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Shattering the 'Abortion Reversal' Myth |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=50640"><span class="small">Meera Shah, Jezebel</span></a>
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Tuesday, 23 April 2019 08:18 |
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Shah writes: "There is no scientific or medical evidence that proves 'reversing' a medication abortion is possible: There are no clinical trials and no objective or credible data. It is only a theory that has been introduced by anti-abortion activists and politicians to further attack access."
There is no scientific or medical evidence that proves 'reversing' a medication abortion is possible. (photo: Getty Images)
Shattering the 'Abortion Reversal' Myth
By Meera Shah, Jezebel
23 April 19
 he other day my patient asked me whether or not the abortion reversal pill was actually effective. She wasn’t asking because she wanted to reverse an abortion herself but because she had seen recent news coverage about abortion reversal and subsequent legislation. In 2019, lawmakers in Kansas, North Dakota and Nebraska introduced bills that would require physicians to discuss medication abortion reversal with their patients. Four states, Arkansas, Idaho, South Dakota, Utah, have already mandate abortion reversal counseling by law. At the federal level, government officials—who have blocked young, undocumented girls at the border from getting abortions—have discussed the possibility of counseling undocumented women to use the so-called abortion reversal process.
But there is no scientific or medical evidence that proves “reversing” a medication abortion is possible: There are no clinical trials and no objective or credible data. It is only a theory that has been introduced by anti-abortion activists and politicians to further attack access. When misinformation spreads, it affects the patients who seek care in my exam room.
Medication abortion involves using an FDA-approved regimen of pills to end a pregnancy prior to 10 weeks. Two medications are included: mifepristone and misoprostol. Used first, mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone and prevents the pregnancy from growing. If taken alone, mifepristone will end the pregnancy in about half the patients who take it. Misoprostol is used six to 72 hours later to soften and dilate the cervix as well as cause uterine contractions to remove the pregnancy. Together, the medication abortion regimen is 98-99 percent effective.
In theory, it could be possible to stop the effect of mifepristone with high doses of progesterone, but this has never been proven. In medicine, we do not expose people to potential risks for no medical benefit, so we would never recommend this as an option for patients. In the unlikely event someone did not want to take the misoprostol, what healthcare providers would suggest is that there is a significant chance that the pregnancy could continue. If the patient wanted to continue the pregnancy after taking the mifepristone, we could advise to not take the misoprostol, and we would support a patient with that decision as well. Anti-abortion lawmakers have used very unethical and flawed research conducted by one anti-abortion doctor to push laws that require doctors to mislead their patients by telling them of this so-called option.
This series of cases studies from 2012 that was completed at a Catholic university where a few women who had taken mifepristone, changed their mind about the abortion and then continued their pregnancy after receiving progesterone. The report was not supervised by an Institutional Review Board (a committee which protects the rights of human subjects) which would have raised ethical concerns. Second, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology (ACOG) found that there is not enough evidence from this report to say that the pregnancies continued due to the progesterone. The ACOG called abortion reversal “unproven and unethical.”
The same researcher did another study in the same year with more participants and claimed that he confirmed that progesterone can reverse the effects of mifepristone. But again, his research methods were found to be flawed and there is rigorous systematic review to show that pregnancy continuation was not more likely with progesterone administration. The ACOG, the National Abortion Federation, and Planned Parenthood do not recommend administering progesterone if a patient tries to continue their pregnancy after using mifepristone. There just isn’t enough data to support this.
Dr. Mitchell Creinin, an OB/GYN at the University of California, Davis, who has done significant research in family planning, decided to put this issue to rest. He is currently enrolling patients in a study to determine if progesterone can block the effects of mifepristone and increase the chance of pregnancy continuation. He doesn’t believe that that it will and he’s hoping that his findings will be used to prevent lawmakers from mandating physicians from providing patients with misinformation about medication abortion reversal.
