Category Archives: Women’s Issues

Texas Lawsuit Against New York Doctor Tests Abortion Provider Shield Laws

“It is important to remember that Dr. Carpenter did nothing wrong,” said one legal expert. “Texas is trying to apply its laws extraterritorially.”

By Julia Conley. Published 12-13-2024 by Common Dreams

*Mifepristone and misoprostol, which are used in medication abortions. Image: Apollo Pharmacy*

“Time for shield laws to hold strong,” said one reproductive rights expert on Friday as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against an abortion provider in New York.

Paxton is suing Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter, co-founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine (ACT), for providing mifepristone and misoprostol to a 20-year-old resident of Collin County, Texas earlier this year.

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New Jersey Governor Signs Freedom to Read Act Barring Book Bans

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The law, said the Democrat, “cements New Jersey’s role on the forefront of preventing book bans and protecting the intellectual freedom of our educators and students.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 12-9-2024 by Common Dreams

*Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signs the Freedom to Read Act in Princeton on December 9, 2024. Photo: Gov. Phil Murphy/X*

Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday signed legislation protecting librarians and prohibiting public schools and libraries from banning books—a move that came as Republican state lawmakers are proscribing a record number of titles, many of them works addressing sexual orientation, gender identity, and racial injustice.

Flanked by educators, librarians, and other advocates, Murphy signed A.3446/S.2421—known as the Freedom to Read Act—in the Princeton Public Library.

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Trump’s Project 2025 is already underway in Argentina, and it’s terrifying

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If you can bear to see how Trump would implement Project 2025, look to Argentina – a lab for the global far right

By Diana Cariboni. Published 11-7-2024 by openDemocracy

*Argentine president Javier Milei. Photo: Mídia NINJA/CC*

As the world absorbs the shockwave of Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election, the playbook for his second term, designed by a handful of right-wing extremists, is already underway in Argentina.

Project 2025 is set out in a nearly 900-page ‘Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise’, produced by the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing US think tank, as a ready reckoner for the incoming Trump administration. It details authoritarian tactics that exist in various parts of the world, from attacking public education to dismantling policies to tackle climate change to restricting the rights of women, LGBTIQ+ people, migrants, workers and Black people. But if there is one country already trying some of Project 2025’s most extreme policies to weaken the state and render the enjoyment of rights obsolete, it is Argentina.

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This US election marks a fork in world history

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Both Trump and Harris are products of 1960s American politics – and that matters for what they stand for

By Anthony Barnett. Published 10-24-2024 by openDemocracy

*Image: Public Policy Institute of California*

With the recent deployment of the US’s most advanced anti-missile system to Israel, manned by American troops, it looks ever more likely that the US is preparing for war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu may be planning an ‘October surprise’ in order to sway the upcoming presidential election in favour of Donald Trump. In such circumstances it seems sensible to hold off speculating on the future of America and the world until after the November election.

But this is also a special moment of high anxiety. We face what may be a definitive turning point in modern history. Personally, I feel my entire political life is on the block. It’s a strange sensation; one that combines a feeling of vindication that I’ve been right all along even as I sense the axe blade of modern fascism above my neck about to sever any hope for a progressive future.

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Outrage as GOP AGs Argue Fewer Pregnant Teens Deprive States of Population Increases

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“This is what potentially winning right-wing legal cases read like these days,” said one progressive activist. “Dark stuff.”

By Julia Conley. Published 10-22-2024 by Common Dreams

*Rally for Abortion Rights & march through downtown Chicago on May 7th, 2022 Photo: SHYCITYNikon/flickr/CC*

Opinion polls have repeatedly made clear that U.S. voters are turned off by the Republican Party’s fixation on banning abortion care and controlling Americans’ reproductive choices—but that didn’t stop three GOP officials from writing in a court filing this month that they want to restrict abortion pill access because it would reduce teen pregnancy rates in their state.

“In my expert legal opinion, this is deeply gross and weird,” wrote attorney and writer Madiba K. Dennie on Monday at Balls & Strikes, a news outlet focused on the judiciary.

