AG to Supreme Court: It Is High Time to Reverse Roe v. Wade

July 24, 2021 John

Mississippi Attorney General: Roe v. Wade Is 'Egregiously Wrong,' Poisonous, and 'Decades Out of Date'

BY TYLER O'NEIL

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/07/23/miss-ag-roe-v-wade-is-egregiously-wrong-poisonous-and-decades-out-of-date-n1464165;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

On Thursday, Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R-Miss.) urged the Supreme Court to strike down its abortion precedents in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). Fitch called Roe and Casey “egregiously wrong,” poisonous to America’s public discourse, and “decades out of date” because its assumptions about women’s freedom and the development of unborn babies in the womb have proven false. Most importantly, Fitch reiterated the central argument against Roe — it invented a “right” to abortion that does not exist in the Constitution.

“Because nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion,” Fitch argued, “a prohibition on elective abortions is therefore constitutional if it satisfies the rational-basis review that applies to all laws.”

Fitch made these important arguments in her brief in the central abortion case Thomas Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which the Supreme Court will hear when it reconvenes this fall. The case involves a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks gestation, at which point an unborn baby already has a fully formed nose and lips, eyelids, and eyebrows.

As Fitch noted in her brief, the Mississippi Legislature found that at 5-6 weeks’ gestation, “an unborn human being’s heart begins beating,” while at about 8 weeks gestation, he or she “begins to move about in the womb.” At 9 weeks, “all basic physiological functions are present,” as are teeth, eyes, and external genitalia. At 10 weeks, “vital organs begin to function,” and hair, fingernails, and toenails begin to form. At 11 weeks, an unborn baby’s diaphragm is developing, and he or she may hiccup. At 12 weeks, he or she can open and close fingers, starts to make sucking motions, and senses stimulation from the world outside the womb.” By 15 weeks, the unborn baby “has taken on the human form in all relevant respects.”

Yet, according to the precedents set by Roe and Casey, states like Mississippi cannot protect this human life because the Court has ruled that 15-week-old babies have not reached the point of viability outside the womb. Fitch argued that the Court should reject this standard, partially because the Court’s recent abortion jurisprudence is “egregiously wrong.”

“Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong. The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition,” Fitch claimed. “Roe based a right to abortion on decisions protecting aspects of privacy under the Due Process Clause. But Roe broke from prior cases by invoking a general ‘right of privacy’ unmoored from the Constitution. Notably, Casey did not embrace Roe’s reasoning. And Casey’s de- fense of Roe’s result—based on the liberty this Court has afforded to certain ‘personal decisions,’—fails.”

“[A]bortion is fundamentally different from any right this Court has ever endorsed,” the attorney general explained. “No other right involves, as abortion does, ‘the purposeful termination of a potential life.’ So Roe broke from prior cases, Casey failed to rehabilitate it, and both recognize a right that has no basis in the Constitution.”

Fitch explained that “the Constitution’s text says nothing about abortion” and that “nothing in the Constitution’s structure implies a right to abortion or prohibits States from restricting it.”

“Rather, history shows a long tradition—up to, at, and long after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment—of States restricting abortion. At the end of 1849, 18 of the 30 States had statutes restricting abortion; by the end of 1864, 27 of the 36 States had them; and, at the end of 1868, the year the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, 30 of the 37 States had such laws, as did 6 Territories,” she noted. “The public would have understood that consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment, states could restrict abortion to pursue legitimate interests and could do so throughout pregnancy.”

The attorney general argued that, because the Constitution does not explicitly address the issue, the power to regulate abortion is “reserved to the States” under the Tenth Amendment.

Fitch did not just make the classic originalist argument against Roe and Casey, however. She also noted that these abortion cases “have inflicted significant damage.”

“Far from bringing peace to the controversy over abortion, Roe and Casey have made matters worse,” she noted, citing none other than the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote that “Heavy-handed judicial intervention [in Roe] was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.”

