Barrett: If you can give up your baby when it's born, why does forcing a woman to go through pregnancy affect her life at all?
— Kaili Joy Gray (@KailiJoy) December 1, 2021
Here is the verbatim quote and clip of Barrett's question: https://t.co/reodaIaWHs pic.twitter.com/f90ho1qDcM
— Kaili Joy Gray (@KailiJoy) December 1, 2021
It is a fact of life that no Republican can imagine a scenario that has not personally affected them, so it can be assumed that Judge Comey Barrett herself had uncomplicated pregnancies and ‘easy’ deliveries (not to mention the best prenatal care money could buy). Presumably she has been able to explain to the children she bore that they were never considered potentially disposable commodities, unlike the offspring of lesser vessels. And we have a pretty good idea how Judge Comey Barrett thinks about her adoptive children, because at her confirmation hearing she described them the way normal people talk about rescue puppies: The most pitiful, neglected little things — but see how loving & happy they are now!
Periodic reminder that the State Department later prohibited the adoption agency she used to adopt a Haitian child just after earthquake from being involved in international adoptions. https://t.co/paBUDLDVqh
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) December 1, 2021
But Chief Justice Roberts and his wife also have adoptive children, two adorable blonds who must be in their twenties now. At the time of his confirmation hearings, there was some public bitterness among his fellow CHUZ LYFE!!! believers that the Roberts were insufficiently committed to the cause of ensuring a steady market of healthy white newborns for eager adoptive parents, because that well-to-do lawyer couple ‘just happened’ to have found not one but two Irish nationals choosing to give birth in a Latin American country with lax cross-border adoption laws, avoiding the much more forbidding rules then in place on the Auld Sod. Perhaps the Roberts children take comfort in knowing that their parents were willing to go the extra mile(s) to obtain the closest purebred matches to build their happy family. If one must be a commodity, surely better to be an expensive, high-value commodity.
uh ya know the fact that those things haven’t been done already is kinda a big fuckin tell about the odds of those things getting done https://t.co/FFZsHITiSU
— kilgore trout, uatx professor of turnip studies (@KT_So_It_Goes) December 2, 2021
But even those of us who have not been personally affected by adoption know it’s seldom that easy, not for the birth mothers, and not for their ‘handed off’ children either. Pregnancy and childbirth is not comparable to a temporary job that can be left off one’s personal resume. Nor is being adopted (even as a newborn, even to ‘perfect’ loving parents) as inconsequential a factor as eye color or blood type…
SCOTUS is talking a lot about adoption, so here's what the data show. An extremely quick thread. ??
The vast majority of people who want abortions are not meaningfully interested in adoption. If they are denied access to abortion 91% of them will parent instead of relinquishing.
— Gretchen Sisson (@gesisson) December 1, 2021
This 9% is significant because it mirrors EXACTLY the proportion of non-marital white births that were relinquished for adoption pre-Roe. Yes: the adoption rate TODAY for people denied abortion is the same as the pre-Roe rate.
— Gretchen Sisson (@gesisson) December 1, 2021
Adoption is thus the choice of the choiceless: for people who want abortion but can't have one, for people who want to parent, but feel powerless to do so.
This is not a scenario that leads to good outcomes.
— Gretchen Sisson (@gesisson) December 1, 2021
I don't know if it's true that there's more trauma now, but I do think there's more gaslighting now (which, yes, probably does make it worse — I just don't want to minimize what was clearly traumatic about earlier relinquishments). (Also, I am working on this!)
— Gretchen Sisson (@gesisson) December 3, 2021
I'm glad to have many people on this thread who've probably not thought deeply about adoption before. I'd love to share this thread from last month, with some of my data from women who've relinquished. I hope you'll take a moment to read their stories.https://t.co/VbRq9Y74OP
— Gretchen Sisson (@gesisson) December 1, 2021
We Are Already Right of Boom! Russian Irredentism Towards Ukraine, the US’s & NATO’s Response, & Ukraine’s Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity
The Thin Black Duke
Hillary warned us.
quakerinabasement
More than a little bit of assumption and supposition in that, yeah?
Ksmiami
Barrett is a goddamn monster. At least the Rt wing men are evil and clueless. Oh well; time to destroy this bs court.
Original Lee
One my friends was an orphan who never was adopted, probably because she was too old (i.e., 8 years old) when her parents were killed in a car accident. Another friend who was given up for adoption as a newborn was not adopted until she was nearly 3 years old because a relative of her birth father got tangled up in red tape and ended up not adopting her after months of delays. Clearly the justices talking about adoption seem to think there’s a big market for newborns and don’t care that a significant nonzero number of babies continue in foster care for a long time.
mrmoshpotato
@The Thin Black Duke:
Damn right.
