The ‘Lost Boys’ of Gen Z: How Trump won the hearts of alienated young men

The Conversation
November 11, 2024 

A supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rallies outside an early polling precinct as voters cast their ballots in local, state, and national elections, in Clearwater, Florida, U.S., November 3, 2024. REUTERS/Octavio Jones

Generation Z was supposed to be a vanguard of progressive politics – more queer, ethnically diverse and environmentally conscious than previous generations. Spurred on by climate protests, racial equality campaigns and feminist movements, we were sold the vision that Gen Z could usher in a more progressive and equitable future.

So, how is it that Donald Trump was elected to a second term despite this cohort now having reached voting age? And how did he secure a larger share of voters under 30 than any Republican presidential candidate since 2008?

The answer may lie in Gen Z’s “Lost Boys”, as they’ve been dubbed by some in the media. Not unlike Peter Pan’s disciples, these young men are failing to mature and find purpose in today’s rapidly changing social and economic landscape. They feel overlooked and shortchanged by left-wing politics and current economic outcomes.

In Trump, they see an outlet for their grievances – a figure who promises to restore the old order and give them the recognition they believe they deserve.
Many young people see no future

Despite the narrative that Gen Z is more progressive than previous cohorts, recent voting data tell a different story when it comes to young men. While the political leanings of Gen Z women have stayed steadily left of centre, Trump’s popularity among young men surged by 15 percentage points from 2020.

To understand why so many young men are drawn to Trump’s brand of populism, it’s crucial to look at the broader social context in which they are coming of age. The “Lost Boys” in the United States are disproportionately working-class and struggling with unemployment, underemployment, addiction and mental health crises.

The statistics are alarming. With one in five men under 25 unemployed (and many not actively seeking work), they seem hesitant to adapt to a new economy that no longer offers them the opportunities it once did.


Against this backdrop, young men seek out explanations for their struggles in ways that affirm their sense of injustice. These explanations are often found in the “manosphere” – a loose confederacy of social media platforms and influencers flooded with discussions about how “woke” politics, feminism and the rise of progressive values are undermining traditional masculinity.

In these corners of the internet, young men are told their personal setbacks are not the result of a weakening worldwide economy or personal failings, but rather the consequence of a society that has become too “soft”. They hear that the push for gender equality has made traditional masculinity a thing of the past – that men are being ignored, emasculated and left behind.


The “manosphere” is a space where their grievances are validated and where they are encouraged to embrace hypermasculine ideals as a way to regain control.
Searching for validation

Enter Trump.

Flitting between manosphere influencers such as Joe Rogan and Adin Ross, Trump spent hours on podcasts and streams in the lead-up to November 5. The result was so effective that podcasters were specifically shouted out in the victory declaration speech following the election. Since Trump entered politics, he has 107 podcast credits to his name, compared with Kamala Harris’ 76.

Notably, Harris’ own interview with Rogan fell through after the podcaster refused to accept her conditions, which included travelling to meet her.

In these online spaces, Trump was humorous and humanised. And for Gen Z men who consume more news through social media than traditional outlets, he was highly accessible. Suddenly, he wasn’t just a presidential candidate, but a certified “bro” willing to openly discuss cocaine on a podcast.

Trump successfully tapped into the frustrations of these “Lost Boys”. His policies – from mass deportations to curbing diversity initiatives – are framed as solutions to the challenges these men believe they face: competition for jobs and opportunities, the erosion of masculine ideals, and the loss of a once-dominant social order.

Yet as Trump waltzes to the Republican National Convention stage with James Brown’s It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World playing in the background, it becomes apparent his appeal was never just about policies; it’s about validation. His slogan of “Make America Great Again” resonates with young men who long for an idealised past in which men’s roles were more clearly defined and opportunities more plentiful.




Trump tells these men their frustrations are valid – and they deserve to take back what they believe has been unfairly taken from them.

Where to from here?

If the future belongs to Gen Z, it’s clear this particular subset of young men is not ready to follow the same path as their progressive peers. For many “Lost Boys”, Trump is more than just a political figure – he is a symbol of empowerment in a world that increasingly leaves them behind.

As the political and cultural landscape continues to evolve, understanding this phenomenon isn’t just a matter of curiosity, but a key to addressing the needs of a generation still trying to find its place in a confusing world.

Until figures on the political left learn to be present in these spaces and address the grievances of “Lost Boys”, we may continue to see them rallying around figures like Trump in their search for meaning.

'Chaos voters': Analyst reveals why Trump supporters want to watch 'things burn'

Kathleen Culliton
November 11, 2024

Supporters wearing 'MAGA' caps gather ahead of a campaign rally featuring Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S., November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Emily Elconi
A desire for chaos is a key reason that some supporters of President-elect Donald Trump are thrilled he'll resume the White House in 2025 despite economic plans that experts warn could ignite an "inflation bomb," feminist author Jill Filipovic argued in a MSNBC editorial Monday.

"But what if a good number of Trump’s fans are simply chaos voters?" Filipovic wrote. "They may not feel horribly mistreated so much as they resent what they perceive as the better treatment accorded to people they don’t think deserve it. These voters wouldn't be turned off by Trump’s aggression and his threats because his brash rhetoric is part of the appeal."

Trump, whom Filipovic dubbed "one of the singularly worst presidents" in American history, repeatedly targeted people of color in campaign rhetoric with anti-immigrant and wrong claims that Haitian immigrants eat pets and people who cross the border have "bad genes."

She argues these comments rallied people such as conservative commentator Ryan Girdusky, who was recently banned by CNN for expressing a racist death wish against journalist Mehdi Hasan.

Girdusky said he hoped Haasn's "beeper doesn't go off," a reference to the deadly Israeli attack targeting the militant group Hezbollah.


This violent rhetoric toward people of color was only ramped up on Election Day, journalist Justin Baragona reported.

"Girdusky says this election is a chance for 'white men' to throw a 'middle finger' at the "people who talk down to you," Baragona wrote on X. Girdusky also said on Real America’s Voice News, "This is the day you get to throw a human Molotov cocktail."

For Filipovic, it's just more proof that Trump's voters are thrilled by the prospect of "watching things burn."


"The suffering of those you deem unworthy is more appealing than appalling; maybe it’s even exciting," she wrote. "These men (and a whole lot of women too) showed up — and they torched the place."

‘Anti-war’ comedy directed by Malkovich riles Bulgarian nationalists


By AFP
November 12, 2024

Angry protesters tried to force their way into the national theatre in Sofia to disrupt the premiere of 'Arms and the Man' - Copyright AFP -
Vessela SERGUEVA

A 19th-century play directed by US actor John Malkovich has enraged nationalists in Bulgaria who call it an insult to the country — a claim the Hollywood star rejected as stirred up by the far right.

