1). “There's No Such Thing as 'Pro-Life' Feminism”, Dec 17, 2024, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
2). “Texas is Coming for New York Abortion Providers”, Dec 13, 2024, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
3). “The Truce Over Interstate Abortion Fights Is About to Come to a Bitter End”, Dec 09, 2024, Mary Ziegler, Slate, at < https://slate.com/news-and-
4). “Idaho Argues Pregnant Women Facing Amputations from Septic Shock Can’t Get Emergency Abortions: There was another hearing in the EMTALA case from the summer, but hanging over the proceedings was the fact that Donald Trump is expected to drop the lawsuit against Idaho and let this suffering spread”, Dec 11, 2024, Susan Rinkunas, Jezebel, at < https://www.jezebel.com/idaho-
5). “Pregnancy Is Not a Benign Event: What a Texas woman's quadruple amputations tell us about giving birth in the United States—forced or not”, Mar 20, 2023, Susan Rinkunas, Jezebel, at < https://www.jezebel.com/
6). “Democrats push to protect the data privacy of people seeking abortions: In Congress, Sen. Elizabeth Warren plans to reintroduce legislation to ban data brokers from selling consumers’ health and location data. A similar effort is underway in Michigan”, Dec 10, 2024, Grace Panetta, The 19th, at < https://19thnews.org/2024/12/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: The forces of reaction and harsh social control want to unleash their increased political power now that the evil Trump has reassumed the throne. The fact that their agenda will cause a major increase in totally unneccesary suffering is irrelevant to them. Maternal and infant mortality rates had already begun to increase markedly even before the Texas Vigilante/Bounty Hunter law passed and then the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Certainly at least 1,000 Amercan Women were tortured and murdered, in the period between the Dobbs Decision and today, by the medieval policies brought into effecte by the Trump Abortion Bans that passed in over 20 states. We will never see photos of Catholic Priests or Evangelical Anti-abortion operatives wearing leather aprons and wielding implements of torture, but they planned to implement this legal agenda knowing full well that thousands of women would suffer horrible torments and either die or be horribly maimed by the changes in Abortion access and Reproductive Freedom that would result. They planned these horrors decades ago, talk about premeditation!!
In Item 1)., “There's No Such Thing ….” Jessica discusses the prospect of new types of disinformation to expect from the Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth operations. She discussed the work of Heather Higgins (a forced-pregnancy / forced-birth PR flack, noting that:
“It’s JD Vance, though, that Higgins points to as the perfect messenger for Republicans’ new and improved abortion rhetoric. In fact, she even lays out exactly what Vance said during the vice presidential debate that the GOP should treat as their talking point gospel:
Vance never used the terms ‘pro-life’, ‘ban,’ or talked about 'killing babies.'
He 'reassur[ed] women' that Republicans don’t want 'to make every state look like Alabama.'
'He began with empathy, not politics or policy, telling the story of a woman he loves who had an abortion that she felt saved her life.'
Vance 'used the high-ground, pro-woman argument: we need to give women control (affordability, family planning/contraception/
fertility treatments)' and 'reclaim[ed] freedom and talked about childcare and fertility.'
“In other words, she wants Republicans to sound pro-choice. Otherwise known as lying. This is exactly what I’ve been warning about for months: That conservatives’ abortion messaging strategy for the new administration would focus on pretending to be as pro-choice as possible.” (Italicized Emphasis Added)
And be sure to go to the Tik Tok video in which Jessica discusses the sneaky media operations going on, specifically Peter Thiel (notorious Ultra-Zionist and
Along with other useful discussions by Valenti in Item 2)., “Texas is Coming for New York ….”, takes on the recent filing against a New York physician, who prescribes and sends Mifepristone and Misopristol to women in Trump Abortion Ban Red States including Texas, by Arch reactionary Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (a proven fraudster and flim flam operator who actually belongs in prison). In the article Valenti reports that:
“Conservatives are furious that women have been able to get around their bans, and AGs like Paxton are eager to go after the providers and abortion funds who help them.
