January, 22 2013, 11:27am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Mai Shiozaki, 202-628-8669, ext. 116; cell 202-641-1906
Forty Years After Ruling, Support for Roe v. Wade Grows in Face of Ongoing Attacks
Statement of NOW President Terry O'Neill
WASHINGTON
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision that affirmed a woman's right to abortion. On this day we remember the countless women who died from unsafe abortions prior to Roe. Those brave women were the senseless victims of a society that historically has treated women like second-class citizens, tossed their rights around like a political football and patrolled their bodies as if they belonged to the state.
We are at a critical turning point in this country. A recent poll shows that public support for Roe v. Wade is even stronger right now than it was just two years ago. The right wing's escalated attacks on women's access to reproductive health care have backfired, causing people to pay attention, speak out and mobilize to vote. These attacks -- and the often outrageous rhetoric that has accompanied them -- have clarified for many people precisely why the government should not be making reproductive decisions for women.
But the restrictions that conservative legislators have enacted at the state level -- 92 anti-abortion provisions in 2011 and 43 in 2012 -- result in very real consequences for women. Unnecessary procedures, like vaginal ultrasounds, literally punish women for seeking to control their reproductive lives. At the same time, defunding and excessive regulations serve to put reproductive health clinics out of business.
We must be clear: The right-wing lawmakers pushing these laws are out of step with public sentiment. GOP leaders like Bobby Jindal know this -- that's why he has suggested that his party soften its message, but not its mission. They still intend to do everything in their power to restrict women's access to abortion care and birth control, and they don't care if other reproductive health services -- like mammograms, STD/HIV screening, prenatal and postpartum care -- are lost in the process.
On this solemn occasion we should remember the good that Roe v. Wade has brought us. Sandra Day O'Connor once noted that women's ability to "organize intimate relationships and make choices that define their views of themselves and their place in society" was directly attributable to Roe. She confirmed what every women's rights activist knows: "The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives."
We must continue the momentum we displayed at the polls in November, the passion we have shown on social media and the fervor we have demonstrated in communities across this country. The struggle for reproductive justice for all women -- for poor women, young women, immigrant women, Native American women, women with disabilities -- will take all of our energy, commitment and smarts. But I am confident that we will prevail because we have true moral authority and the people behind us.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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"The Comstock Act must be repealed," Bush (D-Mo.) wrote in a social media post on Tuesday as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case brought by a group of anti-abortion doctors aiming to curtail access to mifepristone—a medication used in more than 60% of U.S. abortions.
"Enacted in 1873, it is a zombie statute, a dead law that the far-right is trying to reanimate," Bush warned. "The anti-abortion movement wants to weaponize the Comstock Act as a quick route to a nationwide medication abortion ban. Not on our watch."
Bush's office said she was the first member of Congress to demand the law's repeal since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the summer of 2022.
The Comstock Act, which hasn't been applied in a century and was repeatedly narrowed following its enactment, prohibits the mailing of any "instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing" that "may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion." Legal experts have described the dormant law as the "most significant national threat to reproductive rights."
Given that "virtually everything used for an abortion—from abortion pills, to the instruments for abortion procedures, to clinic supplies—gets mailed to providers in some form," a trio of experts wrote earlier this year, the anti-abortion movement's "interpretation of the Comstock Act could mean a nationwide ban on all abortions, even in states where it remains legal."
"Enforcing a Victorian-era law would be deeply unpopular and Democrats have a chance to sound the alarm, take action in both chambers, and run on it."
The Biden Justice Department has argued that the Comstock Act "does not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully."
But the law has nevertheless been cited with growing frequency by far-right advocacy groups and judges following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In 2023, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas, Matthew Kacsmaryk, invoked the Comstock Act in a decision suspending the Food and Drug Administration's 2000 approval of mifepristone. In 2021, the FDA said it would allow patients to receive abortion medication by mail—which Kacsmaryk claimed the Comstock Act "plainly forecloses."
That case, which has massive implications for abortion rights nationwide, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
During oral arguments on Tuesday, Justices Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas "repeatedly invoked the Comstock Act," The Washington Postreported, "pressing lawyers about whether the 1873 federal law should apply to abortion drugs sent through the mail today."
The justices' comments raised concerns that they could try to resurrect the Comstock Act in their coming ruling in the mifepristone case.
"While the Biden administration has issued guidance saying that the federal government
will not enforce the laws," the Post noted, "a future administration seeking to restrict abortion could choose to do so."
Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, has expressed support for a national abortion ban.
Jezebel's Susan Rinkunas wrote Tuesday that "enforcing a Victorian-era law would be deeply unpopular and Democrats have a chance to sound the alarm, take action in both chambers, and run on it."
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The watchdog group Public Citizen on Tuesday led a letter urging Pentagon leaders "to clarify that the Replicator Initiative will not involve the development and deployment of autonomous weapons systems," also known as "killer robots."
Last September, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks "asserted that the development of all-domain, attributable autonomy systems (ADA2) is an essential way for the Pentagon to maintain its comparative cutting-edge and keep up with the technological advancements of other states," notes the letter, which was addressed to her and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
"However, those comments failed to specify whether or not supporting autonomous weapons systems is one of the key focuses of this initiative," the letter stresses. "When addressing whether or not 'ADA2 means weapons systems,' Secretary Hicks stated: 'That's a serious question to be sure. They are not synonymous. There are many applications for ADA2 systems beyond delivering weapons effects.'"
"Autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
Public Citizen and the 13 other organizations argued that "this is no place for strategic ambiguity. Autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
Deploying lethal weapons that rely on artificial intelligence (AI) "in battlefield conditions necessarily means inserting them into novel conditions for which they have not been programmed, an invitation for disastrous outcomes," the groups warned. "'Swarms' of the sort envisioned by Replicator pose even heightened risks, because of the unpredictability of how autonomous systems will function in a network. And the mere ambiguity of the U.S. position on autonomous weapons risks spurring a catastrophic arms race."
"We believe the Department of Defense should declare its opposition to the development and deployment of autonomous weapons," the coalition concluded. "However, even if you are not prepared to make that declaration, we strongly urge you to clarify that the Replicator Initiative will not employ autonomous weapons."
In addition to Public Citizen, the coalition included the American Friends Service Committee, Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, Backbone Campaign, Demand Progress Education Fund, Fight for the Future, Future of Life, National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, RootsAction.org, United Church of Christ, the Value Alliance, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom U.S., Win Without War, and World Beyond War.
The letter comes on the heels of Public Citizen releasing a report about the rise of killer robots, AI Joe: The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence and the Military.
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"The United States should state plainly that it will not create or deploy killer robots and should work to advance global treaty negotiations to ban such weapons," Weissman said. "At minimum, the United States should commit that the Replicator Initiative will not involve the use of autonomous weapons."
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