This is a righteous piece by Rebecca Traister:
I have been thinking, like so many people this week, about rage. Who I’m mad at, what that anger’s good for, how what makes me maddest is the way the madness has long gone unrespected, even by those who have relied on it for their gains.
For as long as I have been a cogent adult, and actually before that, I have watched people devote their lives, their furious energies, to fighting against the steady, merciless, punitive erosion of reproductive rights. And I have watched as politicians — not just on the right, but members of my own party — and the writers and pundits who cover them, treat reproductive rights and justice advocates as if they were fantasists enacting dystopian fiction.
This week, the most aggressive abortion bans since Roe v. Wade swept through states, explicitly designed to challenge and ultimately reverse Roe at the Supreme Court level. With them has come the dawning of a broad realization — a clear, bright, detailed vision of what’s at stake, and what’s ahead. (If not, yet, full comprehension of the harm that has already been done).
You can not compromise one inch with fanatics. The moment you buy into their framework of things (“ABORTION IS EVIL”) and start saying things like it should be “safe, legal, and rare,” you are losing the battle. The only acceptable answer is “I support it and fuck you for telling people what to do with their own fucking body.”
The Moar You Know
Too late.
cokane
That’s not a very persuasive line and that logic might indicate why public opinion on this issue hasn’t budged much towards the pro-choice decision while nearly all other progressive stances on social issues have won ground over the public.
HeleninEire
Yeah. I HATE the word hysterical. Just upped my monthly Planned Parenthood donation. Thinking of giving them a grant that ONLY pays for abortions.
FUCKING PISSED!!
Mary G
Still angry all the time. It’s lucky I don’t know anyone who didn’t vote for Hillary, because I would be tempted to at least scream at them. We are in for decades more of bullshit we didn’t need to experience.
ruemara
The problem is too many keep thinking they can be reasonable with fanatics. They want some way to not condemn people they love and the best way is to declare that they truly just understood, they’d be [lefty POV on any subject]. Accepting that your Nana is a shitheel bigot who you love and who treats you like gold plus bakes amazing whatever, will allow you to let go of the idea that there’s a way to reach & appeal to them.
There ain’t. Nana is an asshole bigot who makes good cookies.
Cacti
Credit where credit is due. Wilmer calling these laws “grotesque” is the correct approach.
Grotesque, medieval, and barbaric, and every reasonable person should refer to them as such any time the topic is raised.
All that’s missing from them is a sentence of death by burning at the stake.
Bill Arnold
McSweeneys. (Righteously angry snark, in case it’s not obvious. With links.)
Honestly, We Just Hate Women (Jessica M. Goldstein, May 17, 2019)
Also, an older piece, full of links:
Abortion is Immoral, Except When It Comes to My Mistresses (Devorah Blachor July 11, 2018)
Mary G
John hits another point:
Off to my swordfighting lessons.
Bill Arnold
This piece by Eric Levitz goes over polling on abortion at length, and argues convincingly that these restrictions being legislated in many states are not actually supported by majorities in those states.
The GOP’s Assault on Abortion Rights Is Tyranny of the Minority (Eric Levitz, 2019/05/17)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The only answer is “No” and stare at them in the award silence that follows.
Bill Arnold
[comment in jail]
Kent
@cokane:
You are correct. Public opinion on abortion period hasn’t budged much at all over the past 30 years since Roe. A majority support abortion rights and always have. Kevin Drum posted some graph or statistics about this recently. I’m too lazy to go find it.
In any event, what has changed is the GOP and fundies turning this into a massive political wedge issue despite all religious logic. How much of the bible is devoted towards the poor, needy, sick etc. (a lot) versus how much is devoted to abortion (none) despite the fact that yes indeed, abortion has been practiced since biblical times so it isn’t some recent phenomenon that was unknown to biblical authors.
