I am not a lawyer, but my husband of 44 years is one and he has taught Constitutional law, both state and federal, so that counts for something. (Do I sound like Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny saying, “My father is a mechanic, my uncle is a mechanic, my brothers are mechanics…”)
Yesterday the conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruled that a law is not a law (in the sense that it is not enforceable, and specifically not enforceable by the judiciary). Today they ruled that a right is not a right in that the President can, at his whim, take any right away. If they want rights, it is up to individuals and groups to surmount the considerable barriers to mounting a lawsuit to sue for those rights, and we saw how that went with the Planned Parenthood decision yesterday. My level of concern has just escalated to terrified. There is no denying now that we live in an autocracy. It is worth noting that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court is completely out of step with not only the American people, but with most of the legal profession, or at least with the members of the legal profession who sit on federal benches. Most of these wacko opinions have been reversals of multiple lower federal court opinions. Our Supreme Court has been taken over by a bunch of far-right extremists who turn themselves into pretzels interpreting the law to support their extremist views on how society should function. No more balls and strikes—they will apparently stop at nothing to enforce their agenda. I wish I had a solution to propose.
6-3 There are 6 (666) sadists that sit on this court and they are as wicked as they come. Mitch says “get over it”. Perhaps he should be deprived of end-of-life comforts like morphine in his final days.
I hope today’s SCOTUS ruling on “parental rights” means I can invoke the same rights to opt my kid out if his school tries to show that Baby Olivia video.
I protest, I give money, I fortunately have all democrat congress members. What else can we do? Standing by helplessly while real woman are being hurt and killed is breaking my heart!
Planned Parenthood has filled the gap for lack of comprehensive reproductive healthcare in this country for generations. One has to ask themselves why isn’t reproductive healthcare just another part of our healthcare system equal to that of any healthcare services to begin with? The system we have lived with is rotten to the core and it’s an injustice to all who need this care. Sex discrimination? Abso-fucking-lutely
Course correction to repair from this SCOTUS… court reform? Their vision of America is so evil. How did Tammy & Jim Baker of the 80s become America? There was a second witness the senate didn’t call to testify re sexual assault against Thomas. Biden was on that judiciary panel. So many ifs of Americas past… If Carter’s hostage rescue plan succeeded…. Mamdani’s primary win is such a needed light in this very sad time.
I am not a lawyer, but from what I can gather from the opinion, the majority’s reasoning is absurd. When Congress passed the Medicaid law, it included a provision that in order to qualify for federal matching funds, a state must allow all Medicaid recipients to choose “any qualified provider.” They are not arguing that PP is not a qualified provider; they are arguing that the law did not use language that would create an enforceable right to choose “any” qualified provider. If a law is not enforceable, then how is it even a law at all? Congress does not pass suggestions; it passes laws, which are, by definition, enforceable. One cannot help but draw the conclusion that it was antipathy to Planned Parenthood, and not some tortured parsing of the law, that led to the majority opinion. That, and the fact that the justices apparently have no idea what women’s health care consists of and what it is that Planned Parenthood does.
Vote out every Republican. Begin immediately to end the Republican choke hold on women's lives. Vote them all out. Take the fight to the Republicans everywhere they are. Give them no peace anywhere. They stole a basic human right from women. They installed a Supreme Court which took a different version of when "life begins" than that which is described in the Bible (God breathed Life into Adam). Ancient Jews would have no idea how many fertilized eggs never implant. Ancient Jews would have no idea why a woman may miscarry a pregnancy at a few months but the man needed his wife to live to have more children. The Supreme Court set religion over state but only for one sex - no crime for the men who make these babies. Children that SOMEONE MUST PAY FOR once they are BORN.
Pregnancy crisis centers are so dangerous. I found out the big one in my hometown (Full Circle in Athens, TN) is teaching abstinence-based “sex ed” at the local high school. The “counselors” there have no real qualifications to be counseling anyone; it’s a sham. I wish something could be done but the community supports them wholeheartedly and I just watch in anger from afar for the teenage girls and young adult women who don’t have better education or options.
This is so depressing. For all the pregnant women and also the ones trying not to get pregnant and all the ones who need basic medical care. For many years in my youth Planned Parenthood was my only source of medical care. I got exams and birth control (and the birth control was for medical reasons ... even before I started having sex!). I just don't understand. I mean I do understand but damn. How backwards can we go?
In case anyone is wondering whether Medicaid coverage crosses state lines, it doesn't. I do billing for a dermatology practice with offices in both Indiana and Illinois. A patient enrolled in Indiana Medicaid is uninsured as soon as they enter Illinois, and vice versa. So any South Carolina Medicaid patient who drives all night to a clinic in Pennsylvania or Maryland will still have to pay full price for their abortion. The same is not true of most commercial health plans or Medicare . . although the vast majority of Medicare patient are unlikely to need an abortion.
