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Harris says abortion ruling poses 'health care crisis' for US

Vice President Harris on Friday said that the Supreme Court ruling striking down Roe v. Wade had spurred a “health care crisis” in the United States and warned that other rights were under threat.  

“This is a health care crisis because, understand, millions of women in America will go to bed tonight without access to the health care and reproductive care that they had this morning,” Harris said in remarks from Plainville, Ill.  

Echoing President Biden’s remarks hours earlier, Harris urged voters to elect more Democrats in order to enshrine the right to an abortion in law, as well as protect the rights to birth control, same-sex marriage and interracial marriage.  

“The great aspiration of our nation has been to expand freedom. But the expansion of freedom clearly is not inevitable. It is not something that just happens, not unless we defend our most fundamental principles, not unless we elect leaders who stand up for those principles,” Harris told her audience. 

“You have the power to elect leaders who will defend and protect your rights. And as the president said earlier today with your vote, you can act, and you have the final word. So, this is not over,” she said.  

Harris had been in Illinois to discuss the administration’s work on maternal health care, but her speech was reworked to address the Supreme Court ruling Friday morning.  

The 6-3 decision by a majority of conservative justices struck down Roe v. Wade, a landmark ruling almost 50 years ago that said abortion was a constitutional right. 

The move was expected following a leaked draft ruling published by Politico last month, but it nevertheless has sent shockwaves through the country.  

Thirteen states in the U.S. have so-called trigger laws that restrict abortion and will take effect now that Roe has been struck down. 

Harris has been meeting with stakeholders on abortion rights in recent weeks and rebuked the draft ruling during a speech at an EMILY’s List gala last month.  

On Thursday, she met with a group of Democratic attorneys general to discuss how to push back on state laws restricting abortion.  

In remarks from the White House, Biden said the Supreme Court had made a “tragic error” and accused the court of taking the country down an “extreme and dangerous path.”  

He also vowed to protect access to abortion pills and contraception and urged voters to elect lawmakers who support abortion rights so that Congress can enact a law guaranteeing women the right to an abortion. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Roe v. Wade reversal spurs Democrats’ call for data privacy protections

Supporters of proposals offering protections around data that could provide information about people seeking abortions are pushing for swift action after the Supreme Court’s Friday decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

As Democrats weigh responses to the 6-3 court decision that will trigger abortion bans in 13 states, and likely lead to severe restrictions in others, supporters of key data privacy proposals said it is urgent to ensure Americans’ location, search and call data isn’t used to target people seeking abortion care. 

“We need to make sure that we in Congress are doing everything we can to protect people’s most sensitive and personal data, their reproductive and sexual health data, so that it can’t be used against them, especially in the states that are going to be criminalizing abortion,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), the lead House sponsor of a bill aimed at protecting reproductive health data. 

Without additional protections, users’ location, search and calling data can be easily accessed and shared with law enforcement in ways that could be used to target people seeking abortions, especially in states that ban or severely restrict abortion access.

Such information could also be accessed and published by right-wing hackers, said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) senior staff technologist Bill Budington. 

Democrats introduced a couple of proposals aimed at giving users more data protections in recent weeks, following the leak of a draft majority opinion in May that indicated the court was prepared to strike down Roe v. Wade. 

Additionally, last month more than 40 Democrats sent a letter to Google urging the tech giant to stop collecting and storing location data over concerns that it could be used to target people seeking abortions. 

“Unfortunately, we haven’t seen a shift in the data retention policies or data policies by Big Tech in response to the Dobbs draft,” Budington said, referring to the leaked draft opinion for the Dobbs. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that was decided Friday.

“So companies were just, I suppose, waiting for themselves to be legally compelled to hand over this information,” he said. 

“But I think that putting meaningful limits on the ability for these companies to just deliver your data to third parties is certainly a welcome development,” Budington added. 

Earlier this week Jacobs and Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) introduced a bill, known as the My Body, My Data Act, that would ban companies from retaining data about users’ reproductive health without consent. The proposal has 43 cosponsors in the House and 10 in the Senate, including Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

“We can’t rely on the goodwill of individual companies who right now say they’ll do the right thing when there are no protections to make sure that they do for the most sensitive and personal reproductive health data and we need to do everything we can in order to protect it and that’s our job as a government,” Jacobs said. 

Wyden also pushed for Congress to take action on data privacy in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling. 

