These are news article links and comments that were listed on our website, prior to the November 2024 election. For newer links on this topic visit our website: https://www.dalecodemocrats.com
Newsweek: Anti-Republican 'MAGA In Your Sheets' Ad Takes Off Online
https://www.newsweek.com/anti-republican-maga-your-sheets-ad-takes-off-online-1978781
Comment: So you think that Reproductive Rights is only a women's issue? Think again!
" A viral ad titled 'MAGA In Your Sheets' has taken social media by storm, spotlighting GOP restrictions on reproductive rights and access to contraception."
"Created by the Progress Action Fund, the ad, which has garnered 15 million views on X, uses satire to critique the GOP's influence on personal freedoms. It follows a young couple dealing with a broken condom incident."
"As the young man searches the bathroom for emergency contraception, he's confronted by a Republican congressman character who informs him that 'Plan B' is now banned under new GOP policies."
Josseli Barnica Died in Texas After Waiting 40 Hours for Miscarriage Care — ProPublica
https://www.propublica.org/article/josseli-barnica-death-miscarriage-texas-abortion-ban
Comment: "A Woman Died After Being Told It Would Be a 'Crime' to Intervene in Her Miscarriage at a Texas Hospital."
"Josseli Barnica is one of at least two pregnant Texas women who died after doctors delayed emergency care. She’d told her husband that the medical team said it couldn’t act until the fetal heartbeat stopped."
"Neither had wanted an abortion, but that didn’t matter. Though proponents insist that the laws protect both the life of the fetus and the person carrying it, in practice, doctors have hesitated to provide care under threat of prosecution, prison time and professional ruin."
"In a state that hadn’t banned abortion, Barnica could have immediately been offered the options that major medical organizations, including international ones, say is the standard of evidence-based care: speeding up labor with medication or a dilation and evacuation procedure to empty the uterus."
"The scenario felt all too familiar for Dr. Leilah Zahedi-Spung, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist who used to work in Tennessee and reviewed a summary of Barnica’s records at ProPublica’s request. "
"Abortion bans put doctors in an impossible position, she said, forcing them to decide whether to risk malpractice or a felony charge. After her state enacted one of the strictest bans in the country, she also waited to offer interventions in cases like Barnica’s until the fetal heartbeat stopped or patients showed signs of infection, praying every time that nothing would go wrong. It’s why she ultimately moved to Colorado."
How can this situation possibly be called "Pro-Life?"
Woman in Alabama Forced to Travel for Emergency Abortion With Life-Threatening Pregnancy Condition
Comment: "Over the summer, a 24-year-old woman named Tamara Costa and her husband, Caleb, were thrilled to learn they were pregnant with their second child. But at the end of her first trimester, an ultrasound revealed her fetus didn’t have a skull and the fetus’ organs had grown outside of its body, according to The Meteor, which first reported on the couple’s harrowing story. Despite this, Costa was denied an abortion, and her OG-GYN told her there weren’t 'a lot of resources' available to her in their home state of Alabama. Instead, Costa’s OB-GYN gave her a Post-it with a phone number and the words 'Planned Parenthood Chicago,' and Costa says she didn’t see her doctor again. The couple was ultimately forced to travel 600 miles for an emergency abortion in Chicago, where they received even more devastating news."
"To reach Chicago, Costa and Caleb maxed out a credit card to pay for flights, lodging, food, a rental car, and child care for their toddler. In the week leading up to Costa’s out-of-state appointment, her condition continued to worsen, but her doctors in Alabama were unable to see her. In Chicago, when the Planned Parenthood OB-GYN on duty performed a routine pre-procedure ultrasound, they found Costa was also suffering from a molar pregnancy: a rare but deadly condition in which the placenta invades other organs or even spreads to a woman’s muscles. If untreated, the condition can develop into cancer or cause heart attacks and multiple organ failure."
"About half of all states, including Alabama, enforce total or near-total abortion bans. But abortion is even further restricted in Alabama thanks to Marshall’s threats, made in September 2022 and again in August 2023, to slap anyone who helps someone travel for abortion care with charges of 'criminal conspiracy.' Marshall’s words target both doctors and abortion funds. Costa and her partner didn’t know about out-of-state abortion funds, they told The Meteor, and because abortion funds in Alabama couldn’t help them, the couple shouldered the massive travel costs on their own."
The Guardian US: The Maga legal networks that could topple Planned Parenthood and gut women’s healthcare
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/22/maga-courts-planned-parenthood-case
Comment: "Leonard Leo needed no last name in his introduction to this crowd as he took his seat in a black leather chair across from Thomas. The justice was the featured speaker but Leo may have been the most important person in the American legal system in that room – a conservative activist who had built the Federalist Society into a political powerhouse and helped Trump create the supreme court majority that, in 2022, erased federal protections for abortion."
"His influence continues to be on display now in one of the most consequential cases moving through the American legal system – one that seeks to strike another blow to abortion rights and could possibly bankrupt Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s leading providers of healthcare for women. It’s a lawsuit that has been filed by an anti-abortion activist tied to Leo and heard by judges – from the lower courts to the fifth circuit appeals court – who are also linked to Leo."
