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Dan Rather: Trump’s Electoral Weakness Is Showing

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2024 //
4

Dan Rather analyzed Trump’s primary wins and spots signs that he is vulnerable because his well-defined base is limited. Due to his extremism, he is not able to have a big tent that would attract independents and even dissident Democrats. Even more telling is that Trump is not unifying the Republican Party. As soon as Trump won the South Carolina, he proclaimed that he had never seen the Republican Party more united. As Rather explains, that’s not really true.

He writes:

NBC’s “Meet The Press” this morning characterized Donald Trump’s South Carolina primary victory as “delivering a crushing blow to [Nikki] Haley in her home state on Saturday, trouncing her by 20 points with nearly 60 percent of the vote. The former president dominated nearly every key group.”

While he did indeed win handily, a deep dive into the numbers provides some interesting context. 

The part of the story missing from many news reports is that Trump is slipping from his 2020 numbers. His support is strongest among his MAGA base, which pollsters put at no more than 33% of the electorate. Clearly, he will need more than MAGA to win the White House again. 

President Biden won the South Carolina Democratic primary with 96.2% of the vote. Trump, who is essentially an incumbent up against a novice at running for national office, could not muster even 60% of his party’s vote. Exit polls from Saturday night should have GOP leaders nervous. 

The makeup of South Carolina’s Republican voters does not mirror the country. They are heavily weighted with hard-right “conservatives,” older, white, male, evangelical election deniers. Trump won overwhelmingly among them. But Haley won among independents, moderates, and those who care about foreign policy. And that’s the crux of it.

To win the presidency again, Trump will need to bring all Republicans into the tent. Gallop estimates that 41% of the electorate identifies as Republican. Then it gets really tough. He has to convince a large number of independents and Democrats to vote for him. But how?

  • Not by favoring a 16-week national abortion ban 
  • Not by threatening to pull out of NATO
  • Not by defunding Ukraine and supporting Putin’s invasion
  • Not by promising “ultimate and absolute revenge” against his political opponents 
  • Not by refusing to accept the results of elections he’s lost
  • Not by promising to be a dictator on day one of his second term

Not by saying things like: “These are the stakes of this election. Our country is being destroyed, and the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me.”

Trump is winning primaries while underperforming. Dan Pfeiffer, a former adviser to President Obama and current host of “Pod Save America,” writes: “You cannot win the White House with the coalition that Trump is getting in these primaries. He must expand his coalition, persuade people who aren’t already on board and get beyond the Big Lie-believing MAGA base. Through three primary contests, Trump has gained no ground.”

Polls also indicate a majority of voters in swing states would be unwilling to vote for Trump if he’s convicted of a crime. That could happen as soon as April or May. 

As Axios writes: “If America were dominated by old, white, election-denying Christians who didn’t go to college, former President Trump would win the general election in as big of a landslide as his sweep of the first four GOP contests.” Fortunately, it is not. America is a rich tapestry of heritages, races, and creeds. Immigrants have long been one of our strengths.

But the likely GOP nominee continues to feed fears about immigration using language tailored to his MAGA base. “They’re coming from Asia, they’re coming from the Middle East, coming from all over the world, coming from Africa, and we’re not going to stand for it … They’re destroying our country,” Trump said Saturday at CPAC, a conference of extreme-right Trump supporters.

“No, Mr. Trump, they’re not,” is the answer of many Americans. There is strong public opinion that what is tearing our country apart is the divisiveness and rancor that comes from Trump, the Republican Party, and their right-wing media machine.

The mainstream press may begin to offer more of this context and perspective as we get deeper into the presidential campaign. One of the things Steady was created to do was offer reasoned context and perspective to news stories. This writing is an example.

Trump remains a real and present threat to win the presidency again in November. But that is not assured. Not nearly, as a deep analysis of early primary results indicates.

There is still a long way to go and many rivers to cross for both major candidates.