Last week’s premiere of “Arms and the Man” by renowned Irish-born playwright George Bernard Shaw sparked raucous protests by nationalist groups.

Holding up banners that read “Malkovich go home”, protesters blocked access to the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in the capital Sofia on Thursday before attempting to storm it, accusing the 70-year-old director of ridiculing the country’s history and its citizens.

“This play is a disgrace and must be banned. It makes a mockery of our ancestors who perished for Bulgaria,” shouted 21-year-old student Yoana Ilieva, part of an infuriated crowd.

After the play premiered in an almost empty theatre, Malkovich expressed his astonishment over how his production was received.

“It’s a quite odd reaction, but it is a strange time in the world — more and more people love to censor things they don’t agree with,” he said at a press conference alongside several actors on stage.

Brandishing Bulgarian flags, a mob of angry protesters verbally and physically assaulted the director of the theatre and the former culture minister among others.

The prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the clashes.



– ‘Get attention’ –



The play is a humorous take on the Serbo-Bulgarian conflict in the late 19th century, exploring the absurdity of war while exposing the flaws of heroic adulation and militarism.

It is a “charming, light, kind of anti-war” comedy that Malkovich had already staged on Broadway in 1985, he told AFP in an interview.

He said he considered that seeking historical accuracy in a play was “frighteningly naive”.

Malkovich said he was “pretty sure I’ve never insulted any of the 47 countries” he has worked in, adding that such an accusation “could only be posited by people who don’t know me at all”.

“I think it’s not about the play at all. And I’m not even sure it’s about me, really,” he said.

According to Malkovich, Shaw “knew nothing about Bulgaria”, saying the playwright “just wanted a place to set the war”.

He said he believed far-right protesters were trying to grab people’s “attention for the things they want”.



– ‘Obstructing freedom of expression’



Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest nation, has been plagued by political turmoil since 2021, which has favoured the country’s far right amid a surge in pro-Russian disinformation campaigns, according to NGOs in the country.

For the pro-Russian, ultra-nationalist Vazrazhdane party, the third-largest force in parliament, “not only is the play mediocre” but the production also had “totally inadequate staging”.

Bulgaria’s conservative writers’ union SBP said “such works” had no place in Bulgaria, criticising what it perceived as the “mockery of the thousands of soldiers who fell at the front for the freedom and reunification of the country”.

The play had already been staged twice by Bulgarian director Nikolay Polyakov in 1995 and 2000, without sparking large public outrage.

“The current climate is much more tense, with passions running high and hatred fanned against everything Western and American,” Polyakov told AFP.

Nikolay Hristov, a 66-year-old architect who saw the comedy with his wife on Friday, said there was “nothing anti-Bulgarian” about the “fun” play, adding it was “more about love, lies and misunderstood honour”.

The European Association of Independent Performing Arts (EAIPA) condemned “the outright obstruction of the freedom of artistic expression” by “far-right activists, on the pretext that it mocked Bulgarian national pride”.

“The rise of hatred and aggression in Europe is a direct provocation to essential human rights,” it said.

Boeing reaches settlement to avert civil trial in MAX crash


By AFP
November 11, 2024


Beleaguered aviation giant Boeing reached a last-minute settlement with the family of a fatal crash victim that was set to go to trial on November 12, 2024

 - Copyright AFP Jim WATSON

Elodie MAZEIN

Beleaguered aviation giant Boeing reached a last-minute settlement Monday with the family of a woman killed in the crash of a 737 MAX jetliner in 2019, averting a federal civil trial.

Three sources close to the case told AFP that a settlement had been agreed upon out of court, but they gave no details.

The crash of the Ethiopian Airlines plane killed 157 people. The trial was set to begin Tuesday in Chicago.

It originally involved six plaintiffs but until now all but one had settled, according to a source familiar with the case.

The hearing on Tuesday will take place to inform Judge Jorge Alonso of the settlement, who must approve the deal for it to be officially settled, the source said.

“It is a damage-only trial, meaning no evidence regarding the liability of Boeing will be presented,” the source told AFP.

The remaining case involved Manisha Nukavarapu, an Indian-born woman who was on board Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 on March 10, 2019, when the Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.

Lawyers for the plaintiff’s family did not respond to a request for comment by AFP.

The initial complaint, obtained by AFP, said Nukavarapu was in her second year of medical school residency at East Tennessee State University, where she planned to become an endocrinologist.

She had planned to take the Ethiopian Airlines flight to visit her sister in Kenya.

– Negligence –

A court document from June 2023 said that relatives of 115 victims filed civil complaints against Boeing for wrongful death and negligence, among other things, between April 2019 and March 2021.

As of October 22, there were still “30 cases pending on behalf of 29 decedents” according to a source close to the legal proceedings.

The complaints have been divided into several groups, with the next group scheduled to go to trial on April 7, 2025.

Boeing has “accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes publicly and in civil litigation because the design of the MCAS…contributed to these events,” a lawyer for Boeing said during an October hearing.

MCAS, a flight stabilizing feature, was implicated in the Ethiopian Airlines crash and a 737 MAX 8 jet operated by Lion Air, which crashed on October 29, 2018, about 10 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia. All 189 people aboard the plane died.

After the two 737 MAX crashes, the entire 737 MAX fleet were grounded for more than 20 months for authorities to conduct an investigation.

According to Boeing, more than 90% of the civil complaints filed about the two crashes have been resolved.

“Boeing has paid billions of dollars to the crash families and their lawyers in connection with civil litigation,” an attorney for Boeing, Mark Filip, said at a hearing on October 11.

Bees help tackle elephant-human conflict in Kenya


By AFP
November 11, 2024

William Mwanduka inspects hives housing colonies of African honeybees 

- Copyright AFP Tony KARUMBA
Rose TROUP BUCHANAN

“We used to hate elephants a lot,” Kenyan farmer Charity Mwangome says, pausing from her work under the shade of a baobab tree.

The bees humming in the background are part of the reason why her hatred has dimmed.

The diminutive 58-year-old said rapacious elephants would often destroy months of work in her farmland that sits between two parts of Kenya’s world-renowned Tsavo National Park.

Beloved by tourists — who contribute around 10 percent of Kenya’s GDP — the animals are loathed by most local farmers, who form the backbone of the nation’s economy.

Elephant conservation has been a roaring success: numbers in Tsavo rose from around 6,000 in the mid-1990s to almost 15,000 elephants in 2021, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

But the human population also expanded, encroaching on grazing and migration routes for the herds.

