Guck Favin

Once again, we find that, despite his stellar social media operation, at his core, Gavin Newsom is a punk.

The California Governor just vetoed a bill that would ban extraditing doctors who provide abortions or gender affirming care.

The reason given?  He thinks that it does not respect the executive power of the Governor.

This is a bullsh%$ reason from a crap politician. 

When Louisiana authorities tried to extradite a California doctor last winter for sending abortion pills to women in their state, Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed back—hard. “We will not allow extremist politicians from other states to reach into California and try to punish doctors based on allegations that they provided reproductive health care services,” Newsom declared. “Not today. Not ever.”

Yet nine months after that ringing defense of abortion providers and reproductive freedom, Newsom has blocked Democratic efforts to enshrine the same anti-extradition policy into state law.

The soon-to-be-ex-governor has vetoed a bill that would have prohibited future governors from handing over abortion providers, helpers, and patients to red states for criminal prosecution. The bill also would have barred extraditions involving transgender care. Newsom’s decision was “incredibly disappointing” and “certainly not what we were expecting,” says Pavitra Abraham, director of state campaigns for Reproductive Freedom for All.

The veto of AB 2164—also known as the Care Without Fear Act—has alarmed reproductive rights advocates around the country because of California’s critical role in preserving abortion access since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The state is home to telemedicine providers, mail-order pharmacies, research organizations, and other groups that have helped keep abortion pills flowing even to the most conservative parts of the US.

………

But instead, Newsom vetoed the bill, announcing the move in a Sunday legislative update. In his statement explaining his decision, Newsom pointed to his strong record on reproductive health issues, including privacy. But he said he was “troubled by the precedent that would be set if an outgoing administration agreed with the Legislature to erode the executive authority of an incoming Governor based on their shared policy preferences, regardless of how righteous and well-intentioned those actions may be.”

This is bullsh%$, and Gavin Newsom is bullsh=%$. 

Republican Family Values

Have you heard the one about the state representative who co-authored the Texas abortion ban paid for multiple abortions for his former exotic dancer mistress?

Also, he started f%$#ing her when she was just 18.

No, this is not a joke.

Texas Republican state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione helped write one of the country’s strictest abortion laws.

Now he’s been forced into a stunning admission after a woman revealed that she had carried on a 17-year relationship with Capriglione and accused him of “secretly paying for multiple abortions.”

“Years ago, I selfishly had an affair,” the Southlake Republican said in a statement after the allegations became public. “I’m not proud of this.”

And that’s where this story gets politically explosive.

Capriglione was the House author of Texas’ 2021 Human Life Protection Act, the so-called trigger ban that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The law prohibits abortion except under specified circumstances and provides both civil and criminal penalties.

The woman making the allegations is Alex Grace, a former exotic dancer who says she met Capriglione in 2004, when she was 18, according to International Business Times.

Stay classy, my froiend.

A Predictable Consequence Of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

As a result of aggressive actions in red states banning abortion, ectopic pregnancy deaths doubled, because doctors are afraid to properly treat women.

The number of women who died after an ectopic pregnancy has spiked in recent years, a ProPublica analysis found. The mounting deaths in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data have drawn little scrutiny or response.

Such deaths typically occur in the first trimester, after a pregnancy fails to properly implant in the uterus and begins to develop elsewhere, most commonly inside a fallopian tube. The embryo grows until it causes the organ to rupture, triggering catastrophic bleeding.

With prompt and appropriate medical care, maternal health experts say, women should not die. Yet ProPublica’s analysis found a stark and baffling increase: Almost 200 women with the condition died from 2020 to 2025, compared with about 100 in the previous six years.

“A death related to ectopic pregnancy should really be a never event,” said Dr. Alice Abernathy, an OB-GYN in Philadelphia.

While chaos and access issues at hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic likely contributed to at least some of the deaths, the surge has persisted, raising serious questions about the role of the most significant disruption to maternal healthcare in the years since: state restrictions on abortion.

To treat an ectopic pregnancy, which is almost never viable, doctors must terminate it. But lawsuits and federal complaints have alleged that some medical providers are hesitating or flat-out refusing to do that in states where they face criminal penalties for performing an abortion. Patients described their terror.

