Thanks to a ruling from the 5th Circuit and a request from Greg Abbot to expedite enforcement, Texas' wildly invasive sonogram law is going into effect. Women seeking abortions will be subject to a mandatory ultrasound and forced to look at the sonogram image, and their doctor will be required to read a bunch of medically unnecessary information about fetal development or risk losing their medical license. For women who are less than 10 weeks pregnant, that sonogram will be conducted with a trans-vaginal probe, seen at right.
The law took effect sooner than anticipated, since Attorney General Greg Abbott got permission for immediate enforcement after 5th Circuit Judge Edith Jones struck down Federal Judge Sam Sparks' temporary restraining order on the law. Usually there's a three-week waiting period before laws are enforced. Now the Department of Health Services is writing rules for enforcement of the new law.
Here's a run-down of what happened in the litigation and where anti-probers can go from here.
June 13, 2011: The initial lawsuit against the sonogram bill is filed in federal court, with plaintiffs seeking to prevent the law from going into effect on September 1, 2011. The lawsuit seeks a judgment that the mandatory sonogram law is unconstitutional and unenforceable in whole and/or in part.
August 30, 2011: Judge Sam Sparks issues a temporary restraining order, or TRO, blocking enforcement. Specifically, Sparks' ruling prohibits any enforcement of the provisions requiring the display of the ultrasound, the detailed description of the fetal image, and the audible heart auscultation of the fetus.
January 5, 2012: AG Greg Abbott appeals Sparks' injunction at the 5th Circuit court. The anti-sonogram side continued to argue that the sonograms and compelled speech by the doctors are not medically necessary, and that the State of Texas was trying to insert ideological speech into the doctor-patient relationship.
January 10, 2012: Chief Judge Edith Jones, noted anti-abortion zealot, reversed Spark's TRO and stated that there's precedent for the new Texas law. That gave pause to opponents of the law, since any appeal of Sparks' final decision would have to go back through the 5th Circuit.
January 13, 2012: Abbott gets permission to enforce the sonogram law immediately, rather than wait the usual 3 weeks for the provision to take effect. The 5th Circuit granted his request, thus denying the anti-sonogram side the opportunity to appeal Jones' decision to reverse Sparks' injunction. The Texas Department of State Health Services was instructed to issue rules for compliance with the law, as well as prosecute doctors who do not obey it.
January 20, 2012: At a hearing on the initial lawsuit, Judge Sparks says his "hands are tied" by the 5th Circuit's reversal of his original TRO. Essentially, if Sparks rules for the plaintiffs, Jones is likely to reverse him when the State appeals his decision.
Now What? The best chance for opponents of the invasive sonogram law is for Sparks to rule against the law on constitutional grounds, and then have the ensuing appeal by the state take place en banc, or to the entire 5th Circuit, not just a three-judge panel including the dreaded anti-choice Judge Jones. A majority of the 17 judges on the 5th Circuit would have to agree to rehear it, and then could potentially reverse Judge Jones. Not all 17 would have to hear the case. Or at least that's my understanding. Other Circuit courts have ruled against similar laws, so there's a solid chance that a wider group of judges ruling on our sonogram law at the 5th Circuit might produce a different outcome.
Conceivably if Sparks does rule, and then the losing side appeals to the 5th Circuit, the losing side there can appeal to the Supreme Court. It's not clear however if the SCOTUS would take up the case, and given the current ideological swing of the court to the right thanks to George W. Bush's appointments, how the anti-sonogram side would fare.
So that's where we are. We'll keep you updated on this issue as it continues.
So this is an unfortunate way to end Cervical Awareness Month: the Dallas-based Susan G. Komen Foundation, which raises money to fight breast cancer, announced today it will stop its funding to Planned Parenthood for breast exams.
That's really smart, Komen Foundation! Denying low-income women breast exams through defunding Planned Parenthood will totally help win the fight against breast cancer. OMG why didn't someone think of this sooner!
Last year, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which is the largest and most well-known breast cancer advocacy group, funded 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals provided by Planned Parenthood. As we noted earlier today, Planned Parenthood performed almost 750,000 breast cancer screenings in 2010.
Apparently the Komen foundation has adopted a new rule that prevents it from providing grants to organizations that are under investigation by state, local, or federal authorities. A conservative Republican Congressman, Cliff Stearns of Florida, recently launched a probe to determine if money was improperly used for abortions. It's a b.s. accusation designed to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving funding, one which will in turn imperil the health of thousands of women.
