In one of the morning threads, Kay brought up a great point: anti-choice religious zealots spend so much time with fellow fundamentalist loons that they don’t know how they sound to normal people. This could play to our advantage. She shared an example from an NPR piece about how draconian anti-abortion laws inhibit miscarriage care:
“It is a pro-life position to allow physicians to make those life-and-death decisions,” [TX Right to Life legislative director John] Seago said. “And that may mean in certain circumstances protecting the mother in this situation and the child passing away.”
The sheer effrontery and unmitigated fucking gall of that bible college clown thinking it’s up to him and his fellow fanatics to “allow” doctors to save their patients’ lives. Miscarriages are common — there are about a million a year in the U.S., which translates into many millions of women who have that personal experience. So it’s worth pointing out that anti-abortion kooks believe they have a say in miscarriage medical treatment.
Also, there’s been another SCOTUS leak, this time to Politico:
Justice Samuel Alito’s sweeping and blunt draft majority opinion from February overturning Roe remains the court’s only circulated draft in the pending Mississippi abortion case, POLITICO has learned, and none of the conservative justices who initially sided with Alito have to date switched their votes. No dissenting draft opinions have circulated from any justice, including the three liberals.
Unprecedented!
Also from Politico:
The latest: Joe Manchin opposes Democrats’ abortion rights bill the Senate is voting on Wednesday, ensuring that the legislation will not even receive a simple majority.
The West Virginia Democrat, who generally supports abortion restrictions, said he would back a “clean” bill codifying Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision enshrining abortion rights. But he says the bill before him goes too far, deeming it a “shame” that the party didn’t put something on the floor that could get his vote.
“They’re trying to make people believe that this is the same thing as codifying Roe v. Wade. And I want you to know, it’s not. This is not the same. It expands abortion,” Manchin said in an interview Wednesday.
I so look forward to the day when PawPaw Blacklung is no longer the reed upon which the entire party’s fortunes hang. It’s possible he’s not the most duplicitous, corrupt and self-regarding bag of shit who moors his yacht in the Potomac basin but only because the place is probably crawling with Republicans.
Open.
Major Major Major Major
Maybe Chuck should call his bluff and introduce a ‘clean’ bill, then. It’s free!
SiubhanDuinne
Unmitigated scum, the lot of them.
Shalimar
They’re gonna put tens of thousands of women in prison for miscarriages because it would be inconsistent with their “life begins at conception” view to let those women off the hook. Which makes me wonder, why did these constant hypocrites pick now to start being consistent? How can anyone hate women that much?
trollhattan
The Psaki->Jean-Pierre transition is going over well at Fox.
Much more at the link, including clips of racist Fox people doing racism.
SpaceUnit
Looking forward to the day we can safely abort Joe Manchin.
trollhattan
The Psaki->Jean-Pierre transition is going over well at Fox. [reposted sans links]
Much more at the link, including clips of racist Fox people doing racism.
TaMara
Dee Lurker
I spent a few years trying to be a good doctrinaire Catholic. During that time, I was steeped in Catholic media. When I read Alito’s opinion, it is literally every Catholic media talking point. What’s worse is that Alito does next to nothing to try to legally reason these talking points. He, for example, just states outright that the original Roe decision was fundamentally flawed. The right to privacy in medical decisions is not flawed in the slightest, but that is the talking point.
I know the landscape he inhabits and it is awful. All his thinking must stop at the waters of Thomas Aquinas and go no further without heresy. The only way to survive and to thrive is to confidently and emphatically agree with everything that Cardinal Burke says. It is no way to live. It is an even worse way to demand that others live that way.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
I blame it all on the Romans for overfeeding the lions the mornings of the big show….
Baud
The Marshall of the Supreme Court is going to be busy!
taumaturgo
@trollhattan: Oh, oh. It won’t take long before she is push under the bus by the bipartisan worshipers for telling the truth.
Baud
But Dems are feckless and weak!
jonas
If only. Aquinas argued that terminating a pregnancy before “quickening” (an Aristotelian theory) was not murder. A sin, like using contraception, but not the intentional taking of human life.
Baud
I thought Murkowski was on board. Did she back out?
trollhattan
[into lapel mic] “Uh, yeah, Thomas is gonna need a fresh box of Depends, stat.”
Leto
What King Paw Paw Black Lung wants, King Paw Paw Black Lung gets. We’re all simply serfs in his world.
taumaturgo
That is the consensus and a well-earned reputation. The Democrats’ leadership excel at defining themselves as not being liberals, pro corporate power and institutionalism. Not much else.
Baud
@Leto:
I don’t trust Manchin in the least, but hypothetically, if there were some way to overcome the filibuster and pass a narrower bill codifying Roe, I would be completely on board.
ant
Yeah, the miscarriage situation is tricky. One needs to actually care about policy, and how things work in the real world to recognize the problems with where to draw the line between it and an abortion.
The problem as I see it is that the pro-life position, is basically a lie. A misdirection.
They want privileged white men to make all the important decisions. It chaps their ass that a women can trump the wishes of her husband when it comes to reproductive decisions. They want wives to submit to their husbands – it says so right in Ephesians, chapter five, verse twenty two.
The pro-life position is -like all things conservative- is about inequality, and maintaining the power structure of the white patriarchy.
This is how they can oppose both abortion and female contraception at the same time – seemingly contrary positions. But they are not contrary at all once one assumes that they are lying, as per usual, and they just want everyone knowing their place and not getting all uppity.
They are replacing the war on drugs with this fucking shit.
Baud
@taumaturgo:
It is a consensus among losers who don’t know how to accomplish anything except heckling others, but they are aligned with right-wing forces, so it does do reputational harm to Dems.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s what was the God Botherors downfall when they tried to mainstream creationism in the 00s. They polished their turd so most people didn’t notice it but the skeptics kept at them until they got angry enough to accidentally start telling the truth.
