Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff will convene a panel in Atlanta on Tuesday focused on the role men can play in advocating for more access to abortion rights, according to sources familiar with the plans. https://t.co/FqbeZ3MzoB
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) May 5, 2024
When I was a young feminist firebrand, I’d have given this panel the hairy eyeball. But after fifty years and the Repubs’ Roe v Wade repeal, I’ve learned that we need everybody on our side. Especially since we’re all gradually coming to understand that rights (and restrictions) for one group affect all of us, for good or evil:
Mark Kelly is one of the most moderate Democratic Senators. For him to plainly answer the filibuster question with a "yes" means if we go into 2024 with a trifecta, it will happen. We will codify Roe v. Wade into law.
You can't pretend like you don't understand the stakes. https://t.co/9pA0fgd3y6
— That Well-Adjusted Biden Guy (@What46HasDone) May 6, 2024
Lots of stuff looks bleak, but this is just simple math: if we hold our senate incumbents and pick up just Gallego in Arizona, we’ve got the votes to reform the filibuster, pass democracy reform, and codify reproductive rights next year. https://t.co/MwiEZh2aO0
— Ezra Levin (@ezralevin) May 6, 2024
— Mr. Spock ?? (Commentary) (@SpockResists) May 6, 2024
Reproductive freedom has won in every election where it was on the ballot since Roe v. Wade was overturned. pic.twitter.com/KKyHOGy6VP
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 6, 2024
… Do I want too much?
Am I going overboard to want that touch?
I shout it out to the night
Give me what I deserve ’cause it’s my right
Shouldn’t I have this? (shouldn’t I?)
Shouldn’t I have this? (shouldn’t I?)
Shouldn’t I have all of this, andPassionate kisses
Passionate kisses, whoa-oh-oh
Passionate kisses from you?…
War for Ukraine Day 804 Again: It Is Not Ground Hog Day
Mousebumples
Yup!
I am fighting for my daughter’s rights, and I’ll take all the allies at my side, no matter their gender.
Jackie
Men need to, and do support women’s reproductive health care. It not only supports the women they love, it also helps protect their sons/grandsons – who in a moment of raging hormonal influenced compulsiveness, could find themselves obligated to the next 18+ years of child support plus health insurance – that impacts their lives, along with the woman involuntarily impregnated.
Super happy the Second Gentleman is advocating and supporting abortion healthcare for ALL.
Martin
California’s abortion rights situation was pushed pretty hard by the last several male governors. Even the last Republican male governor signed legislation expanding abortion rights. I mean, Ronald fucking Reagan signed the legislation that legalized abortion in CA five years before RvW.
And of course, women weren’t allowed anywhere near USSC when RvW was decided.
There’s always been men supporting women here. Not enough, obviously, but we’re working hard. I provided support for CA requiring UC and CSU to provide abortion services to students through student health. I’m annoyed this is happening with that requirement since I’m no longer in a position to address it.
Scout211
Doug Emhoff is working with an abortion rights group, Men4Choice. I had not heard of that group before reading about the panel that Emhoff will be a part of.
From the NBC article link :
https://www.men4choice.org/
Men4Choice Who we are
Jackie
@Scout211: I just read about/learned about Men4Choice very recently, and it was primarily about Doug Emhoff‘s involvement.
We have an awesome MVP/Second Gentleman team!♥️
SpaceUnit
Not looking to pick any fights here, but this post seems to suggest that Roe is mostly a men vs women issue when it’s really a weirdo, crazy, zealot thing versus reasonable people. That’s why the forced-birth agenda fares so badly in elections.
ETA: There are plenty of anti-choice women. Just saying it.
Juju
That Spock logic thing is good, but apparently a fetus or blastula doesn’t even have to be in a uterus to outrank women, it can also be in a freezer.
piratedan
@SpaceUnit: agreed that there are plenty of women who are anti-abortion but I think that there is a large pragmatic group that while they would never seek those services themselves, they don’t care to make that call for others. I think many of those were in favor of “some” restrictions in some nebulous form but watching the dramatic overreach from anti-abortion activists have made them aware that they’ve been played for a larger agenda.
Gvg
I learned a lot of my feminism from my father. He simply treated me as if I could learn anything. As if I mattered.
He always supported my mothers rights and dreams and noticed when the men around him were chauvinist. He pointed a lot of things out to me. I got my views from both of them.
Ishiyama
I agree with Jennifer Camper: Men can make abortion laws when mermaids start making shoes.