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‘A True Hero’: Pay Equity Crusader Lilly Ledbetter Dies at 86

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“Let’s honor her by continuing to challenge discrimination in all forms—and finally closing the wage gap.”

By Julia Conley. Published 10-14-2024 by Common Dreams

*Lilly Ledbetter speaks during the second day of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. Photo: Qqqqqq/Wikimedia Commons/CC*

Labor unions and women’s advocacy groups on Monday paid tribute to Lilly Ledbetter, the former Goodyear employee whose fight for equal pay made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress, after her death at the age of 86—with economic justice advocates hailing Ledbetter as “an icon.”

“Lilly Ledbetter simply wanted to be paid the same as her male Goodyear co-workers,” said the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) on social media. But to workers who have benefited from the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, added the union, “she was a true hero.”

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As US Election Looms, 3 of 4 Voters Fear Political Violence

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“This most recent poll shows that voters want to vote more than ever despite, or perhaps because, our democracy is threatened with the dark cloud of election denial and violence.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 10-7-2024 by Common Dreams

*A man wearing a “Proud Boys” shirt waves a flag at a pro-Trump rally outside the Minnesota Governor’s mansion on November 14th, 2020.. Photo: Chad Davis/flickr/CC*

Polling released Monday, less than a month away from the November 5 election, shows that nearly three-quarters of U.S. voters are worried about political violence and believe it is likely because some people will not accept the results.

The latest Civil Rights Monitor Poll, commissioned by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, is based on responses from 1,000 likely voters across the country, who were surveyed September 3-8.

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Judge Strikes Down Georgia’s Six-Week Abortion Ban in ‘Absolutely Epic Ruling’

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“Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy,” Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his decision.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 9-30-2024 by Common Dreams

*Protesters march in an October 2, 2021 abortion rights demonstration in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo: John Ramspott/flickr/cc*

Reproductive rights defenders cheered Monday’s ruling by a Georgia judge striking down the state’s six-week abortion ban as a violation of “a woman’s right to control what happens to and within her body,” a decision that means the medical procedure will be legal up to approximately 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney excoriated the LIFE Act, which was signed into law in 2019 by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and prohibits abortion care after fetal cardiac activity can be detected. The so-called “fetal heartbeat” law—a medically misleading term—is applicable before many people even know they’re pregnant.

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‘Deeply Anti-American’: Trump Calls for Jailing Supreme Court Critics

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“This Trump fellow is an obvious, unrepentant fascist without the slightest understanding of what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution demands and requires.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 9-24-2024 by Common Dreams

Former President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at an Arizona for Trump rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona on August 23, 2024. Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is under fire this week for suggesting that critics of federal judges, including justices on the nation’s top court, should be thrown in jail.

During a Monday night campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the former president continued his trend of bragging about appointing three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices who ended nationwide abortion rights by overturning Roe v. Wade. He also praised the “brilliant” right-wingers for having the “courage” to issue the June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.

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Georgia Woman’s Death Marks First Confirmed Case of Fatal Post-Roe Abortion Denial

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Amber Nicole Thurman’s death “is the logical outcome of the Georgia abortion ban working exactly as intended by horrifically punishing women who try to access abortion care,” said one advocate.

By Julia Conley. Published 9-17-2024 by Common Dreams

*Amber Nicole Thurman is seen with her son in a photo she posted online in 2020, two years before her death. Photo: via Facebook*

Reproductive rights advocates have warned for years that abortion bans and restrictions like those now in place in 22 U.S. states would kill pregnant people, and have been dismissed as “hyperbolic” by right-wing lawmakers and activists.

On Monday, new reporting shed light for the first time on the case of one woman whose “preventable” death was the result of an abortion ban—and as ProPublica reported, “there are almost certainly others.”

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Category Archives: Women’s Issues

‘Deeply Anti-American’: Trump Calls for Jailing Supreme Court Critics

“This Trump fellow is an obvious, unrepentant fascist without the slightest understanding of what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution demands and requires.”