The failure of RvW has proven that the right to an abortion cannot rest on rights regarding life, liberty and equal protection under the law (for women). RvW ushered in an era of terrorism from the anti-abortionists who claimed they were protecting children from murder. The entire anti-abortionist political front continues to be based on this premise. They say that morally, we have an obligation to unborn children and their right to life, liberty and equal protection.
Until this superstitious hysteria is confronted, exposed and eliminated as a legal argument, the right to abortion will never be safe. Scientific reality and a popular understanding of sexual reproduction and gestation is the only way. We are currently in the biological equivalence of the war between the beliefs of the geocentric versus the proven heliocentric view of the solar system.
It hasn't. The roots of the word associate it with the uterus in ancient Egypt, later becoming "female hysteria". But the word is no longer associated with sex at all and not even a medical condition, but rather an emotional state as in "mass hysteria". The Wikipedia entry for hysteria is really complete and there are also solid definition entries online.
I am so incredibly grateful for this newsletter. It is easy to lose hope which is by authoritarian design, but this space always restores my faith. Pure gratitude
There’s a petition in support of the Texas Medical Board establishing guidelines for physicians. They will face intense pressure from anti-abortion groups to keep them vague, as Jessica regularly reports on. Anyone from Texas can sign at TexasImpact.org.
My daughter is a junior in high school and is barraged with inquiries from colleges. For every college in a red state that she has heard from, she sends back a reply that she would never attend college in a state that doesn't protect women's reproductive rights.
Just an idle thought - one thing that is incredibly valuable about this Substack is the cumulative effect of it, which is something that I think gets a bit lost in the mainstream media since each piece is usually on a specific area of the post-Roe chaos. Leading up to the election, I wish the mainstream media would post more pieces that offer an overview of all that we’re dealing with across the country in the last couple of years. Maybe you’re planning something like this, Jessica? I’d love to see something like this in the NYTimes or WaPo.
Interesting notes on the verbiage. I am an RN and I have heard both “incompatible with life” and “life limiting” used throughout my career. Not sure if that is just being used more outside of medicine?
Regarding the deliberate ambiguous abortion exemption laws in Texas - > the doctors absolutely know that an untreated ectopic pregnancy is death!!
This is second very recent ectopic pregnancy case in Texas in which the woman was denied......... and not one of the doctors advocated for their patient? Not one of them says fuck it my job is to save her life let's wheel her into the ER ?
The doctors are just as responsible for this denial of live saving healthcare. This needs to be a lawsuit against the hospital, the doctors and the state of Texas.
Perhaps an anti-choice woman in Texas will end up with an ectopic pregnancy and be refused healthcare.
I agree. I can’t imagine the culture down there and how it feels to be a doctor (it must be god awful), but surely you can take the risk with a freaking ectopic pregnancy, right???
Agreed! And I don't even consider it a risk to them..... Not a risk! absolutely every nurse, doctor, nurse practitioner, physicians assistant knows that an ectopic pregnancy cannot be saved, you cannot cut it out of the fallopian tube and implant it into the womb. Ectopic pregnancy does not take long to rupture.
I say this over and over again - - if only men gave birth.... NONE of this shit would be happening. If only the Book of Genesis would have loved women - - NONE of this would be happening.
My best friend's daughter is a junior in high school and is starting her college search. For some reason this child has it in her head that she wants to go to an SEC school. These colleges are all in the south where they do not think girls/women are equal humans and their legislative decisions are showing us that. I personally would NEVER send my daughter and my money to a place that does not value her humanity. I have shown my god daughter all of the states besides our home state of CA (which she apparently really wants to get out of) that are not stripping away women's rights. I have also shared my opinion with her mom. I know that she is not my daughter, and this is not my decision. I am having a hard time not being judgy. I feel like my friend does not understand the gravity of the situation for girls/women in these areas of the US. She tells me that her daughter will be okay if she decides to go to a school in the south. But will she? California girl in a racist and sexist state? Ugh! I'm trying really hard to be supportive and keep my big mouth shut. Any suggestions about how I can continue to be supportive and not be judgmental?
It depends. In my mother’s time, and when I was in school, if a girl got pregnant, parents who had money would just take her somewhere to get an abortion and she could go on with her life. The issue is if the student gets a job after school and stays in the South—compared to California it is really affordable. She would make friends and build a life, as one does. It gets dicey after marriage if one goes the conventional route. Most pregnancies are fine. Most miscarriages are early. But what if the girl develops high blood pressure, or preeclampsia. What if she got cancer? Or she gets fertility treatments and ends up with too many embryos implanted risking her health and the entire pregnancy? You can’t get a reduction in those states if your life depends on it. Or what if the fetus has a genetic defect? The list goes on and is impossible to legislate. I wouldn’t want to risk being vulnerable to a stroke or kidney or heart damage or r
And not having the medical care available to intervene. Like I said, these situations don’t happen often. But some happened to me and some happened to women I knew personally. One woman I knew refused cancer treatment when she was pregnant because of her Christian faith. She died leaving two young daughters behind. I would have chosen to be a parent to the daughter who was already born. But in those states, women don’t have that choice.
