Pro-Choice Maryland

The Supreme Court was something of an under-the-radar issue in the 2016 campaign, extremely important to some groups (especially white evangelicals), but not discussed all that much on a national level. But now that Donald Trump has been elected, and with the success of the GOP’s only-Republican-presidents-are-allowed-to-fill-vacancies strategy, it will be of tremendous importance to the country’s future.

No issue will be more volatile than abortion, which raises the inevitable question: Is Roe v. Wade doomed?

That question is coming up again in the wake of the Ohio legislature’s shocking decision to pass a ban on abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is usually about six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women even know they’re pregnant. Under current jurisprudence, this ban is almost certainly unconstitutional. But maybe by the time it reaches the Supreme Court, it won’t be.

( More )

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed the Contraceptive Equity Act into law Tuesday, requiring all insurance companies to offer free over-the-counter birth control.

The act will eliminate most co-pays for over-the-counter methods of birth control for insured Maryland residents, as well as vasectomies for men.

Maryland is the first state to require insurance companies to cover emergency contraceptives such as the morning-after pill, which costs between $35 and $60 in most states.

The act also requires people to obtain up to a six-month supply of birth control at a time, eliminates requirements of a prescription for over-the-counter birth control, and ends pre-approval requirements for long-acting reversible contraception such as IUDs.


The Affordable Care Act — commonly known as Obamacare — requires all of its insurance plans to offer free birth control, but many insurance plans only cover a certain type of birth control which may have negative side effects for certain women and not others, while ones that work for them are not covered.

( More )

You can see the full bill in there. This bill makes me proud to be a Marylander :)

The Supreme Court is refusing to revive an Arkansas law that would have banned abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy if doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat.

The justices did not comment Tuesday in rejecting the state's appeal of lower court rulings that struck down the law. Federal judges called the law inconsistent with Supreme Court rulings that generally tie restrictions to the fetus' viability, not the presence of a heartbeat.

The high court already has an abortion case on its agenda, examining restrictions on Texas abortion clinics that the state says are meant to safeguard women's health. Abortion-rights supporters argue that the restrictions' only aim is to make abortions harder to obtain.

Good

The campaign, masterminded by 26-year-old anti-abortion crusader and “proud millennial” David Daleiden, is meant to let us in on the fact that abortion is disgusting.

When asked, in an interview with the National Review, what one question he would ask Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, Daleiden replied, “I would ask her if she knows abortion the way Planned Parenthood providers know abortion.” Proud millennial David Daleiden wants to make sure that 57-year-old Cecile Richards, who has given birth to three children and publicly discussed her own abortion, really understands what abortion is.

Daleiden is enacting a very old strategy, akin to standing outside a clinic with a sign informing women that their unborn babies have fingerprints at nine weeks’ gestation. This approach has taken on new life in recent years, as improving ultrasound technology has offered an ever-sharper view of fetal development, leading those in both the anti-abortion and the reproductive-rights movements to argue that a public, moral, and rhetorical reckoning with the carnal implications of abortion is necessary.

The videos are likely to have an impact: not on public opinion about abortion, which rarely changes meaningfully, but perhaps on Planned Parenthood’s funding, and almost certainly on laws made by state legislatures in the parts of America where abortion has already become so inaccessible — thanks to elaborate facility requirements, waiting periods, parental-consent-and-notification laws, earlier gestational cutoffs, and a dwindling number of providers — that it might as well be illegal.

But as a broader strategy, the notion that educating women in the grotesqueries of termination will be a game-changer is absurd. As Richards could tell Daleiden if he asked her his question, women already know what abortion is. We know more about blood, innards, fetuses, and the babies they may become — in short, about life in reproductive bodies — than anti-abortion activists seem to understand.

Disclaimer: This is a snippet from the article. It's not the beginning of the article.

Budding atheists wondering whether Richard Dawkins is in need of a little time away from Twitter to reflect on the past few weeks are about to have their (lack of) prayers answered.

The philosopher has managed to go one step further than his controversial comments on ‘date rape versus stranger rape’ to voice his opinions on what it would be ethical for a mother who is informed that her unborn child has Down Syndrome to do.

( More )

Ahem, let's go back to this one:
“Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice,” he tweeted back.
Yeah...tell that to women who tried to concieve for a long time before finally getting pregnant, Hawkins. Or women who are infertile that took a lot of IVF or other forms of fertility treatment to get pregnant. Or women who have fucking miscarried. It sucks a lot to tried to concieve for a long time only to get pregnant and lose it, whether to miscarriage or grudgingly resorting to abortion because there's something wrong with the fetus. And then, who knows how long it will take a woman to get pregnant again because despite popular belief...some of us don't get pregnant that easy just from having sex.

( More of my comment )

To me, I find it personally immoral to call someone immoral for chosing to carry ANY pregnancy to term just like I do when someone is called immoral for chosing to abort ANY pregnancy.