State lawsuits defend abortion access with religious freedom

Since Dobbs, lower courts in at least five states have issued rulings in abortion-related religious freedom lawsuits.

FILE - Demonstrators stand outside the House chamber before a vote is held on Senate Bill 1 during a special session Friday, Aug. 5, 2022, at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis. Critics of religious freedom laws often argue they are used to discriminate against LGBTQ people and only protect a conservative Christian worldview. But following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, religious abortion-rights supporters are using these laws to protect access to abortion and defend their beliefs. (Jenna Watson/The Indianapolis Star via AP, File)

December 29, 2022

By 

Arleigh Rodgers

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Cara Berg Raunick watched with bafflement as Indiana’s Republican legislators took less than two weeks to debate and pass an abortion ban that the governor signed quickly into law.

The women’s health nurse practitioner from Indianapolis was struck by just how frequently faith was cited in the arguments as reason to ban the medical practice. But Berg Raunick, who is Jewish, said those views go against her beliefs.

To her, a pregnant woman’s health and life is paramount, and she disagreed with legislators’ assertions that life begins at conception, calling that a “Christian definition.”

“That is a religious and values-based comment,” said Berg Raunick. “A fetus is potential life, and that is worthy of great respect and is not to be taken lightly, but it does not supersede the life and health of the mother, period.”

Arguments like this were central to an Indiana lawsuit filed in September against the state’s abortion ban, which is on hold amid multiple legal challenges. On Dec. 2, a judge ruled the ban violates the state’s religious freedom law, signed by then-Republican Gov. Mike Pence in 2015.

Critics of religious freedoms laws often argue they are used to discriminate against LGBTQ people and only protect a conservative Christian worldview. But following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, religious abortion-rights supporters are using these laws to protect access to abortion and defend their beliefs.

The Dobbs v. Jackson ruling left abortion rights up to the states. As a result, lower courts in at least five states, including Indiana, have issued rulings in abortion-related religious freedom lawsuits.

There is a “huge diversity of the kinds of claims being made” in these cases, said Elizabeth Reiner Platt, who studies religion and abortion rights as director of Columbia University’s Law, Rights and Religion Project. The religious freedom complaints are among 34 post-Roe lawsuits filed against 19 states’ abortion bans, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

For some, abortion access can be a way to exercise one’s religion, Platt said. Other lawsuits challenge the bans under constitutional clauses that say the government is “establishing” a religion, imposing a law on residents who do not share that belief.

In the Indiana case, lawyers for five anonymous women — who are Jewish, Muslim and spiritual — and advocacy group Hoosier Jews for Choice have argued the state’s ban infringes on their beliefs. Their lawsuit specifically highlights the Jewish teaching that a fetus becomes a living person at birth and that Jewish law prioritizes the mother’s life and health.

The Indiana attorney general’s office this month appealed a ruling siding with the women and asked the state Supreme Court to consider the case. In January, the Indiana justices are already scheduled to hear another abortion ban challenge on the grounds it violates the state constitution’s individual rights protections.

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, three Jewish women are arguing the state’s ban violates their religious rights under the state’s constitution and religious freedom law. They say in a lawsuit, which has been removed to federal court, that Kentucky’s Republican-dominated legislature “imposed sectarian theology” by prohibiting nearly all abortions. The ban remains in effect while the Kentucky Supreme Court considers a separate case challenging the law.

For those wanting to end abortion bans, lawsuits arguing state governments are establishing a religion via the bans could be more effective than ones arguing for the free exercise of religion, said Elizabeth Sepper, a University of Texas at Austin law professor. The former would apply to more people, she said.

“If an abortion ban violates either a state establishment clause or the federal establishment clause, then the entirety of the statute comes down,” Sepper said.

Some state lawsuits use both arguments, such as a case filed by Planned Parenthood that in July successfully blocked Utah’s ban. The law is on hold pending a decision from its state Supreme Court.

That same month, a lawsuit partly based on Wyoming’s religious-liberty clause blocked the state’s abortion ban. The Wyoming high court said Dec. 21 it would not weigh in on the state’s new abortion ban for now.

Elsewhere, Florida religious leaders in June cited the state’s religious rights law and state constitution’s privacy protections in multiple lawsuits against their state’s 15-week abortion ban. A request to hear an appeal of the ban, which remains in effect, rests before the Florida Supreme Court.

Amid the legal machinations, abortion access remains a divisive issue among the nation’s faithful. In June, clergy across the U.S. reflected that divide and its nuances as they rearranged worship plans to provide religious context — and competing messages — after Roe was overturned.

Across the U.S., few voters in religious groups say abortion should always be illegal, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of the midterm electorate. But religious groups differ in their level of support for abortion.

While Protestants in general are closely divided over whether abortion should generally be legal, most white evangelical Protestants — about 7 in 10 — say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Similarly, about 7 in 10 Mormon voters say abortion should be generally be illegal.

By comparison, 6 in 10 Catholic voters, about 8 in 10 Jewish voters and close to 9 in 10 religious unaffiliated voters say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

An array of religious beliefs were on display during Indiana’s summer legislative debate, which ultimately resulted in the state becoming the first in the U.S. to enact tighter abortion restrictions after Dobbs. The state law displeased both abortion-rights advocates, who say it goes too far, and anti-abortion activists, who said it didn’t go far enough.