Have you stressed to her that there is a war on women happening in every Republican state, specifically the south?
Interesting that a California high school gal is considering anything in the SEC, the south is complete opposite of democratic California. I'm in Tennessee. The southern states are still fighting the Civil War legislatively and culturally.
I'm 54 and I don't even want to live here. We have been down here for about 4 years and every day I still have culture shock. Had Roe been overturned PRIOR to our move, no way would we have moved, we would have stayed up in Chicago.
I have shared the "polical climate" information down here to my yankee relatives...... I told them not to send any of their kids down here for college. My sister-in-law was considering Alabama, or as they say down here Bama...... the only reason for the consideration was money, tuition.
It sounds like your friend is letting her daughter make her own life decisions, there is of course a high likelihood between now and then that the daughter will change her mind. If you know the daughter well enough and happen to be over at the house, you could always gently bring up these topics with her, certainly there's a enough prosecution going on down here, you won't run out of terrible situations to tell her about.
When you are an open minded person, such as so many in California are, it is impossible to believe how repressive, and backwards the south, and other forced-birther states are.
Being young and possibly naive, it is a recipe for disaster.
I am in Florida, from Maine, originally, and I still get culture shock when someone here says something horrible, racist, sexist or misogynist, usually all of the above (it has gotten exceedingly worse since the Orange Ape bellowed his encouragement of such behavior).
My friend is prochoice but Hispanic/catholic/Christian upbringing. She stayed home and raised the kids and supported her husband while he traveled for work so... She is not an outspoken advocate like me. She's more of a "put head in sand" type.
Her daughter is smart and checks all the overachieving high school student boxes and could possibly get into several schools of her choice. I've thought about "whatabouting" with her, what about Northwestern, what about U of O, what about Columbia etc.
Her dad is taking her for an SEC school tour at the end of June. She made the itinerary and they are going to several colleges in the course of a week. I'm hoping for some super nasty weather or something to deter her.
And the KKK and the white supremacists are down here. Albeit they are up north too.... but the south is their origin. The neo-nazis marched in Nashville few weekends ago... no they weren't invited, no they didn't have a permit - when they were confronted by people they formed a single military style line and walked to their rented Ryder box truck and got in the back then departed. I think they were doing a litmus test to see if they would get any push back.
OK, forced birthers, tell us again how much you care about babies/children with disabilities. Their response: after birth, crickets. I know because my brother and I were two children with disabilities. I'm now 71 and my brother is 72. Our parents had to beg welfare agencies to cover our medical care. I can give you a list as long as my arm of surgeries, hospitalizations, medications, complications, expensive medical equipment, and on and on that somebody had to pay for, just for me when I was a kid, and those expenses continue *to this day.* Care for children--and adults--with disabilities is *expensive*. I don't hear about any forced birthers or organizations doing a thing to ensure that adults or children with disabilities actually have the medical care (or anything else) we need to actually live. Once we're born, we're disposable. We get tossed under the bus. Hypocrites.
What is the difference between forcing you to keep your legs closed when you don’t want to get pregnant and forcing you to keep your legs open when you don’t want to get pregnant? Seriously, the people who have no ethical problem banning contraception are the same people who have no problem with rape and forced pregnancy.
They are the people who would say a married woman's sexuality rightfully belongs to her husband. They want women to have no choice to have sex before marriage, and no choice not to have sex after. Growing up I was told an unmarried man will leave you and not respect you if you have sex with him. However, a married man will also leave you and not respect you if you fail to have sex with him.
I’ve got twins who are evaluating colleges. I would not want either to live in a state where they would receive substandard medical care, having undergone a high risk pregnancy to have them. It would just be unsafe. So some college brochures go straight to the trash.
Beyond not endangering them, who wants to contribute to the economies of red states when you could send it somewhere decent instead. Drain the brains and the bucks from every shitty red state & let’s launch rescue missions to save people who want to leave. Gilead is coming
About Wisconsin.
The failure of RvW has proven that the right to an abortion cannot rest on rights regarding life, liberty and equal protection under the law (for women). RvW ushered in an era of terrorism from the anti-abortionists who claimed they were protecting children from murder. The entire anti-abortionist political front continues to be based on this premise. They say that morally, we have an obligation to unborn children and their right to life, liberty and equal protection.
Until this superstitious hysteria is confronted, exposed and eliminated as a legal argument, the right to abortion will never be safe. Scientific reality and a popular understanding of sexual reproduction and gestation is the only way. We are currently in the biological equivalence of the war between the beliefs of the geocentric versus the proven heliocentric view of the solar system.
