Come Look For Me: How Native woman plan with their families in case of being abducted. (Video & text)
….In Abigail Echo-Hawk’s home, everyone in the family knows about “the plan.”
“These kids, along with my own, they know that if their aunties or if their mom ever went missing that we would never have left them on purpose,” said Echo-Hawk, the executive vice president of the Seattle Indian Health Board.It’s a plan, Echo-Hawk said, every Native woman she knows has had to make – what her family should do if she were to disappear.
“They would need to make sure someone came and looked for us,” Echo-Hawk said. “In my office, right now, there is a dress. I'm an artist. And on that dress are my handprints and red ink. And in my handprints, you can see I very purposefully ensured that my fingerprints were there. And I did that with my sons. And I told them, ‘If I ever go missing, here's where you can find my fingerprints if you need to identify my body….’”
More below the jump.
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<big><big>First some general items, then some sections on abortion history and news.</big></big>
theconversation.com/ Abortion has been common in the US since the 18th century … and debate over it started soon after.
reuters Google, Meta must find and remove online child pornography under EU draft rules
BRUSSELS, May 11 (Reuters) - Google (GOOGL.O), Meta (FB.O) and other online service providers will be required to find and remove online child pornography under proposed European Commission rules, a move some privacy groups say could put people's communications at risk. Companies that fail to comply with the rules face fines up to 6% of their annual income or global turnover, which will be set by EU countries. The EU executive said its proposal announced on Wednesday aimed to replace the current system of voluntary detection and reporting by companies which has proven to be insufficient to protect children
medscape Restoring Dignity to Sex Trafficking Survivors, One Tattoo Removal at a Time (edited)
...Sex traffickers use force, fraud, or/and other coercions to compel commercial sex acts, and often brand victims with tattoos of ownership [as is common with livestock], including names, symbols, and barcodes. Data from Polaris— a nonprofit organization that works to combat and prevent sex and labor trafficking in the United States— found 16,658 sex trafficking victims identified in 2020, among probable tens of thousands trapped by the criminal context.
In a clinical abstract session at the annual meeting of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery, Emily L. Guo, MD, a cosmetic dermatologic surgery fellow at the Dermatology and Laser Surgery Center in Houston reported on obstructions to outreach and research but also progress: "At our practice in Houston, we’ve been working with local survivors to provide pro bono tattoo removal, and we see how impactful that is in their effort to reclaim their lives.” Her team is studying possible national need for and benefit of this form of support....
medscape Psychiatrist Cuyler Burns Goodwin, DO,'s License Revoked on allegations of Sexual Assaults on 2 traumatized-by-assault patients after he gave them ketamine, and allegation that he had an affair with the sister of another patient (resulting in pregnancy ended by abortion meds she requested from him). In its revocation decision, the Osteopathic Medical Board of California and its expert witnesses stated that he committed gross negligence, violated ethical standards as if he had no knowledge of or chose to ignore them, departed from the standard of care, showed poor judgment and 'cluelessness' about impacts of his actions upon patients and their families, and was guilty of sexual misconduct. (edited)
"Even if one were to believe his denial of sexual assaults, his multiple other ethical and Medical Practice Act violations, and his attitude toward his offenses; and his lack of candor at hearing, all demonstrate that revocation of his medical license is required for protection of the public," the board wrote in its March 8 order….
Goodwin had received his license in 2013, completed residency at UC San Francisco, and opened his Sequoia Mind Health practice in Santa Rosa, employing his mother as office manager, his wife as sole registered nurse rarely there, and his sister as receptionist. The alleged events occurred there. He closed the practice in October 2019, then working as a psychiatrist for Redwood Quality Management Company in Ukiah. He also worked until 2020 as an emergency services psychiatrist for Sonoma County Behavioral Health, at John George Psychiatric Pavilion in San Leandro, at Mendocino County Jail from 2018 to 2021 and Lake County Jail from 2020 to 2021, He was notified in November 2020 of the board’s investigation.
...The board is also seeking to recover almost $65,000 in costs for the investigation, legal fees and expert testimony. The psychiatrist is not currently facing any criminal charges…
reuters Alabama ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth takes effect
May 8 (Reuters) - An Alabama law that makes it a felony to provide gender-affirming medical treatment to transgender youth went into effect on Sunday while a federal judge weighs whether to grant a motion to put a temporary hold on it.