Planned Parenthood claims that the Komen foundation is caving in to pressure from anti-abortion activists.Clearly these anti-abortion activists would rather see more women die of breast cancer than if that's what it takes to stop women from exercising their right to choose.
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told the Associated Press, "It's hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women's lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying. It's really hurtful."
It sounds like the Komen foundation was fairly rude in how they dealt with Richards and Planned Parenthood. From the Statesman:
Richards said she was informed via a phone call from Komen's president, Elizabeth Thompson, in December.
"It was incredibly surprising," Richards said. "It wasn't even a conversation - it was an announcement."
Richards subsequently sent a letter to Komen's top leaders - CEO Nancy Brinker and board chairman Dr. LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr. - requesting a meeting with the board and asserting that Komen had misrepresented Planned Parenthood's funding-eligibility status in some states.
According to Planned Parenthood, the Komen leaders replied to Richards with a brief letter ignoring the request for a meeting, defending the new grant criteria, and adding, "We understand the disappointment of any organization that is affected by these policy and strategy updates."
This was a bad move on the Komen foundation's part. Planned Parenthood primarily provides women's health care -- annual physicals and exams, pap smears, birth control prescriptions, and yes, breast exams and mammogram referrals. With this move, the Komen foundation isn't just denying support to Planned Parenthood -- they're denying support to women. It's very shameful.
Want to do something? There's a range of Internet actions you can take.
DailyKos has a quick letter you can fire off to the Susan G. Komen foundation: click here.
There's an Act.ly petition calling on Komen to reverse their decision: click here.
Boo, Komen foundation! Boo!! Pro-choice women get breast cancer, too! Shame on you.
The Texas Tribune ran an interesting interview with the doctors who head the American Medical Association and Texas Medical Association today. Topics included Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates, the American Care Act and its individual mandate, and the general politicization of healthcare.
The doctors interviewed were American Medical Association President Peter Carmel, a New Jersey-based pediatric neurosurgeon, and Texas Medical Association President Bruce Malone, an Austin orthopedic surgeon. There was an interesting -- and very insightful nugget in there about the Republican Party's war on women's health. Carmel directly called out the sonogram law as a "needless, dangerous interference" in medicine, and both decried cuts to family planning and attacks on Planned Parenthood. Malone went so far as to call it "stupid."
Read for yourself, formatting/emphasis mine:
TT: Where do you come down on Texas' abortion sonogram law, which requires a sonogram at least 24 hours ahead of an abortion and mandates that a doctor play the fetal heartbeat aloud and show the woman the image of the fetus?
Carmel: It is a needless, dangerous interference with the practice of medicine by politicians. And as physicians, we have to oppose all interference that we possibly can by politicians in the practice of medicine. There are all sorts of rules all over the country, with state legislatures trying to dictate what doctors do. In the state of Florida, it is illegal for a doctor to ask the family of a child whether there are guns in the home. You can ask about storage of chemicals, about fire alarms, fire escapes, open windows, how the windows are sealed. You're allowed to ask all those questions, but you cannot ask whether there are firearms in the home. Firearms are a major cause of childhood mortality and injury. It's so extreme as to be ludicrous. The important principle is, the government shouldn't interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. The government shouldn't practice medicine.
TT: And what about Texas lawmakers' efforts to slash spending on family planning? Now they're threatening not to participate in the Medicaid Women's Health Program if they can't exclude Planned Parenthood.
Malone: That would be a really stupid thing to do. Planned Parenthood does not do abortions in the state of Texas with state funds. So this is a very stupid political thing. It's not like the state of Texas has another safety net for these women for medical care. The Texas Medical Association doesn't want to get into the issue of whether a patient wants an elective abortion. That's not what we're dealing with. We're talking about well woman services, pap smears and breast exams, things that make public health sense. And we don't want to see those women who are vulnerable denied essential medical services because someone wants to debate an ethics issue. That's their right to debate that. That's fine, but these are essential medical services.
Carmel: What it sets up is two classes of patients. If you've got rocks, you've got the ability, you've got access to contraception, to women's health, to all of these things. If you're poor, we're going to deny you access to that kind of health. That's first of all not tolerable for medicine, and it can't be tolerable for Americans. No American would say, "Yes, the poor should get inferior treatment."
Aww, Dr. Carmel's clearly spent too long in a Blue State. Actually, down here the Republicans do want to deny poor people treatment. We've seen it session after session after session.
It's important to note that these leaders in the field of medicine disagree with what the Republican legislature is doing -- making women's health an ideological issue, rather than a medical one. Slashing funds to women's health and family planning services hurts all of us.
