Representative Jamie Smith (D-15/Sioux Falls) says that the likely reversal of Roe v. Wade and the near-total ban on abortion that South Dakota’s trigger law would immediately impose will put women’s lives in danger. The Democratic candidate for Governor issues this statement chastising Governor Kristi Noem for embracing this danger:
In light of alleged changes regarding access to women’s healthcare in the country, Governor Noem’s call to permanently ban abortion in South Dakota is unreasonable and sadly unsurprising.
No matter what your personal feelings toward this difficult subject are, we voted both in 2006 and in 2008 to keep protections in place for women who are at major health risks and women who are victims of rape and incest.
Completely banning abortion will not prevent abortions from happening. It will only prevent safe abortions performed by licensed medical professionals. With a stroke of a pen, Governor Noem will eliminate those protections, leaving too many in out state vulnerable to illegal and unsafe black market medical care. This policy is simply dangerous [Rep. Jamie Smith, Twitter, 2022.05.03].
Smith puts this harmful policy in the context of the Governor’s broader agenda of waging war on women’s rights and family values:
While the governor attempts to undermine major features of women’s healthcare, her administration continues their war on parental support for vulnerable expecting mothers:
- South Dakota pays foster parents half what those in North Dakota receive.
- Noem’s Department of Public Safety fought relentlessly to reduce funding for mothers facing domestic violence.
- Noem actively lobbied against the development of a major facility for special needs children.
- The governor remains silent on the crisis of childcare in our state.
As a state, we have the tools to reduce abortions in our state without compromising the private relationship between a woman and her physician; what we lack is a leader who knows how to use them [Smith, 2022.05.03].
Smith says Noem is thinking about abortion in terms of her selfish political interests, not the interests of South Dakotans. Smith promises a different paradigm of basic, thoughtful leadership:
As your Governor, you have my pledge that I will always listen, think critically, and collaborate in order to make decisions that make sense for all of us. We are elected to lead and serve you, not to try to score political points on the national stage. Access to lifesaving care is no exception [Smith, 2022.05.03].
Smith does a good job here of pointing out Noem’s harm and hypocrisy. He ties together the Governor’s defiance of the popular will expressed in two statewide elections that abortion remain legal and the Governor’s resistance to supporting moms and families in other practical policy areas. He does not go as far as I recommend (and perhaps as far as Noem’s campaign hopes he will go) and promise to veto any further restrictions on abortion and work to repeal the trigger law that will likely in effect when he takes office in 2023. And he still soft-affirms the Republican-fundagelical narrative that the state needs to work “to reduce abortions.” But defenders of women’s rights in South Dakota have no better candidate to support in their quest to save basic equality and real family values from the tyranny of the Trump Court and his courtesans.
“In case you needed any further proof that the modern anti-abortion movement is an outgrowth of many centuries of virulent misogyny and violence against women, Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked opinion draft striking down Roe v. Wade relies heavily on a 17th century English jurist who had two women executed for “witchcraft,” wrote in defense of marital rape, and believed capital punishment should extend to kids as young as 14.”
https://jezebel.com/supreme-court-roe-v-wade-draft-cites-sir-matthew-hale-1848872890
If god wanted us to vote, she would give us candidates.
i think mr smith’s letter is pretty decent. says enough without being too wordy. hopefully lots of people read it.
and FYI, cory – wanting to reduce abortions is much more than a “Republican-fundagelical narrative.” i am very much not a republican, and i’m even less of a fundagelical… but i think reducing the number of abortions is a good thing. i think women should be free to seek abortions as they wish and that they should be safe and readily accessible… but it’s not like they are a good thing. not many people would want a loved one to be in a position of having an abortion. i think wanting to reduce the emotional and physical damage all around is a worthwhile goal for any party/all parties.
There is a growing movement among Democrats and others to fund Medicare for all but I like the idea of rolling the funding for Obamacare, TRICARE, Medicare, the Indian Health Service and the Veterans Health Administration together then offering Medicaid for all by increasing the estate tax, raising taxes on tobacco and adopting a carbon tax.
