Anti-abortion

<h1 class="print-title" style=" margin-bottom: .2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></h1><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see also Birth control/abortion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see bak</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see roe v wade</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">capt abortion914 619
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 7 22</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">in an interview that first aired last week, <b>Michigan's&nbsp;<a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2022/07/19/tudor-dixon-slim-lead-michigan-republican-governor-primary-toss-up-poll/10085377002/?gnt-cfr=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">leading</a>&nbsp;Republican gubernatorial candidate, Tudor Dixon, said that a 14-year-old incest victim was the "perfect example" of her justification for a nearly total ban on abortion access in the state.</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/LeDuffCharlie/videos/3138529789794590/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">interview</a>&nbsp;with journalist Charlie LeDuff, host of the internet talk show "No Bullshit News," Dixon, who formerly worked in the steel industry and as founder of a "pro-America, pro-Constitution morning news program" for children, doubled down on her previous statements that she opposes abortion in all cases except when necessary to save the life of the mother.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked by LeDuff about a hypothetical situation in which a 14-year-old girl became pregnant as a result of sexual abuse by a family member, Dixon said, "Perfect example." She went on, "Because I know people who are the product. A life is a life for me. That's how it is. That is for me, that is my feeling."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The story gained wider attention this week when it was first picked up by the regional news outlet&nbsp;<a href="https://heartlandsignal.com/2022/07/20/tudor-dixon-calls-hypothetical-14-year-old-incestual-rape-survivor-perfect-example-to-not-receive-abortion-care/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Heartland Signal</a>&nbsp;and then by national outlets. In a statement to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tudor-dixon-michigan-gop-candidate-abortion-ban_n_62d86a61e4b081f3a8fab6c7?d_id=4556880&ncid_tag=tweetlnkushpmg00000016&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=us_politics" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">HuffPost</a>, Dixon, who is endorsed by Right to Life Michigan, elaborated, saying, "Not everyone agrees with me that every life has value and we should have the courage, as [University of Michigan football coach] Jim Harbaugh put it, to let unborn children be born.… I know that. I'm not hiding from it."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dixon's position is in alignment with a 1931 abortion law in Michigan, which bans all abortions except to save the life of the mother, and which might go into effect in the state following the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade last month. Currently, a lawsuit from Planned Parenthood challenging the law's constitutionality has resulted in a temporary injunction on the old law taking effect.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To moderate and progressive politicos in Michigan, however, Dixon's comments are par for the course in a Republican field that has tilted far to the right.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It's not particularly shocking and it also doesn't really differentiate her much from the rest of the Republicans she's running against," said Michigan Democratic spokesperson Rodericka Applewhaite. "They have all pushed pretty extreme anti-choice agendas." One of Dixon's opponents, far-right pandemic&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/04/06/battleground-michigan-joins-with-militant-far-right-in-campaign-against-democracy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">skeptic</a>&nbsp;Garret Soldano,&nbsp;<a href="https://michigandems.com/after-comments-equating-rape-to-a-heroic-moment-that-god-put-women-in-garrett-soldano-quadrupled-down-and-called-the-horrific-crime-a-sacred-cr/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">declared</a>&nbsp;this winter that rape victims should recognize that "God put them in this moment" and the child that could result from their rape "may be the next president."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While most Republican voters in Michigan say they support abortion exceptions in cases of rape and incest — and that position would have been normal just a few elections ago — Applewhaite continued, "It's just testament to the purity tests that have come to define the Republican Party at this point. In Michigan in particular, there's been a real sprint to the right." The entire GOP field of gubernatorial candidates, she noted, is basically in agreement on denying the validity of the 2020 election and stripping the state budget of funds for public services, from schools to infrastructure.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The electorate isn't necessarily there yet, but at the same time, those voters are about to line up to support these people in 11 days," on the Aug. 2 Michigan primary, Applewhaite noted. "So the candidates are dragging the party to the right and I expect the electorate to follow them."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jim Timmer, the former executive director of Michigan's Republican Party, agreed, saying Dixon's comments "show how far outside the mainstream the party has become." Timmer, who publicly opposed Donald Trump and has since left the GOP, said that, before Dixon, no past Republican candidate for the office "has ever taken the position that we're going to take a 14-year-old girl and make her carry her rapist's baby. Dixon is the first one to ever demand that that happen, and that's barbaric and it's insane."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">That's indicative of larger problems in the GOP, he said: "Michigan is a microcosm of the insanity around the MAGA movement. We have what really amounts to unprecedented lawlessness within the Republican Party."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Throughout this election cycle, Michigan has stood out for repeated scandals involving Republican elected officials and candidates for office. Of 10 initial Republican candidates for governor, five were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/05/28/embarrassing-even-fume-at-michigan-for-defending-candidates-busted-for-fraud/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">disqualified</a>&nbsp;for submitting&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/05/24/leading-michigan-candidate-may-be-disqualified-from-ballot-amid-unprecedented-fraud-scandal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">fraudulent signatures</a>&nbsp;in their voter petitions. One, Ryan Kelley, was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/06/09/pro-michigan-candidate-for-governor-marched-on-capitol-on-jan-6-arrested-in-fbi-raid_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">arrested</a>&nbsp;in June on charges relating to his participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. ("Instead of ending his candidacy," remarked Timmer, "it catapulted him to the top tier.")</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Further, Timmer pointed out, a GOP candidate for attorney general is under&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2021/07/attorney-accused-of-pushing-false-election-fraud-claims-wants-to-be-michigans-next-attorney-general.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">investigation</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;for pushing false election fraud claims; the Republican speaker of the House is being&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/lee-chatfields-home-searched-amid-criminal-probe-dana-nessel-confirms" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">investigated</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;for both financial and sexual misconduct;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;the Republican Senate majority leader is being&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2022/06/funds-supporting-petition-backed-by-senate-leader-shirkey-face-criminal-probe.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">investigated</a>&nbsp;for campaign finance violations; and the co-chair of the state party is being&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/ex-gop-chair-trump-fake-electors-plotted-hide-overnight-michigan-capitol" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">investigated</a>, alongside others, for voter fraud in association with Republicans' "alternate electors" scheme.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"There's no top Republicans right now that aren't touched by criminal investigations," said Timmer. "It's unheard of."</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And it doesn't even stop there. As Salon has reported, last March a candidate for state House, Robert Regan,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/03/08/michigan-candidate-slammed-for-saying-rape-victims-should-lie-back-and-enjoy-it/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">said</a>&nbsp;during a livestream that he'd told his daughters, "If rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it." In April, state Sen. Tom Barrett, who's running for Congress, sent out&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/04/22/michigan-state-lawmaker-caught-sending-fake-gender-reassignment-confirmations_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">fundraising texts</a>&nbsp;claiming that recipients' children had been scheduled for "gender reassignment surgery," and if they didn't like it, they should sign up with Republicans now. In June, state Rep. Steve Carra proposed a resolution to mark Jan. 6 as an official day of "<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/06/23/backed-michigan-proposes-jan-6-remembrance-day--to-honor-capitol-rioters_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">remembrance</a>" for the Capitol rioters.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Earlier this month, Trump's pick for Michigan secretary of state,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/07/05/backed-michigan-warns-of-demonic-possession-through_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Kristina Karamo</a>, was reported to have described abortion as a "satanic practice" and "demon possession" as a sexually transmitted disease." Not to mention that throughout the late winter and spring, a suite of right-wing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/04/06/battleground-michigan-joins-with-militant-far-right-in-campaign-against-democracy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">ballot initiatives</a>&nbsp;— restricting voting rights, curtailing state power to address pandemics and sending public money to private schools — joined radical far-right activists with mainstream GOP leaders like Betsy DeVos (and another dose of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/06/06/michigans-push-to-fight-fake-voter-fraud-gets-upended-by-actual-fraud/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">petition fraud</a>).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Everything happening in Michigan, said Applewhaite, is "reflective of a trend we're seeing across the country in which Republicans are moving further to the right, it's turning off a lot of independent voters and it is galvanizing a lot of Democrats.</b>" A recent poll by The Detroit News found that almost 60% of Michigan voters "strongly oppose" the recent Supreme Court abortion decision overturning Roe.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet given the current state of politics, Timmer warned, the likelihood that even a far-right candidate like Dixon could become governor is very significant.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The easiest thing to do would be to look at someone like Tudor Dixon and say she's so outside the mainstream she can't win. Except that she might not just win the nomination, but any of those people could be elected governor in this climate, where any of these crazy candidates are going to get 47% [of the vote]," Timmer said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I think 2022 is a harbinger of what we can expect in 2024 and the return of Donald Trump," he continued. "A dark dystopian future for America can become a fait accompli this year if the MAGA candidates — like Tudor Dixon,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/07/04/hes-on-a-mission-from-god-pennsylvania-candidate-doug-mastrianos-with-the-world/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Doug Mastriano</a>&nbsp;in Pennsylvania, Kari Lake in Arizona, Joe Lombardo in Nevada — win. If these folks win, we're looking at a very dark future, beginning in 2024, where how states like Michigan vote will not matter. Republicans will have their thumb on control of the certification process, and will use that power that they didn't have in 2020 to skew the election results. And that bodes very poorly for the future of democracy in America."</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 22</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The US isn’t one country. The more we believe it is, the less sense our politics makes. By insisting on “the truth” when the truth is diametric from “the truth,” we end up doing a helluva lot more work. We end up doing all kinds of mental acrobatics to make sure “the truth” is true.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Once we drop the idea of America being one country, things make more sense. We do less work, too, because on seeing the US isn’t one country, the source of our problems – our&nbsp;<em>national</em>&nbsp;problems – becomes clearer. That source is the politics of the American south.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Quarantine self isolation. Pandemic anxiety. Social distancing. Textured art portrait of bored unhappy annoyed trapped woman in black touching plastic bubble wrap wall in darkness.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There we find the reason the US isn’t one country. The states making up that region don’t want it to be. They have instead committed themselves to a wholly imagined&nbsp;confederacy of the mind and spirit,&nbsp;a fictional subnation inside a factual nation in which “real Americans” fight to restore God’s country to its rightful “constitutional” origins.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the rest of America is animated by the principles of democracy and union, the south (and its interested and ideological allies spread around 50 states) is animated by the goals of division and control. If the south can’t control the machinery of the federal government, as it has since the beginning, the south declares itself a victim of tyranny.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I think the central tension of our history has been between Americans willing to sacrifice for the greater good and Americans eager to kill themselves to prevent sacrificing anything to anyone who’s “against them.” Democracy isn’t what we think it is. It’s not a tool of a sovereign people to effectuate self-rule. It’s a tool of the few to rule the many.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The south is the source of national division for another reason. Its loyalty to the United States as a union of states is conditional. It depends on the south maintaining its grip on the machinery of the federal government. If and when challenged, the south reserves the right to mutiny. Its social contract includes a “treason option.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Secession before the Civil War is an obvious example. Less well known are negotiations between the Confederate States of America and foreign leaders who dithered long enough for the choice to be clear. Less understood, too, is the relationship, direct and indirect, between Russia and the Republican Party, the American south’s dominant party.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That relationship ranges in degree from passively allowing Russian operatives to sabotage a Democratic candidate for president to coordinating to spread the Big Lie (thus seeding the ground for a failed coup d’etat) to cheering in unison its invasion of democratic Ukraine.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There does exist a Trump-Putin axis in the Republican Party, as Jamie Raskin said. But obscuring that reality for most Americans, I think, is their belief in America being one country. Treason can’t be optional for some Americans. It just can’t be. That would mean “the truth” isn’t true.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The last reason the American south is why we can’t have nice things is this: the states in that region are acting like they are sovereign nations, as if reifying a wholly imagined confederacy of the mind and spirit, as if finally putting into practice the dream of restoring America’s origins.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Tennessee, Missouri and others have nullified federal gun laws. Mississippi, Florida and others have nearly totally outlawed access to abortion. Texas is now doing its own border security and immigration enforcement. Next is regulating the free movement of citizens.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Missouri and Texas are debating bills to restrict out-of-state travel of pregnant people seeking abortions in states where access is legal.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stopping nonwhite people from crossing the border and taking up residence, terrorizing nonwhite people already here at gunpoint, forcing white women to repopulate their states and preventing white women from traveling “abroad” – altogether these are the things nations do as they’re slouching toward a totalitarian future.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Only we’re not talking about nations.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">We’re talking about states within a region within a nation that are acting like nations, thus belying the belief in America as one.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That states are now attempting to put limits on the right to free movement is only the latest in a series of violations of individual liberty. The trend will no doubt continue, as a GOP supermajority of the US Supreme Court decides increasingly that the rights of states to behave like sovereign nations overrules the rights of their people.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To learn more, I talked to professor of political science and contributor to the&nbsp;<em>Editorial Board</em>&nbsp;Elizabeth F. Cohen. She’s the author of<b>&nbsp;Illegal: How America's Lawless Immigration Regime Threatens Us All</b>. “If you can keep women you suspect are seeking abortions from crossing state lines,” she told me, “you can probably keep them from doing other things in public and interfere with their rights as citizens.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Is freedom of movement as fundamental as freedom of speech?</strong>
