Lotta Pro-Death 'Pro-Life' Folks Out There

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Oklahoma Governor Outraged State Supreme Court Created Teeny Tiny Life-Of-The-Mother Exception

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt is a big fan of death. He's even all set to execute an innocent man in a few months, despite the fact that even some of his fellow Republicans think that's maybe a bad idea.

This week, the state's supreme court — a court with a conservative majority, mind you — ruled in favor of allowing doctors to perform an abortion when there is a "reasonable" belief that the mother could die as opposed to "absolute certainty."

We hold that the Oklahoma Constitution creates an inherent right of a pregnant woman to terminate a pregnancy when necessary to preserve her life. We would define this inherent right to mean: a woman has an inherent right to choose to terminate her pregnancy if at any point in the pregnancy, the woman’s physician has determined to a reasonable degree of medical certainty or probability that the continuation of the pregnancy will endanger the woman’s life due to the pregnancy itself or due to a medical condition that the woman is either currently suffering from or likely to suffer from during the pregnancy. Absolute certainty is not required, however, mere possibility or speculation is insufficient.

It's not great, but it's slightly better than the situation in states like Texas where doctors are routinely forced to put their patients' lives at risk by waiting until the absolute last minute to perform life-saving abortions. Doctors in Oklahoma felt that they needed more explicit language in order to understand exactly when they would be allowed to perform a life-saving abortion, and this has somewhat clarified that, at least.

But Kevin Stitt is not happy at all about this. He insists that there is no right to any kind of abortion in the Oklahoma constitution and insisted that the court was being run by an "activist majority" despite the fact that in order to reach the decision, one of the conservative judges had to break ranks and side with the liberal judges.

"I wholeheartedly disagree with this activist majority's opinion creating a right to an abortion in Oklahoma. Alarmingly, this activist majority acted out of hand by making a policy decision that belongs to the people. Chief Justice Kane said it best in his well-written dissent: 'This Court should adhere to the Constitution given to us, not craft what we believe to be a "better" Constitution. The power lies with the people,'" Stitt said in a statement. 

He is also very upset that the judges did not even mention "unborn children" in their decision, despite the fact that there was no reason to have mentioned the "unborn."

"Furthermore, in their 20 page opinion, not once was there any mention of the unborn," he complained. "From the moment life begins at conception, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect that baby's life and the life of the mother. That is what I believe and that is what the majority of Oklahomans believe which is why the Legislature has passed, and I have signed, numerous laws banning abortion in Oklahoma."

Governor Stitt's statement was published on the official Oklahoma state website, which incidentally also hosts a page about what the state is trying to do about their sky-high maternal mortality rate . One step they could take, I would imagine, would be not forcing anyone to die in childbirth.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate Thrilled To Campaign With Anti-Abortion Terrorism Enthusiast

Supreme Court hopeful Dan Kelly is a very open, accepting person ... in that he does not mind hanging around with rightwing terrorists. Hell, he's even campaigning with election denier and January 6 participant Scott Presler, who formerly worked for the anti-Muslim hate group Act For America. He also appeared on stage this week with anti-abortion extremist Matthew Trewhella, who has called killing abortion providers "justifiable homicide."

“Just hours after dodging debate questions about his extreme position on abortion, Dan Kelly chose to share a stage with a rightwing radical who advocated for the murder of abortion care providers and forming armed militias to oppose abortion, taxes, and gun laws," said Lucy Ripp, communications manager at A Better Wisconsin Together .

This was not a hypothetical thought experiment, mind you — Trewhalla signed a statement, written in purple Comic Sans, asserting that the 1993 murder of abortion provider David Gunn was justified because Michael Griffin, the shooter, was defending the lives of unborn children.

The statement itself was written by the infamous anti-abortion terrorist group ( according to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security) Army of God , known for their many clinic bombings, death threats, and homicides of abortion providers and clinic staff.

For his part, Kelly has said he doesn't vet anyone he appears with and doesn't really care what they have done or said before they campaigned with him.

"I don't ask people to sit for an examination before they help me," Kelly said. "There are people all over the state of Wisconsin that have all kinds of different beliefs and all kinds of different backgrounds who are doing their absolute level best to encourage the people of Wisconsin to come out to exercise their privilege and their power. I don't ask them what their backgrounds are. I'll take their help any day of the week."

Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Ballot Measure?

Earlier this month, Ohio abortion rights groups got approval for a ballot measure to add an amendment protecting reproductive rights to the state constitution, so long as they are able to get 413,446 signatures to their petition by the July 5 deadline.

The amendment will ensure that "every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s own pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion." The measure has a high likelihood of passing, as a recent poll found that 59 percent of voters say they would support enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution. Not to mention the fact that when abortion has been on the ballot, voters have voted in favor of keeping it legal, even in conservative states like Kansas.

Ohio's current law prohibits abortion after fetal cardiac pole activity is detected, but the amendment would allow for abortion until a physician determines that the fetus is viable outside the womb.

So you know who's unhappy about this, right?

Cincinnati Right to Life executive director Meg DeBlase and member John Giroux have filed a lawsuit demanding that the measure be split into at least two separate measures, because they don't think abortion is the same thing as other reproductive rights. Of course, the reason all of these things are included is because they are all now at risk now that Roe v. Wadehas been overturned. People are being denied miscarriage care (in Ohio!) , and there is talk about banning contraception and IVF for the same reasons people want to ban abortion.

Splitting the measure would require abortion rights advocates to get twice as many signatures, which these people clearly hope would mean that abortion would not be on the ballot. Clearly, they don't believe in themselves and the appeal of their cause enough to risk allowing the people of Ohio to vote on it.

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