Trump Judges, Bad Abortion Laws, And 'Pro-Life' Spiderman

It's your reproductive roundup!

Trump Judge To Wait Two More Weeks To Outlaw Mifepristone

Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Texas judge with a history as a lawyer for the religious Right and some truly bizarre ideas about LGBTQ people, the sexual revolution, and abortion, was expected to issue his ruling as soon as today on whether or not to outlaw Mifepristone nationwide and overturn the FDA's 23-year-old approval of the drug.

However, that timeline has been pushed back as Danco Labratories, the makers of Mifeprex, have been allowed to intervene in the case and we will now have to wait until at least February 24 for the ruling.

The drug is, of course, entirely safe, but some Jesus freaks are pretending they want it banned because 24 of the 3.7 million patients who have taken the drug have died in the last 20 years since it was approved. Now, there's no actual proof that the drug caused these deaths, just that the patients died after taking them. This actually makes the pill far safer than penicillin and Tylenol , which cause 500 deaths a year each. It is also far, far safer than actual pregnancy, especially in the United States, which has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation — about 700 women die from pregnancy or labor complications each year.

Sadly, this doesn't matter, because the judge is wacky and probably doesn't care about that kind of thing as much as he cares about getting rid of the most common abortion method in the United States. His ruling could be overturned, but sadly that might take a while.

Ohio's Bad Abortion Law Forced Woman To Stay Pregnant With Fetus With Organs Outside Of Its Body

There was absolutely no chance that Beth and Kyle Long's very much wanted baby was going to survive — not when four months into the pregnancy an ultrasound showed that most its organs were outside its body. The doctors told them the child's condition was "incompatible with life." They also told Beth that if she didn't have an abortion soon, she would need to get a hysterectomy and would not be able to have any children. The couple had just spent $45,000 on fertility treatments trying to conceive.

Alas, thanks to one of Ohio's bad abortion laws, she was screwed. As an employee at a state-owned hospital, Beth Long had health insurance that would not be able to cover her abortion until her life was in "imminent danger."

This meant that an abortion would cost them between $20,000 and $30,000, due to the complexity of their case. They were eventually able to find a hospital that would do it for $2,500, but they had to wait three weeks — and because of the situation, the longer Long stayed pregnant, the more deadly her condition became.

Things turned out okay for the Longs — as much as that ordeal could be "okay" — but someone is going to get hurt very badly by this very stupid law. It is not good to wait until someone's life is in "imminent danger" to do a delicate surgical procedure. It makes things objectively far more dangerous. There was absolutely no chance that the child was going to survive, but these great lovers of life wanted Beth Long to wait up until the very last minute to have an abortion. What? On the off chance of a miracle?

The Longs are now fighting to change the law, because the next time might not turn out so well.

What? The Same Thing Happened In Kentucky? To Two Women?

Yes, except this time it wasn't just about insurance coverage. Amy English of Louisville and Leah Martin of Lexington both had fatal fetal anomalies that meant there was no chance they were giving birth to live babies. Kentucky, however, bans the procedure entirely and does not have exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies because the people who make these laws probably think these things can be spontaneously cured with an intervention from the Holy Spirit.

Kentucky's very bad abortion law literally criminalizes abortion except to “prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.” So doctors have to worry that if the state decides their patient was not about to die right then and there that they could literally go to prison. Cute!

The whole story is heartbreaking and worth a read. This is what these states are doing to people and it is not right.

Actual Good News: Maryland Governor Wants State To Be A Safe Haven For Abortion

Maryland's Democratic Governor Wes Moore is working with lawmakers in the state to add a right to abortion to the state's constitution, to ensure people will always be able to have abortions in the state so long as they are not federally banned. Previous efforts to do this have stalled in the Legislature, but given the current state of things and the urgency, Democratic lawmakers feel confident that this time it will go through without much problem.

