Repro Rights Roundup: Hypocrisy, Homicidal Maniacs And Why You Really Better Vote Next Week

For real. Vote your face off.

Here's what's happening this week in the world of our diminishing reproductive rights!

If Edmund Kemper Were A Christian Preacher Who Really Hated Abortion

Last month, Eric Swalwell — who proves that doing effective and compelling social media outreach will not literally kill more moderate Democrats — shared a very well-done ad showing a woman being arrested in her home, in front of her family during dinner, for having had an abortion. It's a great ad and it should be run everywhere, in every state.

“MAGA Republicans want women arrested for having an abortion. This is what that looks like. #LockHerUp”

— Eric Swalwell (@Eric Swalwell) 1666053858 

The ad moved Joe Jones, a preacher at Shield of Faith Baptist Church in Boise, Idaho, to deliver a sermon in which he described, quite graphically, what he would like to see happen to abortion patients and the doctors who perform them. Jones is part of the deeply homophobic and antisemitic New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist denomination, which has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and was notably started by the notably unhinged Pastor Steven Anderson , so you know it's going to be ... something.

“Christian hate-preacher Joe Jones said in a sermon that "abortion doctors should be put to death" and that the "government should take them and slice them up." More details: https://t.co/KDiyDOlL0f”

— Hemant Mehta (@Hemant Mehta) 1667399045 

Transcript via Only Sky :

[A friend] sent me a commercial—and forgive me if somebody else in here sent me this as well—but it was some politicians in California, of course, that made this commercial where these policemen show up to this house, right? And they arrest a mom, you know, having dinner with her family because she had an abortion …

Basically, the commercial was, This is what’s going to happen in America if we don’t vote the Republicans out … And I’m not big on these Republicans. If you don’t hate the sodomites, I don’t support you at all, okay? That’s how far I take it. But anyways, that’s another topic for another day.

But going back to this commercial, it’s like, we look at that, right? You hear about that, it’s like, “Amen! That’s how it should be! A woman should… get arrested!”

Look, these abortion doctors should be put to death. The government should take them and slice them up! Not with pizza, okay? Actually put them to death! I mean, seriously, [ mocking critics ] Oh, you’re [going back] on the news . I’m not going back on the news. They don’t want none of this.

These people are sick! Absolutely sick!

Oh really?

Someone needs to check under this man's floorboards. Or in his refrigerator. Because I just really don't know that "slicing" is a place that non-homicidal people go to all that often. Is he old enough to have been responsible for the Lewis Clark Valley murders? I don't think so, but if so, I think we could have a new suspect.

What? Another Anti-Abortion Republican Paid For An Abortion? Nooooooooo. (Yes.)

Back in September, Brian Zahra, a Republican-appointed Michigan Supreme Court Justice, tried to block the Reproductive Freedom for All proposal (Proposal 3) from going on the ballot this year. The initiative will nullify the state's 1931 abortion law that makes the medical procedure illegal in the state in all cases except to save the patient's life; the initiative enshrines the right to abortion in the state's constitution. Zahra and another Republican-appointed justice were in the dissenting minority, arguing that the proposal should not be allowed on the ballot due to insufficient spacing between some words.

The fact that he did try to block it, however, kinda stuck in his ex-wife's craw ... given that she says he paid for and drove her to get an abortion when they were both in college. So she talked to NBC. 

They were of the same mind regarding what to do about the pregnancy and did not discuss other options, according to Alyssa Jones, who went by her maiden name, Alyssa Watson, at the time.

On May 18 that year, Jones said, Zahra drove her to the clinic and paid for her abortion. As they sat in the car afterward, Jones, then a sophomore in college, hung her head and wept, feeling the conflicting emotions of a life-changing experience. Zahra, she said, seemed frustrated that she was upset and that he couldn’t console her. He yelled at her, she recalled: If you didn’t want to do this, why did we do this?

Zahra, then a 23-year-old small-business owner who was a little more than a year away from enrolling in law school, is now a state judge and up for re-election to Michigan’s Supreme Court.

