Catholic Hospitals Forcing Ohio Abortion Clinics to Close

No, requiring a hospital transfer agreement isn't an "undue burden" on women seeking an abortion.

Not unless all the hospitals around are owned by freakazoid bullies.

Zandar:

It looks like the Planned Parenthood surgical center in Cincinnati has finally been cited for lack of a hospital transfer agreement, and has until next week to come up with a solution or risk being shut down for good.

The Elizabeth Campbell Surgical Center was last inspected in June, but the health department waited until last week to notify the clinic that it was out of compliance with acontroversial state law passed last year. That could be the first step in moving to revoke the clinic's surgical license, which would make Cincinnati the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. without an abortion clinic, according to an Enquirer analysis.

Abortion clinics in Ohio now must have agreements with private hospitals willing to take abortion patients in an emergency. Many private hospitals are religious and have declined to form agreements with abortion clinics. Planned Parenthood found itself in such a situation and asked the health department to grant an exception to the rule -- a so-called "variance," which is allowed by law.

SNIP

The other two clinics in southwest Ohio are in the same boat.  Mercy Health, formerly Catholic Health Partners (I bet you're seeing where this is going) is the largest hospital chain around.  They've basically bullied everyone in the area to revoke their transfer agreements or face their wrath, and everyone folded, most notably the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Just a reminder: abortion is the safest medical procedure performed in the U.S. It does not require a hospital, or a surgical facility, or transvaginal ultraounds object rape or waiting periods or any other bogus obstacle.

How Many Dead Women Will It Take to Slake the Misogynists' Thirst?

All of them.

Kevin Drum:

We are rapidly approaching a point in half the states in America where abortions will be effectively available only to rich women. They'll just jet off to clinics in California or New York if they have to. Non-rich women, who can't afford that, will be forced into motherhood whether they like it or not. At which point conservatives, as usual, will suddenly lose all interest in them except as props for their rants about lazy welfare cheats.

No, non-rich women will NOT be forced into motherhood.  They will be forced into botched, back-alley illegal abortions, which should just be called "Gosnells" from now on.  The will end up sterile from punctures and infections if they're lucky; dead if they're not.  Or maybe imprisoned for life on bogus "murder" charges.

And no, conservatives will never lose interest in women who have sex outside the "Dugger rules." The maimed, dead and imprisoned ones will be held up forever as proof that only Dugger-rule sex is safe.

UPDATE:  And the states are already doing it.

How Many Dead Women Will It Take to Slake the Misogynists' Thirst?

All of them.

Kevin Drum:

We are rapidly approaching a point in half the states in America where abortions will be effectively available only to rich women. They'll just jet off to clinics in California or New York if they have to. Non-rich women, who can't afford that, will be forced into motherhood whether they like it or not. At which point conservatives, as usual, will suddenly lose all interest in them except as props for their rants about lazy welfare cheats.

No, non-rich women will NOT be forced into motherhood.  They will be forced into botched, back-alley illegal abortions, which should just be called "Gosnells" from now on.  The will end up sterile from punctures and infections if they're lucky; dead if they're not.  Or maybe imprisoned for life on bogus "murder" charges.

And no, conservatives will never lose interest in women who have sex outside the "Dugger rules." The maimed, dead and imprisoned ones will be held up forever as proof that only Dugger-rule sex is safe.

Of Course Hobby Lobby is Owned and Run by Anti-Worker, Anti-Family Motherfuckers

And thanks to the Roberts Corporate Court, Hobby Lobby's medieval cruelty now trumps your constitutional rights.

Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Hobby Lobby puts its pro-life, pro-child policies into practice:

When a very pregnant Felicia Allen applied for medical leave from her job at Hobby Lobby three years ago, one might think that the company best known for denying its employees insurance coverage of certain contraceptives—on the false grounds that they cause abortions—would show equal concern for helping one of its employees when she learned she was pregnant. 

Instead, Allen says the self-professed evangelical Christian arts-and-crafts chain fired her and then tried to prevent her from accessing unemployment benefits. 

