The World’s Most ‘Pro-Life’ Nations Offer a Grim Preview of America's Future

Jill Filipovic
Tue, May 3, 2022

Supporters of Honduras' ruling National Party hold signs and flags reading "Honduras yes, abortion no" during a march

Supporters of Honduras' ruling National Party hold signs and flags reading "Honduras yes, abortion no" during a march against abortion at a rally attended by Nasry Asfura, the party's candidate for president in elections this month, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras November 7, 2021. Credit - Fredy Rodriguez—Reuters

A few years ago, in a small home off an uneven road in Honduras, I got a little peek into what life is like when abortion is illegal.

There, I met a woman in her early 20s, who for privacy I’ll call Alma. She lived with her family and a smattering of extremely cute animals – there were a few little dogs, a kitten or two, a hen and her chicks. Months earlier, Alma had had stillbirth – she hadn’t even known she was pregnant, she told me. Doctors, though, suspected that she had taken medication to induce an abortion. They called the police. When I met Alma, she was awaiting trial.

In Honduras, abortion is outlawed, along with emergency contraception. Sexual violence is commonplace, and women are barred from a basic tool to prevent pregnancy after rape, and then potentially jailed if they end an unwanted one. Through both abortion restrictions and endemic violence, women hear one message: Your body isn’t yours.

Read More: Inside Mississippi’s Last Abortion Clinic—and the Biggest Fight for Abortion Rights in a Generation

Alma was far from the only woman I’ve met whose body has borne the weight of abortion bans. There was a girl I called Sofia when I wrote about her, also in Honduras, forced to have a child as a 12-year-old rape victim. There was Anita, the pseudonym for a woman who fled war in South Sudan and was forced into sex by her husband even after a doctor told them another pregnancy too soon could kill her; she self-induced an abortion and nearly paid with her life. There was Silvana, raped as a child during Colombia’s civil war, who starved herself into a miscarriage. There was a woman whose name I don’t know, but whose story I heard again and again in a Bangladeshi camp full of Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar – to end an unwanted pregnancy, she put a red-hot brick on her stomach, searing off her flesh.

A leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion suggests that the Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion for American women. Those of us who have followed the long arc of reproductive-rights law in the U.S. aren’t surprised, although many of us are devastated and angry. Those of us who have reported on abortion rights and access, and women’s rights more broadly, know just how high the stakes are.

The reality is that abortion access, and the procedure itself, has changed quite a bit since the bad old days of pre-Roe America. Now, a combination of misoprostol and mifepristone, taken orally, can effectively and safely induce an abortion without the potentially fertility- or even life-ending complications of older methods that required something be inserted into the cervix. Activists have worked hard to make these medications are available to women in places where abortion is illegal or hard to get, including in the United States. If Roe goes, these activist networks will undoubtedly expand. Abortion won’t end, and activists will try to make sure that as many women as possible can access safe abortion-inducing medications. Again, the pro-choice movement will save women’s lives.

Read More: The Battle Over the Future of the Anti-Abortion Movement if the Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade

But activists working to deliver safe abortions in a hostile legal environment simply cannot reach every woman in need. Even now, with Roe still standing, a great number of American women cannot get the abortions they want. And the women who are best able to access safe abortions will be those with greater resources: Money, to be sure, but also the education, connections, and internet literacy to know where to find help, and how to tell charlatans and scammers from safe providers. Women who are already vulnerable – who are poor, who are young, who live in rural areas, who don’t speak English well or at all, who are the least able to take on a child they haven’t planned for – are the most likely to fall through the cracks.

U.S. Supreme Court police officers set up barricades during a protest outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, May 3, 2022.

Al Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images

The criminalization of abortion will in and of itself discourage some women from pursuing abortion procedures, and those women will carry pregnancies to term against their wishes, making them more likely to be stuck in poverty and tied to abusive men. Some of those women will die because of that lack of choice. One estimate suggests that maternal mortality might increase by as much as 21% if abortion is outlawed nationwide.

Other women, fearful of the law but desperate to not be pregnant and too scared or ashamed to ask for help, will take matters into their own hands. Others won’t know how to find help or where to look. Some will be fine. Some may not be.

Read More: If Roe v. Wade Is Overturned, Our Clinic Will Stop Providing Abortions Immediately. But We Won’t Shut Down

Overzealous prosecutors in the U.S. have already jailed women over suspected abortions. If abortion is outlawed, every indication is that more women, and certainly more doctors, will wind up behind bars.

The world’s most “pro-life” nations show us what could be in store. In countries with the strictest anti-abortion laws, women face pervasive violence from men. That isn’t to say that anti-abortion laws cause violence. It is to say that violence against women, like restrictions on what women can do with their reproductive lives, is a tool of misogynist dominance. It stems from the urge to force women to do your bidding, and the belief that women’s bodies and women’s lives should be under male control. It’s not a coincidence that the countries where women do the best – where they are the most economically prosperous, the safest, have the highest levels of education and employment, are the most supported in parenthood, and are the freest – are also countries where abortion is legal and contraception is easily accessible.

