I've seen enough: in a major victory for the pro-choice side, Ohio Issue 1 (a measure to raise the threshold to pass a state constitutional amendment to 60%) fails.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) August 8, 2023
Good guys win
Open thread
by David Anderson| 204 Comments
This post is in: 2024 Elections, The War On Women, Women's Rights Are Human Rights
I've seen enough: in a major victory for the pro-choice side, Ohio Issue 1 (a measure to raise the threshold to pass a state constitutional amendment to 60%) fails.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) August 8, 2023
Good guys win
Open thread
This post is in: Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, The War On Women, Women's Rights
When red states rolled back women’s healthcare rights after the Dobbs decision, blue state lawmakers and clinicians stepped up to help patients whose reproductive choices were usurped by religious fanatics. New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Vermont and Colorado passed shield laws to protect resident medical professionals from being prosecuted by red states for prescribing abortion pills for Gilead state patients.
But the medical professionals in shield law states have to mail the pills to their red state patients themselves, at least for now. WaPo has a story featuring one Hudson Valley doc who spends her free time in the basement of her home, packaging abortion pill doses to mail to red state patients.
Gift link here; excerpts below:
A new procedure adopted in mid-June by one of the largest abortion pill suppliers, Europe-based Aid Access, now allows U.S. medical professionals in certain Democrat-led states that have passed abortion “shield” laws to prescribe and mail pills directly to patients in antiabortion states.
The result is a new pipeline of legally prescribed abortion pills flowing into states with abortion bans. In less than a month, seven U.S.-based providers affiliated with Aid Access — including the Hudson Valley doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was concerned for her safety — have mailed 3,500 doses of abortion pills to people in antiabortion states, according to Aid Access, putting just this small group alone on track to help facilitate at least 42,000 abortions in restricted states over the next year. If more doctors and nurses sign up, as current providers hope they will, the numbers could climb far higher.
“Everything I’m doing is completely legal,” the Hudson Valley doctor said, her family’s ping-pong table covered with abortion pills bound for the South and Midwest, where abortion has been largely illegal since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
“Texas might say I’m breaking their laws, but I don’t live in Texas.”
Lawyers quoted in the article say it’s a legal gray area. As long as clinicians don’t travel to states that have criminalized reproductive healthcare, they’re probably safe. One lawyer who’s quoted, Julie F. Kay, legal director of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine Access, said that traditional extradition laws don’t make sense in this scenario:
“One state can extradite if a person commits the crime in the state, then flees,” Kay said. “But no one is fleeing here. You are just sitting in your office in New York.”
Anti-choice fanatics will probably stage sting operations and dox providers so violent goons can intimidate them soon enough. That’s what they do. But for now, medical professionals find themselves dealing with the logistics issues an Etsy storekeeper might confront:
“We’re medical providers suddenly thrown into this world of shipping,” said Lauren Jacobson, a nurse practitioner who operates out of Massachusetts. “Do we write labels by hand? What if we mess up an address? How on earth do we ship 50 packages a day?”
Jacobson concedes that this system is far from perfect. While medication abortion is overwhelmingly safe and effective, she said, on rare occasions her patients in restricted states require in-person care — and they fear the legal risk that could come with a trip to the hospital. In those cases, she said she will try to help them navigate their state’s health care system safely, searching online for a trustworthy provider and advising them on what to say. Sometimes, she said, she’ll go on LinkedIn and scope out the local OB/GYNs, searching for someone who has posted something that supports abortion rights.
“This isn’t normal health care,” she said. “We don’t want to have to do this.”
She’s right — it isn’t normal, and they shouldn’t have to do this. But thanks to the fanatics on the Supreme Court and their co-religionists fellow fanatics in red states (Catholic and protestant), this is the world we’re living in now.
A shield law is expected to pass in California this fall, which will allow a mail-order pharmacy there to handle shipping for the clinicians who are currently running to the post office. The Hudson Valley doc is okay with the current arrangement in the meantime:
For now, she said, she doesn’t mind staying up until 1 a.m. to finish the packing.
“It feels like I’m giving a big middle finger to that part of the country that has done this,” she said.
I like your style, Dr. Hero. Rock on!
by Betty Cracker| 144 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, The War On Women
Rep. Nancy Mace seems to grasp how dangerous her party’s stance on reproductive rights is to its general electoral prospects. From Politico:
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) had sharp words for her party on Thursday about its latest divisive move on abortion access – only to wind up voting yes in the end.
“We should not be taking this fucking vote, man. Fuck,” a visibly frustrated Mace was overheard venting to her staff in an elevator, apparently referring to Thursday’s vote to reverse Biden administration policy on reimbursing travel costs for service members seeking abortions. “It’s an asshole move, an asshole amendment.”
But Mace wound up backing it anyway – as clear an indication you can get of the pressure Republicans face to support restrictions on abortion access. That’s not to mention her status as one of her party’s most unpredictable members.