I remember so many women fighting AGAINST the ERA, saying that we were already protected by the language of the Constitution. To which I (and many MANY others) said, if that were true, it would be ILLEGAL to pay women and "women's jobs" at a rate of 65-80% of the "standard" (men's) rates.
We women NEED to start efforts to regulate men's reproductive systems. Not necessarily to get those changes, but to raise the awareness of so very many people who don't understand the full impact of considering women's bodies to be men's property.
Can you imagine for a moment, the sheer OUTRAGE that Chriso-fascists and wannabe macho men would howl if WE wanted to regulate men's masturbation? Because the Bible says that spilling seed wo the potential of a child is a no-no (or at least, that's a common interpretation of Onanism).
I don't care. But the people obsessed with controlling other people DO. Getting their attention and forcing them to look from a different perspective, plus drawing the nation's eyes to the disgraceful hypocrisy.
I would like to see us picketing those facilities the way PP has been since I was 24 and had to go there for a basic check up. I’m 55 now. I cannot believe we are going backwards, as seemingly, the rest of the world moves forward.
I've taken a hands off approach to fake clinics for a long time but I'm beginning to feel like we should have peaceful, informational pickets outside of them.
IOW, exercising the first amendment rights the forced birth crowd still has outside abortion clinics.
I found myself in the parking lot of one of these places. I needed to pull over to check something on my phone. When I realized where I was I looked around. It was closed at the time. The building and windows were filthy. The sign looked handmade. Clearly no medical assistance of ANY type was happening there.
Yes, get mad! Also find ways to sue the shit out of them.
I think it’s hard to do, but several lawsuits have been filed against CPCs for deceptive advertising, misinformation, or failure to disclose their non-medical nature
Can we pick a day nationwide to picket CPCs carrying signs that say MURDERERS?
I am not a lawyer, but my husband of 44 years is one and he has taught Constitutional law, both state and federal, so that counts for something. (Do I sound like Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny saying, “My father is a mechanic, my uncle is a mechanic, my brothers are mechanics…”)
Yesterday the conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruled that a law is not a law (in the sense that it is not enforceable, and specifically not enforceable by the judiciary). Today they ruled that a right is not a right in that the President can, at his whim, take any right away. If they want rights, it is up to individuals and groups to surmount the considerable barriers to mounting a lawsuit to sue for those rights, and we saw how that went with the Planned Parenthood decision yesterday. My level of concern has just escalated to terrified. There is no denying now that we live in an autocracy. It is worth noting that the conservative majority on the Supreme Court is completely out of step with not only the American people, but with most of the legal profession, or at least with the members of the legal profession who sit on federal benches. Most of these wacko opinions have been reversals of multiple lower federal court opinions. Our Supreme Court has been taken over by a bunch of far-right extremists who turn themselves into pretzels interpreting the law to support their extremist views on how society should function. No more balls and strikes—they will apparently stop at nothing to enforce their agenda. I wish I had a solution to propose.
6-3 There are 6 (666) sadists that sit on this court and they are as wicked as they come. Mitch says “get over it”. Perhaps he should be deprived of end-of-life comforts like morphine in his final days.
I hope today’s SCOTUS ruling on “parental rights” means I can invoke the same rights to opt my kid out if his school tries to show that Baby Olivia video.
I protest, I give money, I fortunately have all democrat congress members. What else can we do? Standing by helplessly while real woman are being hurt and killed is breaking my heart!
Planned Parenthood has filled the gap for lack of comprehensive reproductive healthcare in this country for generations. One has to ask themselves why isn’t reproductive healthcare just another part of our healthcare system equal to that of any healthcare services to begin with? The system we have lived with is rotten to the core and it’s an injustice to all who need this care. Sex discrimination? Abso-fucking-lutely
Jessica & Kylie, please please keep this going even when so so awful. Thank you so much.
Course correction to repair from this SCOTUS… court reform? Their vision of America is so evil. How did Tammy & Jim Baker of the 80s become America? There was a second witness the senate didn’t call to testify re sexual assault against Thomas. Biden was on that judiciary panel. So many ifs of Americas past… If Carter’s hostage rescue plan succeeded…. Mamdani’s primary win is such a needed light in this very sad time.
Absolutely court reform or nothing else we do will matter.
