Not on topic, but applicable to entire discussion around Dobbs:
In a SCOTUS opinion, pre-Dobbs, Kagan , Breyer and Sotomajor wrote: Mississippi has the highest infant mortality rate in the country, and some of the highest rates for preterm birth, low birthweight, cesarean section, and maternal death," they wrote. "It is approximately 75 times more dangerous for a woman in the state to carry a pregnancy to term than to have an abortion."
Thank you Jessica. And!!! Regarding Twitter’s move limiting visibility, would you consider an extra donate campaign specifically tied to promoting your important newsletter to make sure you keep growing your base? Your work is needed!!
This article does more than any source I have seen to clarify the complicated issues these two lawsuits bring forward. I have no legal expertise but am on the ground in abortion care. Information like this helps me navigate these chaotic times. Thank you Jessica V.
Do we know why New York and New Jersey did not join the lawsuit? I would love an explanation. Apparently H+H NYC hospitals are already planning to move to a miso only approach which seems insane and like it’s caving to the Texas judge.
PPGNY is planning to go Miso only if Mife does, in fact, get pulled. Not sure why NY wasn’t on the Washington lawsuit. The first I heard of it was Friday - maybe the abortion access folks are being too quiet about our work?
This is why I subscribe beyond just supporting someone I value as a voice of advocacy. This is the most informative article I have read because you didn’t just talk to the legal Twitter/cable news people who opine in everything from mar a lago documents to stormy Daniels payments. One mistake our media have made us thinking a legal contributor can opine on all aspects of the law. By going to experts this is an actually useful explanation! Thank you so much! <futurama: shut up and take my money> gif 😉
I think this discussion here misses a big point: Reading the Texas opinion, it is clear the judge sees the fetus as a person from the point of conception. Given this perspective it logically follows that the FDA did not properly evaluate the harm caused to that person by mifepristone. If the now biased Courts allow this ruling to stand it will legalize that religious myth and make it the law of the land
This is really aggravating that people think that fetal personhood has any legitimacy. It explicitly violates the 13th amendment. If the state recognizes fetuses as persons, the govt is literally stating that pregnant people are their chattel and have special privileges to other people's bodies that literally no one else has. I call it fetal coverture. The "public fetus" as Barbara Duden described it is a legal fiction conservatives invented to force women back into coverture. They can't make women constitutionally invisible under their husbands anymore so they're trying to do it by making the uterus public property of the state (the govt would also be violating the 5th amendment taking private property for public use.) By making fetuses wards of the state, anyone carrying one or is able to carry one is therefore carrying the property of the state. A direct violation of the 5th, 13th and 14th amendments.
There was a sleight of hand. There is nothing binding in this personhood finding because it relied on an amicus brief filed by a right wing group in Dobbs and was not part of the Dobbs majority ruling. It’s dicta, as lawyers say. While it may be critical to Kaczmaryk’s utterly flawed and legally insufficient reasoning, it’s no more binding than if he had cited a grocery list or cut and pasted tweets from anti abortion groups collected by an intern.
That’s fine but saying the writing “misses a big point” was inaccurate and inarticulate on your part. They neither “missed” that point nor do they fail to understand the gravity of the personhood argument. The interviewed experts get that point quite well. So your critique was pointless mansplaining. Sorry to have to be harsh about it.
The Biden Administration and the FDA should have been ready for this awful, purely political decision. The day that the suit was filed, we all knew which way Judge Kacsmaryk would rule. If we knew, there is no reason that anyone in government should have been surprised. A plan should have been in place for this, including a pre-written statement that the decision would be ignored.
This is good news AND absolutely fascinating. One of the things I've been thinking and talking a lot about as a disabled woman is drug access and healthcare in general- especially after zooming in on Idaho.
If someone decided the prescriptions I take in order to function were harmful and stripped them away I'd probably kill myself within a year. If random assholes without even a background in medicine can start deciding what drugs they like and don't like based exclusively on how it impacts a fetus, we already know they don't care what harm that would cause someone who relies on prescriptions to function (and/or live).
My point is that it feels like a situation in which you could take the issue of elective abortions out completely and the Texas ruling could still cause cascading collateral damage in the form of medical discrimination against women, drug approval chaos, and a generalized anxiety and distrust about medicine if it becomes precedent. I would love to be wrong though.
Absolutely! Mifepristone itself is used to induce labor, for Cushings disease, in clinical studies for PTSD, Rheumatoid Arthritis; it reduces cortisol and may be an effective cancer treatment. Even if they knew all this they wouldn’t care.
Yes, exactly. That's why there's hope that the supreme court would ultimately not allow it to stand, because they'd see where it leads. But Dobbs created chaos and is putting the states at each others' throats and yet they still issued that opinion so who knows.
Thanks for this, Jessica, maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight.
I'd be interested in your take on the Comstock laws. Why the hell are they still on the books? They were awful back when Anthony Comstock got them passed and they're even worse in today's world. I understand we don't have the votes now in the House, but can't we begin working to repeal them? They're so dangerous for women!
Not on topic, but applicable to entire discussion around Dobbs:
In a SCOTUS opinion, pre-Dobbs, Kagan , Breyer and Sotomajor wrote: Mississippi has the highest infant mortality rate in the country, and some of the highest rates for preterm birth, low birthweight, cesarean section, and maternal death," they wrote. "It is approximately 75 times more dangerous for a woman in the state to carry a pregnancy to term than to have an abortion."
