What is particularly disturbing to me is that we have to return to the same 9 people who denied women their equality with Dobbs and ask again "are you sure you meant slavery" for women.
trump was bad for Republicans and at every stage when they realized this, they dug in and propped him up and more they propped him up, it became necessary to prop themselves up and majority Republicans or conservatives in politics these days everywhere including SCOTUS have become a corrupt/criminal enterprise.
What happened in the last couple of hours at the SCOTUS, and yesterday , and other days... really scary times that these institutions have been "infected." trump and his billionaire supporters have taken this country on a path any regular citizens will fear to tread. Did SCOTUS really have to take this immunity case (or any of the abortion related cases or overturn R v. W)? Yes, they did have to but in a corrupt America trending towards authoritarianism. There is no intellectual curiosity about questions that are patently known to harm the country. Don't ask questions that you don't want the answers to and this immunity debate is one such. For 200+ years the country did fine with its presidents and now a corrupt motherfucker comes on the scene and wants to litigate what is right because he wants protection for what he did wrong and these corrupt motherfuckers at SCOTUS want to play along?
I don't get it. No matter how conservative a Supreme Court justice is - how can they not say that "appropriate medical treatment for emergency conditions is required"? I don't care if it's an abortion, an amputation, an emergency hysterectomy (Is that a thing?) - if someone needs a procedure to keep from dying, they get it. How can even conservatives deny that?
In the context of this tweet below, I naively believed before this current nightmare and perhaps before 2008 Dem party debacle, that America was on a path someday similar to New Zealand where they elected a young female head of state who actually gave birth to a baby while in office. Granted that NZ is the size of a state in America and the analogy maybe better suited for electing female governors here. But still, I was dreaming...
Dahlia Lithwick & Mark Joseph Stern over at Slate pointed out that Idaho's lawyer Joshua Turner repeatedly interrupted Amy Coney Barrett and was condescending and dismissive toward her. This really illustrates just how contemptuous of women these conservative men are. He's probably taking her support for granted, and sadly he's probably right, but the fact that he didn't feel the need to treat her with respect is telling. You'd think conservative women would get tired of this shit. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/04/idaho-abortion-ban-supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett.html
Dobbs' unintended consequence has been to peel off the professed motivations of the anti-abortion project to expose internal contradictions to uncover deeper motivations.
"We care so much about the sanctity of your adorable, sweet, baby fetal tissue's life that we would rather see both of you die if necessary than that you should live."
Why? Perhaps because Original Sin does not attach before birth, so the collection of cells is innocent while the mother's body who will bring the tissue to viability is wholly sinful. Or, maybe the theory is that "how dare she presume to destroy the father's property?" Or it could be the submit or die, unconditional surrender style of warfare applied to the reproductive sphere? Asymmetrically. Like everything else about reproduction.
Like most Boomers, I found Roe a comfortable escape from possible responsibility should ever I have needed to escape my part of the burden of childbearing. But queasiness about line drawing led me to the classic, weak-kneed "available, safe and rare" position. Pre-viability didn't seem to be a problem, but the second trimester seemed more fraught, even than the third. I didn't really think that after six months of carrying a pregnancy a woman was very likely to have a change of heart and decide to terminate "just because." But just when she started to show? That bothered me for reasons I never understood until late in life.
Part of it was coming to understand just how varied human motivation can be. But a big part was coming to see that "the life of the mother" is simply a single aspect of "the health of the mother." And it gradually became obvious that health in a woman is greatly affected by the reproductive system. So, as understanding grew, easy boundaries dissolved. Where can lines be drawn to fit near universally? They can't. Understanding more led me to get over my uneasiness. This led inevitably to ask why it took so long to understand.
That inquiry became painful quickly. In the run-up to Y2K, my boss asked me what I thought the most important event of the 20th century was. He was gobsmacked when I told him oral contraception. I was enlightened. I even had women bosses.
And yet.