Resulting clashes are becoming the number one cause of elephant deaths, says KWS.

Refused compensation when she lost her crops, Mwangome admits she was mad with the conservationists.

But a long-running project by charity Save the Elephants offered her an unlikely solution — deterring some of nature’s biggest animals with some of its smallest: African honeybees.

Cheery yellow beehive fences now protect several local plots, including Mwangome’s.

A nine-year study published last month found that elephants avoided farms with the ferocious bees 86 percent of the time.

“The beehive fences came to our rescue,” said Mwangome.



– Hacking nature –



The deep humming of 70,000 bees is enough to make many flee, including a six-tonne elephant, but Loise Kawira calmly removes a tray in her apiary to demonstrate the intricate combs of wax and honey.

Kawira, who joined Save the Elephants in 2021 as their consultant beekeeper, trains and monitors farmers in the delicate art.

The project supports 49 farmers, whose plots are surrounded by 15 connected hives.

Each is strung on greased wire a few metres off the ground, which protects them from badgers and insects, but also means they shake when disturbed by a hungry elephant.

“Once the elephants hear the sound of the bees and the smell, they run away,” Kawira told AFP.

“It hacks the interaction between elephants and bees,” added Ewan Brennan, local project coordinator.

It has been effective, but recent droughts, exacerbated by climate change, have raised challenges.

“(In) the total heat, the dryness, bees have absconded,” said Kawira.

It is also expensive — about 150,000 Kenyan shillings ($1,100) to install hives — well beyond the means of subsistence farmers, though the project organisers say it is still cheaper than electric fences.



– ‘I was going to die’ –



Just moments after AFP arrived at Mwanajuma Kibula’s farm, which abuts one of the Tsavo parks, her beehive fence had seen off an elephant.

The five-tonne animal, its skin caked in red mud, rumbled into the area and then did an abrupt about-face.

“I know my crops are protected,” Kibula said with palpable relief.

Kibula, 48, also harvests honey twice a year from her hives, making 450 shillings per jar — enough to pay school fees for her children.

She is fortunate to have protection from the biggest land mammals on Earth.

“An elephant ripped off my roof, I had to hide under the bed because I knew I was going to die,” said a less-fortunate neighbour, Hendrita Mwalada, 67.

For those who can’t afford bees, Save the Elephants offers other solutions, such as metal-sheet fences that clatter when shaken by approaching elephants, and diesel- or chilli-soaked rags that deter them.

It is not always enough.

“I have tried planting but every time the crops are ready, the elephants come and destroy the crops,” Mwalada told AFP.

“That has been the story of my life, a life full of too much struggling.”

China planning to cut taxes on home buying: report

NEITHER COMMUNISM NOR SOCIALISM, 

BUT STATE CAPITALI$M

By AFP
November 12, 2024

Unfinished apartments at a complex in Xinzheng City in Zhengzhouin 2023. China is looking to slash taxes on home purchases as the government strengthens fiscal support for the ailing real estate sector - Copyright AFP/File Pedro PARDO

China is looking to slash taxes on home purchases as the government strengthens fiscal support for its ailing real estate sector, a media report said on Tuesday.

Regulators are preparing a proposal that would enable major cities such as Shanghai and Beijing to reduce the deed tax for buyers to as low as one percent from the current level of up to three percent, Bloomberg News said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The property sector has long accounted for around a quarter of gross domestic product and experienced dazzling growth for two decades, but a years-long housing slump has battered growth as authorities eye a target of around five percent for 2024.

China is trying to shore up the sector, and said in October that it would boost credit available for unfinished housing projects to more than $500 billion.

Beijing has in recent months also announced a raft of measures aimed at boosting economic activity, including rate cuts and the easing of some home purchasing restrictions.

China last week unveiled an ambitious plan to relieve public debt, aiming to turn local governments away from belt-tightening practices that have exacerbated the domestic downturn.

Policymakers approved a proposal to swap six trillion yuan ($840 billion) of hidden debt belonging to local governments for official loans with more favourable terms.

Hidden debts are defined as borrowing for which a government is liable, but not disclosed to its citizens or to other creditors.

This move would free up space for local governments to better develop the economy and protect people’s livelihoods, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Lawmakers are also eyeing the possibility of escalating trade tensions following Donald Trump’s re-election, with China’s top economic planning body on Monday urging the government to bolster domestic demand.

Trump has promised punishing tariffs on Chinese goods that threaten further grief for the world’s second-largest economy, which is already grappling with sluggish consumption on top of the prolonged housing crisis.

“In the coming period, the dominance of the domestic market in the economic cycle will become increasingly apparent,” according to a commentary written by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in China’s Economic Daily.

Focusing on lifting domestic demand is not only a “strategic necessity for national development but also mitigates the impact of external shocks and declining external demand”, the NDRC added.

Peru’s Chancay: China’s megaport of entry to South America


By AFP
November 11, 2024


Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to inaugurate a major new Beijing-funded port in the small Peruvian town of Chancay, north of the capital Lima - Copyright AFP Cris BOURONCLE

Huge cranes loom over Peru’s massive new Chinese-funded Chancay port, a symbol of Beijing’s growing influence in South America which is set to be inaugurated by President Xi Jinping on Thursday.

“It’s nearly ready,” Gonzalo Rios, deputy general manager of the Peruvian subsidiary of Chinese port operator Cosco Shipping, which has a 60 percent stake in the facility, said during a recent visit to the deep-water port.

Situated around 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of the capital Lima, the $3.5 billion complex is expected to become a major hub for trade between South America and China.

Chancay’s maximum depth is 17.8 meters (58.4 feet), two meters deeper than Lima’s Callao port, making it capable of handling the world’s biggest container ships.

“With the addition of this port, this part of the Pacific and Peru in particular could become the logistical hub of South America,” Rios told AFP.

The facility will be unveiled by Xi and his Peruvian counterpart Dina Boluarte on the sidelines of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima.



– South America’s ‘Silk Road’ –



The port is the latest addition to the vast collection of railways, highways and other infrastructure projects built under China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative.

Launched in 2013, the program initially focused on better connecting China with Europe, Africa and the rest of Asia but has since expanded to include South America.

Chancay, a fishing town of around 50,000 inhabitants, was chosen for its strategic location in the heart of South America.

Cosco Shipping Ports, which has a 30-year concession to operate the terminal, has forecast it will handle up to one million containers in its first year of operations.

Chancay is expected to be a major hub for imports of Asian electronics, textiles and other consumer goods and for the export of minerals, including lithium — a metal used in mobile phone and laptop batteries — from Chile and copper from both Chile and Peru.

“Peru is a source of raw materials for China,” Oscar Vidarte, professor of international relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, told AFP.

