The New York Times
September 24, 2011
Where Abortion Rights Are Disappearing
By DOROTHY SAMUELS
Thirty-eight years after Roe v. Wade recognized a woman’s right to make her own childbearing decisions and legalized abortion nationwide, a newly intensified drive by anti-abortion forces who refuse to accept the law of the land has seriously imperiled women’s ability to exercise that right. Opponents of abortion rights know they cannot achieve their ultimate goal of an outright ban, at least in the near future. So they are concentrating on enacting laws and regulations narrowing the legal right and making abortion more difficult to obtain.
The most visible battleground is Congress, where the House Republican majority seems to have time for a big-government attack on women’s reproductive health and freedom but not to pass a job-creating bill.
However, as in the past, most of the fights are taking place in state capitals. The result has been a huge number of new abortion restrictions, traceable in part to the 2010 mid-term elections, which increased the number of anti-abortion governors and state legislatures controlled by abortion opponents, who keep concocting new schemes to make terminating a pregnancy a right on paper only. The spate of new laws comes on top of many state and federal abortion curbs already in place.
The map illustrates the barriers, state by state, facing women needing access to a constitutionally protected medical procedure. States shown in the darkest shade have enacted five of the most harmful restrictions: mandatory waiting periods; demeaning “counseling” sessions lacking a real medical justification; parental consent or notification laws that pose a particular hardship for teenagers from troubled homes, including incest victims; needlessly onerous clinic “safety” rules governing such things as the width of hallways and the amount of storage space for janitorial supplies; and prohibitions on abortion coverage in insurance policies. States in lighter shades have fewer of these restrictions. Twenty-seven states have enacted three or more of these laws, while only 12 states, shown in white, have none.
The graphic traces the total number of a broad range of major abortion restrictions enacted by the states, including the five covered in the map and others, like mandatory ultrasounds. Sixty-one such laws were enacted during just the first eight months of this year — nearly triple the number in all of 2010, and more than double the previous record of 28 set in 1997. Although some of this year’s statutes have already been preliminarily enjoined by courts as unconstitutional, others will be left to stand as constraints on women’s reproductive freedom.
If anything, the chart understates the limits on access to abortion. It fails to capture other negative developments, like the big decline in the number of abortion providers. In 1982, there were 2,908 providers nationwide. As of 2008, there were only 1,793. In 97 percent of the counties that are outside metropolitan areas there are no abortion providers at all.
One powerful strategy of the anti-abortion forces has been to portray abortion as outside the mainstream and cast women who have abortions as immoral outliers. In reality, abortion is one of the safest and most common of medical procedures, one that about one-third of American women undergo during their lifetime.
One clear lesson of this year’s skyrocketing number of new state laws is that those who care about keeping the procedure safe, legal and accessible need to raise their voices as loudly and effectively as those on the other side. If they don’t do so, and quickly, the number of harmful restrictions will continue to balloon, at a rising cost to women’s lives, health and equality.
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Pena de Muerte y Discriminación Racial Hoy en en New York Times
The New York Times
16 de Septiembre de 2011
Editorial
Estado de Ejecución
Después de declarar el “estado de ejecución de Duane Buck a sólo horas de ser ejecutado en Texas el Jueves, la Corte Suprema debe ahora revisar el caso o, por lo menos, ordenar que un tribunal federal inferior considere el pedido del Sr. Buck de una nueva audiencia antes de decidir su sentencia. El Tribunal no puede permitir que tenga lugar una terrible injusticia.
El Sr. Buck, un Afro-Americano, fue condenado a muerte en 1997. En la etapa de sentencia de su juicio, un psicólogo que participaba como perito experto dijo que “sí” cuando se le pregunto si “el factor raza, negra”, icrementaba las chances de que el Sr. Buck pudiera llevar a cabo de nuevo una conducta peligrosa.
En Texas, esta es una pregunta clave: si si el estado no prueba “la peligrosidad futura” más alla de la duda razonable, no puede sentenciar al imputado a muerte. La fiscalía obtuvo la respuesta que quería y urgió al jurado a basar la decisión en ese testimonio. El jurado sentenció al Sr. Buck a muerte.
En el año 2000, el Senador John Cornyn, que era entonces el Jefe de los Abogados del estado de Texas, solicitó nuevas audiencias de sentencia en seis casos en los que se había condenado a muerte –incluuido el Sr. Buck- porque la raza de los imputados se había utilizado inapropiadamente como un factor relevante para obtener esa sentencia.
El Sr. Buck es el único de ese grupo al que no se le concedió una nueva audiencia. El Abogado de Distrito a cargo del caso del Sr. Buck reusó admitir que el uso de la raza fue un error constitucional que requería una nueva audiciencia. Cuando el caso llegó al juzgado federal, había un nuevo Jefe de Abogados del Estado de Texas, y éste se reusó a obedecer el juicio del Sr. Cornyn.
El claro racismo que tuvo lugar en el caso del Sr. Buck es una nueva prueba de que la pena de muerte es cruel e inusual porque es arbitraria y discriminatoria, además de bárbara, y debe ser abolida.