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yes.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">First, look at freedom of movement within a country. Seen that way, we find a lot of attention paid to the protection of freedom of movement. We also find that exceptions to the right to move freely are associated with other forms of political oppression.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, restrictions on the free movement of Black Americans was integral to Jim Crow. Sundown towns were towns in which Black people risked their lives being in public after sundown. Sharecroppers were not permitted to leave their land until debts were paid off.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the former Soviet Union, internal restrictions on free movement were associated with attempts to centrally control the ethnic makeup of different republics making up the USSR. Needing permission to move around is a sign one has limited liberties of other sorts as well.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also ask: Why do people move?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We’d find reasons to call the right fundamental.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They move to escape repression, to reunite with families, to exercise other rights and to sustain their and their loved one’s well-being.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s hard to say freedom of movement is not fundamental, even though that right is often overridden by claims of national sovereignty.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A legislator in Missouri has proposed a law forbidding pregnant people from leaving the state to get abortions. Can a state override a fundamental individual right in the interest of enforcing its laws?</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At any other point in the previous, oh, say, 50 years or so, I would have said that attempts by a state government to restrict the freedom of movement rights of women who seek to engage in activities that are perfectly legal in another state would be instantly shot down.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After all, no one was blocking flights to Las Vegas to keep people from going there to gamble when gambling was largely illegal elsewhere.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We know teenagers under the legal drinking age in the US go abroad and drink alcohol. No one prevents them from leaving on this basis.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But I’m making no prediction of what any court will do in 2022.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some say the proposed law in Missouri would encroach on the sovereignty of other states. But as you said, it's hard to predict.</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></strong></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">recall trump dhs ice head was tracking menstruel cycles</font></span></p><p><span helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" verdana="Verdana" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px">They'e whining that "globalists" are trying to control everyone. Meanwhile, the Republicans in Oklahoma are pushing a bill that would create a database for pregnant women so they can track if they get abortions.</span></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/why-the-gop-is-so-susceptible-to-denialism" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/why-the-gop-is-so-susceptible-to-denialism</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div><b>Why the GOP is so susceptible to coronavirus denialism</b></div><div>
</div><div>Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon September 2, 2020</div><div>
</div><div>Donald Trump didn’t like what the experts were telling him about the coronavirus pandemic, so he found a guy with “Dr.” in front of his name who will tell the president the bedtime stories he wants to hear.&nbsp;<b>Dr. Scott Atlas</b>&nbsp;isn’t an expert in infectious disease or epidemiology, as are coronavirus task force advisers Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom he has pretty much usurped. Atlas is a radiologist and, more importantly, a senior fellow at the far-right bad-idea incubator known as the Hoover Institution (previously home to the infamous prediction that the U.S. death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic would be around 5,000).</div><div>
</div><div>According to the New York Times and the Washington Post, Atlas — who apparently caught Trump’s eye the way so many of his advisers do, by peddling BS on Fox News — is ready and willing to say all sorts of medically unsound things that just happen to align with everything Trump wants to believe about the coronavirus. So Atlas has risen rapidly as a power player and is reportedly even getting venerable institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to echo his unscientific beliefs.</div><div>
</div><div>Atlas has questioned whether wearing face masks slows viral spread (it does) and pushed for the CDC to change its recommendation on coronavirus testing to cover only people with symptoms, even though the science clearly shows that asymptomatic people are spreading the disease — and may indeed be a principal vector for spread.</div><div>
</div><div>Perhaps most distressingly, Atlas is reportedly behind Trump’s new enthusiasm for “herd immunity,” which is the latest euphemism for a non-policy letting the coronavirus run rampant, like a nationwide chicken pox party. Actual scientific experts in disease are uniformly against this idea, because it would dramatically raise the death rate and likely wouldn’t restore the economy anytime soon, as huge percentages of the population would continue to stay home rather than be part of President Bleach-Injector’s deadly science experiment.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>For pro-choice activists and reproductive health experts, Trump’s embrace of a quack in a lab coat is feeling all too familiar.</b>&nbsp;This strategy of putting lies and misinformation in the mouths of people who have an “MD” after their name has been standard practice for the anti-choice movement for decades. This has allowed anti-choice activists to push for policies that harmed public health, especially women’s health, while pretending they were doing it in the name of science. The George W. Bush administration, in particular, was fond of using doctors who shamelessly used their medical authority as cover to advocate for harmful ideas with little or no scientific basis.</span></div><div>
</div><div>This strategy, as well as those employed to push misinformation about climate science, helped train Republican politicians and conservative voters in the skills being currently used to muddy the waters around the science of the coronavirus pandemic. The result is that more than 6 million Americans are infected and nearly 185,000 have died, and that number is likely to continue growing at an alarming rate, especially as Trump now has a doctor to hide behind when justifying his hostility to public health.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Bush had a nasty habit of hiring doctors who were eager to use their credentials to justify their promotion of anti-choice propaganda. One of his FDA appointees, Dr. David Hager, was a gynecologist but more importantly a Christian conservative who rarely hesitated to make false claims that depicted both abortion and contraception, which have robust safety records, as medically dangerous.&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hager advocated against making emergency contraception available over the counter, falsely implying that doing so posed a threat to the health of teenage girls. Even though the majority of FDA experts disagreed with Hager, the Bush administration blocked the policy based on his opinion.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It later emerged that Hager’s ex-wife, Linda Davis, had accused him of abusive behavior during their marriage, alleging that he withheld money unless she had sex with him and giving her sleeping pills so he could sodomize her without consent. Hager is still a popular talking head on the religious right, advocating for using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to forcibly cancel women’s abortions.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Under the Obama administration, emergency contraception became legal over the counter, without age restrictions. And there has been no measurable effect on the health of women or teenage girls, unless you count the record low rates of teen pregnancy, which are directly attributable to expanded contraception access under Obama.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><b>Another precursor to Atlas is Dr. Eric Keroack, a Bush appointee to oversee a contraception program in Health and Human Services, who was hired because he opposed contraception use.</b>&nbsp;Like Hager, Keroack was happy to leverage his medical degree to put a scientific gloss on misogynist misinformation. He went so far as to claim that women who have premarital sex become physically incapable of experiencing love and bonding in marriage.</div><div>
</div><div>Even Trump’s reported manipulation of CDC recommendations to reflect his hostility to virus testing has a precursor with the Bush-era war on sexual health care. Under Bush, the CDC altered information on its website about condom use to mislead readers into believing that condoms weren’t effective at preventing sexually transmitted infection transmission.</div><div>
</div><div>Beyond just the Bush years, the anti-choice movement in general has a long-standing habit of promoting doctors who will shamefully ignore medical science in order to present their anti-choice and anti-woman views as “science.” They even form organizations, like the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, that will use the auspices of medical science to create the illusion that there’s merit to anti-choice myths such as the claim that abortion causes breast cancer (it doesn’t), that abortion causes mental illness (it doesn’t) or that abortion is more dangerous than childbirth (it’s about 14 times safer).</div><div>
</div><div>Trump’s coronavirus denialism is spreading past the White House and into the Senate. Earlier this week, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa echoed a QAnon-linked conspiracy theory accusing doctors and hospitals of exaggerating the number of coronavirus cases and deaths, claiming that clinics profit from falsifying that data.</div><div>
</div><div>“These health-care providers and others are reimbursed at a higher rate if COVID is tied to it, so what do you think they’re doing?” Ernst said.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>In reality, medical researchers believe that coronavirus cases are being undercounted, due to lack of testing.</div><div>
</div><div>This conspiracy theory also has a precursor in the anti-choice movement: The false claim doctors lie about the effectiveness of contraception in order to trick women into having sex and getting pregnant, so they can get that sweet, sweet abortion money.</div><div>
</div><div>This conspiracy theory was endorsed by Bush’s HHS appointee Keroack, who ran a “crisis pregnancy center” that claimed birth control “actually increases (rather than decreases) out-of-wedlock pregnancy and abortion.” That myth has since become hardened into common wisdom in the anti-choice world. Abby Johnson, the anti-choice speaker at the Republican National Convention, has repeatedly claimed that contraception access increases the abortion rate by lulling women into believing we “could separate sex from procreation.”</div><div>
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</div><div>It’s no surprise that Republican voters so readily sign onto Trump’s obvious attempts to spread misinformation about the coronavirus by dressing it up as “science.” They’ve had decades of practice of choosing to believe fake medical science, which is all too often peddled by doctors who should know better. As the Queen in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass” astutely observed, the trick in learning to believing impossible things is simply practice.</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/the-jig-is-up-the-woman-behind-roe-v-wade-became-a-hero-of-abortion-opponents-but-now-we-know-it-was-all-an-act/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/the-jig-is-up-the-woman-behind-roe-v-wade-became-a-hero-of-abortion-opponents-but-now-we-know-it-was-all-an-act/</a></div><div>//</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 520</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">h</font><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-the-religious-rights-war-against-abortion-is-built-on-lies-grifting-and-bullying/" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" color="color" rgb="rgb" transition="transition" all="all" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer" display="display" inline="inline" important="important" font-size="font-size" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" line-height="line-height">ow the religious right’s war against abortion is built on lies, grifting and bullying</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/amanda-marcotte/" title="Posts by Amanda Marcotte" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Amanda Marcotte</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right;">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right;">/</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right;">&nbsp;</span></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: right;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></span></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Tuesday, both the pro- and anti-choice world were rocked by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/19/jane-roe-roe-v-wade-deathbed-confession-fx-nick-sweeney/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a revelation that undermines literal decades of religious right nonsense</a>. Norma McCorvey, the “<b>Jane Roe”&nbsp;</b>of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/03/03/abortion-rights-june-medical-services-russo-carole-joffe/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide</a>&nbsp;in 1973,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/02/18/mccorvey-who-was-at-center-of-roe-v-wade-dead-at-69/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">claimed before her 2017 death</a>&nbsp;that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/the_ever_changing_ideologies_of_jane_roe/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">her famous “conversion”</a>&nbsp;to anti-abortion&nbsp;activism was a con job.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">McCorvey&nbsp;told&nbsp;filmmaker Nick Sweeney during the taping of his new FX documentary, “AKA Jane Roe,”&nbsp;“I took their money, and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">For pro-choice activists, the revelation was less exciting than frustrating. For decades, the anti-abortion movement has held out McCorvey’s “conversion” as a morality tale about how women, deep down inside, really don’t want access to abortion, but instead are being deceived by a supposedly ruthless “abortion industry.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">McCorvey was a prop in service of this argument, which depends on sexist stereotypes painting women as too&nbsp;feeble-minded and gullible to be the proper stewards of their own lives. Her tale of woe, where she was fooled into thinking abortion was a right, until she was “saved” by anti-choice ministers like Flip Benham, was all about serving this narrative: Women can’t be trusted with autonomy, and need “godly” men to guide them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>(Benham, a supposedly wise and “pro-life”&nbsp;guidance-giver to women,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/heyitscalla/status/1246446726476677121" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">has been seen in recent months violating coronavirus restrictions</a>&nbsp;in order to harass patients and staff at a North Carolina clinic</b>, even though doing so directly threatens to spread a deadly disease among&nbsp;the protesters, clinic staff&nbsp;and the pregnant people seeking care.)</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Having spent years covering the pro-choice movement, I can safely say that the widespread view in pro-choice circles of McCorvey’s “conversion” was one of skepticism. Frankly, she was a sketchy character and that was no secret.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2009/07/14/jane_roe_for_life/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">She admitted to lying about being raped</a>,&nbsp;even though the pro-choice lawyers who argued Roe had no interest in making the case about rape. McCorvey publicly waged war on Sarah Weddington, the pro-choice lawyer who argued the Roe case before the Supreme Court, apparently furious that Weddington didn’t try to help her get an illegal abortion during the run-up to Roe. McCorvey didn’t seem to care that if Weddington had committed a crime on her behalf, it could have ended&nbsp;a case that granted millions of women the right to an abortion without the threat of jail.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">So yeah, pro-choicers always suspected McCorvey was getting paid off somehow, and the number that Sweeney uncovers — nearly half a million dollars over the years — sounds about right.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But the main reason pro-choicers suspected the McCorvey conversion was a sham wasn’t about McCorvey’s character, but about the dynamics of the anti-choice movement in general. It’s no&nbsp;exaggeration to say that the anti-choice movement, from tip to toe, is stuffed with liars and grifters. Their entire&nbsp;raison d’être is telling lies — often over-the-top, melodramatic lies — in service of sticking it to women, LGBT people and liberals in general for not respecting the “right” of the religious right to dominate the rest of us.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The anti-choice movement has always been run by lying trolls, and always will be.</b>&nbsp;They set the template for the rest of the conservative movement, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/01/24/how-the-anti-choice-movements-lies-laid-the-foundation-for-donald-trumps-big-cover-up/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">paved the way for the rise of Donald Trump</a>, whose presidential victory was a perfect summary of the fact that right-wing American politics has become&nbsp;one big, long con.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The over-the-top, theatrical lies of the anti-choice movement are so comical that the mainstream media, for decades, has shied away from covering them&nbsp;too closely, likely out of fear that they’re actually too ridiculous to be believed.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For instance, over the past few years anti-choice activists have begun to claim that&nbsp;doctors deliver viable infants alive and let them die.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/02/27/republican-witch-hunt-trump-and-the-gop-need-a-scapegoat-naturally-they-attack-women/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Trump likes to tell this story with vivid and completely made-up details&nbsp;</a>about swaddling a&nbsp;baby in blankets before murdering it. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/25/18239964/born-alive-abortion-survivors-protection-2020-sasse" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Senate held hearings in which anti-choice activist Jill Stanek</a>&nbsp;—&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media-research-center/staneks-selection-exposes-credentials-required-be-right-wing-media-critic" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a crazed, racist liar who also claims Chinese people think aborted fetuses are a “delicacy”</a>&nbsp;— claimed,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/washington-post/wash-post-purported-give-both-sides-born-alive-bill-dispute-left-out-illinois?redirect_source=/research/2008/08/20/wash-post-purported-to-give-both-sides-of-born/144491" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">almost certainly falsely</a>, that she once witnessed a baby being killed this way. (Stanek has also argued that&nbsp;<a href="https://rewire.news/article/2009/07/08/jill-stanek-doesnt-want-prevent-abortions/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">contraception bans are necessary</a>&nbsp;to force people to have sex only within marriage.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">)</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>To bolster this argument, the anti-choice movement&nbsp;<a href="https://humandefense.com/meet-born-alive-abortion-survivors/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">also trots out a series of people</a>&nbsp;who claim to have “survived” abortion. Did they? Probably not!</b>&nbsp;The procedures they describe have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/health/abortion-bill-trump.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">no relationship to actual methods used to terminate pregnancies in the real world</a>. Anti-choice “testimony” is all to often as McCorvey described it: “[T]hey took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But this “born alive” mania has mostly been ignored by the mainstream media, except for occasional gawking at Trump’s weird rally stories. I suspect that happens because these tales are so grotesque and improbable&nbsp;that journalists fear their audiences will think they made it all up. Instead, anti-choice activists get a glow-up in mainstream coverage, presented as less hysterical and less prone to lies and bizarre flights of fancy than they actually are.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The “baby parts” debacle from a few years ago is another example of how the anti-choice movement is not a group&nbsp;sober-minded devout Christians who just love “life,”</b>&nbsp;but in fact a bunch of fanatics who have contempt for the truth and think nothing of spinning wild stories and engaging in implausible thought-experiments in their efforts to smear feminists.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A series of “undercover” videos purporting to “prove” that clinics like Planned Parenthood were secretly selling “baby parts” out the back door&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/04/06/the_poster_child_of_anti_choice_sleaze_david_daleiden_planned_parenthood_video_hoaxster_gets_raided_but_to_the_unhinged_religious_right_hes_a_hero/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">were released by an anti-choice activist named David Daleiden</a>&nbsp;in 2015. To anyone familiar with the anti-choice movement and their reliance on fantastical stories, it was obvious this would&nbsp;turn out to be&nbsp;bullshit, but&nbsp;too many mainstream media organizations ran credulous stories, bamboozled by&nbsp;their own decades of coverage falsely painting anti-choicers as&nbsp;serious-minded people instead of fundamentalist whackadoodles.