What is coming in this country is some sort of giant sorting. States like Oregon, Washington, and California are ramping up abortion access and looking to become a safe haven for those from the talibangelical provinces in the south. I spent a decade living in Texas with my wife and kids. We knew a lot of good people but eventually you have to stop banging your head against the wall and just move to some place that shares your values which we found in the greater Portland area.
As for ‘no compromise’ I agree with that sentiment entirely. Although you have to be careful about tipping into the Jill Stein or “Bernie or Bust” abyss. A lot of those folks thought they were taking the holier than thou, non-compromising positions too. And that is what brought us to where we are.
Cacti
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Legal, on demand, and without apology. That’s my position.
Adam L Silverman
Adam L Silverman
@Cacti: I prefer legal, safe, and no one’s business.
rikyrah
Demon ??
Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) Tweeted:
He wanted it painted “flat black” to burn hands. He wanted spikes to be a certain way to inflict pain & deter others. He wanted fewer gates. Trump has delved deep into the details of the wall, dizzying many aides w/orders & contradictions. w/@NickMiroff: https://t.co/0nHqLPcLVx https://twitter.com/jdawsey1/status/1129156847166992385?s=17
oatler.
This could apply to some Democratic positions I’ve seen, like pot and war. No more waffling and compromising.
Brachiator
@cokane:
Don’t fool yourself. Conservatives under Trump are trying to reverse civil rights protections afforded to gays, women, nonwhite people and non-Christians.
Cacti
@Adam L Silverman:
Too passive.
rikyrah
I am enraged. I admit that I have been angry since November 2016. But, the bitterness I feel towards the third party folks, the, I am too smart to vote people… cannot be measured right now.
The “you can’t scare me with the Courts” muthaphuckas ? ?
My rage can’t be measured.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Come sit by me. It must be five o clock somewhere.
Adam L Silverman
@Cacti: How about: Legal, safe, no one’s business, and fuck you!
Is that forceful enough?//
Kent
@Adam L Silverman:
Safe, legal, and FREE. Just like all other necessary healthcare.
Doesn’t do a lot of women much good if abortion is safe, legal, and $7,000 per procedure and not covered by medicaid.
zhena gogolia
I’m angry, but I’m not interested in being angry at any Democrats right at this particular historical moment. Note I said Democrats.
Adam L Silverman
@Kent: Okay, how about: legal, safe, free, and fuck you!
Both free and assertive are now in there.
chopper
my answer is usually “fuck you for wanting to force women to be pregnant against their will”.
TenguPhule
Speaking of War….
Trump says confusion over U.S. policy on Iran ‘might be a good thing’
Don’t let appearances fool you. This man is a complete idiot.
Omnes Omnibus
@oatler.: No, just no. War and pot are policy choices. Privacy and personal autonomy are not.
Mary G
The more I read the madder I get. One of the women opinion writers in the WaPo says it’s time protesters stopped dressing like Handmaids.
Then this:
Cacti
@Mary G:
The time for respectability politics is long past. It’s time to fight.
Odie Hugh Manatee
“I support it and fuck you for telling people what to do with their own fucking body.”
Cosigned. Fuck’em.
Mary G
@Cacti: Yep, and fight dirty. When they go low, we stomp on them.
Jess
@Adam L Silverman: Maybe a long week of grading exams has made me stupid, but those maps don’t make sense to me. Yes, I get that the colors are flipped, but they still contradict one another.
Kay
@Bill Arnold:
I wonder if Republicans are making a bad assumption. One really can be against abortion as a choice. One could disapprove of abortion and not want the state to make laws against it and enforce them. Not everything people disapprove of is illegal, nor do they want everything they disapprove of to be illegal.
They could really reasonably conclude that law enforcement and courts just aren’t the place for this to be decided and will make a hash out of it in investigations, prosecutions, etc. and when asked still say “I’m opposed to abortion”.
But really what the anti-abortion movement has done- defining all abortions as murder- COMPELS them to make all abortions illegal with very stiff sanctions and now people are seeing that. There never was a moderate “pro life” position because there can’t be. They made that impossible right from the get-go with the definitions they use.
