When Fetal Rights Are More Important Than Democracy

After Roe, the anti-abortion movement faces a new opponent: popular opinion.

By Mary Ziegler
OCTOBER 3, 2022

The anti-abortion movement has
long loved to profess its love for democracy. Clarke Forsythe of Americans
United for Life consistently called on the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade
and put questions about abortion “back into voters’ hands—where they belong.”
The National Catholic Register proclaimed the day Roe was overturned “a
wonderful day for democracy.”

But now democracy may not look so hot to
anti-abortion activists: In the months since Roe was overturned, voters in
Kansas, a deeply conservative state, decisively rejected a proposal to undo
state constitutional abortion rights, and many expect the result to be the same
when voters confront ballot initiatives in key states such as Michigan. Fueled
by rage about the reversal of abortion rights, Democrats have nearly eliminated
Republicans’ advantage in voter registration and have turned what appeared to
be a landslide loss in the 2022 midterms into a potential nail-biter.

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/anti-abortion-movement-roe-v-wade-democracy/671583/

Ireland’s Struggle for Abortion Rights Should Be an Inspiration for the US

Ireland’s Struggle for Abortion Rights Should Be an Inspiration for the US

BY SINÉAD KENNEDY
Aug 22, 2022

Irish pro-choice activists had to overcome a rigid constitutional ban on abortion that was in place for more than 30 years. They succeeded by putting mass mobilization and a confident assertion of the right to choose at the heart of their campaign.

In May 2018, the Irish electorate voted by a two-to-one majority to remove or “repeal” the prohibition on abortion, known as the Eighth Amendment, from the country’s constitution. While opinion polls had suggested that pro-choice campaigners would win, most predicted a nerve-rackingly close result; certainly no one anticipated the sheer scale of the victory and the support for abortion access found across every section of society, from young to old, urban to rural.

Continued: https://jacobin.com/2022/08/ireland-abortion-rights-repeal-campaign-us-roe

USA – Constitutional Rights for the “Unborn” Would Force Women to Forfeit Theirs

If the unborn have 14th Amendment rights, any loss of pregnancy, whether intentional or not, will become the basis for arrest and prosecution.

4/15/2021
by LYNN M. PALTROW
Ms. Magazine

Ross Douthat’s recent op-ed “What Has the Pro-Life Movement Won?” in the New York Times addresses the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court, now dominated by justices who oppose abortion, may, in the next abortion case, not merely impose further limits on that right, but more radically outlaw abortion altogether by recognizing that “unborn human beings deserve protections under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” He then suggests “pro-life” advocates will have to support expansion of government programs for the children poor women would be forced to have.

More than minimizing the harm done by outlawing abortions and forced childbearing, the op-ed reinforces the very big lie that the only thing that would be impacted by recognizing constitutional rights for the “unborn” is abortion. The fact is, it would fundamentally change the legal rights and status of all pregnant women.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2021/04/15/abortion-constitutional-rights-unborn-fetus-14th-amendment-womens-rights-pregnant/

Pregnant People of Color are Bearing the Brunt of the War on Drugs

‘Fetal protection’ laws are criminalizing pregnant people who use drugs or alcohol, rather than approaching this as a public-health issue.

by Eleanor J. Bader
January 13, 2021

When Chelsea Becker was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, she delivered a stillborn baby. An autopsy found high levels of methamphetamine in its system, and Becker, then twenty-five, was subsequently charged with first-degree murder. Bail was initially set at $5 million, then lowered to an equally out-of-reach $2 million. As a result, Becker has been in pre-trial detention at the King County Jail in Hanford, California, since November 2019.

Becker is not an anomaly. In fact, over the past five decades, hundreds of people—71 percent of them low-income, and 59 percent people of color—have been locked up, sometimes in mental hospitals and sometimes in prison or mandatory treatment programs, for drug or alcohol use during pregnancy.

Continued: https://progressive.org/dispatches/pregnant-people-of-color-war-on-drugs-bader-210113/

USA – Here’s How Conservatives Are Using Civil Rights Law to Restrict Abortion

Here's How Conservatives Are Using Civil Rights Law to Restrict Abortion
Here Are the Details of the Abortion Legislation in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Elsewhere

By Abigail Abrams
January 1, 2020

Six states passed laws in 2019 banning abortions once a “fetal heartbeat” is detected, which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy. While most of these new laws were challenged in court and are temporarily blocked, the trend has continued: another 10 states introduced similar bills in 2019 and more are expected this year.

