Of current and future babies

Sep 19, 2022 | 8:00 pm ET

By Sean Scully

Elevated Access is a nonprofit organization made up of volunteer pilots across the country who will fly people in need of abortion or gender-affirming care wherever they need to go, at no cost. (Courtesy of Elevated Access)

Welcome to Monday again, this time Sept. 19. Wasn’t it just August? Wasn’t it just 2019? Who can tell anymore? Let’s move onto the news.

The Big Takeaway

Unsurprisingly, the issue of reproductive rights keeps rearing its head. Or in this case, taking to the air.

An Illinois nonprofit has offered to people seeking abortion services or gender-affirming care in states where such medical procedures are banned: A free lift on a private plane to a place where such care is allowed.

Three days before the leaked draft of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to strike down Roe v. Wade in May was public, a man who goes by the name “Mike Bonanza” for security reasons decided to act before the decision was finalized (as the court eventually did in June). He started recruiting private pilots to offer flights to patients facing new restrictions. So far, he has recruited about 840 pilots, including two in Idaho, reports the Idaho Capital Sun, though the nonprofit says about 10 would be needed to fully serve that restrictive state.

A spokeswoman, who goes by the pseudonym “Fiona Delta,” told the Capital Sun that about 1,300 people have contacted the nonprofit since the spring, about half of whom were pilots looking to help out.

The airlift can be a real boost for patients, particularly out West, where the distances are gigantic, or in the South, where many states have restrictions. The cost of gas and lodging alone can be insurmountable for poor patients trying to get to clinics in less restrictive states, advocates say. But a plane can travel in a matter of hours a distance that would take days by car or bus.

“Sometimes they end up spending all their money on gas and sleep in their cars,” the spokeswoman said. “This is the world we’re living in, where you’ve got these organizations that are trying to help people get from Texas to Virginia, or Idaho to Kansas, or what have you. It’s not easy for a lot of folks who are in this situation.”

Meanwhile, one of the many vexing questions posted by the notion that life begins at conception is whether the would-be parents can start claiming benefits previously due only to post-birth children. A Texas woman has already tried to claim that her fetus counted as a second person in the car for purposes of using an HOV lane, though courts have yet to embrace that idea.

But in Georgia, the official answer is yes, at least when it comes to taxes. Unlike many states that restrict abortion, Georgia has an explicit “personhood” provision that specifies that a fetus has rights just like any already-born human, reports the Geogia Recorder.

The state Department of Revenue has issued an advisory saying that anyone who was pregnant after July 20 can claim a future child as a current dependent, though details of how that will work are still pending.

“In the state of Georgia, House Bill 481 recognizes the fundamental truth, life begins at conception,” said Cole Muzio, president of the conservative Christian lobbying organization Frontline Policy Action and a backer of the legislation that created the new law. “And so we recognize that throughout our code. That means that a woman, as soon as she’s pregnant, can begin claiming that child on her taxes as a dependent.”

Of course, not all the news of the day is about future babies. Some of it is about current babies, and what happens to their medical information collected at birth.

In New Jersey, parents are hoping a recent federal court decision in Michigan will help them challenge a policy that allows blood samples collected at birth to be used without parent permission in later law enforcement investigations, reports the New Jersey Monitor.

A judge said last week that a Michigan program that tested such newborn blood samples for rare diseases was unconstitutional, even though the state obtains “informed consent” from parents.

“This decision is the first in the country to find newborn screening programs, as they’ve been designed here, unconstitutional,” Philip Ellison, the attorney for nine Michigan children and their parents, told the New Jersey Monitor. “And Michigan is one of the few states that actually tries to get consent. A lot of states don’t even try.”

In New Jersey, the state tells parents that the blood samples are required by law, but makes no attempt to get consent for using those samples for any purpose. The state doesn’t even fully disclose to the public how those samples are used, leading the Monitor and other news organizations to sue to get the information. It is known, however, that the samples have been used to identify a suspect in at least one rape case.

“If these are legitimate, good-for-society programs, they shouldn’t be trying to be hiding them. It should be very easy to find out information about them,” Ellison said of programs in New Jersey and elsewhere.

Also Trending

There was a time, not so long ago, when the notion that responsible corporate investment was touted as the wave of the future, under the broad umbrella of “social and corporate governance criteria.” Even state pension systems began to back off of companies involved in certain industries: Think guns, climate-change-promoting fossil fuels and so forth.

But now GOP officials are leading a backlash against such policies, saying they elevate ideology over the fiduciary duty of pension funds to maximize profits, thereby costing states money, our new national economy reporter Casey Quinlan writes.

“We are reasserting the authority of republican governance over corporate dominance and we are prioritizing the financial security of the people of Florida over whimsical notions of a utopian tomorrow,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said of a new Florida law banning such considerations in pension investing.

And state attorneys general in Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and Ohio were among those who signed an Aug. 4 letter to investment firm BlackRock, accusing it of letting political considerations stand in the way of its clients’ best interests.

“BlackRock’s commitment to the financial return of state pensions should be undivided,” they wrote.

But experts in the field say the GOP arguments are shortsighted and based more on politics than sound economics.

“Depending on the issue, there is more or less a ‘business case,’ more or less evidence showing that this issue will affect the bottom line of the organization,” said Alison Taylor, executive director of Ethical Systems at New York University. “Now where everybody has landed is climate change. I think that that's problematic for the Republican position because there are some of these issues where there's mixed evidence or there's not that much evidence that the issue will have a dramatic impact on the bottom line over the long term. But climate is certainly an issue where there's plenty of evidence that if you don't manage climate risk now, that will have a detrimental financial impact over the long term.”

Caught Our Eye

Honestly, any story that starts with the name “Cumberland monkeyface” is one worth reading. In this case, it is the name of a humble freshwater mussel native to the waters of Virginia.

Besides being delicious as a bistro delicacy, mussels turn out to be an unsung hero in the coastal ecosystem. A single mussel can filter up to 15 gallons of water per day, preventing nutrients and other harmful pollutants from flowing downstream, reports the Virginia Mercury.

But between overharvesting and habitat destruction, mussels are among the most threatened aquatic species nationwide, with about 70% of species threatened. Up to 90% of the mussels in the Chesapeake Bay have disappeared and only about a third of Virginia’s 82 species are considered stable.

Virginia will spend about $400,000 over two years to boost restoration efforts.

“The whole idea is just to get the Department of Wildlife Resources to have some people to work on the restoration, do some research and figure out how we can make sure these very vital organisms don’t go extinct,” said state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, who requested the funding in the budget.

They may be yummy, but they’re also vitally important to our waterways. (Sarah Vogelsong / Virginia Mercury)

From the Newsrooms

One Last Thing

Tired of life on this planet (and who could blame you)? Well, on Sept. 26, you can bask in the warm gravitational pull of our largest neighbor as Jupiter and the Earth come closer together than they have been in six decades, NASA says. It’s the closest you may ever get to visiting the gas giant.