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June 10, 2015
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Members of a U.N. peacekeeping mission engaged in "transactional sex" with more than 225 Haitian women who said they needed to do so to obtain things like food and medication, a sign that sexual exploitation remains significantly underreported in such missions, according to a new report obtained by The Associated Press.
The draft by the Office of Internal Oversight Services looks at the way U.N. peacekeeping, which has about 125,000 people in some of the world's most troubled areas, deals with the persistent problem of sexual abuse and exploitation.
The report, expected to be released this month, says major challenges remain a decade after a groundbreaking U.N. report first tackled the issue.
Among its findings: About a third of alleged sexual abuse involves minors under 18. Assistance to victims is "severely deficient." The average investigation by OIOS, which says it prioritizes cases involving minors or rape, takes more than a year.
And widespread confusion remains on the ground about consensual sex and exploitation. To help demonstrate that, investigators headed to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
A year ago, the report says, investigators interviewed 231 people in Haiti who said they'd had transactional sexual relationships with U.N. peacekeepers. "For rural women, hunger, lack of shelter, baby care items, medication and household items were frequently cited as the `triggering need,'" the report says. Urban and suburban women received "church shoes,' cell phones, laptops and perfume, as well as money.
"In cases of non-payment, some women withheld the badges of peacekeepers and threatened to reveal their infidelity via social media," the report says. "Only seven interviewees knew about the United Nations policy prohibiting sexual exploitation and abuse." None knew about the mission's hotline to report it.
Each of those instances of transactional sex, the report says, would be considered prohibited conduct, "thus demonstrating significant underreporting." It was not clear how many peacekeepers were involved.
Read more:http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_UNITED_NATIONS_PEACEKEEPERS_SEXUAL_EXPLOITATION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
UN: SEX EXPLOITATION BY PEACEKEEPERS STRONGLY UNDERREPORTED
UN: SEX EXPLOITATION BY PEACEKEEPERS STRONGLY UNDERREPORTEDUNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Members of a U.N. peacekeeping mission engaged in "transactional sex" with more than 225 Haitian women who said they needed to do so to obtain things like food and medication, a sign that sexual exploitation remains significantly underreported in such missions, according to a new report obtained by The Associated Press.
The draft by the Office of Internal Oversight Services looks at the way U.N. peacekeeping, which has about 125,000 people in some of the world's most troubled areas, deals with the persistent problem of sexual abuse and exploitation.
The report, expected to be released this month, says major challenges remain a decade after a groundbreaking U.N. report first tackled the issue.
Among its findings: About a third of alleged sexual abuse involves minors under 18. Assistance to victims is "severely deficient." The average investigation by OIOS, which says it prioritizes cases involving minors or rape, takes more than a year.
And widespread confusion remains on the ground about consensual sex and exploitation. To help demonstrate that, investigators headed to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
A year ago, the report says, investigators interviewed 231 people in Haiti who said they'd had transactional sexual relationships with U.N. peacekeepers. "For rural women, hunger, lack of shelter, baby care items, medication and household items were frequently cited as the `triggering need,'" the report says. Urban and suburban women received "church shoes,' cell phones, laptops and perfume, as well as money.
"In cases of non-payment, some women withheld the badges of peacekeepers and threatened to reveal their infidelity via social media," the report says. "Only seven interviewees knew about the United Nations policy prohibiting sexual exploitation and abuse." None knew about the mission's hotline to report it.
Each of those instances of transactional sex, the report says, would be considered prohibited conduct, "thus demonstrating significant underreporting." It was not clear how many peacekeepers were involved.
Read more:http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_UNITED_NATIONS_PEACEKEEPERS_SEXUAL_EXPLOITATION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
June 10, 2015
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/federal-court-texas-law-will-close-majority-abortion-clinics
__________________
And that's not an undue burden????
The Nation's Most Conservative Court Just Shut Down Two-Thirds of Texas Abortion Clinics
The Nation's Most Conservative Court Just Shut Down Two-Thirds of Texas Abortion ClinicsFederal judges upheld a sweeping anti-abortion law on Tuesday in a decision that will shutter most abortion clinics in Texas.
The ruling held that the law, HB 2, which requires abortion facilities to comply with hospital-like standards, does not pose an undue burden for the majority of women seeking abortion in Texas, millions of whom will now have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion.
The law calls for clinics to follow the state's rules for ambulatory surgical centers, facilities that are very costly to operate. In 2013, Planned Parenthood opened a brand-new ASC in Forth Worth at a cost of $6.5 million. Only seven abortion clinics in Texas comply with ASC standards; 13 other clinics face imminent closure.