State Rep. Ann Vermilion, who opposed the ban, condemned her fellow Republicans that called women “murderers” for getting an abortion.

“The Lord’s promise is for grace and kindness,” Vermilion said. “He would not be jumping to condemn these women.”

Dr. Kay Eigenbrod, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist who attended Indiana Right to Life’s “Love them Both” rally during the debate, said in a July interview that, because of her Catholic upbringing, she supports a complete abortion ban without exceptions.

“Women just don’t have to turn to abortion for any reason,” she said. “We as a society just need to be better about supporting them both.”

Months later, Berg Raunick, a member of Hoosier Jews for Choice but not involved in the lawsuit, hopes lawmakers will continue to value religious freedom.

“That has to mean protecting all religions, not just Christianity, and not just the majority,” she said. “Now, we sort of wait and see how how true that is.”

___

AP writer Hannah Fingerhut contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. Arleigh Rodgers is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/arleighrodgers

This Year, the Reproductive Justice Movement Showed Us What It Means to Fight

By Garnet Henderson

December 29, 2022Z

Source: TruthOut

Image: Adam Fagen

In a year of worst-case abortion access scenarios, reproductive justice activists showed us what solidarity looks like.

For reproductive justice advocates, the start of 2022 was ominous. In September 2021, the Supreme Court allowed a six-week abortion ban to go into effect in Texas, declining to block the law even temporarily despite the fact that it was an obvious violation of Roe v. Wade.

When oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization arrived in December of that year, the Texas ban had been in place for four painful months. That fact, plus some of the justices’ questions during oral arguments, cast an even deeper pall over the coming year. It was clear that the Supreme Court’s new and extremely conservative majority was ready to overturn one of the court’s most significant precedents and eliminate the constitutional right to abortion. But many activists, organizers and people working in abortion care felt like they were screaming and hardly anyone was listening. They didn’t see their sense of urgency mirrored in society at large.

Confirmation came in May, when the (apparently not-so-unprecedented) leak of the court’s majority opinion showed that the justices planned to pave the way for states to ban abortion entirely. This set off a torturous waiting game, where abortion providers and funders prepared for the worst without knowing exactly what day the hammer would fall.

One abortion provider told me at the time that his Texas clinic started packing appointments for the few abortions they were able to offer into the early morning hours in order to do as many procedures as possible each day before any Supreme Court decisions were issued. A telemedicine provider serving Wyoming, a state with a “trigger” ban designed to outlaw abortion automatically in the event of Roe’s demise, said she was checking her phone in between every patient to make sure abortion hadn’t become illegal during her last appointment. In late May, the state of Oklahoma — where nearly half of Texans who traveled out of state for their abortions received care — enacted a total abortion ban. When the official Supreme Court decision finally came down on June 24, providers in many states were forced to send patients home and stop providing services immediately.

2022 was the year that the Christian right succeeded in its decades-long plan to seize control of the Supreme Court and overturn Roe v. Wade. Yes, the Republican Party led that charge. But the Democratic Party failed — or perhaps, chose not to — mount a real defense. For years, pundits and politicians alike dismissed warnings that legal abortion was in jeopardy as hysterical, even as roughly half of U.S. states worked to legislate accessible abortion out of existence and many laid plans to ban abortion the moment they could. So far, 13 states have banned abortion entirely, and one — Georgia — has banned abortion at six weeks. In 10 other states, bans that have been temporarily blocked in the courts remain a threat.

There is no silver lining in suffering. But when the worst-case scenario that reproductive justice advocates had warned of for decades came to pass, they rose to the occasion with a bravery and grit that almost defies comprehension.

Overworked and overwhelmed, clinic workers kept showing up, even when they weren’t sure how much longer their jobs would exist. Though a wave of union organizing efforts began among clinic staff years ago, some of those unionized workers were still without contracts this year. However, just before the end of 2022, workers at Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania — one of whom spoke with Truthout in September — won and ratified their first contract after 20 months of bargaining.

According to Abortion Care Network, an association of independent abortion clinics, 42 independent clinics closed in 2022 — each one a devastating loss. However, in the face of incredible adversity, a handful of independent clinics have managed to stay open to provide non-abortion services in states that now ban abortion. One of them is West Alabama Women’s Center, whose operations director told me in August that the clinic could be forced to close in a few months. It remains open, offering contraceptive access, prenatal care, treatment for pregnancy complications, and other general health care. Other clinics have moved to or opened new locations in nearby states where abortion is still legal, so they can continue providing abortion care.

Abortion providers also found innovative new ways to serve patients traveling long distances. Just the Pill, formerly a telemedicine service, launched Abortion Delivered, the nation’s first fleet of mobile abortion clinics, and several Planned Parenthood affiliates followed suit.

Elevated Access, which flies people from restrictive states to places where they can safely receive abortion and gender-affirming care, told Truthout it has received applications from more than 1,000 volunteer pilots. Partners in Abortion Care, a new all-trimester abortion clinic, opened with help from more than 3,000 individual donors and said it has been seeing patients from all over the U.S. and abroad since October.

