September, 23 2021, 05:15pm EDT
Texas Abortion Ban Returns to Supreme Court
Abortion providers and others ask SCOTUS to expedite next steps in case.
WASHINGTON
Today, a broad coalition of Texas abortion providers--led by Whole Woman's Health--along with abortion funds, doctors and other organizations, once again asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in a case challenging Texas' ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy (S.B. 8). In an attempt to expedite the case, plaintiffs are asking the Supreme Court to hear the defendants' motions to dismiss the case, which were denied by the district court and then appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where they are currently pending. The plaintiffs have asked that the Supreme Court hear the appeal on an expedited basis, without waiting for a further ruling from the Fifth Circuit.
S.B. 8 has now been in effect for 23 days and has eliminated the vast majority of abortion access in the state. Plaintiffs previously asked the Supreme Court to block the law before it took effect on September 1, which the Court refused to do. Clinics in neighboring states have reported huge upticks in patients traveling from Texas since the law took effect. For instance, an Oklahoma clinic reported that two-thirds of the phone calls they receive are now from Texas patients.
Intervention by the Supreme Court is urgently needed because, despite the great harm the ban is causing, the Fifth Circuit has set a schedule that will not allow the appeal to be heard before December. In a separate lawsuit challenging S.B. 8 in state court--brought by Planned Parenthood providers--the Texas Multidistrict Litigation Panel indefinitely stayed all proceedings in the trial court today.
In a separate federal lawsuit, the Department of Justice is suing Texas and requesting that the law be blocked. A preliminary injunction hearing in the DOJ's case has been set for October 1 in district court. In a press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland said of the law: "This kind of scheme to nullify the Constitution of the United States is one that all Americans, whatever their politics or party, should fear."
Yesterday, a copycat bill was introduced in the Florida legislature, and lawmakers in many other states have voiced their intent to introduce similar bills. Tomorrow, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on a federal bill that would protect against abortion bans like the one in Texas, as well as the Mississippi ban that the Supreme Court will hear later this year. That bill--the Women's Health Protection Act--is a response to the hundreds of state laws passed in recent years designed to block access to abortion care.
S.B. 8 bans abortion after six weeks into a pregnancy--before many people even know they're pregnant--and creates a bounty-hunting scheme that encourages the general public to bring costly and harassing lawsuits against anyone who they believe has violated the ban. Anyone who successfully sues a health center worker, an abortion provider, or any person who helps someone access an abortion after six weeks in Texas will be rewarded with at least $10,000, to be paid by the person sued. Lawsuits may be filed against a broad range of people, including: a physician who provides an abortion; a person who drives their friend to obtain an abortion; abortion funds providing financial assistance to patients; health center staff; and even a member of the clergy who assists an abortion patient.
Plaintiffs in this case are represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Lawyering Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, and Morrison & Foerster LLP. The defendants include every state court trial judge and county clerk in Texas, the Texas Medical Board, the Texas Board of Nursing, the Texas Board of Pharmacy, the attorney general, and the Director of Right to Life East Texas, who has already openly called for people to sue their local abortion providers under S.B. 8.
Timeline of the case:
* May 19: TX Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 8 into law.
* July 13: Plaintiffs filed the case in federal district court.
* August 4-5: The defendants filed four motions to dismiss, asking the district court to end the case.
* August 12: The federal district court judge scheduled a preliminary injunction hearing for August 30 to determine whether to block the law before it would take effect on September 1.
* August 25: The federal district court judge denied the defendants' motions to dismiss the case. Defendants immediately filed a notice of appeal with the Fifth Circuit, as well as a motion to stop all proceedings in the district court, including canceling the district court's preliminary injunction hearing.
* August 27: The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order stopping all proceedings in the district court, including canceling the district court's preliminary injunction hearing. The court also denied the plaintiffs' request to expedite the appeal of defendants' motions to dismiss.
* August 29: The plaintiffs filed for emergency relief with the Fifth Circuit, which was quickly denied.
* August 30: The plaintiffs filed an emergency request with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to block the law before it could take effect on September 1 or allow district court proceedings to resume.
* September 1: S.B. 8 took effect after the Supreme Court did not respond to plaintiffs' request before the law's effective date.
* September 2: The U.S. Supreme Court denied the plaintiffs' emergency request to block the law and allowed Texas's six-week abortion ban to remain in effect. The case returned to the Fifth Circuit for briefing on defendants' appeal of the district court's denial of their motions to dismiss.