By curtailing abortion access, the U.S. is again making itself an outlier on women’s rights, and joining a small number of nations – Poland, Hungary, Brazil, Russia, China – that are moving ever rightward toward authoritarianism. While many countries have liberalized their abortion laws as they have become more democratic, just a handful have restricted reproductive rights – and those restrictions have gone hand-in-hand with shifts away from democratic traditions and toward autocracy.

According to the U.N., nearly 50,000 women’s lives could be saved each year simply by repealing anti-abortion laws. The U.S. has instead restricted abortion even further. Overturning Roe would be the biggest blow in nearly 50 years to abortion rights in the U.S., and just the first step in a broader conservative effort to make abortion totally illegal – and if anti-abortion activists get their way, a national abortion law would have no exceptions for rape, incest, health, or the pregnant woman’s life.

These are the stakes if this draft opinion becomes law: Some women’s lives, many women’s futures, and all of our freedoms.

Main negotiators reach 'outcome' on COVID vaccine IP waiver -WTO

Emma Farge
Tue, May 3, 2022,


WTO Demonstration for IP rights waiver for COVID-19 in Geneva

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) -The four main parties to negotiations on an intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines have prepared an "outcome document" for approval by the broader membership, the WTO said on Tuesday, with its chief hoping for a final deal by June.

WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who has made vaccine equity her top priority since taking office in 2021, has been working for months to broker a compromise between the United States, the European Union, India and South Africa to break an 18-month-long impasse.

"What the discussions were aiming at was coming up with something workable," Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters, saying she hoped the WTO's 164 members would finalise and approve the proposal by a major conference in June. "This will advance the discussion and dialogue. For the next pandemic or a flare up of this one, this is hugely important," she said.

The document showed that there were still unresolved areas in the draft deal, including on the duration of the waiver's application which could be either three or five years.

Okonjo-Iweala said recent negotiations had focused on getting broader support for the proposal, including from China. She said Beijing had indicated it was "favourably disposed" to being considered as a developed country in this deal and thus subject to stricter rules. The Chinese mission to the WTO in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

All 164 members of the WTO must accept the deal by consensus for it to pass and the topic will be raised at a closed-door meeting in Geneva on Friday. One delegate said it would be critical that the main four parties vocalise strong backing publicly in order to convince others. "If not, doubts will linger and other members stay hesitant," he said.

Maria Pagan, the top U.S. trade negotiator in Geneva, said the United States had worked constructively with other WTO members to "facilitate discussions and bridge differences that might lead to an outcome" that could achieve consensus.

While conceding success was not assured, Pagan said the United States would continue working with Congress and other stakeholders to get as many safe and effective vaccines to "as many people as fast as possible" while WTO members considered the text.

In past sessions, the United Kingdom and Switzerland - which have opposed a broad waiver on the grounds that it stifles pharmaceutical research - have complained of the lack of transparency in the four-party talks.

Medical charity MSF urged countries to reject the proposal.

"It does not provide a meaningful solution to facilitate increasing people's access to needed medical tools during the pandemic ... and in fact would set a negative precedent for future global health challenges," it said.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Catherine Evans, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Chizu Nomiyama and Bernard Orr)

Report: CIA Director Met With Crown Prince Mohammed to Repair Saudi Ties

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attends a signing ceremony following a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2019. 

(Photo by Alexey Nikolsky/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images)


By Jay Clemons | Tuesday, 03 May 2022 

William Burns, President Joe Biden's CIA director, had an unannounced meeting with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last month, as a means of repairing relations with the Middle East partner, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Citing the WSJ report, for which the CIA declined initial comment, Burns and Crown Prince Mohammed conducted talks in mid-April in the Saudi Arabia coastal city of Jeddah.

The meeting came at a time when tensions between the United States and the Saudis have become somewhat strained, due to a variety of issues: Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the reported revitalization of the Iran Nuclear Deal, the war in Yemen, and of course, oil production.


Burns, a former deputy secretary of state, has studied Arabic and held postings in the Middle East. During the Obama administration, Burns reportedly helped lead secret talks with Iran that led to a multi-nation accord in 2015, thus limiting Tehran's nuclear development "in exchange for relief from economic sanctions."

And Crown Prince Mohammed, 36, runs Saudi Arabia's day-to-day activities for his father, the 86-year-old King Salman.

"It was a good conversation, better tone than prior U.S. government engagements," said one unnamed American official familiar with the meeting, according to the WSJ.

While campaigning for president in the run-up to the 2020 election, then-candidate Biden criticized the Saudi kingdom for its human-rights stances, along with the supposed murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"We were going to, in fact, make them pay the price, and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are," Biden said during a Democratic presidential debate back then.

Then in 2021, President Biden released a secret U.S. intelligence assessment saying Crown Prince Mohammed approved Khashoggi's killing and dismemberment inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

More than two dozen Saudis have reportedly been sought by Turkish officials over the killing.

Crown Prince Mohammed has denied involvement in Khashoggi's death and has subsequently asked the U.S. to no longer discuss the matter in his presence.

It would likely benefit the Biden administration to be on better terms with the Saudis, in lieu of 40-year inflation highs that include peak surges at the gas pump for Americans.