Whole Woman's Health, the plaintiff in the case, vowed to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court and to ask the justices to put the ruling on hold immediately. Unless the Supreme Court steps in, the clinics will be forced to close in 22 days. The case, if it goes before the high court, could result in a definitive ruling on when an abortion restriction is too restrictive and constitutes an "undue burden."
"Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale," said Nancy Northrup, the CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Whole Woman's Health in the lawsuit.
The ruling is a broad victory for Texas on what most consider the most restrictive abortion law in the country: Other provisions of HB 2, which were not a part of Tuesday's ruling, have already closed more than 20 abortion providers across the state. Judges were drawn from the most conservative appeals court in the country, US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio are the only cities which have abortion clinics that comply with the ASC standards If the decision goes into effect, more than 1.3 million women of reproductive age in Texas will live 100 miles or more from the nearest abortion clinic. Three-quarters of a million women will live 200 miles away or more. The westernmost clinic in Texas will be located San Antonio, leaving a swath of Texas 550 miles wide without an abortion provider. El Paso, at the western tip of the state, will become the largest US city without an abortion provider.
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/federal-court-texas-law-will-close-majority-abortion-clinics
__________________
And that's not an undue burden????
June 10, 2015
A Georgia woman who told doctors she took medication to self-induce an abortion was arrested and charged with malice murder, a felony that carries a possible life sentence.
According to a report from local station WALB, Kenlissa Jones, a 23-year-old mother to a toddler, is alleged to have purchased Cytotec from a retailer in Canada. Jones’ brother told WALB that she went to the hospital because she “was in a world of hurt” after taking the drug. The WALB report indicated that the fetus, estimated at just over five months gestation, was delivered en route to the hospital and died 30 minutes later.
In addition to the malice murder charge, Jones faces charges for possession of the drug she used to self-induce. Cytotec is the brand name of the drug misoprostol, used in the United States and elsewhere in combination with mifepristone in non-surgical abortion. Jones is alleged to have obtained the drugs through a Canadian retailer, but these drugs are also legally dispensed by clinics. Providers can safely dispense these medications through telemedicine, but the practice has become a target for lawmakers in states hostile to abortion rights.
A 2011 study that tracked nearly 800 patients in Iowa found that medication abortion was effective in 99 percent of telemedicine patients. There was also no difference in rates of complication, which are less than 1 percent, for telemedicine patients versus patients who had face to face counseling with a physician.
Jones’ arrest comes two months after Purvi Patel was sentenced to 30 years under Indiana’s feticide law. Patel was arrested after she sought medical attention for hemorrhaging and a doctor saw that she had a protruding umbilical cord. That doctor, as Irin Carmon at MSNBC reported, is member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Patel maintained throughout the trial that she had miscarried and that the pregnancy had ended in stillbirth, but prosecutors used emails showing that Patel had ordered an abortion-inducing drug and texts alluding to taking them to convict her of feticide. (A toxicology report showed no traces of the drug in Patel’s system.)
Patel’s case marked the first time a woman was successfully convicted and sentenced under a feticide law, but she is not the first woman to face arrest, detention and incarceration for terminating or losing a pregnancy. In 2011, Bei Bei Shuai, also in Indiana, was charged with feticide after attempting suicide while 8 months pregnant. Shuai survived but lost the pregnancy. Shuai was incarcerated for a year before ultimately pleading to a lesser charge.
In 2010, Christine Taylor, an Iowa mother of two, sought medical care after she fell down a flight of stairs. She did not lose the pregnancy, but was charged with attempted feticide after expressing distress about an argument with her estranged husband and uncertainty about the pregnancy to the nurse charged with her care. In 2004, a Utah woman experienced a stillbirth of one of her twins and was arrested and charged with criminal homicide after the state alleged that her decision to delay her cesarean was the cause of the stillbirth.
In each of these cases, arrest was triggered after the women sought medical attention. As states escalate efforts to restrict abortion and cut funding for family planning and other programs, women who miscarry or self-induce and fear complications are left in an untenable situation: seek medical care and face arrest or avoid treatment and risk injury or death.
“The issue here is not only access to healthcare when you need it beforehand, but also access to healthcare afterward,” Elizabeth Nash, senior state issues associate with the Guttmacher Institute, told Salon. “The idea of arresting a woman seeking medical care goes against the basic principles of medical treatment.”
Read more: http://www.salon.com/2015/06/09/none_of_this_serves_a_public_health_need_america_is_criminalizing_women_for_seeking_medical_treatment/
America’s criminalization of women continues: Woman charged with murder after self-induced abortion
America’s criminalization of women continues: Woman charged with murder after self-induced abortionA Georgia woman who told doctors she took medication to self-induce an abortion was arrested and charged with malice murder, a felony that carries a possible life sentence.