Categories Biden, Bigotry, Character, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Gender, Lies, Republicans, Scandals, Trump

Florida: Orlando Sentinel Denounces a Bill to Declare “Fetal Personhood”

By dianeravitch
February 25, 2024 //
17

The editorial board of the Orlando Sentinel spoke out against a bill that would declare fetuses to be persons from the instant of conception. Not only would this extend Florida’s draconian six-week ban on abortion, it would outlaw abortion for any reason—rape, incest, the life of the mother. Even if a woman learns early in her pregnancy that the fetus will be born without a brain or has some other fatal defect, she will not be able to terminate the pregnancy. At this time, the Florida Supreme Court is deciding whether to allow a referendum on abortion to proceed; its sponsors have collected over one million signatures. Will the people of Florida have a chance to express their views?

The editorial board wrote:

For Floridians who are already deeply uneasy about women losing the right to control their own bodies, what happened Wednesday in the House Judiciary Committee was truly terrifying. One by one, lawmakers voted yes on legislation that would, for the first time, declare fetuses to be people from the moment of conception — turning wombs into war zones before most people even know they are pregnant.

Bill sponsor Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, did her best to hide the radical nature of her legislation, which creates civil liability for anyone who causes the “wrongful death” of a fetus in utero. But everyone in that committee hearing room — and those watching remotely — knew exactly what was at stake. Conveying full rights on a fetus would be a shattering blow to reproductive independence for Floridians capable of becoming pregnant, reaching past debates over viability and bans on abortion at a specified number of weeks. HB 651 would kick in at the very start of a pregnancy, and create an easy stepping stone from wrongful deaths (including from abortions) to anything that threatens the health of a fetus, even if it is meant to benefit the mother’s health.

Floridians should bombard their state senators and representatives with messages letting them know that this potential law is far too radical for anyone who cares about freedom. Then they should turn to their congressional representatives and call on them for legislation to nip this hazardous movement in the bud.

They can start by letting lawmakers know they see through the pretense here. Persons-Mulicka pointed out, more than once, that the language of her legislation (HB 651) specifically excludes a pregnant person. But that’s a nearly negligible speed bump, especially if Florida’s Supreme Court picks up this theme and uses it to obliterate abortion rights in Florida.

Think they won’t? Think again. Justice Carlos Muniz was already hinting in that direction last week, during oral arguments over a ballot question that would (with voters’ approval) explicitly protect abortion rights in Florida.

But advocates of so-called “fetal personhood” think they’ve found a way around that language. By declaring a fetus to be a person, the Legislature and/or court would at best set up a collision course between two competing interests that just happen to share a body — along with the well-being of medical personnel being asked to care for both.

Because the fetal personhood bill does not protect the doctors, nurses and other people who perform abortions, even if the procedure is otherwise legal. Taken in context, that looming threat is clearly a large portion of the intention behind this bill…

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Ethics, Extremism, Florida, Gender, Science

Abortion Foes Plan Onslaught of New Restrictions if Trump Wins

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2024 //
64

Well, that was fast!!

At 9 a.m. I posted about a New York Times article published yesterday revealing that Trump wanted a 16-week ban on abortions. Since 93% of abortions are performed by the 13th week of abortion, that would essentially render the Dobbs decision ineffective.

But Trump’s anti-abortion pals got wind of his intention and let it be known that they will play every trick in the book—including reviving an 1873 law—to make abortion illegal everywhere.

The New York Times reports today:

Allies of former President Donald J. Trump and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban or the laws enacted in conservative states across the country.

Behind the scenes, specific anti-abortion plans being proposed by Mr. Trump’s allies are sweeping and legally sophisticated. Some of their proposals would rely on enforcing the Comstock Act, a long-dormant law from 1873, to criminalize the shipping of any materials used in an abortion — including abortion pills, which account for the majority of abortions in America.

“We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books,” said Jonathan F. Mitchell, the legal force behind a 2021 Texas law that found a way to effectively ban abortion in the state before Roe v. Wade was overturned. “There’s a smorgasbord of options.”

Mr. Mitchell, who represented Mr. Trump in arguments before the Supreme Court over whether the former president could appear on the ballot in Colorado, indicated that anti-abortion strategists had purposefully been quiet about their more advanced plans, given the political liability the issue has become for Republicans.

“I hope he doesn’t know about the existence of Comstock, because I just don’t want him to shoot off his mouth,” Mr. Mitchell said of Mr. Trump. “I think the pro-life groups should keep their mouths shut as much as possible until the election….”