Not only has the South Dakota Republican Party failed American Indians by not expanding Medicaid it has failed veterans and the elderly: its historically loyal voter base. But its more progressive neighbor to the north has seen the light.
https://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/number-of-abortions-continues-to-slide-in-north-dakota/article_8811d8b1-e3d1-5335-91c6-c608ab605c02.html
Like the doctor said, “we are in the end game now.” Now that the Supreme Court has handed over complete discretion to the legislative branch on women’s health care (and I would bet a multitude of other “established” rights soon to follow), we will see the same pattern of legislation that we have seen from tax cuts: the GOP/right will make sweeping changes to help the influential top of their food chain when they are in power; the Democrats/left will peel back those ever so slightly when they are in power. That will be the ebb and follow (mostly ebb) of rights for this country until the stars align to reassign Supreme Court seats back to a majority that will ben history toward the arc of justice again.
The South Dakota trigger law doesn’t prohibit abortion, rather, it makes it a crime to help a woman that has decided to terminate her unwanted or dangerous pregnancy. SDCL 22-17-5.1 reads:
This language is conmsistent with the misogyny rationale. In South Dakota any woman that chooses to end a pregnancy will be denied any lawful medical, professional or other safe help, but instead will be left to the dangers of self-help as a punishment for attempting to exercise control over who or what can use her body against her will. The National Library of Medicine has publiched research documenting the dangers:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9652283/
John’s quote from Jezebel adds to the misogeny evidence in light of Alito’s rationale that the federal Constitution doesn’t explicitly mention abortion. The Constitution also does not mention “witchcraft,” “marital rape,” nor “execution of 14 year old children” (or even younger). Hence, under Alito’s analysis a State retains the full power to authorize these actions, just as a State will soon have the full power to limit individual choices in procreation decisions.
Under bcb’s explanation, I can imagine doctors rising up in rebellion against lawmakers preventing doctors from honoring their Hippocratic oath. Hypocritic oafs vs Hippocratic Oath.
If anti-vaxxers don’t have to get a vaccine for the good of others, how can anti-Roe law pass muster?
A second trigger statute appears to also criminalize the pregnant woman: SDCL 22-17-5, which reads:
This statute covers “any person” rather than only a doctor or other person that tries to help a pregnant woman. Thus, a woman that “procures” the termination of her own pregnancy is also subject to criminal prosecution for a class 6 felony. The combination of these “trigger” statutes, for all intents and purposes, outlaws virtually all abortion in SD, by criminalizing self-help, medical care, professional help, or other assistance to a woman seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy as well as an intentional and wanted pregnancy that develops serious medical complications that seriously endanger the health and safety of the woman, short of killing her. Indeed, it appears that under these trigger statutes it would also be a felony for a doctor to remove a fetus that has died in utero.
The new level of oppression will be not only criminalizing the abortions in-state, but also making it a crime to travel (or aid in that travel) out of state for that purpose. I have also read that some may take the extreme measure to prosecute any out of state provider who terminates a pregnancy CONCEIVED in the home state.
During campaign mode, whoever can come up with the craziest, most draconian measure will be the winner.
I’m curious: does this include doctors who, during the course of treatment to potential mothers who are attempting to conceive, criminally liable when their methods include multiple implants of fertilized eggs with the hope of one taking? The doctor knows that most, if not all, of these fertilized eggs will die.
Bat: whether ARSD regs or other provisions of 34-23A suggest your conclusion, here is a edited (for length) 2017 weeks long regulatory action against a 2016 Sanford Surgery example of intensive state interference in a woman’s medical procedure. Perhaps state regulators could handle similar oversight of our trust secrecy industry, recreational pot industry, social studies, CEO pay, Covid pandemic and voting rights interference.
“South Dakota Department of Health
PRINTED: 12/05/2017 FORM APPROVED
STATEMENT OF DEFICIENCIES AND PLAN OF CORRECTION
SANFORD USD MEDICAL CENTER
1305 W 18TH STREET SIOUX FALLS, SD 57117
An off-site statistical data review for compliance with SDCL 34-23A, Performance of Abortions, was conducted on 11/22/17. Sanford USD Medical Center was found not in compliance with the following requirements:
34-23A-10.1 Voluntary/informed consent required
This South Dakota Codified Law is not met as evidenced by:
Based on facility reports, the facility failed to obtain a voluntary and informed written consent for a procedure performed on 5/31/16 that was determined to be not a medical emergency by the physician.
Findings include:
1. Review of information provided by the facility revealed:
*On 5/23/16 discussion between physician and patient included a recommendation of termination of pregnancy for treatment of a medical condition. *On 5/26/16 the abortion procedure and debulking of a tumor had been scheduled for 5/31/16.
*Abortion procedure only had been completed on 5/31/16.
