November, 23 2022, 02:28pm EDT
Georgia Supreme Court Allows Six-Week Abortion Ban to Again Take Effect
WASHINGTON
The Georgia Supreme Court granted an emergency stay of a lower court's injunction today, allowing a six-week abortion ban to take effect once again while the state's appeal continues. The ban --- which had been blocked just one week ago --- prohibits abortions from the earliest weeks of pregnancy, when many don't yet know they are pregnant. The court also denied abortion providers' request for 24 hours notice before reinstating the ban. Today, patients in waiting rooms are being turned away and forced to seek health care elsewhere or else carry pregnancies to term against their will.
The Supreme Court's order did not contain any explanation for granting the state's request to stay the trial court's Nov. 15 order striking down the six-week ban. As superior court judge Robert McBurney explained in his decision, under the Georgia Constitution, laws that violate either the Georgia or U.S. Constitution when they are passed are forever void. When Gov. Brian Kemp signed this six-week ban into law in the spring of 2019, Roe v. Wade was the law of the land. Under more than a century of Georgia Supreme Court precedent, a subsequent change in the constitutional landscape cannot revive a law that was void from inception. Instead, if the legislature wishes to ban abortion, it must pass a new law "in the sharp glare of public attention that will undoubtedly and properly attend such an important and consequential debate," Judge McBurney wrote in his order. But today's Supreme Court order lets the ban go back into effect while the appeal continues, without giving Georgia voters, through their elected representatives, an opportunity to weigh in.
Evidence shows that being denied an abortion can have lasting health and financial consequences for people and their families, including elevated health risks during and after pregnancy; and derailed educational, career, and life plans. For some, the consequences of the ban can be deadly. Black Georgians face myriad barriers to accessing reproductive health care, including structural racism within the health care system. As a result, Black women in Georgia experience maternal mortality and pregnancy complications at a rate more than two times that of non-Hispanic white women.
Below are statements from plaintiffs and litigators:
"While disappointing and deeply frustrating, we were not surprised when the Kemp administration filed a petition for an emergency stay following last week's ruling," said Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, the lead plaintiff in the case. "The governor and attorney general of Georgia are doubling down to control access to reproductive health care, and while the stay was granted, we will not stop fighting until this ban that is steeped in white supremacy is gone. All Georgians--including Black women and Queer, trans, low-income, and rural people--should have the freedom to decide to have children, to not have children, and to raise the families they have in thriving communities. We remain undeterred from realizing this vision."
"It is cruel that our patients' ability to access the reproductive health care they need has been taken away yet again. For the second time this year, we are being forced to turn away those in need of abortion care beyond six weeks of pregnancy," said Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director of Feminist Women's Health Center. "This ban has wreaked havoc on Georgians' lives, and our patients deserve better. We will keep fighting to protect our patients and their health."
"For now, Gov. Kemp has the green light to again strip away Georgians' autonomy, prevent doctors from providing medically indicated care for pregnancy complications, and exacerbate Georgia's maternal mortality and morbidity crisis," said Julia Kaye, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project. "Reinstating this extreme abortion ban will cause immense harm, especially to Black Georgians and people with the fewest resources -- who are least likely to be able to travel out of state for care and most likely to suffer severe medical consequences from forced pregnancy and childbirth. While this ruling is devastating, the case is not over. We will never stop fighting to ensure that everyone, no matter their geography, race, or income, has the power to control their own bodies and futures."
"Appropriate reproductive health care had restarted in this state and it will be traumatic for Georgia's women and couples to again lose their right to make personal, private decisions about their lives," said Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia. "It also now becomes even more important that we protect access in other states by preventing the U.S. Senate from passing a federal ban on abortion."
"It is unconscionable that the Georgia Supreme Court has chosen to deny pregnant people the ability to decide what is best for their own lives and futures," said Amy Kennedy, vice president for external affairs of Planned Parenthood Southeast. "Our state's abortion providers are again being forced to turn away patients who then must leave the state for safe, time-sensitive, and essential health care. We will not let this stand, and Planned Parenthood Southeast and our partners are committed to fighting this ban until access beyond the earliest stages in pregnancy is restored."
"Let's be clear: the court's decision to reinstate Georgia's abortion ban directly interferes with the people of Georgia's personal medical decisions," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "Pregnant people will be denied their right to self-determination, and to decide what is best for their health and for that of their families. For Black Georgians especially, the denial of essential reproductive health care can be deadly. While we are devastated by today's decision, we still have fight left in us. Planned Parenthood will stand with our partners across the reproductive health, rights, and justice movement in fighting for abortion access for every person, regardless of where they live or how much money they have."