La traducción es mía. La versión original en inglés está abajo.
The New York Times
September 16, 2011
Stay of Execution
After granting a stay of execution to Duane Buck just hours before he was to be put to death in Texas on Thursday, the Supreme Court must now review the case or, at the very least, order a lower federal court to consider Mr. Buck’s plea for a new sentencing hearing. It cannot allow a terrible injustice to stand.
Mr. Buck, an African-American, was convicted of murder in 1997. At the sentencing phase of his trial, a psychologist who was an expert witness said “yes” when asked if “the race factor, black,” increased the chances that Mr. Buck would do something dangerous again.
In Texas, this is a pivotal question: if the state does not prove “future dangerousness” beyond a reasonable doubt, it cannot sentence a convict to death. The prosecution got the answer it wanted and urged the jury to rely on this testimony. The jury sentenced Mr. Buck to death.
In 2000, Senator John Cornyn, who was then the Texas attorney general, called for new sentencing hearings for six men given the death penalty — including Mr. Buck — because race was improperly used as a factor in their sentencing.
Mr. Buck is the only one who has not been granted a new sentencing hearing. The state district attorney in charge in Mr. Buck’s case refused to admit that the use of race was a constitutional error that required a new hearing. By the time the case got to federal court, there was a new Texas attorney general who refused to abide by Mr. Cornyn’s judgment.
The gross racism in Mr. Buck’s case is proof again that the death penalty is cruel and unusual because it is arbitrary and discriminatory, as well as barbaric, and must be abolished.
16 de Septiembre de 2011
Editorial
Estado de Ejecución
Después de declarar el “estado de ejecución de Duane Buck a sólo horas de ser ejecutado en Texas el Jueves, la Corte Suprema debe ahora revisar el caso o, por lo menos, ordenar que un tribunal federal inferior considere el pedido del Sr. Buck de una nueva audiencia antes de decidir su sentencia. El Tribunal no puede permitir que tenga lugar una terrible injusticia.
El Sr. Buck, un Afro-Americano, fue condenado a muerte en 1997. En la etapa de sentencia de su juicio, un psicólogo que participaba como perito experto dijo que “sí” cuando se le pregunto si “el factor raza, negra”, icrementaba las chances de que el Sr. Buck pudiera llevar a cabo de nuevo una conducta peligrosa.
En Texas, esta es una pregunta clave: si si el estado no prueba “la peligrosidad futura” más alla de la duda razonable, no puede sentenciar al imputado a muerte. La fiscalía obtuvo la respuesta que quería y urgió al jurado a basar la decisión en ese testimonio. El jurado sentenció al Sr. Buck a muerte.
En el año 2000, el Senador John Cornyn, que era entonces el Jefe de los Abogados del estado de Texas, solicitó nuevas audiencias de sentencia en seis casos en los que se había condenado a muerte –incluuido el Sr. Buck- porque la raza de los imputados se había utilizado inapropiadamente como un factor relevante para obtener esa sentencia.
El Sr. Buck es el único de ese grupo al que no se le concedió una nueva audiencia. El Abogado de Distrito a cargo del caso del Sr. Buck reusó admitir que el uso de la raza fue un error constitucional que requería una nueva audiciencia. Cuando el caso llegó al juzgado federal, había un nuevo Jefe de Abogados del Estado de Texas, y éste se reusó a obedecer el juicio del Sr. Cornyn.
El claro racismo que tuvo lugar en el caso del Sr. Buck es una nueva prueba de que la pena de muerte es cruel e inusual porque es arbitraria y discriminatoria, además de bárbara, y debe ser abolida.
La traducción es mía. La versión original en inglés está abajo.
The New York Times
September 16, 2011
Stay of Execution
After granting a stay of execution to Duane Buck just hours before he was to be put to death in Texas on Thursday, the Supreme Court must now review the case or, at the very least, order a lower federal court to consider Mr. Buck’s plea for a new sentencing hearing. It cannot allow a terrible injustice to stand.
Mr. Buck, an African-American, was convicted of murder in 1997. At the sentencing phase of his trial, a psychologist who was an expert witness said “yes” when asked if “the race factor, black,” increased the chances that Mr. Buck would do something dangerous again.
In Texas, this is a pivotal question: if the state does not prove “future dangerousness” beyond a reasonable doubt, it cannot sentence a convict to death. The prosecution got the answer it wanted and urged the jury to rely on this testimony. The jury sentenced Mr. Buck to death.
In 2000, Senator John Cornyn, who was then the Texas attorney general, called for new sentencing hearings for six men given the death penalty — including Mr. Buck — because race was improperly used as a factor in their sentencing.
Mr. Buck is the only one who has not been granted a new sentencing hearing. The state district attorney in charge in Mr. Buck’s case refused to admit that the use of race was a constitutional error that required a new hearing. By the time the case got to federal court, there was a new Texas attorney general who refused to abide by Mr. Cornyn’s judgment.
The gross racism in Mr. Buck’s case is proof again that the death penalty is cruel and unusual because it is arbitrary and discriminatory, as well as barbaric, and must be abolished.
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