“The Supreme Court is on the ballot.”
“Fuck you, Hillary! You can’t scare us into voting for you!” screamed back the stupid, selfish children.
Brachiator
This is so deeply offensive. Despite all the blather conservatives like to do about liberty, Barrett has no problem with the idea of the state forcing a woman to have a baby. Because the state thinks it is a peachy idea.
I do not understand how conservative women could hate themselves and other women so much as to be happy to take their own rights away.
Yes, middle class and upper class women will continue to have access to abortion. But in the past, before Roe, many women of means would go away and have their babies in secret and put them up for adoption.
I wonder whether Justice Barrett is giddy to see the return of the shame and hypocrisy that often was attached to unwed motherhood?
WaterGirl
Brood ‘Em, Birth ‘Em, Drop ‘Em Off
Can we just vote her off the island? it’s disgraceful that any woman could even think that way.
pat
Amy Coathanger Barrett is a sociopath.
That is all.
debbie
@Brachiator:
Appalling that such a stupid woman has made it to the highest court in this country
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl:
And Injustice Gorsuch and the blackout drunk, alleged rapist can go with her!
(Not making light of Kavanaugh. Him being on the highest court in the land disgusts me to no end.)
H.E.Wolf
“The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion: When the Anti-Choice Choose”:
https://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/anti-tales.shtml
citizen dave
I propose establishing a safe haven dropoff at the SCOTUS. When the alarm goes off, the RWNJ justices and their staffs can deal with the new arrival.
zhena gogolia
I can’t believe we’ve let it get to this point. Three stolen Supreme Court seats. Three.
Yutsano
@mrmoshpotato: I’m not a lawyer. I took a look at what Kavanaugh called “reasoning” and my brain went, “Huh?” I feel terrible for any of his clerks. If they absorb that “reasoning” they’ll be unhireable.
Betty Cracker
It makes me sad for Bony Carrot’s kids, that they have a mom who is so completely clueless about the emotional implications of motherhood and adoption.
Nutmeg again
You know I really wonder what the birth moms of the Covid Handmaiden’s adopted kids would have to say about her opinion that you can just breed one, pop it out, and hand it over… *
*(yes, I am the mother of a full-term born child, as well as the grateful recipient of a 2nd trimester termination for fetal abnormalities, and other stuff. Typical reproductive history of a 20th century woman, in other words.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami:
Easy rhetoric. How do you propose destroying the Court?
The Thin Black Duke
If I may put on my tinfoil hat for a minute, I think the endgame is subtracting birth control from the equation. Wimmen getting too uppity so let’s keep ’em barefoot and pregnant for the rest of their lives. They’ll eventually go after those upper-class women too because even a bitch with a fancy-ass college degree is still livestock.
Citizen Alan
@zhena gogolia: It may yet be four depending on how fucking stupid Stephen Breyer chooses to be over the coming months and/or years.
Kristine
Since we’re not separating families at the border anymore, that conveyor belt of kids to “good Christian families” needs to be loaded somehow.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: Reduce it’s jurisdiction and terminate the judges appointed by Trump since his insurrection should make everything he did as President null and void
Ksmiami
@The Thin Black Duke: you just realized this? Yes the anti choice brigade is about punishing sluts so birth control will be the next target. It’s already happening in Texas
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: How do you propose to do that?
Ruckus
@pat:
At the least.
I’m not a betting man but I’d still bet she’s far worse than just a sociopath.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: win more congressional seats and nullify a lot of the supreme court’s domain. They have way too much power… actually if it was up to me, I’d cut their funding
Kay
Texas is already ratcheting it up:
It’ll go like guns and voting did- once they get the blessing of the Republicans on the Supreme Court they take that as permission to go further and further Right. We saw it with guns, we saw it when Roberts gutted the Voting Rights Act and we’ll see it with this.
Overturning Roe is just the start. They’re going to be monitoring and policing all aspects of women’s reproductive-related health care. The Republican Party of 2021 is much, much further Right than the Republican Party of 1972 and much more dependent on the religious extremist part of the base. That faction will be emboldened by this and just go as far as they possibly can. I think it will be a wake up call in “purple” states, but perhaps one that arrived too late.
dnfree
Unless she had C-sections, which I’m sure have their own later complications, Barrett may be surprised to find that those of us who have delivered multiple babies the usual way can experience unpleasant physical consequences years and even decades later.
Almost Retired
The first term paper I got back in my first year of law school from a notoriously old-school Paper Chase-style professor said – in large letters – “You’re reasoning is backwards, at best.” I was screaming that at the conservative judges repeatedly during oral argument.
gene108
@The Thin Black Duke:
They’re coming for birth control, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and so much more. They feel the SCOTUS rulings of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s destroyed America and have been working to overturn them for decades.
