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Orale

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  1. Texas law barely reduced abortions.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/upshot/texas-abortion-women-data.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=US News

    Spoiler

    In the months after Texas banned all but the earliest abortions in September, the number of legal abortions in the stateΒ fell by about half. But two new studies suggest the total number among Texas women fell by far less β€” around 10 percent β€” because of large increases in the number of Texans who traveled to a clinic in a nearby state or ordered abortion pills online.

    Two groups of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin counted the number of women using these alternative options. They found that while the Texas law β€” which prohibits abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, or around six weeks β€” lowered the number of abortions, it did so much more modestly than earlier measurements suggested.

    Combined, the data points to what may happen to abortion access if the Supreme Court decides to overturn Roe v. WadeΒ when it rules on another abortion lawΒ this summer. The data shows the limitations of laws restricting abortion. Yet it also shows how restrictions erect significant obstacles, which will cause some women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

    β€œThe law has not done anything to change people’s need for abortion care; it has shifted where people are getting their abortion,” said Kari White, principal investigator of the university’s Texas Policy Evaluation Project and the lead researcher on the new out-of-state abortion study. She expressed surprise at how few abortions were prevented by such a sweeping set of restrictions: β€œThe numbers are way bigger than we expected. It’s pretty astounding.”

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    But for the architects of the Texas law, even a modest reduction in abortions is a success.

    β€œThere’s no hesitation from our side to declare this a victory for actually protecting pre-born children from elective abortion,” said John Seago, the legislative director of Texas Right to Life, who was involved in the creation of the law. β€œWe’re realists around here, so the best we can do is incentivize women to have their children.”

    Gov. Greg Abbott, a RepublicanΒ who saidΒ the bill β€œensures that the life of every unborn child who has a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion” when he signed it, declined to comment on the new numbers.

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    As state legislatures await a Supreme Court ruling and take stock of the Texas experience this year, several have passed new abortion restrictions, even if they conflict with Roe. On Thursday night, the Florida Legislature voted to ban most abortions after 15 weeks. Somewhere betweenΒ 21Β andΒ 26Β states are expected to ban or substantially restrict abortion if the Supreme Court permits it. On Monday, an effort by Senate Democrats to codify abortion rights into federal lawΒ failedΒ to attract enough votes.

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    Sign up for The Upshot NewsletterΒ Β Analysis that explains politics, policy and everyday life, with an emphasis on data and charts.Β Get it sent to your inbox.

    Each month in the period between September 2021, when the Texas law went into effect, and the end of the year, an average of 1,400 women went to one of seven nearby states,Β according to one of the new studies, released Sunday. That was 12 times as many as typically sought abortions out of state before the law.

    The study included seven nearby states: New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi and Colorado. Nearly half of Texans who traveled went to Oklahoma, and a quarter to New Mexico. It counted Texans who visited 34 of 44 clinics, so the total was probably higher.

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    An average of 1,100Β women ordered abortion pills online each month from Aid Access, an overseas service that sends pills in the mail while sidestepping U.S. abortion restrictions, by connecting women with European doctors and Indian pharmacies. That is more than triple the number who ordered pills in an average month before the law,Β according to the second study, published last weekΒ in JAMA Network Open.

    Before, there was an average of 11 requests a day. Immediately after, that spiked to 138 requests a day, and has leveled out at about 30. The study could not determine if all medication requests resulted in abortions.

    β€œThe law is semi-effective; it will not stop all abortions,” said Abigail R.A. Aiken, an author of the study, who teaches public affairs and leadsΒ a research groupΒ studying self-managed abortion at the University of Texas at Austin.

    Those who were unable to get abortions are most likely to be poor, a variety of research has found. It’s expensive to travel to another state and pay for transportation, child care and lodging in addition to the procedure.

    The new data covers the most common alternative methods to the in-state clinics, but does not include all Texans who got abortions.An unknown number of women most likely used other means, such as ordering pills from online pharmacies that have not published their sales numbers; crossing the border to Mexico to buy over-the-counter pills; traveling to additional states to get abortions; or using herbs or other methods for self-managing abortions.

    If Roe is overturned, the same patterns may not hold nationwide, because abortion access would be even harder than it has been for Texans.

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    Instructions were given to a patient on the follow-up medications to be taken at home after she took the initial abortion-inducing medication at Trust Women clinic in Oklahoma City. Of the 20 abortions performed that day last December, 17 were for patients from Texas.