According to the WSJ, "several" U.S. officials have visited the Saudi kingdom in the past year to mend fences and address Saudi concerns about security threats from Iran and Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

However, with "Biden opposed to any broad concessions to the Saudis, the officials have acknowledged making only modest progress," reports the WSJ.

The well-traveled Burns has made at least 15 trips abroad, including a "secret visit to Kabul" last August to meet with the Taliban's top figure, according to the Journal.

Two dead after building collapse in central China

At least 14 people are confirmed to be trapped in the rubble and there has been no contact with 39 others still missing.

The collapse sparked a massive response by rescue workers

 [CNS/AFP]

Published On 3 May 2022

At least two people have died in a building that collapsed in central China, state media has reported, the first confirmed fatalities four days into a rescue operation searching for dozens still missing.

The commercial building in Changsha city, Hunan province – which housed apartments, a hotel and a cinema – caved in on Friday, sparking a massive response with hundreds of emergency workers.

By Tuesday, the flattened structure – which has left a gaping hole in a dense Changsha streetscape – was still a mess of debris and crumbled concrete beams.

The official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday that two people have died, citing local officials.

According to a video published by the People’s Daily newspaper, emergency response expert Liang Buge said the two victims had shown “no signs of life”.

“We tried to remove them from the site, but found that they were pinned down by heavy objects, and there was no way to move them,” he said.

Earlier a woman was pulled out alive from the structure by emergency workers, state media said, hailing it as a “miracle”.

The state-run People’s Daily said the woman was conscious and able to talk to rescuers through a small hole before being rescued, adding that her “vital signs were stable”. She was the ninth person to be extracted from the debris in four days.

State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of a person wrapped in a thick striped blanket being carried on a stretcher while other rescuers applauded.

CCTV also released footage of rescuers using a small camera and microphone to communicate with a woman trapped behind the rubble – though it is unclear if it was the same person rescued on Tuesday.

“Please come and save me as soon as possible,” the woman could be heard pleading.

“We are trying to save you now and we can see your hands … If your legs aren’t comfortable, you should stay still and save your strength,” one rescuer responded.

At least 14 people are still known to be trapped in the rubble while no contact has been established with 39 others missing.

Dozens of people were trapped under a building after it collapsed in central China [CNS/AFP]

‘Illegal alteration’

CCTV wrote on its official social media page on Tuesday: “Looking forward to more miracles.”

The day before, an eighth survivor was recovered from the site despite having had her limbs pinned down by debris.

Emergency medical workers had delivered a saline solution to her through three-metre tubes during a long rescue process, Xinhua said.

Eleven people – including the building’s owner and a team of safety inspectors – have been detained in connection with the collapse, including two people suspected of engaging in “illegal alteration” of the building, according to Changsha authorities.

Authorities have alleged that surveyors falsified a safety audit of the building. President Xi Jinping earlier called for a search “at all cost” and ordered a thorough investigation into the cause of the collapse, state media reported.

Building collapses are not uncommon in China due to weak safety and construction standards, as well as corruption among officials tasked with enforcement.

In January, an explosion triggered by a suspected gas leak brought down a building in the city of Chongqing, killing at least 16 people

.

Rescuers working after a six-storey building collapsed in Changsha, in China’s central Hunan province [CNS/AFP]

Alito cites judge who executed women for witchcraft and legalized spousal rape in Supreme Court draft ruling

Sarah K. Burris
May 03, 2022

Official 2007 portrait of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito.

The draft of an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked Monday night, showing the legal justifications the Supreme Court intends to use to block abortion in half of the United States.

Columbia Journalism School professor Emily Bell cited an excerpt from the opinion in which Alito mentions 17th century judge Sir Matthew Hale as he sought to make the case that justices misinterpreted history in their Roe v Wade decision.

"Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale likewise described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a 'great crime' and a 'great misprision..." the decision states.

While many anti-abortion activists debate "personhood," most seem to agree that a woman shouldn't be forced to carry a dead fetus that could ultimately kill her. Miscarriages are exceedingly common, and happen in up to an estimated 30 percent of all pregnancies.

Hale also ensured women were executed for being witches.

"A 12 mo. sixpenny pamphlet published by the well known E. Curll 'at the Dial and Bible against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street' was issued in 1712 under the title Witchcraft Farther Display'd, along with an account of Jane Wenham since her condemnation and also an account of the trials in 1661 at Cork of Florence Newton; this contains an abstract of the trial before Sir Matthew Hale in 1664 at Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk, of Amy Duny and Rose Cullender, who were both convicted, March 10, and both were hanged, March 17, 1664, wholly unrepentant and denying the crime," recalled the Spring 1926 issue of the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

The two women were convicted of "bewitching Elizabeth, Anne and William Durent, Jane Bocking, Susan Chandler, Elizabeth and Deborah Pacey (or Pacy)," the Journal recalled. A colic baby was left with Amy Duny one night crying desperately for relief and Duny let it suck on something. The Journal explained that in the early 1900s a mother would use "castor oil or its equivalent." She took the baby to a doctor known for curing "bewitched children."

