USA News and Discussions

[firestar464]

Damn so many Republicans resigning to spite their own party.

[caltrek]

Earlier this morning, I was listening to live arguments, broadcast by MSNBC, before the Supreme Court on the case described below.

The Supreme Court Abortion Pill Case Is Based on Imaginary Patients and Shoddy Science
by Madison Pauly
March 25, 2024

Extract:

(Mother Jones ) FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine….aims to limit the availability of mifepristone, the first pill in the two-drug regimen commonly used in medication abortions. ADF (Alliance Defending Freedom), on behalf of the anti-abortion doctors, accuses the FDA of “betraying women and girls” when it approved mifepristone 23 years ago by overlooking potentially harmful side effects and by later making it easier to get. … Now, with Tuesday’s case, the Supreme Court could broadly limit access to mifepristone—even in blue states that protect people’s right to end their pregnancy.
…
In their lawsuit, the anti-abortion doctors contend the FDA put patients in danger... The data isn’t on their side: Last month, a study in the journal Nature Medicine looked at 6,000 medication abortions provided by virtual clinics, and found that about 98 percent of them were effective... without any additional intervention, and 99.8 percent were “not followed by serious adverse events,” as my colleague Julianne McShane reported.

…. In their original complaint, the doctors argued that the FDA hadn’t had enough evidence to approve the drug or loosen regulations on it, and they cited flimsy research to suggest mifepristone was harmful. Those claims have been roundly debunked by mainstream medical associations, which explain that mifepristone is backed by decades of data. Even before it came to the United States, the drug was used for years for abortions in Europe; since its approval here in 2000, around 6 million people in the US have taken it. As the New York Times reports, more than 100 scientific studies have concluded that mifepristone is a safe way to end a pregnancy.

Meanwhile. it turns out that some of the studies cited by the doctors weren’t scientific at all. One, relied on in (judge Matthew) Kacsmaryk’s decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine) was based on anonymous blog posts from a site called “Abortion Changes You.” Last month, a journal retracted three other papers cited by ADF in the case, explaining that an independent review had found “fundamental problems,” “incorrect factual assumptions,” “material errors,” and “misleading presentations.” Sage, the studies’ publisher, reported that nearly all their authors had affiliations with anti-abortion advocacy groups yet had not disclosed any conflicts of interest.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... e-court/

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Louisiana passes raft of bills to increase mass incarceration of adults and juveniles

A quick history lesson

Louisiana’s prison system, like that of many southern states, traces its modern origins to the abolition of slavery. The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, banned slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime,” opening the door for states to use the criminal justice system as a legal way to oppress African Americans and extract value from forced labor.

An array of laws designed to criminalize Black people, called Black Codes, were enacted throughout the South in the wake of emancipation. A central element of these laws charged unemployed or unhoused Black people with “vagrancy,” a crime punishable by a term of labor if a fine was not paid. Thomas W. Conway, the Freedmen's Bureau commissioner for Louisiana, described how this system, known as convict leasing, was abused in Louisiana:

“In the city of New Orleans last summer, under the orders of the acting mayor of the city, Hugh Kennedy, the police of that city conducted themselves towards the freedmen, in respect to violence and ill usage, in every way equal to the old days of slavery; arresting them on the streets as vagrants, without any form of law whatever, and simply because they did not have in their pockets certificates of employment from their former owners or other white citizens.

”I have gone to the jails and released large numbers of them, men who were industrious and who had regular employment; yet because they had not the certificates of white men in their pockets they were locked up in jail to be sent out to plantations…”

One of these plantations later became a prison under state control: the infamous “Angola” Louisiana State Penitentiary. To this day, prisoners at Angola are forced to perform grueling agricultural labor, supervised by armed guards on horseback.

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

Ruling makes Florida new epicentre in US abortion battle

1 hour ago

Florida's Supreme Court delivered two rulings on abortion on Monday, with competing consequences.

First, the court upheld the state's right to prohibit abortion, giving the green light for a six-week ban to take effect on 1 May.

The near-total ban will block almost all access in the US South, where Florida had been something of a haven for those seeking abortions, surrounded by states that had already implemented six-week or total bans on the procedure.

The ruling was applauded by national anti-abortion activists, many of whom see a six-week ban as the gold standard for abortion policy. The decision is a "victory for unborn children", said Katie Daniel, Florida policy director of Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America.

But in a 4-3 vote, the justices also approved a November ballot initiative that, if approved, would overturn the six-week ban and enshrine broad abortion access in the state's constitution.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68719492

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[Time_Traveller]

Arizona's supreme court says Civil War-era law can be enforced to ban abortions

Wednesday 10 April 2024 01:29, UK



Arizona is to ban nearly all abortions after its supreme court ruled a law from the Civil War-era could be enforced.

It means an 1864 law criminalising abortions except when a mother's life is at risk - with no exceptions for pregnancies due to rape or incest - will become enforceable.

Doctors who perform the procedure could be sentenced to between two to five years in prison.

Democrats and President Joe Biden blamed the ruling on Donald Trump, who appointed three US Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the universal right to an abortion in 2022.

Mr Biden said on X the "cruel" ban was "a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women's freedom".

https://news.sky.com/story/arizonas-sup ... s-13111888

[firestar464]

6 ex-Mississippi officers in 'Goon Squad' torture case sentenced in state court

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/6- ... r-BB1lnqmM