As all of us know by now, the moronic stooges of the incoming administration pose a serious threat to our reproductive rights. Trump’s pick for HHS secretary, Tom Price, has twice co-sponsored federal legislation that would define fertilized human eggs as legal persons. Vice President-elect Pence co-sponsored these legislative attempts. Paul Ryan has supported such legislation as well! Is it realistic that the push to legally recognize an egg as a “person” could succeed? Could stem cell research lose federal funding? Could Price make it easy for insurance companies to stop covering birth control? Yes to all of the above. (Scientific American)
- There has been a lot of chatter about “faithless electors” refusing to grant their states’ electoral votes to Donald Trump next week. Personally speaking, I’m keeping my expectations low and preparing for the orange version of the Kool-Aid man to be in office come January 20, 2017. (Time)
- Did you know that the fear-mongering weasels in Texas drafted a cockamamie booklet full of idiotic, disproven lies called “A Woman’s Right To Know” that is required to be given to women seeking abortions? Of the many blatant falsehoods cited in the book, they try to scare women into thinking having an abortion increases one’s risk of breast cancer. Fun fact: it doesn’t. (Huffington Post)
- Republican legislators in Ohio, completely IGNORING the fact that federal courts have previously deemed such laws unconstitutional, advanced a law to outlaw abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Which is before most women even show signs of being pregnant. Infamously anti-choice Gov. John Kasich vetoed this bill and instead passed a 20-week ban based on the notion that this is when a fetus can feel “pain.” (NBC News)
- Notably, the American Medical Association concluded more than a decade ago that fetal perception of pain is “unlikely before the third trimester.” They concluded that the capacity for pain probably does not even exist before 29 or 30 weeks. (Fact Check)
- Various Arizona artists are planning a “Nasty Women” art exhibit in downtown Phoenix January 14 to 20, and they’re donating the proceeds to Planned Parenthood Arizona! (Phoenix New Times)
- Our Knight in Shining Brown Armor, Barack Obama, just made it super hard for individual states to defund Planned Parenthood! (NY Times)
- Donald Trump doesn’t have time to be bothered with daily intelligence briefings, but he does have time to meet with rappers. #Priorities (Rolling Stone)
- 30 million people will lose their insurance if Obamacare is repealed. Thirty million. (NBC News)
- This would affect millions of children as well. (Phoenix New Times)
- Maybe this scathing Trump op-ed in Teen Vogue will make you optimistic about the next generation. (Teen Vogue)
- Ya know what I don’t wanna see when I walk into a public restroom at a restaurant, bar, hospital, hotel, or school? Anti-abortion graffiti propaganda written all over the damn wall. Well, Oklahoma passed an atrociously asinine law requiring anti-abortion rhetoric to be posted on bathroom walls in public restrooms. And business owners would have to pay the costs for this nonsense! The state claims it wants to achieve an “abortion-free society.” Wow. That sounds amazing. Know what will help get us there? Widespread access to affordable birth control and comprehensive sex education in all schools. Oklahoma notoriously does not support either of those initiatives, though. (NY Mag)
- Speaking of Oklahoma, they lost a battle in the TRAP war. (Slate)
- Roe v. Wade will be fine (according to this optimistic writer, who is banking on the longevity of the very old liberal members of SCOTUS). (Slate)
- In my last rundown I shared the news of Texas trying to force the burial of fetal remains (only the ones resultant from abortion, not miscarriage — cause apparently those are less sacred and valued to legislators). Well that’s canceled. For now. (Texas Tribune)
- Guess what? Abortion does not harm women’s mental health. The medical field has spoken. Definitively. (NY Times)
