Conservative attacks on US abortion and trans healthcare come from the same place

Both are part of a project to roll back the victories of the feminist and gay rights movements and inscribe in law a firm definition and hierarchy of gender

Moira Donegan
Wed 24 May 2023

On Monday, Jim Pillen, the Republican governor of Nebraska, signed a law that bans abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy and restricts gender-affirming care for anyone under 19. The ban on trans medical care takes effect in October and the abortion ban goes into effect immediately. And so Nebraska has become the latest state to determine through law what might have once been determined by the more pliable tools of custom or imagination: the way that the sexed body a person is born with shapes the kind of life they can live.

Be it through forced pregnancy or prohibited transition, the state of Nebraska now claims the right to determine what its citizens will do with their sexed bodies – what those bodies will look like, how they will function and what they will mean. It is a part of the right’s ongoing project to roll back the victories of the feminist and gay rights movements, to re-establish the dominance of men in public life, to narrow possibilities for difference and expression and to inscribe in law a firm definition and hierarchy of gender: that people are either men or women and that men are better.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/24/rightwing-abortion-transgender-care-gender-hierarchy

24.05.2023

Opinion

abortion bans

anti-transgender laws

Republicans reject abortion bans as ‘campaign-enders’ in warning to party

As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion, internal divisions within the GOP are starting to show

Poppy Noor
Thu 4 May 2023

In one state, Republican women filibustered to block a near-total abortion ban introduced by their own party. In another, the Republican co-sponsor of a six-week abortion ban subsequently tanked his own bill. On the federal level, a Republican congresswoman warns that the GOP’s abortion stance could mean “losing huge” in 2024.

As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion following the fall of Roe v Wade, internal divisions within the Republican party on the issue are starting to show.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/04/republican-lawmakers-reject-abortion-bans

04.05.2023

USA – Outspoken abortion provider LeRoy ‘Lee’ Carhart dies at 81

by Lisa Baumann, The Associated Press
Apr 28, 2023

LeRoy “Lee” Carhart, who emerged from a two-decade career as an Air Force surgeon to become one of the best-known late-term abortion providers in the United States, has died. He was 81.

Carhart died Friday, according to Clinics for Abortions & Reproductive Excellence in Bellevue, Nebraska, where he was the medical director. His cause of death was not released by the clinic.

Carhart began focusing on abortions after retiring from the Air Force in 1985. He was one of only a handful of late-term abortion providers in the U.S. and was among the most vocal.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/leroy-lee-carhart-dead-a8f547515880406fa20b2be32fa6a3be

Anti-abortion bills fail in GOP-controlled Nebraska and South Carolina

By Chandelis Duster, CNN
Fri April 28, 2023

Measures that would have severely restricted abortion failed Thursday in Nebraska and South Carolina, which both have Republican-controlled legislatures, a reflection of the growing unease among Republicans over the political popularity of strict bans.

In Nebraska, a “Heartbeat Act” would have banned most abortions after six weeks except in cases of rape or incest or to preserve the life of the mother once a “fetal heartbeat” was detected, but it stalled in the legislature. … On Thursday afternoon, the South Carolina state Senate failed to pass the “Human Life Protection Act,” which would have banned abortions in the state, in a 22-21 vote with five women voting against it.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/28/politics/abortion-bills-fail-nebraska-south-carolina/index.html

28.04.2023

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic

Nebraska – Facebook gave police their private data. Now, this duo face abortion charges

Experts say it underscores the importance of encryption and minimizing the amount of user data tech companies can store
Johana Bhuiyan
Wed 10 Aug 2022

In the wake of the supreme court’s upheaval of Roe v Wade, tech workers and privacy advocates expressed concerns about how the user data tech companies stored could be used against people seeking abortions.

