Tag: abortion

Arkansas reveals plans for new ‘monument to the unborn’ at state capitol which will commemorate fetuses aborted between 1973 and 2022 before procedure was outlawed

Arkansas officials have unveiled plans for a ‘monument to the unborn’ to commemorate fetuses aborted in the years before the procedure was outlawed in the state.

The monument will be situated at the state’s Capitol to mark pregnancies terminated from 1973 to 2022 when the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Arkansas made abortion illegal except to save a mother’s life.

Proposals for the memorial included a bronze statue of a blindfolded baby sat atop an umbilical chord and placenta, an empty tomb and a monument incorporating facts about children in the care system.

Nine submissions were received in total, with the Capitol Arts and Grounds favoring a living wall composed of flora and fauna designed by local artist Lakey Goff. 

Secretary of State John Thurston will make the final decision on the $55,472 monument.

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Governor poised to sign law making kids watch animated fetal videos from anti-abortion group

In Tennessee, whether parents like it or not, Republican Gov. Bill Lee is poised to sign a law that will make public school children watch an animated video on fetal development backed by an anti-abortion group, or some equivalent of it, after lawmakers in the state vaulted the legislation to passage.

The law, known as the Baby Olivia Act, first passed in the state’s House in March on a 67-23 vote and then sailed through the Senate last week, 21-6. The roughly three-minute animation created by the nonprofit anti-abortion group Live Action bills itself as a “Never Before Seen Look at Human Life in the Womb” and would be shown to public school children as part of the state’s family health curriculum.

Among other features in the video, it depicts sperm fertilizing an ovum and it is here that it declares: “This is the moment that life begins. A new human being has come into existence.” The animated video states that a fetus can recognize lullabies in the womb and depicts a purported fetus at 27 weeks gazing through a translucent womb while pressing its fingers against it. The shadow of the mother’s fingers press back.

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Frozen Embryos Are Now Children Under Alabama Law

Frozen embryos are “children” under Alabama law, the state’s Supreme Court says. Its decision could have major implications for the future of fertility treatments in the state.

Frozen embryos are “unborn children” and “unborn children are ‘children,'” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in the court’s main opinion. Only two of nine justices dissented from the holding that an 1872 wrongful death statute applies to the destruction of frozen embryos.

The ruling seems to represent a turn toward judicial activism among members of Alabama’s Supreme Court, which for a long time held that the law’s text could not justify reading it to include “unborn children”—let alone frozen embryos.

It also portends a creeping Christian conservatism into court decisions, with Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker citing the Bible in his legal reasoning. In a concurring opinion, Parker justifies prohibitions on murder not by invoking classical liberal principles, like natural rights, but rather on the basis of “Man’s creation in God’s image” and the “you shall not murder” edict of the Sixth Commandment. “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself,” Parker writes.

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Satanic Temple Claims Abortion Is Part Of Their Religion In Effort To Block Abortion Bans

A satanic group is continuing attempts to overturn abortion bans in pro-life states by filing lawsuits claiming abortion is part of their religion.

The Satanic Temple (TST), a nonprofit based in Salem, Massachusetts, has filed lawsuits in Missouri, Indiana, Texas, and Idaho that so far have been unsuccessful.

That hasn’t stopped the headline-grabbing organization from plaintiff-shopping for new religious freedom lawsuits to stop abortion bans, according to its website.

The group doesn’t shy away from controversy. It made news recently for staging a satanic holiday display featuring a silver goat head atop blood-red robes during Christmas at the Iowa Capitol. The Baphomet statue shared space with a Christmas display until it was decapitated.

Michael Cassidy, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot who ran for office in Mississippi, took credit for tearing it down. The Christian conservative raised $120,000 as of early February for legal fees after being charged with criminal mischief. Recently, prosecutors announced they are charging him with a felony hate crime.

TST created an abortion ritual that it claims will exempt women from their states’ laws. The ritual, along with TST’s new abortion clinic in New Mexico, was featured in November’s Cosmopolitan magazine.

