Outrage as Texas Supreme Court Halts Kate Cox’s Abortion

Dec 09, 2023
By Sean O'Driscoll

Legal commentators have reacted with outrage after the Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked a pregnant woman from obtaining an emergency abortion.

The court's ruling has blocked a district court's decision to allow Kate Cox to abort a fetus that has a fatal trisomy 18 genetic defect, also known as Edwards' syndrome. Most babies with the defect will die before or shortly after being born.

Continued: https://www.newsweek.com/outrage-texas-supreme-court-kate-cox-abortion-1850981


A Texas judge ruled a pregnant woman who sued the state seeking an abortion can legally terminate her pregnancy

By Ashley Killough, Ed Lavandera and Andy Rose, CNN
Thu December 7, 2023

…After the ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton warned Cox’s physician she could still face civil and criminal penalties at some point should she perform the court-ordered procedure.

… Molly Duane, Cox’s attorney, … said the fight is far from over, as the ruling only applies to Cox and does not “restore access” to abortion to thousands of other women. She called the state’s argument “callous in the extreme,” and said “they don’t care whether people live or die as long as they’re forced to give birth.”

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/us/texas-abortion-ruling/index.html


Pensacola Florida was once center for abortion violence. Late nurse who ran clinic wasn’t scared

Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal
Sept 18, 2023

Linda Taggart, the nurse who ran one of Pensacola’s first abortion clinics during its most tumultuous times, has passed away.

The clinic was a target of violence for years, including bombings, arson fires and deadly shootings. Despite being attacked and threatened repeatedly, Taggart remained steadfast in her position for 30 years until her retirement.

Continued: https://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/escambia-county/2023/09/18/pensacola-was-once-ground-zero-for-abortion-violence-meet-the-nurse-who-ran-clinic-at-center-of-figh/70794734007/


Post-Roe, anti-abortion groups target law protecting clinics from violence

The Face Act penalizes people for blockading and threatening abortion clinics. Anti-abortion activists want it repealed

Carter Sherman
Sat 16 Sep 2023

The inside of the abortion clinic was chaotic. Anti-abortion protesters lined the walls. A few had sat down on the clinic’s lime green chairs and draped themselves in chains. “Please inspire these parents to keep their babies!” one man shouted, before he started singing about the Virgin Mary. As some of the protesters sang and prayed loudly, the police officers crowded inside the clinic tried to urge them to move. They didn’t want to budge.

It was 22 October 2020, and one anti-abortion advocate was livestreaming a group of activists who were at the Washington DC-area clinic to, in their view, “rescue” people from having abortions. One redheaded young woman turned to the camera.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/16/face-act-anti-abortion-threaten-clinics


US anti-abortion activist who kept fetal remains convicted of blockading clinic

Lauren Handy and other anti-abortion protesters invaded a Washington DC clinic in 2020 and blocked people from entering

Carter Sherman
Tue 29 Aug 2023

Lauren Handy, the anti-abortion activist who kept five fetuses in her Washington DC home, was on Tuesday found guilty of breaking federal law by blockading an abortion clinic.

The charges stem from an incident in October 2020, when Handy and nine other anti-abortion protesters invaded a Washington abortion clinic, according to an October 2022 indictment of the group. Handy used a fake name to book an appointment at the clinic, then blocked people from entering the waiting room while other defendants chained themselves together inside the clinic, prosecutors alleged. One of the clinic’s nurses sprained her ankle after she was pushed by a protester, according to the indictment.

Continued:  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/29/lauren-handy-anti-abortion-convicted-blockading-clinic


Travis County judge sides with Texas women denied abortions after dangerous pregnancies

Ryan Autullo, Austin American-Statesman
Aug 4, 2023

A state judge in Travis County ruled Friday that abortions in Texas are lawful in cases of dangerous pregnancy complications, including fatal fetal diagnoses, and that doctors cannot be prosecuted for using "good faith judgment" on when to terminate a pregnancy.

The injunction from District Judge Jessica Mangrum, which the state immediately blocked Friday in filing an appeal, comes two weeks after four Texas women came to her court to give emotional testimony about not receiving an abortion, even as they suffered physically and after doctors deemed their pregnancies incompatible with life. It marked the first time women denied abortions have sued a state since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

Continued: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2023/08/04/austin-texas-judge-lifts-abortion-ban-for-women-with-risky-pregnancies/70534072007/


How Meta Created a Wild West for Abortion Misinformation

New cases from Meta’s Oversight Board highlight Meta’s haphazard approach to reproductive health.

BY JENNIFER NEDA JOHN
JULY 31, 2023

In March, a member of an anti-abortion Facebook group shared a post describing what it claimed was “pro-abortion logic”: “We don’t want you to be poor, starved or unwanted. So we’ll just kill you instead.”

That same month, another Facebook user shared a link to a news article covering a South Carolina bill that would have criminalized abortion as homicide, thus making it eligible for the death penalty. In the caption, the user criticized lawmakers’ logic that “it’s wrong to kill so we are going to kill you.” On Instagram, another post struck the same tone, criticizing the idea of being “so pro-life” that “we’ll kill you dead if you get an abortion.”

Continued: https://slate.com/technology/2023/07/abortion-misinformation-meta-oversight-board.html


Outcry in Poland after claims that prosecutors drained cesspit in abortion probe

Reproductive rights dominate pre-election debate in Poland after reports of law enforcement targeting women for suspected abortions.

BY WOJCIECH KOŚĆ
JULY 27, 2023

WARSAW — The political row over sexual and reproductive rights in Poland has reignited after local media reported Wednesday that a woman who miscarried had her house’s cesspit drained in search of the fetus on orders of a prosecutor seeking to find out if the miscarriage was in fact an abortion.

The report is the latest in a series of high-profile incidents concerning Polish authorities’ heavy-handedness around abortion laws and has sparked public outcry ahead of the country’s general election in October.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-abortion-probe-outrage-prosecutors-drain-cesspit/


Anti-abortion violence on the rise a year after Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade

KERA | By Caroline Love
June 26, 2023

Abortion was a right people thought was secure — the Supreme Court protected it more than half a century ago. But the same court snatched that right away last year.

The reaction across the country was visceral. People took to the streets during hot summer nights in cities across North Texas. They chanted “hands off my body,” channeling their anger into protests.

Continued: https://www.keranews.org/news/2023-06-26/anti-abortion-violence-on-the-rise


Alito said Dobbs would lower the temperature. Instead, it fanned the flames of abortion extremism.

Federal prosecutions of abortion-related crimes are way up in the year since the court overturned Roe v. Wade.

by BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN
06/24/2023

When the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion a year ago, Justice Samuel Alito suggested that returning the issue to lawmakers might alleviate extremism on both sides of the issue.

Roe v. Wade and other rulings protecting abortion, Alito wrote, had “enflamed debate,” “deepened division,” and prevented a “national settlement of the abortion issue.”

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/24/abortion-extremist-violence-dobbs-00103539