Latest news with #RoevsWade
TimesLIVE
2 days ago
- Health
- TimesLIVE
US Supreme Court backs South Carolina effort to defund Planned Parenthood
'Today, the Supreme Court again sided with politicians who believe they know better than you, who want to block you from seeing your trusted healthcare provider and making your own healthcare decisions,' said Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Alexis McGill Johnson. Lawmakers are trying to defund Planned Parenthood 'as part of their long-term goal to shut down Planned Parenthood and ban abortion nationwide' she said. South Carolina attorney general Alan Wilson, a Republican, welcomed the ruling. 'This is about who runs South Carolina, our elected leaders or out of state activists and unelected judges. We're glad the court got it right,' Wilson said. Since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned its landmark Roe vs Wade ruling that had legalised abortion nationwide, a number of Republican-led states have implemented near-total bans or, like South Carolina, prohibitions after six weeks of pregnancy. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic operates clinics in the South Carolina cities of Charleston and Columbia, where it serves hundreds of Medicaid patients each year, providing physical examinations, screenings for cancer and diabetes, pregnancy testing, contraception and other services. Planned Parenthood affiliate and Medicaid patient Julie Edwards sued in 2018 after Republican governor Henry McMaster ordered South Carolina officials to end the organisation's participation in the state Medicaid programme by deeming any abortion provider unqualified to provide family planning services. The plaintiffs sued South Carolina under an 1871 US law that helps people challenge illegal acts by state officials. They said the Medicaid law protects what they called a 'deeply personal right' to choose one's doctor. The South Carolina department of health and human services, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom conservative legal group and backed by President Donald Trump's administration, said the disputed Medicaid provision in the case does not meet the 'high bar for recognising private rights'. In the ruling, Gorsuch agreed with South Carolina, saying the law did not provide 'clear and unambiguous notice of an individually enforceable right'. He noted 'private enforcement does not always benefit the public, not least because it requires states to divert money and attention away from social services and towards litigation'. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a dissent joined by the court's two other liberal justices that the ruling 'is likely to result in tangible harm to real people. At a minimum, it will deprive Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their only meaningful way of enforcing a right that Congress has expressly granted to them'. The ruling will strip Medicaid recipients around the country of the ability to decide who treats them at their most vulnerable, Jackson wrote, calling that 'a deeply personal freedom'. A federal judge ruled in Planned Parenthood's favour, finding Medicaid recipients may sue under the 1871 law and that the state's move to defund the organisation violated the right of Edwards to freely choose a qualified medical provider. In 2024, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US circuit court of appeals also sided with the plaintiffs. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on April 2.
Daily Mirror
20-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Brain dead woman taken off life support after giving birth to tiny baby
A brain dead woman who was kept alive so her baby could be born has had her life support turned off. The boy named Chance was born on Tuesday and is now "fighting for life" in neo-natal intensive care having been born weighing just one pound and 13 ounces. His mum Adriana Smith was just eight weeks pregnant when her harrowing medical ordeal began with severe headaches four months ago. Ms Smith, who turned 31 while on life support and already had a seven-year-old son, was being kept alive because of her state's strict abortion laws. She had gone to Atlanta's Northside Hospital complaining of headaches but was sent away, without any scans or test being done. She collapsed the next day when her boyfriend discovered her struggling to breathe. According to both the Washington Post and Global News her family has confirmed that Ms Smith's life support has now been turned off. She was then taken to Emory University Hospital, where she was found to have blood clots in her brain and was declared brain dead. According to the family, doctors at the hospital said they could not legally remove life-sustaining apparatus due to Georgia's laws that prohibit abortion once a foetal heartbeat is detected, typically at about six weeks of gestation. Speaking to WXIA-TV after Ms Smith gave birth to Chace, her mother April Newkirk, said her daughter was barely six months pregnant when the Caesarean section was performed. She said that her new grandson was "expected to be okay." She added: "He's just fighting. We just want prayers for him." Georgia's Republican Attorney General Chris Carr clarified in a statement that the state's law doesn't compel medical professionals to maintain life support for a woman declared brain dead. Last month, Dr Dale Gardiner, an Intensive Care Consultant and member of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, said the situation Ms Smith found herself in was highly unusual because life-support is not designed to be long-term treatment for brain-dead patients. He told the Mirror: "These patients are very physiologically unstable owing to the severity of their brain injury. They are all on intensive care. "Normally mechanical ventilation and other intensive care interventions are only continued for a very short time to allow family to say goodbye or to enable organ donation (for example, up to a day). It is extremely unusual to continue beyond this point." Her case has sparked anger around the world at the USA's anti-abortion laws, which were swept in at state level after the Supreme Court overturned 50 years of Roe vs Wade in 2022. Yesterday in the UK, MPs voted to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in a landmark step. They voted by 379 to 137 in favour of the reform after an emotional debate in the House of Commons. Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi said her amendment would result in 'removing the threat of investigation, arrest, prosecution, or imprisonment' of any woman who ends their own pregnancy. She said her amendment will not change time limits for abortion or the regulation of services, but will 'decriminalise women accused of ending their own pregnancies' and take them out of the criminal justice system, 'so they can get the help and support they need'. In the past three years, six women have appeared in court in England charged with ending or attempting to end their pregnancy outside the rules of abortion law.