Medication abortion reversal is unfortunately not the only misinformation mandated by some states for providers to share with their patients. Some states require providers to lie about fetal pain, poor mental health outcomes, and risks of cancer with abortion. These claims are not true and not backed by science.
Physicians and healthcare providers provide counseling to all patients undergoing any procedure or medical intervention, including abortion. We are required to obtain informed consent, which means that we must confirm that patients have the capacity to make decisions about their health, that their decision is voluntary and they aren’t being forced to have the abortion, and that they fully understand what the procedure involves. Furthermore, we provide patients with the medical facts they need to help them make decisions about their health. There is no evidence that medication abortion is possible; telling patients otherwise is unethical. Several states, however, have laws that mandate providers to give misinformation patients as part of a greater agenda: to dissuade patients or to advance their own anti-abortion beliefs.
What anti-abortion lawmakers get wrong is that patients choosing abortion are sure of their choice prior to being seen by a medical provider. A national survey in 2008 showed that 92 percent of women had made up their mind before making the appointment. While a patient can change their mind about their abortion, it’s very rare. Almost no one is dissuaded from moving forward with the abortion even when faced with scare tactics. Inaccurate information only causes distress and confusion. Because most patients are sure of their decisions about reproduction, we should be supportive of their ability to do what’s most appropriate for them and their families.
As a doctor and an abortion provider, it’s my ethical duty to provide patients with only scientific facts. Trust between the patient and provider is essential to the informed consent process and legislative interference that requires clinicians to misinform patients is categorically unacceptable. Politicians should never mandate that healthcare providers give their patients inaccurate information; it’s a direct violation of the oath I took to do what’s best for my patients.
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How to Build the Zero-Carbon Economy |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=50642"><span class="small">Winona LaDuke, In These Times</span></a>
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Tuesday, 23 April 2019 08:16 |
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LaDuke writes: "The Anishinaabe people have a prophecy that a time will come when we have to choose between two paths: one scorched, one green."
Winona LaDuke. (photo: PSU)
How to Build the Zero-Carbon Economy
By Winona LaDuke, In These Times
23 April 19
The Green New Deal sets an ambitious goal. Here’s how to get there.
he Anishinaabe people have a prophecy that a time will come when we have to choose between two paths: one scorched, one green. For those who choose the green path, a more peaceful era will follow—known as the Eighth Fire—in which the Anishinaabeg will return to our teaching of Mino Bimaatisiiwin, the Good Life. Mino Bimaatisiiwin is based on reciprocity, affirmation and reverence for the laws of Nature—quite a different value system from that of the Gross National Product.
How to ensure we make the right choice is the art of now. As Dakota philosopher and poet John Trudell often says, first you have to “keep the beast out of the garden.” I refer to the beast that’s destroying our collective garden as Wiindigo (cannibal) economics—the practice of extracting every last bit of oil just because you’ve got the technology to do it, ecosystems be damned.
Killing Wiindigo economics is doable, but it will be a big job. We must work with the determination of people who actually intend to survive, and we must find the Achilles’ heels of the current system. For inspiration, look to the roughly $8 trillion moving out of the fossil fuel industry thanks to global divestment campaigns. Look to the social movements emerging as water protectors block “Black Snakes”—that is, oil pipelines. Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline is another year behind schedule while renewable energy moves ahead.
So, what’s next?
We need a Green New Deal—or as I prefer to call it, a Sitting Bull Plan. As Sitting Bull once said, “Let us put our minds together to see what kind of future we can make for our children.” That’s what’s we need—to put our minds together.
The plan proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) offers the beginning of a new green path. In the pages that follow, writers from the movement put their minds together to chart that path.
In “How To Bury the Fossil Fuel Industry”, journalist Kate Aronoff tells us how to kill the Black Snakes. Currently, the energy sector makes up around 6 percent of U.S. GDP. Enbridge’s Line 3 is just one $2.9 billion hemorrhage, all for a Canadian corporation to get some filthy tar sands oil to bake the planet. Time to get some control over that sector—being an oil addict is a drag.
