AOC has a message for Americans who already paid off their student loans: 'We can support things we won't directly benefit from'

Ayelet Sheffey
Mon, May 2, 2022,

AOC said student-loan forgiveness is good, even for those who have already paid off their loans.

Biden is getting closer to acting on debt relief, saying a decision will be made in the coming weeks.

He told reporters he isn't considering $50,000 in forgiveness — an amount progressives have pushed for.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez says student-loan forgiveness is good for everyone — even those who already paid off their debt.

"Maybe student loan forgiveness doesn't impact you," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in an Instagram story, in response to a question on the benefits of debt cancellation for those who already paid off their loans. "That doesn't make it bad. I am sure there are certainly other things that student loan borrowers' taxes pay for. We can do good things and reject the scarcity mindset that says doing something good for someone else comes at the cost of something for ourselves."

AOC responds to a question on student-loan forgiveness on Instagram.Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

"It all comes around," she added. "It's okay. We can support things we won't directly benefit from."

The student-loan forgiveness conversation is picking up steam after President Joe Biden told reporters last week a decision on relief will be made "in the next couple of weeks." While he said he is not considering canceling $50,000 in student debt for every federal borrower — an amount many progressives have been pushing for — a number of reports have suggested the president is considering at least $10,000 in relief that will likely be tied to income limits, and it will be implemented before the pause on payments expires after August 31.

I'm a 34-year-old who has never had a credit card — and it's the worst financial decision I've made in my life

He avoided credit cards to stay out of debt, but it still hurt his credit score.

While broad loan forgiveness is something many Democrats would like to see carried out, Ocasio-Cortez told the Washington Post she has concerns with subjecting the relief to income thresholds.

"I don't believe in a cutoff, especially for so many of the front-line workers who are drowning in debt and would likely be excluded from relief," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Canceling $50,000 in debt is where you really make a dent in inequality and the racial wealth gap. $10,000 isn't."

Republican lawmakers feel differently. Since the news came out that the president is considering canceling some amount of student debt this summer, many of them slammed the possibility of broad relief. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, for example, wrote about the cost to taxpayers forgiving debt would have on Twitter: "Why should those who didn't go to college or responsibly paid their loans be responsible for $13,000 in new debt?"

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney said broad relief would be a "bribe" to voters — an attempt by Democrats to win the midterm elections. Maine Sen. Susan Collins previously told Insider student-loan forgiveness is "not fair" to those who have already repaid their debt and argued people with higher incomes shouldn't qualify for the broad relief Biden is considering.

But most Democrats want to see Biden enact broad student-loan relief for everyone, free of thresholds.

"Instead of continuously extending the pause under pressure," New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman recently tweeted, "he needs to cancel all student loan debt."

'A slap in the face': 

Some Americans are mad over 

potential student loan forgiveness

Aarthi Swaminathan

·Reporter

Tue, May 3, 2022, 

As the president weighs broad student loan forgiveness, some Americans expressing frustration over a policy they see as unfair.

"While some may view this debt forgiveness as a slap in the face to people who were responsible and paid off their student loans, this is a bigger slap in the face to those Americans who never went to college," Will Bach, a financial advisor based in Ohio, told Yahoo Finance.

Research has shown that a college degree generally boosts an individual's earnings over their lifetime. And given that any broad-based forgiveness would cost tens of billions of dollars, all taxpayers — not just by those who have a college degree — would be contributing to the cost of cancellation.

"How can we honestly ask people who did not go to college to subsidize the lives of those who did decide to go to college?" Bach added. "To my knowledge, everyone with student loans voluntarily took them. Every instance of a student loan was a voluntary choice that person made."

Some right-leaning academics, including Andrew Gillen of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, argue that there are a variety of problems with cancelling student loan debt. These include the overall cost and the fact that forgiveness does not directly address the core issue of rising college costs.

Cancelling $10,000 or $50,000 across the board is "really badly targeted," Gillen said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

"There there are people who are struggling to repay their debt, and we've got an existing set of solutions — and those solutions aren't working," he acknowledged, such as the massive failure of the income-driven repayment system. At the same time, he added, any broad-based forgiveness would be like saying that "a handful of people that are struggling here, [so] let's get rid of the debt for everybody."

