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This Woman Is Dying Because She's Been Denied A Life-Saving Abortion

Here We Go Again: Cantor Schedules Obamacare Repeal Vote

Justice

Federal Judge Upholds The Nation’s Most Restrictive Abortion Ban

By Tara Culp-Ressler posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Jul 30, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union — joined by a local ACLU chapter and the Center for Reproductive Rights — sued Arizona over the state’s abortion ban, calling it the nation’s most extreme because it criminalizes almost all abortions after 20 weeks. Today, a federal judge upheld HB 2036, dismissing the ACLU’s request to block the law from going into effect on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge James A. Teilborg ruled that HB 2036, which Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) signed into law in April, will be allowed to take effect this week. The law criminalizes almost all abortions after just 20 weeks, even though a fetus generally isn’t considered to reach viability until week 23 or 24. There are no exceptions for pregnant women’s health except for immediate medical emergencies.

Nancy Northup, the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, pointed out in a press release that Teilborg’s ruling contradicts the legal precedent for women’s right to privacy before their fetus reaches viability:

Today’s decision casts aside decades of legal precedent, ignoring constitutional protections for reproductive rights that have been upheld by the United States Supreme Court for nearly 40 years and threatening women’s health and lives. [...] Anyone concerned with the erosion of constitutional rights in the U.S. and the intrusion of government into the lives and private decisions of individual citizens should be profoundly disturbed by today’s decision.

The Guttmacher Institute has designated Arizona as one of the 26 states that are “hostile” to women’s reproductive freedom. Women’s health advocates are currently embroiled in a second lawsuit in Arizona to combat another anti-choice law, HB 2800, that seeks to defund the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics.

Update

Despite the fact that HB 2036 has been upheld, Planned Parenthood Arizona confirms some good news for women in the state: the HB 2800 legislation that would have defunded Planned Parenthood’s health clinics is stalling. Just like Arizona’s abortion ban, HB 2800 would have also gone into effect this Thursday. However, a United States District Court has determined that Arizona needs to hold off on implementing the law at least until after a further ruling that will follow a court hearing scheduled for October.

Economy

As GOP Guts Food Safety Budgets, New Data Show Illnesses On The Rise

By Travis Waldron posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jul 30, 2012 at 5:06 pm

House Republicans have gone to great lengths to block implementation of a new food safety law, while also trying to cut the budgets of agencies that oversee food safety. But new data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows just how foolhardy those moves are, as rates of foodborne illnesses are rising:

The most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the rates of infections linked to four out of five key pathogens it tracks – salmonella, vibrio, campylobacter and listeria – remained relatively steady or increased from 2007 through 2011. The exception is a strain of E. coli, which has been tied to fewer illnesses over the same time period.

Foodborne illnesses sicken 48 million and kill roughly 3,000 Americans each year, and recently, a salmonella outbreak forced the recall of 30,000 pounds of Cargill-produced ground beef. Despite these numbers, the GOP budget made drastic cuts to the Food and Drug Administration in an attempt to prevent the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, a law signed by President Obama last year that marked the first significant update to food safety law in a generation. The House farm bill, meanwhile, contains an amendment proposed by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) that would prevent states from regulating agricultural products.

Republicans, however, aren’t necessarily alone in their fight. Obama also sought cuts to the Food Safety Inspection Service in his budget plan, and his administration has thus far failed to meet required deadlines to implement new regulations. “Everyone was hoping that this new food safety law would be in place and we’d start seeing improvements by now,” Erik Olson, a director at the Pew Health Group, told the Washington Post. “What these CDC numbers show is that unless new protections are put into place, millions of Americans are going to continue to get sick from contaminated food.”

NEWS FLASH

House Set To Vote On Restrictive DC Abortion Ban | H.R. 3803 — a bill that would criminalize abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks of pregnancy — is scheduled for a House floor vote on Tuesday. Special interest groups are able to use Washington as a testing ground for anti-abortion legislation largely because the Republican House can attempt to control much of DC law, and it likely won’t draw as much attention from the American public. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), will be brought to the floor under suspension of the rules, curtailing debate to only 20 minutes per side. In a press release, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) warned that the bill “is the key element of a state-by-state campaign to undermine a woman’s right to choose and to overturn the law of the land.”

– Steven Perlberg

By Guest Blogger on Jul 30, 2012 at 3:25 pm

Sexual Assault Victims Charged Up To $1,200 In Wisconsin For Cost Of Their Rape Kits

By Scott Keyes on Jul 30, 2012 at 1:30 pm

For years, hospitals in northeastern Wisconsin have billed sexual assault victims as much as $1,200 for the cost of their examinations, according to a new investigation.

The Post-Crescent newspaper found that, despite the availability of government funds to cover the cost of sexual assault examinations, many hospitals were sending the bill to victims. The AP has more:

When someone is sexually assaulted, the process of collecting forensic evidence can include taking pictures of bruises, swabs of sexual fluids or hair. Other expenses, which can include a pregnancy test, antibiotics and medical supplies, can bring the final price tag to about $1,200. [...]

For example, hospitals in the ThedaCare system used to absorb the cost for years as part of their charity care, said Jean Coopman-Jansen a program coordinator at Appleton Medical Center. After a change to comply with the health system’s billing rules, some victims last year were forced to pay the costs themselves, she said.

