March 27, 2023
A few bright lights in this otherwise hellish reproductive rights landscape this go-around..
Justice prevails in a few small, but meaningful cases. The exodus of good doctors from red America commences.
Turns out some Republicans actually want to save women’s lives.. While others want to memorialize unborn fetuses and force people to have rapists’ babies.
Grab the reigns for another wild roundup of the abortion fight in the Divided States of ‘Merica..
Wyoming Temporarily Blocks Abortion Ban
Let’s start with some good news out of Wyoming..
Judge Melissa Owens blocked a state abortion ban just days after it took effect on Wednesday, suspending the ban for at least 2 weeks.
The ban prohibits abortion except in cases of rape of incest or the life of the mother.
The decision relied on a 2012 amendment to the state constitution.
The amendment, which was originally intended to spite Obamacare, states that adults have a right to make their own health care decisions. So now the fight shifts to whether or not abortion is considered “health care”..
Spoiler alert: Abortion IS Healthcare..
Judge Owens had halted a previous ban last summer, leading to this second try by Republican lawmakers to address her concerns.
Hopefully her decisions so far bode well for her to weigh in on the “left” side of the challenge to the state ban on abortion pills which will come before her in the coming months.
Justice Catches up to Casper Clinic Arsonist
Hours after the abortion ban block news came down, another bit of good news came out of Wyoming.
Lorna Roxanne Green was arrested for arson at a Casper clinic.
So, a true win-win for abortion rights in Wyoming..
Arkansas law allows anti-abortion monument at capitol
Arkansas lawmakers OK disgusting anti-abortion monument at Capitol.
Sarah Huckabee, who clearly has her priorities ass backwards, spurred this on.
The monument will mark the number of abortions performed in Arkansas before the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v Wade.
This disgusting “monument to the unborn” will be placed on the grounds of the state Capitol.
Arkansas had a trigger law from 2019 on the books when Roe fell, so the state has a full ban only with the exceptions of the life of the mother in a medical emergency.
So, rapists and incest would-be fathers are in the clear in Arkansas.. Oh joy.
At least a few Republican lawmakers recognized the optics of this as having “the look and feel of spiking the football”, or “a poke in the eye to all those who do not share our beliefs”.
Unfortunately, enough lawmakers were in favor of the measure to pass.
Idaho Doctor Exodus Impacts Hospitals
It turns out that people don’t want to work under constant threat of litigation for just doing the right thing..
In a canary-in-the-coal-mine moment, a rural hospital in northern Idaho will halt their Obstetrical care practice due to an exodus of physicians who don’t want to practice medicine under the constant threat of prosecution for providing abortions or other medical care.
Idaho’s legal and political climate along with declining demographics of younger couples in the area is the cause.
The hospital said they struggle to recruit new doctors to the area for the same reasons.
One physician told the Idaho Capital Sun in Boise that she is leaving the state because of the abortion laws and the state’s decision to discontinue the state’s maternal mortality review committee.
Idaho’s Supreme Court upheld the felony charge and medical license revocation for violating the most restrictive laws in the state.
Red States Split Hairs on Abortion Exceptions
Oklahoma and Tennessee make small moves to protect the mother’s life in the case of medical complications of a pregnancy.
So, let’s celebrate the victories when they exist..
OK Supreme Court okays abortion to preserve mother’s life
A divided Oklahoma Supreme Court overturned a portion of the state’s near total ban on abortion, allowing for exceptions when the mother’s health is at risk, even if not a “medical emergency”.
This exception addresses the extreme situations some of the women in the Texas lawsuit found themselves in.
Several of the women were forced to wait until they were septic before they were given an abortion.
Governor Shitt, I mean Stitt, still objects to saving the mother’s life, tweeting:
So, basically Governor Shitt wants women to be forced to carry pregnancies that will kill them.
Lovely..
Tennesee House passes abortion exemption for “reasonable medical judgment”
Despite objections from physicians and democrats that the bill doesn’t go far enough, the house advanced a bill to carve out narrow legal exceptions for medical complications such as ectopic and molar pregnancies from the state’s abortion ban, in addition to allowing doctors to exercise “reasonable judgment if an abortion would “prevent the death or serious and substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
New Mexico Moves to Protect Abortion Providers and Patients
Meanwhile in Blue-state America.. where they care about their people and healthcare workers.
The bill provides protections for medical providers and patients getting reproductive or gender-afffirming health care.
Protections include extradition and civil or criminal prosecution as well as privacy of healthcare information.
It wasn’t easy as republican men stalled the bill before passage.
Now the bill will go to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is expected to sign it into law.
Red states will continue to chip away at any reproductive rights protections that are left.
We must stay in the fight!
