Sunday, June 05, 2022

Opinion: I'm an ob-gyn. 

We're not ready for what will happen if Roe is overturned.

Lisa Harris
Fri, June 3, 2022

Anti-abortion activists and abortion rights activists are separated by META Peace Team members during a Bans Off Our Bodies protest at U-M's Diag in Ann Arbor on Saturday, May 14, 2022.

Maternity portrait

Abortion rights activists rally during a Bans Off Our Bodies protest at U-M's Diag in Ann Arbor on Saturday, May 14, 2022.

Abortion rights activists rally during a Bans Off Our Bodies protest at U-M's Diag in Ann Arbor on Saturday, May 14, 2022.

A couple of the many signs that marchers who attended the Reproductive Rights March: Fight for Abortion Justice rally in Detroit on October 2, 2021, used as they head towards Greektown. The rally and march through downtown started at 36th District Court where speakers talked about abortion-rights and what is happening in parts of the country with a woman's right to choose.More

I’ve been an obstetrician-gynecologist for 24 years, caring for women giving birth, experiencing miscarriage, and deciding to have abortions. Most patients I see have experienced some or all of these events, at different times in their life.

Since abortion is so politicized and stigmatized, it’s often hard to see that it usually coexists alongside birth and miscarriage in many women’s lives, and in the medical practices of their doctors.

I became an ob-gyn to offer compassion and expertise across all these reproductive experiences; I hope my patients have felt that. I didn’t go into medicine to be part of political debates. But I am acutely aware that such debates impact the women and families I care for.

Indeed, as we wait for the outcome of the Supreme Court’s upcoming abortion decision, my colleagues and I are trying to plan ahead for all of the ways the healthcare landscape in Michigan may dramatically shift — not only for women who might seek abortion care, but also for those whose pregnancies end in miscarriage, or for anyone who continues a pregnancy, as well.

Many Michiganders don’t realize we have a 1931 abortion ban on the books. It is among the strictest in the country, permitting abortion only to “preserve the life” of a pregnant woman. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision made it unenforceable, determining abortion is a Constitutional right.

More: Opinion: Michigan's economy headed for disaster if abortion is criminalized

More: Michigan woman: Hear my story, feel my pain before outlawing abortion

But if Roe is reversed in June, as a draft opinion suggests is likely, our ban will become enforceable, and abortion will be a crime again in Michigan, impacting thousands of women from every walk of life.

Lawsuits brought by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Planned Parenthood of Michigan aim to stop the 1931 ban from being enforced, should Roe fall. Last week a Michigan judge temporarily blocked the ban from coming into effect, pending the final outcome of the Planned Parenthood case. Those following abortion headlines may see the legal back-and-forth as partisan or political wins or losses.

But as a doctor in Michigan, I see it as a healthcare issue.
Bracing for tumult

Alongside my physician, nurse and midwife colleagues at Michigan Medicine, we are getting ready for the possibility that abortion will become illegal in Michigan.

Myriad preparations are needed. We are not yet ready, nor are our healthcare colleagues statewide.

First, we need to determine what, precisely, “life-preserving” abortion means.

What must the risk of death be, and how imminently? I have performed abortions on critically ill patients in intensive care units, where it is clear abortion is life-saving.

More: Whitmer to Michigan Supreme Court: 'Time is of the essence' on abortion lawsuit

More: University of Michigan forms task force to 'mitigate the impact' of possible abortion ban

Pregnancy demands so much from all body organ systems, especially heart and lungs; sometimes ending a pregnancy is the only way to help a patient survive. But outside of these situations, it gets unclear.

Maternal-fetal medicine specialists care for patients with a range of “high-risk” conditions. For patients with pulmonary hypertension, they may cite a 30% to 50% chance of dying with ongoing pregnancy.

Is that high enough to permit abortion? Or must it be 100%?

When oncologists diagnose cancer during pregnancy, some patients end the pregnancy to start treatment immediately; some cancers advance faster due to pregnancy’s extra hormones, and chemotherapy and radiation can cause significant fetal injury.

Will abortion be permissible in this situation, or must patients delay cancer treatment and give birth first? When patients have advanced cancer that was preventable with earlier treatment, increased risk of death may be a few years away.

We’ve identified many similar questions.

Just three options

Most pregnant patients seeking abortion care are not facing life-threatening conditions, and will have only three options: travel outside Michigan for abortion care, self-manage an abortion, or give birth. At Michigan Medicine we are preparing for all of this.

People with enough money and support will seek care out-of-state. For most Michiganders, this means driving to Illinois, making the average travel distance for abortion care more than 260 miles if our ban is re-enacted. This will be impossible for many, since lack of financial resources is why many women seek abortion care.

Nationally, half of patients seeking abortions live on incomes under the federal poverty level; another 25% live on just one-to-two times that.

Many cannot afford gas, tolls, hotels. They cannot afford to lose hourly wages or will be fired for missing work.

Most patients I see are already parents. Travel is much harder when you need childcare arrangements, too, especially overnight.

I’m thinking of a patient I saw not long ago, who worked the night shift, drove several hours to her abortion appointment, three children in tow, and then afterwards headed home for another night shift. Efforts like this are already the norm in abortion care, and it will only get harder.

Nevertheless, if legally permissible, our Michigan health system will need to assist those who can travel.

If allowed, we can offer referrals out-of-state and pre-travel “teeing-up.” This may include ordering an ultrasound or bloodwork and, for patients with underlying illnesses, speedy specialist consultation to ensure they can safely receive care on arrival. We must figure out if Illinois medical centers have capacity to see our patients requiring hospital-level care, knowing these hospitals will also be seeing patients from Ohio, Missouri, Indiana and other states.

Insurers will need to decide if out-of-state abortion care and associated travel expenses are covered, and patients will likely find themselves battling with insurers for such coverage, which may require costly out-of-network fees.
Will legal hazards magnify distrust?

The second option is self-managed abortion.

For over twenty years, people have safely used the FDA-approved mifepristone and misoprostol combination to end pregnancies at home, after receiving medications in a doctor’s office. Mifepristone and misoprostol obtained online from the many available, reliable sources are equally safe and effective.

However, patients without internet access, a credit card, or who don’t know about those medications may use ineffective or deadly methods: ingesting poisons, intentional trauma like falling down stairs, or putting objects into their uterus to disrupt pregnancy.

My colleagues and I will want to steer people toward safe methods, though it’s unclear Michigan’s law will permit such education.

Emergency department and primary care practitioners will need to quickly become familiar with treating abortion complications in this landscape, including complications not seen since before Roe, nearly 50 years ago.

Because mifepristone and misoprostol are so safe, legal risks may be the more serious ones for patients — meaning the people they turn to for medical care might report them, or loved ones who helped them, to police, even though that violates current privacy laws and Michigan doesn’t require reporting of suspected self-managed abortion.

