August 2018

Thursday August 9, 2018  (Thanks to WPKN volunteer editors Mike Merli and Tony Ernst)

In the news tonight: Roe v. Wade reversal unlikely to happen in Connecticut; 
Strategic outreach bridges racial gap in Connecticut's pregnancy cases; New York launches ads amid pregnancy, abortion information wars; new gang unit boss at Suffolk sheriff’s office
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Jack Kramer writing for Connecticut NewsJunkie reports:
Yesterday afternoon, experts told a group of legislators that reproductive rights in Connecticut are not in as much danger as they are in other states.

Protections in Roe v. Wade were codified in state law in 1990 but it’s not an absolute protection if Congress seeks to change the U.S. Constitution following a decision by the courts. However, that’s an unlikely scenario. What’s more likely is that the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe.

According to experts, it is unlikely Connecticut’s own laws will be overridden by a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
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Elizabeth Heubeck writing for Connecticut News Junkie reports:
In Connecticut and nationwide, black women and their infants suffer disproportionately worse pregnancy-related health outcomes than white women.

The March of Dimes’ 2017 Premature Birth Report Card for Connecticut revealed that between 2013 and 2015, 8.4 percent of all (live birth) infants born to white women were premature, compared with 12.4 percent of infants born to black women.

According to a 2015 study published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, which drew from statistics based on statewide Connecticut Department of Health statistics, black women are twice as likely as white women to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 days after a complication-free delivery.

These statistics aren’t new. What is new is how some Connecticut professionals throughout Connecticut are reframing racial disparities by re-examining their root causes and offering new solutions.
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Bethany Bump reports for Albany Times Union:
Amid intensifying information wars, New York took steps Tuesday to remove barriers for women and girls seeking abortion services.

Gov. Cuomo announced “Know Your Options,” a campaign and website to “ensure all New York women know the options they are legally entitled to" and to discount the federal attacks and deceptive advertising discouraging them from pursuing an abortion. 

According to medically-backed research and pro-choice advocates, much of that inaccurate information comes from crisis pregnancy centers, often run by faith-based groups.Critics say these centers lure women to their offices with misleading advertising and free pregnancy tests. 

Leading a coalition of 19 attorneys general, Underwood filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals urging the DC circuit court to affirm the district court's decision to block the policy, in place since March 2017.
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Michael O’Keefe reports for Newsday: 
Kevin Catalina, a former NYPD deputy chief took over this week as the new boss of the gang unit at the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office. Catalina is an expert at developing and implementing gang intelligence and suppression strategies.

The sheriff’s department, with 1,200 correction officers, deputies and civilian employees, operates county jails in Yaphank and Riverhead.

Catalina’s main job will be monitoring conflicts between members of the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, MS-13 and other Suffolk County street gangs incarcerated in the jails.

Catalina said intelligence that officials are able to extract from correctional facilities can also be used to prevent or prosecute crimes committed outside the county jails. He said: “If someone gets stabbed in the Riverhead Correctional Facility that could have implications later in Bellport.”