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Sure enough, after the first round of credulous coverage, the facts started to emerge: Planned Parenthood doesn’t sell baby parts.”&nbsp;They donate fetal tissue to clinics that use it for medical research —&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/news/the-truth-about-fetal-tissue-research-1.18960" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">research that saves far more lives</a>&nbsp;than any nut waving a bloody fetus poster board has ever saved. The videos had been&nbsp;altered to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/abortion-planned-parenthood-videos.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">make innocent people look guilty</a>. Eventually,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/planned-parenthood-lawsuit-secret-videos.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Planned Parenthood won a lawsuit against Daleiden</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/02/08/david_daleidens_sleaze_factory_his_latest_court_defeat_exposes_how_slimy_the_center_for_medical_progress_is/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">he was arrested</a>&nbsp;for counterfeiting government documents.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">This myth of the humble, righteous anti-choice activist works its way not just into the media but into Supreme Court cases, such as one in 2014 case,&nbsp;<a href="https://rewire.news/article/2014/01/30/buffer-zones-peaceful-clinic-protesters/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">when&nbsp;anti-choice activists argued against an anti-protest&nbsp;buffer zone around clinics&nbsp;</a>by claiming&nbsp;they were merely “sidewalk counselors” trying to “help” women.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a32624/boston-abortion-planned-parenthood-protests/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">An investigation by Jill Filipovic at Cosmopolitan&nbsp;</a>exposed the truth: They’re a bunch of bullies who are angry at women for having sex and show up at clinics to harass them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“If women want careers and education and everything and they don’t want children,” one protester complained to Filipovic, “what are they doing having sex?”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Another complained that “there were no problems” back when women&nbsp;“had to be obedient to their husbands.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Instead of contraception, a protester argued, “the way to control [pregnancy] is not to hop into bed with every Tom, Dick, and Harry.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2014/06/court-strikes-down-abortion-clinic-buffer-zone-in-plain-english/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The court sided with the bullies</a>, unsurprisingly, elevating the myth that these belligerent protesters&nbsp;merely wished to “counsel” women.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Anti-choicers have long pushed this myth that they’re righteous warriors&nbsp;going up against a sleazy “abortion industry” and trying to “save” women. This is pure projection on their part, and a complete inversion of reality.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In truth, the pro-choice movement exists to help women, and the anti-choice movement exists to strip them&nbsp;of their rights and subjugate them&nbsp;both legally and socially. The pro-choice movement stands with science and medical facts, while the anti-choice movement is rife with liars and grifters, and spews a dizzying amount of propaganda based on nothing but misogyny&nbsp;and lurid fantasy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The press should stop being fooled by the way anti-choicers hide behind the Bible and the cross and see them for who they are: Bullies who are&nbsp;trying to take important medical care away from women at a vulnerable moment in their lives. Perhaps the revelation that anti-choicers&nbsp;literally bought off Norma McCorvey and paid her to lie&nbsp;will help open up some eyes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But it’s also important to step back and take a look at the bigger picture. Roe v. Wade was never about Norma McCorvey. She was simply the plaintiff recruited for a case that was actually&nbsp;about the rights of millions of people who have faced or will face a pregnancy they don’t want or can’t bring to term, for whatever reason. By recruiting McCorvey to their side, anti-choice activists sought to erase the existence of these millions of people who have been saved by access to safe, legal abortion. It’s a shame that McCorvey betrayed all those people for so long. But at least before she died, she told the truth.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5/20 kid killer HYPOCRISY</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;Mick M is opus dei? PRO-LIFE?!</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trumps-epa-moves-jettison-any-regulation-of-a-chemical-linked-to-child-brain-damage-report/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trumps-epa-moves-jettison-any-regulation-of-a-chemical-linked-to-child-brain-damage-report/</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>trump’s EPA moves jettison any regulation of a chemical linked to child brain damage: report</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[ June 3, 2019: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler speaks at the National Press Club.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Julia Conley / Common Dreams May 15, 2020</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Environmental campaigners vowed to fight President Donald&nbsp;<b>Trump’s EPA Thursday after the agency said it would propose that the rocket-fuel chemical perchlorate does not need to be regulated, despite its links to cognitive damage in fetal and child development.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to the New York Times, the&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>EPA plans to tell the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that it is “not in the public interest” to regulate the chemical at all,</b>&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">a year after the agency recommended the allowable amount in drinking water be limited to 56 parts per billion (ppb).</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The 2019 proposal was already 10 to 50 times higher than what water safety experts recommend, the Times reported</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The new recommendation defies a court order, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said, which was issued in 2018 after the group sued over the Obama administration’s inaction on regulating perchlorate....</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha: abortion turned xian anti-gubmint; in 80's RR televangelists had TV programs/stations; Rove courted (organized) for Bush 43; now drollinger cabinet and GOTV network (AI/digital tracking?)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/why-religious-freedom-stokes-coronavirus-protests-in-the-u-s/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/why-religious-freedom-stokes-coronavirus-protests-in-the-u-s/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/pamela-e-klassen-1034804" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Pamela E. Klassen</a>,&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-toronto-1281" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">University of Toronto</a></span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Religious freedom, cherished as an American ideal, has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/coronavirus-churches-florida-social-distancing" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">frequently invoked in the United States</a>&nbsp;during protests against COVID-19 public health measures.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In Canada,</b>&nbsp;forms of protests — including by churches — are more likely to focus on the systemic underfunding of long-term care and&nbsp;<a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/church-program-hands-out-tents-to-people-in-need-of-shelter-amid-pandemic-1.4898313?cache=" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">homeless shelters</a>&nbsp;or the lack of sufficient medical and water infrastructure in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-indigenous-communities-and-covid-19-the-virus-may-not-discriminate/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Indigenous communities</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Why the difference?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Across the U.S., conservative Christians flouted state and municipal social distancing orders as late as March 31, sometimes by overtly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/florida-megachurch-pastor-arrested-for-breaching-covid-19-health-order" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">breaking the law</a>, claiming that<b>God, not the state, will protect the people.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the Christian Holy Week, evangelical and Pentecostal church leaders, often backed by Republican politicians,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/11/coronavirus-easter-kansas-kentucky-restrict-religious-gatherings-church/2975593001/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">brought lawsuits</a>&nbsp;against state and municipal governments, arguing that curtailing religious gatherings for the sake of limiting the spread of COVID-19 was a breach of religious freedom.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">With lightning speed,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/14/us/14reuters-health-coronavirus-usa-religion.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">federal</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/12/832644243/kansas-supreme-court-upholds-governors-order-limiting-the-size-of-easter-service" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">state</a>&nbsp;lawyers weighed in on the balance between public health measures and religious liberty.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By contrast, the story in Canada is largely one of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pandemic-religion-islam-jewish-christian-1.5515588" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">religious organizations</a>&nbsp;of all varieties&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-faith-communities-are-responding-to-the-coronavirus-pandemic-135281" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">co-operating</a>&nbsp;with public health measures. To date, there is no equivalent in Canada of these high-profile COVID-19 legal battles in which churches reject both public health directives and state legislation.</font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.3em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Suspicion of science, government</font></h2><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Religiously based suspicion of scientific and government authority is not unique to conservative Christians; Hasidic Jewish communities share these suspicions and constitute a significant number of those infected with COVID-19 in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-hasidic-jews-rabbi-funeral-brooklyn-social-distancing/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">New York state</a>.</font></p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{" tweetid="tweetId" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even in the case of Hasidic Jews, however, the border might make a difference: Hasidic communities&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-hasidic-jewish-community-north-of-montreal-placed-under-14-day/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">in Québec</a>&nbsp;have been praised for their diligence in adhering to social distancing, in contrast to those&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/opinion/hasidic-jews-covid-distancing.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">in New York</a>, where some rabbis have mocked public health recommendations.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The contrasting responses to COVID-19 in Canada and the United States are rooted in very different national attitudes about individual and collective responsibility for public health.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the United States, Democratic front-runner Joe Biden may come to embrace Bernie Sander’s plan for “<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/what-biden-can-do-about-pressure-to-embrace-medicare-for-all.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Medicare for All</a>,” but even the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/opinion/protest-social-distancing-covid.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">devastating reality</a>&nbsp;of being the country hardest hit so far by COVID-19 has not seemed to turn the tide of public opinion on the need for universal medicare.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In Canada, by contrast, leaders across the political spectrum are throwing their support behind public health care, with even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-seniors-care-home-neglect-is-our-national-shame/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">some conservative politicians</a>&nbsp;calling for more funding, especially for long-term care</b>. While Donald Trump tweeted a call to anti-public health protesters to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-governors.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“liberate” their states</a>, in Ontario, Conservative Premier Doug Ford dismissed a scattering of such protesters in Toronto as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-covid-19-cases-long-term-care-staff-1.5545042" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">selfish “yahoos.”</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Invoking religious freedom in an attempt to opt out of health-care legislation is much more common in the U.S. than Canada. Both countries protect religious freedom, dating back to 1791 in the United States with the&nbsp;<a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">First Amendment</a>&nbsp;of the constitution guaranteeing the “free exercise” of religion, while in Canada,&nbsp;<a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms</a>&nbsp;has protected the “freedom of conscience and religion” since 1982.</font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.3em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Religious freedom as a rallying cry</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">These parallel guarantees, however, stem from&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Varieties-of-Religious-Establishment-1st-Edition/Beaman-Sullivan/p/book/9781409452416" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">very different histories</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;of using religious freedom as a rallying cry, including to resist public health care. I’ve discussed this in my research</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">, especially in relation to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/secular-bodies-affects-and-emotions-9781350065239/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">women’s reproductive health</a>.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the wake of former U.S. president Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, for example, Catholics and evangelical groups used a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/us/hobby-lobby-case-supreme-court-contraception.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">religious freedom argument</a>&nbsp;to contest the new mandate that their health insurance plans provide access to contraception for women employees.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Canada, the less frequent citing of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/religion-and-the-exercise-of-public-authority-9781849467155/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">religious freedom rights in the courts to curtail health-care access</a>&nbsp;may be related to a wider acceptance of health care as a public good and a basic human right.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In both Canada and the U.S., the struggle for publicly funded health care in the mid-20th century depended on coalitions of politicians, medical professionals and religious leaders. In Canada, a Baptist minister-turned-politician,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/history/EPISCONTENTSE1EP15CH2PA4LE.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Tommy Douglas</a>, galvanized the country with a vision that public health care for all was a human right and, for some, also a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520270992/spirits-of-protestantism" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">religious obligation</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similarly, in the U.S., when&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/podcasts/1619-slavery-healthcare.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Dr. Montague Cobb</a>, leader of the National Medical Association, successfully argued for Medicare before Congress in 1965, he concluded his testimony with a Christian hymn.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Canadian version of public health care, however, now serves a much wider range of the population than Medicare does in the U.S., and has become a cornerstone of Canada’s national identity, with minimal overt connections to religion.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But in the United States, public health care remains a source of profound national and religious division.&nbsp;</b>The current Republican administration regularly uses religious freedom legislation, including conscientious objection rules for health-care providers, to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-the-new-religious-exemptions-law-means-for-your-health-care" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">chip away at Medicare</a>, limiting access to health care for women, LGBTQ, poor and rural people.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A time of reckoning is coming when public health measures and public and private health-care delivery will be assessed for their effectiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic. The role of religious communities and the ideals of religious freedom in supporting or impeding public health must be included in this reckoning, especially in the United States.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/pamela-e-klassen-1034804" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Pamela E. Klassen</a>, Professor of the Study of Religion,&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-toronto-1281" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">University of Toronto</a></em></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article is republished from&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Conversation</a>&nbsp;under a Creative Commons license. Read the&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-religious-freedom-stokes-coronavirus-protests-in-the-u-s-but-not-canada-136557" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">original article</a>.</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ala outlaws tho know unconst, hope scotus ~ roe</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GA 6 wk heartbeat (SOS stole elction --> gov kemp, stacy a tweets connection)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" margin="margin" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><a data-ga-action="Home: Story Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/8/seg_3" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Charges Dropped Against Pregnant Shooting Victim Amid Outcry Over the Criminalization of Pregnancy</font></a></h3></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dn 719</font></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Following immense public pressure, prosecutors in Alabama have dropped manslaughter changers against Marshae Jones, a 28-year-old African-American woman whose pregnancy ended after she was shot in the stomach by a coworker. Local police accused Jones of starting the fight that led to the shooting in the parking lot of a Dollar General store outside of Birmingham. A grand jury then indicted Jones on manslaughter but dismissed any charges against the shooter. The case drew national outcry from women’s rights advocates concerned about the criminalization of pregnant women and the legal implications of so-called fetal personhood. The National Abortion Federation, along with the Yellowhammer Fund and other reproductive justice advocacy groups, launched a successful campaign to get the charges against Jones dropped. Alabama is one of 38 states to have a fetal homicide law. We speak with Lynn Paltrow, founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.