It turns out that my idea of being gentlemanly is better described as patronizing on the receiving end. I grew up in the rabidly sexist culture of the fifties and sixties and only fooled myself into thinking that didn't color everything that I thought about women and how I engaged with them. And in thinking about it, when you disregard upper body strength and the other dimorphisms, women can be very formidable people. Scary even. Not people you'd want to compete against on an equal basis if it can be avoided. Realizing that was bad enough. So, to restore my faith in men, I watch Oppenheimer leading the Intergalactic Physics Allstars (while duly noting that the contributions of the human calculators, women, who made the schedule possible). Then, for a contrast in seriousness, or so I thought, I saw Barbie.
Big mistake. Underneath all the bluff and bluster, I'm a damned Ken. Barbie had to become eligible for Medicare before I finally began to get the point. Not encouraging for the thought of a rapid enlightenment of the rest of the patriarchy.
And. Mental health isn't something different from health. It's all one system. Mental health isn't even just brain health. Calling something behavioral is nothing more than casting blame.
Arizona Rep. Alexander Kolodin says, “We’re willing to kill infants in order to win an election.”
Alexander - - cite your source!!! Liar.
the correct statement is "we're willing to kill pregnant women by denying them care, because women arent real people and because we have an embryo tissue fetish"
I am loathe to even suggest something so extreme, but perhaps we need to use patriarchal arguments to fight off the patriarchy.
We have women filing lawsuits because of how restrictive abortion laws have affected their health, plans for future pregnancies, and life plans. What about if men, partners of women denied care, sued for loss of fatherhood (in the case of impaired fertility), wrongful death, negligence and costs for medical care due to denial of abortion?
If lawmakers are intent of treating women as less than full human, with rights to self determination, maybe the harm to menfolks' "property" would help to put on the brakes.
I think this substack is a bellwether. I read the NYT and Wapo every day and there is definitely starting to be a shift in the coverage. It’s not enough and definitely needs to pick up steam. That’s why we need to be relentless in spreading the word.
I advise a feminism club and one of the students in my classes asked to come to club today because he had some questions. This kid is awesome and respectful and his questions were genuine. His question had to do with political influence, lobbyists and the like. He asked if abortion rights groups had the kind of power that businesses have. So we talked about the grassroots organizing that’s happening.
We are only on the losing side because the majority of people still don’t actually know what’s really happening. That’s what needs to change. The current stance of republicans and so called prolife groups is extreme compared to the actual stances of most Americans as Jessica has pointed out over and over. Getting the message out is our best defense.
The problem with WaPo who I always preferred as my source of information, is that Bezos hired a terrible executive editor (who was hand picked by the far-right Publisher at the time) either she is so worried about being called biased, or she is clueless, but she hired more right-wing opinionists, and many sympathetic articles about the forced-birthers, and they were already overrepresented. Then they just hired a Murdoch man, Will Lewis, as the new publisher who was involved in the phone hacking scandal.
"NPR reported late last year that Lewis orchestrated a “massive cover-up of criminal activity” when he was leading the MSC. Citing court documents, journalist David Folkenflik reported how Lewis himself stands accused of authorizing the deletion of millions of emails. Lewis has previously denied the allegations when they surfaced when he was in the running for the top job at the BBC.
For those who have closely observed the fallout from the phone hacking scandal, there is a deeper and somewhat more problematic danger lurking for the Washington Post.
“What should trouble those who are concerned about the editorial freedom of the Post and whether their sources are safe is that Mr. Lewis’ old bosses at News Corp know the truth about what happened and therefore now have a hold over the publisher of one of their rivals,” says Evan Harris, a former member of parliament who is working for the claimants team in the civil litigation. “I don’t know what Bezos was thinking.”
I looked up to them under Ben Bradlee, they had the courage to publish the "Pentagon Papers" when the NYT didn't. The new editor would never publish them because the owner wouldn't like it, and it makes her 'team' look like the war mongering assholes that they are.