"That wise man advised her to hang the child's blanket all day in the chimney corner and at night wrap the child in it, and if she saw anything in it not to be afraid, but to throw it in the fire. She did as directed, a great toad fell out of the blanket and ran about the floor (toads seem to have run in those days)," said the century-old journal. "A young man (not named or produced as a witness) catch'd this Toad and held it in the Fire with a Pair of Tongs: immediately it made a great Noise, to which succeeded a Flash like Gunpowder, followed by a Report as great as that of a Pistol; and after this, the Toad was no more seen."

This "evidence" was used to not only convict one woman but hang her for witchcraft. "It obtained credence from men of the deservedly high standing of Hale..."

There was then an accusation that Duny and Rose Cullender appeared as a vision to two children who suddenly couldn't open their mouths. The children proclaimed "There stands Amy Duny," "There stands Rose Cullender!"

"The Fits were not alike," described the accusations. "Sometimes they were lame on the Right Side, sometimes on the Left: sometimes so sore that they could not bear to be touch'd; sometimes perfectly well in other Respects but they could not hear; at other times they could not see; sometimes they lost their speech for one, two and once eight days together."

This was used to justify that Cullender was a witch and she too was hanged.

"Convicted on Thursday, March 13, 1665, they were executed on Monday, March 17, Sir Matthew Hale being so satisfied with the verdict, that he refused to grant a reprieve," the Journal recalled.

Hale also has a history of supporting marital rape in his cases. The American Bar Association Journal dated September 1980 addressed the issue of spousal rape throughout the history of jurisprudence. Hale devised the "consent theory" in the 17th century stating that a husband can't be guilty of a rape.

"But the husband cannot be guilty of rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given herself up to this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract," wrote Hale.

Hale's justification for spousal rape was used as recently as 1986, when in R v. Roberts, the Court of Appeal held that "consent had, on the facts, been terminated where there was a formal deed of separation, even though this lacked both a non-cohabitation clause and a non-molestation clause."

Sir Matthew Hale is the same legal influence that Alito uses to justify removing the right of women to get an abortion.

ROE VS WADE

Ex-Goldman Partner: Wall Street Silence Failed Low-Income Women

Max Abelson, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Until last year, Colleen Foster was a partner at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., where she thrived as a commodities executive in a world dominated by men. She’s also spent years on Planned Parenthood’s national board, and is now treasurer of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. On Tuesday, after news broke of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, she spoke to Bloomberg News’ Max Abelson about Wall Street and the fight for reproductive rights. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Bloomberg News: Should Wall Street have seen this coming?

Colleen Foster: Oh, they did see this coming. I think they just chose not to get involved. It wasn’t an issue they felt had an economic or employee imperative. On the employee issue, abortion was looked at differently than marriage equality because it doesn’t affect our employees--that’s because our employees are not low-income earners. So access for our employees, even if bans are imposed or Roe is overturned, will not be restricted. Basically, low-income women are the people who are going to be affected by this issue, not Wall Street high-income earners. Anyone with the means will have access to safe and legal abortion, they can get to where they need to be. And then on the economic side, the pressure to deliver profitability overshadows the need to weigh in on political issues: We’re going to move people to Texas and Florida because it’s more economic, and shareholder value is enhanced by having businesses operate in lower corporate-tax environments. That imperative overshadows the desire to wade into what is perceived as a political issue. 

 

BN: What would you like to see now from Wall Street leaders? 

CF: I’d like them to take into consideration not only corporate profitability, but also the impact to society and the damage that this will impose. I would like them to look at this as an issue of equality, not politics. 

 

BN: Why haven’t they?

CF: This is an issue that people of privilege don’t have to consider. We will always have good health care, we will always have good access to reproductive health. Because we have the means. That’s why there’s this believability gap--“that’s never going to happen.” Well, it’s never going to happen to me. 

 

BN: Were you surprised Wall Street executives haven’t been more involved?

CF: Lloyd Blankfein was a trailblazer because he got involved in the marriage-equality fight early, and it really mattered. They made the argument around talent: We need to recruit the most talented people. So it was an easy case for the firm to make and for us to get involved in. The reproductive-rights movement is really about poor people and people of color. Unless we support the most marginalized communities in our country--and that means access to health care, and abortion is health care, birth control is health care--then I think it will be difficult for corporate America to accomplish the diversity goals they’re planning to achieve.

 

BN: What needs to change in the minds of executives?

CF: That it’s a social imperative. It is a critical tenant of racial justice, because of the way in which the bans will disproportionately affect women of color.

 

BN: Could Wall Street have helped?

CF: Yes. If corporations that are Texas-based stood up to the state legislature on behalf of their employees, that may have changed the outcome of their state law. 

 

BN: What do executives say? 

CF: They’re worried about profitability. They’re worried about client sentiment. And they don’t want to wade into an issue that could put them at odds with policy makers or clients. There’s a handful of brave CEOs. Jane Fraser is a hero, and it takes a female executive and a board that’s half women.

 

BN: You adopted your son. How did that impact your support for reproductive rights?