"And yet it moves"
It’s not hysteria, it’s testeria. The former is no longer a word, it has been replaced with more accurate term.
It hasn't. The roots of the word associate it with the uterus in ancient Egypt, later becoming "female hysteria". But the word is no longer associated with sex at all and not even a medical condition, but rather an emotional state as in "mass hysteria". The Wikipedia entry for hysteria is really complete and there are also solid definition entries online.
I am so incredibly grateful for this newsletter. It is easy to lose hope which is by authoritarian design, but this space always restores my faith. Pure gratitude
There’s a petition in support of the Texas Medical Board establishing guidelines for physicians. They will face intense pressure from anti-abortion groups to keep them vague, as Jessica regularly reports on. Anyone from Texas can sign at TexasImpact.org.
My daughter is a junior in high school and is barraged with inquiries from colleges. For every college in a red state that she has heard from, she sends back a reply that she would never attend college in a state that doesn't protect women's reproductive rights.
Just an idle thought - one thing that is incredibly valuable about this Substack is the cumulative effect of it, which is something that I think gets a bit lost in the mainstream media since each piece is usually on a specific area of the post-Roe chaos. Leading up to the election, I wish the mainstream media would post more pieces that offer an overview of all that we’re dealing with across the country in the last couple of years. Maybe you’re planning something like this, Jessica? I’d love to see something like this in the NYTimes or WaPo.
That’s a great idea! Very important perspective. 👏👏👏
Interesting notes on the verbiage. I am an RN and I have heard both “incompatible with life” and “life limiting” used throughout my career. Not sure if that is just being used more outside of medicine?
Are you at a Catholic hospital? What does “life-limiting” refer to, in medical terms?
Regarding the deliberate ambiguous abortion exemption laws in Texas - > the doctors absolutely know that an untreated ectopic pregnancy is death!!
This is second very recent ectopic pregnancy case in Texas in which the woman was denied......... and not one of the doctors advocated for their patient? Not one of them says fuck it my job is to save her life let's wheel her into the ER ?
The doctors are just as responsible for this denial of live saving healthcare. This needs to be a lawsuit against the hospital, the doctors and the state of Texas.
Perhaps an anti-choice woman in Texas will end up with an ectopic pregnancy and be refused healthcare.
I can’t wait for some pro birth fuckwit to face such consequences!
I agree. I can’t imagine the culture down there and how it feels to be a doctor (it must be god awful), but surely you can take the risk with a freaking ectopic pregnancy, right???
Agreed! And I don't even consider it a risk to them..... Not a risk! absolutely every nurse, doctor, nurse practitioner, physicians assistant knows that an ectopic pregnancy cannot be saved, you cannot cut it out of the fallopian tube and implant it into the womb. Ectopic pregnancy does not take long to rupture.
I say this over and over again - - if only men gave birth.... NONE of this shit would be happening. If only the Book of Genesis would have loved women - - NONE of this would be happening.
My best friend's daughter is a junior in high school and is starting her college search. For some reason this child has it in her head that she wants to go to an SEC school. These colleges are all in the south where they do not think girls/women are equal humans and their legislative decisions are showing us that. I personally would NEVER send my daughter and my money to a place that does not value her humanity. I have shown my god daughter all of the states besides our home state of CA (which she apparently really wants to get out of) that are not stripping away women's rights. I have also shared my opinion with her mom. I know that she is not my daughter, and this is not my decision. I am having a hard time not being judgy. I feel like my friend does not understand the gravity of the situation for girls/women in these areas of the US. She tells me that her daughter will be okay if she decides to go to a school in the south. But will she? California girl in a racist and sexist state? Ugh! I'm trying really hard to be supportive and keep my big mouth shut. Any suggestions about how I can continue to be supportive and not be judgmental?
Just make sure to set some cash aside for when she becomes pregnant by a football player during sorority rush.
It depends. In my mother’s time, and when I was in school, if a girl got pregnant, parents who had money would just take her somewhere to get an abortion and she could go on with her life. The issue is if the student gets a job after school and stays in the South—compared to California it is really affordable. She would make friends and build a life, as one does. It gets dicey after marriage if one goes the conventional route. Most pregnancies are fine. Most miscarriages are early. But what if the girl develops high blood pressure, or preeclampsia. What if she got cancer? Or she gets fertility treatments and ends up with too many embryos implanted risking her health and the entire pregnancy? You can’t get a reduction in those states if your life depends on it. Or what if the fetus has a genetic defect? The list goes on and is impossible to legislate. I wouldn’t want to risk being vulnerable to a stroke or kidney or heart damage or r
And not having the medical care available to intervene. Like I said, these situations don’t happen often. But some happened to me and some happened to women I knew personally. One woman I knew refused cancer treatment when she was pregnant because of her Christian faith. She died leaving two young daughters behind. I would have chosen to be a parent to the daughter who was already born. But in those states, women don’t have that choice.