Bilateral trade between the Asian giant and Peru, one of Latin America’s fastest-growing economies for the past decade, stood at nearly $36 billion in 2023, making Peru China’s fourth-largest Latin American trading partner.

“Our goal is to become the Singapore of Latin America,” Peruvian Transport Minister Raul Perez told reporters at Chancay.

“We will have direct routes to Asia, in particular to China, which will reduce (shipping time) by 10, 15, even 20 days, depending on the route,” compared to 35-40 days currently, he said.

Chancay port will also serve Chile, Colombia and Ecuador, among other South American countries, allowing them to skirt ports in Mexico and the United States for trade with Asia.

“It will allow China to position itself in this part of the world,” Vidarte said.

Francisco Belaunde, a professor in international law at Lima University and other faculties, called it “part of the battle for geopolitical influence” in South America pitting China against the United States.

Connected to the Pan-American highway — a network of roads linking most of North and South America along the Pacific — through a mile-long tunnel, the port will use artificial intelligence to inspect containers for drugs and other illicit goods, according to Perez, the transport minister.

Peru is the world’s biggest cocaine producer after Colombia.

Currently, much of the drug is smuggled through the port of Guayaquil in neighboring Ecuador.

“We will use the most advanced technology to ensure the safety of the containers,” Perez said.

Toxic towns in Kyrgyzstan battling radioactive danger

By AFP
November 12, 2024

Three decades on from independence, Kyrgyzstan is still dealing with the consequences of the Cold War nuclear arms race - Copyright AFP/File Daniel Beloumou Olomo
Adina Zhorobekova

In a mask and a hazmat suit, Ermek Murataliyev drives a truck filled with Soviet-era radioactive waste along the winding mountain roads of Kyrgyzstan.

His is a hazardous mission: two such trucks crashed into ravines over the summer.

Drivers in this former Soviet Central Asian state are forbidden to stop until they reach their final destination — a storage zone where the waste will be buried under thick layers of compacted clay and rock.

Murataliyev had to undergo a medical inspection and have regular health checks to get the job.

“I have been trained on how to keep myself safe,” he said.

Three decades on from independence, Kyrgyzstan is still dealing with the consequences of the Cold War nuclear arms race, when Central Asia provided the Soviet Union with all of its uranium.

Kyrgyz authorities say there are now six million cubic metres of radioactive waste in 30 sites such as Min-Kush, which require complex and costly disposal measures.

“When the Soviet Union collapsed, Kyrgyzstan had neither the equipment nor the money to transfer the waste to safe sites,” said Ilgiz Ernis, deputy mayor of the Min-Kush municipality.

“The process was badly delayed,” he said.

The disposal work is now in its final stages and is being carried out by the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom as well as the European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.



– ‘Radioactive lake’ –



Local resident Aiman Kishkenalina said “this problem is not just for Min-Kush but for all of Kyrgyzstan”.

Kishkenalina is one of around 5,600 residents of the run-down uranium mining town — a ticking time bomb with grave human and environmental consequences.

“Some experts with dosimeters found that the (radiation) level was too high in some places,” she said.

Local officials say it is in fact up to six times higher than the norm.

Radioactive waste has also been found in the river running through Min-Kush that flows into the Syr Darya, the second-largest river in the region, potentially threatening up to 80 million people.

“The (radioactive) content of the water that passes under the disposal area breaches admissible norms,” said Bakytbek Asankulov, who is in charge of radioactive security at the Kyrgyz emergency situations ministry.

Asankulov also warned of the risk of a landslide where natural disasters exacerbated by climate change are becoming more frequent.

He said a landslide triggered by either foul weather or the earthquake-prone country’s tremors could block up the river and “create a radioactive lake”.

If the water from such a lake were to burst out, it “would reach the Fergana Valley” — the most populated part of Central Asia where Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan meet.



– ‘Hair falling out’ –



Warnings from the authorities not to drink contaminated water from the river are ignored by some local inhabitants.

“We eat the livestock and we drink the milk of cows” that have drunk the water, said Perizat Berdaliyeva, a retired former accountant at the uranium mine.

Health risks from radiation were covered up in Soviet times but, unlike many other parts of the Communist bloc, atomic industry towns like Min-Kush had no food shortages.

“Everything was available,” Berdaliyeva remembered.

Scientific studies have found an abnormal prevalence of illnesses such as cancer and depleted immune systems among people living close to nuclear waste sites.

“My two daughters’ hair is falling out. They are often sick. My husband gets nose bleeds,” said Nazgul Zarylbek, 25.

Her house was recently pulled down by the authorities because it was contaminated with radiation. She received 5,000 euros ($5,300) in compensation and was re-housed in a different part of Min-Kush.

Located in a picturesque valley at an altitude of 2,000 metres (6,500 feet), Min-Kush could appear relatively normal were it not for an electronic display outside the mayor’s office showing the current radiation levels.

The town in central Kyrgyzstan wants to turn the page from its toxic past and local officials are even hoping that it could have tourism potential.

“The transfer of uranium waste to a safer area will allow Min-Kush to be taken off the red list for tourism,” deputy mayor Ernis said.

Nations approve new UN rules on carbon markets at COP29

By AFP

November 11, 2024

Carbon credits are generated by activities that reduce or avoid planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions, like planting trees or replacing polluting coal with clean-energy alternatives - Copyright AFP Tony KARUMBA

Governments at the COP29 talks approved Monday new UN standards for international carbon markets in a key step toward allowing countries to trade credits to meet their climate targets.

On the opening day of the UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, nearly 200 nations agreed a number of crucial ground rules for setting a market in motion after nearly a decade of complex discussions.

Other key aspects of the overall framework still need to be negotiated, experts said, but the decision brings closer a long-sought UN-backed market trading in high-quality credits.

“It’s hugely significant,” Erika Lennon, from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), told AFP in Baku, saying it would “open the door” for a fully-fledged market.

Carbon credits are generated by activities that reduce or avoid planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions, like planting trees, protecting carbon sinks or replacing polluting coal with clean-energy alternatives.

One credit equals a tonne of prevented or removed heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

Since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, the UN has been crafting rules to allow countries and businesses to exchange credits in a transparent and credible market.

The benchmarks adopted in Baku will allow for the development of rules including calculating how many credits a given project can receive.

Once up and running, a carbon market would allow countries — mainly wealthy polluters — to offset emissions by purchasing credits from nations that have cut greenhouse gases above what they promised.

Purchasing countries could then put carbon credits toward achieving the climate goals promised in their national plans.

– ‘Big step closer’ –

“It gets the system a big step closer to actually existing in the real world,” said Gilles Dufrasne from Carbon Market Watch, a think tank.