Indeed, all patients who have bleeding in pregnancy or experience pregnancy loss may be vulnerable to criminal prosecution because miscarriage and self-managed abortion are virtually indistinguishable. National data show that healthcare providers disproportionately report Black pregnant patients and those living on low incomes to police.

More babies will strain pre-natal care

Third, more people will give birth. Based upon projections of who will travel or self-manage abortion, we anticipate a 5% to 17% birth increase in Michigan.

We already have significant maternal healthcare deserts — places without prenatal or birth care — where patients travel far distances to deliver.

It’s not clear how a greater need will be met.

Our own hospital’s labor and delivery unit is already at capacity from COVID birth surges.

When we work over capacity, all birthing patients are affected, not just those who might otherwise have ended their pregnancies.

Newborn and pediatric care needs will increase, too. Many families who get terrible news about their developing baby will be forced to give birth, and those babies and children will need complex, costly medical care, and often a lifetime of specialized support.

More than ever, families statewide will need robust medical and social safety nets that may not exist.

We can expect mental health care needs in pregnancy to intensify, as girls and women continue undesired pregnancies, including those resulting from rape and incest.

Michigan’s abortion ban makes no exceptions for either. Our already-overburdened mental healthcare system is unlikely to adequately meet this need.
Mothers will die

Finally, maternal mortality will increase — as much as 21% overall by one demographer’s estimate — because abortion is safer than childbirth. Centers for Disease Control data show that in the U.S., the risk of dying from childbirth is 50 to 130 times greater than dying from abortion.

This new burden of maternal death will not be felt equally in Michigan, or anywhere in the country, because Black women are more than twice as likely as white women to die from pregnancy and childbirth.

Maternal mortality for white women is projected to increase by 13%. For Black women, the projected increase is 33%, meaning that an abortion ban will disproportionately harm Black women and the families who lose them. It will become more pressing than it already is to remedy systemic inequities and racism that generate such disparities.

Unsafe abortion will add to this burden and loss.

Other reproductive healthcare will be impacted, too.

Fearing criminal prosecution, doctors may hesitate to treat ectopic pregnancy, hemorrhage or serious infection from miscarriage, when fetal cardiac activity remains.

Healthcare providers will need to decide whether they’ll continue prescribing the best evidence-based medications for miscarriage — mifepristone and misoprostol.

Since those medications are used in abortion care, doctors may fear their use carries legal jeopardy. Infertility doctors may stop providing in vitro fertilization given the potential for embryo loss in IVF.
We're not ready

Re-enactment of Michigan’s abortion ban will affect medical education. Abortion training is an accreditation requirement for ob-gyn residencies.

Michigan Medicine will need out-of-state training arrangements. Ultimately, our top-ranked program may cease to draw talented applicants. Roughly 40% of our ob-gyn graduates stay in Michigan to practice medicine, so the statewide reproductive health workforce may be impacted.

Patients will ultimately feel the impact of shifts in abortion training: If residents can’t learn "non-lifesaving" abortion care, soon no one will be trained to perform the "lifesaving" abortions Michigan’s 1931 ban permits.

Patients experiencing miscarriage will feel the loss of abortion training, too, because doctors who have such training are more likely to offer patients the full range of appropriate miscarriage treatments than doctors without it.

Finally, Michigan’s health system workforce, like those everywhere, is disproportionately female. When more of the workforce is pregnant, on parental leave, or traveling for abortion care, patients will likely feel the impact.

All of this is my way of saying that we are not yet ready to manage what is coming if abortion becomes illegal in Michigan.

Every morning I wake up with another new question. Those who view abortion exclusively as a political or partisan issue, maybe one they’d like to avoid, will soon see that abortion care, or lack thereof, is a healthcare and health equity issue that impacts everyone.

I trust my patients

Avoiding this issue isn’t possible.


Amid the flurry of logistical planning, I remain aware that abortion is complex and emotional topic for many.

That makes sense. Abortion asks us to hold two opposite things at the same time: Abortion means a baby won’t be born, and that is weighty. Banning abortion means that a girl or woman must continue a pregnancy and give birth when she can’t or doesn’t want to, shifting the course of her, and her family’s, lives. That is weighty, too.

In our polarized times we don’t really learn how to hold complexity like this. Instead we are asked to resolve our feelings one way or another, even when “pro-life” or “pro-choice” boxes may not precisely fit how we feel.

From the hundreds of times my patients have shared their lives, hopes, and hurts, I know they hold this complexity, too, as do I.

Ultimately, I trust my patients to know what they and their families most need.

My colleagues and I will continue to provide support as the legal landscape shifts, even if we don’t yet know exactly what the contours of that support will look like.



Lisa Harris

Lisa Harris, MD, PhD, is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and professor of women's and gender studies at University of Michigan.

This guest column is adapted from an essay recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Opinion: Michigan hospitals aren't prepared for end of Roe v. Wade

The Great Resignation resulted in women leaving the workforce in droves. Denying them abortion care could dent the labor market


François Picard—AFP/Getty Images

Amiah Taylor
Fri, June 3, 2022,

Last month, on May 11, the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022—which would have made abortion access a federal law—failed to pass due to opposition from Senate Republicans. The pro-life versus pro-choice debates that our nation is deeply embroiled in have reached a boiling point as the looming threat of a reversal of Roe v. Wade lingers on. While testifying before the Senate Banking Committee on May 10, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen argued that banning abortion would have “very damaging effects on the economy and set women back decades.”

Five decades to be exact, according to Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, the faculty director for the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.

“If we were to restrict women’s access to abortion, that means going back potentially decades to when we saw sharp declines in women’s labor force participation after giving birth to children,” van der Meulen Rodgers told Fortune. “So I think this could mean a step back by 50 years, and diminishing all the progress women have made since they’ve had access to safe abortion services on a national level, starting in 1973.”

Here’s how the elimination of safe and legal abortion access would turn back the clock and, as a result, affect the labor market.

Abortion denial could be the final straw for women already struggling in the workplace


In the first 12 months of the pandemic, women accounted for 53% of U.S. labor force departures, and about 2.3 million women exited the workforce in 2020, per a McKinsey study. One of the main reasons that women left the workforce in droves was childcare, referencing the Society for Human Resource Management. In fact, 23% of female workers with children under 10 years old considered leaving the workforce in 2020 as opposed to 10% of women without children, citing McKinsey.

“Cultural expectations of women to prioritize child-rearing, combined with women’s lower average pay, occupational status, and benefits than men (along with the high costs of childcare), mean that women in many heterosexual couples decide to leave work with the birth of a child,” Erin Hatton, associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo, told Fortune. “It just makes sense financially.”

It is clear that whether a woman is childless or not factors into her job tenure and career advancement. And growing data suggests that children reduce women’s labor force participation. Because of that, laws restricting or eliminating abortion would directly affect women workers in terms of their career advancement.