CF: I don’t feel that it is my right to judge or have an opinion about any other person’s choice. My view of Christianity is that we’re supposed to love our neighbors, and not judge our neighbors, and allow our neighbors the freedom of their choice.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

What Roe v Wade Means for Human Rights

Overturning Abortion Would Weigh Heaviest on

 Low-Income Women of Color

Amanda Klasing
Program Lead, Monitoring,

 Evaluation and Learning; 

Associate Director, 

Women's Rights Division

HRW

On Monday night, POLITICO published a leaked draft US Supreme Court opinion on the Mississippi case that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Last September, in advance the court’s hearing in a case challenging the constitutionality of a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks, we joined dozens of other groups in submitting amicus briefs providing additional context for the court to consider. The lesson is clear: If an abortion ban like the one in Mississippi becomes law, it will be catastrophic.

This is what our brief, submitted together with Amnesty International and the Global Justice center, said that Roe means for human rights: Banning abortion would have a significant negative impact on the health of pregnant people.

The worst impact would be on marginalized groups, including people living in economic poverty and young people, and Black, Indigenous, and people of color. These populations already face significant barriers accessing abortion care.

In country after country, abortion bans have not decreases the number of abortions, but rather increased unsafe abortions, especially affecting people of limited means.
In countries across the world, including Romania, South Africa, El Salvador, and Ecuador, there is a statistical relationship between restrictive abortion legislation and increases in maternal mortality and morbidity.

Access to safe and lawful abortion services is firmly rooted in the rights to life; to nondiscrimination; to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and to privacy, among others. These rights are recognized in international human rights treaties ratified by the United States.

In December, after hearing arguments in the Mississippi case, a majority of the justices signaled that they were prepared to overturn the landmark ruling that protects abortion access in the US. If they do, this would put the US out of step with international trends toward greater access. Recently, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico have, by legislative changes or judicial rulings, either decriminalized abortion or loosened restrictions, better protecting women’s health and rights.

Please note: it is a DRAFT opinion. Abortion is still legal in the US (Texas notwithstanding).

It remains a constitutional and human right.

Congress can and should enact legislation to protect abortion access.

But as Monday night’s news made clear: The US has reached a crisis moment for abortion access.

Latino abortion rights advocates warn of ‘dark times’ if Roe v. Wade is reversed

The impact of the Supreme Court decision would "fall hardest on those who already struggle to access health care, including abortion," says a national abortion rights leader.


Link copiedMay 3, 2022, 4:02 PM MDT
By Suzanne Gamboa and Nicole Acevedo

As soon as Texas implemented its restrictive 2021 abortion law, Omar Casas got busy helping distribute packets with Plan B contraceptive pills and condoms in the Rio Grande Valley.

The volunteer work just became more urgent with Monday's leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark law that legalized abortion, said Casas, who volunteers with South Texans for Reproductive Justice.


"What we fear is that abortion was targeted first and that in all likelihood emergency contraception and birth control will be targeted next," said Casas, 31, of Edinburgh, Texas.

Texas doctor: We have been living in a post-Roe world

MAY 3, 2022     04:35

Casas and other Latinos on the front lines of providing abortions under increasingly restrictive state laws said that the leaked opinion signals an end to abortion access and that it would exact a heavy toll on Hispanics and other people of color.

Many say they've already been given a preview of what could be to come in states like Texas.

"These are dark times, and dark times are ahead of us," said Nancy Cárdenas Peña, the Texas director for policy and advocacy at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice. “But we’ve been in these situations before. ... We have to continue fighting."

Her group has been grappling with the fallout from Texas' ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and other legislation restricting abortion. Those who could scrape together money, time off work and child care have been trekking out of the state to end pregnancies.
'A future that will be dramatically worse'

“Each of these regulations, as far back as we have seen, have absolutely disproportionately affected women of color, both Black women, brown women, yellow women and definitely low-income women, for sure,” said Marva Sadler, the senior director of clinical services for Whole Woman’s Health.

Its Texas clinics, in Fort Worth, McKinney, Austin and McAllen, provide abortions, and the clinics have also created virtual visits for women before they head out of state to obtain their abortions.

Sadler said Whole Woman’s Health has helped more than 47 women get out of Texas for abortions in the last 30 days.

Abortion rights advocates have scrambled to pull together money to help pay for Latinas and others who are traveling out of the state seeking abortions.

Texas made it illegal for abortion medications to be mailed, so some women are going out of state and the medication is being mailed there.

But many in the state's heavily Latino border regions have been unable to consider such alternatives. Those who are undocumented risk deportation if they travel more than 100 miles into the interior, where Border Patrol checkpoints are set up, or if they try to travel out of the country.

Tania Unzueta, the political director and a co-founder of the Latino advocacy group Mijente, said she has already seen the ripple effects of restrictive abortion legislation as more facilities are closed.

“I think about the immigrant women I met in the poultry plants in south Georgia, who have to drive hours to go to a clinic just to even get a checkup,” Unzueta said. “We’re talking about abortion, but this will impact access to reproductive health services in our communities.”

Dr. Herminia Palacio, the president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights think tank, said the leaked opinion “foreshadows a future that will be dramatically worse.”

“We know from decades of research that the impact will fall hardest on those who already struggle to access health care, including abortion,” Palacio said in a statement. “Even with Roe in place, affordable and accessible abortion care is a right that exists only on paper for many people who are marginalized and oppressed by structural inequities.”

Liza Fuentes, a principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, said that “it’s hard to believe, but it will get worse,” because “the people right now who can navigate these restrictions, they may not be able to after a full ban.”

