weepier tones

When people can't get access to safe, legal abortions

fuckyeahfeminists:

This is what happens. In Texas, reproductive health providers told stories of women going to pharmacies across the border in Mexico, in search of a drug they hope will terminate unwanted pregnancies.

Mind you this isn’t even a feasible option for many people who cannot cross the border or don’t know someone who will do it for them. Imagine the people who CAN make it, but don’t have health insurance. This is just a sign of why we NEED abortions that are accessible - legally, geographically, AND financially. This is dangerous. And wrong.

And let’s be honest it isn’t a coincidence that this is happening in the state where Gov Perry allowed reproductive health care clinics for low income women to CLOSE.

STFU, Conservatives: Will Low-Income Women in Texas Find Care Without Planned Parenthood? An Analysis of the System Says the Answer is No

rhrealitycheck:

Written by Andrea Grimes for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

While the State of Texas battles in court for what it says is its right to exclude…

(via masenko-your-face)

North Dakota Religious Freedom Amendment Would Allow Employers To Deny Birth Control

bebinn:

“Government may not burden a person’s or religious organization’s religious liberty. The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief may not be burdened unless the government proves it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest. A burden includes indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities.”

This amendment, put on the June 12, 2012 ballot by the North Dakota Catholic Conference (NDCC) and the North Dakota Family Alliance (local affiliate of Focus on the Family), will further support people and organizations in violating the human rights of others based on their religious beliefs. North Dakota activist Don Morrison said, “It will legitimize hurtful acts towards people in North Dakota who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, and people who are not the  ’correct’ kind of Christian. The people promoting this are people who use fear of others as a tactic to move their agenda, and if this measure passes, it will give some powerful institutions, like hospitals and churches, more power to say it is okay to ostracize people they don’t like.”

It could allow people to break nearly any kind of law, provided their actions are motivated by “a sincerely held religious belief.” This means hiring discrimination, denial of insurance coverage, and discriminatory firing (say, firing an unmarried pregnant person). This means denial of emergency health care, or denial to fill a birth control or emergency contraception prescription.

“North Dakota,” [Steven R.] Morrison noted, “is a large, sparsely populated rural state, and many people may have access to only one pharmacy or one hospital…. The amendment will protect religious practice, but its negative externalities may severely curtail others’ enjoyment of their own constitutional rights.”

Measure 3 will be on the ballot in June, and we’re likely to see similar propositions in other states as well. The religious right and anti-choicers will attack from any angle to bend the country to their will. North Dakotans, please get out there and fight. You can learn more at North Dakotans Against Measure Three, by contacting Sarah Shanks of Feminist Campus at sshanks@feminist.org, or by contacting Emily Krueger, Legislative Assistant of Americans United for Separation of Church and State at action@au.org.

(via fuckyeahsexeducation)

Activate the Mechanism!: Kansas Governor Signs Bill Allowing Pharmacists And Doctors To Deny Women Birth Control

what-should-we-name-it:

thisgingersnapsback:

abaldwin360:

A bill that allows pharmacists and doctors to deny women access to contraception has been signed into law by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. This new law is just one of many bills that the Republican governor has signed since he came into office. He has recently signed legislation that pressures…

Being shamed and degraded is bad enough over this sort of thing (trust me, buying Plan B was a terrible experience) but this is a whole new kind of fucked up.

Now on my list of places to never live, and to avoid in all road trips.

(via fuckyeahsexeducation)

Abortion Protesters Target a Clinic Landlord's In-Laws

ereyes312:

“In-laws? Are you kidding me?

Abortion protesters who want to shut down a Maryland clinic have tried a pretty ridiculous new tactic that targets — get this — the in-laws of the guy who leases the building to a doctor.

Todd Stave’s in-laws came home to their Baltimore neighborhood Wednesday to find fliers up and down the street urging the shutdown of a women’s health clinic in Germantown that offers late-term abortions.

How do they ask for this? With high school yearbook photos of the landlord’s wife, Randi, along with the names, address and home telephone number of her parents. (Plus the usual bloody and graphic fetus photos.)

“What happened to your neighbor after she met and married Todd Michael Stave?” the flier said, in horror-movie letters dripping with blood.

Stave has been subjected to stuff like this his whole life. His father was a doctor who provided abortions in Maryland, and Stave grew up seeing protests and even a fire-bombing at the clinic.

Now, he owns the building and leases it toLeRoy Carhart, one of the few doctors in the nation to admit to performing late-term abortions.

Stave said he is totally fine with the protests near his clinic; that’s about freedom of speech. But after protesters marred back-to-school night and his daughter’s first day at middle school by marching with the huge, graphic photos and the home phone and address of the Stave family, he figured out a way to strike back. He assembled a group of supporters to call each of the protesters at home, flipping the script on the hundreds of phone calls he has endured in his family’s home.

In some cases, the protesters who harassed 11-year-olds at school got thousands of calls at their homes.”

Read the rest of the article!

Todd Stave is the same dude who founded and runs Voice of Choice. 

(via becauseiamawoman)

Utah 72-Hour Waiting Period To Begin This Week

myplannedparenthood:

And the hits keep coming …

bebinn:

rhrealitycheck:

by Robin Marty

Utah is about to break new ground this week with a new law scheduled to go into effect on Tuesday that will force women seeking a safe, legal abortion to endure the country’s longest waiting period between her first visit to a clinic and the time of the actual procedure. Although South Dakota was the first to pass a 72-hour rule, their law was blocked by the courts before it could ever go into effect.

It’s appears likely that unlike in South Dakota, abortion providers in Utah may take a “wait and see” attitude to discern exactly how the law affects women seeking an abortion, rather than sue for an injunction immediately. But that doesn’t mean they think it’s a constitutional — or even enforceable — law.

Via the Salt Lake Tribune:

[Planned Parenthood of Utah Director Karrie] Galloway said the way the law was written, no one is in charge of overseeing compliance or writing rules so that everyone knows what is required under the statute.

“We’re left with a system that right now puts the burden — in fact a possible criminal burden — on the physician providing the procedure with no verifiable process for confirming the informed consent.”

The Utah Department of Health’s Nan Streeter confirms that the law gives her agency no oversight authority.

“We talked with our attorney and also with the deputy director of the department to ask about what we were responsible for, and the way the law was written, the only authority the Department of Health has is related to the development of the abortion consent materials,” said Streeter, deputy director of the Division of Family Health and Preparedness. “There’s no provision for the department to either enforce or oversee the consent process.”

Placing criminal burder on an abortion provider without providing clear oversight of exactly what he or she has to do in order to protect him or herself from charges? That sounds quite a bit like nearly every other piece of anti-choice legislation, determined to create a process so laden with potential legal pitfalls that no doctor will feel comfortable providing abortions.

This condescending, paternalistic, and poorly-written law will affect all people with the ability to become pregnant, not just cis women.

(via fuckyeahsexeducation)