theintercept--2020-10-10--National Security “Experts,” Exploiting Pandemic Fears, Show Their Irrelevance

As soon as President Donald Trump announced on October 2 at 12:54 a.m. that he ’ d tested positive for Covid-19 , America ’ s national security establishment stirred to life .
Nicholas Burns , who worked in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and is now an adviser to Joe Biden ’ s presidential campaign , was tweeting by 7:30 a.m. : “ With the President ’ s illness amid a divisive campaign , we should not discount the possibility that China will step up pressure on Taiwan or Russia seek to take advantage in Eastern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ magazine was asking , “ Will Trump ’ s Case of COVID-19 Endanger U.S. National Security ?
” Soon Stephen Hadley , once Bush ’ s national security adviser , was fretting that “ some adversaries may think that America may be distracted , so that they can get away with something.
” Washington , D.C. possesses a wondrous panoply of national security experts like this .
Some work at think tanks ( funded by huge defense corporations ) , some are op-ed columnists ( whose newspapers run expensive ads from huge defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the executive branch ( because they were appointed by presidents funded by huge defense corporations ) .
Since World War II , these experts have grown used to dominating U.S. politics with ceaseless , lurid warnings about the terrifying dangers we face .
First it was the Soviet Union , then China , then Vietnam , then “ terror , ” Iran , Saddam Hussein , “ terror ” again , North Korea , Russia , and , now and always , “ terror.
” In each case , it turned out that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fork over more money to defense corporations .
But for the past six months , as the coronavirus exploded across America , D.C. ’ s foreign policy thinkers have experienced something novel for them : irrelevance .
Covid-19 has killed over 210,000 of us , more than 9/11 and the Vietnam , Korean , Iraq , and Afghanistan wars combined .
Dr. Anthony Fauci , director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , recently warned that that number may reach 400,000 — that is , as many Americans as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we don ’ t take the necessary actions this fall and winter .
“ The national security threat has arrived on our shores : It is the virus , ” said Stephen Wertheim , co-founder of an anti-interventionist think tank called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft , and author of “ Tomorrow , the World : The Birth of U.S .
Global Supremacy.
” Yet for the last half-year , the traditional national security experts were not being invited so much on “ Meet the Press ” nor quoted by the New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all along about what actually threatened Americans .
With Trump ’ s diagnosis , the mandarins displayed a palpable sense of relief .
Here at last was a chance to break out the old hymnal and sing the only songs they know .
Americans might think that the danger of two-thirds of the Trump administration entering quarantine would be that they ’ d be even more incompetent at suppressing the coronavirus .
All normal people might have their minds right now on concrete issues , such as the availability of testing or whether @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to go to school .
The national security experts , however , believe that we should focus on amorphous threats from enemies somewhere out there in the hazy mist .
Why did Trump have to take a joyride outside Walter Reed hospital ?
Because “ optics matter right now , ” according to one unnamed administration official .
“ Shows of strength and resilience are crucial .
For the American public , but also those watching abroad.
” The others are out there , ready to pounce , but were intimidated by Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an armored SUV , exhaling on the Secret Service agents sealed inside with him .
“ Commentators are displaying a uniquely American pathology , ” explained Wertheim .
“ There appears to be no event that could happen in the world that would not cause the foreign policy establishment to respond by arguing that the U.S. military must do more and be given more money to do it.
” President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered what is called his “ Cross of Iron ” speech .
It included what are , apart from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he let office , his most famous words .
“ Every gun that is made , ” Eisenhower said , “ every warship launched , every rocket fired signifies , in the final sense , a theft from those who hunger and are not fed , those who are cold and are not clothed .
This world in arms is not spending money alone .
It is spending the sweat of its laborers , the genius of its scientists , the hopes of its children.
” Specifically , “ the cost of one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fine , fully equipped hospitals.
” Things have changed since then , of course .
The Pentagon now famously projects that the F-35 jet fighter will cost a total of $ 1.5 trillion over the program ’ s life .
With the government planning to purchase about 2,500 F-35s from Lockheed-Martin , the price for each individual plane works out to $ 600 million or so .
That ’ s the cost of six present-day hospitals .
The decadeslong theft that Eisenhower foresaw — the theft of what we now know we desperately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ genius of Americans — was largely carried out by our national security experts .
You can understand why they ’ re so anxious that we don ’ t notice this , and why they ’ re desperate to get things back to normal so the heist can continue .

Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
As soon as President Donald Trump announced on October 2 at 12:54 a.m. that he’d tested positive for Covid-19, America’s national security establishment stirred to life.
Nicholas Burns, who worked in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and is now an adviser to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, was tweeting by 7:30 a.m.: “With the President’s illness amid a divisive campaign, we should not discount the possibility that China will step up pressure on Taiwan or Russia seek to take advantage in Eastern Europe.” By early afternoon Foreign Policy magazine was asking, “Will Trump’s Case of COVID-19 Endanger U.S. National Security?” Soon Stephen Hadley, once Bush’s national security adviser, was fretting that “some adversaries may think that America may be distracted, so that they can get away with something.”
Washington, D.C. possesses a wondrous panoply of national security experts like this. Some work at think tanks (funded by huge defense corporations), some are op-ed columnists (whose newspapers run expensive ads from huge defense corporations), while others toil within the executive branch (because they were appointed by presidents funded by huge defense corporations).
Since World War II, these experts have grown used to dominating U.S. politics with ceaseless, lurid warnings about the terrifying dangers we face. First it was the Soviet Union, then China, then Vietnam, then “terror,” Iran, Saddam Hussein, “terror” again, North Korea, Russia, and, now and always, “terror.” In each case, it turned out that the only way to save ourselves was to fork over more money to defense corporations.
But for the past six months, as the coronavirus exploded across America, D.C.’s foreign policy thinkers have experienced something novel for them: irrelevance. Covid-19 has killed over 210,000 of us, more than 9/11 and the Vietnam, Korean, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars combined. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently warned that that number may reach 400,000 — that is, as many Americans as died in World War II — if we don’t take the necessary actions this fall and winter.
“The national security threat has arrived on our shores: It is the virus,” said Stephen Wertheim, co-founder of an anti-interventionist think tank called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and author of “Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.” Yet for the last half-year, the traditional national security experts were not being invited so much on “Meet the Press” nor quoted by the New York Times. They had been wrong all along about what actually threatened Americans.
The national security experts believe that we should focus on amorphous threats from enemies somewhere out there in the hazy mist.
With Trump’s diagnosis, the mandarins displayed a palpable sense of relief. Here at last was a chance to break out the old hymnal and sing the only songs they know. Americans might think that the danger of two-thirds of the Trump administration entering quarantine would be that they’d be even more incompetent at suppressing the coronavirus. All normal people might have their minds right now on concrete issues, such as the availability of testing or whether it’s safe for their children to go to school.
The national security experts, however, believe that we should focus on amorphous threats from enemies somewhere out there in the hazy mist. Why did Trump have to take a joyride outside Walter Reed hospital? Because “optics matter right now,” according to one unnamed administration official. “Shows of strength and resilience are crucial. For the American public, but also those watching abroad.” The others are out there, ready to pounce, but were intimidated by Trump’s ability to ride around briefly in an armored SUV, exhaling on the Secret Service agents sealed inside with him.
“Commentators are displaying a uniquely American pathology,” explained Wertheim. “There appears to be no event that could happen in the world that would not cause the foreign policy establishment to respond by arguing that the U.S. military must do more and be given more money to do it.”
In April 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered what is called his “Cross of Iron” speech. It included what are, apart from his warning about the military-industrial complex as he left office, his most famous words.
“Every gun that is made,” Eisenhower said, “every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” Specifically, “the cost of one modern heavy bomber is this … two fine, fully equipped hospitals.”
Things have changed since then, of course. The Pentagon now famously projects that the F-35 jet fighter will cost a total of $1.5 trillion over the program’s life. With the government planning to purchase about 2,500 F-35s from Lockheed-Martin, the price for each individual plane works out to $600 million or so. That’s the cost of six present-day hospitals.
The decadeslong theft that Eisenhower foresaw — the theft of what we now know we desperately need, hospitals and food and the genius of Americans — was largely carried out by our national security experts. You can understand why they’re so anxious that we don’t notice this, and why they’re desperate to get things back to normal so the heist can continue.


theintercept--2020-10-10--New Documents Reveal How the Animal Agriculture Industry Surveils and Punishes Critics

This week ’ s SYSTEM UPDATE on this topic — with Dr .
Crystal Heath , one of the veterinarians targeted by these industry campaigns for retaliation — can be viewed on The Intercept ’ s YouTube channel , or on the player below .
defending factory farms engage in campaigns of surveillance , reputation-destruction and other forms of retaliation against industry critics and animal rights activists , documents obtained through a FOIA request from the U.S. Department of Agriculture ( USDA ) reveal .
That the USDA possesses these emails and other documents demonstrates the federal government ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , these industry campaigns .
These documents detail ongoing monitoring of the social media of news outlets , including The Intercept , which report critically on factory farms .
They reveal private surveillance activities aimed at animal rights groups and their members .
