, dependent and needy persons.”

Erika Bachiochi, a conservative legal scholar, in “What Makes a Fetus a Person?” Read the guest essay.

“The overturning of Roe v. Wade reveals the Supreme Court’s neglectful reading of the amendments that abolished slavery and guaranteed all people equal protection under the law. It means the erasure of Black women from the Constitution.”

Michele Goodwin, a professor of law at the University of California, in “No, Justice Alito, Reproductive Justice Is in the Constitution.” Read the guest essay.

Yet ordinary abortion stories play an important role in the fight for abortion rights and reproductive justice. They remind us that abortion is normal. They humanize the one in four women in America who will have an abortion in her lifetime.

Unlike ordinary abortion stories, the details of extraordinary abortions cannot be easily disguised. The details are what make them extraordinary: The very young patient. The rape. The state where she could not obtain the abortion and the state where she ultimately did.

In medicine, doctors share extraordinary cases to educate ourselves and one another about the range of diagnoses we must consider, exam findings we may encounter or procedures we might be called on to perform. Extraordinary stories also serve a role in a democracy, to paint a vivid picture for constituents of the full range and implications of the legislation passed by elected officials, under which we and our children must live.

Extraordinary abortion stories remind us that pregnancy can be a matter of life and death. Pregnancy can — and does — result from rape, incest and intimate partner violence. Pregnancy can — and does — happen to children as young as 10. Governors and legislators and Supreme Court justices can — and do — make decisions that result in children being forced to give birth.

When Dr. Bernard was reprimanded by Indiana’s medical board for violating her young patient’s privacy (she discussed the case with a reporter without revealing a single traceable element of the patient’s identity), we saw proof of a new, disturbing reality of the post-Roe era: Abortion opponents don’t merely want to ban abortion. They want to silence the doctors who bear witness to the disastrous consequences of such cruel and unjust legislation.

Now more than ever, abortion providers must share the ordinary and extraordinary stories we witness — to humanize our work, to advocate for our patients, to move people. This is the impetus behind my writing and the work of other doctors. It is the impetus for the U.C.S.F. study documenting the substandard reproductive care post-Roe, whose preliminary findings, released in May, are chilling to read. This is why humans tell stories: so that our words are not only heard and read but also remembered.

In a post-Roe world, abortion providers see our patients’ rights to privacy and bodily autonomy violated every day. It is our ethical duty to expose that violation to the world.

Sunday, May 21, 2023

It's The Karma, Stupid

It's really fun to watch asshole Republicans when they start to realize that their asshole-ish-ness on one issue can keep them from being assholes on another issue down the road.



Thanks, Obama! The hilarious reason why a judge just blocked Wyoming’s abortion ban
Republicans just got a painful reminder that political stunts can backfire.


On Wednesday, a judge in the deep-red state of Wyoming temporarily blocked a state law that would make performing nearly any abortion in that state a felony. She relied on a 2012 amendment to the state constitution that was intended to spite then-President Barack Obama.

Obama’s early years in office were marred by a scorched-earth political campaign Republicans wielded to try to thwart what became the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare’s opponents warned of a “government takeover of health care” that would strip many Americans of their ability to make their own health decisions.

Many of these allegations were downright ludicrous, such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R) false claim that Obama’s health bill would require “my baby with Down Syndrome ... to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society’ whether they are worthy of health care.”

These attacks did not succeed. The bill became law, and Obamacare is popular now that it has been in full effect for nearly a decade without anyone being forced to stand before a death panel. But there is at least one lasting legacy of these attempts to characterize the Affordable Care Act as an attack on patients’ right to decide whether and when to seek health treatments.

In many states, opponents of Obamacare effectively took the GOP’s talking points and turned them into state constitutional amendments protecting patients’ ability to obtain health care that the government might not want them to have.
Wyoming’s amendment, for example, provides that “each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions.”

According to Quinn Yeargain, a law professor at Widener University, similar amendments are on the books in several other states.

It remains to be seen whether the highest courts in these states, some of which are extremely conservative, will ultimately agree that these anti-Obamacare amendments prohibit abortion bans. And, in at least some cases, the amendments contain language that could mitigate their impact. Wyoming’s amendment, for example, also provides that, under certain circumstances, the state legislature may “determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted” by the health care amendment.

But abortion advocates have had two early successes: the Wyoming judge’s order temporarily blocking that state’s abortion ban, and a similar decision by a trial judge in Ohio.