“In this case, Paxton is suing Dr. Margaret (Maggie) Carpenter, founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT) and a provider with Aid Access. He’s seeking civil penalties of 'no less than $100,000 for each violation of the law.'
(Let's note that In the dispute used as the basis for the filing by Paxton and his cronies). “In other words: when confronted with information about his girlfriend losing a pregnancy, this man was pissed that she hadn’t told him and immediately suspected that she had an abortion. Then he goes back to snoop at her house and finds the medication. Presumably, he then went to some shitty anti-abortion group or lawyer who took the case to Paxton. Remember, I’ve been warning that Texas Right to Life and folks like Jonathan Mitchell have been scouring the state for a man aggrieved over a girlfriend or ex-wife’s abortion. (Emphasis Added)
“As is often the case, these are the absolute worst kind of men: controllers and abusers who want to punish women for doing something they didn’t like. There may be no worse kind of abuser than Paxton himself, who claims in his statement to 'treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies,' yet has threatened hospitals out of providing care to women with nonviable pregnancies.
“Abortion, Every Day’s sources in Texas say that they believe this suit is a precursor for more to come—and possibly even state RICO charges. (Laws meant to go after organized crime.)”
In Item 3)., “The Truce Over Interstate Abortion Fights ….”, noted expert Mary Ziegler points out that the battles will cover considerable political and socioeconomic ground:
“It is still early to know what abortion opponents will prioritize in 2025, but one goal is coming into view: Criminalizing speech and information about abortion. ….
“ …. the fight to undercut reproductive rights will pose new, complicated threats to the freedom of speech in the years to come.
“Examples also abound elsewhere. Texas lawmaker Steve Toth has filed a bill requiring internet service providers to make every 'technologically feasible effort to block Internet access to information or material intended to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug.' Under the proposal, websites and providers who don’t block abortion-related content can be sued for at least $100,000. ….
“Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, legal commentators have been expecting a bitter conflict to break out between ban states and those that protect abortion, especially as jurisdictions like Idaho try to project their power outside of state lines. Since 2023, 23 states and D.C. have enacted shield laws that seek to protect abortion providers, patients, and those who assist them from out-of-state extradition, prosecutions, and lawsuits. But none of these laws have been tested in court. Prosecutors from ban states have yet to target defendants in states where abortion is protected. (Emphasis added)
“Don’t expect that to last long. Some of the quiet we have seen to date may simply have been a function of the 2024 election, with conservatives reluctant to pursue unpopular strategies that might undermine the chances of their favored candidates.”
Item 4)., “Idaho Argues Pregnant Women Facing Amputations ….”, and Item 5)., “Pregnancy Is Not a Benign Event: ...”, both address the question of horrific bodily injuries caused by a lack of timely abortion care or other medical actions needed by pregnant women in distress.
The seriousness of these medical events is shown in Item 5 when Susan Rinkunas wrote:
“Late last week, researchers announced that the already high maternal mortality rate in the U.S. hit its highest level since 1965. The number of people who died during or shortly after pregnancy increased a staggering 40 percent from 2020 to 2021, marking the third year in a row the maternal mortality rate had increased in this country. And that was before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—though abortion was effectively banned in Texas for the last four months of 2021.
“I was already thinking about these dire numbers, and how more forced pregnancies will mean more women dying, when I read the story of Krystina Pacheco, a Texas woman who had her hands and feet amputated due to a life-threatening infection she developed after a C-section.” It is worth noting that the crazed woman hating Texas OBGYN, Dr. Ingrid Skop, who is now a member of the new Medical Review Commission, recommends that all minor abortion type procedures, that were handled by D&Cs for decades should now use the much more invasive C-Sections. The testimony of the attorneys representing the Dark Ages Regime of Idaho are chilling as the arrogant attorney argues that women should lose organs and/or arms and legs while surgeons attempt to save a fetus with no regard for the well-being of the woman involved.
Finally in Item 6)., “Democrats push to protect the data ….”, the article discusses the struggle over data about abortions. This is a complex area, we must remember that several Red States are now working to stop collecting accurate data about maternal deaths and infant deaths in their 21st Century Dark Ages regimes. Michigan and New York are leading the way in state initiatives to protect women's reproductive healthcare and abortion related records.