Is your friend (the mother) pro-choice?
Is she even a little bit of a feminist?
Have you stressed to her that there is a war on women happening in every Republican state, specifically the south?
Interesting that a California high school gal is considering anything in the SEC, the south is complete opposite of democratic California. I'm in Tennessee. The southern states are still fighting the Civil War legislatively and culturally.
I'm 54 and I don't even want to live here. We have been down here for about 4 years and every day I still have culture shock. Had Roe been overturned PRIOR to our move, no way would we have moved, we would have stayed up in Chicago.
I have shared the "polical climate" information down here to my yankee relatives...... I told them not to send any of their kids down here for college. My sister-in-law was considering Alabama, or as they say down here Bama...... the only reason for the consideration was money, tuition.
It sounds like your friend is letting her daughter make her own life decisions, there is of course a high likelihood between now and then that the daughter will change her mind. If you know the daughter well enough and happen to be over at the house, you could always gently bring up these topics with her, certainly there's a enough prosecution going on down here, you won't run out of terrible situations to tell her about.
When you are an open minded person, such as so many in California are, it is impossible to believe how repressive, and backwards the south, and other forced-birther states are.
Being young and possibly naive, it is a recipe for disaster.
Indeed....... just like that one time when I thought women were liberated and that I was really free. 🤣
*sigh* Me too!
Facts!
I am in Florida, from Maine, originally, and I still get culture shock when someone here says something horrible, racist, sexist or misogynist, usually all of the above (it has gotten exceedingly worse since the Orange Ape bellowed his encouragement of such behavior).
My friend is prochoice but Hispanic/catholic/Christian upbringing. She stayed home and raised the kids and supported her husband while he traveled for work so... She is not an outspoken advocate like me. She's more of a "put head in sand" type.
Her daughter is smart and checks all the overachieving high school student boxes and could possibly get into several schools of her choice. I've thought about "whatabouting" with her, what about Northwestern, what about U of O, what about Columbia etc.
Her dad is taking her for an SEC school tour at the end of June. She made the itinerary and they are going to several colleges in the course of a week. I'm hoping for some super nasty weather or something to deter her.
Thank you for engaging on this with me.
And the KKK and the white supremacists are down here. Albeit they are up north too.... but the south is their origin. The neo-nazis marched in Nashville few weekends ago... no they weren't invited, no they didn't have a permit - when they were confronted by people they formed a single military style line and walked to their rented Ryder box truck and got in the back then departed. I think they were doing a litmus test to see if they would get any push back.
Scary!
They will see lots of Confederate flags and Trump signs, maybe that will dissuade them.
The giant flying flags on the backs of their big giant trucks. 👎🏼
Just like a "Vanilla Isis!" There is a meme of the two groups side by side. The other guys have neater beards.
OK, forced birthers, tell us again how much you care about babies/children with disabilities. Their response: after birth, crickets. I know because my brother and I were two children with disabilities. I'm now 71 and my brother is 72. Our parents had to beg welfare agencies to cover our medical care. I can give you a list as long as my arm of surgeries, hospitalizations, medications, complications, expensive medical equipment, and on and on that somebody had to pay for, just for me when I was a kid, and those expenses continue *to this day.* Care for children--and adults--with disabilities is *expensive*. I don't hear about any forced birthers or organizations doing a thing to ensure that adults or children with disabilities actually have the medical care (or anything else) we need to actually live. Once we're born, we're disposable. We get tossed under the bus. Hypocrites.
What is the difference between forcing you to keep your legs closed when you don’t want to get pregnant and forcing you to keep your legs open when you don’t want to get pregnant? Seriously, the people who have no ethical problem banning contraception are the same people who have no problem with rape and forced pregnancy.
They are the people who would say a married woman's sexuality rightfully belongs to her husband. They want women to have no choice to have sex before marriage, and no choice not to have sex after. Growing up I was told an unmarried man will leave you and not respect you if you have sex with him. However, a married man will also leave you and not respect you if you fail to have sex with him.
https://x.com/azsenatedems/status/1768421797119303802?s=61&t=hTKl0FqlI9L9CbIYlAQSYw. Once again Republicans block a vote on the Right to Contraception Act!
I’ve got twins who are evaluating colleges. I would not want either to live in a state where they would receive substandard medical care, having undergone a high risk pregnancy to have them. It would just be unsafe. So some college brochures go straight to the trash.
Beyond not endangering them, who wants to contribute to the economies of red states when you could send it somewhere decent instead. Drain the brains and the bucks from every shitty red state & let’s launch rescue missions to save people who want to leave. Gilead is coming
Anti-abortion laws are a symptom of a pervasively misogynistic culture. Absolutely do not encourage young women you love to go to those states.