“Abortion caselaw is pervaded by special rules—the undue-burden standard, the large-fraction test, and more—that feed the perception that ‘when it comes to abortion’ this Court does not ‘evenhandedly apply’ the law,” Fitch explained. “Roe and Casey are unprincipled decisions that have damaged the democratic process, poisoned our national discourse, plagued the law—and, in doing so, harmed this Court.”

The attorney general also explained that “the march of progress has left Roe and Casey behind.”

“Those cases maintained that an unwanted pregnancy could doom women to ‘a distressful life and future,’ that abortion is a needed complement to contraception, Casey, and that viability marked a sensible point for when state interests in unborn life become compelling,” she noted. “Factual developments undercut those assessments.”

“Today, adoption is accessible and on a wide scale women attain both professional success and a rich family life, contraceptives are more available and effective, and scientific advances show that an unborn child has taken on the human form and features months before viability. States should be able to act on those developments. But Roe and Casey shackle States to a view of the facts that is decades out of date,” Fitch argued.

Casey upheld Roe in the name of protecting societal reliance interests. Yet Fitch argued that women do not need abortion to get ahead. “Innumerable women and mothers have reached the highest echelons of economic and social life independent of the right endorsed in those cases. Sweeping policy advances now promote women’s full pursuit of both career and family. And many States have already accounted for Roe and Casey’s overruling.”

Importantly, the AG noted that “modern options regarding and views about childbearing have dulled concerns on which Roe rested.” For instance, “numerous laws enacted since Roe— addressing pregnancy discrimination, requiring leave time, assisting with childcare, and more—facilitate the ability of women to pursue both career success and a rich family life. And today all 50 States and the District of Columbia have enacted ‘safe haven’ laws, giving women bearing unwanted children the option of ‘leaving [the] newborn directly in the care of the state until it can be adopted.'”

In 1973, abortion may have seemed necessary for women’s advancement and it seemed less barbaric because embryology had not yet made the advances it has today. Now, however, abortion is less necessary for women’s well-being and advancement, and it also appears more barbaric.

The idea that the Constitution guarantees a “right” to abortion was always wrong, but these modern developments make it all the more imperative for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. With these cases overturned, states can again make their own laws on abortion, reclaiming the Tenth Amendment power of which the Court unjustly deprived them.

Given the fact that Justice Clarence Thomas is the most senior among the more conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — he may write the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. This case may make history by finally setting right the historic injustice of Roe v. Wade.

GRANTS PASS, OREGON: Educators Fired for Opposing Transgender Orthodoxy

July 24, 2021 John

Oregon School Threatens Termination Against Teachers for Speaking Out Against Gender Confusion

BY TYLER O'NEIL

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/07/23/educators-fired-for-opposing-transgender-orthodoxy-and-the-equality-act-n1464267;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Two educators in Grants Pass, Ore., lost their jobs amid outrage that they had the temerity to oppose transgender orthodoxy on bathrooms and pronouns. The teachers supported a compromise position, but students demanded their removal–and the school board obliged. The educators have already filed a lawsuit claiming the school board violated their First Amendment rights.

Rachel Damiano, the former assistant principal at North Middle School, and Katie Medart, a former science teacher at the same school, both supported the “I Resolve” movement, seeking a biology-based compromise solution to radical transgender demands. They opposed the Orwellian “Equality Act” and supported a resolution upholding the binary of biological sex, urging an anatomical designation for shared public-school restrooms and locker rooms (with private accommodation for transgender students), and free speech protections for teachers and staff regarding transgender pronouns.

“We recognize that, excepting very rare scientifically-demonstrable medical conditions, there are two anatomical gender presentations, male and female,” the resolution states. “Shared public-school restrooms and locker rooms, previously designated by ‘gender’ (e.g. ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ designations) could be re-designated as ‘anatomically male or ‘anatomically female spaces to only be used by persons matching the anatomical designation of the spaces as consistent with the purpose for which the spaces are built.”