Wyden said Congress must pass legislation protecting search, text and location tracking data so it isn’t “weaponized against” people.

“Technology companies must take immediate steps to limit the collection and retention of customer data so that they don’t become tools of persecution,” Wyden said in a statement. 

Wyden joined Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) in introducing a bill earlier this month that would ban data brokers from selling American’s location and health data. 

Rep. Cathy Castor (D-Fla.) also urged Congress to take action on data privacy as part of the response to the court’s decision. 

“We’re going to be working on legislation to protect people’s privacy. We already are doing that on a broader scale, but now this really raises the stakes for that,” Castor said. “I mean how outrageous is this that women and doctors in America in 2022 will be targeted for simply taking care of themselves and making these very personal, private decisions about their health care and their future.”

There’s been growing momentum in Congress to take action on data privacy. Members of a House panel, including Castor, voted unanimously on Thursday to advance a bipartisan comprehensive data privacy bill to the full House Energy and Commerce Committee.

But given the deep partisan divides on abortion issues, bills related to protecting reproductive health data likely face a tougher battle ahead. 

“I think that it’s important that Congress is having a broader conversation about all data,” Jacobs said. “As a millennial who’s lived my life online I think it’s time that Congress has had that very important conversation. But I think it’s also very clear that right now, there are particular protections we need for this specific kind of data that we must put in place immediately.” 

As Congress mulls action, Budington said people seeking abortion care can take action on an individual scale to protect themselves from having their data accessed as they look to terminate pregnancies.

He said people can turn off location services on their phone, or leave their phone at home if possible, when going to an abortion provider. They could also consider turning off cellular data. 

Individuals and abortion providers can also use encrypted communication apps, such as Signal, and browsers with stricter privacy settings, such as Brave, Firefox and DuckDuckGo on mobile, for more protection.

He also said people can turn off advertising identifiers on their phone. EFF has provided a guide showing users how to do so through settings on iOS and Android devices.

Source: TEST FEED1

March for Life says they will 'continue to march until abortion is unthinkable" after SCOTUS ruling

March for Life, an anti-abortion organization, celebrated the Supreme Court ruling on Friday overturning Roe v. Wade, saying they will continue to march and advocate for anti-abortion policies. 

“For nearly fifty years, the Supreme Court has imposed an unpopular and extreme abortion policy on our nation, but as the annual March for Life gives witness to, Roe’s allowance of abortion-on-demand, up-until-birth has never represented where most Americans stand on life!” March for Life President Jeanne Mancini said in a statement.

The ruling has sparked many emotions on both sides of the political aisle as the overturning of Roe v. Wade sends the issue of abortion back to state legislatures. 

All eyes will turn to individual states who will now have the power to regulate abortions, with Republican states expected to heavily restrict the procedure while Democratic states will retain or expand abortion rights. 

“We are so grateful to the countless pro-life people of goodwill who contributed and sacrificed to make today possible – including the millions of those who have marched for life over the years – and we recognize that this is just the beginning of our work to advance policies that protect life,” Mancini said. 

March for Life has hosted marches around the country over the years, with their biggest yearly gathering in Washington, D.C. in January that attracts thousands of individuals. 

“We will continue to march until abortion is unthinkable because equality begins in the womb,” the group’s president added. 

Past speakers at their marches include former President Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and popular conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.

Source: TEST FEED1

Red flag laws can be a lifeline for our children and youth

Of the more than 45,000 deaths from firearms in the United States in 2020, 10,197 (22 percent) were of children and youth ages 0-24 years old. It will take a multi-pronged approach to stem the tide of this gun violence public health epidemic and help save thousands of lives. 

Some of these approaches were addressed this week in a bipartisan Senate bill, which passed the Senate last night with a vote of 65-35, with 15 Republicans voting in favor of it. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act includes state funding to implement extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws or “red-flag” laws. Depending on the state, these laws allow certain individuals (law enforcement, family members, etc.) to petition a court to temporarily prohibit an individual at risk of harming themselves or others from possessing or purchasing a firearm, averting potential harm from suicidal or homicidal ideation, including threatening mass shootings. 

Studies have demonstrated that red flag laws are effective in preventing suicides and mass shootings. Although general in application, these laws could protect children living in households threatened by domestic violence. They can also prevent at-risk older youth from committing acts of violence against themselves or others.  