Booger
Why is this discussion is not seen as 100% a religious test? If you believe in a soul, then I suppose a clump of cells is a person. If you don’t believe in a soul, then it’s a clump of cells.
Kay
@Mary G:
I wonder if there’s some ass covering going on. They were very invested in the idea this would never happen. Almost all of them personally endorsed the idea that saying this would happen was fear-mongering, or, the ultra-savvy take that “both sides” were using it gin up their base and Republicans didn’t really mean it.
Eljai
I was at lunch with some women from work yesterday — all pretty liberal. Someone brought up the recent abortion laws. I mentioned that these laws would be used to criminalize women who have miscarriages. One young women was shocked. She hadn’t considered that. I think we need to drive these points home. If you’re a woman of reproductive age, you’re not safe from these assholes, even if you think you’ll never need to have an abortion. And just how are they going to make exceptions for the health of the mother? How high does her blood pressure have to get? Does a woman have to be on the verge of organ failure before her doctor can intervene without facing a lifetime in prison?
vtr
Is the negative attitude toward abortion less about the sanctity of human life than fear among conservative white evangelicals that the birth rate among other races might mean replacement? Remember Charlottesville neo-nazis chanting “blanks will not replace us.”
schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)
Rs cannot be reasoned with. They want us dead or subservient.
Us == women, minorities, immigrants, the list goes on.
Fuck everyone who calls these issues identity politics.
J R in WV
These religious bigots want to use the term “pro life” for their stance on reproductive health, when nothing could be farther from the truth~!!~
They aren’t pro life at all, just look at the statement in the Alabama legislature regarding Zygotes thriving in a fertility clinic. He was fine with flushing those “children” down the drain because they weren’t in a woman – “there’s no pregnancy” !!!
He doesn’t give a shit for those zygotes in the lab, even though they’re as human as a 3 month embryo in a woman’s body. He just wants to control women from their first ovulation until they become menopausal. He needs to be put down – he isn’t human at all in my bookkeeping, he’s a mad dog with rabies.
If you study their xtian bible, you will find that the only mention of abortion is to require it in the case of proven adultery. In fact, the priests are those who administer the herbal concoction to induce labor, to cause the abortion.
Far from these RWNJs claims about their religion. Not that the RWNJ Theocrats wouldn’t enjoy inducing an abortion in a young woman… no, no it would be the most fun evah!!!
MagdaInBlack
@Adam L Silverman:
If this has been discussed, I missed it, so I’ll ask :
Who really is behind all these bills, all at once, all so similar? Who designed the template for this ?
rikyrah
Kay calls these bills -pregnancy bills.
She is right.??
schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)
Savita Halpanwar (sp?) had a heart beat too. They killed her.
schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)
@MagdaInBlack: It does seem like a coordinated strategy.
Ian
@Mary G: Did she say why she thinks protesters shouldn’t dress as handmaids? I could sort of see an argument that showing up dressed as the fetish of the lawmakers who you’re protesting may be counterproductive. All these Republican assholes are seeing them dressed that way, and declaring that the anti-woman policies are working before walking off to have a wank.
oldgold
The same thing is playing out with the Ways and Means Committee’s request for Trump’s tax returns.
The Committee tries to be reasonable in terms of scope and time, and what do you get in response? “F.U. and the horse you rode in on.”
Now, not at some future undefined date, the House needs to go after Barr, Mnuchin and the IRS Commissioner with a vengeance, using inherent contempt powers, for this objective defiance of the law. Enough is enough!
The House is never going to have a clearer legal shot at these lawless bastards. The statute could not be clearer. It contains no qualifiers. The time for terse letters and talking on Maddow has passed on this issue.
But her emails!!!
@Adam L Silverman:
What truce?
Ian R
Mistyped my nym, and caught in moderation.