According to a report from local station WALB, Kenlissa Jones, a 23-year-old mother to a toddler, is alleged to have purchased Cytotec from a retailer in Canada. Jones’ brother told WALB that she went to the hospital because she “was in a world of hurt” after taking the drug. The WALB report indicated that the fetus, estimated at just over five months gestation, was delivered en route to the hospital and died 30 minutes later.
In addition to the malice murder charge, Jones faces charges for possession of the drug she used to self-induce. Cytotec is the brand name of the drug misoprostol, used in the United States and elsewhere in combination with mifepristone in non-surgical abortion. Jones is alleged to have obtained the drugs through a Canadian retailer, but these drugs are also legally dispensed by clinics. Providers can safely dispense these medications through telemedicine, but the practice has become a target for lawmakers in states hostile to abortion rights.
A 2011 study that tracked nearly 800 patients in Iowa found that medication abortion was effective in 99 percent of telemedicine patients. There was also no difference in rates of complication, which are less than 1 percent, for telemedicine patients versus patients who had face to face counseling with a physician.
Jones’ arrest comes two months after Purvi Patel was sentenced to 30 years under Indiana’s feticide law. Patel was arrested after she sought medical attention for hemorrhaging and a doctor saw that she had a protruding umbilical cord. That doctor, as Irin Carmon at MSNBC reported, is member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Patel maintained throughout the trial that she had miscarried and that the pregnancy had ended in stillbirth, but prosecutors used emails showing that Patel had ordered an abortion-inducing drug and texts alluding to taking them to convict her of feticide. (A toxicology report showed no traces of the drug in Patel’s system.)
Patel’s case marked the first time a woman was successfully convicted and sentenced under a feticide law, but she is not the first woman to face arrest, detention and incarceration for terminating or losing a pregnancy. In 2011, Bei Bei Shuai, also in Indiana, was charged with feticide after attempting suicide while 8 months pregnant. Shuai survived but lost the pregnancy. Shuai was incarcerated for a year before ultimately pleading to a lesser charge.
In 2010, Christine Taylor, an Iowa mother of two, sought medical care after she fell down a flight of stairs. She did not lose the pregnancy, but was charged with attempted feticide after expressing distress about an argument with her estranged husband and uncertainty about the pregnancy to the nurse charged with her care. In 2004, a Utah woman experienced a stillbirth of one of her twins and was arrested and charged with criminal homicide after the state alleged that her decision to delay her cesarean was the cause of the stillbirth.
In each of these cases, arrest was triggered after the women sought medical attention. As states escalate efforts to restrict abortion and cut funding for family planning and other programs, women who miscarry or self-induce and fear complications are left in an untenable situation: seek medical care and face arrest or avoid treatment and risk injury or death.
“The issue here is not only access to healthcare when you need it beforehand, but also access to healthcare afterward,” Elizabeth Nash, senior state issues associate with the Guttmacher Institute, told Salon. “The idea of arresting a woman seeking medical care goes against the basic principles of medical treatment.”
Read more: http://www.salon.com/2015/06/09/none_of_this_serves_a_public_health_need_america_is_criminalizing_women_for_seeking_medical_treatment/
June 10, 2015
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/federal-court-texas-law-will-close-majority-abortion-clinics
__________________
And that's not an undue burden????
The Nation's Most Conservative Court Just Shut Down Two-Thirds of Texas Abortion Clinics
The Nation's Most Conservative Court Just Shut Down Two-Thirds of Texas Abortion ClinicsFederal judges upheld a sweeping anti-abortion law on Tuesday in a decision that will shutter most abortion clinics in Texas.
The ruling held that the law, HB 2, which requires abortion facilities to comply with hospital-like standards, does not pose an undue burden for the majority of women seeking abortion in Texas, millions of whom will now have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion.
The law calls for clinics to follow the state's rules for ambulatory surgical centers, facilities that are very costly to operate. In 2013, Planned Parenthood opened a brand-new ASC in Forth Worth at a cost of $6.5 million. Only seven abortion clinics in Texas comply with ASC standards; 13 other clinics face imminent closure.
Whole Woman's Health, the plaintiff in the case, vowed to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court and to ask the justices to put the ruling on hold immediately. Unless the Supreme Court steps in, the clinics will be forced to close in 22 days. The case, if it goes before the high court, could result in a definitive ruling on when an abortion restriction is too restrictive and constitutes an "undue burden."
"Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale," said Nancy Northrup, the CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Whole Woman's Health in the lawsuit.
