Pregnant Women Database?

Pregnancy.gov: Sen. Katie Britt (R–Ala.) introduced a bill on Thursday that would, according to The Guardian, create a “federal database to collect data on pregnant people.” Jezebel says it will “prey on pregnant women.” Raw Story calls it a “‘Handmaid’s Tale’-type proposal to ‘register’ pregnant women.” A viral tweet described it as “a clear plan to help Trump monitor and potentially prosecute women who have abortions.”

None of this is true. The bill would create an unnecessary website—pregnancy.gov—that would provide resources on pregnancy, birth, and adoption providers. It would provide grants to nonprofits that cater to this group, with abortion providers exempt (as this is a bill introduced by Senate Republicans). The bill would “require states to apply child support obligations to the time period during pregnancy, if so requested by the mother,” which could mean women get a little more cash from estranged partners to prepare for the birth of a child. Users of the website could add their contact information if they would like, but they would not be required to, nor would a database attempt to log all the pregnant women in the country.

The bill seems pretty pointless. These are resources that already exist, so there is no reason to spend any federal government money or time on this.

But it’s also innocuous. This doesn’t turn American women into mere incubators (and many pregnant woman would probably appreciate the boosted child-support benefits). The dystopian headlines just aren’t true.

One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Sen. Steve Daines (R–Mont.), touted the legislation in a statement: “Raising kids takes a village, and we should be doing everything we can to support new moms before and after they welcome a new baby.”

The federal government should not and cannot be that village, and littering the web with another .gov website ain’t gonna be the thing that alleviates hardship for a struggling new mother. Community is frequently forged locally and in person, and this bill, trotted out for Mother’s Day, would do very little to make women’s lives easier.

Noem vs. Natives: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican who recently made headlines by disclosing that she shot her dog and fabricating a meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, is now amusingly barred from visiting about 20 percent of her state. “The Yankton Sioux Tribe voted Friday to ban Noem from their land in southeastern South Dakota just a few days after the Sisseton-Wahpeton Ovate tribe took the same action,” reports the Associated Press. “The Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux tribes had already taken action to keep her off their reservations.”

Noem has a story about why they don’t like her.

“We’ve got some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefiting from the [drug] cartels being there, and that’s why they attack me every day,” Noem said at a forum in March. “But I’m going to fight for the people who actually live in those situations, who call me and text me every day and say, ‘Please, dear governor, please come help us in Pine Ridge. We are scared.’”

It’s not clear what Noem is referring to, exactly. There have been some reports of cartels embedding themselves in reservations—NBC has a long report of how this has happened in Montana—and it’s true that many reservations have big drug addiction problems. “Right now it’s as if fentanyl is raining on our reservation,” Marvin Weatherwax, Jr., a representative in the Montana state House who also serves on the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council, told NBC. But Noem hasn’t pointed to anything specific that’s happening in South Dakota. She seems to just kind of be jousting with Natives to position herself as a Republican veep contender.

Noem has, to her credit, called for an audit of how federal funds are being used by South Dakota’s tribes, alleging corruption. (In my view, audits of how federal funds are used are pretty much always a good idea.)

Scenes from New York: The latest victim of NYC crime? Actor Steve Buscemi, who was punched in the face last Wednesday while walking in Kips Bay, Manhattan. I have always been in favor of law and order, but I feel even more passionately about this stance now that one of our national treasures has been harmed.

• Califonia’s proposed AI regulations, like SB 1047, “impose a whole bunch of safety requirements on companies building foundational models,” writes Noah Smith at his Substack. “I wonder if regulations like this can actually be implemented as written. SB 1047 demands that AI companies know all sorts of things that their model can and can’t do before the model is trained on the data. As far as I know, that’s not even possible; you don’t really know what a model can do before it’s trained.”
• A couple used Notion, the productivity software tool, to organize their love life, keeping track of each other’s love languages, sweet date-night memories, and friends they hope to set up. The internet reacted quite venomously.
• “Georgia’s parliament green-lit a final vote on a proposed law that critics see as a threat to media freedom and the country’s aspirations to join the European Union on Monday,” reports the Associated Press. Protests erupted:

Absolutely massive anti-Russian protests in Tbilisi right now.

In size, reminiscent of Kyiv 2014. No coincidence that it’s for the same reason. pic.twitter.com/ygAVC4NYJG

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) May 11, 2024

• Donald Trump is leading in five key states, according to recent polling data.
• Isaac Asimov’s predictions from 1981, excerpted by Tyler Cowen on Marginal Revolution.

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