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Mika Brzezinski did an emotional spot to end Morning Joe today. She had on the couple in Florida who were denied an abortion for their fetus who had Potter's Syndrome. Jessica covered the couple's story in the newsletter already- that the mother was being forced to give birth. Well she gave birth. They were on this morning. It was very emotional. Mika had a lot to say. She was masterful. I'd like to comment, though, that Mika seemed to be pleading with the Republicans to understand that abortion care is humane healthcare, in an attempt to educate them and get them to see the cruelty in the bans.

If I were sitting around that table, though, I'd have said that the rightwing understands the issue and doesn't care. I think her moving interview and words would not change one of their minds, unfortunately.

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It all comes to down to fundamentalists disgust for women's bodies. They think any pregnancy-related complications are literally God's punishment for their "sins." And no one has the right to escape God's will.

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founding

That’s exactly right, Zach.

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In regards to Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoing the ‘born alive’ legislation, what are the chances of the Kansas legislature over riding the veto? I thought I remember reading they had a supermajority? Thoughts?

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Unfortunately they do according to Google. It's another red state that's heavily gerrymandered.

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Thank you for confirming that

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The first amendment really pisses me off. While reading the bit about the volunteer application for the nuthouse in Florida, I'm thinking, how the fuck can the government fund this? But the answer is the first amendment. To normal, sane people like us, the first amendment means the government can't help you push your religion on other people. But to the batshit judges, the first amendment means government can't discriminate in funding 'just because' you're religious. Well, okay, how about because you're a nut who spews nonsense? But then I repeat myself. The lesson is ANY mention of 'religion' in a constitution, whatever the intent, WILL ultimately be used to bestow special privileges on religion. It's guaranteed. So you have to leave it out of ALL government texts. 'Freedom of religion' has GOT to go.

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Yeah. It should be "freedom of *and from* religion"

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Yeah I think they should specify freedom *from religion* as well as freedom *of religion.* There's a very good reason why separation of Church and State was included in the constitution after the forefathers left a continent mired in millennia of religious conflict.

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Not good enough though, because any freedom 'of' religion can always be used by a powerful group to justify a behavior that would otherwise, but for that, be illegal. It's THE biggest legal justification for bigotry and discrimination right now, and the courts are likely to find other things people can get away with because of 'freedom of religion' - they're taking these cases all the time, there's one being argued tomorrow on employment law.

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You might be interested in a book by the lawyer and atheist activist Andrew Seidel called American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom on the history of the separation of Church and State. He's also appropriately with the Freedom From Religion Foundation ironically.

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FFRF is headquartered in my hometown, one of our proudest achievements! :)

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Interesting!

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I used to follow Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. https://www.au.org/ Was very into secular humanism in college (philosophy degree).

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Apr 18, 2023·edited Apr 18, 2023

I had to stop reading after the screenshot of Georgia's tax question. Can't go on. I'm just stunned to the point of being frozen in disbelief. Is that legal for them to ask that question??? First, they're assuming fetal personhood -- that's been passed in that state? Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Second, that's a registry right there. You don't want to click on that AT ALL, whether you are pregnant or not. This should be front page news. An "unborn dependent?" This is like a Star Trek episode.

From Yahoo News (which I'm not too fond of, but anyway):

"Some experts worry that claiming the fetus dependent exemption could be used against a woman if she miscarries and is accused of getting an abortion, which is banned in Georgia after six weeks.

"I think there's a lot of potential for harm that could come from the additional surveillance of adding this information to a government document, asking people to give a paper trail of their pregnancy directly to the state government," Jackson said.

Additionally, Georgia lacks a law explicitly protecting women from abortion-related punishment.

"So Georgia's law, unlike the laws of other states, doesn't actually explicitly say women can't be punished," said Mary Ziegler, a professor of law at UC Davis and author of four books on social movement struggles around reproduction. "I think we do have some reason to be concerned about that, because that has happened historically."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/georgias-tax-exemption-for-fetuses-comes-with-a-host-of-questions-203650912.html

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That's the first thing I thought. Are women going to get investigated for having or "causing" an abortion if they claim a pregnancy that didn't produce a baby? I still think fetal personhood is bs. It shouldn't have standing under 13a. If fetuses are people, the state is literally saying that the bodies they're occupying are their chattel.