Fortunately, Wisconsin officials appear to be addressing the problem. Jill Karofsky, who heads up the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Office of Crime Victim Services, said the state government recently began working with hospitals to educate them on how to properly use government funds so victims wouldn’t be charged for their examinations.

“The message to victims is when someone sexually assaults them, their body becomes a crime scene and they are submitting to a very invasive exam and the state frankly ought to pay for it. … It’s forensic evidence,” Karofsky said.

Fatal Fetal Defect Counselors Brace For Influx of Families After Arizona’s Abortion Ban

By Aviva Shen on Jul 30, 2012 at 12:15 pm

Arizona’s new 20-week abortion ban goes into effect Thursday, with very real effects for families expecting babies with fatal fetal defects. The Arizona Republic reports on volunteer services rising to the challenge of helping parents cope with the trauma of watching infants die within minutes, hours, or days of birth.

House Bill 2036, which measures a fetus’ gestational age from the first day of the woman’s last period, prevents abortion after 18 weeks of pregnancy, making it the most extreme ban in the nation. Most fetal abnormalities are detected during this period, but the ban forbids abortions even when the doctor discovers a fatal defect. The woman must then carry to term a baby who will almost certainly die as soon as it is born.

MISS Foundation and Embrace are non-profits specifically working to develop birth plans for such families, provide counseling, and prepare funeral services. The Legislature has allocated no funding for these services, which are expected to kick into high demand once the abortion ban goes into effect.

About 100 pregnancies are terminated after 20 weeks in Arizona each year. According to Joanne Cacciatore, the CEO of MISS Foundation, one or two families a month currently seek their help preparing for a fatal birth. But they expect their resources to be stretched past maximum capacity soon. Cacciatore said:

This law may have intended to do good, but it can really adversely affect non-profit organizations that desperately want to help people but maybe can’t help the number of people who now come to us. We are already stretched very, very thin. I don’t know where this money would come from. [...] They’re finding us on their own. I don’t know what will happen when the Legislature opens this up.

One family highlighted in the Republic’s report is working with Embrace to prepare for the birth of their daughter, who is missing most of her skull and brain. Julia Gonzales, a devout Catholic, refused to get an abortion but is now terrified of what her baby will look like:

I didn’t even have the idea in my mind to stop the pregnancy. And then two weeks after they told us, we saw her. She was a girl. But we never expected it would be this bad. Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t stop the pregnancy…I’m so scared about seeing her. When I remember her, I don’t want to remember her looking like that.

The Gonzales family’s tragedy is just a hint of what is to come for the unknown number of women whose options have been eliminated by the Arizona Legislature.

NEWS FLASH

Another Survey Shows Counter-Intuitive Impact Of HIV Criminalization | A new survey by the Sero Project found that among people with HIV, 25 percent say they know someone who won’t get tested for HIV because they’re afraid they will be prosecuted if they test positive. The survey demonstrates that laws that criminalize the nondisclosure of HIV actually adds to the virus’ stigma, with 50 percent saying it’s “appropriate” for someone not to get tested out of fear of prosecution, and 40 percent calling it reasonable not to access HIV care.  A similar study in Canada similarly found that HIV criminalization laws discourage many people from getting tested.

Romney Praises Israel’s Universal Health Care System, Which Includes Individual Mandate

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Jul 30, 2012 at 9:30 am

Throughout his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has been running away from the individual insurance mandate in the Affordable Care Act — even though a mandate is a cornerstone of the former Massachusetts governor’s health care reform law. “If I’m President of the United States, we’re gonna get rid of Obamacare and return, under our constitution, the 10th Amendment, the responsibility and care of health care to the people in the states,” Romney said during a GOP presidential debate.

But during his trip to Israel, Romney inadvertently praised the individual requirement and universal health care. “[F]or an American abroad, you can’t get much closer to the ideals and convictions of my own country than you do in Israel,” he said. And according to The New York Times, Romney spoke favorably about the fact that health care makes up a much smaller amount of Israel’s gross domestic product compared to the United States:

“Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the G.D.P. in Israel? Eight percent,” he said. “You spend eight percent of G.D.P. on health care. You’re a pretty healthy nation. We spend 18 percent of our G.D.P. on health care, 10 percentage points more. That gap, that 10 percent cost, compare that with the size of our military — our military which is 4 percent, 4 percent. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of G.D.P. We have to find ways — not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to fund and manage our health care costs.”

Israel spends less on health care because of a universal health system that requires everyone to have insurance. Every Israeli citizen has the obligation to purchase health care services through one of the country’s four HMOs since government officials approved the National Health Insurance Law in 1995. People pay for 40 percent of their HMO’s costs through income-related contributions collected through the tax system, and the state pays the remaining 60 percent. And by many standards, Israelis are getting better health care than U.S. citizens. The infant mortality rate is much lower, and its mortality rate due to heart disease is half the U.S. rate.

Orly Manor, dean of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Braun School of Public Health, said U.S. officials could “learn a lot from the Israeli system. The quality is high, and the outcomes are good.” And it seems that, following his trip to Jerusalem, Romney would agree.

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