“For any person who is not comfortable using their anatomically correct space, they may request access to a private restroom or locker room space, including designated staff spaces, to the extent that such spaces exist and are available,” the resolution allows.

The resolution also defends free speech while attempting to grant students who identify as transgender the right to request specific pronouns and name use.

“A student may, with parent permission, request to be called by a derivative of their legal name but it will not be mandated that students or staff be required to call the student by their preferred name,” the resolution states. “A student may, with parent permission, request to be referred to with preferred pronouns, but it will not be mandated that students or staff be required to use the preferred pronouns.”

Grants Pass School District 7 placed both Damiano and Medart on leave after they shared the resolution on social media in April. The district released a statement insisting that the social media posts “were not approved or endorsed” by the district.

“Grants Pass School District 7 is committed to providing a welcoming and safe learning environment for all students, including our LGBTQ students. In Grants Pass schools, we ALL belong, regardless of race, religion, gender, sex, sexual orientation or ability,” the district declared.

Damiano and Medart did not oppose a “welcoming and safe learning environment” for “LGBTQ students.” In fact, their compromise arguably better reflects both the diversity of student and staff views and the privacy concerns many students likely have. In a statement, the educators declared themselves to be in support of “ALL students,” in favor of “protecting each individual’s freedom of speech,” and supportive of “parental rights and involvement in their child’s educational and personal journey.”

Many transgender activists have dismissed or demonized bathroom and changing room privacy concerns, and many have undermined parental rights, encouraging schools to teach gender identity behind parents’ backs. Compromises like theirs represent an approach that takes many important variables into account, while activists often dismiss these and other concerns.

Yet Stephanie Eminowicz, an 8th-grade student and self-declared member of the LGBTQ community who has adopted she/her pronouns (suggesting that “Stephanie” may be a male who identifies as female), organized a student protest, demanding the school district fire the educators.

“I always thought that North was a place that allowed all genders and gender identities and sexualities and races and ethical backgrounds and religions,” Eminowicz said. “When I heard about it, it was just so shocking to me and I couldn’t believe that this was like the world that I was living in.”

So this LGBT activist can’t believe that people might disagree with transgender orthodoxy and present nuanced compromise positions? That says more about Eminowicz than it does about Damiano and Medart. The Equality Act, which Eminowicz appears to support, explicitly guts religious freedom protections, weakening the potential for the North to be “a place that allowed all… religions.”

In June, the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) filed a lawsuit, alleging that the school district violated Damiano and Medart’s free speech rights.

“The Supreme Court has made clear that educators don’t check their freedom of speech at the schoolhouse gate when they accept employment with public school districts – they have as much right to speak out against district policies they consider harmful as any other citizen. The school district erred egregiously here in punishing Rachel and Katie for daring to take the stand they did,” Ray D. Hacke, PJI’s Oregon-based staff attorney, said in a statement on the lawsuit.

“Educators, like everybody else, have ideas and opinions they should be free to express,” PJI President Brad Dacus insisted. “This expression is protected by our First Amendment. Advocating for solutions they believe in should stimulate conversation, not subject dedicated educators to disciplinary action.”

Unfortunately, the school district decided to terminate both Damiano and Medart after a third-party investigator examined complaints that the educators had violated district policies by pretending to represent the school board while “politically campaigning.” Superintendent Kirk Kolb recommended termination for both employees, and the school board voted 4-3 to terminate each educator.

Around 65 people showed up to protest, supporting Damiano and Medart. Staff turned some protesters away from the meetings because of fire marshal capacity. Protesters chanted in support of Damiano and Medart from the front of Grants Pass High School, where the school board met.

These firings represent a gross miscarriage of justice, and PJI is right to take up this case. Perhaps Damiano and Medart will find some resolution in the courts.