They include discussions of how to create a climate of intimidation for activists who work against industry abuses , including by photographing the activists and publishing the photos online .
And they describe a coordinated ostracization campaign that specifically targets veterinarians who criticize industry practices , out of concern that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ powerfully denounce industry abuses .
One of the industry groups central to these activities is the Animal Agriculture Alliance , which represents factory farms and other animal agriculture companies — or , as they playfully put it , they work for corporations “ involved in getting food from the farm to our forks !
” The group boasts that one of its prime functions is “ Monitoring Activism , ” by which they mean : “ We identify emerging threats and provide insightful resources on animal rights and other activist groups by attending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media and engaging our national network.
” Indeed , the Alliance frequently monitors and infiltrates conferences of industry critics and activists , then provides reports to their corporate members on what was discussed .
As The Intercept previously noted when reporting on felony charges brought against animal rights activists with Direct Action Everywhere ( DxE ) for peaceful filming and symbolic animal rescues inside one Utah farm that supplies Whole Foods and another owned by Smithfield — an action that showed how wildly at odds with reality is the bucolic branding of those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a statement denouncing the activists for ( ironically ) harming their animals and urging law enforcement and “ policymakers ” to intervene on behalf of the industry against the activists .
In the emails obtained by the FOIA request , the Alliance and its allies frequently encourage their members to alert the FBI and Department of Homeland Security regarding actions by activists .
In response to a project by DxE to create a map tracking factory farms , Lyle Orwig — Chairman of the agricultural company Charleston/Orwig , Inc. and a member of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ step of “ taking photos of every DXE [ sic ] member ” and posting them to the internet while accusing them of being “ opposed to feeding the hungry.
” for retaliation in these discussions was a popular , respected Bay Area veterinarian , Dr .
Crystal Heath .
As a local CBS affiliate television profile of her explained , Dr. Heath is the kind of veterinarian who we all as children are taught to admire .
Rather than working for corporations or state agencies engaged in cruel animal experimentation , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to provide the veneer of medical justification for their barbaric , torturous practices , Dr. Heath has devoted herself to shelter medicine , working for years with the Berkeley Humane Society and other non-profit animal rescue groups , where she “ has spayed and neutered more than 20,000 animals.
” The CBS broadcast report provides a full picture of the humanitarian and self-sacrificing nature of her work .
But to the Animal Agriculture Alliance and its industry allies , Dr. Heath somehow became a grave danger , an “ extremist ” whose name @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as someone to be aggressively shunned .
And that is exactly what they did .
What prompted this targeted campaign against her was nothing more than her use of her veterinarian expertise to express criticisms of industry abuses and excesses .
In May , The Intercept reported on a gruesome mass-extermination technique being used by Iowa ’ s largest pork producer , Iowa Select Farms , to kill large numbers of pigs which were deemed unnecessary and in need of “ depopulation ” due to the pandemic .
The technique , called “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involves cutting off the air supply in barns and turning up the heat to intense levels so that “ most pigs — though not all — die after hours of suffering from a combination of being suffocated and roasted to death.
” The pigs who survive this excruciating ordeal are then shot in the head in the morning by farm employees .
A video report produced by The Intercept and the video documentarian Leighton Woodhouse — based on footage obtained inside an Iowa Select barn by DxE as the pigs were slowly dying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people .
Numerous veterinarians were shocked by the use of this unspeakably cruel and gratuitous mass-extermination tactic , which imposes extreme , protracted suffering on highly intelligent , socially complex , sentient animals .
And it created serious problems for the industry , with McDonalds demanding an explanation it could use publicly , and even discussions — from the National Pork Producers Council — to invent a new , more pleasant and euphemistic name for the extermination technique : One of the veterinarians indignant about ventilation shutdown extermination programs was Dr. Heath .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundreds of her veterinarian colleagues to launch a campaign urging the American Veterinarian Medical Association ( AVMA ) to withdraw its approval of the use of this technique in limited , proscribed circumstances .
Though the AVMA says it was not involved in the specific use of the extermination technique by Iowa Select , its guidelines approving of VSD were , as The Intercept documented , cited as justification by the company and its allies .
Dr. Heath was quoted in one news report on the controversy as saying : “ I believe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ approve of VSD except as a ‘ last resort ’ depopulation method and AVMA intended VSD to be used only in extreme conditions of infectious or zoonotic disease outbreaks or natural disasters .
AVMA approval has allowed pig and poultry producers to use VSD as a cost-savings procedure to cheaply destroy unprofitable or excess animals.
” Due to her criticisms of these factory farm practices and her work with DxE in advocating industry reform , industry groups focused on her .
In one email from April , a Vice President of the Animal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that an “ alert ” had been sent about Dr. Heath to California members , accusing her of engaging in “ extreme activism ” and encouraging groups to “ spread the word to your veterinarian contacts in California ” — where Dr. Heath practices — “ using private , members only channels.
” Following that “ alert , ” Dr. Heath began experiencing targeted campaigns against her online and within her profession .
Though it can not be proven that this was the result of the Alliance ’ s “ alert , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first time in the wake of that alert tracked the language used against her by these industry groups .
( The Alliance and Thompson-Weeman did not respond to The Intercept ’ s request for comments .
Thompson-Weeman locked her Twitter account yesterday after we previewed this article and the SYSTEM UPDATE episode .
The AVMA has denied that it was involved in Iowa Select ’ s use of VSD ) .
What perhaps alerted the Alliance was one veterinarian group that accused her of being “ part of an active campaign to cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clients and ourselves , ” announcing that they had alerted the Alliance about her .
Veterinarian groups on Facebook posted their own warnings about her , and she was banned from some groups .
Comments began appearing on her own Facebook page , purportedly from other veterinarians , accusing her of “ deranged activism , ” being “ a liar who makes up stories , ” “ bastardizing our profession through every available method , ” and claiming that she is “ literally , by name , a topic of conversation in board @ @ @ @ @ @ @ medicine across the nation .
Your name is literally toxic.
” What alarmed Dr. Heath most was the emergence online of anonymous fliers which contained a “ BEWARE ” warning at the top , along with her photo and a string of accusations , some of which were false , that claimed she habors “ an agenda that doesn ’ t include anything positive for our profession ” and “ expresses fondness ” for “ domestic terrorist organizations.
” It warned that even allowing her access to the social media pages of veterinarians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that she be blocked from all online forums , personal profiles and social media groups .
It goes without saying that this sort of a campaign could be devastating to the career opportunities or ability to earn a livelihood of any veterinarian .
Fortunately for Dr. Heath , she believes her hard-earned reputation with area clinics developed over many years will enable her to continue to work , but she believes , for very good reason , that “ alerts ” and campaigns of this sort would make it extremely difficult if not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ else .
For a younger or less-established veterinarian seeing what was done to her , they would obviously think twice about speaking out or working against the factory farm industry , the obvious goal of such campaigns .
That the U.S. Department of Agriculture was in possession of the emails and other documents circulated by industry groups , and thus produced them as part of the FOIA request , indicates that , at the very least , government officials are being included in these discussions ( the flier about Dr. Heath and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by The Intercept from Dr. Heath , not by the FOIA request ) .
What is clear is that the animal agricultural industry essentially operates their own private surveillance and ” warning ” networks , and uses their extensive influence within the halls of government power to aid their efforts to punish and retaliate against its critics and activists .
Dr. Heath is my guest on this week ’ s SYSTEM UPDATE .
The episode , which can be viewed on The Intercept ’ s YouTube channel or on the player below , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ obtained by the FOIA request , and I then speak to Dr. Heath about what she has endured as a result of her speaking out against this very powerful industry .

This week’s SYSTEM UPDATE on this topic — with Dr. Crystal Heath, one of the veterinarians targeted by these industry campaigns for retaliation — can be viewed on The Intercept’s YouTube channel, or on the player below.
Animal agriculture industry groups defending factory farms engage in campaigns of surveillance, reputation destruction, and other forms of retaliation against industry critics and animal rights activists, documents obtained through a FOIA request from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveal. That the USDA possesses these emails and other documents demonstrates the federal government’s knowledge of, if not participation in, these industry campaigns.
These documents detail ongoing monitoring of the social media of news outlets, including The Intercept, which report critically on factory farms. They reveal private surveillance activities aimed at animal rights groups and their members. They include discussions of how to create a climate of intimidation for activists who work against industry abuses, including by photographing the activists and publishing the photos online. And they describe a coordinated ostracization campaign that specifically targets veterinarians who criticize industry practices, out of concern that veterinarians are uniquely well-positioned to persuasively and powerfully denounce industry abuses.
One of the industry groups central to these activities is the Animal Agriculture Alliance, which represents factory farms and other animal agriculture companies — or, as they playfully put it, they work for corporations “involved in getting food from the farm to our forks!” The group boasts that one of its prime functions is “Monitoring Activism,” by which they mean: “We identify emerging threats and provide insightful resources on animal rights and other activist groups by attending their events, monitoring traditional and social media and engaging our national network.”
