For those of you who don’t know, I live in Arizona, where reproductive rights got a boost this week, but where a state of confusion about abortion rights continues. If ever I needed a reason to be glad I’m post-menopausal (and post-hysterectomy, just to make things clearer), the current state of uncertainty is it.
In case you missed it, this week the state Senate passed a law repealing the 1864 abortion ban that our Supreme Court upheld a short time ago. The House had already passed it last week. Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs signed the bill yesterday. However, neither the court decision nor the repeal has gone into effect, so we still are living with a 15-week abortion ban passed in 2022. The repeal cannot go into effect until 90 days after the end of the legislative session, which cannot happen until the Republican legislature and Democratic governor can pass a budget. And after the repeal goes into effect, the 15-week ban will again take precendence. Planned Parenthood has filed papers with the Supreme Court to stop the 1864 law from taking effect since it has been repealed by the will of the people. In November, a ballot measure that would write abortion rights into the state constitution will hopefully win at the polls.
Nevertheless, the repeal is well worth celebrating. It was not easy. The Republicans have very narrow majorities in both houses of the legislature. Three Republicans in the House, and two in the Senate, voted with the Democrats to pass it. All five are still strongly anti-abortion.
The Arizona Republic’s coverage is here:
www.azcentral.com/…
The New York Times, interestingly, focuses on the Senate procedings, and highlights the strong emotional atmosphere both in and out of the Senate chamber.
www.nytimes.com/...
Here is the signing ceremony, with speeches by the bill’s leaders in the House and the Senate.
Other Abortion News
The other state where an April state Supreme Court decision had consequences this week is, of course, Florida, where the controversial 6-week ban went into affect, replacing a 15-week ban. Though the 15-week ban is restrictive, it made Florida the only place in the southeastern US where abortions were available to women more than 6 weeks pregnant. Now that resource for regional women is no longer available, leaving Virginia or Illinois the nearest destinations for abortion care.
Likw Arizona, Florida is looking to pass a constitutional amendment by ballot which would override these restrictions and preserve abortion rights in the state.
www.huffpost.com/…
And here is an opinion piece in The Guardian looking at a dystopian present and future.
www.theguardian.com/…
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The Guttmacher Institute has done research over several years in Ethiopa and Uganda, looking at the impact of the global gag rule that does not allow US aid to go to NGOs or government health services that recommend, advise, or even just inform about abortion as an option for pregnant women. The results also compare the impacts in more liberal national policies of Ethiopa to the more restrictive policies in Uganda. The results are clear — for women’s reproductive health, we need to make sure the no-gag-rule status remains.
www.guttmacher.org/…
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Texas anti-abortion vigilante law in action: A Texas man has filed for an investigation into a legal abortion obtained by his ex-partner in Colorado. Dystopia from another angle.
If the woman proceeded with the abortion, even in a state where the procedure remains legal, Davis would seek a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the abortion and “pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child,” the lawyer wrote in a letter, according to records.
. . .
The previously unreported petition was submitted under an unusual legal mechanism often used in Texas to investigate suspected illegal actions before a lawsuit is filed. The petition claims Davis could sue either under the state’s wrongful-death statute or the novel Texas law known as Senate Bill 8 that allows private citizens to file suit against anyone who “aids or abets” an illegal abortion.
The decision to target an abortion that occurred outside of Texas represents a potential new strategy by antiabortion activists to achieve a goal many in the movement have been working toward since Roe v. Wade was overturned: stopping women from traveling out of state to end their pregnancies. Crossing state lines for abortion care remains legal nationwide.
www.washingtonpost.com/...
Another way for men to continue to dominate ex’s lives.
Priviledge and Impunity
Some weeks I just feel disgusted. And appalled.
Two stories about guilty verdict reversals, one in the US and one in India, make this one of those weeks.
The reversal of Harvey Weinstein’s conviction for rape is analyzed in this column by Moira Donegan in The Guardian.
For all the solemn proclamations during the #MeToo era that a new age had dawned for sexual-violence claims, the truth is that the #MeToo movement did not end the impunity of rapists and abusers so much as highlight how entrenched and tenacious the social forces that create that impunity really are.