“For women, being able to choose when to start a family is really key to her career mobility, her earnings, and when and how she enters the labor market,” Nicole Mason, the CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, told Fortune. “And so taking away that choice will definitely have an adverse effect on women’s participation in the labor market, their career mobility, and being able to stay in the workforce. We already know that women are more likely than their male counterparts to leave the workforce as a result of having a child. So, restricting abortion access for women will definitely increase the likelihood that they will exit the workforce if they’re forced to carry unintended babies to term.”

Eliminating abortion would negatively impact workplace diversity

“I just want to make the connection here that, at this moment, companies and businesses are in fierce competition for top talent,” Mason told Fortune. “So the impending Supreme Court decision to limit abortion access or the range of reproductive health care options to women will definitely impact a business’s ability to attract and retain top talent: women.”

In terms of diversity, limiting abortion access would not solely impact gender diversity, but could also have a negative impact on racial diversity. Black women typically have the highest labor force participation rate of all women, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In 2014, Black women over the age of 16 had the highest national workforce participation rate at 59.2%, as opposed to white and Latina women who had participation rates of 56.7% and 56% respectively, citing the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. As of November 2021, Black women’s labor force participation rates have risen to 60.3%, according to Brookings. Black women are attractive job candidates because they are among the most educated groups in the country, but they also have the most to lose from abortion bans.

The unintended pregnancy rate is almost 2.5 times higher for Black women than for white women, according to Duke University Press. Black women also have the highest abortion rates in the nation. In addition, they are the most likely to be unable to afford interstate travel to terminate pregnancies, in the case that abortion is outlawed in their home state, due to wage disparities.

Restricting access to abortion care could mean that women of color exit the labor force for good. Historically, women who dropped out of the workforce during a recession to care for children often struggled to return, being unable to find a job in their prior role or command their prior wages, as reported by CNBC. Nationally, labor force exits associated with the presence of children were more common among Latina women and Black women, and these exits accounted for approximately 25% of the labor force exits above pre-pandemic rates among Latina women and Black women relative to white women, citing the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. A key reason that Black and Latina women don’t return to work is that childcare centers in their neighborhoods are much more likely to close, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty & Social Policy. Between mass childcare closures in minority neighborhoods during the pandemic, and the fact that as of 2020, 46.3% of Black children lived solely with their mothers, per the U.S. Census Bureau, the sole burden of childcare often falls onto Black women, which can detrimentally affect their careers. Latina and Black women are more likely to be their family’s sole breadwinners, according to a report from McKinsey. In addition, among those ages 25 to 54, 62% of Black women were unpartnered in 2019, according to the Pew Research Center. This means that forcing Black women to carry unwanted children to term could also be forcing them to give up their means of earning a living, without the cushion of leaning on a partner’s income, given that Black women often do not raise their children in two-partner households. Eliminating abortion access for women, but Black women in particular, increases their odds of falling into poverty and being overwhelmed with childcare, and as a result not adding valuable diversity to the office.

Women workers could suffer increased mental health issues


According to the Center for American Progress, women living in states with greater access to reproductive health care have higher earnings, higher rates of full-time employment, and greater job opportunities. But an additional byproduct of abortion access is a higher sense of well-being.

Women who receive “a wanted abortion are better able to aspire for the future than women who are denied a wanted abortion and must carry an unwanted pregnancy to term,” citing BMC (Boston Medical Center) Women’s Health, a peer reviewed health journal. And the majority of surveyed women—99%—said having an abortion was the right choice five years later, in a Social Science & Medicine study.

In contrast, denying women abortions would likely have negative effects on their mental health.

People who were denied abortions reported more symptoms of stress and anxiety one week after the event than those who received abortions, per the University of California, San Francisco’s Turnaway study.
Victims of sexual violence would face mental health and job consequences

Women could likely suffer mental health consequences from carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term, emotions that would likely be amplified further in incidences of rape.

“I think limiting women's access to the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion access, is violence against women,” Mason told Fortune. “And in the case of a woman who was sexually assaulted or experiencing intimate partner violence, not allowing her to be able to have abortion access does have a definitive impact on her mental health and well-being but also her labor force participation.”

The correlation between sexual violence and female labor participation has been documented in countries such as ZimbabweGermany, the United Kingdom, as well as the United States. Sexual violence is associated with a 6.6% decline in female labor force participation and a 5.1% decline in wages, according to the American Economic Review. When an assault is followed by an unwanted pregnancy that the mother is legally mandated to keep, the effects could be psychologically devastating in addition to the previous suffering and work penalties.

Statistics on the incidents of rape that end in pregnancy are scarce and have not been updated for at least the last 20 years. However, in 1996 the national rape-related pregnancy rate was 5% per rape among victims of reproductive age—ages 12 to 45, according to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Hatton believes that overturning access to safe abortions will amplify the ramifications of sexual violence against female workers.

“In addition to physical trauma, sexual violence has long-term mental and physical health consequences, including depression, PTSD, anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, and more,” Hatton told Fortune. “The negative consequences of such violence—which are already incredibly harmful and long-lasting—will only be prolonged and deepened if women are forced to keep pregnancies resulting from that violence. Not surprisingly, such consequences will negatively affect women as workers as well as women as human beings who have a right to autonomy, equality, and freedom from degradation.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com


Amanda Shires Demands More Artists Stand Up for Abortion Rights: ‘I Can’t Live With the Idea of Not Speaking Up’


Brittney McKenna
Fri, June 3, 2022

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit And Shemekia Copeland In Concert - Nashville, TN
 - Credit: Erika Goldring/Getty Images

Soon after a Supreme Court draft ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked last month, Amanda Shires shared some personal news on social media. “Recently, I had an ectopic pregnancy,” she tweeted. “On August 9, 2021 my fallopian tube ruptured. On August 10, my life was saved…these are some dark days.”

Shires, an incisive songwriter and solo artist and occasional member of husband Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit band, has been vocal about protecting a woman’s right to choose in the past. In 2020, she penned an op-ed for Rolling Stone about why abortion rights matter. In a new interview, Shires — who returns with her latest album Take It Like a Man in July — goes deeper into her own experiences and calls on artists, especially those in Nashville, to start using the platforms they’ve been given.

When I wrote my first piece for Rolling Stone, I’d had an abortion before. Since writing that op-ed, I have had reproductive healthcare — that some might call an abortion — when I was hospitalized in Texas on August 9, 2021, with a ruptured fallopian tube caused by an ectopic pregnancy. For those who are unfamiliar, it is impossible for an ectopic pregnancy to go to term. I would have died; my daughter, Mercy, would have lost her mother; my husband, Jason, would be a widower.

I was lucky. This happened to me two and a half weeks before Texas’ abortion ban went into effect. And I was still dealing with all of it two and a half weeks later. I mean, only just now — nine months later, interestingly enough — have I returned to having normal periods. This fight is about more than just abortion. I think that’s what people keep forgetting.