Cheryl Rofer
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
Excellent thread
Kay
@schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully):
They did kill her. They were “saving the baby”. She didn’t go in there for an abortion, but it was an anti-abortion law that killed her, because they apply to pregnancy. Pregnancy is the larger category to which they belong. Becoming pregnant puts one under these laws. They’re laws governing pregnancy, which of course includes miscarriages and labor and delivery. Because it has to.
We already know this in the US. We know this because we have Catholic hospitals who cannot intervene in emergency situations in labor and delivery so they stick women in ambulances or taxis and send them away, to a hospital that can intervene. Now all hospitals are those hospitals.
Gelfling 545
I’ve been reading Rage Becomes Her by Soraya Chemaly. It’s been slow going because I get mad & have to put it aside for a bit. Just been reading about women dying because their pain is not taken seriously by the medical profession. It’s appalling.
Luthe
A question for the B-J lawyers: can the takings clause be invoked in the case of forced pregnancy? That is, if the government forces a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy, can it be considered a “taking” of her uterus/body/earning potential/etc.? The government can’t force someone to give up a kidney for donation, so how is forcing someone to give up their uterus for gestation any different?
I’m just thinking that if “right to privacy” doesn’t make a good case, “unlawful taking” might. Especially because even if the government is allowed “eminent domain” over a woman’s uterus, they still have to pay just compensation. Which might get expensive, since reasonably it should include top-notch medical care (to prevent miscarriages or maternal deaths), supplemental income (to pay for extra food, new clothing, prenatal vitaminas, etc), lost wages caused by taking time off for medical appointments and maternity leave, and any lost lifetime income caused by the pregnancy affecting the woman’s career.
Do you think this argument would fly?
currants
@Mary G:
Ooooh…good idea. {heads over to Google}
Adam L Silverman
@Jess: Yep, they’re largely terribly cobbled together. Basically what they show, which takes a bit of pondering because each question for each map doesn’t actually hang logically with the others, is there are no states where a majority of the population want abortion outlawed completely. That’s the bottom right map. The top right and lower left maps are a mess because the questions are a mess, especially the top right one. The top left map shows that of the continental US, majorities in 35 of 48 states want abortion to be legal with no restrictions. We can probably guess that Hawaii also would go along with that in terms of public opinion. I’m not sure on Alaska, so lets make this 36 (the 35 on the map plus Hawaii) out of 50 states want abortion to be legal with no restrictions, majorities of varying sizes in the remaining 13 states on the map want some restrictions, but that’s all that top left map shows us.
MagdaInBlack
@schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/the-anti-abortion-crusader-hopes-her-heartbeat-law-will-test-roe-v-wade
Ksmiami
I want everyone responsible for this monstrosity locked up, beaten and impoverished- and all churches taxed into the ground – they asked for a fight – well they got a fucking war.
Kay
Here’s a really scary thought. Once they outlaw abortion, what do they do then? They have hundreds of groups with thousands of employees and volunteers. Zealots, who consider themselves morally superior and they’re fresh off a victory.
They then become roving volunteer attorneys general looking for lawbreakers or move on to enshrine some other religious laws into US law. They aren’t just going away.
Adam L Silverman
@Booger: Because it depends on the religion. Even within Christianity, the question on when ensoulment occurs varies.
Adam L Silverman
@vtr: It’s in there, but good luck getting them to admit it. This is why Pat Robertson has a long, documented history of saying it’s none of his business if China’s one child policy means state mandated abortions.
satby
@Cheryl Rofer: entire thread in essay form here for those who want to share: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1129500518341124096.html
MagdaInBlack
@Kay:
There’s birth control, women who work, childless women, unmarried women, women who laugh too loud, women who wear bright colors….so much work yet to be done ///
?
Adam L Silverman
@MagdaInBlack: My guess is they’re being churned out via the ALEC model. The Kochs seem to be the number 1 funders of the majority of the Republican politicians sponsoring and voting for these bills. But if this is not being done by ALEC then by other dark money groups. My guess is if you could find a loose financial thread to pull on you’d find dark money groups within Leonard Leo’s dark money network, which includes, of course, the Federalist Society and the Judicial Crisis Network. Leo is tightly tied to Opus Dei.