The ruling is a broad victory for Texas on what most consider the most restrictive abortion law in the country: Other provisions of HB 2, which were not a part of Tuesday's ruling, have already closed more than 20 abortion providers across the state. Judges were drawn from the most conservative appeals court in the country, US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio are the only cities which have abortion clinics that comply with the ASC standards If the decision goes into effect, more than 1.3 million women of reproductive age in Texas will live 100 miles or more from the nearest abortion clinic. Three-quarters of a million women will live 200 miles away or more. The westernmost clinic in Texas will be located San Antonio, leaving a swath of Texas 550 miles wide without an abortion provider. El Paso, at the western tip of the state, will become the largest US city without an abortion provider.
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/federal-court-texas-law-will-close-majority-abortion-clinics
__________________
And that's not an undue burden????
June 6, 2015
Red more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/06/05/wisconsin_doing_its_best_to_give_men_ownership_over_women_s_bodies.html
Which State Was the Worst for Women This Week?
Which State Was the Worst for Women This Week?The state legislative season is beginning to wind down, so it's time to squeeze in some last-minute attacks on women's access to health care. Last week's Worst State of the Week honors were handed out on grounds of sheer weirdness, but this round is defined mostly by mean-spiritedness.
Third place goes to North Carolina, where the state Senate passed a bill that would expand the abortion waiting period from 24 hours to 72 hours, because lately women have become even more slow-witted and need yet more time to think over their decisions. This move isn't just about hassling women and their doctors, however. State legislators are also screwing over Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who won his swing state in 2012 by promising not to sign more abortion restrictions; McCrory has been dodging and weaving when reporters ask if he plans to sign this bill. You'd think McCrory's Republican colleagues would avoid putting him in this no-win situation, but apparently forcing women to stay pregnant 72 hours longer than they'd otherwise choose was just that important.
Second place goes to last week's winner and perennial contender Texas, for its devotion to expanding anti-woman attacks past mere abortion restrictions. Now it's cancer screening for women that's on the chopping block, as state lawmakers there cut Planned Parenthood from the breast and cervical cancer screening program that provides free cancer screening to uninsured, low-income women. Planned Parenthood handles about 10 percent of women who get screened through the program.
The excuse for this is “abortion,” of course. “Texans have made it abundantly clear that they do not want their tax dollars flowing to abortion providers and their affiliates,” Texas Sen. Jane Nelson explained. Of course, the money is actually flowing through Planned Parenthood—which is a nonprofit—to women who are benefiting from the free screenings. But that's anti-choice logic for you: It can't stop Planned Parenthood from providing abortions, so it's going to take away your cancer screenings instead.
This week's winner is Wisconsin, where anti-choice legislators showed their true colors by drafting a bill that will allow men to sue doctors who provide abortions to women they've impregnated. As Laura Bassett of the Huffington Post explains, it's a provision tucked away in a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks. On top of the outright ban, the bill allows “father of the aborted unborn child” to sue the doctor “for personal injury and emotional and psychological distress.” This is even if the woman who had the abortion is fine with her decision. (Women are also allowed to sue, but the larger concern is controlling, abusive men trying to create problems for their exes.) Guess Wisconsin legislators really needed to let the world know that impregnating women should give men ownership over their bodies.
Third place goes to North Carolina, where the state Senate passed a bill that would expand the abortion waiting period from 24 hours to 72 hours, because lately women have become even more slow-witted and need yet more time to think over their decisions. This move isn't just about hassling women and their doctors, however. State legislators are also screwing over Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, who won his swing state in 2012 by promising not to sign more abortion restrictions; McCrory has been dodging and weaving when reporters ask if he plans to sign this bill. You'd think McCrory's Republican colleagues would avoid putting him in this no-win situation, but apparently forcing women to stay pregnant 72 hours longer than they'd otherwise choose was just that important.
Second place goes to last week's winner and perennial contender Texas, for its devotion to expanding anti-woman attacks past mere abortion restrictions. Now it's cancer screening for women that's on the chopping block, as state lawmakers there cut Planned Parenthood from the breast and cervical cancer screening program that provides free cancer screening to uninsured, low-income women. Planned Parenthood handles about 10 percent of women who get screened through the program.
The excuse for this is “abortion,” of course. “Texans have made it abundantly clear that they do not want their tax dollars flowing to abortion providers and their affiliates,” Texas Sen. Jane Nelson explained. Of course, the money is actually flowing through Planned Parenthood—which is a nonprofit—to women who are benefiting from the free screenings. But that's anti-choice logic for you: It can't stop Planned Parenthood from providing abortions, so it's going to take away your cancer screenings instead.
This week's winner is Wisconsin, where anti-choice legislators showed their true colors by drafting a bill that will allow men to sue doctors who provide abortions to women they've impregnated. As Laura Bassett of the Huffington Post explains, it's a provision tucked away in a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks. On top of the outright ban, the bill allows “father of the aborted unborn child” to sue the doctor “for personal injury and emotional and psychological distress.” This is even if the woman who had the abortion is fine with her decision. (Women are also allowed to sue, but the larger concern is controlling, abusive men trying to create problems for their exes.) Guess Wisconsin legislators really needed to let the world know that impregnating women should give men ownership over their bodies.
