Category: Reproductive Rights

What really went on in the Roe v Wade story?

Roe v Wade is famous worldwide as the Supreme Court decision that protects American women’s right to abortion.

But Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” of the case, never got the abortion she wanted. Instead, she had the baby and gave her up for adoption.

Now, five decades later, the “Roe baby”, Shelley Lynn Thornton, has gone public for the first time.

Shelley was 18 when a woman sent by The Enquirer broke the news to her that her mum was Jane Roe.

She followed the news of Norma, who went from fighting for abortion rights to fighting against abortion, when she was befriended by Reverend Flip Benham, who baptised her in a backyard pool.

Four years later, when Norma knew she was dying, she revealed in the documentary AKA Jane Roe that she only joined the anti-abortion side because she’d been paid to do it, saying she was “a good actress”.

When Norma was right near the end, lying in a Texas hospital, attached to tubes, Melissa called Shelley, to see if she wanted to meet her face to face.

Shelley still wasn’t sure. And then it was too late.

Source: What really went on in the Roe v Wade story?

Blame the abortion lobby for Texas | Raquel Rosario Sánchez | The Critic Magazine

On 1 September, the state of Texas began implementing the most severe abortion restrictions in the United States, through a series of measures that prohibited the practice after the first six weeks of pregnancy. The Supreme Court, following a 5-4 vote, refused to intervene.

Most women don’t know they are pregnant at this stage, which leaves them in the invidious (and now unlawful) position of either seeking back-alley abortions or going to another state. The measures introduced this week also estipulate that anybody helping a woman obtain an abortion — including family members, friends or service providers — can be sued by private individuals for up to $10,000 (£7,200).

In effect, the law is encouraging ordinary people to study the bodies of child-bearing aged girls and women in Texas for signs of growing bellies and swelling breasts… and the disappearance of those signs. This is a dystopian nightmare. Women will now go to great lengths to conceal any hint of morning sickness from colleagues and neighbours, lest any of them betray them.

The logical question is: where are the feminist organisations? It turns out that some have gone AWOL, tackling entirely different issues outside of their remit. Over the past decade, Planned Parenthood, the United States most powerful reproductive rights lobby, has become one of the largest providers of cross-sex hormone and transgender medical transition. Or as Planned Parenthood calls it “gender affirming hormone care.”

A former employee told the Wall Street Journal‘s Abigail Shrier that, although providing abortions used to be the organisation’s bread and butter, medicalising children proved to be more lucrative: “Trans identifying kids are cash cows, and they are kept on the hook for the foreseeable future in terms of follow-up appointments, bloodwork, meetings, etc., whereas abortions are (hopefully) a one-and-done situation”.

Administering underage girls with ten to forty times the dose of testosterone their bodies naturally produce carries increased risks of vaginal and uterine atrophy, heart attacks, infertility and endometrial cancer, which is the antithesis of what most people assume a feminist organisation concerned with women’s health should do.

Source: Blame the abortion lobby for Texas | Raquel Rosario Sánchez | The Critic Magazine

Supreme Court allows Texas’ 6-week abortion ban to take effect – POLITICO

The Supreme Court early Wednesday let a Texas state law take effect that allows private citizens to sue to uphold a ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, potentially creating a new template for states to impose strict restrictions on the procedure.

Beyond outlawing abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, the Texas law, signed in May, would deputize citizens to file civil suits against abortion providers or anyone who helps facilitate the procedure after six weeks, such as a person who drives a pregnant person to the clinic. Individuals found to have violated the law would have to pay $10,000 to the person who successfully brings such a suit — a bounty abortion rights advocates warn will encourage harassment, intimidation and vigilantism.

Source: Supreme Court allows Texas’ 6-week abortion ban to take effect – POLITICO

Judge in controversial child support case recuses himself – Chicago Sun-Times

The Cook County judge who barred a mother from seeing her son because she wasn’t vaccinated against COVID-19 and then reversed his decision weeks later recused himself from her case Tuesday.

During an Aug. 10 hearing about child support, Shapiro asked Firlit if she was vaccinated against COVID-19. After she responded that she wasn’t for a medical reason, Shapiro issued an order banning her from seeing her son until she was vaccinated.

Shapiro was sharply criticized by court-watchers as well as Firlit’s attorney, Annette Fernholz, who said in her client’s case, the judge was “very much exceeding his judicial authority.”

On Monday, Shapiro issued a new order without elaboration that revoked his order that kept Firlit from seeing her son. He did not respond to a request to comment.

Source: Judge in controversial child support case recuses himself – Chicago Sun-Times

Medicare investigation indicates female genital mutilation in Australia – Michael West Media

Medicare data indicates doctors are performing circumcisions on females, many under the age of five. Health authorities are claiming a computer error but an investigation by Tasha May has found alarm among community groups.