Adam L Silverman
@But her emails!!!: I’m not really sure what Rick is talking about, unless its Casey V Planned Parenthood as truce. So Roe remains precedent, but you can fiddle around the edges with regulations up to the point that you can’t make abortion illegal.
MagdaInBlack
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh good. All the names I suspected; the ones that make me shudder.
Thank you ?
Steve in the ATL
@Booger:
I believe in the soul and I believe that a clump of cells is a clump of cells and not a person.
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully):
Bingo.
Gelfling 545
On my FB feed today:
“If my fetus is a citizen of my state and I am imprisoned in a state penitentiary, can I file a habeas petition on behalf of my fetus? Isn’t my citizen fetus the victim of a due process violation?”
Ella in New Mexico
@Adam L Silverman: @Bill Arnold:
This just mirrors what’s going on at a national level: an extremist minority from the fringes of the Republican party is now in charge in the Senate and the Executive Branch, and quickly moving in on the Judicial. And I’m beginning to think that our Democratic majority in the House is just gonna stand by and let them.
What another shitty, shitty, fucking week.
wmd
Restrictions on abortion make women into gestation machines, which is slavery.
We cannot have laws governing use of people’s organs. The reductio ad absurdum endpoint is me getting your extra kidney by state coercion – otherwise you are murdering me.
Ksmiami
Like I said no more taxes to support red states fuck them the red states are basically robbing blue states and giving us very little voice
Woodrow/Asim
@Kay:
Outlaw? Eventually.
But first, SCOTUS will (IMHO, and IANAL) vacate Row, putting it back on the States. That plays into the rulebook these assholes learned during the run-up to the American Civil War, and polished the turd of, during Jim Crow.
State-by-State gets them everything they can dream of — an damned-near eternal battle, playing a hellish game of wack-a-mole with women’s bodies while stacking up funds to continue building the state and federal lobbying organizations that they want, consolidating power. It keeps this horrific crapshow in effort while cowing that they “killed Roe”, AND that they still need money and votes (and BLOOD) to stop states from voting in Abortion Rights Advocates.
If — IF — this was about “saving the unborn”, they they would have pushed, as Feminists did, for an Amendment. Or, at least, for broad Federal legislation that did more to harm Abortion Rights, when anti-choice forces had the majority.
That they did not, gives the game away. And shows us — if I’m right — what the field of play will be, when we lose Roe.
Adam L Silverman
@MagdaInBlack: I would be very surprised if you didn’t find funding from Leo’s dark money network or the Kochs’ funding network or the DeVos’s or the Mercer’s supporting Porter’s organization:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/25/the-anti-abortion-crusader-hopes-her-heartbeat-law-will-test-roe-v-wade
Adam L Silverman
@Ella in New Mexico: I’m tracking. I’ve been writing about it here for over three years.
debbie
@Ella in New Mexico:
Evidence, please?
They intentionally pick states where they know there will be outraged and they will be sued. The only goal is to get the bill to the Supreme Court. And the odds are far better when there are more bills working their way through the courts.
What frightens me is that this seems to be a race where every bigoted pig gets a lane.
zhena gogolia
@Steve in the ATL:
Me too.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: It goes beyond that. The Democratic majority in the House has no power to actually stop this. No legislation they could pass legalizing abortion individually or wrapping it in a largely female reproductive health law can pass the Senate as long as it has a Republican majority. Sure, they could hold hearings and conduct oversight, or try to, but that’s about it right now. As much as the Democratic majority in the House is cranking out important, quality legislation right now all of it, every single bill, will never be signed into law or vetoed because McConnell has made it clear he’s not taking up any legislation during this term of Congress unless he absolutely has to. He had to do the national emergency veto because of how the law was written. And because he doesn’t want a government shutdown going into the election, he’ll take up an omnibus year on year CR, but that’s about it. He’s made it clear his appropriators are not to produce a budget bill, despite the Federal law that required him to do so, and he’s also made it clear they won’t prepare individual appropriations as he wants none of them on record having to vote for anything that could hurt them in the 2020 election. He will, as he did with the Green New Deal, take up a bill from the House if he thinks he can use it to harm Senate Democrats. But that’s it. We have a Federal legislature that cannot legislate because of one man: Addison Mitchell McConnell.