In policy documents, private conversations and interviews, the plans described by former Trump administration officials, allies and supporters propose circumventing Congress and leveraging the regulatory powers of federal institutions, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Justice and the National Institutes of Health.

The effect would be to create a second Trump administration that would attack abortion rights and abortion access from a variety of angles and could be stopped only by courts that the first Trump administration had already stacked with conservative judges.

“He had the most pro-life administration in history and adopted the most pro-life policies of any administration in history,” said Roger Severino, a leader of anti-abortion efforts in Health and Human Services during the Trump administration. “That track record is the best evidence, I think, you could have of what a second term might look like if Trump wins.”

Categories Elections, Gender, Health, Science, Trump

CNN: “Moms for Liberty” Is Encountering Stiff Resistance

By dianeravitch
February 7, 2024 //
69

When an education story is featured by a major media outlet like CNN, you can bet it’s captured mainstream attention.

Many educators have worried about the pernicious agenda of “Moms for Liberty,” which arrived on the scene in 2021 with a sizable war chest.

What is that agenda? Defaming public schools and their teachers. Accusing them of being “woke “ and indoctrinating students to accept left wing ideas about race and gender. Banning books they don’t like. Talking about “parental rights,” but only for straight white parents who share their values.

M4L got started in Florida, as do many wacky and bigoted rightwing campaigns, but it has been shamed recently by the sex scandal involving one of its co-founders, Brigitte Ziegler. The two other co-founders dropped her name from their website, but the stain persists.

CNN reports that this rightwing group is encountering stiff opposition from parents who don’t share their agenda and who don’t approve of book banning.

The story begins:

Viera, FloridaCNN —

In Florida, where the right-wing Moms for Liberty group was born in response to Covid-19 school closures and mask mandates, the first Brevard County School Board meeting of the new year considered whether two bestselling novels – “The Kite Runner” and “Slaughterhouse-Five” – should be banned from schools.

A lone Moms for Liberty supporter sat by herself at the January 23 meeting, where opponents of the book ban outnumbered her.

Nearly 20 speakers voiced opposition to removing the novels from school libraries. One compared the book-banning effort to Nazi Germany. Another accused Moms for Liberty of waging war on teachers. No one spoke in favor of the ban. About three hours into the meeting, the board voted quickly to keep the two books on the shelves of high schools.

RELATED ARTICLEOusted Florida GOP leader Christian Ziegler won’t be charged with sexual battery

“Why are we banning books?” asked Mindy McKenzie, a mom and nurse who is a member of Stop Moms for Liberty, which was formed to counter what it calls a far-right extremist group “pushing for book banning and destroying public education.”

“Why are we letting Moms for Liberty infiltrate our school system?”

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Corruption, Curriculum, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read, Gender, Hypocrisy, Injustice, Libraries, Literacy, Literature, Media, Parent Groups, Privatization, Racism

Florida: State Attorney General Asks State Court to Strike Abortion Referendum Because Voters Won’t Understand It

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2024 //
58

The Orlando Sentinel editorialized about the DeSantis administration’s effort to kill a voter referendum that would put reproductive rights into the state constitution. Last year, Governor DeSantis signed a highly restrictive ban on abortion—that it was prohibited after six weeks of pregnancy, when few if any women realize they are pregnant.

Let it be noted that Republican legislators in Mississippi are also trying to block a state referendum on abortion. They are afraid it will pass, and they are not willing to take that chance.

The Orlando Sentinel editorial board wrote:

Next week, Attorney General Ashley Moody will come before the state Supreme Court and argue that Floridians can’t be trusted to understand a ballot initiative that would protect abortion rights in Florida — and because of that, they should be stripped of the right to demand them.

Moody is asking the state’s high court to crush an abortion rights initiative that’s already supported by nearly 1 million Floridians (and counting). If it makes the ballot, it’s likely to pass: Most polls show that voters support abortion rights, regardless of party. Without this amendment, the Legislature has already shown it will do everything in its power to destroy those rights.

Voters in six states, including solidly conservative Kentucky and Kansas, have already voted to project abortion rights. At least a dozen other states could vote on abortion this year.

That’s why Florida voters deserve to have their say — and why Florida’s anti-reproductive-rights leaders are so desperate to make sure they don’t.

Here’s what voters will see on the ballot:

No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.

