GOP’s war on American family continues
By Manuel Castro-Rodríguez
Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and who leads the party’s Senate campaign operation, kicked off the 2022 campaign in February by releasing an 11-point plan “to rescue America,” which speak for themselves. For instance, it will cause that more than 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions will lose health coverage. The plan calls too for new taxes on tens of millions of Americans. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center (TPC):
“More than 80 percent of the tax increase would be paid by households making about $54,000 or less, and 97 percent would be paid by those making less than about $100,000.”
“the lowest-income households — those making less than about $27,000 annually — would pay an average of nearly $1,000 more in taxes in 2022, reducing their after-tax incomes by nearly 6 percent. Low-income families with children would pay the most: Achieving Scott’s goal would slash their after-tax incomes by more than $5,000, or more than 20 percent.”
“A Scott-like plan would raise taxes on middle-income households by an average of $450.”
Obviously, Republicans have no problem kicking seniors and children to the curb.
Compared with 10 other high-income countries, the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate. What have Republican leaders done to prevent this serious national problem?
One more time, I write to Miami’s GOP Members of Congress — María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez, Mario Díaz-Balart, and Marco Rubio — about women’s reproductive rights and the contradictions in which his party incurs.
Politico published a leaked document on Monday reportedly authored by Justice Samuel Alito in February that shows that the court is prepared to get rid of its precedents protecting abortion rights in the country. The document was confirmed on Tuesday as authentic by Chief Justice John Roberts, who ordered an investigation into the leak, calling it an “egregious breach of trust.”
Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who is one of the few Republicans who supports abortion rights in October of 2018 became the 50th and deciding vote in the Senate for Brett Kavanaugh, is shocked that Trump appointees may have lied to her. In a twist that everyone but the senator saw coming, it turns out that rabidly anti-abortion rights justices did indeed intend to overturn Roe vs. Wade
Republican Sen. Collins issued this statement following the leak of a draft decision reportedly authored by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization:
“If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office. Obviously, we won’t know each Justice’s decision and reasoning until the Supreme Court officially announces its opinion in this case.”
An unsparing look back at her incredibly credulous statement when Republican Sen. Collins voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In an August 2021 interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Republican Sen. Collins said the Supreme Court “will look at precedent and reach their decision” in a Mississippi case that could topple the landmark abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade. Hear what she said about Roe v Wade in 2021.
Today seems like a good day to remind to the United States that reproductive rights are human rights. It is the mission of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), “to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfi lled.”
A series of Republican-controlled states have enacted, or are in the process of enacting, draconian restrictions on abortion, some banning the procedure almost from conception and with no exceptions for cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother. Many of these laws are far more extreme than Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, which is the case the leaked Supreme Court decision would decide. Some states, most famously Texas, have also put in place highly unusual enforcement mechanisms intended to evade the possibility of court challenges, with a few even attempting to criminalize crossing state lines for the purpose of procuring abortions.
Assuming the leaked decision stands and all of these restrictions come into effect without the possibility of constitutional appeal, will Republicans in these states be pushed to backtrack?
A recent poll found 70% of Americans think abortion is a choice that should be left to a woman and her doctor, and polling over time has shown support for legal abortion has changed little since Roe v Wade was decided. In June, a Associated Press/NORC poll found that “61% of Americans say abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances in the first trimester of a pregnancy,” but support for abortion being legal drops significantly as the pregnancy continues. Polls consistently find that a majority think the Supreme Court should keep the ruling in place. In Florida, 56% of adults say abortion should be legal in all/most cases. UNF poll finds voters oppose Florida abortion bill.
According to Dr. Herminia Palacio, who is Guttmacher Institute President and CEO:
“Even with Roe in place, affordable and accessible abortion care is a right that exists only on paper for many people who are marginalized and oppressed by structural inequities, including people with low incomes, Black and Brown communities and other people of color, and young people.”
The USDA estimated that in 2019, 89.5 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the year. According to Feeding America in 2019, in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., the estimated rate of child food insecurity was higher than the rate of overall food insecurity. For six months last year, the Biden Administration lifted 3.7 million children out of poverty as of December 2021, through monthly Child Tax Credit checks, but all Republican senators voted against extending it.
