NPR has its faults, but they’ve been better than lots of national media outlets about covering the effect extreme anti-abortion laws have on women’s healthcare. Here’s a link to an All Things Considered story about what happened to Kaitlyn Joshua, a 30-year-old who found out she was pregnant in August. Joshua and her husband were excited about having a second child, and she tried to make a prenatal care appointment at the 8-week mark, as she had with her first child.
The doctor’s office staff told her they didn’t offer appointments that early. Joshua says the staff member she talked to confirmed Joshua’s suspicion that the office was seeing patients only after 12 weeks because miscarriages are more common in the early weeks and they wanted to avoid an investigation under Louisiana’s new draconian anti-abortion laws. Then Joshua was forced to seek care early anyway.
During those early weeks of pregnancy, Joshua experienced symptoms she hadn’t dealt with in her first pregnancy: mild cramping and spotting. Without access to a doctor, though, Joshua felt like she had nowhere to go for answers.
“How in the world can we have a viable health care system for women, especially women of color, when they won’t even see you for 12 weeks?” she says.
Joshua sought care at an ER, where she was told the fetus wasn’t growing normally, but no one would confirm she was having a miscarriage, again seemingly to avoid liability exposure.
Joshua remembers one nurse telling her: “‘It appears that you could be having one. But we don’t want to say that’s what it is. So let’s just keep watching it. You can continue to come back. Of course, we’re praying for you.'”
Joshua is Christian. She spends Sunday mornings at church. But she says the comment felt like an insult.
“Folks need answers, not prayers. And that’s exactly what I was looking for in that moment,” she says.
The thoughts and prayers for Joshua proved as efficacious as they are in the aftermath of mass shootings; her condition deteriorated, so she attempted to get answers and healthcare at another hospital. Again she was told to go suffer at home, which she also suspects was due to the facility prioritizing liability management over healthcare delivery.
Eventually Joshua did miscarry at home after needlessly suffering excruciating pain and copious bleeding. She and her husband decided they aren’t in the right time and place to try to expand their family since hospitals and doctors are afraid of getting sued and/or jailed by the Louisiana morality police if they provide what used to be standard reproductive healthcare.
The healthcare providers and facility execs all deny that the new anti-abortion laws played a role in the decisions they made during Joshua’s treatment. Medical professionals in states where women’s healthcare isn’t strictly supervised by morality police have a more nuanced take:
OB-GYN Villavicencio, who leads equity efforts at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says doctors have been delaying or declining care in many states with abortion bans.
“Not because doctors are inappropriate or bad people, but because they’re confused about what they can and cannot do,” she says. “And they’re also scared about what the consequences may be if they break these extremely confusing laws.”
Well yeah. In Louisiana, doctors can be jailed for up to 15 years, fined up to $200,000 and lose their medical license if convicted of performing an abortion, and the definition of “abortion” in the law is confusing.
It makes you wonder how many healthcare providers will stick around in states where medical care standards are being overhauled by religious fanatics. Doctors and nurses have highly marketable skills, so they don’t strictly have to put up with that bullshit. The same could be said of young professionals like the Joshuas, who already have a four-year-old daughter.
People have all kinds of reasons for living where they live, including family ties. I know this firsthand. But it’s easy to understand why folks who have other options and priorities might choose to move out of states where religious fanatics can force half the population to receive substandard healthcare.
Anyway, good on NPR for showcasing these stories. Open thread.
RedDirtGirl
My blood is boiling!
Betsy
I heard that story on NPR. Horrifying.
WaterGirl
“First do no harm”, unless it might put you in an uncomfortable position, in which case the women are on their own. Doctors should be shouting from the rooftops about these awful laws, and resigning from positions if necessary.
By staying silent they are complicit.
Qrop Non Sequitur
In other news, water is wet and dog bites man after the break; but first, Generallisimo Francisco Franco, still dead
Eta: Now to read the story.
Lapassionara
The families willing to share stories like this using their real names are incredibly brave. I can only imagine the grief they could get from the religious right.
Alison Rose
Good God. And this is what the so-called pro-lifers want, for people to be put through needless pain and fear and trauma, to be refused at the hospital doors and told to go home and bleed out so that the hospital and doctors don’t have to worry about being investigated. To quote John Oliver, I’d call it dystopian if it weren’t so fucking American.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Represents backsliding. We may have been working toward it before, but we never had a truly viable Healthcare system for women.
The party of family values, which regularly complains about people putting off building families, are doing everything in their power to make pregnancy more dangerous and household financial stability a luxury.
SiubhanDuinne
Listened to this story last night, and I haven’t the vocabulary to express how sickened and infuriated I was.
ETA: And am.
eclare
I fully expect a huge brain drain in TN. We don’t even have an exception to save the life of the mother. A dr can raise this issue as a defense if he or she is charged with murder, but it is not automatic.
Would you take your chances with a jury of twelve to find you not guilty of murder in TN? I sure as hell wouldn’t.
cain
Where are the other Christian denominations? How can they stand by and be quiet ?
cain
@eclare:
The problem is then these states never change and so blue states will have the majority of the population but the wingnuts can still take over with who is left over.
rikyrah
Absolutely enraged reading this.
BLACK.MATERNAL.MORTALITY.
