April, 29 2022, 11:06am EDT
For Immediate Release
Legal Challenges Filed to Block Two Extreme Oklahoma Abortion Bans
A Texas-style copycat ban – passed today and would take effect as soon as the governor signs it.
WASHINGTON
Today, a coalition of Oklahoma abortion providers and a reproductive justice organization filed two separate challenges in state court to block two different abortion bans passed during the 2022 state legislative session. The six-week Texas-style abortion ban (S.B. 1503;challenge linked here), which passed today with no debate or questions allowed, would become effective immediately upon Gov. Kevin Stitt's signature. The other ban (S.B. 612; challenge linked here) would make providing an abortion a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine. The challenge to S.B. 1503 was filed directly in Oklahoma Supreme Court. The challenge to S.B. 612, filed in trial court, was added to an existing case challenging other abortion restrictions enacted in 2021 that are currently blocked.
S.B. 1503
S.B. 1503 creates a bounty-hunting scheme similar to Texas's S.B. 8, which encourages the general public to bring costly and harassing lawsuits against anyone they believe has provided or aided providing abortion in violation of the ban. Under this scheme, anyone who successfully sues an abortion provider, a health center worker, or any person who helps someone access an abortion after about six weeks in Oklahoma would be rewarded with at least $10,000. This scheme has successfully banned most abortions in Texas since it took effect in September 2021, with devastating effects on patients who are forced to flee the state for care, seek abortion outside the health care system, or carry pregnancies against their will.
Oklahoma will become the second state this year, after Idaho, to follow Texas's example in attempting to cut patients off from abortions at the earliest stages of pregnancy even while Roe still stands. In a move reserved for constitutional crises and other urgent situations, the challenge to S.B. 1503 was filed directly in Oklahoma Supreme Court. Petitioners requested an emergency order blocking the law from taking effect while litigation on the merits of the law proceeds. Although federal challenges to Texas's similar ban have been unsuccessful in blocking the law, there is significant precedent in Oklahoma state court to support plaintiffs' arguments for relief preventing this ban from going into effect.
S.B. 612
The other ban challenged today (S.B. 612) is a total ban on abortion in Oklahoma that is set to take effect in late summer 2022. S.B. 612 was signed into law by Gov. Kevin Stitt on April 12 and would make providing an abortion a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine. Today's filing seeks to add a challenge to S.B. 612 to an existing case - Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice v. O'Connor - which was filed in state court last year against a slew of abortion restrictions passed in 2021. Those included a ban on abortion as early as six weeks of pregnancy and a separate total abortion ban, which declared that providing any abortions qualifies as "unprofessional conduct" by physicians resulting in loss of licensure. All five laws challenged in the original suit are currently blocked. In today's filing, the plaintiffs requested to have S.B. 612 temporarily blocked like these other laws as litigation moves forward.
Quotes from attorneys and plaintiffs
"The Oklahoma Supreme Court has repeatedly found that the state legislature's extreme attempts to restrict abortion are unconstitutional, and these bans are some of the most extreme yet," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "We are asking the state courts to uphold the State Constitution and apply Oklahoma precedent to block these insidious abortion bans before they take effect. Oklahoma is a critical state for abortion access right now, with many Texans fleeing to Oklahoma for abortion care. These bans would further decimate abortion access across the South."
"To limit a person's freedom and autonomy is unconscionable and unconstitutional. Unless these abortion bans are stopped, Oklahomans will be robbed of the freedom to control their own bodies and futures," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "For more than seven months, Oklahoma abortion providers have taken in patients forced to leave Texas for essential care. The governor may joke about stopping people from crossing the Oklahoma border for abortion, but this is no laughing matter. Unless these bans are blocked, patients will be turned away, people seeking abortion will be unable to access essential care in their own communities, and their loved ones could be stopped from supporting them due to fear of being sued. We've told Oklahoma politicians loud and clear: keep your bans off our bodies. Today, we're taking the state to court to stop these bans from robbing Oklahomans of abortion access."