Abortion funds have also raised and distributed millions of dollars this year. The New York Abortion Access Fund recently reported that it had disbursed over $1 million as of October this year. The Missouri Abortion Fund distributed more than $647,000. Kentucky Health Justice Network (KHJN) told Truthout it helped roughly 1,650 abortion seekers this year. Prior to August, over 80 percent of its callers were going to one clinic in Kentucky. Now KHJN funds procedures at nearly 20 clinics across the region. Reproductive Freedom Fund of New Hampshire said it met 100 percent of the need for abortion funding for in-state patients and funded $50,000 toward procedures for out-of-state patients. New abortion funds launched, including the REACH Fund of Connecticut and Abortion Freedom Fund, which specifically funds telehealth abortions.

Though most abortion funds have historically ran on volunteer labor, many have begun to hire paid staff in order to make their work more sustainable. For example, DC Abortion Fund, which told Truthout it pledged over $2 million dollars to over 5,000 callers this year, also hired five full-time paid staff members for the first time in its history. Holler Health Justice, a fund in West Virginia, told Truthout its staff unionized with Industrial Workers of the World-West Virginia and finalized a first contract in May.

Online, I Need an A created a new advanced search feature allowing internet users to look for clinics based on the type of procedures offered and local legal restrictions, as well as search for abortion support organizations. Online Abortion Resource Squad told Truthout its volunteers answered 11,000 posts with accurate information on Reddit. A late 2021 Food and Drug Administration rule change made telemedicine simpler and more accessible, although only in the 31 states that allow it.

Advocates have also successfully defended people against criminalization for their pregnancy outcomes. In April, organizing by South Texans for Reproductive Justice, Frontera Fund and the Repro Legal Defense Fund helped secure the release of Lizelle Herrera, who was arrested for allegedly self-managing an abortion and held on $500,000 bail. Repro Legal Defense Fund posted Herrera’s bail and all charges against her were later dropped.

Pregnancy Justice (formerly known as National Advocates for Pregnant Women) told Truthout that it has secured the release of 10 pregnant and postpartum women — and counting — who were being held on unconstitutional bond conditions in an Alabama jail, and secured a policy to change those conditions moving forward. Along with a coalition including the ACLU of Northern California and Drug Policy Alliance, Pregnancy Justice also secured the release of Adora Perez, who spent four years in prison after being charged with murder when she experienced a stillbirth.

In a huge organizing and get-out-the-vote victory, Kansas voters resoundingly rejected an anti-abortion ballot measure in August. Despite concerns that the post-Dobbs momentum had faded, abortion-related ballot measures in the midterm elections in Michigan, Kentucky, Vermont, California and Montana all went in favor of abortion access and rights. Several states also enacted laws to expand and protect access to abortion, and even invested in directly funding abortion. And this is not even a comprehensive accounting of the victories, large and small, that advocates for abortion access have achieved this year against all odds.

And yet, there are many people who aren’t getting the abortions they need.

It’s hard to know exactly how many; based on data from Texas and surrounding states, researchers estimate the abortion rate among Texas residents declined by more than 30 percent after that state’s six-week abortion ban was enacted in 2021. However, that was a six-week ban, not a total ban, and Texas residents were still able to travel to nearby states at that time.

Now, for many people across the South and Midwest, the nearest abortion clinic is hundreds of miles away. Though some will order abortion pills online and self-manage their abortions, it is likely that thousands of people will be forced to carry pregnancies to term and give birth against their will. Every single one of these denied abortions will be a gross violation of human rights and bodily autonomy — not just the ones that endanger the pregnant person’s life.

Across the board, reproductive justice advocates and abortion care providers tell me they are exhausted. No one should have to work as hard as they have this year, with such high stakes. I’m tempted to say that we don’t deserve them, but the truth is that we do. Each and every person deserves someone to fight for their right to self-determination with such ferocity. But these tired, overworked people can’t do it alone. So, for 2023, I ask: How will you help them?

SIR KEIR'S LABOUR PARTY

No Room in the Party – Another Jewish Member Expelled by Starmer Regime
Right-wing’s disproportionate targeting of Jewish left-wingers continues

By Skwawkbox

December 29, 2022

Z Article

Artwork by @agitate4change

The Starmer regime has expelled yet another Jewish member – and another former elected officer. Stephen Marks, a left-wing member of Labour’s National Constitutional Committee until he was suspended by the right – a standard factional tactic to ‘nobble’ officials elected by members – has been kicked out of the party for signing petitions.

According to Jewish Voice for Labour, Marks was expelled for signing petitions calling for the end of the use of antisemitism as a smear – a phenomenon already recognised, no doubt to Keir Starmer’s unending frustration, by the QC-led Forde Inquiry he reluctantly commissioned. Labour did not even bother responding to Marks’s challenge to the party’s pretext for suspending him.

According to Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), Marks:

wrote to the Party challenging the grounds for his suspension, but never received a response to that or subsequent attempts at communication.

Until last week, 19th December 2022, when he received a notice of summary expulsion.

Bindmans has written a letter on his behalf to the EHRC which is monitoring Labour’s implementation of its Action Plan against Antisemitism challenging the entire procedure.

They point out thatall actions pre-dated Stephen’s election to the NCC
he was one of a large number of signatories to these public documents and that other signatories have not been investigated by the Labour Party
the charge of undermining the Labour Party’s campaign against racism, which in view of Stephen’s strong anti-racist actions and beliefs, is in fact an example of the Labour Party conflating legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government (expression of which is protected by Article 10 EHRC) with antisemitism.