How is an expectant mother supposed to deal with NO MEDICAL CARE IN THE FIRST TRIMESTER.
This is OUTRAGEOUS, and she should SUE.
PERIOD.
Yutsano
The stories I have been hearing are terrible. The part that worries me more is it won’t make a damn bit of difference. Ms Joshua isn’t going to be the last in her town, much less in Louisiana. Because it’s not about her. It’s about the control the Christianists can exert over her. Patriarchy ain’t giving in without some massive pushback that isn’t happening yet. The best we can do in the sane states is somehow get them the medical care they need. And more and more that option is getting narrower.
gratuitous
The law is working exactly as the folks who wrote it intended, and is the reasonable and foreseeable outcome of the Dobbs decision. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
RaflW
@eclare: I get WG’s anger at comment 3, but these doctors are being forced by blinkered zealot politicians and their base to face possible murder charges and 15 years in jail.
It’s a totally untenable position. It’s infuriating. And of course it has to change. How we get there is what has to be grappled with
@Yutsano: I’d say the 2022 midterms at least contain some quotient of pushback. Not enough, of course! But the GOP ‘should’ have had a romp of an election. And didn’t. Dobbs was surely part of that.
Brachiator
This is one of the many things about the abortion law changes that drive me nuts. The laws impact and often interfere with a woman’s ability to get medical care. And the GOP simply does not care. They are willing to sacrifice women in order to supposedly save “babies.”
eclare
@cain: The thing that gets me is how quickly the rabid RWNJ’s have taken over in TN. In 2011, we had a Democratic governor. And now the focus is on punishing women and LGBTQ people.
It gives me whiplash.
rikyrah
Just read it again..
SHE NEEDS TO SUE THEM ALL.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
AMEN to every syllable in your comment.
scav
@gratuitous: They see themselves as doing their God’s work, making sure those daughters of Eve bring forth children in as much pain (and danger) as possible. Men subjugating women are also thus true servants of their God.
FelonyGovt
Thinking about this, the media and the powers-that-be have NEVER been concerned about women’s unique health issues. Men are either too squeamish to deal with them, or just don’t care since it’s not them. (I’m reminded that at one of my first jobs back in the 70’s, a woman co-worker told me that if she needed a day or a morning off, she would just claim that she had “women’s issues” and that the male boss would blanch and not ask any more questions.)
The Dobbs decision is creating, and is going to continue creating, needless suffering and deaths, but that’s just not being covered adequately.
Almost Retired
Absolutely infuriating that the right to healthcare depends on your jurisdiction.
On a happier note, California passed SB 523, the Contraceptive Equity Act of 2022. It prohibits employment (and housing) discrimination based on reproductive health decision-making, which includes any “drug, device, product, or medical service for reproductive health.”
But wait, there’s more. Two Assembly bills prohibit health care providers from releasing any medical information regarding “seeking or obtaining an abortion” in response to out of state requests or subpoenas. The bills also prohibits any state or local agency from cooperating with or providing information regarding an abortion from another state or federal law enforcement agency.
So, suck it, Red State Godbotherers.
schrodingers_cat
And yet according to WSJ exit polls for this election, guess which demographic group swung in the R direction by 7 points
They gave these policies a seal of approval by their vote.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Agree. At the very least, medical facilities should be as afraid of patients suing them for NOT providing care as they are of running afoul of religious fanatics.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@schrodingers_cat: Not a subscriber, so I’d say “I guess I’ll never know.”
But really I have an educated guess.
pat
I want Alito and the other despicable judges to suffer excruciating pain for many days with no opportunity to see a doctor.
What on earth did they think would happen when they destroyed 50 years of health care. That dumb woman, Amy Coathanger, does she have any recollection of her pregnancies?
I despise these people and all religious extremists who have brought this upon the innocent.
Ohio Mom
@cain: You mean the mainline denominations like the Methodists, Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, Episcopalians, etc.?
Most of them are battling terrible membership loss. Their rolls have shrunk and are shrinking.
Some of them are undergoing schisms over whether gay people should be allowed to marry in the church or become clergy (those schisms have been promoted and supported by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy who want to see the liberal church weakened).
Not excusing their silence, just providing some context. I am more perturbed by doctors and other health care professionals not making more noise.
I remain confident there will be a huge backlash against Dobbs but so much needless suffering and death in the meantime. Makes me want to scream.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Is someone cataloging these stories? I’m tempted to re-engage with bigger social media platforms than Balloon Juice just to push these stories out.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I used to retweet tweets by people in my discipline who were announcing job openings for PhDs. I no longer do that if the jobs are in states with restrictive abortion laws.
schrodingers_cat
@Qrop Non Sequitur: This particular piece doesn’t seem to be behind a paywall. I am not a subscriber either.
Ans. It is the largest demographic group in this country.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Red states should just replace the title “Doctor” with “Butcher.”
That is if they want to accurately define the state they’re leaving medical care in.
schrodingers_cat: Maybe not paywall, but it did ask me to sign in.
Betsy
I hate to do this, on such a sensitive topic, but it is an open thread.
Does anyone have a great recipe for yellow rice?
I have previously used Goya or Zatarains prepared packets, but I’d like to do it from scratch this time.