An income cap on who qualified for any loan forgiveness would be a "no brainer," Gillen added, because it would help target the relief towards lower-income struggling debtors.

Biden is reportedly considering capping forgiveness to those who earned less than $125,000 or $150,000 as individual filers the previous year, The Washington Post reported recently. For couples filing jointly, the cap would be around $250,000 or $300,000.

President Joe Biden during a meeting with Agency Inspectors General in the State Dining Room of The White House on Friday April 29, 2022. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

"The other thing that would also be a no-brainer is having different criteria for graduate loans than you do for undergraduate loans," Gillen said, "because we really do restrict how much you can borrow at the undergraduate level ... whereas at graduate level, because those students can borrow virtually without limit."

The proposal "is nothing more than a welfare program for the upper class," Bach said. "The people who have responsibly saved and paid for college will not benefit from this at all."

Bach, who worked as a police officer for five years after college, added that he took on student loans to pay for his MBA in finance and paid it off within a few years of graduating. He currently is a certified financial planner and financial adviser.

Critics ignore the privilege that allowed them to be debt-free: academic

Advocates pushed back against critics of Biden's plans to cancel debt.

“I'm sorry we weren’t able to win cancel student debt sooner," Melissa Byrne, a political organizer and an activist pushing for student debt cancellation, told Yahoo Finance. "I'm sorry that political operatives in the '70s and the '80s caved to Ronald Reagan and let folks defund higher education. ... But I'm not sorry we’re about to hopefully get a win now."

Louise Seamster, a sociologist at the University of Iowa, told Yahoo Finance that the group pushing back against cancellation is not a large one and asked them to put themselves in student debtors' shoes.

"As a sociologist, my work involves teaching students to consider how their own experiences are shaped by larger forces," Seamster said in an email to Yahoo Finance. "As such, I would encourage people who have been lucky enough to pay down their debt to reflect on what factors allowed them to pay down their debt: maybe attending school when public education was actually affordable; the support of a partner or family; or graduating into a favorable economy."

She added that critics "might have made career choices that prioritized income, but I hope they think what our society would look like if everyone had made those same choices and who would be educating their children or providing them medical care."

Some studies have shown that women and people of color take on more debt to go to college compared to their white male peers. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) has repeatedly argued that student loan forgiveness is "a matter of racial and economic justice" given the disproportionate burden on borrowers of color.

"Canceling student debt is one of the most powerful ways to address racial and economic equity issues," a recent letter from prominent Democrats, including Pressley, asserted to the president. "The student loan system mirrors many of the inequalities that plague American society and widens the racial wealth gap. Black students in particular borrow more to attend college, borrow more often while they are in school, and have a harder time paying their debt off than their white peers."

U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 8, 2021. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

Seamster added that if Americans still feel like cancellation of debt is unfair, "I invite them to join the movement for free college to make the same public higher education benefits available to all and make student debt itself unnecessary."

Bach said he doubted that forgiving debt would help the economy, and that it was an opportunity for Democrats to gain clout with voters.

"I don't think there is any evidence that this is going to help with the U.S. economy or student debt holders," he said. "This is simply a Hail Mary for President Biden who has just hit a 40% approval rating with the younger population."

The political benefit seems to be one thing both sides agree on: In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, Pressley stated that "Democrats win when we deliver, and we have to deliver in ways that are impactful, tangible and transformative, like canceling student debt. This is good policy. And it is also good politics."

Aarthi is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. She can be reached at aarthi@yahoofinance.com. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.

Student debt can impair your

cardiovascular health into middle age

Individuals with student loan debt into early middle age have a higher risk of cardiovascular illness, plus undermining the usual health benefits of a post-secondary education, researchers report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ELSEVIER

Ann Arbor, May 3, 2022 – Adults who failed to pay down student debt, or took on new educational debt, between young adulthood and early mid-life face an elevated risk of cardiovascular illness, researchers report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier. Adults who repaid their student debt had better or equivalent health than individuals who never faced student debt, suggesting that relieving the burden of student debt could improve population health.