I guarantee you that for every woman who has died, there are more than 100 women who suffered injuries.

This is a feature not a bug for Republicans.  They hate women. 

Safe Until After the Election

Maybe I'm a cynic, but I refuse to take any action of the Supreme Court's right wing hack justices at face value.

So when the Supreme Court Supreme Court stayed a ruling by a lower court allowing continued access to mifepristone through the US Post Office, I think that it was an attempt to move the final decision past the November elections, nothing else.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that patients can, for now, continue to access by mail the most commonly used abortion pill, handing antiabortion advocates a defeat in their push to restrict medication abortion.

The justices paused a decision by a U.S. appeals court in New Orleans that had reinstated a requirement that patients pick up mifepristone in person, a mandate supporters of abortion rights have framed as the biggest threat to abortion access since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

I Did Not Expect This From Alito

My assumption is that he thought that allowing the ban on mail to go into immediate effect would have such a negative impact on Republican electoral chances that a temporary stay should be called.

The Supreme Court on Monday restored nationwide access to a widely used abortion medication in a temporary order that will, for now, allow women to once again obtain the pill mifepristone by mail.

In a brief order, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. paused a lower-court ruling from Friday that had prevented abortion providers from prescribing the pills by telemedicine and shipping them to patients, causing confusion for providers and patients. The one-sentence order imposes a pause until at least May 11. He requested that the parties file briefs by Thursday, and then the full court will determine how to proceed.

The state of Louisiana sued the Food and Drug Administration to restrict access to mifepristone, saying the availability of the medication by mail has allowed abortions to continue in the state despite its near-total ban. 

(Emphasis mine) 

………

Justice Alito’s order, known as an administrative stay, was provisional and expected, but an important interim step for women seeking to obtain mifepristone in the next week. The order does not signal how the full court may eventually handle the case.

Justice Alito acted on his own at this stage because he is the justice assigned to handle emergency applications from the region of the country covered by the Fifth Circuit. 

I would not expect this from Alito.  I would expect to see delays until the last possible moment, because he is a corrupt son of a bitch.

Also, the case is complete pants, with the state of Louisiana basing its standing on the complete falsehood that mifepristone is so dangerous that it costs them tax money.  (It doesn't)

Also, this argument could be used, and would be true, for a state wanting to ban Acetaminophen, which is the most dangerous FDA approved OTC medication, with about 500 deaths and about 26,000 hospitalizations a year.  

Paging Margaret Atwood

Louisiana has  indicted a doctor in California for prescribing abortion medication.

They are in the process of extraditing an extradition request.

Louisiana law enforcement officials are seeking to extradite a California doctor who, officials say, sent abortion pills to a woman living in the southern state.

The extradition order for the doctor, Remy Coeytaux, marks the latest salvo in the escalating battle between states that protect abortion rights and those that ban the procedure. While Louisiana is one of more than a dozen states that have banned almost all abortions, California and a handful of other blue states have enacted so-called “shield laws”, which aim to protect abortion providers from out-of-state extradition or prosecution.

“We are going to continue to fight the illegal sending of abortion pills into Louisiana,” Liz Murrill, Louisiana’s Republican attorney general, said in a video posted to X. “It’s illegal drug trafficking and we will continue to prosecute those doctors and we will also continue to pursue actions against the states that are shielding those doctors.”

Coeytaux has been charged with violating a Louisiana statute that bans “criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs”. If convicted, he could face fines and up to 50 years of “hard labor”. He did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

We need to rip this out of our body politic branch and root.

Republican Family Values

Republican Texas State Representative Giovanni Capriglione has admitted that he had an affair with a stripper, but denied her allegations that he paid for an an abortion for her.

The kicker?  He wrote the Texas "Trigger Act" which made abortion a crime as soon as the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Hypocrisy much?

Three days after state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione announced he was dropping his reelection bid, the conservative news site Current Revolt published an interview with a former exotic dancer who alleges she had a 17-year affair with the Southlake Republican.

The woman, Alex Grace, alleges that Capriglione paid her for “meetups” and “funded several abortions for his own personal gain.” She declined to provide additional details on the alleged abortions in the interview, saying, “you’re just going to have to go with my word.”