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https://www.tiktok.com/@auntiekilljoy/video/7442784650554051886
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exas is Coming for New York Abortion Providers
Click to skip ahead: In Attacks on Providers, Texas AG Ken Paxton is suing a New York abortion provider. In the States, news from South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and more. In the Nation, the truth behind the headlines claiming that Trump will protect abortion medication. Listen Up has a podcast from two OBGYNs on abortion rights. In Jessica’s Petty Corner, a short rant about a lab coat. Finally, Keep An Eye On anti-abortion tactics being exported to the UK.
Attacks on Providers
Well, we figured this was coming. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing a New York abortion provider for “unlawfully providing abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents in direct violation of state law.”
As you know, telehealth abortion medication has been a saving grace for patients in states with bans, who are getting pills from doctors in shield states like New York. Conservatives are furious that women have been able to get around their bans, and AGs like Paxton are eager to go after the providers and abortion funds who help them. Like I’ve long said, they’re targeting the helpers.
In this case, Paxton is suing Dr. Margaret (Maggie) Carpenter, founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT) and a provider with Aid Access. He’s seeking civil penalties of “no less than $100,000 for each violation of the law.”
Paxton claims that Carpenter provided abortion medication to a Texas resident “that ended the life of an unborn child and resulted in serious complications for the mother, who then required medical intervention.”
We’ll come back to the claim of “serious complications” momentarily, but first let’s take a look at the legal brief and see what happened. The suit says that a 20 year-old woman got abortion medication from New York and later asked her boyfriend—who didn’t know about the pregnancy—to take her to the hospital for bleeding. (Please note that throughout the brief Paxton refers to this young woman as “the mother,” rather than as a patient, woman, or anything else. Gross.)
At the hospital, doctors told the boyfriend that the woman had lost a nine week pregnancy. From the brief:
“The biological father of the unborn child, upon learning this information, concluded that the biological mother of the unborn child had intentionally withheld information from him regarding her pregnancy, and he further suspected that the biological mother had in fact done something to contribute to the miscarriage or abortion of the unborn child. The biological father, upon returning to the residence in Collin County, discovered the two above-referenced medications from Carpenter.”
In other words: when confronted with information about his girlfriend losing a pregnancy, this man was pissed that she hadn’t told him and immediately suspected that she had an abortion. Then he goes back to snoop at her house and finds the medication. Presumably, he then went to some shitty anti-abortion group or lawyer who took the case to Paxton. Remember, I’ve been warning that Texas Right to Life and folks like Jonathan Mitchell have been scouring the state for a man aggrieved over a girlfriend or ex-wife’s abortion.
As is often the case, these are the absolute worst kind of men: controllers and abusers who want to punish women for doing something they didn’t like. There may be no worse kind of abuser than Paxton himself, who claims in his statement to “treasure the health and lives of mothers and babies,” yet has threatened hospitals out of providing care to women with nonviable pregnancies.
Abortion, Every Day’s sources in Texas say that they believe this suit is a precursor for more to come—and possibly even state RICO charges. (Laws meant to go after organized crime.)
Now let’s go back to the claim that this woman suffered serious harm. Paxton doesn’t include a single bit of evidence that the patient was harmed—just that she was bleeding enough that she wanted to go to the hospital. As you know, it isn’t uncommon for someone to be surprised by the amount of bleeding they have during an abortion and deciding to go to the hospital just to be safe.
Unless there is some other medical issue that’s not reported in the brief (which seems unlikely to me), let’s be clear: visiting an ER is not an abortion ‘complication’, nor does it constitute medical intervention. But as I’ve reported before, Republicans—especially those in Texas—have been trying to change the definition of abortion complications.
I’ll have more for you on this case in the coming days, but in the meantime I’m hoping that Maggie is doing well and is surrounded by support. AED community member and fellow Aid Access provider Linda Prine reminds us that the care Maggie has been giving is legally protected, and that Texas has no jurisdiction over New York. New York Attorney General Letitia James made as much clear in a statement today, saying, “We will always protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them for doing their job and we will never cower in the face of intimidation or threats.”