"Hundreds of court files, tax records and judges’ financial disclosure forms reviewed by the Guardian show that Kacsmaryk and most of the other key players in the case to topple Planned Parenthood are tied to Leo via a vast network of non-profit and for-profit organizations involved in the fight against abortion or other conservative causes."
MSNBC: Republican AGs argue abortion pills should be restricted because they cause population loss
Comment: "Three Republican state attorneys general have renewed a push to restrict access to medication abortion, and their latest legal move includes an exceptionally absurd justification for their campaign against abortion pills."
"Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador filed an amended complaint earlier this month that seeks to compel the Federal Drug Administration to restore restrictions on mifepristone, one of two pills required to induce an abortion. The revised filing comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the original plaintiffs, a group of anti-abortion doctors and groups, had no legal standing to sue, in part because they did not show how they have been harmed or are likely to be harmed by the FDA’s expansion of medication abortion access."
"In the complaint, the attorneys general argue that expanding access to abortion pills poses a potential injury to their states because it leads to lower birth rates, including among teenagers."
"But the argument that abortion pills result in 'loss in potential population' is particularly egregious. By asserting that restricting access to abortion is a valid means to increase a state’s population — and arguing that that interest takes precedence over a pregnant person’s individual liberty — the attorneys general are reducing pregnant people to nothing more than a vehicle by which a state increases its political representation and federal funding." [Emphasis Added]
It is hard to believe that any state attorney general, even a Republican AG, would make such a ridiculous argument in an attempt to stop medication induced abortion.
Newsweek: Melania Trump Stuns Anti-Abortion Activists: 'She Is Wrong'
https://www.newsweek.com/melania-trump-stuns-anti-abortion-activists-memoir-1963063
Comment:" The revelation that Melania Trump defends a woman's right to an abortion in her upcoming memoir has stunned pro-life activists, with one saying the former first lady is wrong."
" 'Why should anyone other than the woman herself have the power to determine what she does with her own body?' Trump writes in her book, Melania, U.K. newspaper The Guardian reported on Wednesday."
"The revelation that Melania Trump's views on abortion appear out of step with her husband's comes just weeks before the November 5 election."
"She has rarely been seen with Republican former President Donald Trump as he campaigns for a second term as president."
"Donald Trump has repeatedly taken credit for the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, which ended the nationwide right to abortion."
ABC News: Abortion rights group sues after Florida orders TV stations to stop airing ad
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/abortion-rights-group-sues-after-florida-orders-tv-114853984
Comment: "A group campaigning for a Florida abortion-right ballot measure sued state officials Wednesday over their order to TV stations to stop airing one ad produced by the group, Floridians Protecting Freedom."
"The state's health department, part of the administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, told TV stations earlier this month to stop airing the commercial, asserting that it was false and dangerous and that keeping it running could result in criminal proceedings."
"The group said in its filing in U.S. District Court in Tallahassee that the state's action was part of a campaign to attack the abortion-rights amendment 'using public resources and government authority to advance the State’s preferred characterization of its anti-abortion laws as the ‘truth’ and denigrate opposing viewpoints as ‘lies.’ "
NBC News: State judge strikes down Georgia abortion ban
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/state-judge-strikes-georgia-abortion-ban-rcna173342
Comment: "The law banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The state attorney general's office said an appeal of the ruling is forthcoming."
"A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, struck down the state's six-week abortion ban Monday, allowing the procedure to resume and making it legal up to 22 weeks of pregnancy."
It may be possible that Georgia's appeal of the judge's ruling might impact the resumption of abortions while the appeal is decided.
ProPublica: Afraid to Seek Care Amid Georgia’s Abortion Ban, She Stayed at Home and Died
https://www.propublica.org/article/candi-miller-abortion-ban-death-georgia
Comment: "When a state committee of experts in maternal health, including 10 doctors, reviewed her case this year at the end of August, they immediately decided it was 'preventable' and blamed the state’s abortion ban, according to members who spoke to ProPublica on the condition of anonymity."
Judge to rule whether Alabama can prosecute people who aid out-of-state abortions
https://share.newsbreak.com/85koqzug
Comment: "A federal judge is expected to soon decide whether Alabama can prosecute health care providers and advocates in the state who help pregnant patients get an abortion elsewhere." "Shortly after the ban became law, Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) said he would consider prosecuting any person or group that 'aids and abets' in an abortion, using the state’s criminal conspiracy law." "The Yellowhammer Fund said Marshall’s threats created an illegal chilling effect on the group’s freedom of expression and forced it to stop providing funds and logistical support to abortion seekers due to fear of prosecution."
Project 2025 abortion surveillance idea comes back to bite Trump
https://share.newsbreak.com/80hqslnr
Comment: "The DNC is out with a new memo on Thursday detailing how conservatives hope to use a second Trump presidency to expand state-led efforts to monitor women who get abortions — even if they do so in states where the practice is legal."
