War on Women Report: Texas Teen Raises $2.2 Million for Abortion Funds; 43 Abortion Clinics Closed;
(and this is just a brief recap of the more blatant attacks on women in the last few weeks, even though the list is lengthy)
War on Women Report: Texas Teen Raises $2.2 Million for Abortion Funds; 43 Abortion Clinics Closed; WNBA’s Brittney Griner Sentenced to Nine Years
8/11/2022 by Michelle Moulton
U.S. patriarchal authoritarianism is on the rise, and democracy is on the decline. But day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. The fight is far from over. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.
Participants at the Women’s March in Topeka, Kan., on Jan. 21, 2017. (mmrogne / Flickr)
Abortion rights activists in the Indiana Senate during a special session to ban abortion rights in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. Gov. Holcomb signed the bill into law. (Jeremy Hogan / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
Since Our Last Report….
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) attempted to humiliate a teenage girl during a speech he gave at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit. “Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb.” (Turning Point USA is a conservative and outwardly pro-Trump youth organization known for spreading misinformation.) Olivia Julianna, a 19-year-old abortion rights supporter, turned Gaetz’s fatphobic, misogynistic comments into more than $2.2 million in donations for abortion funds across the country.. . . . . .
Thursday, July 28
+ At least 43 abortion clinics across 11 states—all in the South and Midwest—have stopped offering abortion care in the first month post-Roe, a new Guttmacher Institute study shows. Prior to the Supreme Court decision on June 24, these 11 states had a total of 71 clinics that provided abortion care. As of July 24, there were only 28 clinics still offering abortions, all located in the four states with six-week bans—Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee. Below are some of the key findings:
No Abortion Clinics
Seven states that have imposed total abortion bans since June 24—containing only very limited or no exceptions—no longer had a single clinic providing abortion care as of July 24:
. . . .
+ Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led 23 fellow senators to call on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to offer abortions and all abortion-related services to veterans and eligible dependents. Currently, more than 800,000—or half of women veterans in this country—live in states that are certain or likely to ban abortions. Under current VA regulations, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is prohibited from providing abortions and abortion counseling as part of the medical benefits package. In a letter sent to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, the members argued the VA has “the statutory authority and discretion to provide abortions.” Therefore, they must immediately begin a rule-making process to change the current regulations and update the VHA’s medical benefit package. McDonough recently admitted the VA has the statutory authority to provide abortions, the letter also notes.
. . . . .
+ A Nebraska woman has been charged with helping her teenage daughter end her pregnancy at about 24 weeks after investigators uncovered Facebook messages in which the two discussed using medication to induce an abortion and plans to burn and bury the fetus afterward. Nebraska prohibits abortions after 20 weeks. In one of the Facebook messages, Jessica Burgess, 41, tells her then 17-year-old daughter that she obtained abortion pills for her and gives her instructions on how to take them. In June, the mother and daughter were only charged with a single felony for removing, concealing or abandoning a body, and two misdemeanors: concealing the death of another person and false reporting. But in July, investigators reviewed the private Facebook messages and added the felony abortion-related charges against the mother. The daughter, who is now 18, is being charged as an adult per the prosecutors’ request.
#DeleteFacebook trends online this week in response to this news—that Facebook shared a Nebraska teen’s messages to her mom with cops investigating her for allegedly getting an abortion in violation of Nebraska state law.
https://msmagazine.com/2022/08/11/war-women-roe-texas-teenager-abortion-funds-clinics-birth-control-elizabeth-warren-veterans-brittney-griner-russia/