Prine’s most important reminder, though? “Abortion is a human right.”
In the States
I’m still pissed off about the lack of media coverage for the South Carolina bill that would make abortion punishable by the death penalty. As I wrote earlier this week, this should be front page news; and the silence around the issue is exactly what Republicans are counting on. They want their extremism to be normalized.
That said, you can always count on Alanna Vagianos at HuffPost. She points out that when state Rep. Rob Harris introduced the bill last year, he claimed that the legislation “does not single out women, it prohibits everyone from committing murder.” (Remember, he’s using the language of “equal protection,” which Republicans think will make charging women with murder sound less horrifying.)
As I wrote earlier this week, this bill comes at the same time that Idaho Republicans are fighting in federal court for the right to deny women life-saving abortions, and as politicians are shuttering or tampering with maternal mortality committees.
In more they-don’t-care-if-we-die news, don’t forget that Republicans in Oklahoma are trying to make the state’s strict abortion ban even worse. They want to change the language of the legislation that allows abortion in cases of a “medical emergency” to instead “only preserve the pregnant woman’s life.”
The kicker is this quote from bill sponsor state Rep. Jim Olsen, when presented with the fact that legislation like this makes doctors want to leave Oklahoma: “To be very frank, we don't need doctors that are just intending to kill babies for the convenience of somebody else.” The convenience of somebody else. We’re at the place in this country where women who want to live are just acting out of ‘convenience.’ (This reminds me of a similarly chilling quote from a Fifth Circuit judge.)
Finally, I told you on Wednesday about a new Republican bill in Tennessee that would mandate a person who “mails or delivers” abortion medication into the state be civilly liable for $5 million. Once again, this is about targeting the helpers—the bill is meant to go after blue state providers and abortion funds.
In response to Rep. Gino Bulso’s bill, Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn filed the Reproductive Freedom Act, which guarantees that every person in Tennessee “has a fundamental right to make decisions about the person's reproductive health care,” including the right to abortion and contraception.
Obviously, given the makeup of the Tennessee legislature, this is a symbolic bill. But that’s just fine. Rep. Behn says that the “timing was intentional to draw a contrast to the dystopian future and draconian overreach of Bulso’s bill.”
Quick hits:
The Michigan Senate voted this week to expand insurance coverage for over-the-counter contraception;
An anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center in New Jersey failed to block the state Attorney General’s request for its donor records;
And an Ohio Republican is pushing a bill to claim fetuses as dependents on their taxes—a move more about establishing fetal personhood than helping families.
In the Nation
One of the big headlines today is that Donald Trump supposedly said that he wouldn’t restrict abortion medication. Axios’ headline says “Trump commits to protecting abortion pill access,” while the Washington Examiner writes that “Trump pledges not to ban abortion pills.” You get the gist. But let’s look at what Trump actually said.
When asked in an interview with TIME magazine whether the FDA would restrict access to abortion medication, Trump first says, “we’re going to take a look at all of that.” When the reporter pushed for clarity, here’s what he said next:
“I think it would be highly unlikely. I can't imagine, but with, you know, we're looking at everything, but highly unlikely. I guess I could say probably as close to ruling it out as possible, but I don't want to. I don't want to do anything now. I want to do it at some point.”
So, as was the case in his interview with “Meet the Press” this weekend, Trump avoids promising anything. It’s only when the reporter asks a final time, “Are you committed to making sure that the FDA does not strip their ability to access abortion pills?,” that Trump answers “That would be my commitment.”
Now, all of this is premised on the idea that Trump tells the truth—which is hilariously dubious. But let’s say that despite all the equivocating, that he’s being truthful and that the FDA is not going to “strip [women’s'] ability to access abortion pills.” What does that mean, precisely? That they won’t repeal access entirely?
Right now anti-abortion activists want the FDA to restore pre-2016 rules on mifepristone, which would rollback how far into pregnancy the pills can be used, limit who can prescribe the medication, and restore requirements for in-person visits. My guess is that Trump would have zero problem with that, because he could claim that he’s not erasing access—just making sure the pills are being used “safely.”
