In an ominous sign for potential victims of gun violence, the Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it will hear New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, a challenge to New York City’s gun licensing regime.
It’s the first Second Amendment case the Supreme Court will hear since 2010, and only the second such case since 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller, which held for the first time in American history that the ...
ThinkProgress
These old state laws make abortion access hell — so advocates are suing to get rid of them
Nurse Practitioner Mary Stark has performed countless vacuum aspiration procedures for Idaho patients who have miscarriages. Vacuum aspiration is basically, by another name, a suction abortion. Because of Idaho’s physician-only abortion law, Stark cannot perform a vacuum aspiration for patients who choose to end their pregnancies.
“I could complete a procedure to empty out the uterus, but only if the pregnancy had ended on its own,” Stark told ThinkProgress.
A nearly two d...
Republicans are accidentally doing more to advance progressive values than Democrats
Something strange and unfamiliar has taken root in Washington, DC these past few days. In between segments about Donald Trump’s latest impeachable offense, Republican intransigence in the face of a cataclysmic government shutdown, and whatever other mundanity du jour is on the docket, cable news shows have carved out time to talk about honest-to-God policy proposals.
Specifically, we find ourselves amidst a nationwide conversation about, of all things, marginal tax rates. How we go...
It’s Day 27 of the shutdown, and McConnell is mounting a futile effort to codify Hyde
In the midst of the longest-ever government shutdown in U.S. history, Senate Republicans have instead decided to consider a bill on Thursday to codify existing restrictions that make it harder for low-income people to get abortions.
The bill codifies the Hyde Amendment — a provision that passes annually and prohibits federal Medicaid dollars from covering abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment — among other things. The bill is unlikely to get the ...
Kirsten Gillibrand is looking toward the future, but is she ready to face her past?
During a Tuesday night appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) announced that she is officially running for president, joining what looks to be a crowded field of Democratic contenders.
“I’m going to run for president of the United States, because as a young mom, I’m going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own,” Gillibrand said. “Which is why I believe that healt...
Trump’s rollback of the birth control mandate is blocked nationwide
Cost-free contraception for thousands is safe, after Pennsylvania District Judge Wendy Beetlestone temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s rollback of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) birth control mandate on Monday, issuing a nationwide injunction.
The administration aims to allow virtually all employers (including universities and colleges, by way of student health plans) the right to refuse to cover employees’ birth control by citing religious or moral obj...
Federal judge blocks Trump’s rollback of birth control mandate in 13 states and D.C.
A federal judge on Sunday blocked the Trump administration’s roll back of Obamacare’s birth control mandate, protecting contraceptive coverage for residents living in 13 states and Washington, D.C.
The administration’s policy, which allows more employers to avoid providing their employees birth control coverage, was supposed to take effect on Monday.
But a California district judge sided with Democratic attorneys general who sued the administration, temporar...
Native health contractors vote to work without pay to care for their own community during shutdown
The partial government shutdown forced employees with Native American Lifelines (NAL), a nonprofit contracted by the Indian Health Service (IHS), to make an impossible decision: work without pay or be laid off. The majority of staff chose the former.
NAL employees, who provide a host of health services to Native Americans, are likely to miss a paycheck next Friday because the president won’t sign a budget deal that doesn’t include money for a border wall he said Mexico w...
Trump’s rollback of birth control mandate could go into effect next week unless courts block it
The cost-free birth control of thousands is at risk unless Democratic attorneys general prevail in court this week. The Trump’s administration’s rollback of the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate is scheduled to go into effect on Monday, unless a federal judge blocks it.
The administration chipped away at the mandate by significantly broadening an employer’s ability to seek an exemption and choose not provide employees contraceptive coverage. In Nove...
The first case Brett Kavanaugh could use to kill Roe v. Wade is before the Supreme Court right now
In 2016, then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a law whose main purpose appears to be trolling the libs. Just over two years later, this law could provide the Republican-controlled Supreme Court with the vehicle it needs to kill Roe v. Wade — and the Court could decide to hear a challenge to this law as soon as Friday.
The case is Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky.
The Indiana law requires abortion clinics to treat aborted fetuses as if t...