The state already has some solid laws protecting abortion — allowing the procedure up until viability and then after that for the physical or mental of the mother or for fetal anomalies, but enshrining the right to abortion in the state's constitution will provide an extra layer of protection.

Shocking! Florida Judges Are Denying Juveniles' Petitions For Abortions

In Florida, getting an abortion under the age of 18 requires parental consent — and, barring that, permission from a judge. Unfortunately, a recent study from Human Rights Watch found that over the last several years many judges have refused to grant these petitions, often for entirely stupid and arbitrary reasons.

Human Rights Watch analyzed data from Florida courts on the judicial bypass process in recent years and reviewed publicly available court records from cases decided by appeals courts. Those denied by both trial courts and appeals courts included a young person seeking abortion care after a traumatic event without an attorney representing her, a young person with absent and unsupportive parents, and a young person who was exempt from the law but ended up in court because neither her attorney nor the judge understood the exemption. Court records from some cases read like the results of a personality test. In one case, a young person’s “soft spoken and shy” demeanor seemed to be a factor in the judge denying her petition.

It's hard to imagine something so unpleasant as having to go before a judge and beg to not be forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy — especially if the end result of that is "no, you have to stay pregnant and give birth against your will."

I Honestly Don't Know What The Hell A Pro-Life Spiderman Is

On Tucker Carlson last night, a strange young man named Maison Des Champs shared how he has been climbing buildings and being "Spider Man" to raise money for anti-abortion groups and also to embolden people to be horrible to other people about abortion, I guess.

“Tucker Carlson hosts Pro-Life Spiderman who explains that getting an abortion is just like climbing a skyscraper (?)”

— Kat Abu (@Kat Abu) 1675993500 

“I climb these buildings because I want to show people how to have faith over fear,” Des Champs told Carlson. “Abortion is murder and that’s the truth. Yet so many people my age are scared to speak the truth. They’re scared to offend. They’re scared to lose friends. But we can’t be scared. Abortion is just like climbing a skyscraper. It’s a matter of life or death. And we don’t have time for fear.”

What can one really say to that? Really. I've got nothing. I have no good response to "Abortion is just like climbing a skyscraper" because that is not a sentence that makes sense.

Jordan Peterson's Carnivore Daughter Pretty Sure The Pill Is Keeping Men From Having Jobs

Mikhaila Peterson, best known for only eating meat and being Jordan Peterson's daughter, appeared on Fox News this week to talk about the real hard time men are having these days. Her theory on why men are supposedly dropping out of the workforce? Because birth control makes women prefer "feminine" men. Yes, that is what she's gonna go with.

Via Fox:  

"The other things that could possibly contribute would be the media portrayal of men for the last 20 years," she noted. "They show men as these bumbling fools, and that's got to be hard on men's confidence generationally. And then I think one thing that people don't talk about at all is the birth control pill, and I think that's majorly impacting relationships between men and women negatively."

She continued to share why, stating, " women choose more feminine men when they're on the pill. And for some reason, people aren't talking about that. That's crazy. That could impact people generationally easily."

Hegseth asked Peterson if the increase in women in the workforce played a role in men dropping out.

Responding to his question Peterson replied, "I don't actually think the issue is women in the workforce ." She added, "I think it's more likely that birth control is playing a role and impacting the relationships between men and women negatively."

It's true, people do not talk about how being on the pill makes women choose more feminine men, largely because that is not a thing. There was one study claiming that back in 2013 but it has since been debunked. There is no evidence for this and, frankly, why would it be a problem if it were? Let people have their preferences!

It is also not clear how that would impact anyone having a job. It seems like she has a variety of odd things she thinks are bad — other women taking birth control, men not being as manly as she would prefer — and she wants to smush them all together and make it seem like they are related somehow, so that people stop doing all of the things she doesn't like. It would be like me claiming that abortion laws are somehow related to restaurants that are too fancy to let you have your own thing of pepper at the table.

Truly, the Peterson mind is a wonder to behold.

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