UncleEbeneezer
I will never forgive Maine voters for ticket-splitting in 2020 and giving SineManchin so much power over the Dem Caucus.
debbie
It sounds like ol’ Joe has fallen for McConnell’s lie that the bill would allow for abortion up to a minute before birth.
CaseyL
@Baud: Yes, she did.
Baud
@debbie: Probably not technically a lie if the bill has a health or life exception in it. That exception doesn’t have a time limit.
Baud
@CaseyL: Thanks. Figures. No such thing as a pro-choice Republican.
Ocotillo
If I am reading this correctly, the reading that Roe was decided wrongly is since the constitution does not enumerate privacy as a constitutional guarantee, it is left to individual states to determine whether it will or will not be a “right” in their respective state.
If that is the case, Team D should be saying they read the constitution in such a way that if a right is not specifically listed in the U.S. Constitution, it is a right, our read is only things that are prohibited can be taken from the people.
GOPers believe in limiting rights whether they be privacy, voting, etc….
Old School
@Major Major Major Major:
Do you think it is possible to introduce a bill that would meet Manchin’s definition of “clean”?
debbie
@Baud:
The exception would be known well before the moment of birth. No ethical person would require that a woman wait until the moment of birth.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So is Politico the go to for the Alito Camp and WJS for the Robert’s camps.
Oh, the plastic sporks have been raised in anger now!
Baud
@debbie:
Are there no conditions that threaten the mother’s life or health that appear near the time of birth?
Paul in KY
I really, really hate Paw Paw Blucklung’s shtick. However, when he retires to his yacht or grave, the successor will not ever vote Democratic. Of course, he sure knows that.
So I tolerate him as best we can do out of that benighted state (benighted in the way it votes at state level, certainly many fine people there). Plus I’m in Kentucky, so I really have nothing to talk about benightedwise…
Fair Economist
@Dee Lurker:
Except that even there Alito practices cafeteria Christianity, because Aquinas thought the embryo wasn’t a person until quickening.
trollhattan
@Dee Lurker: I just learned that Pius XII declared the pill to be “acceptable ‘as a necessary remedy because of a disease of the uterus or the organism’ even if it had the secondary effect of causing sterility. This meant women could use the Pill to treat painful periods or excessive bleeding, which became a popular early theological work-around for Catholic women who wanted to use it.”
That was 1958. Then Pope Paul VI in 1968 went against the Vatican commission’s recommendation to continue allowing contraception, with “each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.” [feel free to sing “Every Sperm is Sacred” at this time]
That was a swell ten years. Now here we are.
https://rewirenewsgroup.com/religion-dispatches/2018/07/24/catholic-churchs-stunning-contraception-reversal/
Kelly
Where is Manchin’s clean abortion rights bill? The Senator must have a drawer full of bills he’s written that meet his standards. Maybe he could share them with the rest of us to save time on guessing games.
Birdie
@Old School: Exactly. Is there any evidence, beyond Manchin’s say so, that the current bill is not “clean”? What does a “clean bill” even mean?
trollhattan
@ant: Find me a sizeable cohort of radical pro-lifers who are opposed to capital punishment. They have no problem with that screeching dichotomy. “Once you’re born you’re a sinner, you worthless bag of flesh.”
Kay
Full time, professional anti-choice activist:
These are the people writing the state laws, so don’t accept any soothing assurances from Republican politicians.
Wholly unqualified anti-abortion activists will be directing womens health care, not the physician or health care provider the woman chooses- peering over the health care provider’s shoulder in the examing room, ensuring that any health care conforms with religious dogma.
They’re the boss of you now.
Old Man Shadow
Go shove a large barrel cactus up your ass, your Highness.
Dee Lurker
@jonas: Sadly, this isn’t true… at least according to Catholic media:
https://www.catholic.com/qa/did-st-thomas-aquinas-believe-ensoulment-occurred-40-or-80-days-after-conception-making-abortion
https://www.catholic.com/tract/abortion
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/st-thomas-aquinas-c-1225-1274
Sorry to even post this crap, but it is a window into the gaslighting. Thomas Aquinas said nothing on abortion, but he is interpreted in such a manner as to equate the grave evil of murder with abortion itself.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: That’s the thing–late abortions essentially only happen in some kind of exceptional medical situation. But the lie, really, is that anyone is even having these last-minute abortions of a viable fetus in an unproblematic pregnancy. It doesn’t happen, let alone being the typical case. And because Republicans want you to think it’s the typical case, there are all these restrictions that are hitting people in heartbreaking or life-threatening situations.
debbie
@Baud:
I would think things like very heavy bleeding or pre-eclampsia could show up during delivery, but I doubt abortion would be an option at that point.
zeecube
@Baud: If only that were possible. As Manchin is already on record that he would not agree to waive filibuster to codify Roe, we would need at least 1 republican senator to waive it. Not gonna happen.
Spanky
@Old School: If PawPaw knows what “clean coal” is, anything’s possible.
Old Man Shadow
@Shalimar: Because they DEEEEEEEEPLY resent and hate women for refusing to meekly conform to the role the conservative church has assigned to them of uneducated, pretty, happy and completely dependent housewife who happily bears her man’s children, raises them, and functions as his sex doll.
New Deal democrat
Thermonuclear.
The blowback from an opinion overturning Roe v. Wade will be absolutely thermonuclear.
We will have never seen anything like it in our lives.
Unlike other reactionary opinions so far (like Shelby County), this one is going to impact an absolute majority of Americans. It is going to impact the major life choices of young women. It is going to impact their boyfriends (“What do you mean, you can’t get an abortion?!?”) . It is going to galvanize every woman who has ever in the past gotten an abortion.