PenAndKey
These fuckers have made it clear that they see nothing wrong with launching a criminal probe against any woman like my wife who suffered the tragedy of a miscarriage requiring a d&c. Some of these laws being passed damn near demand it.
I used to be content being a snarky asshole to them, but now it’s personal. I will gladly burn any and every bridge with friends, family, coworkers, or ANYONE in my community that thinks the answer to a family tragedy like we’ve suffered is persecution. I’m just a husband, and while we both lost a wanted pregnancy and I’m coming to terms with it my wife lost someone she nurtured for three months. If anyone thinks I’m pissed off at this they’d be well advised to stay clear of her.
The Right wants to go on about silent majorities? They’re going to wish they hadn’t.
schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)
Kushner’s immigration plan will throw the applications of people waiting in GC queues (waiting for the appropriate quota to open, and have completed all other formalities including an approval of their petition to immigrate), sometimes for over a decade in the toilet. They have to apply again and age counts against you under this new system. As many as 4 million applicants could be affected according to a Forbes article.
Forbes article
ETA: I fucking knew it even before I knew the details. Everything they do is in bad faith.
Dan B
@Eljai: As others have alluded there seems to be limited awareness of the consequences of anti-abortion laws. Major civil rights struggles were won about the same time as Roe. Most of these involved increased visibility. Civil rights was very public and aided by media. Women marched in the streets and gays rioted. LGBT rights stalled until AIDS forced gay men into the open. Abortion has remained mostly invisible. It will probably require a flash point to break through. A couple cousins had abortions and told me, the gay lib guy, because I could be trusted but told no one else. There is intense pressure for all minorities to remain invisible. It’s an effective tactic, until it stops.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully): Kushner’s immigration plan is DOA. It won’t go anywhere in the House. In the Senate, the non immigration hardliners in the GOP don’t like it. And the immigration hardliners in the GOP don’t like it.
Barbara
When TNC had a blog I remember one of his commenters (male) stating how much BS “safe, etc.” was and that abortion should be common, open and not require any apologies. I hated Obama’s framing that abortion was always tragic. Sure, once a kid is born there is no looking back but it is outrageous that others feel the right to frame women’s experience. I have no doubt abortion is the best outcome in many situations.
schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)
@Adam L Silverman: I know that. But I get annoyed at the way it is covered in the media, which takes these liars at their word.
Barbara
@PenAndKey: I”m sorry. I’ve been there, as I am sure have many others.
Barbara
@Steve in the ATL: Even after all this time and even though she was a stranger I find it painful to think of Savita. She was in a hospital in agony for three days.
Barbara
@Adam L Silverman: If we are talking about abortion it isn’t the Kochs. They actually don’t care about abortion.
PenAndKey
@Barbara: They don’t, but they know it’s a red button issue that serves as one hell of a distraction to what they do want instead.
Ruckus
@Kay:
How’s that go “Success builds success.”
So yes, if they are successful at this, why would they stop here?
They wouldn’t. They want a world shaped in the way their warped minds think everyone should act. And even they don’t act like that. The world they are trying to build would eventually bite them in the ass. Of course a lot of people will be dead before that happens. These are people whose saying should be “Do as I say, not as I do.” IOW assholes. They hold no logic. They hold no, for a lack of a better description, democratic ideals. They can’t see to the end of the block, let alone to the end of the road.
Adam L Silverman
@Barbara: They fund a lot of extremist Christian politicians. So they may not personally care, but following the money of who the fund indicates they do.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully):
QFT.