"It is outrageous that this extreme law is back in effect, just days after being rightfully blocked," said Alice Wang, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. "This legal ping pong is causing chaos for medical providers trying to do their jobs and for patients who are now left frantically searching for the abortion services they need. Georgians are again being denied control over their own lives and futures, but we will do everything in our power to strike down this ban for good."
During a trial held in October, health care providers and other experts testified that the abortion ban has had devastating consequences for Georgians' health and lives. The ban forces Georgians seeking abortion after the earliest weeks of pregnancy to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles out of state for care, and that's only if they can pull together the resources to do so. Georgians and other people seeking care in states where abortion is still legal face long wait times for appointments. Many of those who cannot surmount the tremendous financial and logistical barriers of getting abortion care in other states are forced to carry their pregnancy to term and give birth against their will.
This case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Georgia, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Georgia-based law firms Caplan Cobb and Bondurant Mixson & Elmore on behalf of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, Feminist Women's Health Center, Planned Parenthood Southeast, Inc., Atlanta Comprehensive Wellness Clinic, Atlanta Women's Medical Center, FemHealth USA d/b/a carafem, Summit Medical Associates, P.C., Carrie Cwiak, M.D., M.P.H., Lisa Haddad, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., Eva Lathrop, M.D., M.P.H., and Medical Students for Choice.
A copy of the ruling issued today can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/sistersong-v-state-georgia-georgia-s...
An overview of the case can be found online here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/sistersong-v-state-georgia
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Rights Groups Urge Biden to Make Delayed Report on Israel's Use of US Arms Public
The report—due Wednesday under the terms of a White House directive—has been indefinitely postponed, according to congressional aides.
May 07, 2024
Before Tuesday's reporting that the Biden administration will delay a highly anticipated report on whether Israel is using U.S. military aid in compliance with international law, a coalition of advocacy groups circulated a letter urging the White House to share the document with the public once it's published.
In February, President Joe Biden issued National Security Memorandum (NSM)-20, which requires Secretary of State Antony Blinken "to obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments" receiving U.S. arms "that the recipient country will use any such defense articles in accordance with international humanitarian law" and then provide Congress with periodic reports "to enable meaningful oversight."
The first report is due by Wednesday. However, four congressional aides
toldPolitico Tuesday that publication would be postponed indefinitely.
"It is not clear if your administration intends to... make this report available to the public," coalition members Amnesty International USA, Defending Rights & Dissent, Freedom of the Press Foundation, National Press Photographers Association, Radio Television Digital News Association, and Reporters Without Borders said in a letter to Biden drafted ahead of Politico's reporting.
"We strongly urge you to make the report available to the public and the press to the greatest extent possible," the groups added.
Access to the document, the coalition argued, "will allow the press to more fully and accurately report on how elected leaders are making decisions about military aid to foreign countries" and "will help Americans make informed judgments about our leaders' decisions on foreign military aid."
"We strongly urge you to make the report available to the public and the press to the greatest extent possible."
The letter comes as Israel uses U.S.-supplied arms and ammunition to wage what hundreds of international legal experts and others say is a genocidal war on Gaza. These include 155-millimeter artillery shells and 2,000-pound guided "bunker-buster" bombs, which Israel says are necessary to target Hamas' underground tunnels.
Aided by artificial intelligence-based target selection systems, Israel Defense Forces commanders are ordering strikes they know will cause large numbers of civilian casualties. In a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander, the IDF dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than 120 civilians.
Even the U.S. military—which since 2001 has killed hundreds of thousands of people during the open-ended so-called War on Terror—avoids using 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated areas due to the tremendous damage they cause.
One prominent U.S. military historian called Israel's Gaza onslaught "one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history," comparing it to the Allied firebombing of Dresden during World War II, which also killed tens of thousands of civilians.
The letter also comes as the Biden administration reportedly believes that Israel's nascent ground invasion of Rafah does not cross the president's "red line" warning that any "major operation" in the southern city—where more than 1 million Palestinians forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza are sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents—would damage U.S.-Israeli relations.
The International Court of Justice found in January that Israel is "plausibly" perpetrating genocide in Gaza, where Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockades have left more than 123,000 Palestinians—most of them women and children—dead, injured, or missing since October 7, and hundreds of thousands more suffering full-blown famine.