“They didn’t even want me to come back after having my baby, to provide for it,” she says.

And here I thought Hobby Lobby was acting out of very strong principle for life and not because it hates women and wants to punish them for having sex.

There’s also this gem:

When Allen applied for unemployment benefits, she says Hobby Lobby’s corporate office gave the unemployment agency a false version of events, claiming she could have taken off personal leave but chose not to. In the end, Allen says she won her claim for unemployment benefits, but she felt she had been wrongly discriminated based on the fact that she was pregnant. In February 2012 she sued Hobby Lobby, but her lawsuit was swiftly dropped because, like most—if not all—Hobby Lobby employees, Allen had signed away her rights to sue the company. 

Though the multibillion-dollar, nearly 600-store chain took its legal claim against the federal government all the way to the Supreme Court when it didn’t want to honor the health insurance requirements of the Affordable Care Act, the company forbids its employees from seeking justice in the court of law. 

Allen had signed a binding arbitration agreement upon taking the job, though she says she doesn’t remember doing so. The agreement, which all Hobby Lobby employees are required to sign, forces employees to resolve legal disputes outside of court through a process known as arbitration.

Lying so she couldn’t get unemployment is very special, but forcing employees to sign documents waiving their right to sue the company in order to be hired should be as illegal as the yellow-dog contract. I would ask how something like that is even legal in this nation, but of course I already know why–because corporations control our lives in ways they have not in a century.

Half of All Voters Scorned

From Rumproast:

The Next Satire to Become True Any Day Now

I give it a month before it's law in Tennessee.

- New Anti-Abortion Legislation Requires Doctors To Scale 18-Foot Wall Surrounding Clinic

In My Name

Divine Irony:

Hypatia

Divine Irony:

atheismforthewin:

http://memes-of-reason.tumblr.com/

Self-Hating Useful Idiots

Seriously, anyone non-white, non-male, non-Xian, non-straight and/or non-rich who votes repug is too suicidally self-hating to be allowed to vote

David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

Oy. How much self-loathing do you need to have, and how driven by greed or fundamentalism do you have to be, to be a female Republican?

Somebody Ask Alison: How Would You Vote on the Senate Bill to Overturn Hobby Lobby?

It's turning into a joke, the way Grimes can't bring herself to take a public position on any issue more controversial than naming a post office. I'm changing my over-under on her loss to Mitch to 25 points.

Talking Points Memo:On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) moved to bring up Democrats' bill to overturn the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling.

The "cloture motion" sets up a likely procedural vote in the Senate on Wednesday, requiring 60 votes to defeat a filibuster.

Republicans, who strongly support the Court's 5-4 ruling against the Obamacare birth control mandate, are expected to block the bill.

The bill, written by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Mark Udall (D-CO), would clarify that employers may not opt out of covering contraceptives or other preventive services in their insurance plans without co-pays, even if business owners object to the services on religious grounds.
For Democrats, the legislation is also a rallying cry to their younger voters, particularly women,
ahead of a tough mid-term election.

Tens of thousands of Kentucky Democratic women are going to sit home this November because Grimes has done absolutely nothing to make them think she gives a flying fuck about their rights or their lives.

QOTD

Digby:

That's one of the characteristics that makes one a Republican. Just as some of them are simply misinformed and superstitious and others are believers in throwback patriarchal hierarchies,  the wealthy Republican believes that everyone is entitled to all the freedom they can buy. If you don't have the cash, well,  who's fault is that?

McConnell Not Afraid to Fly His Women-Hating Flag

No, Zandar, I don't think there's no difference between the parties and of course I'm voting for Grimes - after I put on my Level 5 HazMat Suit.

The issue is not whether Grimes would be a "better" Senator than McConnell; the issue is how badly she's going to lose because her repug-lite positions are turning off thousands of Democratic voters.

Joe Sonka reminds us that there is a difference between the two political parties, and that is the stated goal of the GOP is to end all abortion in America by criminalizing it.

