Georgia (USA) makes abortion punishable by life imprisonment.

[Oldstyle]

New legislation HB 481 only allows abortion up to 6 weeks. It has massive consequences for women who get abortions from doctors or miscarry. A woman who seeks out an illegal abortion from a health care provider would be a party to murder, subject to life in prison. And a woman who miscarries because of her own conduct—say, using drugs or alcohol while pregnant—would be liable for second-degree murder, punishable by 10 to 30 years’ imprisonment. Prosecutors may interrogate women who miscarry to determine whether they can be held responsible; if they find evidence of culpability, they may charge, detain, and try these women for the death of their fetuses.

Even women who seek lawful abortions out of state may not escape punishment. If a Georgia resident plans to travel elsewhere to obtain an abortion, she may be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment. An individual who helps a woman plan her trip to get an out-of-state abortion, or transports her to the clinic, may also be charged with conspiracy to end of the life of a “person” with “full legal recognition” under Georgia law.

This is a shocking assault on women's health, autonomy and reproductive rights. The intention to 'interrogate' women who miscarry to check for 'blame' is inhuman. Apparently 28 other states are intending to follow Georgia's lead.

Presumably the drugs companies will have something to say about a ban on MAPP and coils. I can't see a ban here being realistic.

Presumably the drugs companies will have something to say about a ban on MAPP and coils. I can't see a ban here being realistic.

Me neither, but more because a lot of men can seen the benefits (to them) of those methods being available.

I think FannyCann hits the nail on the head. This is potentially far, far worse than a simple reversal of Roe versus Wade (a reversal would merely return control to individual states). The "abortion is murder" laws, if they went all the way up to the Supreme Court, would open the way for abortion to be treated as murder at a federal level, i.e. in a judgement binding on all states. No crossing state lines to get a D&C.

And the level of terror that women would then have to live under is unthinkable. There would be a law on the statute books which meant that if anyone had it in for you - ex husband, vengeful family member, someone with a political grudge against you - your past miscarriage could be weaponised and used against you.

It would be the abortion equivalent of living in a Middle Eastern state where you could not report rape, because if you did, you would find yourself on trial for fornication. Only now with life threatening consequences - you wouldn't be able to seek medical help for a miscarriage unless you were damn certain that every man in your life was well disposed towards you, that every health care professional you met was actually on the level rather than a religious nut job.

The consequences of the type of laws being proposed in Alabama and Ohio and similar are huge.

I also think Bloomerpool is right - I'm currently in the odd situation where I feel more comfortable about travelling to China as part of my job (it's openly authoritarian and at least I know what the rules are on what I can and cannot say/do) than travelling to the US. To the extent where I'd be happy taking my own phone with all my social media on it to China (I'm pretty confident that they'd leave my tech alone unless I stepped out of line), whereas if I was going to the US I'd take a throw-away.

Ok I have had time to mull this over and I think what needs to happen is the people of Georgia need to be made aware of a process called Jury Nullification. Which simply put is a lesser known (and deliberately so for obvious reasons!) option that Jury’s can take where they can essentially rule against the specific law being applied as it is either flat out unjust or should not be applicable in any individual instance.

This is a principle in both (UK) and USA law which is supposed to be a last check and balance that people are supposed to have against unjust laws.

As I understand it this would hamstring getting any case in front of the US Supreme Court as I don’t think any judge can go against a Jury ruling unless there is clear evidence of a court procedural violation it Jury tampering.

Given that more people are pro-choice than pro-life any Jury would be able to make the application of this law very very hard if not impossible. Basically if everyone in Georgia is made aware of this and make sure to keep their mouth shut about even knowing about Jury nullification (as it will tend to see you being removed at the selection stage) this is a viable way to stop this whole mess dead in the water.

The basic principle is that whilst Juries are supposed to be directed towards finding matters of fact ie is person x guilty of committing offence y. Any individual juror has the right to a conscience and making a finding of guilty on a defendant whilst technically maybe legally accurate if in so doing would cause the juror to violate their own conscience they can instead of saying guilty or not guilty can instead opt to nullify the law itself if a finding of guilty would cause the juror said conscience violation.