And, if as seems likely, some GOP legislature immediately moves to outlaw contraception, and some reactionary Trumpist judge upholds it, the megablast will be magnified exponentially
ETA: Legal commentators and the Court itself frequently point out that the Court is the only “non-political” branch of government. Well, there’s a synonym for “non-political.” It’s called “tin-eared.”
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Oh I know. The GOP will happily portray something that is only theoretically possible as widespread practice.
Kay
When women go to get health care in Texas it’s like professional, full time anti-abortion activists and lobbyists are right there in the examining room with them – the health care you receive will depend on what they “allow”.
Snooping around in your medical records, butting into every aspect of reproductive care, inserting themselves between women and the doctor the woman chose, imposing their religious and cultural views on EVERY woman who is capable of childbirth.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And whose religious dogma will be up for grabs too. Wait until Q-Anon gets involved and they start making it illegal to harvest teh aborted white bebbies for space lizards and other insane shit.
Cameron
@Kelly: I think it’s off somewhere having unprotected sex with his voting-rights bill.
trollhattan
The most crooked Trump cabinet member you never heard of, gets some post-administration attention.
Before he was a Trumpie, Bernhardt was lead lobbyist for Westlands Water District of California, the nation’s largest.
trollhattan
@New Deal democrat:
Hope you’re right.
taumaturgo
@Baud: The reputational harm is self-inflicted, thus, well deserved. You remained me of Pelosi in a recent interview, becoming snippy and fluster because she was called on campaigning for a crooked, under FBI investigation anti-woman incumbent. Being one of the club, he must be protected at all cost. Talk about reputational harm. Gee!
eversor
@Shalimar:
Their religion is anti woman.
Baud
@taumaturgo: Not really interested in engaging with you. I just wanted to make clear your views don’t mean anything to me. You bring nothing to the table.
Kay
Shouldn’t professional anti-choice activists have to address the miscarriage issue head on and specifically? 25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Intervention in a miscarriage can be identical to abortion. Every single expert in the NPR report says that. Don’t US women have a right to know how the “abortion laws” they’re jamming thru intersect with that?
Apparently a lot of them believe birth control is “abortion”. Can we get them to speak to that, specifically and without the obscuring religious vapers and permutations about “life” and such, for the benefit of US women who don’t share their fundamentalist religious beliefs?
Let’s get down to brass tacks. In what set of circumstances are anti-abortionist activists disallowed from pushing their way into the examining room and directing our health care?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
A clean slice of government pork for WV.
Kay
This was never an issue in the US because Roe was a kind of fence. It kept them out of your health care. Now that they have knocked down the fence, do we get any protections from them of any kind?
They’re the people who decreed a brand new regime for reproductive health care- who came busting in. They should have to tell us what is our private decision and what they wil be deciding for us. We need to know. Immediately.
Ladyracterinok
@Dee Lurker:
See online the essay Thomas Aquinas on women by Carol custis James
influenced by Aristotle Aquinas views women as mis begotten, created only for the purpose of reproduction
ant
@trollhattan:
it’s the same thing. they don’t really care about capital punishment, they like it’s unequal outcomes. If we started to put down privileged white men in the chair, these people would start blathering on with lies about fairness and blah blah blah.
They fucking lie.
And our senator from WV, is cluster B, antisocial.
He’s just making a gifting sales-pitch with statements like this. It’s like listening to someone explain why you need to extend your car warranty, or why you need the latest junk kitchen gadget, or whatever. It’s pointless to try to figure out his lies.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I shouldn’t have to study their religious dogma. I don’t care. I want to know where the state intervenes to protect us from them.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Because if the answer is “the state won’t intervene to protect my access to modern health care with best practices set by medical providers and not by clerics” in anti-choice states then I need to know that.
It’s vitally important to me. I deserve at least information and notice so I can move to a state that will.
Cacti
In El Salvador, a woman who had a miscarriage was just sentenced to 30 years for murder.
This is what the American Taliban wants here.
Hammer them over the head with this shit.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay: it’s another opening for us to get threw to them – all of them imagine it’s their dogma and not the other wackaloon’s. One can be sure none of the Evangelicals are thinking through what five extremist Catholics deciding everything means to them.
taumaturgo
@Baud: I forgot to add that during said interview, Pelosi acted dismissive and condescending. Last item. I promise.
Butch
@Baud: Sorry I’m so late in chiming in; Murkowski and Collins have introduced a separate bill that, according to my understanding, is pretty weak. Sorry I can’t provide more detail.
Dee Lurker
@Ladyracterinok: Thank you for the recommendation! I will read it. One of my pet projects is to shine a light on philosophers and their misogyny and racism. These individuals are placed on a pedestal and their faults are erased. Yet, for someone like Aristotle, they reached their conclusions on female inferiority using the same principles that led to concepts like telos. Not that we should “hate” them, but see them more clearly so as to move beyond their limitations and biases. This is how we grow.
prostratedragon
@Old School: [insert “The Flight of the Bumblebee ” here]
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I don’t think they have spoken this publicly in the last decade or so. They’re interviewed constantly now. They need to be questioned on this and many, many other issues.
Getting rid of Roe has big repercussions. We need to insist they answer each and every question completely, without some assumption that we all share their religious beliefs. We don’t.
They want to make state law? Okay then. Let’s get practical. Specific questions regarding overlap between miscarriages and birth control they have not explained. They busted up the Roe fence. I want to know where the new fence keeping them OUT of our lives and personal business will be placed.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
I’m going to explain it, but let me say upfront that that doesn’t mean I agree with it. Main thing is, the notion that the newly fertilized egg is a person just like you and me is, to use a term of art, bullshit.
But that belief, combined with the reality that we really don’t know what’s going on between the moment the sperm bonks into the egg, and the moment the fertilized egg implants in the uterine lining.