The majority of people are in favor of women’s reproductive rights and health; it’s others we’re trying to get to. But I think folks forget that access to abortion and reproductive healthcare is not just about terminating unwanted pregnancy. People forget that, if you take away access to reproductive healthcare, you’re going to be killing moms like me. I would have died had this procedure not been available to me. Where would that leave my own daughter?

We’ve had legal abortions for 50 years and now, suddenly, a long-held right will be illegal. How are we going to police that? People will have to prove that they have been raped. And any policing will disproportionately affect people of color, low-income folks and other marginalized groups. It’s yet another thing that, when policing does happen, is going to happen haphazardly and ruin lives. Where does that get us with our Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights?

When Roe is overturned, some healthcare workers may feel afraid to help people. A person having a miscarriage may have to fly to another state, just so they or their doctor doesn’t get into legal trouble. People are still going to get abortions, and we’re going to have to keep people’s secrets, and house people, and try to do the best we can. When we overturn Roe, we risk going back to, “Oh, now same-sex marriages can’t happen. Interracial marriages can’t happen.” Privacy rights are going to be gone.

Demographer Diana Greene Foster conducted a 10-year study tracking both people who had abortions and people who were denied abortions. Her study essentially proves that when folks can’t have an abortion, it affects their mental health, their economic standing, their overall well-being. Ninety-five percent of study participants who did have an abortion still stood by their decision. It’s just like you would expect, but there’s real, scientific proof for it now. In the past, white men have said otherwise.

Since publishing my op-ed, I’ve heard from some folks who are in their eighties. And that, to me, was incredible, because they had abortions in what was a pre-Roe v. Wade environment and they’re only now sharing their stories for the first time. I’m glad to be a listener and also glad to see folks from those generations supporting the right to choose. It made me think, “You know, I bet our grandmothers are more pro-choice than everybody leads us to believe.”

As it turns out, it did start some conversations within our own families. We found out that, yes, our grandmothers are pro-choice. They might not have had a voice before or might have been cast out into the streets without any place to sleep had they mentioned it earlier in their lives. But finding a voice now and sharing their stories now is as good as any time. Hearing these stories, I think that it makes your backbone stronger. It makes it feel like you’re tough enough for the fight, all the way down to your bones.

I also received responses from trolls. I had people threatening me. But whatever. It’s not more threatening than the idea of taking away the services and the work that doctors and nurses do. I don’t care if somebody wants to put a target on me. I wouldn’t go back and change it. If we tell our stories, it helps other people feel empowered. It de-stigmatizes the conversation. If you share your story or share your beliefs, you’re going to get some haters and trolls. But if you don’t, you’re going to be wondering, “What didn’t I do? What didn’t I say that could have helped change one mind?” I can’t live with the idea of not speaking up.

We have to work hard now to mobilize and help people vote. The election is November 8. You don’t see a lot of men speaking up, and every voice is helpful. Which brings up the question, why were Jason and I, and Margo Price, the biggest celebrities — quasi-celebrities — at the march in Nashville? Why didn’t more people show up and speak up? I know everyone is scared of losing their rung on the ladder, but there are more important things, I think, than your fame. Not saying something is not helping. Not standing up for folks is not helping and it’s not right. I would like to think that fans can hold their role models and their favorite musicians accountable. Don’t support artists who don’t support your rights.

I would like to challenge other folks who have platforms to actually use them. Where the fuck are the rest of them? We have Olivia Rodrigo and Phoebe Bridgers speaking up, and Ariana Grande. Where are our Nashville folks? They aren’t helping. Are they just going to sit around and drink beer? I want Garth Brooks out there telling people that women’s health is a priority. That’s what I want. Why not? What does he have to lose?

My best hope is that people continue to get angrier and that the folks who have been fighting so hard for so long, and are already tired, find some strength to keep fighting and also to mobilize others, especially youth, along the way. I hope that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it causes such a fucking uproar that we end up with more rights than we had before.

If Democrats were actually serious about gun control, they'd repeal the 2nd Amendment



Phil Boas, Arizona Republic
Fri, June 3, 2022, 

The American left is in high dudgeon, unshackling itself from the rules of polite society and blaming the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds, of gun-homicide victims on the American right.

“You. It’s your fault,” Washington Post columnist Christine Emba wrote. “You, the gun-obsessed minority who lord over our politics and prevent change from being made. You, who mumble ‘thoughts and prayers’ but balk at action.”

“Nineteen children are dead,” U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said. “And so to my Republican colleagues I ask, ‘Who are you here for? Are you here for the kids or are you here for the killers?’

Joe Scarborough, the former Reagan Republican turned unctuous morning host of cable-left news, tweeted an image of Texas Democrat Beto O’Rourke shouting at Republican officeholders:

“There are several here who fit the definition of ‘Sick Son of a Bitch’ in this picture, but none go by the name of Beto. Look instead at the freaks who keep gutting gun laws so 18-year-olds can buy weapons designed for war to go into schools and slaughter babies. THAT is sick.”

Dems are fed up with playing GOP gun politics


Liberals and their Democratic cohorts are so angry and so done with gun violence and Republicans who play politics with the lives of children that they’re breaking out the F-word and unleashing their fury on Twitter. (As if going berserk with F-bombs represents a breakthrough on Twitter.)

Arizona U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego fit this pattern. He didn’t wait for the Texas school dead to be identified before he accused one of that state’s U.S. senators, Ted Cruz, of murder:

“Just to be clear f*** you @tedcruz you f***ing baby killer.”

Confronted with this rolling tide of recriminations, one Republican finally got fed up and pushed back.

“To infer by rhetorical supposed questions, who are you here for, we must be here for the gunman, is an outrage,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said. “How dare you. You think we don’t have hearts?”

He was wasting his breath.

The way to stop self-righteous, finger-wagging Democrats who say you have blood on your hands is not to complain.

It’s to unmask them.
The 'core problem is the 2nd Amendment'

Democrats all know why America among advanced nations is uniquely plagued by rampage shootings. In a column in The New Republic, Walter Shapiro, journalist and former White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, spelled it out:

“The hard truth is that the core problem is the Second Amendment itself. And America is going to reel from one mass murder to another unless the Second Amendment is repealed or the Supreme Court drastically reduces its scope.”

Repealing the Second Amendment is hard.

It would require first supermajorities in both the House and the Senate. Then you would need three-fourths of the states to ratify that decision.

That will only happen if the party that demands greater gun control gets the ball rolling. But Democrats from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama to Dianne Feinstein to Joe Biden have long claimed they support the Second Amendment.

Here’s Biden on Thursday night:

“And, by the way – it’s going to sound bizarre – I support the Second Amendment. You have a right. But from the very beginning, the Second Amendment didn’t say you can own any gun you want, big as you want.”

Democrats keep nibbling at the edges

Biden calls for 'common sense' gun reform amid a series of deadly mass shootings

Instead of launching a movement to repeal the Second Amendment, Biden served up policy leftovers from all the other mass shootings – ban assault weapons, ban high-capacity magazines, pass red-flag laws.