If you listen to any of their arguments there is no logic, no compassion, no legal basis, no consensus from their constituents for what they are passing. They don’t want to live in a majority rule nation. They want to live in a nation ruled by absolute morons. Which is why they elected the chief ass/moron as their leader.
Eljai
@Dan B: I am glad your cousins could trust you. The fear of speaking out is real. I was encouraged and inspired to see thousands of women sharing their abortion stories on social media this past week after actress Busy Phillips started the #YouKnowMe hashtag. But I fear for these brave women opening themselves up to online and other kinds of harassment. It makes it all the more important that we be strong allies for one another. The more that we speak out, the more we can hopefully drown out the regressive evil-doers.
Barb 2
Fight, fight, fight for the equal rights amendment!
Women will NOT return to the good ‘ole days of bare foot and pregnant.
I have a hobby – genealogy. My own family tree. But along the way I learned about the high death rate of mothers. During the 1800s the birth rate was high. Very few of my maternal ancestors survived a baby every year or two and the flu or other disease found in fast migrating humans. Men quickly replaced the dead slave/sex partner at his bidding with a much younger model. These young girls then began producing and dying off – the old fart needed another replacement. My great great grandfather was the child of the first wife which explained the very young age of the woman listed on the census as wife of head of household.
Pregnancy is dangerous for women. Even today – complications from pregnancy can last for up to a year after the birth and not merely a few weeks after the birth of the baby. That was something reported recently in the news. Medicaid doesn’t cover post birth follow ups for a full year.
Pregnancy should be a choice. Women need the Equal Rights amendment now! The ERA isn’t the cure all but it is a start.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
What @PenAndKey: said. I’ll add, do not be fooled by the Koch family. This may not be on the front page of their manifesto but it’s in there. They are as bad as Rupert Murdoch in what they want for the US and the world.
HinTN
Thank you, Cole.
The Moar may be right but at some point we have to start saying what we believe. That point is now.
schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)
Exactly, we don’t need D politicians to apologize on our behalf. Their answer should be women should be able to make these decisions for themselves.
And its time for the Snooze Hour to bench the Jowls of Concern.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully):
Will never come up for a vote in the House. If it does, it will be defeated. No doubt Drumpf will attempt to implement it with an executive order, but I doubt that will fly either.
Kushner will be lucky not to wind up in jail for his secret dealings with Mohammed bone Saw in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Looks pretty close to accessory to murder of a Wa Post reporter either before or after the fact.
debbie
@Barbara:
Do you think anyone happily chooses abortion? This is not so far removed from RWNJs insisting welfare mothers use abortions as a form of birth control.
LongHairedWeirdo
I came up with a thought experiment that might help people who are tempted to give in.
“I want you to do me a favor. Clap your hands. No, not like that, a good, hard, smack, hand to hand – don’t hurt yourself, just, make sure if there was a grape between your palms, it’d be *history*.
“Now: Can I be 100% sure that you didn’t murder a human being? If you say ‘duh. Of course you can!’, you’ve just shown why the pro-life movement in this country is irrational. Their answer is, no, because you could have squished a fertilized human ovum with that clap, and that would make you a MURDERER.
“That’s why there can’t be compromise. They call people murderers, and baby killers, and want them imprisoned, because the thought of killing even an undifferentiated collection of cells (which is is the step after the egg is fertilized) makes them feel a bit up-chucky. That’s not a workable idea in a free society; people can’t be dictated to by other people’s nausea, even when they insist on spewing the results all over.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Barbara: You know, Amanda Marcotte once had a great analogy for this. “No, that’s *not* the tragedy. That’s one possible *resolution* for the tragedy. The *tragedy* is a pregnancy that the woman feels unable to take to term, for whatever reason.” Actually, I think the example she used was divorce, IIRC – the broken marriage is the tragedy, not the divorce.
(Just in case it’s unclear, and someone can’t be arsed to follow the link back: no, Barbara didn’t say that it was a tragedy, she said she didn’t like that framing.)