The National Right to Life Commission (NRLC) held their national convention in Louisville this weekend at the Galt House, rallying supporters to their cause of ending legal abortion in America. Their featured speaker Saturday morning, Sen. Mitch McConnell, told a slightly more than half-full conference room that “the tide is turning” on the issue, and he would help the anti-abortion advocates win their fight. 

“I’m not sure when it first occurred to me that we are winning this debate, but there’s no question that we are,” said McConnell. “The signs are everywhere, and you have played a huge role in that.” 

One of those signs came two days later, when a 5-4 Supreme Court decision ruled in favor of the craft store Hobby Lobby, who argued that they should be exempt from an Affordable Care Act mandate that they must provide their employees coverage for four types of birth control the company considers “abortion,” because this violates Hobby Lobby’s religious freedom. Despite no legal or scientific basis for that claim, the court ruled that “closely held” private companies — which make up 90 percent of American companies — are exempt from this mandate if they claim it goes against their religious beliefs, granting such companies the same religious rights as persons. 

With the current makeup of Congress and the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade does not appear in eminent danger, but abortion opponents openly celebrated the Hobby Lobby ruling as an advancement for their larger cause of chipping away at women’s reproductive rights. At last weekend’s convention in Louisville, McConnell urged attendees to help elect him majority leader of the Senate this fall so he can push through legislation banning abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy, which has already passed the House. 

Two Republican congressmen from Kentucky, Representatives Andy Barr and Brett Guthrie, who also spoke Saturday morning, are co-sponsors of legislation that would not only ban all abortion in America — with no exemptions for rape, incest and health of the mother — but could go further than the Hobby Lobby decision, banning many forms of birth control.

And that's really the point for the American Taliban here.  If you take away reproductive health care choices, then women will have to remain celibate or have to be punished for being sluts, and that will magically fix everything that's wrong with America.  It's laughable, or would be, if it again wasn't the stated goal of one of the major political parties in this country and the position of tens of millions of their voters.

So yes, when people ask me how I can support Alison Lundergan Grimes when she's "just as bad as Mitch", I remind them exactly why that's not the case.

If  every Democratic voter in Kentucky who hates McConnell and congressional repugs voted for Grimes, she'd win in a landslide. But they won't. Not because they think there's no difference, but because Grimes has yet to give them a better reason than "I'm not Mitch."

Somebody Ask Alison If She Thinks Your Boss Can Decide How You Fuck

Grimes sent out yet another begging-for-money email this afternoon.  It stood out like a sore thumb in my inbox among the dozens of emails from women's groups and progressive organizations condemning the anti-woman, anti-family, anti-freedom, corporations-as-masters supreme court decision.

Probably the most breathtaking aspect of the majority's opinion is how it just doesn't give two shits about women. Alito's decision doesn't take into account, even for a line or two, how a ruling for "religious liberty" is a ruling against women, dismissing that notion outright, in fact. This is all about making sure that butthurt Christians can do what their specific sect believes will please an invisible sky wizard, which includes, for some, making sure that women have those goddamn babies. The majority just ignores that there's real women with real lives who this decision really affects.

Is Grimes not aware of the catastrophic blow that decision is to millions of working families and their children?  Or does she agree with the Sammy "christian sharia for all!" Alito that the freakazoid fantasies of employers should trump workers' health and freedom?
 

Or does she just not give a flying fuck about anybody who can't afford to max out on campaign contributions to her?

Half the population of the Commonwealth, Alison.  That's whose votes you just lost by ignoring the greatest direct threat to women's lives and safety since another Supreme Court denied workers any rights at all in 1905.

Let's Play

Time for some hardball.

The Rude Pundit:

Now, we can argue over whether or not the idea of "buffer zones" violates the First Amendment and if they are ever right, whether at clinics or conventions or the miles you have to stand away from the Supreme Court, but one thing we can perhaps agree on: If this is the motherfucking law of the land now, what's good for the motherfuckin' goose is good for the motherfuckin' gander.