</font></span></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="mag-post-box hentry" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; width: 374.545px; overflow: hidden; display: table; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(236, 236, 236);"><div class="magcat-detail" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/federal-judge-blocks-ohio-heartbeat-bill-from-taking-effect/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Federal judge blocks Ohio ‘heartbeat’ bill from taking effect</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/federal-judge-blocks-ohio-heartbeat-bill-from-taking-effect/" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></span></a></h3></div></div></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/race-against-time-how-white-fear-of-genetic-annihilation-fuels-abortion-bans/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/race-against-time-how-white-fear-of-genetic-annihilation-fuels-abortion-bans/</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Race against time: How white fear of genetic annihilation fuels abortion bans</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Royalty-free stock photo ID: 1152002639 WILKES-BARRE, PA - AUGUST 2, 2018: A group of Trump supporters display their "Women Q "save the children" For Trump" and "Keep America Great" signs during the "Make America Great Again" rally held at the Mohegan Sun Arena.]</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">written by Carla Bell / YES! Magazine<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>July 5, 2019</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Last year, White people constituted 60% of the U.S. population, down from about 90% in 1950. It’s projected that by 2050, they will be the new minority and people of color will be the majority—a nightmarish prediction to some White people</b>.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sen. Lindsey Graham voiced his concern of a demographic dilution at the 2012 Republican convention, when he said, “The demographics race we’re losing badly … [Republicans are] not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Graham’s comments relay what social scientists and antiracism activists call “White Extinction Anxiety,” or “Fear of White Genetic Annihilation.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The idea that White people could “go the way of the dinosaur” has been dismissed by some as simple pity of personal circumstance or conspiracy theory, but the convergent effects of new laws banning abortion together with old laws promoting mass incarceration of Black and Brown people suggest that this White fear is not just an idea, but the catalyst for public policy.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>There indeed appears to be a strong correlation between demographic projections, the fear of White genetic annihilation, and the recent wave of abortion bills.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Antiracism activist and diversity trainer Jane Elliott described it as a fear so great that White people, including political leaders, “will do anything to see that doesn’t happen.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hyper-punitive abortion legislation recently passed in Alabama bans the procedure outright except in cases of risk to a woman’s health, and in Georgia a woman who obtains an abortion will spend the rest of her life in prison. Of 212 lawmakers in Alabama and Georgia whose votes ushered in the most restrictive abortion laws we’ve seen yet, 211 are White.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What drives all of this is nothing as philosophical as religion. It’s not faith. It’s not principle. It’s the fear of genetic dominance of Black and Brown people.</b></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/noam-chomsky-democrats-may-have-handed-trump-the-2020-election/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/noam-chomsky-democrats-may-have-handed-trump-the-2020-election/</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Attorney General William Barr releases Robert Mueller’s long-anticipated report into Russian interference in the 2016 election, we speak with world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky about what he sees as the political perils of “Russiagate.”</span></font></p><div class="p1_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Can you share your analysis of President Trump? You have lived through so many presidents. Explain President Trump to us and assess the massive response to him.</font></p><div class="p2_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">NOAM</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">CHOMSKY</span>:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Well, Trump is—you know, I think there are a number of illusions about Trump. If you take a look at the Trump phenomenon, it’s not very surprising.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Think back for the last 10 or 15 years over Republican Party primaries, and remember what happened during the primaries. Each primary, when some candidate rose from the base, they were so outlandish that the Republican establishment tried to crush them and succeeded in doing it—Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum. Anyone who was coming out of the base was totally unacceptable to the establishment. The change in 2016 is they couldn’t crush him.</span></font></p><div class="p3_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the interesting question is: Why was this happening?<b>&nbsp;Why, in election after election, was the voting base producing a candidate utterly intolerable to the establishment? And the answer to that is—if you think about that, the answer is not very hard to discover. During the—since the 1970s, during this neoliberal period, both of the political parties have shifted to the right.</b>&nbsp;The Democrats, by the 1970s, had pretty much abandoned the working class. I mean, the last gasp of more or less progressive Democratic Party legislative proposals was the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act in 1978, which Carter watered down so that it had no teeth, just became voluntary.&nbsp;<b>But the Democrats had pretty much abandoned the working class.&nbsp;</b>They became pretty much what used to be called moderate Republicans.&nbsp;<b>Meanwhile, the Republicans shifted so far to the right that they went completely off the spectrum. Two of the leading political analysts of the American Enterprise Institute, Thomas Mann, Norman Ornstein, about five or 10 years ago, described the Republican Party as what they called a “radical insurgency” that has abandoned parliamentary politics.</b></font></p><div class="p4_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Well, why did that happen? It happened because the Republicans face a difficult problem. They have a primary constituency, a real constituency: extreme wealth and corporate power. That’s who they have to serve. That’s their constituency. You can’t get votes that way, so you have to do something else to get votes. What do you do to get votes? This was begun by Richard Nixon with the Southern strategy: try to pick up racists in the South.&nbsp;The mid-1970s,&nbsp;<b>Paul Weyrich, one of the Republican strategists, hit on a brilliant idea. Northern Catholics voted Democratic, tended to vote Democratic, a lot of them working-class. The Republicans could pick up that vote by pretending—crucially, “pretending”—to be opposed to abortion</b>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;By the same pretense, they could pick up the evangelical vote. Those are big votes—evangelicals, northern Catholics. Notice the word “pretense.” It’s crucial. You go back to the 1960s, every leading Republican figure was strongly, what we call now, pro-choice. The Republican Party position was—that’s Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, all the leadership—their position was: Abortion is not the government’s business; it’s private business—government has nothing to say about it. They turned almost on a dime in order to try to pick up a voting base on what are called cultural issues. Same with gun rights. Gun rights become a matter of holy writ because you can pick up part of the population that way. In fact, what they’ve done is put together a coalition of voters based on issues that are basically, you know, tolerable to the establishment, but they don’t like it. OK? And they’ve got to hold that, those two constituencies, together. The real constituency of wealth and corporate power, they’re taken care of by the actual legislation.</span></font></p><div class="p5_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>So, if you look at the legislation under Trump, it’s just lavish gifts to the wealth and the corporate sector—the tax bill, the deregulation, you know, every case in point. That’s kind of the job of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, those guys. They serve the real constituency.&nbsp;</b>Meanwhile, Trump has to maintain the voting constituency, with one outrageous position after another that appeals to some sector of the voting base. And he’s doing it very skillfully. As just as a political manipulation, it’s skillful. Work for the rich and the powerful, shaft everybody else, but get their votes—that’s not an easy trick. And he’s carrying it off.</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(241, 242, 243);"><li class="hidden-xs" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; list-style-type: none; padding: 0px 0px 23px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.33;"><a data-ga-action="Home Headlines: Headline" href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/31/headlines/louisiana_governor_signs_anti_choice_bill_as_missouris_last_abortion_clinic_is_set_to_close" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; border: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Louisiana Governor Signs Anti-Choice Bill as Missouri’s Last Abortion Clinic Is Set to Close</font></a></li></ul><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Louisiana on Thursday became the fifth state in the nation to enact a six-week abortion ban, when Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards signed a bill that offers no exceptions for rape or incest. Meanwhile, Missouri is poised today to become the first state in the nation without a single clinic providing abortions, as a judge in St. Louis weighs a last-minute legal challenge to plans by state officials to revoke a medical license for Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic. On Thursday, St. Louis police arrested 17 activists at a state office building as they held a sit-in protest demanding a license renewal. Hundreds more protested outside, chanting “My body, my choice!” This is Kawanna Shannon, director of surgical services at Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic.</font></p><blockquote helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); vertical-align: top;"><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;">Kawanna Shannon</strong>: “State of Missouri, please keep your fingers out of our vaginas. Planned Parenthood also does vasectomies. Those men are able to come in with no hassle, no problems, no concerns, and they get their vasectomy free of choice, with no hurdles to jump over. And then a woman comes in, raped by a whole motorcycle gang, and you make her wait 72 hours to think about it.”</font></p></blockquote><p helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Five other states have only a single clinic offering abortions: Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia. Later in the broadcast, we’ll speak with Laura Kaplan, author of “The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/3/clarence_thomas_cited_this_authors_book"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/6/3/clarence_thomas_cited_this_authors_book</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Justice Clarence Thomas sparked harsh rebuke last week after claiming that abortion rights can be traced back to the 20th century eugenics movement. He made the comments in a 20-page opinion after the Supreme Court declined last week to take up a provision of an Indiana law that bars abortions based on the sex, race or disability of the fetus. The decision keeps in place a lower court injunction on the measure. But Justice Thomas indicated that he supports the law, writing in his opinion, “Enshrining a constitutional right to an abortion based solely on the race, sex, or disability of an unborn child, as Planned Parenthood advocates, would constitutionalize the views of the 20th-century eugenics movement.” To make his case, Justice Thomas cited a book by Adam Cohen titled “Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck.” We speak with Adam Cohen, who has since refuted the justice’s claims. In a piece for&nbsp;</span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Atlantic</em><span style="letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;titled “Clarence Thomas Knows Nothing of My Work,” Cohen writes, “Thomas is absolutely right that we need to remember our eugenics past and make sure that we do not make the same mistakes again. He is absolutely wrong that individual women making independent decisions about their pregnancies are the eugenicists of our time.”</span></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma</font></div><div><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump and other conservative candidates have signaled that anti-abortion lies will be a core part of their 2020 playbook -- tactics that right-wing media are certain to amplify in order to fearmonger and rally support ahead of the election. Right-wing outlets have already been badgering Democratic candidates about their stances on abortion access and smearing them with sensationalized and inaccurate tropes about later abortions.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right-wing media and anti-abortion groups have used these same manufactured controversies as part of&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b96426f6db6c64c72071342915445a9db67ed2851893598be186192aa101548d98228027c8c4032b5c112ca0bc3db3f16b" title="a playbook for attacking abortion rights supporters" style="">a playbook for attacking abortion rights supporters</a>. That playbook involves:</font></p><ol style="" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><li style="margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Hounding candidates with anti-choice questions to generate an outrage-based news cycle.&nbsp;</b>The campaign trail has given right-wing outlets&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b9882d83fa0a130794e0f2c8fe2649e09f7d8e1fddd631cd152dda88425f091e1596c2020ee00cd953499119fc39bccdf7" title="more opportunities" style="">more opportunities</a>&nbsp;to hound candidates with sensationalized questions about abortion to intentionally generate outrage. Others in the anti-abortion media echo chamber then pick up these comments and spin them to fit predetermined anti-choice narratives. Those anti-choice narratives have been mostly focused on Democrats’ alleged support for abortion “up to birth” or even after.</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Manufacturing fake “grassroots” support for anti-choice misinformation.</b>&nbsp;Following the introduction of Virginia and New York’s recent reproductive rights measures, right-wing media promoted the narrative that Democrats are&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b94c6388de7ae07cba809581bbcc000ae98989ed231c2d275fad4627a02a485c56bcda304a6ff208a0e0610c4d3baed47e" title="pushing an “extreme” position on abortion" style="">pushing an “extreme” position on abortion</a>that is&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b967b5731e926c79c3ae3ff84035cc3fd208429ad19f7062569ca157ef7c8d972a05fd00382d5e3cb78d8a4d9295e0ecec" title="not supported" style="">not supported&nbsp;</a>by their base. The Republican Party has adopted this&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b9434010172d5d42c03298dbdeac6e1186002c06bcf41ab8db2b4a445c8ce3bad5b1033a73abdb00d8de6e7f1045bc7fab" title="approach" style="">approach</a>&nbsp;as part of a 2020 election strategy at both the&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b9beb86e33fd42836048ae6ed34ccef12d8cdd55093bf97090fd353569b9fffb07d044ce51afb7fe49fb148e32f9029ce5" title=" federal" style="">federal</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b936b001b27f2d79c50f9e16abfdfba0eb7e36d46b22aaa51e334f1c2a3998b8ae50c05fed99550fe1e31a1a57eb2577a2" title="state" style="">state</a>&nbsp;level.</font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Using candidate comments about unrelated topics as a jumping-off point to criticize them about abortion.&nbsp;</b>Anti-abortion groups and right-wing media have also tried spinning non-abortion comments from candidates to fit their stereotypes about Democrats. For example, in response to&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b977e14b3859de05a6291fd67c702288b862b8d02c3d793a6ed10cbb3d3a826d85b83795c865f2ed5e20fa40ad563d6f36" title="a tweet" style="">a tweet</a>&nbsp;from candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) explaining her belief that “housing is a basic human right,” anti-abortion activist Lila Rose&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b9a15a7efd9b58e66383271efd953333d8c2c75e85f1016733859e55cbed436498d8329d1f6667ad4c88b9e2574544e3e6" title="replied" style="">replied</a>, “If housing is a basic human right, then I imagine you’re even more passionate about the right for a child to be born?” When candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b98c0208a52ba0e98f14fbc59a9ca662710eb95bbeb4cc66c100fac78f708f5a93d477c94db3e34fd36ef4c440ee2f7398" title="called" style="">called</a>&nbsp;Trump “a coward,” right-wing radio host Stacy Washington&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=9016d558aab1b0b937f71ba9c34bc9b16d53e908d7b8ad46ffc745fd01297f6c0823fddea92896413083cfc6a42c61236c643c78daa7e0ae" title="replied" style="">replied&nbsp;</a>, “You believe in abortion up to birth, gun confiscation, open borders and limp-wristed governance. You have no room to call anyone a coward.”</font></li></ol></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/05/28/study-right-wing-sources-dominate-abortion-related-news-facebook/223680"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/05/28/study-right-wing-sources-dominate-abortion-related-news-facebook/223680</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; margin-block-start: 1em; margin-block-end: 1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2019, right-wing media have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/02/08/fox-news-almost-single-handedly-manufactured-anti-abortion-outrage-trump-s-state-union/222813" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">dominated</a>&nbsp;abortion-related coverage with sensationalized anti-choice rhetoric and harmful misinformation</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. And on Facebook, anti-abortion misinformation is consistently outperforming all other coverage of abortion-related news.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; margin-block-start: 1em; margin-block-end: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>&nbsp;study of top-engaged U.S. abortion-related coverage on Facebook in the month of April found that 63% of links with the most Facebook interactions came from right-leaning websites, and 72% of the Facebook page posts with the most interactions came from right-leaning pages. Two anti-abortion websites,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/networks-and-outlets/lifenewscom" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">LifeNews.com</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/stories-and-interests/live-action" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">Live Action</a>, made up almost 30% of viral links, and the two main Facebook pages affiliated with these sites made up more than a quarter of the most popular Facebook posts.