And that’s to say nothing of the Comstock Act! Promising that the FDA won’t repeal access to abortion medication doesn’t mean that a Trump DOJ wouldn’t ban the shipping of abortion medication using the zombie law.
All of which is to say: this interview doesn’t mean shit to me, and I wish mainstream outlets would stop taking the bait. Because all this does is give Trump the pro-choice credibility he wants while ignoring all of the various ways that his administration will devastate access to abortion medication—while claiming not to restrit the pills at all!
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The Truce Over Interstate Abortion Fights Is About to Come to a Bitter End
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It is still early to know what abortion opponents will prioritize in 2025, but one goal is coming into view: Criminalizing speech and information about abortion. It may seem that efforts to criminalize speech will be constitutionally dead on arrival. In reality, as a recent decision over an Idaho law by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit shows, the fight to undercut reproductive rights will pose new, complicated threats to the freedom of speech in the years to come.
Examples also abound elsewhere. Texas lawmaker Steve Toth has filed a bill requiring internet service providers to make every “technologically feasible effort to block Internet access to information or material intended to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug.” Under the proposal, websites and providers who don’t block abortion-related content can be sued for at least $100,000. The law would also make it a felony to “knowingly pay for or reimburse … the costs associated with obtaining an elective abortion.” Iowa lawmakers introduced a similar provision and may try again in the new year.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the number of abortions has increased, even in states with bans, with abortion-seekers traveling out of state or getting pills in the mail. Shutting down interstate travel might be unconstitutional and practically impossible. But if patients don’t know how to get abortion pills, or where to travel out of state, the barriers that ban states have erected will be much more effective.
Idaho’s law, like an identical provision on the books in Tennessee, theoretically focuses on minors but has much broader implications. The law makes it a crime for anyone to help a minor within the state access abortion by harboring, transporting, or recruiting them. Idaho attorney Lourdes Matsumoto, together with two advocacy organizations, challenged the constitutionality of the law in 2023. Matsumoto argued that the law was too vague to understand (what does it even mean to “recruit” someone into having an abortion?) and that it violated the First Amendment. A district judge agreed and blocked enforcement of the law, but the 9th Circuit recently reversed course, allowing the harboring and transport provisions to take effect but continuing to block the recruiting provision.
The 9th Circuit’s decision rejected Matsumoto’s claim that the statute wasn’t clear, instead insisting that the recruiting provision of the Idaho law would violate the freedom of speech. The court’s logic might seem straightforward: “recruiting” could be interpreted to apply to any number of things arguably protected by the First Amendment, like advocating for abortion rights, providing medical information for abortion, or donating money to a group that facilitates abortion-related travel. But dig a little deeper, and the legal issues get messy quickly.
Idaho argued that to the extent recruiting covered speech, those communications weren’t protected by the First Amendment because they facilitated a crime. Courts have sometimes been receptive to that argument. Someone hiring a hitman, for example, could hardly avoid prosecution by claiming their conversations were protected by the First Amendment.
The 9th Circuit rejected Idaho’s argument about crime-facilitating speech because Matsumoto and the other plaintiffs would facilitate travel to a place where abortion is legal. For that reason, the court reasoned, the speech at issue would be facilitating an abortion, not a crime.
But who gets to decide whether abortion is a crime? Imagine that a minor from Idaho travels to California or Colorado for an abortion, where there are constitutional protections for reproductive rights. Idaho might be just as certain that a crime occurred as California or Colorado would be that abortion access is protected. So, which state gets to define when abortion is a crime? Is it the place where an abortion takes place, or where abortion pills or mailed from? Or the place from which an abortion seeker hails, where abortion is presumably banned?
And even if a court thinks that speech does facilitate the crime of abortion, when can we be confident that speech actually facilitated a crime? The federal courts haven’t provided much guidance, and the Supreme Court hasn’t squarely confronted the issue. Legal scholar Eugene Volokh defined crime-facilitating speech as communications that made it easier to commit or conceal a crime, but identifying what kinds of speech qualify isn’t easy. Should the law only punish someone who intentionally facilitates a crime, or should it extend to people who know (or should know) there is a risk their speech could have this effect? What should we do about speech that addresses important political or scientific topics that could also be used for criminal purposes? Would advocating for legal abortion be facilitating crime by encouraging disrespect for the law? What about providing medical information online about drugs that could cause miscarriage?