Indeed, the Alliance frequently monitors and infiltrates conferences of industry critics and activists, then provides reports to their corporate members on what was discussed. As The Intercept previously noted when reporting on felony charges brought against animal rights activists with Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, for peaceful filming and symbolic animal rescues inside one Utah farm that supplies Whole Foods and another owned by Smithfield — an action that showed how wildly at odds with reality is the bucolic branding of those farms — the Animal Agriculture Alliance issued a statement denouncing the activists for (ironically) harming their animals and urging law enforcement and “policymakers” to intervene on behalf of the industry against the activists.
In the emails obtained by the FOIA request, the Alliance and its allies frequently encourage their members to alert the FBI and Department of Homeland Security regarding actions by activists. In response to a project by DxE to create a map tracking factory farms, Lyle Orwig — chair of the agricultural company Charleston/Orwig, Inc. and a member of the Alliance board — proposed the retaliatory step of “taking photos of every DXE [sic] member” and posting them to the internet while accusing them of being “opposed to feeding the hungry.”
One person singled out for retaliation in these discussions was a popular, respected Bay Area veterinarian, Dr. Crystal Heath. As a local CBS affiliate television profile of her explained, Dr. Heath is the kind of veterinarian who we all as children are taught to admire.
Rather than working for corporations or state agencies engaged in cruel animal experimentation, or for factory farms making a large salary to provide the veneer of medical justification for their barbaric, torturous practices, Dr. Heath has devoted herself to shelter medicine, working for years with the Berkeley Humane Society and other nonprofit animal rescue groups, where she “has spayed and neutered more than 20,000 animals.” The CBS broadcast report provides a full picture of the humanitarian and self-sacrificing nature of her work.
But to the Animal Agriculture Alliance and its industry allies, Dr. Heath somehow became a grave danger, an “extremist” whose name needed to be circulated within her profession as someone to be aggressively shunned. And that is exactly what they did. What prompted this targeted campaign against her was nothing more than her use of her veterinarian expertise to express criticisms of industry abuses and excesses.
In May, The Intercept reported on a gruesome mass-extermination technique being used by Iowa’s largest pork producer, Iowa Select Farms, to kill large numbers of pigs which were deemed unnecessary and in need of “depopulation” due to the pandemic. The technique, called “ventilation shutdown,” or VSD, involves cutting off the air supply in barns and turning up the heat to intense levels so that “most pigs — though not all — die after hours of suffering from a combination of being suffocated and roasted to death.” The pigs who survive this excruciating ordeal are then shot in the head in the morning by farm employees. A video report produced by The Intercept and the video documentarian Leighton Woodhouse — based on footage obtained inside an Iowa Select barn by DxE as the pigs were slowly dying — was viewed by more than 150,000 people.
Numerous veterinarians were shocked by the use of this unspeakably cruel and gratuitous mass-extermination tactic, which imposes extreme, protracted suffering on highly intelligent, socially complex, sentient animals. And it created serious problems for the industry, with McDonald’s demanding an explanation it could use publicly, and even discussions — from the National Pork Producers Council — to invent a new, more pleasant and euphemistic name for the extermination technique:
One of the veterinarians indignant about ventilation shutdown extermination programs was Dr. Heath. She was part of a group of hundreds of her veterinarian colleagues to launch a campaign urging the American Veterinarian Medical Association to withdraw its approval of the use of this technique in limited, proscribed circumstances. Though the AVMA says it was not involved in the specific use of the extermination technique by Iowa Select, its guidelines approving of VSD were, as The Intercept documented, cited as justification by the company and its allies.
Dr. Heath was quoted in one news report on the controversy as saying: “I believe the majority of AVMA members do not approve of VSD except as a ‘last resort’ depopulation method and AVMA intended VSD to be used only in extreme conditions of infectious or zoonotic disease outbreaks or natural disasters. AVMA approval has allowed pig and poultry producers to use VSD as a cost-savings procedure to cheaply destroy unprofitable or excess animals.”
Due to her criticisms of these factory farm practices and her work with DxE in advocating industry reform, industry groups focused on her. In one email from April, a vice president of the Animal Agriculture Alliance, Hannah Thompson-Weeman, revealed that an “alert” had been sent about Dr. Heath to California members, accusing her of engaging in “extreme activism” and encouraging groups to “spread the word to your veterinarian contacts in California” — where Dr. Heath practices — “using private, members only channels.”
Following that “alert,” Dr. Heath began experiencing targeted campaigns against her online and within her profession. Though it cannot be proven that this was the result of the Alliance’s “alert,” what began happening to her for the first time in the wake of that alert tracked the language used against her by these industry groups. (The Alliance and Thompson-Weeman did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comments. Thompson-Weeman locked her Twitter account yesterday after we previewed this article and the SYSTEM UPDATE episode. The AVMA has denied that it was involved in Iowa Select’s use of VSD.)
What perhaps alerted the Alliance was one veterinarian group that accused her of being “part of an active campaign to cause as much harm as possible to our clients and ourselves,” announcing that they had alerted the Alliance about her. Veterinarian groups on Facebook posted their own warnings about her, and she was banned from some groups. Comments began appearing on her own Facebook page, purportedly from other veterinarians, accusing her of “deranged activism,” being “a liar who makes up stories,” “bastardizing our profession through every available method,” and claiming that she is “literally, by name, a topic of conversation in board rooms from Ag business to organized veterinarian medicine across the nation. Your name is literally toxic.”
What alarmed Dr. Heath most was the emergence online of anonymous flyers which contained a “BEWARE” warning at the top, along with her photo and a string of accusations, some of which were false, that claimed she harbors “an agenda that doesn’t include anything positive for our profession” and “expresses fondness” for “domestic terrorist organizations.” It warned that even allowing her access to the social media pages of veterinarians could be dangerous, and thus urged that she be blocked from all online forums, personal profiles, and social media groups.
It goes without saying that this sort of a campaign could be devastating to the career opportunities or ability to earn a livelihood of any veterinarian. Fortunately for Dr. Heath, she believes her hard-earned reputation with area clinics developed over many years will enable her to continue to work, but she believes, for very good reason, that “alerts” and campaigns of this sort would make it extremely difficult if not impossible for her to find work anywhere else. For a younger or less-established veterinarian seeing what was done to her, they would obviously think twice about speaking out or working against the factory farm industry, the obvious goal of such campaigns.
That the U.S. Department of Agriculture was in possession of the emails and other documents circulated by industry groups, and thus produced them as part of the FOIA request, indicates that, at the very least, government officials are being included in these discussions (the flyer about Dr. Heath and other social media postings regarding her were obtained by The Intercept from Dr. Heath, not by the FOIA request). What is clear is that the animal agricultural industry essentially operates their own private surveillance and “warning” networks, and uses their extensive influence within the halls of government power to aid their efforts to punish and retaliate against its critics and activists.
Dr. Heath is my guest on this week’s SYSTEM UPDATE. The episode, which can be viewed on The Intercept’s YouTube channel or on the player below, first reviews these new documents in detail obtained by the FOIA request, and I then speak to Dr. Heath about what she has endured as a result of her speaking out against this very powerful industry.


theintercept--2020-10-11--The Fight for Reproductive Justice in a Post-Ginsburg World

outside the U.S. Supreme Court alongside a crowd of activists and advocates for abortion rights as the nine jurists inside heard oral arguments in a case that , depending on its outcome , could destroy access to abortion in Louisiana .
It was a crisp morning in early March , mere days before the coronavirus pandemic would see the country all but completely locked down .
Njoku , one of the founders of Access Reproductive Care-Southeast , a nonprofit that provides assistance to individuals seeking abortion care across six states in the Deep South , was rallying outside the court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so much energy , ” she recalled .
It was nearly four years to the day since the last time Njoku had been in front of the high court .
That morning , in early 2016 , the court was considering the constitutionality of a set of abortion restrictions in Texas that had shuttered half the state ’ s clinics .
At the time , there were just eight justices on the bench ; Antonin Scalia had died several weeks earlier .
In the end , Anthony Kennedy joined the four more liberal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to strike down the restrictions , which included a requirement that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a local hospital .
The court found no evidence that this was necessary to ensure patient safety .
Now , Njoku was back in the same space rallying for the same cause : The restriction at issue in the Louisiana case was identical to the admitting privileges requirement the court had invalidated in Texas .
“ It was a full-circle moment , where it was almost four years to the day ; I ’ m back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same thing , ” she said .
“ I was like , ‘ They have to uphold this precedent.
’ ” By then , Kennedy had left the bench and President Donald Trump had installed two new conservative justices , Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh , who were appointed precisely because of their hostility to abortion .
In the end , the court did strike down the Louisiana law , with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the deciding vote — albeit with an opinion suggesting the court would be open to upholding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the decision was announced , Njoku realized that it wasn ’ t exactly a game-changing victory .
Anti-abortion lawmakers have passed more than 450 abortion restrictions over the last decade , many of which still stand , making access to abortion difficult , if not nearly impossible , for millions of people .
This is especially true for people of color , LGBTQ people , poor and low-income people , and people in rural areas , who are routinely hit hardest by restrictions on reproductive care , as well as broader inequalities within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been widely exposed not only by the pandemic , but also through a summer of civil rights protests that have thrown new light on the country ’ s continuing legacy of racial oppression .