“But even with this, it doesn’t mean the market actually exists,” he added, saying further safeguards and questions around governance still remain unanswered.

An earlier UN attempt to regulate carbon markets under the Paris accord were rejected in Dubai in 2023 by the European Union and developing nations for being too lax.

Some observers were unhappy that the decision in Baku left unresolved other long-standing and crucial aspects of the broader crediting mechanism, known in UN terms as Article 6.

“It’s not possible to declare victory,” said a European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

There are hopes that a robust and credible UN carbon market could eventually indirectly raise the standards of the scandal-hit voluntary trade in credits.

Corporations wanting to offset their emissions and make claims of carbon neutrality have been major buyers of these credits, which are bought and exchanged but lack common standards.

But the voluntary market has been rocked by scandals in recent years amid accusations that some credits sold did not reduce emissions as promised, or that projects exploited local communities.

And the idea of offsetting as a whole faces deep scepticism from many.

“No matter how much integrity there is in the sort of the carbon markets, if what you are doing is offsetting ongoing fossil fuels with some sort of credit, you’re not actually reducing anything,” said Lennon.

Paris agreement climate goals ‘in great peril’, warns UN


By AFP
November 11, 2024

'Wake-up call': The last decade has been the hottest, deepening climate choas including floods in Valencia, Spain this month - Copyright AFP JOSE JORDAN

The Paris climate agreement’s goals “are in great peril” and 2024 is on track to break new temperature records, the United Nations warned Monday as COP29 talks opened in Baku.

The period from 2015 to 2024 will also be the warmest decade ever recorded, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a new report based on six international datasets.

WMO chief Celeste Saulo said she was sounding the “red alert”.

“It’s another SOS for the planet,” she told reporters in Baku.

The warming trend is accelerating the shrinking of glaciers and sea-level rise, and unleashing extreme weather that has wrought havoc on communities and economies around the world.

“The ambitions of the Paris Agreement are in great peril,” the WMO climate and weather agency said as global leaders gathered for high-stakes climate talks in Azerbaijan.

Under the Paris agreement, nearly every nation on Earth committed to work to limit warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and preferably to below 1.5C.

But the EU climate monitor Copernicus has already said that 2024 will exceed 1.5C.

This does not amount to an immediate breach of the Paris deal, which measures temperatures over decades, but it suggests the world is far off track on its goals.

The WMO, which relies on a broader dataset, also said 2024 would likely breach the 1.5C limit, and break the record set just last year.

– ‘New reality’ –

“Climate catastrophe is hammering health, widening inequalities, harming sustainable development, and rocking the foundations of peace. The vulnerable are hardest hit,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

Analysis by a team of international experts established by the WMO found that long-term global warming was currently likely to be around 1.3C, compared to the 1850-1900 baseline, the agency said.

“We need to act as soon as possible,” Saulo said, insisting that the world must “not give up on the 1.5 (ambition)”.

Monday’s report cautioned that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, which lock in future temperature increases even if emissions fall, hit new highs in 2023 and appeared to have climbed further this year.

Ocean heat is also likely to be comparable to the record highs seen last year, it added.

Saulo insisted that “every fraction of a degree of warming matters, and increases climate extremes, impacts and risks.

“Temperatures are only part of the picture. Climate change plays out before our eyes on an almost daily basis in the form of extreme weather,” she said.

Saulo pointed to how “this year’s record-breaking rainfall and flooding events and terrible loss of life… (had caused) heartbreak to communities on every continent.

“The incredible amount of rain in Spain was a wake-up call about how much more water a warmer atmosphere can hold,” she added.

She warned that the string of devastating extreme weather events across the world this year “are unfortunately our new reality”.

They are, she said, “a foretaste of our future”.

Climate crisis worsening already ‘hellish’ refugee situation: UN


By AFP

November 12, 2024


weather-related disasters have displaced some 220 million people inside their countries over the past decade alone - Copyright AFP/File Daniel Beloumou Olomo
Nina LARSON

Climate change is contributing to record numbers of people being uprooted from their homes globally, while worsening the often already “hellish” conditions of displacement, the United Nations said Tuesday.

With international climate talks under way in Baku, the UN refugee agency highlighted how soaring global temperatures and extreme weather events are impacting displacement numbers and conditions, as it called for more and better investment in mitigating the risks.

In a fresh report, UNHCR pointed to how climate shocks in places like Sudan, Somalia and Myanmar were interacting with conflict to push those already in danger into even more dire situations.

“Across our warming world, drought, floods, life-threatening heat and other extreme weather events are creating emergencies with alarming frequency,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in the foreword to the report.

“People forced to flee their homes are on the front lines of this crisis,” he said, pointing out that 75 percent of displaced people live in countries with high-to-extreme exposure to climate-related hazards.

“As the speed and scale of climate change increase, this figure will only continue to rise.”



– 120 million displaced –



A record 120 million people already live forcibly displaced by war, violence and persecution — most of them inside their own countries, UNHCR figures from June showed.

“Globally, the number of people that have been displaced by conflict has doubled over the last 10 years,” Andrew Harper, UNHCR’s special advisor on climate action, pointed out to AFP.

At the same time, UNHCR pointed to recent data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre indicating that weather-related disasters have displaced some 220 million people inside their countries over the past decade alone — equivalent to approximately 60,000 displacements per day.

“We’re just seeing more and more and more people being displaced,” Harper said, lamenting a dire lack of the funds needed to support those who flee and the communities that host them.

“We are seeing across the board, a hellish situation become even tougher.”

Most refugee settlement areas, he pointed out, are found in lower-income countries, frequently “in the desert, in areas which are prone to flooding, in places without necessary infrastructure to deal with the increasing impacts of climate change”.

This is set to get worse. By 2040, the number of countries in the world facing extreme climate-related hazards is expected to rise from three to 65, UNHCR said, with the vast majority of them hosting displaced populations.



– Dangerous heat –



And by 2050, most refugee settlements and camps are projected to experience twice as many days of dangerous heat as they do today, the report cautioned.

That could not only be uncomfortable and a health hazard to the people living there, but could also lead to crop failures and livestock dying off, Harper warned.

“We’re seeing increasing loss of arable land in places exposed to climate extremes, like Niger, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Afghanistan, but at the same time we’ve got the massive increase in populations,” he said.

UNHCR is urging decision-makers gathered for the COP29 in Baku to ensure that far more of international climate financing reaches refugees and host communities most in need.

Currently, UNHCR pointed out, extremely fragile states receive only around $2 per person in annual adaptation funding, compared to $161 per person in non-fragile states.

