“These abortion trafficking
ordinances really are the next stage in an abortion-free America,” bellowed
Mark Lee Dickson, an anti-abortion zealot who believes fetuses have more rights
than adult women.
This cretin has traveled the
state of Texas in support of the draconian ordinances that impede Texas women having safe travel to abortion rights states. He said he expected several more
counties to adopt similar measures in the next few months.
On the last Monday of October, Lubbock County, a conservative enclave of more than 300,000 rubes near the border with New Mexico, became the largest county yet to enact such a ban. The county commissioners court, during a public meeting that drew impassioned testimony, voted to make it illegal for anyone to transport a pregnant woman through the county, or pay for her travel, for the purpose of seeking an abortion. In other words, the poorest, most vulnerable women are now prey to these Texas roaches. But watch out, because other red states (like House Speaker Mike Johnson's Louisiana) are also looking at these no-assist in travel laws.
The county, which includes the city of Lubbock and Texas Tech University, joined three other far smaller counties — one along the New Mexico border and two others in the middle of the state — in passing ordinances that were drafted in part by the architect of Texas’s six-week abortion ban, adopted in 2021 even before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned of Roe v. Wade last year.
Meanwhile the city of Amarillo, in the Texas Panhandle, held an hourslong public hearing to consider a similar ordinance, which would apply to a network of roads and highways that pass through the city of 200,000 and lead toward New Mexico and Colorado, states where many Texas women have traveled for procedures. Many of those arriving here in Colo. have stated in the press (Denver Post) the procedure saved their lives as they otherwise would have been forced to give birth to a non-viable fetus, or experienced other risks such as lethal hypertension called Preeclampsia.
The ordinances have been drafted by Dickson and Jonathan F. Mitchell, the former solicitor general of Texas who crafted the state’s 2021 abortion ban, and they rely on the same enforcement mechanism as the abortion ban: lawsuits by private citizens. They specifically prohibit the police, sheriffs or other county officers or employees from enforcing the ban — a means of avoiding an immediate court challenge and possible injunction.
Practically speaking, someone would ordinarily have to learn of a person assisting a pregnant woman with travel out of state for a procedure in order to bring a suit. But now right wing extremists are taking note of many TX women who are using an app to keep track of their periods, and then snooping into contacts as a way to track and interdict them.
Some legal scholars said the ordinances could run afoul of constitutional protections. As Jeffrey B. Abramson, emeritus professor of government and law at the University of Texas at Austin pointed out:
“Even Justice Kavanaugh, in his concurring opinion in the Dobbs decision overruling Roe v. Wade, noted that a state would be violating the constitutional right to interstate travel if it sought to prohibit women from traveling out of state to seek a lawful abortion,”
Dickson said the ordinances are enforceable because they apply to someone assisting a pregnant woman with travel — including financial support — and do not prohibit a woman from driving herself or traveling by other means. As long she does so by her lonesome, no financial assistance, no drivers. The ordinances will most likely function like the six-week abortion ban, which attracted few cases but had a chilling effect. In the words of Dickson:
“We don’t see this as a travel ban. We see this as a prohibition on abortion trafficking.”
So this fuckwit is placing it in the same category as narcotics trafficking, which of course is the point. It sets the stage for a national abortion ban in the GOP 2024 election plank. And it will get passed - by hook or crook - especially if the Traitor cult nabs the House, the Senate and manages to get Hitler wannabe Trump elected again.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, Autumn Keiser, called the ordinances “unnecessary, confusing and fear-inducing barriers to essential health care.” They also put women at risk, such as the Texas woman carrying a dead fetus and featured in a segment on John Oliver's 'Last Week Tonight', e.g.
Abortion Rights: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube
The Texas affiliates of Planned Parenthood, which have stopped providing abortions in the state, are also fighting a case brought by the Texas AG Ken Paxton, the same crass mutt that tried to overthrow the 2020 election by bringing a suit against all the swing states to have their ballots revoked.