When a Facebook staffer posed the dilemma to the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, asking how the platform would protect the user data of individuals seeking abortion care, Zuckerberg said the company’s ongoing push to encrypt messaging would help protect people from “bad behavior or over-broad requests for information”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/10/facebook-user-data-abortion-nebraska-police

Nebraska woman charged with helping daughter have abortion

Investigators uncovered Facebook messages in which the two allegedly discussed using medication to induce an abortion.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Aug 9, 2022

OMAHA, Nebraska — A Nebraska woman has been charged with helping her teenage daughter end her pregnancy at about 24 weeks after investigators uncovered Facebook messages in which the two discussed using medication to induce an abortion and plans to burn the fetus afterward.

The prosecutor handling the case said it’s the first time he has charged anyone for illegally performing an abortion after 20 weeks, a restriction that was passed in 2010. Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, states weren’t allowed to enforce abortion bans until the point at which a fetus is considered viable outside the womb, at roughly 24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/09/nebraska-woman-charged-with-helping-daughter-have-abortion-00050763

09.08.2022

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Jessica Burgess

Joseph Smith

National Advocates for Pregnant Women

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Abortion access under renewed threat in Oklahoma and Missouri

By Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Sun April 10, 2022

(CNN)While abortion rights advocates could secure several victories in US states in the coming days, they're sounding the alarm about an Oklahoma bill that would ban nearly all abortions that's likely to be signed into law. Here are some of this week's moves in state legislatures and by state leaders you may have missed.

Oklahoma sends near-total ban on abortion to governor
Oklahoma legislators passed a bill on Tuesday that would make performing an abortion illegal in the state, except to save the life of the pregnant woman in a medical emergency.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/09/politics/state-abortion-legislation-round-up-oklahoma-missouri/index.html

Standing Between Care and Violence

Abortion-clinic escorts and defenders serve as human shields protecting patients from angry, aggressive protestors. Now, with emboldened extremists and the COVID crisis, they face more danger than ever before.

By Garnet Henderson
Jun 2, 2021

Shelley, an abortion-clinic defender at Clinics for Abortion and Reproductive Excellence (CARE) in Bellevue, Nebraska, had a bad feeling on the morning of September 25, 2020. One of those gut bad feelings. It had been a volatile summer. Warmer months typically bring more anti-abortion-rights protesters to clinics, and the groups had been even larger than usual in 2020, likely due to high unemployment rates. By September, the crowds had begun to thin back down to the clinic’s 12 to 14 “regulars.” That morning, one of the regulars was camped out in his usual spot at the base of the clinic’s driveway.

Continued: https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a36061740/abortion-clinic-escorts-defenders-face-violence/

The tiny American towns passing anti-abortion rules

In the last year, 23 Texas towns have declared themselves ‘sanctuary cities for the unborn’, making the procedure punishable, and in April, a Nebraska village became the 24^th

Jessica Glenza
Tue 27 Apr 2021

Over the last year of the pandemic, 23 tiny towns in Texas have approved local laws declaring themselves “sanctuary cities for the unborn”, passing ordinances to make the procedure punishable by a $2,000 fine.

In April, the tiny village of Hayes Center, Nebraska, became the 24th, and the first outside Texas.

ontinued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/27/us-tiny-towns-anti-abortion-ordinances

USA – Anti-Abortion Activists Tried To Shut Him Down. One Year Later, His Clinic Is Thriving.

Anti-Abortion Activists Tried To Shut Him Down. One Year Later, His Clinic Is Thriving.
Dr. LeRoy Carhart is one of the last providers in the country who perform later abortions.

By Catherine Pearson, HuffPost US
Oct 30, 2018

Last summer, the staff at Germantown Reproductive Health Service in Maryland, one of three remaining clinics in the U.S. where women were able to get third-trimester abortions, got surprising news.

Todd Stave, the owner of the clinic — who inherited it along with another facility from his OB-GYN father — had sold it. Although Stave had previously reassured clinic staff he would give them plenty of notice before a sale, staffers were told they would have to stop seeing patients the following week.

Continued: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/anti-abortion-activists-tried-to-shut-him-down-one-year-later-his-clinic-is-thriving_us_5bc4cce8e4b01a01d68d508e