Article 1, Section 1, Paragraph XI of the state constitution says that "the jury shall be the judges of the law and the facts“

Sex strike: is this the answer?

twitter.com/alyssa_milano/status/1127040792281767936?s=21

I've thought this before. If women really could unionise on this it would be so powerful.

God the comments on that thread are depressing. The contempt some men feel for women is unreal.

I enjoyed this post though.

Women voted for this - white women, at least. White women voted for Trump for exactly this, to get a pro forced birth majority on the US supreme court, and to get Roe v Wade overturned. Women who believe passionately that embryos and foetuses must be protected from the actions of the women who gestate them.

I hate everything about that situation, but if all American white women were truly pro choice, Trump wouldn't be president and Gorsuch and Kavanaugh wouldn't be on the Supreme Court and hundreds of right wing judges wouldn't be in lower courts in lifetime appointments. Many women think that forced birth is protecting children. Who doesn't want to protect children? It is no help to ignore the reality of women's involvement in this.

ByGrabthars

Exactly that. I love that.

Temporary when those women find they can't get a decent gynaecologist/obstetrician because no one wants to do the job anymore maybe they will wake up to reality.

ByGrabthars - love it!

Ok, now here's an interesting article. Prepare for your blood pressure to rise a little, but do try and finish it because it's fascinating how very, very close it comes to getting it but still misses it.

It's an article about why men should still have a say in the abortion debate, and it actually has this paragraph in it:

Abortion stems from a man’s ungoverned sexual impulses. Abortion is the result of a man’s lack of self-control. Abortion is the product of a man’s immaturity. Abortion is caused by a man’s lack of fidelity and commitment. Abortion arises from the absence of trained and disciplined fatherhood. Abortion happens because men do not want to take responsibility for their actions. Abortion endures because men have not been properly fathered, don’t know how to father, and don’t want to father.

Obviously there's a ton of sexist assumptions and paternalism here, but I was agog that their conclusion was that men are entirely responsible for creating the conditions for abortion, but their solution was simply for men to be included in the argument to make it illegal.

Like, they can see it's their fault, but they still demand their own way. Astonishing.

catholicmanuk.wordpress.com/2019/05/13/catholic-men-and-the-abortion-debate/

It is astonishing Floral - and yet not in the least bit surprising. I see the women calling for women to refuse sex as a protest has been pressurised to apologise for not including transwomen. Here's one man trying (at least) to keep the rape and incest exclusions from the Alabama anti-abortion legislation. While '27 white men' push the legislation through.

"Alabama state senator Bobby Singleton was angry, pounding the lectern as he objected to a move to advance a bill to ban all abortions in his state.
He was furious at what he saw as an improper procedural maneuver by the state’s lieutenant governor, but also angry for the women of his rural Alabama district, who already face high infant mortality rates and struggle to access healthcare as hospitals close.
Singleton was objecting last week to an effort by Republicans to strip an exception for rape and incest from legislation to criminalize abortion without a roll-call vote, triggering chaotic scenes between opposing politicians.
Video of the disruption went viral, as women around the country saw Singleton as channeling their own anger over bills to ban or severely restrict abortion that have advanced in a growing number of states.
The vote on the abortion bill was postponed last week, but the senate will take it up again on Tuesday.
Singleton vowed to continue the fight, saying he will attempt to get the rape and incest exception, which a number of Republicans support, added back to the bill. The legislation’s sponsors oppose the amendment and say including it could kill the bill.
“Respectfully, as a man, I just have no right to tell a woman what she can do with her body,” Singleton, the Democratic minority leader of the state senate, told the Guardian.
“And I don’t think that 27 white men on the other side of the aisle, who have a super-majority, have the right to do that. And I will continue to fight that fight. I will filibuster it. I will use every procedural technique there is not to even allow this bill to come to a vote,” Singleton added.
It is an uphill fight, since Republicans control state government with large majorities.
But Singleton said the legislation is dangerous for women in his district in Greensboro, Alabama, including those with wanted pregnancies.
Poverty is high, jobs are scarce, and rural hospitals are closing.
The hospital in Demopolis closed its labor and delivery unit, leaving women to travel 40 or 50 miles to give birth, Singleton said.
The abortion legislation, which threatens doctors with up to 99 years in prison for performing an abortion, could cause more doctors to leave the state. “So here we are standing on that ledge, where we may lose more quality healthcare. Doctors are talking about leaving our area,” he said. “The infant mortality rate in my district is real high because of the lack of healthcare. So that’s why we need this bill to die.”"