In “Electric Companies Won't Go Green Unless the Public Takes Control”, Johanna Bozuwa and Gar Alperovitz tell us to get local on energy. A study in New Jersey suggests that each megawatt of community solar installed generates around $1.8 million of total economic impact during construction, operation and maintenance. Community solar projects allow families, tribal governments and municipalities to combine their efforts to go solar, which allows people who may not have suitable rooftops, or who face financial or regulatory barriers, to access renewable energy. That’s real energy security.
In “We Produce Too Much Food. The Green New Deal Can Stop This.”, Eric Holt-Giménez of Food First reminds us that we have a food overproduction problem. How baffling is it that we waste roughly 40 percent of our food in the United States? A study once found that Chicagoans’ fruits and vegetables travel an average of 1,500 miles from farm to table; we also slather them with fossil fuel-based chemicals, from everything ending with -cide to the plastic packaging. In the meantime, Indigenous nations worldwide are adapting to the times. Through the agroecological techniques Holt-Giménez proposes, we could grow less food, nearer to home, and grow it better. Organic agriculture sequesters carbon and rebuilds top soil—might want to stick with ancient, time-tested wisdom. The carbon needs to be in the soil, not the air.
In “Making the Green New Deal Work for Workers”, Jeremy Brecher of the Labor Network for Sustainability points out that cleaning up this mess will mean jobs. Lots of them. America has a D+ in infrastructure. For every $1 million invested in energy efficiency alone, anywhere from 12 to 20 jobs are created. Restorative economies are full of employment, and a Green New Deal can require fossil fuel companies to invest in them. It’s about making the spoiled children known as American corporations clean up their own messes before they go bankrupt.
In “The Green New Deal Must Have a Zero Waste Policy”, Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson says it’s time to tame your inner Wiindigo. So much of the stuff we produce ends up in a landfill. No time like the present to change that. We need to move from a production chain to a production cycle based on reuse, and start banning plastic straws, bags and all that stuff. And then we figure out how to do this all, better. No way should we be trying to fill our gullets with so much excess; what we need is to be efficient and elegant.
Finally, in “How Trade Agreements Stand in the Way of an International Green New Deal”, Basav Sen of the Institute for Policy Studies shows we need to look beyond the invisible borders created by colonial powers. I think of this land as Akiing, the land to which the people belong. Those borders make no sense to a storm, a flood or the wind. Climate change is international. We must be, too.
The Anishinaabeg are instructed that in each deliberation, we must consider the impact upon the seventh generation from now. This teaching can guide a life, a social movement and ultimately an economy.
The essential elements of intergenerational equity involve renegotiating and restoring a relationship to ecological systems, to Mother Earth. It’s not just making sure that you can buy a solar cellphone charger from Amazon. It means a restorative and regenerative economy. It also means justice—from a just transition for workers, to an interspecies, intergenerational and international justice.
The time you kill a Wiindigo is in the summer. When the warmth of the sun returns to the north country. There’s a proverb, “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” It’s time to plant the seeds.
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Forget Roy Cohn, Future Presidents Would Ask 'Where's My Bill Barr?' |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=46833"><span class="small">Barbara McQuade, The Daily Beast</span></a>
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Monday, 22 April 2019 13:01 |
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McQuade writes: "Trump wanted an attorney general who would protect him, and he got one who defended him and misrepresented Mueller's report."
William Barr. (photo: Chip Somodevilla)
Forget Roy Cohn, Future Presidents Would Ask 'Where's My Bill Barr?'
By Barbara McQuade, The Daily Beast
22 April 19
Trump wanted an attorney general who would protect him, and he got one who defended him and misrepresented Mueller’s report.
 e lost me at “no collusion.”
I have been withholding judgment on Attorney General William Barr, believing that someone who has previously served in the Department of Justice as he did would respect the institution and the rule of law. His conduct before and after his confirmation had provided some reason to question his motives, but I still held out hope that he would lead honorably in handling the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Barr confirmed my worst suspicions when he stood at the podium to discuss the release of Mueller’s report into Russian election interference. Instead of using the language of a prosecutor, Barr parroted President Donald Trump’s favorite talking point of “no collusion” four times. And it got worse from there.
