Once in a while you run across a story that’s a perfect storm of racism, sexism, and authoritarian cruelty. Scott Lloyd at the Office of Refugee Resettlement was keeping a spreadsheet tracking the pregnancies of underage girls, so that he could deny them abortions.
Yet they couldn’t keep track of which kids belonged to which parents? Every detail gets worse:
Mr. Lloyd has taken the position that as unauthorized immigrants, the girls are not entitled to the same constitutional protections as citizens. Under questioning from an A.C.L.U. lawyer during a deposition, he said he did not know of any set of circumstances that would cause him to grant an abortion request, though he said that if a girl’s life were in danger that could “potentially” sway him. He has denied at least one request for an abortion from a girl who said she had been raped.
More from Maddow:
As always, this diary is a team effort. Thanks to ramara, Angmar, Besame, karij, elenacarlena, officebss, SandraLLAP, noweasels, and the WOW crew for links and discussion.
Reproductive Rights:
Courts upheld an Ohio law defunding Planned Parenthood and similar organizations, holding that even though women have a protected right to abortion, doctors don’t have a protected right to perform them.
When the global gag rule is in effect (i.e. when a Republican is in the White House), the abortion rate around the world goes up.
A movement of women have decided not to procreate in response to the coming ‘climate breakdown and civilisation collapse’.
The ACLU on two new anti-abortion laws from Kentucky.
https://www.aclu.org/…
"Arkansas, Utah Pass 18-Week Abortion Bans": https://www.usnews.com/...
Violence:
A Socially Acceptable Form of Murder: honour killings in Russia’s North Caucasus.
The women of Afghanistan have incorporated modern war into their rug making, a craft which goes back thousands of years.
Media:
Misogynists are sputtering over the new, female-headed Captain Marvel movie. Meanwhile:
"In unearthed audio, Tucker Carlson makes numerous misogynistic and perverted comments": https://www.mediamatters.org/...
And there's an UltraViolet petition to his advertisers on Fox News, asking that they pull their ads from his show: https://act.weareultraviolet.org/...
Uncategorizable:
Utah is seeking ban pelvic exams on unconscious patients who hadn’t given prior consent. This practice is still legal in most states as a “teaching tool” for gyno students.
Unsurprisingly, 100 percent of women say they would prefer to be asked before their pelvis is used as a teaching tool. Some say they would feel assaulted if they weren’t consulted beforehand. Most also don’t have the ability to learn that this has even happened to them. They have no chance to say no, thank you—or #MeToo. But in our current era of rethinking consent and the institutions that have perpetrated unfair treatment of women, now is the perfect time to finally end this practice.