“For God’s sake,” said Biden. “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?”

Quite a bit if we’re relying on those.

Yes, they may be well meaning and represent at least some action. But Democratic and Republican leaders all know these will not put a significant dent in gun violence in America.

For that, the party of gun control will need to go bold.

Shapiro, their fellow Democrat, sounds like he’s on to them:

“Democrats should drop the mealy-mouthed formulation, ‘Nobody supports the Second Amendment more than I do,’ but still … . Claiming fidelity to the Second Amendment has never convinced a single NRA supporter of a candidate’s sincerity, but it has stopped bold thinking about lasting solutions to America’s gun crisis.”

So why aren’t Democrats willing to get the ball rolling on Second Amendment repeal?

Why won’t they be campaigning on the issue in this year’s midterms and the presidential election of 2024?

Just read the polls.
If this about the kids, stop nibbling at the edges

When the Economist and YouGov asked Americans in 2018 if they supported Second Amendment repeal, only 21% did. Sixty percent opposed it. Among cohorts, Democrats were the most likely to support repeal at 39%.

Bret Stephens, a conservative New York Times columnist who would actually join the Democrats’ crusade if they would only kick it off, observed:

“Maybe it’s because they argue their case badly and – let’s face it – in bad faith. Democratic politicians routinely profess their fidelity to the Second Amendment – or rather, “a nuanced reading” of it – with all the conviction of Barack Obama’s support for traditional marriage, circa 2008. People recognize lip service for what it is.”

So we all know the score, Democrats refuse to pursue the one policy strategy they know would finally stop to any degree this raging epidemic of mass shootings in America, because to do so, they know they would lose elections.

If you, like many of them, lacked all self-awareness and common decency, you might even put it to the Democrats this way:

“Are you here for the kids or are you here for the killers?”

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Repeal the Second Amendment, Democrats, if you're serious

Is gun control written in the Second Amendment? | GARY COSBY JR.


Gary Cosby Jr., The Tuscaloosa News
Sat, June 4, 2022

Gary Cosby Jr.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

So reads the amendment that has throughout our nation’s history guaranteed the right of American citizens to keep and bear arms. In today’s America, we have a tendency to honor the second part of the amendment while disregarding the qualifying statement that gives the amendment its context.

Only a few days have passed since another horrible school shooting, this one in Texas. More children are dead because someone exercised his right to keep and bear arms, but refused his responsibility. But does the responsibility for this act not go deeper than the act of a single individual? Does not the Second Amendment give Congress the authority to regulate firearms within a specific framework? When it is our children who are paying the butcher’s bill, one must call into question the wisdom of continually supporting unfettered access to firearms.

Clearly, violent acts committed with firearms have become an extraordinary problem in America. Exhibit A: Since the horror of school shootings burst upon the national consciousness in 1999 with the Columbine High School killings, there have been 169 killed in school shooting events wherein at least four persons have died, excluding the shooter. More have been killed in school shootings, but in those shootings, less than four died.

More: Investigation: ATF rarely issues harsh gun dealer penalties in Alabama

More: My rights or my responsibilities? | GARY COSBY JR.

So how many children in school have to be murdered before we, as a nation, take action to curtail this mess? How many shoppers in supermarkets, or worshippers in churches, synagogues or mosques have to lay dying before we as a nation say 'Enough is enough?'

Will innocent people ever be able to shed enough blood for those who advocate unrestricted gun rights to take a second look at the results of their stance?

The problem is not that we definitely need regulation on the ownership and use of firearms, the question is what can actually be done in a nation where there are far more guns in circulation than there are people to fire them? And one cannot gloss over the point that the overwhelming majority of gun owners are not out there murdering people. How then, do you place restrictions upon gun ownership in a method that does not infringe upon the rights of those who abide by the law?

The most obvious answer is that the Second Amendment does not provide the completely unrestricted right to keep and bear arms. There is the mostly ignored phrase that begins the amendment, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State …"

There was no way in heaven or hell that the framers of the Constitution could foresee a culture such as we live in now. There is no way they could conceive of a time or place wherein a person would walk into a school and slaughter children.

In the late 1700s, folks used muskets that fired a single ball, which had to be manually recharged with powder, wadding and shot before the gun could be fired again. It would have been impossible for a single person with a gun to do much damage before he would have been swarmed by a mob and taken down.

They could not in any way envision a day where a person could walk into a public venue — school, church or place of business — and randomly open fire with a high-capacity firearm that shoots as rapidly as one can pull the trigger. Moreover, in their worst nightmares, they could not have foreseen a culture wherein there would be people capable of walking into a school and murdering children.

Nevertheless, they framed the amendment in such a way that it is obvious that they felt the ownership of firearms was to be a part of a well-regulated militia. In their day, the United States had no standing military. The volunteers who made up George Washington’s army were farmers and shop-keepers and everyday people who were expected to come to the defense of their nation should the need arise.

They had to have firearms to do that. Had the framers of the Constitution ever considered that the Second Amendment would be used to enable mass murderers, they would have never written it in such an open-ended manner. No rational person would have done so. No one of those men could have imagined a day when a gun rights lobby would buy off congressmen and congresswomen who, for fear of losing an office, would do everything possible to gloss over the violence, taking what amounts to blood money to maintain the status quo.

There is a literal mandate within the Second Amendment itself that gun ownership would be a protected right within the scope of a well-regulated militia. There is no guarantee of gun ownership apart from such a condition. Congress has both a moral and a constitutional mandate to come up with reasonable laws and regulations to put the brakes on the accelerating violence because turning a blind eye to the situation is clearly costing lives.

Gary Cosby Jr. is photo editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can email him at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Is gun control written in the Second Amendment? | GARY COSBY JR.
NMSU, El Paso Electric solar installation begins generating power


Carlos Andres López
Sat, June 4, 2022, 
Las Cruces Sun-News

Aggie Power, a three-megawatt solar and battery energy storage installation on New Mexico State University’s Arrowhead Park, started generating power for NMSU’s Las Cruces campus earlier this month. Aggie Power is part of a collaboration between NMSU and El Paso Electric to advance mutual goals on renewable energy, climate change action and micro-grid development.


LAS CRUCES - New Mexico State University’s largest source of renewable energy — a three-megawatt solar and battery energy storage installation called Aggie Power — started generating power for NMSU’s Las Cruces campus earlier this month, marking a milestone nearly four years in the making.

Aggie Power is one of three energy sources now powering NMSU’s 900-acre main campus, producing enough solar electricity to meet about a third of the university’s electrical needs. It also serves as a living laboratory for NMSU students and faculty in electrical engineering.

“This is truly a cause for celebration,” NMSU Chancellor Dan Arvizu said. “We are fortunate to have so many talented individuals who helped make this project a success. It’s because of their efforts that this project will now benefit our university and our region for many, many years to come.”