Daily Mirror
03-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
Trad-wives are distracting you from the global shrinking of women's rights
What makes a modern woman? This debate has been doing the round since at least the 1950s. There's a myriad of ways to describe modern femininity. Having a freedom fund to escape an abusive relationship, perhaps. Or expecting the same wage for the same work as a male colleague. Safety and security issues too come to mind, not least the ability to walk alone at night without fear of harm. Each of these aspirations face outward, to society's treatment of women and call for the basic rights of living to be met: safety, security, equality. Yet a growing number of women are turning their backs on this. Instead, they are embracing conservative traditional values through TikTok's so-called "trad-wife" trend by prioritising domesticity. Cooking and cleaning are the basic components of caring for yourself and others. Pre-first wave feminism, this was what the patriarchal society envisioned for women: apron on, cooking for the family, mopping up after everybody else. All the while being demure, kind, and placid. The epitome of 'no thoughts, just vibes'. This, to my mind, is nightmare fuel and - horrifyingly - this feeling is not universal. Feminist critic Betty Friedan wrote about the particular loneliness and emptiness of the 1950s era housewife in her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. She called it 'the problem which has no name.' She wrote: 'Each suburban housewife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries… she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question - 'is this all'?' Or in other words: there has to be more to life than folding laundry and serving the man of the house's desires. And there is. But the recent trad-wife trend on social media would have you believe otherwise. It would have you salivating over the idea of making a meal totally from scratch - and no cheating with a jar of sauce! In one video by popular trad-wife influencer Nara Smith (@naraazizasmith), she makes her husband a fizzy drink from its base ingredients caramel sugar and zested lemons, limes, and oranges, when he asks for a Coca Cola. The house is spotless and she is decked out in a sequin covered gown. Nara says in the video after taking a sip: 'It tasted exactly like coke.' You may wonder then: what is the point? The point is this: it fills women's time by keeping them busy in fulfilling men's desires. Somehow, this video alone has amassed 4.7million views, while her Tiktok page has 11.7million followers. According to the Greater London Authority, that is more than the population of London. The trad-wife trend keeps women from bubbling over with rage about the erosion of our rights here in the UK and across the Atlantic in the USA. Roe vs Wade was repealed in the States in 2022, while just this year the definition of a woman in the UK was ruled by the Supreme Court to be reductive and restrictive. We are living through a shrinking of women's rights. Buy the fizzy drink from your local independent shop. Concentrate on what matters: equality and liberty. However, there are many different stripes to this trend. While Nara's trad-wife image is glittering, polished, and so very modern, there is another strand which presents a rose-tinted gaze back to the post-war period. Take Alena Kate Pettitt's website The Darling Academy for example. Pettitt's brand of tradwife celebrates 'homemaking, motherhood, and vintage inspired living.' In an article on her website, Alena writes: 'In a world that glorifies career ambition and independence from men above all else, the presence of a contented housewife can challenge the deeply ingrained belief that a woman's worth is measured by her pay check, and ability to survive on her own.' This sentiment is a world away from Friedan's. As a modern feminist, there is cause for concern here. The issue is not with the individual enacting domesticity online. Each to their own. Individual right to choose is a core tenet of feminism after all. But what does it say about our current political moment when trad-wife content gains millions of views? To be clear: the trad-wife trend operates by evoking a subdued kind of womanhood that echoes with an era when women did not have equal rights. In a recent interview with author and cultural critic Sophie Gilbert about her new book Girl on Girl, we discussed this strand of the trad-wife. Gilbert describes this looking back as 'weaponised nostalgia' that 'really work[s] hard to serve men's desires.' This 'weaponised nostalgia' is a huge threat to the modern woman. It warps the realities of the past, when women were contained, silenced, and treated as second-class citizens. In response to Friedan's 'problem that has no name', 2025 calls back that the problem is now not only named, but it is trending, with millions of views under the trad-wife hashtag.
