According to the Texas Tribune, “Federal regulations do not require emergency rooms to perform life-saving abortions if it would run afoul of state law, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. After the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent hospitals guidance, reminding them of their obligation to offer stabilizing care, including medically necessary abortions, under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). ‘When a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life of the pregnant person — or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition — that state law is preempted,’ the guidance said. … ‘We agree with the district court that EMTALA does not provide an unqualified right for the pregnant mother to abort her child,’ Englehardt wrote. ‘EMTALA does not mandate medical treatments, let alone abortion care, nor does it preempt Texas law.’”
Then according to the AP, “Thousands of women stocked up on abortion pills just in case they needed them, new research shows, with demand peaking in the past couple years at times when it looked like the medications might become harder to get. … Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., and typically involves two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. A research letter published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at requests for these pills from people who weren’t pregnant and sought them through Aid Access, a European online telemedicine service that prescribes them for future and immediate use. … ‘People are looking at looming threats to reproductive health access, looming threats to their reproductive rights, and potentially thinking to themselves: How can I prepare for this? Or how can I get around this or get out ahead of this?’ said Dr. Abigail Aiken, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the letter’s authors.”
Why do I highlight these two stories? For one, they were both published within a day of each other, and, second, they evince a nation wherein women are continuing to lose their bodily autonomy. Texas, especially, is bending over backward to ensure no women can get an abortion, particularly in an emergency. Oh, well. And I love how women are stocking up on abortion pills, expecting the worst. It’s probably a good thing since abortion pills will soon be outlawed once SCOTUS rules on a case before them this year. Mark my words! But the primary reason I bring these two articles together to opine is this: No one cares! I’ve said this repeatedly until I’m blue in the face. No! One! F***ing! Cares! Oh, sure, some care. Those in emergency rooms and requesting abortion pill prescriptions care, but they are a minority. The vast majority don’t care. How can I be so sure? How can I say this with conviction? Look around. What do you see? Nothing! Again, I say: Unless and until women take to the streets to demand their rights back, unless and until women and those men who support women’s rights engage in civil disobedience like those in the 1960s demanding civil rights for Black Americans, and unless and until women and men get serious about ousting RepubliKKKlans from political office — rather than implying voting on abortion protection ballot measures and constitutional amendments — then Americans are not serious about protecting women’s rights. I don’t see a large-scale, nationwide outcry. I see some protests. I see some people showing up to the polls to pass specific measures in specific states to protect the right to choose. But I don’t see anything that approaches en-mass movement. And I certainly don’t see the American voter holding the one and only party that wants to take women’s rights back to the 1850s. Instead, I see the RepubliKKKlan Party gaining more seats (e.g., in the U.S. House). It’s as if f***tard Americans don’t believe RepubliKKKlans when they say they’re not done with restricting women’s rights. I don’t know what it will take for idiot Americans to wake up or to convince them. Perhaps Americans are completely incorrigible. Perhaps America is beyond saving at this point, and the lack of urgency to push back against women losing the right to healthcare is emblematic of a hopeless nation. Oh, well. No one cares because abortion rights are always someone else’s problem. Welcome to stupid America!