The Biggest Thing Missing From Joe Biden’s State of the Union

BY DAVID S. COHEN, GREER DONLEY, AND RACHEL REBOUCHE
MARCH 08, 2024

On Thursday night, President Joe Biden gave an energetic and compelling State of the Union address that centered reproductive freedom. It was the second topic he addressed, behind only threats to democracy, abroad with Putin and at home with Trump. In turning to reproductive rights, Biden was able to showcase the powerful stories of his invited guests, like Kate Cox and Latorya Beasley, to underscore the real harms of anti-abortion policies.

There was a lot to appreciate in his speech, but there were missed opportunities.  Reproductive rights and justice advocates immediately noticed that Biden did not say the word “abortion”—a recurring issue for the president. But we noticed the omission of another word, which we think is possibly even more significant given the coming election: Comstock.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/03/abortion-comstock-act-joe-biden-state-of-the-union.html


The Right-Wing War on Abortion Has Nothing to Do With Babies

Coverage of the recent controversy over IVF has made a perilous omission: This is a battle over body autonomy.

Jessica M. Goldstein
March 4, 2024

… But the insidious, vile truth is that the Alabama ruling—as well as all of the statutes and the language of the Alabama state Constitution, a plain reading of which really left the state Supreme Court no choice but to restrict IVF—has got nothing to do with babies. The anti-abortion movement is not about babies. It has never been about babies. It’s about control.

The force behind every anti-abortion policy is not concern for babies or the alleged humanity of unfertilized embryos; it is violent misogyny, plain and simple, with the obvious intent of stripping every person who can get pregnant of their basic human rights.

Continued: https://newrepublic.com/article/179464/abortion-body-autonomy-forced-birth


France adds abortion rights to the constitution. Could it happen in Canada?

France's upgrading of abortion rights is a bold political message in a world that is increasingly veering to the far right.

By Allan Woods, Staff Reporter
Monday, March 4, 2024

PARIS—However linked the two countries' histories, however shared their values, it is difficult to imagine Canada following in France's footsteps to enshrine the right to abortion in the Constitution.

French lawmakers did that Monday in a historic vote at Château de Versailles that puts the ability to end a pregnancy right up there with the country’s famous motto: "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité."

Continued: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/france-adds-abortion-rights-to-the-constitution-could-it-happen-in-canada/article_04bc5ff0-da42-11ee-959b-e3b780f9717f.html


After Alabama

Making IVF available won’t stop criminalization

MAR 1, 2024
Lynn M. Paltrow

Shock and outrage have met the recent Alabama Supreme Court IVF decision that frozen embryos are children who “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.” This decision, based on Christian theology, has put all in-vitro fertilization procedures in the state at risk. It should not, however, have come as a surprise given the many Alabama laws and earlier decisions holding that fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses are separate legal persons.

New legislation to ensure that Alabama families have access to this expensive fertility treatment will do nothing to address the other punitive and dehumanizing ways Alabama’s legal personification of the unborn is used to arrest hundreds of mostly poor, rural women. Nor will it do anything to stop the likely, if not inevitable, use of Alabama’s criminal laws to lock up anyone who has an abortion.

Continued: https://jessica.substack.com/p/after-alabama


USA – First abortion, then IVF… and now birth control?

The GOP's been suffering on the issue of abortion already — Democrats can now clobber them with Alabama's IVF move

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV, Salon
FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Man, one thing you can depend on Republicans for is that if you give them a shovel, they will just keep on digging.  Last week the Alabama Supreme Court did Republicans the favor (not!) of putting in vitro fertilization on the ballot for 2024. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court did their Republican handlers the favor (not!) of putting abortion on the ballot by overturning of Roe v Wade.  Now Democrats will be able to use access to contraception as another issue to pound Republicans with, given the results of a new poll that shows how hugely unpopular Republican opposition to contraception is.

Republicans have been suffering on the issue of abortion already, losing several special elections to Democrats pushing the issue.  It’s a no-brainer. 

