17 Comments
Mar 22, 2023·edited Mar 22, 2023

One way that I have challenged these right wing extremists is by asking them what a woman gets for her gestation, labor and delivery that a non-pregnant person doesn't also get. What is the actual value of pregnancy and delivery? The pregnant person doesn't get anything for her work. Society expects a woman to carry the fetus, pay for her own medical, take unpaid leave from her job, risk guaranteed physical damage and possible death, abstain from activities and consumables that might endanger the fetus even when they are normally legal (like smoking, drinking, athletics or taking medications), and absorb the setbacks to career promotions all out of love. Society teaches us that being a mother has no actual value. Her work is not counted in GDP. There are no museums or monuments to motherhood and those who have died bringing life. Businesses often don't want to hire a mom because her dedication to her family might actually come first so they would rather hire a man. What women do is clearly valueless and yet when the right wants to explain what's wrong with society today, they point to that valueless, unpaid work of the mom and how she is choosing to work for actual pay rather than raising future citizens for free and become later unemployable because all she has been is a "housewife". Such a deal. My ethics class taught me that those with the greatest responsibility have the greatest associated rights. What rights do pregnant people have that non-pregnant people don't also have? I hate to sound bitter, but I am bitter. It makes me angry that something I worked hard at in raising my two sons, fine young men, could be so dismissed with a "you can always drop the child off at a safe haven" as though surrendering your hard work was like dropping off used clothing. How dare they?

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From WaPo tonight: Idaho hospital to stop delivering babies, partly due to ‘political climate’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/21/idaho-hospital-baby-delivery-abortion/

"In a news release announcing the decision on Friday, Bonner General Health officials cited a shortage of pediatricians and decreasing number of deliveries. The release also pointed to the “legal and political climate” in a state where trigger laws banned nearly all abortions after the fall of the constitutional right to an abortion.

“Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving,” it said. “Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care.”

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"decreasing number of deliveries."

Well that's a relief that these laws are evidently not only unenforceable but actually makes women not want to have babies, at all. Or at least in these states. Maybe the more women go on birth strike or flee these fascist states, the sooner they'll overturn these ridiculous laws.

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Yes, if only all women were in a position to exercise those rightful prerogatives. And I guess if they were, then none of this could have ever happened in the first place.

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I do not want to live in a Christian theocracy, yet that is seemingly what these anti-abortion zealots view as being an ideal society.

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There is no basis to assert that being anti-abortion is ‘Christian.’ It’s been long-standing Catholic dogma and white evangelicals embraced it as a political strategy in 1978. Catholics for Choice can explain that decisions on choice are not that rigid and Catholics use birth control and have abortions at the same rate as everyone else. And I’m a member of Texas Christians for Reproductive Justice that has demonstrated there’s no biblical basis to oppose abortion, as many Protestant denominations do not.

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I respectfully disagree about the premise of my comment, though perhaps I should clarify that it is primarily an Evangelical/Catholic position (for proof on that, look at the majority on the Supreme Court). Please understand that I meant no disrespect to you or to others who I am glad are on our side.

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I didn’t take offense, Ian. I’m perpetually irritated that the common belief, too often perpetuated by media, is that the opposition to abortion is a long-standing, deeply held belief by all Christians. An interesting refutation of that is an article entitled, “The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal” shared on Patheos. You can find it googling abortion Patheos and Happy Meal, if you’re interested. A more thorough article by Randall Balmer in Politico explores the links between desegregation and abortion and evangelicals that is also worth reading. Apologies if I am sometimes cranky, but it’s a chronic condition brought on by living in Texas post-Dobbs.

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...that’s a lot of perpetuation.

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You're both correct. To your point, the people who are hurting women ARE claiming to be Christian, and then she's saying that they don't understand (or are lying about) their own religion. I've seen the same phenomenon happen with Islam too.

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The problem is the united states constitution (it doesn't deserve capitalization) makes their task much easier for them than their numbers alone would. That said it does seem they think we are at a tipping point, that this is their last chance ever, which would also mean that we are close to winning, that we just need to withstand their last gasps.

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I went to look at the Ohio lawsuit to see why they argue that abortion is different...

So, how do they know abortion is "inherently different'? Well, the Supreme Court said so! Where? Why, in Roe v. Wade and in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. (Paragraph 44 of the lawsuit):

"As developed below, the United States Supreme Court has: (i) recognized that abortion

is “inherently different” than other intimate, personal rights (such as procreation or

contraception), see Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 159 (1973); and (ii) described abortion as a

“unique act”, see Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 851 (1992). Thus, the effort

within the Proposed Constitutional Amendment to include abortion, as well as a right of deciding

whether to continue one’s own pregnancy, with other rights under the rubric of “one’s own

reproductive decisions” does not and cannot relate to a single general object or purpose."

Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The cases they have spent decades saying are completely wrong. The cases that Alito's opinion in Dobbs specifically declared overruled. The cases they celebrated when Dobbs came down, because they are no longer good law.

Except that they *are* good law if you can quote them to throw roadblocks?

Even now, the hypocrisy is stunning...

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Mar 22, 2023·edited Mar 22, 2023

These fanatics don't care one bit whether they are being hypocritical or outlandish in their legal maneuvers. They feel the ends justify the means.

There is no overarching or undergirding principles to them -- not "the rule of law," not "states rights," not "the democratic process," and certainly not stare decisis!

It is all about using any means possible -- including putting ludicrous, oppressive, hostile laws in place like the Texas bounty law -- to subjugate women and girls, and to discriminate against those who don't fit their regressive world view.

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Well said. And that's exactly why there can be no accomodation with them; they can only be defeated.

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The problem is it gets decided by the supreme court of Ohio, and its conservative majority may be radical enough to accept such a ridiculous argument.

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I have seen college freshmen with better citations than most of what pops up in these bills. There is so much misdirection in regards to sources attempting to support their argument.

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And this is a legal filing, not even a bill proposal. This is their argument before the Court to justify their request that the amendment proposal be stopped before they get the signatures to put it to a vote.

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