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    Instructions were given to a patient on the follow-up medications to be taken at home after she took the initial abortion-inducing medication at Trust Women clinic in Oklahoma City. Of the 20 abortions performed that day last December, 17 were for patients from Texas.Instructions were given to a patient on the follow-up medications to be taken at home after she took the initial abortion-inducing medication at Trust Women clinic in Oklahoma City. Of the 20 abortions performed that day last December, 17 were for patients from Texas.Credit...Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

    Recent research has shownΒ that abortion pills outside formal health care settings are accessible, reliable and effective β€” and that information about Aid Access is increasingly being shared online. But some women don’t know it’s an option. β€œIt’s been the question that has been on my mind for the last 10 years: How do you reach the ones who cannot find you?” said Rebecca Gomperts, the physician who runs Aid Access.

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    Also, it is technically illegal to sell prescription medicine to American patients from another country without a prescription from a doctor licensed in the United States. Enforcement is difficult, however, even asΒ TexasΒ and some other states have explicitly restricted medication abortion.

    Understand the Texas Abortion Law


    Card 1 of 4

    The most restrictive in the country.Β The Texas abortion law, known as Senate Bill 8,Β amounts to a nearly complete ban on abortion in the state.Β ItΒ prohibits most abortions after about six weeks and makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape. The law has been in place since Sept. 1.

    Citizens have the power to enforce the law.Β The lawΒ effectively deputizes ordinary citizensΒ β€” including those from outside Texas β€” allowing them to sue those who violate the law. It awards them at least $10,000 per illegal abortion if they are successful. Patients cannot be sued, but doctors, staff and evenΒ a patient’s Uber driver could become a defendant.

    The aftermath.Β The number of abortions performed in TexasΒ fell by roughly half in the weeks after the law went into effect. Several suits,Β by abortion providersΒ andΒ the Justice Department, were subsequently filed in response to the passing of the law.

    Challenges before the Supreme Court.Β The court declined to block the law twice, inΒ SeptemberΒ andΒ October. On Dec. 10, it allowed a challenge to the law to proceed,Β ruling that abortion providers may sue some state officialsΒ in federal court. The law remains in effect.

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    Without Roe, clinics would close in wide swaths of the South and Midwest. The closures wouldΒ increase average driving distancesΒ to the nearest clinic to about 280 miles, up from 35 miles, for women in states without one, found research by Caitlin Knowles Myers, an economist at Middlebury College, and colleagues.

    Research on past abortion laws has shown that longer distances tend to reduce abortions, as the challenges of travel mount. Groups offering financial and logistical support to Texas women said donations had decreased after a bump when the law went into effect.

    The groups added they would not have enough resources to help women in so many states. Remaining clinics would most likely be overwhelmed with patients. Trust Women, which has an abortion clinic in Oklahoma, is seeing 10 times as many Texans there as it used to. That causes a ripple effect. Many Oklahomans can’t get local care and have to seek it elsewhere, said Rebecca Tong, an executive director of the clinics.

    The clinics have tried to expand to meet demand, but especially in Oklahoma, where abortion would be outlawed if Roe were overturned, it’s hard to recruit doctors, she said: β€œSome would be leaving a full-time job with benefits, and for what?”

    At Hope Medical in Shreveport, La., two-thirds of patients are now from Texas, up from one-fifth before the Texas law went into effect. The clinic used to do the majority of abortions before nine weeks, but now most patients are in their late first or early second trimester, because of the longer wait times for appointments.

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    β€œWhat ultimately is happening is because we are so busy and we can’t work any faster, we’re seeing women whose pregnancies were further along,” said Kathaleen Pittman, the clinic’s administrator. β€œIt’s happening not just to Texas women but to Louisiana women because they’re having to wait too.”

    Still, clinics are preparing for an even bigger surge if Roe is overturned, planning to expand capacity if abortion remains legal in their state β€” or, if not, to open over state lines where it is legal; offer more guidance through telemedicine; or offer pre-abortion care.

    Kristina Tocce, the medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said the influx of Texas patients had provided a preview of a possible future, in which Colorado, which is expected to keep abortion fully legal, could become a post-Roe abortion hub.

    β€œWhat is going to happen when this happens to more and more states?” she said. β€œI don’t know, but we can’t absorb 26 states going dark.”


    Note: Our calculated decline in overall abortions compares the recent numbers to a baseline of abortion numbers from before the legal change. For legal in-state abortions and requests for abortion pills, we compared the period from March to July in 2021 with the period from September to December in 2021.

