Tag: abortion

21 South Carolina GOP Lawmakers Propose Death Penalty for Women Who Have Abortions

MEMBERS OF THE South Carolina State House are considering a bill that would make a woman who has an abortion in the state eligible for the death penalty. 

The “South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023” would amend the state’s code of laws, redefining “person” to include a fertilized egg at the point of conception, affording that zygote “equal protection under the homicide laws of the state” — up to and including the ultimate punishment: death.  

The bill was authored by Rep. Rob Harris, a registered nurse and member of the Freedom Caucus; it has attracted 21 co-sponsors to date. (Two former co-sponsors — Rep. Matt Leber and Rep. Kathy Landing — asked to have their names removed as sponsors of the bill. Leber and Landing could not be reached for comment.)  

Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who represents South Carolina in the U.S. House, took to the floor on Friday to call attention to the bill, which she sees as part of a “deeply disturbing” trend. (Multiple Texas lawmakers have floated the idea of executing women who have abortions in the past. Those bills, proposed before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, failed.)

“To see this debate go to the dark places, the dark edges, where it has gone on both sides of the aisle, has been deeply disturbing to me as a woman, as a female legislator, as a mom, and as a victim of rape. I was raped as a teenager at the age of 16,” Mace said. “This debate ought to be a bipartisan debate where we balance the rights of women and we balance the right to life. But we aren’t having that conversation here in D.C. We aren’t having that conversation at home. We aren’t having that conversation with fellow state lawmakers.” 

Asked about exceptions for victims of rape, which Mace raised in her remarks on the floor, Harris told Rolling Stone, “There are other bills with exceptions, but will do little or nothing to save the lives of pre-born children.” He went on list exceptions the bill does contain, including: “a ‘duress’ defense for women who are pressured/threatened to have an abortion” and “medical care to save the mother’s life… The functional language in that scenario is whether the baby’s life is forfeited ‘unintentionally’ or ‘intentionally’.” (Asked if he saw any irony between being a member of the so-called “Freedom Caucus” while proposing such harsh restrictions on reproductive freedoms, Harris responded simply: “Murder of the pre-born is harsh.”)

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The Underground Abortion Pill Network Is Booming

At least 20,000 packets of abortion pills were shipped to people in the United States in the six months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, two sources with knowledge of the situation told VICE News. 

The suppliers of these estimated 20,000 packets are neither abortion clinics nor abortion telehealth organizations, but instead operate outside of the U.S. legal health care system. The demand for their pills, as well as their success at shipping them out undetected, are evidence of the thriving underground abortion network that has sprung up since Roe’s demise devastated access to abortion clinics. 

Meant to be used by people who want to induce their own abortions, these pills—and the people who supply them—are in a legal grey area. Self-managing an abortion is only banned in a few states, but experts have long warned that if a prosecutor is determined to press charges for it, they’ll find a way.

“People have always self-managed abortions and will always self-manage abortion. We’ll have to continue to fight back against all of the bans and restrictions that are being implemented on people,” said Christie Pitney, a licensed nurse practitioner, a midwife with Forward Midfwery, and co-founder of Abortion Freedom Fund, a fund for telehealth abortions. Referring to self-managed abortion, she added, “it’s just going to grow more and more.”

Pitney works with both Aid Access, an organization that mails abortion pills to states where abortion is legal, through providers like Pitney, and to states where it is not, through a doctor who is based overseas. When she started working at Aid Access, where she legally provides abortion pills to people in two states, Pitney estimated that she used to help roughly 60 people get access to abortion pills each month. Now, she said she helps “hundreds” per month.

“Those are specifically for myself, not even the whole organization,” said Pitney, who confirmed to VICE News that at least an estimated  20,000 abortion pills were shipped between the June 2022 Roe decision and December 2022. 

Aid Access is not one of the suppliers included in the 20,000 estimate, suggesting that the true number of abortion pills that have been mailed out through covert channels since the end of Roe is even higher. A recent study of Aid Access also found that the organization received almost three times as many requests for help after Roe was overturned, compared to before a draft of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe leaked in May 2022. The biggest increases in requests came from people in states that have banned abortion.

Since Roe’s demise, at least 13 states have enacted near-total abortion bans. Data from the Society of Family Planning found last year that, in the two months following Roe’s demise, there were 10,000 fewer in-clinic abortions in the U.S. 

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2 Antifa indicted for targeting pro-life pregnancy center in Florida ‘Jane’s Revenge’ attack

The Department of Justice has indicted two Florida residents on charges of a civil rights conspiracy for spray-painting threats on reproductive health services and for violating the FACE Act. If convicted, the two could face up to 12 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and up to $350,000 in fines.

The Grand Jury indictment from the Middle District of Florida “alleges that Caleb Freestone, 27, and Amber Smith-Stewart, 23, engaged in a conspiracy to prevent employees of reproductive health services facilities from providing those services.”

“2 Members of #Miami #Antifa indicted by the feds for a string of Jane’s Revenge related vandalism targeting pro life pregnancy centers in 2022 Caleb Freestone and Amber Smith-Stewart are both charged with Civil Rights Conspiracy and violating the FACE act,” Antifa watch reported.

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Doctor Featured In Dem Campaign Ad Killed Woman In Botched Abortion, Was Accused Of Sexually Assaulting Minor

Levy has already been responsible for at least one death following an abortion he performed, according to the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners (NSBME). His insurance settled for $20,000 after a woman died in 2007 due to a perforation of her uterus. In another instance, Levy’s insurance settled for $7,500 after a woman “suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns to her labia and perineum from a hot weighted speculum used in surgery,” according to NSBME records.

