As sweaty as these last few weeks have been, we’re focusing on reasons to be hopeful for the future of abortion access. So, for this week’s state’s spotlight, we’re holding up the example set by New York state.
On Monday, @GovKathyHochul passed a slew of legislation protecting abortion access, including a bill to study the “unmet needs” of pregnant people in the state. Sounds pretty good, right?
It is—mostly. The rest of the bills establish protections for abortion providers, pregnant people, and anyone who helps them, specifically from attacks from outside the state. The necessity of these actions is a somber reminder that no one is safe.
Conservative lawmakers are ramping up efforts to ban interstate travel for care, and these bills are a direct response to the threats posed against abortion providers and pregnant people.
With the impending reversal of #RoeVWade, New York is preparing to become a major destination for abortion access in the east as nearby states (*cough* Ohio *cough*) move to restrict reproductive health care.
And as more and more states pass unconstitutional abortion bans, those who *can* travel are left with fewer options and forced to travel hundreds of miles to states like New York that promise to protect them.
The Supreme Court’s anti-abortion majority (aka the #FedSocSix) will not protect abortion as a human right. Sending abortion back to the states will mean that every state, including blue ones, becomes a new legal battleground—and it’s time to pick a side.
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The celebration of Pride this month has been marred by a record-breaking 340+ bills introduced in state legislatures this year that have harmful impacts for the LGBTQ community, 24 of which were passed into law in 13 states.
“Opponents of transgender equality have stopped pretending that they’re trying to do anything other than target transgender kids,” said Cathryn Oakley, State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel at the @HRC. “They’re saying the quiet part out loud.”
To protect your rights, you need to know your rights. So let's go over the constitutional protections for LGBTQ rights in the United States, starting with the First Amendment.
This one's a little tricky, because #SCOTUS has used it to both protect and restrict LGBTQ rights.
NEW: The days of #RoeVWade are numbered, but the need for abortion is growing. A @Guttmacher study reports an 8% increase in abortions between 2017 and 2020 in the United States. In 2020, about 1 in 5 pregnancies ended in abortion.
All this was happening at the same time as a 6% decline in births, which means there were less people getting pregnant, and more of those who did get pregnant chose to have abortions.
Why? Well, the report identifies a few key reasons.
1. Expansion of Medicare coverage
This has allowed low-income people to get the abortion care they need. Despite GOP opposition, even red state voters are asking for the health insurance program to be more widely available. Simply put, it works.
This week, #SCOTUS issued its decision in Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, which involved the ability of federal courts to step into state court criminal matters—which is how the criminal abortion cases of the future will be handled.
In a 6-3 ruling, as many decisions go these days, the #FedSocSix voted to uphold a lower court decision to deny defendants David Martinez Ramirez and Barry Lee Jones their right to effective counsel. Because fuck precedent, again.
In this decision, #SCOTUS ruled defendants could not present new evidence during post-conviction proceedings—evidence their lawyers hadn’t presented—since they hadn’t raised the claims in state court.
Last week, @NARAL published a report digging into abortion disinformation circulating on social media in Spanish, much of which has ties to religiously affiliated outlets and English-language anti-choice groups and activists.
The report singles out Facebook as being particularly problematic, especially when it comes to fact-checking or removing disinformation from the platform, considering that 72% of Hispanic people in the U.S. use FB, according to a @pewresearch poll cited in the report.
While disinformation about COVID-19 and religion echoed across both languages, Spanish-language abortion rhetoric tended to promote more explicitly anti-feminist messages, according to the report.
Hello! @AngryBlackLady here for Day Two of SCOTUS confirmation hearing! What to expect:
✅ Overt racism
✅Whinging about critical race theory
✅intimations that Jackson loves child abuse
✅dry humping originalism and the Constitution
✅nonsense speechifying by Senators
Durbin is up and asks KBJ about her judicial philosophy. @Hegemommy made a great point yesterday that her answer in her statement yesterday was not different from what John Roberts said about calling balls and strikes. But the Senators will treat her differently; I wonder why.
KBJ has 3 steps:
1. She clears the decks of any preconception. 2. She evaluates all the facts from all perspectives: all the parties and amici. 3. interpretation and application of the law to the facts in the case. This is where she understand the constraints on her authority.
What's up law nerds, old and new! It's @AngryBlackLady here. I'm going to be on the confirmation hearing 1's and 2's over here for the next few days so grab a chair and let's do this thing.
The fun (??) starts in 15 minutes.
What to expect:
✅Shenanigans.
✅Overt racism.
✅Thinly veiled racism.
✅Misogynoir (that glorious mélange of racism and sexism).
✅Fragility. Someone—my money is on John Kennedy—will ask her "Do you think I'm racist? Because I'm not you know."
✅Overtures to the QAnon base.
Here we go! Sen. Durbin is giving his opening remarks. This is a majorly historical moment. Too bad the live stream audio is jacked.