Tag Archives: Mississippi

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

“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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US Senate Hearing Highlights Impacts of ‘Horrific Anti-Abortion Crusade’

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Sen. Patty Murray described the event as “a close accounting of the trauma Republicans are inflicting on women and families across our country, and the damage they are doing to basic reproductive healthcare.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 6-4-2024 by Common Dreams

Abortion rights advocates in the U.S. Senate held a Tuesday hearing highlighting the impacts of healthcare bans imposed by the GOP, particularly since the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which reversed Roe v. Wade.

The hearing—titled, “The Assault on Women’s Freedoms: How Abortion Bans Have Created a Healthcare Nightmare Across America”—was officially hosted by Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), but he kicked it off by explaining why he was turning things over to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the panel’s former leader.

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Under Pressure From Angry Students, GOP Gov Reverses on Federal Summer Meals Funding

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“It only took literally everyone in the entire state telling him that he was being a monster,” said one political scientist, “for him to do the absolute easiest thing and feed hungry kids.”

By Julia Conley. Published 2-13-2024 by Common Dreams

As the deadline rapidly approached for state governments to accept federal funds for summer food assistance for children, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen announced Monday that conversations with students from around the state had convinced him to take the funding—leaving just 14 Republican-led states still refusing the aid.

At a news conference, the GOP governor—who previously said he didn’t “believe in welfare” and would be forgoing $18 million for the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (Summer EBT) program—said he had changed his mind after “an evolution of information” about how young people across Nebraska would be affected by his decision.

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Post-Dobbs Bans Leave 14 States With No Abortion Clinics

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A new analnysis shows how “abortion bans, extremist harassment, and the financial realities of operating community-based clinics make it increasingly difficult for independent clinics to stay open.”

By Brett Wilkins Published 12-5-2023 by Common Dreams

*Stop Abortion Bans Rally in St Paul, Minnesota May 2019. Photo: Lorie Shaull/flickr/CC*

Scores of independent reproductive health centers have been forced to close or stop offering abortion care, with 14 states now having no abortion clinics, a report published Tuesday revealed.

Abortion Care Network (ACN) released its annual Communities Need Clinics report, which details how “abortion bans, extremist harassment, and the financial realities of operating community-based clinics make it increasingly difficult for independent clinics to stay open” after the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court canceled half a century of federal abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization a year-and-a-half ago.

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‘Bad News for the South’: State Supreme Court Upholds 6-Week Abortion Ban in South Carolina

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“The result will essentially force an untold number of affected women to give birth without their consent,” wrote Justice Donald Beatty in his dissent. “I am hard-pressed to think of a greater governmental intrusion by a political body.”

By Julia Conley. Published 8-23-2023 by Common Dreams

Abortion rights activists wait for state lawmakers to arrive before a Senate vote on a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy at the South Carolina Statehouse on May 23, 2023 in Columbia, South Carolina. Screenshot: ABC News

Despite a recent poll showing that just 37% of South Carolinians backed a six-week abortion ban, the state Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated the previously blocked law, gutting what remained of abortion access for millions of people across the South.

The ruling was handed down by the all-male high court following the mandatory retirement of former Justice Kaye Hearn, who wrote the majority opinion in another ruling in January which struck down a nearly identical six-week ban that had been passed in 2021.

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Federal Court Strikes Down Mississippi’s ‘Jim Crow’ Felon Disenfranchisement Law

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“Mississippi stands as an outlier among its sister states, bucking a clear national trend in our nation against permanent disenfranchisement.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 8-4-2023 by Common Dreams

A U.S. federal appellate court on Friday ruled that a Jim Crow-era Mississippi law permanently disenfranchising people with certain felony convictions is unconstitutional.

In a decision that can be appealed to the full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel of the tribunal ruled 2-1 that Section 241 of Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution “violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.”

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A brief history of Georgia’s runoff voting – and how this year’s contest between two Black men is a sign of progress

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*Former President Barack Obama raises hands with Stacey Abrams and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock at a Oct. 28, 2022, campaign event in Georgia.*
*Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images*

Joshua Holzer, Westminster College

In the U.S., all elections are administered by the states. But not all states use the same rules.

Georgia uses a version of runoff voting, which entails two rounds of voting. Typically, if a candidate wins more than 50% of the votes in the first round, that candidate is declared the winner. If not, the two candidates with the most first-round votes face off in a second round of voting.

There’s historically been concern that such a runoff system disadvantages Black candidates. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney General John R. Dunne once argued that Georgia’s runoff voting system has had “a demonstrably chilling effect on the ability of Blacks to become candidates for public office.” Continue reading →

Marches on US Main Streets Center Poor Voters’ Demands Ahead of Midterms

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“The priorities of poor and low-income people are on the ballot this election—from healthcare to living wages to social programs that lift the load of poverty and much more,” said Poor People’s Campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.

By Jessica Corbett Published 10-15-2022 by Common Dreams

The Poor People’s Campaign organized get-out-the-vote marches across the United States, including in Westminster, Maryland, on October 15, 2022. (Photo: Maryland Poor People’s Campaign/Twitter)

Less than a month before Election Day, low-income people and allies came together across the United States on Saturday as part of a get-out-the-vote push by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

The campaign aims to reach at least five million people by the midterm elections next month, spreading the word that “if we ever needed to vote for democracy and justice, we sure do need to vote now!” However, the effort also has a message for politicians. Continue reading →

Intense heat and flooding are wreaking havoc on power and water systems as climate change batters America’s aging infrastructure

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*Volunteers distributed bottled water after Jackson, Mississippi’s water treatment plant failed during flooding in August 2022.*
*Brad Vest/Getty Images*

Paul Chinowsky, University of Colorado Boulder

The 1960s and 1970s were a golden age of infrastructure development in the U.S., with the expansion of the interstate system and widespread construction of new water treatment, wastewater and flood control systems reflecting national priorities in public health and national defense. But infrastructure requires maintenance, and, eventually, it has to be replaced.

That hasn’t been happening in many parts of the country. Increasingly, extreme heat and storms are putting roads, bridges, water systems and other infrastructure under stress. Continue reading →

Inescapable ‘Abortion Deserts’ Coming as Idaho, Tennessee, and Texas Trigger Bans Set to Take Effect

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“Tomorrow, millions more people will lose abortion access across the nation,” warned the leader of one reproductive rights group.

By Jessica Corbett Published 8-24-2022 by Common Dreams

Around 3000 people met outside the Minnesota state capitol building to protest against laws banning abortion on May 21, 2019. Photo: Fibonacci Blue/flickr/CC

A leading reproductive rights organization on Wednesday reiterated the need for action to protect abortion access at the federal level in anticipation of three more “trigger laws” set to take effect in Idaho, Tennessee, and Texas.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June, anti-choice state lawmakers have moved to further restrict reproductive freedom—ramping up the GOP’s already “unprecedented” attacks on the right to choose. Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: Mississippi

‘Bad News for the South’: State Supreme Court Upholds 6-Week Abortion Ban in South Carolina

“The result will essentially force an untold number of affected women to give birth without their consent,” wrote Justice Donald Beatty in his dissent. “I am hard-pressed to think of a greater governmental intrusion by a political body.”