Without more investment in building climate resilience and adaptation in such communities, more displacement towards countries less impacted by climate change will be inevitable, Harper said.

“If we don’t invest in peace, if we don’t invest in climate adaptation in these areas, then people will move,” he said.

“It’s illogical to expect them to do anything different.”

World leaders meet for climate talks, but big names missing

ByAFP
November 11, 2024

Joe Biden, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Emmanuel Macron are among G20 leaders missing the event - Copyright AFP Alexander NEMENOV
Nick Perry

Dozens of world leaders convene in Azerbaijan on Tuesday for COP29 but many big names are skipping the UN climate talks where the impact of Donald Trump’s election victory is keenly felt.

More than 75 leaders are expected in Baku over two days but the heads of some of the most powerful and polluting economies are not attending this year’s summit.

Just a handful of leaders from the G20 — which accounts for nearly 80 percent of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions — are expected in Baku, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“This government believes that climate security is national security,” his Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said on X on Monday.

Joe Biden, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Emmanuel Macron are among G20 leaders missing the event, where uncertainty over future US unity on climate action hung over the opening day.

Washington’s top climate envoy sought to reassure countries in Baku that Trump’s re-election would not end US efforts on global warming, even if it would be “on the back burner”.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell also appealed to solidarity, kicking talks off on Monday by urging countries to “show that global cooperation is not down for the count”.

But the opening day got off to a rocky start, with feuds over the official agenda delaying by hours the start of formal proceedings in the stadium venue near the Caspian Sea.

Later in the evening, governments approved new UN standards for a global carbon market in a key step toward allowing countries to trade credits to meet their climate targets.

COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev hailed a “breakthrough” after years of complex discussions, but more work is needed before a long-sought UN-backed market can be fully realised.



– Difficult negotiations –



The top priority at COP29 however is landing a hard-fought deal to boost funding for climate action in developing countries.

These nations — from low-lying islands to fractured states at war — are least responsible for climate change but most at risk from rising seas, extreme weather and economic shocks.

Some are pushing for the existing pledge of $100 billion a year to be raised ten-fold at COP29 to cover the future cost of their nations shifting to clean energy and adapting to climate shocks.

Babayev, a former oil executive, told negotiators that trillions may be needed, but a figure in the hundreds of billions was more “realistic”.

Nations have haggled over this for years, with disagreements over how much should be paid, and who should pay it, making meaningful progress next to impossible ahead of COP29.

“These will not be easy negotiations, perhaps the most challenging since Paris,” said Germany’s climate negotiator Jennifer Morgan.

Developing countries warn that without adequate finance, they will struggle to offer ambitious updates to their climate goals, which countries are required to submit by early next year.

The small group of developed countries that currently contributes the money wants the donor pool expanded to include other rich nations and top emitters, including China and the Gulf states, something firmly rejected by Beijing.

Stiell warned rich countries to “dispense with any idea that climate finance is charity”.

Around 50,000 people are attending summit in Azerbaijan, a petrostate wedged between Russia and Iran, including the leaders of many African, Asian and Latin American countries beset by climate disasters.

Hong Kong press union head sues WSJ for ‘unreasonable dismissal’


By AFP
November 12, 2024


Selina Cheng, head of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), speaks to the media in Hong Kong on November 12, 2024 - Copyright AFP -

A former Wall Street Journal reporter began proceedings Tuesday to sue the newspaper for “unreasonable dismissal”, after she said she was fired for taking up a role heading a Hong Kong press union.

Selina Cheng reported on the Chinese electric vehicle industry for the newspaper before she was made redundant in July, weeks after she was elected chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA).

Cheng said when she was dismissed her supervisor told her the Journal’s employees “should not be seen as advocating for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong”.

“I think the Wall Street Journal has done irreparable damage to my own reputation and the Hong Kong Journalists Association’s reputation,” Cheng told reporters after filing a civil claim with the city’s Labour Department.

She said she resorted to legal action after the complaint she made within the company “never received a single update and response”, and after her request to be reinstated was rejected.

The newspaper’s actions showed “they had very little respect for employee rights here and Hong Kong’s laws”, she said.

The Wall Street Journal did not immediately reply to an AFP request to comment.

At the time of Cheng’s firing, a spokesperson for the outlet’s parent company Dow Jones confirmed that personnel changes had been made but declined to comment on Cheng’s case.

Hong Kong’s press freedom ranking has plummeted since Beijing cracked down on dissent after huge, sometimes violent democracy protests in 2019.

HKJA, a legally registered trade union, has been criticised by government officials such as the city’s security minister Chris Tang for inciting violence and hatred against the authorities during those protests.

Cheng told reporters she would also file a criminal report against the Journal under the city’s employment law, in addition to the civil claim already filed.

Under the former, an employer found guilty of terminating an employee’s contract because of their trade union membership could be fined up to HK$100,000 (US$12,856).

‘No time to pull punches’: is a civil war on the horizon for the Democratic party?

Accusations and recriminations abound as Democrats try to figure out what went wrong after an electoral trouncing

oe Biden addresses the nation from the Rose Garden of the White House on 7 November 2024. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

The ObserverUS elections 2024

Joan E Greve in Washington

THE GUARDIAN

Sun 10 Nov 2024 

Joe Biden stood before the American people, millions of whom were still reeling from the news of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential race, and reassured them: “We’re going to be OK.”

In his first remarks since his vice-president and chosen successor, Kamala Harris, lost the presidential election, Biden delivered a pep talk from the White House Rose Garden on a sunny Thursday that clashed with Democrats’ black mood in the wake of their devastating electoral losses. Biden pledged a smooth transfer of power to Trump and expressed faith in the endurance of the American experiment.


“Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable,” Biden said. “A defeat does not mean we are defeated. We lost this battle. The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up. That’s the story of America for over 240 years and counting.”


‘A big cratering’: an expert on gen Z’s surprise votes – and young women’s growing support for Trump

The message severely clashed with the dire warnings that many Democrats, including Biden, have issued about the dangers of a second Trump term. They have predicted that Trump’s return to power would jeopardize the very foundation of American democracy. They assured voters that Trump would make good on his promise to deport millions of undocumented people. And they raised serious doubts about Trump’s pledge to veto a nationwide abortion ban.

Now as they stare down four more years of Trump’s presidency, Democrats must reckon with the reality that those warnings were for naught. Not only did Trump win the White House, but he is on track to win the popular vote, making him the first Republican to do so since 2004. Senate Republicans have regained their majority, and they appear confident in their chances of holding the House of Representatives, with several key races still too close to call on Friday morning.