The United States, which is the most powerful country known to mankind, ranks 28 in the world on social progress. What have Republican leaders done to improve the quality of life on our country?
Miami’s GOP Members of Congress — María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez, Mario Díaz-Balart, and Marco Rubio — should remember also that in Florida, “some 425,000 uninsured adults in the coverage gap would become eligible if the state expanded Medicaid,” but Republicans, who control Florida’s House and Senate as well as the governor’s office, have not adopted the Medicaid expansion, have firmly resisted this policy, one of the most significant aspects of President Obama’s landmark law, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
According to 2020 Annual Report from America’s Health Rankings, approximately 3,315,500 Florida residents are considered food-insecure. Overall, Florida is ranked 10th in food insecurity and 8th in child food insecurity. Of Florida’s 67 counties, 53 have food insecurity rates that exceed 15%.
The six week is around that time when a heartbeat can be detected. Sen. Marco Rubio is the guy who, besides lying to his constituents, has spent most of his life as a politician demonstrating that the fetal heartbeats are the only heartbeats he cares about. Rubio’s fight against women’s health began more than a decade ago. He opposed abortion in all circumstances, even in the case of a threat to the mother’s life.
Today seems like a good day to remind to the United States also that Sen.Rubio tweeted the “simple truth that all human life is sacred.” For several years have shown Sen. Marco Rubio that there is a positive correlation between the possession of firearms and deaths from homicides and suicides. Number of deaths by firearms in 2021 was 29,882. But Sen. Rubio continues accepting political contributions from the National Rifle Association.
On September 20, 2021, a group of 154 distinguished economists and researchers filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in advance of the Mississippi case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which they says:
“In summary, if Roe and Casey were overturned, in the first year alone, over 100,000 women seeking abortions — women from entire states and regions — will likely be unable to reach an abortion provider.”
For a full review of the evidence that shows how causal inference tools have been used to measure the effects of abortion access in the U.S., read the brief here.
According to American Civil Liberties Union:
“The ability to decide whether and when to have children is essential to allowing people to control their own lives and futures. For many, having access to affordable abortion care opens the door to fulfilling educational and career goals, better parenting, staying true to gender identities, and other critical parts of life that everyone should have the ability to choose for themselves. No politician should make those decisions for us.”
Abortion is likely to be banned in about half the country. The draft opinion written by Justice Alito holds that decisions on the legality of abortion should be made at a state level and that no constitutional right to the procedure exists. In that scenario, approximately half the states in the nation would probably ban abortion. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 26 states would be “certain or likely” to ban abortion if Roe were to fall by the wayside.
The Center for Reproductive Rights projects that abortion “likely would be prohibited in twenty-four states and three territories.” Whatever the precise number, the broad geographical contours of abortion’s fate are clear. The procedure would likely be outlawed across almost all of the South, most of the Midwest with the probable exceptions of Illinois and Minnesota, and across much of the Great Plains.
For women in the affected states, the reality of reproductive choice would be forever altered — and traveling to states where the procedure was allowed would be time-consuming and expensive. Guttmacher’s researchers, for instance, estimate that a woman in Mississippi who wanted an abortion would face an average drive of around 500 miles each way to obtain one. Abortion would still be accessible for some, but for poorer women in red states, traveling for in-clinic care could be prohibitively challenging.
Poorer women will feel the sharpest effects. Widespread bans on abortion would affect millions of American women across the social and demographic spectrum. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that 24 percent of women will have had an abortion by the time they are 45 years old. But in a post-Roe landscape, it is clear that less affluent women will experience the greatest problems. Travel and accommodation costs, as well as time away from work, pose much higher barriers to women with lower incomes.
Guttmacher’s research on this score dates to 2014. But at that time, it found that almost half the women who get abortions had income below the official federal poverty level and an additional 26 percent had incomes up to twice the poverty level. Just 1 in 4 women who had abortions had higher incomes than this. The same research found that 46 percent of women who get abortions are neither married nor cohabiting.
