Tag: abortion

MSNOW Senior Washington Correspondent Thinks Abortion and Trans Kids Are ‘Kitchen Table Issues’

Eugene Daniels is the senior Washington correspondent for MSNOW and he has a rather untraditional take on what the term ‘kitchen table issues’ means to most people.

During a recent segment about the Democrat autopsy of the 2024 election, Daniels was asked what he thinks Democrats should do going forward.

Daniels suggested that it is possible for Democrats to continue embracing identity politics while also talking about things like abortion and trans kids, which he goes on to suggest are kitchen table issues.

Someone needs to clue him in that for the vast majority of the country, those are not actually kitchen table issues.

NewsBusters reported:

Eugene Daniels Says Dems Should Focus On Kitchen Table Issues Like Trans Kids

Even by the low standards of MS NOW, senior Washington correspondent Eugene Daniels’s Thursday appearance on Chris Jansing Reports was a stellar example of how not to do journalism. Daniels’s title suggests that the network views him as a reporter, but he decided to go full activist. According to him, Democrats need “to be more comfortable with power” and that the party needs to focus more on “kitchen table issues,” which he somehow defined as abortion and gender transitioning children.

Reacting to the DNC’s autopsy, Jansing read a portion aloud that suggested Democrats’ problem is that they are just too smart for the electorate, “They claim Republicans are just better at politics. Quote, ‘At times it seems Democrats are trying to win arguments while Republicans are focused on winning elections. Democrats operate in an ecosystem defined by reason, even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage.’ What should Democrats do with that?”…

Usually, kitchen table issues mean things like the jobs or the cost of living, but Daniels took an extremely broad definition:

When you talk about whether or not people can have access to healthy abortions—safe abortions, that is a kitchen table issue, right? Whether or not a trans kid can get the services they need, that is a kitchen table issue for families. So, it’s about crafting the message in a way that actually gets to the point that Chuck and a lot of other folks say, which is people look at the money leaving their pockets, they look at the party in power, they want some change, and they’re willing to flirt with candidates and with parties they haven’t been before.

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Colorado Democrats pass law requiring campuses to stockpile abortion drugs

The Colorado legislature recently passed a bill stipulating that all colleges and universities be required to provide abortion pills either in their campus pharmacies or via prescriptions to obtain them off campus. 

The bill passed the state Senate last week and the House in late April, but pro-life and religious leaders told The College Fix that the measure will isolate young women and pressure them to abort their unborn babies.

House Bill 26-1335, sponsored by Democrat Rep. Lorena Garcia, requires higher education institutions “to maintain a stock of abortion medication to dispense to students enrolled at the institution” if there is a pharmacy on campus. If there is no pharmacy, it requires health centers to provide prescriptions for students to obtain abortion pills off campus. 

It stipulates that any institution of higher education, whether public or private, must provide access to abortion pills unless doing so would jeopardize its “federal grant participation, … modify the generally accepted standards of medical practice, or conflict with the institution’s sincerely held religious beliefs or practices.”

If signed into law by Democrat Gov. Jared Polis, the bill will go into effect Aug. 1, 2027.

Nathan Fisher, associate director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, expressed concerns about the bill in an interview with The College Fix. “HB26-1335 will force college-aged women into an isolated environment with one perceived option: abortion.”

The bill holds additional religious concerns for the conference. Fisher told The Fix that while there is a religious exemption for institutions as a whole if they have “sincerely held beliefs,” this is not sufficient. 

Fisher said the exemption “does not protect the First Amendment rights of speech and expression for the millions of students on non-religious campuses whose student tuition and fees will be used for abortion medication or the college faculty and staff who will be forced to permit or even prescribe the medication.”

The College Fix also contacted Rep. Garcia, Sen. Katie Wallace, and Rep. Kenny Nguyen, the lead sponsors of the bill, to ask about the religious freedom concerns, as well as the reasoning for including private campuses in addition to public. None responded to two emailed requests over the past two weeks.

The text of the bill states that “true equality cannot be achieved without access to reproductive health care, including abortion.” 

In her introduction of the bill earlier this spring, Rep. Garcia said a key issue is that “your life is on campus when you are in college, and that limits the ability to access certain services that might not be on campus when you’re there.”

Garcia said Colorado has a “constitutional right to abortion care,” so “it is imperative to make sure that all of our institutions ensure that that right exists.”

In the same session, Rep. Nguyen, a co-sponsor, emphasized the importance of abortion “accessibility.”

“I believe that reproductive rights are truly under attack in the federal government, and this continues to codify laws in the state of Colorado to protect access to abortion,” Nguyen said.

However, Lydia Davis, spokesperson for Students for Life of America, described abortion pills as “anti-woman.”

