The war on abortion has gone digital, and it's moving faster than regulation can.

Wednesday, August 17, 2022
BY JULIA CLAIRE & CROOKED MEDIA
- Canada's Ontario Premier Doug Ford ([link removed]) having some trouble during today's outdoor press conference.​​ ([link removed])

It’s becoming frighteningly apparent that the anti-choice war on abortion has gone digital.

* Hundreds of workers at Google’s parent company Alphabet are calling on the corporation to take steps to expand abortion protections for users and contractors in post-Roe America, according to a new statement from a union representing the workers. More than 650 workers at the company called on Alphabet/Google to stop collecting data on abortion seekers and to ensure such data isn’t shared with law enforcement ([link removed]) . They also demanded that Google fix misleading search results that show users anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers when they are searching for clinics that perform the procedure.

* The Federal Trade Commission is threatening to sue Idaho-based advertising technology company Kochava ([link removed]) , which allegedly reveals people’s visits to sensitive locations, including women’s reproductive health clinics. The FTC also argues that the data can be used to trace people to therapists' offices, addiction recovery centers, and other medical facilities considered extremely private. The coordinates Kochava collects include a timestamp, so they can be used to identify precisely when a person visited a particular location.

* The Ohio-based nonprofit Heartbeat International [eyes eject from sockets] has spent years collecting data on pregnant women to develop more sophisticated ways to make sure women carry pregnancy to term by dissuading them from getting abortions ([link removed]) . The organization provides services to the world’s largest network of crisis pregnancy centers, their own website boasts, facilities which often misrepresent facts or outright lie to patients seeking abortions in order to forestall or impede them from getting the procedure. Heartbeat International’s information is among the largest repositories of data on women who visit crisis pregnancy centers which obviously could be used to build a case against those patients and their doctors.

Of course, there are analog developments to abortion access unfolding every day, too.

* Yesterday the South Carolina Supreme Court temporarily blocked the state’s near-total abortion ban ([link removed]) which would bar patients from terminating pregnancy at 6 weeks. The court’s decision comes amid efforts by South Carolina lawmakers to pass an even more restrictive abortion ban: one proposed bill that passed out of a legislative committee on Tuesday has no exceptions for victims of rape and incest, and the state Senate’s version would outlaw all abortions in all cases. In North Carolina, a federal judge allowed a 20-week abortion ban to be reinstated ([link removed]) , lifting an injunction he put in place prior to the Dobbs decision. Abortion remains prohibited in Kentucky ([link removed]) while the state supreme court weighs
challenges to the nearly-complete ban, which also has no exceptions for rape and incest. A Louisiana woman was denied an abortion despite her fetus having a rare “uniformly lethal” congenital disorder ([link removed]) , acrania, in which the top of the fetus’s skull is completely missing. Approximately 75 percent of babies born with acrania are stillbirths; the remaining newborns survive for only minutes or hours.

* There is verifiable data that states with the strictest abortion laws have the most paltry maternal support, and some of the highest rates of child poverty and maternal mortality ([link removed]) . These deep red states which decry taxes in all their forms are not prepared to pay for the infrastructure needed to support future forced parents, because they don’t support parents now. These are among the 17 states whose governors rejected Medicaid expansion for new mothers ([link removed]) and make it almost impossible for qualifying residents to access government benefits. Consequently, state supreme court elections are garnering more attention and money than they have in decades ([link removed]) as it’s clear that’s where many of the battles are won
and lost. Abortion is also shaping the midterm elections forecast more broadly as a highly-mobilizing issue.

It can be tiresome for voters to hear the endless drumbeat of “You have to vote! You have to organize! There’s too much at stake!” but now that we’re exposed to the endless well of cruelty Republicans are willing to impose, we have to use every tool in our arsenal.

Holy sh*t, we have a baby! Crooked’s new podcast Dare We Say ([link removed]) is officially here, and hosts as well as best friends Josie Totah, Alycia Pascual Peña, and Yasmine Hamady, are giving you all the tea on the proper way to birth a brand new baby podcast. In its first episode, out now, the girls give you 10 hilarious tips on how to celebrate your birthday, survival tips for getting through the birthday scaries and they talk you through all the anxieties that come with getting older. You don't want to miss it!