And with Ginsburg ’ s death in September , the fight for reproductive justice faces new threats as Republicans scramble to fill her seat with appeals court jurist Amy Coney Barrett , who in 2006 signed on to a call for Roe v. Wade to be overturned , which described its legacy as “ barbaric.
” According to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that were to happen , 24 states would prohibit abortion altogether .
If Barrett is seated , not only is the future of legal abortion in jeopardy , but also access to the larger health care system ; the Supreme Court is slated to hear yet another challenge to the Affordable Care Act on November 10 .
“ Yes , this is a huge blow , but it doesn ’ t stop the fact that we still have to do work on the ground , as grassroots organizations , as people who are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ done or that prior administrations have done , ” Njoku said .
“ We have to continue fighting until we get to that future of reproductive justice where we ’ re able to access whatever health care that we need without any bias or barrier.
” While Ginsburg ’ s seat is still vacant , the Trump administration has already offered the eight-member court an opportunity to restrict abortion access amid the pandemic .
At issue is how medication abortion is provided to people seeking to terminate a pregnancy in its earliest stages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , medication abortion is a two-drug regimen that has been available in the U.S. for 20 years and used by more than 4 million people .
Medication abortion accounts for 60 percent of all early terminations and nearly 40 percent of all abortions , according to the Guttmacher Institute .
It works like this : Patients first take mifepristone , a drug that blocks progesterone , a hormone needed to maintain pregnancy ; 24 to 48 hours later , the patient takes a second drug , misoprostol , which creates contractions in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration , medication abortion is very safe and serious complications are extremely rare .
Importantly , medication abortion allows patients the ability to terminate a pregnancy in the privacy of their own home or wherever they choose to be .
Nonetheless , access to medication abortion has been restricted in ways that are medically unnecessary .
The needless barriers amid a pandemic place individuals at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 , according to a federal lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed against the Trump administration in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organizations and a leading reproductive justice group .
Medication abortion is constrained by what the FDA calls a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy , a “ drug safety ” program designed to control the administration of “ certain medications with serious safety concerns to help ensure the benefits of the medication outweigh its risks.
” Where medication abortion is concerned , the REMS has several elements that are onerous in normal times and two that are particularly problematic amid a pandemic : that patients must be handed mifepristone by a medical provider in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ must collect a physical signature from the patient at the time the drug is dispensed .
While in-person dispensing is required , patients are still in charge of administering the protocol themselves at a time and place of their choosing .
And any complications that may arise — such as excessive bleeding — wouldn ’ t occur until roughly two days later , after the patient ingests the second drug , misoprostol , which is not subject to the REMS .
“ Of the 20,000 drugs regulated by the FDA , mifepristone is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in person at a hospital , clinic , or medical office , yet may self-administer unsupervised , ” reads the lawsuit .
So , even as state and federal health officials have implored people to avail themselves of telemedicine as much as possible , abortion patients have been singled out for disparate treatment , said Julia Kaye , a staff attorney with the ACLU ’ s Reproductive Freedom Project .
“ When you ’ re forcing patients to make unnecessary , in-person trips to a health center during a pandemic , that imposes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ simply no justification for it , ” she said , “ particularly where the federal government has taken extraordinary action to suspend other kinds of in-person requirements.
” The government has even suspended in-person requirements for controlled substances , including opioids .
“ And I think it ’ s important to note that the Covid-19 risks here are greatest for communities of color who make up a majority of impacted abortion patients and who are suffering severe illness and death from Covid-19 at vastly disproportionate rates , ” Kaye added .
Indeed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working to help patients secure abortion access during the worsening pandemic , Njoku recalls reading about the staggering impact the virus was having on Black people ; in Georgia alone , they accounted for 80 percent of those hospitalized with Covid-19 .
“ I was like , y ’ all , this is the great unraveling that ’ s happening in our society , ” she said .
In July , a district judge in Maryland agreed with the medical experts and issued a preliminary nationwide injunction blocking enforcement of the in-person requirements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Trump administration balked and asked the 4th U.S .
Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the stay ; that request was denied .
But instead of allowing the case to play out , the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene .
“ Given that surgical methods of abortion remain widely available , the enforcement of longstanding safety requirements for a medication abortion … does not constitute a substantial obstacle to abortion access , ” the administration ’ s petition reads , “ even if the Covid-19 pandemic has made obtaining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ riskier.
” Attempts to truncate the normal course of litigation by running directly to the Supreme Court and forcing cases onto the so-called shadow docket has become a hallmark of the Trump administration , even though it is a move that is supposed to be reserved for extraordinary circumstances .
In deciding these cases , the court often issues an order without the full facts before it , without hearing arguments , and without issuing opinions .
“ It typically offers no explanation for its reasoning , even when dissenting justices voice serious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is effectively overturning the unanimous decisions of lower courts , ” David Cole , the ACLU ’ s national legal director , wrote in the Washington Post .
In the case of the medication abortion challenge , the court could effectively ensure a higher risk of viral transmission with the stroke of a pen .
After pending on the docket for about six weeks , the Supreme Court finally weighed in on October 8 , allowing the stay to remain in effect — at least for now .
In a short order , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the stay should be lifted back to the Maryland court for further consideration , essentially postponing any action until after the November election .
Justice Samuel Alito , joined by Clarence Thomas , penned a dissent saying that the court should have granted the administration ’ s request .
Had the court granted that request , Kaye said , it would have sent a “ chilling signal about what lies ahead ” with a post-Ginsburg court .
And though the court ’ s decision to “ stay out of this particular abortion fight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a win for patients in the short term , ” she added , “ it ’ s hardly an indication that the right to abortion is secure.
” As the pandemic raged this spring , Dr .
Honor MacNaughton worried about her patients .
MacNaughton , a plaintiff in the ACLU case , is a family physician working in a safety-net hospital system in the Boston area .
Her patients are mostly lower-income and people of color , groups disproportionately impacted by the virus .
“ As our health care system was closing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were trying to do everything we could to limit exposure to the virus , it seemed so wrong to require people to still come , in person , to pick up a medication , ” she said .
She ’ d long known that the REMS was “ problematic ” and that two decades of data demonstrated the safety of mifepristone for pregnancy termination and miscarriage management .
“ I think from a medical standpoint , there ’ s enough evidence for us to feel really confident that the in-person visit isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Since the Maryland court issued its injunction , providers across the country have , for the first time , been able to provide the medication without that constraint .
“ Being able to provide this care since the injunction has been a ray of hope , ” MacNaughton said .
“ It ’ s given me a glimpse into what more equitable or stigma-free care could look like.
” Kirsten Moore , head of Expanding Medication Abortion Access , which was created in part to push for the REMS to be rescinded , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ burdened by unnecessary restrictions .
She was formerly head of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project , which was founded in 1988 to help bring medication abortion to the U.S. and later successfully pushed for emergency contraception , also known as the morning-after pill , to be made available over the counter .
When medication abortion was approved by the FDA in 2000 , Moore said that advocates assumed the restrictions would be revisited as safety data developed .
That has not happened .
“ We ’ re still jumping through the same hoops @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was first approved , ” she said .
“ That doesn ’ t make sense , right ?
” For both Moore and MacNaughton , the disconnect between science and public policy demonstrates that the REMS is about something else altogether — a solution in search of a problem .
Of course , the same could be said about most restrictions on abortion access .
Lawmakers often peddle these restrictions , like the hospital admitting privileges requirement , as a way to ensure patient safety , even though the alleged benefits fail to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or more restrictions on abortion access .
Twenty-six states mandate delays for patients seeking care ; in South Dakota , the 72-hour waiting period doesn ’ t include weekends or state holidays , so a patient could end up having to wait a week before being seen .
Thirty states mandate pre-abortion counseling and many incorporate junk science , including , for example , that abortion leads to a greater risk of breast cancer .
Several states require providers to counsel patients that medication abortion can be reversed , even though there is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claim .
Taken together , these restrictions have made abortion all but inaccessible across a wide swath of the country , often forcing women to travel long distances across state lines to receive care .
For those who live in the six states served by ARC-Southeast — Alabama , Florida , Georgia , Mississippi , South Carolina , and Tennessee — these struggles are common .
“ Every single one of those states experiences some level of reproductive oppression , whether it comes from the legislature or just ideas of shame , stigma @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Njoku said .
She notes that her clients face obstacles to accessing all kinds of basic health care services .
None of the states has had any sort of Medicaid expansion ; roughly half of Georgia ’ s 159 counties are without an OB-GYN .
“ These are all the things that we ’ ve always had to navigate , ” she said .
“ Yes , Roe v. Wade is a great gift .
It made abortion legal , but the reality is that it did not make it accessible.
” And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states hostile to abortion rights have taken more direct aim at the heart of Roe and its promise of the right to pre-viability abortion .
In 2019 alone , Georgia , Kentucky , Louisiana , Mississippi , and Ohio all banned abortion beginning at six weeks — the point at which fetal cardiac activity can be detected and long before many people even know they ’ re pregnant .