It goes on to cite words written by Stephen in response to the charges:

“There is a principle of natural justice here, the right to speak up for others subject to accusations which is relevant to all three petitions. I have confirmed with other NCC colleagues that a signature on a statement or petition would not normally be accepted as evidence in a disciplinary case, being merely an expression of legitimate opinion, unless the petition itself contained racist or sexist expressions. Also it is illegitimate not to show ALL signatories as this representation singles me out.”

You can read the full letter here.

Marks is at least the third Jewish member – and the second elected by members at a national level – expelled by Labour in just the last couple of weeks, during the Jewish festival of Hannukah, preceded by National Executive member Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi and Heather Mendick on similarly trumped-up ‘charges’.

Wimborne-Idrissi wrote of Marks’s expulsion:

There is clearly ‘no room in the inn Keir Starmer’s party’ for ‘the wrong type of Jew’ as the deeply-racist right-wing regime continues to reveal its real nature.

Starmer accused of taking Blairite line on health service strikes

UK workers concerned about lack of support as nurses prepare first walk out in 106-year history


Labour leader Keir Starmer accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of going 'into hibernation' during strikes. AFP

Laura O'Callaghan
Dec 14, 2022

Labour leader Keir Starmer and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting have been accused of adopting a New Labour line on UK healthcare reform, sparking fears from workers of a lack of political support as they take strike action.

As Britain braces for historic strikes among workers in the National Health Service, Mr Starmer continues to accuse the Conservative government of failing to negotiate with unions demanding pay rises.

At the same time, Mr Starmer has not abandoned his stance that the 19 per cent pay rise being sought by nurses is unaffordable.

For the first time in the Royal College of Nursing’s 106-year history, members across the country will stage a walkout on Thursday and again on December 20 after Rishi Sunak’s administration rejected their request for a 19 per cent pay rise.

READ MORE
UK strike dates in full, from rail staff to nurses and airport workers

On December 21, about 10,000 ambulance workers across nine NHS trusts in England and Wales will take part in industrial action in a dispute over pay. The Unite union said the most recent offer of a pay rise under the Agenda for Change scale amounts to a real terms pay cut because inflation is at a 40-year high.

During Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, the Labour leader said Rishi Sunak “has curled up in a ball and gone into hibernation” while “winter has arrived for our public services”.

He said the Prime Minister was “pretending everything is fine”.

“Try telling that to those on waiting lists or those that can’t afford to pay for a next-day GP appointment,” he added.

“After 12 years of Tory failure, winter has arrived for our public services.

“If he can’t act on behalf of patients or nurses, or everyone who wants these strikes called off, then surely the whole country’s entitled to ask what is the point of him and what is the point of the government he is supposed to be leading?”

Sir Keir Starmer's approach to leadership has been likened to Tony Blair's. PA

At the Institute for Public Policy Research’s health conference in London last week, Mr Streeting blamed “Conservative mismanagement of our public services over the past 12 years” for the “doom spiral” gripping Britain.

The shadow health secretary has incurred the wrath of the British Medical Association with his calls for NHS reform. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, he claimed the doctors’ union was “hostile” towards Labour’s plans for the health service because the party wanted to improve standards for patients, which could mean different working hours for GPs.

“Whenever I point out the appalling state of access to primary care, where currently a record two million people are waiting more than a month to see a GP, I am treated like some sort of heretic by the BMA — who seem to think any criticism of patient access to primary care is somehow an attack on GPs,” he said.

Allyson Pollock, a clinical professor of public health at Newcastle University, told The National that Labour’s approach to the NHS is not constructive because it largely ignores the root causes of the service’s problems.

She said politicians across the political spectrum too often blame the Covid-19 pandemic for years of mismanagement.

She likened the opposition party’s line to that adopted by New Labour. The term refers to the period in the mid- to late-1990s under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, when Labour was presented as a reformed party.

“I think the most surprising thing is that neither Keir Starmer nor Wes Streeting have pointed to the 30 years of progressive dismantling of the NHS,” she said.

“I would have expected them to set out what they mean by reform. I was dismayed because they are missing the fundamental critique of what’s happening to the NHS. They have failed to articulate the real problems with the system.

“It is clear that new legislation is needed to reinstate the NHS. The workforce problems are a consequence of the running down of the NHS and failure to undertake workforce planning. This was all predicted and predictable.

“It appears that Keir Starmer is adopting the New Labour line which is it doesn’t matter who provides the services so long as there is public funding. But the evidence shows privatisation leads to waste and inequality.

“Labour needs to take a long, hard look at the system and how it’s being dismantled and destroyed. They should be much stronger in their analysis of why the system is breaking.

“There has been a long-term ideological shift away from belief in public services and a belief in markets since New Labour and the Blair government, with the exception of the short period when Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labour opposition.”

Ms Pollock said laying the blame for the NHS’s problems on the Covid-19 pandemic was a mere diversion tactic used by politicians. She argued that many problems affecting the health service today existed years ago and have only continued or worsened.

She said it was “not good enough just to say the NHS is underfunded” without taking into account where money has been channelled to.

“The real story is where is the money going?” she said. “Many billions of pounds are flowing out in contracts with bankers, equity investors, shareholders and director's remuneration — billions of pounds are flowing out to the private sector. It’s all unscrutinised and there is a lack of transparency.