So the possibility exists that non-barrier means of contraception work by preventing implantation, or killing off the fertilized egg while it’s still free-floating, so to speak. AFIACT, medical science can’t say it’s impossible that this happens, so as far as the anti-abortionists are concerned, every means of non-barrier birth control is an abortifacient.
Anyhow, that’s how they get there. But fuck ’em, they’ve shown over the past 27 months just how much they care about human life, shrugging at the deaths of a million Americans, and often doing their best to ensure more deaths by fighting against masking, social distancing, and vaccinations. That’s how ‘pro-life’ they are.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Roberts is really the smartest of the bunch. He knew what opening this up meant. He knew it would be a shitshow. But they are zealots on a mission and they have opened women’s entire reproductive lives up for grabs. The public deserves to know where they STOP and who will enforce it when they attempt to barge in.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
Great! They “believe” stuff. I believe stuff too. But now they’re jamming their way into my examining room and I stay the hell out of theirs, so I need to know EXACTLY what they believe and how that intersects with the state laws they’re drafting.
eversor
@ant:
White CHRISTIAN men. The religion is as important as the whiteness and more important than the wealth. Christianity must always be included as it’s one of the root causes of all these issues.
White skin won’t save your but if you aren’t Christian.
We are in a religious civil war. Treat it as such or surrender.
Betty
@Cameron: A threesome with his reconciliation bill.
The Moar You Know
@New Deal democrat: I defer to you in all matters economic but on this, you’re simply wrong.
The America of the 2020s is by and large a nation of servile bootlickers who will take the reversal of Roe v. Wade the same way they’ve taken every cutback/restriction of their constitutional and other rights since the 1970s – without a peep of protest.
Eunicecycle
@debbie: My daughter had pre-eclampsia and the drs. delivered her twins 4 weeks early. They were fine, didn’t even need NICU care. They had thought about delivering them 8 weeks early but instead put her on bed rest. But it would not have been considered an abortion.
Betty
@Butch: Collins had said she wanted an exception for Catholic hospitals. It’s the first time I heard of her defending Catholicism.
Mike in Pasadena
@Ocotillo: Correct. Roe did not create a right, it prohibited states from passing/enforcing laws that restrict abortions. Thus, after Roe people were able to perform and have an abortion if the wanted to. It did not create a right. Americans could get an abortion before Roe where states did not prohibit them, but after Roe nobody could prohibit abortions.
Odie Hugh Manatee
As a thoroughly lapsed RC I just want to state my happiness at having long ago learned that the church and many of its members are greasing the rails to smooth their ride to Hell. I was 14 when I had that revelation, walked away from the church. I understand that there are many people who are good and kind practitioners of their religion but I have to say that I am sick and tired of how much religion fucks up the lives of so many people around the world. It divides people, it demands loyalty over all else, even life itself. Too often it is used to justify oppressing and killing people who do not comply with the religion-based governments and their supporters. Good people give cover to bad actors in religious circles. Some people will not like reading that but that’s my opinion. Too often we walk past bad things and keep on going, not wanting to stick our necks out to say or do something. Twisted practitioners of a religion count on that to spread their hate and divisiveness into society.
I won’t even get in to how I view churches as groomers of children under the guise of teaching their religion. Hell, look at the spring/fall marriages that happen in the realm of the church (“God blessed us!)”, child sexual abuse and so on. Duggars… shit, the church wants to control women’s reproductive systems and they can’t even control their own dicks.
In closing, fuck Manchin, fuck Putin, fuck Sinema, fuck Trump and FUCK every single MAGAt out there. The rest of you have a nice day!
debbie
@Eunicecycle:
No, and I’m glad she and her children were okay. That is one very scary thing.
Subsole
@taumaturgo: I am curious: what is your one priority? The one thing you would sacrifice all the other stuff for?
Pretend time:
We get one bill we can pass. What is it? Why?
West of the Rockies
I cannot begin to fathom the staggering amount of narcissistic self-assurance and arrogance it would take to time and time again declare you know better than the other 50 people on your team and squash that team’s objectives.
It is a fucking tragedy that children die in a world where Manchin and Trump and millions of other vile, putrescent turds live.
Eunicecycle
@debbie: Thanks! They’re 5 yo now and doing great.
matt
If I had a billion dollars I’d be funding an American equivalent to Memri.org (which is a one-sided cataloguing of ‘Palestinians bad’ news stories, effective propaganda though evil) that focused on American religious zealots, Westboro Baptist, prosperity gospel, etc. etc.
Subsole
@eversor: Their religion is spite. The target changes. But the seething contempt for life remains.
Subsole
@eversor: Good point.
Fact is, it won’t save you if you ARE Christian. Their Christianity is emphatically NOT about saving people.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I wish Schumer would call Manchin on his bullshit and tell him it’s now his opportunity to shine and to write the “clean bill” he wants to pass. Nobody else will have any input, let’s just let him write up that bill he says that he will pass.
Fuck mealy-mouthed Manchin.
Betty Cracker
@Eunicecycle: I had that same condition and was also on bedrest. The kiddo and I both came through it okay too. The thing was, for many weeks, it was a fraught situation with constant monitoring and unease of knowing things could go very wrong, very quickly. We were lucky, but it was a stressful time. I can’t fathom how much MORE stressful it would have been if religious zealots had inserted themselves into the medical decision making.
Pappenheimer
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Honi soit qui mal y pense
Edmund Dantes
@Baud: they wouldn’t matter as you could induce the labor and baby can try to survive on its own outside the woman if truly near birth or potentially in NICU if far enough away. But the woman’s life should take precedence.
the tricky spot is that space where baby’s kind of sort of are viable outside the woman but really have insanely poor outcomes (until medical science improves). But then. Life of mother takes precedence.
The “aborting babies” up to the day they come out is a stupid framing and no one making it is doing so in good faith.