The legislation makes it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison to provide puberty blockers, hormones and medical procedures to transgender youth under 19.
Governor Kay Ivey had signed the bill on April 8. A similar but not as far-reaching law in Arkansas was blocked by the courts last year before it could go into effect….
<big>Some Michigan Abortion History to date</big>
medscape 1931 Michigan state law will make abortion a felony if Roe falls (edited)
…..Overnight, nearly all abortions would become a felony with penalties up to 4 years, even in cases of rape and incest. That's because an old state law, last updated in 1931, was never repealed, even after Roe made it unenforceable in 1973.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said she won't enforce the law if it springs back into effect. But Michigan has 83 local county prosecutors who might. "I don't think that I have the authority to tell the duly elected county prosecutors what they can and what they cannot charge," Nessel told journalists….
Lisa Brown’s religion, vagina & “no means no”, June 13, 2012
[wikipedia]
...In June 2012, Michigan House Republicans [blocked] Brown from speaking on the floor in a debate about abortion legislation after [she said] "I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but no means no."[8] Brown was gaveled off the floor and prohibited from speaking along with Rep. Barb Byrum, who proposed a ban on vasectomies.
Democrats called the incident evidence that Republicans were trampling on women's rights, with Senator Gretchen Whitmer saying "the war on women in Michigan is not fabricated — this is very real — and it comes at the highest levels of state government."[9]
...Brown later stated: "I was either banned for being Jewish and rightfully pointing out that HB 5711 was forcing contradictory religious beliefs upon me and my religion [contrary to the First Amendment]. Or is it because I used the word 'vagina,' [the] anatomically, medically correct term?"[10]
On June 19... Rep. Wayne Schmidt provided the GOP viewpoint, characterizing both female representatives as "kids" who were "throwing temper tantrums" and in need of "time outs."[11] House Speaker Jase Bolger stated that referencing vagina, and then saying 'no means no', [implied rape in a way] inappropriate for legislative setting.[12] ...
theConversation <big>Abortion funds are in the spotlight</big> with the likely end of Roe v. Wade – 3 findings about what they do
Donations to abortion funds are reportedly surging following the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court abortion decision that signaled the imminent end of legal abortion in much of the country. There are at least 90 of these funds ... nonprofits often staffed by volunteers that help people obtain abortions they can’t afford by reducing the cost and assisting with travel, lodging and other services.
Abortion is already inaccessible in many cases due to restrictive laws in states like Texas and Mississippi that have left many counties with no abortion clinics at all…….
<big>Planning for healthy families</big>
AP via medscape Motherhood Deferred: US Median Age for Giving Birth Hits 30
...Over the past three decades… birthrates have declined for women in their 20s and jumped for women in their late 30s and early 40s, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The trend has pushed the median age of U.S. women giving birth from 27 to 30, the highest on record…. Decisions … to wait until they were more financially secure, have contributed to the shift toward older motherhood...
In the past, parents often relied on their children for income — putting them to work in the fields, for example, when the economy was more farm-based. But over the last century or more in the U.S., parents have become more invested in their children's futures, providing more support while they go to school and enter young adulthood, he said.
"Having children later mostly puts women in a better position … They have more resources, more education. The things we demand of people to be good parents are easier to supply when you are older…."
Archives of Women’s Mental Health: 2009 — Women’s Reasons for Abortion: A Review of the Literature. The authors conclude:
Decisions to terminate a pregnancy were often influenced by the desire to be a good parent. This, too, is consistent with the overall impression of the papers reviewed, but especially of those reporting qualitative research, that women take seriously the responsibilities of motherhood in seeking abortion. Whether they conclude that they are not yet ready to be mothers, that they do not have adequate financial resources for a baby, or that they prefer not to give birth to a child who is not wholeheartedly
desired by both parents, their own needs coincide with those of the potential child.
medscape <big>Medical schools in abortion-ban states would have to curtail training if Roe falls</big>
...Twenty-two states, including large swaths of the south and Midwest, already have laws that would go into effect immediately to ban abortion in the absence of Roe. Four states, including Florida, Montana and Indiana, would likely ban abortion, according to an analysis from the Guttmacher Institute.