I'm glad that these distinguished doctors realize this. It's too bad our Republican legislators don't.
"We're not going to lose the battle and lose the war and have to pay for it."
With those words from Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole, the Austin City Council voted unanimously today to repeal our old Crisis Pregnancy Center ordinance, and then unanimously passed a revised ordinance intended to survive scrutiny in ongoing legal battles.
Back in 2010, Council unanimously passed an ordinance requiring Crisis Pregnancy Centers to post a sign on their doors stating that the businesses don't provide abortions, refer for abortions, or provide FDA-licensed birth control, and that there is no licensed medical professional on site. Since the passing of the 2010 ordinance, other cities' CPC regulation efforts have come under increased scrutiny, and many have been struck down. Here in Austin, a group of plaintiffs that operate the centers and generally oppose abortions sued the City, claiming that the ordinance -- which simply requires CPCs to state what services they do not provide -- violated their First Amendment rights.
Today, Council considered a revised ordinance, sponsored by Council Members Bill Spelman and Mike Martinez, that removed language from the original that was not likely to stand muster in the courts. (Read a preview of this issue here.) Council repealed the old ordinance--we cannot have two contradictory ordinances on the books--and then considered a new ordinance. The new ordinance requires a sign that doesn't make reference to abortions or birth control. It is strictly a disclosure that there is no licensed healthcare professional on site. That's what was determined to be most likely to stand up in court.
The absurdity of the situation is that CPC's don't have to be licensed. Taxi cabs, nail salons, food trailers, pedi-cabbers, even fishermen have to be licensed, but any anti-choice group can set up shop to intimidate and misinform women into carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. Many of them also receive tremendous amounts of funding from the state. That's right -- our tax dollars are being used to help these organizations intimidate women and provide incorrect information about abortion, pregnancy, and women's health.
Speakers were vastly in favor of the new ordinance requiring CPC signage, noting time and again that it's about informing women about what services the business provides. Genevieve van Cleve, Deputy Political Director of Annie's List, thanked the Council for supporting women, and reminded all present of the Texas Legislature's unrelenting assault on Texas women, children, and families. She emphasized the rights of consumers to know what services businesses provide, stating "not only can the government require truth in advertising for healthcare purposes, the government should do so." Gen used the nail salon analogy to remind Council that most service providers must live up to a basic level of professionalism to keep operating. Not so for the deliberately misleading CPC's.
Other speakers included a volunteer attorney with Jane's Due Process who counsels pregnant women on their legal options and helps teenagers receive judicial bypass of parental notification laws when needed. She noted the time-sensitive nature of abortion, and that the longer women wait, the more costly or limited the services may be. (This especially true in Texas, where many providers won't perform an abortion after a certain number of weeks -- we're not talking third trimester here, we're talking early- to- mid-second trimester.) CPC's confuse teenagers who want abortions, which can cost them precious time and money.
Speakers against the ordinance were almost all male (of course), and as Martinez pointed out, most don't even live here in Austin. Some claimed that it was a First Amendment issue; others simply seemed to hate abortion. Several tried to intimidate the Council with threats of exorbitant legal fees, which apparently was the main reservation our staunchly pro-choice Council had with the new ordinance. An attorney from the Liberty Institute suggested that if the City loses in the courts, they'll need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars -- possibly over $1 million -- to the anti-choice groups pursuing the lawsuits.
That's a valid concern -- if indeed our ordinance couldn't stand up in court and we lost, does Austin want to funnel large amounts of taxpayer money into anti-choice coffers? That's hardly in keeping with our community values. However, MPT Cole got to the heart of that issue during questioning of Sara Clark, the attorney for the City in this matter. Cole drove the point that if it looks like Austin won't prevail in the lawsuit, we can immediately repeal the ordinance before we lose in court.
The current ordinance is currently being litigated in Federal court. An appeal of the outcome of this first trial would land on the 5th Circuit Court, home of Chief Judge Edith Jones, the noted anti-abortion zealot who recently overturned Federal Judge Sparks' stay on the sonogram law. (Read more about Jones' extreme anti-choice views here.) The plaintiffs in the CPC case will likely revise their filings to sue the City over this new ordinance. However, speakers today were very confident that our new ordinance was carefully crafted to follow existing legal precedent from other Circuit courts, and has a very strong chance of winning if challenged.