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; margin-block-start: 1em; margin-block-end: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Top-engaged content from right-leaning sources often pushed anti-abortion misinformation. Twenty-three percent of links from right-leaning websites reviewed in this study pushed for six-week bans on abortion (also inaccurately referred to as “heartbeat bills”) based on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/heartbeat-bills-get-the-science-of-fetal-heartbeats-all-wrong/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">anti-choice</a>&nbsp;claim that abortion should be banned as soon as fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically by six weeks. Medical&nbsp;<a href="http://www.huffpost.com/entry/heartbeat-bills-bad-science_n_587e7435e4b01cdc64c8199b" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">experts</a>, however, say "cardiac activity isn't a credible measure of fetal viability." Right-leaning websites and pages also shared false stories about Democrats supporting&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2019/01/31/right-wing-media-are-flat-out-lying-about-later-abortions-being-infanticide/222720" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">“infanticide”</a>&nbsp;(<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/10/republicans-are-pushing-another-false-claim-about-abortion-rile-up-voters/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">they don’t</a>) and anti-conservative censorship by social media platforms (<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/04/11/thanks-anti-abortion-media-latest-congressional-tech-censorship-hearing-was-particularly-absurd/223417" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; font-weight: 700; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);">there is none</a>).</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 2px; clear: both; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 153, 255); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sixty-three percent of the top links related to abortion news on Facebook came from right-leaning websites.</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; margin-block-start: 1em; margin-block-end: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Media Matters</em>&nbsp;reviewed 278 top links related to abortion news which collectively earned 13.6 million interactions on Facebook. Right-leaning websites had 175 links (63%), which earned over 8.6 million interactions (63.6%). Websites that aren’t politically aligned had 80 links (28.8%), which earned 3.8 million interactions (27.8%). And left-leaning websites had just 23 links (8.3%), which earned 1.2 million interactions (8.6%).</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; margin-block-start: 1em; margin-block-end: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...much more, grafs</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><table width="550" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px auto;"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="410"><p class="yiv8960706593headline3" style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a rel="noreferrer" target="blank" href="http://click1.e.alternet.org/uhqmfzcvcdysyfkksgwccsckkgskvnpjmdcywhznwwq_xchvdcsctdrrscbrcsd.html?a=&b=244&c=21989&d=2" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">State efforts to recriminalize abortion are an echo of America’s eugenics past</font></a></p><p style="font-style: italic; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Between 1907 and 1937, thirty-two states passed laws permitting state…</font></p></td><td width="5"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-wiles-those-who-support-reproductive-rights-will-be-aborted-continuously-by-demons-in-hell/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rick-wiles-those-who-support-reproductive-rights-will-be-aborted-continuously-by-demons-in-hell/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-family: Helvetica-Light, " helvetica="Helvetica" light="Light" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">End Times broadcaster Rick Wiles dedicated last night’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGBl3CmP7nw" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">episode</a>&nbsp;of his “TruNews” program to praising Alabama’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/15/politics/alabama-governor-signs-bill/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">radical new law</a>&nbsp;that almost completely outlaws abortion in the state, and used the broadcast to warn those who support reproductive rights that they will spend eternity being “aborted continuously forever” by demons in Hell.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-family: Helvetica-Light, " helvetica="Helvetica" light="Light" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wiles&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/3Jbu0oeeM_E" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">blasted</a>&nbsp;the “bunch of reprobates on the Supreme Court” who “defied the living God” by legalizing abortion in&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Roe v. Wade</em>, declaring that “their carcasses will burn in Hell forever.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-family: Helvetica-Light, " helvetica="Helvetica" light="Light" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I believe that abortionists and the supporters of abortion—I believe that their punishment in the lake of fire will be to be aborted continuously by demons,” Wiles said. “Continuous, perpetual, eternal abortion.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; font-family: Helvetica-Light, " helvetica="Helvetica" light="Light" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" line-height="line-height" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This goes on for billions of years, hundreds of billions of years, zillions of years and it never stops,” he added. “You will be aborted continuously forever.”</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/when-the-american-debate-over-abortion-was-sane-and-why-that-changed"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/when-the-american-debate-over-abortion-was-sane-and-why-that-changed</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">People would be surprised by how much less toxic gender politics were in the 1970s than they are now.</font></p><div class="p1_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mary Ziegler teaches law at Florida State University, where she holds the Stearns Weaver Miller chair in the College of Law. Her book,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674736771" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate</em></a><em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">,</em>&nbsp;traces the evolution of American political dynamics surrounding abortion. In this conversation with Valerie Tarico she discusses how the debate became so polarized, why some abortion foes will not be satisfied until abortion is criminalized, and how advocates for women and healthy families might find common cause with others.</font></p><div class="p2_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tarico:&nbsp;</strong>I see&nbsp;<a href="https://valerietarico.com/2015/04/26/why-i-am-pro-abortion-not-just-pro-choice/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">abortion as a social good</a>—like the guardrails right before someone’s life goes off a cliff. As a mom of two daughters, I sure want the rails there. But my dream is for my daughters and all young people to become parents when they feel ready so they can fulfill the promise of their lives and form families of their choosing and stack the odds in favor of their kids.</font></p><div class="p3_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The intense emotional energy around abortion, both pro and con, makes it&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">really</em>&nbsp;hard to have this broader conversation about chosen lives and flourishing families—about young women and men pursuing their dreams or about healthy, cherished children raised by parents who aren’t stretched to the breaking point. So I desperately want to understand whether there is some way through this impasse.<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</strong></font></p><div class="p4_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ziegler:</strong>&nbsp;People would be surprised by how much less toxic gender politics were in the 1970s than they are now. Given how much abortion opponents seem to have fixated on the overruling of&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Roe</em>, I expected the conflict in the decade after the decision to be particularly bitter, but it wasn’t that way. What it means to be “Pro-Life” or “Pro-Choice” isn’t as static as it seems. Some people on both sides were doing surprising and productive things back then to make abortion less necessary. Even today, when we talk about how polarized things are, we’re talking about the movement leadership. But there are people on both sides who can’t join either movement because neither fits what they believe.&nbsp;Many of those active in the 1970s would have been shocked at how dysfunctional things have become at this point.</font></p><div class="p5_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tarico:&nbsp;</strong>How did we get to this point—with inflammatory rhetoric inciting violence against abortion providers and a wholesale assault on services that empower women to manage their fertility? We have Congress trying to defund everything Planned Parenthood does&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">except&nbsp;</em>abortion, trying to defund the very services that make abortion less necessary. It’s to the point that I sometimes call Cruz, Huckabee and the others “champions of&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">unplanned parenthood.</em>”</font></p><div class="p6_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-5" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="connatix" cnx-creative-type="VideoMonetization" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; position: relative;"><div id="cnx-adUnit-overlay" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); left: 0px; top: 0px; width: 629.986px; height: 364.361px; cursor: pointer;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Z</font></span></div><div id="cnx-adUnit-overlay" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); left: 0px; top: 0px; width: 629.986px; height: 364.361px; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">iegler:</strong>&nbsp;People blame the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Roe v. Wade&nbsp;</em>decision, but the broad cultural wars against women weren’t an inevitable result of what the Court decided in 1973. In fact, the polarization took a while to develop, and it had more to do with money and politics than the ideology of people in either movement.</font></div></div></div><div class="p7_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For much of the 1970s, Pro-Life groups were trying to get politicians to adopt a platform that opposed abortion, but instead both parties tried to appeal to people on either side of the issue. In the 1970s, it was possible to be a conservative Republican and support abortion access. It was possible to be in support of robust anti-discrimination laws for women but oppose abortion. If you look at Biden or Gephardt, for example, there were lots of ways public figures tried to navigate this politically. Ronald Reagan signed an abortion access measure in California. George Bush was at least nominally Pro-Choice. But in 1976, the Republicans recognized the potential of abortion to mobilize swing votes. By the 1980s, positions crystalized. What happened was a political party realignment.</font></p><div class="p8_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tarico:&nbsp;</strong>Why a political realignment? How did opposition to abortion get bundled together with opposition to worker rights and opposition to government services and opposition to gun control? They don’t seem to go together very well.<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</strong></font></p><div class="p9_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ziegler:&nbsp;</strong>Abortion opponents wanted&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Roe v Wade</em>&nbsp;overturned. For a long time, they had fought for a constitutional amendment that would outlaw all abortions, but that obviously hadn’t worked. By the 1980s, it was pretty clear that the only way they were going to get anywhere was to change the Court, which meant they needed to change presidential elections. Marriage of the Pro-Life Movement and Republican Party was not inevitable and has always been troubled, meaning that there are people in the movement who are naturally conservative and people who are not. Some hold their noses when they vote Republican, hoping for judges and laws that they like.</font></p><div class="p10_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tarico:&nbsp;</strong>An “<a href="https://valerietarico.com/2012/11/08/dramatic-drop-in-teen-pregnancy-really-a-technology-tipping-point/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Obamacare simulation</a>” at Washington University dropped the abortion rate to 75% below the national average by making top tier contraceptives available free of charge. Why can’t we at least agree on reducing unwanted pregnancy and&nbsp;<a href="https://valerietarico.com/2015/09/11/if-the-anti-abortion-frenzy-were-actually-about-abortion-what-a-serious-anti-abortion-movement-would-actually-look-like/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">making abortion less necessary</a>?<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</strong></font></p><div class="p11_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ziegler:&nbsp;</strong>We could have done things to make abortion less necessary. There was a moment in time when that was politically possible. In the 1970s there was a big fight – should we be for the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Equal Rights Amendment, or better access to contraception? Some in the Pro-Life Movement made this argument: They were trying to ban abortion, but they recognized that women would still seek it out if they didn’t have alternatives. Politically, they can’t easily make that argument anymore because that would jeopardize the Republicans’ ability to stack the Supreme Court. But some people still feel that way.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allourlives.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">All Our Lives</a>&nbsp;is one group that supports services and choices, except for abortion.</font></p><div class="p12_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tarico:&nbsp;</strong>OK, so instead of Obamacare, let’s just talk about improvements in contraceptive technologies. In Washington State, the annual number of abortions has dropped from around 30,000 to around 18,000 without any increase in restrictions or decrease in access. The primary factor seems to be increased use of IUDs and contraceptive implants–also, Plan B (a.k.a., “the morning after pill”). And science suggests that all of the long-acting contraceptives and emergency contraceptives&nbsp;<a href="https://valerietarico.com/2015/02/18/the-junk-science-and-bad-faith-behind-colorados-iud-controversy/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">operate by preventing conception</a>&nbsp;itself, rather than by booting out an embryo. Why aren’t Pro-Lifers lobbying loudly on behalf of better birth control?</font></p><div class="p13_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Zeigler:</strong>&nbsp;The idea of IUDs as abortifacient is like an article of faith—not something people are willing to re-think. Also, a meaningful group in the Pro-Life Movement is actually anti-contraception as well as anti-abortion. For the most part this is not overt, because it’s not politically expedient. Those in power in the movement today are more likely to be conservative on every issue. Some are anti-sex unless it’s procreative. This strand was there from the beginning, but it just wasn’t universal. Now, a lot of the power players are people who operate naturally within the worldview of the Republican Party.</font></p><div class="p14_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But they don’t represent the whole movement.</font></p><div class="p15_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tarico:&nbsp;</strong>You keep saying that not&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">everyone&nbsp;</em>who opposes abortion is socially conservative to an extreme.<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</strong><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</strong></font></p><div class="p16_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ziegler:&nbsp;</strong>The Pro-Life movement is big and messy and divided. That’s likely to be true of any social movement, and there is no exception here. Starting in the 1970s and running through 2010, sociologists have studied those who were active in the antiabortion movement. A few patterns emerge from these studies. The movement was disproportionately Catholic and female in its early years, but that’s much less true now. Still, Catholics are disproportionately represented, and movement members more likely to be white, married, and college-educated than the population as a whole.</font></p><div class="p17_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ziad Munson’s 2010 research&nbsp;<a href="https://ziadmunson.blogspot.com/search/label/research" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">found</a>&nbsp;that antiabortion activists often identify as Republicans, but their world view maps pretty poorly onto the standard conservative platform. More of them were opposed to the death penalty than you would expect, for example.</font></p><div class="p18_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As an historian, I try to get at what people thought was motivating them. Whether or not individual objections to abortion harken back to religious influences, activists believe they have secular moral reasons. Some express ethical objections. Some people see the fetus at any moment in time as a child. Some people are just grossed out by abortion—motivated by disgust. Often they are people who found images of abortion disturbing without thinking through how the images had been edited. Not all of them are driven by opposition to female equality or sex or birth control.</font></p><div class="p19_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tarico:&nbsp;</strong>So is there any room for common ground here? Right now we’re stuck with terrifying rhetoric from politicians and constant threats against abortion providers that erupt into unpredictable violence. In some places, the only providers are people like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a23771/abortion-ministry-of-dr-willie-parker-0914/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Willie Parker</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.statnews.com/2015/12/04/abortion-doctor-violence/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Warren Hern</a>, who are so committed to abortion care as a calling that they are willing to risk their lives.</font></p><div class="p20_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As clinics close, poor women who can’t afford to travel are being forced to bear children they don’t want and can’t afford. Last summer I wrote a piece titled, “<a href="https://valerietarico.com/2015/04/26/why-i-am-pro-abortion-not-just-pro-choice/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Why I’m Pro-Abortion not Just Pro-Choice</a>” and it went viral. Amelia Bonow’s spontaneous hashtag&nbsp;<a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shoutyourabortion#/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">#ShoutYourAbortion</a>&nbsp;erupted into an international Twitter storm. In other words, as the Right ramps up, people on the Left are ramping up too. Based on the past, what would you say about how we might get beyond the current impasse?<strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</strong></font></p><div class="p21_25" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Ziegler:&nbsp;</strong>The common ground would lie in reducing the need for abortion, and in promoting the wellbeing of women and families. You would find some people in the movement that you can talk to and some that you can’t. In 2015, the Supreme Court decided&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/12-1226_k5fl.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">a case</a>&nbsp;about whether federal civil rights law ever requires employers to accommodate women who need work modifications during pregnancy. The case involved Peggy Young, a woman who worked at United Parcel Service and sought the same accommodations the company already provided for people injured on the job. We associate the fight against pregnancy discrimination with feminists, but below the radar Pro-Life groups submitted amicus briefs arguing for more accommodations when Young’s case went before the Supreme Court. The Republican Party is generally against anti-discrimination protections, so if you want to prevent or reduce abortion that way, but are aligned with the party, your political allies would say that’s inappropriate. Even so, there is still some willingness to push for those things.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kos</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Trump returned over the weekend to what CNN accurately described as his <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/28/politics/trump-rally-wisconsin-abortion/index.html" target="blank">“incendiary falsehood”</a>