In Florida, the poorest women are African Americans, followed by Native Americans and Latinas. Cuban American women can go to Cuba with the purpose of abortion, economically benefiting the communist dictatorship. But, what will happen to others poor Floridian women?
A woman’s health care choices should be between she, her family, and her doctor. Remember that policy interference from the State is typical of communist and fascist dictatorships. Freedom is about being able to live the life each one wants without undue interference from the State. Republican leaders are prioritizing one of their main obsessions: interfering with people’s personal medical decisions, like Stalin, Mussolini, and Fidel Castro.
Would not it be nice if pro-lifers focused on things that would actually save lives? For instance, gun control, ending child food insecurity, ending police killings, or ending the death penalty. However, the fetal heartbeats are the only heartbeats Sen. Rubio cares about. All the evidence shows that Sen. Rubio is not ‘pro-life’. He is against women’s health and child security.
What Roe v Wade means for human rights
From bad to worse. Convinced, it seems, that he can do whatever he wants in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis seems to be taking his dictatorial cues from Putin or Viktor Orbán, who won fourth consecutive term as Hungary’s prime minister and extends his autocratic rule in Hungary. GOP’s war on all civil rights will continue.
Sincerely,
Manuel Castro-Rodríguez
Sen. Rick Scott sparred with “Fox News Sunday” host John Roberts over the contents of Scott’s released “Rescue America” plan. Discussing the plan, the Florida Republican accused Roberts of repeating Democratic talking points while Roberts insisted he was quoting directly from the language in Scott’s own 11-step policy plan. “You recently put out an 11-point plan to rescue America,” Roberts said to Scott, while displaying text excerpts on the screen.
“Two of the big points of which are, ‘All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.’ It also says: ‘All federal legislation sunsets in five years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.’ So that would raise taxes on half of Americans and potentially sunset programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Why would you propose something like that in an election year?”
Scott responded: “That’s, of course, the Democrat talking points.”
Roberts replied: ‘No, it’s in the plan! It’s in the plan!” As Scott continued to push back, Roberts added: “Hang on, senator, it’s not a Democratic talking point, it’s in the plan.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/27/rick-scott-senate-agenda-roberts-00020694
Scott literally put his idea in writing: “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.”
In other words, tens of millions of American adults currently don’t pay federal income taxes because they don’t make enough money to qualify. As we’ve explained before, Scott, a member of the Senate Republican leadership, has proposed changing that: He envisions a tax system in which those who don’t make enough money would have to pay more than they pay now.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but that’s what “tax increase” means. It’s not even an especially partisan point: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has also described Scott’s blueprint as a plan “that raises taxes on half the American people.”
After, Scott added, in reference to his blueprint, “Go through it, everybody’s not going to agree with everything, 120 policy points.”
In other words, when pressed on his proposed tax hikes, the GOP senator effectively suggested his plan has other elements that might not be as unpopular — which wasn’t much of a defense.
State-by-State Estimates of Sen. Rick Scott’s “Skin in the Game” Proposal
https://itep.org/state-by-state-estimates-of-sen-rick-scotts-skin-in-the-game-proposal/
Senate Minority Leader McConnell opposes the release of a Republican agenda. At a press conference, McConnell responded to Sen. Rick Scott. McConnell’s decision to unequivocally quash elements of Scott’s political agenda highlights the fears some Republicans have over the plan and the potential damage it could do ahead of the midterm elections
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-03-01/mcconnell-breaks-with-rick-scott-on-agenda-gop-wont-raises-taxes-on-half-of-americans
According to Carrie N. Baker, J.D., Ph.D., who is a professor at Smith College in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender, in the United States, “abortion was originally legal before quickening, the point at which a pregnant person feels the fetus move, generally at around four or five months. Abortion was widely practiced, primarily done using herbs with the assistance of midwives and other female healers. Some of the earliest anti-abortion laws were poison control measures, passed in the mid-19th century in response to the proliferation of chemical abortifacents that became popular at the time. But by the late 19th century, most states had laws banning abortion except to save the life or health of a pregnant person.”
https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/u-s-abortion-history/
Sen. Marco Rubio’s paid leave plan undermines Social Security
https://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/sen-rubios-paid-leave-plan-undermines-social-security/
What Roe v Wade means for human rights
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/03/what-roe-v-wade-means-human-rights#:~:text=This%20is%20what%20our%20brief,the%20health%20of%20pregnant%20people.
