September, 01 2021, 12:27pm EDT
NARAL Pro-Choice America Denounces Texas' Vigilante Abortion Ban Now in Effect
Today, Texas' unprecedented abortion ban, Senate Bill 8, went into effect, banning abortion at approximately 6 weeks, before many people even know they are pregnant, and granting almost any person the power to sue someone for "aiding and abetting" a pregnant person seeking abortion care and being awarded $10,000 or more for their vigilantism. The ban went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court failed to step in last night to block the blatantly unconstitutional law.
NARAL Pro-Choice America Acting President Adrienne Kimmell released the following statement:
WASHINGTON
Today, Texas' unprecedented abortion ban, Senate Bill 8, went into effect, banning abortion at approximately 6 weeks, before many people even know they are pregnant, and granting almost any person the power to sue someone for "aiding and abetting" a pregnant person seeking abortion care and being awarded $10,000 or more for their vigilantism. The ban went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court failed to step in last night to block the blatantly unconstitutional law.
NARAL Pro-Choice America Acting President Adrienne Kimmell released the following statement:
"Anti-choice politicians in Texas have put their cruel agenda on full display. SB 8 effectively puts a bounty on the head of anyone who supports a pregnant person seeking abortion care after about 6 weeks in pregnancy. The anti-choice movement is determined to decimate reproductive freedom and intimidate providers, pregnant people, and those who love and care for them. Make no mistake, this law paves the way for anti-choice extremists to turn their dystopian vision into a horrifying reality--not just in Texas--but around the country.
The fundamental freedom to make our own decisions about our lives, futures, and families is at stake. NARAL and our 2.5 million members will continue fighting back against attacks on abortion access from statehouses to the Supreme Court."
Any Texan can now be sued if they are so much as suspected of having helped a pregnant person seeking abortion care after about 6 weeks in pregnancy. This includes clergy members or counselors, abortion funds that assist someone in paying for abortion care, and even someone who drives a patient to their appointment--including family members, friends, and rideshare drivers. Anti-choice extremist group Texas Right to Life launched a website soliciting volunteers to initiate a flood of lawsuits aimed at shuttering clinics and intimidating pregnant people and those who support them.
While multiple states have passed laws banning abortion at this early point in pregnancy, until today, every state's attempt to ban abortion at 6 weeks has been struck down by federal courts as unconstitutional. Texas' SB 8 is different: Unlike bans in other states, which are enforced by state officials, SB 8 gives private citizens unprecedented authority to enforce its abortion ban.
The impact of SB 8 will reverberate throughout surrounding states as they experience an influx of Texans traveling to get abortion care no longer accessible in their home state. When anti-choice Republicans in Texas attempted to ban abortion in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it resulted in a 1,200% increase in Texans visiting Planned Parenthood clinics in Colorado and a "more than sevenfold increase"--706%--in Texans visiting Planned Parenthood clinics in Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that SB 8 going into effect could increase one-way driving distance for abortion services from 12 miles to 248 miles, or 20 times as far.
The harm of SB 8 is likely to disproportionately impact Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and other people of color; LGBTQ+ people; immigrants; and people with low incomes, communities disproportionately targeted by both surveillance and barriers to abortion access.
The enactment of SB 8 is part of a broader onslaught of attacks on abortion access in Texas. Earlier this year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a "trigger ban" that will automatically ban abortion across the state and criminalize doctors who provide abortion care if the anti-choice supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade (which they will have the opportunity to do this term in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case). Yesterday, anti-choice lawmakers in the Texas House of Representatives passed SB 4, a bill that attacks access to medication abortion care. The bill has already passed the state Senate and will now go to Governor Abbott for approval.
Texas' SB 8 joins over 90 other restrictions on abortion access that have been enacted at the state level in 2021, making it the worst year for abortion rights since Roe was decided.
NARAL Pro-Choice America fights for reproductive freedom for every body. Each day, we organize and mobilize to protect that freedom by fighting for access to abortion care, birth control, aid parental leave, and protections from pregnancy discrimination.
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Joe Lieberman, Iraq War Cheerleader and Killer of Public Option, Dead at 82
"Joe Lieberman's legacy will live on as your medical debt."
Mar 27, 2024
While current and former officials across the U.S. political spectrum shared praise for and fond memories of former Sen. Joe Lieberman in response to news of his death on Wednesday, critics highlighted how some of his key positions led to the deaths of many others.
Lieberman's family said the 82-year-old died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital after a fall at his home in the Bronx. He served in the Connecticut Senate, as the state's attorney general, and in the U.S. Senate—initially as a Democrat and eventually as an Independent. He was also Democratic former Vice President Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election.
"Up until the very end, Joe Lieberman enjoyed the high-quality, government-financed healthcare that he worked diligently to deny the rest of us. That's his legacy," said Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, which advocates for universal, single-payer healthcare.
As Warren Gunnels, majority staff director for Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.),
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Noting that Lieberman also lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq—which was used to justify the 2003 U.S. invasion—Gunnels asked, "How many people unnecessarily died as a result?"
He was far from alone in highlighting the two defining positions.
The Lever's David Sirota declared, "RIP Joe Lieberman, Iraq War cheerleader who led the fight to make sure Medicare was not extended to millions of Americans who desperately needed the kind of healthcare coverage he enjoyed in the Senate."
The Debt Collective said on social media that "Joe Lieberman killed so many people when he killed the public option. Not to mention all the people he killed by cheerleading every war and every lie that led to war. A truly horrible person with a shameful legacy."
Journalist Jon Schwarz pointed out that Lieberman continued to lie about the WMDs long after the claims were debunked.
FormerMSNBC host Mehdi Hasan noted that Lieberman declined an opportunity to apologize for the disastrous war, sharing a clip from his on-camera interview with the ex-senator in 2021.