Yeah the WaPo coverage yesterday was predictably lame and quoted Idaho/Turner way too much. I always feel sad when I read hands-off pieces about abortion written by women journos. I wonder if they get it or if they their hands tied (I think it’s the later). The basic takeaway I got from coverage was we and American women are going to lose this case because the votes just aren’t there. And people should be mad as hell about that.
The women columnists at WaPo & NYT do cover this issue better than the news reporters, and I also suspect the reporters are being heavily edited and policed. One of WaPo's best columnists for pointing out the absolute absurdity of the misogynists is satirist Alexandra Petri https://wapo.st/4bdsY7J
Yes, Petri and former republican Jennifer Rubin. She totally gets it, and was the first author I ever read that used the accurate term "Forced Birthers."
The thing that disturbs me, as a retired medical person is they uncritically repeat the forced birther lies, and propaganda, without a proper deisclaimer. Which no reputable paper should ever do.
For a really thorough explainer of EMTALA check the April 13 episode of the Amicus Podcast. Dahlia Lithwick interviews an ER doc who explains what the law means and how it will affect pregnant people and doctors if SCOTUS rules in favor of Idaho.
The Supreme Court heard arguments over JUST HOW SICK A WOMAN NEEDS TO BE before she can receive a life-saving abortion?????
Why aren’t we asking, “Just how limp does your dick need to be before we give you a Viagra?”
What is particularly disturbing to me is that we have to return to the same 9 people who denied women their equality with Dobbs and ask again "are you sure you meant slavery" for women.
same 6 people, yes and if trump wins, it could become all 9!
trump was bad for Republicans and at every stage when they realized this, they dug in and propped him up and more they propped him up, it became necessary to prop themselves up and majority Republicans or conservatives in politics these days everywhere including SCOTUS have become a corrupt/criminal enterprise.
Hope you read this:
https://twitter.com/judgeluttig/status/1783542480069185587
What happened in the last couple of hours at the SCOTUS, and yesterday , and other days... really scary times that these institutions have been "infected." trump and his billionaire supporters have taken this country on a path any regular citizens will fear to tread. Did SCOTUS really have to take this immunity case (or any of the abortion related cases or overturn R v. W)? Yes, they did have to but in a corrupt America trending towards authoritarianism. There is no intellectual curiosity about questions that are patently known to harm the country. Don't ask questions that you don't want the answers to and this immunity debate is one such. For 200+ years the country did fine with its presidents and now a corrupt motherfucker comes on the scene and wants to litigate what is right because he wants protection for what he did wrong and these corrupt motherfuckers at SCOTUS want to play along?
I don't get it. No matter how conservative a Supreme Court justice is - how can they not say that "appropriate medical treatment for emergency conditions is required"? I don't care if it's an abortion, an amputation, an emergency hysterectomy (Is that a thing?) - if someone needs a procedure to keep from dying, they get it. How can even conservatives deny that?
In the context of this tweet below, I naively believed before this current nightmare and perhaps before 2008 Dem party debacle, that America was on a path someday similar to New Zealand where they elected a young female head of state who actually gave birth to a baby while in office. Granted that NZ is the size of a state in America and the analogy maybe better suited for electing female governors here. But still, I was dreaming...
Tweet seen this morning: https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1783477095030472930
emptywheel
@emptywheel
Here's a question Alito should be asked today:
If a female President got an abortion during her term, could Idaho arrest her?
Dahlia Lithwick & Mark Joseph Stern over at Slate pointed out that Idaho's lawyer Joshua Turner repeatedly interrupted Amy Coney Barrett and was condescending and dismissive toward her. This really illustrates just how contemptuous of women these conservative men are. He's probably taking her support for granted, and sadly he's probably right, but the fact that he didn't feel the need to treat her with respect is telling. You'd think conservative women would get tired of this shit. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/04/idaho-abortion-ban-supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett.html
Follow the stories of eight women who filed amicus briefs to protect EMTALA with this infographic.