I can’t find an internet recipe that I trust — many are mixed together, being either Spanish rice (not the same) or a curry version from various Asian cultures (not the Latin type I’m looking for).
The ones that are Latin-American type yellow rice are either suspiciously white-bread in their preparation, or have few reviews.
WaterGirl
@RaflW: But the doctors and the AMA and every other medical practitioner should have their hair on fire about this and should be screaming from the rooftops.
AND. THEY. ARE. NOT.
cain
@Ohio Mom: Yes, exactly them.
It might help for them to understand that it is evangelical fevor that is causing people to leave the church. When one denomination is wielding political power and doings that is counter to the Bible – people.. well, they leave. And since the other denomination are being quiet – they are just as complicit.
If they want to stop people from leaving the church they need to actually move back to spirituality and speak out against things like the prosperity gospel which doesn’t exist as a gospel in Bible.. criminy.
I personally don’t care – I can trace back most of the crap – colonialism, slavery, brutality all back to the Christian church. But it looks like there is going to be a resurgence of this kind of thing if this keeps on.
Citizen Alan
@scav: There is no limit to it. Not too many years ago, I came across a video on the Internet of a fundamentalist preacher, in Tennessee I think, saying that we should ban epidurals because The Bible specifically says that God cursed women to bring forth children in pain.
Chetan Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: uh, I tried both visiting the page, and doing so in incognito mode. No dice. Care to quote the relevant text? please?
ETA: and then I went to archive.org; again, no dice. Just the first few lines were visible.
cain
@Betsy: What cuisine? I mean yellow rice could mean anything for some of us :-) I
catclub
I don’t see how Ob gyn departments at medical schools in middle-ages medicine states can continue.
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat:
Would you mind sharing answer for the benefit of those of those who refuse to give a f****** penny to the Wall Street Journal?
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat:
Would you mind sharing answer for the benefit of those of those who refuse to give a f****** penny to the Wall Street Journal?
cain
@Citizen Alan:
He’s still pissed that Eve kicked them out of the Garden. I swear – these stories really create havoc on the body politic. It’s all about flexing power over women. So sick of it.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Let’s suppose individual doctors are. Some must be. How do they gain attention in a media environment dedicated to ignoring this problem?
The AMA? I doubt they want to piss off the notoriously petty Republican party.
Some doctors may even agree with these policies. Fuck them.
laura
@Betsy: https://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/a36303917/yellow-rice-recipe/
cain
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
The very last sentence before everything fades to white – it says that young black males moved 22% to Republicans since 2018.
delphinium
@Betty Cracker: I would love it if people in these states started suing all the legislators that voted for these bills denying women health care. In addition, for any women who had health care delayed and thus endured more suffering and more medical costs, send the bills to them. If this is what they really want, they can pay for it. I am sure they will be more than happy to pay these costs to save the babyeez.
And it is very unfortunate that this ‘religious belief” bs didn’t get nipped in the bud a long time ago. The standard should have been that any healthcare provider using this to deny standards of care should have had their life put under a microscope and questioned in depth about how other people needing care actually impacts how they practice their faith, complete with relevant bible sections. And any found hypocrisy on their part means they don’t get to judge anyone else and thus can STFU and do their job.
Citizen Alan
@cain:
Yes it does. It is the Gospel of Mammon. And according to Jesus Christ, those who choose it over his teachings will burn in hell forever.
brendancalling
@eclare: When I left Vermont I had a choice of Nashville and Philly. Tennessee’s politics were unacceptable, so I’m in PA now.
I already have friends preparing to move from Tennessee to less oppressive states.
cain
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
Perhaps there is a Hospital cafe that the FTFNYT reporter can find to interview these folks. Perhaps it is economic anxiety that is keeping them from crying out.
schrodingers_cat
@Citizen Alan: @Chetan Murthy: Suburban white women as a demographic group moved towards Rs by 7 points compared to the 2020 elections.
WSJ did these exit polls in Alabama; Arkansas; Connecticut; Hawaii; Idaho; Illinois; Indiana; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maryland; Massachusetts; Missouri; New Mexico; North Dakota; Oregon; South Dakota; Vermont; Washington; Wyoming.
Their sample size was 2000.
Quote from the link:There is also a graph.
cain
@Citizen Alan:
So perhaps we should really piss them off by referring to them as followers of Mammon. Every time they open their mouth just show the scripture of Jesus Christ.
Of course, they believe – sincerely – that they would be forgiven if they are really really sorry when they die cuz Father Mammon told them that.
eclare
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Our local DA in Memphis has been more vocal, saying he would not pursue any charges over abortion. TPTB in Nashville clapped back quickly saying essentially yes, you will. I haven’t seen any news about the issue in a few months. I assume women here are going to southern IL, which is the closest place that abortion is legal.
brendancalling
@Dorothy A. Winsor: a friend of mine declined a position at Tulane in favor of Penn State for that reason.
I can’t imagine why anyone with options would move to one of those states. Just… bleccccch.
Qrop Non Sequitur
That’s sad, but I’ve seen this trend playing out in my friend group.