Alabama went a step further , passing a law that would ban nearly all abortion .
Missouri passed a law to ban abortion at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Utah have banned abortion at 18 weeks .
Other states have passed bans that interrogate a person ’ s reason for seeking an abortion and would bar access if it ’ s based on the sex or race of the fetus or on a diagnosis of Down syndrome or other fetal abnormality .
A district court in Missouri has blocked that state ’ s “ anti-discrimination ” law banning abortion based on a Down syndrome diagnosis , but on September 24 , the state ’ s solicitor general told a panel of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the law should be allowed to go into effect in part because individuals with Down syndrome are on the “ brink of complete elimination.
” “ Since 1973 , in Roe v. Wade , the court has given the right to the individual to decide whether or not they want to choose to become a parent at that point in time , ” said Helene Krasnoff , vice president of public policy litigation and law at Planned Parenthood Federation of America .
These laws “ literally fly in the face of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another way in which the Supreme Court “ can really undermine the protections that we have enjoyed , and that Ruth Bader Ginsburg upheld for so many years , without actually outright overruling Roe.
” Currently , there are 17 abortion-related challenges to various state restrictions pending in federal appeals courts or before the Supreme Court .
Nothing about the growing storm around reproductive rights is new to Njoku .
“ A lot of folks have been talking about this post-Roe reality , ” she said .
“ That ’ s an actual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mississippi and really the states we work in in the Southeast .
… We ’ ve been preparing for things like this because we ’ ve been living in this context.
” ARC-Southeast has received nearly 16,500 requests for support since they began operations in the summer of 2016 .
More than 60 percent of clients are already parents .
From July 2019 through June 30 , ARC-Southeast provided nearly $ 450,000 in abortion funding and “ practical support.
” As the pandemic has continued , jobs have been lost , and politicians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the public health crisis as a pretext to further block abortion access , Njoku said the organization has provided funding not only for abortion , transportation , and lodging , but also for car repairs , food , and even masks .
Njoku has seen patients from Texas , Louisiana , Kentucky , and West Virginia come to her region for care , and ARC-Southeast has helped patients to travel as far away as New Mexico , Colorado , and Maryland to get the care they need .
Njoku has been encouraged not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support ARC-Southeast ’ s work , but also with a seeming awakening among many that abortion rights have to be viewed within a larger framework — that a right without access means nothing , and that people of color are disproportionately impacted by lack of access to basic health care and the racism built into many of the nation ’ s social systems .
“ The future that we ’ re fighting for is more than just whether or not abortion is legal , ” she said .
There ’ s no doubt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat to that future .
According to an analysis by the Center for Reproductive Rights , Barrett has signaled that she believes the Supreme Court should weigh in on the legality of banning abortion based on a patient ’ s reason for seeking it , and has suggested that abortion restrictions should be allowed to take effect while questions about their legality are sorted out in court .
In Texas , the restrictions ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court were initially allowed to take effect , leading to widespread clinic closures ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Affordable Care Act for the first time created gender parity in health coverage and opened access to maternity care and no-cost birth control , Barrett has expressed skepticism about the legality of the law .
In 2012 , she signed a letter opposing the ACA ’ s birth control mandate that called contraception and sterilization “ gravely immoral and unjust ” and incorrectly described the morning-after pill as an “ abortion-inducing drug.
” Still , Njoku is steadfast in her determination to press forward .
“ Even in the midst of so much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she said , “ in the midst of all of this , we still have people who are willing to continue doing this fight no matter what .
”

Oriaku Njoku was outside the U.S. Supreme Court alongside a crowd of activists and advocates for abortion rights as the nine jurists inside heard oral arguments in a case that, depending on its outcome, could destroy access to abortion in Louisiana.
It was a crisp morning in early March, mere days before the coronavirus pandemic would see the country all but completely locked down. Njoku, one of the founders of Access Reproductive Care-Southeast, a nonprofit that provides assistance to individuals seeking abortion care across six states in the Deep South, was rallying outside the court with her sister. “There was so much energy,” she recalled.
It was nearly four years to the day since the last time Njoku had been in front of the high court. That morning, in early 2016, the court was considering the constitutionality of a set of abortion restrictions in Texas that had shuttered half the state’s clinics. At the time, there were just eight justices on the bench; Antonin Scalia had died several weeks earlier. In the end, Anthony Kennedy joined the four more liberal justices, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to strike down the restrictions, which included a requirement that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The court found no evidence that this was necessary to ensure patient safety.
Now, Njoku was back in the same space rallying for the same cause: The restriction at issue in the Louisiana case was identical to the admitting privileges requirement the court had invalidated in Texas. “It was a full-circle moment, where it was almost four years to the day; I’m back here again, literally fighting for … the same thing,” she said. “I was like, ‘They have to uphold this precedent.’”
By then, Kennedy had left the bench and President Donald Trump had installed two new conservative justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, who were appointed precisely because of their hostility to abortion. In the end, the court did strike down the Louisiana law, with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the deciding vote — albeit with an opinion suggesting the court would be open to upholding additional restrictions in the future.
When the decision was announced, Njoku realized that it wasn’t exactly a game-changing victory. Anti-abortion lawmakers have passed more than 450 abortion restrictions over the last decade, many of which still stand, making access to abortion difficult, if not nearly impossible, for millions of people. This is especially true for people of color, LGBTQ people, poor and low-income people, and people in rural areas, who are routinely hit hardest by restrictions on reproductive care, as well as broader inequalities within the health care system. These inequalities have been widely exposed not only by the pandemic, but also through a summer of civil rights protests that have thrown new light on the country’s continuing legacy of racial oppression.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 1, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Caroline Brehman- Pool/Getty Images
And with Ginsburg’s death in September, the fight for reproductive justice faces new threats as Republicans scramble to fill her seat with appeals court jurist Amy Coney Barrett, who in 2006 signed on to a call for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, which described its legacy as “barbaric.” According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, if that were to happen, 24 states would prohibit abortion altogether.
If Barrett is seated, not only is the future of legal abortion in jeopardy, but also access to the larger health care system; the Supreme Court is slated to hear yet another challenge to the Affordable Care Act on November 10. “Yes, this is a huge blow, but it doesn’t stop the fact that we still have to do work on the ground, as grassroots organizations, as people who are directly impacted by whatever this administration has done or that prior administrations have done,” Njoku said. “We have to continue fighting until we get to that future of reproductive justice where we’re able to access whatever health care that we need without any bias or barrier.”
The Shadow Docket
While Ginsburg’s seat is still vacant, the Trump administration has already offered the eight-member court an opportunity to restrict abortion access amid the pandemic.
At issue is how medication abortion is provided to people seeking to terminate a pregnancy in its earliest stages. Available through 10 weeks’ gestation, medication abortion is a two-drug regimen that has been available in the U.S. for 20 years and used by more than 4 million people. Medication abortion accounts for 60 percent of all early terminations and nearly 40 percent of all abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
It works like this: Patients first take mifepristone, a drug that blocks progesterone, a hormone needed to maintain pregnancy; 24 to 48 hours later, the patient takes a second drug, misoprostol, which creates contractions in the uterus that expel its contents. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, medication abortion is very safe and serious complications are extremely rare. Importantly, medication abortion allows patients the ability to terminate a pregnancy in the privacy of their own home or wherever they choose to be.
Nonetheless, access to medication abortion has been restricted in ways that are medically unnecessary. The needless barriers amid a pandemic place individuals at greater risk of contracting Covid-19, according to a federal lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed against the Trump administration in May on behalf of several doctors’ organizations and a leading reproductive justice group.
Even as state and federal health officials have implored people to avail themselves of telemedicine, abortion patients have been singled out for disparate treatment.
Medication abortion is constrained by what the FDA calls a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, a “drug safety” program designed to control the administration of “certain medications with serious safety concerns to help ensure the benefits of the medication outweigh its risks.” Where medication abortion is concerned, the REMS has several elements that are onerous in normal times and two that are particularly problematic amid a pandemic: that patients must be handed mifepristone by a medical provider in a clinical setting and that the clinician must collect a physical signature from the patient at the time the drug is dispensed.
While in-person dispensing is required, patients are still in charge of administering the protocol themselves at a time and place of their choosing. And any complications that may arise — such as excessive bleeding — wouldn’t occur until roughly two days later, after the patient ingests the second drug, misoprostol, which is not subject to the REMS. “Of the 20,000 drugs regulated by the FDA, mifepristone is the only one that patients must receive in person at a hospital, clinic, or medical office, yet may self-administer unsupervised,” reads the lawsuit.
So, even as state and federal health officials have implored people to avail themselves of telemedicine as much as possible, abortion patients have been singled out for disparate treatment, said Julia Kaye, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project. “When you’re forcing patients to make unnecessary, in-person trips to a health center during a pandemic, that imposes Covid-19 risks, and there’s simply no justification for it,” she said, “particularly where the federal government has taken extraordinary action to suspend other kinds of in-person requirements.” The government has even suspended in-person requirements for controlled substances, including opioids. “And I think it’s important to note that the Covid-19 risks here are greatest for communities of color who make up a majority of impacted abortion patients and who are suffering severe illness and death from Covid-19 at vastly disproportionate rates,” Kaye added.