The sudden success of these measures is not an accident. They are the result of a concerted new strategy by abortion opponents, researchers have found.

Continued: https://time.com/5753300/heartbeat-bill-civil-rights-law/

Missouri and the Fight for Abortion Rights: How Past Became Prologue

Missouri and the Fight for Abortion Rights: How Past Became Prologue
Missouri’s historic battle for abortion rights presaged in important ways where we are today, and what will be required of reproductive rights advocates in the future.

Aug 1, 2019
Angela Bonavoglia

The time, the late 1960s; the place, St. Louis, Missouri. Judy Widdicombe, a twenty-something self-described supermom, was raising two boys with her husband, working as a labor and delivery nurse in a Catholic hospital, and volunteering one night a week as a counselor on a suicide prevention hotline.

“In those days, there was no official place a woman with an unwanted pregnancy could go for help,” she told me when I interviewed her for my book, The Choices We Made: 25 Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/08/01/missouri-and-the-fight-for-abortion-rights-how-past-became-prologue/

01.08.2019

American Civil Liberties Union

Arlene Carmen

bomb threats

Clergy Consultation Service of Missouri

clinic picketing

Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion

Judson Memorial Church

Judy Widdicombe

Justice Blackmun

Kathryn Kolbert

manual vacuum aspiration

National Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion

peritonitis

Planned Parenthood Missouri

Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Pro-Life Action League

prosecuting women for abortion

Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region

Reverend Howard Moody

Roe v. Wade

self-induced abortion

self-managed abortion

septicemia

The Choices We Made: 25 Women and Men Speak Out About Abortion

undue burden standard

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

USA – The terrifying case of a six-week embryo suing an abortion clinic

The terrifying case of a six-week embryo suing an abortion clinic
An Alabama case brings into sharp clarity what is at stake with the legal battle over a woman’s right to choos

Jill Filipovic
Fri 8 Mar 2019

In Alabama, a man is suing for what he believes is his right: to allow any man to force a female partner to give birth against her will. In a bizarre twist, a judge has allowed a no-longer-in-existence embryo to sue as well. It’s a case that highlights the fundamental divide between the pro-choice movement and the anti-abortion (and, often, anti-contraception) one: is the debate just about “life”? Or is it about allowing men and the government to control women – our lives, our futures, and the very skin, organs and bones we live in?

This case brings the stakes into sharp clarity.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/08/the-terrifying-case-of-a-six-week-embryo-suing-an-abortion-clinic

Abortion Is Not Murder

Abortion Is Not Murder

Even if we granted the most generous possible terms to the anti-abortion camp, even if we pretended the fetus was fully rational and contemplating Shakespeare in the womb, abortion would still not be murder.
By Jennifer Wright
Apr 13, 2018

It is not surprising that Kevin Williamson, who called for women who had abortions to be hanged (because they are, to his mind, murderers), was recently fired from The Atlantic.

It ought to surprise us that he was hired at all.

Continued: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a19748134/what-is-abortion/

Irish Supreme Court clears path for abortion referendum by ruling unborn children only have right to life

Irish Supreme Court clears path for abortion referendum by ruling unborn children only have right to life
Vote faced delays if foetuses afforded more protections

Harriet Agerholm
March 7, 2018

Ireland’s highest court has ruled protections for an unborn child offered under the state’s constitution do not extend beyond the right to life. The landmark decision, which was approved unanimously by seven senior judges, clears a path for a referendum on abortion in the summer.

A High Court previously ruled an unborn child was entitled to the same constitutional protections as a child.

Continued: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ireland-abortion-referendum-unborn-children-right-to-life-supreme-court-ruling-termination-a8243611.html

07.03.2018

South Africa: Private-member bill set to revive abortion debate

Private-member bill set to revive abortion debate
Pregnancy termination amendment is intended to tighten conditions for allowing women to have abortions

08 December 2017
Tamar Kahn

The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill has been tabled in Parliament, paving the way for an emotional debate on access to abortion when MPs return to their duties next year.

The draft legislation is a private-member’s bill introduced by African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) MP Cheryllyn Dudley, who previously tried to restrict women’s access to abortion by proposing an amendment to the Constitution to include the right to life of the unborn child.

Continued at source: https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/health/2017-12-08-private-member-bill-set-to-revive-abortion-debate/