As NARAL lobbyist Blake Rocap pointed out, we're simply asking the CPC's to post information that they themselves state is true -- there are no licensed medical professionals on site. If CPC's already admit what Council wants them to admit on their own front doors, how is that compelled speech? Ironically, the sonogram lawsuit may actually work in our favor here, since Judge Edith Jones doesn't think it's an undue burden for abortion providers to perform a mandatory sonogram and require doctors to read off a fact sheet about fetal development before performing the procedure.
Spelman made a motion that Martinez seconded to pass the revised ordinance on all three readings, which requires a supermajority. Today, that would have been a 5-1 vote, since the Mayor was off the dais on an official trip to London to study economic development in the high-tech sector. Passing on all three readings means it's a done deal -- no need to vote two more times on this issue.
So, good job Council. It's great to see them uphold our community values and provide women with accurate information. And a special thanks to Council Members Spelman and Martinez -- both men, it's worth pointing out, who refused to let this issue drop and pushed this revised ordinance through. It's really great to see two males standing up for women's health, and something we'd all like to see a lot more of. Women's health is an issue that impacts our entire community, because it impacts our mothers, wives, sisters, friends, colleagues, and neighbors.
Hopefully our ordinance stands up in court, and can soon be enforced. If CPC's refuse to post the sign, citizens can call code compliance and 311. Likely the CPC's would be given a warning, but if they still refused to post the sign, they'd start getting tickets for Class C misdemeanors, punishable by a fine of up to $450.
We will keep you posted as this issue works its way through the courts.
This week, the Austin City Council will consider amending or repealing an ordinance that requires Crisis Pregnancy Centers to disclose that they don't provide or make referrals for abortion, or provide FDA-approved birth control. While I am very confident that our council members remain staunchly pro-choice -- the ordinance passed unanimously in 2010 -- the question is how Austin's ordinance can survive repeated lawsuits from the right-wing, and what other tools are available to warn women about these insidious anti-choice "resource centers."
Crisis Pregnancy Centers are essentially anti-choice entities that attempt to mislead, intimidate, and coerce young women into keeping their unwanted pregnancies. While many claim to be "clinics," in reality there are no medically licensed staff working at the centers, and many provide no health care services at all. Instead, the focus of these CPC's is to stop women from exercising their right to an abortion, and prevent them from avoiding unplanned pregnancies in the future.
NARAL Texas has more information about these insidious organizations:
CPCs not only fail to address the range of choices available to women; they often attempt to dissuade women from seeking abortion by presenting factually inaccurate and misleading information. Women seeking services are often told abortion leads to breast cancer and psychological distress, or "post-abortion syndrome"--despite no medical evidence backing either claim. Women may also be shown intentionally upsetting images or receive false information about their own pregnancies.
In 2009, the Texas Legislature shifted $4 million in family planning funds to these unlicensed, unregulated centers. CPC's are all over Texas. Austin has a number of these centers, which claim to "minister" to women with unexpected, unplanned, or unwanted pregnancies. In reality, CPC's don't provide women with a comprehensive list of options, which includes abortion, and they don't provide scientifically accurate information about how women can prevent future unplanned pregnancies.
In 2010, Council Member Bill Spelman sponsored and passed an ordinance requiring CPCs to post signage indicating that they don't provide abortions or FDA-approved birth control. Last fall, several CPC operators sued the City, claiming that the lawsuit violated their First Amendment rights. The CPC plaintiffs -- the Roman Catholic Diocese of Austin, Catholic Charities of Central Texas, the Austin Pregnancy Resource Center, and the South Austin Pregnancy Resource Center -- say that the City's ordinance doesn't place such burdens on other providers. However, as The Austin Chronicle notes, abortion providers are required by the State of Texas to disclose that they provide abortions.
What's so ironic is that CPC's are arguing against compelling speech, yet at the same time anti-choice activists are in favor of compelling unnecessary speech through their beloved sonogram law. In the lawsuit against the CPC's, anti-choice organizations are arguing that compelling speech violates their First Amendment rights, even though the signage is accurate (unlike the information provided by CPC's). In the sonogram law, the State of Texas is arguing that it's all fine and dandy to require doctors to perform mandatory sonograms of women seeking abortions, even though the speech they're compelling is medically unnecessary. Compelling speech is fine for the anti-choice movement when it serves their aim of pressuring and intimidating women into not having abortions. But when the speech actually gives women useful, important information -- Whoa, Nelly!
This week, the Austin City Council is looking for a way to amend the ordinance such that the City can successfully defend the ordinance in court. Meanwhile, the city legal department has a competing agenda item calling for the repeal of the CPC signage ordinance. Ideally, the amended ordinance -- put forward by Council Members Spelman and Martinez -- would remove specific language that has failed in other legal tests, leaving a CPC ordinance that can successfully be defended in court.