that parents and doctors are “executing” newborn babies. Trump’s brazen

lie came in response to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers saying that he would

veto a Republican “born alive” bill, one of the latest Republican

efforts to use legislation to spread lies about abortion.</font>

<span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Trump, “The baby is born. The mother meets with

the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully,

and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will

execute the baby. I don't think so.”</font></span>

<span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">No, I damn well don’t think so, because it’s a lie.</font></span>

<span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/4/1839313/-Republicans-want-to-increase-the-suffering-of-dying-babies-Democrats-should-say-so" target="_blank">In reality,</a>

what happens on some heartbreaking occasions is that a fetus has

abnormalities so severe as to mean certain, often painful

death—conditions “not compatible with life,” as writer Dana Zirlott&nbsp;<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/late-term-abortion-rape_us_5c630b8de4b0a8731aeabbd6" target="_blank">described </a>being told. </font></span>

<span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In humane states, when this is discovered before birth, women

have the option to have a second- or third-term abortion and spare

themselves and their children the misery&nbsp;of labor and delivery and a

painful death. The decisions that Trump and Republicans want to deny

women are&nbsp;first having that abortion when abnormalities are discovered

and then choosing to allow their dying babies to die quickly and in

peace.&nbsp;Instead, they want to force&nbsp;women and their doctors to subject

dying newborns to further horrific medical intervention, to needles and

lights and loud voices and scalpels and machines that will only prolong

the inevitable, only prolong their pain.</font></span></p>

<a class="read-more-link" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/29/1853990/-Trump-s-new-big-lie-Women-and-doctors-are-plotting-to-execute-newborn-babies"><span class="dkons glyphicons-forward icon"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Read More

</font></span></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha: trump admin rtwing will sacrifice legis to help women over ideological purity NRA guns domestic violence and here:</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/how-the-trump-pence-administrations-pro-life-agenda-is-killing-thousands-in-the-us-and-globally/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/how-the-trump-pence-administrations-pro-life-agenda-is-killing-thousands-in-the-us-and-globally/</a>
</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">title 9 ct ~? also
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong>GOODMAN:</strong> I wanted to ask about the global gag rule.

Shortly after his inauguration in January 2017, President Trump

reinstated this controversial global gag rule, the policy originating in

the Reagan era banning U.S. funding for any international healthcare

group that performs abortion, advocates for the legalization of abortion

or even mentions it, even if those activities are funded by non-U.S.

money. Then-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer commented on that