Her interview with Current Revolt was captured in a 25-minute video published Friday.

In a statement, Capriglione admitted he’d had an affair “years ago”, but said the other allegations are “categorically false and easily disproven.” He added that he had “never, nor would I ever, pay for an abortion.”

………

In 2021, Capriglione carried the “trigger ban” that allowed Texas to ban nearly all abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. As a result of that bill, performing an abortion in Texas is punishable by up to life in prison. Other laws supported by Capriglione made it a civil offense to “aid and abet” in a prohibited abortion, including paying for someone to terminate their pregnancy in Texas.

Thanks, Elon

I'm actually serious here. 

 It appears that Elon Musk's botched attempt to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court election has resulted in the formal legalization of abortion in the Badger State.

It appears that the Apartheid Era Emerald Heir Pedo Guy's™ skills in over-promising and under-delivering finally led to something good.

Much better than things like "Full Self Driving" where his lies actually kill people:

A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed abortions to continue in the state, blocking a 19th-century law that for a time effectively banned the procedure in nearly all instances.

The ruling is a victory for abortion rights advocates — who helped flip the elected court’s ideological makeup in 2023 — and puts protections for the procedure on firmer footing. It represents a setback for abortion opponents in the swing state, who had hoped Wisconsin would join the states that limited or banned the procedure after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.

Health care providers in Wisconsin temporarily stopped offering abortions after that decision three years ago in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which ended a constitutional right to abortion in the United States. The providers said they feared they could be prosecuted in Wisconsin under an 1849 law that has been widely viewed as banning most abortions.

………

On Wednesday, liberals who control the court invalidated the 1849 law. The decision fell along ideological lines, with the four liberal justices in the majority and the court’s three conservatives dissenting.

The ruling means health care providers can continue to offer abortions until 20 weeks post-fertilization, with the only exception after that point in pregnancies being cases in which the patient’s health is at risk. Wisconsin mandates an ultrasound and a 24-hour waiting period before most abortions.

The state continues to limit medication abortions by requiring that providers dispense abortion pills in person and that patients go for a follow-up visit after taking the medication.

………

The high court upheld [Dane County Judge Diane] Schlipper’s finding that abortion is legal in Wisconsin but used different reasoning. The majority concluded the 1849 law had banned nearly all abortions but determined the legislature had functionally repealed it through post-Roe measures addressing “every aspect of abortion including where, when, and how healthcare providers may lawfully perform abortions,” Justice Rebecca Dallet wrote for the majority.

“That comprehensive legislation so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was clearly meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion,” she wrote.

Now, how about Wisconsin Democrats trying to reverse the restrictions on abortion listed above.

We know that criminalizing abortion is  electoral poison almost everywhere in the United States.  

Make Wisconsin Republicans drink that Kool-Aid. (Actually, at Jonestown, the drank Flavor-Aid, but I degress)

One Step Back from The Handmaiden’s Tale

A federal judge has ruled that Alabama cannot prosecute anyone who helps someone travel out of state for an abortion.

While there have yet to be any such charges filed, the state AG has announced that he is looking into this, so there is already a chilling effect on healthcare providers:

Alabama’s attorney general cannot prosecute individuals and groups that help Alabama women travel to other states to obtain abortions, a federal judge ruled on Monday.

The US district judge Myron Thompson sided with an abortion fund and medical providers who sued Alabama’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, after he suggested they could face prosecution under anti-conspiracy laws. Thompson’s ruling declared that such prosecutions would violate both the first amendment and a person’s right to travel.

Marshall has not pursued any such prosecutions. However, he said he would “look at closely” whether facilitating out-of-state abortions is a violation of Alabama’s criminal conspiracy laws. The ruling was a victory for the Yellowhammer Fund, an abortion assistance fund that had paused providing financial assistance to low-income people in the state because of the possibility of prosecution.

………

“It is one thing for Alabama to outlaw by statute what happens in its own backyard. It is another thing for the state to enforce its values and laws, as chosen by the attorney general, outside its boundaries by punishing its citizens and others who help individuals travel to another state to engage in conduct that is lawful there but the attorney general finds to be contrary to Alabama’s values and laws,” Thompson wrote in the 131-page opinion.