ERPO laws are significant for their life-saving impact on all Americans, but also are advantageous because there is bipartisan agreement that they don’t infringe on Second Amendment rights. These laws are also supported by professional organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics as a gun violence prevention policy priority. 

In the field of pediatrics, we often care for kids until they graduate from college — into their early 20s. Because young adults 18 years and older can legally purchase long guns, including semi-automatic military-style assault weapons, ERPO laws also directly impact this age group. ERPO laws could also decrease the risk that younger children living in homes affected by domestic violence or living with individuals with mental health or substance use disorders from literally getting caught in the crossfire of a domestic shooting (although individuals with mental health disorders are more likely to be victims of firearm violence than perpetrators.) Just as civil protection orders like restraining orders can protect children who may live in a situation at risk for domestic or intimate partner violence, ERPO laws could similarly protect children. 

ERPO laws allow those who will most likely encounter and protect at-risk individuals — including family members, health providers, school officials, or law enforcement — to initiate or file a petition. They can directly empower concerned individuals, including relatives of suicidal teenagers and victims of domestic violence. Thus, it is imperative that residents in states with ERPO laws know about them and understand how to file a petition. It is not enough to merely pass red flag laws; states also need to ensure their residents are aware that these laws could be an important mechanism to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their communities. 

National funding incentives for states to pass or strengthen ERPO laws are important for training law enforcement and educating residents, as well as those in the judicial system, about what red flag laws can do and how and when to use them. Financial resources also enable government agencies to coordinate with each other to more effectively implement these laws. Without this national support, some states who currently have ERPO laws may decide to repeal them, and others may elect not to pass them at all. Such measures can also encourage states to make existing red flag laws more effective. Indiana, for example, has a red flag law with a fatal loophole: Individuals whose firearms have been seized pursuant to ERPO can still purchase new firearms. 

Currently, only 19 states and the District of Columbia have these laws. As gun violence prevention discussions continue around how best to balance public safety and individual rights, ERPO laws can be the least intrusive public safety measure, the solution that both allows firearms enthusiasts to pursue their interests without unnecessary hindrances and safeguards for those at risk to themselves or others. 

But to maximize the effectiveness of these laws we need to ensure there is widespread adoption and education for law enforcement and the public to protect those at risk and the community at large — including our children and youth. 

Lois K. Lee, M.D. MPH is a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Boston Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Jody Lynee Madeira, JD, Ph.D., is a professor of Law and Louis F. Neizer Faculty Fellow, and co-director of the Center for Law, Society & Culture at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Megan Rapinoe makes impassioned statement on Supreme Court's decision

Megan Rapinoe is giving an impassioned plea for abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, saying, “I just can’t understate how sad and how cruel this is.”

“I think the cruelty is the point, because this is not pro-life, by any means,” Rapinoe said.

The Supreme Court struck down the nearly 50-year-old constitutional right to an abortion on Friday, overturning the landmark 1973 decision and handing authority to the states.

“You can understand from an individual perspective how difficult it is to live in a country where you have a constant, unrelenting, violent tide against you — an onslaught as a woman, and it would be as a gay person, and as a non-binary person, as a trans person,” Rapinoe said Friday, her voice shaking at times as she spoke at a pre-game news conference on Friday ahead of U.S. women’s national soccer team match against Colombia.

“I would just encourage people to try to understand the intersectionality of this,” Rapinoe, 36, continued.

“I am a cisgender, rich, white woman that lives in two of the most progressive cities in the world with the protection of not only myself and my resources, but this resource and this protection,” she said, pointing to her soccer uniform.

“Not everyone is afforded that,” the equal pay advocate said.

The Supreme Court decision, Rapinoe said, “will disproportionately affect poor women, Black women, brown women, immigrants, women in abusive relationships, women who have been raped, women who and girls who have been raped by family members.”

“It will completely exacerbate so many of the existing inequalities that we have in our country,” she said, as her eyes appeared teary.

“The right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness and liberty is being assaulted in this instance,” the two-time World Cup champion said.

Ripping the Supreme Court for “acting incredibly irresponsibly and inappropriately,” Rapinoe said of the 6-3 majority ruling by its conservative justices: “Frankly, the majority male court making decisions about my body or any other woman’s body is completely misguided and wildly out of touch with the desires of the country.”