The bleak outcome has left Democrats bereft, unmoored and furious when they previously thought this week would be the cause of joy and celebration. They are now heading into a brutal political wilderness with its current leaders tarnished by advanced age and a catastrophic defeat and a younger generation that is yet to fully emerge.

The party also faces a likely brutal civil war between its leftists and centrists over the best way forward – one that will be fought over the levers of power in the party at every level from the grassroots of all 50 US states to the crowded corridors of Congress in Washington.

The stark reality has left Democrats asking themselves the same question over and over again: how did we get here?

The hypotheses and accusations rose from whispers to shouts starting on Wednesday. Although a handful of Democrats suggested Harris should have done more to distance herself from Biden, few party members appeared to blame the nominee, who was credited with running the best possible campaign given her roughly 100-day window to close a considerable gap with Trump.

Some Democrats blamed Biden, who withdrew from the presidential race in July only after mounting pressure from his party after a disastrous debate performance against Trump. Jim Manley, who served as a senior adviser to the former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, said that Biden never should have run for re-election.


“This is no time to pull punches or be concerned about anyone’s feelings,” Manley told Politico. “He and his staff have done an enormous amount of damage to this country.”

In an even more damning indictment, Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who was applauded for her role in pressuring Biden to step aside, suggested the party should have held an open primary.

“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi told the New York Times on Thursday. “We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”

View image in fullscreenA Trump supporter celebrates the results of the 2024 presidential election on 6 November in West Palm Beach, Florida. Photograph: Dave Decker/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

A number of other senior Democratic aides complained to reporters – on background, without their names attached to the quotes – that Biden had put the party in a terrible position by not reckoning earlier with the widespread concerns over his age and unpopularity. (Biden would have been 86 at the end of his second term, while Trump will be 82 at the end of his.)

The White House pushed back against those gripes, framing Democrats’ losses in a much more global context. Incumbents have lost ground around the world in the past year, a trend that experts largely blame on the anger and disillusionment spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing high inflation it caused.

The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, cited this explanation during her press briefing on Thursday, while noting that Biden still believes he “made the right decision” in stepping aside.


“Despite all of the accomplishments that we were able to get done, there were global headwinds because of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Jean-Pierre said. “And it had a political toll on many incumbents, if you look at what happened in 2024 globally.”skip past newsletter promotion


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Despite those headwinds, Democrats wonder if their communication strategy could have prevented Republicans’ triumph. Leaders of the party are now debating the role of new media and how dominant rightwing influencers, particularly in the so-called “manosphere”, helped propel Trump to victory.

Left-leaning Van Jones posited that Democrats had focused too much on traditional media at the expense of cultivating a leftwing media ecosystem, saying in a Substack Live chat: “We built the wrong machine.”

Or perhaps Democrats’ failure to connect with the concerns of working-class voters cost them the White House, as progressives such as Senator Bernie Sanders argued.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic party which has abandoned working-class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders said in his post-election statement. “In the coming weeks and months those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions.”

But who will lead those discussions? Biden will be 82 when he leaves the White House in January. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader who has now been demoted to minority leader, is 73. Pelosi is 84. Sanders, who won re-election on Tuesday, will be 89 by the time his new term ends.

The party must now look to a new generation of leaders, a pivot that many argue should have come earlier. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader who still holds out a distant hope of becoming speaker in January if his party can win a majority, might lead the way. Progressive Democrats will probably be looking to popular lawmakers like congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to shape the party’s future. Other rank-and-file members have pointed to Gavin Newsom, the California governor who is already trying to “Trump-proof” his state, as an example for resisting the new administration.

They will have a foundation to work from, party leaders assert. Although Trump’s victory was devastating to them, Democrats protected at least three and possibly five competitive Senate seats while mitigating Republican gains in the House. Even if House Republicans maintain control of the chamber, they will be forced to govern with a narrow majority that proved disastrous during the last session and could pave the wave for significant Democratic gains in 2026.

For now, though, the Democrats who poured their hearts and souls into electing Harris as the first woman, first Black woman and first Asian American woman to serve as president seem exhausted. They have spent most of the past decade warning the country about the dangers of Trump and his political philosophy only for a majority of American voters to send him back to the White House.

While Trump’s first electoral victory sparked a wave of outrage and protests among Democrats, his second win seemed met with a mournful sigh from many of his critics. Right now, Democrats are taking the time to grieve. And then, eventually, they will start to pick up the pieces of their party.

Lauren Gambino contributed reporting

BARBARISM

Bleeding and in pain, a woman endured a harrowing wait for miscarriage care due to Georgia's restrictive abortion law

THE STATE NOT THE COUNTRY

Avery Davis Bell was devastated when her long-awaited second pregnancy ended in miscarriage (Courtesy Avery Davis Bell via CNN Newsource)

Jen Christensen
CNN
Published Nov. 11, 2024 

In early October, Avery Davis Bell learned that she was about to lose the baby she and her husband very much wanted.

The 34-year-old geneticist had been hospitalized in Georgia after repeated episodes of bleeding, and she and her doctors all knew exactly what was needed to manage her miscarriage and prevent a life-threatening infection. They also knew why she wasn’t receiving that care immediately.

In an instant, the impacts of her state’s restrictive laws on abortion care became clear: Had Bell been bleeding from a car accident or a burst appendix, doctors could help her right away. Had she had a miscarriage in Boston, where she lived until 2020, doctors could snap into action. But because she was having a miscarriage in a hospital in Georgia, surgery had to wait.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision eliminated the federal right to abortion, miscarriage management has become trickier and in some cases, deadlier.

Many miscarriages take place at home without medical intervention, but cases like Bell’s can be treated with the same medicines or surgical techniques used for abortions.

Thirteen U.S. states have total or near-total abortion bans. Several others restrict it to certain points in pregnancy, including Georgia, which limits abortion to the first six weeks of pregnancy. Bell’s pregnancy was at 18 weeks — too early for her fetus to survive outside the womb but well past Georgia’s limit.

Doctors told Bell she’d have to wait, unless her condition grew worse: Georgia makes people wait 24 hours before they can have an abortion except in medical emergencies.

Bell switched into crisis mode.

“I was breathing, I was recording everything that was happening in my mind, and I was thinking ‘I just need to get through it,’” Bell said. “I even told my wonderful husband, who obviously was very sad when we got this news, I said, ‘I love you. We’re going to be sad, but right now I have to get through this medical emergency, and I’m sorry to ask you, but I need you to pull it together until I get through to this surgery.’ ”

Bell and her husband, Julian, endured an agonizing wait for her surgery (Courtesy Avery Davis Bell via CNN Newsource)

Bell said shedoes not blame her doctors at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Rather, she blames the law itself.