Red more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/06/05/wisconsin_doing_its_best_to_give_men_ownership_over_women_s_bodies.html
June 6, 2015
Jennie Linn McCormack had just finished doing laundry and putting her 2-year-old son to bed when she heard a knock one evening in May 2011. McCormack, a single mother of three living off child support checks, opened the door to find a police officer. He was there to arrest her. The officer explained that McCormack had committed a serious felony under Idaho law—by giving herself an abortion. He proceeded to barrage her with invasive questions about her body and her ex-boyfriend.
“How can you question me about my personal stuff?” McCormack demanded, according to an NPR report.
“Well,” the officer apparently responded, “there’s legal and there’s personal.” The state charged McCormack with intentionally self-terminating her pregnancy, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
After several humiliating hearings, McCormack and her attorney defeated the charge. McCormack actually had given herself an abortion in late 2010, mostly out of desperation: There were no abortion clinics anywhere in southeast Idaho, and an abortion in Salt Lake City, 138 miles away, could cost $2,000. So McCormack procured abortion pills online and took five. She hadn’t realized that her fetus was between 19 and 23 weeks old—and that she was much too far along in her pregnancy to have a safe nonsurgical abortion. McCormack told her friend about the abortion. The friend told her sister—and her sister told the police, who found the fetus wrapped in bags on McCormack’s back porch.
After a judge dismissed the case against her for lack of evidence, McCormack was legally off the hook. But she was also furious: furious that Idaho had intruded so deeply into her private life, furious that its strict abortion laws had driven her to such desperate extremes, furious that other women in her situation might be forced to undergo unsafe abortions at their own hands. So McCormack and her lawyer—who happened to also be a doctor—brought a class action in federal court, seeking to have a slew of Idaho’s draconian anti-abortion laws struck down as unconstitutional.
On May 29, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted McCormack’s wish. It affirmed a lower court’s invalidation of the self-induced abortion statute, as well as three other laws: one that barred abortions of fetuses at 20 weeks postfertilization, one that required all second-trimester abortions to occur in hospitals, and one that placed onerous burdens on clinics in the form of safety regulations. The litigation may not be over: Idaho can ask a bigger panel of 9th Circuit judges to rehear the case or appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. Still, as states like Wisconsin move closer to enacting shockingly stringent abortion laws, the decision is a powerful affirmation of constitutional autonomy in an age when that value is in short supply.
You might not guess it from the recent rash of insane restrictions, but abortion is still constitutionally protected throughout the United States. In 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court held that a state cannot impose an “undue burden” on a woman seeking to obtain an abortion before fetal viability. Under Casey, a state can attempt to persuade a women to keep her fetus but cannot flatly bar her from aborting it. The ability to retain ultimate control over one’s reproductive capacities, the court held, involves “choices central to personal dignity and autonomy” that “are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The 9th Circuit found Idaho’s abortion laws to be unconstitutional by doing what other federal courts have refused to do: taking Casey seriously. A categorical 20-week abortion ban, the court explained, would necessarily bar some previability abortions, since fetuses gestate at different rates. Prohibiting a woman at 20 weeks postfertilization from obtaining an abortion—even if her fetus is not yet viable—is a quintessential “undue burden” prohibited by the Supreme Court. Similarly, a related law that requires all second-trimester abortions to occur in hospitals simply has no basis in medical necessity.
Finally, the law burdening abortion clinics with intricate regulations, the court explained, was unconstitutionally vague: It required clinics to meet certain criteria (like being “properly staffed”) without explaining what those criteria actually meant. The law seemed designed to frustrate and terrify clinics, not keep them safe.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/06/jennie_linn_mccormack_case_court_strikes_down_idaho_s_abortion_laws.html
A Quiet Victory
A Quiet VictoryJennie Linn McCormack had just finished doing laundry and putting her 2-year-old son to bed when she heard a knock one evening in May 2011. McCormack, a single mother of three living off child support checks, opened the door to find a police officer. He was there to arrest her. The officer explained that McCormack had committed a serious felony under Idaho law—by giving herself an abortion. He proceeded to barrage her with invasive questions about her body and her ex-boyfriend.
“How can you question me about my personal stuff?” McCormack demanded, according to an NPR report.