The DeSantis administration insists that voters won’t understand this amendment so should not be allowed to vote on it.

One million Floridians have already signed a petition to put it on the ballot.

The DeSantis administration is afraid that voters will understand it and pass it.

Will the conservative state Supreme Court of Florida allow the people to decide?

Categories Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Gender, Health, Science

Breaking News: Federal Judge Rules Against Disney in its Battle with DeSantis

By dianeravitch
January 31, 2024 //
5

A federal judge in Florida ruled against Disney in its battle with Governor DeSantis. The Disney Corporation sued Florida Governor DeSantis for violating its right to free speech. Disney spoke out against the governor’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. DeSantis urged the legislature to dissolve Disney’s governing board and replace it with a board appointed by DeSantis.

Disney sued, claiming it was punished for exercising free speech. Disney says it will appeal.

Now that DeSantis is out of the presidential race, America’s businesses will breathe a sigh of relief. Only in Florida will businesses be punished for disagreeing with the governor.

The federal judge in the case—Alan Winsor– was appointed by Donald Trump.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, DeSantis, Florida, Freedom of Speech, Gender

Texas: More than 26,000 Babies Born to Victims of Rape

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2024 //
45

The Houston Chronicle reported on a study that showed one of the consequences of a state law that does not permit women who are the victims of rape or incest to obtain an abortion. In addition, teen births rose for the first time in 15 years.

Texas saw an estimated 26,313 rape-related pregnancies during the 16 months after the state outlawed all abortions, with no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest, according to a study published Wednesdayin the Journal of the American Medical Association.

That’s the highest figure among the 14 states with total abortion bans, with Texas having the largest population, according to the study.

“Survivors who need abortion care should not have their reproductive autonomy further undermined by state policy,” said one of the authors, Dr. Kari White, of the Texas-based Resound Research for Reproductive Health…

Following the June 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, the researchers estimated there were 519,981 rapes associated with 64,565 pregnancies during the four to 18 months after states implemented total abortion bans. Of those pregnancies, an estimated 5,586 occurred in states with exceptions for rape and 58,979 in states with no exceptions.

Of the five states with rape exceptions, strict gestational limits and requirements to report the rape to law enforcement make it harder for most survivors to qualify, the study said. There were 10 or fewer legal abortions per month in the five states with rape exceptions, the study said, indicating that survivors with access to abortion care still cannot receive it in their home state…

Behind Texas, the states with the highest totals were Missouri (5,825), Tennessee (4,990), Arkansas (4,660), Oklahoma (4,530), Louisiana (4,290) and Alabama (4,130).

As a woman and a mother, I cannot understand a law requiring a woman to bear her rapist’s baby. The child would be a daily reminder of a terrible act of violence. I know what my decision would be. Other women may feel differently. Each woman in that situation should be allowed to decide what to do.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Gender, Health, Texas

NPR: Who Was Jane Roe of “Roe v. Wade” Fame?

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2024 //
3

This is a fascinating story about the woman known as “Jane Roe,” the named figure in the case that established abortion rights, but for only half a century.

The woman’s real name was Norma McCorvey. She wanted an abortion, did not get it, gave birth to a third daughter, worked for an abortion clinic, eventually was recruited by an anti-abortion group Operation Rescue and joined forces with them. Ultimately, she was used by both sides.

Although she changed sides, she never changed her belief that abortion should be legal in the first trimester.

For the latest installment of the NPR Politics Podcast Book Club, we interviewed Joshua Prager, author of The Family Roe. The book traces the history of American abortion politics through McCorvey’s life story. That story is one of both genuine conviction and opportunism, of sex and drugs and politics and class and fame and religion — all of which combine to create, as Prager puts it, a “uniquely American” tale.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Danielle Kurtzleben: While a lot of people have heard the name Jane Roe, I would imagine far fewer know the name Norma McCorvey or know much about her. How would you describe her to someone who is not well acquainted?

Joshua Prager: Norma was sort of the perfect person for me to tell the larger story of abortion in America through, because her life really was defined by a lot of the very same things that I think make abortion particularly fraught in America, particularly sex and religion and what she saw as the incompatibility or irreconcilability of those two things.