When Georgia’s six-week abortion ban went into effect in 2022, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp promised pregnant women that the state was “ready to provide the resources they need to be safe, healthy, and informed.” But Georgia, which has long had one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country, has also had at least two deaths of pregnant women who couldn’t access timely medical care or legal abortion.


It’s not the only state facing such issues. Texas enacted an abortion ban in 2021, and the rate of maternal deaths there increased 56% from 2019 to 2022, according to the Gender Equity Policy Institutes’ analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This year, a woman died after being told it would be a “crime” to intervene in her miscarriage at a Texas hospital, and a pregnant teenager died after trying to get care for pregnancy complications in three visits to Texas emergency rooms.

In states with abortion restrictions, the maternal death rate increased twice as fast between 2018 and 2020 than in states without such restrictions, according to a 2022 report from the Commonwealth Fund. The inequities have deepened racial and ethnic gaps in health outcomes, as women of color – particularly Black and Hispanic women – generally have higher maternal mortality rates.
A troubled pregnancy

Bell and her husband, Julian, could have stayed in Boston, where she got a doctorate in genetics and genomics from Harvard University and he got his degree from MIT. But Bell grew up in Georgia, and they wanted to move closer to family as they expanded their own.

They were thrilled to have their first child, a son, in 2021.

This July, she learned that she was pregnant again. When she was 12 weeks along, she told her son he’d soon have a sibling. He was ecstatic.

“He talked to the baby and hugged the baby every day in my tummy,” she said.

By September, Bell had begun having trouble with her pregnancy. Her condition was stable, but she was hemorrhaging. Doctors diagnosed a subchorionic hematoma, a condition that causes bleeding between the uterine wall and the amniotic sac. It often clears up on its own, but Bell said she had one of those rare cases where she continued to bleed.Sign up for breaking news alerts from CTV News, right at your fingertips

Doctors eventually advised Bell to go on bed rest. She said she left the house only to vote early and to make regular trips to the doctor.

But in early October, Bell’s bleeding got worse, and she had to take three trips to the hospital in two weeks.

At first, doctors told Bell that the baby was still doing well. On her second visit, they warned that if the bleeding didn’t stop, it could be too much for the fetus and dangerous for her own health.

At one point, she passed a clot the size of a dinner plate. She scooped it out of the toilet and put it in a takeout container to show the doctors.

“It was so scary,” Bell said.

On October 17, on her third trip to Emory, the doctor who had delivered her first child was on duty. She ran tests and told Bell that her water had broken and that her pregnancy needed to end.

“She’s been with us for a lot, and we got hugs,” Bell said. “You know when you get hugs from your doctor, it’s serious.”
Waiting periods and paperwork

Bell was crushed. She knew that at 18 weeks gestation, the fetus could not live outside the womb.

Her doctor called in a complex family planning specialist to help. A procedure called dilation and evacuation would be necessary to control the bleeding and clear out Bell’s uterus and prevent infection.

But because the fetus still had a heartbeat, the procedure would be an abortion. Georgia law criminalizes abortions past six weeks except when “necessary in order to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

The doctor “was telling me ‘because we’re in Georgia, we can’t move immediately to the surgery,’ ” Bell remembered.

Georgia’s 24-hour waiting period frightened and frustrated her.

“It’s just so hard because it’s a wanted pregnancy, to feel like this was really inevitable and that waiting period that I was put into made that harder,” Bell said. “We couldn’t just move from emergency to done. We just had to sit in limbo. My fetus is dying, and I am stable this second that I’m thinking this, but in 10 minutes I may not be, and that’s just a time no one should have to extend, that limbo.”

The law also required Bell to fill out paperwork she found distressing. It spelled out medical risks of abortion, the probable age of the fetus, the presence of a human heartbeat and details about potential economic support, had she been able to give birth.

“I had to sign a consent form for an abortion, which has some sort of garbage language about heartbeat and fetal pain and stuff that’s clearly put in for legislation reasons rather than scientific reasons,” Bell said.

The hospital transferred Bell – still bleeding and in pain – to another location that was better equipped to do the surgery but where she expected to wait again for doctors to figure out when they could schedule her procedure.

Later that day, tests showed that levels of oxygen-carrying hemoglobin in her blood had reached a dangerous low, putting her life at further risk. That new signal meant that doctors could finally help her.

Bell was grateful to finally get the care she needed but angry on behalf of her doctors, who she felt had not been allowed to use their best judgment.

“My doctor had over a decade of post-college education to be able to navigate those situations, and yet the law hamstrung her,” she said. “It makes doctors jump through hoops written by elderly men who have no medical knowledge and have an ideological position inconsistent with how biology works.”

Emory University declined CNN’s request for an interview but said in a statement, “Emory Healthcare uses consensus from clinical experts’ medical literature and legal guidance to support our providers as they make individual treatment recommendations in compliance with Georgia’s abortion laws, our top priorities continue to be safety and well-being of the patients we serve, no matter where patients or doctors live.”
‘We’re adding insult to injury with this law’

Dr. Sarah Prager, a fellow with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a professional organization that represents more than 26,000 physicians, says abortion laws like Georgia’s are inhumane.

“You have people who are not clinical weighing in on a medical decision, which is asinine,” said Prager, who was not involved in Bell’s care. “The whole purpose of modern medicine is to prevent illness, so to push people to the brink of death and pull them back because of some law is wrong, and if nothing else, we’re not always successful.

“It’s cruel, and it devalues the life and the health of the person,” she added.

There’s also an emotional toll that comes with prolonging the situation. It will take a while to heal physically and emotionally, said Bell, who had to get another iron infusion after the surgery and is only now starting to take walks again.

Eventually, she expects to create a scrapbook with her ultrasounds, the notes she got from friends and family, and a print of the tiny footprints that she got from the hospital. She hasn’t been able to look at those yet.

What’s left is a mix of emotions. The entire family is sad for the loss of the pregnancy. Bell and her husband still hope to have another child. And there’s anger that Georgia’s laws prolonged her painful experience.

“Even if everything had gone perfectly, this still would be one of the worst times of my life and the hardest times for my entire family,” she said. “And then we’re adding insult to injury with this law.”

Having family around her and having a science background made it easier to advocate for her care, she said. Her doctors reassured her throughout her hospitalization that they would not let her die. They treated her like a peer, communicating clearly and pushing to help her. But not everyone has the same circumstances, and she worries about others who miscarry in Georgia.

“I have immense, great gratitude for my doctors, sadness for our expected child and anger at the ways this was made harder for me and for my care team because of laws and policy that’s not based in biological reality,” Bell said. “Nobody should have to go through this.”