“Well,” the officer apparently responded, “there’s legal and there’s personal.” The state charged McCormack with intentionally self-terminating her pregnancy, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
After several humiliating hearings, McCormack and her attorney defeated the charge. McCormack actually had given herself an abortion in late 2010, mostly out of desperation: There were no abortion clinics anywhere in southeast Idaho, and an abortion in Salt Lake City, 138 miles away, could cost $2,000. So McCormack procured abortion pills online and took five. She hadn’t realized that her fetus was between 19 and 23 weeks old—and that she was much too far along in her pregnancy to have a safe nonsurgical abortion. McCormack told her friend about the abortion. The friend told her sister—and her sister told the police, who found the fetus wrapped in bags on McCormack’s back porch.
After a judge dismissed the case against her for lack of evidence, McCormack was legally off the hook. But she was also furious: furious that Idaho had intruded so deeply into her private life, furious that its strict abortion laws had driven her to such desperate extremes, furious that other women in her situation might be forced to undergo unsafe abortions at their own hands. So McCormack and her lawyer—who happened to also be a doctor—brought a class action in federal court, seeking to have a slew of Idaho’s draconian anti-abortion laws struck down as unconstitutional.
On May 29, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted McCormack’s wish. It affirmed a lower court’s invalidation of the self-induced abortion statute, as well as three other laws: one that barred abortions of fetuses at 20 weeks postfertilization, one that required all second-trimester abortions to occur in hospitals, and one that placed onerous burdens on clinics in the form of safety regulations. The litigation may not be over: Idaho can ask a bigger panel of 9th Circuit judges to rehear the case or appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. Still, as states like Wisconsin move closer to enacting shockingly stringent abortion laws, the decision is a powerful affirmation of constitutional autonomy in an age when that value is in short supply.
You might not guess it from the recent rash of insane restrictions, but abortion is still constitutionally protected throughout the United States. In 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court held that a state cannot impose an “undue burden” on a woman seeking to obtain an abortion before fetal viability. Under Casey, a state can attempt to persuade a women to keep her fetus but cannot flatly bar her from aborting it. The ability to retain ultimate control over one’s reproductive capacities, the court held, involves “choices central to personal dignity and autonomy” that “are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The 9th Circuit found Idaho’s abortion laws to be unconstitutional by doing what other federal courts have refused to do: taking Casey seriously. A categorical 20-week abortion ban, the court explained, would necessarily bar some previability abortions, since fetuses gestate at different rates. Prohibiting a woman at 20 weeks postfertilization from obtaining an abortion—even if her fetus is not yet viable—is a quintessential “undue burden” prohibited by the Supreme Court. Similarly, a related law that requires all second-trimester abortions to occur in hospitals simply has no basis in medical necessity.
Finally, the law burdening abortion clinics with intricate regulations, the court explained, was unconstitutionally vague: It required clinics to meet certain criteria (like being “properly staffed”) without explaining what those criteria actually meant. The law seemed designed to frustrate and terrify clinics, not keep them safe.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/06/jennie_linn_mccormack_case_court_strikes_down_idaho_s_abortion_laws.html
June 6, 2015
Even allies oversimplify by reducing the debate to “abortion on demand, without apology” vs. "safe, legal & rare"
<snip>
Even our allies are torn. On the one hand we have “abortion on demand and without apology” and on the other we have “safe, legal and rare”—the sense that every abortion is a tragedy. These positions are oversimplified, and they miss the point. Some women are single-minded and clear about what they want, and they just need their self-determination respected. On the other side of the spectrum are women who are deeply troubled and struggling with what to do about their pregnancy.
What abortion providers bring to the political conversation is a recognition of this spectrum and an honoring of the fact that the issue is not abortion so much as it is the reality of women’s lives: What kind of insanity permits the same people who want no access to abortion or birth control to also gut every program to support families, to care for children, to make sure no one goes to bed hungry? How can this level of hypocrisy be permitted? This I still don’t understand.
<snip>
If a counselor was working with a woman and had a sense that she was not prepared for an abortion that day, we invited her into a process. We never said you are not ready for an abortion, because that is a judgment. We said, from the conversation, we are not prepared to provide you with an abortion today.
This was quite a process. We used a triage form designed to help identify which women were clear and confident about their choices and which women had significant choices that they needed to work through as part of coming to a sense of resolution.
By sense of resolution, I mean that her heart breaks open wide enough to accept those contradictions that I was talking about. I mean that she can forgive herself for being human; that she can on most days remember her goodness and courage; that she can stand the days that she might feel guilty or bad; and that she will understand in her gut the complexity of her choice to not bring new life into the world and in fact to end life. This is controversial even within the pro-choice movement because we don’t know how to talk about the life and death part of abortion.