Ohio Mom
I am a bit hesitant because this really isn’t my area but I believe this fuss about “abortion until birth” has to do with delivering non-viable neonates and providing them comfort care, rather than heroic efforts that are bound to fail. That’s “killing babies” to the RWNJs.
It’s amazing that any of us are born with all our parts in their rights places when you think about how complicated embryonic and fetal development are. There are scads of weird anomalies possible: fetuses that develop without brains, or without kidneys, or with only one eye and no nose, the list goes on.
Sophie
These Senate speeches are absurd. The anti-choice position is so indefensible and illogical that they talk in gibberish. They claim pregnancy doesn’t involve a woman’s body. They compare women to sea turtles. They say abortion means killing toddlers, and to drive it home they say this in front of a huge poster-size photo of a toddler, which they keep pointing to. I have been fighting for abortion rights since 1976 and the insane lying never stops. It’s just gotten more and more baroque.
Ksmiami
@Odie Hugh Manatee: kick him the fuck out. Now
Geminid
@The Moar You Know: I don’t know how overturning Roe will play out politically. Some Republican politicians seem worried. Virginia Governor Youngkin’s response was cautious and passive. He talked more like an observer of the Supreme Court and the General Assembly than like an executive with agency. Texas Governor Abbott tried to change the subject, saying that the opinion’s reasoning might help his effort to exclude undocumented children from public schools.
I expect that Youngkin and Abbott have since reaffirmed their “pro-life” principles, such as they are. I think they are alarmed, though. If the impending Supreme Court decision tracks the leaked opinion, Alito and his accomplices will have “sown the wind.” No matter what they say, elected Republican fear they will reap the whirlwind.
mrmoshpotato
Amen.
Anonymous At Work
Miscarriages, per anti-choice definitions, are even more common than 25%. 25% of fertilized eggs that implant on the uterine wall do not come to term (aka miscarriage) but anti-choice zealots believe “life begins at conception” (aka fertilization). 50% of fertilized eggs fail to implant on the uterine wall at all.
Math being the killer of so many people, that’s 62.5% (roughly) of “lives” that result in miscarriage. That’s a ton and a lot of women that will have to “plead the Fifth” when visiting their doctors’ offices in the certain states.
I’m not sure how serious I am when I say that women should bring their attorney to their GP and ob/gyn office from now until menopause.
dnfree
@debbie: pre-eclampsia as defined can show up after 20 weeks (before viability) up until full term. It does mean the mother WILL have a stroke and die, just that it’s a very serious danger that she will. Do you feel lucky, pregnant person? Yes, people still die of it, often suddenly.
(Mayo Clinic). A diagnosis of preeclampsia happens if you have high blood pressure after 20 weeks of pregnancy and at least one of the following findings:
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato: “Lord, we don’t ask for much, just fifty-three seats in the senate and six seats on the Supreme Court. Thanks, dude.”
Major Major Major Major
@Old School:
Don’t see why they shouldn’t, you know… try.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
What difference does it make unless he is willing to get rid of the filibuster?
Major Major Major Major
@Ksmiami:
I’m so old I remember how it turned out to be really fucking good that we let Lieberman caucus with the Dems after 2008.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Gets us all pointed in the right direction, at the very least, if the whole caucus is on board with a signaling bill.
Frank Wilhoit
@Ohio Mom: An anencephalic child is the perfect Republican voter.
Omnes Omnibus
@Geminid: Moar seems to be on the “it’s hopeless; why bother” train.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m not sure 49 votes for a strong bill isn’t a better signal than 50 votes for weaker bill. YMMV.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: If it’s symbolic, then the strongest bill possible sends the best message.
Geminid
@dnfree: Mayo Clinic doctors played a role in the Roe decision. Chief Justice Burger knew that fellow Minnesotan Harry Blackmun had represented the Mayo Clinic. Burger assigned the majority opinion to his Associate Justice so that Blackmun and the Mayo docs could come up with a medically sound and legally clear opinion on this critical matter.
The result was one of the most just and well reasoned Supreme Court decisions ever, no matter what it’s trifling critics say.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
If the strongest bill possible only got 26 votes, then I would disagree. I’m just not sure it’s worthwhile to compromise on a symbolic bill to get Manchin. In fact, it might be good to remind voters where the road block is and how close we are to overcoming it.
Leto
@Major Major Major Major: I’m sure he’ll produce that “clean bill” right after he produces that infrastructure bill… because if there’s one thing Paw Paw Blacklung is known for, it’s producing legislation. When there’s absolutely must pass legislation, Joe Manchin is the first person anyone calls.
Eunicecycle
@Betty Cracker: Yes you’re right about the religious nuts. This same daughter just had another baby-just one this time-and had to go back in a week later with soaring blood pressure. She’s on bp meds now, at least for a while. And no more babies because it would be dangerous. And if she died there would be 3 children without a mother. Religious nuts who want to ban birth control never think about real world issues.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Anything that gets us to talk about something other than Joe Manchin would be a step in the right direction.
A Good Woman
@Betty:
Catholic hospitals already operate under an exception due to an ethics document that bans direct termination of a pregnancy, sterilization and contraception. Fundamentally, any procedure or treatment that conflicts with Church teaching is off the table. The Hindu dentist who died of septicemia in Ireland years ago would fare no better here. I am surprised Collins doesn’t know that.
Worse, Catholic medical systems have been buying up hospitals. The nearest non-Catholic hospital could be an hour or more (much more) away. A real problem in rural areas.
Dangerman
@New Deal democrat: I think there will be stages of shit hitting the fan.
First Stage, Roe goes, Majority asks “Hey, Motherfuckers, you said settled law. WTF?” Three Mushheadteers respond “We lied; states rights”.
Second Stage, they get control of one or both Houses in 2022 and try to outlaw abortion. Majority asks “Hey, Motherfuckers, you said states rights. WTF?” Response is “We lied”.