“As the cost of college has increased, students and their families have taken on more debt to get to and stay in college. Consequently, student debt is a massive financial burden to so many in the United States, and yet we know little about the potential long-term health consequences of this debt. Previous research showed that, in the short term, student debt burdens were associated with self-reported health and mental health, so we were interested in understanding whether student debt was associated with cardiovascular illness among adults in early mid-life,” explained lead investigator Adam M. Lippert, PhD, Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA.

The study utilized data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a panel study of 20,745 adolescents in Grades 7 to 12 first interviewed during the 1994-1995 school year. Four subsequent waves of data were collected, including Wave 3, when the respondents were aged 18-26 and Wave 5, when respondents were aged 22-44. Wave 5 respondents were invited to in-home medical exams.

Researchers assessed biological measures of cardiovascular health of 4,193 qualifying respondents using the 30-year Framingham cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk score, which considers sex, age, blood pressure, antihypertensive treatment, smoking status, diabetes diagnosis, and body mass index to measure the likelihood of a cardiovascular illness over the next 30 years of life. They also looked at levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a biomarker of chronic or systemic inflammation.

The investigators classified student debt according to the following categories: never had student debt; paid off debt between Waves 3 and 5; took on debt between waves; and consistently in debt. Models were adjusted for respondent household and family characteristics including education, income, and other demographics.

The researchers found that more than one third of respondents (37%) did not report student debt in either wave, while 12% had paid off their loans; 28% took on student debt; and 24% consistently had debt. Respondents who consistently had debt or took on debt had higher CVD risk scores than individuals who had never been in debt and those who paid off their debt. Interestingly, respondents who paid off debt had significantly lower CVD risk scores than those never in debt. They found clinically significant CRP value estimates for those who took on new debt or were consistently in debt between young adulthood and early mid-life, estimates that exceeded their counterparts who never had debt or paid it off. Race/ethnicity had no impact on the results.

Supplemental analyses suggested that, on balance, degree completion provides health benefits even to those with student debt, although these benefits were diminished relative to non-debtors. Dr. Lippert observed that these findings underscore the potential population health implications of transitioning to debt-financed education in the US. Though the empirical evidence is clear on the economic and health returns from a college degree, these advantages come at a cost for borrowers.

“Our study respondents came of age and went to college at a time when student debt was rapidly rising with an average debt of around $25,000 for four-year college graduates. It’s risen more since then, leaving young cohorts with more student debt than any before them,” Dr. Lippert said. “Unless something is done to reduce the costs of going to college and forgive outstanding debts, the health consequences of climbing student loan debt are likely to grow.”

---

JOURNAL

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.amepre.2022.02.002 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Student Debt and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Among U.S. Adults in Early Mid-Life

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-May-2022

Amazon tribes turn the tables on intruders with social media
 

In this photo provided by Kwazady xipaya, president of the Indigenous Association Pyjahyry xipaya Aldeia tukamã, Indigenous leaders Kwazady Xipaia Mendes and Juma Xipaia participate in an online meeting with the Federal Prosecutors' Office, in the Karimaa village of Altamira, Para state, Brazil, March 15, 2022.

 A fast-expanding network of antennae is empowering Indigenous groups to use phones, video cameras and social media to galvanize the public and pressure authorities to respond swiftly to threats from gold miners, landgrabbers and loggers. 

(Warawara Xipaya dos Santos/Indigenous Association Pyjahyry xipaya Aldeia tukamã via AP)

Mon, May 2, 2022

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — It was dusk on April 14 when Francisco Kuruaya heard a boat approaching along the river near his village in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. He assumed it was the regular delivery boat bringing gasoline for generators and outboard motors to remote settlements like his. Instead, what Kuruaya found was a barge dredging his people's pristine river in search of gold.

Kuruaya had never seen a dredge operating in this area of the Xipaia people's territory, let alone one this massive; it resembled a floating factory.