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/05/i_wish_that_we_talked_about_choices_instead_of_choice_a_texas_abortion_counselor_on_how_to_change_the_conversation_about_abortion/
“I wish we talked about ‘choices’ instead of ‘choice’”
“I wish we talked about ‘choices’ instead of ‘choice’”: A Texas abortion counselor on how to change the conversation about abortionEven allies oversimplify by reducing the debate to “abortion on demand, without apology” vs. "safe, legal & rare"
<snip>
Even our allies are torn. On the one hand we have “abortion on demand and without apology” and on the other we have “safe, legal and rare”—the sense that every abortion is a tragedy. These positions are oversimplified, and they miss the point. Some women are single-minded and clear about what they want, and they just need their self-determination respected. On the other side of the spectrum are women who are deeply troubled and struggling with what to do about their pregnancy.
What abortion providers bring to the political conversation is a recognition of this spectrum and an honoring of the fact that the issue is not abortion so much as it is the reality of women’s lives: What kind of insanity permits the same people who want no access to abortion or birth control to also gut every program to support families, to care for children, to make sure no one goes to bed hungry? How can this level of hypocrisy be permitted? This I still don’t understand.
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If a counselor was working with a woman and had a sense that she was not prepared for an abortion that day, we invited her into a process. We never said you are not ready for an abortion, because that is a judgment. We said, from the conversation, we are not prepared to provide you with an abortion today.
This was quite a process. We used a triage form designed to help identify which women were clear and confident about their choices and which women had significant choices that they needed to work through as part of coming to a sense of resolution.
By sense of resolution, I mean that her heart breaks open wide enough to accept those contradictions that I was talking about. I mean that she can forgive herself for being human; that she can on most days remember her goodness and courage; that she can stand the days that she might feel guilty or bad; and that she will understand in her gut the complexity of her choice to not bring new life into the world and in fact to end life. This is controversial even within the pro-choice movement because we don’t know how to talk about the life and death part of abortion.
http://www.salon.com/2015/06/05/i_wish_that_we_talked_about_choices_instead_of_choice_a_texas_abortion_counselor_on_how_to_change_the_conversation_about_abortion/
June 6, 2015
When it comes to reproductive rights, this legislative session has been characterized by first-of-their-kind laws intended to test the limits of Roe v. Wade. Bolstered by significant GOP gains in the 2014 midterm elections, state lawmakers have forged ahead into new territory, enacting policies that seek to limit access to abortion in innovative ways.
This week, however, doctors are fighting back. Abortion providers in two different states have filed suit against new laws that they say are based in scientific misinformation, and that ultimately force them to violate their best medical judgment when they’re treating their patients.
In Arizona, for example, several health care providers are challenging a law that requires doctors to mislead their patients by telling them their abortion can be reversed — pointing out the state shouldn’t be allowed to put words in doctors’ mouths.
Though there’s no credible scientific evidence to back up the notion of “abortion pill reversal,” it’s become a popular talking point among abortion opponents, who claim that some women change their minds in the middle of the two-part process to terminate a first-trimester pregnancy with medication. This spring, Arizona and Arkansas became the first states in the nation to force doctors to give this information to women seeking abortions. Members of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) have referred to the new laws as “tantamount to quackery.”
So now, doctors are arguing the law should be struck down because it violates their First Amendment rights. “Plain and simple, this law would force doctors to lie to women about their health care options, and that is never acceptable,” Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which frequently litigates against anti-abortion laws, said in a statement announcing the legal challenge.
Meanwhile, in Kansas, a father-daughter team of certified OB-GYNs are suing over a new law that bans a common method of second-trimester abortion, arguing it infringes on patients’ right to bodily integrity by prohibiting their doctors from offering them the safest abortion care.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/06/04/3666144/doctors-challenge-abortion-laws/
Doctors Challenge Unscientific Abortion Laws That Force Them To Practice Bad Medicine
Doctors Challenge Unscientific Abortion Laws That Force Them To Practice Bad MedicineWhen it comes to reproductive rights, this legislative session has been characterized by first-of-their-kind laws intended to test the limits of Roe v. Wade. Bolstered by significant GOP gains in the 2014 midterm elections, state lawmakers have forged ahead into new territory, enacting policies that seek to limit access to abortion in innovative ways.
This week, however, doctors are fighting back. Abortion providers in two different states have filed suit against new laws that they say are based in scientific misinformation, and that ultimately force them to violate their best medical judgment when they’re treating their patients.
In Arizona, for example, several health care providers are challenging a law that requires doctors to mislead their patients by telling them their abortion can be reversed — pointing out the state shouldn’t be allowed to put words in doctors’ mouths.
Though there’s no credible scientific evidence to back up the notion of “abortion pill reversal,” it’s become a popular talking point among abortion opponents, who claim that some women change their minds in the middle of the two-part process to terminate a first-trimester pregnancy with medication. This spring, Arizona and Arkansas became the first states in the nation to force doctors to give this information to women seeking abortions. Members of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) have referred to the new laws as “tantamount to quackery.”