"These abortion bans will push abortion access out of reach for many communities who already face often insurmountable barriers to health care, including Black and brown communities, low-income communities, and people who live in rural areas," said Tamya Cox-Toure, co-chair, Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice. "These are the same communities who are most impacted by the maternal health crisis occurring in our country and in our state. The lawmakers who passed these bans do not care about access to healthcare, and we can't allow this law to take effect."
"As a physician who also provides abortions in Texas, I have seen firsthand the impact of a bounty-hunting scheme and abortion ban on patients and physicians," said Dr. Alan Braid, owner, Tulsa Women's Reproductive Clinic. "They are designed to threaten and intimidate physicians into not providing constitutionally protected health care, and force pregnant people to travel hundreds of miles to receive care. The pain this has caused in Texas is unfathomable, and I will fight alongside these other providers and advocates to prevent this law from taking effect in Oklahoma."
"Patients who are crossing state lines to get abortion services have the exact same question we do: why are their rights to make personal medical decisions less protected in one state than in another?" said Emily Wales, interim president and CEO, Planned Parenthood Great Plains. "Planned Parenthood Great Plains' providers have served thousands of Texans in the past seven months because of their state's harsh bounty-hunting scheme, and we have been proud to stand with them and provide essential, constitutionally protected abortion services. Now, rather than serving as a haven for patients unable to get care at home, Oklahoma politicians have made outcasts of their own people. With today's filings, we lift up the patients who will otherwise be unable to get care and ask the court to do its most essential function: honor the constitution and the individuals who need its protections."
If any of the abortion bans the legislature has passed in this session or the last take effect, abortion access will be almost entirely cut off for the thousands of patients who receive abortions in Oklahoma each year. The bans would also decimate abortion access for surrounding states: Since Texas's S.B. 8 took effect, Oklahoma clinics have reported huge upticks in Texas patients, resulting in weeks-long wait times. Planned Parenthood released data in February showing that, in the first four months after S.B. 8 took effect, more than half of the patients at its Oklahoma health centers were from Texas, compared to less than 10% in the prior year. Overall, during that period, these Oklahoma health centers saw a nearly 2500% increase in Texas patients.
The challenge to S.B. 1503 was filed in Oklahoma Supreme Court against the State of Oklahoma and all 77 state court clerks. The plaintiffs - Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice, Dr. Alan Braid, Tulsa Women's Reproductive Clinic, Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, and Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma - are represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Blake Patton.
Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice v. O'Connor (to which the challenge to S.B. 612 was added today) was filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Dechert LLP, and Blake Patton on behalf of the Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice, Tulsa Women's Reproductive Clinic, Dr. Alan Braid, Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, and Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma.
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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Sanders Launches Probe of 'Outrageously Overpriced' Ozempic and Wegovy
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chair said that the popular medications "will not do any good for the millions of patients who cannot afford them."
Apr 24, 2024
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday opened an investigation into an "outrageously overpriced" medication manufactured by a Denmark-based company whose value by market capitalization is larger than the Scandinavian country's gross domestic product.
Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sent a letter to Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk. The company makes semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist used to treat Type 2 diabetes under the brand name Ozempic and, when sold as Wegovy, to treat obesity in adults with at least one weight-related comorbidity.
"The scientists at Novo Nordisk deserve great credit for developing these drugs that have the potential to be a game-changer for millions of Americans struggling with Type 2 diabetes and obesity," Sanders acknowledged. "As important as these drugs are, they will not do any good for the millions of patients who cannot afford them."
"Further, if the prices for these products are not substantially reduced they also have the potential to bankrupt Medicare, Medicaid, and our entire healthcare system," he added.
Sanders continued:
Today, Novo Nordisk is charging patients in the United States up to 15 times more for Ozempic and Wegovy than it charges patients in Canada, Europe, or Japan. For example, your company charges $969 in the United States for one month of Ozempic but just $155 in Canada and just $59 in Germany. Further, Novo Nordisk charges Americans $1,349 for one month Wegovy but just $140 in Germany and just $92 in the United Kingdom.
"Meanwhile," the senator noted, "researchers at Yale University estimate that both of these drugs can be profitably manufactured for less than $5 a month."
"The result of these astronomically high prices is that Ozempic and Wegovy are out of reach for millions of Americans who need them," Sanders said. "Unfortunately, Novo Nordisk's pricing has turned drugs that could improve people's lives into luxury goods, all while Novo Nordisk made over $12 billion in profits last year—up 76% from 2021. That is unacceptable."