Jackie
@SpaceUnit:
There are. BUT some of these anti-choice women who are personally involved with pregnancies gone wrong ie ectopic pregnancies, abrupted placentas, umbilical cord strangulations, and have found theirselves in situations that don’t involve the “usual abortion,” needing one to save their lives, and being denied.
They’re learning the hard way their life is being impacted in ways they never dreamed would effect them.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jackie: well said.
Unexpected pregnancies, birth control failures, and pregnancy complications affect families, which often include men. And boys. Everyone is affected by women having babies against their will, or having complications that need the kind of care that these laws block. Of course men need to be involved. We sure don’t get pregnant by ourselves. We’re in this together. So many of our family relationships are affected, too.
I am so happy to hear of this group. Yay Second Gentleman!
I get pretty angry and worked up on this subject, so I’m grateful for this sliver of warm hope, that speaks to this: Women Matter. What is a part of our body, is ours to choose about.
I keep waiting for some wrongful death suits. Can we sue the Supreme Court for causing death and organ damage and lifelong health issues in the name of this ban on medical care choices?
BTW I work with children, and I can’t help but think about how unwanted children are affected, and children whose parents don’t have much skill or resources, and how they affect our classrooms. There are all sorts of behaviors that are pretty far off the charts, that can derail attention and learning from the rest of the kids. It’s hard work for the paras and teachers, and the support staff that provide services to manage more tricky difficult behaviors.
Gvg
@piratedan: what strikes me is how the legislators leading this are so la la la I can’t hear anything that might make me nuanced or think, that they are interfering in multiple medical matters that even most anti abortion voters never dreamed had anything to do with abortion. Things like normal miscarriages, cancer treatments, drugs that can theoretically cause abortion being denied to men for real medical reasons, AND no real allowances for the life of the mother. Ectopic pregnancies have to be aborted if it’s known. It goes on and on. Frankly most anti abortion supporters do know better than the performing monkeys that are inventing these laws.
I also don’t think most of them want no birth control or restrictions on traveling. Some loud ones do, but not all of them. And now they have actually talked about repealing women’s right to vote? They have gone too far.
SpaceUnit
@piratedan:
Yeah. And the GOP is minimally aware of their mistake.
They’ve seriously screwed themselves.
SpaceUnit
@Jackie:
Learning can be a painful process.
ETA: I had a coach when I was a kid who used to say you can learn with your head or you can learn with your ass.
ShadeTail
Personally, I think side-eyeing a men’s group that takes some ownership over women’s rights is absolutely justified. Not because they necessarily aren’t allies, but because a non-trivial amount of the time they turn out not to be. I trust Mr. Emhoff as he has proven to be reliable on these issues, but I think keeping a close eye on the whole thing is still the responsible approach to take if only because of all the other men who will be involved.
frosty
Not if we lose Maryland.
Ishiyama
@ShadeTail: The internet is a vast place, and I am familiar only with a small corner of it. I know of only one place where the name “ShadeTail” occurs, but it might be pure coincidence. Or else it happened by Grace.
SpaceUnit
@ShadeTail:
Ownership?
ETA: Fuck.
fish bicycle
My kid is afab and trans, and I am apparently the only person in his life who tracks these issues. I am no stranger to incandescent rage, but there is also the fact that I am the noncustodial parent who just opened up a court case seeking decision making power. We are blessedly in a West Coast environment where this is taken seriously.
But he both is trans and has a uterus. As unlikely as a shitgoblin win for 2024 seems right now, I still don’t know what I would or could do to protect him. I am looking at countries with LGBTQI asylum, and they are rare. We are one of them, and that would obviously stop if that happened.
Jackie
@Gloria DryGarden: Thank you!😊 I raised a son and a daughter, and needless to say, my teaching them about being “human” was personalized to each.
Now I have two granddaughters, thankfully in blue states, but also two teenaged grandsons in Florida. I’m terrified for the repercussions they could face by just being normal teenagers living in a state where their abortion laws could impact them for the rest of their lives.
piratedan
@Gvg: I kind of think that if they had “simply” shut down abortion access in certain states, or left the procedure up to the medical professionals in regards to patient safety, there would have been less “outrage”. The non-personing of women, attempts to restrict travel, the proof that if the child kills the mother is a an acceptable consequence and then watching them pivot to going after birth control was one hell of a tell.
speaking as a dude, a person should have the right to determine what goes on with their own body, regardless of gender or identification, period.
I am supportive from a male POV, I can also understand being leery of having some guy come in and attempting to mansplain the movement.
Nature developed the equipment for us to use, made it pleasurable to ensure it got used and gave us brains to figure out a way to reduce the dangers associated with both the equipment and its use.