City Legal's concern may include the amount of time and money spent defending the CPC ordinance. It raises a valuable question: how much taxpayer dollars should we spend defending ordinances that uphold our community values? Similarly, council could explore whether there are other ways to accomplish the same aim of giving women warning that CPC's do not provide comprehensive services or medically accurate information, nor are they under any obligation to do so.
The right wing and anti-choice organizations have an immense amount of funding available to fight these ordinances and drag every other pro-choice or anti-anti-choice effort through the courts. It's part of their strategy to chip away at abortion rights in America. However, if the ordinance stands, Austinites have the chance to give anti-choice organizations a taste of their own medicine. While the CPC ordinance is in court, it is not being enforced. Should the City prevail and the CPC become an enforceable ordinance, CPC's could be ticketed for failing to comply. It would be a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $450 in municipal court. Should the City prevail and the CPC's refuse to post their warning signs, an orchestrated effort to call code compliance on them could result in thousands of dollars in fines levied against the centers.
NARAL has a handy one-click way to contact the entire Austin City Council in support of holding CPC's accountable. The anti-choicers are very well organized and will flood Council inboxes with blather against this effort. Make sure our side has its voice heard as well.
I'll have more coverage of the vote tomorrow.
Disclaimer: I'm on the board of NARAL Texas because I am super-duper pro-choice. If you want to support NARAL, we have a fundraiser this week. Click here for more information.
Yesterday, the 5th Circuit court overturned US District Judge Sam Sparks' decision to block enforcement of Texas' insane and invasive mandatory sonogram law while he conducted the trial over its constitutionality. Here's some of the more pertinent information we've learned and read overnight on this issue.
When does the law take effect?
The 5th Circuit ruled that the law can be enforced as of January 31. Doctors who do not comply with the law risk losing their medical license. That's right--doctors who don't want to be an ideological stooge of Texas Republicans' anti-women agenda can lose their medical license if they refuse to provide unnecessary information to women seeking abortions.
What about the original trial?
Sparks has a summary judgment hearing scheduled for January 20. When he will make his ruling is unknown, though Sparks is expected to indicate when that ruling might occur on the 20th. The trial considers a wider range of issues than just whether the bill is indeed unconstitutional by denying doctors their free speech rights. If he rules that HB15, the Sonogram bill, is indeed no bueno before the date it is slated to be enforced, then it won't go into effect.
Can the State appeal?
Yes, and if they do, the case goes back to the 5th Circuit, where Chief Judge Edith Jones smacked down Sparks' temporary restraining order against the law. That's bad news, since arch conservative Jones seems to have a personal vendetta against Roe v. Wade. She has written in opinions that she hopes SCOTUS revisits Roe soon, stating that the Court "might conclude that the woman's 'choice' is far more risky and less beneficial."
Wow, that's nuts. Who is this this Edith person, anyways?
Glad you asked! Chief Judge Edith Jones was appointed by Reagan to the 5th Circuit in 1985. Prior to that, Jones was General Counsel for the Republican Party of Texas, as well as a lawyer in private practice in Houston. She has been described as the "Susan Lucci" of SCOTUS nominations. Her name is always bandied about by conservative activists and Presidential administrations when a vacancy opens up, but she never gets the nod. Republicans from Reagan to Bush I to Bush II have floated her name, but the far-right ideologue never gets to the point of an upperdown in the Senate, let alone the robes and frilly white collar of the highest court in the land. However, as this case shows, that doesn't prevent her from trying to chip away at Roe.
Jones is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which hears cases from Lousiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The 5th Circuit considered to be the most conservative federal appeals court in the country. Per Think Progress, this is the court that sanctioned a cheerleader for suing her school district after she was forced to cheer for her rapist. On the court, Jones has written a variety of heinous anti-woman dissents. One denied overt claims of sexual harassment, suggesting that a woman needed to be raped to claim actual harassment. In another, she told a molestation victim that there is no benefit in recognizing "a constitutional right not to have her bodily integrity compromised by a teacher's sexual abuse." Want more? Read this run-down of her visit to Harvard Law's Federalist Society posted on conservative blog Red State.
It is worth reminding everyone that virulently anti-women justices like this get appointed by Republican administrations. You like choice? You like women making their own medical decisions? You want to avoid going back to the days of back-alley abortions and septic wards? If you have women in your lives who you think actually have the right to choose for themselves, you probably want to vote for a Democrat. There's just no room in the other party for pro-choice Republicans. Heck, even Mitt Romney isn't pro-choice anymore.