They have “injured and hospitalized women, proving these drugs have never been about ‘healthcare’ or ‘supporting women,’” she told The Fix in a recent interview.

When asked about the Colorado bill, Davis said that “these deadly drugs have killed millions of babies, harmed women, and polluted our water systems with chemically tainted fetal remains flushed into our sewer systems. This bill would turn college campuses into abortion distribution centers and continue transforming our sewers into cemeteries.”

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Ireland Convicts 78-Year-Old Preacher For Preaching Near Abortion Clinic

Ireland is finally safe.

Clive Johnston has been convicted and can no longer menace the public.

Johnson, 78, is a retired pastor who committed the heinous offense of preaching near the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine.

That was considered within the “safe access zone” under Northern Ireland’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act.

The Act prohibits “influencing,” “preventing or impeding access,” or “causing harassment, alarm or distress” to a protected person within 100 meters (about 328 feet) of facilities where abortions are performed.

So Johnson was found guilty of “influencing” inside the protected zone and fined 450 pounds (about $614).

Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service told Fox News Digital, “The defendant was found guilty and convicted by the court of doing an act in a safe access zone with the intent of or being reckless as to whether it had the effect of influencing a protected person attending the premises; and failing to comply with a direction to leave a safe access zone.”

The language of the law is absurdly vague and abusively broad. What constitutes an “influence” is undefined and could include any religious, political, or social exchange. Would it include encouragements to have abortions?

It is equally perverse to treat praying or preaching the same as blocking or impeding access to a clinic. Finally, a hospital engages in a wide array of activities that raise religious or political issues that can be the subject of free speech.

We previously saw several cases in the United Kingdom where people were arrested for silently praying near abortion clinics.

For its part, Ireland has been a leader in censorship and the criminalization of speech. As the leader of the Irish Green Party proclaimed, “We are restricting freedom for the public good.”

By the way, his offense was reading John 3:16, including “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

What could perish in Ireland and the United Kingdom is free expression as speech regulators target bad influences under time, place, and manner laws.

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Appeals Court Blocks Nationwide Access to Abortion Pills Via Mail

A federal appeals court on Friday blocked nationwide access to abortion pill prescriptions via telehealth and mail.

A three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that abortion pills such as Mifepristone must be distributed in person.

Louisiana filed the lawsuit after the FDA allowed Mifepristone to be distributed via telehealth and mail during the Covid pandemic.

In 2023, the ‘Covid’ change to how abortion pills were distributed became permanent.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lashed out at Louisiana’s ‘anti-abortion politicians’ after the ruling came down from the appeals court.

“Anti-abortion politicians have just made it much harder for people everywhere in the country to get a medication that abortion and miscarriage patients have been safely using for more than 25 years,” said Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney for the Reproductive Freedom Project of the ACLU.

“Louisiana’s legal attack on mifepristone shamelessly packaged lies and propaganda as an excuse to restrict abortion — and the Fifth Circuit rubber-stamped it,” they said.

“This decision defies clear science and settled law and advances an anti-abortion agenda that is deeply unpopular with the American people,” the ACLU said.

“For countless people, especially those who live in rural areas, face intimate partner violence, or live with disabilities, losing a telemedicine option will mean losing access to this vital medication altogether,” the ACLU added.

NBC News reported:

A federal appeals court on Friday granted the state of Louisiana’s request to reinstate a nationwide requirement that abortion pills be dispensed in person.

The ruling represents a victory for opponents of abortion rights, since it limits access by blocking people’s ability to obtain mifepristone — one of the two pills used in medication abortions — through telehealth and by mail.

Telehealth prescriptions have been key to maintaining abortion access in states that outlawed or restricted the practice after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

During the Covid pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration temporarily eliminated a requirement for mifepristone to be dispensed only in clinics, medical offices and hospitals. The change was then made permanent in 2023.

Louisiana challenged that FDA regulation in federal court last year, alleging that the data to support it was flawed or nonexistent. Multiple studies have shown that mifepristone is safe and effective when taken at home after a consultation with a clinician.

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Explosive Report: As Dobbs Majority Faced Death Threats, Liberal Justices Slow-Walked Release

When the draft of the Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade leaked to the press, the conservative justices who signed on to the majority opinion suddenly wore bigger targets on their backs. The very real threat of assassination hung over them like a coming thunderstorm. 

And still their pro-abortion colleagues stalled the release of the official ruling for weeks, putting the justices’ lives at increased risk, as detailed in Mollie Hemingway’s new book on Justice Samuel Alito and reported Saturday by Fox News.

Alito is the justice who wrote Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the ruling ending nationalized abortion.