That might be enough for nuclear. If 2024 goes the way I fear and it’s Stage 3, well, let’s not go there today.
ETA: …sad to say, but Obamacare is likely gonna get axed, which will thoroughly fuck the economy and …
dnfree
@Geminid: thanks for the information! I have a grandchild born early because of pre-eclampsia, and I am so glad for the care my daughter received.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I should have been more specific. In this case, strong bill with 49 votes is a better message than a weak one with 50.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Agreed. The number one reason to elect at least two more Dem senators.
dnfree
@Eunicecycle: so glad your daughter and the children are okay. The religious zealots don’t worry about real-life consequences because in their belief, anything that happens was just part of God’s plan.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Scream louder, racist FOX trash! And FSM bless Angelo Carusone and everyone else at Media Matters.
GoBlueInOak
We are in a fight against jihadis and we should give them about as much leeway as we do foreign jiahdis: Not. One. Inch.
Baud
@GoBlueInOak: I don’t know what that means.
Eunicecycle
@dnfree: thanks! And yes, the “God’s plan” thing is big with them. Their God is a psychopath, of course.
eversor
@Dangerman:
They don’t care, they want Christianity. Keep in mind that the Jan 6 riot was as much a CHRISTIAN insurection as it was Republican, conservative, white, or Trumpist.
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23capitolsiegereligion&src=typed_query
Until religion is addressed we have lost the fight.
Old School
Dangerman
Deleted
Baud
@Old School:
Well, we got people on the record. Hopefully that’ll mean something come November.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Performative nonsense.
Dangerman
Haven’t pied anyone in a while; forgot how tasty it is. Yummy!
Omnes Omnibus
@Dangerman: And yet I get pushback for calling that commenter a bigot.
Frosty Fred
@Eunicecycle:
On the way out the door, so don’t have time to search, but who was it wrote that man created God in his own image?
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
Good luck with that. Who knows what they believe, exactly or even vaguely? All I can tell you is what justification they trot out for regarding non-barrier birth control as abortion, and therefore deserving of being banned along with it.
And that’s the way you should look at their ‘beliefs’: as justifications for their prejudices, no more and no less. I’m sure there are a few sincere people in every crowd, but by and large, they ‘believe’ whatever justifications their leaders come up with to give them reason to dislike the people they want to dislike, and stick it to them good and hard.
Baud
People argue that the GOP is more focused because society is taking their privileges away from them, and humans are more sensitive to fear of loss than absence of gain. But now women will be losing something very fundamental to them. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
lowtechcyclist
@eversor:
Fixed that for you. I’m a born-again Christian, but that won’t matter to them because I’m one of those libs, so obviously I can’t be ‘saved.’
patrick II
@TaMara:
I believe that is the same Heather Thomas who used to be on the Fall Guy.
Ksmiami
@Major Major Major Major: Lieberman didn’t torpedo the Democratic Party at every turn.
lowtechcyclist
As the rotating tag says, “fuck these interesting times.”
Dangerman
@Omnes Omnibus: Not from me I hope (just about anything is possible given the new pills I’ve been taking; MDs aren’t messing around with the lightweight stuff any longer)
Baud
@Ksmiami:
We’re stuck with Manchin. We’re not going to give up our power to confirm Biden’s appointments. It would be the dumbest political move in history.
JanieM
@Betty:
@A Good Woman:
ETA: Collins hobnobbing with the “right” people
ETA2: So what do we suppose she was doing hanging out with “the nation’s top anti-choice judicial activist,” good old Miss “K told me Roe is settled law”???
Omnes Omnibus
@Dangerman: No, not you.
Subsole
@Omnes Omnibus: The beltway press will not weigh the merits or ‘strength’ of the bill, though. Neither will our voters.
They’ll just launch a cycle of “Dems loooze lol suck it. Gib back Daddy Trump. Gib back fascism. Gib ratings.” (In exactly that tone of voice, no less.)
The media is hostile.
The Lefties are hostile.
Everyone is hostile.
Which, okay, par for the course. We keep fighting.
I just don’t see the value of symbolic stuff anymore because the symbolism is going to be twisted against us by the beltway blob and our alleged allies to the left.
The very same loud voices screaming for a mighty show of legislative strength carved in fire on the Senate steps are going to be the very first people who line up to castigate us for not. even. trying. when the bill they demanded gets shot down. Witness taumaturgo in this very thread (and many, many others) if you want an example of the type of person I am talking about.
And the beltway will gladly run with that (because they are pampered little social climbers who think going to the right cocktail party will save them from what they are enabling…)
So under that logic, it becomes smarter to play cautious. Under that logic, a weak success is better than a strong failure. Because the left and the beltway will ignore the ‘strong’ part and amplify the ‘failure’.
Now, if those two groups ever did ANYthing but beat the ever living dogshit out of the only folks trying to help them for superbonus kewlboy pickmepoints on
Jack DorseyElon Musk’s internet, maybe going out on a limb with signaling bills would make sense. Alas, we live here.Will
Is it true that the bill refuses to use the word “women” or “mother”?
If true, sounds like an own goal.
trollhattan
Well there it is, in boldface 72 point type. Suzie’s One of Them. Horrid woman.
lowtechcyclist
@eversor:
What do you mean ‘addressed’? Their ‘religion’ is basically whatever Fox News is pushing, glossed up with a Scripture verse here and there, and blessed by their pastors.
Not sure how one ‘addresses’ that, and I’m about as well-positioned as anyone to ‘address’ their bullshit.
Baud
@Subsole:
Success was never in the cards because of the filibuster. Otherwise, I would agree with you that it would be better to pass something weaker than a symbolic failure on something stronger.
Subsole
@Baud: Yeah. It really, really sucks being this country’s last and only load-bearing wall, doesn’t it?