Of course she voted for it anyway, then complained to a Politico staffer about the optics.
“What are we going to do for women?” she asked, pointing to a string of issues that she sees the House GOP majority as ignoring, from rape test backlogs to the foster care system to child care costs. “We have touched none of that this year. That’s my frustration.”
Welp, that’s what happens when your party spends 40-plus years catering to fanatics. Repubs got themselves into the same jam by kowtowing to Trump after it became clear he was a toxic loser. If Trump drops dead of excessive Big Macs on a golf course this afternoon, the anti-choice loons will still be a millstone around Repubs’ necks.
Speaking of fanatics (and people who hope Trump drops dead soon), Ron DeSantis is betting that he can revive his flailing campaign by consolidating Iowa evangelicals behind his candidacy, according to TPM:
While DeSantis may not have a personality, he is not plagued by the same breed of personality problems as Trump, which include his various alleged sexual assaults and sacrilege. Plus — while Trump may have paved the way for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, DeSantis capitalized on that anti-abortion momentum to pass a six-week abortion ban in his state (a move that, so far, he rarely touts outside of certain circles).
Like all the Republican 2024ers besides Trump, DeSantis has been spending a considerable amount of time in Iowa this month. Tomorrow he plans to address The Family Leader, a large Christian organization that is made up of pastors who lean uber-conservative. The CEO of the group, Bob Vander Plaats, has faith in DeSantis’ appeal to the group, telling Politico that “America wants to turn the page” and “if you’re looking for an alternative to Trump, I think Gov. DeSantis is the frontrunner right now.”
Trump leads the field by double digits and is skipping the preacher confab. Tucker Carlson will be interviewing candidates, including DeSantis, presumably airing it on his shitty Twitter account that only fanatics watch. It’s assholes, all the way down. What could possibly go wrong?
Open thread.
This post is in: Activist Judges!, C.R.E.A.M., Gay Rights Are human Rights, LGBTQ Rights, Open Threads, Racial Justice, The War On Women, Women's Rights
It’s time to break this rogue court.
With apologies to the lawyers in the Jackaltariat, there’s nothing left to save in the current court. Its majority, in place barring radical legislative change I don’t see coming anytime soon, is a corrupt, wholly owned, claque of elite religious fanatics. Or perhaps, more accurately, a coalition of lease-to-own hacks and true believers.
Its decisions are a parody of judicial reasoning. They constitute a radical power grab–a judicial coup–which has been running in a slow rolling way since at least 2000 with Bush v. Gore.
Whether by enlargement or an express legislative limitation of the court’s review powers, it’s time to end this antidemocratic attack on our society.
I’m just fucking done. Past done.
And yeah–I know nothing can happen until/unless we retake the House and extend control of the Senate beyond the Manchinema roadblock.
One more thing: this could have been avoided if not that many people had chosen not to piss away votes on “principle” in 2000 and 2016. Spilt milk and all that. But if anyone needed a reminder (no one here) 2024 is the next most important election of our lives.
Open goddamn thread.
PS: Don’t get me started on the willed scientific illiteracy of the majority, contaminating their rulings on anything involving technical issues and regulation. Intercourse them orthogonally with oxidized farm implements.
Image: after William Hogarth, The Bench, engraving by William Dent, roughly 1790s.
by Betty Cracker| 222 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, The War On Women, Women's Rights Are Human Rights
Apart from the important fact that it’s no one else’s damn business whether a woman decides to carry a pregnancy to term or not, banning abortion is an outrageous intrusion into the medical community’s ability to deliver healthcare. That’s because giving birth is a messy, complicated business, and a lot can go wrong.
The miscarriage rate is somewhere in the range of 10% to 20%, and the vast majority of miscarriages — about 80% — happen before the 12-week mark. But elected and appointed religious fanatics with no medical qualifications are inserting themselves into complex, personal, often fraught healthcare decisions anyway, and unsurprisingly, it isn’t going well: (WaPo gift link)
Sweeping restrictions and even outright abortion bans adopted by states in the year since the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling have had an overwhelmingly negative effect on maternal health care, according to a survey of OBGYNs released Wednesday that provides one of the clearest views yet of how the U.S. Supreme Court decision has affected women’s health care in the United States.
The poll by the health research nonprofit KFF reveals that the Dobbs ruling — which ended federal protection on the right to abortion — affected maternal mortality and how pregnancy-related medical emergencies are managed, precipitated a rise in requests for sterilization and has done much more than restrict abortion access. Many OBGYNs said it has also made their jobs more difficult and legally perilous than before, while leading to worse outcomes for patients.
Almost 70% of surveyed OBGYNs say it’s harder for them to manage emergencies related to pregnancy post-Dobbs. Fully 70% said the ruling is making the shameful racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health outcomes worse. Nearly two-thirds of respondents say the decision is making pregnancy-related mortality rates rise, and 55% report that Dobbs makes it harder to attract doctors to the OBGYN field.