And please don\u2019t give me this \u2018don\u2019t speak ill of the dead\u2019 stuff - 1) I\u2019m not speaking ill, I\u2019m stating facts, and 2) public figures are public figures, and their obits reflect their legacies and so we should be honest in our accounts of their legacies. Not offensive but honest— (@)
"We lost a giant today. I often disagreed with Joe Lieberman but he was always honorable in the way he called for American troops to murder people abroad so he could get his jollies," said Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project in a series of sarcastic social media posts.
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Mar 27, 2024
Citing Israel's "blatant" human rights violations in Gaza, Ireland's second-highest-ranking official said Wednesday that the country will join the South Africa-led genocide case before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Irish Tánaiste Micheál Martin—the equivalent of a deputy prime minister in other parliamentary nations—said that Ireland decided to intervene in the case after analyzing the "legal and policy issues" pertaining to the case under review by the United Nations' top court.
"It is for the court to determine whether genocide is being committed," Martin—who also serves as Ireland's foreign and defense minister—said in a statement. "But I want to be clear in reiterating what I have said many times in the last few months; what we saw on October 7 in Israel, and what we are seeing in Gaza now, represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale."
Martin continued:
The taking of hostages. The purposeful withholding of humanitarian assistance to civilians. The targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure. The indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The use of civilian objects for military purposes. The collective punishment of an entire population.
The list goes on. It has to stop. The view of the international community is clear. Enough is enough. The U.N. Security Council has demanded an immediate cease-fire, the unconditional release of hostages, and the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale. The European Council has echoed this call.
South Africa's case—which is supported by over 30 countries, the Arab League, African Union, and others—incisively details Israel's conduct in the war, including the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children; the wounding of tens of thousands more; the forcible displacement of 90% of the besieged enclave's 2.3 million people; and the inflicting of conditions leading to widespread starvation and disease. The filing also cited numerous genocidal statements by Israeli officials.
On January 26, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered its government and military to prevent genocidal acts. Palestinian and international human rights defenders say Israel has ignored the order, pointing to more than 30,000 men, women, and children killed or wounded in Gaza since January 26.
A draft report
released this week by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war.
"The situation could not be more stark; half the population of Gaza face imminent famine and 100% of the population face acute food insecurity," said Martin. "As the U.N. secretary-general said as he inspected long lines of blocked relief trucks waiting to enter Gaza during his visit to Rafah at the weekend: 'It is time to truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid. The choice is clear: surge or starvation.' I echo his words today."
In a St. Partick's Day White House meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden—a staunch supporter of Israel—Irish Toaiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, who announced earlier this month that he would soon step down, said that "the Irish people are deeply troubled about the catastrophe that's unfolding before our eyes in Gaza."
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Rep. Don Beyer warns the plan "would see unbridled benefits flowing to a wealthy and well-connected few while tens of millions of Americans lose healthcare, housing, retirement security, and food security."
Mar 27, 2024
As Republicans on Wednesday set their sights on a key seat opening up in the U.S. House of Representatives, the chamber's senior Democrat on the congressional Joint Economic Committee put out a blistering takedown of a top GOP budget proposal for the next fiscal year.
Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.) took aim at the 180-page "Fiscal Sanity to Save America" plan released last week by the Republican Study Committee (RSC)—which includes about 80% of GOP House members—following proposals from Democratic President Joe Biden and House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).
"The Republican Study Committee budget is a blueprint for a dystopian hellscape," he warned. "The vision offered by this group, which counts 4 in 5 House Republicans as members, would see unbridled benefits flowing to a wealthy and well-connected few while tens of millions of Americans lose healthcare, housing, retirement security, and food security."
RSC proposals to "dramatically weaken healthcare," Beyer noted, include turning Medicare into a voucher plan and rolling back Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions that cut costs for seniors; repealing tax subsidies for the Affordable Care Act and the law's protections for people with preexisting conditions; and transforming Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program into block grants to states.
As Common Dreams has reported, in addition to seeking cuts to Medicare and Social Security—while claiming to do nothing of the sort—the RSC has also launched a full-fledged assault on reproductive healthcare and rights, promoting 42 bills that would ban abortions after 15 weeks or even earlier, require unnecessary ultrasounds and 24-hour waiting periods, prohibit the use of fetal stem cells for research, and threaten access to in vitro fertilization, among other restrictions.
In addition to attacking reproductive freedom and key programs for seniors and low-income families, Beyer highlighted, the RSC wants to "weaken public health, public safety, and environmental protections," while "cutting taxes for the wealthy, by a lot."
The RSC advocates ending green tax credits from the IRA and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as well as slashing money for Community Oriented Policing Services and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The committee also calls for permanently lowering taxes for the ultrarich, indexing capital gains taxes to inflation, repealing the estate tax, rolling back the IRA's corporate alternative minimum tax, and eliminating funding intended to help the Internal Revenue Service catch wealthy tax cheats.
"Democrats believe there is a better way to get our fiscal house in order without betraying our values," said Beyer. "That starts with making smart investments in our people and our future while demanding that the rich and large corporations pay their fair share in taxes. The contrast between the Democratic approach and this Republican budget could not possibly be clearer."
Biden's budget blueprint—released as he prepares for an electoral rematch against former Republican President Donald Trump, who infamously cut taxes for rich people and corporations—proposes a 25% minimum tax for individuals with wealth of more than $100 million, along with ending capital income tax breaks and closing other loopholes.
Polling results released Tuesday by Morning Consult show that a majority of voters across party lines in key swing states support raising taxes on people who make more than $400,000 per year.
Biden and the divided Congress this past weekend narrowly avoided a government shutdown by passing a long-delayed spending package. Fiscal year 2025 is set to begin in October, setting up another election-year fight over funding.
In what's been
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