The conservative obsession to an American past that never was, unrelenting regression of social progress, isolationism, and hostility to diplomacy will lead the U.S. to losing its current place atop the global pecking order. And since conservatism cannot fail, but can only be failed, they’ll look for “others” to blame for the decline caused by their decisions and bloody retribution against “others” will commence.
I used to believe there was some line everyone agreed should not be crossed, because as humans most of us shared some common beliefs about right and wrong. I’m no longer convinced that’s the case or maybe I was wrong and it never was the case.
eclare
If I were a younger person of reproductive age, I would have started looking to leave TN when RBG died.
Kent
Not just three. All of Bush’s appointees were stolen as well via Bush v. Gore.
Kay
They’re just warming up. I think we could see new laws tracking women who leave a record that they’re pregnant and questions when they return to the state no longer pregnant.
Leto
@Yutsano: unfortunately their wretched network will ensure that all of those clerks will land cushy jobs someplace. Presumably in places that will cause the most harm to the nation.
bowtiejack
@Ksmiami: Whoops! You left out gay marriage.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: pps we are going to have to fight them btw… by any means necessary- but first I’m hoping Covid wipes more of them out.
Ksmiami
@bowtiejack: presumed… they want a roll back to pre-enlightenment days. I wish I was exaggerating
Leto
@Kay: it’s not just TX, these laws banning mailed medication are currently in the legislatures of 7 other states. The FDA is set to rule on this issue shortly, but to a large degree it won’t matter. Conservatives are ahead of the curve on this one, ramming this shit through left and right. As most women here have noted over the years, they’re coming for all forms of birth control, and even when they ban those, they’ll keep going.
gene108
@Kay:
It won’t wake anybody up. Most people won’t be materially affected by what Republicans do, and as with expansive gun laws, many will actively support it and believe we’ve always had such laws in place, since 1776.
Most social safety net and social justice issues are impactful to people on the margins. Most people don’t get abortions and don’t plan to put their baby up for adoption. Most people have health insurance through their employer, or the VA, or Medicare, and only need something like Medicaid or Obamacare in an unusual circumstance, like severe illness or extended unemployment. Also, outside of the chronically ill or severely ill, most people don’t get much use out of their health insurance.
We overestimate the material adverse impacts Republicans have on most people.
Edit: The fact Republicans aren’t tearing apart things that affect most people is why they continue to be viable in politics.
Kay
The Republican judges questions and arguments were designed for a political audience. They minimize the impact because they’re concerned that the fact that they are so far Right might hurt the GOP’s efforts to present as “mainstream” outside of dark red states.
They whine and complain that they’re perceived as “hacks” but this Trump crew of judges makes no effort at all sound anything BUT political. Barrett may as well be making a GOP stump speech.
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano:
Oh, I don’t care about any of his “reasoning.”
His confirmation hearing behavior was beyond disgraceful.
The Thin Black Duke
@gene108: Most black and brown people are very aware of what happens when Republicans are in charge.
Kay
@Leto:
To me, that’s the silver lining. Ain’t no way the religious extremist Right will satisfied with just a ban in red states. They’re coming for purple and blue states too. They can do a lot with just the federal agencies to make abortion unavailable anywhere, so all they need is Roe overturned and a GOP President.
Again- there’s a track record here. Guns and voting. Their extremism on guns doesn’t just affect red states – it affects the whole country.
WaterGirl
@Kristine:
So much truth. A few days ago I made exactly that point, though sadly my comment was much longer and wasn’t as compellingly worded.
Exactly what you said.
Almost Retired
@Kay: I think you are right. We get a little smug here in California, shaking our heads in disbelief at the nonsense in the heartland. But they’re coming for us, too.
Peale
@Kay: Yep. Poland is doing that right now to make sure that all pregnancies are recorded, so don’t think that in the future, a woman isn’t going to have to prove that she didn’t have an abortion.
Ksmiami
I still think we are heading for National divorce… I mean why wouldn’t wa/OR. And CA want to be part of Canada?
Leto
@Kay: Agreed. Regarding the blue states, a number of them have passed laws guaranteeing abortion. If/when Roe is struck down, expect challenges to those post haste. And then when it’s brought before the SC, watch Cry Baby change his “reasoning” about states rights.
I really do wish the normies would wake the fuck up. It’d be nice if they could pull their heads out of the asses long enough to see wtf is happening to this country. I know I’m asking for a unicorn shitting rainbows and candy, but still…
pat
It looks like my comment was lost.
What I said is, as I recall it was abortion that got the evangelicals interested in politics. Previously they had not been voting as much.