* September 10: The Fifth Circuit issued an order explaining its refusal to block the law, and expedited the defendants' appeals to "the next available oral argument panel."
* September 22: the Fifth Circuit issued a briefing schedule that will not allow the case to be heard until at least December.
* September 23 (Today): Plaintiffs filed a petition for writ of certiorari before judgment with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to hear defendants' appeal on an expedited basis. If granted, the case will bypass further proceedings in the Fifth Circuit.
You can read the full petition for writ of certiorari before judgment here.
Quotes from plaintiffs and litigators:
Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman's Health and Whole Woman's Health Alliance:
"For 23 days, we've been forced to deny essential abortion care for the vast majority of patients who come to us. Most of those we've turned away told us they would not be able to make it out of Texas for care. I don't know what happened to these patients after they left our clinics, but I can't stop thinking about them. Forcing our staff to tell patients 'no' day after day is cruel. This chaos must come to an end, and that is why we are going back to the Supreme Court today."
Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights:
"We're asking the Supreme Court for this expedited appeal because the Fifth Circuit has done nothing to change the dire circumstances on the ground in Texas. We need this case to move as quickly as possible. Right now, patients are being forced to travel hundreds of miles in the middle of a pandemic to find abortion care. But many people can't afford to do that. We're doing everything we can to block this ban and restore abortion access in Texas."
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Federation of America:
"Planned Parenthood call centers have become crisis hotlines and health center staff have become crisis counselors. For three weeks, Texans have been without access to basic health care that is their constitutional right -- forced to travel out of state to get care or carry pregnancies against their will. With this request today, Planned Parenthood, along with our partners, is urging the Supreme Court to move our legal challenge along. Our patients in Texas can't wait. We'll never stop fighting for our patients and will leave no stone unturned in our effort to restore abortion access in Texas."
Julia Kaye, staff attorney, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project:
"For half a century, the Supreme Court has upheld the fundamental right to end a pregnancy. But for the past three weeks, five justices have shrugged their shoulders while Texas politicians do an end-run around the Constitution and impose devastating harm on countless Texans, especially people of color. Already, politicians in other states are lining up to propose copycat bills that insult the Constitution, turn neighbor against neighbor, and force people to suffer the serious risks and pains of pregnancy against their will. It is past time for the Supreme Court to step in and right this grave injustice."
The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization of lawyers and advocates who ensure reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person.
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Pulitzer Snubs Palestinian Journalists' Gaza Coverage
The Pulitzer Prize Board avoided "naming the brave Palestinian journalists who did the reporting and filming and died in record numbers," said one journalist.
May 06, 2024
In recent years, the Pulitzer Prize Board has given special recognition to the journalists of Ukraine and Afghanistan for reporting from war zones, honoring their "courage, endurance, and commitment to truthful reporting" and their ability to tell their communities' stories under "profoundly tragic and complicated circumstances."
On Monday, no such recognition was given to Palestinian reporters in Gaza, at least 92 of whom have been among more than 34,000 Palestinians killed in the enclave since Israel began its bombardment in October.
The annual journalism and literature awards included a special citation for "journalists and media workers covering the war in Gaza"—but didn't differentiate between those around the world who have spent the last seven months telling the story of Israel's escalation from the safety of far-off countries, and those struggling to report on the destruction of their own home under the constant threat of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacks.
"The missing word is—is always—Palestinian," said Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG). "Palestinian journalists and media workers deserve, if nothing else, this recognition; and half of them are dead."
Public health writer Abdullah Shihipar noted that in 2022, the board awarded the special citation to the "journalists of Ukraine." In 2021, it recognized "women and men of Afghanistan," saying that from "staff and freelance correspondents to interpreters to drivers to hosts, courageous Afghan residents helped produce Pulitzer-winning and Pulitzer-worthy images and stories."
This year, said Intercept journalist Jeremy Scahill, giving a special citation to "'media workers covering the war in Gaza' is a way to avoid naming the brave Palestinian journalists who did the reporting and filming and died in record numbers."
Many of those killed, Scahill added, might not have been had it not been for U.S.-made weapons sold to Israel.
The Pulitzer Prize for international reporting was awarded to The New York Times "for its wide-ranging and revelatory coverage of Hamas' lethal attack in southern Israel on October 7, Israel's intelligence failures, and the Israeli military's sweeping, deadly response in Gaza."