New episodes of Dare We Say ([link removed]) drop every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.
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As expected, the CFO of the Trump Organization Allen Weisselberg pled guilty to a total of 15 charges including tax evasion today in a deal that could potentially make him a star witness against the corporation this fall—exciting!! He admitted to taking over $1.7 million worth of untaxed perks (including free rent for a Manhattan apartment and lease payments for a luxury car) and explicitly keeping some income off the books. The judge agreed to sentence Weisselberg to five months in Rikers, although he will be eligible for release much earlier pending good behavior. He will also pay a fine of $2 million and complete five years probation. Although disgraced former president Donald Trump is not charged in the case, he is inextricably linked to his namesake company, and according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Weisselberg’s plea “directly implicates the Trump Organization in a wide range of criminal activity.”

Terrible Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) is seeking to dismiss a subpoena he received related to Donald Trump’s likely election interference in the state ([link removed]) , brought by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office. DA Fanni Willis isn’t having it ([link removed]) .


Airbnb announced yesterday that it will use “new technology” to deter customers in the U.S. and Canada from using the rental service to throw parties ([link removed]) . Fucking yikes.


New research shows that glaciers in Europe are experiencing “off the charts” melting, the most severe on record ([link removed]) . Double yikes.


The United States and Taiwan are set to begin formal trade negotiations ([link removed]) following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) visit which really pissed off China.


Under a new settlement reached between the NFL and its Players Association, Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson has been suspended for 11 games and fined $5 million as well as mandatory treatment for Watson, after settling multiple sexual assault lawsuits ([link removed]) from female massage therapists who work in NFL locker rooms.


An Arizona judge overseeing the high-profile case against the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for conspiring to cover-up child sexual abuse has ruled that the church may not refuse to answer questions ([link removed]) or turn over documents under “clergy-penitent privilege.”


Three men have been indicted in connection with the 2018 prison killing of notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger ([link removed]) , and if this couldn’t get any more The Departed, the names of the inmates who killed Bulger are, I kid you not: Freddy, Pauly, and Sean.


The only producer of an FDA-approved monkeypox vaccine said it’s struggling to meet demand for shots ([link removed]) amid the rise in cases.


Related: The U.S. is setting aside an extra 50,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine for areas with upcoming gay pride events ([link removed]) .

Two things can be true: the Inflation Reduction Act is the most significant piece of climate legislation passed in U.S. history, and it also features some provisions which directly work against its expressed goals. Back in January, a judge struck down a $192 million oil and gas lease in the Gulf of Mexico over future global-warming emissions because the Biden administration had curtailed opportunities for new offshore drilling. But the Inflation Reduction Act bypasses those standards and guarantees new drilling opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska ([link removed]) . That was a concession designed to secure support from the object of all of our disdain, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who receives more financial contributions from oil and gas companies than almost anyone in Congress. The IRA will likely drastically reduce overall U.S. emissions, but it also gives a handout to oil
and gas by mandating leasing of vast areas off the American coasts and public lands. If the Biden admin wants solar and wind on public lands, it has to offer new oil and gas leases first. The result could be up to 100 million tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere annually from oil and gas alone. But other analysts say that the negatives will be offset by the dozens of climate-centered provisions in the law. Time will tell, and until then we can keep fighting for more and better legislation in the future.
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For the first time in 75 years, Kemp’s ridley sea turtle hatchlings (the world’s smallest and most endangered sea turtle) were found on the Chandeleur Islands off the coast of Louisiana ([link removed]) . The adorable, good news we needed!!!


A federal judge in West Palm Beach, FL, said today that he is “inclined” to unseal some of the affidavit central to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago ([link removed]) on August 8, if DOJ first redacts the document so as not to undermine its own investigation.


A federal judge has partially suspended enforcement of Florida’s embarrassingly-named “Stop WOKE Act,” ([link removed]) a law proposed and signed by Gov.-from-hell Ron DeSantis (R-FL) which restricts how companies and schools can discuss race.

Gov. Steve Sisolak (D-NV) said yesterday that if he wins re-election he would seek to codify into law an executive order he signed ([link removed]) protecting in-state abortion providers and out-of-state patients.
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