The Wyoming abortion rights litigation, briefly explained
Wyoming district court Judge Melissa Owens’s Wednesday decision temporarily halting her state’s abortion ban is the second time she intervened to prevent this ban from going into effect. Wyoming’s abortion ban is quite strict, although it does provide exceptions for rape, incest, or when either a pregnant patient or the fetus has certain medical conditions.

Last summer, shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade, an array of patients, doctors, and nonprofit groups brought a suit arguing that Wyoming’s abortion ban violated the state’s constitutional provision protecting each adult’s right to individual health care decisions. That case is known as Johnson v. Wyoming.

Judge Owens handed down a decision in August halting the law. Among other things, she rejected the state’s argument that the health care amendment was “only adopted to push back against the Affordable Care Act,” and should not be construed to protect abortion rights.

Regardless of the political circumstances that led to this amendment being written into the state constitution, Owens reasoned that the amendment “unambiguously provides competent Wyoming citizens with the right to make their own health care decisions,” and she was bound by that unambiguous text. “A court,” she wrote, “is not at liberty to assume that the Wyoming voters who adopted” the amendment “did not understand the force of language in the provision.”

Just as significantly, Owens construed the amendment to give people in Wyoming a “fundamental right” to make their own health care decisions, including the decision to seek an abortion. This designation matters because fundamental rights can only be abridged when the state seeks to advance a “compelling state interest” and when it uses the “least intrusive” means to do so.

Thus, even though the amendment permits the state legislature to impose “reasonable and necessary restrictions” on individual’s health choices, Owens concluded that Wyoming’s broad ban on abortion access sweeps too far because it intrudes into pregnant patients’ health care decisions even when a “fetus has a genetic abnormality that is incompatible with life.” (The state has since amended its law to permit abortions when “there is a substantial likelihood that the unborn baby has a lethal fetal anomaly,” a change that could undermine Owens’s legal reasoning.)

There is precedent for Owens’s conclusion that this Wyoming health care amendment establishes a fundamental right that the legislature may only abridge under very limited circumstances, even though that same amendment gives the legislature some authority to enact laws. The US Constitution’s 14th Amendment has long been construed to protect many fundamental rights, such as the right to marry or the right to choose your own sexual partners. But the 14th Amendment also contains language permitting Congress to enforce its provisions “by appropriate legislation.”

Nevertheless, the fact that the 14th Amendment permits Congress to enact laws it deems “appropriate” typically does not permit Congress to abridge the fundamental rights it guarantees.

In response to Owens’s August decision blocking the state’s abortion ban, the state legislature enacted a new law decreeing that abortion “is not health care” and thus is not protected by the state constitution. Owens’s Wednesday order blocked that law as well, declaring that “the legislature cannot make an end run around” around a constitutional amendment, and that it is up to the courts to decide whether abortion meets the state constitution’s definition of “health care.”

Yet, while the state legislature appears eager to restore the state’s abortion ban, the Wyoming Supreme Court has thus far resisted the urge to rush in and overrule Owens. Last December, after a case reached the state Supreme Court that it could have used to reject Judge Owens’s reading of the state constitution, Wyoming’s justices chose instead not to decide that case. That left Owens’s August order in effect.

So, while there are plausible legal arguments on either side of this dispute, there appears to be a real chance that the state’s highest court will agree with Owens if and when they weigh in on whether the state constitution protects abortion. If the state Supreme Court shared the legislature’s view that abortion must be banned in Wyoming, it could have intervened last winter.

Could anti-Obamacare amendments protect abortion rights in other states?
At least one other state court, in Ohio, relied on that state’s anti-Obamacare amendment in an opinion temporarily blocking a law that bans nearly all abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. That 2022 decision, in a case known as Preterm-Cleveland v. Yost, argued that a few provisions of the state constitution, including the state’s health care amendment, work together to protect abortion rights.

Last December, a state appeals court decided that the trial court’s order in Preterm-Cleveland may remain in effect, at least for now.

Ohio’s amendment provides that no state law “shall prohibit the purchase or sale of health care or health insurance.” Nor may it “impose a penalty or fine for the sale or purchase of health care or health insurance.” Thus, as long as a patient seeking an abortion pays for that treatment, the Ohio amendment appears to provide very robust protection to abortion rights.