What's the deal with Edith Jones? Does she, like, hate women or something?
Well, she certainly has some patronizing attitudes towards our ability to decide what we do with our own bodies. Patrick Michels over at the Texas Observer writes as follows:
Jones follows the same logic that drove Perry, Patrick, and the law's House author, Rep. Sid Miller: A woman going in for an abortion doesn't really know what she wants. During the session, Patrick said the bill "empowers" women.
Jones also points out that it's important to mandate that the sonogram's performed, precisely because the woman might change her mind.
OMG you gals! We are really incapable of making important choices. It's amazing we're even allowed to vote, own property, and take out credit cards in our names. Next thing you know we'll be running for office! Clutch those pearls.
It just floors me, absolutely floors me, when women adopt this patronizing misogyny. Hey Edith, I am sure there are plenty of menfolk out there who didn't want you appointed to the 5th Circuit bench for life because the monthly fluctuations of your womb might cause you to rule erratically on matters of utmost importance. You know, Edith, you were the first female partner at Andrews Kurth, a major law firm in Texas. I bet a few of those good old boys didn't want you sharing in the firm profits, since obviously by your own logic women aren't fit to make major decisions.
Women like Edith Jones are tools of the patriarchy, appointed by men to promote an anti-woman agenda so that those same men can say "See? Even this woman agrees that women are incapable of exercising their rights." I bet she and Dan Patrick get along really well. Hey Edith, what should I have for lunch today? I'm not fit to decide what to do with my own body.
Did you have any other points you wanted to make about Circuit Court judges?
Actually, I did! Washington Monthly has a must-read article in their current issue about how Conservatives have almost completely taken over the American judiciary. If a Republican is elected in 2012, the transformation will be complete, as Justices Ginsberg and Kennedy could both retire or need to be replaced in the next four years.
But what's happening on the Circuit Court level is just as important. From the Washington Monthly article, emphasis mine:
But it's not just the Supreme Court that would tilt further right. The high court only hears seventy-some cases each year. The vast majority of disputes are resolved by the federal appellate courts, which are the last stop for almost every federal litigant in the country. And the one legacy of which George W. Bush can be most proud is his fundamental transformation of the lower federal judiciary-a change that happened almost completely undetected by the left. At a Federalist Society meeting in 2008, Bush boasted that he had seated more than a third of the federal judges expected to be serving when he left office, most of them younger and more conservative than their colleagues, all tenured for life and in control of the majority of the federal circuit courts of appeals. The consequences of that change at the appeals court level were as profound as they were unnoticed. As Charlie Savage of the New York Times put it at the time, the Bush judges "have been more likely than their colleagues to favor corporations over regulators and people alleging discrimination, and to favor government over people who claim rights violations. They have also been more likely to throw out cases on technical grounds, like rejecting plaintiffs' standing to sue." In short, they have copied and amplified the larger trends at the Roberts Court: a jurisprudence that skews pro-business, pro-life, anti-environment, and toward entangling the church with the state. Under the rhetorical banners of "modesty" and "humility" and "strict construction," the rightward shift has done more to restore a pre-New Deal legal landscape than any legislative or policy change might have done.
Obama hasn't been able to fill most of the vacancies in Circuit Courts because Republicans have used every trick in the book to block nominees from coming up to a vote. Several qualified applicants have even withdrawn from the process. Meanwhile, litigants are waiting years for their cases to be heard. Go read the rest here. Yowza.
Wow. this is all really bringing me down. Thanks a lot.
Too many women--and men who have sex with women--think that the right to a legal abortion is totally safe. Ladies and gents, think again. Women, Republicans are trying to literally shove a wand into your body without your consent, and force you to listen to a bunch of medically unnecessary claptrap while your feet are in the stirrups. They don't think you're fit to make your own decisions about your body. Your rights are under assault--and not just your ability to get an abortion, but also your ability to get birth control, emergency contraception. Republicans are even trying to make it so that insurance doesn't have to pay for all or part of any of these procedures and medical services.
There are a few good ways to stop this assault on womens' basic reproductive rights.
Support the pro-choice organization of your choosing. (Get it? Choosing?) Here in Texas, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and Lilith Fund all do amazing work to help women exercise their right to choose. Give your time or your funds. Disclaimer: I am on the board of NARAL-TX and donate vigorously to all three organizations.