As of March 2024, Novo Nordisk was Europe's most highly valued company by market capitalization. Its $554 billion market cap is significantly higher than Denmark's annual gross domestic product of approximately $410 billion, according to International Monetary Fund figures.
Sanders also pointed out that Novo Nordisk is charging different prices for Ozempic and Wegovy, even though they're "the exact same drug."
"Novo Nordisk charges Americans with obesity nearly $400 more every month than those with Type 2 diabetes for the same product provided in similar doses," he wrote.
"The unjustifiably high prices of Ozempic and Wegovy are already straining the budgets of Medicare and Medicaid and severely limiting access for patients who need these drugs," the letter says. "Last year, researchers at Vanderbilt University's Department of Health Policy and the University of Chicago's Department of Medicine estimated in the New England Journal of Medicine that it would cost Medicare over $150 billion a year to cover Wegovy and other similar weight loss drugs."
"To put this in perspective, the cost of all retail prescription drugs covered by Medicare in 2022 was less than $130 billion," Sanders added.
"As chairman of the committee, I am asking Novo Nordisk to substantially reduce the price of Ozempic and Wegovy so that these important drugs can be available to Americans with Type 2 diabetes and obesity," he wrote.
Existing law empowers the government to step in to lower drug prices in service of the public interest. Under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980—legislation meant to promote the commercialization and public availability of government-funded inventions—federal agencies reserve the right to "march in" and authorize price-lowering generic alternatives to patented medications developed with public funding.
However, U.S. administrations—including President Joe Biden's—have been loath to exercise "march-in" rights.
Under pressure from the public and lawmakers led by Sanders, Novo Nordisk last year announced that it would cut prices by up to 75% for some of its insulin products.
Responding to Wednesday's letter, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America—Big Pharma's leading lobbyist—accused Sanders of "attacking an innovative company to advance a political agenda instead of addressing the real cause of affordability challenges."
Noting Novo Nordisk's bigger-than-Denmark market cap, Warren Gunnels, the HELP Committee's majority staff director, wrote on social media that the company "made over $12 billion in profits last year by, among other things, charging Americans $969 for Ozempic while it can be purchased for $59 in Germany and costs $5 to make."
"Our political agenda is to end this greed," he added. "Guilty. As. Charged."
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Texas State Troopers in Riot Gear Crack Down on UT Students' Gaza Protest
"Why do we even have these institutions of higher learning if we won't let students speak their conscience and protest?" said one University of Texas professor.
Apr 24, 2024
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
Civil rights advocates on Wednesday expressed alarm at a rapid escalation by Texas state troopers who descended on a student-led protest at University of Texas at Austin, which was organized in solidarity with Gaza and other U.S. college students taking part in a growing anti-war movement.
UT students gathered on campus at midday and were promptly given two minutes to disperse by state troopers, who had already been called to the scene.
The troopers were equipped with riot gear, with some carrying assault rifles and several stationed on horses.
Erick Lara, a 20-year-old sophomore, told The Dallas Morning News that the nonviolent protest transformed "within minutes" after the police began arresting demonstrators.
"I didn't think it would escalate this far," he told the outlet. "And I didn't think there would be this much police intervention from what's supposed to be a peaceful protest. Not very peaceful when there's a bunch of aggressors around, especially on horses."
The organizers called the gathering "The Popular University" and said it was aimed at pressuring UT to "divest from death."
The protesters walked out of their classes to demand UT divest from weapons manufacturers in order to end its complicity in Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 34,262 Palestinians.
Student-run newspaper The Daily Texanreported roughly 50 state troopers were deployed to stop the initial protest of about 150-200 people.
Ryan Chandler, a reporter for NBC affiliate KXAN-TV and UT alum, reported that there were at least 10 students detained.
"Went here for four years, never saw anything like this," said Chandler, posting a video of a group of police pushing one student to the ground and arresting them.
Joseph Pierce, a Stony Brook University professor who attended graduate school at UT, also said the escalation was an unusually "drastic response to students advocating for an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people."