Still, as you said. People are on record, at least…
patrick II
@Baud:
Joe Manchin is a conservative Roman Catholic. The only bill “clean” enough for him would have to be approved by Cardinal Dolan. “Clean” is just a misdirection for “no way”.
Eunicecycle
@Frosty Fred: that is true. He is just as mean and merciless as they are.
Baud
@patrick II: I agree. I’m just saying what I said later at # 144 — a weaker bill that passes would have been a better result than a stronger bill that didn’t. I don’t believe for a second that Manchin operates in good faith.
GoBlueInOak
@Baud: Not my problem.
Baud
@GoBlueInOak:
Ok.
patrick II
@Baud:
I guess my point is a weaker bill wasn’t going to pass either. You cannot get Manchin’s vote on this.
Baud
@patrick II:
We agree. I was speaking hypothetically.
Jinchi
@Baud: Manchin didn’t want a bill that would pass. Not even if ihe knew it would ultimately get blocked by the filibuster. He wanted exactly what he got: a way to pretend he would have voted for women’s rights, if only the party hadn’t been so radical,, while at the same time demonstrating to his Republican fans that he was the one who blocked abortion rights.
Roger Moore
@lowtechcyclist:
Let me just say this is bullshit rationalization. They oppose contraception because they don’t like contraception; they don’t want women in control of their own fertility. So they make nonsense arguments about hormonal birth control being a form of abortion so they can more easily piggyback their anti-contraception crusade on the back of the anti-abortion one. The scientific evidence- which is solidly against them- is completely secondary.
Jinchi
Since it’s been brought up in the comments quite a bit, I’d like to point out that Catholic Americans broadly support abortion rights. Biden is the rule, Alito is the exception.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/20/8-key-findings-about-catholics-and-abortion/
Geminid
Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries was a topic of conversation here today on a morning thread. I just ran into a short speech of his from his Twitter feed, retweeted by Ragnarok Lobster.
Jeffries was responding to Clarence Thomas’s recent speech lamenting political “bullying.” Thomas, Jeffries said, would do well to clean up his own house. Jeffries then summarized Ginni Thomas’s role in the January 6 Insurrection.
Jeffries was just getting going. He continued that while he was addressing “brother Thomas…I want to ask, ‘Why are you so hateful?’ You hate on women’s rights, you hate on voting rights…” and so on, while Republicans bleated “point of order! point of order!”
Jeffries’s speech was part of today’s Justice Commitee proceedings. I would encourage anyone to check it out, maybe link it here.
This speech may be also good front page material. Jeffries brings the fire when he chooses to..
topclimber
@Baud: Late to the game, which is no surprise to you, but it comes down to a choice between calling out Manchin BEFORE we take the Senate majority that we need in any case, or losing mid-term voters because we don’t make it clear that one senator is frustrating the Dem agenda on almost every GD level.
I am saying the odds of losing with a strong message are less than those of trying to eke out a mid-term win that we know will be frustrated by the likes of Manchin.
Talk about bipartisanship, Mr. President: like how DINOs are as big an enemy to what most Americans (55-60%) want as is the GQP. (Yes, you are Mr. President. Planning to win in 20XX, aren’t you? Otherwise, it is up to the good Joe).
Baud
@topclimber:
I don’t think losing control of the Senate for the rest of the year helps raise voter awareness one iota. The story won’t be “Manchin is really bad” but “Dems are too dumb to be trusted.”
Brachiator
Coming late to the thread. I can only reinforce what others have probably noted. These anti-abortion zealots have no problem with passing laws that interfere with a woman receiving medical care. They have already tried to pass laws requiring that doctors lie to pregnant women in some situations.
Kay
@Jinchi:
Thank you. I knew that at one time but had forgotten. It is of course unfair to put all Catholics in one category.
Geminid
My Atlanta friend is Catholic. Warren strongly believes that abortion is wrong. But he also holds that government has no business imposing that belief on women.
topclimber
@Baud:
What exactly is going to happen in the next eight months that Manchin helps us with? He will block any positive change while we hope he continues to say he will vote for Dem executive appointments that are being blocked from consideration anyway by ass-hats like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz under the unanimous consent rule.
Unless Manchin suddenly embraces Filibuster reform so that his new GQP allies can pass legislation, what do we lose? The House is doing the heavy lifting on 1/6. Biden can veto any BS laws that Manchin and his Republican buddies vomit forth.
I welcome Moscow Mitch trying to offset the sedition shitshow with bogus Senate hearings. All it will do is aggravate Dems, which is what we need to boost turnout.
Our President won’t do it, but a statement that”Sadly, I have concluded that Joe Manchin is a liar and fraud and as much of a problem as the GQP” is a recognition of reality that just might get more disillusioned Dems to turn out in 2022. Because if they don’t we are screwed anyway. Seeing how Manchin has publicly shafted him and walked away from deals he supposedly endorsed, good Joe might finally have had enough.
Bill Arnold
@taumaturgo:
You are full of shit.
To expand a bit, look at all the legislation (you won’t, because you’re a troll who enjoys trying to elect Republicans) that was passed by the House in the last two years of the DJT administration. it was almost all blocked, to /dev/null, by Mitch McConnell, because he is a major enemy of good.
When the Democrats got bare procedural control of the Senate, with VP Harris as the tiebreaking vote, that meant that any centrist got to blow-stuff-up, or enable stuff. Since there are no centrist Republicans, that job fell to Manchin, and Sinema and became purely blow-stuff-up.
Baud
@topclimber:
Lots of appointments still going through. A big FTC appointment just today.
Gretchen
@topclimber: Biden gets his appointees and judges approved because Manchin caucuses with the Dems. Push him to switch parties, McConnell becomes majority leader and not one singe further judge or appointee is approve. Does that sound like a good plan?
taumaturgo
@Subsole: The elimination of or severely curtailment of the current party duopoly corruption.