Don't vote for anti-choice zealots--the vast majority whom are Republicans, but there are certainly a few stinkers in the Democratic party too--who want to take away women's rights. Instead, support candidates who run against these anti-choicers.
Tell your friends. Share this post and the other stories about the sonogram lawsuit. Tell your friends, whether they're women or men who have sex with women or people who care about female human beings in general.
Look, I don't meant to be hyperbolic, but abortion rights are under attack. 24 states enacted 92 abortion restrictions in 2011. From sonograms to waiting periods to insurance denials, Republican legislatures are working hard to make sure a woman can't actually get an abortion, or be able to pay for it. Republicans are doing everything they can to erect procedural barriers to a woman actually getting the abortion she has chosen.
It is pretty scary stuff, and will have the most drastically negative impact on women who are lower income, younger, in abusive relationships, or otherwise disadvantaged. But as these restrictions keep getting more and more, well, restrictive, even wealthy SMU sorority girls will start to feel their rights getting clamped down on. Maybe then we'll finally see some bipartisan outrage on this issue.
Now I'm just more depressed. Hey, can you show me that bitterly ironic graphic of the sonogram procedure mandated by the law?
State Representative Carol Alvarado released the following statement just now on the 5th Circuit's decision that lets Texas enforce its crazy anti-woman sonogram law:
State Representative Carol Alvarado Statement on 5th Circuit Court's Decision on Sonogram Bill Enforcement
"The 5th Circuit Court's decision demeans nearly 40 years of progress by joining the Texas Legislature in telling women they are not smart enough to make the big decisions about their lives and their bodies.
The intent of this law, as described by the authors of the legislation themselves, is to reduce the occurrence of a legal medical procedure. To accomplish their politically-motivated goals, this bill forces doctors to serve as the mouthpiece of conservative politicians who want to coerce women into doubting themselves after they have made the most difficult decision of their lives."
State Representative Carol Alvarado is in her second term in the Texas House of Representatives, where she serves on the Public Health Committee.
You may recall Alvarado brandishing a trans-vaginal ultrasound probe on the floor of the Legislature last session. Alvarado explained in graphic detail how the procedure works. Trans-vaginal sonograms are the only way to perform a sonogram on a woman who is less than eight to 10 weeks pregnant. Many women seeking abortions will fall into this category.
As Alvarado said at the time, "This is not the jelly on the belly that most of you think," she said as she held up a vaginal probe. "This is government intrusion at its best."
Republicans sure talk a good game about opposing "governmental intrusion" into our private lives. 'Government should stop at our doorstep! they cry. Unless it's the doorstep of a woman, I suppose. Do Republicans seriously want their wives, sisters, and daughters to undergo this invasive procedure, should they chose to terminate a pregnancy? (Because if you think nice Conservative white ladies don't have abortions, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.)
But hey, at least Republicans are doing everything they can to provide for the children who are the by-products of their policies of forced birth, right? They're funding schools, hiring teachers, expanding healthcare options? Right? Right?
The answer, quite obviously, is no. It's bitterly ironic that the Republican Party cares so much about preventing abortion, but does so little to provide for wanted children once they're born. While this law may still be struck down in the ongoing trial, in the meantime this decision by the 5th Circuit is terrible news for Texas women and the doctors they trust.
Here's some bad news for Texas women: a federal appeals court overturned Judge Sam Sparks' decision to temporarily block the Texas sonogram law from going into effect while the trial over its legality occurs.
The federal appeals court in New Orleans says Texas can enforce an abortion law passed last year while opponents challenge it in court.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday overturned a district judge's temporary order against enforcing the law. The measure requires that doctors who perform abortions show sonograms to patients, describe the images and describe the fetal heartbeat.
The panel says U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks in Austin was incorrect to rule that doctors had a substantial chance to win their case.
So that's some bad news for Texas women and Texas doctors right there. The federal court is basically saying that doctors' free speech concerns in this regard don't matter. Through this bill, the Legislature is forcing doctors to say things that aren't medically necessary and thus turning doctors into ideological agents of the state's anti-woman agenda.
Sparks' injunction blocked the worst parts of the bill: enforcement of provisions requiring the display of the ultrasound, detailed description of the fetus, and intrusive disclosure requirements for women who were already victims of violent crimes. He did so under the assumption that the plaintiffs had a reasonable chance of winning their case. The 5th Circuit in turn said that Sparks had no right to assume that the plaintiffs would win against the State. The federal court linked the bogus sonogram law with other legislation requiring doctors to give "truthful, nonmisleading and relevant" information. You can read the 5th Circuit's order here (warning, opens PDF.) In the decision, Chief Judge Edith H. Jones wrote:
"'Relevant' informed consent may entail not only the physical and psychological risks to the expectant mother facing this 'difficult moral decision,' but also the state's legitimate interests in 'protecting the potential life within her.'"