It's like prosecuting people for organizing a trip to Los Vegas, and it i9 clearly unconstitutional.

Or at least it is until the Supreme Court issues yet another corrupt ruling.

Gee, What a Surprise

It turns out that people are leaving states with abortion bans.

Key take-aways:

………

• One in five individuals planning to have children within the next decade has moved–or knows someone who has moved–to another state due to abortion restrictions.
• 57% of likely future parents prioritize employers offering reproductive healthcare benefits, while 56% of employed adults believe companies should work with lawmakers to protect access to reproductive rights.
• More than half of employed adults (51%) believe companies should speak out in support of reproductive rights.

………

This study aligns with the insights from another study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research on January 6, 2025. Economists from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the College of Wooster found that nearly 129,000 residents have moved away from the 13 states that have implemented near-total abortion bans since the 2022 Dobbs decision.

When people have the ability to easily cross borders to flee tyranny, they cross those borders.

Hoocoodanode?

 

Literally Pro Teen Pregnancy

Why yes, the state Attorneys General of Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho are demanding that mifepristone be banned because it deprives the states of teen pregnancies, why are you asking?

This is some seriously f%$#ed up sh%$:

Three Republican attorneys general filed a complaint in federal court on October 11 arguing that their states have a right to pregnant teenagers, and that right is being violated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

………

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, and Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador—all Republicans—take issue with this. Abortion access decreases teen pregnancy, and they seem to think that is a bad thing.

“Remote dispensing of abortion drugs by mail, common carrier, and interactive computer service is depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers in Plaintiff States,” the attorneys general allege in the complaint, which was filed before forced birth enthusiast Judge Matt Kacsmaryk in the Northern District of Texas’s Amarillo Division. They claim that decreased births constitute “a sovereign injury to the state in itself,” and causes downstream injuries like “losing a seat in Congress or qualifying for less federal funding if their populations are reduced.” In other words, uteri are state slush funds, and girls owe the state reproduction once they are capable of it.

………

Bailey, Kobach, and Labrador’s argument treats teenagers as breeding stock. The complaint is shocking in its brazenness. But it is a natural outgrowth of the conservative legal movement’s efforts to subordinate women: Girls choosing not to give birth is wrong, and men can go to court to set it right.

These people are not the opposition, they are the enemy, and they are evil.

An Update to Yesterday's Story

Remember when I noted that Ron DeSantis was threatening prosecutions against TV stations for running political ads that he did not like? 

It seems like only yesterday.  Wait ……… It was yesterday.

It now turns out that the lawyer who was tasked with sending these letters out has said that he was instructed to by the Florida Governor's office.

That's a criminal conspiracy:

Letters that threatened Florida TV stations with criminal penalties if they aired a political ad backing a referendum that would repeal the state’s six-week abortion ban came directly from Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office, according to the attorney who signed and sent them.

Attorney John Wilson said that he resigned as general counsel for the Florida Department of Health rather than “complying with the directives” of DeSantis’s executive staff to send more cease-and-desist letters to TV stations running the ad.

“I did not draft the letters or participate in any discussions about the letters prior to Oct. 3,” Wilson wrote in an affidavit filed in federal court Monday. Instead, he said, three attorneys on the governor’s staff gave him the letters to send.

………

In an earlier letter, Wilson condemned the actions of the administration. “A man is nothing without his conscience,” Wilson wrote in a resignation letter on Oct. 10 obtained by the Miami Herald. “It has become clear in recent days that I cannot join you on the road that lies before the agency.”

………

Wilson also wrote in the affidavit on Monday that the governor’s office told him to find outside attorneys to “assist with enforcement proceedings” against TV stations that ran the “Caroline” ad.

How about a federal prosecution.

Bueller?  Bueller?  Garland? Garland?

Welcome to the Handmaiden's Tale

Corrupt Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing to override HIPPA so that he can prosecute women for going out of state for abortions.