*Informed consent as required by SDCL 34-23A-10.1 had not been obtained.
Review of the Report of Induced Abortion dated 11/21/17 revealed ‘No’ written in by the five categories addressing informed consent: SDCL 34-23A-10.1(1), 34-23A-10.1(2), 34-23A-10.3, 34-23A-52, and the offering of the DOH website address for “Information on Fetal Development, Birth, Abortion, and
The procedure completed without following SDCL 34-23A was reviewed at Sanford Medical Center by all departments involved. This was a maternal life- threatening condition that involved multiple specialties, OB/GYN, Perinatology/Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM), and ENT. The communication of the termination of pregnancy happened between perinatology and OB/GYN physicians after consultation with Ethics Committee, but was not communicated to the Maternal Fetal Medicine nursing staff. This nursing staff supports the process to obtain the required documentation and offer Department of Health (DOH) website address for “Information on Fetal Development, Birth, Abortion and Adoption” as required by SDCL 34-23A,
Leadership of the OB/GYN Clinic, Maternal Fetal Medicine Clinic, Labor and Delivery, Surgical Services, Risk Management and Accreditation met to discuss this omission in reporting on September 27, 2017. The process for termination of pregnancy due to fetal life threatening conditions is hardwired and no gaps have been identified. That process includes the MFM nursing staff completing the required documents and education as identified in SDCL 34-23A. The decision was made to utilize the current process for fetal abnormality related terminations for the rare maternal life threatening conditions. Education was provided on November 16, 2017 to OB/GYN providers, on December 5, 2017 to Maternal Fetal Medicine providers, and to nursing staff of both clinics on November 26, 2017 by the Director of the Clinics. Education included a review of the Medical Staff Rules and Regulation, SDCL 34-23A and the process to obtain required documentation and consent utilizing the MFM RN clinic staff.
SDCL 34-23A-35 Submission of physician’s information report
By January fifteenth of each year, each physician who performed or treated an induced abortion during the previous calendar year or the physician’s agent, shall submit to the department a copy of the physicians’ information report described in §34-23A-34 with the requested data entered accurately and completely.
This South Dakota Codified Law is not met as evidenced by:
Based on notification from facility and record review, the facility failed to ensure a physician’s information report had been filed by 1/15/17 for a procedure performed on 5/31/16. Findings include:
1. The department received verbal notification on 11/21/17 regarding an abortion procedure that had been performed on 5/31/16 but had not been reported by 1/15/17.
The notification also indicated:
*The procedure had been performed in a Surgery department of the facility and not in the Labor & Delivery department.
*The Labor & Delivery department had not been aware of the procedure.
The department received the Report of Induced Abortion on 11/22/17 as a self-reported incident by the facility.
SDCL 34-23A-56 Scheduling of abortion-Prior requirements
Currently terminations are scheduled as a Dilation & Curettage or Dilation & Evacuation. Two (2) new procedure codes in the electronic medical record (EMR) will better define the surgical procedure associated with termination of pregnancy. Dilation & Curettage Termination of Pregnancy or Dilation & Evacuation Termination of Pregnancy. These two new codes will have instructions to call Maternal Fetal Medicine Clinic nurses who will validate the correct documentation has been completed per SDCL 34-23A. Physicians and clinic staff were educated to the new process the week of December 11, 2017. Education on new surgical codes will also be provided to schedulers in OB/GYN and Maternal Fetal Medicine, surgery GOUP team, Labor and Delivery and Perinatal Outpatient Services by December 15, 2017.
To maintain awareness of SDCL 34-23A, (during the next 12 months, OB/GN and Maternal Fetal Medicine providers and designated nursing staff will receive education every 8 weeks CT12/19/17). Education will be provided during onboarding and annually for new providers and designated staff in the OB/GYN and Maternal Fetal Medicine Clinics.
100% of (D&C Terminations and D&E Terminations CT12/19/17) that meet the requirements according to all elements for SDCL 34-23A will done with all maternal or fetal life-threatening condition related terminations by the Maternal Fetal Medicine staff. This information will be reported to SD DOH as required by SDCL 34-23A.
12/15/2017
This South Dakota Codified Law is not met as evidenced by:
Based on facility reports, the facility failed to ensure the physician had obtained or provided the requirements found at SDCL 34-23A-56 prior to performing the abortion procedure. Findings include:
1. Review of the information by the facility revealed the physician had not obtained or provided the information within SDCL 34-23A-56 by the required timeframes before performing the abortion procedure. In addition, on 5/26/16 the procdure had been scheduled for 5/31/16, five days later.