Aggie Power, built on a 29-acre parcel on NMSU’s Arrowhead Park, is part of a collaboration between NMSU and El Paso Electric to advance mutual goals on renewable energy, climate change action and micro-grid development.

NMSU and EPE outlined the details of Aggie Power in a memorandum of understanding signed in 2018. After a review and approval process by the New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission, NMSU and EPE signed their final rate agreement and land-lease documents, allowing construction on Aggie Power to begin in December 2020.

Under the agreements, EPE will operate Aggie Power for the next 30 years, and NMSU has agreed to buy power generated from the facility over that period.

“This is a proud moment for both NMSU and El Paso Electric,” EPE President and CEO Kelly A. Tomblin said. “Aggie Power proves that powerful partnerships are possible and needed to optimize our natural resources, our talent, our innovation and our region’s growth potential. Generating and delivering clean energy as well as introducing battery storage is a priority for both EPE and NMSU, and we are excited for the future and what we can do together.”

Soon after construction wrapped up in December 2021, Aggie Power underwent a two-month testing phase. The site consists of 10,000 solar panels, a three-megawatt solar photovoltaic array and a one-megawatt/four-megawatt-hour battery energy storage system.

This spring, the project contractor, Affordable Solar of Albuquerque, performed final performance and capacity testing before Aggie Power began supplying solar electricity into NMSU’s electrical grid through a central energy hub May 18.

Research operations at Aggie Power are on track to start by this fall, bringing new hands-on training opportunities for students and faculty. Wayne Savage, director of NMSU’s Arrowhead Park, said a committee at NMSU is working to identify educational priorities. Savage oversaw the development of Aggie Power for NMSU.

“NMSU has a long-standing reputation as a leader in solar energy and development of micro-grid systems. This project builds on that foundation,” Savage said, “and will provide significant learning opportunities for El Paso Electric and NMSU as we support our state’s commitment to a fully renewable future.”

Aggie Power is one of several solar power projects on NMSU’s Las Cruces and aligns with the university’s long-term commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship.

NMSU has joined international efforts to become carbon neutral by 2050. The university has decreased its carbon emissions by 61 percent since 2007, according to Second Nature and the University of New Hampshire’s Sustainability Institute, which track carbon emissions of entities that have signed the Race to Zero global initiative.

For more information about Aggie Power, visit https://nmsu.link/Aggie-Power.

Carlos Andres López writes for New Mexico State University Marketing and Communications and can be reached at 575-646-1955, or by email at carlopez@nmsu.edu.

NATURAL CAPITALI$M

This year's Earth Overshoot Day falls on July 28

PR Newswire

OAKLAND, Calif., June 4, 2022

The Power of Possibility web platform launches today to highlight many proven solutions to build resource security and combat climate change.

OAKLAND, Calif.June 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Earth Overshoot Day 2022 lands on July 28, earlier than last year. Over 50 years of global overshoot have led to a world where aggravated drought and food insecurity are compounded by unseasonably warm temperatures. As the date indicates, humanity continues to widen its annual ecological deficit two years after the pandemic-induced resource-use reductions exceptionally pushed the date back temporarily by 24 days.

"Between the pandemic, wilder weather patterns, and the resurgence or intensification of wars on several continents leading to massive food insecurity, the importance of fostering one's resource security to support one's economic prosperity is becoming ever more critical for cities, countries, and business entities," said Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel.

Many effective and economically beneficial solutions already exist today to reverse ecological overshoot and support biological regeneration. Opportunities stem from all sectors: commercially available technologies or services, local government's development strategies, national public policies, or best practices supported by civil society initiatives and academia. The Power of Possibility platform that launched today shows plenty of examples sorted by the five main pillars of intervention: healthy biosphere, energy, food, cities, and population.

For example, moving to smart grids and higher efficiency in our electric systems would #MoveTheDate 21 days. Reducing food waste by half would #MoveTheDate 13 days. Growing trees with other crops on the same land, also known as tree intercropping, would #MoveTheDate 2.1 days, among many others.

Each year, Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth regenerates during the entire year. Humanity currently uses 75% more than what the planet's ecosystems can regenerate—or "1.75 Earths." From Earth Overshoot Day until the end of the year, humanity operates on ecological deficit spending. This deficit spending is currently the largest since the world entered into ecological overshoot in the early 1970s, according to the National Footprint & Biocapacity Accounts (NFA) based on UN datasets now produced by FoDaFo and York University.

Additional resources
The Power of Possibility
Press release in multiple languages
How Earth Overshoot Day 2022 was calculated
How to compare the date of Earth Overshoot Day to previous years
Ecological Footprint data for more than 200 countries and regions
Infographics and videos available for media
BLOG: 50 years since Stockholm

About Global Footprint Network

Global Footprint Network is an international sustainability organization that is helping the world live within the Earth's means and respond to climate change. Since 2003 we've engaged with more than 50 countries, 30 cities, and 70 global partners to deliver scientific insights that have driven high-impact policy and investment decisions. Together, we're creating a future where all of us can thrive within the limits of our one planet. www.footprintnetwork.org

STATEHOOD OR INDEPENDENCE
Puerto Ricans speak out on US territory's political status


FILE - The Puerto Rican flag flies in front of Puerto Rico's Capitol as in San Juan, Puerto Rico, July 29, 2015. A group of Democratic congress members, including the House majority leader, on Thursday, May 19, 2022, proposed a binding plebiscite to decide whether Puerto Rico should become a state or gain some sort of independnce. 
(AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo, File) 

DÁNICA COTO
Sat, June 4, 2022

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hundreds of Puerto Ricans crowded into a convention center Saturday where federal legislators held a public hearing to decide the future of the island’s political status as the U.S. territory struggles to recover from hurricanes, earthquakes and a deep economic crisis.

One by one, dozens of people ranging from politicians to retirees to young people leaned into a microphone and spoke against the island’s current territorial status, which recognizes its people as U.S. citizens but does not allow them to vote in presidential elections, denies them certain federal benefits and allows them one representative in Congress with limited voting powers.

The hearing comes two weeks after a group of Democratic congress members including the House majority leader and one Republican proposed what would be the first-ever binding plebiscite that would offer voters in Puerto Rico three options: statehood, independence or independence with free association, whose terms would be defined following negotiations.

Congress would have to accept Puerto Rico as the 51st state if voters so choose it, but the proposal is not expected to survive in the Senate, where Republicans have long opposed statehood.

“Everyone, even congress people themselves, know that the possibilities of this becoming law are minimal and maybe non-existent, but it doesn’t stop being important,” former Puerto Rico governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá told The Associated Press.

About an hour into the hearing, a small group of people including a former gubernatorial candidate who supports independence burst into the ballroom, pointed fingers at the panel of U.S. legislators and yelled, “120 years of colonialism!”

The majority of the audience booed the group and yelled at them to leave as U.S. lawmakers called for calm.

“Democracy is not always pretty, but it’s necessary,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, chairman of the U.S. House of Natural Resources Committee, which oversees affairs in U.S. territories.