Yeah, the party of small government wants to be able to pry into a woman's most private and personal decision:

Texas has sued to block federal rules that prohibit investigators from viewing the medical records of women who travel out of state to seek abortions where the procedure is legal.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Lubbock, targets medical privacy regulations that were issued in 2000, and takes aim at a rule issued in April that specifically bans disclosing medical records for criminal or civil investigations into “the mere act of seeking, obtaining, providing or facilitating reproductive health care.”

Texas bans abortions in almost all circumstances. Women are not subject to criminal prosecution for obtaining abortions, but state law imposes penalties of as much as life in prison for those who aid in obtaining abortions.

The lawsuit claims that the privacy rules ignore federal law that lets states view medical records “for law enforcement purposes.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Texas’ attorney general, Ken Paxton, called the April rule “a backdoor attempt at weakening Texas’ laws.” He added: “The Biden administration’s motive is clear: to subvert lawful state investigations on issues that the courts have said the states may investigate.”

………

The April regulation came in direct response to abortion bans enacted by many Republican state legislatures after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. A number of those states, including Texas and Alabama, have signaled their interest in extending those bans to include women who cross state lines to get an abortion.

The lawsuit filed on Wednesday also asserts that the rule covers “hormone and drug therapy for gender dysphoria, surgical procedures related to gender dysphoria, and gender experimentation.” Texas bars minors from obtaining gender-transition surgery and related care like hormone therapy.

Whether Texas investigators have sought records of women who traveled out of state for abortions is unclear. But Mr. Paxton, a Republican, has demanded records on gender-transition care from organizations in Washington State and Georgia. In March, a judge temporarily blocked Mr. Paxton from forcing an L.G.B.T.Q. organization to turn over documents.

People like Ken Paxton are not the opposition, they are the enemy.

Fascism Much?

Ron DeSantis is sending his private goon squad to harass people who signed the petitions to put abortion on the ballot.

This guy is a f%$#ing menace, and he should be awaiting trial with no bail right now:

Isaac Menasche remembers being at the Cape Coral farmer’s market last year when someone asked him if he’d sign a petition to get Florida’s abortion amendment on the ballot.

He said yes — and he told a law enforcement officer as much when one showed up at the door of his Lee County home earlier this week.

Menasche said he was surprised when the plainclothes officer twice asked if it was really Menasche who had signed the petition. The officer said he was looking into potential petition fraud.

Though the officer was professional and courteous, Menasche, who has had little interaction with police in his life, said the encounter left him shaken.

“I’m not a person who is going out there protesting for abortion,” Menasche said. “I just felt strongly and I took the opportunity when the person asked me, to say yeah, I’ll sign that petition.”

The officer’s visit appears to be part of a broad — and unusual — effort by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to inspect thousands of already verified and validated petitions for Amendment 4 in the final two months before Election Day. The amendment would overturn Florida’s six-week abortion ban by proposing to protect abortion access in Florida until viability.

Since last week, DeSantis’ secretary of state has ordered elections supervisors in at least four counties to send to Tallahassee at least 36,000 petition forms already deemed to have been signed by real people. Since the Times first reported on this effort, Alachua and Broward counties have confirmed they also received requests from the state.

This crosses a line from MAGAt bullsh%$ to criminality.

Before we are in a prequel for The Handmaid's Tale, he needs to be arrested. In public.  And made to do the perp walk.

Twice the Necessary Signatures

After submitting twice the signatures required, Arizonans will vote on an amendment to the state constitution to protect the right to abortion.

Given the history of such referenda, it's pretty clear which side is going to win, which is why we see so much rat f%$#ery by Republican attorneys general and secretaries of state to keep then off the ballot.

A proposal to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution of Arizona, a key battleground state in the upcoming US elections, has inched closer to becoming an official ballot measure.

On Wednesday, Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition behind the measure, announced that it had turned in more than 800,000 signatures – more than double the amount needed to get the measure on the ballot come November.

That’s more signatures than have ever been submitted for a citizen-led ballot measure in Arizona, according to Chris Love, a spokesperson for Arizona for Abortion Access.

“It represents one in five Arizona voters,” Love said. “It’s an amazing feat for us. I think it’s a demonstration of the strength of our campaign and the excitement of Arizona voters to really settle the issue of abortion rights on the ballot in November.”

Your mouth to God's ear, Mr. Love.