Review of the Report of Induced Abortion dated 11/21/17 for that abortion procedure confirmed the procedure had been performed on 5/31/16.”
Nurse training on 23-34A every 8 weeks!
Cory, I left out an “e” in my email* address. Doh. As my newest grand child says: “sorry, sorry” :)
[Actually, Leslie, you left out the “n”. That’s why your longer comment went to moderation: the system read that mistyped email as a new commenter. —CAH]
My comment is word salad, on second read. We all make mistakes.
John Roberts has confirmed ;leaked opinion is real. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOXSvkdNyL8
Dangerous to be a bus driver for Jefferson lines if this keeps festering. This would lead to questioning all female travelers as to the purpose of her trip. Even directly asking if the traveler plans to leave the state with the intention of terminating a pregnancy for the sake of protecting the person driving the bus from being criminally charged for aiding the sacred vessel in murder. Next thing we know, women will have to answer to the man if she didn’t purchase sufficient feminine products on time. Some mens obsession to control the flow of water and women’s bodies is pure grody. The question and focus should be on why they’re so nosy, not what people do at their physician’s office.
Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to murder your baby. You’ll just have to go to Minnesota to do it.
Dicta, if every fertilized ovum is sacred, then yes, those disposed embryos should have some legal standing.
Mammal, get ready for the return of the Underground Railroad.
bcb – the exercise of any of those heinous acts could potentially fall under the guise of the exercise of religious beliefs (all are supported by biblical reference).
N Fields, when they? get around to murdering your babies, then you have a dog in this fight.
So much for traveling out-of-state for an abortion:
“US states could ban people from traveling for abortions, experts warn”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/03/us-abortions-travel-wave-of-restrictions
N. Fields, if you view terminating a pregnancy as “murder,” the bad news from the decision eliminating a woman’s right of privacy is that the State will now have the authority to “murder” by requiring the termination of unapproved pregnancies. Once we yield the power to make procreation decisions to the State, it can decide when it is appropriate to “murder” the unborn.
I suppose the good news is that we can always trust our elected officials to never enact a law requiring the termination of a pregnancy. Heck, that would be just like the State forcing an innocent 17 year old girl to be involuntarily sterilized because the State has decided her offspring would be unfit, and no State would ever do that, right?
see, Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927) where Carrie Buck was deemed unfit as intellectually disabled, and was forcibly sterilized to prevent her from ever becoming pregnant “for the protection and health of the state.”
Or a U.S. State actually forcing an adult woman to submit to an involuntary abortion and sterilization:
See, In re Guardianship of Moe, 960 N.E.2d 350, 353-54 (Mass. App. Ct. 2012).
Don’t forget: neither Kristi Noem nor South Dakota view abortion as “murder”, as they refuse to impose the same penalties for murder—life in prison or the death penalty—that they would impose for abortion.
Growing up, my mom stashed an old hippie button collection that my brothers and sisters and I would try sneaking peeks at. They never made sense to me. I recently whined enough about what a mature adult I am so my mom would give me a looksie loo at her buttons (after she tried clobbering me for even knowing of its existence).
Anyways, seems like a disturbingly relevant question scrawled on one:
“If life begins at conception, does that make a blowjob cannibalism?” My pagan, hippie heathen mother would like to know, N. Fields.
Btw, I’m not down with abortion. I don’t think any person is. I’m also not down with colonoscopies. I don’t want to hear about either because its none of my business what people do medically. The government and nosy nancies should butt out too.
And good call, Mr. H. If need be, the sisters will sew beautiful map quilts to guide the enslaved to safety.
Ms. Mammal, grudznick remembers a hippy lady with a button like that. I bet I met your mom, back in the day!
I wrote of The Hill quite some time ago. Giving up twitter forced a reading of this beautiful piece:
***
a mere change in court jurists would be responsible for this rewriting of the Constitution. Worse still, the jurist change was gerrymandered by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) when he was Senate majority leader. McConnell refused to allow the Senate to consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, in 2016 on the ground that the seat should be filled by the winner of the upcoming presidential election, and then in a complete reversal refused to allow the American people to vote in 2020 before replacing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the eve of that presidential election.
President Donald Trump made clear he would pack the court with justices who would reject Roe. The three justices he selected —Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett —are central to the putative five-justice majority who back this draft opinion.