• But Singleton said the legislation is dangerous for women in his district in Greensboro, Alabama, including those with wanted pregnancies. Poverty is high, jobs are scarce, and rural hospitals are closing. The hospital in Demopolis closed its labor and delivery unit, leaving women to travel 40 or 50 miles to give birth, Singleton said. The abortion legislation, which threatens doctors with up to 99 years in prison for performing an abortion, could cause more doctors to leave the state. “So here we are standing on that ledge, where we may lose more quality healthcare. Doctors are talking about leaving our area,” he said. “The infant mortality rate in my district is real high because of the lack of healthcare. So that’s why we need this bill to die.”"*

As I said, this legislation affects ALL women, even those who think they will never need an abortion. It threatens all aspects of gynaecology and obstetrics, there will be no quality women's healthcare available.
What fucking idiot men - are they so stupid?
Do they not even stop to think or care about whether this might impact the women in their lives or don't they care a jot?

Do they not even stop to think or care about whether this might impact the women in their lives or don't they care a jot?

Ummmmm.....

I know it's a cliche, but I'd believe these men were taking a genuine moral stand if they weren't also fighting to deny access to post-birth healthcare.

Well, the bill’s been passed... www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48275795

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/14/abortion-bill-alabama-passes-ban-six-weeks-us-no-exemptions-vote-latest

What do these people think will happen though? Do they honestly think that all these women, forced to sacrifice their own bodies and carry and give birth to a child against their will, are suddenly going to become Mother Earth incarnate? Do they think all these babies will grow up in some idyllic All-American Happy Family?

Of course not!

They’re just consigning thousands of unwanted children to grow up in state care.

This doesn't surprise me. And as for some obstetricians in these states, some of them are "pro-life" to the point where it becomes unnerving.

A few years ago, I was researching an obstetric condition and got in contact with some American specialists in the field. What was noticeable was the ones in Southern States were obsessive to the point where their interventions to "save" the babies had rather disturbing overtones.

In one case I discovered, a specialist was intervening in pre-22 week miscarriages to the extent that 3 out of 4 of the surviving babies (which were a minority of cases) were beyond severely disabled as children: no major motor skills, no speech, no ability to self feed. When this was pointed out to him, his attitude was to gleefully remind people that one child out of the four was relatively okay.

I realised it wasn't about religious belief or morality at all. Instead, it stank of a megalomaniac desire to medically manipulate human life regardless of the consequences for those babies and their families.

These rulings make me wonder if they will be used as a license to intervene in pregnancies in cases where the intervention would normally be seen as unethical.

I would like to see politicians who vote for this to have 90% of their income sequestered - to pay for the childcare costs of women forced to have a third or fourth child they can't afford.

I'd like to see them have their children's college funds sequestered - to pay for the education of teenagers forced to quit school because they got pregnant.

I'd like to see their houses re-mortgaged - to pay for the housing costs of women who suddenly find themselves with a child they have to house.

(If I was a harsher woman than I am, I'd force them to play a version of Russian roulette rigged so that their chance of dying matched that of a woman facing an unsafe backstreet abortion... but since at heart I'm a woolly liberal, I'll settle for financial penalties).

This is like something from a horror film. It’s a randomly-inflicted death sentence for women.

"What do these people think will happen though?"
Your mistake is assuming they care at all. This isn't a factor.

"What do these people think will happen though?"
Your mistake is assuming they care at all. This isn't a factor.

They do care - just in a horribly punitive way. Their thinking goes along the lines of "Evil woman - chose to have non procreative sex, the tart. Then - even more evilly - entertained the thought of killing the sacred foetus. If they die from a back street abortion they had it coming. And if the child starves once it's born - well, it's ceased to be a lovely sacred foetus and become yet another poor bastard child expecting welfare and medicaid - screw it."

I honestly think these men are that messed up in their thinking.