"Something that's quite terrifying that we may see in a world where the Supreme court upholds some level of advanced restriction on abortion is that laws that require enforcement will be selectively enforced against Black and brown women," Fuentes said.

Lupe M. Rodríguez, the director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, noted the recent attempt to prosecute a Latina woman on a murder charge after authorities accused her of causing a person's death by self-induced abortion. The case eventually was dismissed.

"It's not a mistake this kind of criminalization is happening," Rodríguez said. "They're sending a signal to our community, who, again, is already afraid."

Miranda Aguirre, far right, with staff members at the Planned Parenthood El Paso Health Center in El Paso, Texas

.Courtesy of Planned Parenthood El Paso Health Center

Experts at the Guttmacher Institute estimate that 26 states “are certain or likely to quickly ban abortion to the fullest extent possible, in particular states clustered in the South, Midwest and the Plains,” if the Supreme Court ends up overturning Roe v. Wade.

Texas is one of those states. Should the Supreme Court strike down Roe v. Wade, a ban on all abortions in the state would go into effect in 30 days — such laws are known as “trigger laws.” There would be no exceptions for rape or incest and only limited exceptions when pregnancies place people at risk.
'It's a scary time'

In Florida, Estefany Londoño is one of dozens of reproductive justice advocates organizing a series of rallies across the country after the draft opinion was leaked.

"It's oppressive, and it's ridiculous," said Londoño, who was helping plan a rally with Planned Parenthood. "It's a scary time. People have different health circumstances."

In the leaked draft opinion, justices said they would overturn "not just Roe, but also Casey, so they're even trying to go after birth control," Londoño said.

She was referring to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a landmark 1992 case that helped uphold not only Roe v. Wade, but also protections for personal decisions about marriage, procreation and contraception.
‘We know what this looks like’

Unzueta of Mijente said some Latinos can have a sharpened understanding of the dangers behind abortion bans because of their experiences or insight into how such bans have affected women in Latin America and the Caribbean. Unzueta said her parents told her stories about the struggles her relatives in Mexico faced when they tried to get an abortion.

The executive director of the Women’s Equality Center, Paula Avila-Guillen, an international human rights lawyer, said the U.S. can take a cue from Latin America, which has had a long history of penalizing abortion but has had some changes in those laws.

“We know what this looks like and what the U.S.’s future has in store — forced births, unsafe abortions, unnecessary and entirely preventable death," Avila-Guillen said in a statement.

"Dealing so closely with the daily death and devastation of abortion bans is precisely what has fueled the current wave of decriminalizations of abortion in the region," Avila-Guillen said, referring to Latin America.

Unzueta, who is based in Chicago, said particular religious beliefs make some Latinos more likely to view abortion “as a moral issue rather than a health issue.”

A Pew Research Center survey found last year that 58 percent of Hispanics believed abortion should be legal in all or most cases, about the same as white people, 57 percent. Forty-two percent of Hispanics and 40 percent of white people thought it should always be illegal.

Alexis Bay, a co-founder and the board director of the Texas-based Frontera Fund, said a recent fundraiser replenished the group’s coffers to help women get abortions in other states. She said the group, a Rio Grande Valley based organization that provides money and information to those seeking abortions, is still asking for donations because an end to Roe v. Wade might mean sending more people farther away from Texas.

Even with their anxiety palpably higher, abortion rights advocates were trying to reassure those seeking abortions that they can still get services and that they hadn't given up trying to keep Roe v. Wade in place.

"This is not a decision yet, as horrible as it is. Abortion still is legal," Sadler said.

Suzanne Gamboa reported from San Antonio and Nicole Acevedo from New York.

Sri Lanka’s Once-Lauded Health Care System Is Now Collapsing

Chris Kay, Bloomberg News

Pharmacists arrange medicine for patients at Colombo South Teaching Hospital on May 2. , Getty Images via Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- As Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis in decades took root, prompting medical shortages and halting surgeries, Kavindya Thennakoon knew she had to do something. Before boarding a flight from San Francisco to Colombo, the Stanford graduate and co-founder of a digital education app posted on social media and asked those running low on supplies to get in touch.

More than 50 requests later, Thennakoon packed three suitcases last month with 60 kilograms (132 pounds) of over-the-counter items for a hospital that had run out of basics, including surgical masks, glucose strips and supplements for new mothers. The most distressing requests were those that she couldn’t legally fulfill, such as cancer medication and injectable drugs for premature babies.

“Hearing from these complete strangers -- begging and saying, ‘I’m going to run out of supplies in a week or two days’ -- was very heartbreaking,” said Thennakoon, 27, a Sri Lankan who lives in California. “And to realize the country has come to that was even a worse feeling.”

For weeks, Sri Lanka’s once-lauded public health system, free to its 22 million people, has come to a near standstill. As the country’s economic meltdown drags on, surgeries are being postponed and hours-long power cuts have forced doctors to operate by torchlight. With Sri Lanka’s finances battered by the worst inflation in Asia and diminished foreign-currency reserves, hospitals, clinics and pharmacies are struggling to procure lifesaving drugs and medical equipment.