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe, legal commentators have been expecting a bitter conflict to break out between ban states and those that protect abortion, especially as jurisdictions like Idaho try to project their power outside of state lines. Since 2023, 23 states and D.C. have enacted shield laws that seek to protect abortion providers, patients, and those who assist them from out-of-state extradition, prosecutions, and lawsuits. But none of these laws have been tested in court. Prosecutors from ban states have yet to target defendants in states where abortion is protected.
Don’t expect that to last long. Some of the quiet we have seen to date may simply have been a function of the 2024 election, with conservatives reluctant to pursue unpopular strategies that might undermine the chances of their favored candidates. With Donald Trump in office, conflicts between states seem inevitable. And with the 9th Circuit’s decision, questions about how to resolve them may land at the Supreme Court sooner than later.
When the court undid abortion rights, Justice Samuel Alito stressed that Roe should be overturned partly because the 1973 ruling had led to the perversion of seemingly unrelated legal rules. At the same time, the court pledged that the dismantling of abortion rights wouldn’t affect the fate of any other rights, including protections for same-sex intimacy and marriage, contraception, and even interracial marriage. The 9th Circuit’s decision is a remindr that the First Amendment might be the first area of the law to radically change.
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Idaho Argues Pregnant Women Facing Amputations from Septic Shock Can't Get Emergency Abortions
The question of whether states can ban abortions when women’s health is in danger is unfortunately not a settled one. Recall that, in June, the Supreme Court said it shouldn’t have taken a case about Idaho’s abortion ban potentially conflicting with a federal law. Instead, the justices punted the case back to an appeals court, which heard arguments on Tuesday. The hearing was a bleak spectacle underscoring how the incoming Trump administration will torture women and pregnant people, including letting them have limbs amputated before they can have an abortion.
The case, Moyle v. United States, began in 2022 when the Biden administration sued Idaho arguing that its abortion ban, which lacks a health exception, violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. EMTALA is a federal law that requires emergency rooms to provide stabilizing care to patients, including abortion. After the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the Biden administration sent out guidance, reminding ERs that they have to offer abortion if a pregnant patient’s life or health is threatened. Idaho disagreed, saying it has a right to regulate the practice of medicine and would only offer abortions if necessary to prevent death.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in April, then said in June that Idaho doctors can provide emergency abortions without fear of prosecution while the case continued in lower courts. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in concurrence that the ruling was no cause for celebration. “Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay,” she said. “But storm clouds loom ahead. Three Justices suggest, at least in this context, that States have free rein to nullify federal law.”
The court’s move ensured the case would be decided after the election, and that stories of pregnant women being airlifted to other states would stay out of the news. Donald Trump’s administration is expected to rescind Biden’s EMTALA guidance and drop the lawsuit against Idaho.
The patients caught in the gap between what federal law requires and what Idaho’s abortion ban permits are typically women experiencing miscarriages, or whose water breaks far too early for a fetus to ever be viable, like at 18 weeks. These patients could develop life-threatening sepsis if their doctors don’t clear their uterus, but that’s illegal in Idaho if there’s still a fetal heartbeat. In 2023, a three-judge panel of Trump appointees ruled that Idaho’s ban didn’t violate EMTALA, which the U.S. appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. On Tuesday afternoon, lawyers made their case at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals before a panel of 11 judges, including four Trump appointees.
The first lawyer representing Idaho on Tuesday, John Bursch of the Christian nationalist law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, seemed unconcerned with the prospect of patients going into septic shock. Judge Milan Smith asked him if a woman needed an abortion not to save her life but to prevent losing a limb — like, for instance, one of her legs — could a doctor perform the abortion? Bursch said no.