decision.</font></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=
</font></div><div><h2 class="title" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.1; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/11/712455980/a-bill-banning-most-abortions-becomes-law-in-ohio" data-metrics="{" action="action" click="Click" story="Story" title="Title" category="category" list="List" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">&nbsp;Bill Banning Most Abortions Becomes Law In Ohio</font></a></h2><h2 class="affiliation" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 5.76563px 0.5rem 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WOSU 89.7 NPR NEWS</font></h2><p class="teaser" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/11/712455980/a-bill-banning-most-abortions-becomes-law-in-ohio" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><time datetime="2019-04-11" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="date" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">April 11, 2019 •&nbsp;</span></time>The ACLU of Ohio and other organizations that advocate for abortion rights will sue to block the law, one of most restrictive in the country. "We're counting on [a lawsuit]," say the law's supporters.</font></a></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><h2 class="posttitle" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.35em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-top: -7px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/georgia-legislature-sends-6-week-abortion-ban-to-governor-kemp-to-sign-into-law-bc3ba9cf6ca5/" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Georgia legislature sends 6-week abortion ban to governor to sign into law</font></a></h2><div class="postmeta" style="box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.15625rem; line-height: 1.5em; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 0px; display: flex; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; -webkit-box-direction: normal; flex-direction: column; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="postbyline" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px;"><span class="author vcard" style="box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.15625rem;"><a class="url fn n" href="https://thinkprogress.org/author/amanda-michelle-gomez/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; white-space: nowrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ</font></a></span></span><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/georgia-legislature-sends-6-week-abortion-ban-to-governor-kemp-to-sign-into-law-bc3ba9cf6ca5/" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; word-break: break-word; white-space: nowrap;"><time class="postdate" datetime="2019-03-29T15:17:29-04:00" style="box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.15625rem;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">MAR 29, 2019</font></time></a></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>There are many reasons that Fox News’ false dichotomy between the network’s so-called “news” and “opinion” divisions is laughable, but there is perhaps no clearer indication than the sheer amount of anti-abortion misinformation spread by both "opinion" and “straight news” personalities alike.</div><div>
</div><div>After the Democratic National Committee announced that Fox News would not be hosting any of this year’s Democratic presidential primary debates, backlash from Fox’s senior leadership was swift, with officials imploring the DNC to “reconsider its decision” on account of the “ultimate journalistic integrity and professionalism” reportedly shown by some of the network’s hosts. As Variety previously reported, the network had already rolled out a messaging campaign to reassure wary advertisers about the outlet’s legitimacy, extolling the virtues of the network’s news hosts. This messaging campaign is merely a repackaging of the same inaccurate story Fox has been telling for years: Viewers and critics shouldn’t hold the blatant xenophobia, sexism, racism, and lies of the opinion side against the allegedly objective news team. But this recycled talking point further falls apart when it comes to anti-abortion misinformation spread by the network’s hosts.</div><div>
</div><div>In January, abortion rights measures in New York and Virginia sent Fox News and broader conservative media into a frenzy. Although both measures were attempts to protect abortion access should the Supreme Court overturn or weaken Roe v. Wade, Fox News hosts across the network’s news and opinion programs seized on the opportunity to spread sensationalized misinformation and attack Democrats for allegedly supporting “infanticide” or so-called abortions “up until birth.” Despite these inaccurate characterizations, Fox News devoted over six and half hours of coverage before the 2019 State of the Union address to falsely claiming that these state measures allowed “infanticide” -- a talking point that ultimately appeared in President Donald Trump’s remarks. In fact, Trump and Republican lawmakers are reportedly banking on using anti-abortion extremism to rally voters for the 2020 elections -- a strategy that was on full display during the most recent Conservative Political Action Conference.</div><div>
</div><div>It’s no secret that Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity -- each a part of Fox’s volatile and increasingly bad-for-business prime-time lineup -- are all frequent anti-abortion misinformers. Although Fox has attempted to distinguish the work of Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum, Shannon Bream, and Chris Wallace from their colleagues, these "news"-side hosts have all pushed their share of lies, distortions, and misinformation about abortion and reproductive rights.</div><div>
</div><div>Bret Baier</div><div>Although Fox clearly has a profit motive in portraying Baier as a straight news host, there is little to distinguish him from his colleagues on the opinion side when it comes to his abortion-related reporting. In Media Matters’ annual study of abortion-related coverage on evening prime-time cable news programs, Baier and his program Special Report have consistently been dominated by anti-choice talking points and inaccurate statements about abortion and reproductive rights.</div><div>
</div><div>Notably, Baier hosted a 2016 town hall with Democratic presidential candidates and used the platform to recycle misleading right-wing anti-abortion talking points. On his program, in the same year, Baier inaccurately described a common abortion procedure as “dismemberment abortion” and misled viewers that a Supreme Court case involving access to contraceptives was actually about abortion rights. Baier previously invoked a longstanding right-wing media talking point comparing legally operating abortion providers to convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell. In 2009, Baier even went so far as to falsely assert that the Obama administration would allow doctors to be jailed for refusing to perform abortions.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>Martha MacCallum</div><div>Beyond frequently hosting anti-choice guests such as Live Action founder Lila Rose and Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins, MacCallum seemingly makes little secret of her personal views on abortion and will often use sensationalized rhetoric when discussing the topic.</div><div>
</div><div>Even before MacCallum became a staple of Fox’s evening lineup, she was already a serial anti-abortion misinformer. In 2015, MacCallum attacked Planned Parenthood for allegedly using taxpayer money to support abortion care (the organization does not, as the Hyde Amendment bars the use of federal funds for abortion services). Like Baier, MacCallum also used a 2016 presidential primary forum as an opportunity to spread anti-abortion misinformation sourced from the anti-choice group Center for Medical Progress’ (CMP) deceptive videos attacking Planned Parenthood. Since MacCallum began hosting her own program, she has consistently promoted anti-abortion talking points about later abortion and Planned Parenthood. In 2017, MacCallum pushed several myths about the existence of so-called “sex-selective” abortion practices, even demanding a guest on her program explain whether it was acceptable “for someone to decide because they don’t like the sex of their baby to abort it at eight months.”</div><div>
</div><div>Shannon Bream</div><div>Whether appearing as a correspondent on Special Report or hosting her own program, Fox News @ Night, Bream has been a frequent source of anti-abortion misinformation on Fox. Despite representing the network’s so-called “straight news” contingent, Bream’s promotion to host her own program was celebrated by anti-abortion leaders.</div><div>
</div><div>Bream was a frequent promoter of CMP’s deceptive videos, even hosting the Fox News “special” promoting the group’s claims in 2015. In 2016, Bream touted “exclusively obtained” copies of letters from a House investigation based on CMP’s allegations -- letters received a full day before they were publicly released or shared with Democratic members of the investigative panel, in direct violation of congressional rules. Since then, Bream has repeatedly signal-boosted anti-abortion talking points and myths by spreading misinformation about abortion safety, letting guests make inaccurate allegations about Planned Parenthood without pushback, and citing polls commissioned by anti-abortion groups without necessary context to suggest a lack of public support for abortion. If there’s a talking point circulating around anti-abortion media and personalities online, it’s more likely than not that it will eventually surface on Bream’s program.</div><div>
</div><div>Chris Wallace</div><div>Although Chris Wallace does not discuss abortion as frequently as some of his Fox colleagues, his invocation of so-called “partial-birth” abortion during the final debate of the 2016 presidential election is more than enough to disqualify the anchor from consideration as a fair and balanced voice on abortion-related issues. Wallace’s inaccurate and sensationalized question was then picked up by other right-wing media outlets and has since re-emerged in Trump’s current talking points about abortion. Wallace has also shown a propensity for repeating right-wing smears against Planned Parenthood, citing anti-choice videos attacking the organization well before CMP’s campaign of deception began.</div><div>
</div><div>It doesn’t matter whether viewers watch so-called "news" or "opinion" programming: Both are likely to contain sensationalism, outright lies, and harmful characterizations about abortion patients, providers, and procedures -- seemingly no matter the potential consequences.</div><div>
</div><div>Fox downplays report that Trump ordered officials to give son-in-law Kushner a security clearance</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AP 219</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Anti-abortion bills: Odds good in GOP states, not Congress</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>by DAVID CRARY, AP National WriterThursday, February 7th 2019</div><div>
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</div><div>South Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Cash reintroduces personhood legislation at pro-life event Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, inside the lobby of the Statehouse. The personhood bill stipulates life begins at conception and at that moment, has all the rights as any other citizen. (AP Photo/Christina Myers)</div><div>
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</div><div>WASHINGTON (AP) - <b>President Donald Trump's call for a ban on late-term abortions is unlikely to prevail in Congress, but Republican legislators in several states are pushing ahead with their own tough anti-abortion bills that they hope can pass muster with the Supreme Court.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Two bills proposing to outlaw abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, advanced out of House and Senate committees in the Mississippi Legislature this week. GOP Gov. Phil Bryant is pledging to sign either into law.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Efforts to pass similar bills are underway in Florida, Kentucky, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Ohio, former Republican Gov. John Kasich twice vetoed the measure; his successor, Republican Mike DeWine, has said he would sign it. In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee and the top two GOP state lawmakers say they support the measure.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Iowa passed a heartbeat bill last year that was struck down by a state judge on Jan. 22. In response, many GOP lawmakers are trying to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot that would stipulate there is no right to abortion in Iowa.</div><div>
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</div><div>South Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Cash reintroduces personhood legislation at pro-life event Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019, inside the lobby of the Statehouse. The personhood bill stipulates life begins at conception and at that moment, has all the rights as any other citizen. (AP Photo/Christina Myers)</div><div>
</div><div><b>South Carolina, in addition to a heartbeat bill, will consider a measure introduced Wednesday that would broadly ban abortions and allow the possibility of criminal charges against individuals who perform them.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Trump, in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, cited recent controversies in New York and Virginia over late-term abortions, and urged Congress "to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in a mother's womb."</div><div>
</div><div>Legislation to achieve that goal failed to win passage even when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. It has virtually no chance of success now that Democrats control the House.</div><div>
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</div><div>President Donald Trump listens during the National Prayer Breakfast, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nonetheless, anti-abortion legislators and activists believe Trump has bolstered their cause with his appointments of conservative Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Abortion opponents foresee the possibility that the high court might either reverse Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling establishing a nationwide right to abortion, or uphold specific state laws that would undermine Roe.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Indiana, four anti-abortion laws have been blocked or thrown out by federal judges since 2013. Activists believe they now have a better opportunity for success, thanks to Trump's Supreme Court appointees, and are promoting legislation that would outlaw a procedure known as dilation and evacuation that's frequently used for second-trimester abortions.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Mike Fichter, president of Indiana Right to Life, says the proposed ban is "the most aggressive legislation with the highest chance of surviving legal challenge under the new makeup of the court."</div><div>
</div><div><b>A similar bill is being proposed in North Dakota</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ohio has enacted a ban scheduled to take effect in March. Laws banning the procedure are in effect in Mississippi and West Virginia. Others are on hold in several states because of legal challenges.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>In contrast to the anti-abortion momentum in GOP-led states, several Democratic-controlled legislatures, including Massachusetts, New Mexico and Rhode Island, will consider ways to protect abortion access in the event Roe v. Wade is weakened or overturned.</b></div><div>
</div><div>New Mexico's House of Representatives approved a bill Wednesday night that would remove a dormant criminal ban on abortion. The law has been unenforceable for 45 years because of the Roe ruling. The bill now moves to the state Senate. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has said she would sign it.</div><div>
</div><div>New York has passed the Reproductive Health Act, which codifies rights laid out in Roe and other abortion rulings. It states that a woman may abort after 24 weeks of pregnancy if her life or health is at risk, or if the fetus is not viable.</div><div>
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</div><div>Andrew Cuomo</div><div>?</div><div>@NYGovCuomo</div><div>&nbsp;In their attack on women’s rights, President Trump and his allies are intentionally spreading lies about New York’s Reproductive Health Act. Their goal is to end all legal abortion in our nation.</div><div>
</div><div>Don’t fall for it. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/cuomo-roe-abortion-trump.html …</div><div>
</div><div>801</div><div>5:15 AM - Feb 6, 2019</div><div>Twitter Ads info and privacy</div><div>
</div><div>Opinion | Andrew Cuomo: Trump’s Assault on Abortion Rights Must Be Rejected</div><div>The president and the religious right are spreading falsehoods about abortion laws to inflame their base.</div><div>
</div><div>nytimes.com</div><div>1,149 people are talking about this</div><div>
</div><div>Writing Wednesday in The New York Times, Gov. <b>Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., defended the law </b>and accused Trump and his allies of "spreading lies" about it.</div><div>
</div><div>"Their goal is to end all legal abortion in our nation," Cuomo wrote.</div><div>
</div><div>Activists on both sides on the debate are keeping a close eye on the Supreme Court to see if it's ready to curtail abortion rights.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The justices are expected to decide soon whether Louisiana can begin enforcing a law requiring doctors who work at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. It was passed in 2014, but has never taken effect.</b></div><div>
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</div><div>In this Jan. 7, 2019 photo, The Supreme Court is seen in Washington,. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Texas three years ago, but since then Kavanaugh replaced retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had voted to strike down the Texas law.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In another case, officials from Indiana are asking the justices to hear their appeal of a lower court ruling blocking a 2016 law aiming to ban women from deciding to have an abortion because of a fetus' genetic abnormalities, such as Down syndrome.</span></div><div>
</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma 119</font></div><div><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;the midst of a manufactured outrage cycle over&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aecb56303f8f5ac35ff4ca39a58352000b69e74ccdf6b8de5feeae38c4c272e006d6da306e051f62b204929b55284577682" title="recent state measures protecting or expanding abortion access" style="">recent state measures protecting or expanding abortion access</a>, President Trump used an interview with The Daily Caller<i>&nbsp;</i>to further stoke right-wing panic with anti-choice rhetoric.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump's January 30 interview with The Daily Caller recycled many Fox News talking points on so-called "partial-birth" abortion, saying, "Do you remember when I said Hillary Clinton was willing to rip the baby out of the womb? That's what it is, that's what they're doing, it's terrible" Trump was echoing&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec354d824ea32a3d20ac0b9124540dfc4dced02be5b77f013cee4a8da7634e4b00717ecd35426a16dafb51cd0a237e5d20" title="language" style="">language</a>from Fox News' coverage of a Virginia bill that would expand abortion access.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unsurprisingly, this Fox News/Trump hybrid talking point is based on a lie. So-called "partial-birth" abortion is&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec6e909435136127e15130bf182948fb9d9616d3db910a5037df59593f3418997fd8ab0c5f767f0e85cb79a92f030c38ee" title="not a medical term" style="">not a medical term</a>, and the procedure it references was&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aecaa26b08a146efe429667c13cf502ce0016b0a722538b913feefe9dd615d34fab7c24898cbe51afa4182bb60e5c5c3573" title=" outlawed" style="">outlawed&nbsp;</a>in 2003. Later abortions happen in the case of serious risks to the health of the pregnant person, a nonviable fetus, or medical necessity. Trump's latest comments are no more than another opportunity to sow misinformation and&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec06d6c9c74b3f8e46eeef4c253f8b71886b1b68f352ed8bf95864ccba812c6a298e63c40f906184ee7708af0a0472f1de" title="fearmongering " style="">fearmonger</a>&nbsp;about abortion.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px;" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><i><b>Read this:&nbsp;</b></i>There have been a lot of lies in right-wing media this week about abortion, including accusing people on the left of supporting "infanticide." Our team has put together&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec80a88d209fb984367263688d519265fad943bb6e4e4e7697ae031336d00f85900d389638b3ffd5b3484475055d90895d" title="Myths and facts around this week’s manufactured abortion rights scandals" style="">a full debunk</a>. The common thread through the lies is right-wing media dehumanizing people who are making these decisions, rather than even trying to understand the circumstances. Instead of ill-informed punditry, read&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=5785cb8985a64aec30ef0334207c8aa7a7ce5f0b3879aea355f83b813efc317e64de3493d196e118bd8d7188742ca2dc0648a247ccafcbd1" title="Interview With a Woman Who Recently Had an Abortion at 32 Weeks" style="">this interview</a>&nbsp;with someone that actually had a later abortion.</font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><h2 class="no-coverage frontpage_dedup" style="text-align: left; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/ohio-republicans-move-make-childbirth-mandatory-and-lay-bare-deep-sexism-motivates-anti-choice" style="text-decoration-line: none; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; line-height: 20px; letter-spacing: 0px; text-align: right;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Ohio Republicans move to make childbirth mandatory — and lay bare the deep sexism that motivates the anti-choice movement</font></a></h2><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">crypto?</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/abortion-foes-hijack-racial-justice-black-genocide-argument-particularly-dangerous"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">
</font></a></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/abortion-foes-hijack-racial-justice-black-genocide-argument-particularly-dangerous"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/abortion-foes-hijack-racial-justice-black-genocide-argument-particularly-dangerous</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-a<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">bortion activists are hijacking the racial justice movement in a craven effort to restrict the reproductive freedom of black women. It’s insulting and cynical and, if the reproductive rights movement isn’t careful, it just might work.</span></font></div><div data-node="node-2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A recently released&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/video/anti-abortion-crusaders-inside-the-african-american-abortion-battle/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">short documentary</a>&nbsp;explores this disturbing trend, which has zeroed in on the black community with a false but darkly resonant message: Abortion is leading to black genocide.</font></p></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This fiction relies on a false equivalence drawn between abortion and the various ways society fails to protect and value the lives of black youth.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To be abundantly clear, this argument is as exploitative as it is wrong.</font></p><div data-node="node-8" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The right and ability to access abortion and contraception are critical for black women, and the power of black women to decide for themselves when and whether they will have families strengthens the black community. But as the film points out, the argument is gaining momentum, and it is worth understanding why.</font></p></div><div data-node="node-10" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative movements co-opting racial justice language to use the black community as a political wedge is not new or surprising. Publicly released confidential documents&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrc.org/press/hrc-exposes-treasure-trove-of-confidential-nom-strategy-documents" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">showed</a>&nbsp;that the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) strategically exaggerated and magnified black opposition to marriage equality in order to drive a wedge between the black community and the gay community during the height of the marriage equality fight. Similarly, when comprehensive immigration reform looked achievable in 2013, a&nbsp;<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/white-nationalist-is-behind-black-anti-immigration-reform-march-7ebde33b8fef/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">white nationalist</a>&nbsp;created the Black American Leadership Alliance (BALA) in an effort to manufacture black opposition to immigration reform.</font></p><div><div id="postSection-4"><div data-node="node-12"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These efforts rely on an unfortunate truism that social justice movements often fail to confront their own racism and try to erase racial difference or fetishize black intolerance as particularly morally objectionable.</font></p></div><div data-node="node-14"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When the narrative began to emerge that the black community was more hostile to marriage equality than the white community, the LGBT movement responded with troubling comparisons, calling “gay the new black,” coining “the new Civil Rights Movement,” and lobbing racially charged accusations at the black community, which divided the movement and erased black LGBT people.</font></p></div><div data-node="node-16"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reproductive rights advocates can learn a crucial lesson from these missteps. While the anti-abortion activists attempting to exploit the black community are disingenuous opportunists, we should not so easily dismiss the implications of racial disparity in abortion access.</font></p></div><div data-node="node-18"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Black women constitute 28% of abortions and 13% of the population. Because there is no racialized reason black women would have more abortions than anyone else, there are only two explanations why black women account for a greater percentage of abortions: either black women are more likely to have unintended pregnancies or they are more likely to have abortions that they would otherwise not have if circumstances were different.</font></p></div><div data-node="node-20"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Reproductive Justice advocates tell us, we must first consider the unique challenges that black women face and the forces of structural racism that can complicate their decision about whether or not to have children. This includes disproportionate poverty rates, unemployment or low wage jobs without health insurance and lack of access to quality health care.</font></p></div></div></div><div><div id="postSection-5"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img alt="" src="https://pixel.watch/e03f" style="border: none;" />When a combination of policies and structural racism make pregnancy more&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/pmss.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">dangerous</a>&nbsp;for black women, raising&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/opinion/michael-brown-anniversary-black-mothers.html?r=0" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">safe</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/333432-proposed-cuts-to-environmental-protection-would-hurt-black-moms" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">healthy</a>&nbsp;kids more difficult for black women and a social safety net&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-budget-benefits-cuts/?utm_term=.8b9383f2134a" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">less accessible</a>&nbsp;for low-income black women, it seems undeniable that at least some of these abortions are the result of women who are confronted with an untenable set of options.We must face the difficult fact that coercive inequality results in some black women having abortions they do not, strictly speaking, want.</font></div><div><div id="postSection-7"><div data-node="node-24"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of course, restricting the options available to these women only exacerbates the problem.</font></p></div><div data-node="node-26"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If, all things being equal, some of these black women would have chosen to carry their pregnancies to term, then the answer is to address that inequality, not to further limit access.</font></p></div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="postSection-7"><div data-node="node-28"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But ignoring the problem also makes it worse.</font></p></div><div data-node="node-30"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Black women do represent an outsized proportion of the abortions in this country, and it is advocacy malpractice to pretend this isn’t concerning. Silence in the face of that fact is what creates the vacuum in black abortion politics that anti-abortion extremists will attempt to fill with insincere rhetoric about valuing black lives.</font></p></div><div data-node="node-32"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We must acknowledge that black women’s bodies have been subjected to violence, exploited and experimented on, and the reproductive rights movement has yet to advocate for an agenda that truly addresses this experience. This movement has been shaped by eugenicists, some of whom specifically advocated for abortion as a way of controlling the black population. Black women have been sterilized against their will. They have been coerced – through both physical and economic force – into abortions they didn’t want. Much of modern reproductive and gynecological health care and services, including contraception, were discovered and perfected by engaging in inhumane and sometimes deadly experiments on the bodies of black and brown women. And black women die at alarming, disproportionate rates during childbirth.</font></p></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="postSection-9"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Acknowledging these uncomfortable truths divests them of their power and stops our opponents from using them against us. We must stop running away from the history of our country and, in some cases, our movement.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">age of trump</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/rep-steve-king-introduces-federal-version-of-anti-choice-heartbeat-bill</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/new-texas-anti-abortion-law-could-jail-anyone-who-drives-woman-clinic"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/new-texas-anti-abortion-law-could-jail-anyone-who-drives-woman-clinic</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cruelty</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/gender/georgia-women-arrested-protesting-bill-would-let-employers-fire-women-whove-had-abortion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><h1 class="print-title" style=" margin-bottom: .2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></h1><h1 class="print-title" style=" margin-bottom: .2em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nebraska Resurrects "Justifiable Homicide" Abortion Bill</font></h1>