When she comes out to her church [and] her parents, that is driven home in very dramatic fashion when first of all, her mother beats her. But also, Norma goes across state lines with a friend of hers from school, a young girl. They’re about 12 years old, they check into a motel, the police are called. The girl alleges, as Norma said to me, that Norma tried inappropriate things with her, and Norma’s then sent away to a school for “delinquent children.” She bounces through these schools, and she decides she’s going to have a regular life with the white picket fence and all that. She gets married at 16 and gets pregnant right away. She later alleges that her husband beat her; that’s maybe the first of many, many lies.

She often re-imagined herself as not a sinner, but a victim. And she often was telling about these sort of horrible things she suffered, which she didn’t suffer. She begs her mother to take the child and later says her mother kidnapped the child — so it’s, again, another lie — and places that child for adoption.

Then, even though she’s gay and is having affairs with women, she’s also a prostitute at this time [and] is occasionally sleeping with men. She’s selling drugs. She gets pregnant again, places that child for adoption. Then she gets pregnant a third time, and that is the child that that becomes the Roe baby…

DK: I want to wrap up to ask you quite a big question. What do you think the story of Norma McCorvey and her daughters, especially the Roe baby, who is an adult now — what does that story illuminate about the fight over abortion today? Why is this relevant, beyond the obvious historical connections?

JP: Two things. The first is very sort of pointedly, dramatically in black and white terms. It’s often it’s a story about class. Right now we are such a divided country. We already were, but now literally, I step on this side of this of this state line, I’m allowed to have an abortion. I step on that side of the state line, I’m not to have an abortion. And often it is class that is determining who can and cannot have an abortion. And that is one very important thing that I think Norma’s story and the stories of her daughters bring to light.

The other is that, man, abortion is complicated. All four of these women [McCorvey and her three daughters] in their own ways had very nuanced and sort of ambiguous feelings about abortion. All four of them, by the way, were pro-choice and are pro-choice — the daughters, even.

Even the Roe baby, whose very existence owed to the unavailability of abortion at that time, feels that abortion ought to be legal. And so I do think our country would be better served if people recognized that and did not sort of just take the approach that “if you disagree with me, you are a horrible human being.”

Categories Accountability, Ethics, Gender

Rachel M. Cohen: Access to Abortion Pills Has Grown Since Dobbs Decision

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2024 //
16

After the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, some 16 Republican-dominated states have imposed near-total bans on abortion. In response, access to abortion pills has grown.

In this article in VOX, veteran journalist Rachel M. Cohen describes the numerous organizations that provide telehealth sessions with doctors who provide prescriptions, as well as supplying abortion pills. In addition, several Democrat-dominated states have passed shield laws to protect doctors in their state who advise women in red states.

A network of like-minded groups have filled the gap created by the Dobbs decision, making these pills easily available and inexpensive.

Cohen writes:

Eighteen months after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, and with a new Supreme Court challenge pending against the abortion medication mifepristone, confusion abounds about access to reproductive health care in America.

Births are up, but so are abortions since Dobbs.

Taking a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol within the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy was already the most common method for abortion in the United States before the Dobbs decision, partly due to its safety record, its lower cost, diminished access to in-person care, and greater opportunities for privacy. The popularity of medication abortion has only grown since then: A poll released in March found majorities of Americans support keeping medication abortion legal and allowing women to use it at home to end an early-stage pregnancy. Another survey found 59 percent of voters disapprove of overturning the FDA’s approval of abortion medication, including 72 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 40 percent of Republicans.

Immediately after Dobbs, the only way to obtain the pills by mail was through international sources, which took weeks to arrive. Now, however, the pills are available by mail in the U.S. and will arrive in days.

The e-commerce marketplace for abortion medication has expanded, and the cost for pills has fallen dramatically

Outside of telemedicine options, there are over two dozen e-commerce websites that sell and ship medication abortion to the US. This international supply chain has grown significantly since Dobbs and most of these sites do not require prescriptions and do not require people to upload their IDs or have medical consultations. Plan C has vetted 26 of these sites, including testing their pills to ensure they’re “real products of acceptable quality.”

The cost of the pills has dropped significantly, some for as little as $42-47.

Volunteer groups have sprung up, with some offering the pills for free.

