Wouldn't It Be Nice For Republicans If We Shut Up About Abortion Already?

That is pretty rude of us.

South Carolina Passes Six-Week Abortion Ban

On Thursday, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed a six-week abortion ban into law for the second time in his career. The first time was back in 2021, before the Supreme Court decided that, actually, random politicians were better suited to making personal medical decisions for people than the people themselves and their doctors — and that time, Planned Parenthood was able to get a federal judge to block the law from going into effect.

PREVIOUSLY! South Carolina Men Who'll Never Become Pregnant Pass Six-Week Abortion Ban 

"With my signature, the Fetal Heartbeat and Protection from Abortion Act is now law and will begin saving the lives of unborn children immediately," said McMaster, who cannot get pregnant and is wealthy enough to send any family members and/or McMistresses to states where abortion is legal. "This is a great day for life in South Carolina, but the fight is not over. We stand ready to defend this legislation against any challenges and are confident we will succeed. The right to life must be preserved, and we will do everything we can to protect it."

The legislation, which passed over the objections of all five women in the South Carolina Senate including the Republicans, will fine anyone who violates the ban $10,000 and sentence them to up to a year in prison.

South Carolina, for the record, already has the eighth-highest maternal mortality rate in the United States and the 11th-highest infant mortality rate. The state also has a severe shortage of ob-gyns and physicians .

On the bright side — a judge has halted the law from going into effect until the state Supreme Court can review it, so there may be a chance that this crap six-week abortion ban will go the way of the last crap six-week abortion ban.

Indiana Doctor Who Performed Abortion On 10-Year-Old Rape Victim Gets 'Reprimanded'

Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the Indiana doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio, was reprimanded by the state's medical board on Thursday for violating the patient's privacy by talking about the abortion publicly, despite the fact that she didn't disclose the patient's identity at all.

“I think it’s important for people to know what patients will have to go through because of legislation that is being passed, and a hypothetical does not make that impact,” Dr. Bernard said at the hearing, explaining her actions.

The complaint against her was filed by Indiana's anti-choice Attorney General Todd Rokita, who was clearly just upset about the fact that it was some pretty terrible PR for abortion bans. Rokita, who has viciously attacked Bernard in the press for nearly a year now, was hoping that she would lose her license and serve as an example to other doctors who might speak out about how horrible these laws are and the damage they are causing.

“This case was about patient privacy and the trust between the doctor and the patient that was broken,” Rokita said in a statement on Thursday. “What if it was your child or your patient or your sibling who was going through a sensitive medical crisis, and the doctor, who you thought was on your side, ran to the press for political reasons?”

I'd be fucking thrilled, because I wouldn't want anyone else to have to go through what my kid just went through. Let us also recall that the very reason that these abortion bans are being passed is because the Supreme Court determined that American citizens do not, in fact, have a right to privacy when it comes to their personal medical decisions. So just to be clear, Rokita and others like him feel that they should be involved in decisions between a patient and their doctor, but care very much about privacy the second the doctor reveals information that might make that involvement look like a bad idea.

Dr. Bernard was fined $3,000 and given an official "reprimand," but will keep her license and remain a hero to decent human beings everywhere.

ACAB, Part 2,289,467,932

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, cops across the state of California are breaking the law by sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with anti-abortion states in order to prosecute people who cross state lines for necessary medical care.

Via  Sacramento Bee :  

“ALPRs invade people’s privacy and violate the rights of entire communities, as they often are deployed in poor and historically overpoliced areas regardless of crime rates,” EFF staff attorney Jennifer Pinsof said in a statement. “Sharing ALPR data with law enforcement in states that criminalize abortion undermines California’s extensive efforts to protect reproductive health privacy.”

Pinsof was referring to AB 1242 , a 2022 California law aimed at protecting out-of-state abortion-seekers from criminal reprisal from their home states.

“Idaho, for example, has enacted a law that makes helping a pregnant minor get an abortion in another state punishable by two to five years in prison,” according to an EFF statement. “The agencies that received the demand letters have shared ALPR data with law enforcement agencies across the country, including agencies in states with abortion restrictions including Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.”

To be clear, it's not as though they were sharing non-abortion-related information with these states — they were, in fact, giving them information about where people were seeking reproductive care.

Seventy-one agencies across the state of California have been sent cease and desist letters, giving them until June 15 to stop sharing the data or face the consequences.

15 Women Now Suing Texas For Putting Their Lives In Danger

Earlier in the week, eight new women signed on to a lawsuit against the state of Texas, on the grounds that the state's abortion bans put their lives at risk and almost killed them.

Two of the new plaintiffs, Kiersten Hogan and Elizabeth Weller, had their water break early and were forced to wait until they were near death before doctors would be able to give them the care they needed.

"I was told that if I tried to discharge myself or seek care elsewhere, that I could be arrested for trying to kill my child. I wanted this baby, so of course I stayed," Hogan said at a press conference on Monday.

"When I needed to use the bathroom, I was accompanied and watched and made sure that I didn't push," Hogan said, adding that "at every turn, staff reminded me how alone I was and how unmarried I was. I was made to feel less than human."

Weller was forced to wait until she literally got an infection before doctors could do anything to help her.

"My doctor told me that due to a new Texas law, my request for an abortion had been denied. Now, I was left with one of two options, each cruel and inhumane. I could either stay in a hospital to wait for my baby to die, at which point I could get the abortion I needed to protect my health, or I could go home and wait for either my daughter's death or for an infection to develop that might cause my own demise," Weller said at the press conference.

These are not good options. Unfortunately, it seems pretty clear that the "pro-life" side does not care about the effect these laws are having, as every time something horrible happens to someone who clearly needs an abortion for medical reasons, they just shrug it off and say that these laws have enough protections for people having medical emergencies and that if people aren't getting the care they need, that is the fault of the doctors.

The lawsuit, however, argues that the law is not at all clear and that it should be temporarily and permanently suspended due to the lack of clarity as it concerns exceptions.

In Other News ...

Doctors don't want to work in states with abortion bans, as if 'pro-lifers' are going to care.

Whoops! State bans on abortion counseling actually violate Title X, which requires it, meaning that states that ban doctors from talking to patients about abortion could lose Title X funding for family planning services.

 'Pro-lifers' are terrorizing abortion clinics in Illinois. Last week, 73-year-old Philip J. Buyno drove three hours to Danville, Illinois, hoping to burn an abortion clinic to the ground. And he would have gotten away with it too, if he hadn't gotten stuck in his own car.

Once again, it's looking like abortion bans are hurting Republicans' chances in upcoming elections. Too bad, so sad.

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