93 Comments

The KFF podcast "What the Health?" did a show on February 22 on the Alabama Embryo case: "Alabama Court Rules Embryos Are Children. What Now"; link and transcript available at https://kffhealthnews.org/news/podcast/what-the-health-335-alabama-ruling-embryos-children-february-22-2024. I'm holding my breath until this bonehead decision is used to obligate employers and environmental polluters to provide a safe environment for the growth of our newest group of citizens.

Belluck's article on abortion shield laws really shows off another facet of right-wing hypocrisy. They're right in there demanding state's rights and the "laboratory of the states" except, of course, when a state does something that disagrees with them. Much as they are in favor of parents' rights unless a parent wants to provide gender-affirming care to their kid. And in the business realm businesses whose real agenda is never paying any taxes and never being subject to any regulation first say that states should be allowed to set regulations suitable for their own needs. Then they complain about having to comply with a "patchwork" of 50 sets of state regulations. Rinse and repeat.

Expand full comment

Did anyone already mention that, in his statements re: IVF, Tuberville said that children "are our number one COMMODITY."!! children are commodities??!! That says it all.

Expand full comment

MAGA Republicans who voted for LIFE AT INCEPTION are running for cover. Check the 125 Congressional reps an 19 MAGA Senators who voted for it with this map.

https://thedemlabs.org/2024/02/25/map-of-maga-reps-who-voted-to-restrict-ivf-life-at-conception-bill/

Expand full comment

I would love it if we could have the election tomorrow. Trump would lose and he would be gone from our lives. OMG.

Expand full comment

Hearing Trump speak tonight, you can see why he didn't want a congressional solution on the border. He's running hard on xenophobia. What would he do without it? He is a sick human being.

Expand full comment

What came first — the woman or the egg? Biblical answer — the woman.

Expand full comment

Elections Have Consequences: You lose IVF. See what MAGA court packing with Christian extremists leads to. Connect the dots from overturning Roe to now banning IVF with this interactive map.

https://thedemlabs.org/2024/02/24/alabama-supreme-court-embryos-children-bans-ivf-and-abortions/

Expand full comment

Why “3 to 5 days” post fertilization to personhood? Sounds like a loophole for morning after pill. Satan’s ways are tricky, to be sure. 😉

Expand full comment

What ever happened to the First Amendment? There shall be no establishment of religion. Biden should stack the Supreme Court NOW and lawsuits need to be brought that will re-establish our right to not be ruled by religious fanatics. I know. In my dreams...

Expand full comment

I'm totally for court reform. FDR merely threatened this and the SC approved his measures. There is nothing in the Constitution that says out the number of justices. But Biden needs congress... And I think he'd need 60 votes in the senate?

https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/in-op-ed-senator-warren-calls-for-supreme-court-expansion-to-protect-democracy-and-restore-independent-judiciary#:~:text=Article%20III%2C%20Section%201%20of,by%20four%20or%20more%20seats.

Expand full comment

Thanks.

Expand full comment

I completely agree with you. We need something stronger than Roe.

Expand full comment

I'm looking forward to the general election when we can see how unpopular Trump is. And I really believe the majority of Americans don't want him.

Expand full comment

It's going to be really dangerous when a third of the country won't accept their defeat. I'm very worried for the future.

Expand full comment

The true bottom line of the anti-choicers is that their religious/moral outlook is that having recreational sex is plain wrong. And they want to make it impossible for you - eventually. The first step is to have abortions be either illegal or extremely difficult to get. Next up is birth control. They want everyone to live by their warped view of the world.

Expand full comment

If you look at the comments after the story about Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz, you’ll see plenty of outrage against the doctors and hospital and calls to sue them. And you’ll see those arguing that this wasn’t a problem with the law but with malpractice. Fortunately, there was plenty of rebuttal correctly blaming Republicans laws, but the misogynists are clearly having some success in pushing the blame onto doctors. I also noticed that Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz’s mother had been all for the law because she thought it would just affect “women who didn’t want to be pregnant” until her own daughter nearly died.