“The NHS has become inefficient because of the way money is leaking out of it and the way money is being diverted to commercial contracting and commercial providers.”
Nurses on strike in the UK — in pictures















Members of the Royal College of Nursing on the picket line outside Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, as nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland strike over pay. PA
Updated: December 15, 2022, 4:17 a.m.

NEVER HEARD OF THE SOCIAL GOSPEL

Religious liberty concerns raised as Texas governor seeks to investigate groups helping migrants

‘The reality is that the majority of the work that is done on the border, the humanitarian work, the reception of refugees and migrants, is done by faith-based organizations,’ said Dylan Corbett, executive director of Hope Border Institute.

Gustavo Banda, center right, pastor of Templo Embajadores de Jesus, Tijuana’s largest migrant shelter, speaks with migrants at a shelter, Oct. 13, 2022, in Tijuana, Mexico. The Biden administration’s policy shift on Venezuelan migrants may pose an enormous challenge to overstretched Mexican shelters. The U.S. has coupled plans to let up to 24,000 Venezuelans apply online to fly to the U.S. for temporary stays with a pledge to immediately turn back Venezuelans who cross the border illegally from Mexico. (AP Photo/Elliot Spagat)

December 15, 2022

By 

Alejandra Molina

(RNS) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has asked the state attorney to investigate nongovernmental organizations that he claims have assisted with “illegal border crossings” along the U.S.-Mexico border near El Paso, raising religious liberty concerns among faith-based groups and religious organizers helping migrants with medical needs and shelter.

Abbott, in his Dec. 14 letter to Attorney General Ken Paxton, didn’t identify any organizations or offer evidence of NGOs “unlawfully orchestrating” border crossings on both sides of the border. The governor urged Paxton to investigate the “role of NGOs in planning and facilitating the illegal transportation of illegal immigrants across our borders.”

Abbott’s office has not returned a request for comment.

Catholic activist Dylan Corbett said that Abbott, with this move, is seeking to intimidate “the very people who are working to address the fallout of a broken immigration system at the border.”

“The reality is that the majority of the work that is done on the border, the humanitarian work, the reception of refugees and migrants, is done by faith-based organizations,” said Corbett, who is the executive director of Hope Border Institute. “We do this as an expression of our faith. We do this as an expression of our commitment to building a more just world because we are people of faith.”

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RELATED: As policies shift, Protestants and other faith groups join Catholics in helping immigrants at the border

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Added Corbett: “It raises serious questions about the abuse of office, and I also think it raises serious questions about religious liberty.”

Corbett said organizations such as his are not engaging in criminal acts by helping migrants along the border. In fact, he said, Hope Border and similar groups are “working to build legal pathways for people to migrate legally.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks during an election night party Nov. 8, 2022, in McAllen, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Abbott’s letter comes days before a Trump-era policy, known as Title 42, is set to end Dec. 21. The policy denies migrants rights under U.S. and international law to request asylum on public health grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. Immigrant rights advocates have said President Joe Biden expanded this policy to apply to Venezuelan migrants seeking asylum. 

The Southwest border has been experiencing a record number of immigrant encounters, many of which are repeat encounters, according to the news site El Paso Matters. Border enforcement agents in El Paso and New Mexico are encountering up to 2,500 migrants daily, the news site reported.

This has led organizations to work overdrive in assisting migrants in need. 

The Hope Border Institute, in a recent report, detailed how Biden’s expansion of the Trump-era policy “represents a significant burden on an already strained safety net for migrants and refugees expelled to Mexico,” particularly Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city on the Rio Grande, just south of El Paso.

The Hope Border Institute, in partnership with Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, has invested over $100,000 through its Border Refugee Assistance Fund to “respond to the ongoing arrival of migrants and asylum seekers to the US-Mexico border, including the recent Venezuelans population,” according to the report.

With the expulsion of Venezuelans to Ciudad Juárez, Hope Border Institute helped offer food, clothing and shelter. It established a program with medical professionals from El Paso who volunteer their time to provide primary care to migrants. The organization has also worked with groups in Ciudad Juárez “to ensure that people on the move and in shelters have access to both basic medicine and mental health services,” according to the report.

Said Corbett: “We’re not intimidated. We’re not afraid. We’re going to continue to do our work. We know that our partners along the border are going to continue to do their work.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

GAMING ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM
Video game developers can educate gamers on the real-time climate crisis in virtual reality


By Adam Smith for Thomson Reuters Foundation
28 Dec 2022 

Video games can make climate change real for players. More video games are about climate change issues. Games can have beneficial behavioural effects on players, but games can also create a false impression of easy fixes.

The ice caps have melted. Continents have been reduced to a handful of islands. Survivors seek to rebuild what is known as the Floodlands.

That’s the premise of a video game released this year which represents a new approach developers are taking: using games to educate players on climate change, and what might happen if they fail to rein it in.

In an earlier game, Eco, the land is still vibrant and human society is growing. Eventually, an asteroid strikes, but the inhabitants do not know that yet.

Eco and Floodlands approach climate change differently – the former as imminent doom, the latter as its aftermath. Both are part of efforts by the $200-billion gaming industry to be a part of the growing discussion on climate change.

“The game shows the worst-case scenario,” Kacper Kwiatkowski, Floodlands designer and head of game studio Vile Monarch, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation over email.