Indeed, back in April, as ARC-Southeast was working to help patients secure abortion access during the worsening pandemic, Njoku recalls reading about the staggering impact the virus was having on Black people; in Georgia alone, they accounted for 80 percent of those hospitalized with Covid-19. “I was like, y’all, this is the great unraveling that’s happening in our society,” she said.
In July, a district judge in Maryland agreed with the medical experts and issued a preliminary nationwide injunction blocking enforcement of the in-person requirements during the pendency of the case. The Trump administration balked and asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift the stay; that request was denied.
But instead of allowing the case to play out, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene. “Given that surgical methods of abortion remain widely available, the enforcement of longstanding safety requirements for a medication abortion … does not constitute a substantial obstacle to abortion access,” the administration’s petition reads, “even if the Covid-19 pandemic has made obtaining any method of abortion in person somewhat riskier.”
Attempts to truncate the normal course of litigation by running directly to the Supreme Court and forcing cases onto the so-called shadow docket has become a hallmark of the Trump administration, even though it is a move that is supposed to be reserved for extraordinary circumstances. In deciding these cases, the court often issues an order without the full facts before it, without hearing arguments, and without issuing opinions. “It typically offers no explanation for its reasoning, even when dissenting justices voice serious objections, and even when the court is effectively overturning the unanimous decisions of lower courts,” David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director, wrote in the Washington Post. In the case of the medication abortion challenge, the court could effectively ensure a higher risk of viral transmission with the stroke of a pen.
After pending on the docket for about six weeks, the Supreme Court finally weighed in on October 8, allowing the stay to remain in effect — at least for now. In a short order, the court sent the question of whether the stay should be lifted back to the Maryland court for further consideration, essentially postponing any action until after the November election. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Clarence Thomas, penned a dissent saying that the court should have granted the administration’s request.
Had the court granted that request, Kaye said, it would have sent a “chilling signal about what lies ahead” with a post-Ginsburg court. And though the court’s decision to “stay out of this particular abortion fight at this particular moment … is certainly a win for patients in the short term,” she added, “it’s hardly an indication that the right to abortion is secure.”
A Solution in Search of a Problem
As the pandemic raged this spring, Dr. Honor MacNaughton worried about her patients. MacNaughton, a plaintiff in the ACLU case, is a family physician working in a safety-net hospital system in the Boston area. Her patients are mostly lower-income and people of color, groups disproportionately impacted by the virus. “As our health care system was closing down to in-person visits, and we were trying to do everything we could to limit exposure to the virus, it seemed so wrong to require people to still come, in person, to pick up a medication,” she said.
She’d long known that the REMS was “problematic” and that two decades of data demonstrated the safety of mifepristone for pregnancy termination and miscarriage management. “I think from a medical standpoint, there’s enough evidence for us to feel really confident that the in-person visit isn’t required,” she said. Since the Maryland court issued its injunction, providers across the country have, for the first time, been able to provide the medication without that constraint. “Being able to provide this care since the injunction has been a ray of hope,” MacNaughton said. “It’s given me a glimpse into what more equitable or stigma-free care could look like.”
Kirsten Moore, head of Expanding Medication Abortion Access, which was created in part to push for the REMS to be rescinded, has long known that medication abortion is burdened by unnecessary restrictions. She was formerly head of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, which was founded in 1988 to help bring medication abortion to the U.S. and later successfully pushed for emergency contraception, also known as the morning-after pill, to be made available over the counter.
When medication abortion was approved by the FDA in 2000, Moore said that advocates assumed the restrictions would be revisited as safety data developed. That has not happened. “We’re still jumping through the same hoops today that we had to when it was first approved,” she said. “That doesn’t make sense, right?”
“Yes, Roe v. Wade is a great gift. It made abortion legal, but the reality is that it did not make it accessible.”
For both Moore and MacNaughton, the disconnect between science and public policy demonstrates that the REMS is about something else altogether — a solution in search of a problem.
Of course, the same could be said about most restrictions on abortion access. Lawmakers often peddle these restrictions, like the hospital admitting privileges requirement, as a way to ensure patient safety, even though the alleged benefits fail to materialize. Forty-four states have passed one or more restrictions on abortion access. Twenty-six states mandate delays for patients seeking care; in South Dakota, the 72-hour waiting period doesn’t include weekends or state holidays, so a patient could end up having to wait a week before being seen. Thirty states mandate pre-abortion counseling and many incorporate junk science, including, for example, that abortion leads to a greater risk of breast cancer. Several states require providers to counsel patients that medication abortion can be reversed, even though there is no sound science to back up this claim. Taken together, these restrictions have made abortion all but inaccessible across a wide swath of the country, often forcing women to travel long distances across state lines to receive care.
For those who live in the six states served by ARC-Southeast — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee — these struggles are common. “Every single one of those states experiences some level of reproductive oppression, whether it comes from the legislature or just ideas of shame, stigma, and fear around abortion,” Njoku said. She notes that her clients face obstacles to accessing all kinds of basic health care services. None of the states has had any sort of Medicaid expansion; roughly half of Georgia’s 159 counties are without an OB-GYN. “These are all the things that we’ve always had to navigate,” she said. “Yes, Roe v. Wade is a great gift. It made abortion legal, but the reality is that it did not make it accessible.”
And since Trump took office, lawmakers in states hostile to abortion rights have taken more direct aim at the heart of Roe and its promise of the right to pre-viability abortion.
Women wearing costumes from “The Handmaid’s Tale” protest in front of the Alabama State House after the state Senate passed HB314, which would ban nearly all abortions, on May 14, 2019, in Montgomery, Ala. Photo: Elijah Nouvelage for The Washington Post via Getty Images
In 2019 alone, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Ohio all banned abortion beginning at six weeks — the point at which fetal cardiac activity can be detected and long before many people even know they’re pregnant. Alabama went a step further, passing a law that would ban nearly all abortion. Missouri passed a law to ban abortion at eight weeks, while both Arkansas and Utah have banned abortion at 18 weeks.
Other states have passed bans that interrogate a person’s reason for seeking an abortion and would bar access if it’s based on the sex or race of the fetus or on a diagnosis of Down syndrome or other fetal abnormality. A district court in Missouri has blocked that state’s “anti-discrimination” law banning abortion based on a Down syndrome diagnosis, but on September 24, the state’s solicitor general told a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the law should be allowed to go into effect in part because individuals with Down syndrome are on the “brink of complete elimination.”
“Since 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the court has given the right to the individual to decide whether or not they want to choose to become a parent at that point in time,” said Helene Krasnoff, vice president of public policy litigation and law at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. These laws “literally fly in the face of that,” she said. They represent another way in which the Supreme Court “can really undermine the protections that we have enjoyed, and that Ruth Bader Ginsburg upheld for so many years, without actually outright overruling Roe.”
Currently, there are 17 abortion-related challenges to various state restrictions pending in federal appeals courts or before the Supreme Court.
The Future We’re Fighting For
Nothing about the growing storm around reproductive rights is new to Njoku. “A lot of folks have been talking about this post-Roe reality,” she said. “That’s an actual lived reality in states like Texas and Mississippi and really the states we work in in the Southeast. … We’ve been preparing for things like this because we’ve been living in this context.”
ARC-Southeast has received nearly 16,500 requests for support since they began operations in the summer of 2016. More than 60 percent of clients are already parents. From July 2019 through June 30, ARC-Southeast provided nearly $450,000 in abortion funding and “practical support.” As the pandemic has continued, jobs have been lost, and politicians across the country have tried to use the public health crisis as a pretext to further block abortion access, Njoku said the organization has provided funding not only for abortion, transportation, and lodging, but also for car repairs, food, and even masks. Njoku has seen patients from Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia come to her region for care, and ARC-Southeast has helped patients to travel as far away as New Mexico, Colorado, and Maryland to get the care they need.
Njoku has been encouraged not only by the donations coming in to support ARC-Southeast’s work, but also with a seeming awakening among many that abortion rights have to be viewed within a larger framework — that a right without access means nothing, and that people of color are disproportionately impacted by lack of access to basic health care and the racism built into many of the nation’s social systems. “The future that we’re fighting for is more than just whether or not abortion is legal,” she said.
There’s no doubt that the nomination of Barrett presents a threat to that future. According to an analysis by the Center for Reproductive Rights, Barrett has signaled that she believes the Supreme Court should weigh in on the legality of banning abortion based on a patient’s reason for seeking it, and has suggested that abortion restrictions should be allowed to take effect while questions about their legality are sorted out in court. In Texas, the restrictions ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court were initially allowed to take effect, leading to widespread clinic closures; many never reopened.
And while the Affordable Care Act for the first time created gender parity in health coverage and opened access to maternity care and no-cost birth control, Barrett has expressed skepticism about the legality of the law. In 2012, she signed a letter opposing the ACA’s birth control mandate that called contraception and sterilization “gravely immoral and unjust” and incorrectly described the morning-after pill as an “abortion-inducing drug.”