The proposal of a binding plebiscite — a measure that has not yet been introduced in committee — has frustrated some on an island that already has held seven unilateral, nonbinding referendums on its political status, with no overwhelming majority emerging. The last referendum was held in November 2020, with 53% of votes for statehood and 47% against, with only a little more than half of registered voters participating.

Luis Herrero, a political consultant, said during the hearing that even if enough people support statehood, there are not enough votes in the Senate to make Puerto Rico a state: “Not today, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Since 1898, Puerto Rican statehood has been a mirage, lip service to score cheap political points or to raise a few dollars for a campaign.”

Saturday's hearing comes amid ongoing discontent with Puerto Rico’s current political status, with the U.S. Supreme Court further angering many in April after upholding the differential treatment of residents of Puerto Rico. In an 8-1 vote, the court ruled that making Puerto Ricans ineligible for the Supplemental Security Income program, which offers benefits to blind, disabled and older Americans, did not unconstitutionally discriminate against them.

As a result, many of those who spoke at Saturday’s public hearing welcomed the proposed binding plebiscite.

“We finally see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Víctor Pérez, a U.S. military veteran who lamented the current political status. “Even after all our service and sacrifice, we come back home and we are denied full voting rights and equality. ... We cannot vote for our president, our commander in chief, (but) they send us to war.”

Grijalva said the testimonies given Saturday will help him and other legislators revise the proposed measure, which he said is a way to make amends. He said he hopes it will go to the House floor by August. If eventually approved, it would be held on Nov. 5, 2023.

Acevedo, the former governor, said he hasn’t lost hope despite numerous attempts throughout the decades to change the political status of Puerto Rico, which became a U.S. territory in 1898 following the Spanish-American War.

“A solution to this problem of more than 120 years has to happen at some point,” he said. “When will conditions allow for it? That’s unpredictable.”

There were 200 kidnappings in Haiti in May, United Nations agency says


Odelyn Joseph/AP

Jacqueline Charles
Fri, June 3, 2022

Exactly one year after warring gangs shut down transportation links to the southern regions of Haiti, armed groups continue to restrict access to vulnerable communities in Port-au-Prince, forcing thousands of others from their homes on the eastern outskirts of the capital and creating travel problems in the north of the country, the United Nations said Friday.

At least 188 people have been killed and almost 17,000 people have been displaced from Port-au-Prince since April 24 by gangs, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, citing data from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Humanitarian Rights and the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti.

He noted that among those killed were 96 suspected gang members. Despite efforts by police to fight armed gangs, kidnappings have continued unabated and access to violence-affected neighborhoods remains limited, leading to alarmingly high malnutrition rates among children in some capital neighborhoods.

“Incidents of kidnapping for ransom have increased dramatically with some 200 cases in Port-au-Prince, recorded in May alone,” he said. “U.N. partners have been unable to collect and deliver relief supplies due to lack of access to the port area.”

In the Cité Soleil neighborhood of the capital, malnutrition rates have risen dramatically, with 20% of children under the age of 5 suffering from not getting enough food.

“In response to the alarming numbers of malnourished children in Cité Soleil, community health workers are distributing packs of ready-to-use therapeutic food provided by UNICEF. More than 2,000 children have been assisted.”

Haiti’s instability should be high on Summit of the Americas agenda, Rubio urges

The U.N., Dujarric said, is relying more on grassroots organizations and non-governmental groups to provide services in difficult-to-reach areas of the city. Where possible, they are delivering hot meals and hygiene kits and other items. He also noted that this week marks one year since transport links to the south of Haiti were closed down by gangs after clashes erupted in the Martissant neighborhood at the southern entrance of Port-au-Prince.

The dire picture painted by the U.N. comes amid mounting concerns about the situation in Haiti, which is expected to be a focus of discussion among hemispheric leaders attending next week’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. Hosted by the U.S., the event starts Monday and is expected to be attended by interim Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry.

‘Either you die or you succeed’: Haiti’s northwest coast spawns migration tide to Florida

In its latest report, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Humanitarian Rights noted that the situation remains highly volatile in Haiti.

Testimonies collected and cited by the office “describe extreme gang violence, including beheadings, mutilations and burning of bodies, as well as gang rapes, including of young children, used to terrorize and punish people living in areas controlled by rival gangs,” the report said.
Conservatives appalled by the ‘crazy’ were too silent for too long. Now, it’s too late | Opinion


Leonard Pitts Jr.
Fri, June 3, 2022

Where were you when we needed you?

That’s my blanket response to a persistent trickle of emails from readers who keep asking me to, in effect, stop using the word “conservative” when I mean “crazy.” “Or “fascist.” Or “mean.” Which is to say that these people, most of whom would consider themselves conservative, want me to stop using that word to describe the likes of Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ginni Thomas and other luminaries of the political right..

While “conservative” is, in fact, the descriptor self-chosen by Trump and his acolytes, these readers argue that those folks are anything but adherents to the ideas of small government, muscular foreign policy and minimum regulation by which conservatism has traditionally been defined. Rather, they are extremists who have essentially hijacked the word and bent it to their own uses. The readers are correct, as far as it goes.

There’s nothing traditionally “conservative” about scheming to overturn an election as Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence, has done. Or undermining an election as Georgia Rep. Greene has done. Or inciting an insurrection as Trump infamously did. Indeed, it’s no stretch to believe that architects of traditional conservatism like Ronald Reagan or William F. Buckley would regard their ideological namesakes with contempt.

That said, I won’t be honoring my readers’ request. Here’s why:

There was a moment when every traditionally conservative voter, pundit and politician could have stood up against what conservatism has become, the rot it has inflicted. There was a time they might have even stopped it had enough of them simply spoken out. Almost none of them did.

We didn’t reach the current state of things overnight, after all. To the contrary, this has been a 30-year train wreck, a slow-motion disaster that mangled conservatism into the moral monstrosity it is today. And it’s not as if nobody saw it happening. What with Newt Gingrich’s hostage-taking approach to government and Fox’s truth-optional approach to news, it was pretty obvious.

Indeed, right-leaning pundits tacitly acknowledged the shift years ago when they began finding it necessary to use the term “thoughtful conservatives” to distinguish themselves from the demagogues and flame throwers increasingly populating their side. Yet “thoughtful conservatives” were nevertheless all too willing to make common cause with unthoughtful ones in exchange for the jolt of energy and enthusiasm the latter brought to the cause.

So they did nothing as alternate reality became the forwarding address of the movement.

As newly brazen racism and xenophobia became the heart of the movement.

As conspiracy became the voice of the movement.

As violence became the good right arm of the movement.

As Trump became the face of the movement.

They stood by and watched as the values they claimed to venerate were smeared in sludge and the name they used to brand themselves was snatched away like money by a playground bully. What it used to mean, folks, it means no more. The fringe became the mainstream. The game played the player. The tail wagged the dog.