Levy was also charged in 1998 with sexually assaulting a minor under the age of 16 and performing lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14, according to documents obtained by The Nevada Globe. He submitted an Alford Plea in 1999 to child abuse and neglect, and was ordered to avoid contact with his victims, refrain from possessing pornography and child pornography and complete a sex offender treatment program. He also was sentenced to two years of probation.

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Top Staffer for Major Anti-Abortion Group Arrested for Soliciting a Minor

A man who worked as a political director for Texas Right to Life, the premier anti-abortion group in the state, has been arrested for the online solicitation of a minor. 

Lucas “Luke” Bowen, 33, was charged with the second-degree felony on August 3. A minor, under that statute, refers to anyone who’s younger than 17 or who the arrested person believes to be younger than 17.

Bowen allegedly “knowingly” solicited a minor online “with the intent” of engaging “in sexual contact or sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse,” according to a complaint filed by Montgomery County prosecutors obtained by The Courier of Montgomery County.

The news of Bowen’s charge was previously reported by Jessica Valenti, an independent feminist journalist.

Texas Right to Life is one of the most powerful anti-abortion groups in a state known for setting the anti-abortion agenda for the rest of the nation. As part of his work for the organization, Bowen had appeared on stage representing Texas Right to Life at a 2020 Texas Youth Summit panel, spoke to Politico in 2018, and served as its campaign treasurer, according to a Texas campaign finance report filed last month.

Now, it appears that Bowen’s name has been removed from some pages on Texas Right to Life’s website and other pages mentioning him have been removed entirely (Valenti also reported on this). In one press release from February 2020, a quote attributed to Bowen as of September last year now appears without his name but still has the quote, a cached version of the page obtained from the Internet Archive showed. The quote originally read: 

Texas Right to Life has never endorsed Kay Granger, including for this cycle,” Luke Bowen, Political Director of Texas Right to Life, said. “Republican Chris Putnam is the only Pro-Life candidate in the race. We proudly endorsed Putnam after our interview in December, and are excited for the people of Congressional District 12 to finally have Pro-Life representation in Washington.

Another press release, claiming a Texas Right to Life employee named Kim Schwartz “saved” a woman from getting an abortion, mentioned that Bowen stayed behind with Schwartz to ensure she “wasn’t left alone in the office.” That release is now erased from the website. 

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“My Body, My Choice” Activists Malfunction When Asked About Vaccine Mandates

A video shows pro-abortion activists who embrace the concept of “my body, my choice” having brain malfunctions when asked about vaccine mandates.

The past few days have seen infinite instances of the same people who called those skeptical of mandatory vaccines every slur in the book suddenly do a 180 and claim the government has no right to have a say over their bodily autonomy.

That made for some interesting responses when Alex Stein confronted Roe vs Wade demonstrators with the hypocrisy of their own rhetoric.

“Are you in favor of my body, my choice?” Stein asked protesters, all of whom agreed.

“What about vaccine mandates?” he countered.

One man responded by engaging in a deluge of verbal diarrhea, while another simply said, “Get the fuck out of here, man.”

Vaccine mandates were “better for the community,” said another woman, before refusing to accept that a baby was a baby.

“That isn’t a baby,” said another woman who was pro-vaccine mandates.

“I’ll throw your phone on the floor if you don’t stop,” another man angrily responded.

“This is not going where we want it to go,” said another older woman who could not compute the dichotomy while her husband held a sign saying “sick of the hypocrisy.”

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Transgender Activist Who Created ‘Gender Unicorn’ Calls for ‘Supreme Court Assassination Challenge’

A transgender activist who creates widely distributed educational resources for nonbinary students called for a “Supreme Court assassination challenge” on the same day Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Eli Erlick, a founder of Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER) and creator of a popular “Gender Unicorn” graphic for “gender fluidity,” tweeted and later deleted the remark on Friday, when the High Court delivered its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Since 2011, Erlick and the “youth-led” organization have helped implement transgender policies in dozens of school districts, including Wisconsin, New York, and Texas. The group backs sweeping “structural change” as opposed to “equality,” which according to its website, “reinforces systems of white supremacy, transphobia, and injustice.”

Following the leaked Dobbs decision in May, pro-abortion activists have targeted pro-life offices and crisis pregnancy centers across the country. Vandals firebombed pro-life buildings in Wisconsin and New York and defaced four pro-life churches in Washington State. Fears heightened in June when an armed California man was arrested outside the home of Brett Kavanaugh and later confessed to plans to assassinate the justice.

Assassination threats, sometimes from accounts with thousands of followers, erupted on social media on the day the Court ended constitutional protection for abortion.

“Can someone kill Clarence Thomas??” an account with more than 14,000 followers tweeted. The post hadn’t been taken down as of this article’s publication.

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‘Night of rage’ protests erupt into violence across the country: Fox News HQ targeted, fireworks shot at police, pro-life woman attacked, journalists assaulted

Protests erupted across the country following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. In major U.S. cities, pro-abortion protesters violently clashed with law enforcement on Friday.

Washington, D.C.

Antifa-linked pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge vowed to undertake a “night of rage” after the Supreme Court’s ruling on allowing states to make the final call about abortion. Black bloc protesters wielding umbrellas marched through the streets of Washington, D.C.

The group chanted slogans such as, “If abortion ain’t safe, neither are you,” “If we don’t get it, burn it down,” “Every city, every town, burn the precinct to the ground,” and “F*** the church, f*** the state, we won’t let them decide our fate.” The protesters burned American flags.

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