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White House marks 100 days of Republican-led abortion bans after Supreme Court ruling [1]

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Date: 2022-10-04

The Department of Education will remind universities that Title IX requires they protect students from discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, and that encompasses protecting access to abortion and reproductive services. The HHS is announcing an expansion of Title X grants of more than $6 million to “protect and expand access to reproductive health care and improve service delivery, promote the adoption of healthy behaviors, and reduce existing health disparities.”

One-hundred days in and 13 states have totally banned abortion and criminalized the procedure. Georgia has a six-week ban, and another six states have attempted bans that have been blocked in state courts. As of July, just weeks after the ban, the Guttmacher Institute reported that 43 clinics in 11 states had already stopped providing abortions.

That’s overwhelmed states where abortion is still legal. In August, clinics in Illinois reported three-week wait times for patients because of demand, with 86% of patients coming from other states. Those three weeks could be critical in determining how an abortion is managed. A three-week delay could mean that someone couldn’t have a medication abortion because it’s only approved up to 10 weeks.

Badly written and confusing state legislation has led to unnecessary medical emergencies where pregnant people’s lives have been put at risk. Doctors have been confused on when they are or aren’t allowed to provide and abortion in medical emergencies—how close to death does the patient have to be? How much blood do they have to have lost? Pregnant people are being denied medically necessary abortions and are having their lives endangered because providers fear being charged with felonies.

All of this was foreseen in the amicus briefs the Supreme Court received before deciding Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organzation, the Mississippi case that tossed out Roe v. Wade. All of it was predicted. The children, victims of rape or incest, whose lives were put at risk by delayed services. Rape victims being forced to give birth and then dealing with the possibility of having to face their attacker in court in custody hearings. The people with illnesses being denied critical medications because those pills could also be used to end a pregnancy.

All of this the Supreme Court was briefed on, and more, in detail. They knew that abortion costs were going to soar because of the travel expenses involved. They knew that states were going to ban abortions with no exceptions, including for fetuses who have absolutely no chance of living after birth. They knew they would be forcing women to have dead fetuses inside of them. They knew they would be creating not just physical harm, but emotional harm to families having to make the ordeal of a dangerous pregnancy far worse. They knew they were putting victims of intimate partner violence in increased danger. They knew they were making the lives of the most vulnerable and the most marginalized—undocumented people, people of color, low-income people, LGBTQ people—even more difficult.

They knew they were unleashing confusion and chaos around the country, and that Republican legislatures would make it even worse with bad laws. They knew that the next step—one that they’ve set up—would be a national ban.

The White House is not going to announce that restructuring, reforming, or expanding the Supreme Court is on the agenda for its abortion ban response. As far as anyone knows, dealing with the court isn’t on Biden’s agenda at all. It has to be, because the 6-3 Trump-packed majority is not going to stop at Dobbs. They’re going to impose a national abortion ban if they have the chance.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/4/2126905/-White-House-marks-100-days-of-Republican-led-abortion-bans-after-Supreme-Court-ruling

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