Data publicly available on Services Australia’s website records that between July 2013 to July 2021 there were 1,836 claims made under the Medicare code for the circumcision of the penis but recorded for female patients. Over half of these claims were for girls under 15 years of age.

All states and territories have enacted criminal legislation prohibiting female circumcision, known more commonly as female genital mutilation (FGM). However, Khadija Gbla, a survivor of FGM and Director of Ending FGM Australia, says it’s a fact that FGM does still occur in Australia and that a conservative estimate suggests that 11 girls a day are at risk.

Gbla said she would not be surprised if some are subsidising the practice under Medicare as “we know Medicare fraud occurs” and the high numbers of occurrence appear “too much for it to be a coincidence.”

Betul Tuna, Project Officer for the Ethnic Council of Shepparton, said that their investigation found several male circumcision clinics entertained the idea of performing the circumcision on females while other clinics directed them to home circumcision avenues.

Source: Medicare investigation indicates female genital mutilation in Australia – Michael West Media

What it’s like for Indigenous women giving birth in jail.

According to the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) the number of women held in NSW prisons increased by 50 per cent (from 682 to 1,021) between 2011 and 2017.

The growth has been particularly marked among Aboriginal women, with the number in prison rising by 74 per cent (from 195 to 340), compared with a 40 per cent growth in the number of non-Aboriginal women in prison over the same time period.

Increased prison numbers are being driven by the numbers of women on remand and not an increase in crime rates. Remand means these women are being held in custody without being found guilty of a crime.

A 2019 report developed by Keeping Women Out of Prison (KWOOP) coalition, for which I am a member, indicates that although Aboriginal people make up only 2.9 per cent of the NSW population, 32 per cent of women in prison are Aboriginal.

Sixty-one per cent of women in NSW prisons are mothers to one or more children below the age of 18. We know the long-term detrimental impacts of separation of children from their families due to parental imprisonment. We also know the guaranteed negative effects on their life trajectories and the greater likelihood of entry into juvenile and adult correctional systems. Despite this, the State continues to lock our women up at alarming rates.

The unnecessary hyper incarceration of women, particularly women who are pregnant, does not create safer communities or reduce risk to the community. How much of a risk to the community can a woman pose who is about to give birth?

Through our work at Deadly Connections Community and Justice Services, we know that many women in prison serve short sentences. Short sentences which are often short enough to disrupt their lives including loss of their home and child but not long enough for the women to engage in any type of program while in custody. We also have a high proportion of women imprisoned for non-violent offences.

This is a human rights issue that requires our urgent attention.

Source: What it’s like for Indigenous women giving birth in jail.

Male Rat Was Made Pregnant and Had Pups. Result: Outrage

Very recently, a team of scientists in China at the Naval Medical University in Shanghai tried to create a model to test the hypothesis that you could get a male rat to deliver babies. They published this paper and reported some success. It has created almost a predictable firestorm to the point where they’re thinking of retracting the paper.

What did they do? Something called heterosexual parabiosis. They took a male and a female rat and literally joined their blood circulation to get female hormones into the male bloodstream. Then they transplanted the uterus of the female rat into the male rat. They created a space, put it there, then they put in embryos transferred from the female that they had created in vitro. Lo and behold, the male with the transplanted uterus and the donated embryos gave birth to 10 rat cubs, and they seemed normal.

Whether we choose to do that and whether it’s right to let men reproduce are bigger issues that ought to go way beyond scientists. I think it’s time to form an international committee to start thinking about that kind of a question regarding limits on reproductive technology, giving advice, and guidelines. We need society to agree where we might go in terms of who can have a baby, under what circumstances, and with what medical assistance — not a review committee.

Source: Male Rat Was Made Pregnant and Had Pups. Result: Outrage

“Gender Identity,” the Techno Medical Complex and Twerking Men in Monkey Suits

Why are most adults unable to respond effectively to the overt exposure of our children to extreme sexual material and acts, and the brutalization of their sex organs, being framed as human rights? Children’s libraries have been infringed upon by grown men in women’s underwear and clown make up, twerking at them while singing about inclusivity and choosing to be male or female. What does this have to do with the rights of people who are same sex attracted?

Can grown men in rainbow monkey suits twerking at children in their libraries be an accident? Is it a phenomenon that just happened? Is Jazz Jennings’ castration promoted on television and celebrated in corporately controlled media that intersect with the techno-medical complex, just something that emerged? Thousands of young people on YouTube and TikTok talking about their dismemberment surgeries, alongside doctors selling dismemberment surgeries, cannot be just a fad.

Source: “Gender Identity,” the Techno Medical Complex and Twerking Men in Monkey Suits