Hamlet of Melnibone
I think people are misreading the politics of this. Manchin and Sinema won’t vote to get rid of the filibuster. We know that. Given that, the vote is meaningless except as something to hang around swing state Republicans in November. So Manchin’s vote only matters as far as it effects his re-election chances in WV in 2024. He’s probably better off voting no, so that means we’re probably better off with him voting no.
We don’t want a “clean” bill that might get a couple of Republican votes, because the only people that would help are those Republicans. We want a vote that paints all of the Republicans as taking the most extreme forced birth stance we can hang on them in our Senate campaigns. Swing vote Americans don’t do nuance. None of them are going to think – “they would have voted for a clean bill, I’ll vote for them.” If we do our jobs right this Fall, they will think “I can’t vote for the panty sniffers that want 12 year-old-girls who are raped by their father to be forced to have that baby.”
We must pound that home in all of the swing states. If we can get our voters to turn out, peel off a few people repulsed by the Republicans, and hopefully get better turnout than normal from young people slapped in the face with the reality of no Federal abortion rights protection, we might be able to gain seats in the Senate in what was looking like a bad year for us.
topclimber
@Gretchen:
That’s what recess appointments and acting administrators are for.
OK, so we wait until we can get rid of DeJoy at the Post Office and push a few more appointments over the line. But somewhere you have to say that either Manchin or Biden is in charge.
In eight months either we have a new working majority or we lose. Manchin ain’t going to help us win.
Geminid
@topclimber: Manchin doesn’t just continue to say he’ll vote for President Biden’s nominees, he actually votes for them. That’s not hard to look up if you really care. In addition to nominees for lesser posts, Manchin voted for Justice Jackson, he voted for the American Rescue Act, and he voted to impeach Trump both times.
You may think the Manchin glass is worthless because it’s half-empty, but don’t expect Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer and the rest of his caucus to sweep the the glass off the table because it is only half-full.
Mitch McConnell would love to see that, though. With Manchin in his caucus McConnell would block everthing, not just this one bill.
And your argument that diillusioned Democrats will come out if Biden would denounce Manchin is very questionable. Do you know any of these people? I don’t. I see some people who complain that Democrats are too tolerant of Manchin but they’re the kind of people who would just find something else to complain about if you got your wish.
taumaturgo
@Bill Arnold: Comedian’s logic is insane, are you a comedian? According to you, I come to this blog to convince you and others to elect Rs? (After a good laugh) is it a coincidence that the two corrupt centrists happen to be Democrats? Remember, Biden, promise his donors not to worry because “nothing would fundamentally change.” The record shows nothing has fundamentally changed.
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
Oh hell yes. As I said @130,
@lowtechcyclist:
Also, the purpose of the justifications is so that if one of us should be talking with one of them, they’ve got this bullshit patter that’s just good enough that, unless by chance you came to that conversation prepared, you can’t knock it down in real time.
The one good thing about the pandemic is to be able to say to their faces, “you don’t give a damn about life – you’ve proven that over and over again these past two years. It’s all been a lie, and I never have to take your ‘pro-life’ bullshit seriously again.”
topclimber
@Geminid: You are right, I don’t care. Or rather, I don’t have to look things up because I follow things. Really, you need better material.
I often see on BJ how we have to appeal to Dems to turn out so we can have a shot at filibuster reform that doesn’t pass through Manchin of Sinema. Why make that argument if you are not willing to say where these two drag us down?
Simpler to say: some Dems are part of the problem. Some folks on both sides do indeed do the same thing. They play the same game of frustrating popular change for the sake of their own wallets, whatever party label they proffer.
prostratedragon
@patrick II:
“Clean” is just a
misdirection for “no way”lie. That sanctimonious bastard has his own way of getting my goat.Bill Arnold
@taumaturgo:
That is not what I said. Read more carefully.
Also, here is a list from Feb 2020, of bipartisan bills blocked by McConnel: https://www.newstalkflorida.com/featured/speaker-pelosi-and-the-democratic-led-house-has-sent-over-250-bipartisan-bills-to-the-senate-and-mitch-mcconnell-has-done-nothing/
There were many more passed in the House in the rest of 2020.
Bill Arnold
@lowtechcyclist:
Needs to be said to a lot more Republican faces. Especially on TV.
Starfish
@The Moar You Know: The protests will not be televised. There have been protests. There have been LARGE protests. There have not been VIOLENT protests.
Geminid
@topclimber: It seemed like you were saying that Manchin didn’t matter for the next eight months because none of Biden’s nominees are getting a vote anyway. I don’t need better material, but rather I need to stop taking what you say at face value.
So vent away; I won’t bother you anymore, or at least I won’t be as pressing as I was just now.
Geminid
@Geminid:
@topclimber: I can get pushy sometimes and I think it’s a fault. I can disagree without being discouraging, if I try.
Jinchi
The vote isn’t meaningless. It’s a marker for voters to see what the party stands for. It proves the argument “Two more Democrats in the Senate, and we’d…” protect women’s rights, ensure everyone access to the vote, preserve Medicare and Social Security, stop climate change …. etc. etc. etc.
Anyone can jump on the bandwagon for a guaranteed win. It’s what you’ll fight for against long odds that defines you.
Geminid
@Jinchi: I think that Universal Pre-K and free community college would also be positive, progressive programs to run on. Supporting public education at both ends for a better educated populace. These are investments in our human capital.
Bupalos
@trollhattan: I tried to watch Fox for about 20 minutes, one of their backbencher pundits, wasn’t familiar to me, to see how they’re handling Ukraine. This wss maybe 10 days into the invasion. From what I watched, the issue was’t being mentioned at all. But what shocked me was first the sheer volume of commercials, and second that the commercials seemed to have an outsized % of non-white people in them.
I don’t know what to think about that. Probably luck of the draw, but part of me wants to do a comparstive analysis.