Sexual-abuse allegations seem to do little, these days, to slow the ascent of men’s careers: Brett Kavanaugh was appointed to the supreme court after being accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez in 2018; he went on to vote to overturn Roe v Wade. Donald Trump was found liable for the sexual assault of the writer E Jean Carroll last year; he went on to handily secure the Republican presidential nomination, and may well be restored to the presidency.
. . .
Perhaps what is most telling about the post-#MeToo persistence of misogynist myths about rape is in the judges’ reasoning itself. Indeed, part of the reason why the New York court of appeals’ decision to overturn Weinstein’s conviction is so humiliatingly hurtful for American women is the rationale on which four of the court’s seven justices based their decision: they said that too many women who said they had been assaulted by Weinstein had been allowed to testify at his criminal trial.
www.theguardian.com/...
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The case from India is horrific, but also involves cultural and political aspects that can make it feel very different from the Weinstein case. But it seems to me that the similarities across cultures, and the privilege of one group over another and the chutzpah involved, deserve to be considered together.
In India, the government approved the release of 11 men convicted of rape and murder and serving life sentences. The context was the anti-Muslim riots of 2002. One Muslim extended family was fleeing from one village to another when a gang approached them, raping women, one of whom survived, and killing 14 members of her family. The case took years, with the woman fighting against government attempts to drop the charges, to lose evidence and such.
The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the premature release of 11 men who were convicted for the gangrape of a pregnant Muslim woman and murder of 14 members of her family, including her three-year-old daughter, according to a court document.
The convicts were part of a Hindu mob that attacked Bilkis Bano and her family during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat.
. . .
The approval had come despite opposition from a court and federal prosecutors who had said they should not be "released prematurely and no leniency may be shown" to them as their crime was "heinous, grave and serious".
The top court is hearing several petitions challenging the convicts' release.
. . .
"When I heard that the convicts who had devastated my family and life had walked free, I was bereft of words. I am still numb," she said.
"How can justice for any woman end like this? I trusted the highest courts in our land. I trusted the system, and I was learning slowly to live with my trauma. The release of these convicts has taken from me my peace and shaken my faith in justice," she wrote, appealing to the Gujarat government to "undo this harm" and "give me back my right to live without fear and in peace".
www.bbc.com/...
Other News
More than two decades ago, the shocking results of a major women’s health study challenged the safety of menopause hormones, and overnight, millions of women and their doctors abandoned the drugs — a reluctance that lingers today.
Now, a long-term follow-up of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) shows that the reaction was largely overblown. The new research found that for many younger menopausal women — typically those under 60 — the benefits of the drugs probably outweigh the risks for the short-term treatment of menopause symptoms, including hot flashes and night sweats.
www.washingtonpost.com/…
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The DNC announced today it will launch a new print and digital awareness campaign to commemorate the upcoming Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day on May 5. The campaign’s flight begins today and will run through May 9 in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wisconsin through a digital campaign and through print ads in local and national Native American publications.
The goal of the ads is to raise awareness, honoring the victims and their families, and reaffirming Democrats’ commitment to working with tribal nations and Native communities to advance justice and safety.
nativenewsonline.net/...
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This long-standing lack of female-based research stemming from sex and gender bias spurred Dr. Stacy Sims, an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist based in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand, to devote her career to determining how women should be eating and exercising for optimal health. “If we work with our physiology knowing that women are women and men are men, knowing that women are not small men, then imagine the (health) outcomes,” she said at a 2019 TED talk.
. . .
CNN: What are some basic things all women should be doing when it comes to exercise?
Sims: Any movement is good, but it’s more important that women put in strength or resistance training. It’s more for brain health. If we look at resistance training and the neural pathways it creates, we’re seeing it really does help attenuate dementia and Alzheimer’s — and there is a sex difference there as well. Historically, though, women haven’t been directed into doing resistance training. But across the board, from young to old, women should be doing strength training.
CNN: Does strength training have other impacts as women approach menopause?
Sims: Yes. When our hormones start changing between 40 and 50, it has a massive impact on our body composition. We start losing muscle and putting on more body fat. But if we have that lean mass from strength training, it really helps calm down that rate of change. Strength training also helps protect our bones and helps us keep our balance and proprioception (the awareness of where our body is in space). We don’t see these kind of changes in men until they’re in their late 50s to 70s.
www.cnn.com/...
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As always, thanks go the WoW crew, who this week included SandraLLAP, mettle fatigue, elenacarlena, and Angmar.