Lying Because of Political Toxicity

Republican US Senate candidate Eric Hovde is walking back his support for an abortion ban.

I cannot say that I know what I have the power of telepathy, but this so clearly a transparent lie in response to the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs overturning Roe, which has proved to be political Kryptonite.

He is lying for political advantage:

Republican Senate candidate Eric Hovde, who is looking to unseat Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), told reporters Thursday that women should have a “right to make a choice” early in pregnancy — a departure from a previous, more hard line position on abortion.

“As it pertains to abortion, look, I’m very clear on that issue: I believe in exceptions. I believe in the beauty of life. I think women early on in a pregnancy should have a right to make a choice,” Hovde told reporters, without defining “early.” He added: “I think there’s a point where, once a baby can be born healthy and alive, that’s unconscionable that baby would be terminated.”

In August 2012, during an earlier campaign for the Senate, Hovde told the Wisconsin State Journal that he was “totally opposed to abortion,” a position he also voiced during a radio interview. Hovde also said that year that he considers himself “pro-life” and that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.

Hovde’s shift comes during an election cycle when many Republicans are struggling with the issue of abortion and some have moderated their positions. Protecting access to reproductive care has been a winning issue for Democrats in elections held following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, and Democrats up and down the ballot have been leaning into it during this election year.

Moreover, since the court’s decision, every state ballot measure that has sought to preserve or expand abortion access has been successful, while jurisdictions that have sought to restrict abortion access have failed — even in states that skew conservative.

'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

— Adrian Bott (@Cavalorn) October 16, 2015

This is really pretty simple:  You are a running for office as a member of the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

Suggesting thast you are now opposed to Leopards Eating People's Faces is a bald-faced lie, and a mark of profound cowardice.

This is the sh%$ sandwich that you and your ilk have demanded that the rest of us eat for decades.

Take this glass of warm foamy pee, and eat your f%$#ing sandwich.

Not a Face-Eating Leopard

'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

— Adrian Bott (@Cavalorn) October 16, 2015

In a district that Trump carried in Alabama, albeit one where it was close, Democratic candidate Marilyn Lands defeated her Republican opponent Teddy Powell with 63% of the vote.

She accomplished this miracle by focusing on Republicans eating their constituents faces, specifically on how Republican abortion criminalization legislation led to the shutdown of both abortion and IVF services in the state.

A special election in Alabama on Tuesday proved one thing for Democrats: Abortion is a winning issue.

Democratic candidate Marilyn Lands defeated her Republican opponent, Madison City Council member Teddy Powell, for a state House seat in a deep-red district after she made abortion and in vitro fertilization access a cornerstone of her campaign.

………

Lands secured a whopping 63 percent of the vote—a 26-point lead—by aggressively going against the grain, telling voters she supports a repeal of Alabama’s abortion bans while sharing her own experience with abortion two decades ago, when she received a devastating diagnosis: a genetic defect called trisomy.

“Twenty years ago I was able to get the care I needed. My three doctors told me this is the procedure I needed, that my life was at risk. I was able to go to my own hospital with my own doctor there, I didn’t have to leave my community,” Lands told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent. “And to think we’ve gone 20 years backwards. I can’t believe that. I’ve seen, in my lifetime, women make great strides in many areas. And, I’m just, I’m outraged that 20 years later women do not have the same freedoms and protections that I had.”

It's really very simple.  Republicans want to kill women like Marilyn Lands and like my wife.

Suddenly, the staunch anti-abortion activists realize that the Handmaiden's Tale will apply to good Christian white people like them, and suddenly they are looking for another proxy for racism.*

^*The history is abundantly clear here, the origins of the abortion crimilization movement grew from racial bigotry, not abortion. They were upset that their segregation academies lost their tax exempt status.

This is my Shocked Face

Despite, or perhaps more likely because of, Republican efforts to criminalize abortion and birth control, the number of abortions has risen 10% since 2020.

I would not consider this an own goal, because the real goal is to sow fear and dissension among women who might otherwise feel free to express their own sexuality and agency as human beings, so this might be a win:

Abortions in the US have sharply increased despite bans implemented in Republican-led states after the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.