The credibility of the court would also be undermined because all three of Trump’s selections, and Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the draft opinion overruling Roe, testified at their confirmation hearings that Roe was “settled law,” or “a fundamental part of our legal system,” or “presumptively controlling.” Yet, Alito’s draft now says Roe was “egregiously wrong from the start” and its “reasoning was exceptionally weak.” If so, it is inconceivable that these experienced jurists had not reached that conclusion when they gave their confirmation testimony under oath. It is hard to square their failure to reveal that to the Senate with Alito’s statement in his draft that it is time to “return the issue of abortion to the people’s representatives.” Shouldn’t the “people’s representatives” in the Senate have been allowed to take it into account in deciding whether to confirm them as guardians of our constitutional rights, including abortion.
***
All the rest of it too, well worth digesting.
Off, not “of”
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3477430-channel-the-courage-of-oconnor-souter-and-kennedy-to-rethink-overturning-roe/
Ryan, I have disagreed vehemently with you in the past, but I really agree with your post at front of this thread. Like the man who ‘loves’ war, he who ‘likes’ abortion is suspect of being human…..
Mr. Smith seems like a reasonable fellow. I bet he acquits himself well in the debates, and does much better than Ms. Wismer did in the elections. grudznick would hope he returns to the legislatures, where he was moderately respected all around.
@ Mother Mammal – Not unless you swallow. :0)
P. Aitch- Ah. Indubitably. Then a sucker is born every minute, but a cannibal is harder to find:0
And ‘Znicky- My mom is definitely right up your alley:D she still threatens to abort me all the time. And give me SIDS:(
And Mz. Leslie- I like your comments. They’re nice and hearty. Thank you.
Where are all the enraged convoy boys and rally-throwers refusing to yield to tyrannical government violating their sacred temple and oppressing them so? They aren’t making a peep when the courts threaten to start imprisoning women and invading her body. By force. O.k. But asking professionals to get a little poke of a vaccine in order to cur a deadly global virus is a catalyst for irate temper tantrums..trypanophobic cupcakes:/
Go after the business people who support abortion. Not hard to find, they have signs up every election. Start with Bob Fischer and work your way around. Buy from those who support women and freedom. Remember, a vote for NOem is support for Putin.
A plane ticket. Money for the babysitter. A free Lyft ride. Or a night in a hotel.
This is how local reproductive rights advocates are helping people in other states access abortions in Colorado.
How it works: The Abortion Fund, run through Denver-based advocacy group Cobalt, provides financial assistance to Colorado residents and people from out of state who are unable to access care where they live.
In addition to covering the cost of the procedure, Cobalt often helps with logistics, such as travel.
“They are coming from the middle of Texas and they have no money to get to the airport. We help them there,” explains Karen Middleton, Cobalt’s president.
Why it matters: The effort — formerly known as the Women’s Freedom Fund — is part of a national network of donor-backed nonprofits that will play a major role in ensuring access to abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned and some states ban the procedure.
Oh N. Fields, those tiny little abortion pills will permeate your state. Why go to Minnesota? See the Twins? A concert?
Live in freedom?
Forbidding people to leave the state to seek medical treatment or an abortion? What happened to the epic liars who claimed they wanted government out of people’s lives? Did they lie.again or still?
MFI, they lie like a GOP nominee to the Supreme Court calling Roe “settled law.”
Spend a minute with Grace. (Sound on)
https://twitter.com/i/status/1521307942577790976
Note that SD’s “trigger law” makes no exceptions for rape or incest.
Joe, it also make no exceptions for the the health (except death) of the woman.
(1) The trouble with criminalizing abortion, while saying that exceptions will be made to protect the life of the mother, means that mothers will die, because doctors are very leery of going to prison to save a woman from an ectopic pregnancy or a septic uterus. That is how, BTW, the Irish came to vote Yes in a National Referendum on Abortion – because of the case of Savita Halappanavar, who was allowed to die of sepsis because the fetus, while obviously dying, still had a heartbeat, and so they had to “await events.”
https://www.thejournal.ie/eighth-amendment-4-3977441-Apr2018/
(2) I know for a fact that Avera in Sioux Falls already turns “tricky” pregnancies over to Sanford to handle, because, after all, Avera is a Catholic based hospital and has a reputation of pro-life to uphold.