Oh and as a fellow trekkie, I love that you thought of star trek. Lol

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Idk that personhood would have to be established to give out an exemption deduction for pregnancy. More likely the other way around, that tax status would be cited as 'evidence' of personhood? It's also not clear whether that's from a GA government website or third party tax software. But yes it's a very dangerous policy. The problem is the states can do whatever tf they want. We've had that same problem over and over and over again with southern states the entire history of this country. You'd think the rest of us would have learned by now. (Or maybe we have, we just don't know how to control these people.) Anyway yes this is part of how they're trying to create an alternate reality, especially within their states. It's a nightmare.

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Are these states going to admit that women are chattel then? Because that's what fetal personhood establishes is that pregnant bodies are the chattel of their fetuses.

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Apr 18, 2023·edited Apr 18, 2023

It's striking me as a back-door way to establish fetal personhood. It's a building block. "We have it in our tax code." It's NUTS. Yes, very Trekkian. It's a planet out there and the people are subjugated. There was one episode where the inhabitants of a planet were happily (gently) extinguishing themselves for some over-population reason or something.

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You'd have to ask Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and possibly Amy Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, how they'd answer that argument. Unless they're going to admit that a fetus is not, and never can be, a person.

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It's a catch-22. If it isn't a person, abortion should be legal. If it is a person, it's by definition slavery and therefore should still be legal.

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Great points! The whole "when does life begin" debate is a complete red herring. Even if the fetus is considered a person, it shouldn't have the right to take up residence inside another person and hook up to that person's organs for life support. Even the organs of dead people can't be taken without prior consent. The more thorny question is when a parent's legal duty of care begins. But even that duty doesn't legally extend to donating an organ, or even blood to save the life of one's child.

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Another bizarre effect of what GA is doing is that the "unborn person" (I can't believe I'm even typing that) is able to be counted in the Census. So how does that work? The red states are going to claim more in headcount and be allocated more resources?

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Brings to mind the 3/5 compromise. Northern states argued slaves didn't count while the south said that they did despite the south being the ones who believed the hypocrisy it's okay to own other human beings.

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Not sure how the census would use different counting methods in different states. But I'm sure the supreme court could explain how it's all okay if they wanted to. Somebody has to stop this runaway train.

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This is absolutely correct and yet it is almost universally ignored by the law, and not just in this country. Proof of how wretched our species is I guess.

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It's an uncomfortable thing to accept that a child could be used to subjugate someone. It's understandable why people are so resistant to it.

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An undergrad student I mentored throughout the year for her thesis project on maternal mortality defended today. Her focus: why is maternal mortality so high in the US and why is it so much higher for Black women? I asked her- what do you think the impact of Roe v Wade being overturned and states making abortion illegal will be on maternal mortality among Black women. She hadn't thought about it but now is.... I told her she needed to subscribe to your podcast and shared the news about Idaho.

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founding

I have often wondered if there is some connection between the presence of Catholic hospitals in poor neighborhoods and the higher rate of black maternal mortality. I wonder if there is a study of this. It stands to reason that denying care to women while they are miscarrying or suffering from ectopic pregnancies would have a negative impact.

The reason I’m particularly interested is that my second pregnancy was ectopic. The Catholic hospital in my neighborhood where my daughter was born refused to give me the operation I needed to remove the fertilized egg trapped in my fallopian tube. It was a week before I got the help I needed. Scariest week of my life, and that was my introduction to how Catholic hospitals mistreat women. I’m not Catholic myself but even some of them I know are surprised that this is standard procedure.

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I came across an article a few years ago about a study that you describe and yes it does contribute. Wish I could find it. Might have to dig through my notes but it's at 200 pages by now!

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founding

That’s great, Laura! Now that I know it’s out there, I’ll keep looking, too.

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Reposting this comment due to too many edits.