“Pro-choice means that we all get to decide what is best for us because that is our right as a human being in this country, and frankly, I believe, in the world,” she said.

“It’s a really sad day,” Rapinoe told reporters. “It’s a really hard thing to deal with for all of us.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Some New York City subway cars are getting hidden surveillance cameras 

To crack down on crime, New York City will install hidden surveillance cameras in 100 subway cars as part of a new pilot program. 

The program was launched by the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority in response to the April 12^th shooting in a Brooklyn subway station that injured 23 people, according to Time Out. 

After the attack, the MTA came under scrutiny for a lack of security cameras at the 36^th street subway station platform, where the shooting took place. In addition, the existing security cameras at the station’s turnstiles malfunctioned at “critical times” during the day, according to NBC New York.  

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So far, the MTA has installed hidden cameras on 65 subway cars with the goal of eventually placing two cameras in each subway car.  

None of the cameras will be monitored around the clock, according to reporting from the New York Post. But the NYPD will be able to pull footage from the cameras to collect evidence on subway-related crimes and incidents.  

“I’ve actually seen some video from the pilot, and they’re very clear, “New York City Transit president Richard Davey told the Post. “It’s a deployable camera. It will record a loop for a period of time, and if there’s an incident on a train, we can get into that camera and get video.”  

Cameras will be hidden to subway riders but eventually the MTA will post signs to let passengers know that they are being filmed.  

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Source: TEST FEED1

Here are the 14 House Republicans who voted for the gun safety bill

Fourteen House Republicans voted with all Democrats to pass a gun safety bill on Friday, sending the measure to President Biden’s desk for signature.

The final vote was 234-193, with three Republicans not voting.

The legislation, which passed the Senate in a bipartisan vote on Thursday, seeks to enhance background checks for gun buyers between the ages of 18 and 21, close the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” crack down on firearm trafficking and allocate money to states to administer red flag laws, among other provisions.

Earlier this month, after Senate negotiators released the framework for their gun agreement, President Biden said he planned to sign the measure into law.

Passage of the bill comes exactly one month after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 students and two adults. Also last month, a gunman fatally shot 10 Black individuals at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y.

The shootings, especially the Uvalde massacre, pushed senators to enter negotiations for gun legislation.

A total of 14 GOP lawmakers in the House supported the bill: Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), Fred Upton (Mich.), Mike Turner (Ohio), Steve Chabot (Ohio), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), Chris Jacobs (N.Y.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Tony Gonzales (Texas), Maria Salazar (Fla.), Dave Joyce (Ohio), John Katko (N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Peter Meijer (Mich.) and Tom Rice (S.C.).

Kinzinger, Katko, Upton, Gonzalez and Jacobs are not seeking reelection this year, and Rice just lost his bid for another term.

In a statement following the vote on Friday, Cheney — one of the more surprising Republican lawmakers to support the legislation — said the measure would safeguard children and curb violence without undermining Second Amendment rights.

The National Rifle Association’s (NRA) Political Victory Fund encouraged NRA members in Wyoming to vote for Cheney in her 2020 reelection campaign, noting her A rating from the organization.

“As a mother and a constitutional conservative, I’m proud to support this sensible bill that will protect our children and limit violence without infringing on law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights. Nothing in the bill restricts the rights of responsible gun owners. Period,” Cheney said.

“I will always protect the Second Amendment. This legislation recognizes the importance of that right while making our schools safer, providing more tools for law enforcement, and expanding funding for mental health resources which is why I voted for it,” she added.

Gonzales, who represents the district that includes Uvalde, announced on Wednesday that he would vote for the gun safety bill, writing on Twitter, “it’s my duty to pass laws that never infringe on the Constitution while protecting the lives of the innocent.”

Source: TEST FEED1

New home sales rose in May despite higher mortgage rates

New home sales jumped unexpectedly in May, according to data released Friday by the Census Bureau, defying a spike in mortgage rates and falling consumer sentiment to recover from an April downturn.

Sales of new homes rose 10.7 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 696,000 — the total number of homes that would have been sold over a 12-month period at the pace set last month. Economists expected sales to decline in May after dropping 16 percent in April.

While sales plunged 51.1 percent in the Northeast and fell 18.3 percent in the Midwest last month, sales rose 12.8 percent in the South and soared 39.3 percent in the West. 