(3) It’s become more and more common for women to be referred to as “host bodies” by GOP legislators. In April, 2022, Florida House Speaker José Oliva called pregnant women “host bodies” 5 times during a sit-down with Jim DeFede of CBS Miami. https://www.cltampa.com/news/florida-republican-called-pregnant-women-host-bodies-fives-times-while-discussing-antiabortion-bill-12179569
(4) Sounds like a return to the Fugitive Slave Act to me. Good, God-fearing New Englanders quickly joined in setting up the Underground Railroad. (BTW, if it’s illegal to cross state lines to do something that is illegal in your state, Las Vegas should be going out of business any minute now. Also, will they start preventing people from going to Jamaica or Bangkok?)
I think it’s getting entirely too risky have sex. The risk of having an unplanned pregnancy is too great. The risk for both men and women will substantially increase if Roe is struck down. Republicans will have no choice but to strengthen family and parental laws to ensure that all children are cared for. That means that men will no longer be able to escape responsibility for the children they create. A man informed of a pregnancy could share the liability of any criminal action against the woman and the doctor in any health system even if he does not actively participate in the actions to terminate. Otherwise he will be responsible for the care and support of any child he creates till it becomes an adult.
It’s begging to feel like men have the ABSOLUTE right to sire a child with whomever they want. One the termination of pregnancy has been criminalized, then really doesn’t even the concept of consent become secondary?
sorry, beginning — not begging.
So the doctor says:
“If you don’t terminate this pregnancy here’s what is most likely going to happen: (1) the damage of this particular pregnancy will render you incapable of ever having a child; (2) the fetus is currenly experiencing severe pain and will likely die either prior to birth or when born since it cannot develop the physical capacity to live outside the womb; (3) you risk permanently physical disability; (4) if you continue the pregnancy you risk severe mental health consequences such as suicidal thoughts; but (5) I can’t say you will die without terminating the pregnancy, so I can’t conclude “there is appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve” your life. Based upon this medical judgment, under South Dakota law I cannot provide you with the needed medical help to terminate this dangerous pregnancy. Sorry.”
WillyNilly, at oral argument SCOTUS Justice Amy Coney Barrett apparently asked:
blockquote>: Would banning abortion be so bad if women could just drop their newborns at the fire station for someone else to adopt?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12/amy-coney-barrett-adoption-myths.html
That conservative viewpoint assumes that both men and women can quite easily escape responsibility for the children they create, and that neither will be responsible for the care and support of any child he or she creates till it becomes an adult. Instead, state institutions, welfare offices, orphanages, and paid foster homes will have that primary responsibility.
When Oglalas filed the Black Elk Peak name change proposal, opponents lit up the internet and organized mass anger fueled comment-chains to the state and federal geographic name institutions. Daugaard’s Republicans CANCELLED the state board. Only the federal board had the wherewithal to maintain the guardrails.
Noem here damages our democratic institutions like predecessor Daugaard.
“People who think differently and are willing to speak up if they disagree with you make you smarter, almost as if they are extensions of your own brain. People who try to silence or intimidate their critics make themselves stupider, almost as if they are shooting darts [smart phone tweeting, FBing etc] into their own brain.
…artificial intelligence is close to enabling the limitless spread of highly believable disinformation. AI program GPT-3 is already so good that you can give it a topic and a tone and it will spit out as many essays as you like, typically with perfect grammar and a surprising level of coherence.
***
We must harden democratic institutions so that they can withstand chronic anger and mistrust, reform social media so that it becomes less socially corrosive, and better prepare the next generation for democratic citizenship in this new age.
***
A second way to harden democratic institutions is to reduce the power of either political party to game the system in its favor, for example by drawing its preferred electoral districts or selecting the officials who will supervise elections. These jobs should all be done in a nonpartisan way. Research on procedural justice shows that when people perceive that a process is fair, they are more likely to accept the legitimacy of a decision that goes against their interests. Just think of the damage already done to the Supreme Court’s legitimacy by the Senate’s Republican leadership when it blocked consideration of Merrick Garland for a seat that opened up nine months before the 2016 election, and then rushed through the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett in 2020. A widely discussed reform would end this political gamesmanship by having justices serve staggered 18-year terms so that each president makes one appointment every two years.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/
By eliminating access to women’s healthcare and any need for abortions ANYWHERE in America, lawmakers are reducing women to SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS at best. Also, they are putting children born from incest or rape into a category of being THIRD-CLASS CITIZENS… behind their mothers! This puts our entire country back closer to the “darker ages” of when Europeans and others immigrated to our shores. It is time that our elected representatives understand that our entire economy depends on the strength and health of ALL citizens, not just the male side of society! Take away the rights women have been able to establish to protect their health and welfare… you take away the robust community of America. Take away rights from women, it should be only fair that rights of men be diminished also… or, as bearcreekbat states… children born because a woman was unable to obtain an abortion… “could be dropped off at a fire station for someone to adopt…” That isn’t the world I want to live in, how about the rest of America? It is better to be able to revere our children, not be forced to have them and potentially endanger the world they in which they would be forced to be raised.