I had a very good friend who belonged to an evangelical church and we got along because we never talked about it. Our friendship ended when trump was elected, I emailed her that I was appalled, and she emailed back that it would be “OK”.
Now I’m trying to edit to say that the final straw was when she sent a long email about how she was against abortion. Until then I had never thought about that issue in relation to her.
different-church-lady
Let’s see if I’ve got this straight: there is a woman on the Supreme Court of the United States who does not understand how the biological process of childbirth works, yes?
laura
What Kay Said!11!
Don’t anybody rest on this radical rewrite of the Constitution and your relation to the state. I’m going to do some refreshing on what may be pled before the Court and what GA’s appeal and what they argued last Wednesday because it has been rumored that the State pulled a different argument out of their ass than they had briefed prior to ACB’s sprint to a still warm seat. If they did switch arguments when they no longer needed CJR for a majority opinion I would think it would call into question the legitimacy of the Court ‐ the stench itself.
Burn this xian patriarchy to the fucking ground.
JPL
@pat: this
gene108
@pat:
From what I’ve read, it was opposition to integration that got evangelicals interested in politics. They decided abortion would be an effective wedge issue to keep evangelicals politically engaged, and get conservative Catholics to vote Republican.
eclare
@gene108: Samantha Bee had a very good segment on this a few years ago.
pat
@gene108:
That may be, but it is abortion, as far as I know, that keeps them going.
Mike in NC
The irony is that a lifelong sexual predator was able to appoint three far-right wing anti-abortion fanatics to the Supreme Court.
Candidate Trump himself was asked by some clueless ‘journalist’ in 2016 if he thought women who have an abortion needed to be punished somehow. Obviously he never thought it over before, but had to blurt out the answer the religious zealots wanted to hear.
Leto
@Peale: It’s not just Poland, the Trumpov administration was doing that. Maddow covered it both at the time (MediaMatters: Maddow’s bombshell that the Trump administration tracked immigrant pregnancies also reveals how bad Fox’s coverage was), and last week on her Dec 1st show. The segment itself isn’t up, but here’s the transcript. Guess who was the judge was that initially denied the woman’s abortion? He likes BEEEEEER!!!
Edit: what the Trumpov admin did is just a preview of what’s to come wrt women’s health at the federal level. Also the government lawyer arguing that the woman couldn’t have an abortion? He’s the solicitor general for MS, the guy who just argued to eliminate Roe. All these motherfuckers are connected.
James E Powell
@zhena gogolia:
Five. I’m counting the 2000 Selection that gave us Roberts & Alito.
Ksmiami
@laura: oh believe me, we will light the torches…
opiejeanne
Off topic but this whole thread is golden.
https://twitter.com/thefourthcraw/status/1467187995610595330?s=21
Toddlers make the BEST face covering enforcement officers on trains
“DADDY! DADDY! THAT MAN DOESN’T HAVE A MASK ON! HE’S BREATHING VIRUS ALL OVER ME!”
(man embarrassedly puts mask on, toddler happy)
pat
I have a required distribution coming out of my retirement account.
I’m thinking of sending the whole thing to Planned Parenthood.
Any other ideas of non-profits (501c3s) who will be fighting this abomination?
James E Powell
@gene108:
And they were right about that. But it doesn’t matter how it all got started, they are history’s actors and the rest of us are left to just study what they do.
Besides, people who vote Republican invariably adopt what I call the Package. So if one starts voting Republican because of abortion, one also adopts racism, anti-immigration, low taxes on the rich, no accountability for corporate misconduct, etc.
Unlike Our Blessed Party, where no faction agrees completely with any other faction and on the issues where they do agree, they disagree on means & methods.
Honestly, I do not know how Pelosi does it.
eachother
This adoption manure skips over a few things. Generating a lot of services and costs post-birth that may put their “small government” on the hook for a bunch of money until the “safe haven” adoption process serves some percentage of many new orphans. Seeing what we saw of immigrant children’s treatment during the Cheeto/Stephen Miller administration and their post-born policies, I am moved to ask, is this in any way also a privatization move like the prisons and immigrant camps to enrich a new private beneficiary on the public dole to serve a large, new human population of affected, dependent clients?
My sympathy to the mothers and the forced-born children the self righteous imposers are anxious to crush with the indignity of their convictions.
Leto
@gene108: @eclare:
Sam Bee: The Religious Right (10 mins) and Sam Bee: The Religious Right Part 2 (7 mins)
Kay
@Peale:
They could make registering the pregnancy at 6 weeks a requirement for some kind of state recognition of the birth and benefits tied to that – WIC or Medicaid. If it doesn’t result in a birth they follow up.