Without drastic measures, medical groups warn that import disruptions could lead to thousands of deaths. Public anger at the government is reaching a fever pitch: Sri Lankans have swarmed the streets of Colombo, the capital, protesting the lack of medicine and other goods, and demanding the resignation of embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. To ease shortages, Sri Lanka’s diaspora is now flying in supplies to patients and doctors, though Theenakoon said these gestures were still little more than a “band aid.” 

Read More: A Powerful Dynasty Bankrupted Sri Lanka in Just 30 Months

Last month, the government warned of dwindling supplies of more than 100 medical items. Many are subject to price controls that haven’t kept pace with the local currency’s recent devaluations, making importers reluctant to ship in pharmaceutical goods at a loss. 

Channa Jayasumana, Sri Lanka’s health minister, told Parliament that some medications may remain out of stock for as long as three months. He said lines of credit needed to purchase medicine should have been opened in January, but they were only secured in April.

Currently about 140 types of medicine are widely out of stock. That figure may rise to 250 in the coming days, according to Ravi Kumudesh, president of the Academy of Health Professionals, a local union. “I have never seen this kind of situation in Sri Lanka,” he said.

Jayasumana and the country’s former health minister, Keheliya Rambukwella, who stepped down in April, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Improvising Solutions

Some Sri Lankans have devised workarounds to bridge the deficits. 

Nisal Periyapperuma, 26, the co-founder of Watchdog, a Sri Lankan organization set up in 2019 to counter misinformation, said he was infuriated with the government’s sluggish response to meeting shortages. The crisis was brought into sharper focus in early April, he said, when his father suffered a heart attack.

“I’m kind of terrified,” Periyapperuma said. “Can we get the next set of drugs?”

Watchdog recently launched an online database called Elixir that collates and coordinates medical requests from hospitals, the government and other donors. At the top of the list are more than 17 million sodium valproate tablets needed to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder, along with chemotherapy drugs and anesthetic.

Still, coordinating domestic stock is only one piece of the problem. Sri Lanka imports about 85% of its medical supplies and needs hard cash to bring them into the country.

“We don’t have enough foreign currency to actually clear these orders,” Periyapperuma said. “If you go to a pharmacy and try to buy something simple, like paracetamol, it’s a bit difficult. Very basic medical supplies are missing because most of these are not produced here.”

A Preventable Crisis

The scarcities mean that around half of all surgeries -- mostly routine operations -- have been postponed in Sri Lanka, according to Rukshan Bellana, president of the Government Medical Officers’ Forum, a union representing about 2,000 doctors.

His group blamed the government for not acting months ago to secure emergency supplies from neighboring countries like India, which is one of the main providers of pharmaceuticals to Sri Lanka. With fuel shortages, many health care workers can’t even get to work, he added. 

“It could have been prevented,” Bellana said in an interview at the Colombo South Teaching Hospital, where patients snaked around the entrance one recent morning. “You may not have drugs, you may not have the doctor’s staff -- but the patients keep coming.”

In the short term, Sri Lanka could get some relief. President Rajapaksa announced last week that the World Bank will provide $600 million in financial assistance, in part so the country can buy more drugs. The government has also recently signed a $1 billion credit line with India, which pledged to send medical goods to the island soon.

Read More: Stocks in Sri Lanka Rebound as World Bank to Grant Financial Aid

But even with these infusions, Sri Lanka faces shortages of single-use items such as intravenous lines, catheters and chemical diagnostic reagents, according to Bellana. And with long lead times to procure medical products from overseas, many clinics and hospitals are expecting a prolonged wait.

In northern Sri Lanka, where ethnic Tamil separatists waged a 26-year civil war, staff at the Teaching Hospital Jaffna are anxiously consulting international health organizations about depleted stocks of around 70 medical items. With only about a month’s supply left of anesthetic, the hospital has postponed all surgeries except maternity and emergency operations.

Even during the war, which ended in 2009, “we didn’t have this crisis,” said C. Jamnunanantha, 53, a doctor and deputy director at the hospital.

“We don’t know how long we can do it,” he added.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

DHS watchdog says Trump's agency appears to have altered report on Russian interference in 2020 election in part because of politics

By Priscilla Alvarez and Zachary Cohen, CNN
Tue May 3, 2022

In this Sept. 23, 2020, file photo, Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf makes an opening statement at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Greg Nash/Pool Photo via AP, File)

Washington (CNN)Former President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security delayed and altered an intelligence report related to Russian interference in the 2020 election, making changes that "appear to be based in part on political considerations," according to a newly released watchdog report.

The April 26 Homeland Security inspector general's assessment provides a damning look at the way DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis dealt with intelligence related to Russia's efforts to interfere in the US, stating the department had deviated from its standard procedures in modifying assessments related to Moscow's targeting of the 2020 presidential election.

The conclusion that Trump's appointee appeared to have tried to downplay Russian meddling in a key intelligence report is the latest example of how his aides managed his aversion to any information about how Russia might be helping his election prospects. According to special counsel Robert Mueller's report, Trump officials tried to avoid the topic during meetings and at hearings, because he would become enraged and upset when Russian meddling came up.