“Our early research indicated that a realistic rise of sea levels is several metres. We decided to assume 10-15 [metres] in the game for more dramatism. Now it seems that this dramatic scenario is not necessarily an unlikely one,” he said.

Globally, there are about 2.6 billion gamers. Activists and governments are hoping they can encourage behavioural change among gamers through green “nudges”, where points are awarded for protecting the environment in consumer games, or explicitly educational, interactive play.

The goal is to close the psychological gap between what people know and what they resonate with, said Hamid Homatash, a lecturer on computer games at Glasgow Caledonian University.

“You can be told all this information that the ice caps are melting, but what does that really mean? It’s quite alien in a way, because you can’t really comprehend that experience,” he said over a video call.

At the 2017 United Nations climate summit in Germany, COP23, and at COP24 in Poland the following year, Homatash presented a game called Earth Remembers, in which players fight the effects of global warming based on an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change model showing the temperature rise.

“The people in the room playing it had audible gasps,” Homatash recalls.

“They were actually shocked and horrified when they saw it happen in front of their eyes.”

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations
‘Damaging understandings’

In the United States, only 42% of adults believe dealing with climate change should be a top priority, according to the US-based data and polling organisation Pew Research Centre.

In Israel and Russia, about half of people believe global climate change is a minor threat, or not a threat at all, it found.

British gamer Ewan Dineen said playing Eco made him more aware of the climate crisis.

“I was aware of climate change before, but didn’t really take much notice of my own environmental impact,” said Dineen (19), an engineering student at University of the West of England in Bristol.

Since putting more than 500 hours into the game, Dineen says he thinks more about his climate footprint – walking instead of taking a car ride, eating less meat, and carrying his own water bottle.

But while video games can encourage beneficial behaviour like Dineen’s, experts say they can also instill bad practices.

In Nintendo’s popular Animal Crossing game, players can sustainably plant fruit trees or harvest the island of all its resources by mercilessly chopping them down.

Research shows the game made players feel positively about their choices, no matter whether the action was considerate or exploitative of the natural resources.

In another game – Civilisation VI’s Gathering Storm – players must consider how cities prepare for survival as increased carbon dioxide emissions cause rising sea levels, droughts and extreme weather.

This includes defences like flood barriers, but also new and controversial technology such as carbon capture and storage (CCS).

While the game can help gamers grasp the damaging effects of climate change, it also shows technologies like CCS being implemented with relative ease – which can have damaging real-world impacts.

“[It] can create a sense, without all the politics involved, that there is a technofix that can solve the issue of a warming planet,” said Elliot Honeybun-Arnolda from the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences.

“The ways in which it portrays technologies without politics, and politics without conflict, may lead to quite damaging understandings of possible climate change solutions.”
Dystopian games

There is little data tracking games that feature climate change, and the number of those games is likely still low.

However, the number of dystopian video games has risen over the past years, and is about 3% of the industry now, according to the industry tracking platform, VG Insights.

But not all of these are related to the climate crisis. Many feature pandemics and other catastrophes.

Platforms like YouTube and Twitch have encouraged some climate researchers to experiment with streaming to attract viewers, but with mixed results.

In 2018, Henri Drake, then a doctoral student in physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, started the channel ClimateFortnite to stream the popular video game Fortnite on Twitch. As he played, guests spoke about politics and the environment.

Several major publications covered the channel, but Drake shut it down after a few months.

ClimateFortnite went “predictably viral”, Drake said in an email. But he said the format was not an effective way to talk about science due to the game’s fast pace and the focus required to be effective.

An attempt to pivot to games like Eco and Civilisation VI, which were better for climate-based discussions, came at the cost of less engagement from viewers, he said.

“These games are excellent and effective at communicating both the problem of climate change (and, crucially, its solutions), but they unfortunately are not very appealing for live streaming,” Drake said.

“The fundamental difficulty in making climate exciting (in gaming and in reality) is that it is a gradual, incremental problem caused largely by an invisible gas.” DM/OBP

This article was originally published on: https://www.context.news/climate-risks/video-games-can-make-climate-change-real-for-players-heres-how

Reporting by Adam Smith, @adamndsmith; editing by Yasir Khan.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. Visit https://www.context.news

At a French factory, the newest employees come from Ukraine

 

4 SLIDES
Alexander Dubitsky arrived from Kharkiv at the end of August.
CREDIT: ELEANOR BEARDSLEY/NPR


BY Eleanor Beardsley
DEC 29, 2022 

NPR

SEMUR-EN-AUXOIS, France — In a factory on the edge of the medieval town of Semur-en-Auxois, French isn't the only language being spoken these days. Over the whir of sewing machines, the sounds of Russian and Ukrainian can be heard as well.

The factory has been turning out leather handbags for French luxury brands since the 1970s. Maroquinerie Thomas' CEO Thierry Thomas says he's hired about 25 Ukrainians this year.


"I hired the first five and then more started coming," he says. "Cousins, sisters-in-law. They work hard, they adapt fast. At first I put them all together. That way if one understood, he could teach the others."

Thomas says it's not charity. He can't find enough French workers.

He offers the Ukrainians long-term contracts without having to go through a trial period, "so they can open bank accounts and rent apartments," he says.

How does he communicate with them?

"Google Translate," he says, laughing.

Europe is being transformed by the war in Ukraine. Even places far from the conflict are feeling the effects. And the longer the war continues, the more lasting those effects will be.