I am not a lawyer, but from what I can gather from the opinion, the majority’s reasoning is absurd. When Congress passed the Medicaid law, it included a provision that in order to qualify for federal matching funds, a state must allow all Medicaid recipients to choose “any qualified provider.” They are not arguing that PP is not a qualified provider; they are arguing that the law did not use language that would create an enforceable right to choose “any” qualified provider. If a law is not enforceable, then how is it even a law at all? Congress does not pass suggestions; it passes laws, which are, by definition, enforceable. One cannot help but draw the conclusion that it was antipathy to Planned Parenthood, and not some tortured parsing of the law, that led to the majority opinion. That, and the fact that the justices apparently have no idea what women’s health care consists of and what it is that Planned Parenthood does.
PP doesn’t fit well with their Catholic religious beliefs which clearly they adhere to rather than the Constitution.
No more Catholics on the bench.
Disband the Federalist Society.
Get rid of dark money.
Vote out every Republican. Begin immediately to end the Republican choke hold on women's lives. Vote them all out. Take the fight to the Republicans everywhere they are. Give them no peace anywhere. They stole a basic human right from women. They installed a Supreme Court which took a different version of when "life begins" than that which is described in the Bible (God breathed Life into Adam). Ancient Jews would have no idea how many fertilized eggs never implant. Ancient Jews would have no idea why a woman may miscarry a pregnancy at a few months but the man needed his wife to live to have more children. The Supreme Court set religion over state but only for one sex - no crime for the men who make these babies. Children that SOMEONE MUST PAY FOR once they are BORN.
Pregnancy crisis centers are so dangerous. I found out the big one in my hometown (Full Circle in Athens, TN) is teaching abstinence-based “sex ed” at the local high school. The “counselors” there have no real qualifications to be counseling anyone; it’s a sham. I wish something could be done but the community supports them wholeheartedly and I just watch in anger from afar for the teenage girls and young adult women who don’t have better education or options.
Conversely, will states that support medicaid funds for PP be able to disqualify crisis pregnancy centers from receiving medicaid payments?
Medicaid funding is state determined.
I would HOPE that non-ban states would forbid fake clinics from accessing these funds.
Good question
The barefoot and pregnant crusaders won't be happy til the average woman in this country has the standard of living of a woman who lived in 1850.
This is so depressing. For all the pregnant women and also the ones trying not to get pregnant and all the ones who need basic medical care. For many years in my youth Planned Parenthood was my only source of medical care. I got exams and birth control (and the birth control was for medical reasons ... even before I started having sex!). I just don't understand. I mean I do understand but damn. How backwards can we go?
In case anyone is wondering whether Medicaid coverage crosses state lines, it doesn't. I do billing for a dermatology practice with offices in both Indiana and Illinois. A patient enrolled in Indiana Medicaid is uninsured as soon as they enter Illinois, and vice versa. So any South Carolina Medicaid patient who drives all night to a clinic in Pennsylvania or Maryland will still have to pay full price for their abortion. The same is not true of most commercial health plans or Medicare . . although the vast majority of Medicare patient are unlikely to need an abortion.
I remember so many women fighting AGAINST the ERA, saying that we were already protected by the language of the Constitution. To which I (and many MANY others) said, if that were true, it would be ILLEGAL to pay women and "women's jobs" at a rate of 65-80% of the "standard" (men's) rates.
We women NEED to start efforts to regulate men's reproductive systems. Not necessarily to get those changes, but to raise the awareness of so very many people who don't understand the full impact of considering women's bodies to be men's property.
Can you imagine for a moment, the sheer OUTRAGE that Chriso-fascists and wannabe macho men would howl if WE wanted to regulate men's masturbation? Because the Bible says that spilling seed wo the potential of a child is a no-no (or at least, that's a common interpretation of Onanism).
I don't care. But the people obsessed with controlling other people DO. Getting their attention and forcing them to look from a different perspective, plus drawing the nation's eyes to the disgraceful hypocrisy.
Let’s start with withholding life-saving testicular cancer treatment. That seems fair at this point.
(I’m so angry this morning I’m literally seeing red.)
I would like to see us picketing those facilities the way PP has been since I was 24 and had to go there for a basic check up. I’m 55 now. I cannot believe we are going backwards, as seemingly, the rest of the world moves forward.
I've taken a hands off approach to fake clinics for a long time but I'm beginning to feel like we should have peaceful, informational pickets outside of them.
IOW, exercising the first amendment rights the forced birth crowd still has outside abortion clinics.
And the pickets should include signs 🪧 that say MURDERERS
I found myself in the parking lot of one of these places. I needed to pull over to check something on my phone. When I realized where I was I looked around. It was closed at the time. The building and windows were filthy. The sign looked handmade. Clearly no medical assistance of ANY type was happening there.
What state was this?
New York. Upstate.
Yes, get mad! Also find ways to sue the shit out of them.
I think it’s hard to do, but several lawsuits have been filed against CPCs for deceptive advertising, misinformation, or failure to disclose their non-medical nature