"It is a response that did not occur when in 2005 we protested the anti-gay marriage bill; in the late 2000s when we protested anti-immigration bills; in the 2010s when we protested the open-carry bill," Pierce said. "It is a clear attempt at silencing Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish voices."
The students faced the state troopers in a standoff on the university's main street.
"This violence against peaceful student protesters at UT Austin is absolutely horrifying—and should be condemned in the strongest terms by every politician and mainstream journalist," said former New Yorker editor Erin Overbey.
UT media and Middle East studies professor Nahid Siamdoust said the university "brought out everything but the kitchen sink to make sure" students couldn't erect an anti-war encampment like students at Columbia University, New York University, and other schools across the U.S. have in recent days.
The university had informed organizers with the on-campus Palestine Solidarity Committee on Tuesday that exercising their First Amendment rights in support of Palestinians in Gaza would "violate our policies and rules."
"The freedom to protest is integral to our democracy," said the ACLU of Texas Wednesday amid reports of the crackdown. "UT Austin students have a First Amendment right to freely express their political opinions—without threats of arrest and violence."
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"He does not care about anybody in this world except Donald Trump," said the president of North America's Building Trades Unions. "His dark side is very, very dark."
Apr 24, 2024
The leadership of a union that represents more than 3 million building trades workers in the U.S. and Canada endorsed President Joe Biden's reelection bid on Wednesday, slamming presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump for catering to the needs of billionaires like himself during his first four years in the White House.
"When Trump was elected, we took him at his word that he would have a worker-centered agenda and deliver on long-stalled issues such as infrastructure investment," said Sean McGarvey, president of North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU), whose governing board voted to endorse Biden on Tuesday.
"Instead of delivering," McGarvey added, Trump "aligned himself with his billionaire buddies to enact tax cuts that raised costs for our members. Simply put, he failed to deliver. Given our experience and knowing his track record, the choice is clear."
Building trades unions and their rank-and-file members are generally seen as more conservative and pro-Trump than other elements of the U.S. labor movement. In 2017, McGarvey celebrated Trump's effort to advance construction work on the Keystone XL pipeline, a massive fossil fuel project that Biden effectively killed in 2021 after years of organizing by environmentalists and Indigenous tribes.
But NABTU's leadership endorsed Clinton over Trump in the 2016 presidential election and Biden over Trump in 2020.
In a five-minute ad released Wednesday, the union highlights Trump's pledge to be a dictator on "day one" and condemns the former president as a dangerous egomaniac.
NABTU called for Trump's resignation after the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
"Donald Trump, he's not a good man. He's not a good person. He does not care about anybody in this world except Donald Trump," McGarvey says in the new ad. "His dark side is very, very dark."
Wow. You may have seen a short version of the North America Building Trade Union ( @NABTU) video endorsement of Biden. The full video is incredible and absolutely devastating for Trump. They did not hold back. A must watch till the end. pic.twitter.com/stL7b7JazP
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) April 24, 2024
In his statement Wednesday announcing NABTU's endorsement, McGarvey cites the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Chips and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act as key legislative achievements that "brought life-changing, opportunity-creating, generational change focused on the working men and women of this great country who have for far too long been clamoring for a leader to finally keep their word."
"In the coming months," he added, "we will continue to engage our membership and their families directly, member to member, door to door, and jobsite to jobsite, with an unprecedented field program in key battleground states, to tell them how important President Biden and his policies have been to them, their economic security, and their freedoms."
But McGarvey said in an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday that the union does not intend to "waste a lot of time talking to every American that supports Donald Trump" or "some of our members that support Donald Trump, because we're not gonna change their minds."
Speaking at NABTU's annual legislative conference on Wednesday, Biden welcomed the union's endorsement and said that "Donald Trump's vision of America is one of revenge and retribution, a defeated former president who sees the world from Mar-a-Lago, who bows down to billionaires and looks down on union workers."
NABTU is the latest major union to back Biden as he prepares for his high-stakes rematch with Trump in November. In January, Biden secured the support of the emboldened United Auto Workers, whose president called Trump a "scab" who "stands against everything we stand for as a union."
"Donald Trump is a billionaire," said UAW president Shawn Fain, "and that's who he represents."
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