Taylor Meehan, an attorney for the Idaho legislature, said that in the case of a woman’s water breaking too early — known as preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM) — it would be medical malpractice for a doctor not to treat that as a life-threatening condition, which means abortion would be permitted. Judge Smith reminded her that prosecutors enforce the law, and if they don’t think a physician offering an abortion was a good-faith judgement, doctors face up to two years in prison and the loss of their medical license. Meehan cited an opinion from a separate lawsuit in which “the Idaho Supreme Court is going out of its way to say, ‘we don’t want the prosecutor second-guessing [doctors].'” She then made an offensive hypothetical: “If an abortion is provided for a paper cut, right, we would expect a prosecutor to question that judgment.”
Catherine Carroll, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, thankfully brought the consequences of Idaho’s ban back to Earth when describing women who could lose their uterus or their Fallopian tubes, or damage their kidneys because of the distance between state and federal law. “This is a gap that exists in the real world, in real cases where real people are coming into the emergency room facing not only the tragic loss of their pregnancy, but also the potential to permanently lose their fertility and any possibility of ever becoming pregnant again in the future, the possibility of kidney damage leading to lifelong dialysis, the possibility of limb amputations.” This is not a hypothetical concern: A Texas woman had her hands and feet amputated after she developed septic shock following a C-section.
Caroll also noted that Idaho could make the same argument about EMTALA even if its ban didn’t have an exception for the life of the pregnant person. It would be extreme for states to do this, but Carroll was pointing out that Idaho’s legal theory has no limiting principle.
Judge Consuelo Callahan, a George W. Bush appointee, asked Bursch if the hearing was “an exercise in futility” given that a new administration is about to take office and asked why the panel shouldn’t send the case back to a lower court. Trump reversing course on EMTALA may be a fait accompli, but this case couldn’t be more important for pregnant women in Idaho who show up in ERs between now and January 20.
Unfortunately, Trump-appointed Judge Lawrence VanDyke was not-so-subtly auditioning for a Supreme Court nomination during the hearing. He asked a lawyer for St. Luke’s Health System if all the reported airlifts were really necessary because the women weren’t facing imminent death. “Your argument is, if the mother wants to kill the baby, even though it’s not necessary to prevent [their] death, then they have to be airlifted?” VanDyke asked. Lindsay Harrison responded that, in these situations, it’s very unlikely that the fetus will survive because a woman’s water broke weeks before fetal viability. So, yes, doctors would reasonably counsel patients to terminate because they won’t leave the hospital with a baby and could die.
VanDyke’s comment is “pick me” energy for assholes who want to replace Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas, and we’re going to see a lot more of it in the coming months as women and pregnant people suffer.
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Pregnancy Is Not a Benign Event
What a Texas woman's quadruple amputations tell us about giving birth in the United States—forced or not.
Late last week, researchers announced that the already high maternal mortality rate in the U.S. hit its highest level since 1965. The number of people who died during or shortly after pregnancy increased a staggering 40 percent from 2020 to 2021, marking the third year in a row the maternal mortality rate had increased in this country. And that was before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—though abortion was effectively banned in Texas for the last four months of 2021.
I was already thinking about these dire numbers, and how more forced pregnancies will mean more women dying, when I read the story of Krystina Pacheco, a Texas woman who had her hands and feet amputated due to a life-threatening infection she developed after a C-section.
Pacheco, 29, didn’t have a miscarriage and wasn’t denied an abortion—she had what she called an “uneventful” C-section in late October 2022. But she started feeling feverish two days later, the day she was discharged, and a nurse gave her ibuprofen. She kept feeling sick and saw a doctor, who sent her to the ER. From there she was airlifted to a different hospital where doctors diagnosed her with septic shock. That’s the most dangerous stage of sepsis, in which the body has an extreme reaction to an infection, and it can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death. Sepsis is the second leading cause of pregnancy-related death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
She stayed in the ICU for two weeks and was put on an ECMO machine to let her heart and lungs heal. Doctors said she had a 20 percent chance of surviving and she miraculously did, but ECMO can reduce blood flow to the limbs and it damaged her hands and feet so badly that she needed all four of her extremities amputated. After three months in the hospital, multiple skin grafts, and several weeks in a rehabilitation center, Pacheco only recently went home to her husband and two children.