That’s just at the state level. A GOP President could all but outlaw any pregnancy intervention or termination thru federal agencies and rules changes, and that’s without a GOP Congress. With a GOP Congress they can pass a federal law identical to that in Texas. Who is going to stop them? Susan Collins?
eclare
@Leto: Thanks!
opiejeanne
@pat: I gave $500 to Planned Parenthood’s political organization by accident when I was making our annual charity donations. I considered contacting them and asking them to move that money to the tax-deductible PP program, but decided to let it stand. Now I’m glad I did.
trollhattan
Slowly, the self-weeding continued on, towards an unknowable future.
trollhattan
@Kay:
With a furrow level exceeding 5 on the 5-point Collins Furrow Scale, the Senator from Maine voted in favor of the Republican-authored Your Womb, Our Womb law. “None of this will negatively impact American women, quite the contrary.” Collins cooed to the gathered media.
Felanius Kootea
@gene108: If they go after birth control, it will change things because that affects a lot of women.
debbie
@pat:
NARAL Pro-Choice American Foundation has been up front and very vocal. Charity Navigator has given them pretty good ratings.
eclare
@Felanius Kootea: I would argue abortion does too, women just don’t admit it. Whether that moves people to vote differently, I have no idea.
pat
@opiejeanne:
I will be looking at all the options. I ask for the 501c3s because that means my required distribution will not be taxed.
But I am all in for this fight..
I can not believe they are going after birth control too, but of course they are. All those eggs that just want to be implanted..!!
I often think that the world would be more inhabitable if there had been a massive distribution of birth control pills back in the 60s.
Ksmiami
@pat: there are a number of smaller charities in tax etc that help provide funds for women to travel out of state
Ksmiami
@trollhattan: faster Covid faster…
pat
@debbie:
Thanks. I used to contribute to a lot of environmental organizations, but lately I’ve gone more and more for orgs that actually help people. And animals…. humane society, food pantry, that sort of thing.
Felanius Kootea
@eclare: Oh I agree. It’s just that most women don’t understand that there is a right wing stigma to birth control and many use the pill for birth control and to manage other conditions (fibroids, etc.). Going after birth control would make things too obvious to too many, but they’ll do it anyway.
Sure Lurkalot
Seems like it wouldn’t be much of a stretch from “it’s not a burden, you can just give the baby away” to “it’s not a burden, the authorities will be coming to give your baby away to fitting parents.”
pat
Remember when Hobby Lobby went after the ACA requirement to pay for birth control?
I do not understand these people….. Or maybe I do.
They are misogynistic sociopaths.
trollhattan
@Sure Lurkalot:
Also, too, I must have missed the memo declaring that childbirth is no longer any sort of threat to the mother’s health and wellbeing; and specific to the thinking of certain justices, birth mothers as young as, say, ten.
When did that get decided?
Another Scott
@laura: “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization” is MS not GA. :-)
Someone on Twitter noted in her liveblogging that Roberts’ question (about why their brief argued one thing but they’re arguing something different now) was a transparent moving of the goalposts as a result of ACB being installed.
Let’s see…
The whole thread is good (as a record and explanation of the proceedings), but infuriating.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
The Thin Black Duke
@pat: Assuming the worst from these people is always the safest play.
Sam
The rot is far deeper than the current crew, the Supreme Court has been an unrepresentative reactionary institution for about 180 years. Fugitive slave law/dred Scott. The destruction or Reconstruction. Repeated changes of the status of the communist party USA as part of dithering on the first amendment. Citizens united. Destruction of VRA.
They have a lot to answer for.
Kropacetic
Sounds like you understand them just fine.
Another Scott
@pat:
Alison Rose pointed us to a couple of groups that are in the trenches with women in a comment on 12/1 (#180).
HTH. You’re a good egg.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sam
Easy answer to her question: having the baby is 14x more dangerous for the mother than aborting it. Good statistic on that.
zhena gogolia
I need some respite.
Kirk Spencer
Wonder when they’ll post the public gallows? (in case that’s a reference too far, ILU-486.)
eclare
@zhena gogolia: I agree!
boatboy_srq
For me the single biggest tell is and has always been the Reichwingnuts’ target. IF abortion prevention were the goal they would leave Roe – which addresses women’s rights to make their own choices about their own healthcare – alone and go after Griswold v. Connecticut which addresses the legality of abortion as a medical procedure. That they continue to ignore Griswold and attack Roe says their target isn’t abortion but rather women’s autonomy.