Jackie
@SpaceUnit: “Learning can be a painful process.”
What the hell does that have to do with women’s reproductive health or the lack of???
Gloria DryGarden
@SpaceUnit: I don’t think it’s men vs women at all. There are some astonishing asshole men who have no clue about our bodies, and some weird evangelicals repeating what they bear in church from their pastors. My best friend is anti choice, and she can’t hear me on this.
this comment is really for everyone here.
I think in general, men care about women, including on this subject. As Jackie said, some of the anti choice women are finding out about situations where the need the care they worked to get banned. (I’d like to read about that happening. Not exactly for schadenfreude, nor to gloat over them for getting their comeuppance, but so I know it’s affecting them, and they see, and get it, that it matters to everyone)
And then there are folks who don’t want others to have a choice, and don’t understand anything about the complications and dire life situations some people face, but they will still get abortions for their wives and mistresses.
They don’t seem to understand what Pete Buttigieg says about late term abortions: they are usually because of very difficult painful situations, non viability and threats to a woman’s health. You knew all that.
I’m still haunted by a story of a woman in Nepal who had a stillbirth while she was out walking her goats, alone, over the pass o market in the next town. They put her in jail for killing her child. There she was, grieving, I assume, and going through all those hormonal changes, and bleeding. And they locked her up. It seems so wrong. Have they started locking up women here when they have a miscarriage or stillbirth, if they were alone and can’t prove they didn’t “have an abortion?”
My pal Pollyanna explains to me that it compromises health care from the first visit. I hadn’t thought of it, but sure, they ask about your last period and your pregnancies, and if you might be tracked and reported, it suddenly becomes dangerous to give your doctor an accurate picture of your health history.
SpaceUnit
@Jackie:
It means that some people are so dense that they have to be personally affected to understand.
fish bicycle
@piratedan: legal abortions are safer than giving birth. Any appeal to safety must acknowledge that central, irreducible, statistical fact.
Which is why the opinions of medical professionals must be disregarded by these religious zealots.
SpaceUnit
@Gloria DryGarden:
I don’t think it’s men vs women either. Framing it as such is in very bad faith.
prostratedragon
Ninth of Beethoven turns 200 years old on May 7, 2024.
Gloria DryGarden
@Gvg: our right to vote?
im starting to think we need an amendment that states that women are persons, with rights and privileges. Personhood for women!!!!
this crap about personhood /rights for embryos bugs me so much
Yutsano
I’m a gay man.
I will never have to worry about abortion.
I fervently believe in a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body.
Why?
Because it’s none of my fucking business what a woman (or a man) do with their body.
Period.
Gloria DryGarden
@fish bicycle: I don’t know what Afab is. Bless your son. May he never be attacked, or raped, or bullied, and etc. may he always be safe, your comment gives me chills and goosebumps.
JFC!
Gloria DryGarden
@fish bicycle: they’re practicing Medicine without a license, if you ask me.
Gloria DryGarden
Martin
@Gloria DryGarden: AFAB = assigned female at birth
Gloria DryGarden
@Jackie:
do you suppose space unit is just saying, ‘they sure are learning the hard way, must be painful’? Like you said:
I just want to hear from them; I want them to come forward w their stories of what happened, how they changed their pov bcs now they see how it hurts people. Assuming that women are people…
Brachiator
@Gloria DryGarden:
No, you probably can’t sue the Court. And in recent arguments in the Court about abortion, some of the conservative justices seemed bored when talking about women whose lives might be endangered by difficult pregnancies.
Democrats need to win big in November in order to protect women’s reproductive rights.
Gloria DryGarden
I follow a guy named frank schaeffer who was, used to be, evangelical, and anti abortion, but now is speaking out as vehemently, strongly pro choice.
(I know it’s poor writing, to use multiple equal descriptors, and repeat myself. On this topic, I get repetitively redundant. Maybe it’s the ‘incandescent rage’.
frank gives me hope; he seems a good ally for this cause. I signed up to get his email letters, which aren’t very frequent. Mostly he exposes the far right zealots trying to derail peoples rights and create theocracy. I recommend.
im interested in people who came from a background that’s anti choice, but who see it differently now, and are pro choice. I want to learn how folks change their position on this.
one of my ideas is to connect to a group of Catholics who are pro choice. And create a coalition, if there isn’t one yet. And work up some literature and talking points that leads to communication w leadership in the Catholic Church. So that the church could change their stance a bit. After all, it’s ok to be catholic and use birth control, and It didn’t use to be ok. My hope is that this more liberal pope could make a statement. Open to positive suggestions and ideas.