Trump-backed GOP platform says states should be allowed to extend constitutional rights to embryos
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-backed-gop-platform-says-195617153.html
Comment: This would result in a major impact to in vitro fertilization and a number of other unforseen issues.
JD Vance Called For ‘Federal’ Restrictions To Traveling For Abortion In Resurfaced Clip
https://www.yahoo.com/news/jd-vance-called-federal-restrictions-171602918.html
Comment: This sounds a lot like Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall's threat to prosecute anyone helping women travel to another state for an abortion. I believe freedom of movement is generally considered a constitutional right.
Breaking news: Supreme Court allows emergency abortions in Idaho for now, mirroring decision published in error
Comment: "The Supreme Court said on Thursday that it would dismiss a case about emergency abortions in Idaho, temporarily clearing the way for women in the state to receive an abortion when their health is at risk."
The Young Woman Making Kamala Harris’ Strongest Case on Abortion Rights - POLITICO
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Here’s the state of abortion rights now in the US
Supreme Court rejects challenge to abortion pill mifepristone, allowing drug to stay on the market
POLITICO: Senate Democratic campaign arm launches ads on anniversary of Dobbs decision
HOME | GOP on Abortion
https://www.goponabortion.com/
Comment: This website states certain GOP Senate Candidates' positions on abortions and women's health care. Website was created by Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).
Democrats Are Trying to Repeal a Zombie Law That Could Ban Abortion Nationwide – Mother Jones
Comment: The 1873 Comstock Act is still on the books, and unless it is repealed it might be used to endanger a woman's right to choose nationwide. It might also endanger other reproductive rights.
Here’s How Trump Could Still Ban Abortion Pills Nationwide | HuffPost
Comment: Trump could only do this if he is elected. Let's stop him.
Biden urges Congress to restore Roe v. Wade protections after Senate GOP blocks contraception bill
Senate GOP blocks bill to protect birth control access
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/05/senate-gop-block-bill-contraception-reproductive-rights
Republicans rejected Right to Contraception Act. Why? To control women
Facing backlash, Trump walks back comments on restricting contraceptives
Comment: If you think Trump's comments sound crazy, it's not just him. Other Republicans have talked about restricting contraceptives.
Newsweek: Clarence Thomas' Words Against Birth Control Could Head To Supreme Court
Comment: "In his concurring opinion in Dobbs, Thomas argued that the Supreme Court should overrule not only same-sex marriage but also the legalization of homosexual acts in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas, 2003 and the right of married couples to use birth control in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965."
AL.com: Judge skewers Alabama attorney general, allows abortion travel lawsuit to proceed
Comment: As citizens sue Steve Marshall over his clearly unconstitutional threat to prosecute folks for helping someone travel outside of Alabama for an abortion, please remember that your tax dollars are defending Steve Marshall so that he can try to make a political statement.
Federal judge blasts threat by Alabama to prosecute groups aiding out-of-state abortions
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/07/politics/alabama-prosecute-out-of-state-abortion/index.html
Watch California governor target GOP abortion stance in new Alabama ads
Comment: Alabama State Attorney General Steve Marshall said last year that he could criminally prosecute people in Alabama who help women obtain abortions elsewhere. The U.S. Justice Department says that he can't, but his ridiculous statement may intimidate citizens from exercising their right to travel freely in this country.
The Independent: Tennessee woman denied abortion after fetus' 'brain not attached' slams ban
The Hill: Louisiana moves to criminalize possession of abortion pills
The Hill: Emhoff urges men to join abortion rights fight: ‘Women are dying’
Comment: Doug Emhoff, husband of Kamala Harris, reminds us that abortion rights and freedom of choice are issues for men, as well as women.
AL.com: Alabama among 17 states suing federal commission over requiring employers give leave for abortions
Alabama House Democrats introduce bill to protect contraceptive access • Alabama Reflector
CNN: Democrat who made reproductive rights a campaign focus will win Alabama special election, CNN projects
Alabama Republicans pledged to revisit IVF in hopes of a long-term fix. They never did.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/alabama-republicans-ivf-long-term-fix-rcna152834
Alabama Supreme Court Cites the Bible in Terrifying Embryo Ruling
https://newrepublic.com/post/179122/alabama-supreme-court-bible-embryo-ruling-ivf
'We knew': Abortion rights advocates who predicted the Alabama ruling warn about more restrictions
Comment: Article is about Alabama Supreme Court embryo ruling impacting in vitro fertilization, plus other possible impacts to women's health and family planning resulting from Dobbs decision.
125 House Republicans -- including Speaker Mike Johnson -- back a 'life at conception' bill without any IVF exception
https://www.businessinsider.com/house-republicans-life-at-conception-ivf-exception-2024-2
CNBC: Abortion bans drive away up to half of young talent, new CNBC/Generation Lab youth survey finds
Comment: Article explains that abortion bans drive away talent who could drive economic growth and opportunity in certain geographic areas.
Dozens of Texas businesses back challenge to abortion ban: This is why our economy is taking a hit
Democrats in Alabama Legislature file bills challenging state abortion ban
Comment: Despite Democrats efforts, bills failed in the 2024 Alabama legislative session controlled by the GOP.