The analogy is strong, though, because it’s the same sort of reasoning. “You might not like the solution these people choose. That sucks, and you know what? It *still* isn’t any of your goddamned business, if you want to live in a free country.”
Richard Guhl
While we’re all exercising our righteous anger about this injustice, a practical aid to assist women who don’t have the wherewithal to escape these hellholes on their own is to give to the National Network of Abortion Funds. The link is embedded in Ms. Traister’s article in The Cut.
Brachiator
George Carlin on “pro life”
https://youtu.be/fmMvsAjCkog
J R in WV
We’re practicing members of Planned Parenthood, have been for years. I just hit them up for a larger than usual donation to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund Inc via ActBlue. I’ve lost the addr for that fund, but it’s easy to google up those donation pages.
geg6
@Barbara:
I can tell you that in my case, it was the best possible option. I’m not going to lay all the details out but it would have ruined my life and I probably would have killed myself if I had been forced to go through with the pregnancy. I have no regrets for it whatsoever. None.
My younger sister survived her first pregnancy but a second would have undoubtedly killed her. She has an unusual artery running across her cervix. Her doctors told us that there is a 98% mortality rate in women who have this abnormality who are pregnant and carry the child to term. They all bleed out. My niece was lucky to have a mother. My sister spent five months on bed rest in a labor room at a major hospital in Pittsburgh in order to try to have my niece and live through it. Her medical team was on high alert through that whole time. They made it clear that she should, under no circumstances, try to conceive or, if she accidentally did conceive, try to carry a child. It would be suicidal to do it.
These people would kill my sister and jail those who performed my abortion, people I consider life savers for me.
I will fight them with every fiber of my being. They have no idea what I’m capable of, but they may have to find out.
something fabulous
@Kay: Oh ugh; you’re totally right about that.
trnc
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of anger at that statement. Am I misremembering the context? I don’t think the “rare” in “safe, legal and rare” meant “shame on you.” It meant that birth control should be taught in every school and available to whomever would like to use it. It meant that no one should have to fight for pre-natal care.
Every medical procedure in the world involves some kind of risk. Better to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, and better to keep an expectant mother healthy if she runs the risk of complications during a pregnancy. If that isn’t what he meant by “rare”, that’s the way I took it I’ve told “pro-life” people that their position on abortion is a sick joke if they don’t support birth control education and Planned Parenthood.
Gvg
The reason it should be rare is birth control should be really really available and cheap or free. Giving birth is somewhat dangerous, always. People want kids though so we risk it when we want to. Sometimes things go wrong and we have to abort or our body does it for us, however it’s much safer if we just don’t get pregnant when we shouldn’t.
It’s a woman’s choice and life.
I have heard a reasonable question about the fathers feelings. Either the woman’s choice is medical or wants. If it’s medical and dad can’t accept it, divorce and get far away from him obviously. If it’s choice and he can’t accept it, then I can feel sorry for him, but they aren’t compatible and again I think it’s time for a divorce. Sometimes you just have to see there isn’t a storybook fix. Making us second class citizens isn’t acceptable to me.
Barbara
@debbie: Happily? Yes, a few people I know. They were unhappily pregnant and happy to have an abortion.
KSinMA
@Odie Hugh Manatee: “Keep the government’s hands off my body.”
Inspectrix
@Bill Arnold:
I also like this part of the McSweeney piece
“If we were really anti-abortion, wouldn’t we want to spend our resources on comprehensive sex education and contraception? If we really cared about babies, wouldn’t we support paid parental leave and government-sponsored childcare?”
As someone who has worked in an abortion clinic, I have seen that women make this choice in all kinds of contexts. we don’t have to agree or be comfortable with that choice. However, the cost of taking that choice away is way too high. I’m so angry this week.
I have a professional conference scheduled in Alabama and there is interesting discussion about boycott. I like the suggestion of adding a protest/activism activity if we must go.