“Sales of new homes were strongest in the West and the South (the largest housing market). These are the regions that have already experienced the fastest home price growth as those who could work from home fled expensive cities for more reasonably priced, second-tier markets,” wrote Yelena Maleyev, an economist at Grant Thonton, in a Friday analysis.

Sale prices also fell slightly after significant increases in April. The median sale price of a new home dropped to $449,000 last month from $454,700 in April, and the average sale price of a new home dropped to $511,400 from $569,500. 

Economists expected new home sales to drop for the second consecutive month under the weight of rising interest rates. The Fed’s series of rate hikes has pushed the interest rate on a 30-year mortgage to an average of 5.2 percent in May, according to Freddie Mac, boosting pressure on potential buyers already coping with prices near record highs.

Though new home sales rose, Maleyev said existing home sales fell 8.6 percent for the fourth consecutive month.

“The housing market is cooling. Rising mortgage rates and high prices in many regions will keep first-time buyers on the sidelines, while the pool of investors and all-cash buyers dries up. Sales of existing homes are expected to slip further as higher rates work their way through the economy,” she wrote.

Source: TEST FEED1

With Roe v Wade’s demise, the abortion debate can finally begin

 “We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

So ends Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Americans really should take time to read the decision. It’s a masterpiece — accessible, logically seamless, historically grounded. And all the more devastating for its, well, judiciousness.

The pro-abortion rights movement much prefers quarrelling to argument. Rage and invective accompany their activism like bugles and drums. Pro-abortion rights protesters spent the last several weeks gathering at the Supreme Court and some of the justices’ homes, furiously chanting profanities and disturbing peaceful neighborhoods.

Nuns praying rosaries outside abortion clinics this ain’t.

Political journalists, almost all of them bemoaning Roe v. Wade’s demise, report that the left’s “energy” is spontaneous, righteous defiance. But it’s mostly calculated misdirection. Pro-abortion advocates deliberately skirt the substance of their position. They talk about “choice” and “reproductive rights,” or they verbally abuse pro-lifers. They avoid concrete realities like the law, the Constitution, the grisly practice itself and – God forbid – actual babies.

With good reason. For Team Roe’s platitudes and performative histrionics mask not only political extremism, but judicial bunk.

Roe cannot be seriously defended. It was, as the dissenting justices wrote at the time, never more than an “an exercise of raw judicial power.” Prominent pro-abortion rights legal scholars – including the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – have over the years admitted as much, calling Roe “difficult to justify,” a “barely coherent” “verbal smokescreen” that “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.”

This is the Gibraltarian high ground Alito’s opinion commands: Dobbs isn’t about abortion; it’s about Roe.

The court is not being asked whether the industrialized slaughter of unborn children is good or bad, or whether it should be legalor illegal, but simply whether the text of the Constitution confers a fundamental right toit.

On that question, Roe was, in Alito’s words, “egregiously wrong from the start.” From there, Alito’s cool but relentless reasoning chews and shreds the Roe court’s “emanations” and “penumbras” and Casey’s reveries about “the mystery of life” like a woodchipper.

It reviews centuries of legislation and exhaustively documents “an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment [that] persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.”

It exposes Roe’s reliance on ideologically biased, debunked historical research and Casey’s tortured, grasping failure to find constitutional grounding.

Anticipating his critics’ invariable flanking maneuver, Alito explicitly forswears any ambition to impose the justices’ values on the country: “Our decision is not based on any view about when a state should regard pre-natal life as having rights or legally cognizable interests.”

Alito’s holding bears this out. Roe may have struck down and rewritten abortion policies in all 50 states, but the would-be Dobbs court seeks only to “return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

That goes for states where “voters may believe that the abortion right should be even more extensive than the right Casey and Roe recognized” and states where “voters … may wish to impose tight restrictions based on their belief that destroys an ’unborn human being.’”

For 49 years, the Supreme Court has deprived the American people of our right to decide this issue for ourselves, to find consensus and legislate compromise. That is what Alito’s opinion would restore to us, and what pro-abortion rights politicians and activists really oppose: democracy.

At a time when both parties and all three branches of government routinely abuse their power, Alito’s even-handed deference to “we the people” is not simply humble, but heroic.

The Dobbs decision is most certainly a victory for the pro-life movement. But in truth it’s a victory for all Americans — born and unborn.

Kevin Roberts is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).

Source: TEST FEED1