While the Biden administration has accepted the Israeli government's claims that it is not breaking international law when using American weapons, a number of House Democrats have challenged Israel's assurance, citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by IDF troops in Gaza, and by soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Officials at the United States Agency for International Development also concluded in a confidential April memo to Blinken that Israel is violating NSM-20 by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the besieged Gaza Strip as children there starve to death.
Furthermore, a leaked State Department memo revealed last month that officials at four of the agency's bureaus concluded that Israel's assurances of legal arms use are "neither credible nor reliable."
In addition to NSM-20, federal legislation including the Arms Control Export Act and Leahy Laws also proscribe U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators—although there are many examples of these statutes being ignored for the benefit of key allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other nations.
"The public has a profound interest in understanding how the U.S. ensures that its military aid doesn't go to human rights abusers," Caitlin Vogus, deputy advocacy director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement Tuesday.
"If the Biden administration can stand behind its decisions about defense assistance, it should have no reason to withhold the report that members of Congress will see from the press and the public," Vogus added.
While Biden has criticized Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza and is reportedly holding up two shipments of precision-guided bombs to send a message to Israeli leaders, the president continues to affirm his steadfast support for Israel and has recently approved the transfer of more warplanes, 2,000-pound bombs, and other arms to its key Middle Eastern ally. The administration is also pushing Congress to approve the sale of $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Israel.
Earlier this year, a group of mostly Democratic members of Congress asked Blinken to explain what they called "highly unusual" moves by the Biden administration to bypass lawmakers in order to fast-track emergency military aid to Israel. Biden—who recently signed off on $14.3 billion in new armed aid to Israel atop the $4 billion it already gets from Washington each year—has also come under fire for approving more than 100 weapons sales to Israel since October.
Human rights defenders slammed Biden's reported decision to postpone publication of the report due on Wednesday.
"It's obvious why Biden is burying the NSM-20 report on Israel: He won't hold Israel accountable," Georgetown University adjunct professor Josh Reubner asserted on social media. "There's no way to conclude that Israel hasn't violated assurances it won't use U.S. weapons to break international law or block aid. Of course it's doing both."
Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer asked: "Hey, Joe Biden, what are you hidin'?"
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'Overdue But Welcome': Biden Reportedly Holds Back Bombs for Israel
"The White House must leave no stone unturned in its effort to stop the Israeli government's offensive on Rafah—the hundreds of thousands displaced there do not have more time," said the head of Win Without War.
May 07, 2024
Anti-war voices on Tuesday welcomed Politico's reporting that U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is delaying "shipments of two types of Boeing-made precision bombs to send a political message to Israel," which on Monday launched a long-awaited invasion of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
"The U.S. has yet to sign off on a pending sale of Boeing's Joint Direct Attack Munitions—both the munitions and kits that convert them to smart weapons—and Small Diameter Bombs," according to Politico, which cited unnamed congressional and industry sources. "While the Biden administration has not formally denied the potential sale, it is essentially taking action through inaction—holding off on approvals and other aspects of the weapons transfer process."
The piece followed Axiosreporting Sunday that Israeli officials said the administration "last week put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition" and The Wall Street Journal's Monday revelation that it "has held up delivery of Joint Direct Attack Munitions."
"If President Biden is taking the overdue but necessary step... he cannot leave his intentions open to miscommunication or spin."
The White House has neither confirmed nor denied Politico's report, which came as Biden again conflated campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza with antisemitism. Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the U.S.-backed offensive in October, Biden has faced mounting pressure to cut off arms to the country and use his influence to end the bloodshed.
"Reports that the Biden administration is delaying the sale of at least two types of bombs to the Israeli government, in reaction to its disastrous conduct of the war in Gaza, are highly welcome. That conduct is again on international display in Rafah this week, where the Israeli military has begun an invasion that, as we at Win Without War have previously warned, could lead to further horrific war crimes," the group's executive director, Sara Haghdoosti, said in a statement Tuesday.
"Now that this news has leaked, senior administration officials must publicly confirm this policy shift," she said. "If President Biden is taking the overdue but necessary step to condition weapons sales in line with U.S. law and policy and to force changes in Israeli government strategy, he cannot leave his intentions open to miscommunication or spin from those, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, who are continuing this conflict for their own political benefit. The White House must leave no stone unturned in its effort to stop the Israeli government's offensive on Rafah—the hundreds of thousands displaced there do not have more time."