The Advertiser
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Mirren warns women of society's 'desire to repress'
Dame Helen Mirren warns there is still a "desire to repress women". The 79-year-old British actress has revealed her "fear" for women in the United States, especially after the decision to overturn Roe vs Wade in 2022, overturned in 2022, which left millions in the US without the constitutional right to abortion. She told WWD: "My great fear is that with the overturning of Roe vs Wade and what's happening in America in general, you realise that lurking in the back is always this need, this desire to repress women. "You think of the way women were treated under Stalin, under Hitler. It was 'get back there, have babies, and shut up. Be pretty, be sexy, have babies, and then shut up about everything else'. "I keep thinking it can't take over, because women have come so far." The Hollywood veteran isn't fazed by aging, but she wishes she would "live longer" to experience the full impact of change she waited decades for. She explained: "The one reason I do wish I was younger is I would like to live longer to see, because I've waited 50 years for the changes to happen that I thought should happen when I was 16 or 17 years old." She said: "There will always be a desire to see youth and beauty on the screen. I mean, I feel the same, quite honestly. "But I think it's the broadening of the stories that we tell. Casting then follows. "People are living longer, and as people live longer, they have stories to tell. Between 50 and 100 years old, there are obviously roles for men and women." She insisted progress has been made in recent years, with more varied stories being told beyond "a man's eyes". She added: "For all of my life, up to like 20 years ago, if I went to the movies, I only ever saw a vision of the world and culture and human relationships and stories and romance and adventure that was seen through a man's eyes. "Now we're seeing women's view of the world about us. I think it's really surprising a lot of people. "I think they thought women would just make movies about romance and dogs or something. They are doing amazing, challenging, difficult, shocking stuff. It's great." Dame Helen Mirren warns there is still a "desire to repress women". The 79-year-old British actress has revealed her "fear" for women in the United States, especially after the decision to overturn Roe vs Wade in 2022, overturned in 2022, which left millions in the US without the constitutional right to abortion. She told WWD: "My great fear is that with the overturning of Roe vs Wade and what's happening in America in general, you realise that lurking in the back is always this need, this desire to repress women. "You think of the way women were treated under Stalin, under Hitler. It was 'get back there, have babies, and shut up. Be pretty, be sexy, have babies, and then shut up about everything else'. "I keep thinking it can't take over, because women have come so far." The Hollywood veteran isn't fazed by aging, but she wishes she would "live longer" to experience the full impact of change she waited decades for. She explained: "The one reason I do wish I was younger is I would like to live longer to see, because I've waited 50 years for the changes to happen that I thought should happen when I was 16 or 17 years old." She said: "There will always be a desire to see youth and beauty on the screen. I mean, I feel the same, quite honestly. "But I think it's the broadening of the stories that we tell. Casting then follows. "People are living longer, and as people live longer, they have stories to tell. Between 50 and 100 years old, there are obviously roles for men and women." She insisted progress has been made in recent years, with more varied stories being told beyond "a man's eyes". She added: "For all of my life, up to like 20 years ago, if I went to the movies, I only ever saw a vision of the world and culture and human relationships and stories and romance and adventure that was seen through a man's eyes. "Now we're seeing women's view of the world about us. I think it's really surprising a lot of people. "I think they thought women would just make movies about romance and dogs or something. They are doing