“Alito asked the dissenters to make the completion of their dissents their priority because delay of the decision was a security threat,” Hemingway, The Federalist’s editor-in-chief writes in Alito: The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution.“Abortion supporters had an incentive to kill one or more of the justices in the majority to change the outcome.” 

The dissenters — Justices Stephen Breyer (counting down the days until his retirement at the end of the 2021-22 term ), Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor — “demurred,” Hemingway reports. Justice Neil Gorsuch asked the liberals when they expected to be wrapped up. They refused to provide a date. 

The tension and the threats escalated. 

‘Serious Security Risk’

On May 2, 2022, accomplice media outlet Politico published the 98-page draft of Dobbs. The unprecedented leak set off a wave of leftist protests and a literal firestorm of pro-abortion-led violence. Six days later — on Mother’s Day — a radical who was eventually arrested thanks to a half-eaten burrito firebombed the Madison headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action, a Christian pro-life, pro-family organization. 

“In the ensuing weeks, hundreds of pregnancy centers, churches, and pro-life organizations would be vandalized, some even set ablaze,” Hemingway wrote. Protesters also lined the streets and sidewalks outside the conservative justices’ homes.

More than a month after the leak, Nicholas Roske, 26 at the time, arrived at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home with murder on his mind. In his possession were a Glock pistol, ammunition, zip ties, a tactical knife, pepper spray, a hammer, duct tape, and more accoutrements, according to the criminal complaint. Roske said he was going to stop Roe v. Wade from being overturned by getting rid of a judge — or three — that voted to stop the deeply flawed 1973 ruling legalizing abortion nationwide. 

“Everyone knew that the leak posed a serious security risk for justices. Since decisions do not take effect until issued officially from the bench, the death of a justice before then could alter the result. The threat of assassination increased dramatically,” Hemingway writes. 

It took 53 days to finally release the Dobbs decision. Despite the growing threat to their colleagues, the liberals on the court refused to listen to urgent pleas to complete their work, Hemingway reports.

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Letitia James’ Crusade Against Abortion Pill Reversal Is Also Killing Free Speech

State attorneys general are duty-bound to seek justice for the weak and powerless, not to use their immense power to harass them. But New York Attorney General Letitia James’ policing of private conversations about the abortion pill reversal (APR) protocol amounts to a cynical abuse of state power.

Two years ago, James launched a legal assault on Heartbeat International and 11 affiliated pregnancy centers in New York. She claimed the centers and Heartbeat — the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the world — had engaged in false advertising, supposedly deceiving women by sharing scientific findings supporting the safety and effectiveness of APR.

APR is a safe and effective way for a woman to improve her odds of continuing her pregnancy to term after she has ingested mifepristone — the first pill in an abortion drug regimen designed to block progesterone from the growing baby. A worldwide network of more than 1,500 health care professionals is available to prescribe bioidentical progesterone to counteract the mifepristone in order to reverse its effects. Most notably, statistics suggest that more than 8,000 babies have been saved through the abortion pill reversal protocol.

Thousands of smiling — living — babies and emotional testimonies of grateful moms illustrate the success of a chosen medical treatment. And James “has no business butting into the intimate medical decision of [a] … mother.” It’s why Heartbeat and its New York affiliates filed their own lawsuit, arguing that defendant James has provided “no evidence of fraud, misrepresentation, material omission, or harm to anyone” in providing free services or speaking about the safety and efficacy of APR.

This week, Heartbeat and its affiliates have their day in court. On Wednesday, April 15, their attorneys argued that James’ hostile lawsuit should be dismissed because it targets free speech and participation in public debate. James’ lawsuit is a classic Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). Or, more bluntly, James’ efforts amount to a bully’s legal slap in the face to keep small pro-life nonprofits from sharing a life-saving message she doesn’t like.

Her friends have called her a “voice for the voiceless.” She claims to “speak truth to power, and challenge the status quo.” And she frequently talks of “using [her] position to address the needs of those who are locked out of the sunshine of opportunity.”

But the attorney general ought not ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent defense of free speech rights, even when offering medical services. At the end of March, the court delivered an 8-1 decision in Chiles v. Salazar, noting that counseling conversations are speech and Colorado cannot silence viewpoints in the counseling room. The majority warned that “[t]oday, tomorrow, and forever, too, any professional speech that deviates from ‘current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments’ could be silenced with relative ease.”

Sensitive to the danger of stifling innovation in medicine, they continued, “Medical consensus, too, is not static; it evolves and always has. A prevailing standard of care may reflect what most practitioners believe today, but it cannot mark the outer boundary of what they may say tomorrow.”