Again, I couldn’t read the article either. Here’s a hint as to my personal educated guess.
cain
@delphinium:
Probably because our media will present everything from a both sides perspective. Also right wing forces with their russian bot can create an incredible amount of noise and fire.
eclare
@brendancalling: I don’t blame them for leaving. Unfortunately it would cost me a lot to move.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: It’s behind a paywall for me, too. Maybe you could just tell us which group you are referring to, or copy a paragraph from the article?
Baud
How are we losing ground among every demo and still holding our own in elections?
cain
@eclare: blue states have become more expensive thanks to hedge funds buying up all the houses and raising rents. Every city except for like Jackson, Miss. is turned into a target.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: I did. Check my comments above.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
The link insists that I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal before it will show me anything.
Sadly, I think that some women think that their income and social status will protect them, and only poor nonwhite women will be hurt by harsh abortion laws. But they are woefully mistaken here. There are men, and women, who clearly want to control the lives of women. And here in the US, reproductive rights is seen as an effective way of controlling women.
And these men and women who want to control women will happily kill women in order to get what they want.
Another example. Pregnancy surrogacy programs tend to be expensive, and are used often by wealthy married women, in addition to single women and gay persons. Ultra-conservatives would gladly end or severely restrict these programs. Money does not clearly confer power here.
cain
@WaterGirl: She said it up a few messages ago that it was white women, but that’s not what I saw. I saw young black men moving to the GOP. Maybe they prefer low taxes too. (but they aren’t going to get it)
Alison Rose
@Citizen Alan: Bet if it were cis men who gave birth, they’d forget that line right quick.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alison Rose: I would say that is not what they want but rather that they are comfortable with it as a byproduct of what they want. Omelettes, eggs.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Baud: If a demo is shifting toward Republicans but still majority Democrat and is also voting in larger numbers, they can still make up for our deficits elsewhere.
Also, I don’t know about 2022, but I’m pretty sure we gained support with white men in 2020.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Ds won the below 50 vote and among the groups that are not white.
Alison Rose
@Omnes Omnibus: In some cases, it is most definitely want they want. In this woman’s case, being that she’s married and already a mother, perhaps not. But in others, they absolutely want them to suffer.
Qrop Non Sequitur
The suffering, as is oft noted, is the point.
delphinium
@Brachiator: I also wonder what the age range(s) are. I would guess that older women or those who have already had their kids and are ‘done’ would be less inclined to care about this issue, which is unfortunate.
Chetan Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you! And thank you for the *context*! Some reactions:
I’m not *saying* that it’s biased. Indeed, my own first inclination is to believe it. After all, I was expecting the *worst* from the 2020 election. But I’d look for other confirmation before I believed this. Only b/c we’ve seen so much reporting that is contrary to these resuts.
Again: I’m not gainsaying the results, just noting that it might be good to look for more confirmation.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Well, after all, a few dead women–or even a lot of them–are worth it, if the rest of the dirty sluts learn that having sex is a sin.
schrodingers_cat
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Yes we did!
Baud
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
Oh good. They have all the power.
Mallard Filmore
@Brachiator:
Isn’t what those feared “death panels” are all about? Some people must be set aside to die.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Chetan Murthy: When you got a hobby horse, ride it.
See also: the LEFT!!!!!! 🤬
Brachiator
@delphinium:
Pollsters have noted some clear voting differences when you look at white married women vs white single women, and between white women with college degrees and white women without college degrees.
Strongly religious people also have clear preferences.
Some of these voting patterns are not as strong for various groups of nonwhite voters.
schrodingers_cat
I run NoScript with Chrome and I can access the WSJ link without a subscription.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Rs still manage to get over 40% of college educated white women.
karen marie
@rikyrah: How long is her life? People who say “just sue” have never seen how the legal system works.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Not all of us. I must wear too much pink and have a low physicality job.
Baud
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
You’re no Andrew Tate!
Brachiator
@Mallard Filmore:
No. Some of these people will mutter that it is God’s will that some women die while these supposed righteous people try to “save” babies.
Death panels are fantasies of nutcases who believe that liberals will strictly ration health care if you allow socialized medicine.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Baud: Alas for all the fruitless years I spent trying to fit in with the future Andrew Tates I went to high school with.
Probably didn’t work because I refused to drop the feminism.
karen marie
@Qrop Non Sequitur: “Moved 22%” is not a big number given the base number.
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: OT, please let me know if you don’t get the Time in a week or so. It was supposed to come today or tomorrow, but I’ve been hearing about a lot of mail delays. If it doesn’t come, I’ll send you another one — they had them in Stop & Shop today.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@karen marie: The real question is did people change their minds or does this reflect new people becoming politically active?
I suspect primarily the latter.
topclimber
@Qrop Non Sequitur: If the overall YBM turnout was below 2018 in 2022, then the share of GOP vote in outlier groups like them can easily go up by a fifth.
delphinium
@Mallard Filmore:
Something I wish was brought up much more in the media and when talking with people in general, is that Republicans get abortions so they are in fact definitely okay with it and don’t give a shit about ‘saving babies’. Which is also self evident in the policies they vote against.
cain
@Brachiator: leave it to the religious to take something to the point of utter zealotry. Saving babies is great, at the expensive of everything not so great. I wonder how fanatic they would be if it is their own life on the line?