Mueller’s report specifically stated that he was not using the term “collusion” because “collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability” nor a “term of art” used in federal law. Instead, Mueller stated that his team analyzed the facts under the law of conspiracy. For Barr to repeatedly use the term “collusion” when Mueller deliberately avoided it gave the appearance that Barr had coordinated his message with the White House. Barr seemed more like a defense attorney for Trump than the lawyer for the people.
Moreover, during his remarks, Barr diverged from the language of the report in other ways. The report stated that “the investigation did not establish” conspiracy. Instead, Barr said that the special counsel “found no evidence” that any American participated in the conspiracy to interfere with the election. These are two very different things. In fact, Mueller seemed to anticipate that some might misread his findings, including in his report the following language: “A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.” He likely did not expect the person to misconstrue his findings would be the attorney general of the United States.
Barr then went on.
“In assessing the President’s actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context. President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As he entered into office, and sought to perform his responsibilities as President, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office, and the conduct of some of his associates. At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the President’s personal culpability. Yet, as he said from the beginning, there was in fact no collusion. And as the Special Counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks.”
A motive of frustration or anger does not excuse obstruction of justice. In fact, most defendants who commit obstruction of justice experience frustration and anger. These motives are not exonerating, and Barr’s reference to them sounds like the kinds of excuses you might hear from a lawyer representing the accused.
Perhaps the most egregious remark that Barr made during the press conference made was when he said that the White House “fully cooperated” in the investigation. Barr made this statement despite the fact that Trump refused to participate in an interview with Mueller, something Mueller’s team sought for a year. Mueller’s report noted the problems that resulted from allowing Trump to respond to written questions, responding more than 30 times that he did not recall the answer. Trump’s failure to sit for an interview prevented Mueller’s team from asking follow-up questions or attempting to refresh his recollection with documents.
Mueller gave up on the idea of an interview because he believed that Trump would resort to “lengthy constitutional litigation” that would unduly delay the investigation. The report also shows that in addition to refusing to participate in an interview, Trump engaged in obstructive behavior throughout the investigation, attempting to fire Mueller, editing a press release in a misleading way, directing White House Counsel Don McGahn to lie, and seven other episodes of obstructive behavior. That hardly sounds like full cooperation.
If Barr’s language is not enough to tarnish his legacy, then his conduct certainly is. Barr’s March 24 letter to Congress stated that Mueller’s inability to decide the obstruction of justice issue “leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime.” We learned yesterday that the report contains no indication that Mueller intended for Barr to decide the obstruction issue.
Mueller stated that he followed the DOJ opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted, and so “fairness counseled against concluding that President Trump committed crimes because he could not avail himself of the normal adversary process for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.”
In other words, Mueller was refraining from recommending charges against Trump because he is the president, not for lack of evidence. Mueller further stated that he decided to “preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available,” suggesting that he was leaving the decision to pursue charges to Congress or to prosecutors in a time when Trump is no longer president. By substituting his view for that of the special counsel, Barr circumvented the very purpose for having a special counsel, to insulate the decision-maker from conflicts of interest that exist for those in the executive branch chain of command.
We had a warning about Barr last summer, before he was attorney general, when he submitted an unsolicited 19-page memo to the Justice Department arguing that a president cannot obstruct justice as a matter of law when he is exercising executive power. Mueller and his team rejected that position in their report, but as attorney general, Barr gets the last word.
When former Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Trump was angry that he did not have a protector. He asked then, “where’s my Roy Cohn,” a mob lawyer who used aggressive and legally questionable tactics to help his clients prevail.
For future presidents, the question may be “where’s my Bill Barr?”