Now, along comes that trickle of readers wanting me to know that the Trump cultists are not “real” conservatives. I’m afraid they won’t find me particularly sympathetic.

Yes, it’s a good argument.

But they’re making it to the wrong audience, about 30 years too late.


Pitts
To safely explore the solar system and beyond, spaceships need to go faster – nuclear-powered rockets may be the answer


Iain Boyd, Professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

Sat, June 4, 2022, THE CONVERSATION

Over the last 50 years, a lot has changed in rocketry. The fuel that powers spaceflight might finally be changing too.
  CSA-Printstock/DIgital Vision Vectors via Getty Images

With dreams of Mars on the minds of both NASA and Elon Musk, long-distance crewed missions through space are coming. But you might be surprised to learn that modern rockets don’t go all that much faster than the rockets of the past.

There are a lot of reasons that a faster spaceship is a better one, and nuclear-powered rockets are a way to do this. They offer many benefits over traditional fuel-burning rockets or modern solar-powered electric rockets, but there have been only eight U.S. space launches carrying nuclear reactors in the last 40 years.

However, in 2019 the laws regulating nuclear space flights changed and work has already begun on this next generation of rockets.

Why the need for speed?


The first step of a space journey involves the use of launch rockets to get a ship into orbit. These are the large fuel-burning engines people imagine when they think of rocket launches and are not likely to go away in the foreseeable future due to the constraints of gravity.

It is once a ship reaches space that things get interesting. To escape Earth’s gravity and reach deep space destinations, ships need additional acceleration. This is where nuclear systems come into play. If astronauts want to explore anything farther than the Moon and perhaps Mars, they are going to need to be going very very fast. Space is massive, and everything is far away.

There are two reasons faster rockets are better for long-distance space travel: safety and time.


Astronauts on a trip to Mars would be exposed to very high levels of radiation which can cause serious long-term health problems such as cancer and sterility. Radiation shielding can help, but it is extremely heavy, and the longer the mission, the more shielding is needed. A better way to reduce radiation exposure is to simply get where you are going quicker.

But human safety isn’t the only benefit. As space agencies probe farther out into space, it is important to get data from unmanned missions as soon as possible. It took Voyager-2 12 years just to reach Neptune, where it snapped some incredible photos as it flew by. If Voyager-2 had a faster propulsion system, astronomers could have had those photos and the information they contained years earlier.

Speed is good. But why are nuclear systems faster?

Systems of today

Once a ship has escaped Earth’s gravity, there are three important aspects to consider when comparing any propulsion system:

Thrust – how fast a system can accelerate a ship

Mass efficiency – how much thrust a system can produce for a given amount of fuel

Energy density – how much energy a given amount of fuel can produce


Today, the most common propulsion systems in use are chemical propulsion – that is, regular fuel-burning rockets – and solar-powered electric propulsion systems.

Chemical propulsion systems provide a lot of thrust, but chemical rockets aren’t particularly efficient, and rocket fuel isn’t that energy-dense. The Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the Moon produced 35 million Newtons of force at liftoff and carried 950,000 gallons of fuel. While most of the fuel was used in getting the rocket into orbit, the limitations are apparent: It takes a lot of heavy fuel to get anywhere.

Electric propulsion systems generate thrust using electricity produced from solar panels. The most common way to do this is to use an electrical field to accelerate ions, such as in the Hall thruster. These devices are commonly used to power satellites and can have more than five times higher mass efficiency than chemical systems. But they produce much less thrust – about three Newtons, or only enough to accelerate a car from 0-60 mph in about two and a half hours. The energy source – the Sun – is essentially infinite but becomes less useful the farther away from the Sun the ship gets.

One of the reasons nuclear-powered rockets are promising is because they offer incredible energy density. The uranium fuel used in nuclear reactors has an energy density that is 4 million times higher than hydrazine, a typical chemical rocket propellant. It is much easier to get a small amount of uranium to space than hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel.

So what about thrust and mass efficiency?

Two options for nuclear

Engineers have designed two main types of nuclear systems for space travel.


The first is called nuclear thermal propulsion. These systems are very powerful and moderately efficient. They use a small nuclear fission reactor – similar to those found in nuclear submarines – to heat a gas, such as hydrogen, and that gas is then accelerated through a rocket nozzle to provide thrust. Engineers from NASA estimate that a mission to Mars powered by nuclear thermal propulsion would be 20%-25% shorter than a trip on a chemical-powered rocket.

Nuclear thermal propulsion systems are more than twice as efficient as chemical propulsion systems – meaning they generate twice as much thrust using the same amount of propellant mass – and can deliver 100,000 Newtons of thrust. That’s enough force to get a car from 0-60 mph in about a quarter of a second.

The second nuclear-based rocket system is called nuclear electric propulsion. No nuclear electric systems have been built yet, but the idea is to use a high-power fission reactor to generate electricity that would then power an electrical propulsion system like a Hall thruster. This would be very efficient, about three times better than a nuclear thermal propulsion system. Since the nuclear reactor could create a lot of power, many individual electric thrusters could be operated simultaneously to generate a good amount of thrust.

Nuclear electric systems would be the best choice for extremely long-range missions because they don’t require solar energy, have very high efficiency and can give relatively high thrust. But while nuclear electric rockets are extremely promising, there are still a lot of technical problems to solve before they are put into use.

Why aren’t there nuclear powered rockets yet?


Nuclear thermal propulsion systems have been studied since the 1960s but have not yet flown in space.

Regulations first imposed in the U.S. in the 1970s essentially required case-by-case examination and approval of any nuclear space project from multiple government agencies and explicit approval from the president. Along with a lack of funding for nuclear rocket system research, this environment prevented further improvement of nuclear reactors for use in space.

That all changed when the Trump administration issued a presidential memorandum in August 2019. While upholding the need to keep nuclear launches as safe as possible, the new directive allows for nuclear missions with lower amounts of nuclear material to skip the multi-agency approval process. Only the sponsoring agency, like NASA, for example, needs to certify that the mission meets safety recommendations. Larger nuclear missions would go through the same process as before.

Along with this revision of regulations, NASA received US0 million in the 2019 budget to develop nuclear thermal propulsion. DARPA is also developing a space nuclear thermal propulsion system to enable national security operations beyond Earth orbit.

After 60 years of stagnation, it’s possible a nuclear-powered rocket will be heading to space within a decade. This exciting achievement will usher in a new era of space exploration. People will go to Mars and science experiments will make new discoveries all across our solar system and beyond.


This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Iain Boyd, University of Colorado Boulder.

Read more:

Never mind SpaceX’s Falcon 9, where’s my Millennium Falcon?

How SpaceX lowered costs and reduced barriers to space

Mining the moon for rocket fuel to get us to Mars

Iain Boyd receives funding from the following sources, none of it is related to space propulsion: Office of Naval Research Lockheed-Martin Northrop-Grumman L3-Harris