amazing, challenging, difficult, shocking stuff. It's great." Dame Helen Mirren warns there is still a "desire to repress women". The 79-year-old British actress has revealed her "fear" for women in the United States, especially after the decision to overturn Roe vs Wade in 2022, overturned in 2022, which left millions in the US without the constitutional right to abortion. She told WWD: "My great fear is that with the overturning of Roe vs Wade and what's happening in America in general, you realise that lurking in the back is always this need, this desire to repress women. "You think of the way women were treated under Stalin, under Hitler. It was 'get back there, have babies, and shut up. Be pretty, be sexy, have babies, and then shut up about everything else'. "I keep thinking it can't take over, because women have come so far." The Hollywood veteran isn't fazed by aging, but she wishes she would "live longer" to experience the full impact of change she waited decades for. She explained: "The one reason I do wish I was younger is I would like to live longer to see, because I've waited 50 years for the changes to happen that I thought should happen when I was 16 or 17 years old." She said: "There will always be a desire to see youth and beauty on the screen. I mean, I feel the same, quite honestly. "But I think it's the broadening of the stories that we tell. Casting then follows. "People are living longer, and as people live longer, they have stories to tell. Between 50 and 100 years old, there are obviously roles for men and women." She insisted progress has been made in recent years, with more varied stories being told beyond "a man's eyes". She added: "For all of my life, up to like 20 years ago, if I went to the movies, I only ever saw a vision of the world and culture and human relationships and stories and romance and adventure that was seen through a man's eyes. "Now we're seeing women's view of the world about us. I think it's really surprising a lot of people. "I think they thought women would just make movies about romance and dogs or something. They are doing amazing, challenging, difficult, shocking stuff. It's great." Dame Helen Mirren warns there is still a "desire to repress women". The 79-year-old British actress has revealed her "fear" for women in the United States, especially after the decision to overturn Roe vs Wade in 2022, overturned in 2022, which left millions in the US without the constitutional right to abortion. She told WWD: "My great fear is that with the overturning of Roe vs Wade and what's happening in America in general, you realise that lurking in the back is always this need, this desire to repress women. "You think of the way women were treated under Stalin, under Hitler. It was 'get back there, have babies, and shut up. Be pretty, be sexy, have babies, and then shut up about everything else'. "I keep thinking it can't take over, because women have come so far." The Hollywood veteran isn't fazed by aging, but she wishes she would "live longer" to experience the full impact of change she waited decades for. She explained: "The one reason I do wish I was younger is I would like to live longer to see, because I've waited 50 years for the changes to happen that I thought should happen when I was 16 or 17 years old." She said: "There will always be a desire to see youth and beauty on the screen. I mean, I feel the same, quite honestly. "But I think it's the broadening of the stories that we tell. Casting then follows. "People are living longer, and as people live longer, they have stories to tell. Between 50 and 100 years old, there are obviously roles for men and women." She insisted progress has been made in recent years, with more varied stories being told beyond "a man's eyes". She added: "For all of my life, up to like 20 years ago, if I went to the movies, I only ever saw a vision of the world and culture and human relationships and stories and romance and adventure that was seen through a man's eyes. "Now we're seeing women's view of the world about us. I think it's really surprising a lot of people. "I think they thought women would just make movies about romance and dogs or something. They are doing amazing, challenging, difficult, shocking stuff. It's great."
