One other state copies—and intensifies—Texas abortion regulation. Oklahoma lawmakers on Tuesday voted to completely ban abortion besides in instances the place the mom’s life is in danger—and to place residents answerable for imposing the regulation.
The measure is a extra excessive model of 1 handed by Texas final yr to ban abortion at six weeks and let people sue anybody who aids somebody getting an abortion after that time.
Traditionally, such early bans on abortions have shortly been declared unconstitutional. However the U.S. Supreme Court docket held that as a result of the Texas regulation can be enforced by non-public residents and the courts as an alternative of state officers, the Court docket couldn’t preemptively shut it down.
Within the wake of that declaration, Republican-controlled legislatures throughout the nation have been attempting to cross comparable abortion restrictions. Copycat measures have already been handed in Idaho and launched in Missouri and Tennessee.
“Abortion rights activists have been warning of this nightmare for months: these bounty hunter legal guidelines may have a domino impact throughout the nation, as an increasing number of states ban abortion practically completely whereas Roe v. Wade continues to be the regulation of the land,” mentioned Elisabeth Smith, director of state coverage and advocacy for the Heart for Reproductive Rights, in an announcement.
Just like the Texas regulation, the Idaho and Missouri variations would ban abortion as quickly as fetal cardiac exercise might be detected—round 4 weeks post-conception (which is called six weeks of being pregnant). The Oklahoma and Tennessee variations would ban most abortions from the very begin of being pregnant.
The Oklahoma measure—HB 4327—can be enforced by non-public residents, who may sue anybody who “performs or induces” or “aids or abets the efficiency” of an abortion and be awarded at the very least $10,000 for each unlawful abortion carried out.
It handed the state’s Home of Representatives 78–19 on Tuesday and now goes to the Senate. If handed, it could take impact as quickly because the state’s governor indicators it.
“Whereas abortion stays authorized in Oklahoma for now, this vote comes one week after the Senate Well being and Human Companies Committee handed 5 different anti-abortion payments—together with six-week and 30-day abortion bans—in lower than an hour,” notes Deliberate Parenthood.
BREAKING: The Oklahoma Home has permitted a complete abortion ban that may be enforced by non-public residents.
If permitted by the Senate and signed into regulation, this ban would take impact instantly.
It is a darkish second for Oklahomans’ skill to regulate their very own our bodies and futures.
— ACLU (@ACLU) March 23, 2022
FREE MINDS
Masculinity tied to inflated estimation of IQ. Analysis revealed in Frontiers in Psychology appears at gender variations in self-reported intelligence. “Males and members of each genders who scored excessive in masculinity provide[ed] greater self-estimates,” states the paper, from Australian researchers David Reilly, David L. Neumann, and Glenda Andrews. Additionally they noticed “noticed a sample of systematic underestimation in females.”
“Psychology and intelligence researchers are unequivocal: women and men don’t differ in precise IQ,” writes Reilly at Neuroscience Information. Nonetheless, when requested to estimate IQ, male scores “had been extra typically overestimates” and feminine scores “had been extra typically underestimates.” Extra:
After statistically controlling for the consequences of precise measured IQ, we subsequent examined the strongest predictors of self-estimated intelligence. The outcomes confirmed organic intercourse remained the strongest issue: males rated their intelligence as greater than females. Nonetheless, psychological gender was additionally a really sturdy predictor, with extremely masculine topics ranking their intelligence greater (importantly, there was no affiliation with femininity).
There was additionally a powerful contribution of common vanity to members’ mental self-image. As famous above, males report greater vanity than females.
You could find the complete paper right here.
FREE MARKETS
Contempt for Warren’s crypto invoice. The Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act, launched by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) final week, is ostensibly about Russia. It might enable the federal government “to dam and prohibit all transactions” from digital asset buying and selling platforms and transaction facilitators which are owned, managed by, or serving to “any individual with respect to which sanctions have been imposed by the US regarding the Russian Federation.” And it could let the Treasury Division “require that no digital asset buying and selling platform or digital asset transaction facilitator that does enterprise in the US transact with, or fulfill transactions of, digital asset addresses which are recognized to be, or may fairly be recognized to be, affiliated with individuals headquartered or domiciled within the Russian Federation if the Secretary determines that exercising such authority is vital to the nationwide curiosity of the US.”
Nevertheless it additionally goes past Russia, stating that “the Monetary Crimes Enforcement Community shall require United States individuals engaged in a transaction with a worth larger than $10,000 in digital belongings by means of 1 or extra accounts outdoors of the US” to report it to the federal authorities.
“Everybody hates” the invoice, notes Futurism:
Analysts on the DC-based Coin Heart assume tank wrote in a weblog publish that the invoice’s key conceit—suggesting Russian oligarchs may use crypto wallets to launder tons of cash—is implausible, given the general public nature of blockchains, which file each transaction on open digital ledgers. Moreover, its broad language would criminalize a bunch of actions that aren’t, to the minds of the publish’s writers, legal. …
On the opposite facet of Capitol Hill, some Democrats have additionally taken subject with Warren’s makes an attempt to control the burgeoning business as properly.
“The way forward for finance and the web shouldn’t be left to a gerontocracy of regulators who look like on a private campaign towards crypto,” Rep. Ritchie Torres, a freshman congressman representing New York Metropolis, instructed Politico in an interview concerning the invoice. “Congress, which has a brand new technology of legislators, ought to have the ultimate phrase.”
“It’s best to by no means outline any expertise by its worst makes use of,” he added. “There’s extra to crypto than ransomware, similar to there’s extra to cash than cash laundering.”
QUICK HITS
• Right now marks the third day of the the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court docket. This is what occurred yesterday. (See additionally: Josh Hawley’s Assault on Ketanji Brown Jackson Illustrates the Emotionalism She Criticized.)
• The town of Los Angeles acquired greater than $600 million in COVID-19 aid funds from the federal authorities in 2021 and gave round $317 million of it to the Los Angeles Police Division for “payroll expenditures.”
• The Authorized Support Society is difficult the New York Metropolis Police Division’s use of a DNA database. In a brand new class motion lawsuit, the group “accuses the town of working an unlawful and unregulated DNA database in violation of state regulation and constitutional protections towards unreasonable searches,” experiences The New York Occasions. “The go well with requires DNA profiles that attorneys argue had been gathered unlawfully to be expunged and for the database to be shut down completely.”
• J.D. Tuccille: Your favourite disaster does not justify a dictatorship.
• BuzzFeed shareholders need to close down BuzzFeed Information.
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