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Publisher Retracts Three Abortion Studies

Sage Journals retracted three abortion studies — including two cited by a federal judge in a case against the abortion pill mifepristoneopens in a new tab or window (Mifeprex) — after an investigation revealed methodological flaws and misleading conclusions.

In the retraction noticeopens in a new tab or window, Sage stated that an investigation following concerns raised by a reader about one article revealed that the way some data are presented “leads to an inaccurate conclusion” and that its study cohort “has problems that could affect the article’s conclusions.”

Subsequently, the journal conducted post-publication peer review of two more studies involving similar author groups that relied on the same dataset, and found “fundamental problems with the study design and methodology, unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions, material errors in the authors’ analysis of the data, and misleading presentations of the data.”

All three retracted articles had been published in the journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology and were led by James Studnicki, ScD, MPH, MBA, the vice president and director of data analytics at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the Arlington, Virginia-based research arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

“Sage confirmed that all but one of the article’s authors had an affiliation with one or more of [the] Charlotte Lozier Institute, Elliot Institute, and American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists [AAPLOG], all pro-life advocacy organizations, despite having declared they had no conflicts of interest when they submitted the article for publication or in the article itself,” the retraction notice statedopens in a new tab or window. AAPLOG is one of the partnering organizations of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine,opens in a new tab or window which is the plaintiff in the case against the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.

In an emailed statement, Studnicki told MedPage Today that “all authors fully complied with Sage’s conflict disclosure requirements. They reported their organizational affiliations, as well as [Charlotte Lozier Institute] funding of the study, as part of the submission for publication.”

“In fact, the ER study includes 10 mentions of [the Charlotte Lozier Institute] and the authors’ professional status or relationship there. There is nothing that we were required to report that we did not report,” he said.

During the investigation, Sage also found that one of the people who peer reviewed the research prior to original publication was also associated with the Charlotte Lozier Institute. Thus, Sage determined that under Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) standards, the initial peer review was “unreliable.”

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Biden Says He’s Not For “Abortion On Demand” But Supports It In”All Three Trimesters”

During his appearance in Nevada Sunday, Joe Biden declared that he does not support “abortion on demand” then immediately stated that he is for abortion during “all three trimesters” of pregnancy. 

“I love how Trump is saying Biden is for abortion on demand. Not true. That’s not what Roe v. Wade said. It said the three trimesters,” Biden stated.

“Trump and his MAGA friends are dividing us, not uniting us,” he further slurred.

He also declared that “Roe v. Wade has taken away a woman’s right to choose.”

“All three trimesters” would be abortion at any point up until birth then, so what Trump said is in fact true.

Biden has never outlined any form of abortion that he is against. Furthermore, legislation he supported last Congress, called The Women’s Health Protection Act, would have effectively codified late-term abortion into law.

The legislation, which was defeated on a procedural vote, would have required all states to allow abortion even after the point at which unborn children can feel pain.

Elsewhere during the speech Sunday, Biden again struggled to form sentences, and at one point related how three years ago he met with “Mitterrand from Germany.”

Mitterrand was the French President from 1981 to 1995, and he died 28 years ago.

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The NDAA’s ‘Warrantless Backdoor Surveillance’ of Americans Gets Approved by the Senate

In a last-minute rush to sanction spending before the end of the year, the Senate enacted a $886 billion defense spending proposal Wednesday, sponsored by President Joe Biden, that includes financing for Ukraine, yearly pay hikes for personnel, and most controversially, a reauthorization of the the National Defense Authorization Act

The NDAA funds Pentagon objectives such as training and equipment. The Act was approved by a bipartisan majority of 87-13 in the Senate. For the last 61 years in a row, Congress has advanced the must-pass defense budget measure.

“At a time of huge trouble for global security, doing the defense authorization bill is more important than ever,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “Passing the NDAA enables us to hold the line against Russia, stand firm against the Chinese Communist Party and ensure America’s defense remain state of the art at all times.”

The package now moves to the House, where some conservative Republicans have vowed to derail it after legislators removed disputed elements that would have changed the Pentagon’s abortion policy and provide certain so-called “transgender” medical procedures.