So basically, the concern of anti-choice zealots in the Legislature over what a woman does with her own personal uterus is a good enough reason to force doctors to say and do things to their patients that the doctors don't find medically necessary or helpful. It's troubling reasoning.
By the way, is the Legislature going to pass something similar for men seeking vasectomies? I mean, the procedure consigns the little swimmers to a short, brutish existence in the newly truncated vas deferens. They won't ever have the chance to impregnate a woman or defile a sock! The horror, the horror! Someone, please think of the sperms!
Remember, we're not talking about the jelly-on-the-belly kind of sonogram. We're talking about an intrusive, transvaginal sonogram with a probe, per the slightly altered medical textbook illustration below:
By the by, apparently this graphic ruffled a few feathers amongst the anti-choice haterz, who had it pulled down from Imageshack. You can now download it here.
No word yet on how soon the sonogram law takes effect, or how it will be enforced. Remember, if doctors refuse to show the sonogram and do as this law entails, they could lose their license. The consequences of Texas Republicans' anti-woman agenda is dire.
Let's hope the plaintiffs prevail in their lawsuit seeking to block this law for good.
Texas Republicans were temporarily slowed in their efforts to shut down Planned Parenthood yesterday, as the Federal government denied the state's request to exclude PP from the list of providers in the Medicaid Women's Health Program. Basically, Republicans are trying to put Planned Parenthood out of business in Texas by blocking them from receiving patients who use the Medicaid WHP to pay for health care. Charming!
While on one hand this is good news for women, as the Federal decision extends the Medicaid WHP for three months, the bad news is that Republicans may decide to end the Women's Health Program entirely out of spite.
Fran Hagerty, chief executive of the Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, characterized the federal decision - which extends the program for three months while state officials decide whether to back down from their request - as "the ugliest possible scenario." She fears the state will opt to end the Women's Health Program rather than allow Planned Parenthood to continue to be part of it, and that 130,000 low-income women may end up losing out on cancer screenings and birth control.
The Tribune doesn't make it painfully, obviously clear that it's Republicans who are behind these efforts to drastically impede women's access to health care. So I will!
This is another effort by Texas Republicans to deliberately and aggressively destroy comprehensive women's health care in Texas. This is not just about stopping abortion: this is about preventing women and children from receiving health care, by shutting down one of the major providers of care to low-income women: Planned Parenthood. Texas Republicans are trying to make women's health care a partisan issue, and standing firmly against women having the full range of providers and services available to them.
What does our Governor have to say about it? Again, the Tribune quotes Fran Hagerty:
Perry is "blaming the feds and saying that this money was going to go to abortions. That's a complete lie," Hagerty said. "This is a federal program, and they have any right to say you have to let every qualified provider participate. You can't pick and choose who you like and don't like."
Planned Parenthood is at the crux here not only because they provide abortions, but because 44% of the Medicaid WHP program funds to go the provider, which is used for basic health care and family planning. Pap smears, breast exams, well-woman visits, STD screenings, birth control prescriptions. Planned Parenthood is simply the largest service provider in Texas through the Women's Health Program.
Republicans have a solution: Planned Parenthood can just stop providing abortions! Then everyone wins, except women and their pesky right to choose!
(Great BOR reader diary about family planning. It's clear that these cuts aren't about saving money, but rather harming women and families. - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
While Texas has some of the nation's toughest restrictions on reproductive health care, it has also drastically cut funding to family planning centers. At the same time the state has increased funding to so-called crisis pregnancy centers (CPC), which has decreased the access women have to reproductive health care in the state. In Rick Perry's Texas, women are not trusted to make their own reproductive health care decisions.
Thanks to a ruling from the 5th Circuit and a request from Greg Abbot to expedite enforcement, Texas' wildly invasive sonogram law is going into effect. Women seeking abortions will be subject to a mandatory ultrasound and forced to look at the sonogram image, and their doctor will be required to read a bunch of medically unnecessary information about fetal development or risk losing their medical license. For women who are 
You may recall Alvarado brandishing a trans-vaginal ultrasound probe on the floor of the Legislature last session. Alvarado explained in graphic detail how the procedure works. Trans-vaginal sonograms are the only way to perform a sonogram on a woman who is less than eight to 10 weeks pregnant. Many women seeking abortions will fall into this category.