<div class="dek" style=" font-style: italic; margin-bottom: .5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A state legislator pushes a bill that's even more sweeping than the South Dakota proposal that sparked a national controversy.</font></div>

<p class="submitted" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="byline">By <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/authors/nick-baumann" rel="author">Nick Baumann</a> and <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/authors/daniel-schulman" rel="author">Daniel Schulman</a></span> | <span class="dateline">Thu Feb. 24, 2011 1:01 AM PST</span></font>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just when abortion rights supporters thought they had beaten a controversial bill they believe would <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/south-dakota-hb-1171-legalize-killing-abortion-providers" target="_blank">legalize the killing of abortion providers</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span>, it has cropped up again—this time in a more expansive form that has drawn the concern of law enforcement officials.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week, South Dakota's legislature <a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/south-dakota-shelves-justifiable-homicide-measure" target="blank">shelved</a> <span class="print-footnote">[2]</span> a bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Phil Jensen, which&nbsp;would have allowed the use of the <b>"justifiable&nbsp;homicide" defense for killings intended to prevent harm to a fetus</b>. Now a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Intro/LB232.pdf" target="blank">nearly identical bill</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span>&nbsp;is being considered in neighboring Nebraska, where on Wednesday the state legislature held a hearing on the measure.</font>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The legislation, LB 232, was introduced by state Sen. Mark Christensen, a devout Christian and die-hard abortion foe who is <a target="_blank" href="http://www.necitizen.com/Profiles/showinfo2.pl?ids=mchristensen,fshoemaker">opposed to the prodedure</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span> even in the case of rape. Unlike its South Dakota counterpart, which would have allowed only a pregnant woman, her husband, her parents, or her children to commit "justifiable homicide" in defense of her fetus, the Nebraska bill would apply to any third party.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In short, this bill authorizes and protects vigilantes, and that's something that's unprecedented in our society," Melissa Grant of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland told the Nebraska legislature's judiciary committee on Wednesday. Specifically, she warned, it could be used to target Planned Parenthood's patients and personnel. Also testifying in oppostion to the bill was David Baker, the deputy chief executive officer of the Omaha police department, who said, "We share the same fears...that this could be used to incite violence against abortion providers."</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Baker's concern is well-grounded: Abortion providers are frequent targets of violent attacks. <b>Eight doctors have been murdered by anti-abortion extremists since 1993, and another 17 have been victims of murder attempts. Some of the perpetrators of those crimes, including Scott Roeder, the murderer of Wichita, Kansas, abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, have attempted to use the justifiable homicide defense at their trials.</b> Several of the witnesses at Wednesday's hearing cited Tiller's murder as a case where a law like the one Christensen introduced could have come into play.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For his part,&nbsp;Christensen insisted that his measure is not intended to target abortion providers. Like Jensen, Christensen claimed that his bill is merely meant to allow pregnant women to defend their unborn children without fear of prosecution. "LB 232," he said, "is really nothing more than an attempt to make sure a pregnant woman is not unnecessarily charged with a crime for using force to protect her unborn child from someone who means to bring harm to her unborn children."&nbsp;</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But, as other lawmakers pointed out during the hearing, Christensen's bill, as currently written, would not only apply to pregnant women but to&nbsp;anyone who attempted to prevent harm to a fetus. "I think it opens the door to something unintended," said state Sen. Steve Lathrop. "I don't think you came in here intending to make those who provide abortions a target of the use of force," he told Christensen, "but I think it may unintentionally do that or at least provide somebody with an argument that they were justified in that."</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not everyone is sure that the law's potential use in a case of abortion-related murder was unintentional. "If they wanted it narrow, they should have drafted it that way, and they did not," Alan Peterson, a lobbyist with the ACLU of Nebraska who testified at the hearing, told <em>Mother Jones</em>. "So I have reasonable suspicion that the intent was at least to create a possible broad defense for attacks on abortion providers."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I don't know how anyone knows my intent," Christensen fired back in an interview with <em>Mother Jones</em>.</font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christensen and proponents of his bill, including the anti-abortion groups Americans United for Life and Family First, argue that concerns that the measure would legalize violence against abortion providers are overblown. They say that since abortions are legal in Nebraska, the killing of an abortion doctor would not be permissible under Christensen's law. (Proponents of South Dakota's bill <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/sd-rep-justifiable-homicide-bill-has-got-nothing-do-abortion" target="_blank">made a similar case</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span>.) But Peterson disputed this interpretation. He said the existing self-defense statute that Christensen's bill would amend is "not limited to situations where something is going on that's unlawful. It says the person who claims the defense believes that there's something unlawful. That's a subjective standard." A standard, he added, that might allow the killer of an abortion provider to use Christensen's law, if passed, to get away with murder.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christensen, who was first elected to the state legislature in 2006, has a history of advancing eyebrow-raising legislation. "Controversial bills don't bother me at all," he <a href="http://journalstar.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_83dc60c9-ed31-5bb2-a9ce-59950380c319.html?print=1" target="blank">once said</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span>. Recently, he has pushed a measure that would allow teachers and other school officials to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/19/nebraska-teachers-guns_n_811028.html" target="blank">carry concealed weapons on school grounds</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span>. And in January, he introduced a <a href="http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=11970" target="blank">birther-style bill</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span> that would require presidential and vice presidential candidates to provide a "certified copy" of their "original long-form" birth certificates in order to be listed on the ballot in Nebraska. He's also floated a bill, similar to <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/sd-rep-who-authored-abortion-bill-nixes-sharia-ban" target="blank">one introduced by Jensen in South Dakota</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span>, which would <a href="http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=12719" target="blank">prohibit Nebraska's courts from basing their rulings on foreign law</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span>—a measure that's<span style=" background-color: #FFF200;"> part of a quixotic </span><a target="blank" href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/has-your-state-banned-sharia-map"><span style=" background-color: #FFF200;">nationwide right-wing campaign</span></a><span style=" background-color: #FFF200;"> </span><span class="print-footnote"><span style=" background-color: #FFF200;">[11]</span></span><span style=" background-color: #FFF200;"> to ban Sharia law.</span></font>

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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christensen said that he was unaware that a justifiable homicide bill similar to his had been introduced in South Dakota, though it recently caused a national outcry after the possible implications of the legislation were reported by <em>Mother Jones</em>. Following Wednesday's hearing, where lawmakers and others highlighted the potential dangers of his bill, Christensen said that he's prepared to revise the legislation and "narrow it down to just protecting mother and unborn child." Then "it'll be noncontroversial and we'll be ready to go."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He added, "I do not believe in killing people for undue reason."</font></p>

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<div class="print-source_url"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Source URL:</strong> <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/nebraska-justifiable-homicide-abortion-bill">http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/nebraska-justifiable-homicide-abortion-bill</a></font></div>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Links:</strong>

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/south-dakota-hb-1171-legalize-killing-abortion-providers

[2] http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/south-dakota-shelves-justifiable-homicide-measure

[3] http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Intro/LB232.pdf

[4] http://www.necitizen.com/Profiles/showinfo2.pl?ids=mchristensen,fshoemaker

[5] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/sd-rep-justifiable-homicide-bill-has-got-nothing-do-abortion

[6] http://journalstar.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_83dc60c9-ed31-5bb2-a9ce-59950380c319.html?print=1

[7] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/19/nebraska-teachers-guns_n_811028.html

[8] http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=11970

[9] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/sd-rep-who-authored-abortion-bill-nixes-sharia-ban

[10] http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/bills/view_bill.php?DocumentID=12719

[11] http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/has-your-state-banned-sharia-map</font></p>

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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller</font></a>

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<li><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiley_Drake" title="Wiley Drake">Wiley Drake</a>, vice-presidential candidate for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Independent_Party" title="America's Independent Party" class="mw-redirect">America's Independent Party</a> ticket in 2008 and the second vice president of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention" title="Southern Baptist Convention">Southern Baptist Convention</a> in 2006–2007,<sup id="cite_ref-drake_60-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller#cite_note-drake-60"><span>[</span>60<span>]</span></a></sup> asked on his radio show, "Would you have rejoiced when Adolf Hitler died during the war? ... I would have said, 'Amen! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! I'm glad he's dead.' This man, George Tiller, was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler, so I am happy; I am glad that he is dead."<sup id="cite_ref-drake_60-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller#cite_note-drake-60"><span>[</span>60<span>]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-61" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_George_Tiller#cite_note-61"><span>[</span>61<span>]</span></a></sup></font></li>

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