Forced birthing politics in the US reminds us that traveling for medical procedures is a commodity. The difference between birth tourism and the production of ‘anchor babies’ signifies a political economy of rights made problematic by state borders and that Constitutional “full faith and credit”.
A 21st Century bill of economic rights would help us understand how universal human rights overcome the ideology of forced birthing. Enumeration of rights becomes more complex when lives are at risk. Medical self-defense is defensible.
The leak of the Alito opinion may be more about it happening before the arrival of Ketanji Brown Jackson. Newsmax tried to blame her with no evidence. So much conservative messaging in the service of conflict when the lines of argument are drawn at race and class.
population density
Karina Gould said Tuesday that American women will be able to obtain abortions in Canada if the United States Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and states restrict access, CBC reports: “I don’t see why we would not. If they, people, come here and need access, certainly, you know, that’s a service that would be provided.”
On Monday night, Politico published a copy of a draft opinion written by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, which suggests a majority of justices are prepared to overrule Roe v. Wade — the landmark decision that allowed legal abortions in the U.S.
www.macleans.ca/...
(2017) Roughly one out of every 12 newborns in the United States can be classified as a so-called ‘anchor baby.’ Pew research shows that some 295,000 children were born to undocumented immigrants in 2013, while the number of pregnant 'birth tourists' who come here legally to take advantage of the fact that all persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States was recently estimated at 36,000 a year. That right to citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. There is a problem here. Who is paying for the costs involved?
In particular, who is paying the initial and future medical costs, the down-the-road educational costs and any social benefits these children may be entitled to? To put the matter into a sharper perspective, consider the recent story of a Honduran women who is believed to be the first foreign woman to have a Zika baby born in the New York area. Who exactly is to pay the estimated cost of treatment of this child that could amount to over $1 million. This problem could be even more acute in the Canadian context because the health care system there provides free coverage to all Canadian citizens.
In the U.S., as I pointed out previously, “birth tourism” is a flourishing business. Pregnant women fly here, stay at special hotels and pay sometimes extraordinarily high costs for “concierge services” designed to facilitate the birth of their children. The benefit to the family is that the child is thereby eligible to claim U.S. social welfare, be educated at much lower cost and obtain certain medical benefits for life here. Various court challenges have tried to block this practice. For example, in 2015 the State of Texas stopped giving birth certificates to parents who could not produce U.S.-issued documents for themselves. What was more, Texas refused to recognize the Mexican Consulate-issued matrícula consular as an identity paper as it had previously. But such state efforts to frustrate birth tourism have run up against the prohibition of the 14th Amendment to the effect that, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ..." In Canada, the issue of birth tourism is also a source of concern. Like similar past American efforts, Kerry Starchuk from Richmond, B.C. launched an online petition to the House of Commons in June, 2016 calling on the federal government to stop granting citizenship to newborns unless one of the parents is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident. The petition needed 500 votes to be considered by the House of Commons, but gathered more than 8ooo signatures to date.
... Unlike in the U.S. where surrogacy is banned in New York but legal in California for example, Canada as a whole is becoming a magnet for surrogacy for the following reasons: excellent in vitro fertilization clinics, legal equality of access to health care regardless of sexual orientation or marital status, obscure and vague laws on the subject and the low Canadian dollar.
www.forbes.com/…
Nobody ever talks about the Russian birth tourism industry.
(2020) MIAMI (AP) — Every year, hundreds of pregnant Russian women travel to the United States to give birth so that their child can acquire all the privileges of American citizenship.
They pay anywhere from $20,000 to sometimes more than $50,000 to brokers who arrange their travel documents, accommodations and hospital stays, often in Florida.
While the cost is high, their children will be rewarded with opportunities and travel advantages not available to their Russian countrymen. The parents themselves may benefit someday as well.
And the decidedly un-Russian climate in South Florida and the posh treatment they receive in the maternity wards — unlike dismal clinics back home — can ease the financial sting and make the practice seem more like an extended vacation.
The Russians are part of a wave of “birth tourists” that includes sizable numbers of women from China and Nigeria.
President Donald Trump has spoken out against the provision in the U.S. Constitution that allows “birthright citizenship” and has vowed to end it, although legal experts are divided on whether he can actually do that.
Although there have been scattered cases of authorities arresting operators of birth tourism agencies for visa fraud or tax evasion, coming to the U.S. to give birth is fundamentally legal. Russians interviewed by The Associated Press said they were honest about their intentions when applying for visas and even showed signed contracts with doctors and hospitals.
apnews.com/...
Jackson will not be sworn in until Justice Stephen G. Breyer's retirement this summer. She has no access to the Supreme Court computer network. And the leaked draft ruling for Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was circulated on February 10 — before Jackson was even nominated to the court.
www.rawstory.com/...
The Economic Bill of Rights - US History
The Economic Bill of Rights January 11, 1944 Often referred to as the "Second Bill of Rights" Excerpted from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's message to Congress on the State of the Union. This was proposed not to amend the Constitution, but rather as a political challenge, encouraging Congress to draft legislation to achieve these aspirations.