The NDAA approved by the Senate is a compromise version of the budget package passed by the House earlier this year. The House version includes elements aimed at the Pentagon’s transgender health care regulations, as well as an amendment to repeal a Pentagon policy that reimburses out-of-state travel for service members who have abortions.

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America’s largest pharmacies are handing over medical records to police WITHOUT a warrant, congressional probe finds – amid fears women could be hunted down for taking abortion drugs

America’s biggest pharmacies have been quietly sharing Americans’ private medical records with police without their knowledge.

In what is being described as a ‘staggering’ breach of privacy, a congressional probe found the seven largest chains released people’s sensitive information to law enforcement or federal investigators without a warrant. 

While some of the pharmacy chains required their lawyers to review law enforcement requests, three of them — CVS, Kroger and Rite Aid which have 60,000 stores nationwide — said they allowed staff to hand over the records in their stores.

Senator Ron Wyden, who led the investigation, said it raised grave concerns because medical records were among the ‘most personal’ information for patients — revealing long-term conditions, sexual behavior and birth control.

There are now concerns that women could be hunted down by officials in states where abortions are illegal for taking abortion drugs.

Sen Wyden warned the current rules allowed for a ‘full blown witch hunt’ by Republican states against women.

This week mother-of-two Kate Cox was forced to travel out of Texas after a court denied her an abortion for her fetus which has a fatal genetic complication.

Current rules allow law enforcement to request medical records using a subpoena.

These can be issued by court clerks or government agencies but, unlike a warrant, do not require the approval of a judge.

And unlike subpoenas, warrants require law enforcement to establish a probable cause to believe a crime has been committed before making the request.

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Democrats Demand Social Media Platforms Censor Abortion “Misinformation” With Direct Letters to Musk and Zuckerberg

House Democrats have issued a strong call to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, urging them to address what they call the widespread issue of abortion “misinformation” on their social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and X.

These concerns were expressed in two letters from the House Oversight Committee.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The letters, spearheaded by Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the committee’s Ranking Member, request that Musk’s and Zuckerberg’s platforms urgently tackle the spread of false abortion information and provide Congress with briefings on this matter by December 14.

“Your company’s decision to keep these posts visible seems at odds with your Terms of Service that allow you to remove unlawful conduct on your platform,” the letter states. “Even more concerning is your company’s apparent double-standard when it comes to removing posts that you label ‘abortion advocacy’ or posts that offer legitimate medical and logistical advice for someone considering abortion, while allowing crisis pregnancy centers and anti-abortion advocates to spread false and misleading information regarding abortion.”

The committee, in its letters, highlights the nature of the allegedly misleading medical information and false content about abortion that is proliferating, especially on the platforms managed by Musk and Zuckerberg. This alleged misinformation, according to the committee, can lead to people doubting their healthcare providers and even their own judgment, posing significant health and safety risks.

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Texas Anti-Abortion Crusader Demands Abortion Patient Information In Court

THE NOTORIOUS FAR-RIGHT attorney who helped craft Texas’s bounty-hunter abortion ban, Senate Bill 8, is now attempting to force abortion funds to hand over reams of information on every abortion the organizations have supported since 2021. This includes the city and state where each patient lived, the names of the abortion providers, and the identities of nearly every person who helped the patients access abortion care.

Earlier this month, Jonathan Mitchell — himself not a Texan but based in Washington state — served requests to nine Texas abortion funds and one Texas doctor. The brazen attempt to acquire sensitive information about abortion patients and the funds that assist them is a disturbing turn in the ongoing legal battle over Texas’s six-week abortion ban.

In August of last year, a coalition of abortion funds and doctors filed a class action lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other state officials. The suit, Fund Texas Choice v. Paxton, aims to challenge Senate Bill 8, or S.B. 8, and its devious method of civil enforcement to evade federal court scrutiny. In response, Mitchell, on behalf of the Texas government, is using the legal discovery process to harass those defending reproductive freedoms.

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