To sum up, by hefty margins, surveyed OBGYNs say the Dobbs decision is a disaster for women’s healthcare. This was predictable before the ruling, and here’s another prediction that also requires no special insight: The fanatics who are imposing restrictions won’t give a damn about these results and will ignore future data that confirms the doctors’ concerns.
Why? Because they don’t give a damn about women. But post-Dobbs election results indicate lots of voters do. I sure hope that continues because otherwise, we’ll keep going backwards.
Open thread.
The Dobbs decision is a disaster for women’s healthcarePost + Comments (222)
This post is in: Open Threads, The War On Women
These days, it seems like even the trusted people I follow disagree sometimes.
Is the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit simply a matter of he said, she said? Some say yes, some say no. I prefer the take from one of the podcasts I listened to last night: He said, she said (times 5) – with the 5 “she saids” being E. Jean Carroll, the two friends she told, the two other women who will be testifying that he raped them, the Access Hollywood grab ’em by the pussy tape, and (oops) I forget who the other one was. Maybe it was Trump saying Carroll wasn’t his type, and then mistakenly identifying Carroll as his ex-wife, Marla Maples, who was exactly his type. hmm, that comes to more than 5. 🤷♀️
In case you want to read about how the trial is going, here’s an article with a lot of detail.
My takeaways? Apparently Trump and his attorneys believe it’s not rape if you didn’t scream. It’s also not rape if you were flirting before the assault started. It’s also not rape if you enter a room before the assault starts. I am enraged by the whole thing, and if the jury doesn’t find for Carroll there’s a good chance that I will spontaneously combust.
Part of my rage comes from thinking about Christine Blasey Ford and everything that was corrupt about those Supreme Court hearings for the rapey Judge.
I am so tired of brave women being sacrificed at the altar of power and corruption. All the corruption is infuriating. It’s probably not too strong to say rage-inducing.
Open thread.
This post is in: The State of Being Trans in America, The War On Women, Women's Rights, Women's Rights Are Human Rights
I’ve been quiet because I have wanted to write up a post to address how trans rights and women’s rights are the same thing, but I was really upset by what happened last week. This included a lot of misgendering, personal attacks, misrepresentation, and even mockery about me being assaulted. I told Cole that if Balloon-Juice allows that to continue, I would no longer post here. So everyone, cool your jets.
ALL trans people need women’s rights. Period. because trans women are women, and AFAB (assigned female at birth) nonbinary folks, and trans men need access to women’s medical care: pap smears, birth control, abortion, mammograms, sexual abuse counseling, safe non-sexist workplaces, schools, and public places. My uterus doesn’t care that I’m nonbinary, and as a nonbinary person, I have to deal with all the misogyny that regular women deal with as well as an extra dose of transphobia.
When trans people get their rights, cis women also get their rights because it is a matter of respect for bodily autonomy.
When cis women get their rights, trans people do not necessarily get their rights. And many cis women view trans people as a threat to women’s rights.
It’s the perfect wedge issue. And some of the worst vitriol is coming from women who use slogans like “protect girls” to strip trans people of their rights. Cis women have had to endure so much sexism, and should be our natural allies, but when someone feels like they don’t have political power, it’s much easier for fear and violence to flow across or downward. This is a tale as old as time.
Trans people experience sexism from cis men and cis women. Period. If Anne Laurie or Water Girl posted about how a man they know publicly goes around talking about how liberal he is, but then trashes women and behaves in a sexist manner behind closed doors, it would be egregious to attack them with “not all men.” The trans people who post and comment on this site have experienced tremendous discrimination, and are experiencing tremendous discrimination. Trans adults are being forcibly detransitioned in Missouri, the Don’t Say Gay Laws have been expanded to 12th grade in Florida, and today, TODAY, House Republicans passed a bill to ban trans athletes from women’s sports.
As for why I do not use the word TERF. Well, it’s because I’m trans. and when the word TERF comes out of my mouth, people stop listening. I intend to get into this further in a future post, but many people see TERF as a slur, and both transphobia and transmisogyny are far more subtle and nuanced than you think they are, so no, I don’t call all women who say transphobic things (intentionally or not) TERFs because it ends the discussion. And I need cis women who feel uncomfortable about trans people to stay in the discussion.
Furthermore, there are numerous forms of feminism. Reactionary feminism is a specific brand of anti-progress ideology that wants to bring back gender roles and only recognizes “biological women” as women. A two-second google search will show you some troubling manifestos, including an article by Naomi Wolf who considers herself, Michelle Bachman, and Sarah Palin reactionary feminists — is that who you want to align yourself with?
It is okay to not know everything, and it’s okay to ask questions. But words have meaning, and if your words have been co-opted to mean something discriminatory, then fight to get those words back! But fight the people who took the words from you, don’t fight the people who are being discriminated against by those words!
Trans rights are Women’s Rights. Women’s Rights are Human Rights. Trans Rights are Human Rights.
I don’t have a garden, so here is some art I made while I was angry this week.