Another Scott
@eachother: Your comment reminded me of when surrogate mothers were becoming something that people were aware of (when IVF was accepted). And how sensible people were concerned that desperate women would sign up and get shafted by the rich parents to be, and/or how poor women would be pressured to sign up to be incubators to try to escape grinding poverty. IIRC, eventually standards were put in place so that the woman’s expenses could/must be covered, but no salary/bonus type arrangements (to try to minimize the financial incentives).
It occurs to me that if abortion is impossible to get, then why would a rich couple feel the need to arrange to pay for surrogacy any more?? They just need to get buddy-buddy with the local fire station and wait for a basket to be dropped off!! It’s the Walmartization of the process – something that we’re often told is good for everyone because it drives down prices… :-/
Yet again, the GQP’s policies reward those well-off and punches down on everyone else.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: Correct. The big thing was the revocation of tax exemption from “Christian academies” that were whites-only. But that was a PR loser nationwide.
Omnes Omnibus
@boatboy_srq: Um, no. Roe is the case that addresses abortion. Griswold was about contraception and posited a right to privacy that was used in Roe and other cases. Griswold will be their next target after Roe.
trnc
First, vaccine mandates are literally winding through federal courts now. If the federal courts ultimately strike down vaccine mandates, can we haz abortionz again?
Second, and more importantly, there is no literal vaccine mandate. There is a choice – get vaccinated or lose your job, retire from the military, etc. Yes, it may very well be a difficult choice, but it is a choice nonetheless.
Here’s my question for the “safe haven” crowd – if you’re going to allow abortions in some situations and/or locations, but disallow after 15 weeks with the option to give up the baby, why can’t a woman just give up the baby at 16 weeks? The woman can have an operation at that time and let the state or adoption agency start taking care of it. Viability should be the state’s problem if the state is going to force this situation.
MikefromArlington
America, where the unborn have more rights than US citizens.
Always thought the constitution protected US citizens.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Agreed. I have never understood the practical purpose of doom mongering which includes the following steps
Well if they could get away with it they would bring slavery back and treat women as property.
Suzanne
@Felanius Kootea:
Yes.
The other really dangerous strain of thinking right now on the right is that “there aren’t enough American children being born”. They are terrified by the falling birth rate and see the growing societal acceptance of being childfree as very dangerous. So they are motivated to force more children to be born, and of course, take them from people they consider unfit and give them to rich but infertile white Christian families.
I do think there have been some social changes that no law can fix, and they are underestimating. The biggest one is that two generations of women have grown up with fuller engagement in society, getting educated, making their own money, experimenting with their sexuality, and having children later in life. As much as many women would love more career flexibility and financial stability so they could have children maybe a little bit earlier, or maybe one more…. If there are fewer reproductive freedoms, they are not going to go back to the June Cleaver model of dependency. They are going to flee their right-wing Christian families and cut ties, and more likely be much less willing to fuck around with dudes.
Right-wing Christians are already doing a really bad job keeping their kids in the faith. This is going to make it worse.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Add in the violence fantasists.
boatboy_srq
@Omnes Omnibus: You are correct – my mistake – that each case covers a different procedure or medical product. But both were decided on autonomy and “right to privacy” grounds. The medical solutions were different, but both revolve around a woman’s right to make her own choices without involvement of the state – or as the Reichwingnuts demand, that of male figures in a woman’s life. It’s becoming obvious – see the various Schaivo cases and their surrounding legal and political hijinx – that the Reichwing has far-reaching goals well beyond any female procreative autonomy. The only two reasons we’re not hearing challenges to the 19th Amendment just yet are that a) they haven’t progressed far enough with anti-abortion anti-choice cases and b) Tentherism isn’t anything like powerful enough to attempt wiping the 17 affected amendments from the document.
opiejeanne
@Original Lee: Adoption is fraught with emotion, good and bad, sadness and joy, and sometimes less than good intentions.
I realized just now that I know a lot of people who were adopted, some from overseas but most from right here. Their stories run the gamut from good to really terrible*.
When I think about what it means to give a child up for adoption, I shudder to think what could happen to them in someone else’s care. Barrett is truly a monster if she doesn’t acknowledge, let alone, understand any of this.
*My husband’s great grandfather rode one of the orphan trains at age 9, and told horror stories about his first adoptive family. He showed his grandchildren the scars on his back where he was beaten bloody with thorny branches. One of his little brothers was with him on that train and was adopted by a good family who loved him. While he was given chores, he wasn’t treated like a field hand, had a bed inside the house and not the barn, wasn’t starved, and ate the same food as the rest of the family, at the same table.
debbie
@opiejeanne:
What really makes her a monster is that she just doesn’t care.
WaterGirl
@pat: I looked and did not find your comment in spam, in the trash, or awaiting moderation.
??