Thank you! This in-depth information is very helpful, especially about the FDA and its options.
Fantastic reporting! This is exactly the information we need right now. Many thanks, Elise Berlan MD
Thank you Jessica. And!!! Regarding Twitter’s move limiting visibility, would you consider an extra donate campaign specifically tied to promoting your important newsletter to make sure you keep growing your base? Your work is needed!!
Thank you Jessica.
This article does more than any source I have seen to clarify the complicated issues these two lawsuits bring forward. I have no legal expertise but am on the ground in abortion care. Information like this helps me navigate these chaotic times. Thank you Jessica V.
FYI, I have tried, twice, to re-post this on my Facebook feed, https://www.facebook.com/cenizo, and got blocked. FB says: "Today at 7:01 AM
We confirmed your post didn't follow the Community Standards
We reviewed your post again and it doesn't follow our Community Standards."
I will keep trying.
!!! That's so wild, I wonder why!
I finally got it to stick. Third time's the charm...
Do we know why New York and New Jersey did not join the lawsuit? I would love an explanation. Apparently H+H NYC hospitals are already planning to move to a miso only approach which seems insane and like it’s caving to the Texas judge.
PPGNY is planning to go Miso only if Mife does, in fact, get pulled. Not sure why NY wasn’t on the Washington lawsuit. The first I heard of it was Friday - maybe the abortion access folks are being too quiet about our work?
Thank you, this is the clearest explanation of the two lawsuits I've read. Shared widely.
This is why I subscribe beyond just supporting someone I value as a voice of advocacy. This is the most informative article I have read because you didn’t just talk to the legal Twitter/cable news people who opine in everything from mar a lago documents to stormy Daniels payments. One mistake our media have made us thinking a legal contributor can opine on all aspects of the law. By going to experts this is an actually useful explanation! Thank you so much! <futurama: shut up and take my money> gif 😉
I think this discussion here misses a big point: Reading the Texas opinion, it is clear the judge sees the fetus as a person from the point of conception. Given this perspective it logically follows that the FDA did not properly evaluate the harm caused to that person by mifepristone. If the now biased Courts allow this ruling to stand it will legalize that religious myth and make it the law of the land
This is really aggravating that people think that fetal personhood has any legitimacy. It explicitly violates the 13th amendment. If the state recognizes fetuses as persons, the govt is literally stating that pregnant people are their chattel and have special privileges to other people's bodies that literally no one else has. I call it fetal coverture. The "public fetus" as Barbara Duden described it is a legal fiction conservatives invented to force women back into coverture. They can't make women constitutionally invisible under their husbands anymore so they're trying to do it by making the uterus public property of the state (the govt would also be violating the 5th amendment taking private property for public use.) By making fetuses wards of the state, anyone carrying one or is able to carry one is therefore carrying the property of the state. A direct violation of the 5th, 13th and 14th amendments.
There was a sleight of hand. There is nothing binding in this personhood finding because it relied on an amicus brief filed by a right wing group in Dobbs and was not part of the Dobbs majority ruling. It’s dicta, as lawyers say. While it may be critical to Kaczmaryk’s utterly flawed and legally insufficient reasoning, it’s no more binding than if he had cited a grocery list or cut and pasted tweets from anti abortion groups collected by an intern.
My point is that it could be made binding if the Supremes use the occasion to put into a supportive ruling!
That’s fine but saying the writing “misses a big point” was inaccurate and inarticulate on your part. They neither “missed” that point nor do they fail to understand the gravity of the personhood argument. The interviewed experts get that point quite well. So your critique was pointless mansplaining. Sorry to have to be harsh about it.
The Biden Administration and the FDA should have been ready for this awful, purely political decision. The day that the suit was filed, we all knew which way Judge Kacsmaryk would rule. If we knew, there is no reason that anyone in government should have been surprised. A plan should have been in place for this, including a pre-written statement that the decision would be ignored.
This is good news AND absolutely fascinating. One of the things I've been thinking and talking a lot about as a disabled woman is drug access and healthcare in general- especially after zooming in on Idaho.
If someone decided the prescriptions I take in order to function were harmful and stripped them away I'd probably kill myself within a year. If random assholes without even a background in medicine can start deciding what drugs they like and don't like based exclusively on how it impacts a fetus, we already know they don't care what harm that would cause someone who relies on prescriptions to function (and/or live).
My point is that it feels like a situation in which you could take the issue of elective abortions out completely and the Texas ruling could still cause cascading collateral damage in the form of medical discrimination against women, drug approval chaos, and a generalized anxiety and distrust about medicine if it becomes precedent. I would love to be wrong though.
Absolutely! Mifepristone itself is used to induce labor, for Cushings disease, in clinical studies for PTSD, Rheumatoid Arthritis; it reduces cortisol and may be an effective cancer treatment. Even if they knew all this they wouldn’t care.
Yes, exactly. That's why there's hope that the supreme court would ultimately not allow it to stand, because they'd see where it leads. But Dobbs created chaos and is putting the states at each others' throats and yet they still issued that opinion so who knows.
Thank You Jessica! A little glimmer of hope.
Thanks for this, Jessica, maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight.
I'd be interested in your take on the Comstock laws. Why the hell are they still on the books? They were awful back when Anthony Comstock got them passed and they're even worse in today's world. I understand we don't have the votes now in the House, but can't we begin working to repeal them? They're so dangerous for women!
Thanks, Jessica. This helps a lot and we can always count on you to keep it real. Screw kacsmaryk