22 Comments

I testified to the FL Senate Committee today against SB300 (6 week abortion ban) and twice in my testimony I said "pregnancy is too complicated to legislate." I know I didn't change anyone's mind today, but to stare into the eyes of the bill's sponsor and say that felt pretty damn good. Thank you for all your work Jessica!

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Just finished the Traister piece. FANTASTIC.

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There’s an excellent article in Apple News, March 27, 2023; it’s from The Guaurdian, March 21, 2023, Re Leah Torres and her clinic and work in Alabama. Everyone who supports choice should read it.

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If you ask me, where we really screwed ourselves was ever acknowledging there might be anything legitimate about anti-abortion views.

There's nothing normal or acceptable about shoving your nose into your neighbor's business, especially when it's something so deeply personal.

Gonna try to make it up to Topeka Wednesday - the "Abolitionist" clownshow is planning a big demonstration at the capitol, and the Satanic Grotto folks are going up to counter-protest. Hopefully it won't be too cold. My sister said it was 16 last time she went to Planned Parenthood and she left after a couple of hours because she couldn't feel her toes.

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You should bring a protest sign asking these "abolitionists" "where did slaves come from?" I'm pretty sure Black women didn't choose to be breeding livestock during Antebellum slavery. It is beyond enraging that these people are claiming to be abolitionists while forcing Black women back into gestational slavery at the expense of already high maternal and infant mortality.

Also... that's awesome that satanists are coming to protest these Christian extremists.

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“Republican lawmakers say they do not plan to change the abortion law. Instead, they want to streamline adoptions.”

This is the grossest part about anti-abortion chomping at the bit to capitalize off of selling babies.

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I worry about the recent destruction of child labor and the “streamlining” of adoptions- too many dystopian possibilities.

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It's ironic they're making the claim that the abortion rights side is human trafficking

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Although conservatives seem to make a habit of accusing others of what they themselves do. It's either lying or assuming everyone else is as terrible of a person as they are; probably some of both.

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"There's a belief that people will be more open to more and more stringent bans the further away we get from" - this is conservatives' strategy on everything, to just grind and grind away at our social fabric, our freedom, and our ability to pursue happiness in our lives. It's not that 'people will be more open to' their plans for us over time, it's that over time we'll give up resisting as the oppression becomes normal. The intent is if they can't do it all in one swift blow, to slowly choke us to death. Or like boiling a living creature in a pot by slowly increasing the temperature.

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Complacency is inevitable when you spend so many decades playing defense. If Democrats had just made Roe the law of the land when they were in power at any point over the last fifty years, we wouldn't be in this position.

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Yes. I'm afraid we never won the battle. Some time ago 538 ran a piece on abortion that suggested the median American opinion was legal to about 15 weeks. That would be 'legal in most cases' and still eliminate women's bodily autonomy, pose major threats to lives and health, and deprive women of the ability to choose a peaceful end for a nonviable fetus. It would be completely needless and senseless state oppression. And I think it's where Republicans get this 'reasonable' crap they keep spewing.

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Yeah. That "15 weeks is a reasonable compromise" is enraging. So the fanatical rightwing undid Roe, put all of these women's and girl's lives at risk, insulted us, used us, terrified us, pitted neighbors against us -- just to get back to something kinda Roe-like but WORSE because cutting it off at 15 weeks would force pregnancy in the most cruel of circumstances! Before amnio. And what if the mother gets seriously ill? So we are at 15 weeks instead of what -- 22? 24? What for? All so that they can assert control over the issue? What would they really accomplish? It's infuriating. Sorry, my blood boils.

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It's like a bank robber saying, 'Give me HALF the money, that's a reasonable compromise.'

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Imagine the babies they're forcing to be born who will have no quality of life and experience horrible deaths shortly after birth or live as a nonverbal virtual vegetable in a wheelchair their whole lives in the care of the state. Or force kids with genetic diseases like Tay-Sachs to experience excruciating pain until their deaths by the age of five. There was a commenter a while back who had a TFMR who said they're using these babies as martyrs for their cause. It is beyond enraging.

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People are terribly uneducated about late-term abortions. And it doesn't help that some pro-choice camps argue abortion should be on-demand up to birth like women just up and change their minds six or seven months into a pregnancy. Less than 3% of abortions are after fifteen weeks and they're largely for medical complications for wanted pregnancies. Especially for 20 weeks and beyond when they start screening for these things. And even then if a pregnancy threatens a woman's life, if it's at the point of viability, the solution is birth. Abortion is only for nonviable fetuses. Abortion advocates need to do a better job at educating the public so extremists can't weaponize these extreme cases.

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Yes. The "on-demand" thing after viability is not an option unless there is a real crisis. You are right. That has to be communicated better. I saw Budd in NC shoot that back at a reporter and the reporter took it and didn't clarify. Made me mad.

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It's not about it being an option. It's just offensive to suggest that women or doctors would abort a pregnancy that late for "convenience." It's a slap in the face to mothers who've had TFMRs.

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Ted Budd instead of Cheri Beasley still makes me mad.

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Is it just me or when they say common sense they actually mean authoritarian measures based on their belief they know what's best because Colonial patriarchal tribalism unconscious bias? No? Just me or?

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This is how demented their logic is when they think oppression and human rights violations are just "common sense."

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'Common sense' is code for thoughtless and mindless.

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