As troglodyte state legislatures trip all over themselves to criminalize all abortions, the Biden Administration is insisting on enforcement of federal guidelines that require hospitals to provide abortions if the health of the mother is at risk.
But the righties aren’t having it. This week a U.S. district judge in Texas named James Wesley Hendrix blocked the enforcement of the federal guidelines in the Lone Braincell state. His argument seems to be that the life and health of the mother cannot be prioritized over the life and health of a fetus.
It’s a real shame if a pregnancy creates an emergency medical condition in a woman, but erforming an abortion creates an “emergency medical condition” in the fetus or embryo, the judge wrote.
“Since the statute is silent on the question, the Guidance cannot answer how doctors should weigh risks to both a mother and her unborn child,” the judge’s order said. “Nor can it, in doing so, create a conflict with state law where one does not exist. The Guidance was thus unauthorized.”
Someone might explain to this bozo that if the mama dies, the fetus dies too.
The administration threatened to fine or strip Medicare status from hospitals that failed to follow the guidance, which was issued in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court ending federal constitutional protections for abortion.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the Biden administration was attempting to use federal healthcare regulations to “transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic.”
“Last night, the court ruled in favor of Texas!” he said in a tweet. “A WIN for mothers, babies & the TX healthcare industry.”
Hendrix ruled that the guidance, issued under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, goes beyond the scope of federal law and fails to appropriately balance the interests of a pregnant person and their unborn child.
“To the extent that the Guidance would require abortion where Texas would not, Texas law does so to ‘provide the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive’,” the order reads. “The Court will not interject itself in balancing the health of an unborn child and the health of his mother when that balancing is left to the people and their elected representatives.”
Since when do “the people and their elected representatives” make life and death medical decisions? Yeah, next time Hendrix needs a ruptured spleen removed, let’s put it up to a vote. I say no.
I wrote years ago, and probably have repeated this several times — “I’ve long believed that whether one is pro-choice or anti-choice does not depend on whether one thinks embryos are human beings. It depends on whether one recognizes that women are human beings. Not archetypes, but real, individual human beings. Including women who get abortions.”
Obviously, women are not real human beings to them. We are just ambulatory major appliances.
These are the kinds of judgments, weighing the risks to mother and fetus, that medical professionals make all the time. The medical people have worked out best practices over periods of many years. We should trust them to do their jobs, not put it up to popular vote by people who don’t know a fallopian tube from a toaster.
In other news — this should cheer you up — the people who took Ashley Biden’s diary and gave it to Project Veritas have been identified, and one of them has reached a plea deal to testify against the “organization” that received the diary. And that woule be Project Veritas. Josh Marshall is celebrating already.
Every time i read one of these bozo rulings it just galls. They think they are weighing "toaster" or "blender"? Not a living female human being. As if there are no consequences. And i am getting to the point where i feel modern healthcare should be denied to all not just females 10 to 55. Just let them try it on and see how it feels. I hope all the doctors leave the offending states. Why should anyone who lives there get medical care? There will also be a sunami of disabled children born and a sunami of children going to foster care and the states will not be able to care for them. No one is thinking about the cost , whether lives or money.
GOP POV:
Take a Valium, li'l ladies!
We're doin' all of this because we love you, and want to make your lives easier!
We want you to stay home, and not work.
Your work will be to be home, barefoot and pregnant. With the kids of course.
And be ready with a cocktail, our slippers, and dinner ready for when we come home from our labors.
Is that too much to ask?
WAIT?!? WHAT?!?!
YES?!?!?!?!?
What have them DEMONcrats turned you into? One of them lesbinists or fembians, or whatever?!?
“I’ve long believed that whether one is pro-choice or anti-choice does not depend on whether one thinks embryos are human beings. It depends on whether one recognizes that women are human beings. Not archetypes, but real, individual human beings. Including women who get abortions.”
As a man, I never thought of it that way, but it's dead accurate (thank you!). It’s pretty clear what wingnuts in Texas think about women.
Thrilled that James O'Keefe may have screwed up bigly, but this guy has found lots of smart help to thread various needles and avoid trouble, until hopefully now.
Here’s an op-ed about that $1.4 billion donation to a non profit connected with the Federalist Society.
I read somewhere in the last few days that women are registering to vote in record numbers. The tsunami is building.
The only message is that we are not human beings. When women die can their family bring suit for wrongful death against every vote in the legislature that caused the wrongful death? The new law is 5 to life and 100000 fine . they just keep raising the ante as if they are scared of us flipping off their dictatorial regime.
IDK if it will happen but the states with the most egregious bans, (Life begins at conception and/or no exceptions for rape or incest) can and should get hit with an entertainers and athletes ban. It may be hard to hold team competition when the pro stars won't go on the field or the court in TX.
A counterpoint should be women in executive positions deciding NOT to locate or expand facilities in those neanderthal states. I decided when Tesla decided to build in TX that I'd not buy a Tesla – ever. (I currently own a Chevy Volt.)
The rejection of these states by business, tourism, film industry, and consumers should be public. "We have decided to build our three-billion dollar plant in Massachusettes (or NY or CA) because their laws are not hostile to women." or "I've taken Dallas off the tour schedule because of their abortion policies." or a half-dozen top-tier PGA stars kneecap a tournament with a boycott, or the Women's PGA pulls out of the sexist states.
Bottom line: the demographic business is pitching to is Millennials. They were all born a decade after Roe and in the generation having families. They have the most leverage as consumers, are the most wooed by retailers. If business discovers that insulting TX resonates positively with this group, corporations will line up to kick Texas in the balls. (In terms of advertising and flamboyantly rejecting TX.)