So now, doctors are arguing the law should be struck down because it violates their First Amendment rights. “Plain and simple, this law would force doctors to lie to women about their health care options, and that is never acceptable,” Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which frequently litigates against anti-abortion laws, said in a statement announcing the legal challenge.
Meanwhile, in Kansas, a father-daughter team of certified OB-GYNs are suing over a new law that bans a common method of second-trimester abortion, arguing it infringes on patients’ right to bodily integrity by prohibiting their doctors from offering them the safest abortion care.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/06/04/3666144/doctors-challenge-abortion-laws/
June 5, 2015
WASHINGTON — A dozen religious leaders called on President Barack Obama on Thursday to make it easier for rape survivors in foreign countries to access safe abortion care.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) wants “swift executive action” on expanding the Obama Administration’s interpretation of the Helms Amendment, which applies to foreign aid. The 1973 regulation prohibits federal funding from paying for abortion “as a method of family planning” or from encouraging anyone to seek an abortion.
“In cases of rape or incest, or when a woman’s life is at risk, abortion is clearly not family planning,” Rev. Harry Knox, president of the RCRC, said at a press conference Thursday morning.
The amendment has long been interpreted as a ban on U.S. support for any abortion services in programs it funds overseas. The coalition says that interpretation is overly strict.
“We are here today to not only say that this interpretation is wrong; it is morally bankrupt,” Knox said. “Obama talked about showing compassion… but he has failed to act with compassion.”
Knox’s group — which includes Catholics, Muslims, Jews and other Christian denominations — released a resolution it said that it would also deliver to the White House’s Council on Women and Girls in a Thursday afternoon meeting. The resolution called abortion a “vital component of the standard of care and compassion” for female rape survivors and labeled safe abortion as a key component of women’s health and rights.
At a press conference, the coalition specifically mentioned women and girls kidnapped and raped by Boko Haram, the terrorist group active in northern Nigeria, and ISIS, whose trafficking and rapes of Yazidi women from northern Iraq have been well-documented.
The first results from a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) multi-year global survey on violence against children, published today, offer a quantitative look at the problem of sexual violence. The CDC found that nearly 1 in 4 girls in the eight countries surveyed experienced sexual violence before turning 18.
Approximately 10% of girls in the seven of the survey countries had experienced forced sex, which can but does not always include rape (some countries’ definitions of rape are narrower than others).
Five of the seven countries whose results were released today are in sub-Saharan Africa, where rape as a weapon of war has received special attention in recent years.
Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jinamoore/religious-leaders-ask-obama-to-loosen-abortion-restrictions#.htY2eOdm0j
Religious Leaders Ask Obama To Loosen Abortion Restrictions Abroad
Religious Leaders Ask Obama To Loosen Abortion Restrictions AbroadWASHINGTON — A dozen religious leaders called on President Barack Obama on Thursday to make it easier for rape survivors in foreign countries to access safe abortion care.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) wants “swift executive action” on expanding the Obama Administration’s interpretation of the Helms Amendment, which applies to foreign aid. The 1973 regulation prohibits federal funding from paying for abortion “as a method of family planning” or from encouraging anyone to seek an abortion.
“In cases of rape or incest, or when a woman’s life is at risk, abortion is clearly not family planning,” Rev. Harry Knox, president of the RCRC, said at a press conference Thursday morning.
The amendment has long been interpreted as a ban on U.S. support for any abortion services in programs it funds overseas. The coalition says that interpretation is overly strict.
“We are here today to not only say that this interpretation is wrong; it is morally bankrupt,” Knox said. “Obama talked about showing compassion… but he has failed to act with compassion.”
Knox’s group — which includes Catholics, Muslims, Jews and other Christian denominations — released a resolution it said that it would also deliver to the White House’s Council on Women and Girls in a Thursday afternoon meeting. The resolution called abortion a “vital component of the standard of care and compassion” for female rape survivors and labeled safe abortion as a key component of women’s health and rights.
At a press conference, the coalition specifically mentioned women and girls kidnapped and raped by Boko Haram, the terrorist group active in northern Nigeria, and ISIS, whose trafficking and rapes of Yazidi women from northern Iraq have been well-documented.
The first results from a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) multi-year global survey on violence against children, published today, offer a quantitative look at the problem of sexual violence. The CDC found that nearly 1 in 4 girls in the eight countries surveyed experienced sexual violence before turning 18.
Approximately 10% of girls in the seven of the survey countries had experienced forced sex, which can but does not always include rape (some countries’ definitions of rape are narrower than others).
Five of the seven countries whose results were released today are in sub-Saharan Africa, where rape as a weapon of war has received special attention in recent years.
Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jinamoore/religious-leaders-ask-obama-to-loosen-abortion-restrictions#.htY2eOdm0j
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