Almost 45% of ob/gyn obstetrics and gynecology residency programs are in these states, totaling 2638 residents as of 2022, ...
Most reproductive healthcare training lasts between 1-2 months during residency, and includes instruction on ultrasounds, best practices in managing pregnancy complications, learning how to safely evacuate a uterus in the event of a stillbirth or miscarriage, and counseling for family planning options...
ProPublica via medscape <big>if Roe v Wade is overturned, researchers expect that in the following year alone, at least 75,000 people or more who want but can't get abortions will give birth instead, in this country where pregnancy and childbirth continue to become more dangerous all the time, especially for Black women, </big>because about 25 states would likely move to ban abortion.
...A brief submitted [to the SCOTUS] in the case on which the court is ruling, signed by about 550 public-health and reproductive-health researchers, [says in part] "Put simply … <big>[all]</big> women living in states with the most restrictive abortion policies [will be] more likely to die while pregnant or shortly thereafter, than women living in states with less restrictive abortion policies [but they’ll be] disproportionately poor, young, of color and concentrated in the Deep South, parts of the Midwest and some Western states, often where social safety nets are weakest …
Dr. Katy Kozhimannil, a health policy professor who directs the University of Minnesota's Rural Health Research Center, said the loss of abortion access will be a compounding factor in rural communities where contraceptives are hard to get and hospitals have closed or no longer have obstetrics departments. "I think we're going to see a lot more emergency obstetric needs in rural communities that are not at all equipped to handle them.."
Many of the states with trigger laws that will outlaw abortion once the Supreme Court has ruled have larger rural populations and a higher percentage of Black and Indigenous residents in those areas...
Abortion may not literally be in the constitution, making it hard to fight for on that basis, but the rights to privacy and reproductive control that underpin the right to abortion ARE embodied in several amendments.
Including the Sixth, Eighth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the Establishment Clause of the First, (That linked diary of mine asks “Does Law Allow Kidnapping, Enslavement, Involuntary Servitude, Human Trafficking, & other crimes including Murder by Spokesmen claiming to represent embryonic & Ffetal persons?” and answers with cites from those amendments plus the 1970 RICOH racketeering act.)
See also:
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of married couples to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction.[1] The case involved a Connecticut "Comstock law" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception". The court held that the statute was unconstitutional, and that its effect was "to deny disadvantaged citizens ... access to medical assistance and up-to-date information in respect to proper methods of birth control". By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy", establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices. This and other cases view the right to privacy as "protected from governmental intrusion".[2]
Although the U.S. Bill of Rights does not explicitly mention "privacy", Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the majority, "Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship." Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote a concurring opinion in which he used <big>the Ninth Amendment </big> in support of the ruling. Justice Byron White and Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote concurring opinions in which they argued that privacy is protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment……………..
theConversation What is ‘personhood’? The ethics question that needs a closer look in abortion debates. How people answer the question, “What is a person?” shapes how they think about a developing human being.
...Current constitutional law grants a right to abortion until a fetus becomes viable – in other words, until there is a reasonable probability it could survive outside the womb with care... typically ... between the 22nd and 24th weeks of pregnancy ….However, viability varies based on people’s access to intensive medical care. It also changes as medicine and technology advance….
...[There are] at least three common opposing views [of when personhood begins]. The first holds that fetuses qualify as persons from the moment of conception [because it] has “a future like ours” [with a variation being] that at conception, a fetus has the full genetic code [supplying] the potential to become a person, and this qualifies the fetus as a person…
A second view regards personhood as arising at some point after conception and prior to birth ... that a human being’s moral status is not all-or-nothing, but, like human development, a matter of degree. Others say that what matters is consciousness and other cognitive capacities, thought to develop late in the second trimester.
Finally, a third view maintains that personhood begins at birth or shortly thereafter, because this is when an infant first acquires a sense of themselves and an interest in their own continued existence. Another source of support for the third view is Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant’s claim that what makes human beings morally special is their rationality and capacity to be autonomous……………………….
The floor is open. Please post your news items, images, diary links, and comments. Thanks for reading.