Over a million Palestinians from across Gaza have crowded into Rafah since October, as Israeli forces have killed at least 34,789 people, wounded another 78,204, and destroyed civilian infrastructure in the strip, which has been under Hamas control for nearly two decades. The International Court of Justice has said Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in the besieged enclave.
While multiple congressional Republicans condemned the Biden administration's supposed move to delay the delivery of the bombs to Israel, critics of the Israeli assault joined Haghdoosti in welcoming the development—which comes on the heels of Congress and the president approving billions more in military aid for Israel.
"Glad to see it. I wish they would've started sending this message thousands of lives ago, as so many urged," Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, said on social media.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the Crisis Group's U.S. program, agreed the move is "good if true" and "an easy step the Biden administration should have taken months ago."
Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk, called it an "overdue but welcome development" that "hopefully... signals a pivot to beginning to impose more overt conditionality on U.S. arms transfers."
Politico separately reported Tuesday that according to congressional sources, "the Biden administration's report on whether Israel has violated U.S. and international humanitarian law during the war in Gaza has been delayed indefinitely."
The Israeli War Cabinet—made up of Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Benny Gantz, former chief of the general staff for the Israel Defense Forces—opted to attack Rafah on Monday despite Hamas agreeing to a cease-fire and hostage release deal. Biden previously said that Israel invading the crowded city was a "red line" and is now facing calls to stand by that position.
"The Israeli government has once again proven that it will respect no red lines and that it will go to any lengths to slaughter Palestinians and push them off their land," said Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad.
"The Biden administration can no longer enable these genocidal war crimes or Benjamin Netanyahu's brazen flouting of the United States," Awad added. "We urge the Biden administration to condemn the Israeli government's latest crimes, suspend military funding, and use American leverage to secure an immediate end to the genocide."
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NYC Driver Rams Into Anti-Genocide Protest, Hospitalizes One
"Zionists on the streets and in police precincts have declared open season on young people fighting for Palestinian liberation," said one Columbia University student group.
May 07, 2024
One pro-Palestinian protester was hospitalized on Tuesday after a pro-Israel driver "intentionally drove" into a group of picketers outside the home of one of Columbia University's trustees on New York City's Upper East Side, as demonstrations against Israel's bombardment of Gaza continued.
According to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the protesters "were attacked on the crosswalk" by an "Upper East Side Zionist."
CUAD reported that the man drove up to the demonstrators, who have been calling on Columbia to divest from companies that contract with Israel and for the U.S. government to stop supporting the Israel Defense Forces, and asked for a flyer before grabbing a protester by the arm.
He then "circled the block to drive into our peaceful demonstration," striking one person who was "arrested and handcuffed to the bed while in the hospital," said CUAD.
The New York Police Department
toldUSA Today that an argument broke out between the driver and the protesters and that "as the group of roughly 25 demonstrators walked away, a driver hit one person with his Volvo."
CUAD noted that the alleged attack took place as U.S. politicians including President Joe Biden have condemned the campus protest movement, with at least one lawmaker
applauding abusive behavior by anti-Palestinian counter-protesters and New York City Council member Vickie Paladino (R-19) saying last week that the student movement is being led by "monsters, and it's now our job to slay them."
Paladino's "call for vigilante justice was almost fulfilled today," said CUAD.
USA Today also reported that at a separate protest on the Upper West Side near the apartment building of the co-chair of Columbia's board of trustees, "a woman punched a demonstrator in the face, seemingly at random."
In Los Angeles last week, city police stood by while a mob of pro-Israel counter-protesters
attacked nonviolent students who had set up an encampment in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel has killed at least 34,789 and on Monday invaded Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced.
On Tuesday, in honor of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Annual Days of Remembrance, Biden gave a speech on antisemitism, conflating protests in support of Palestinian rights with the hatred of Jewish people.
CUAD and independent reporter Talia Jane said the driver is a relative of the late Meir Kahane, an American-born Israeli far-right extremist.
The driver's "actions today model a trend in which Zionists weaponize their discomfort over political slogans as an excuse to assault Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Black, brown, and dissident Jewish protesters in violent retaliation for imagined threats," said CUAD. "Just as white supremacists ran over a protester in Charlottesville, Zionists on the streets and in police precincts have declared open season on young people fighting for Palestinian liberation."
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