"American woman stay from me: SCOTUS prepares to gut EMTALA emergency care for pregnant women."
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/04/24/scotus-to-ban-emtala-emergency-care-for-pregnant-women/
Dobbs' unintended consequence has been to peel off the professed motivations of the anti-abortion project to expose internal contradictions to uncover deeper motivations.
"We care so much about the sanctity of your adorable, sweet, baby fetal tissue's life that we would rather see both of you die if necessary than that you should live."
Why? Perhaps because Original Sin does not attach before birth, so the collection of cells is innocent while the mother's body who will bring the tissue to viability is wholly sinful. Or, maybe the theory is that "how dare she presume to destroy the father's property?" Or it could be the submit or die, unconditional surrender style of warfare applied to the reproductive sphere? Asymmetrically. Like everything else about reproduction.
Like most Boomers, I found Roe a comfortable escape from possible responsibility should ever I have needed to escape my part of the burden of childbearing. But queasiness about line drawing led me to the classic, weak-kneed "available, safe and rare" position. Pre-viability didn't seem to be a problem, but the second trimester seemed more fraught, even than the third. I didn't really think that after six months of carrying a pregnancy a woman was very likely to have a change of heart and decide to terminate "just because." But just when she started to show? That bothered me for reasons I never understood until late in life.
Part of it was coming to understand just how varied human motivation can be. But a big part was coming to see that "the life of the mother" is simply a single aspect of "the health of the mother." And it gradually became obvious that health in a woman is greatly affected by the reproductive system. So, as understanding grew, easy boundaries dissolved. Where can lines be drawn to fit near universally? They can't. Understanding more led me to get over my uneasiness. This led inevitably to ask why it took so long to understand.
That inquiry became painful quickly. In the run-up to Y2K, my boss asked me what I thought the most important event of the 20th century was. He was gobsmacked when I told him oral contraception. I was enlightened. I even had women bosses.
And yet.
It turns out that my idea of being gentlemanly is better described as patronizing on the receiving end. I grew up in the rabidly sexist culture of the fifties and sixties and only fooled myself into thinking that didn't color everything that I thought about women and how I engaged with them. And in thinking about it, when you disregard upper body strength and the other dimorphisms, women can be very formidable people. Scary even. Not people you'd want to compete against on an equal basis if it can be avoided. Realizing that was bad enough. So, to restore my faith in men, I watch Oppenheimer leading the Intergalactic Physics Allstars (while duly noting that the contributions of the human calculators, women, who made the schedule possible). Then, for a contrast in seriousness, or so I thought, I saw Barbie.
Big mistake. Underneath all the bluff and bluster, I'm a damned Ken. Barbie had to become eligible for Medicare before I finally began to get the point. Not encouraging for the thought of a rapid enlightenment of the rest of the patriarchy.
And. Mental health isn't something different from health. It's all one system. Mental health isn't even just brain health. Calling something behavioral is nothing more than casting blame.
‘’We’re willing to kill infants in order to win an election’’.
But he sees no problem killing women. For no reason at all.
I'm honored to get a like from such an amazing blogger.
Arizona Rep. Alexander Kolodin says, “We’re willing to kill infants in order to win an election.”
Alexander - - cite your source!!! Liar.
the correct statement is "we're willing to kill pregnant women by denying them care, because women arent real people and because we have an embryo tissue fetish"
insert Meme of SNL's "Mango" character yelling "Accurate!"
I am loathe to even suggest something so extreme, but perhaps we need to use patriarchal arguments to fight off the patriarchy.
We have women filing lawsuits because of how restrictive abortion laws have affected their health, plans for future pregnancies, and life plans. What about if men, partners of women denied care, sued for loss of fatherhood (in the case of impaired fertility), wrongful death, negligence and costs for medical care due to denial of abortion?
If lawmakers are intent of treating women as less than full human, with rights to self determination, maybe the harm to menfolks' "property" would help to put on the brakes.