Kuruaya, 47, motored out to the barge, boarded it and confronted the gold miners. They responded in harsh voices and he retreated for fear they were armed. But so was he — with a phone — the first he'd ever had. Back in his village Karimaa, his son Thaylewa Xipaia forwarded the photos of the mining boat to the tribe's WhatsApp chat groups.

“Guys, this is urgent!" he said to fellow members of his tribe in an audio message The Associated Press has reviewed. “There's a barge here at Pigeons Island. It's huge and it's destroying the whole island. My dad just went there and they almost took his phone."

Several days' voyage away, in the nearest city of Altamira, Kuruaya's daugher Juma Xipaia received the frantic messages. She recorded her own video with choked voice and watery eyes, warning that armed conflict was imminent -- then uploaded it to social media.

In a matter of hours, word was out to the world.

The episode illustrates the advance of the internet into vast, remote rainforest areas that, until recently, had no means of quickly sharing visual evidence of environmental crime. A fast-expanding network of antennae is empowering Indigenous groups to use phones, video cameras and social media to galvanize the public and pressure authorities to respond swiftly to threats from gold miners, landgrabbers and loggers.

Until now Indigenous communities have relied on radio to transmit their distress calls. Environmental and Indigenous rights groups then relayed these to the media and the public. But the non-profits have been maligned by Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who advocates legalizing mining and land leasing in protected Indigenous territories. He has castigated the organizations as unreliable actors, out of touch with Indigenous people’s true desires and on the payroll of global environmental do-gooders.

Video and photos coming directly from Indigenous people are harder to dismiss and this is forcing authorities as well as the public to reckon with the reality on the ground.

“When used properly, technology helps a lot in real-time monitoring and denouncing,” said Nara Baré, head of the group Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon, in a telephone interview. “The external pressure to make the federal government act in the Xipaia territory was very important. Technology has been the main tool for that.”

Connectivity is not only enabling whistle-blowing on social media. Brazil's Federal Prosecutor's Office has set up a website to register reported crimes and receive uploaded visual material. Previously people in remote communities have had to make the long and expensive trip to the nearest city that has a federal prosecutor's office.

Xipaia territory is part of a pristine rainforest area known as Terra do Meio (Middle Earth) that is dotted with dozens of Indigenous and traditional river communities. Internet connection there was rare until mid-2020, when a group of non-profits, including Health in Harmony and the Socio-Environmental Institute, financed installation of 17 antennae throughout the vast region.

Priority was given to communities with either health centers or market hubs for the production and sale of forest products, such as Brazil nuts. Signal can be painfully slow, especially on rainy days, yet it has connected people who were previously off the grid, and is enough for photos and videos to trickle out of the forest.

“The strategy was to improve communication and avoid unnecessary trips to the city,” said Marcelo Salazar, Health in Harmony's Brazil program coordinator. “The internet makes it easier for health, education, and forest economy issues." Fighting environmental crime was an added benefit, he added.

Four out of five Xipaia communities are now connected. Karimaa, the village where the barge was first spotted, has had internet since July 2020. Just three days after installation, when a teenager injured his head, a city doctor was able to assess his condition using photos sent over WhatsApp. That avoided a costly, complicated medevac during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the case of the mining dredge marked the first time the Xipaia used the internet to protect their territory. In addition to sounding the alarm, four villages used WhatsApp to quickly organize a party of warriors to confront the miners. Painted with urucum, a local fruit that produces a red ink, and armed with bows, arrows and hunting rifles, they crammed into a small boat, according to Juma Xipaia. By the time they reached the location where the barge had been, however, it was gone.

Some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) to the west, in the Amazonian state of Rondonia, internet access enabled the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people to take classes in photography and video online so they could chronicle deforestation by landgrabbers. The three-day training in 2020 was held via Zoom.

That effort produced the documentary “The Territory,” which won awards at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival and others. Throughout its production, American director Alex Pritz relied on WhatsApp to communicate with his newly trained camera operators.

Tangaãi Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau is a teacher-turned-cameraman who traveled to the Danish festival and later spoke with the AP via WhatsApp from his remote village. He said the film is changing people's perception of Brazil's indigenous people. "In Copenhagen... I received many questions. They knew about Brazil’s natural wonders, but didn’t know about Indigenous peoples who fight for their territories.”