HinTN
@eclare: While I do not know for sure about her religious beliefs, our local state senator’s husband is known to have a belief system that may be colloquially stated as “Jesus rode a dinosaur.” When she ran the first time, her campaign slogan identified her as a “pistol packing mama.” That, in microcosm, is how we in the 4th district went from being represented in Congress by Al Gore to Scott desJarlais.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@topclimber: That’s true. Though that wasn’t the only demo that swung. That’s why I suspected “more” was the answer rather than “fewer,” though different demos may well be different.
Also, too, my statistical education ended at 102, so YMMV.
dr. luba
Back in the fall I heard an old friend of mine being interviewed on the radio (local NPR, I think) about taking care of women who need pregnancy termination. He is a perinatologist, dealing in high risk pregnancies, and complications often result in the need for termination.
Detroit (Wayne county) was not enforcing the pre-Roe antiabortion laws; prosecutors in some adjacent counties were planning to. It mean having to shuttle women between hospitals to get them the care they need.
Luckily, Proposal 3, which enshrines Roe into our state constitution, passed, so this is no longer a worry in Michigan. I feel sorry for my colleagues in other states having to deal with this bullshit.
schrodingers_cat
@Chetan Murthy: I think age may be the determining factor, Roe reversal affects younger women (and their partners) more than women past their reproductive years.
Ds won the below 50 electorate.
JWR
@WaterGirl:
Sometime between the leak of Dobbs and the repeal of Roe, I heard or read something about how doctors were a driving force behind getting something like Roe enacted in the first place. It’s been a while since I read The Brethren and don’t remember if that was covered, or if it even happened, but wouldn’t it seem a bit much to ask of doctors, especially in these gun totin’, militarized daze, to shout much of anything from rooftops?
Qrop Non Sequitur
Mothers, of course, being famously indifferent to the health outcomes of their offspring.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: A strong swing to the GOP nationally would have brought a red wave. I also instinctively distrust WSJ polling data.
delphinium
@HinTN: Was Scott DesJarlais the one who pushed his ex-wife and a girlfriend/mistress to get abortions? Or is it another horrible person and a-one hypocrite I am thinking of?
Omnes Omnibus
@Qrop Non Sequitur: A Brooks Bros pink Oxford is as OG WASP as you can get.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Omnes Omnibus: Brooks Bros? What kind of bougie m’fucker you think I am?
Sweats, bruh. Pink sweats. Or hats, bracelets, nail polish (at the height of the pandemic. I liked it but too much work)
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: Thank you!! I should note–since I can’t get downstairs easily, my mom comes by on Saturdays to bring my mail and packages up to me and chitchat. So if it’s not there by midday tomorrow but comes after, I likely won’t have it until the following Saturday. But I will let you know as soon as I do!
Omnes Omnibus
@Qrop Non Sequitur: I was just pointing out that the color pink itself may not be the issue. And there is nothing wrong with BB’s shirts. I could use a new pink one as long as we are talking about it.
Citizen Alan
@cain: Any black person who votes Republican is a fucking idiot. The GOP is the party of bigotry against everyone who is not a straight, white, fundie-Christian male, but above all, the GOP despises black folks. Most Republicans wish they could own slaves.
eclare
@HinTN: You must have whiplash too to go from Gore to desJarlais. Wow is an understatement.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Omnes Omnibus: Haha, fair enough. I just associate the brand with suits. And suits are the uniform of the man. And fuck that guy.
Rioting suits, by the way, suits that may well have precipitated the fall of civilization; yet to be determined, but fully in the cards.
James E Powell
@eclare:
So did Ohio. The spark was Obama’s election, but I think there is more to it than that.
Geminid
@JWR: I read that when Chief Justice Warren Burger saw there was a majority for abortion rights in the Roe case he gave the task of writing the majority opinion to fellow Minnesotan Justice Blackmun.
Blackmun had done work for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota when in private practice. So Blackmun conferred with the docs at the Mayo Clinic and they helped him come up with the three different rules for the three trimesters.
I’ve seen a lot of griping by conservative legal scholars and their mouthpieces about how intellectually deficient Roe is. I think its one of the smartest opinions ever to come out of the Court.
Citizen Alan
@cain: I genuinely think we could solve most of the nation’s housing shortage if we just passed laws regulating the hell out of rental properties so that these asshole slum lords would sell all those homes they’ve bought.
zhena gogolia
@Alison Rose: Okay, great.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: *grin* See now, if I were a good writer, I would have written what you did. Succinct summary of my logorrhea! Thanks, Omnes!
Citizen Alan
@Brachiator:
As opposed to the insurance companies that already strictly ration health care under capitalistic medicine.
eclare
@Citizen Alan: That is one of the big reasons moving to a different, bluer state would be prohibitively expensive. I own my home in a nice neighborhood, and I can’t imagine trying to replicate that with a purchase or rental somewhere else.
Chetan Murthy
@Citizen Alan: Since 2003 I have lived in owner-occupied rental property (owner lives in unit on property). I have never regretted this. A first step for this would be restricting the # of units that a beneficial owner could rent out. Let’s make that number 100: that would give a healthy gross receipts of $1m (probably more) and I think that should be sufficient for anybody. Too bad for poor Jarvanka. Also for Blackrock. Also though, yeah, when landlords don’t properly maintain property (as inspected by, let’s say, city inspectors), then renovations would be deducted from rent, and anything unpaid after a year would become a (let’s say) lien on the property, the nonpayment of which would force the sale of the property at auction.