There are 600,000 abortions each year, on average, in the U.S, according to the CDC.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/ss/ss6907a1.htm#T1_down
According to the Guttmacher Institute, there are almost 900,000 abortions each year
https://data.guttmacher.org/countries/table?country=US&dataset=data&topics=406#source
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “When women want to cease or space childbearing and do not use contraception or use it ineffectively or experience nonconsensual sex, unintended pregnancies occur: some are terminated by induced abortions while others result in unwanted births. Where abortion laws are restricted or safe abortion services are not widely accessible or are of poor quality, women may attempt to self-induce an abortion or resort to unskilled providers, risking serious consequences to their health and well-being.”
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-RHR-12.02
United Nations Population Fund’s mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled
https://in.one.un.org/who-we-are/unfpa-india/
In 1936, Stalin made abortion illegal. In 1955 the Soviet government lifted its ban on abortion
https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1956-2/repealing-the-ban-on-abortion/
In the mid 60’s, I was able to verify that dictator Fidel Castro banned abortion for 4 or 5 years. After, abortion has been legal, free and commonly practiced.
According to “Abortion, Birth Control, and Claims to Women’s Labor” published online by Cambridge University Press on January 9, 2020:
“By 1965, following an unexpected baby boom, the Ministry of Public Health began to provide women with some contraceptive options. But reproductive autonomy was not the goal of these reforms, and Cuban women’s persistent reliance on unauthorized abortions to regulate reproduction reveals that state health programs were not meeting the needs of all its citizens.”
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/laboring-for-the-state/in-the-hands-of-physicians/EC98FEE3E1110E9B2F49C713F6ED8338
Although according to Cuba’s Social Defense Code of 1938 (Código de Defensa Social de Cuba de 1938) the abortion was legal only in case of the pregnant woman’s life danger, violation or hereditary illnesses transmission, the real practice was very different. For example, San Miguel del Padrón is a suburb in Havana, Cuba. I was born and raised in La Rosalía — which was a poor neighborhood situated very nearby to Virgen del Camino — where abortion was a fairly common practice, because the women who seek abortions tend to be low-income mothers. I am an only child because my parents were poor; that was common in my neighborhood, regardless of religious beliefs — for example, my mother took me every Sunday to Convent of Santa Clara de Asís in Lawton, until dictator Fidel Castro closed it down in 1960.
I remember gynecologist Bretón, who had his office in Calzada de Luyanó very nearby to Hijas de Galicia hospital, and several White American women came to his office with the purpose of abortion.
Florida ranks 19th in poverty rate. In Florida, the poorest women are African Americans, followed by Native Americans and Latinas. Cuban American women can go to Cuba with the purpose of abortion, economically benefiting the communist dictatorship. But, what will happen to others poor Floridian women?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/poverty-rate-by-state
Maternal mortality — the death of a woman during pregnancy, childbirth, or within 42 days of the termination of pregnancy — is an important indicator of a woman’s health status and also to assess health system’s performance. According to University of Colorado Boulder research published on October 25 in the journal Demography, banning abortion nationwide would lead to a 21% increase in the number of pregnancy-related deaths overall and a 33% increase among Black women.
https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/58/6/2019/265968/The-Pregnancy-Related-Mortality-Impact-of-a-Total
In 2018, the U.S. maternal mortality ratio, or rate, of 17.4 per 100,000 pregnancies represented approximately 660 maternal deaths. This ranks last overall among industrialized countries.
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-brief-report/2020/dec/maternal-mortality-united-states-primer
“In 2017, at a time when maternal mortality was declining worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the U.S. was one of only two countries (along with the Dominican Republic) to report a significant increase in its maternal mortality ratio (the proportion of pregnancies that result in death of the mother) since 2000. While U.S. maternal deaths have leveled in recent years, the ratio is still higher than in comparable countries, and significant racial disparities remain.”