Still, Njoku is steadfast in her determination to press forward. “Even in the midst of so much pain and so much trauma,” she said, “in the midst of all of this, we still have people who are willing to continue doing this fight no matter what.”


theintercept--2020-10-11--The New York Times Guild Once Again Demands Censorship Of Colleagues

But his colleagues in the New York Times Guild evidently do not believe that he had any right to express his views on these debates .
Indeed , they are indignant that he did so .
In a barely-literate tweet that not once but twice misspelled the word “ its ” as “ it ’ s ” — not a trivial level of ignorance for writers with the world ’ s most influential newspaper — the union denounced Stephens and the paper itself on these grounds : Without weighing in on the merits of Stephens ’ critiques , some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which I do not , it is hardly debatable that his discussing this vibrant multi-pronged debate is squarely within his function as a political op-ed writer at a national newspaper .
Stephens himself explained that he took the unusual step of critiquing his own employer ’ s work because “ the 1619 Project has become , partly by its design and partly because of avoidable mistakes , a focal point of the kind of intense national debate that columnists are supposed to cover , ” contending that avoiding writing about it out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in our responsibility ” to participate in society ’ s significant disputes .
In sum , the still-raging political , historical , and journalistic debate over the 1619 Project has become a major controversy .
In his Friday column , Stephens addressed the controversy by first noting the Project ’ s positive contributions and accomplishments , then reviewed in detail the critiques of historians and other scholars of its central claims , and then sided with its critics by arguing that “ for all of its virtues , buzz , spinoffs and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ failed.
” Despite its Pulitzer , the “ 1619 Project ” has become a hotly contested political and academic controversy , with the Trump administration seeking to block attempts to integrate its assertions into school curriculums , while numerous scholars of history accuse it of radically distorting historical fact , with some , such as Brown University ’ s Glenn Loury , calling on the Pulitzer Board to revoke its award .
Scholars have also vocally criticized the Times for stealth edits of the article ’ s key claims long after publication , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made these substantive changes let alone explaining why it made them .
What angered the union today was an op-ed by Stephens on Friday which voiced numerous criticisms of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning “ 1619 Project , ” published last year by the New York Times Magazine and spearheaded by reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones .
One of the Project ’ s principal arguments was expressed by a now-silently-deleted sentence that introduced it : “ that the country ’ s true birth date ” is not 1776 , as has long been widely believed , but rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claims , the first African slaves arrived on U.S. soil .
The New York Times Guild , the union of employees of the Paper of Record , tweeted a condemnation on Sunday of one of their own colleagues , op-ed columnist Bret Stephens .
Their denunciation was marred by humiliating typos and even more so by creepy and authoritarian censorship demands and petulant appeals to management for enforcement of company “ rules ” against other journalists .
To say that this is bizarre behavior from a union of journalists , of all people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It is a short tweet , as tweets go , but they impressively managed to pack it with multiple ironies , fallacies , and decrees typical of the petty tyrant .
Above all else , this statement , and the mentality it reflects , is profoundly unjournalistic .
To start with , this is a case of journalists using their union not to demand greater editorial freedom or journalistic independence — something one would reasonably expect from a journalists ’ union — but demanding its opposite : that writers at the New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expressing their views and perspectives about the controversies surrounding the 1619 Project .
In other words : they are demanding that their own journalistic colleagues be silenced and censored .
What kind of journalists plead with management for greater restrictions on journalistic expression rather than fewer ?
Apparently , the answer is New York Times journalists .
Indeed , this is not the first time they have publicly implored corporate management to restrict the freedom of expression and editorial freedom of their journalistic colleagues .
At the end of July , the Guild @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of which was that “ sensitivity reads should happen at the beginning of the publication process , with compensation for those who do them.
” For those not familiar with “ sensitivity reads ” : consider yourself fortunate .
As the New York Times itself reported in 2017 , “ sensitivity readers ” have been used by book publishers to gut books that have been criticized , in order to “ vet the narrative for harmful stereotypes and suggested changes.
” The Guardian explained in 2018 that “ sensitivity readers ” are a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world to weed out any implicit bias or potentially objectionable material — not just in storylines but even in characters .
It quoted the author Lionel Shriver about the obvious dangers : there is , she said , “ a thin line between combing through manuscripts for anything potentially objectionable to particular subgroups and overt political censorship.
” As creepy as “ sensitivity readers ” are for fiction writing and other publishing fields , it is indescribably toxic for journalism , which necessarily questions or pokes at rather than bows to the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be worthwhile , it must publish material — reporting and opinion pieces — that might be “ potentially objectionable ” to all sorts of powerful factions , including culturally hegemonic liberals .
But this is a function which the New York Times Union wants not merely to avoid fulfilling themselves but , far worse , to deny their fellow journalists .
They crave a whole new layer of editorial hoop-jumping in order to get published , a cumbersome , repressive new protocol for drawing even more constraining lines around what can and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already imposed by the standard orthodoxies of the Times and their tone-flattening editorial restrictions .
When journalists exploit their unions not to demand better pay , improved benefits , enhanced job security or greater journalistic independence but instead as an instrument for censoring their own journalistic colleagues , then the concept of unions — and journalism — is wildly perverted .
Then there is the tattletale petulance embedded in the Union ’ s complaint .
In demanding enforcement of workplace “ rules ” by management against a fellow journalist — they do not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allegedly violated — these union members sound more like Human Resources Assistant Managers or workplace informants than they do intrepid journalists .
Since when do unions of any kind , but especially unions of journalists , unite to complain that corporate managers and their editorial bosses have been too lax in the enforcement of rules governing what their underlings can and can not say ?
The hypocrisy of the Union ’ s grievance is almost too glaring to even bother highlighting , and is the least of its sins .
The union members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going after one of it ’ s [ sic ] own ” and then , in the next breath , publicly vilify their colleague ’ s column because , in their erudite view , it “ reeks.
” This is the same union whose members , just a few months ago , quite flamboyantly staged a multi-day social media protest — a quite public one — in a fit of rage because the paper ’ s Opinion Editor , James Bennet , published an op-ed by U.S .
Senator Tom Cotton advocating the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests and riots in U.S. cities ; Bennet lost his job in the fallout .
And many of these same union members — now posturing as solemn , righteous opponents of publicly “ going after ” one ’ s colleagues — notoriously mocked , scorned , ridiculed , and condemned , first privately and then publicly , another colleague , Bari Weiss , until she left the paper , citing these incessant attacks .
Clearly this is not a union that dislikes public condemnations of colleagues .
Whatever “ principle ” is motivating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
a harsh critic of Stephens ’ ( and Weiss ’ ) journalism and opinion writing .
But it would never occur to me to take steps to try to silence them .
If they were my colleagues and published an article I disliked or expressed views I found pernicious , I certainly would not whine to management that they broke the “ rules ” and insist that they should not have been allowed to have expressed what they believe .
That ’ s because I ’ m a journalist , and I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if it fosters divergent views and seeks to expand rather than reduce the freedom of discourse and expression permitted by society and by employers .
And whatever one wants to say about Stephens ’ career and record of writing — and I ’ ve had a lot of negative things to say about it — harshly critiquing your own employer ’ s Pulitzer-winning series , one beloved by powerful media , political and cultural figures , is the type of “ challenge to power ” that many journalists who do nothing but spout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as embodying .
There has never been a media outlet where I have worked or where I have been published that did not frequently also publish opinions with which I disagree and articles I dislike , including the one in which I am currently writing .
I would readily use my platforms to critique what was published , but it would never even occur to me take steps to try to prevent publication or , worse , issue pitiful public entreaties to management that Something Be Done™ .
If you are eager to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would you choose journalism of all lines of work ?
It ’ d be like someone who believes space travel to be an immoral waste of resources opting to become an astronaut for NASA .
Perhaps these tawdry episodes should be unsurprising .
After all , one major reason that social media companies — which never wanted the obligation to censor but instead sought to be content-neutral platforms for the transmission of communications in the mold of AT & T — turned into active speech regulators was because the public , often led @ @ @ @ @ @ @ censor more .
Some journalists even devote significant chunks of their career to publicly complaining that Facebook and Twitter are failing to enforce their “ rules ” by not censoring robustly enough .
A belief in the virtues of free expression was once a cornerstone of the journalistic spirit .
Guilds and unions fought against editorial control , not demanded greater amounts be imposed by management .
They defended colleagues when they were accused by editorial or corporate bosses of “ rules ” violations , not publicly tattled and invited , even advocated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a belief in free expression is being rapidly eclipsed in many societal sectors by a belief in the virtues of top-down managerial censorship , silencing and enhanced workplace punishment for thought and speech transgressions .
As this imperious but whiny New York Times Guild condemnation reflects , this trend can be seen most vividly , and most destructively , in mainstream American journalism .
Nothing guts the core function of journalism more than this mindset .
Update : Oct. 2 , 2020 , 8:40 p.m .