So let's get out there, every goddamn Sunday, and head to the churches that send their lunatic Jesus-fellaters out to try to shut down Planned Parenthoods, and stand on their sidewalks, just like the one up there outside St. Mary's in Grafton, and let's make churchgoing a living fuckin' hell for 'em. Let's bodily block the access to the walkways that lead to the church. Let's bring signs that have pictures of women who were killed by illegal abortions. Let's go up to them and try to convince them to convert or go atheist, following them until we are on church property and have to stop. Let's block the street by walking back and forth in the crosswalk. Let's force the churchgoers to need escorts to even get inside.

Shit, let's plaster the telephone poles with photos of the priests and church leaders, their addresses, their phone numbers. Let's tell them as they pass, "We know where you live." Let's film everyone going into the church and post those on a website. Hey, it's a public fuckin' sidewalk, man. Let's scream at them about how they're terrible people, how they support raping children, how they have given money to help silence victims. Can't you hear their silent screams? Can't you? Fuck, yeah.

Going to church is a choice, no? Let's make sure they regret that fuckin' choice, however legal it may be for them to make it. Then let's see how quickly they're begging for buffer zones. 

How Freakazoids Just Love Women to Death

What I don't get and never will is how any woman can listen to verbal assault like this and not walk the fuck out permanently.

Think Progress:

The students who attend Bob Jones University, one of the most conservative Christian colleges in the country, say that they’re often traumatized after seeking counseling from school administrators on the issue of sexual assault. According to an Al Jazeera investigation, Bob Jones staff members have responded to allegations of rape by telling rape victims they should repent for their sins.

Katie Landry, who was raped by a coworker several times during the summer before she started attending Bob Jones, didn’t tell anyone about her assault for several years. She was deeply ashamed and failed most of her classes her first year of school. When she eventually sought counseling, the dean of students told her that “we have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.”

“He confirmed my worst nightmare — it was something I had done, it was something about me, it was my fault,” Landry said in an interview with Al Jazeera’s program America Tonight. The dean also asked her if she had done anything “impure” or smoked pot.

“I think they should have not heaped more shame on me. Because I was already filled to the brim with shame. I didn’t need any more,” Landry added.

Women who willingly subject themselves to conservativism are self-hating traitors to their sex.

Feminist Frightbats FTW

Stick to trying to chase little girls out of science class, boys: grownup feminists are way out of your league.

Persons

I still say the only realistic response to the antis is to demand Abortion on Demand, but here's a logical argument if you insist.

Divine Irony:

Embryos and non-viable fetuses aren’t persons nor do they possess the neurocomplexity to become persons. Abortion is currently a legal option and even if that changes, it will be an option in the mind of any woman who has an unwanted pregnancy. So all you can realistically strive for is the reduction of unwanted pregnancies; that will, in turn, reduce the frequency of abortions. How do you do that? Get behind the problem. Sex education, marriage counseling, counseling for women who are already mothers, more jobs which will get women further from the poverty line, a focus on abuse in relationships and so on. Putting up a quote that has obviously ignored what is meant by person and adding that “abortion is not an option” is useless. As it stands, you’re like 99.9% of prolifers. There’s nothing unique about your approach or your views. However, if you were to choose to get behind the problem by targeting the quality-of-life issues that prompt decisions to get abortions, you’d literally revolutionize what it means to be prolife. Pro-choice, as a label, fits me because I maintain that abortion should be a legal, safe, medical option for women struggling with such decisions. However, I’m not blind to the inherent worth of getting behind the issue and addressing underlying problems. That’s a fresh approach and more importantly, it’s a better way of thinking about this issue.

↵ Originally from hopelessblueeyedromantic

↵ Reblogged from academicatheism

The New Underground Railroad

Fighting the new restrictions is not enough. That's going to take years, if not decades, and there are women literally dying for lack of access to an abortion every single day.

Eesha Pandit at In These Times:

The patient arrived in Houston at midnight after a seven-hour Greyhound trip from a small Texas town. With no money for a hotel, she spent the night in the bus station and took a cab to the clinic for her early morning appointment.