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-brief-report/2020/dec/maternal-mortality-united-states-primer
Compared with 10 other high-income countries, the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate. What have Republican leaders done to prevent this serious national problem?
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019
On September 20, 2021, a group of 154 distinguished economists and researchers filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in advance of the Mississippi case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. For a full review of the evidence that shows how causal inference tools have been used to measure the effects of abortion access in the U.S., read the brief here.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/193084/20210920175559884_19-1392bsacEconomists.pdf
Abortion is a question of gender equality. In 1984, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave a lecture on why Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided.
https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2961&context=nclr
Killed by abortion laws: five women whose stories we must never forget. As the US Supreme Court threatens to undo 49 years of access to safe and legal terminations, five women who died because of bans on abortion stand as warnings of what is at stake globally
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/may/07/killed-by-abortion-laws-five-women-whose-stories-we-must-never-forget
The House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act “to protect a person’s ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide abortion services.” (Women’s Health Protection Act of 2021, H.R. 3755).
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3755/text
On February 28, the Senate voted against advancement of the Women’s Health Protection Act, H.R. 3755.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00065.htm
According to data released by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at the Columbia University on January 20, 2022:
“In prior work, we found the first Child Tax Credit payment kept 3 million children from poverty in July 2021; 3.5 million children from poverty in August 2021; 3.4 million children from poverty in September 2021; 3.6 million children from poverty in October 2021; and 3.8 million children from poverty in November 2021. Our research has also shown that the payments have reduced food insufficiency among low income families with children and that there is no evidence of negative employment effects. Our broader research roundup of what we know from the first six months of the expanded Child Tax Credit also revealed that the weight of the evidence is clear: monthly Child Tax Credit payments have buffered family finances amidst the continuing pandemic; increased families’ ability to purchase food and meet other basic needs; have reduced child poverty, food insufficiency, and other hardships among those who received it; and all without negative employment effects.”
https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-internal/monthly-poverty-december-2021#:~:text=In%20prior%20work%2C%20we%20found,from%20poverty%20in%20November%202021
The 2021 temporary expansion of the child tax credit (CTC) was unprecedented in its reach, lifting 3.7 million children out of poverty as of December 2021.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-impacts-of-the-2021-expanded-child-tax-credit-on-family-employment-nutrition-and-financial-well-being/
This Mother’s Day, Congress can support mothers by expanding Child Tax Credit
Making the credit fully refundable again would reduce child poverty by roughly 20 percent, lifting an estimated 2 million children above the poverty line, and help millions of others.
https://www.cbpp.org/blog/this-mothers-day-congress-can-support-mothers-by-expanding-child-tax-credit
Why Republicans vote against expanded Child Tax Credit?
I’m a Pro-Choice Governor, and I’m Not Going to Sit on My Hands Waiting for Congress
By Gretchen Whitmer
Ms. Whitmer is the governor of Michigan.
As I read the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, I was devastated. It was shocking to see, laid out in cold legalese, the blatant ideological reasoning gutting the constitutional right to abortion.
I understand the frustration that many are feeling. I feel it too. Roe has been the law of the land for 49 years, nearly my entire lifetime. But it may not be the law of the land for my daughters. Many of us feared this day would come, which is why last month, I filed a lawsuit and, drawing on authority granted to me as governor, asked the Michigan Supreme Court to immediately resolve whether our state constitution includes the right to access abortion.
As a woman born and raised in Michigan, I have a moral obligation to stand up for the rights of the nearly 2.2 million Michigan women who will lose their right to make decisions about their own bodies if Roe falls. Michigan, like several other states, has a law criminalizing abortion that is still on the books. It was enacted in 1931 and would make our state home to one of the most extreme anti-choice policies in the country once this decision from the court is officially released. If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan, without exceptions for rape or incest.