What was left out of much of the coverage about these mortality rates was that severe complications from birth—people who almost die—vastly outnumber actual deaths. The CDC has noted for years that for every person who dies from pregnancy, another 70 women come close. In previous years, that’s meant about 50,000 people. But in 2021, when more than 1,200 women died, that means about 84,000 women almost died. (And the CDC doesn’t count homicide when it tallies the maternal mortality rate, even though homicide—often at the hands of a partner—is the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths, moreso than any health problems.)
The experiences of women like Pacheco underscore that pregnancy is not a benign event. As Erin Gloria Ryan recently wrote in Jezebel, “Pregnancy is cool and miraculous, and it’s fantastic that our bodies can do it—but carrying a pregnancy to term is also something that could literally kill you and at the very least will change your body permanently.” Thousands of pregnant people will experience serious medical complications and will try to recover, all while facing massive medical bills.
What happened to Pacheco is rare, yes, but sepsis and other complications can happen to any birthing person. And while I don’t know anything about Pacheco’s views on abortion, these are the kinds of health risks that six Supreme Court justices and countless lawmakers are forcibly subjecting people to.
Weeks after the fall of Roe, Nisha Verma, an OB/GYN in Georgia and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, shared her concerns about more people having to stay pregnant in a country where pregnancy already harms and kills so many. “We are going to see people die and have terrible outcomes from this,” Verma told Jezebel in July. “More people carrying pregnancies to term and delivering…there’s risk in that.”
It’s one thing to take these risks if you want children, but it’s entirely another if you were forced to continue a pregnancy. “If someone chooses to continue their pregnancy, knowing they have a high-risk condition [like high blood pressure], that is completely fine and we are all there to support them and to optimize their health,” Verma said. But many people can’t access abortion, so in “many cases, it’s not even a choice. And that’s just going to get worse and worse.”
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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland orders removal of derogatory terms from public land names
UPDATE, September 8, 2022: The Interior Department announced that it had voted on the replacement names for the 650 places. New names can be found here.
“I feel a deep obligation to use my platform to ensure that our public lands and waters are accessible and welcoming. That starts with removing racist and derogatory names that have graced federal locations for far too long,” Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Friday that the agency is establishing a task force to identify and remove derogatory terms used in the names of public land features such as valleys and lakes, beginning with the word “squaw.”
Haaland signed an order that identifies the word — an ethnic slur to describe Indigenous women — as derogatory and establishes a Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force to rename the 650 places on federal land that contain it.
A separate order creates an Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names, made up of history experts, members of the general public and representatives from Indigenous communities, that will review and recommend changes to other derogatory words used as names on federal land.
“Our nation’s public lands and waters should be places to celebrate the outdoors and our shared cultural heritage, not to perpetuate the legacies of oppression. Indigenous people, and in particular women, know how offensive this word is, and I’m proud to be in a position to rid federal places of it,” Haaland said over the weekend in a visit to Alcatraz Island to mark the 52nd anniversary of its occupation by Indigenous activists.
Haaland is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo and the first Native American to be a Cabinet secretary of an executive branch agency. The Interior Department employs about 70,000 people who oversee more than 500 million acres of public land, including hundreds of national parks. It contains the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which administers most programs related to more than 550 federally recognized tribes.
In 2018, before President Joe Biden tapped Haaland to lead Interior, she was one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress. When Haaland was sworn in to represent New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District, she said that “Congress has never heard a voice like mine.” In both roles, the Democrat has been outspoken about addressing human-caused climate change and what she has called an “epidemic” of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
The word “squaw” is believed to be a derivation of the Algonquian word for “woman,” but “the term has historically been used as an offensive ethnic, racial, and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women,” the Interior Department said.
The Interior Department has, in the past, identified other derogatory terms related to Black people and Japanese Americans that it no longer uses in naming places on public land. Several states had already passed legislation prohibiting the use of the word in names of public places, and federal legislation is pending in Congress that would prohibit the use of derogatory terms in public land names.
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