abortion

Governor Ducey hops aboard the idiot train on Planned Parenthood

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duceyPhoto: ABC15.com

This took longer than I expected, honestly:

Governor Doug Ducey’s Statement on Planned Parenthood

JULY 20, 2015

PHOENIX – In light of recent allegations of unlawful practices and procedures being performed by Planned Parenthood, Governor Doug Ducey today directed the Arizona Department of Health Services to conduct a thorough review of current law and immediately promulgate emergency rules designed to prohibit the illegal sale of any tissue from an unborn child.

“The footage released by The Center for Medical Progress regarding the alleged sale and trafficking of aborted fetal tissue and body parts by Planned Parenthood is horrifying and has no place in a civilized society. I am calling on the Department of Health Services to conduct a thorough review of the law and immediately promulgate emergency rules designed to prohibit the illegal sale of any tissue from an unborn child. This is consistent with federal law and will deter action that we all agree is abhorrent. Further, I have instructed ADHS to provide any and all assistance required to Attorney General Brnovich in any efforts conducted by his office.”

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Does Doug MacEachern oppose abortion to save the life of the woman? I have concerns about that!

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

maceachern
I will not suffer a defective incubator to live!

Well, the modicum of goodwill Doug MacEachern had built up with me on Wednesday for acknowledging the allegations that Planned Parenthood sells fetus parts are spurious was demolished on Thursday, when he walked that back and proceeded to insinuate that something sinister is going on after all. And also lets you know that the Planned Parenthood rep “enjoyed a sumptuous lunch” (which is what we’re calling “salad” these days, I guess).

I argued in an earlier column that it is not exactly clear from Nucatola’s lunchtime performance that she is describing “products” that are for sale, which is against federal law, albeit an ambiguous federal law.

I’m less sure now. Oddly enough, Planned Parenthood — which is clearly in a public-relations panic over this video — is contributing to its critics’ arguments. The abortion provider hired a PR firm that is contradicting Nucatola’s own description of payments, which she says go to “shipping” and to account for the fact that “somebody gonna have to take it out..”

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Pro-choice movement (finally) gets proactive on demanding end to funding bans on abortion

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

all above all

When President Obama got elected in 2008 and Democrats took over both chambers of Congress I entertained the faint hope that they would overturn the Hyde Amendment. Naturally, I felt it was highly unlikely as the recession needed to be dealt with immediately (and that sense only deepened when Republicans pitched a fit over the stimulus possibly funding birth control programs). The President was also fully in his “post-partisan” honeymoon phase, where he was trying very hard to demonstrate to the country and to the Republicans in Congress that he wanted to work across the aisle. That President Obama would not have signed a repeal of the Hyde Amendment under the slight possibility that such a bill would have gotten a cloture vote through the Blue Dogs in the Senate and reached his desk was a given in my mind. The Affordable Care Act – the most significant reform that was passed by the 2009/10 Congress – needed to have a provision reifying the Hyde Amendment to get enough votes from anti-choice Democrats.

Now that President Obama is a lame duck and clearly done with GOP bullshit, I wonder if this bill just introduced in the House would have a fighting chance if Democrats controlled both houses. Per PRWeb:

Washington, DC (PRWEB) July 08, 2015
Today Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), along with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO) and 61 other Congressional co-sponsors, introduced the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH Woman) Act. The bill would ensure health coverage for abortion for every woman however much she earns or however she is insured. The bill is backed by 36 national and state organizations united under the campaign All* Above All.

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Bill Cosby and the cruel joke that is the “rape exception”

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

ac360 screenshot

A friend of mine asked recently if I planned on posting about the recent release of the deposition where Bill Cosby admitted to obtaining qualuudes to drug women he wanted to have sex with. I do feel like others have done the matter itself more justice than I could (special kudos to Jamilah Lemieux) but when I watched this CNN segment where Anderson Cooper interviewed Cosby victim Patti Masten it drove home a point I and other reproductive rights advocates have been making for some time. That point is that the “rape exception” blithely offered by anti-choicers as a token of moderation of their attempts to criminally ban abortion is – not to put too fine a point on it – bullshit.

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Who, us? Punish abortion doctors? Perish the thought!

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

pill cartoon

Per Howie Fischer who is, as always, doing excellent coverage on reproductive rights:

State Health Director Cara Christ wants a federal judge to throw out a challenge to a controversial new abortion law because no doctor has yet been disciplined for breaking it.

In legal filings in federal court, attorney Douglas Drury who represents Christ tells Judge Steven Logan that he should dismiss the lawsuit filed on behalf of abortion providers and doctors because the case is not “ripe” for consideration.

“Plaintiffs and their patients have not suffered any injury in fact,” Drury wrote.

That same argument is being made by the Attorney General’s Office representing the Arizona Medical Board, the agency that could revoke a doctor’s medical privileges for ignoring the statute.

Hanging in the balance is a law that requires doctors to inform women who want to terminate a pregnancy that “it may be possible to reverse the effects of a medication abortion if the woman changes her mind but that time is of the essence.”

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