If this student is interested, I've been building a list for a reproductive justice library with 260+ titles and counting. There's several books on abortion's ties to white supremacy. In my opinion, the short answer to the cause of Black women's high maternal (and infant sadly) mortality is due to benign neglect and carry over of coverture laws. They're less likely to benefit from child support, alimony and health insurance, things married/divorced (usually white) women benefit from. They're also much more like to have their children taken by foster care because of poverty. This needs to stop. It's barbaric.

Here's the link to the list:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ko8IWuWp4u6aeEXij1au-mYFsUFuUlgc12oEJXTv7GY/edit?usp=drivesdk

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Thank you for sharing this. If you don't mind, I'd actually like to share it with our Coalition members here in South Carolina and with students in several classes (I teach in public health and the USC Honors College). In full agreement with all you're saying here, especially that it's barbaric and needs to stop!

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Absolutely! Share away! And if anyone has any suggestions to add or questions to ask, my email should be at the top of the document. Or I'm always in the comment section here.

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Thank you for sharing this!

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No problem! I'm so glad it's helping people. Felt like it was just something I could do having so little control over what's happening. I'm always looking for more to add so let me know if you have any suggestions and I'll add it to the list!

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Post-menopausal age is not a barrier to ordering meds “for future use”; get yours now while you can! At this moment we’re depending on the crew that overturned Roe to protect abortion medication access after Wednesday.

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founding

I said it before but it bears repeating: A 15-week ban would preclude women from getting the amniocentesis procedure that takes place at 16-20 weeks gestation. It’s a very important test especially for “geriatric” moms that can reveal severe abnormalities of the fetus and possible problems for the mother’s health. A 15-week ban is not acceptable.

In fact we need more rights than Roe gave us. One thing would be protection from Catholic hospitals withholding life-saving care when women suffer miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies.

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Yes. The only acceptable abortion policy is no regulation at all by any state entity. If you accept that there are going to be regulations and just argue about what they are, you've accepted their framing and you've already lost. And they know it.

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The book I'm sort of attempting to write, I'm deconstructing the Catholic doctrine of natural law that anti-abortion is based in. It is so beyond enraging how unbelievably evil this doctrine is.

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Also - 15 weeks is too early for a thorough anatomy scan. Genetic testing done via amniocentesis misses multi-factorial or non/unknown genetic fatal or serious morbidity fetal malformations. These ultrasounds often aren’t done until closer to 20 weeks due to limitations of the technology that requires further gestational age to really evaluate the anatomy.

And completely agree with the Catholic hospital problem - I personally think it is unethical if the only medical care available in a community is religiously based. Patients are not able to receive standard of care when the hospital signed a financial deal with the Catholic-devil…

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Exactly! We didn't tell anyone about my pregnancy, or even consider it to be a fully happening thing until after the 20 week scan thankfully showed everything was normal.

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Religiously based health care facilities are not unethical, they're downright dangerous. No health care facility should be allowed to withhold treatments, including all abortions. The Catholics should be forced to sell their facilities to nonprofits who are required to not withhold treatments. But idk how we can require safe care with this first amendment bullshit.

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Yeah genetic testing doesn't pick up congenital defects.

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We all need to keep a dose of abortion meds on hand, just in case-- you know, like we do with Tylenol, except this med is safer! Went to Plan C website, ordered online Friday, received in CA Monday. Great peace of mind for this 71-yr-old!

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Thank you for the info! I'm 70, but have 5 nieces, so I'll order some to keep around for them--or anyone else who needs it.

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Shelf life of mifepristone is about 2 years! It’s a great just in case med to keep around.

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I already got some to put in my medicine cabinet as soon as Texas passed SB8. Got another year left and thinking about sending it to somebody before it expires.

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I love seeing the grannies of Santa Barbara front and center in the fight for abortion rights. I’m right there with you all!

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Surely Idaho isn't the only state where OBGYNs (and I'm assuming maternal-fetal specialists, too) are leaving in droves. Is there any data coming out about other states? Why just Idaho?

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Wondering the same thing!

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