Like the Wyoming amendment, Ohio’s permits the legislature to enact some restrictions on the right to purchase health care but the Ohio amendment uses less expansive language to describe when such restrictions are allowed — though one provision of the Ohio amendment does permit state laws that are “calculated to deter fraud or punish wrongdoing in the health care industry.” An abortion opponent would no doubt argue that abortions are themselves a form of “wrongdoing.”

In any event, the Ohio Supreme Court has a 4-3 Republican majority. So there’s no guarantee that the state’s justices will agree with the trial court’s ruling and allow abortion to remain legal in Ohio.

(Until recently, the swing vote on the Ohio Supreme Court was held by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a relatively moderate Republican. But O’Connor recently retired and the Court’s new majority hasn’t developed much of a record. So it is difficult for a lawyer to assess with certainty how it is likely to rule on a case like Preterm-Cleveland.)

But what about other states that enacted health care amendments as a statement of defiance against Obamacare? The short answer is that a lawsuit seeking to protect abortion rights in these states would turn on the same questions that are in play in Wyoming and Ohio: What does the state’s health care amendment actually say? And who controls the state Supreme Court?

Alabama’s amendment, for example, is unlikely to help abortion advocates very much, even setting aside the fact that Alabama’s Supreme Court is dominated by Republicans. That’s because Alabama’s amendment primarily prohibits the state from requiring “any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system.” That language cannot reasonably be construed to protect abortion rights.

Other states, including Arizona, Missouri, and Oklahoma, enacted similar amendments preventing the state government from compelling individuals to “participate in any health care system.” These amendments are also unlikely to help proponents of abortion rights.

So this largely forgotten legacy of a failed Republican effort to spite Obamacare is only likely to matter in a very small number of states. And it may not even have a lasting impact in Wyoming and Ohio, depending on how their state Supreme Courts rule on whether the state constitution protects abortion.

For the moment, however, the Obama-era amendments writing anti-Obamacare talking points into two state constitutions have proved to be a thorn in the side of Republicans who hope to ban abortions. Let that be a lesson that a state constitution is a foolish thing to change for the sake of a political stunt.

Monday, May 15, 2023

Dangling


I guess we just have to keep fighting this fight.


Abortion Showdown in North Carolina May Hinge on a Single Vote

After the G.O.P.-led legislature passed a 12-week ban, the Democratic governor vetoed the bill. The Republicans could override it, if all their members stay unified.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, now in the waning years of his second term, has suddenly found himself back on a campaign trail.

On Wednesday, flanked by supporters in a fifth-floor classroom at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, Mr. Cooper made a direct appeal to residents. But he was not looking for thousands of votes. Just one.

North Carolina’s Republican-dominated legislature has passed a bill banning most abortions after 12 weeks. Mr. Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed the bill. But to prevent the legislature from using its razor-thin supermajority to override his veto, Mr. Cooper is asking voters to pressure Republican lawmakers. Convincing just one legislator will keep the state’s current abortion law — allowing it up to 20 weeks — in place.

In Wilmington, he urged voters to send a message to their representatives in the legislature — “ask them to keep their promise” to preserve existing abortion laws, he said, referring to Republican lawmakers he said had previously signaled some support for abortion access.

Let them know, he said, “whether it’s a phone call, or it’s an email, or it’s a text.”

Mr. Cooper’s plea, and the showdown between the governor’s office and the legislature, represents an extraordinary moment in North Carolina politics, as well as in the nation’s volatile abortion fight.

Since the Supreme Court last year overturned Roe v. Wade, states have been free to severely restrict or ban the procedure, and many across the South have done exactly that. As a result, North Carolina has become an outlet for women in the region who could not get abortions in their home states.

For North Carolina, the override vote would be a consequential early test of the Republicans’ new, slim supermajority, since Tricia Cotham, a former Democrat, switched parties in April and voted in favor of the ban.

Override votes in the two chambers, each of which require a three-fifths vote of those present to succeed, have not yet been scheduled. But state lawmakers and lobbyists said over the weekend that they expected to see a vote as early as this week.

Republicans say the bill represents a compromise and is less restrictive than other bans that outlaw the procedure at conception or before most women even realize they are pregnant. Democrats say the bill is a disaster for women’s health, and erects all kinds of financial and logistical obstacles that would cut off abortion access for many women. They complained that Republicans rammed the initial votes through their chambers in two marathon sessions over 48 hours.

A Meredith poll in February showed that 57 percent of respondents supported the state’s current 20-week ban, or would expand it. Another 35 percent wanted the procedure restricted to 15 weeks or less.