Susanna S., a member of the Houston- based Clinic Action Support Network (CASN), met her as she left the building. The patient was distressed, Susanna re- calls; she’d been unaware that she’d have to return two days later for her procedure, due to a mandatory waiting period. She wasn’t prepared for—and couldn’t pay for—the extra nights, nor the three bus tickets needed to get home and then back to the clinic.

The medical procedure was, of course, an abortion. No other healthcare procedure is so heavily regulated and politicized. And a new Texas law—House Bill 2(HB2)—has added a host of mandatory, medically unnecessary steps to the process of obtaining an abortion.

Among other restrictions, HB2 requires patients who undergo a common form of abortion—a “medical abortion,” via pill—to visit the clinic for each of the two doses of medication, rather than taking the second dose at home, as is typical. The law also re- quires a 14-day follow-up visit, in addition to the existing 24-hour waiting period between initial consultation and procedure for women who live within 100 miles of a clinic. That means medical abortions now require a minimum of four visits, if not more.

Angie Hayes, director of CASN, says that women often arrive unprepared for such a lengthy process. “Several times now we’ve had people show up from out of town, taking a bus, planning to sleep in the bus station, with no toiletries or change of clothes,” only to find out they’d have to wait for several days, she says.

SNIP

That’s the impetus behind CASN, which was founded last summer in response to the new law, and aims to help Houston-area women clear the growing hurdles to abortion access.

SNIP

The patient who arrived in Houston at midnight was able to get her abortion. CASN put her up in a hotel for the weekend. A CASN volunteer drove her to her Monday morning appointment, and, after she’d rested, Susanna took her back to the bus station. Susanna (who requested her last name not be used for her safety) recalls, “[The patient] said, ‘If I hadn’t met you at the clinic, I’d have spent the weekend at the bus station.’ She still texts me every week or two to let me know how she is doing, which tells me that the support CASN was able to provide made a real difference.”

Explain to me again why there aren't restrictions like this on Viagara-seeking men hell-bent on murdering billions of life-giving sperm.

Trust Women

“I was not willing to allow that terrorism to succeed … The people who are harmed by that are the women of Kansas.”

Dr. Cheryl Chastine, abortion provider

Five years ago today, freakazoid right-wing terrorist Scott Roeder murdered Dr. George Tiller.

Don't get mad; get even.  Trust Women.

It’s not easy to fill a job when the last person to hold it was murdered. But just over a year ago, that was what Julie Burkhart decided she had to do.

Murder was only the final act of violence committed against Dr. George Tiller, the abortion provider here, and his clinic, five years ago this week. By 2009, when anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder shot Tiller in the head during services at Tiller’s church, the doctor had already been shot in both arms – he continued performing abortions the next day – and his clinic had been bombed. Abortion opponents had blockaded his clinic repeatedly, and they had gone through the legal and political system (which had its own abuses).

 

“His is the only abortion clinic we’ve never been able to close,” Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, told The New York Times after Tiller’s death.

Roeder, who is serving life in prison for the May 31, 2009 murder, succeeded where others failed. But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Burkhart, who had run Tiller’s political action committee, told msnbc recently that after her mourning her boss, she wondered whether it was time to move onto something else: “I don’t know. Landscaping or something.”

But with Tiller’s clinic shuttered, women in the Wichita area were being forced to travel for hundreds of miles – from three to six hours each way – to end their pregnancies. It would be her task, Burkhart decided, to reopen in Tiller’s former cl

QOTD

David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

The common denominator is the gun. It is always the gun, and it will always be the gun. We can try to fix the other social problems all we want--and we should. But until we fix the gun problem, we will continue to offer the lives of ourselves and our children on the altar of this insatiable, bloodthirsty Lord we euphemistically call the "gun rights movement." Year after year, month after month we will continue to propitiate this monster with our blood and tears until enough of us decide that we have had enough, overthrow its foul priests and sack the tainted officials corrupted by its bloodstained lucre. Until that day the NRA will simply take our children, group by group, to its yearly Lottery because, after all, that's the way we've always done it. For freedom.