Elsewhere in the Amazon, the internet has yet to arrive. So when illegal gold miners killed two Yanomami tribe members in June 2020, news of the crime took two weeks to arrive due to the area's remoteness. To avoid a repeat of that, Yanomami organizations have been seeking better connectivity. After Palimiu village along the Uraricoera River suffered a series of attacks committed by miners in May 2021, the Yanomami managed to install an antenna there. Since then, the violence has eased.

Bolsonaro's repeated promises to legalize mining and other activities on Indigenous lands have fueled invasions of territories, which are often islands of forest amid sprawling ranches. Indigenous and environmental groups estimate there are some 20,000 illegal miners in Yanomami territory, which is roughly the size of Portugal. Bolsonaro’s government claims that there are 3,500.

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon surged 76% in 2021 compared to 2018, the year before Bolsonaro took office, according to official data from Brazil’s space agency, which uses satellites to monitor forest loss.

Most internet connections in the Amazon remain slow, even in mid-sized cities. That may soon change. Last November, Brazil's Communications Minister Fábio Faria held a meeting with billionaire Elon Musk to discuss a partnership to improve connectivity in rural areas of the world's largest tropical rainforest.

The communications ministry, however, says the talks have not evolved and no progress has been made. Musk's company SpaceX did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

Some worry that Indigenous groups like the Xipaia won't be the only beneficiaries of greater internet penetration in the Amazon region. Illegal miners often co-opt local Indigenous leaders, communicating surreptitiously on messaging apps. The conversations, sometimes aided by clandestine networks, can enable miners to hide heavy machinery, or tip them off to impending raids by authorities, allowing them to flee.

In Roraima state, which is where most of the Yanomami territory lies, the AP contacted one internet provider that offers wifi to an illegal gold mine for $2,600, plus $690 per month. Clandestine small craft fly the equipment in for installation.

“It's a double-edged sword,” said Salazar, of Health in Harmony, speaking of increased connectivity.

But for Juma Xipaia, the new connection means added protection and visibility for her people. After she posted her tearful video, it racked up views and was picked up by local and international media. Within two days, an airborne operation involving the Federal Police, the national guard and environmental agencies swooped in. They located the dredge hidden behind vegetation on the banks of the Iriri River with seven miners aboard.

In a country where environmental crime in the Amazon usually goes unchecked, the speedy, successful response underscored the power of Indigenous networks.

“After making a lot of calls for help, I decided to do the video. Then it worked. The telephone didn’t stop ringing," Juma Xipaia said by phone. "It was very fast after the video.”

—-

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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

Jill Filipovic
Tue, May 3, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Al Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emma Farge
Tue, May 3, 2022,


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

By Emma Farge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Medical charity MSF urged countries to reject the proposal.

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

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

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

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

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


By Jay Clemons | Tuesday, 03 May 2022 

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two dead after building collapse in central China

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

The collapse sparked a massive response by rescue workers

 [CNS/AFP]

Published On 3 May 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Illegal alteration’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.

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

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

Sarah K. Burris
May 03, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

Hale also ensured women were executed for being witches.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ROE VS WADE

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

Max Abelson, Bloomberg News

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

Bloomberg News: Should Wall Street have seen this coming?

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

 

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

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

 

BN: Why haven’t they?

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

BN: Could Wall Street have helped?

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

 

BN: What do executives say? 

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

 

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

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

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

What Roe v Wade Means for Human Rights

Overturning Abortion Would Weigh Heaviest on

 Low-Income Women of Color

Amanda Klasing
Program Lead, Monitoring,

 Evaluation and Learning; 

Associate Director, 

Women's Rights Division

HRW

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It remains a constitutional and human right.

Congress can and should enact legislation to protect abortion access.

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

MAY 3, 2022     04:35

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.Courtesy of Planned Parenthood El Paso Health Center

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chris Kay, Bloomberg News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Improvising Solutions

Some Sri Lankans have devised workarounds to bridge the deficits. 

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

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

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

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

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

A Preventable Crisis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.