Mallory Finch, who came to Raleigh on Saturday to protest the governor’s veto, said, “North Carolina is a state for life, and there are people who want the act to go through.”

Democratic officials in districts across the state are trying to mobilize voters to oppose the bill. In New Hanover County, where Wilmington is located, party leaders organized a caller chain that contacted Republicans, including Ted Davis Jr., a Republican House member considered a swing vote, and Michael V. Lee, a Wilmington Republican state senator, every three minutes one day last week. Mr. Cooper believes both men might be movable on the issue.

Mr. Lee, however, said a 12-week restriction is in line with his thinking on abortion. In a text message, he said that Mr. Cooper has mischaracterized his position on the issue.

“I believe a woman should have the right to choose an abortion in the first trimester (3 months) with exceptions,” Mr. Lee wrote.

Mr. Davis has said in the past that he supported North Carolina’s current law. Mr. Cooper is also targeting the district of a fourth Republican, John Bradford, a House member who said shortly before his election last year that he had “no intention” of rolling back the 20-week law. Mr. Bradford did not respond to a request for comment.

The defection of Ms. Cotham, a former Charlotte-area educator who had served in the state legislature and made an unsuccessful run for Congress before returning to the North Carolina General Assembly this year, stunned Democrats.

In announcing her decision, she said she had been bullied by the party and was no longer aligned with them on some issues, including school choice.

“The modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me and to so many others throughout this state and this country,” she said when she announced. “They have pushed me out.”

Ms. Cotham has historically been an outspoken supporter of abortion rights. When she was a Democrat, she accused Republicans of playing doctor. She also spoke publicly about her own harrowing experience with a lost pregnancy that required medical intervention. “This decision was up to me, my husband, my doctor and my God. It was not up to any of you in this chamber,” Ms. Cotham said in 2015. Still, she voted in favor of the 12-week ban after she switched parties.

Ms. Cotham did not respond to a request for comment.

On Thursday at the Modish Nail Spa in Mint Hill — the Charlotte suburb where Ms. Cotham lives — May Lopez said she was upset by the new abortion restriction.

“I feel terrible about it, because I think they’re just stripping the rights away from women. And I remember. I grew up in the days where my girlfriend died because of the hanger abortion and all that kind of stuff,” said Ms. Lopez, who votes largely for Democrats.

Frank McCullough, a Charlotte pastor, and his wife, Barbara McCullough, a retired schoolteacher, both voted for Ms. Cotham when she ran as a Democrat last year. Both said they felt betrayed by her decisions to switch parties and help Republicans pass more restrictions on abortion.

“I don’t believe in abortion, but I believe in the rights of a lady to make that choice between her and God,” Mr. McCullough said. “We voted for you and here you go turning your back on us.”

People who live in Ms. Cotham’s district said that while it leans Democratic, it also features a healthy presence of conservatives who back abortion restrictions.

On Wednesday afternoon in Wilmington, part of Mr. Davis’s district, swimmers at the Y.W.C.A. aquatic center were divided.

“I’m a Christian, and I believe that life begins at conception, and I’m against abortion altogether,” said Joyce Woodard, a retiree.

Emma Evans, a college student who was watching a swim lesson of the 4-year-old she was babysitting, said she was baffled by the passage of the abortion ban.

“I don’t know much about it at all, but I do know I’m for abortion” rights, she said. “A bunch of men are just making rules for these women’s bodies? It makes no sense to me.”

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Cooper appeared troubled by the political state of play. During more than six years in office, he had successfully vetoed more than 50 bills. The November midterms, which left Republicans just one vote shy of a supermajority in North Carolina, had threatened his control over the legislative process, which can be upended by a single lawmaker’s absence. Ms. Cotham’s party exodus last month deprived him of any remaining comfort.

“I knew things were precarious,” he said. “But then when Representative Cotham switched, and made it a supermajority by one vote in each chamber, we knew that it was going to be a much tougher fight.”

“I’m worried that women will die,” he said.

Motivating voters is no easy task: A number of people over the past week said they were only dimly aware of the fight, even if they felt strongly for or against abortion access.

Nick Decker was waiting for friends Thursday at the Crazy Pig, a barbecue joint in Mr. Bradford’s district. He said he was aware the governor had been in town that week “to try to sway some state legislators.”

“Charlotte and the metro area is very much a blue area,” he said. And he counted himself as a supporter of the governor and state Democrats.