Brachiator
@cain:
I know some zealots who claim that they are willing to die in order to “save” babies.
@schrodingers_cat:
Some older women want to control the reproductive rights of their daughters and granddaughters.
AM in NC
@cain: And this is when the real violence will start, because a majority of people (the blue staters) aren’t going to stand for being ruled by a minority acting against their interests. I think it’s going to get ugly.
Kelly
My dear departed first Mrs. Kelly’s OB/GYN was Dr. Peter Bours of Forest Grove, Oregon. He championed abortion rights in the 1980s. Drew enough protesters in front of his clinic that his practice eventually became abortion only since few of his patients wanted to deal with the mob to get other medical care. As the threats escalated he wore a ballistic vest, carried a 9mm and hired a couple of big, kinda rough characters for clinic security. There were a couple inept arson attempts on his clinic. He finally moved his practice to a Portland high rise which was difficult enough for for the mob to besiege that the situation improved. This was back in the 1980’s. The anti abortion side has been violent for a long time.
WaterGirl
@Citizen Alan: It boggles the mind. Just like Log Cabin Republicans.
THEY. HATE. YOU.
Why is that so hard to understand?
Ohio Mom
@Geminid: I did not know that but it makes so much that Roe treats each trimester differently because doctors gave their input. Thank you for sharing that.
geg6
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Do you read the Chronicle of Higher Education? PSU gets us all subscriptions and, ever since Dobbs, I’ve been paying attention to the job listings. And I have noticed an astonishing number of openings at colleges and universities wherever the forced birthers and anti-academic freedom ghouls are in charge. I have always paid attention to the listings, but never saw it so geographically specific. There is a brain drain going on that no one is reporting.
artem1s
sounds like what happened to my mom circa 1971. had 5 children pretty easy pregnancies and births. pregnant for a 6th time went to GP with similar symptoms. she knew things were not right. GP examined her, told her there was no way the pregnancy would go full term and then refused to prescribe a clinical abortion. referred her to a GYN who told her she was evil for wanting to kill her baby. no empathy for the 5 living children dependent on her for primary care and financial well being. her GP told her to go home and wait to miscarry. luckily she didn’t die when she miscarried in our bathroom, but had to have an emergency hysterectomy (but only after my dad approved). spent weeks in bed rest recovering. under today’s laws she probably would have had to endure murder investigations and my father would have spent time in jail for criminally disposing of the
fetusafterbirth. fucking assholes could have saved her and our family a lot of extra costs and anxiety but were too afraid to put their patient first. MD’s could have completely shut this shit down decades ago but the forced-birth KKK terrorized them into submission by murdering their colleagues pretty much without any ramifications. so here we are again. and OH conservatives are changing the laws to prevent voters from putting legislation on the books to protect women. not sure I care all that much because they were all for using this path when they were trying to criminalize same sex marriage and have completely ignored the two times voters have passed referendums demanding gerrymandering be done away with. so they will ignore it even if voters opt to protect women. expect House R’s to make overturning the blue state laws protecting abortion rights to be on the chopping block as their first item on their agenda. states rights don’t matter unless they are designed to punish women, LGBTQ, and POC.James E Powell
@Ohio Mom:
I feel like they ought to be very public & loud in condemning the dumping of asylum seekers on Christmas Eve.
Qrop Non Sequitur
.
Qrop Non Sequitur
Media: We must protect the precious [Republican party]. We needs it…
James E Powell
@cain:
I have a hard time believing that 22% of any demographic moves in four years.
Omnes Omnibus
@AM in NC: Or that’s when the reforms will kick in. Violence isn’t inevitable.
davecb
@rikyrah wrote:
Or, depending on the laws of the State, charge the doctors with reckless endangerment
Qrop Non Sequitur
@James E Powell: But polling has been so accurate of late…
I can see some anecdotal evidence of the trend but all the ones I’ve seen are newly engaged rather than converts. An unrepresentative example before or after or both could throw that number out of whack too.
Omnes Omnibus
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Very eloquent.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Omnes Omnibus: It was all that needed saying.
Nevertheless, I persisted.
catclub
I think this will get noticed. ‘I moved because of their anti-woman laws.’ People with a choice will move.
JWR
@Geminid:
Oh yeah, I’d forgotten that! But what I heard or read was about a grassroots sort of movement for something like Roe to be introduced. As far as the griping by these alleged “legal scholars”, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if their gripes were based on what RBG said about how Roe would be standing on stronger legal ground if it was based on equal protection instead of a right to privacy, which statement was twisted into the talking point that Roe had been “egregiously decided” and must be stricken for all eternity!
AM in NC
@Omnes Omnibus: From your keyboard to the FSM’s orecchiette!
geg6
@eclare:
PA, depending on where you live, is extremely affordable. Western PA is one of the most affordable and livable places in the country. Median home price in my county (30 miles from Pittsburgh and 15 minutes from the airport) is 180K.
kalakal
@geg6:
No surprise and I’m pretty sure it won’t be just in academia.
Anyone who can can pregnant would be well advised to leave, if they can, for their own safety.