California to Transfer Men to Women’s Prisons; Prisons Stock Up on Condoms, Abortion Pills

July 24, 2021 John

BY VERONIKA KYRYLENKO

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/california-to-transfer-men-to-womens-prisons-prisons-stock-up-on-condoms-abortion-pills/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Female inmates in the California prison system literally cry for help as they are becoming prey for “transgender women” (i.e., men who identify as women). Correctional facilities are reportedly preparing for an uptick in rapes and pregnancies following a policy change that allows males who identify as females to be transferred to women-only prisons.

After the state began implementing a new law allowing male prisoners who identify as female to be transferred to women’s prisons, officials at the Central California Women’s Facility began providing “new resources” for women, including condoms and abortion pills, says Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), a left-wing feminist organization.

The organization states:

Women incarcerated in California’s largest women’s prison are describing the conditions as “a nightmare’s worst nightmare” after the introduction of new pregnancy resources in the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) medical clinics. The new resources are a tacit admission by officials that women should expect to be raped when housed in prison with men, where all sex is considered non-consensual by default within the system.

Following the passage of S.B. 132, a bill signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom into law last year and going into effect in January, 255 requests were filed from male prisoners seeking to transfer to the women’s prison. Many of those inmates are sex offenders, WoLF claims, citing the study from the Center for Evidence-Based Corrections.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Deputy Press Secretary Terry Thornton explained that “a person’s gender identity is self-reported and CDCR will evaluate any request submitted by an incarcerated person for gender-based housing.” Thus far, around 20 requests have been processed and not one has been denied.

WoLF says that one reason for the backlog in transferring men who have requested transfer is the prison is making the men take a course in how to deal with their “fears about living with women”; in April, CDCR implemented a new mandatory 16-hour class as a prerequisite for any inmates wishing to transfer.

But there are some serious doubts the course will have much effect since the prison facilities are increasing security measures in preparation for potentially hundreds of new dangerous and violent men living alongside female inmates. For instance, it is reported that CCWF is cutting down trees in the prison yard since they are now viewed as a security risk.

The CCWF medical clinics started to advertise a variety of options for “pregnant people” who might become pregnant while in prison. The methods available to female inmates to prevent pregnancies are condoms, and the emergency contraception Plan B. If a woman decides to keep a baby, she would be provided with prenatal vitamins, low bunk housing accommodations, the ability to apply for community-based programs, newborn care, etc.

The CDCR claimed the “possibility of pregnancy was considered in the development” of S.B. 132 and that it had procedures in place related to pregnancy, including the fact that sexual acts are already prohibited in prison and are subject to disciplinary action. Yet, the preparations for the worst are underway. Amber Jackson, who is incarcerated at CCWF, wrote at Santa Monica Observer that currently, three condoms per person are allowed in the women’s prison. While California men’s prisons have been following this practice, the female prisoners have never had any need for condoms — until now.

Jackson also revealed that multiple “trans women” who have already transferred to the prison did not undergo what is known as “gender-reassignment surgery,” i.e., they still have penises. Moreover, they were HIV positive and were abusing and having sex with many of the female inmates. This, according to Jackson, led to the prison’s new condom policy, which was implemented too late, and some of the abused women may already be infected.

In a subsequent article for the Observer dated July 22, Jackson wrote that the women at the prison are “now prey for men,” and that the situation is “so detrimental to women it’s hard to fully capture with words.”

“Call yourself a ‘woman’ all you want,” Jackson said. “But when you have man, with a penis, that works as it was designed to do, that’s a problem in a women’s prison group shower room. That’s a problem.”

One inmate woman made a plea for help during a recent CCWF event, WoLF reports.

“How do we feel safe in our community? When we reach out for help we get nothing,” the woman said. “There has been an assault on a woman and we still are silenced.”

“Does anyone care that we are being forced to house with 6’2, 250+ lbs men with penises that are here for brutally raping women?” she continued, “We have been warned by the officials in this prison, more are coming with worse charges. Where is the safety concern for us? If we say we are in fear, we are the ones locked up.”

Another female inmate told WoLF, “You might as well declare the prison is co-ed and ship us off to Pelican Bay [State Prison; considered of the most dangerous in the nation]!”