He said he was not aware of the position of his Republican representative, Mr. Bradford. But, he added, “I’m very pro-choice.”

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

Shit Rolls Downhill

Under some truly horrible decisions of some truly asinine Republican legislatures, restrictions on abortion and other healthcare services for women are greatly contributing to hospital organizations having to discontinue OB/GYN care, or close down some hospitals altogether.

And the downstream effects of these asshole GOP prigs getting their slimy hands on the levers of power are beginning to show up big.



The tragic, preventable reasons syphilis is surging among U.S. infants

A decade ago, the United States stood on the brink of eliminating the scourge of babies born with syphilis. Now, cases are surging, a phenomenon that is underscoring deep inequities in the nation’s health-care system and reviving concerns about a disease easily controlled with routine antibiotics.

The spike, driven in part by the nation’s drug and homelessness crisis, is especially apparent across the Sun Belt, according to public health experts and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The rate of syphilis is five times higher for babies born to Black mothers than to White mothers, reflecting racial disparities in access to maternal health care.

Syphilis, a bacterial infection that primarily spreads through sexual contact, can be passed from mother to child through the placenta. Congenital syphilis resulted in 188 stillbirths and 23 infant deaths in 2021, according to CDC data, and can cause organ damage, profound fetal anemia and long-term complications for surviving babies.

While the overall number of infected infants seems low — nearly 2,700 nationally in 2021, or 74 of every 100,000 live births — public health officials say no baby in developed nations should be born with syphilis because most cases are preventable with testing and penicillin treatment of the mother. The fact that cases have climbed, experts say, is an indictment of the U.S. health-care system.

Oman, Cuba and Sri Lanka are among the countries that have virtually eliminated mother-to-child transmission of syphilis in recent years, according to the World Health Organization.


After steadily declining since World War II, congenital syphilis roared back in the United States to about 4,000 cases a year in the early 1990s as syphilis surged in adults. The number of infected infants dwindled to several hundred a year in the 2000s, then started climbing again in 2013.

“People thought we had gotten rid of syphilis when it in fact came back and is significantly increasing,” said Robert McDonald, who focuses on STD prevention at the CDC.

To reverse the trends, public health authorities are striving to reach women at highest risk for passing syphilis to their babies — those who are homeless, exchange sex for money, or use drugs are more likely to be exposed to the disease and less likely to seek prenatal care.

STIs are rising, but public health is shifting away from condom promotion

In Portland, Ore., county workers paid for pregnant women without stable housing to stay in a hotel for three weeks to ensure they received the three-shot regimen needed to quash the bacterial infection.

In Atlanta, a clinic hailed an Uber to bring a pregnant woman with syphilis to her third appointment for a penicillin shot when she couldn’t secure a ride.

In Los Angeles, the county jail began syphilis screening for female inmates, and the health department is planning to hold events where women experiencing homelessness could receive STD screenings alongside clothes, showers and food.

“These things are all kind of converging and creating this social milieu in which we are seeing this preventable infectious disease end up with tragic outcomes,” said Sonali Kulkarni, who leads the STI prevention division of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

Health officials say the pandemic made it harder to respond to sexually transmitted diseases as dwindling staff and money were redeployed to covid. Compared to the novel health threats that captivate public attention like the coronavirus, mpox and bird flu, syphilis can seem like old news.

The first step to saving a baby from being born with syphilis is identifying whether the mother is infected. But just a few states — Arizona, Texas and North Carolina — require the most comprehensive syphilis testing covering the first visit, third trimester and at delivery, according to a 2021 review of laws compiled by the CDC.

The CDC, in examining congenital syphilis cases from 2020 with medical histories available, found that 41 percent had no timely prenatal care or testing. Nearly as many were diagnosed with syphilis but did not receive adequate treatment.

When a pregnant woman tests positive for syphilis, the only recommended treatment to prevent a congenital case — Bicillin L-A — can be hard to come by. Pfizer is the only manufacturer, and there’s no generic version. It’s so expensive that pharmacies and private health providers often don’t stock it, making it difficult to immediately start providing treatment. Public health departments are the most likely to have the shots on hand.

Inside the Biden administration plan to address maternal mortality

In rare cases, patients who did receive timely testing and treatment still risk passing the infection to their babies.

In early March, a 32-year-old Houston mom held her newborn son with a full head of brown hair for mere minutes before doctors whisked him to the neonatal intensive care unit to begin treatment for congenital syphilis.

The mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss her medical history, said she still tested positive for syphilis at delivery despite having already had two rounds of treatment during her pregnancy.

Doctors performed a lumbar puncture, or spinal tap, on the boy to test for neurosyphilis, which occurs in 60 percent of babies with symptoms. After 10 days in the NICU, during which her son received penicillin through a tiny intravenous line, the woman was able to bring him home. But much uncertainty lies ahead.

“You don’t want to lose somebody before you get to know him,” she said.

She must bring her son back to the hospital for follow-up visits every two months for a year because syphilis and its effect on babies is stubbornly hard to detect, said her doctor Irene A. Stafford, a maternal-fetal medicine physician at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

A newborn rests beside his mother Dailyn Fleite, left, 29, at the Ana Betancourt de Mora Hospital in Camaguey, Cuba, in 2015. The World Health Organization declared Cuba the first country in the world to eliminate the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mother to child. (Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters/Alamy)
Stafford said she sees the consequences of the syphilis resurgence in her patients every day. One in 555 babies in Texas is born with congenital syphilis, according to the Texas health department.

She said she’s haunted by a case of a teen mother who was being trafficked by a relative and had received little to no prenatal care. Although she visited the emergency room complaining of symptoms during her pregnancy, she was never screened for syphilis and birthed a baby with neurosyphilis. The baby is now 5 years old and still can’t swallow solid food. The child requires speech and physical therapy and care in multiple pediatric specialties.

The teenager got pregnant again after an incomplete treatment regimen and birthed a second child with syphilis. Today, she is homeless, and her mother cares for the children.

Studies show that about half of women with syphilis don’t report risk factors such as transactional sex, substance abuse, unstable housing and sexual violence because they may fear losing custody of their children, Stafford said; as a result, they don’t get the robust screening that could lead to treatment for them and their babies.

Most women do not know they have syphilis because it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t burn, doesn’t itch. Any symptoms that develop are often vague and can be missed by even the most astute physician, said Stafford, who has received a federal grant to develop a simpler syphilis test for moms and newborns.


In Phoenix, staffers at Hushabye Nursery, a nonprofit that provides care for babies suffering from opioid withdrawal, said the recent rise in infants born with syphilis is especially alarming because the babies who need a quiet, dark environment to mitigate the pain of withdrawal must instead spend 10 days in loud, bright neonatal intensive care units to receive treatment for syphilis. After partnering with health departments in the fall to increase syphilis screening, the nursery was able to prevent three potential cases of congenital syphilis by getting the mothers into treatment, said nursery co-founder Tara Sundem.

The University of Chicago Medical Center started screening emergency room patients for syphilis in 2019, bringing testing and treatment to the place where high-risk women experiencing homelessness and addiction tend to seek medical care. This kind of universal syphilis screening at hospitals remains rare even though it can prevent congenital syphilis.

In Multnomah County, Oregon, which includes Portland, public health workers are conducting more outreach in homeless encampments and shelters as they saw a rise in syphilis infections in people who reported using drugs, often while living on the streets. In one instance, a pregnant woman who lived in a tent under a bridge received her syphilis diagnosis and first penicillin shot at an emergency room but resisted coming back. A county nurse came to her tent to bring the next two shots.

Some experts attributed the uptick in cases to varying state policies on screening. Eleven states, mostly in the Southeast, have yet to expand Medicaid to all low-income adults, which would cover the costs of syphilis testing and treatment. That leaves pregnant people, whose medical care is supposed to be covered by Medicaid, susceptible to reinfection if their partners remain untreated.

“It’s frustrating because if timely interventions are deployed, you can totally turn this condition around,” said Mark Turrentine, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Sarah Nadia Ali, director of infectious diseases at Mary’s Center, said the D.C. community health center has tried to remove barriers to screening at its walk-in sexual health center that accepts people without insurance. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
A challenge for anti-abortion states: Doctors reluctant to work there

Several states, including Mississippi in March, have strengthened their screening requirements in recent years in response to the rise of congenital syphilis.

But the closure of rural hospitals and OB/GYN services has created “monumental” geographical gaps in accessing prenatal care, said Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi’s former public health director. “If you are a working mom who maybe doesn’t get much sick time — or any sick time — and you have a 100-mile drive just to get to a prenatal care visit, that’s a huge impediment,” Dobbs said.