The medieval fanatics are deliberately killing people
Qrop Non Sequitur
You can’t waste any time in interpreting the words of the dead for your own ends. Otherwise, someone may beat you to it.
AM in NC
@geg6: My two boys, both applying to college this year, are only applying to places in states without a GOP trifecta. Their friends as well.
This Christofascism crapola is going to have a bunch of negative knock-on effects for red states. Brain drain for sure, and not just the faculty.
kalakal
@Qrop Non Sequitur: speaks volumes
trnc
It would certainly be great for some enterprising young journalists to ask lawmakers of a certain persuasion if this is what they intended.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@kalakal: That’s some right good shade you threw there.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
Dissent. Their quality has gone to shit.
JWR
@Kelly:
Point well taken. It just seems that the cray-crays of today are exponentially more prone to violence and far better armed than they were back then.
geg6
@AM in NC:
I was talking to the parents of a prospective student back in November when they came for a visit. They were from TX and specifically stated that they and their daughter had decided she couldn’t go to college in TX, what with her being female and Black, because it is not safe for her if anything happened.
eclare
@geg6: That sounds good, price wise, but I am absolutely terrified of driving in snow or ice. I have left work early before to beat a rain storm.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I will concede that on a practical level. I was speaking conceptually.
The Pale Scot
@Chetan Murthy:
https://lincolntownshiplibrary.org/adult-research/
Kelly
@JWR: and I think there’s a lot more cray-crays right on the edge of violence
zhena gogolia
@Steve in the ATL: Yes, that was my husband’s experience. Too bad.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Kelly: We have very efficient modern mechanisms for spreading the cray.
Yutsano
I see the front pagers have abandoned us again…
trollhattan
The governor would like to share this word, from Dolly.
https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1608266634346786817?cxt=HHwWgsDTxfT-2tEsAAAA
It’s Dolly’s world, we just share it.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Yutsano: Jeez, it’s like they have lives to live or something…
Meanwhile, open thread remains open.
eclare
@trollhattan: Wonderful! I remember being shocked when I learned that a good friend’s father could not read or write.
He owned a successful RV business, I guess everyone around him could.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: then I concur in part and dissent in part
@zhena gogolia: it’s an existential crisis for WASPs
Qrop Non Sequitur
Fuckem’. Upjumped bees…
Suzanne
@Citizen Alan: Oh, it gets so much worse.
Here’s a piece called “Why A Wife Should Endure Painful Sex with Her Husband“. From “biblicalgenderroles.com”.
These people are absolutely terrible.
JWR
@Kelly: @Qrop Non Sequitur:’
Yep to both. And let us not forget that now they’ve got one of our two major political parties fully, and not just partially, dancing to their violent and cray-cray cray-zy tunes.
scav
Maybe all these misogynist red states are counting on becoming tourist destinations for celebrities such as Andrew Tate (“Closer than Romania and No Language Barrier!”). Or, maybe they’d market those anti-women laws as a teaser to attract tech-bro industries to their states. They’d probably see the University-related brain-drain as an outright win and might even be indifferent to losing medical professionals: it’s not like they believe in vaccinations anymore.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: We listened to this podcast on our recent road trip. Interesting all around and the Brooks Brother’s part in particular.
American Ivy: Chapter 1
Yutsano
@Qrop Non Sequitur: Look: I don’t ask for much around here, just that I have at least something to do when my office is dead due to end of year programming. There’s only so many work articles I can read before my brain goes flat.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Who’s that coming down the track. . .
If we win I have tix to the Natty!
ian
@Steve in the ATL:
So is the trap on my porch. I have to clean the darn thing out every 3 days in the summer, they are so busy flying around.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Yutsano: Fair. Personally I spend more time with links from the comments than the original posts. YYMV there, of course.
Matt McIrvin
@cain: Relative to what? I found an exit poll here
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-elections/exit-polls
which suggests that if black men moved 22% toward the Republicans, there must have been a negative number of them voting Republican before. (Of course, we’re slicing the crosstabs pretty thin so small-number random weirdness kicks in, which could be a factor here.)
So is that 22% of the number of black men voting R in 2018? If so, that’s a smaller number than it sounds like.
eclare
@raven: Wow! How do you have tickets?
I went to UT, but I always cheer for the SEC. So go Dawgs!
MomSense
I loathe all of these anti abortion assholes. It’s so “nice” for them to think they are saving babies but the truth is that they don’t give a shit about the babies once they are born, especially if they are born to poor women. They are hurting women, causing suffering and death.
I should probably get past it, but I am especially furious at the people who just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Clinton in 2016 knowing full god damned well that the Supreme Court, and by extension abortion rights. After the Donna decision, those idiots were the first to whine that Obama didn’t codify Roe or Democrats should do something. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the left/progressive betrayal in 2016.
eclare
@MomSense: I agree, it’s hard to accept/forgive. NPR interviewed an idiot woman in 2016 who said she needed a reason to vote for Clinton that did not mention TFG or SCOTUS. I wanted to reach through my radio and punch her in the neck. That feeling has not subsided.
MomSense
@eclare:
I remember that interview. Infuriating.