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FOCUS: Three Earth Day Lessons for Green New Deal Activists |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=50632"><span class="small">Rhea Suh, The Los Angeles Times</span></a>
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Monday, 22 April 2019 11:55 |
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Suh writes: "In April 1970, about 20 million Americans turned out for the first Earth Day, attending speeches, demonstrations and other community-based events in what the New York Times called 'among the most participatory political actions in the nation's history.'"
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks as Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), right, and other Congressional Democrats listen during a news conference Feb. 7. (photo: Alex Wong/TNS)
Three Earth Day Lessons for Green New Deal Activists
By Rhea Suh, The Los Angeles Times
22 April 19
 n April 1970, about 20 million Americans turned out for the first Earth Day, attending speeches, demonstrations and other community-based events in what the New York Times called “among the most participatory political actions in the nation’s history.”
Nearly 50 years on, the movement spawned by that historic gathering is rallying around calls for a Green New Deal to embody the aggressive action required to fight global climate change, create good-paying jobs and advance a more just and equitable society.
As Congress begins crafting legislation to turn those bold aspirations into law, the original Earth Day provides three key lessons.
First, national movements are born of local concerns.
In the year before the first Earth Day, industrial pollution was so bad in Ohio that the Cuyahoga River caught fire. An estimated 3.3 million gallons of oil spilled along the Santa Barbara coast killing thousands of birds, fish and sea mammals. Acid rain was taking out Adirondack forests. Every car in America was spewing lead into the air we breathed.
Those local crises, and dozens more, sparked the national environmental movement. Similarly, climate change is imposing mounting costs and growing peril on families and communities across the country — including the drowning of the Midwest in epic spring floods, catastrophic wildfires in California and Gulf Coast hurricanes and sea-level rise.
Climate change amps up these kinds of natural disasters and makes them more devastating. That’s why seven in 10 respondents told Monmouth University pollsters they expect national action to fight it.
Second, national solutions flow from local opportunities.
On the first Earth Day, neither state nor federal governments were fully organized to confront toxic pollution, reckless development or industrial ruin. We were a nation in search of solutions. It was, though, an earnest search that we faced as Americans, not something that split us into red and blue factions.
Out of a national consensus for change came bedrock federal safeguards such as the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act — laws that passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. States set up environmental agencies to help monitor pollution and enforce those laws.
Fighting climate change now means once again connecting the dots between national policies and local opportunities.
For example, even as national climate progress stalls under President Trump, more than 3,700 city, state, business and academic leaders have pledged to put in place policies that support the aims of the 2015 Paris climate accord. And 25 cities nationwide — including Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego — are working to accelerate climate action through participation in the Natural Resources Defense Council-sponsored American Cities Climate Challenge. Meanwhile, policies that speed a just and equitable transition to clean energy are supporting millions of good-paying local jobs.
Already, the NRDC affiliate Environmental Entrepreneurs counts about 3.3 million Americans working to make our homes and workplaces more efficient; building all-electric, hybrid and fuel-efficient cars; and helping us get clean, homegrown American power from the wind and sun. That’s nearly three times the jobs fossil fuel production provides.
We must make sure these clean-energy jobs spread to the regions and people that need them most. That includes areas — rural and urban — traditionally dependent on coal, gas and oil production.
Earth Day’s final lesson is connected to environmental justice. The effort Earth Day kicked off relied on grassroots citizen activism forged in the 1960s movements for civil rights, women’s rights and opposition to the Vietnam War. It was about empowering people who’d not been heard to stand up, speak out and work for change. A half-century later, we must listen again to the voices that have been silenced too long, from people of color, low-income communities, indigenous people and others who often pay the highest price for environmental hazard and harm.
As a new generation brings fresh energy and ideas to the mission of protecting our environment and health, we’re called to confront environmental injustice, to achieve 100% clean energy and to protect ourselves from the dangers and costs of climate change. I believe we can build on what we’ve learned; bridge racial, economic and political chasms; and spark a renewed national effort to save the planet and leave our children a livable world.
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ill Barr’s assertion that 
