Category Archives: Viva!

Meet the Man Trying to Force Undocumented Women to Reverse Their Abortions

After months of doing everything in its power to prevent several undocumented women from accessing abortion, news has broken that Trump’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) discussed “reversing” a young woman’s abortion using a procedure unsupported by science. The driving force behind the administration’s torture of traumatized young refugees seeking necessary reproductive care? Scott Lloyd, ORR director.

Lloyd oversees detained unaccompanied minors, yet has no experience in refugee resettlement and has a long history of promoting anti-woman rhetoric. He is clearly in this position because his anti-immigrant and anti-abortion agenda aligns with Trump.

Abortion “reversal” is not supported by science or the medical community. Anti-abortion extremists’ “reversal” procedure involves injecting the hormone progesterone into the pregnant person after they take the first out of two abortifacient pills in order to questionably stop the abortion. Forcing women in the care of ORR to undergo this procedure – as Lloyd seriously considered – reduces them to science experiments, and falls squarely in line with the U.S.’s long history of conducting reproductive health experiments on enslaved black women or low-income Puerto Rican women, to name a few examples.

Named the “anti-abortion crusader” by the New York Times editorial board, Lloyd has dedicated his career to promoting medically-inaccurate information about sexual and reproductive health. He worked as an attorney at religiously-affiliated firms like LegalWorks Apostolate, and then pivoted into politics by working for the George W. Bush administration at Health and Human Services. In this role, he co-authored a “conscience” rule which would have permitted medical providers to refuse to administer contraception, abortion, and other services on moral grounds. The Obama administration rescinded this ruling because the language was incredibly broad and could be interpreted to allow medical professionals to deny patients any form of essential care. Reproductive rights advocates hold firmly that medical professionals have a legal duty to fulfill their patients’ medical needs.

In a post for a right-wing anti-abortion blog, Lloyd attacked Planned Parenthood and promoted myths about contraception causing abortion, claiming that taking contraceptives can result in early abortions. In addition to promoting false information, Lloyd has proposed absurdly restrictive measures on women’s decision to choose if and when to parent.

“I suggest that the American people make a deal with women: So long as you are using the condom, pill or patch I am providing with my money, you are going to promise not to have an abortion if the contraception fails, which it often does,” wrote Lloyd in the National Catholic Register. He goes on to  suggest that all women who are on birth control should be required to sign an anti-abortion pledge promising to never terminate a pregnancy if birth control fails them. His reasoning is punitive – if contraception fails, women should be penalized for their sexual behavior. Contraception is not a prize women get in exchange for carrying unwanted pregnancies: contraception is healthcare.

As an attorney, one might think Lloyd would respect the law, yet his professional background has enabled him to exploit it to harm immigrant women. Recently the American Civil Liberties Union brought Lloyd to court for denying immigrant women their right to access abortion among other violations such as requiring pregnant teens to attend anti-abortion counseling, requiring pregnant teens to have sonograms against their will, and preventing pregnant teens from doctors visits. ACLU and Planned Parenthood are rightfully calling for his removal. It is not up to him to force someone to be pregnant against their will.

Scott Lloyd should be removed from his position immediately. He was selected to lead the Office of Refugee Resettlement not because he has experience working with refugees – he obviously doesn’t – but because he is manipulative and paternalistic enough to impede upon women’s reproductive freedom. His actions against undocumented teens exercising their rights to receive safe healthcare is abhorrent, and part of a trend in our current Administration’s misogynist agenda.

Image Credit: Vice News

Rare Footages of Shanghai During the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45)

When did World War II begin? Americans would say December 7, 1941. For Europeans, it was September 1, 1939. But in China, people know the actual date. It was August 13, 1937. That day, after more than a century of humiliation and six years of repeated “incidents” by the Imperial Japanese Army, China at last “stood up.”This act of defiance took place in Shanghai, the most international city in Asia. It was front-page news around the world. Today, the story is forgotten. As the 80th anniversary of this fateful battle approaches, we recall the four years when China stood alone against Japanese imperialism. It all began in Shanghai: 1937.

Spotted on: Shanghai 1937 video on Vimeo

WHO: 54 patients died while awaiting security approval for referrals out of Gaza

PNN/ Gaza/

World Health Organizations (WHO) has released its monthly report for December 2017, which revealed the following:  

– 2017 the lowest rate for approvals since WHO began active monitoring in 2008: 54% of patient applications to exit Gaza via Erez were successful. There has been a continuous decline in approval rates since 2012, when approximately 93% of patient applications were successful.

