Thursday, May 30, 2024

Criminalizing reproduction: Attacks on science, medicine and the right to choose: Texas: From our 'Wish List From Hell' department. The Huffington Post reports that the Texas GOP has put the death penalty for anortion on its 'wish list,' the Huffpost (Alanna Vagianos) reports, noting that Texas Republicans are considering a platform that appears to endorse the death penalty for abortion providers and patients - and that the proposal calls for new legislation to solidify fetal personhood ideology into law and define abortion care as homicide…."Texas delegates voted on a 2024 platform at the state’s GOP Convention on Saturday and aim to tally the votes by Wednesday to finalize their platform for the coming year. The proposal called for new legislation to solidify fetal personhood ideology into law, define abortion care as homicide and criminalize in vitro fertilization, first reported by feminist writer Jessica Valenti. The 50-page document also includes a slew of other far-right ideas such as proclaiming that gender-affirming care is “child abuse,” requirements that Christianity and the Bible be taught in public schools, and clarifies that Texas “retains the right to secede from the United States.” The platform is seen as more of a wish list than a binding document, but it’s a critical reflection of how far right the Texas Republican Party has moved in recent years."

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE:   " In recent years, I have taken on the    theme of criminalizing reproduction - a natural theme for a Blog conc...

Scott Peterson: Peterson; California: Major Development: Mercury News (Reporter Julia Prodis Sulek) reports that convicted murderer Scott Peterson’s attempt to prove someone else killed his wife, Laci, and their unborn son "failed overwhelmingly" Wednesday when a judge denied all but one request to retest DNA samples from old pieces of evidence…"Although his new defense lawyers from the Los Angeles Innocence Project will be allowed to retest a piece of duct tape stuck to Laci’s pants when her body was found washed up along San Francisco Bay in 2003, they won’t be able to retest a stained mattress from a burned out van found two miles from her Modesto home. They hoped it would show Laci was kidnapped and killed that Christmas eve morning in 2002, then thrown into the San Francisco Bay to frame her husband who said he was fishing there the day she disappeared. The judge also denied the defense request to retest a length of plastic twine found wrapped about the neck of the baby, which washed up separately from his mother after an April storm churned up the bay."

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: " “The case cries out for further investigation,” Mitchell, Peterson’s defense lawyer, told the judge during her argu...

Robert DuBoise: Tampa Bay Florida Florida: Junk bite mark testimony: 'The Marked Man." The Tampa Daily Times goes deeply into the story of a life cast into chaos when a teen went to trial in a sensational murder case hinging on a bite mark, by Christopher Spata and (Enterprise Reporter Covering Florida Culture) and Criminal Justice Reporter Dan Sullivan….These days, DuBoise walks carpeted hallways in orthopedic work boots, carrying his ladder. Members of Ardea Country Club in Oldsmar see a sweet 59-year-old with puffy eyes and a grin. “How are you today?” he asks in his froggy voice. “Is there anything I can do?” They may have heard about his 37 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, but few know how his unlikely freedom intertwines with a bigger Tampa saga. DuBoise’s 2020 exoneration in a single murder and rape case revealed what authorities call a vicious spree of serial killings, the links between them buried in case files and a morgue cabinet for decades. When he walked free, much lay ahead: his bid for compensation, a search for the true killers, a political power struggle — and the question of how to salvage what was left of his life. Yet DuBoise doesn’t complain. Stuck in traffic, he smiles: “I’m grateful to even be sitting at a red light.” He possesses what a judge called “an uncommon capacity for grace and forgiveness.” Pressed on the matter, however, he eventually relents. “Just because I have a good attitude,” he said, “does not mean I’m not mad about what was done to me.”

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-------------------------------------------------------- PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY:  " It soon became clear that the heart of the state’s ...