South Dakota gals let’s keep our legs crossed for now and tell that guy we dare not take a chance. Then let’s see how the men vote in November and how they legislate next session.
WSJ leaked a story about abortion decision a few days before the Alito opinion was leaked.
https://www.rawstory.com/supreme-court-leak-2657275664/?cx_testId=6&cx_testVariant=cx_undefined&cx_artPos=3&cx_experienceId=EXC93HV4HK4I#cxrecs_s
Jonathan Chait is sure this leak is from the right and was leaked to pressure justices. Interesting read.
It’s a red letter day, burqas in Afghanistan, abortion banning in America. Will we ever catch up with the Taliban?
Not Widely Known in South Dakota –
A Pew Center report, one of the most comprehensive surveys on abortion attitudes in years, found that 61 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal in some circumstances and illegal in others.
More than half of U.S. Catholics (56%) said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while roughly four-in-ten (42%) said it should be illegal in all or most cases.
– Boston Globe
Yeah, he’ll get my vote, but ‘listening and thinking’ sounds a lot like Thoughts and Prayers after a gun slaughter of humans!
Not repealing the trigger law???? He’s soft. He’ll lose. I will listen closely to what the Libertarian candidate for Governor has to say.
Mr. Smith–you can’t “Me Too” your way to a Governorship ! Its been tried before and failed. Herseth Sandlin tried it against Noem (I like guns, too) and lost! Be bold! Repeal the trigger law! Make the legislature and the people discuss what the new law should say! Its We The People, Dude! Its not”I’m afraid of criticizing Noem and Noems trugger law, so I’ll just shut up on this one.”
Leadership?
It’s also all about the health care.
Canada, Aussie, new Zealand and England all have Universal free health care. We do not.
Those 4 countries allow women and Doctors to make decisions on pregnancies too. Soon, we will not, and half of the country will lose those rights.
Simple. Americans don’t want to care for everyone (UNIVERSAL health care) and especially for women. Not enough compassionate and common sense in this country.
Caught this on Amanpour n Co. The truth is revealed like opening a fridge with a new bulb.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=25JyC5Whhvc
Thanks, All Mammal, for the link.
In a similar vein…. https://www.rawstory.com/lindsey-graham-abortion/
Lindsey Graham slams senators who expected Brett Kavanaugh not to lie about overturning abortion
David Edwards
May 08, 2022
I thought perjury was an impeachable offense for magats, especially when a Dem Potus did it.
What ‘cha gon do ’bout this, Governor? Hmmmmm ……
Amazon is among the latest employers to announce that it will reimburse employees for travel connected with accessing abortions.
But Amazon’s policy isn’t limited just to reproductive care — it applies generally to non-life-threatening treatments, like cardiology, gene therapies and substance use disorder services, Reuters reports.
The benefit applies if a service is not available within 100 miles of an employee’s home and virtual care isn’t an option. – BostonGlobe
That billionaire Koch and his networks of family corporations and dark money political influence organizations hasn’t embedded itselve is naive.
Universities and law schools like George Mason University are grooming mills, just like ALEC, that seek out impressionable youth and mould them to go on to sit on conservative courts and crank out conservative laws that DO NOT reflect the majority of American voters. For conservatives to gain political power the billionaire strategy of Mitch McConnell and John Thune and all their minions like Gov Noem follow to fear monger away our democracy and limit the right to vote.
Sunday MEET THE PRESS featured Justice Thomas Justice Kavanaugh’s relatively unknown young former law clerk who breathlessly burped out this strategy in a non stop series of ultra conservative non-responsive talking points about the newest SCOTUS abortion chaos. (The alternative was carried by a popular commenter, a Justice Breyer’s former law clerk).
This was all on top of the 1st quarter hour of nonstop such talking points from a southern red state Governor championing it’s hyper radical and absolutely restrictive anti-abortion law newly crafted by these billionaire corporations’ leadership influence. Conservative money now owns SCOTUS.