ET The New York Times Guild moments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the paper , and then posted this :

The New York Times Guild, the union of employees of the paper of record, tweeted a condemnation on Sunday of one of their own colleagues, op-ed columnist Bret Stephens. Their denunciation was marred by humiliating typos and even more so by creepy and authoritarian censorship demands and petulant appeals to management for enforcement of company “rules” against other journalists. To say that this is bizarre behavior from a union of journalists, of all people, is to woefully understate the case.
What angered the union today was an op-ed by Stephens on Friday which voiced numerous criticisms of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “1619 Project,” published last year by the New York Times Magazine and spearheaded by reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones. One of the Project’s principal arguments was expressed by a now-silently-deleted sentence that introduced it: “that the country’s true birth date” is not 1776, as has long been widely believed, but rather late 1619, when, the article claims, the first African slaves arrived on U.S. soil.
Despite its Pulitzer, the “1619 Project” has become a hotly contested political and academic controversy, with the Trump administration seeking to block attempts to integrate its assertions into school curriculums, while numerous scholars of history accuse it of radically distorting historical fact, with some, such as Brown University’s Glenn Loury, calling on the Pulitzer Board to revoke its award. Scholars have also vocally criticized the Times for stealth edits of the article’s key claims long after publication, without even noting to readers that it made these substantive changes let alone explaining why it made them.
In sum, the still-raging political, historical, and journalistic debate over the 1619 Project has become a major controversy. In his Friday column, Stephens addressed the controversy by first noting the Project’s positive contributions and accomplishments, then reviewed in detail the critiques of historians and other scholars of its central claims, and then sided with its critics by arguing that “for all of its virtues, buzz, spinoffs and a Pulitzer Prize — the 1619 Project has failed.”
Without weighing in on the merits of Stephens’s critiques, some of which I agree with and some of which I do not, it is hardly debatable that his discussing this vibrant multi-pronged debate is squarely within his function as a political op-ed writer at a national newspaper. Stephens himself explained that he took the unusual step of critiquing his own employer’s work because “the 1619 Project has become, partly by its design and partly because of avoidable mistakes, a focal point of the kind of intense national debate that columnists are supposed to cover,” contending that avoiding writing about it out of collegial deference “is to be derelict in our responsibility” to participate in society’s significant disputes.
But his colleagues in the New York Times Guild evidently do not believe that he had any right to express his views on these debates. Indeed, they are indignant that he did so. In a barely-literate tweet that not once but twice misspelled the word “its” as “it’s” — not a trivial level of ignorance for writers with the world’s most influential newspaper — the union denounced Stephens and the paper itself on these grounds:
It is a short tweet, as tweets go, but they impressively managed to pack it with multiple ironies, fallacies, and decrees typical of the petty tyrant. Above all else, this statement, and the mentality it reflects, is profoundly unjournalistic.
To start with, this is a case of journalists using their union not to demand greater editorial freedom or journalistic independence — something one would reasonably expect from a journalists’ union — but demanding its opposite: that writers at the New York Times be prohibited by management from expressing their views and perspectives about the controversies surrounding the 1619 Project. In other words: They are demanding that their own journalistic colleagues be silenced and censored. What kind of journalists plead with management for greater restrictions on journalistic expression rather than fewer?
Apparently, the answer is New York Times journalists. Indeed, this is not the first time they have publicly implored corporate management to restrict the freedom of expression and editorial freedom of their journalistic colleagues. At the end of July, the Guild issued a series of demands, one of which was that “sensitivity reads should happen at the beginning of the publication process, with compensation for those who do them.”
For those not familiar with “sensitivity reads”: consider yourself fortunate. As the New York Times itself reported in 2017, “sensitivity readers” have been used by book publishers to gut books that have been criticized, in order to “vet the narrative for harmful stereotypes and suggested changes.” The Guardian explained in 2018 that “sensitivity readers” are a rapidly growing industry in the book publishing world to weed out any implicit bias or potentially objectionable material — not just in storylines but even in characters. It quoted the author Lionel Shriver about the obvious dangers: there is, she said, “a thin line between combing through manuscripts for anything potentially objectionable to particular subgroups and overt political censorship.”
As creepy as “sensitivity readers” are for fiction writing and other publishing fields, it is indescribably toxic for journalism, which necessarily questions or pokes at rather than bows to the most cherished, sacred pieties. For it to be worthwhile, it must publish material — reporting and opinion pieces — that might be “potentially objectionable” to all sorts of powerful factions, including culturally hegemonic liberals.
But this is a function which the New York Times Union wants not merely to avoid fulfilling themselves but, far worse, to deny their fellow journalists. They crave a whole new layer of editorial hoop-jumping in order to get published, a cumbersome, repressive new protocol for drawing even more constraining lines around what can and cannot be said beyond the restrictions already imposed by the standard orthodoxies of the Times and their tone-flattening editorial restrictions.
When journalists exploit their unions not to demand better pay, improved benefits, enhanced job security or greater journalistic independence but instead as an instrument for censoring their own journalistic colleagues, then the concept of unions — and journalism — is wildly perverted.
Then there is the tattletale petulance embedded in the Union’s complaint. In demanding enforcement of workplace “rules” by management against a fellow journalist — they do not specify which sacred “rule” Stephens allegedly violated — these union members sound more like human resources assistant managers or workplace informants than they do intrepid journalists. Since when do unions of any kind, but especially unions of journalists, unite to complain that corporate managers and their editorial bosses have been too lax in the enforcement of rules governing what their underlings can and cannot say?
The hypocrisy of the Union’s grievance is almost too glaring to even bother highlighting, and is the least of its sins. The union members denounce Stephens and the paper for “going after one of it’s [sic] own” and then, in the next breath, publicly vilify their colleague’s column because, in their erudite view, it “reeks.” This is the same union whose members, just a few months ago, quite flamboyantly staged a multi-day social media protest — a quite public one — in a fit of rage because the paper’s Opinion Editor, James Bennet, published an op-ed by U.S. Senator Tom Cotton advocating the deployment of the U.S. military to repress protests and riots in U.S. cities; Bennet lost his job in the fallout. And many of these same union members — now posturing as solemn, righteous opponents of publicly “going after” one’s colleagues — notoriously mocked, scorned, ridiculed, and condemned, first privately and then publicly, another colleague, Bari Weiss, until she left the paper, citing these incessant attacks.
Clearly this is not a union that dislikes public condemnations of colleagues. Whatever “principle” is motivating them, that is plainly not it.
I’ve long been a harsh critic of Stephens’s (and Weiss’s) journalism and opinion writing. But it would never occur to me to take steps to try to silence them. If they were my colleagues and published an article I disliked or expressed views I found pernicious, I certainly would not whine to management that they broke the “rules” and insist that they should not have been allowed to have expressed what they believe.
That’s because I’m a journalist, and I know that journalism can have value only if it fosters divergent views and seeks to expand rather than reduce the freedom of discourse and expression permitted by society and by employers. And whatever one wants to say about Stephens’s career and record of writing — and I’ve had a lot of negative things to say about it — harshly critiquing your own employer’s Pulitzer-winning series, one beloved by powerful media, political and cultural figures, is the type of “challenge to power” that many journalists who do nothing but spout pleasing, popular pieties love to preen as embodying.
There has never been a media outlet where I have worked or where I have been published that did not frequently also publish opinions with which I disagree and articles I dislike, including the one in which I am currently writing. I would readily use my platforms to critique what was published, but it would never even occur to me take steps to try to prevent publication or, worse, issue pitiful public entreaties to management that Something Be Done™. If you are eager to constrict the boundaries of expression, why would you choose journalism of all lines of work? It’d be like someone who believes space travel to be an immoral waste of resources opting to become an astronaut for NASA.
Perhaps these tawdry episodes should be unsurprising. After all, one major reason that social media companies — which never wanted the obligation to censor but instead sought to be content-neutral platforms for the transmission of communications in the mold of AT&T — turned into active speech regulators was because the public, often led by journalists, began demanding that they censor more. Some journalists even devote significant chunks of their career to publicly complaining that Facebook and Twitter are failing to enforce their “rules” by not censoring robustly enough.
A belief in the virtues of free expression was once a cornerstone of the journalistic spirit. Guilds and unions fought against editorial control, not demanded greater amounts be imposed by management. They defended colleagues when they were accused by editorial or corporate bosses of “rules” violations, not publicly tattled and invited, even advocated for, workplace disciplinary measures.
But a belief in free expression is being rapidly eclipsed in many societal sectors by a belief in the virtues of top-down managerial censorship, silencing, and enhanced workplace punishment for thought and speech transgressions. As this imperious but whiny New York Times Guild condemnation reflects, this trend can be seen most vividly, and most destructively, in mainstream American journalism. Nothing guts the core function of journalism more than this mindset.
Update: Oct. 11, 2020, 8:40 p.m. ET
The New York Times Guild moments ago deleted its tweet denouncing Stephens and the paper, and then posted this:
Though the Guild did not specify what “error” caused them to issue this denunciation, the paper’s media reporter, Ben Smith, said: “Someone else active in the Times Union tells me that a leader of the chapter, who runs the account, tweeted about the Stephens column without any internal discussion, causing a furor in Slack and drawing heated objections from others in the Guild, leading to this” deletion and apology.