One of the Times' most explosive articles about Israel and Gaza, "Screams Without Words," about the alleged sexual assaults of Israeli victims of the October 7 attack, was not among those submitted for consideration. The article has come under scrutiny because of the anti-Palestinian bias expressed by one of the freelance reporters who worked on it, and questions about its veracity.
WAWOG, which has started a website titledThe New York War Crimes, posted on social media that the Times should have instead been awarded the Pulitzer for "manufacturing consent."
By honoring the Times for its international reporting this year, said City University of New York sociology professor Heba Gowayed, the Pulitzer Prize "lost any credibility it ever had."
The prize is administered by Columbia University, where students have been protesting for weeks against U.S. support for the IDF and against the school's investment in companies that contract with Israel.
Last week, the university called on the New York Police Department to forcibly remove student protesters from a school building; police told student journalists they would be arrested if they left Pulitzer Hall to report on the incident. Student journalists are reportedly still being barred from campus.
Columbia, said Jack Mirkinson of The Nation, announced the Pulitzers "at the exact same time it is clamping down on the press freedom of its own students. You couldn't make it up."
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The Vermont independent condemned the United States' support of Israel in a speech announcing his Senate reelection campaign.
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As Israel rejected a cease-fire deal that Hamas had accepted Monday, dashing the hopes of civilianstrapped in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that an invasion could be averted, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders called on the Biden administration to stop the looming attack that humanitarian and rights organizations have been warning against for months.
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To stop Israel from killing potentially hundreds of thousands of people in the city, where 1.4 million people are sheltering following Israel's obliteration of cities across Gaza, the U.S. must "end all offensive military aid" to the country, Sanders said Monday.
"Now an assault is imminent," said Sanders. "It will kill countless civilians. President Biden must back his words with action."
The senator made his latest demand for an end to Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza hours after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated a forced evacuation of about 100,000 people in eastern Rafah, dropping leaflets that ordered displaced families to move to a strip of land along Gaza's coast. An estimated 600,000 children are among the city's current population.
Israel has killed scores of people in Rafah in recent weeks with airstrikes on residential areas. Last week, dozens of U.S. House Democrats called on Biden to ensure a full-scale ground assault would not go forward, days before Israeli officials briefed the U.S.—the world's largest funder of the IDF—about its plan to forcibly expel people from the city.
Late last month Biden signed a foreign aid package that included $17 billion for Israel's military—legislation that Sanders voted against.
Sanders reiterated his demand for Biden to end his support for the IDF as he announced his 2024 reelection campaign.
Along with the climate crisis, healthcare and prescription drug costs, and protecting U.S. democracy, said Sanders, Israel's assault on Gaza is "very much on the minds of Vermonters," whom he has represented in the Senate since 2007.
While Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas for its October 7 attack, said Sanders, "it did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which is exactly what it is doing."
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GOP Senators Threaten ICC: 'Target Israel and We Will Target You'
"You have been warned," wrote 12 Republican lawmakers led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
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Just over a week before the International Criminal Court issued a statement condemning threats against the institution, a dozen Republicans in the U.S. Senate sent a letter to the ICC's prosecutor warning him against pursuing charges against Israeli officials over war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.
The letter, dated April 24 and reported exclusively by Zeteo on Monday, explicitly threatens U.S. retaliation against the ICC if it issues arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top Israeli officials.
"Target Israel and we will target you," reads the letter, which was led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a notorious war hawk, and signed by 11 others, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
The letter specifically threatens to sanction ICC employees and associates and bar them and their families from entering the United States, which is not a party to the ICC.
"You have been warned," states the letter, which invokes the American Service-Members’ Protection Act—a 2002 law informally known as "The Hague Invasion Act."
As Zeteo explained, the law "authorizes the U.S. president 'to use all means necessary and appropriate' to bring about the release not just of U.S. persons but also allies who are imprisoned or detained by the ICC."
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who delivered the infamous GOP response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address earlier this year, told Zeteo that the letter is "not a threat," but "a promise."
Read the letter from 12 Republican senators threatening ICC chief prosecutor @KarimKhanQC with "severe" consequences for him, his family & staff if he goes ahead with an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. "You have been warned."
Oh and subscribe to Zeteo too: https://t.co/pVvXi4IB6CÂ pic.twitter.com/aXfKH03T16
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 6, 2024
The 12 Republicans sent their letter days before the office of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan released a statement warning that its "independence and impartiality are undermined... when individuals threaten to retaliate against the court or against court personnel" as they conduct their investigations.
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