Metro
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
We're living in the Handmaid's Tale - Adriana Smith proves it's true
It was morbid curiosity that saw me sat on my sofa one evening in 2019, watching in horror at season three, episode nine of The Handmaid's Tale. For those unaware of the show (and book's) premise, it is set in a dystopian US, where fertility is on the decline, and those able to bear children are given as slaves (handmaids) to powerful couples. In this episode, Ofmatthew (a handmaid) is left brain dead after but Gilead, the authoritarian state, hooked her up to life support because she was pregnant, refusing to let her die until she'd carried the baby to term. I was repulsed. After all, they'd reduced this poor woman to nothing but a human incubator, using her purely for her womb. I remember thinking ' thank god it's not real' . It was a horror story I could turn off before heading to bed, my internal monologue reminding me that it was all just fiction. So you can imagine my disbelief when the story of Adriana Smith cropped up on my news feed. Adriana Smith, a US-based 30-year-old mother and nurse was declared brain dead (meaning she is legally recognised as dead) after experiencing intense headaches in February, but has been kept on life support for three months because she's pregnant. Like Ofmatthew, she's being kept alive just so she can birth a child. The Handmaid's Tale has finally become a reality. This isn't what her family wants, but Georgia's strict anti-abortion law, which prevents you from terminating a pregnancy after just six weeks, means she will remain on a ventilator until the baby is able to be born. This won't be anytime soon either. It's been reported that her medical team will wait until she's at least 32 weeks pregnant, even though babies have a 'viable' chance of survival outside the womb at 24 weeks. Adriana is currently 21 weeks along. Ever since the US overturned Roe vs Wade in 2022 – allowing women the right to an abortion up to 24 weeks – women have been saying 'we're living in the Handmaid's Tale'. These words have fallen on deaf ears, with even more bills introduced with the goal of limiting a woman's right to choose. Adriana's story is a stark reminder of how close we are to slipping into a dystopian reality. 'It's torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she's not there,' her mother, April Newkirk, lamented to Atlanta TV station WXIA. Adriana's young son visits her in hospital but believes his mother is simply sleeping, a cruelty no child should ever have to suffer. And of course, her family will likely be lumped with the ever increasing medical costs of keeping Adriana alive too – how unjust is that? 'She's pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he's born,' April added. 'This decision should've been left to us. Now we're left wondering what kind of life he'll have — and we're going to be the ones raising him.' What is clear from her mother's words is that this pregnancy being allowed to continue benefits no-one. Certainly not Adriana, nor her son who cannot process his grief, nor the grandparents who will be responsible for this child. When the finale of The Handmaid's Tale aired on May 3, Channel 4 revealed more than half of Brits (56%) feel closer to a dystopian future than ever before, with the current global political climate closely mirroring the atrocities faced on the show. I'm not surprised by these statistics. It only takes looking back to a Grey's Anatomy episode from 2006 to see how much things have changed. In the episode '17 Seconds', 19-year-old Kendra Thomas is shot and left brain dead. She is pregnant and her parents want to leave her life support turned on until she has the child, which they want to raise. The doctors agree this is a terrible option, with Addison in particular explaining how irresponsible this would be. In the end, the parents decide to switch off the life support. I dread to think the kind of criminal charges those doctors would be up against today. I don't even know if that episode would be allowed to be made. I fundamentally believe that Brits should be worried. This is not just a discussion happening in the US. Just last year Conservative MP Caroline Ansell argued the current abortion limit should be lowered from 24 weeks to 22 weeks. It was only in November that Reform's Nigel Farage agreed that the abortion limit should be rolled back. This is a terrifying thought when you realise that Brits are now more likely to consider Reform UK as the main opposition party, ahead of the Conservatives, according to research from this week. Thankfully, 76% of Brits also feel there is no better time to speak up for women's rights than right now. We should all care about the deplorable treatment of Adriana, firstly because she's a woman who is being treated like a human incubator; secondly, if it's happened to one woman, it could happen to any of us; and thirdly, her story signals what feels like the point of no return for women's rights. In the UK, an abortion can legally be performed up to 23 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy, in line with the Abortion Act 1967. After 24 weeks, abortion is only permissible in limited circumstances. To find out more, and to support the Women Need 24 Weeks campaign, head to To sit idly by and say nothing or do nothing, is to allow the patriarchy and misogyny to win out. It cannot get to the point where we're forced to wear red dresses and white bonnets, told not to speak, and have no say over what happens to our bodies. Take action to protect all women by supporting the Women Need 24 Weeks campaign, call your MP and make your concerns known. Speak out on social media and talk to your male friends and family members to help them see why this matters. I would especially like to see protests in the States for Adrianna. Too often, stories of Black women being mistreated by the state fade into distant memory because of misogynoir. Adriana cannot and should not be forgotten. More Trending To everyone who has read Adriana's story, I say: Don't wait until it directly affects you, because then, it's too late. As The Handmaid's Tale protagonist June says: 'Now I'm awake to the world. I was asleep before. That's how we let it happen… In a gradually heating bathtub, you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.' I'm not planning on seeing how hot it gets before I can't take it anymore, it's time to get up, get out, and make your voice heard. May Adriana rest in blissful peace once this ordeal is over. Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailing Share your views in the comments below. 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