Geminid
@MomSense: There was a very effective propaganda campaign against Clinton in 2016. Some of it may have been organic, but a good part of it was fomented and coordinated by Russia. There were different messages calibrated for differrent demographic groups. Many of these social media efforts were not intended to persuade voters to pick Trump but rather to disuade them from voting at all.
karen marie
@cain: I still don’t know what “22%” amounts to but …
Qrop Non Sequitur
@Geminid: I was reticent about Clinton but swung hard for her hard before the election (not that I told anyone here I’m prompt fashion).
All it took was to see her once discussing policy with ordinary people who would be affected. In this case, caretakers for the elderly.
Citizen Alan
@Alison Rose: No offense, but I’ve seen comments like that before and it’s just nonsensical to me. If “cis men” were the ones who got pregnant, they would be treated as second class citizens to the exact same degree that women currently are because it is the biological factors surrounding pregnancy and female reproduction that are the justification for doing so.
RaflW
I don’t know what level of lobbying, testifying, etc is sufficient. But they AMA has not been silent, certainly.
“Dobbs ruling is an assault on reproductive health, safe medical practice” AMA June 24, 2024 An assault of safe medical practice seems to be very clear language.
AMA President testified before Congress in July:
RaflW
@delphinium: “they are in fact definitely okay with it and don’t give a shit about ‘saving babies’”
Same with all the ‘grooming’ bullshit. Republicans have never given a crap about Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, etc. They just see a cudgel to falsely attack LGBTQ people, and meanwhile let anyone with an “R” in their politics get a massive free pass to abuse and even rape kids.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
Swung from when? From 2018 (the last midterm), a major ‘blue wave’ election? Which groups didn’t swing towards the GOP?
Or from 2020, a Presidential election year, when less politically involved folks are more likely to show up, which almost always means more Dem voters? Again, which groups didn’t swing R?
Comparing D/R split of any demo group between 2022 and either 2020 or 2018 is apples and oranges, and you know it.
Maybe compare the 2018- or 2020-to-2022 swings of different groups with each other, sure, do that. If group X swings R by 9 points, and group Y only swings by 4 points, that means something – if that difference is outside the margin of error of a difference. Which would depend on the sample sizes of the population subgroups being compared. Ain’t statistics fun?
Citizen Alan
@Suzanne: I now 100% believe that the overwhelming majority of evangelicals worship Satan but are too ignorant to realize it.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
And other groups swung which way, and by how much? Because the population as a whole swung towards the GOP by something in that neighborhood, you know. Off the top of my head, it sure looks to me like you’re jumping on white women because they were roughly representative of the electorate as a whole, and you love to find reasons to crap on white women.
ETA: In 2020, the electorate as a whole favored Dems over Rethugs by 4.4%. In House elections in 2022, the electorate as a whole favored R’s over D’s by about 3%, a swing of slightly over 7%.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Kind of smears their concern for actual human lives, that they think that it’s alright for a woman to bleed death or suffer because conception didn’t work perfectly. Like it’s the woman’s fault and she needs to be punished because a risky biological process that does not work properly quite often fails and sometimes the woman doesn’t even know it started but also quite often does. I’m thinking that possibly humans who lead their lives like it supposedly happened many centuries ago when medical care was to put someone out of their misery. We have learned to do far better, but pregnancy is still a risk, even when it goes well, and a far higher risk when we act as if healthcare is anti religious or that religion should be involved at all.
Burnspbesq
All of these statutes are unconstitutional. Not because there is a constitutional right to abortion, but because they’re impermissibly vague. And the vagueness is deliberate. Don’t know why the litigation hasn’t started.
Steve in the ATL
@raven: nice!
NorthLeft
@WaterGirl: I had a discussion about this with my daughter and wife. I feel the same way that you do about the doctors role in this. The AMA should be doing everything they can to push back against these laws that interfere with patient care, and challenging them in court. Hospitals too.
The US already has a very high maternal mortality rate, and this will just make it worse.
suzanne
@Citizen Alan:
Yes.
Kathleen
@MomSense: I won’t either.
WaterGirl
@NorthLeft: Yes!
Nice that the AMA testified against this to congress, or whatever.
But how about taking out full-page ads in all the big papers and in every small town paper? Women are dying, it’s time to pull out all the stops.
Citizen Alan
@Suzanne: well thanks a lot for filling me with a sputtering rage right before dinner. It really is just a fucking death cult, isn’t it.
Ruckus
@geg6:
There is a brain drain going on that no one is reporting.
It should be obvious in red states that even if the brains aren’t leaving, there is a brain drain because all the smarts are leaking out, and at a faster rate than a trickle.
raven
@eclare: I know a guy!
Tony G
@WaterGirl: Unfortunately, for many doctors (as for many people in general) the primary edict is not “do no harm” but rather “cover your ass”. Therefore, these doctors go along with draconian state laws, to the detriment of their female patients. So, yes, they are complicit.
Suzanne
@Citizen Alan:
Yes.
J R in WV
@Citizen Alan:
I think there is no doubt about this. The worship of Mammon, the hatreds they hold to so fervently, the oppression of women, all of that is evil and goes directly against the teaching of Jesus — we can use whatever word for evil, Satan is only one of many names for evil even in the christian world, let alone all the other religions which recognize a personification of evil.
Last again? I left this thread open when I went to bed last night… so here I am the next morning.