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Supreme Court
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2022-06-25
Learn how the government works
This is a tweet by StabbyandSpicy. This person is expressing their frustrations over their mom getting COVID, and the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade being overturned. -
2022-05-03
COVID protocol and abortion
This is a tweet from CJ_isnowblue regarding the leaked opinion from the Supreme Court on abortion. She is criticizing the way Republicans have protested for their rights to bodily autonomy on things such as mask mandates and vaccines, while wanting to restrict the bodily rights women have. Throughout the pandemic, the abortion debate has come up a time or two due to the "my body, my choice" rhetoric being used by those against masks and vaccines. Prior to this, it was mainly used for discussions on abortion, but now the two subjects are getting linked in public discourse. -
2022-05-02
You can't co-opt "my body, my choice"
This is a tweet from Anna Akana regarding the leaked opinion draft from the Supreme Court, which would overturn Roe v. Wade. Here, she is criticizing people who use "my body, my choice" in regards to masks, but don't allow it for when it comes to women's reproductive health. -
2022-06-15
Long-Term Decline in US Abortions Reverses, Showing Rising Need for Abortion as Supreme Court Is Poised to Overturn Roe v. Wade
This is a news story from The Guttmacher Institute. This article was written before the official Supreme Court decision was released on abortion. The article states that the 30 year decline in abortions has picked up with the threat of Roe v. Wade getting overturned. At the time this article is being entered in, Roe has been officially overturned by the Supreme Court. What is more interesting to me are the numbers given on abortions in 2020, when COVID was at its peak. In 2020, there was 930,160 total abortions, which was an 8% increase from 862,320 abortions in 2017. In 2020, about 1 in 5 pregnancies ended in abortion. The increase in abortions was marked in an overall 6% decrease in births between 2017 and 2020. The article does not discuss the social reasons why more abortions were happening in 2020 compared to other years, but in my own opinion, people's fears of hospitals being too full and the financial strain of lockdowns would have made it difficult to want to carry a baby to term. At the time, people were unsure of how long lockdowns and restrictions would last, so getting the pregnancy care needed to prevent issues giving birth would have been harder to come by. -
2022-05-05
Vaccine skeptics and anti-maskers who invoked 'my body, my choice' in the pandemic are now lining up to support the end of Roe v. Wade
This is a news story from Business Insider by Mia Jankowicz. This is about the argument of bodily autonomy as it applies to abortion and COVID. People have argued that vaccine passports and masks are infringements of civil liberties. The author writes that this is a mirror of what pro-choice advocates say. Some have argued that the anti-vaccine and anti-mask views being conflated with bodily autonomy arguments do not make sense, as being unvaccinated poses a greater risk to others, whereas lack of abortion access could put the mother's life in danger. -
2022-04-21
Does Free Speech Protect COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation?
This is a story from Standford Medicine's Scope Blog by Sharon Beckstrand. This is an opinion piece on free speech and misinformation as it relates to COVID-19. Beckstrand goes over some of the reasoning some might resist getting vaccinated, such as political beliefs. Some of these beliefs can come from well-intentioned individuals thinking they are spreading good information, or from intentionally misleading sources. Both of these examples are classified under misinformation. The author of this asks: how can the spread of misinformation be stopped without quashing free speech? To get an idea on how the United States approaches this with the First Amendment is though Supreme Court cases. The Supreme Court has upheld that false statements are still protected under free speech. A 2012 case of United States vs. Alvarez struck down a law that made it a criminal offense to lie about receiving military medals, as a false statement is still protected under the First Amendment. Other types of speech are not protected, such as: lying in court, making false statements to the government, impersonating a government official, and defaming someone. Beckstrand lays out some of the dangers that can come from the government trying to police false claims. One thing she asks people to consider is that a scientific statement claimed as false today could be considered verifiable at a different time, especially if it is something that has not been studied yet. Additionally, many do not trust the government to not abuse power when deciding what is misinformation. The article ends by saying that if something becomes politicized, they are more likely to view messages from groups they don't identify with as suspicious, regardless of how much evidence there is to back it up. At the end, Beckstrand closes with saying that if we cannot make sound decisions on how we interact with information, we can't make sound decisions about health.