– 54 patients died while awaiting security approval for referrals out of Gaza: Approximately 85% of the patients who died while awaiting security permits had been referred for cancer investigations or treatment.

– In December, 48% of patients unsuccessful in obtaining security permits from Israeli authorities: From 2,170 patient applications 52.4% were approved; 2.6% denied; and 45.0% delayed, receiving no definitive response from Israeli authorities by the date of hospital appointment.

– Three in five patient companions unsuccessful in obtaining permits to travel out of Gaza: There were 2,507 permit applications for patient companions submitted to Israeli authorities in December. 40.5%were approved, 3.6% were denied and 55.9% were delayed, still pending by the date of the patient’s hospital appointment.

– Security interrogation of patients: 11 patients (7 males; 4 females) were requested for interrogation by Israeli General Security Services at Erez during December. Five were approved permits to travel for health care.

– Financial coverage for health care: 1,784 requests for financial coverage for Gaza patients were approved by the Services Purchasing Unit of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in December 2017.   

– Limited access to Egypt: Rafah terminal was open for four days in both directions. 183 patients exited Gaza to seek medical care. No medical aid and no medical delegates entered Gaza via Rafah during the month. 

When feminists advance, why do prominent women hold us back? | Afua Hirsch

Afua_Hirsch.png?w=300&q=55&auto=format&u

is just the latest example: every development that could help us progress comes under friendly fire

Sometimes the quest to distance ourselves from oppression becomes truly creative. “I’m not racist,” says Lucas Joyner – ironically – in his viral track, My Sister’s Boyfriend’s Black. Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, was rightly ridiculed for attempting to prove his antiracism credentials by posting a collage of pictures of himself with black people – an absurd “wokeness by association” even if it were not obviously overridden by the fact that he advocates for an overtly racist president. Then there’s my personal favourite: “I’m not racist – I’m having a Motown-themed wedding.”

Related: The 1910s: ‘We have sanitised our history of the suffragettes’

Continue reading…

‘I think people are really disgusted’ – Quentin Tarantino faces Hollywood backlash

Time is up!

3500.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&f

The film-maker has been accused of negligence by Uma Thurman, fetishisation by Rose McGowan and audio has surfaced of him defending Roman Polanski, leading to questions from the industry

It started with Uma Thurman revealing that Quentin Tarantino bullied her into driving an unsafe car that crashed and now days later it is Tarantino’s reputation and possibly career that is skidding at dangerously high speed.

With accusations flying at the Pulp Fiction director from all over Hollywood, his status as one of America’s most revered auteurs is at risk, prompting speculation about his future.

Continue reading…

Twitter and Pornhub ban ‘deepfake’ face-swap porn videos

4721.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&f

Films depicting celebrities’ faces superimposed on to adult film actors using AI also banned from Gfycat, but not Reddit

Twitter and Pornhub have become the latest platforms to ban pornography made using AI-generated face-swap technology – known as “deepfakes” – as non-consensual porn.

There has been an explosion in the creation of videos that use cutting-edge machine learning techniques to superimpose the faces of female celebrities on to explicit clips, due to the release of a desktop app that streamlines the process in January.

Continue reading…

Trump’s desire for a military parade reveals him as a would-be despot | Jonathan Freedland

Jonathan-Freedland,-L.png?w=300&q=55&aut

If the president insists on flexing his muscles on the streets, the opposition should have an alternative parade to mock his strongman tactics

The genius of Donald Trump, it has long been observed, is to turn subtext into text. What was hinted at or hidden is, with him, brought shamelessly to the surface.

So it is with his latest scheme, his instruction to the top brass of the US armed forces to lay on a military parade in the nation’s capital, perhaps on 4 July. He’d been nagging the generals about this for a while but, according to the Washington Post, he gave the order at a meeting at the Pentagon last month.

Continue reading…

EPA head Scott Pruitt says global warming may help ‘humans flourish’

Those who live in areas that will certainly flood and areas where agriculture will stop because there is no water – hhhmmmm – not so pleased – what a dork!

5472.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&f

EPA administrator says ‘There are assumptions made that because the climate is warming that necessarily is a bad thing’

Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has suggested that global warming may be beneficial to humans, in his latest departure from mainstream climate science.

Pruitt, who has previously erred by denying that carbon dioxide is a key driver of climate change, has again caused consternation among scientists by suggesting that warming temperatures could benefit civilization.

Continue reading…