Post-Roe Chaos in states | Trump pardons anti-abortion activists

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Trump pardons antiabortion activists who blocked access to clinics​

The pardons came the evening before thousands of activists are expected to march to the U.S. Capitol in the 52nd annual March for Life.


“…
Several protesters were convicted in D.C. federal court in separate proceedings in 2023, after they were found to have pushed their way into the Washington Surgi-Clinic, near George Washington University’s campus, injuring a nurse and hounding patients in an October 2020 blockade.

Attorneys for the defendants called them peaceful demonstrators emulating sit-ins from the civil rights era. Federal prosecutors in court documents described their efforts as “organized invasions” carried out with physical force, chains, ropes and locks — all of it carefully planned and live-streamed.

… The other pardon recipients were convicted of similar offenses in New York, Michigan and Tennessee. Prosecutors had alleged they violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 law that makes it a felony to use threats or violence to interfere with reproductive health-care services.

… Not all of those granted clemency were imprisoned as of Thursday. In a letter lobbying Trump for the pardons this month, the antiabortion Thomas More Society called them a group of “peaceful pro-life Americans” that included “grandparents, pastors, a Holocaust survivor, and a Catholic priest.” They argued to Trump that the FACE Act was unconstitutional and that part of prosecutors’ reasoning for bringing the charges was to protect the right to abortion, which no longer existed in 2023 because of the Supreme Court’s ruling the year before overturning Roe v. Wade. …”
 
Continued

“… The trial evidence showed that she made a sham appointment under a pseudonym, Hazel Jenkins, to gain access to the clinic as it opened. Handy also had helped book travel arrangements for the demonstrators who were from outside the D.C. area, prosecutors said.

As a member of the clinic’s staff tried to block the entrance, the other activists forced their way in with locks, chains and ropes, which they used as bindings to obstruct efforts to remove them.

The other lead organizer, Darnel, live-streamed the events from outside, records show, telling viewers on Facebook Live, “We have people intervening physically with their bodies to prevent women from entering the clinic to murder their children.”

… “Above all, in the Republican Party, we will always support families, babies, life,” Trump said in remarks to the Faith and Freedom Coalition in June 2024, pledging to issue the pardons on his “first day” in office.

“By contrast, Joe Biden is weaponizing the Justice Department to viciously persecute pro-life activists and Americans of faith,” he said. “Just last month, the Biden DOJ got Paula Harlow, a 75-year-old woman in poor health, sentenced to two years in prison for singing outside of a class.”

At a bench trial, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly found that Harlow used force and physical obstruction in violating the FACE Act at the same 2020 blockade of the D.C. clinic and sentenced her to two years in prison.

“Harlow brought a bag of locks into the clinic waiting room, pushed and shoved a clinic worker who tried to keep her out of the clinic, used the chains and locks she carried into the clinic waiting room to bind herself to co-defendant Joan Bell (“Bell”), refused to remove the bike lock around her neck, and went limp to prolong the group’s efforts to obstruct access to the clinic,” prosecutors said in a legal filing.

“Harlow repeatedly yelled out to patient to bully them into leaving the clinic.”
Another pardon recipient, Williams, said on a Facebook live-stream as she stood outside a Manhattan clinic that she was “going to terrorize this place.”

According to her indictment, Williams pressed her body against the clinic’s entry door, crushing another person’s hand, singing “We shall not be moved” as the victim yelled in pain. She had been sentenced to three years and five months in prison. …”
 
“… The House on Thursday passed legislation that could subject certain doctors to criminal penalties if they perform abortions, Republicans’ first attempt to restrict reproductive rights since the party has secured its governing trifecta under President Trump.

The 217-to-204 vote was almost entirely along party lines, save for one anti-abortion Democrat, Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, who voted with Republicans in favor of the bill. Another, Representative Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, voted present.

It was the second time in two years that the Republican-lead House has passed the legislation. But the measure appeared doomed in the Senate, where Democrats blocked a version of it on Wednesday.

The bill would require that infants born alive after an attempted abortion receive the same protection under the law and degree of care as any newborn baby, and it threatens medical providers with up to five years in prison for failing to resuscitate babies born alive during abortions.