More than 1m abortions were performed in the US in 2023, a 10% increase from 2020, according to research from the Guttmacher Institute, an American policy organization which advocates for sexual and reproductive health.

The latest data provides a more comprehensive picture of abortion access in the first full year after the supreme court issued the Dobbs decision that rolled back federalized rights and protections to abortion access.

A rise in medication abortions largely drove the increase, the Guttmacher Institute said. Also known as medical abortions, medication abortions are performed by taking a dose of two pills: mifepristone and misoprostol.

Medication abortions made up 63% of all abortions in the US in 2023, with 642,700 medication abortions taking place in formal healthcare settings. Only 492,210 medication abortions occurred in 2020, making up 53% of US abortions, the study concluded.

But the number of medication abortions in 2023 may be higher than the study suggests. Current figures do not include self-managed abortions or those who received abortion medication in states where there are total bans.

If you think that this news might prompt some self-reflection from the abortion criminalizing Republicans, you would be wrong.

This was never about preventing abortion anyway.  The evidence is incontrovertible that the anti-abortion movement started as a racist proxy for outrage over the IRS pulling tax exempt status from segregation academies, with a little dose of misogyny on top.

Well, It's a Start

A Texas district attorney charged a woman with murder for a self-managed abortion and then lied to authorities, including the state bar about it.

The state bar was unamused:

A Texas prosecutor has been disciplined for allowing a murder charge to be filed against a woman who self-induced an abortion in 2022.

Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez reached a settlement with the State Bar of Texas following an investigation. Ramirez agreed to pay a $1,250 fine, and his license will be held in a probated suspension for one year, ending on March 31, 2025. News of the January settlement was first reported by multiple outlets on Thursday.

The State Bar of Texas confirmed the settlement to The Texas Tribune on Friday and that it involved the case of a 26-year-old Texas woman who was arrested nearly two years ago and charged with murder in “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.”

Ramirez could not be immediately reached for comment on Friday. He told the Associated Press Thursday that he “made a mistake in that case,” and had agreed to the settlement because it allows his office’s operations to continue, interruption-free. If the district attorney complies with the settlement’s terms, he will be allowed to continue practicing law.

In 2022, the woman was arrested and booked into the Starr County Detention Center on a $500,000 bond, where she spent two nights before Ramirez announced that charges against her would be dropped.

The case sparked national outrage — Texas law exempts a pregnant person from being charged with murder or any homicide charge for an abortion. Abortion rights activists throughout the state’s border region banded together to fight the charges, including the Frontera Fund, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice and ACLU of Texas.

The State Bar of Texas’ investigation found that prosecutors working under Ramirez pursued criminal homicide charges for acts that were “clearly not criminal.” The investigation also revealed that Ramirez allowed an assistant to take the case to a grand jury — and that the district attorney “knowingly made a false statement” when he later told State Bar officials that he was not briefed on the facts of the case before it was presented.

You should have disbarred the motherf%$#er.  Not for the act, though that merited some discipline, but for lying to you.

It violates the Bull Durham rule, "Don't call the umpire a c%$# sucker."

We Are Heading for a Disaster of Biblical Proportions: Old Testament, Real Wrath of God Type Stuff, Fire and Brimstone Coming Down from the Skies! Rivers and Seas Boiling, Forty Years of Darkness, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, the Dead Rising from the Grave, Human Sacrifice, Dogs and Cats Living Together... Mass Hysteria!

Seriously, we are talking about the end of the world when Matt, "Close Encounters with the Third Grade" Gaetz is right about something, and when he condemned the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling that effectively banned IVF, he was right.

I'm not sure that I can deal with the thought that Gaetz is right about anything:

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) expressed alarm about the implications of an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that granted embryos the rights of people.

The decision prompted in vitro fertilization clinics in the state to pause the practice. Couples who have difficulty conceiving sometimes turn to IVF, whereby an egg is fertilized by sperm in a lab to create an embryo to implant in a uterus. Embryos are often frozen for later use or are destroyed if they go unused.

The court’s decision stemmed from a lawsuit by a couple whose embryos were accidentally destroyed at a clinic. The judges ruled that the state’s wrongful death laws do not exclude embryos, or what they deemed “extrauterine children.”

This is f%$#ed up and sh%$.