The word from our regional Planned Parenthood is that quacks are using the COVID-19 epidemic as a pretext to shut down abortion services.
This is absurd. A pandemic is not a reason to shut down essential medical services. If I had a heart attack, would they give me a little voucher promising to send an ambulance in 3 weeks, if the stay-at-home orders have ended? (That’s about when Minnesota’s orders are scheduled to expire, although they may be extended further, if circumstances warrant.) Are grieving mothers with a dead fetus just supposed to “hold it” for a while? Are pregnant women with acute pyelonephritis or preeclampsia just supposed to take an aspirin and wait? Are the women who are not ready or capable of dealing with a child expected to hope that their desires change and their circumstances improve at some indefinite time in the future? During a pandemic and economic collapse?
Perhaps the fuckwits behind this lawsuit are hoping that women at the boundary of legal elective abortion are delayed long enough that they can compel them not to abort.
Of course, the clinic that is suing is providing bogus rationalizations.
In the lawsuit, AALFA Family Clinic cites concerns over the shortage of protective equipment during the COVID-19 outbreak as the primary concern. The pro-life group argues that forcing the clinics to use medication rather than surgery would conserve protective gear needed in the pandemic. They argue abortion clinics should be included under Governor Walz’s ban on elective procedures.
But these aren’t elective procedures! There’s a ticking clock at work here.
This is the relevant comment on AALFA Family Clinic.
This lawsuit is based on fantasy, not fact and has been filed by individuals who promote information and services that are medically inaccurate, deceptive and harmful.
That about sums it up. This lawsuit ought to be quickly thrown out…although my experience with lawsuits suggests it will instead drag on.
The clinic that filed the lawsuit also supports the bullshit “abortion pill reversal” fantasy.
Since forced-birthers do not have empathy for others, I wish that all forced-birthers (including men) became pregnant so they could reflect on why some would want to terminate them.
Pretty sure these are the same a-holes who want to gather close together, virus and all, to praise jebus because they are just so damned pro-life.
@3, There’s very presumably considerable overlap, and also overlap with teh shooty mcshootface-equipped eejits who invade legislatures to demand repeal of lockdown (stay-at-home) orders, Armed protesters demand end to Michigan coronavirus lockdown:
Previous other infect-other-eejits rally(s?) in Michigan have featured senators wearing pro-slavery facemasks (Michigan senator [Dale Zorn] apologizes for wearing Confederate flag face mask), or were backed by hair furor’s education secretary and her billionaire family (Why the DeVos family’s backing of the Michigan protests is no surprise).
Right-wing responses to the pandemic:
A) It doesn’t exist or it isn’t as bad as it’s being made out to be.
B) It’s why we should dismantle things we’ve always been opposed to.
I’ve noticed the latter a lot in conversations about urbanism and public transportation. There are a lot of jaw-droppingly disingenuous comments out there.
Anti-choicers have exploited the c-virus to coerce the unwillingly pregnant in Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, and Alaska, with a push on to do the same in at least 9 other states – as of a few days ago.
And of course the Trumpistas have their bulldozer knocking at the walls of LGBTQ rights as well.
The Republicans, as embodied by William Barr, plainly intend to snatch Culture Wars victory from their years of defeat in every way they can in the opportunities of Trump™ Chaos®. Bless their hearts.
They are probably also 100% behind the idea that “some people just die” in a pandemic.
We’ve had then in Germany. Somehow “life of others” is the highest good when trying to force people, predominantly women, to stay pregnant, but when the burden to preserve life is “no parties”, that’s going too far.
The conserving PPE argument is exceptionally silly. If a women is forced to remain pregnant, her care will use far more PPE through pre-natal visits, labor, delivery and follow up visits. And then there’s the well baby, vaccinations, regular pediatrician visits etc. etc. And most abortions are performed very early in the process, often with medication that could be done with remote doctor consultations.
This is how conservatives try to punish women for having sex. They want to control women’s vaginas and uteri just like they want to control everything else, and they’ll say and do anything, no matter how absurd, to further these aims. How many of these rabid pro-lifers are willing to adopt these unplanned/unwanted babies, or at least pay for their upkeep for 18 years? Yeah, talk’s cheap.