Community support groups, also known as “companion networks,” have grown since the overturn of Roe v. Wade and now actively provide free abortion pills to people living in states with bans on reproductive health care. These groups, some of which can be found on sites like Plan C and Red State Access, mail medication abortion and offer doula support.

But what happens if the Supreme Court limits access to mail-order abortion pills?

While abortion advocates doubt the justices will go so far as to pull mifepristone off the market, as a federal judge in Texas attempted to do earlier in 2023, they are bracing for the possibility that the court might reimpose medically unnecessary restrictions on access, like bans on prescribing mifepristone via telemedicine.

Even if that happens, though, most of the aforementioned options for accessing medication abortion would remain intact. It’s not clear if the FDA would even abide by such a Supreme Court ruling, but if it did, providers using shield laws could still legally ship misoprostol to patients in banned states.

“A Supreme Court ruling wouldn’t affect the community-based networks, ProgressiveRx, or the e-commerce websites that sell pills at all, and so there would still be ways of getting mifepristone and misoprostol in the mail,” Wells said. “The Supreme Court could affect services like Aid Access and Abuzz, but they could also switch to misoprostol-only abortions and that’s what they’re planning to do.”

The rapid growth in the number of ways to access abortion pills and the planning to protect access in the future demonstrate that Dobbs will prove to be like prohibiting the sale or consumption of liquor. When the population has grown accustomed to consuming alcohol or getting an abortion legally, it will be impossible to ban it.

Categories Gender, Health, Safety

Republican Judges in Texas Exclude Pregnant Women from Law Requiring Emergency Care if it Means Abortion

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2024 //
43

In 1986, Congress enacted a law that requires hospitals that receive Medicare reimbursements to provide medical care to patients having a medical emergency without regard to their ability to pay. The law is called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 (EMTALA).

Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid released “guidance” reminding hospitals that they were obliged to perform abortions under the EMTALA Act, if the pregnant woman’s life was put at risk by her pregnancy. EMTALA, the guidance said, pre-empted state laws banning abortions.

The state of Texas sued to block the federal guidance and was quickly joined in the lawsuit by two medical associations comprised of anti-abortion doctors.

Both the District Court in Texas and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that doctors and hospitals were not required to perform abortions by EMTALA and that federal law and guidance do no supercede Texas’s rigid ban on abortion. It further ruled that the pregnant woman and her unborn fetus had equal rights and that the woman “does not have an unqualified right…to abort her child.”

Thus, even if the mother’s life is in danger and even if an abortion is necessary to save her life, the doctor decides—not the woman—whether to perform an abortion. Doctors who perform abortions in Texas are subject to harsh penalties, including loss of their medical license and steep fines.

Thom Hartmann called the judges “a handmaid’s court” and wrote that the three white male Republican men on the Fifth Circuit concluded:

To hell with the women, they essentially said: we have to do everything possible to rescue those innocent, virginal fetuses who are as-yet uncontaminated by sin.

The Republican judges even refused to refer to a fetus as a fetus, instead calling it a “child” and claimed that, as a “child,” it’s entitled to an equal level of life-saving care as is provided to the woman carrying it.

In other words, do everything possible to stabilize and thus save the fetus, even if that further endangers the life of the mother.

Their rationale was that fetuses aren’t mentioned in EMTALA, so therefore they must be children, and “children” are just as worthy saving as mom.

This decision will cause the deaths of women whose pregnancies endanger their lives. Yrs, women do die in childbirth, but not so often in civilized societies. These women may have other children who love them and depend on them, but the white guys in judicial robes concluded: Save the fetus above all.

You may recall Katie Cox, the 31-year-old pregnant mother in Dallas who sought court permission to have an abortion when she learned that her fetus had a rare condition called trisomy 18. Her doctors told her that the fetus might die in her womb or within minutes, hours or days after it was born. She might not be able to give birth in the future. The court gave her permission to obtain an abortion but State Attorney General Ken Paxton said any doctor who performed an abortion for Mrs. Cox would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Paxton didn’t need to act, however, because the Texas Supreme Court ruled that she was eligible to have an abortion. Katie Cox left Texas and had an abortion in New Mexico.

What’s clear from all this is that the provision in the Texas law that allows an abortion in dire circumstances , such as the danger to a woman’s life, is inactive, meaningless, moot.

Categories Ethics, Extremism, Gender, Health
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