I think this substack is a bellwether. I read the NYT and Wapo every day and there is definitely starting to be a shift in the coverage. It’s not enough and definitely needs to pick up steam. That’s why we need to be relentless in spreading the word.
I advise a feminism club and one of the students in my classes asked to come to club today because he had some questions. This kid is awesome and respectful and his questions were genuine. His question had to do with political influence, lobbyists and the like. He asked if abortion rights groups had the kind of power that businesses have. So we talked about the grassroots organizing that’s happening.
We are only on the losing side because the majority of people still don’t actually know what’s really happening. That’s what needs to change. The current stance of republicans and so called prolife groups is extreme compared to the actual stances of most Americans as Jessica has pointed out over and over. Getting the message out is our best defense.
The problem with WaPo who I always preferred as my source of information, is that Bezos hired a terrible executive editor (who was hand picked by the far-right Publisher at the time) either she is so worried about being called biased, or she is clueless, but she hired more right-wing opinionists, and many sympathetic articles about the forced-birthers, and they were already overrepresented. Then they just hired a Murdoch man, Will Lewis, as the new publisher who was involved in the phone hacking scandal.
"NPR reported late last year that Lewis orchestrated a “massive cover-up of criminal activity” when he was leading the MSC. Citing court documents, journalist David Folkenflik reported how Lewis himself stands accused of authorizing the deletion of millions of emails. Lewis has previously denied the allegations when they surfaced when he was in the running for the top job at the BBC.
For those who have closely observed the fallout from the phone hacking scandal, there is a deeper and somewhat more problematic danger lurking for the Washington Post.
“What should trouble those who are concerned about the editorial freedom of the Post and whether their sources are safe is that Mr. Lewis’ old bosses at News Corp know the truth about what happened and therefore now have a hold over the publisher of one of their rivals,” says Evan Harris, a former member of parliament who is working for the claimants team in the civil litigation. “I don’t know what Bezos was thinking.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-washington-post-publisher-will-lewis-infuriated-news-corp-staff-during-murdoch-phone-hacking-scandal
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/washington-post-jeff-bezos.php
analysis of the story sympathetic to forced birthers.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/11/washington-post-pregnancy-center-coverage-texas.html
Yeah, WaPo is our local paper and it's been infuriating watching Bezos run it into the ground.
I looked up to them under Ben Bradlee, they had the courage to publish the "Pentagon Papers" when the NYT didn't. The new editor would never publish them because the owner wouldn't like it, and it makes her 'team' look like the war mongering assholes that they are.
Yeah the WaPo coverage yesterday was predictably lame and quoted Idaho/Turner way too much. I always feel sad when I read hands-off pieces about abortion written by women journos. I wonder if they get it or if they their hands tied (I think it’s the later). The basic takeaway I got from coverage was we and American women are going to lose this case because the votes just aren’t there. And people should be mad as hell about that.
The oped https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/24/abortion-idaho-supreme-court-emtala/ was way better because it focused on the consequences — the stakes! — not the procedural.
The women columnists at WaPo & NYT do cover this issue better than the news reporters, and I also suspect the reporters are being heavily edited and policed. One of WaPo's best columnists for pointing out the absolute absurdity of the misogynists is satirist Alexandra Petri https://wapo.st/4bdsY7J
Yes, Petri and former republican Jennifer Rubin. She totally gets it, and was the first author I ever read that used the accurate term "Forced Birthers."
The thing that disturbs me, as a retired medical person is they uncritically repeat the forced birther lies, and propaganda, without a proper deisclaimer. Which no reputable paper should ever do.
The Times is incorrect about North Carolina if that is what they said. We currently have a democratic governor. We need to keep it that way
For a really thorough explainer of EMTALA check the April 13 episode of the Amicus Podcast. Dahlia Lithwick interviews an ER doc who explains what the law means and how it will affect pregnant people and doctors if SCOTUS rules in favor of Idaho.
Thank you! Love Dahlia.