    For out-of-state abortions, we compared the period from March to July in 2021 with a 2019 monthly average. (Figures from early 2021 were not available.)

    Because the number of abortions in Texas increased in August 2021, in anticipation of the new restrictions, we did not include that figure when establishing the historical numbers.

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    • Rage+1 1
  2. 9 minutes ago, otisdog said:

    Back when I was much younger, I road all the way up Β before heading down.

    I've heard that they no longer drop you off at the top because so many people were crashing on the way down.

    I got caught beyond a large group of cyclists descending after watching the sunrise. They eventually took a rest on the side of the road so cars could pass. I'm all for cycling as a road cyclist myself, but that was a bit obnoxious.Β 

  3. 3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Just for the record, courts schedule outlandishly optimistic first trial dates on the regular.Β  And they regularly get pushed back as many as half a dozen times amounting to months and years.

    Back in my ADA days, we had 10 or more cases set for trial every day. Of course they were inevitably reset until the eventual plea in 99% of them. The system would come to a halt if we had more than a few trials in a court every year.Β 

    • Hook 'Em 1
  4. Putin is going to load the border up with troops to the point of no return.
    He’s moving a damned tank division from Moscow apparently.

    The west isn’t matching his forces at all, and at some point he’s going make a move, and there won’t be shit we can do but lie back, and take it. Unless there’s some political angle he has or something he wants that the west finally caves in to that causes him to pull back. Ukraine is looking like it’s going to be a battlefield.
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    A news article I saw today said the German PM along with Biden would shut down Nord Stream 2 if Russia invaded. Whether that will stop Putin remains to be seen.

    Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

  5. I'm 3 episodes in and pretty good so far. It's been a while since I read the book the series is based on, but it seems to track pretty close to the book so far. The Reacher actor is ok, not bad.Β 

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  6. 1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

    She wants to break up HEB and other grocery chains with market dominance because reasons.Β Β 

    https://www.foodindustry.com/articles/top-10-grocers-in-the-united-states-2019/

    Per this link, HEB is 6th in the U.S. in sales at $22 billion versus $228b and $121b for Wal-Mart and Kroeger. I don't have a position on her idea, but I question whether HEB would fall within the companies she takes issue with. But maybe so.

  7. 2 hours ago, Sundodger said:

    Bumping this thread as I’ll be on Oahu for a few days before flying over to the Big Island. Β  I got the book β€œOahu Revealed” which loaded with great tips, but would love other tips, especially in this COVID era.

    These are Oahu recs. The U.S. military cemetery in the punchbowl is very cool. Plus the views are spectacular. Also in terms of military history, the Hawaii Army Museum in Waikiki is a really interesting museum. Visiting the sandbar in low tide in Kaneohe Bay is fun if you can find a tour. The Makapu'u lighthouse is a nice two mile RT walk and you could possibly see whales though they're more frequently around February to March. Close to the lighthouse is the Koko Head stairwell to the top of the crater. It's a pretty rigorous stair hike if you want a good workout. Diamond Head is a nice little stair hike to the top as well with great views. Hanauma bay, also close to the lighthouse, offers good snorkeling. You'd have to get a reservation online which I've learned has become fairly difficult. If you want some hiking recs in the Honolulu area let me know.Β 

  8. I like it for pinto beans. Bag of beans, couple sliced jalapenos, onions, bunch of spices (heavy on ground pepper), knorr suiza chicken powder and water two inches higher than beans. 50 minutes. Add more knorr suiza at the end as needed to salt. Cilantro at the end. If I have bacon or left over ribs I'll throw those in. But I like the clean flavor of vegetarian beans. Much faster than stove top or crock pot plus soaking beans isn't necessary.Β Β 

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  9. A flawed guy like all of us. I went to franklin's 5 years or so ago with a buddy and it was sold out by 10. So we went to John's place nearby and he came up to us and gave us a couple lone stars while we waited. When we got to the window he was super friendly and cool. Got the short rib and it was the pepperiest thing I ever ate in my life and absolutely delicious. It sticks out as one my favorite life memories.

    Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

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  10. 2 hours ago, Bravo said:

    I hate this elitist attitude. People understand pocketbooks and how things affect them. This attitude is why the dems are about to get slammed hard. Maybe the biggest switch in an election in Congress ever. Looking down on people. Most voters sense this. CR doesnt get this. It's how Trump was elected and y'all don't learn.

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    Are you a Trump supporter?

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