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New Docs Reinforce The Newest DC District Judge Is A Legal Hack Skilled In Abusing Power

New federal documents released Monday shed more light on the wildly partisan history of power abuses by the troubled D.C. District Court’s newest judge, Sparkle Sooknanan.

An approximately 900-page Department of Justice report released Monday details systematic abuses of power and constitutional violations by Biden administration efforts to prosecute Americans for pro-life speech. Public records inside the report show the amazingly named Sooknanan was deeply involved in these systemic abuses of law and power. And she was rewarded with judicial robes for helping violate the law and Constitution.

During the Biden administration, Sooknanan was first a DOJ deputy associate attorney general, and then principal deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s notoriously corrupt, anti-American Civil Rights Division. While a federal prosecutor, documents show, Sooknanan used her taxpayer-funded government position to collude with privately funded leftist activists to suppress Americans’ constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of association, and free assembly.

The Monday DOJ report discloses several emails from Sooknanan, showing her participation in Biden administration efforts to use an unconstitutional law called the FACE Act to prosecute prolifers for protected public speech.

An email dated May 12, 2023 shows Sooknanan discussing DOJ colleague Sanjay Patel’s appearance at a National Abortion Federation conference to show abortion businesses how to sic federal prosecutors on American citizens who speak against mass unborn murder. Sooknanan asked for a copy of Patel’s presentation that advertised federal assistance prosecuting Americans for prolife speech.

Sooknanan included a link to an Axios article claiming repealing Roe v. Wade increased violence against abortuaries. In fact, violence against prolife women’s health centers also increased at the time, including firebombings and arson against dozens of health charities dedicated to helping poor women sustain at-risk pregnancies.

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Pro-Life Father Targeted By Biden’s FBI Wins $1M Settlement

During the Biden administration, pro-lifers were routinely targeted by the Department of Justice.

In 2022, under the leadership of then Attorney General Merrick Garland, father of seven and pro-life warrior Mark Houck was arrested in Pennsylvania as dozens of fully-armed FBI agents raided his home and terrified his family.

The arrest stemmed from an incident outside an abortion clinic in 2021.

A 72-year-old abortion escort allegedly insisted on harassing Houck’s 12 -year old son, who was accompanying him during sidewalk counseling in front of the clinic. After weeks of agitation, Houck ultimately shoved the abortion escort. No injuries were reported.

Although local prosecutors declined to pursue the case and a judge dismissed a civil lawsuit filed by the escort, Federal authorities charged Houck with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

Houck was found not guilty.

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Justice Department Fires Four Prosecutors Who Weaponized FACE Act Under Merrick Garland and Jailed Christians Praying at Abortion Clinic

At least four prosecutors who weaponized the FACE Act under Merrick Garland and jailed Christians for praying at abortion clinics have been fired.

Nearly two dozen pro-life activists were charged with the FACE Act for praying at an abortion clinic in October 2020.

In one of the more egregious acts of abuse, the Biden DOJ convicted Paula Harlow last year of federal conspiracy against rights and FACE offenses for peacefully protesting an abortion clinic in DC back in 2020.

US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee, sentenced Harlow to 24 months in prison.

She was the tenth defendant to be sentenced by the Biden Regime related to the peaceful abortion protest.

Paulette Harlow, who was 75 years old at the time, participated in a peaceful protest at an abortion clinic in 2020 and didn’t hurt anyone.

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‘Major legal victory’: Pro-lifer arrested by Biden SWAT team wins huge settlement

A Catholic father who was targeted by Joe Biden’s abortion-pushing ideologues in government has won a huge settlement for his arrest by SWAT team agents.

Of course the American taxpayer is the one who ultimately must pay as the lawsuit by Mark Houck against the Biden administration actions actually named the Department of Justice as defendant.

Houck’s home and family were “assaulted” by armed federal agents who raided him after he intervened during a pro-life protest to protect his young son from an aggressive and violent abortion escort outside a Planned Parenthood facility.

He later was acquitted of all charges.

According to a report at Lifenews, it is a “major legal victory against blatant targeting and discrimination from former President Joe Biden’s administration.”

The result is a “seven-figure settlement,” although the exact specifications of the deal weren’t released.

Houck’s arrest was made under the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances law, threatening him with up to 11 years in prison, even though the incident triggering the federal assault was unrelated.

The report explained his ordeal began when he stepped in to shield his son from harassment by an abortion escort.

Local police said there was no crime, but for Biden’s abortion-pushing bureaucrats, that wasn’t good enough.

Prosecutors then pursued the high-profile federal counts.

The Biden agenda was blocked when in 2023 a federal jury acquitted him of all counts.

He then sued the DOJ for wrongful prosecution, excessive forces and violation of constitutional rights.

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