The 33-year-old Watts, who had not shared the news of her pregnancy even with her family, made her first prenatal visit to a doctor’s office behind Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, a working-class city about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland.
The doctor said that, while a fetal heartbeat was still present, Watts’ water had broken prematurely and the fetus she was carrying would not survive. He advised heading to the hospital to have her labor induced, so she could have what amounted to an abortion to deliver the nonviable fetus. Otherwise, she would face “significant risk” of death, according to records of her case.
That was a Tuesday in September. What followed was a harrowing three days entailing: multiple trips to the hospital; Watts miscarrying into, and then flushing and plunging, a toilet at her home; a police investigation of those actions; and Watts, who is Black, being charged with abuse of a corpse. That’s a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.
This story is absolutely terrible but it’s, sadly, important to keep them visible so “moderates” know exactly what will happen if republicans take control on a national level. This is the future for all women if they were to take the WH and both chambers of Congress. They already have the Supreme Court for at least 15-20 years even if a Republican is never elected President again.
People have been talking about the possibility of this exact situation for decades. Any moderates who have not heard it simply don’t want to hear it
The GOP already packed the court by acting in bad faith with Obama. There’s no reason we shouldn’t just appoint more judges. 9 has not always been the size of the court, and the size is not restricted by the Constitution.
Or how about reducing the size back to 7 and removing the 2 newest members?
What’s wrong with Jackson?
Also, that would leave us with Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
We’d have the same problem, a court dominated by bad faith judges who are participating in a long term conservative ideological project.
Far worse than that, Republicans are vying for and have run practice sessions for a “Convention of the States”, where basically states (which are predominantly Republican controlled, in spite of population distributions) can come together and decide which Federal laws they want to adhere to.
Basically, the situation you’re fear mongering over is far closer than even you make out it to be.
A convention of the states is infinitely worse. It is basically a rewriting of the Constitution. Koch has been funding this. In this political climate imagine what happens when we let fascist billionaires create us a new govt. Holy fucking shit.
This is why state elections are so crucially important. We normal non-assholes need to not just vote but be involved in local and state elections. Donating time, money, even running for offices.
States can shield us from a lot of the bad shit happening at a national level if we elect halfway decent people.
A minimum consensus might go some way to fixing things.
A small part of me wants to see them try it. There is a legal means of doing this that has never been tested. There is something amusing about letting someone who has done nothing except being critical handed power that they have no ability to use.
Imagine all those DeSantos types actually given the task of sorting out the constitution. They don’t know how to write an amendment, they wouldn’t be able to agree on wording, they would have no clue how the courts would apply the wording, they aren’t even sure if it would stick because again no one has tried it. It would be who knows how many tens of millions of dollars in lawyer fees and conference hall rentals and travel expenses and committees all to pass something that would break on the first challenge.
But that’s not the way legislation works. The law is written, then it is voted in my representatives, then it is challenged by parties that fall foul of it. Waiting until the very last stage is the least likely method to be successful.
States don’t have to follow federal law. Just look at cannabis.
There’s a 0% chance Californians go along with any federal restrictions on abortion.