France has taken in more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, according to the French government. They have the right to stay and work and receive a small monthly stipend. Ukrainian children are learning in French schools all over the country and many French families are hosting Ukrainian families.

Thirty-three-year-old Alexander Dubitsky is working on a row of handbag handles. He came from Kharkiv at the end of August. When asked if he will return, he says, "It's not a question of rebuilding after the destruction in Ukraine. That doesn't bother me at all. I would gladly help. But we are always in danger. Even if the war stops, Russia will collect its forces and attack us again three or four years later. This has been our reality for centuries."

Oksana Zoubko is touching up bag straps with black paint. She was a baker in Kharkiv and says she loves working with her hands again.

"It's a wonderful place to work," she says. "A very wholesome atmosphere and our French colleagues are welcoming."

Zoubko says she'd like to go back to Ukraine, but thinks her nine-year old, who attends the village school, probably has a brighter future in France.

Across the work table, French colleagues Ines Chapovaloff and Maud Duvignacq say they feel lucky to share their savoir-faire and learn from the Ukrainians. They praise the Ukrainians' courage and ability to show up for work with a smile despite worries about the war back home.

Yevdokiia Bila, 36, who goes by Julia, tamps down some stitching with a small hammer. She was one of the first Ukrainians hired here last March and is from Vovchansk, right along the Russian border outside Kharkiv.

Thomas has such faith in Bila that he let her supervise a small crew of Ukrainians when their French coworkers all left for their August vacations.

"I was shocked, but in a good way," she says. "All these French workers could go on vacation together. We don't do that in Ukraine."

She says other things have surprised her in France, even the mail.

"Yes, letters and envelopes," she says. "In Ukraine, everything is online. And here I get mail from the school, from the bank. I've gotten back into the habit of checking my mailbox again!"

Bila recently had to return to Ukraine to bury her mother, who had gone to the hospital when her town was under Russian occupation — but there were no doctors. After the town was liberated, her mother was finally diagnosed with a ruptured appendix, but it was too late. She died at age 61.

Bila has rented a newly renovated apartment in the center of the cobblestone town, right across from the church. The Christmas lights from the village square light up her living room.

Several of Bila's friends and family members are also in Semur-en-Auxois and they often gather for meals at her long kitchen table. On the fireplace, she's hung a Ukrainian flag she brought with her — it was part of a celebration of Ukraine's Maidan revolution back in 2014.

Her brother Timur Romanchuk and his wife and daughter arrived in Semur-en-Auxois in June. The family had a farm and stayed as long as they could to protect it and the expensive breed of goats whose milk they used to make cheese.

They kept hoping they wouldn't lose their farm. Romanchuk says he thought he could stay under the Russian occupation. But when the Kremlin orchestrated referendums to annex Ukrainian territory this summer, he knew it was no longer possible.

"Because I knew we'd all be forced to take Russian passports," he says. That's when they decided to abandon the farm. They gave their goats to neighbors.

When asked if there are any circumstances under which they could live normally in Vovchansk, they're not so sure.

"If there was a big garden in the place of Russia," Bila says. "With sunflowers and wheat. We always imagine the problem is Putin, but Putin is not the reason, Putin is a consequence. There was also Stalin and there's always something. Is there anybody with a conscience in Russia to wake up and change and be different?"

The Ukrainians take French lessons every week at the factory. Thirty-nine-year-old Andriy Pryputniev, a former coal miner, follows along closely. His family got out of Kharkiv in March, and he followed them to France in September.

"My children study in a French school," he says. "My son plays football and another son plays guitar and music in the school."

This year wasn't the first time Pryputniev has had to flee to a new place. In 2014, he arrived in Kharkiv from his home in Luhansk, after fighting there between Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.

He had always thought he would spend the rest of his days in Luhansk. "I thought I'd collect my pension there," he says.

Nowadays, "Sometimes when I drive the car back home after work, I think in my head, 'Where am I?'" he says with a laugh. "I'm in France? Seriously?"

Pryputniev takes his French lessons seriously. With two destroyed houses behind him, he says he's not going back to Ukraine. [Copyright 2022 NPR]

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

JPMorgan Chase sued for allegedly benefiting from Jeffrey Epstein


"Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan," the filing stated.

By Madeleine Hubbard
Updated: December 29, 2022 

The U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase for allegedly receiving financial benefits from Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking activities and failing to report suspicious banking activity.

"Over more than a decade, JPMorgan clearly knew it was not complying with federal regulations in regard to Epstein-related accounts as evidenced by its too-little too-late efforts after Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges and shortly after his death, when JPMorgan belatedly complied with federal law," U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George said in a complaint, CNN reported Thursday.

"Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan," the filing stated.

JPMorgan Chase is being accused in the lawsuit of failing to make filings that could have notified government officials about Epstein's alleged trafficking of minors through the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he owned private islands.

The attorney general also argued that the Wall Street bank should have paid closer attention to Epstein after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution with a minor.

Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019.

A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson told CNN that it did not have a comment on the lawsuit Wednesday evening.

Two anonymous women who accused Epstein of abuse filed lawsuits last month against JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, claiming the financial institutions enabled and benefited from alleged trafficking.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general settled with Epstein's estate for more than $105 million and the estate agreed to sell Epstein's two islands there and cease business operations.