But i did find two people in trash and spam who had said they want to be in the Midnight in Washington book club, so it was good that i went looking. ;-)
FelonyGovt
I am INCENSED by the suggestion that pregnancy is a walk in the park and no big deal. I remember being in my first trimester at a business lunch. I hadn’t told my work colleagues yet. I had to excuse myself multiple times during lunch to go throw up. Later on there were the swollen feet, the exhaustion, the constant trips to the bathroom. All while trying to maintain my law practice. And I had it easy compared to many.
Kristine
@WaterGirl: The thing that makes it so much worse is that, according to all I’ve read, those adopted children are treated as something less, like they need to be cleansed, reshaped.
I’ve run out of words for these fucking people.
All that said, I honestly believe that once they start interfering with access to birth control, they’ll have a fight. But hey, I didn’t believe TFG would last a year, so what do I know?
Ksmiami
@FelonyGovt: Aunt Lydia is a monster who should be hounded and harassed every time she’s in public. She’s an insult to women and especially to the other women on the Supreme Court. I look forward to her comeuppance
pat
@WaterGirl:
Probably something that I did wrong. But it’s happened a couple of times already.
And my computer just is going very slowly sometimes, and the balloon juice is just rotating and rotating….
But the following comments went through so it’s all good.
Thanks.
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat: I absolutely think we’ll have a Republican movement in favor of bringing back slavery. Mike Huckabee on his radio show has openly talked about the fact that the 13th Amendment makes an exception for slavery as a punishment for crime, so there’s nothing wrong with prisons selling their inmates to the highest bidder.
Dan B
@bowtiejack: And LGBT+ civil rights!
Oops. There are no LGBT+ civil rights at the federal level but the Proud Patriot Supremez will use religious LIBBERTY! to kneecap state and local protections. Then they’ll require reparations to bakers and florists, at least to the ‘right type’ of bakers and florists. They might even determine that any mention of LGBT+ people is dangerous for the children.
pat
And I am looking at the recommendations from a previous thread. Great to have such a useful group of jackals.!!
WaterGirl
@Kristine: There’s a good chance that they are effectively little worker-bee servants in those homes. just disgusting. I hate these people.
different-church-lady
@trollhattan:
Also “duh.”
Ksmiami
I don’t see how this doesn’t lead to violent dissolution
WaterGirl
@Ksmiami: keep beating that horse.
Suzanne
@FelonyGovt: Spawn the Youngest is two-and-a-half, and starting immediately after she was born, I started having numbness, pain, tingling, and just weird “unevenness” in my right hand relative to my left. I talked to my OB about it, who referred me to an orthopedist who specializes in hands, and he said it was not uncommon. They did some testing and I don’t have any nerve damage, but he said that it was likely that fluid retention from nursing was compressing the nerve, and he recommended switching her to formula. So I did, and I still wear a wrist brace at night, and it has mostly-but-not-entirely resolved. I weigh less now than before I got pregnant, but it is still a thing. Apparently it may never fully resolve. So anyone who thinks that pregnancy doesn’t change your body forever can suck it.
This is my dominant hand and it hurts at least once a day.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: These people are fucking monsters.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Commenters or FBI informants one wonders..
FelonyGovt
@Suzanne: I’m so sorry. It definitely changes your body. I hope it resolves for you.
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: do you want to share a country with these plague rats?
Eunicecycle
I assume Boney Carrot will also advocate for all pregnant women to have their pregnancy fully paid for? Since the government is forcing them to stay pregnant. And paid leave after the birth to recover?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: Yes, we all do. That is the perfect takeaway for you. Everyone here is a pro-Covid Republican except you. You’ve rumbled our secret.
Lyrebird
@citizen dave: Good point. Just need to add in a new job and possibly medical care for the birth mother. They think that preganancy is a nothing. It is a potentially life-threatening event. And even without mandated bed rest etc, the safe haven thing does not protect the birth mom who might choose to use it from the judgement of everyone else who saw she was pregnant. I do not know where to start with these people!!! Thank you Anne Laurie and BJ for shining some light.
Suzanne
@Eunicecycle: And paid bed rest? And childcare for her other kids? Of course!
in all seriousness, I don’t think the social conservative right has fully absorbed how different society is now relative to when Roe went into effect. This will lead to a lot of family estrangements, which are much more common now. They already resent godless urban elites for enticing their not-dumb children away from their shitty hometowns. I don’t think there will be protests in the streets, I think many daughters will just drift away from their families. LGBT kids already do this.
JoyceH
Sort of off topic, but Matt Gaetz called getting infected with COVID “nature’s vaccine”. Ignoring that nature’s vaccine is a heck of a lot more deadly than science’s vaccine. Which is precisely why we make vaccines! It’s not just that these guys are completely ignorant of science, they outright hate science.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think anyone here is a Republican… seriously but I don’t think sharing a country with people who want to go back to the 13th century will lead anywhere good.