“I’m grateful I had a choice, and I think he’s grateful he had a choice,” Jones said in an interview.

Zahra is up for reelection and is endorsed by the group Right to Life of Michigan. This will not matter to them nor will it matter to absolutely anyone who intends to vote for him.

Georgia's Maternal Death Rate Is Bad. An Abortion Ban Will Make It Much Worse.

Georgia currently has one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation, outlawing the procedure after six weeks — or two weeks after a missed period, if you have very regular periods! — before most people know they are pregnant. If Brian Kemp wins next week's gubernatorial election in Georgia, there is an extremely high chance that abortion will be banned in the state entirely. Should that happen, a study by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder has found that the maternal mortality rate in the state will go up by 29 percent.

That's not great! Especially when the state has already has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the country. Georgia has had a severe ob-gyn shortage for about 14 years now , and a ban on abortion is only going to make that worse — because doctors don't actually want to work in states where they could potentially end up in prison for doing what is necessary to save a patient's life. As of right now, there are zero ob-gyns in 79 of the state's 159 counties . This means that things are also going to be much more difficult even for those who actually want to be pregnant. It's also not going to be too great healthwise, either, for both the wanted and unwanted children — 64 of those counties also don't have a single pediatrician.

The study also showed that a nationwide ban would cause maternal mortality to go up by 24 percent — among Black people, it would increase by 39 percent. I guess those who really care about "life" are more than willing to sacrifice a few to get their way.

I guess people who care about life in a different way — perhaps in the way where they don't want to see women all over dying in childbirth — should get their asses out to vote for Stacey Abrams next week.

Indiana Doctor Who Performed Abortion For 10-Year-Old Ohio Rape Victim Sues The Attorney General Investigating Her

For the last several months, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has had a whole ass side-business in trying to destroy the life and practice of Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim whose home state of Ohio was going to force her to give birth against her will. Rokita has gone all over Fox News trying to discredit the doctor, to claim without evidence that he suspected that she didn't report the child's rape to the police.

As of late, he's launched a whole investigation into Dr. Bernard, predicated largely on complaints unproven to actually be from any of her actual patients — and part of this "investigation" has involved a subpoena demanding the medical records of her patients who had nothing to do with any of this.

Via CNN:  

Rokita’s office issued subpoenas for confidential medical records based on complaints from third parties “who have no relationship with the targeted physicians or their patients” and “who lack any personal knowledge of the alleged circumstances,” the lawsuit alleges.

The attorney general’s office issued at least five subpoenas seeking confidential medical records based on the allegedly improper complaints, Bernard’s lawyers allege. The medical records are those of patients “who did not themselves file complaints about their physicians and who by all accounts are perfectly satisfied with the medical care they received,” the lawsuit reads.

Of the "complaints" Rokita is investigating, only one came from someone in Indiana and that person was not even a patient of Dr. Bernard's. The rest came from random trolls from other states, including California, Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio, and Rokita wants to use them to justify violating the privacy of other patients who, as per the lawsuit, "did not themselves file complaints about their physicians and who by all accounts are perfectly satisfied with the medical care they received.”

And now Dr. Bernard is suing his ass.

She and her partner filed the lawsuit on Thursday asking a court to bar Rokita from continuing this investigation, as state law requires that such investigations be based on complaints from actual patients — not bad Yelp reviews from people across the country who were disappointed that a 10-year-old rape victim wasn't forced to give birth.

The Indiana Attorney General's office is trying to claim that this is all normal and that they usually investigate doctors based on complaints from non-patients.

“By statutory obligation, we investigate thousands of potential licensing, privacy, and other violations a year. A majority of the complaints we receive are, in fact, from non-patients,” office spokesperson Kelly Stevenson told CNN. “Any investigations that arise as a result of potential violations are handled in a uniform manner and narrowly focused. We will discuss this particular matter further through the judicial filings we make.”

That seems a little like a waste of time and certainly not a good reason to go violating the private medical records of people who have nothing to do with these complaints.

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