Federal law already requires that a baby who survives an attempted abortion receive emergency medical care, and live births during abortion procedures are rare. But the legislation would create new penalties for medical providers involved in such procedures, which could also apply to those treating women with severe late-pregnancy complications who find themselves in agonizing situations in which their children have no chance of survival.…”

 
Zuck still fiddling with the algorithm I see



“… The actions ramped up in the last two weeks, and were especially noticeable in the last two days, abortion pill providers said. Content from their accounts — or in some cases, their entire accounts — were no longer visible on Instagram.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, confirmed some account suspensions and the blurring of posts. The company restored some of the accounts and posts on Thursday, after The New York Times asked about the actions. …”
 

In several states that have banned abortion, Republican lawmakers are pushing to go further. Over this past month, four different states—South Carolina, North Dakota, Indiana, and Oklahoma—opened their legislative session with bills that would threaten abortion patients with homicide charges, according to both the Guardian, and Jessica Valenti’s newsletter, Abortion Everyday. In South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Indiana, homicide is punishable by the death penalty.

To be clear: None of these bills have passed, nor do any of them explicitly advocate for the death penalty for abortion patients or providers. But for Jezebel’s 2025 reproductive rights forecast, the organization Pregnancy Justice warned that bills that implicitly and legally advocate for abortion patients to be killed will likely increase in anti-abortion legislatures. This pretty much flies in the face of everything the anti-abortion movement has claimed about wanting to protect women and only go after providers.
 
Assuming the GOP wouldn’t have the votes for this in the House or to break a filibuster in the Senate if it got that far, but people keep saying it isn’t fair to say the GOP wants a national abortion ban and members of the GOP keep trying to get a national ban. The bill currently has 67 cosponsors, all GOP.


H.R.722 - To implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.​

 


“…
House Bill 2062 would guarantee mothers child support payments from the moment of conception. But House Democrats questioned at a judiciary committee hearing the real intent of the bill, and opponents speculated it was an attempt to establish fetal personhood, the idea that a fetus, embryo or fertilized egg has the same legal rights as a born person. Fetal personhood bills have taken many forms across the country with far-reaching consequences.

The bill would add the following definition to child support-related statutes under the Kansas family law code: “The term ‘unborn child’ means a living individual organism of the species homo sapiens, in utero, at any stage of gestation from fertilization to birth.” …”
 


“… No states have allowed either, but the ideas, once off the table, have gotten attention in legislatures this month.

Oklahoma lawmakers killed a bill that would have allowed murder charges after a public hearing, and North Dakota did so after a floor debate.

Similar bills have been introduced before, but they haven’t been granted hearings, in part because most major anti-abortion groups oppose them.

A Missouri committee heard testimony on a bill to create a database of pregnant women deemed “at risk” of getting an abortion and connecting them with prospective adoptive parents.

…
Under the Missouri legislation, the state Department of Social Services would be directed to create a new division tasked with maintaining a “central registry of each expectant mother who is at risk for seeking an abortion.”

The division would also keep a list of prospective adoptive parents and coordinate adoption proceedings.

House Speaker Jonathan Patterson, a Republican, said Thursday that he wants to aid adoption but that the bill doesn’t have broad support among House Republicans. Two similar bills were rescinded this week. …”

——
More about the Overton Window expanding than actual laws being enacted so far.
 


“
Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion in 2021, ProPublica found in a first-of-its-kind data analysis.

The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester, ProPublica found.

The surge in this life-threatening condition, caused by infection, was most pronounced for patients whose fetus may still have had a heartbeat when they arrived at the hospital.

ProPublica previously reported on two such cases in which miscarrying women in Texas died of sepsis after doctors delayed evacuating their uteruses. Doing so would have been considered an abortion.

The new reporting shows that, after the state banned abortion, dozens more pregnant and postpartum women died in Texas hospitals than had in pre-pandemic years, which ProPublica used as a baseline to avoid COVID-19-related distortions. As the maternal mortality rate dropped nationally, ProPublica found, it rose substantially in Texas. …”
 
I still don't get why these antiabortion laws aren't considered religious persecution or why the state has any standing. It might be some different if there was any kind of proof of a soul.
 
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