My argument is predicated on the due process and equal protection clauses in our state constitution. The due process clause of the Michigan Constitution protects the right to abortion in the same way that the United States Constitution does per Roe, and the equal protection clause prohibits the state from adopting laws based on paternalistic justifications and overbroad generalizations about the role of women in the work force and at home. Other state constitutions, including the constitutions of Kansas, Montana, Alaska and Florida, have already been interpreted to protect the right to abortion.
I hope that my novel lawsuit can offer a course of action for others to follow. I encourage my fellow pro-choice governors, state legislators, private sector leaders and citizens to use every available tool to protect access to safe, legal abortions. Given that Michigan has a Republican-controlled legislature,I am not optimistic that I — as a pro-choice Democratic governor — can get a bill passed to to overturn the 1931 Michigan law.
Those in states where abortion is already protected at the state level, and where it will remain accessible if Roe falls, may feel protected. There is, however, a very real danger that in a few short years, with complete control of the federal levers of power, anti-choice, anti-women extremists could enact a federal abortion ban, which could abolish abortion nationally, regardless of state law. This is not theoretical — it is their endgame.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/09/opinion/taking-the-fight-for-safe-legal-abortion-to-the-states.html
At the national level, I joined with several of my fellow governors from across the country to urge Congress to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act. The bill, already passed by the House of Representatives, would put the protections offered by Roe into federal law. I implore senators to come together and get it done. But I am not going to sit on my hands waiting for Congress to do something.
A majority of the American people support safe, legal abortion and the protections offered by Roe. They do not want the Supreme Court or state lawmakers to strip away a fundamental right that women have had for almost half a century. Americans in every region of the nation, including in Michigan, trust women, not politicians, to make decisions about their own bodies. They also oppose punishing women for seeking abortions, and they oppose abortion bans that begin at six weeks, before most women even know that they are pregnant.
Whether through legislation, executive action, ballot initiative or civic engagement, the answer to the overtly political ruling of a supposedly apolitical, unelected body is to engage in every way and at every level. The answer is to get creative.
A handful of states protected access to abortion via ballot initiatives in the 1990s. In 2019, Illinois, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont codified access in their state laws. Massachusetts joined in December 2020, and New Jersey did in January 2022. Colorado did last month, and Connecticut did last week. In California, there are efforts underway to add access to safe, legal abortion to the state constitution. States are leading the way.
The private sector is joining us. Amazon, Citigroup, Levi Strauss and Yelp will cover travel costs for employees seeking medical procedures that cannot be performed where they reside — including abortion. Lyft and Uber will pay any legal fees for drivers who are sued for bringing women to abortion clinics in states that penalize or criminalize those who help someone, even tangentially, get to a medical appointment for an abortion. More companies must join them.
If we do not use every lever of power we have right now, or if we succumb to complacency, Americans will suffer and may die. Many will be out of sight, forgotten. Most will be poor. A sizable contingent will be women of color. We can all sense the hopelessness and despair that tens of millions of American women — our neighbors, family members and friends — are feeling. But despair is a choice, and pessimism is a luxury. We must take unprecedented steps to protect the right to choose.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/09/opinion/taking-the-fight-for-safe-legal-abortion-to-the-states.html
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology maintains the position that abortion care is necessary and is working to support its members if the legal landscape changes.
https://www.healio.com/news/womens-health-ob-gyn/20220509/video-abortion-an-essential-component-of-health-care
The economic cost of abortion bans
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-economic-cost-of-abortion-bans-201020487.html
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, doctors and women could be arrested
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/03/texas-abortion-law-roe/
Republicans want to see many doctors and women arrested
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/11/politics/senate-abortion-rights-vote-roe-v-wade/index.html
Undermining of abortion rights is extremely rare and “goes hand-in-hand with creeping authoritarianism” experts warn.
https://sports.yahoo.com/undermining-abortion-rights-extremely-rare-033753579.html
Few countries have eroded existing abortion access laws in the 21st century. Among them: Poland, Nicaragua, and the US. In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist revolutionary — who converted to Catholicism to win votes — overturned a 130-year-old law protecting therapeutic abortion in 2006 as part of an increasingly authoritarian platform.