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.

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In June, a historic ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed women's constitutional right to access safe, legal abortion. The case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, struck down Texas' abortion restrictions.

Now, it’s time for Congress to do its part.

Fights to improve access to abortion care will continue. Nearly 300 new abortion restrictions have been enacted across the country in the past five years. When the nearest clinic is hundreds of miles away, when waiting periods require multiple clinic visits, when access to medication abortion is restricted — it becomes nearly impossible for some women to exercise their constitutional rights.

We need the Women’s Health Protection Act to prohibit states from imposing a range of restrictions on reproductive care that shame women for their decisions and limit access to safe, legal abortion care.

Sign the petition to your Congressperson now!

( Sponsers of the Petition )

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas grand jury has indicted two anti-abortion activists in a case involving covert videos on fetal tissue procurement talks with Planned Parenthood and found there was no wrongdoing on the part of the health group, a district attorney said on Monday.

The grand jury decision was a result of a probe launched last year under Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who accused Planned Parenthood of the "gruesome harvesting of baby body parts." No evidence was provided by Texas to back the claim.

The videos released last summer led Texas and several other Republican-controlled states to try to halt funding for local Planned Parenthood operations

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What? You mean they lied! Who knew? *sarcastically* Anyone surprised by this? I'm sure as hell not. However, it's good that they are getting charged for this. Maybe other anti-abortion activists will see this and see that lying doesn't pay off. Also, talk about denial from the Texas govenor

On Friday, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), the antiabortion activist group that has been releasing undercover videos targeting Planned Parenthood, the practice of fetal tissue donation, and later-term abortion, has admitted that images shown its most recent video of a fetus of approximately 19 weeks gestational age was not taken at a Planned Parenthood affiliate clinic, as heavily implied in the video.

The best part from the article:
( What it is )

Honestly, who here is surprised that this anti-abortion group resorted to lying to get their point acrossed? I know I'm not. And some wonder why a lot of people don't trust the anti-abortion/pro-life movement

First, the Good News :)
Late Wednesday night, Republican Congressional leaders announced that they would be dropping the planned vote for today on the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which, if implemented, would have instilled a nationwide ban on all abortions after week 20 of a pregnancy.

The Washington Post reports that the vote was abandoned largely because of the failure of many Republican women to support the proposed bill — led by Reps. Rene Ellmers (R-N.C.) and Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), who had raised concerns about public fallout with female and younger voters.

Since it was introduced during the first day of the new Congressional session, the bill has been the source of great controversy and public outcry, including from the American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, had explained that the bill was necessary to prevent “defenseless children” from being “torturously killed without even basic anesthetic.” Research has shown, however, that a fetus is not able to sense pain until the beginning of the third trimester, or 28 weeks, at the earliest.

Late-term abortion is typically done only in instances such as the discovery of debilitating conditions in the fetus — many of which would make survival outside of the womb impossible — or when the life of the mother is at risk; in fact 99 percent of abortions are conducted before the 21st week of pregnancy.
Yes!!!

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*Heavily editted since I learned about the bill passing after I posted about asking your rep to say no to the H.R 7

Consider this to be a continuation of the previous entry....

An unusual courtroom discussion between doctors in a federal trial to determine if Wisconsin's requirement that abortion providers have hospital admitting privileges canstand got off to a rocky start Thursday with the judge sparring verbally with one expert.

U.S. District Judge William Conley pressed Dr. John Thorp, a University of North Carolina obstetrician whom state attorneys called to help defend the law, to quantify abortion risk rates. Thorp resisted, saying complications are under-reported and no U.S. studies on maternal deaths from abortion are reliable.

Conley then quipped the discussion reminded him of the quote popularized by author Mark Twain that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Thorp, a member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told Conley that he felt "chilled" by the idea that a federal judge thought he was lying. Conley responded that he didn't mean to imply that.

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Nearly 99 percent of women went ahead with an abortion after voluntarily viewing an ultrasound image of the fetus beforehand, according to a large new U.S. study.

Based on medical records for more than 15,000 women seeking abortion at Los Angeles Planned Parenthood clinics, researchers found that only a small fraction of the women changed their minds after seeing the image.

"This study was motivated in large part by the current political and popular interest in what role ultrasound viewing plays in women's decisions about abortion," said one of the authors, Katrina Kimport at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.

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This is one for the "Duh" files