Suzanne
@JoyceH:
Science loves them, though!
JoyceH
@Suzanne:
“Ah, here’s our control group!”
Ol'Froth
We adopted two children. We adopted through state agencies, and had to take parenting classes, endure home visits to make sure our house was acceptable, and then do respite foster care before our first adopted daughter was placed with us. There are still thousands of children in the system looking for forever homes, and nowhere near enough families willing to adopt them. So where are all these “safe haven” children supposed to go?
Tony Gerace
@Ksmiami: Barrett is doing what she was hired to do. Unfortunately, Barrett is Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s legacy.
Tony Gerace
@Eunicecycle: Now that you mention it, the next step will probably be to find Medicaid and the ACA unconstitutional. Originalism, you see.
Ripley
I’m adopted. I was born in the mid-60s and was literally an orphan for a few years before I was adopted.
I support a woman’s right to choose how she handles the condition that factually and literally occurs only in her own body.
Omnes Omnibus
Equine feces.
Winston
So some of the left now targets banning viagra and other ED drugs as a solution to abortion rights. Like old guys and post menopaused women are the problem with abortions. Harrumph.
Betsy
@eachother: They’re absolutely opening the gate to a new form of human trafficking. And private, religious-affiliates entities will absolutely be put in charge of most of the trafficking (ie, profits).
dopey-o
IIRC, Griswold established a privacy right, enabling women to use contraception, and this privacy right underpinned Roe. Many expect that Griswold is being teed up next. Witness the RW’s deliberate conflation of contraception and abortifacients (drugs used to induce abortion.)
No need to preach it here, but most jackals know that the best way to prevent abortions is to make contraception available to women. Insurers, operating in a morally-neutral view, recognize the cost-effectiveness of cheap birth control.
kindness
It’s so twisted. The religious right comes at abortion as if everyone agreed it was the same as murdering a person rather than removing a clump of cells, but apparently what really motivates them is white bables as a commodity. I’ll be damned.
Winston
I think I have posted this before, but I’ll add to it that the Nox say that the young do not always do what they’re told. So was the case of not telling the young, that if you pull it out, do not put it back in. This happenstance resulted in the pregnancy of my 15 year old girlfriend as I went off to college. A couple of months later she called me and told me she was pregnant. This was in 1965 when medically safe abortions were illegal but adoptions were common. It ruined my freshmen year. So comes Christmas vacation and I’m home and we meet and talk and she is so beautiful and I love her and can’t let her down, and we married (which was the right thing to do) at the end of my semester, and I lost my college education and went to work to support my wife and family and she gave birth to this cute little boy. 10 years went by and she wanted and gave birth to this cute little girl. I loved them all. 5 more years went by and my wife was just starting a job that would give her a chance for a career in accounting when we had an accident and she got pregnant for the third time in 1979, after Roe.
She decided to abort and had a tubular ligation. Who was I to disagree? At that time we thought it would negatively impact both our careers. So that happened and we moved on. We had no regrets and never talked about it. I never regretted anything that happened in the 49 years of our marriage, but I always wondered what it would have been like with a third child. I was glad she made the choice. 5 years later she had a tubular pregnancy and almost died. I have always felt guilty about not getting a vasectomy after number 2. Would have save a lot of angst.
No name
@Winston: Thank you for sharing this.
Dave
@debbie: Is there a charity set up to transport women to free states for a safe abortion? Which one? This will be a long slog, underground railroad style
Steeplejack
@Winston:
Thank you for your testament.
xjmuellerlurks
Regarding the “safe haven” thing: Just imagine what could happen if the number of babies who get dropped off at save havens increases by a factor of five, or maybe ten. There would not be enough families to adopt all of them, particularly children of color. After a couple of years we’d have orphanages supported either directly or indirectly by tax dollars. While orphanages don’t have to be bad places (Newt likes them, they build character), the care children there receive would be on par with the worst of the Medicaid supported nursing homes. I think you can imagine how that will turn out. Next we’d have moral scolds saying that women should stop giving up so many babies and some asshole will recommend that the state sterilize women who have left kids at a safe haven. The tax scolds will say that the govenment spending too much raising orphans and champion this idea. They won’t go after the fathers, they’ll go after the women, because boys will be boys, easily entrapped by those wily females (multiple times in some cases).
Sadly, I think this is more likely than The Handmaids Tale scenario, given the way we’re heading. Of course this doesn’t even address the fact that these clowns don’t even want the option of abortion for cases of rape and/or incest or for problematic pregnancies that could harm the mother. The cruelty is the point.