John Thune did this. Noem is a non-thinking Republican minion.
Lawyer Neal Katyal:
“…the Republican Party monkeyed with the Supreme Court in really devastating ways. And so the result is a Supreme Court that’s all smart, all able, but far outside the mainstream of American society at this point. That has been a 50-year Republican project, and Sen. Mitch McConnell I’m sure is grinning like a cat right now because it’s come to fruition.
One way or another, there HAS to be a change that will undo some of this and it’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort. But the Republican Party has not treated the Supreme Court with the dignity it deserves. They played game after game, and this is the result.
…the Senate has more than a majority [to codify Roe], particularly with Murkowski and others guaranteeing that. The objection is that there’s a filibuster requirement in the Senate that you need 60 votes, not 50, to move legislation. Here’s where the Republicans can be hoisted by their own petard, because they got rid of it when it came down to confirming three conservative Supreme Court Justices: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. And if you can get rid of the filibuster for the most consequential decision, like the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice, then you should be able to get rid of it for an important issue like this.” [Editor’s note: Since this interview took place, Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin have publicly said they won’t support ending the filibuster, throwing the possibility of this strategy into doubt.]
https://katiecouric.com/news/politics-and-policy/neal-katyal-roe-v-wade-supreme-court-draft-leak/
MY emphasis added. McConnell/Thune’s unethical, unconstitutional violation of the Senate’s duty to advise and consent with their racist refusal to even hear Obama’s SCOTUS 2015 nominee Merrick Garland, seven years later now, must be rectified for democracy to survive.
This was handed to the GOP when Democrats were not willing to vote for Clinton because she wasn’t progressive/liberal/. . . enough. Letting a Republican into office (any Republican) swung three Supreme Court seats to the anti-Roe party to finish the job they had stared 10 seconds after Roe was first decided.
Democrats did this to themselves for not heading the warning that elections have consequences! A lesson still not learned.
HRC won the 2016 popular vote by around 2 million votes, if memory serves.
NPR claims it was a magat that leaked Alito’s disastrous opinion.
MFI, if only we lived in a country that elected the President through a popular vote.
The rustbelt states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan all have some form of trigger laws that kick in if Roe is overturned. That gave the President the ability to undermine current state law with the nomination of Supreme Court justices. Those states saw Democrats (who HAVE been ignored by this party) willing to give the “other guy” a chance. Outside of New York and California (and now Georgia), Democrats do not seem willing to put the stakes of elections up front.
True, O. Texas anti-abortion Dem fired staffer who asked for maternity leave. Her fetus was stillborn. So far no charges have been filed against her.
https://www.rawstory.com/henry-cuellar-2657288174/
Interesting convo between Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern @ Slate on Alito’s poisonous ramblings.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/samuel-alitos-leaked-draft-opinion-is-shocking-in-tone-and-tenor.html
The approximately 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus has endorsed legislation to add four seats to the high court. https://www.levernews.com/the-roe-disaster-and-what-to-do-about-it-2/
Illinois, which is surrounded by six red states set to enact sweeping abortion restrictions, could open public abortion clinics staffed by unionized state health care workers in towns and cities across the state. It could do so by leveraging its budget surplus of $444 million.
Billionaire Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said Tuesday that “no matter what atrocity of an opinion the Supreme Court officially rolls out this summer in regards to Roe v. Wade —– abortion will always be safe and legal here in Illinois.
Rhode Island, Delaware, and Nevada are the only three states with Democratic trifecta control or veto-proof legislative majorities that do not use state Medicaid funds to ensure abortion access. Those state laws could pass laws to do so, expanding coverage for low-income people seeking abortions.
16 states have legislation to codify Roe v. Wade.
Cont.
…an executive order from Biden mandating that virtually all hospitals with the capability to do so provide medically necessary abortions. All Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services providers — effectively all hospitals — could be bound by such an order. While the Hyde Amendment could present a difficulty, since it specifically bans the authorization of federal funds for abortion, nothing in its language limits the administration’s ability to ensure abortion access.
Biden could use the powers of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure access to the so-called “abortion pill,” mifepristone. He could do so by seeking to preempt state regulations that limit access to the pill, since drug approval is the FDA’s sole domain.
https://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2022/05/sen-specter-questioning-alito-at-his.html
Specter vs Alito at Senate hearing for Scotus seat. Insight into Alito’s thoughts then as opposed to now.