(I did want to write to the pope myself, I speak his dialect of Spanish. My friend who lobbies congress for climate change suggested instead to get catholic members involved; it could be a better way to create influence).
I know our problem is the evangelical right, in USA, but it still seems the pope’s influence could be a good thing.
Gloria DryGarden
@Brachiator: they seem bored. Wait until it’s their close family members…
im not allowed to I’ll-wish them. But Jeepers
oh, grrr
Gloria DryGarden
me too
im not worried that it’ll be weird mansplaining or “ownership”. I just hear him advocating, and helping other men to advocate. Because this issue affects men. They want to support us, they want our family choices to be private and not legislated. They don’t want us dying or damaged for stupid reasons.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jackie: thinking about your teenage grandsons in Fla. Do boys ever get the complete talk, about birth control, and fertility that varies, and the failure rates of all the available methods?
It seems if young men knew from the start, that these failures happen, and all the ways to prevent pregnancy, and how long the fertility window might be, and that any activity that offers their dna could possibly result in a future child, and 18 years of financial responsibility and possible coparenting…. It might insert some pause for thought and preparedness. Kind of sobering.
I don’t know how many heterosexual men do this, but a lot of women I know say as soon as even kissing would start, we’d be thinking on the time of month, am I about to ovulate, where are the birth control methods we can use… I have also heard men say they really want to know they’re doing their part, so they insist on using a condom, even when other methods were in play. And I know people who aren’t careful at all..
I still remember telling a gay man, at a party in the 90s, that condoms had a 20% failure rate, did he know? He turned pale.
I used to have all the failure rates memorized, for all the methods. I can’t swear to the 20%.
anyway, I hope they get some useful information. And yes, teenage hormonal urgency is really something else. It makes sense you’re concerned for them.
SpaceUnit
@Gloria DryGarden:
Nice to have you here, Gloria. I understand you’re in Colorado.
There’s a bunch of us here from the Centennial State. Welcome.
Marcopolo
Indiana held their federal election primary today. drumpf did not crack 80% statewide. still alot alot of Haley voters. Of course it was worse for the former guy in the big cities & burbs: pretty sure he didn’t crack 70% in those places. Biden was the only name on the D ballot & got 100%. Will be interested to see if there is any coverage of the results (and if so how it is presented) in the major media tomorrow.
link to results: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-primary-elections/indiana-president-results?amp=1#republican-primary
sab
I am a 70 yo woman. I wanted to have children but didn’t. I don’t know if that was my (possible) lack of fertility or marital issues with first spouse. Whatever. I did have my premarital pregnancy scares.
My current second husband has two biological kids and one adopted kid so he knows much more than I ever will about pregnancy and parenting. So I am shocked by people saying men have no place in abortion discussions. Many of them do love and worry about their pregnant wives and their children.
I don’t think men should dominate the discussion but they do deserve a place at the table.
opiejeanne
@sab: When I was pregnant with my 3rd (and last) child, my doctor became concerned because he discovered that I had a heart murmur. Very concerned. It was Kaiser in SoCal and the heart specialists ran all the tests, and then took nearly a month to analyze the tests, listen to the murmur, and discuss it. By then I was more than 4 months along, trying not to worry but on days when I felt less than great, I did worry.
A friend who lived across the street looked me in the eye and told me to not even consider continuing the pregnancy if it was dangerous, noting that I had two kids and a husband who needed me.
At the end of the research and discussion, the three heart specialists and my doctor met me to discuss it, and their answer was that they just did not know for sure but they thought it was probably a benign condition, since my dad and his mother both had had heart murmurs. They brought along an intern whose wife was in the same boat, for moral support for me, and the doctors were telling them the same thing. I was relieved despite their inability to give me a definitive answer and the pregnancy continued, but with very careful monitoring. She’ll be 42 in December. After she was born the murmur went away.
If they had come to another conclusion, I would have had an abortion at 5 months, not a thing I would wish for. A hard choice, but not one I would deny to anyone else.
Gretchen
@frosty: I don’t know why nobody is talking about Hogan pushing to allow those huge container ships against the advice of safety engineers. That disaster is partly his fault.
karen marie
@Marcopolo: Meanwhile, the rich are buying seats in Congress, then taking a salary to vote in their own interest.
stinger
@Gretchen: I’m sure you didn’t mean it this way, but seeing the phrase “huge container ships” in a thread about pregnant people was startling!
whatsleft
@Gloria DryGarden: Amen sister!
Sincerely,
an Elementary School Teacher who is also certified (and for most of her teaching career taught) as an Exceptional Student Education (ESE) teacher).