Even if care were readily accessible, public health experts say many expectant Black mothers don’t believe doctors have their best interests at heart because of the medical establishment’s long history of mistreating Black patients.

Joseph Kanter, Louisiana’s top health official, says he has treated patients who had cases of congenital syphilis in their family because of the infamous Tuskegee experiments, in which hundreds of Black men were left untreated for syphilis to study the long-term effects of the disease. That has created a tragically ironic situation: The failure to treat syphilis in Black adults made their descendants more skeptical of a medical system that could provide treatment to prevent syphilis in Black babies.

“The issue of congenital syphilis is deeply intertwined with a history of institutional racism,” Kanter said, noting that 65 percent of congenital syphilis cases in Louisiana are among Black babies. “We are dealing with a lot of earned mistrust.”

Public health experts say the country has the capability to end congenital syphilis, often drawing parallels to transmission of HIV from mother to child — which declined from 1,760 in 1991 to fewer than 40 in 2019. That plunge was a result of a national public health campaign with sustained funding to adopt universal screening, put doctors on alert and ensure that pregnant people with HIV received antiretroviral therapy and did not breastfeed their children.

“The same focus has not been on congenital syphilis,” said Rebekah Horowitz, director of STI programs at the National Association of County and City Health Officials. “Without the focus and the funding, it won’t end.”

Monday, December 26, 2022

Today's Whoa Bubba


First - if a fetus is developing without a brain, or grows its organs outside its body, or begins to wither and die in the 3rd or 4th month, then maybe people could see that "life" isn't always the kindest, most loving option.

But second - I think in this case, the miracle is actually all about a man who is pregnant.

It's certainly no miracle that a wingnut screwed up and chose the wrong picture to illustrate his point - and ended up blowing the whole meme.

It does beg the question though: Who the fuck drew an anatomical cross-section of a pregnant man?

Saturday, November 26, 2022

It's Not About Babies

It was never about babies.


And just where the fuck did anybody think this shit was headed?


Stacey Freeman was incarcerated for using drugs during pregnancy. But she wasn't pregnant.

Freeman, who lives in Gallant, Alabama, was being investigated by the Etowah County Department of Human Resources (DHR) for alleged drug use in January. During the investigation, one of her daughters told a DHR worker her mother was pregnant, according to a lawsuit Freeman filed against the Etowah County Sheriff's Office on November 7.

A caseworker confronted Freeman, who denied that she was pregnant and offered to take a pregnancy test at the courthouse. She did not get one.

Instead, the mother was arrested for chemical endangerment of a child and booked into the Etowah County Detention Center. She was left to sleep on the jail floor for 36 hours. Meanwhile, she was undergoing her menstrual cycle and asked for pads, which never came. She was told that her bond would be $10,000.

"It's just not even thinkable you could go off somebody's word to make an arrest of somebody being pregnant," Freeman's attorney Martin Weinberg told Newsweek. "You know, you're criminalizing pregnancy, then you find out they're not even pregnant."

The chemical endangerment of a child charge is based on the principle of "fetal personhood," a provision enshrined in the Alabama constitution. Since 2010, Etowah County has prosecuted more than 150 chemical endangerment cases involving pregnant and postpartum women, according to Weinberg.

Each of these women was held on a $10,000 cash bond and could not leave until they entered a drug rehabilitation program—bail conditions that are unconstitutional, said Freeman's lawsuit.

Over the last 23 years, prosecutors in Alabama have embraced some form of "fetal personhood" to bring criminal charges over a miscarriage or stillbirth in at least 20 felony cases, according to an analysis of court records and medical examiner data by The Marshall Project. Many of these prosecutions ended in lengthy prison sentences for women who were mostly poor and struggling with addiction.

Freeman was finally given a pregnancy test in her jail cell, which determined that she was not pregnant. She was questioned by Etowah County Sheriff Investigator Brandi Fuller for 20 minutes and allowed to leave—but not before the investigator "threatened, warned, and admonished Freeman" that she would be charged if Fuller discovered she was pregnant in the next several months, according to the lawsuit.

Weinberg said that Freeman has struggled with humiliation in her small, close-knit community since she was released.

"It's traumatizing, it's not something that somebody gets over," he said. "It's not a good thing for people to think you're on drugs and pregnant...she would not do that. That's her position, that 'I would not put somebody that I'm carrying to life in that position.'"

Newsweek reached out to the Etowah County Sheriff's Office for comment.

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