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2024/02/27/first-abortion-then-ivf-and-now-birth-control/


Alabama is using the notion that embryos are people to surveil and harass women

Even before the court ruled in favor of this vulgar fiction, state authorities relied on the concept to intimidate and jail women

Moira Donegan
Mon 26 Feb 2024

Something that’s important to remember about last week’s ruling by the Alabama supreme court, which held that frozen embryos were persons under state law, is that the very absurdity of the claim is itself a demonstration of power. That a frozen embryo – a microscopic bit of biological information that can’t even be called tissue, a flick laden with the hopes of aspiring parents but fulfilling none of them – is equivalent in any way to a child is the sort of thing you can only say if no one has the power to laugh at you. The Alabama supreme court is the final court of review in that state. It cannot be appealed. For the foreseeable future, frozen cells in Alabama have the same legal status there as you or I do. Is this an absurd elevation of the status of an embryo, or an obscene degradation of human beings? The answer, of course, is both.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/26/alabama-ivf-frozen-embryos-surveillance


Northern Ireland’s Abortion Law: An Outdated Norm or a Necessary Protection?

Mason Walker
 24 Feb 2024

The Conviction of a 21-year-old Woman
In a tragic turn of events, a 21-year-old woman in Northern Ireland has been convicted for terminating her pregnancy using abortion pills. This conviction makes her the first person to be convicted for illegal abortion in at least a decade. The woman pleaded guilty to 'unlawful procurement of miscarriage' under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 and was sentenced to a three-month jail term, suspended for two years.

The Desperate Dilemma of Unwanted Pregnancies

This case brings to the forefront the desperate dilemma faced by women with unwanted pregnancies in Northern Ireland. Legal abortion is limited, forcing many women to resort to dangerous methods such as drinking bleach or throwing themselves down stairs. It is also common for women to travel all the way to England for a termination.

Continued: https://medriva.com/health/northern-irelands-abortion-law-an-outdated-norm-or-a-necessary-protection


There Is Only One Way for Biden to Fulfill His Promise to “Restore Roe”

If the president truly wants to protect reproductive rights, he’s going to have to do what he’s so far refused even to consider: expand the Supreme Court.

ELIE MYSTAL
Feb 20, 2024

At a campaign rally in Manassas, Va., on the night that Donald Trump effectively locked up the Republican Party’s nomination by winning the New Hampshire primary, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off their reelection campaign. They focused on a single issue: abortion rights. The two incumbents, and their spouses, gave speeches about the need to “restore Roe” and put the blame for its revocation squarely at Trump’s feet. “Let there be no mistake,” Biden said. “The person most responsible for taking away this freedom in America is Donald Trump. The reason women are being forced to travel across state lines for healthcare is Donald Trump…. The reason their fundamental right has been stripped away is Donald Trump.”

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/to-preserve-abortion-rights-biden-must-expand-court/


USA – When it comes to abortion rights, you should be scared

BY JESSICA MACKLER, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
02/15/24

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Voters would be wise to consider Maya Angelou’s famous quote as the 2024 election kicks into high gear and Donald Trump and Republicans try to posture on the issue of abortion.

Abortion is coming front and center in this election, and the anti-abortion movement is doing all it can to downplay the horrors of abortion bans and mischaracterize what the Republican Party has done and will do to restrict abortion.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4468151-when-it-comes-to-abortion-rights-you-should-be-scared/


What Republicans get wrong about abortion

Their anti-abortion crusade threatens liberty, privacy and the family – values they claim to care about.

ANN FUREDI
8th February 2024

Who would have thought that in 2024, more than half a century after abortion became safe and legal throughout most of the Western world, it would become one of the key issues of the US presidential election? And who would have thought that Democratic politicians would feel the need to embark on a ‘Fight for Reproductive Freedoms Tour’ across the country? Last month, vice-president Kamala Harris launched the tour at an event in Wisconsin, promising to ‘embrace [the issue of abortion] to the full’.

To most outside observers, it’s astonishing that this fight for reproductive rights is still ongoing in the US. Pro-choice optimists might reasonably have expected this issue to have been resolved during Barack Obama’s presidency, when the pro-choice Democrats last had a majority in both houses of congress. But his administration failed to pass any federal legislation to protect abortion. Instead, he chose to rely on the limited protections granted by the 1973 Supreme Court ruling on Roe v Wade, which was overturned by conservative justices in 2022.

Continued: https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/08/what-republicans-get-wrong-about-abortion/