New Mexico seeks changes to US rules for wildfire claims

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN

FILE - New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas talks during a news conference on Feb. 26, 2019, in Albuquerque, N.M. Balderas is asking that changes be made to rules proposed by the U.S. government as it processes damage claims from a historic wildfire sparked by forest managers.

 (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas is asking that changes be made to rules proposed by the U.S. government as it processes damage claims from a historic wildfire sparked by forest managers.

Balderas filed comments on the Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon Fire assistance regulations this week, outlining concerns over limitations on damages, the lack of a clear appeals process and leadership of the team that will oversee the claims process.

Numerous missteps by the U.S. Forest Service resulted in prescribed fires erupting this spring into the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history. The blaze forced the evacuation of thousands of residents from villages throughout the Sangre de Cristo mountain range as it burned through more than 530 square miles (1,373 square kilometers) of the Rocky Mountain foothills.

The fire forced the Forest Service to review its prescribed fire polices before resuming operations in the fall, and experts have said the environmental consequences will span generations.

Balderas, who is term limited and will be leaving office at the end of the year, is requesting the Federal Emergency Management Agency appoint an independent claims manager who has experience practicing law in New Mexico to oversee the review of claims.

Claims for damages will be assessed under state law, and a background in New Mexico law will be imperative to properly assessing and compensating residents, he said.

“We’re taking action today to begin recovery from a tragic wildfire that never should have occurred, and we are fighting for the federal government to acknowledge the gaps in the FEMA process that have historically ignored the unique needs of communities,” Balderas said in a statement issued Wednesday.

Many residents were either uninsured or underinsured and have complained that FEMA workers don’t understand northern New Mexico. They have described the claims process as overwhelming.

A final public meeting to comment on the proposed FEMA regulations will be Jan. 5 in Mora.

Top state officials have said the regulations need to account for the uniqueness of the region — a mountainous rural expanse where culture and tradition are intertwined with the landscape.

The fire resulted in what the attorney general’s office called significant tree and erosion losses. Balderas said New Mexico law has previously allowed for recovery of the full value of any trees destroyed on a person’s property and this should be no exception.

Congress has approved nearly $4 billion in assistance for the wildfire victims, including $1.45 billion that was part of the massive spending bill passed last week.

U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, whose district includes the fire-ravaged region, said the latest funding marks another step in the right direction while acknowledging that recovery will be challenging.

“This additional funding is what justice looks like — the federal government is taking responsibility for the harm it caused and answering the stories, voices, and calls for help to rebuild,” she said in a statement. “My promise has always been to pursue every possible opportunity to seek justice.”

The latest federal measure also includes separate streams of funding for forest restoration and watershed protection work.

The New Mexico attorney general’s office also has filed a notice of loss that seeks compensation for billions of dollars in damages suffered by local and state government agencies as a result of the wildfire.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
U.S. Sues AmerisourceBergen Saying Distributor Fueled Opioid Epidemic

By Nate Raymond and Jonathan Stempel
12/29/22 

The U.S. government on Thursay filed a civil lawsuit accusing the drug distributor AmerisourceBergen Corp of contributing to the deadly U.S. opioid epidemic by repeatedly failing to report suspicious orders of prescription painkillers.

In a complaint filed in Philadelphia federal court, the Department of Justice said the drug distributor and two units violated their legal obligation to resolve suspicious activity in customer orders, or alert the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to suspicious customer behavior.

The complaint said AmerisourceBergen since 2014 had repeatedly refused or negligently failed to flag suspicious orders by pharmacy customers when it had reason to know that opioids were being diverted to illegal channels.

The lawsuit said AmerisourceBergen, one of the country's three largest drug distributors, intentionally altered how one of its units monitored orders, dramatically reducing the number of controlled-substance orders that underwent internal review.

The Justice Department said company's systematic failure to report suspicious orders to the DEA contributed to the opioid epidemic. It is seeking billions of dollars in penalties.

"For years, AmerisourceBergen prioritized profits over its legal obligations and over Americans' well-being," Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta told reporters.

Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based AmerisourceBergen in a statement said the lawsuit focused on five pharmacies it shipped drugs to that were "cherry picked" out of the tens of thousands it works with and that it ignored the DEA's own failures to act.

"In fact, AmerisourceBergen terminated relationships with four of them before DEA ever took any enforcement action while two of the five pharmacies maintain their DEA controlled substance registration to this day," the company said.

Opioids have contributed to more than 564,000 overdose deaths from 1999 to 2020, according to U.S. government data. Nearly 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week, up 16% from 2020.

The case came after AmerisourceBergen agreed in 2021 to pay up to $6.4 billion to resolve thousands of lawsuits accusing it and other drug distributors of ignoring red flags indicating the prescription painkillers were being diverted for improper uses.

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It agreed to that deal as part of a broader, $26 billion settlement resolving more than 3,000 lawsuits by state and local governments against the company, its two primary distributor rivals -- McKesson Corp and Cardinal Health -- and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson.

Thursday's lawsuit is latest in a series of criminal and civil actions the Justice Department has pursued against companies accused of fueling the opioid epidemic.

Other companies targeted by the Justice Department include OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, which pleaded guilty to criminal charges in 2020 over the handling of the addictive painkiller, and Walmart Inc, which is fighting a lawsuit alleging its pharmacies unlawfully distributed opioids.


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