Expand full comment

Wise doctors would leave the red states.

Expand full comment

Those who can, mostly have.

Expand full comment

Thank you for another amazing rundown. That ProPublica piece on the TN woman who couldn’t get an abortion is downright harrowing. I don’t think I’ve seen a better description of the intersection of anti-abortion legislation, healthcare deserts, poverty, addiction, the criminal justice system, and housing policy. It’s a masterpiece on the way poor women are effed from every angle.

Expand full comment

Exactly. I just finished reading both pieces about Mayron and I am so angry on her behalf.

Expand full comment

What they have done is destroy motherhood. From the day of the Dobbs decision, no child born can be sure that they were wanted because it isn't as though their mother had a choice. That means that no child born in an anti-abortion state can know that their mother was willing. She had no choice so there is no honor involved in her sacrifice. Compelled motherhood. It's hideous and it sullies the concept of a mother's love because even if you swear that you love your child and wanted them, who can really be sure; who can believe you?

And if they take away her right to divorce then they will force women to be liars because the only safe option is to tell someone you don't love that you actually love them in the hope that they treat you better. If you don't love them but can't leave then you would be a fool to tell them the truth. THAT is what they are doing. They are requiring women to lose their personal honor or face abuse or death.

Expand full comment

Your last sentence summarizes one of their main strategies - They don't want us to have any honor, we are property just like the bible says. Such as, in the bible rape is not a crime against the woman, the woman is the property - rape is a crime against man the owner (her father or husband). The rapist must pay the father or husband for devaluing the property, aka the woman.

Regarding the south talking about getting rid of no fault divorce..... they hide behind the false flag/guise of promoting this to save the "sanctity of marriage"....... every evil thing they do is cloaked in some bullshit about the bible,

Expand full comment

True. I watched a video about coverture and how it was never really abolished. That’s what we are up against.

Expand full comment

If some states want to charge people who have abortions and miscarriages with murder, will they also charge people/couples who engage in IVF? I mean, the procedure usually involves inserting multiple embryos in the hopes that one will "take." Not all embryos would survive.

What a nightmare we are living in!

Expand full comment

So now the GOP, AL state legislators, and the senate campaign finance crew care about women and IVF? We all know they don’t but they’re digging themselves in and twisting themselves into knots. Most don’t know what IVF entails like Tommy Gooberville. Even Nikki Haley is confused about her own infertility treatment. I read today that she didn’t have IVF but artificial insemination. So the morons march on.

WOW - the GOP is in panic mode.

Even if the AL state legislators pass a new law to protect IVF, will the AL Christo fascist Supreme Court let it stand? Will it conflict with the 2018 AL state constitutional amendment banning abortion? The mess in AL won’t be sorted out quickly, if at all. So those clinics in AL should stand their ground and halt their work as long as they see fit but this is so sad for the families; they’re now paying a huge emotional, psychological and financial cost.

I also keep thinking about the idiot patient from the adjoining hospital who wandered into the IVF clinic and opened the container of frozen embryos - who was this and why did they open these containers? Are not liable too? Did the 3 couples who filed the lawsuits realize what they were signing up for? Are they part of the forced-birther agenda?

Jessica, I hope you’re on MSNBC and other media soon to explain the AL IVF fiasco and how it ties into the fetal personhood movement, plus the contraception & abortion bans. Now with the GOP seemingly on board to “protect IVF,” most folks think this brouhaha is just an IVF issue. But as you know, and all your readers/subscribers know, it’s just the tip of the abortion banning iceberg. Most people can’t connect the dots.

Expand full comment

It was a woman according to an article I read, I'm guessing a mental patient, or a forced birther, what idiot just pokes around in unfamiliar medical equipment?

Expand full comment

that’s $2000 (or $1800) per frozen “child”

Expand full comment