This degenerate accused the organization of defrauding the Medicaid program. That suit must go to trial, and as before - with the legality of the abortifacent pill Mifepristone - it will be Matthew J. Kacsmaryk. Given this federal judge was appointed by Trump, and Texas is seeking nearly $2 billion, don't look for an escape.
As the anti-abortion, anti-democracy and other threats increase, it does appear too many Americans are sleepwalking. That is not a good condition to be in facing a fascist cult and a wannabe fuhrer like Donald Trump. And one more thing, don't put all faith in the voters doing what they did in Ohio saving our democracy at the same time. No, it doesn't work like that. As WSJ op-ed columnist Karl Rove put it yesterday (p. A15, 'Don't Buy All The Abortion Hype'):
"Last week Republicans won in seven (Virginia) House districts Mr. Biden carried in 2020 by up to 10 points and four Senate districts he won by up to 9 points. Democrats didn’t flip a single district Donald Trump took. These margins don’t fit with the notion that abortion draws large numbers of independents and Republicans to vote for Democratic candidates."
Be warned that unless Biden-Harris get re-elected the threat to women's abortion rights will be unparalleled. The time to wake up is now!
See Also:
Voters must take Trump seriously and literally. The stakes are that high.
And:
by Joan McCarter | November 16, 2023 - 8:13am | permalink
Excerpt:
The Heritage Foundation has set out an ambitious totalitarian agenda for the next Republican president, whoever it might be. Don’t think that women’s bodies are exempt from their plans, not by a long shot. They’ve been working on a plan to use a 19th-century law written to prevent women from obtaining contraceptives, allowing the next Republican administration to outlaw most abortions.
The 1873 Comstock Act prohibits the mailing of contraceptives, “lewd” writings, and any “instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing” that could be used in an abortion. While it’s been dormant since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Griswold v. Connecticut decision in 1965, the law is still on the books. It has experienced a revival in the 21st century GOP. Wing-nut U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk cited it when he ruled last spring to block the Food and Drug Administration from allowing mifepristone, the pill used in more than half of U.S. abortions, to be sent through the U.S. mail. That is still being litigated.
Now that 1873 is back in vogue, the Heritage Foundation argues that the next president can act unilaterally to do just what Kacsmaryk ordered. Comstock "unambiguously prohibits mailing abortion drugs," and a Republican president should "enforce federal law against providers and distributors of [abortion] pills."
And:
by Alex Henderson | August 1, 2022 - 7:55am | permalink
Excerpt:
Over the years, countless abortion rights activists have warned that overturning Roe v. Wade would create a surge in women dying from illegal and dangerous back-alley abortions, which were common before the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Roe decision in 1973. But back-alley abortions are by no means the only reason why pregnancies, planned or unplanned, could prove dangerous or fatal for American women now that the High Court, after 49 years, has overturned Roe with its widely protested ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Conservative Washington Post opinion writer Jennifer Rubin, in her July 27 column, lays out some of the many reasons why planned or unplanned pregnancies could become more dangerous for women in the post-Roe United States.
And:
What Pregnancy and Childbirth Do to the Bodies of Young Girls - The New York Times
And:
And:
by Joan McCarter | July 24, 2022 - 6:40am | permalink
And:
by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan | July 23, 2022 - 5:55am | permalink
And:
by C.J. Polychroniou | November 16, 2023 - 8:43am | permalink
by Thom Hartmann | November 18, 2023 - 8:40am | permalink
The Nazis in America are now “out.” This morning, former Republican Joe Scarborough explicitly compared Trump and his followers to Hitler and his Brownshirts on national television. They’re here.
At the same time, America’s richest man is retweeting antisemitism, rightwing influencers and radio/TV hosts are blaming “Jews and liberals” for the “invasion” of “illegals” to “replace white people,” and the entire GOP is embracing candidates and legislators who encourage hate and call for violence.
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