Women’s Rights

SCOTUS to hear Texas abortion appeal on Wednesday

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After nine years of having only a limited role in the always heated controversy over abortion rights, the Supreme Court this week moves back into the center, facing again a fundamental question that has not changed much since Roe v. Wade: will women and their doctors have the basic choice about ending a pregnancy? Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog has the Argument preview: New look at abortion after nine years:

Handmaid'sTaleOn Wednesday, March 2, the Court will hold a one-hour hearing on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, and on the outcome of that case depends the near-term fate of a new emphasis in the anti-abortion movement on the health of women, as intense as has been its long effort to protect the life of the fetus from the moment of conception to live birth.

This time, the Court will be dealing with a law in Texas that is like scores of others enacted in states across the country in recent years: more restrictions on the actual operation of abortion clinics, with the usual — and intended — effect of reducing access to pregnancy termination services. [aka Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) Laws.] That is an approach that potentially could have a greater chance of succeeding in the Court than the other tactic that has been thwarted repeatedly by the Justices: narrowing abortion rights directly by banning the procedure earlier and earlier in pregnancy.

Image from The Handmaid’s Tale.

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Planned Parenthood vindicated – forced birthers charged with a crime

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What’s the old trope about “be careful what you wish for?”

I Love Planned ParenthoodThe forced birthers from the Center for Medical Progress — the anti-abortion group that made secretly recorded and highly edited videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to “illegally” profit from the sale of fetal tissue — have themselves been indicted on a charge of tampering with a governmental record, a felony, and on a misdemeanor charge related to purchasing human organs. 2 Abortion Foes Behind Planned Parenthood Videos Are Indicted:

A grand jury here that was investigating accusations of misconduct against Planned Parenthood has instead indicted two abortion opponents who made undercover videos of the organization.

Awesome!

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The way forward to the ERA in Arizona

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A year ago I posted that a Bipartisan group of Arizona legislators support passage of the Equal Rights Amendment: Rep. Victoria Steele (D-Tucson) has introduced HCR 2016 (.pdf), a resolution recommending the ratification of the federal Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It has bipartisan support among its cosponsors.

I pointed out that:

ERA-1The ERA has been stalled since 1982, 3 states short of the 38 required to ratify a Constitutional Amendment. This unjust delay is largely due to an arbitrary deadline that was placed on ERA ratification. Joint Resolutions—SJRES15 and HJRES43—to remove the ERA’s ratification deadline, allowing time to gain the support of 3 of the 15 un-ratified states, was introduced on May 9, 2013 in Congress.

I commented last July:

There is no reason why a companion ERA Amendment could not be added to the Arizona Constitution as well, which would afford women the same constitutional protections. The legislature can refer the amendment to the voters, or a citizens initiative can put the measure on the ballot. I would encourage our Democratic Caucus in the state legislature to pursue this state constitutional amendment. It is long past time to finish the long civil rights struggle to grant women equal rights under the Constitution.

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(Update) SCOTUS: the defining issue in the 2016 election

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Last year I posted SCOTUS: the defining issue in the 2016 election, a quick glance at attorney Rick Hasen’s  longread for TPM, which is well worth your time to read.  It begins:

The future composition of the Supreme Court is the most important civil rights cause of our time. It is more important than racial justice, marriage equality, voting rights, money in politics, abortion rights, gun rights, or managing climate change. It matters more because the ability to move forward in these other civil rights struggles depends first and foremost upon control of the Court. And control for the next generation is about to be up for grabs, likely in the next presidential election, a point many on the right but few on the left seem to have recognized.

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Today Hillary Clinton  has a new op-ed in the Boston Globe emphasizing the importance of the high court in this year’s election:

There’s a lot at stake in this election. Nowhere is this clearer than in the US Supreme Court.

The court’s decisions have a profound impact on American families. In the past two decades alone, it effectively declared George W. Bush president, significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act, and opened the door to a flood of unaccountable money in our politics. It also made same-sex marriage legal nationwide, preserved the Affordable Care Act not once but twice, and ensured equal access to education for women.

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GOP gears up for another assault on ‘ObamaCare’

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We-Love-ObamacareThe Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare” finished 2015 on a high note. So naturally, the first order of business for Tea-Publicans in 2016 is another assault on ObamaCare. They are like The Soup Nazi in Seinfeld, “No health care for you!”

Steve Benen reports on the success of ObamaCare. ‘Obamacare’ wrapping up 2015 on a high note:

The Affordable Care Act’s enrollment totals this year are not only excellent, they’re also exceeding projections and last year’s tallies. Sarah Kliff explained yesterday that the individual mandate – the policy Republicans embraced until President Obama agreed with them – is doing exactly what it was intended to do, which helps explain the encouraging data.

[R]ecent enrollment data shows that the mandate is working. The exact type of people the requirement was meant to target – young, healthy adults who might forgo coverage were it not for a government fine – signed up in record numbers this year.

Having a decent number of young and health people in the insurance pool is integral to making costs affordable for everyone, which is exactly why the mandate exists in the first place. And architects of Obamacare’s enrollment strategy say that talking about the mandate – something Obamacare supporters didn’t really start doing until 2015 – has been core to making it work.

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