The seven-months-pregnant officer reported contraction-like pains at work, but said she wasn’t allowed to leave for hours. The anti-abortion state is fighting her lawsuit, in part by saying her fetus didn’t clearly have rights.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      11 months ago

      The double-speak is so strong it makes my head spin.

      But the prison agency and the Texas attorney general’s office, which has staked its reputation on “defending the unborn” all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, are arguing the agency shouldn’t be held responsible for the stillbirth because staff didn’t break the law. Plus, they said, it’s not clear that Issa’s fetus had rights as a person.

      “Just because several statutes define an individual to include an unborn child does not mean that the Fourteenth Amendment does the same,” the Texas attorney general’s office wrote in a March footnote, referring to the constitutional right to life.

      For more than two decades, in legislation passed by lawmakers and defended in court by the attorney general’s office, Texas has insisted “unborn children” be recognized as people starting at fertilization. And although it has traditionally referred to all stages of pregnancy, from fertilized egg to birth, as an unborn child, the state repeatedly referred to Issa’s stillborn baby as a fetus in legal briefings.

      It’s a stark shift in tone from the state’s self-proclaimed status as “a nationwide leader in the protection of the unborn” in the anti-abortion fight. A few months after Issa lost her unborn child, now-suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a press release that he would “continue to fight tirelessly for the rights of the unborn.” Paxton had not yet been impeached and was still at the helm of the agency when the state’s motions in Issa’s case were filed.

  • VanillaGorilla@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Holy shit, I can’t imagine a scenario where the state and prison could have acted any worse. That article goes from bad to worse to nuclear annihilation 😐

  • Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    How come even North Korea and Iran have paid maternity leave but the US, a country that supposedly idolizes mothers, does not?

    • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org
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      11 months ago

      Because we have a weirdly structured federalist system where people arbitrarily decided what could be regulated federally and then said it’s so sacrosanct that it can or should never be changed, ever, for all of time. Also, making new laws is illegal. Triple stamped it no erasies

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Every act of misogyny originates from conservatives. Misogyny is part of the “traditional” conservative foundation.

    Why do women continue to associate with conservatives? Why do they even talk to them? It’s fucking bizarre.

  • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    "So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has skirted the issue. It refused to take up a related case out of Rhode Island in October, and Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the Dobbs ruling that it “is not based on any view about if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth.”

    Now, Ziegler says, we see Texas arguing against fetal rights when it’s being sued for the death of an unborn child."

    And that proves it. Anti abortion laws are only about control. If a fetus can’t have rights of a born person, then having an abortion is not murder. Period end of story. It’s about control and pandering to the forced birth crowd.

  • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    I wonder how many people she’s witnessed miscarry or go in to early labour and left locked behind bars without medical attention, “just following orders”. Well, in that line of work surely she can appreciate that her colleagues were just following orders too.

    *this isn’t a defence of the people who “stopped” her from leaving (without any restraint, and she doesn’t even report being threatened with being fired or anything, just told not to go) or of how she was treated, it’s a display of disgust and a pointing out of the hypocrisy of people who choose to actively oppress others for a living and then act all surprised when they get oppressed themselves by the exact same system.

  • Kowlown@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I would have moved. No one is above your health and wellbeing. I don’t know why she didn’t told them to fuck off

  • JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Why does have anything to do with abortions, anyway? This is the place of work not respecting the woman’s need for immediate medical leave. It should be dealt with as such.