The US intelligence community announced during the 2020 campaign that Russia was actively meddling in the election to weaken then-candidate Joe Biden. At the time, Trump downplayed those findings and promoted false claims about Biden that aligned with Russia's disinformation efforts. The IG report addresses past suspicions that Trump appointees distorted some intelligence reports to foster a more Trump-friendly narrative.

The watchdog found, for example, that then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf had participated in the review process "multiple times despite lacking any formal role in reviewing the product," which caused delays and may have helped create the "perception" that assessments were changed for political reasons.

"We determined that the Acting Secretary's involvement led to the rare occurrence of I&A ceasing dissemination of a product after it had already been approved by the mission manager and circulated via advanced notification," the report states.
"The delays and deviation from I&A's standard process and requirements put I&A at risk of creating a perception of politicization. This conclusion is supported by I&A's own tradecraft assessment, which determined that the product might be viewed as politicized," it continues.

The report stems from previous allegations of the Trump administration downplaying Russian interference. CNN first reported in September 2020 a whistleblower complaint alleging that top political appointees in DHS repeatedly instructed career officials to modify intelligence assessments to suit Trump's agenda by downplaying Russia's efforts to interfere in the US.

The whistleblower claimed that Wolf had instructed DHS officials to "cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference" and, instead, focus their efforts on gathering information related to activities being carried out by China and Iran.
The scope of the DHS IG report was limited to the single intelligence report in question.
Initially, the IG found, the DHS Intelligence and Analysis Office had followed internal drafting and editing processes. The report was two pages in length and related to one "'current Democratic presidential candidate'" and to Russian activities to influence the presidential election. It evolved over time after receiving internal input, according to the IG report.

The IG also followed up on a July 2020 meeting mentioned by the whistleblower, who claimed Wolf had asked for the product to be held because "'it made the President look bad.'"

According to notes of the meeting obtained by the IG, one top official wrote: "AS1 -- will hurt POTUS -- kill it per his authorities." The official told the IG the notes meant the acting secretary had told him to hold the product because it would hurt Trump and the authorities cited were in reference to those possessed by the secretary.

The IG's office interviewed Wolf, who denied saying this and added that he had asked for the product to be improved.

"I tried to put myself in the position of one of our state and local partners who would be reading this and I could not see where the product, as written on July 8, would have added any value or given them any knowledge they could use. ... The product was not well written," the acting secretary told the IG's office, according to the report.
The delays and disruptions, though, put the office at risk of creating the perception of politicization, the IG report states. The IG recommended working with the Office of the Secretary and I&A oversight entities to make sure election-related reports are in line with policies and guidelines. I&A agreed with the recommendation.

CNN's Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.

Amazon, Starbucks Union Organizers Invited to White House

Jordan Fabian and Matt Day, Bloomberg News

Christian Smalls, founder of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), speaks during an ALU rally in the Staten Island borough of New York, U.S., on Sunday, April 24, 2022. Sanders visited Staten Island to meet with workers who this month successfully organized the first union in the country at an Amazon facility and workers at a separate facility who will be voting next week on whether to join a union. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Organizers of union drives at Amazon.com Inc. and Starbucks Corp. will visit the White House on Thursday, a show of support by the Biden administration for the movement to unionize workforces at the companies. 

Vice President Kamala Harris and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh will host Christian Smalls of the Amazon Labor Union as well as officials from unions organizing workers at Starbucks, outdoor retailer REI and the video game publishing company Paizo Inc. among others, according to a White House official. 

Harris and Walsh will talk to union officials about their efforts to organize their workplaces and how they can inspire other workers to join or form their own unions, according to the official. 

Read More: Amazon Fired and Disparaged Him. Then He Started a Labor Union

In the past couple of years, workers at several of those companies have been successfully signing up coworkers and petitioning the government to hold elections on forming or joining unions that can bargain with management for better working conditions.

Smalls’s upstart Amazon Labor Union last month won a historic victory in an election to represent Amazon workers at a warehouse in New York’s Staten Island. Amazon has contested the result. The union this week lost an election at a second, smaller Amazon facility across the street. 

Senator Bernie Sanders, a longtime critic of Amazon, has proposed banning federal contracts with companies that have allegedly violated U.S. labor laws and is holding a hearing Thursday on the matter. 

Earlier: Biden Warns Amazon ‘Here We Come’ After New York Union Vote 

Amazon workers lodged 51 unfair labor-practice complaints against the company in the first four months of this year, more than quadruple the number filed in the same period a year earlier. Most of the complaints came from Staten Island and Bessemer, Alabama, where a retail union is also seeking to organize an Amazon warehouse, alleging the company illegally retaliated against or monitored activists. There have also been complaints from workers in Florida, Nevada and Amazon’s home state of Washington.

Federal labor board prosecutors have found merit in some of the claims; Amazon has denied wrongdoing.

President Joe Biden has called himself the most pro-union president in U.S. history, but the White House has largely refrained from directly intervening in union drives. 

Nonetheless, Biden took aim at Amazon last month during a speech to the North America’s Building Trades Union. 

“By the way, Amazon, here we come,” the president said. “Watch. Watch.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki later said Biden was not “sending a message that he or the U.S. government would be directly involved in any of these efforts or take any direct action.”

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.